For a person who has never eaten Teochew mooncakes before, why on earth am I trying to duplicate them?

So the story goes – this year I didn’t plan on making any mooncakes. However, we had supplies at home because my little niece (all five years old of a little girl) wanted to make snowskin mooncake, so the family went and bought supplies. Now you must know — having baking supplies at home and having my weekend free is a deadly combination. So I whipped out my mother’s trusty cookbook and tried my hands at making Teochew mooncake, just because they are pretty and I can add colour to them. Never mind that the cookbook isn’t very good at describing the action required to make the the flaky layered skin, and never mind that I have never eaten Teochew mooncakes before.

So instead of folding the layers neatly like making a croissant, I rolled them up towards the end, so there is no distinct layers, as seen in the picture below.

According to my sister, the texture of the skin is like flaky charsiew dimsum (叉烧酥), so I guess it’s not too bad after all. I believe next year I can get this right. If I still care, that is.

The skin is so crumbly it was difficult to cut it open for an interior shot, but you can see my red bean paste filling and the crumbly skin around it. It tastes fab though – the crumbly not-so-sweet skin coupled with smooth sweet interior and you sort of roll it all in a ball in your mouth… yummy.

Consists of hard boiled egg, baked chicken, tricolour capsicum, cucumber over a bed of Korean sweet potato transparent noodles.

Consists of hard boiled egg, broccoli, tuna, tomatoes and green peas.

Consists of spiral pasta, tomatoes, capsicum, lettuce and tuna.

Consists of edamame peas, grass mushrooms, capsicum, lettuce, tuna and Korean sweet potato transparent noodles.

Consists of shredded baked chicken, broccoli, cucumber over a bed of spiral pasta.

One of my favourite salad dressing recently is mustard Greek yogurt. Greek yogurt has a thicker consistency near the the consistency of mayonnaise. I mix it with English mustard and the end result is a refreshing yet creamy, sour yet savoury dressing that goes really well cold. I love how I can put in as much Greek yogurt as I like since, well, it’s yogurt and not mayonnaise.

The name of this really describes what goes into the savoury mini muffins. Wholemeal flour, cheese, herbs, and caramelized onions. Then the usual other muffin ingredients of salt, egg and baking powder. I adapted this recipe from various that I read online. There seems to be an agreement that anything can be added savoury muffins – herbs, bacon, all types of cheeses, peppers, mushroom. It’s quite like building really chunky sweet muffins too, with all the nuts and dried fruits and what not. So that’s that.

I used grated cheddar, which really adds a lot of flavour and crunch baked. Apart from mixing the cheddar into the batter, I sprinkled some on top for good measure. A word of caution though- cheddar, after baking, tends to be very salty. Take that into consideration when adding salt to the batter.

The caramelized onions added sweetness to the muffins, which is quite nice juxtaposed with the saltiness of cheese and salt. The herbs provide great aroma.

And there’s an interior shot. The onions in this don’t seem to be overly dark, but they were soft and juicy. This is a recipe worth repeating and tweaking. I do think my onion to flour ratio is a little too high. Feels more like an onion fritter or some kind, but I’m not complaining.

Recipe

Ingredients
1 cup wholemeal flour
0.5 cup plain flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1.5 cups grated cheddar cheese
1 white onion, sliced and caramelized
1 tsp dried herbs (I used an Italian mix of oregano, rosemary and thyme)
1 egg
1 cup milk (I used skim)

Steps
1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees celsius
2. Mix wholemeal flour, plain flour, baking powder and salt together, whisk to combine
3. Beat egg with milk
4. Add onions and cheese to wet mixture, then add flour and mix lightly. Do not whisk or beat. Mixture will be lumpy
5. Spoon into muffin pan and bake till brown on the outside and skewer comes out clean.

I made 24 mini muffins using this recipe.

I’ll admit it – it’s been a while (read: 3 months) since I last baked. Call it a lack of inspiration, lack of motivation, lack of joie de vivre — putting sugar, flour and butter together just didn’t sound at all an appealing activity to me. These past few months I’ve been feeling a sense of dread and frankly, it felt like someone turned off the lights in the room. I was mucking about my life. But recently I’m encountering something exciting; no details yet, but let’s just say someone turned the lights on again.

So I decided to bake today- nothing fancy, just really sticking my head in the refrigerator and looking at what I have on hand. Turned out I have a pint of Greek yogurt (the texture is to-die-for) and strawberries. And hence – strawberry Greek yogurt muffins in my adorable rose silicon muffin pan. I found a recipe by Salad in a Jar, and augmented it.

One thing about using silicon bakeware is that the contact surfaces don’t really brown, unlike using metal bakeware. It’s something to do with the poorer heat conductivity of silicon that does not reach the optimum temperature for caramelisation of sugar. So the non-charred surface of my rose muffins actually look pretty good and contributes to the effect of it being dainty and all. I find this muffin a really good afternoon tea snack. I can envision presenting these alongside mini tarts and other pastry on a 3-tier high-tea stand, next to a pot of tea.

The acidity in the yogurt and the strawberries has also made my muffins rise spectacularly well; the interior shot above shows what I mean. The muffin turned out to be soft and light. This recipe is for keeps. For those curious, I followed most parts of the recipe, but left out the jello powder, nutmeg and almond flavours. Also, I macerated my strawberries instead of dicing them.

I seem to be on some soup mission this year, cooking a variety of soups, especially since I found that healthier and cheaper substitutes for cream. I am a big fan of celery and broccoli. Supermarket canned brands just don’t cut it, and I can’t seem either vegetable as main ingredients at The Soup Spoon. So I made my own, and lo and behold – it is now one of my favourite soups. I consider it a great summer soup because celery gives it a delightful refreshing taste and the cashew cream isn’t at all cloying. Below, I try to reproduce the recipe. I’m not too precise a cook, so bear with me. 

Ingredients (makes 8 servings)
2 cups  celery, chopped coarsely
1 head broccoli (about 200g), chopped coarsely
1 medium onion, chopped
1-2 medium potatoes, cubed
2 cups vegetable stock
1 litre water
2 cups cashew cream (made from 1:1 ratio of raw cashew and water, blended)
salt and pepper to taste

Steps
1. Stir-fry onion and celery in some oil, leave to sweat, till they turn translucent
2. Add in the vegetable stock, potatoes, celery and boil
3. Add in water, salt and pepper to taste, leave to simmer for about 15-20 minutes.
4. Blend the soup.
5. Add in cashew cream and stir. Serve.

Back to the topic at hand – I decided to make the mushroom soup posted by Joy The Baker. I love mushroom soups but most of the so-called “cream of mushroom” soups offered at Western food places is salt and cream overkill; none of the heartiness of mushroom and its fragrance come through. The only good mushroom soup I’ve had is from The Soup Spoon. In fact, it’s their soup that changed my mind about what mushroom soup entails.

The original recipe called for cremini mushrooms. I didn’t have access to those, and I used shiitake mushrooms instead. Shiitake mushrooms are easily available in Singapore, cheaper too. The Internet says cremini is more spongy and more flavourful than shiitake, for me, shiitake will do. Also, I added one small carrot into the soup; you can see some orange bits in the picture above, those are the blended carrots.

I really like this soup. It makes me think scary thoughts like giving up Soup Spoon’s mushroom soup forever. My only regret? Blending the soup too finely; I would prefer a bit more chew. It is also a day like this that makes me wish I had one of those handheld blender that I can stick into the soup pot to blend my soup, instead of sticking them into a blender batch by batch and having to find alternative containers. Alas, I don’t cook such soups often enough to warrant getting one of those blenders. A standing one will do, I suppose.

For those interested, a cost breakdown:
500g shiitake mushroom: S$3.50
Yellow onion: S$0.30
carrot: S$0.30
Garlic, soy sauce, vegetable stock, water: pantry
Half cup raw cashew nuts: S$1.00
Total: S$5.10
Yield: plentiful; enough for 3 meal-size and 6 appetizer-size

See the spring rolls in the first picture? Those aren’t savoury spring rolls but filled with 年糕, or niangao and deep-fried. The spring roll skin is wrapped around the sticky caramel new year cake making it easier to cook.

Braised Chicken Feet

My family likes braised chicken feet with mushrooms. There’s something about chicken skin and cartilage that entices them. Over rice this is yummy.

Ngoh Hiang

I wrapped these ngoh hiang, or meat and prawns wrapped in beancurd skin. These are made with meat, succulent prawns and turnip. The turnip provides some textural balance to the chewy meats.

Century eggs with ginger slices

Well, I did not partake in these, definitely. Century eggs will always be pungent to me, regardless how well the preserved ginger slices can mask the smell and taste.

Roast Meat with assorted vegetables

My mum is definitely the better food stylist between the two of us. This dish, while it’s made of everyday ingredients, looks so good and inviting.

Vinegar pork trotter

We love vinegar pork trotter. Again, it’s the combination of skin, collagen and gelatinous texture that tastes so good. Over rice, the gravy will rock your world and you’ll ask for seconds.

abalone.

‘Nuff said. Sliced abalone over bed of spinach and garnished with ginger and cilantro.

Pacific Clams

The clams are hidden under the accompanying plants. This is one time of the year I pretend abalone and pacific clams aren’t animals with no face and eat them with copious amounts of cilantro.

Chilli Prawns

You can’t see how big the prawns are from here, but I assure you, they are big. Juicy and sweet on the inside, spicy on the outside, this dish is always a winner.

And then there’s a chicken soup I didn’t take a picture of, because it was so filled with sea cucumber (which I don’t eat) and I got turned off.

And so we ate this for dinner, and supper on the first day of the new year. Are you passing out from envy already?

Chinese New Year is one of my favourite festival to celebrate. Apart from having days off from school, I love Chinese New Year for the non-stop feast that goes on in my family. Unlike most other Chinese families with large extended family we do not go visiting. Instead we stay in and, well, feast and gamble.

The feast starts on New Year’s Eve and ends probably the night before everyone return to school and work. For the reunion dinner on New Year’s Eve we usually have a steamboat meal. We start at about lunch and we take turns to eat intermittently throughout the day till nightfall. The spread is filled with our favourite food. There’s beef shabu shabu, pork liver, salmon fish, mussels, mushrooms, squids, cuttlefish, sliced pork, copious amounts of vegetable, tofu, chicken franks, fish maw, prawns … You get the idea. It’s no mistake to call this a steamboat buffet, really.

Admittedly, the reunion dinner is a simple affair compared to what we eat on the first day of year. On that day my mum will be cooking for a few hours on end, starting early in the morning and ending after lunchtime. And that will be featured in the next post, Part 2 of my Chinese New Year Feast.

I have been obsessed with this soup recently, what I term Chinese Corn Soup. It is easy to make and can be easily tweaked to become a meal, as I have done above. This can be considered a simple healthy one-pot meal. Somehow, soups like this reminds me of home. I have the feeling that almost every child my age from a Chinese household here have eaten this before, or at least a variation of it.

See below for the recipe.

Ingredients (feeds 3)

1/2 chicken breast, diced
Handful of macaroni/ shell pasta/etc
1 egg, beaten
1 packet enoki mushroom
Chicken stock cube
1.5 fresh corn on cob, steamed with cob removed
Cornstarch roux

Steps
1. Cook the pasta in the chicken stock until pasta softens.
2. Add chicken, mushroom and corn, bring to boil and make sure chicken is cooked. Add salt to taste.
3. Add in cornstarch roux (cornstarch + cold water), stir to prevent lumping.
4. turn flame down to low and add in beaten egg. Do not stir.
5. Turn off the heat once you see that egg has solidified. Serve.

My mum made huat kuehs (steamed rising cakes?). She hasn’t made them for a few years and this year I sort of convinced her to use the yeast method, contrary to her usual baking powder method. The result is a funky cake that has a faint yeasty smell like bread. The fun part of making huat kueh is how they “smile”, or split at the top. The bigger the split, the better. The splitting is done by dipping a knife in oil and pre-cutting the batter before steaming.

There’s something about putting huat kueh on a red plate that is just so festive isn’t it? Yes, her huat kuehs aren’t very dark in colour because she reduced the amount of dark sugar used. It would have been nicer sweeter in my opinion. Comparing this to the traditional baking powder huat kuehs, I prefer the latter. There’s something about that crumbly texture of the traditional ones and the fragrance of the dark sugar and coconut milk that reminds me of happy times. This yeasty one is just way too funky for me. But there are people who like it I suppose.

For the recipe, you can go to Cherry’s Kitchen. She also made variant flavours such as sweet potato and durian.