DIY Mee Hoon Kueh

Some time back, when my kitchen was still functional and in one piece, we found time to experiment and tried making our own mee hoon kueh (flour cake soup).

We have all seen how easy our friendly neighbourhood mee hoon kueh/pan mee stall owner casually toss the noodles into the boiling soup, cooking the flour to perfection, to the extend that we thought could do the same.

How wrong were we!

Anyway, to make the mee hoon kueh, we need our main ingredients: flour, eggs and water.



Toss everything into the Breadmaker ™ and wait for it to knead the dough.
Once done, set it aside while we work on the other ingredients.

First, peel off the head and guts to clean the dried anchovies.



Separate a portion of them for the soup base (or you could use stock cubes if you are soooo lazy) and another portion to be fried till crispy.

But instead of the conventional deep frying in hot oil, my wife suggested we could toast them in the oven instead with the same effect.

Of course, i raised an eyebrow to her suggestion, and said...

Can bo?


And i had to eat back my words after that.

Ok, moving on... toasting the anchovies in the oven is actually a brilliant idea, the final result is almost the same as deep frying them in oil, but is less oily (the only oil comes from the anchovies themselves) and i don't have to waste a wok-full of oil for the frying.

Sorry, cooking noob learns new things everyday. hehehehe



Ok, next we need to deal with our next ingredients.
Soak the mushrooms and tau foo pok to soften them, and the slice them into bite size, along with the fish cake.



Marinate the minced pork with char siew sauce for an hour and clean the sayur manis (i only knew what is it called after being educated at our friendly neighbourhood market. You know what they say, "You learn something new everyday")



Then stir fry the minced pork till fragrant. Add salt to taste.



Then blanch the sayur manis to ensure they are properly cooked.
Drain off the water and set aside.

So now you should have already made all the side dishes to accompany your mee hoon kueh.



And make sure your soup base is ready before we begin the next step.


Now we go back to the dough and make some mee hoon kueh.
First, divide the dough into smaller balls for easier handling. Make sure you have plenty of flour on the table to stiffen the dough in case it gets too sticky. And yes, they could get very very sticky. And messy.

Using a rolling pin, quickly flatten the dough as thinly as possible. The thinner the dough, the easier it will cook and the smoother the texture will be.



There, all done and ready to go into the pot.



Before tossing them into the pot, casually tear them into bite size pieces (how big is bite size depends on how big your mouth is lah) and flung them into the boiling soup base to cook for approx 10 minutes. Remember to add back in the sayur manis.

Cooking time varies depending on how thin you managed to get your mee hoon kueh to be.
Too quick and you'll end up with portions uncooked in the middle.
Too long, and the whole thing become soggy and slimy.

This one comes with the experience, so the more you cook, the more you could judge and estimate the timings.

Finally garnish with coriander (only if you love them) and you are good to go.



Ah.... a satisfying meal indeed.

Cake decorating

As you all should know by now, my wife loves baking. It is her passion, just like mine is photography.

And this is somewhat of a handy skill to have, since we no longer need to go out to buy cakes for birthday celebrations. Anyone's birthday needs a cake? We provide. Hahahha.
And she is getting better each time. With each experiment, i can see her cakes can begin to rival those sold in shops. Watch out Secret Recipe! Hahahaha

And we only made them at a fraction of the cost sold outside. And healthier too, knowing what you actually put into your mouth.

So 2 weeks back, we decided to make a cake for Mei Mei's birthday.


Since she likes Dora, my wife bought the Dora sugar picture to decorate the cake.
That can be easily purchased at your neighborhood bakery shop.



Ok, once you have baked your cake, splice it in half (horizontally ok, not vertically)
This time my wife did a splendid chocolate cake with chocolate chips. And it was moist and dense, almost like fudge texture.



First, apply some whip cream onto the surface of the cake.
Once fully covered with whip cream, put another layer of blueberry jam.
Then drizzle a layer of crushed roasted walnuts to add taste and texture to the bite.



Once you are done with the first layer, put on the other half of the cake to make it complete.
Apply a layer of whip cream to it, covering the whole cake.

Once done, now it is the time to flex your creativity muscles.
Place the Dora sugar picture on top of the cake.
Then apply some whip cream on the side of the cake.

Shown below is my wife working on the sides with a piping syringe.



Then we add some chocolate shavings to the top and sprinkle colour chocolate rice to the side.



Trust me when i tell you that sprinkling the chocolate rice is the hardest part in the whole process. And not to mention the messiest as well. But no doubt you'll all enjoy making a mess in the kitchen. Hahahha

See the chocolate rice flying everywhere.
And my wife had to re-pipe the cream side so it looks nicer.




Here is the final product.




Have a wonderful time decorating your cakes!

And Mei Mei, have a Happy Dora Birthday!

Carrot Walnut cake

Last weekend my wife made carrot walnut cake.

This by far must be the easiest cake to make. Ever. (i swear)
You'll probably bang you head when you look at the instructions.

So let's start with the pictures first, shall we?







Nice right?

Ingredients:
- Walnuts 200g, chopped and toasted
- Grated carrots 200g
- Raisins 100g
- 3 eggs
- Butter 200g
- Baking powder 1 tsp
- Baking soda 1 tsp
- Cinnamon powder 1 tsp
- Brown sugar 100g
- Salt 1 tsp

Steps:
1) Toss everything into the Breadmaker ™.
2) Set to program 9.
3) Start.
4) Wait for 1.5 hours while the Breadmaker ™ does its job.
5) Done. Take out. Let is cool. Eat.

See, easy right?

The cake was moist and soft, similar to the texture of banana cakes, mix fruit cakes, etc.

Even after a few days, it won't dry up but will remain pretty much the same from when it came out from the oven (of course not hot anymore la)

Definitely a fav for me.

Picture Post - Cup cakes

My wife made cup cakes last weekend.
So before we start to eat them, i had to borrow them to take pictures first.

Remember, pictures comes first. Hunger is always second.



Cup cakes are easy to make and really challenges your creativity.
Imagine almost any decorations can be made for every theme, with the sky as the limit.



Now close your eyes and imagine chomping onto a clown.



The full assembly line. :)

Cooking Demo 19 Apr 2009

My wife and her friends are organizing another cooking demo at my place at Kemuning Utama this coming Sunday.

Details
Place: Kemuning Bayu, Kemuning Utama
Date: 19 Apr 2009 (Sunday)
Time: 2 PM to 4 PM

We will be making:
- Carrot cake
- Chiffon cake
- Man Tou (steamed bun)
- Fatt Gou (steamed cupcakes)
- etc.

It's free and you don't need to prepare anything.
Just come, learn and meet new friends.

Anyone interested?
Drop a comment for more details.

Lunch Box

Just came back from having lunch with my wife.
Today she has to replace Ms. Book, who is still on maternity leave, so my wife will need to teach her students in the morning as well (my wife teaches piano part time).

Her class starts in the morning at 9.45 AM up to evening at 4.30 PM, with lunch break at 11.45 AM. So instead of buying lunch for her or she having lunch herself, i have decided to save money cos i am so kamsiap show my love by whipping up a lunch box so we can eat together.





The lunch box consists of these goodies:
- Plain rice
- Sausages (her fav)
- Scrambled eggs
- Sayur manis (just found out the name from market. anyone knows what it is called in English?)
- Nam Yee pork with black fungus (leftover from dad, who still refuses to let me in on the secret. Bah, i'll try to replicate it someday)

Ok, time to do the dishes and clean the house (the perils of a house husband).

Vegetable Pau

Last Saturday night, my wife and i found some time to make some vegetable pau to bring over for Ching Ming on Sunday morning. The process was fun but somewhat time consuming.

Here are some simple pictorial instructions.

First, to make the vegetable fillings, get some sengkuang, water chestnut and carrots.
And soak some mushrooms if you have some laying nearby. These add flavours to the end product.



Once washed and peeled (please ignore the sloppy job above hehehehe), then grate them into fine strips. This step requires some hard work and patience, trust me on that. And yeah, it could get a little messy too.

Anyway, you should get something like this.



Once you have everything ready, stir fry the vegetables and the mushrooms with oyster sauce and dark soy sauce. Of course, this is to taste, so you can judge this yourself.
As for me, i like mine salty, very hamsap hehehehe



Once you feel the filling is good enough, set it aside.
Now time to work on the dough.

Get the ingredients ready: Pau flour, plain flour, sugar, corn oil, a dash of salt.
The Pau flour could be easily purchased at your local convenience stall.



Pour all the ingredients into the Breadmaker ™ and wait for it to knead the dough.
Yes, if you are wondering, in this day and age, we don't need to manually knead the dough.

With our hands.










Just toss everything into the Breadmaker ™ and with a press of a button, everything will be done for you in 30 minutes.



And voila!



Perfectly kneaded dough to start making the pau.
The texture feels like abit like Play Doh (for those of you with a luxurious childhood) or plasticine (for those poorer people like myself with a not-so luxurious childhood)

Ok, now is the time to get your hands dirty.

As my lovely wife demonstrates below, divide the dough into smaller lumps (depends on how big you want your pau to be, either xiao long pau or Yip Chee Mei Tai pau, whichever tickles your fancy).

Then use a rolling pin to flatten the dough consistently. Or you could do this by hand.
That is if you have been training under a pastry chef for the past decade.
Else i would still suggest you go with the rolling pin.

Then, scoop up some vegetable fillings and place it in the middle of the dough.



Then slowly fold the dough edges back into the center, covering the fillings so that they get encased within the dough.
If you are having trouble with this step, good luck.
All i can offer you is a picture of my lovely wife doing it.



Got it? Easy right?

Ok, let's move on.

So the end product you should be getting would look like this. We still did not managed to get the correct way to twist the pau (you know how the pau at restaurants have those pleats, looks very professional), so if you have any tips, please let me know.



Once done, they are off to the steamer.





Our Elba 3-tier steamer can only manage 21 pau at one go.
Pop them in there for 20 minutes.

We had to switch the trays periodically as bottom tray gets hot and moist faster than the top, so switching them will make the steaming more consistent (not liked it mattered anyway, since everything will get cooked all the same. just do it cos you will feel more professional, knowing that you have followed the steps explained here hehehehe).

Oh, did i warned you on the burning steam?
Yeah, apparently playing with steam is a big no-no if you are below the age of 18. And if you are above 65.
I still have the scars from this to show, if you are curious.

Ok, enough crap talking.

Once the steaming is done, carefully remove the pau from the steamer. Remember the pau is freakin' hot (felt like picking up molten lava, some burning scars is inevitable here, so get ready some hand gel or toothpaste)

Place all the pau on a tray to let them cool down. We made around 35 pau this time.



There you go, simple steps to make vegetable pau.
Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

Lastly, i'll leave you with a close up shot of the final product.



Happy pau making.

Coffee Blueberry Walnut cake

Over the weekend, my wife wanted to bake a cake for her father's birthday.
Her parent's are coming down to attend her brother's MBA graduation ceremony (now I feel a level dumber compared to him. If you must know, I only have a Degree, but lets not start with that...)

Her parents would be coming in on Saturday night, so we got busy on Friday, after dinner.
As usual, i just hang around the kitchen, doing mundane and irrelevant stuff, pretending to busy (like every other guy!).

Anyway, some shots of the cake.
Will share the recipe once she has perfected it.



Please ignore the cheesy Happy Birthday sign and the tropical umbrella. :)

Kindly place your attention to the side of the cake, the almond slice and crushed walnuts sprinkle. Done by moi.



Look at the oozing blueberry jam.

Sinful mess.
That's what i would call it. Yummy.

Verdict:
As mentioned earlier, she has not perfected the recipe yet.
The sponge cake was a bit on the hard side, but this made the cake had some texture to it, which I liked very much.
The blueberry jam. Yummy (I could just toss the cake and eat the jam any time).
The whip cream was not perfect, a bit wet i might add. Should have mixed it abit longer cos now it can't seem to retain the shape (how to say ler... it is flowing)

Overall, good try, everyone was having fun devouring it. :)