冬至湯圓(Winter Solstice Glutinous Rice Balls in Sugar Ginger Syrup)

祝家家圓滿團圓。Happy Winter Solstice! Why glutinous rice balls? Because their roundedness signify happy-togetherness. Dumplings and glutinous rice balls are usually eaten today.

Steps:

1. Grind some glutinous rice; or use store-bought glutinous rice flour. Let's say 1 cup of glutinous rice flour.

2. Mix with 50ml hot water. Stir in with chopstick/spoon.

3. Mix with 50ml cold water. Stir again. Adjust consistency accordingly, the mixture should be easy to handle without sticking too much to your hands.

4. Roll into balls, into any sizes you fancy. They tend to puff up a bit in water later, so make them slightly smaller than your desired size.

5. Cut some fresh ginger slices, throw into a pot of water, boil, throw in some sugar, adjust to taste. Bring to boil.

6. Throw in the glutinous rice balls. When they float, they are ready to be eaten. Om nom nom nom.

p/s Can stuff these balls with anything you fancy, typical dessert choices are black sesame, red bean paste, etc.

p/s This is interesting... I have received different feedbacks on the topic of rice balls... Apparently, Malaysian Chinese (though there is no Winter in Malaysia) and Taiwanese celebrate Winter Solstice Day by eating glutinous rice balls on this day; but Shanghainese eat dumplings but not rice balls today; and ShenYang-nese (Northern China) do not celebrate this day and eats rice balls only on Yuan Xiao Day... I am confused, and Google doesn't seem to have enough information on who-eat-what on this day...

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Steamed Eggplant with SoySauce

Beef and Broccoli Stirfry

BitterMelon and Beef Stirfry

Egg sauce stirfry flat white noodle

Malaysian-style Prawn Noodle

Stirfry Vegie

Sweet and Sour Chicken

中秋節快樂Happy Mid-Autumn Festival‘s Steamed Porcupine Bun

祝家家家好月圓慶中秋

~ Happy Mid-Autumn Festival ~ May we all live happily ever after~

Tiramisu

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Susan-style Cabbage Rolls

Susan-style Zucchini Omelette

Susan-style Stuffed Zucchini

Walnut Loaf

Mini Baked Banana Cake in Souffle Cup

Jul BDay Cake - Banana, Passion Fruit and Peach White Choc Cake

Dinner Diary (Week starting 24/09/2009)

Dinner Diary (Week starting 17/09/2009)

Pickled Cucumber

Steps: 

1. Cut with 45 degree angle for 75% depth on on side of cucumber. 

2. Flip to the other side. Cut with 45 degree angle for 65% depth on the alternate side of the cucumber. 

3. Voila! 

p/s You can cut it as fine as possible, will look more delicate. Depends on what dish you intend to use the cucumber for later on. 

I pickled it, steps: 

1. Mix white vinegar, white sugar, and a few drops of sesame oil - any amount you want, whether you like it more vinegary or sweeter. 

2. I added some white sesame seeds. Can add anything you like, fresh chilli pieces, chilli oil, etc. 

3. Pour mixture on the cucumber, stick it in the fridge. 

4. Voila! 

Pork and Chives Dumpling

The flat ones to be pan-fried. The tortellini-shaped ones to be boiled. 

燒賣－Siew Mai

I add in an assorted of ingredients into traditional Hong Kong-style Siew Mai, thus this is a slightly non-traditional style Siew Mai. Steps: 

1. Chop any ingredients you want into little cubes, so they mix well with the pork and prawn. 

2. Today I used approx. 400g minced pork, 200g prawn, 1 big can of shitake mushroom, 1 small can of shredded bamboo shoots, 1 medium can of corn. Add 1 tablespoon of sesame oil, 1 teaspoon of salt, some white pepper, 1 tablespoon of sugar, and 1 tablespoon of corn flour as the last step to bind all the ingredients together. Adjust to taste. 

3. You can make the skin from scratch, similar concept as making tortellini skins, i.e. egg and flour etc. But since I am lazy, I used store-bought skins. Wrap the meat mixture with the skin, the top will be exposed, just wrap them in a way to make sure the meat mixture does not spill out during steaming. 

4. Steam until cooked. Time varies; it depends on how much meat is in each dumpling, and how thick is the dumpling skin. 

p/s (a) If you wrap Siew Mai in dumpling style (i.e. all sealed) and boiled them, they becomes Wonton. The same kind you would find in bbq pork & wonton noodle soup; (b)  If you want to make the type of SiewMai that resembles the YumCha style SiewMai 's shape (i.e. where meat are filled up to the top) - use a round wrapping instead, or trim each square piece into round shape pieces. 

蔥油餅-Spring Onion and White Sesame PanCake

怎麼大家都在吃蔥油餅，我也來湊湊熱鬧！Steps: 

1. Add 1.5 cup (approx. 250g) glutinous flour (中筋麵粉） into 150ml hot water (water just off the boil). Stir with fork until all the flour appear as one big lumpy lump (weird description~ eww). 

2. Add 20ml of cold water and salt, stir. 

3. Knead until the dough appears to be slightly shiny looking. Adjust the consistency by wither adding more cold water or more flour. 

4. Rest the dough for at least half an hour. Cover with wet cloth, otherwise the dough will dry out. 

5. Separate the dough into a few pieces. For the amount I used today, can either make 5 small pieces, or 3 bigger pieces. 

6. Roll the dough flat. Brush some oil on one side (I used sesame oil), sprinkle chopped spring onions & whatever you want on it (I used white sesame today). 

7. Roll up the flat dough to look like a cigar. 

8. Either roll or pull the dough so it gets longer. 

9. Roll the long cigar-shaped dough, to look like a snail. 

10. Flatten the snail-shaped dough with one palm, then use rolling pin to thin it. Spread it thinner if you like it crispy; otherwise not so much if you like it bready. 

11. Pan fry it in shallow oil. Voila! 

p/s I don't understand the logic of this, but I read about this trick online, and have experimented using this method and it turns out well - between EACH (not just dough resting) step, wait for at least 10 min before proceeding to the next step. I guess you don't have to do this if you are using a dough mixer, or have the "legendary solar hands".