SWEET POTATO LEMONGRASS TANG YUAN

This Winter Solstice, I made a daring change from the usual.  Instead of preparing the much use to colourful pulut rice balls in ginger sugar syrup [Kuih Ee], I cooked the glutinous rice balls in lemongrass/pandan sweet soup with orange sweet potatoes.

  I made the rice balls with only one colour [pandan green] instead of the colourful ones below.

It is lucky my mother in-law did not object and perhaps could not because she likes them with the sweet potatoes [her favourite tuber] and the not too sweet syrup soup.

 

Recipe adapted from Feminine Magazine No. 570

Ingredients

30 gm wheat starch mixed with 40 ml boiling water

120 ml pandan juice ** + 30 gm castor sugar

150 gm glutinous rice flour

1-2 tsp oil [I omit]

** extracted from blending 6 blades screwpine leaves with 120 ml water [keep excess if dough is too dry]. Add a drop of green colouring if prefered.

Sugar Syrup Soup

400 gm orange sweet potatoes - peeled, cut big cubes or diamond shape

2-3 stalks lemongrass

2-3 blades pandan leaves

100-120 gm sugar or rock sugar

5 bowls water 

1. Dissolve sugar in warm pandan juice.
2. Stir 40 ml hot water into wheat starch.  Mixed.
3. Add to glutinous rice flour, mixed then gradually add in the pandan liquid and oil.  Knead into a soft smooth dough.  Add a little more water if it is too dry.  Rest dough for at least 30-60 minutes before rolling into balls.
4. To make the syrup, boil pandan leaves with lemongrass until fragrant.  Add in sweet potatoes.  Continue to boil until soft, add sugar to taste.  Set aside.
5. Bring a pot of water to boil to cook rice balls.  Remove with a serrated ladle when the rice balls float up.  Transfer to sweet potato soup.
6. Serve warm or hot.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

EZCR#69 - WANTAN WITH RED CHILLI VINEGAR SAUCE

These boiled dumplings are easy to make and just perfect for a light meal or served with noodles.

The filling is a mixture of meat and prawns which can be replaced with fish paste too.  Served with a spicy, sourish  vinegar dipping sauce makes it appetising and tasty.  You can use black vinegar sauce, too.

Ingredients

[makes 40-50 wantans]

100 gm minced pork

100 gm plain prawn paste or fish paste

1 stalk spring onions - chopped

enough wantan wrappers [about 100 gm]

Seasoning

1/4 tsp each of salt and sugar

dash of pepper and sesame seed oil

Dipping Sauce [combined

1 tsp each of Szechuan chilli oil, red chilli oil, vinegar and oyster sauce

1 tbsp cooled boiled water

1. Combine minced pork and paste with seasoning.  Stir until paste is sticky.  Mix in some chopped spring onions.  Set aside.
2. Combine dipping sauce ingredients in a small bowl.
3. Spread some filling onto wantan skin, bring edges together to make the dumpling.  Finish doing the same for the remaining ingredients.
4. Bring a pot of water to boil, drop dumplings to cook.  The dumplings will float to the surface when cooked.  Dish up with a serrated ladle.
5. Serve with dipping sauce or drizzle sauce over dumplings.  Garnish with remaining spring onions.

Chicken with Coriander and Chilli Padi Dressing

Another delicious, tasty and spicy white cut chicken slightly different from my previous post on Thai Style White Cut Chicken.

Similarly, this  can be prepared from leftover boiled chicken [pak cham kai] or cook chicken as per recipe.   Specially good way to clear off the Pak Cham Kai offered during ancestor worship by many who observes the Taoist faith.  
The original recipe uses blanched pork belly. 

Verdict - fragrant peanut butter, spicy and savoury sauce white cut chicken.

Recipe Source - Yum Yum Magazine No. 67 with modifications

Ingredients

[serves 4-6]

2 chicken whole legs [I used half chicken]

1.5 litres water

50 gm ginger - bruised

5 pips garlic - bruised

2 stalks spring onion

1/4 tbsp salt

Sauce - Mixed

1-2  tbsp peanut butter
4-5 cili padi - chopped
1-2 stalks spring onions - chopped
1-2 stalks coriander leaves - chopped
2-3 kaffir lime leaves - finely shredded [optional]

2 tbsp light soy sauce

 

 

 

1.  Bring water to boil with ginger, garlic, spring onions and salt.
2. Add in the chicken, cover and bring to boil again.  Off heat and leave the chicken in the pot for 45 minutes.
3. Remove chicken and immerse in a basin of ice cold water for 5 minutes.
4. Dish up and drain.  Debone chicken  and cut into bite size pieces.  Place on serving platter.
5. Drizzle the sauce over and serve.
   
   
   
   This post is linked to Cook Your Books Event #22 [April 2015] hosted by Joyce of Kitchen Flavours

   

   
   

I'm submitting this post to Little Thumbs Up Event [April 2015] Theme - Chicken organised by Bake for Happy Kids and My Little Favourite DIY, and hosted by Diana of Domestic Goddess Wanabe

Kuih Ee [湯圓] - 2013 [for 冬至 Dongzhi Festival]

Kuih Ee [湯圓] - 2013 [for 冬至 Dongzhi Festival], a busy day apart from making the glutinous rice balls in ginger sugar syrup soup, I  also have to prepare a variety of dishes and other foods for ancestral worship at my MIL house.  Luckily, it falls on a Sunday and I have a Saturday to make the preparations.

I won't be posting the recipe for the Kuih Ee [for the recipe, please look up my earlier posts on Kuih Ee] but only some photos of it.  This year I was lucky, my neighbour gave me some natural colourings for my kuih ee.  I made 5 colours [white, red, yellow, green and blue] for this year's rice balls [tang yuan].

The green is from pandan paste, yellow is from pumpkin and blue is from the blue flower [bunga telang].  I used Bentong ginger for the sugar syrup.  The end product - yummylicious tang yuan [湯圓] [kuih ee].

For ancestral worship, I had a long list of items to prepare [some are specified by my MIL, while some I can try out with different tastes].   

My mother in-law's list of must have.

- Kuih Ee

- Seng Lay - Pak Cham Kai,  Dried cuttlefish 

and Roasted Pork

- Fried Fish

- Fruits [I bought Persimmons only] but she added 3 other varieties

- Jiu Hoo Char

- a pork dish [I cooked the Palm Sugar Braised Pork Belly from No Frills Recipe]

- a curry dish [I cooked the Fish Sauce Curry Chicken, recipe from Yum Yum magazine] - recipe posting soon.

- a soup dish [I cooked the Tom Yum Pig Trotter Soup, similar to my Tom Yam Gradoog Moo].  I replaced the pork ribs with pig trotters because I was told that pork ribs cannot be used for ancestral praying [I don't know why - anyone knows the reason?]. Too busy, didn't have time to take photos of the soup with pig trotters.

- a noodle dish [I cooked the Hokkien Fried Yellow Noodles - non-vegetarian]  [picture shows the vegetarian version].

- Cakes - I baked a chiffon cake and an Ogura cake

- Chinese Kuih Muih - I made Steamed Red Buns 

 [Mi Koo Recipe]

- Rice and wine etc..

Of course, as a Taoist's family, burning of josspapers and paper money for our fore-fathers/ancestors is a must have too.    After prayers usually by 12 noon, it is time for the family members to feast on the food prepared, hehehe!.  Most times, I'm too tired to enjoy the food after an early start to prepare these things....and later the clearing and cleaning up to do.   This is how I spent Solstice Day year in and year out since I got married....hehehe!