Well, what can we do if all Chinese dim sum restaurants are closed during the COVID-19 lockdown?
We make our own favourite dim sum dish. One of my picks of the moment was
Char Siu Sou or based BBQ pork pastry. See the photos below.
The recipe is pretty much an easy recipe:
3 to 5 tbsp Lee Kum Kee's char siu marinate
a block of ready made puff pastry
250g pork loins
a pinch of salt
1/2 tsp sugar
chilli flakes
1/2 big red onion
1 tbsp corn flour to thicken the marinate sauce for the pork filling
250ml water
1 tsp sesame oil
An egg yolk
Sesame seeds
1. Fry the red onions for 2 minutes and pour the pork slices or dices into the pot. Add all ingredients except the mixed corn flour and water.
2. Then, once the fragrance from the red onions reach the nostrils, pour the mixed corn flour and water into the same pot and let it simmer until the pork mixture becomes slightly dry. Sprinkle the sesame oil into the filling for fragrance and stir thoroughly for a few seconds.
3. Let the mixture cool down completely before taking a tbsp of the filling to be wrapped with the puff pastry. Glaze the pastries with the egg yolk and sprinkle the sesame seeds on the pastries for decoration.
4. Bake for 20 minutes and let the pastries to cool down for 30 minutes before consumption. Voila!
I recently made this famous street snack and they proved to be popular among my relatives in London, UK.
Here is the recipe:
Ingredients
Fully ripened bananas (a comb of 5 bananas or 700g bananas)
300g plain flour
60g granulated sugar ( I don't like the dish to be too sweet)
1/2 tsp baking powder (to form the dough into a ball while in the frying pan)
1/2 soda bicarbonate (to make the dough crispy)
500ml vegetable oil
Steps
1. Mash the bananas using a potato masher until they are smooth. Add the flour, sugar, baking powder and soda bicarbonate into the mash. Whisk the mixture using a whisk until it becomes smooth.
2. Heat a frying pan over a low heat. Add the oil to the pan.
3. Drop a bit of the mixture into the pan to see if the oil is hot enough for frying. If the dough floats to the top of the oil immediately, it is ready for frying.
4. Use a spoon or an ice cream scoop to scoop the mixture and drop it into the pan. Once the bottom of the dough turns brown, turn over the dough to make sure that the dough is fully fried and cooked.
5. Turn the dough frequently until both sides turn fully brown, not black.
6. Remove the doughnut from the frying pan. Do the same with the rest of the mixture/ batter.
7. Let the doughnuts cool for 30 minutes before consumption. Enjoy!
Homemade cucur kodok!
(Note: eating the doughnuts instantly can lead to a sore throat!!!)
I am currently watching this tv series starring Sun Li, Chen Xiao and Peter Ho. It's about a businesswoman living during the late Qing dynasty in China.
Zhou Ying married Wu Ping so that she could save him from death. Wu Ping survived and decided to honour the marriage because he had already fallen in love in Zhou Ying.
But, a tragedy struck the marriage but Zhou Ying was determined to overcome whatever obstacles came in her way. After all, she was an ordinary girl from the world of jiang wu.
Watch this series if you are bored with silly Chinese or Korean tv series!
I had always wanted to make this snack myself so that I wouldn't have to rely on the Chinese dim sum restaurants for them!
Which I did make them two days ago. See the photos below.
The spring rolls are pretty easy to make. All you need are the following ingredient below:
Ingredients
Marinates
10g or 1 tsp baking soda
10g or 1 pinch of salt
1 tbsp ordinary sugar
1 tbsp white pepper
1 tbsp corn starch or corn flour
1 tbsp sesame oil
1.5 tbsp light soy sauce
3 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp minced garlic (I made myself a jar of lazy garlic ie. chopped garlic in white wine vinegar)
1 tbsp onion (or shallots) (I used a half of a medium sized onion because I didn't have shallots in the fridge)
1 egg
Fillings
150g defrosted medium sized prawns
200g minced pork
Spring Roll Skin
Vietnamese rice paper spring roll skins (14 sheets)
Dipping Sauce
A bottle of Vietnamese dipping sauce (bought it from the local Sainsbury's)
Steps
1. Mix the fillings with the marinates in a mixing bowl and combine them well. Put the mixture in the fridge for at least one hour.
2. Use a damp cloth to soften the spring roll wrapper rather than soaking the sheet in water. This will make the skin easier to manage when it comes to filling and rolling the rolls.
3. Take the mixture out of the fridge and fill the damped spring roll sheet with the mixture. Roll and place the spring roll in a tray. Do the same with the rest of the paper sheets. Make sure that the rolls are placed apart to prevent them from sticking to each other.
4. Heat the oil in a wok to 350'F. Once the oil is ready, place one spring roll gently in the wok one at a time. Make sure that the rolls are kept apart as the barely hot paper sheet can stick to other rolls. (I placed three rolls in one fry as my wok is quite small)
5. Once the rolls are ready, place them on a paper kitchen towel to soak the excess oil. Let the rolls cool for 30 minutes before consumption. Dip them in the Vietnamese spring roll dipping sauce for extra kick. Enjoy the snack!
Photo 1: Vietnamese spring rolls in a hot wok!!!
Photo 2: Dipping sauce for theVietnamese spring rolls
I made a third batch of the chocolate drop cookies today. I used cashew nuts in this experiment.
The other ingredients in the recipe by Anna Olson remained unchanged. Except, for this time, I used 120g brown sugar and 30g granulated sugar. The cookies turned out to be perfectly sweet. Not too sweet or not too bland. I'll stick with this sugar measurement in the future.
I kept the chocolate chips in the fridge on the day it was purchased (about 3 weeks ago) all this time because I wished to preserve the shape of the chips. I would recommend this tip to anyone who wishes to bake the cookies and wants to retain the shape of the chips.
Not only that, when the batter was ready, instead of making small balls, I just used an ice cream scoop to scoop a lump of batter and place it in a baking tray. I did the same with the rest of the batter and place the tray in the fridge for an hour. The reason is the lumps were too sticky to handle at this stage. It would be easily handled when the butter in the batter hardened.
After an hour, I began to make balls out of the batter. Then, I placed the cookie balls back in the fridge to cool them for an hour in order to retain the shape of the balls. After one hour, I preheated the oven at 180'C for ten minutes. Then, I divided the balls into two separate trays so that each of the balls had room to melt into a disc. After that, I placed the trays in the oven and baked the cookies for 15 minutes or until the edge of the cookies turned brown. The cookies were then removed from the oven and cooled for 30 minutes before I started enjoying them.
Below are the photos of the finished product!!! Enjoy baking these cookies.
Photo 1: Cookie balls are being baked in the oven
Photo 2: the cookie dough are melting at this stage
I had planned to make sorbet for a while ever since I bought a Kenwood ice cream machine at a local charity shop.
As the summer is arriving, it's best to make plans in order to escape the heat. Eating sorbet is one of them.
I searched for recipes online and found one which was reasonably easy. At the same time, I wanted to make the sorbet taste different from the others. So, it was time to experiment a new and simple recipe.
I had a box of 150 g frozen blueberries which I bought from the local Aldi for £1.49. My kitchen had a good supply of sugar, both granulated and brown.
As my ice cream machine was rather small, I decided to make 300 g of sorbet (150 g blueberries plus 150 g sugar syrup) only.
On the Easter Sunday, at 10pm, I made the sugar syrup and chilled it in the fridge overnight. I made the sorbet the next day. See the photos and Youtube videos below.
Below is the recipe which can also be found on the Youtube videos below:
Blueberry sorbet with ground nutmeg recipe
150 g granulated sugar (use honey for healthier option)
150 ml water
150 barely frozen blueberries
a pinch of salt (5g)
a pinch of nutmeg (5g)
Steps
1. Pour 150 g granulated sugar and 150 ml water into a pot.
Boil the mixture until the sugar dissolves.
Remove the pot from the hob.
Let the mixture cool for at least 2 hours.
Chill the mixture in the fridge for at least 10 hours or overnight.
(I made the syrup at night so that I could make the sorbet later in the evening on the next day)
2. Pour the blueberries and half of the sugar syrup into the food blender.
Add a pinch of salt and a pinch of ground nutmeg to the mixture.
Blend the mixture for 3 minutes.
Then, add the rest of the sugar syrup to the mixture.
Blend it for another 2 minutes.
3. Pour the mixture into a sieve over a bowl to remove any lumps from the mixture.
Chill the mixture in the fridge for at least 4 hours.
4. Freeze the mixture for 30 minutes only before pouring it into the fast-freezing insulated bowl of the ice cream maker.
(This step actually shortens the amount of time spent on making the sorbet using an ice cream machine. It took me only 15 minutes to make the sorbet)
Pour the softly frozen blueberry and syrup mixture in the bowl. Switch on the ice cream machine and watch the machine in action.
5. After the sorbet is ready, scoop it out of the ice cream and put it in a plastic tub. Freeze it again until it is ready to be consumed. (I tried a cup of the freshly made sorbet before freezing it. It was awesome! :-))
Enjoy the recipe!!!
Photo 1: Blueberry sorbet base
Photo 2: Blueberry puree and sugar syrup blended with salt and ground nutmeg
Photo 3: Blueberry sorbet in a plastic cup
Photo 4: Blueberry sorbet
Video 1: Sorbet base is being churned by the paddle in the ice cream machine
Video 2: Celebrating the success of making blueberry sorbet!!!
This was my first time baking chocolate drop cookies.
I watched Anna Olson's Youtube video recently and decided to have a go.
The first attempt went badly. The cookies were rather hard because I used butter spread instead of pure butter.
The second attempt went well and the cookies tasted excellent. This time, I used shortening for cookies and pastry. I even remembered the recipe by heart this time.
½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature (115g) ½ cup packed light brown sugar (90g) ½ cup granulated sugar (90g) 1 large egg, at room temperature 1 tsp vanilla extract (10 ml)
Dry ingredients 1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour (185g) 1 tbsp cornstarch (15ml) ½ tsp baking soda (7.5g) ½ tsp salt (7.5g)
To be added last 1 ½ cup chocolate chips (225g) 1 cup lightly toasted, coarsely chopped pecans (optional) (150g) (I used roasted walnuts)
(Note:I am planning to make another batch of cookies using a reduced amount of sugar because I find 180g of sugar is a bit too much for my teeth)
Below are the photos of the cookies:
Photo 1: 1st attempt- cookie balls before baking
Photo 2: 1st attempt- freshly made cookies
Photo 3: 2nd attempt- cooled and ready to eat cookies
