Piggy moon cakes 小猪公仔餅

中秋节快乐！

Happy Mid Autumn Festival

Lately, I was caught up with dad’s house renovation and I didn’t realize that Moon cake festival was just around the corner, which would fall on Sunday, 27th September.

This was a very last minute project. Only yesterday, I found I still had some left over golden syrup which I made 2 years ago. The color of the syrup was getting darker and it might not be good for another year. Hence, I decided to clear it off to make a small batch of moon cakes.
(You can refer to my previous moon cake making posts here.)

However, with only limited quantity of the syrup and time left, I opted to make this simple piggy moon cake cookies ( 公仔餅). I came across this recipe via Baking Taitai’s blog  originated from Joceline’s blog。

This recipe is unique compared to the traditional recipe. As opposed to usual filling such as lotus paste wrapped inside the moon cakes, the filling is combined with other ingredients to form the dough instead.

After reading the recipe, in the same afternoon, I rushed to my nearby bakery store to shop for the necessary ingredients.  I was in luck to get this very last plastic piggy mold in their store. I also got a small pineapple mold which resembled a fish, just nice to be used for this moon cake cookies project.

These piglets are so adorable, aren’t they? My piggy mold used around 55g of dough.


The moon cake cookies with the shapes of “fish” ( 30g) and flower from the old moon cake mold I had previously.



Freshly out from the oven. It would be nicer if I had black beans to be used as their eyes.


I have yet to taste these cookies as they need to be left for at least a day for it to go thru the process of “oil return”( 回油）before it is good to consume. Traditional moon cake cookies may need to be left for at least 3 days to a week.
Fingers crossed, it will taste good by tomorrow.

2nd October Updates:

Just wish to update on the texture of the moon cakes. The texture was slightly harder than I expected when consumed on the next day.

However, after resting in tight container for a week, the mooncakes were coated with nice golden color and tasted so much softer. Hence, I would advice to follow the traditional "oil return" duration before consuming these moon cakes.

Piggy moon cakes Ingredients: (make 20 pieces of 30g to 58g dough each according to the mold I used) 350g sieved plain flour (I used 170g plain flour and 180g cookies flour) 230g golden syrup (I used only 198g, the remaining golden syrup I had) 100g peanut oil (I used canola oil) 5 g/1tsp alkaline water 150g lotus seed paste (I used bean paste, click here for homemade bean paste method) Egg wash: 1 egg + 1 tbsp milk, mix well and strained. (I used 1 egg yolk + 1 tbsp. milk) 1. In a mixing bowl, add in syrup, oil, alkaline water and lotus seed paste. Stir mix until well combined.   2. Add in sieved flour and knead to form dough. Cover the dough with cling wrap and let it rest for at least 2 - 3 hours.  ( For softer texture better leave the dough to rest longer than 3 hours to 6 hours.) 3. Divide the dough into portions that fit the mold that you are using. Roll each portion into a ball. Dust the moon cake mold with some flour. Press the dough into the mold. Tap to unmold. Arrange in a baking tray. (I omitted the dusting process as my dough was oily and could be easily detached from the mold after few knockings.) 4. Preheat oven at 160 degrees Celsius. Bake the moon cakes in the middle rack for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and leave to cool for 15 minutes before brushing the top with egg wash. Return to oven for another 15-20 minutes of baking or until golden brown. ( For smaller mold  (30g ), better adjust baking time to 10-15 minutes, to avoid over baked and texture of moon cakes turned harder) 5. After the moon cakes are completely cooled down , keep in airtight container and consume the next day. ( If after baking, moon cakes felt harder, I would advice to follow the traditional "oil return" duration, after 3-7 days only consume these moon cakes to have softer texture.) 小猪公仔餅 份量 ： 根据我用的模, 可做20个 , 25g – 58g 面团 材料： 面粉 350克（过筛备用） (我用170克中筋面粉和180克低筋面粉） 糖浆 230克 （我用198g糖浆） 花生油 100克 (我用菜籽油) 碱水 5克 原味纯莲蓉 150克  （我用豆蓉 ） 表层涂面：蛋黄1个  +  鲜奶 1汤匙或适量 ** 搅拌均匀后过滤 ** 做法： 1）把面粉过筛备用。 2）容器里加入糖浆、花生油、碱水和莲蓉一起搅拌均匀。 3）然后拌入面粉搅拌成均匀的面团。 4）把容器盖上。放置休息 2 - 3个小时至面团不粘手。 5）根据模具把面团分割成每份大约 25-58克，把面团搓圆，然后放入模里印出形状。 6）烤箱预热后，把烤盘放在中层。以160度烘烤大约10分钟。 然后把饼取出烤箱。待冷一会儿（大约15分钟后），才涂上一层的蛋液。 7）然后再送入烤箱继续烘烤大约15-20分钟至金黄色或熟即可。

Coca-cola Chicken Wings 可乐鸡翅

Recently, I took a break from my career and went back to hometown, Penang to help my dad to renovate our old house while spending some quality family time with him. With the old house under full renovation and not in livable condition, we temporarily moved to stay with my second brother and his family.

Other than an hour or two daily playing a Project Manager's role checking on the renovation status, I had a very relaxing schedule in Penang. With ample time to spare, I took over sister-in-law's kitchen to prepare dinner for the family to ease her busy working schedules.

Frankly, I have not been cooking for a long long time. In fact, ever since we moved back from Auckland and with Auntie Lan back to live with us and taking over my kitchen, I have not been using the wok spatula for quite some time already.

In the hope to prepare good meals for dad, I regained the passion to try out new dishes again. I found this simple and easy recipe via Facebook.

Coca-Cola Chicken Wings (可乐鸡翅). Yes, no kidding, this recipe only uses the famous Coca-Cola soft drink and soya sauce as main ingredients with no water added in. I also wish to clarify that this is not a Western cuisine, even though Coca-Cola is originated from the USA, Coca-Cola Chicken is one of the famous Chinese dishes in Southern China.


Well, this is another good example of the East meets West fusion.



The use of Coca-Cola with high sugar content easily caramelized and tenderized the chicken, leaving a sweet, sticky and glazed appearance on the chicken wings.


It might not be a top pick in a healthy menu list for dad but it was a sure winner for the kids and party menu. In fact, I must admit to a certain extent, it was tastier than the traditional soya sauce chicken.

Coca-cola Chicken Wings INGREDIENTS: 8-10 chicken wings ( cut into drummettes and wings, you can also use drumsticks ) 1 tin of Coca- Cola ( not recommended to use diet coke) 1-2 tbsp. Soya sauce ( to your own taste) 1tbsp. dark soya sauce ( to your own taste) 1 tbsp. Chinese   Shaoxing cooking wine ( optional) Spices 1-2 pieces of Star Anise, cinnamon sticks Few slices of ginger Few stalks of green onions, cut the white section into 2-3 cm long, the green leaves chopped MARINADE: (best more than half an hour ) 1 tsp. of salt 1 tsp of Sesame oil 1 tbsp of Shaoxing cooking wine (optional) Dash of pepper METHOD: Clean wings, pat dry with kitchen towels and score them symmetrically on both sides set aside. Place the cleaned chicken wings into a basin, and add the marinade seasoning and half of the green onion sections and ginger slices. Mix well, and leave to marinate for half an hour. Heat wok with some cooking oil, brown the chicken wings for a minute, dish up and set a side. Pour out the excess cooking oil leaving just one tbsp. of cooking  oil in the wok and sauté the left over sliced ginger, green onion and spices in the wok until fragrant. Add the browned chicken wings and stir well. Pour in 3/4 tin of Coke and 2 tbsp. of soya sauce and dark soya sauce and stir well. Cover it and simmer over medium heat for 25 minutes. When chicken is done and turned into caramel color and drying up, add a tbsp. of cooking wine and stir evenly. Turn off the heat,  transfer chicken wings to a serving platter and serve. 可乐鸡翅 材料 8-10只全鸡翅膀切成鸡翅中段和小腿（你也可以用鸡腿） 1罐可口可乐（不推荐使用健怡可乐） 1-2汤匙酱油（随自己的口味） 1汤匙黑酱油（随自己的口味） 1汤匙绍兴料酒（可选） 调味品1-2枚八角，肉桂棒 生姜几片 青葱，切白色部分为2-3厘米长，叶子切碎 腌料：（最好超过半小时） 1茶匙盐 1小勺香油 1汤匙绍兴料酒（可选）些许胡椒粉 方法： 将清洗过的鸡翅用厨房纸巾轻轻拍干，倒在盆里，加入腌料和一半的葱节和姜切片拌匀腌半小时。 炒锅烧热放一些食用油，把鸡翅炒匀煎黄一分钟，盛起备用。 倒出多余的食用油，剩下一汤匙油在炒锅，加入姜片，葱花和香料炒香。 待香味， 加入鸡翅炒匀。倒入3/4瓶可乐和调味料 2汤匙酱油和黑酱油炒匀试味。 加盖，中火煮25分钟，当鸡熟了，变成焦糖色并开始干起来添加一个汤匙料酒，搅拌均匀后，关火， 取出上碟。

2015 Chinese New Year Cookies 杏仁片脆饼

羊年吉祥！

Today is the 13th day of Chinese New Year ( CNY), I hope I am still not too late to wish all my Chinese readers and friends a very happy and prosperous Chinese New Year “ Gong Xi Fa Cai”. As this year is the year of “Goat”, I wish all of you everything very “goat” ( good! )

In the beginning of the year, I had many plans in attempting to make different types of Chinese New Year cookies as New Year gifts to friends and relatives. However, due to recent hectic work schedules all those plans ended down the drain.

However, since I started this blog, it has been customary for me to introduce at least a Chinese New Year dish or bakery to cheer up the new year atmosphere.

Following are the 3 types of common snack food serve during CNY, I managed to make out from my tight schedules.

Almond flakes crisps 杏仁片脆饼, sesame crisps 芝麻脆饼 and crispy filament crab sticks that I made in the very last weekend before rushing back to celebrate CNY with my family in Penang. Due to the time constraint, I didn’t manage to make them in large quantity but only 4 small containers for my sister-in-laws and the occasion my high school reunion gathering.

I was glad these finger foods received good comments.

The easiest was the making of crispy filament crab sticks, by just drying up the filament crab sticks under the sun for 1-2 hours and unrolled into strips and deep fried in medium heat oil. Once the oil was heated up and bubbling, the crab meats were added and heat reduced to brown until crispy. No seasoning needed as the crab sticks were already flavoured.

For the Almond and Sesame crisps, these were basically the same cookies, with different spread sprinkled over the top of the cookies. This round I used almond flakes and white sesame seeds. You can opt to use pistachio, sunflower seeds, black sesame too.

Just a note to highlight, to make really crispy almond crisps, do make sure to spread the batter thinly. Also must make sure you use parchment paper or silicon or fiberglass baking sheet for ease of removal of crisps once it comes out from oven or else you will have difficulty removing the cookies from the baking paper.

Initially, I had a failed attempt when I used normal baking paper resulting in my first batch of sesame crisps being stuck and cannot be removed from the baking paper. I had to carefully remove the crisps with a small knife by scraping them off one by one from the baking paper. At the end many crisps were cracked in the process.

For the second batch I bought a fiberglass baking sheet and I was relieved to be able to remove all the crisps nicely in one piece.

Believe it or not, these egg whites crisps are unbelievable additive, just one bite and I think you'll agree!

 

Almond Flakes Crisp   Ingredients: 4 egg whites ( about 140g) 110g icing sugar 80g low protein flour (cookie flour) 100g Almond flakes 60g butter (melted)   Method Preheat oven at 160 degree Celsius for 15 minutes. Beat egg white and icing sugar till fluffy and soft peak. Add melted butter and flour use a spatula to gently combine well. Line a baking tray with parchment paper or fiberglass baking sheet. Spoon batter (1tsp) onto the lined tray and use the back of spoon to spread the batter to round thin and even layer. Sprinkle with a little almond flakes or Sesame or chopped pistachio. Bake at pre-heated oven at 160C for 12-15mins or until all evenly golden brown. Remove the crisps from the tray once out of the oven while still hot. Store in air-tight container once cool.   杏仁片脆饼   材料: 烤盤布 (鋪底用.烤好易脫餅且不沾黏又能重複使用) 牛油60g 4粒蛋白 (約140g) 糖 粉 110g 低筋麵粉80g 杏仁片 100g   作法: 1.      烤箱設定160度預熱15分鐘。 2.      蛋白加入糖粉，拌打至發，加入融化的牛油和過篩的低筋麵粉再輕輕拌勻成面糊。 3.      烤盤鋪一張烤盤布或不沾纸，盛一小湯匙面糊在烤盤布上再用湯匙將其鋪平均愈薄愈好。 4.      撒上少许杏仁片或芝麻 或开心果片。 5.      放入預熱烤箱，以160度烤12-15分钟至呈金黃色即可出爐。 6.      一定要趁熱將脆饼移放在烤架上待涼。 7.      冷卻後記得裝入密封罐內存储

Eat and drink in Krabi

Thai cuisine has always been our family’s favourite cuisine. This is also one of the reasons why we favour Thailand as one of our top choices of traveling destinations.

As mentioned in my previous Krabi traveling post, in this episode I will cover the story of the food that we savoured in this little Southern Province of Thailand.

During our stay in Krabi, most of our lunch meals, if not covered by the day tour operators, were decided by exploring the local street food along our lodging area in Ao Anang. We would simply sit down and ate as and when we came across some street food that looked palatable.

Among those street food Ray and I favoured the most was the BBQ chicken! It wasn’t KFC, but it was still finger-licking good! If BBQ is not your cup of tea, then Banana pancake is another “must eat” not to be missed in Krabi!

Krabi’s night market was another great place to taste their local street food. Similar to other Thailand tourist spots, Krabi also had a walking street night bazaar which operated in the evening of Friday-Sunday in Krabi town.

Krabi town is located more than half an hour driving distance from Ao Anang beach. We went on a Friday night taking their public bus transport, essentially a bigger version of Tuk Tuk. I was a bit disappointed as the Krabi town walking street night bazaar was much smaller in scale than what we experienced in ChiangMai and Bangkok.

In Ao Anang beach area, there were lots of Thai and Western restaurants. Authentic Thai Cuisine and Western food were easily available. We also noticed many locals in Krabi were Muslims, hence halal food was just as common. Many of the Thai restaurants were operated by Muslim owners. This explained why so many Malay Muslim tourists from Malaysia liked to visit Krabi.

The following were some of the Thai authentic rice meals we ate.

May I introduce a beverage to quench your thirst in Krabi? My number one choice definitely was their fruit shakes! Sorry, to those who thought it might be beer

During our time in Krabi, other than plain drinking water, we simply tried out every flavor of fruit shakes available.

Basically we just shake, shake, shake away our thirst with all sorts of fresh fruit smoothies that we could find, Mango, mixed fruits, strawberry, coconut, dragon fruit… The top rated shake to both the father and son was still their forever loved banana shake while my pick was mixed fruits which varied from stall to stall, a combination of any mixture of fresh fruits they had on hand upon order made.

So, remember if you happen to travel to Krabi, after the spicy Thai food, as the Taylor Swift’s song goes "Shake It Off" to shake the heat away!

So, remember if you happen to travel to Krabi, after the spicy Thai food, just like what Taylor Swift song "Shake It Off" to shake the heat away !

Sea Sand Sun @ Krabi, Thailand

 

Since Ray started schooling, we could only plan our annual family trip to coincide with his long school break. It has become kind of a family tradition to have at least one island trip per year. Last December we picked Krabi, Thailand as our destination.

Shared in the following are the highlights of the trip.

We started our action in the water on day 2 of our trip with a full day Island hopping itinerary covering 4 island - Phranang , Chicken, Tup and Poda Islands

The Tup Island has its own unique phenomenon commonly referred to by the locals as Talay Waek which means divided sea. During high tide, the island is divided into 2 islands, 400metres apart. At the peak of low tide, a sandbank emerges to connect the two islands together allowing you to walk across freely between the two islands on a strip of sandbar seemingly dividing the sea to two.

Well, I must say that Krabi may not have as white, as fine sandy beaches and as good snorkeling spots as compared with other islands we visited in the past such as Koh Lipe, Thailand and the Peninsular Malaysia East Coast Islands, but Krabi still has its own attractions.

On day 3, we had an inaugural experience with a new water sport – kayaking. It was the first experience for Ray and myself. Later, Ray rated this kayaking experience at Ao Thalan as his most fun and enjoyable activity out of all the activities we had in Krabi.

After a full morning of kayaking, we were taken for an hour elephant trekking through a rubber estate rather than a jungle as stated in the tour brochure.

Our final destination was the Tiger Cave temple. So, you might think we did not have enough of wild animal that we went for another close encounter with the tigers again? Sorry, your guess never come close.

The hidden attraction lies behind this temple façade, is a total of 1,237 steps to the summit of the mountain temple where you get to have a magnificent panoramic view of Krabi town.

We counted the steps as we were going up the strenuous flight of stairs. It was actually 1260 steps. After about of 25 minutes of hike, Ray made it to the top first.

Panoramic view over Krabi from Tiger Cave Temple.

After the tiring climb, up and down, we were delighted to have a great dip in a natural Mineral Hot Spring Waterfall.

We ended our final fresh water activity at the famous crystal pool or Emerald pool. The pool was located 1.4KM from the entrance of the park. We got to enjoy the lush foliage of the forest and fresh air along this trail.

The pool to me was overrated. I found the pool as merely a cloudy green color pool with overly crowded tourists in it. This was also due to the not so right timing we visited on that day. It was a Thai public holiday and we only arrived after lunch when the tour group crowds had already built up.

To enjoy the claimed crystal Emerald pool view, it was advisable to go in the early morning when the water of the pool is still and the sediment in the pool is not yet kicked up by swimmers to cloud the water.

While Ray was having his fun time in the pool, I decided to venture further to discover the legendary Blue pool which was another 15minutes trek away from the Emeral pool. Less people visited this pool as no swimming was allowed there due to the many quick sands in that pool.

This blue pool lived up to its name, the water was crystal clear that one could see through to the bottom of the pool.The water was really amazingly blue, like a very clean swimming pool.

The above were some attractions that we covered during our short 4 days 3 nights trip in Krabi.

For the next post, I will share the deliciously authentic Thai food we had in Krabi.

Nyonya Fried Fish with Chili Lime Sauce 娘惹酸柑辣椒煎鱼

 

Are you bored with just plain deep fried fish recipe? Looking for some extra flavour to spice up the dish?

Sharing below is a simple Nyonya fried fish with mixture of lime juice ( I used Calamansi juice), bird’s eyes chili and seasoning sauce to zest up the flavour.

After cleaning the fish, do make sure to pat dry the fish with paper towel to avoid water splashes in hot oil.

Once pat dry, marinated the fish with a bit of salt, pepper and dash some corn flour to coat the fish before deep frying it in a hot oiled  wok. Deep fry the fish until crispy texture on the outside but still moist inside. Please refer to this post for ways of deep frying fish.

The Calamansi I used here were plucked freshly from my own garden. The same applied to the bird’s eyes chilies harvested from my neighbor's garden.

You can refer to my green hopes to find out some of the plants and vegetables that I had successfully planted and grew in my tropical garden.

However, it was sad to note since my return Malaysia, I did not have any luck in the growing of bird’s eyes chili in my Malaysian garden. The glorious story of my green fingers in the planting of bird’s eyes chili from frozen seeds in Auckland was long gone.

If you can’t get Calamansi, which I reckon is not easily available everywhere, you can use lime or lemon to get that sourness required in the sauce.

Instead of pouring the sauce on the fish, you can also make it as a dipping sauce.  This will favour those who can’t take spicy dish, where they still get to enjoy the crispy fried fish.

 

RECIPE

 

Ingredients:

Fish – 2 medium size whole fish (the smaller the fish easier to deep frying in getting crispy texture)

Dash of salt, pepper and corn flour to marinate

Sauce

Juice from 4-5 calamansi lime

(to your liking on sourness, reduce quantity if using lime or lemon which bigger size)

 

4-5 bird’s eye chilli, sliced thinly

 

1 tsp. of sugar
1 tsp. dark soya sauce

1 tbsp. light soya sauce

( This 3 seasoning can be replaced by Indonesian sweet soy sauce – Kicap Manis ABC being used then no sugar and dark soya needed)

 

1 tbsp. oyster sauce

1. Deep fried fish in hot oil till crispy and dish up and set aside on a plate discard any excess oil from frying pan with paper towel.
2. Heat up wok in low heat, add in seasoning sauce and sugar, let it dissolve then add in bird’s eye chilli stir and off heat.
3. Add in calamansi lime juice and mix well, and taste. Adjust the seasoning accordingly.
4. Pour the sauce over the deep fried fish and serve hot.

娘惹酸柑辣椒鱼

主料：
鱼 - 2个中等大小的全鱼（较小的鱼更易油煎至口感松脆）
盐，胡椒粉，玉米/太白粉腌

酱料
酸柑汁4-5酸柑粒（根据自己对酸味的喜好）
4-5辣椒仔，切成薄片
适量，糖，老抽，生抽， 蚝油

1. 在热油中煎鱼，直到香脆盛起，用纸巾吸收任何多余的油后备用。
2. 用小火烧热锅，加入调味酱和糖，让它溶解，然后加入辣椒仔炒匀。
3. 熄火加入柑酸柑汁拌匀，口味测试，相应地调整调料。
4. 倒入辣椒仔酸柑酱在煎鱼上，趁热食用。