10 Apr 20 (Fri) - Cotton Cheesecake

More time at home due to the circuit breaker so decided to use the time to try and do more baking to improve my skill. Found this cotton cheesecake recipe by Josephine's Recipes and gave it a try. Don't know why the top crack. Wonder if it was because the oven temperature was too high.

Fortunately, the cake still tasted good and soft. Happy!

28 Mar 20 (Sat) - Huat Kuih (发糕) and Dalgon Coffee

Saw someone posted her Huat Kuih photos on the Facebook group "Home-cooked Delights 家常便饭" page. Her Huat Kuihs looked very pretty in yellow and pink. The kind lady shared her recipe in her post and I decided to try it out myself this weekend since I just bought a pack of self-rising flour. Then saw many other people posting their Dalgon Coffee photos in the same group page and found it to be very interesting. Googled about Dalgon Coffee and realized that it is a current trend in Korea with very simple ingredients and steps to do. Just need instant coffee, white sugar and hot water at a ratio of 1:1:1, whipped till thick and foamy then pour over milk. So decided to try it out this weekend too. It was a crazy first quarter and I really need some cooking therapy to keep myself sane and happy.

Went to the market to get breakfast and finally I broke away from my usual routine of yong tau foo bee hoon mee dry and went for the pig intestines porridge which I haven't eaten for a long, long time. Felt very happy and took my own sweet time to savour the porridge.

Then went on to start my cooking of the day: Huat Kuih. Followed the steps closely and towards the last few steps where I had to mix the colouring, my mobile phone rang and I got a shock. I ended up with a big splash of red colouring in my batter. Continued to fill the cake cases with the batter while cursing. Finally put them into the steamer to steam for 15 minutes on high. My pot has a glass cover so I was able to see the Huat Kuih rose and split at the top. So happy!

After the Huat Kuih was done and left on a rack to cool. I went on to make the Dalgon Coffee using those sachets of instant coffee that I had collected during my last trip. Only managed to get 1 tablespoonful and 1 teaspoonful. Added them to a bowl, measured the same amount of sugar and poured in. Lastly, heated up the black coffee that I had set aside earlier in the morning, measured the same amount and poured into the bowl. Used the mini electric hand mixer which I had gotten from Daiso few years back to mix the ingredients.

Mixed them for quite a long time and still didn't manage to get the thick, foamy consistency. I almost wanted to give up, yet I was too stubborn to give up. So continued to mix in a slightly different way hoping that it will thicken and foam up faster. Finally my patience was rewarded. Poured some soy milk into a glass and topped it with the whipped coffee. Overestimated the amount of whipped coffee I had and thus underestimated the amount of soy milk poured in. In the end, the overall presentation wasn't as nice as I had imagined. Next round I shall try the matcha version.

Nevertheless, I managed to succeed in doing what I had planned to do for cooking to day and that's a win for me already.

15 Mar 20 (Sun) - Tteokbokki and Mini Oreo Cheesecake

Craved for tteobokki and I had rice cakes and sauce in the pantry. So went to get some flat fishcakes and wongbok to cook. Threw everything into the pot and let it boiled then simmered for another 10 minutes. Yummy!

Saw someone posted this Mini Oreo Cheesecake recipe in the Facebook group "Home-cooked Delights 家常便饭" recently. Watched the video and it seemed simple enough to follow. So went to get the cream cheese and cake cases.

As usual, I played around with the recipe. Instead of using the full 250g of cream cheese, I used 225g and topped up the balance 25g with greek yogurt. Had some blueberries in the fridge, so popped a couple of blueberries in each cake case.

Baked them in the pre-heated oven of 160 degree Celsius for 16 minutes. Took them out to check and popped them back in for another 1.5 minutes. Took them out and left to cool on the rack. Should have keep the duration as 16 minutes, by adding 1.5 minutes, the top of the some of the cheesecakes started to crack. Took one to check and taste. Noticed that it was a bit damp on the bottom, there was condensation. Should have removed them from the silicon cases before letting them cool on the rack.

Should have keep it at 16 minutes.	Just out from the oven.
After removing from the silicon cases.	After removing the cake case.

The cheesecake tasted great and easy to do, so the recipe is a keeper.

14 Mar 20 (Sat) - Baked Korean Spicy Chicken and Black Glutinous Rice [Bubur Pulut Hitam] Kueh (黑糯米糕)

Bought a bottle of spicy hot sauce from my trip to Busan last year and decided to try it out. Not very sure how to use it so just experimented with the usual chicken wings. Marinated the mid-joint wings overnight with some salt and sauce then baked at 200 degree Celsius for 25 minutes.

Not sure if it was because I was using it in the wrong method or cooking the chicken wings in the wrong method, the taste wasn't great. Just very spicy. Maybe next round, I will try cooking something else with the sauce.

Found a pack of coconut cream which was expiring soon. So had been googling the Internet for easy recipe to use. In the end, I decided to try modify some of the kueh recipes I found online. First, I used the bottom layer recipe from this Seri Muka recipe by Rasa Malaysia. For the top, I adapted the Steamed Coconut Custard recipe from Steam & Bake because I didn't have all-purpose flour to create the top layer from Rasa Malaysia's recipe.

The result was... I also don't know how to describe. The bottom layer was ok, the top not so much. Partly because it was very soft and also I was using the wrong baking tin to steam. When I tried to remove the kueh, the top layer was stuck to the side of the tin. The baking tin was the extendable type so when I extend the sides, the top layer broke.

Taste-wise, I guess I should have used the egg whites instead of the yolk, the yolk taste was a bit overpowering. Found some gula melaka in the fridge, so poured some over the kueh, turned out the taste improved when everything was mixed together.

Will I try again, I guess not.

07 Mar 20 (Sat) - Hakka Mei Cai Stewed Pork Belly (客家梅菜扣肉)

Was watching "On the Red Dot" last night. The theme was "The Food That Made Me" and the episode was on Chef Pang searching for his Hakka heritage food.

From the episode, I learnt more about the origin of the Hakka folks and their traditional dishes, most of which I like to eat. Dishes such as Yong Tau Foo (酿豆腐), Lei Cha Rice (擂茶饭), Suan Pan Zi (算盘子), etc. Out of the few dishes featured in the episode, decided to attempt the easiest of all, Hakka Mei Cai Stewed Pork Belly (客家梅菜扣肉).

Immediately googled for recipes on my mobile phone while still watching the show. My mum used to cook mei cai but her cooking method was stir-fry with chili padi and minced pork. Found one recipe by Kenneth Goh, the admin of the Facebook group "Home-cooked Delights 家常便饭". His recipe seems easy enough and in his post, he suggested the use of store-bought roasted pork belly.

Went to the wet market to buy the mei cai and some roasted pork belly. This was my first time cooking this dish and first time buying these ingredients from the wet market so was a bit blur. Asked the roasted meat stall uncle how much roasted pork belly will $10 get me and he said about 400g so bought $10 worth. Then headed to the other stall to get the mei cai. Aunty recommended me to get the salted ones since this was my first time cooking with it. She asked me how many people eating and I told her just myself. She estimated the portion for me and the mei cai cost $0.60. Aunty even told me how to prepare the mei cai for cooking. So nice!

Happily came back from the wet market and started preparing the mei cai before I ate breakfast. Aunty said shake off the sand and salt then soak the mei cai for 30 minutes. After that rinsed and repeat for another 30 minutes.

Salted Mei Cai

Store-bought Roasted Pork Belly

While soaking, ate breakfast then prepared the other ingredients. After the soaking and cutting were done, started cooking. Basically was just stir-frying then simmering the minced garlic and mei cai with the seasoning. Then arranged the roasted pork belly in a steaming bowl with skin facing the bowl and stacking the mei cai on top before steaming over high heat for about 1.5 hours.

Mei Cai after stir-frying and simmering

Packed roasted pork belly and mei cai into a bowl

The result was pretty good and tasted great. As the dish can be kept for a few days, it will be my dish for lunch over the next few days.

22 Feb 20 (Sat) - Sago Cake with Gula Melaka

Found some small sago pearls in the pantry and decided to use it all up. So what's better way to use it all up than to make sago cake.

Simply soaked the sago pearls for 15 minutes then rinsed with running water for a few minutes before cooking. Cooked till sago pearls became translucent then removed from heat and drained. Transferred them to a bowl of cold water and let them sit for a few minutes. Lightly greased a bowl before transferring the drained sago pearls into the bowl. Chilled for a couple of hours or overnight.

Served with gula melaka. Even better if served together with coconut milk.

 

21 Feb 20 (Fri) - Mee Sua Kueh (面线糕)

Joined a Facebook group called "Home-cooked Delights 家常便饭" for a while now. It was introduced to me by my sis because the members in that group tend to post photos of old-school dishes which our mum used to cook.

Saw a post on "Mee Sua Kueh (面线糕)" recently by the admin, Kenneth Goh. Read his blog post with interest and since I am spending time with my sis, I decided to give this recipe a shot.

Tried to follow the recipe as closely as possible and it seemed to turn out well until I unmould the kueh from the tray. The bottom was still a bit wet.

Fortunately, the taste was still good. Not too bad for a first attempt.

---------------- Edited on 22 Feb 2020 ----------------

Pan-fried the leftover kueh as lunch and it tasted even better because some parts became crispy. Goes well with sambal belacan.

25 Nov 19 (Mon) - Caramel Bread Pudding

Saw this video recipe in a Facebook group and decided to try. As usual, I played around with it. Swapped the milk with chocolate milk and replaced custard powder with cornstarch and vanilla extract.

I should have reduced the amount of sugar since the chocolate milk is sweet. Don't know why but I can't blend the bread into fine powder like those in the video. Wonder if it was because the bread I used was three days old.

24 Nov 19 (Sun) - Korean Ginseng Black Chicken Soup

Bought some fresh Korean ginseng from recent trip to Busan and my little big sis used it to cook Korean Ginseng Chicken Soup using the recipe from The Burning Kitchen.

We used two Korean ginseng roots instead of one because the ones I bought were rather skinny. Not sure if we had added too much water or the ginseng roots I bought were not good enough, the ginseng taste wasn't strong.

Not satisfied with the result, so decided to try again today but with a twist and some tweaks. Yes, I like to play with my food. Kekeke... Instead of large chicken, I used a small black chicken; instead of white glutinous rice, I used black glutinous rice; instead of ginger slices, I used ginger powder and I managed to get fresh chestnuts from the wet market.

Because of this recipe, I went to buy a new pot so that I can use it on the larger ring of my induction cooker. Hrm... I guess the pot width is too wide, I had to add a lot of water in order to cover the chicken and already I didn't cover the chicken in full.

Instead of cooking it for four hours as stated in the recipe, I cooked it for two hours, turning the chicken now and then to cook it all around. The smell from the soup was nice, however, the taste was rather bland and not much ginseng taste. Other than that, it was still good as chicken soup, all things considered.

In order not to make the soup cloudy with all the ingredients inside the chicken, took it out on a separate bowl to remove the ingredients.

Tada, the final product. Obviously, I need to improve on my presentation. Hahaha... Just nice for a rainy weather.

07 Apr 19 (Sun) - Mango Pineapple Ginger Ice Cream

Have not been doing special cooking nor blogging in a long while. Spring is the season and mango can be seen everywhere. Bought three Thai Honey mangoes for $3.80 from NTUC simply because I could not resist the temptation. However, three mangoes were too much for me to consume, therefore, decided to use some of them to make ice cream.

To make the three ingredients mango ice cream seems a bit boring, so googled the Internet on mango pairing. Turned out that mango goes well with passion fruit, pineapple and ginger to name a few. Since I have attempted mango passion fruit ice cream before, this round decided to try mango pineapple ginger ice cream instead.

Used the improved version of the mango ice cream recipe, adjusted the ingredients and method to this new recipe.

Ingredients:

200ml whipping cream

125g diced mango
125g diced pineapple

80g icing sugar

1 tsp ginger powder

Method:

1.  Place diced mango, pineapple and ginger powder in a sauce pan and cook over med-high heat for 8-10 minutes while stirring constantly
2.  Remove from heat and set aside to cool
3.  Pour the mixture, whipping cream and 1/3 of the icing sugar in a blender and pulse 2-3 times

4.  Add another 1/3 of the icing sugar and pulse 2-3 times

5.  Add the remaining icing sugar and blend the mixture for about 10-15 seconds
6.  Pour mixture into a container of your choice and put into the freezer

7.  Remove from freezer after 3 hours to churn* with a fork

8.  Repeat step (7) for another time before freezing it overnight

* Try to churn the mixture in a whisking manner to try to incorporate as much air into the mixture as possible

The result? Rather unique because it has a layering taste of mango, pineapple with the aftertaste of ginger lingering on the tongue.

And because I have not done any special cooking for a long time, I was in the mood to do plating. Since I bought some pickled sakura flowers from my recent Osaka trip, brain-stormed for plating ideas which I can make used of them. And ta-da!