Spinach 苋菜

I made this dish for her funeral ceremony. I was sad I didn’t have the chance to cook this dish for her when she was alive as she was on tube for the last 3 years because she was not able to consume any solid food. However, as Chinese believe in after life, I hope her spirit got to appreciate what I had prepared for her.

In addition to stir frying, spinach is good to serve in soup or even in porridge. Spinach is a great veggie to introduce to children because it has no earthy smell. I used to blend in spinach in Ray’s porridge when he was a baby.  Popeye the sailor man turns into a strong guy after consuming a tin of spinach, you kids will be the same too! J

Hand pulled Noodle/Lamian 手拉面

Lanzhou Lamian （兰州手拉面）

Recently on a business trip to China, I had a little pleasant culinary surprise at Suzhou.  One day I had a busy morning and ended up with a late lunch. I normally did not like to eat rice for lunch, so when I saw a small eatery noodle house nearby, I suggested to my colleague to try out their noodles. It was a small Xinjiang Muslim halal eatery shop tucked away in a little corner not easily noticeable. To our blessings, we ended up tasting a really delicious and authentic Lanzhou hand pulled noodle (lamian) !

While waiting to be served, I even sneaked inside their kitchen to shoot a video of the making of Lanzhou lamian. Inside the kitchen, I noticed the chef was just a young chap; I was so impressed to see him skillfully pull and twist the dough and within seconds a ball of dough was magically transformed into fine smooth noodles!

After some online research, I realized that the word Ramen that I used in this video clip is not the same with the word Lamian, the first referred to Japanese noodle and the later meant for Chinese hand pulled noodle. I had used wrong title in my video clip, it should be Lanzhou Lamian instead.

After I returned to Malaysia, I wanted to challenge myself to hand pull a bowl of noodle/lamian too!  After spending some time researching online for noodle recipes, finally during the Hari Raya Adiladha long weekend I made my 1^st attempt.

For this endeavour, I must admit I didn’t hand pull the noodles entirely.  I opted for the cutting method, where I first rolled the dough out flat and then cut the dough into fine stripes with a dough cutter.  Then I slightly hand pulled the dough into finer longer noodles. This method was recommended for home maker especially for beginners. I didn’t have the magical hands like the young chef I met in Suzhou; however the outcome was still reasonably acceptable.

After some efforts in trying to pull and twist the dough, finally I managed to come up with a bowl of reasonably presentable and springy noodle. I got a “pass” from my hubby and auntie Ah Lan and a “good” from my sweet boy Ray, phew!

Ray showing off his newly learnt skill - eating noodle with chopsticks. 

Stir fried ramen with pork mince and veggie

 

For my next batch of handmade noodle, I would add in slightly more water and salt to the flour to improve the texture of the noodle to make it more elastic and not so easily breakable when pulled.

However, instead of pulling by hand I’m considering to invest in a small pasta/noodle machine! J

Non-bake Lemon Cheese Cake 冰冻柠檬芝士蛋糕

My first order!

As mentioned in my previous post no bake cheese cake, during recent Raya lunch sharing session one of my colleagues shared with me that he brought back a slice of cheesecake for his little niece and she liked it so much that she wanted it for her birthday cake.  I thought it was no more than a flattering compliment.

2 weeks later, to my surprise he really approached me to ask for the same cheesecake for his niece’s birthday celebration!

So here is another version of the no bake cheese cake with lemon.

Lemon Cheese Cake 冰冻柠檬芝士蛋糕

I was glad that the cake turned out nicely and the six years old birthday girl and family members liked it very much. She even made me a lovely little thank you card! J

Meat Floss Mayonnaise Buns 汤种肉松面包

Since I resumed working, I must confess that my passion in cooking, baking and blogging took a back seat in life. If you’ve following me, you would have noticed I was more lax in updating my blog posts than before.  I have to apologise for that.

From my recent posts, you would notice I worked more on baking rather than cooking right.  Frankly, with a full time job, juggling work life balance can be quite demanding.  I am thankful to have our Auntie Lan to come back and stay with us and continue to be our master chef to relieve my burden of day to day cooking. J Having said that, I still try my best to explore new recipes at least once a week in the weekends.

Currently, the baking I continue to do nearly every week is the homemade water roux starter (Tangzhong) bread (汤种面包 ). Last Sunday, I decided to use part of the Tangzhong dough to make Meat Floss (肉松) Mayonnaise Bun.

If you are bread lovers in Malaysia and Singapore, you would have tasted this delicious Floss Bun which was introduced by famous Singaporean chain bakery shops Bread Talk. This signature floss bun once captured many bread lovers’ attention when it was first launched in Singapore and Malaysia, and I was one of them. That time whenever I came across a Bread Talk bakery shop, I would end up buying a few floss buns for breakfast or tea break. J

Pork Floss Mayonnaise Buns 汤种肉松面包

Ray with mouth full of pork floss mayonnaise bun

No bake Cheesecake 冰冻芝士蛋糕

Raya lunch Celebration

Last week, I received an invitation from my finance team members to join their pot luck lunch on Monday in the office in celebration of Raya Adilfitri (Muslim New Year).  I happily accepted the invitation and even offered to bring one of my specialties to support their function. But later I realized that I would not have time to prepare fancy dishes in the morning, as I started work as early as 8am.

And so I struggled to think of what party food that could be easily prepared in advance, best the night before and its taste could be sustained when brought to the office the next morning for reheating or served cold during lunch time.

After cracking my head, I concluded dessert is the best answer. Yes, dessert could be prepared in advance and easily stored up to a day or two without compromising its quality.  I came out with this simple no bake cheesecake, which was just ideal for this function.

Again, this recipe was shared by Helen in Auckland. I found this simple cheesecake recipe so versatile that different variation of cheesecake look can be produced by merely changing the toppings. Her original topping called for fruit jam; however I was no fruit jam lover.  I ended up with gelatin lime topping instead as I wanted to go in line with the Muslim’s Raya colour – green.  I used the juice of half a lime and one to two drops of green food coloring to come up with the lime green topping cheesecake J

The topping was not well turned-out as I expected to have a smooth layer of jelly looking topping. This might due to overnight chilled effect in freezer. 

Nevertheless, the cake received great comments from my colleagues. I was overly flattered when one of my colleagues came to me the next day and wanted to place an order to make this cheesecake as birthday cake for his little nephew. He told me that he brought back a piece to his nephew and he loved it so much and asked to have the same for his birthday! J



Highlights of office lunch sharing

Taro/Yam Paste Fillings 芋头馅料

Happy Moon Cake festival !

Next Monday in lunar calendar is 15^th of the 8th month which marks a big day for the Chinese celebrating the Moon Cake Festival or Mid Autumn Festival 中秋节.  For those Chinese who celebrate this big occasion, moon cake is the main bakery product not to be missed. Moon cake is analogous to turkey for the Thanks Giving day or Christmas Day.

Since two months ago, I started to see assorted moon cakes ranging from traditional flavor Lotus paste moon cake to western flavor Cheesy Choc Oreo flooding the local market. Rather than the wide variety of fillings of the moon cakes, I was more attracted to their elegant and stylish moon cake boxes instead. These gift boxes are getting so much more ornamental to the point that they now become the deciding factor for the purchase rather than the delicacy element! These moon cakes were not sold cheap in the market.  I reckon a huge portion was attributed to the glossy packaging cost.



2 weeks ago, I started to make my first batch of homemade traditional baked moon cake 广式月饼. I used the same moon cake recipe given by Helen, one of my best cooking pals in New Zealand.  She shared that recipe with us when she demonstrated the making of homemade moon cake at my ex-Auckland home last year. Do click here for the recipe I posted last year.  



I was glad that it was much easier to find the necessary moon cake ingredients and mould in Malaysia. I got these moulds cheaply from a bakery supplies shop just minutes away from my house.

Last week, I made another batch of moon cakes, this time I tried out snow skin moon cake冰皮月饼 . This type of chilled moon cakes was much easier to make, no baking required. I opted for an easy way out by using a pack of readily mixed snow skin flour and by merely adding water and shortening, the skin dough would be ready. 



If you wish to make your own snow skin dough, click here for the recipe shared by Helen also. This time, I decided to make own moon cake fillings.  The following was the taro/yam paste fillings adapted from moon cake making video by Agnes Chang.    

I shared both types of my homemade moon cakes with my colleagues and I was pleased to receive good comments from them. The best voted mooncake was snowy moon cake with taro and melon seeds fillings ! J

 

I would like to dedicate this post to all my TWOA level 3 computing and cooking members: Alice, Doris, Helen, Jane, Jenny Wu, Jenny Yip, Julie, Lily, Linda, Vera, Penny, Julia and Ellen.

 
“I really miss those happy moments we had; taking turns to host the cooking and lunch sharing functions every Thursday. With this moon cake I would like to wish you all “

A Happy Moon Cake Festival! 祝你们中秋节快乐！

Potato Buns 马铃薯面包

I’m one year old!

Time flies, I just realised that it has been a year since I started this blog in September 2009. Recalling the time when I experienced living overseas in Auckland, with the purpose of occupying my time and learning to blog as part of my Information Technology assignment, I created this blog.  I had never expected to receive such warm acknowledgement and getting to know so many wonderful food bloggers who shared the same passion in food blogging. Thanks to all those who had visited my blog, some even signed up as followers to my blog.

I just wish to say a big Thank You  to you all! I hope you will continue to check out my blog once in a while and I will try my best to share more cool recipes.  I believe in the value of sharing.  Every recipe I shared is treated as one good deed of the day J 

 “The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another's, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises. “

 - Leo Buscaglia

For this anniversary post, I would like to share the recipe of this healthy potato buns. Many would have tasted these potatos buns commonly found in bread shelves in supermarket or bread store. These buns are made from a variation of sweet buns dough. To have better flavour, add a little butter cream as fillings or any fillings to your liking.

This recipe was adapted from Agnes Chang’s “ I can bake”. However I was not satisfied with the custard toppings suggested in the original recipe, where the custard topping was merely a mixture of custard powder with water uncooked.  As a result, the topping that was too watery resulting in the poor cross shape topping. Furthermore, the custard topping was tasteless after baking.

In view of that, I found this creamy custard topping on the Net which I reckon should make a better alternative for easy pipping and nicer taste.



Ray can't wait to get his hand on the buns!