Chinese New Year - Meat Rolls

Today is the 15th day of the Chinese New Year, or Chap Goh Meh. In the old days young maidens would take a walk under the full moon and cast oranges into the river to wish for a good husband. Or something like that, more or less.

Anyway, as the celebration comes to and end, I would like to share something from my mother's kitchen. Unlike my little kitchen, hers is large and airy, with plenty of natural light, which is perfect for food photography.


I helped my mom make meat rolls for CNY dinner. They are either called Lor Bak or Ngo Hiang in Chinese. I'm not sure if there is a difference, but one thing I'm sure off, these meat rolls are yummy! Unfortunately, they take a bit of work. But it's okay, it's a labour of love for the family!

Here are some of the snapshots....


This is me, chopping up some stuff. The things that go into the meat rolls are carrots, water chestnuts, shitake mushrooms, crab meat and pork meat.

Here's the meat filling all ready to be rolled.

The filling gets spread onto a bean curd sheet, rolled up, and sealed with cornflour mix.

These are the meat rolls, frying in in hot oil.

And here they are..... hot Lor Bak, ready to be cut and served!

We also had other food, which I'm not showing here. But take a look at this claypot on charcoal fire. Duck soup simmering inside.

That's all for now. Happy Chap Goh Meh and Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Traditional Peanut Cookies

The festive seasons is far from over. Christmas may have passed but Chinese New Year is just around the corner and can't seem to wait to burst.

I don't usually make Chinese New Year goodies as most of them require a lot of hot oil and frying. However, these old-fashioned cookies are lovely and are my nephew's favourite. This recipe produces delicious melt-in-the-mouth cookies.

Making these cookies isn't difficult, really. The only tedious part is removing the skin from the roasted peanuts. If you do not live in an apartment, however, you could rub the nuts and blow the skin away. Do this outdoors, or course. That's how my mom used to do it.

Also, if you're roasting the nuts yourself, remember to measure out more than the required quantity and they will lose weight upon roasting.

Another tip: you may add the quantity of the flour or oil to adjust the dough consistency. If it is too wet and soft, add more flour. If it is too dry, add a little more oil. Simple.

Okay, so here's the recipe:

Happy Chinese New Year, everyone! Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Christmas Baking

I remember the smell of my mom's kitchen when we were baking cookies for Christmas. Andy Williams, Karen Carpenter or Boney M could be heard while we were rolling and pressing. Those were the good old days.

Nowadays, I have a small kitchen and a tiny oven. But I still love baking for Christmas. And my 3-year-old daughter seems to enjoy it too.

Here are some snapshots of the Christmas goodies I made in my lil' kitchen.

2008

Chocolate Crinkles

Mini Gingerbread Men

Cinnamon Sticks. These really are a favourite among many.

Orange Shortbread

Peanut Butter Cookies



2009

 

2012

I became a busy mummy after giving birth at 2010. So, no baking for Christmas. Or least no photos, until last year. Here's what I made.

Christmas Log

 

2013

These are some of the stuff I made this year. The rest are the same as what I've made before.

Gingerbread people again. This year, they've grown bigger and sexier!

Well, that's all folks. Here's wishing everyone happy baking and a very Merry Christmas!

Black Sesame Ice Cream

The nice thing about making your own ice cream is that you can have the flavours that you can't find in the supermarkets. Black sesame is one such example. I've had it at gourmet restaurants but never found it anywhere for sale.

Black sesame also has many health benefits. One of them is to restore and maintain black hair. This is a motivation for me of course, since quite a few strands of grey are sprouting from my head!

That aside, this is a lovely recipe. It turns out soft with a nice nutty flavour. It's something different that's really worth trying. So here's the recipe for you (no ice cream maker has been used in creating this dessert):

A Mickey Mouse Cake for a Big Girl

We had a small party to celebrate our daughter being a big girl. Not birthday party but a weaning party. Yes. I shall elaborate on that no further. Unless, of course, other moms are interested to know more.

Anyhow, she wanted balloons, party hats, presents, party packs and a pink cake with Mickey Mouse.
It was quite fun actually, getting all these stuff ready.

As for the cake, I've always wanted to try making buttercream icing toppers. So this was a good opportunity to give it a go. I'm happy to say that it turned out quite well, though it could've been neater at the top. It was good enough for me, especially since it got a "Wow!" from Emma.

I came across the method for making buttercream icing toppers from this blog. The cake is a Orange Poppyseed Cake. I won't be posting any recipes since they can be found at the links.

 

Here are more pictures of my baby all grown up! (Hugs and tears from mummy.)

 

 

Testing out her new crayons, trying to colour the minions "pink", which is her favourite colour.

 

 

 

 

 

Here's another close-up of the cake:

 

Mango Peach Ice Cream

We had a short holiday in Bali recently. It was lovely to ride around Ubud, especially around the countryside. What was surprising however, was the number of gelato stalls around. My daughter had a grand time trying out the variety of pink "ice cream". Yes, she only wanted the pink ones.

This is her, enjoying her strawberry sorbetto.

She still wanted ice cream when we got back to KL. So I made a batch of fruity ice cream.  Made from fresh mango and canned peaches, it has a slightly tangy taste which we both love.

 



 

This ice cream can be made successfully without an ice cream machine. Here is a recipe:

Mango Peach Ice Cream

Ingredients:
1 can evaporated milk
1/3 cup castor sugar
1 mango
2 canned peaches (4 halves)

Instructions:

1. Chill the milk in the fridge overnight.

2. Pour the milk into a large mixing bowl and whip until fluffy (about double the volume).

3. Add in sugar and continue beating.

4. Place the bowl in the freezer for an hour.

5. Puree the mango flesh and peaches with a small amount of the syrup from the can .

7. Pull out the bowl from the freezer and whip for 1 minute, adding the fruit puree.

8. Refreeze and whip again after about an hour . Repeat 3 to 4 times.

9. Place in a container with a lid and store in the freezer.

10. To serve, remove container from the freezer for about a minute before scooping.

 

Enjoy!

A Jungle Themed Birthday Party

Earlier in the year, we had already decided to celebrate our daughter's birthday in some jungle or park. This was because our apartment is too small and McDonald's is too urban. A princess theme didn't suit our girl either as she was more the Dora Explorer type. We love nature, so we thought we should have her birthday party outdoors.

 

 

Here's the cake. It's a marble cake with buttercream icing, chocolate butterflies and royal icing flowers. It's a shame that I don't have a good quality picture of it.

 

 

 

And as per Chinese customary practice, I made birthday eggs except I made them more colourful instead of just red.

 

In spite of a few annoying incidents, the event turned out great, especially for the kids.

 

There were party bags, party hats (matching theme of course) and lots of food from everyone.

 

Just to share, the items in the party bags were:

• mini jelly
• sweets
• wafer
• water gun
• bubbles
• stickers

I also painted the kids hands with henna, the girls anyway. 

 
 

 

Here's the birthday girl playing with her water gun:

 

Some of the boys and men attempted fishing. The mummies were mostly just chilling out and watching the kids.

 

Right after the birthday song and candle blowing, the kids immediately ate all the flowers and butterflies from the cake!

 

Looking back, I'd really like to thank everyone for a memorable day. We had lots of fun. Here are more snapshots...

 

Okay, I guess that's enough pictures. Here's the recipe for the cake: