Date-filled cookies

For recipe, see http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/goodbites/Recipe/20041008173228/moreR_html



Custard powder

• a combination of corn flour (aka cornstarch), tatrazine (colouring) and "flavouring"
• invented by Alfred Bird (a pharmacist); see link for short story

http://www.rpsgb.org.uk/informationresources/museum/exhibitions/themotherofinvention/bird.html

Dates

• Not the red or black dates used in Chinese cooking
• I used 450g of unpitted dates
• buy pitted ones from Phoon Huat or unpitted ones from the major supermarkets(which should sell them during Ramadan). Alternatively, they can apparently be bought from the Geylang Serai Market or Arab Street (?))
• add just enough water to cover the dates and boil/cook till mushy
• let it cool then blend to a paste
• if it's still too wet, cook/fry till it's drier

Cream butter till pale.

Add sugar and beat till fluffy and the sugar crystals have more or less dissolved.

In a separate bowl, lightly beat the eggs with vanilla essence. Add , in portions, to the butter/sugar mixture and beat.

Fold in flour + cornflour + custard powder.

The resulting mixture will be somewhat yellow and not very stiff.

Refrigerate for about 15 mins so that it will be firmer and easier to shape.

Shape a bit of dough into a ball; flatten it on your palm.

Put some date puree in the middle and fold the dough over - make a "curry puff".

Seal and pinch off excess dough.

Gingerly set onto the baking paper/tray and shape into an oval of sorts.

Bake till cooked.

The cookies won't quite turn brown - they'll still be somewhat pale but definitely more golden than when uncooked. Check the underside - if it's still pale yellow, it's not ready.

Ta da!

Mooncakes - snow skin - durian flavoured

Phoon Huat's Snow Skin Premix

cold water

shortening

durian essence

• Didn't have yellow colouring this time otherwise would have added that - the finished product looks kinda anaemic.
• Premix contains cooked glutinous rice flour (aka gao(1) fen(3)), icing sugar, full cream milk powder and a stabiliser (whatever that is). Can make it from scratch but I didn't have success with that last year so...
• Might be a good idea to add some sort of essence, even if the mooncake is supposed to be a "plain" one, cos the skin smells, well, "uninteresting", "not very nice", "raw"...take your pick...

Mix & leave aside for bout 30 mins

Mix mashed durian flesh with lotus seed paste and form into balls the size of ping pong balls.

Might be a good idea to refrigerate the mixture 1st, before forming the balls (cos it sure is sticky)

Form the mooncake and press into the mould.
When knocking it out of the mould, use much less force than you would if forming a mooncake for baking cos it's really soft)

Dust the moulded mooncakes with a bit of gao fen.
Keep refrigerated.

Ta da!

Beef balls

• Minced beef - got the butcher to pass it through the grinder twice.
• Mix with dark soya sauce, sugar syrup, ground black pepper, a couple of squirts of Lea & Perrins and some olive oil.
• Leave aside for bout 15 mins.
• 600g of minced beef ---> 30 beef balls

• Mix in chopped onions and parsley.
• Form into little balls (I made them slightly smaller than pingpong balls)

• Heat oil then just put the balls into the pot one by one. It will look a little dry at first but the juices will start building up.

• When they're all cooked, remove from the pot but leave the juices. (While the cooked beef balls are sitting in their dish, more juice will drain - decant and add to the gravy.
• Throw in more chopped onion and sliced fresh button mushrooms with the juices. Fry till both are cooked. Add water if too dry; thicken with cornstarch is necessary.
• Spoon mushroom gravy over the beef balls.

Ta da!

Serve with plain rice and some lingonberry jam (from Ikea, it's a Swedish thing; tastes like cranberries but less tart/siap)

Moon cakes (the baked type)


Mooncake pastry

Mix bicarbonate of soda, alkaline water, vegetable oil and sugar syrup. Leave aside for 5 hours.

• Bicarbonate of soda = sodium bicarbonate = baking soda (not baking powder)
• Alkaline water = lye water (it tastes absolutely disgusting)
• Veg oil : recipe calls for corn oil - I used Naturel's Sunflower & Canola Oil Blend
• Sugar syrup : recipe calls for "golden syrup", which is, technically, the same thing. I bought Phoon Huat's house brand sugar syrup (it's cheaper than the other golden syrups) and is a darker brown.
• I also added half a capful of vanilla extract (not in the recipe) cos I thought the smell of the dough was so uninteresting.

Mix in plain flour - the dough will be stiff & smooth but too sticky to handle and form with hands. Leave aside for 6-7 hours for the dough to "rest"

After an overnight "rest", the dough is harder & less sticky. Definitely easier to form little balls with.

Filling

Red bean paste or lotus paste, with or without seeds...

• Make your own or buy them ready-made.
• Made tau sar (see earlier post) myself and bought "white lotus paste" (? white??).
• Added melon seeds (aka "kua chee"), pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds at Jennie's request.
• Roll them into little balls

Moulds

Bought the moulds from Phoon Huat.

New moulds - soak overnight in water (rinse a couple of times before soaking).

Smear a thin layer of oil over the insides (or just pour the oil in, decant & wipe away the excess)

Putting everything together

• Have a small bowl of plain flour ready (to dip the balls in); lightly dust palms with some flour.
• Form a ball of dough slightly smaller than the ball of filling and flatten it on palm.
• Wrap the dough around the filling and pat/roll it into a ball; dip it into flour, wipe away excess flour.
• Stuff it into the mould and press firmly into the mould (if not pressed firmly, the imprint of the pattern won't be distinct.
• Grab the mould by the handle and give the entire thing a good whack on all 5 sides, ending with a last knock to tip out the moulded dough.

I did the plain mooncake skin "biscuits" using the goldfish and pig moulds. The goldfish mould was more difficult to handle cos there were more grooves and gradations in the depths of the grooves.

Some tips

• It's easier to remove the moulded mooncake if you dust the dough ball before moulding, rather than dusting the inside the mould itself.
• See the photo below of the 3 mooncakes (R to L); no flour on dough or mould, flour in mould, flour on dough.
• Don't knock the mould too hard or you will end up with crooked/deformed mooncakes (or worse, crack your floor tiles or kitchen cabinet)
• Gauge the amount of force you need as you knock the mould on each side. With eack knock , the dough should leave the mould only slightly.

Egg glaze

• Egg yolks, bit of water and dark soya sauce (for colour) -beat and mix well.
• I added a bit of vanilla extract again cos I thought it smelled too egg-y.

Baking

• Bake for about 10 mins.
• Remove from oven, let it cool for a couple of minutes then brush on the egg glaze.
• Next time will try using one of those soft Chinese paintbrushes with fine bristles cos, this time, I couldn't get the glaze into every groove.

(Unenthusiastic) Ta da.

For some reason the pastry puffed up quite a bit. The goldfish and piglet lost most of their imprints. Maybe next time I should leave out the baking soda?

Mother knows best

• Wooden moulds apparently give nicer imprints on the dough than plastic moulds. In any case, they're definitely sturdier.
• When knocking the mould on a hard surface, put a thick padding of cloth ,e.g. towels, on the surface 1st - cushions the impact on the floor tiles!

Tau sar (red bean paste)

"Chek siu tau" or "che(4) xiu(4) dou(4)"

• not quite the usual red beans - they're slightly longer & slimmer, look a little boxy and are a darker maroon than the usual ang tau.
• bought them from Spices Shop (basement 1, Eastpoint Mall) - $2 for a 300g packet

Pick out & discard deformed, disfigured and discoloured beans.
Cook in a pressure cooker for 20-30 mins. Make sure the water covers the beans adequately. Used 600g of beans with about 1.5L of water; also threw in some pandan leaves but that didn't add any fragrance at all.

Scoop out beans and mash while they're hot. Dont' throw the water just yet - while mashing or puree-ing the beans it will probably get a tad too dry - add some of the water then (don't add to much or it will take longer to dry out while frying!)

I tried using my trusty handheld Braun - didn't work this time - there were still bits of hard white stuff. Had to pass the entire lot through a metal sieve - wasted half the orginal amount in the process.

Heat wok, heat oil, fry sugar, throw in red bean paste and fry - the mixture will turn a little watery cos of the melted sugar. Keep frying until the mixture is quite dry (should leave the sides of the wok as it's "tossed" by the fying slice)

Ta da!

Doesn't look as appetising as the stuff that can be bought from Phoon Huat but it's edible and, hey, it's homemade.

Mother knows best

• Should've soaked the beans in hot water before cooking them.
• The beans musn't be soaked in cold/lukewarm water before cooking otherwise they won't cook so easily & will tend to be hard when cooked.

Thai (?) beef salad

Minced beef

• fry plain
• keep "juice"/drippings/whateveryoucallit for omelette or rice
• muchmuch cheaper to buy this from the wet market

Pix a bit blur - the yellow stuff on top is the omelette

Sauce

• palm sugar ( which is NOT gula melaka) - buy from Tek Ka Market or the Thai supermarket at Golden Mile or get somebody visiting Thailand to buy it
• Thai chilli jam/paste - buy from same place as above or from Giant; add a bit of the oil that it comes in
• fish sauce
• limes
• chilli padi

Mixmixmix

Greens

• Chinese celery
• wan swee
• spring onion
• mint
• shallots, sliced as thinly as possible
• lemon grass
• chilli padi
• some Thai basil would be nice (if they're willing to sell a couple of stems, instead of an entire bunch)

Mixmixmix

Mother knows best...

• Wan swee doesn't keep well when it's wet/damp. So after rinsing, pat dry gingerly.
• Actually the same goes for the other greens but they aren't affected as much as wan swee.

Ta da!

Olive fried rice...

Salted black olives, aka "kiam kanah"

Longer than "ang-moh" olives, with tapered ends. Smells a little stronger too.Looks a bit like a leech.
Bought them from "Spices Shop" (basement 1 Eastpoint Mall) - they sell them in little covered cups (bout$0.90 each, I think)

Remove flesh - puree - forms a stiff paste - difficult to mix so added olive oil and hot water. The seeds are supposed to have an edible flesh (?)
A bit too salty - next time ?soak overnight in brine?

2 covered cups/btls + 3 cups uncooked rice = bout 5 rice bowls cooked rice.

Heat oil...fry paste till fragrant...add rice and mixmixmix. Didn't add anything else, not even fish sauce.

Ta da!

Garnishing :

1. omelette (egg + some shallots + "juice" from beef (see next post on beef salad) + minced garlic + mince wan swee stems)
2. mint leaves
3. chilli padi
4. spring onion

So, would you eat this?