Hakka Pen Cai (客家盆菜）

Traditional Hakka Cuisine – Come and enjoy a big bowl feast    

10th February 2013
1st lunch of Lunar Calendar year of Snake (农历大年初一）- Part 1

In contrary to the wide choices of Chinese meals available at various food outlets during the eve of CNY, it was hard to find any decent Chinese meals on the first and second day of CNY; not even the Chinese hawker/street foods! In Penang, many of the Kopitiam, hawker centres and restaurants would close for at least 2 days before resuming business on the third or fourth day of CNY. Having our CNY lunch at home on the first day was almost always our only alternative.

Since Mum’s passing, my second sister-in-law, Lai Cheng has taken over the task of manning her kitchen during festive days. With my return, she was so glad to have extra helping hands in preparing the CNY lunch. This year, when I noticed she had bought some expensive seafood materials such as sea cucumber, frozen baby abalone and fish maw, it gave me the idea to make them into Hakka Pen Cai, the deluxe version as compared to what was usually served in restaurants.

Pen Cai (盆菜) or Big Basin Feast is one of Hakka delicacy cuisine commonly served during CNY, or other festive days and weddings. This communal dish was made popular by Hong Kong New Territories Hakka Village. Hakka people in the olden days mostly resided in the hills and was well known for their frugal lifestyle.

The original version of Pen Cai only used basic and fresh ingredients that were easily available from their farms, i.e. vegetables, chicken, duck and pork.  However, nowadays this dish has transformed into an exotic and lavish dish by restaurants with the addition of seafood such as oysters, abalone, sea cucumber, fish maw and scallops. 

Restaurant Pen Cai - Deluxe version

Preparation of Pen Cai might seem tedious. All the ingredients were first cooked in different ways such as deep frying, stir frying, stewing and steaming before being laid into a big wooden or metal basin, layer by layer.

I did some Google search for the recipes on how to cook sea cucumber, baby abalone and fish maw. I seldom used these expensive ingredients and was afraid I might ruin them. Frankly, it was kind of an impromptu decision to try out this dish. We didn’t have quite a few of the usual Pen Cai ingredients such as variation of vegetables and bean curbs, so we had to make do with whatever veggies we had in the fridge.

I was glad that JS gave us a hand in arranging the cooked ingredients into the metal basin. The reason why I asked hubby to take over this task was because when in Auckland, there were stalls serving Chinese food in buffet style charging by per serving by the size of the plate. We would pay for the price of a single serving regardless of the amount of food stacked on the plate. JS always managed to stack so much food in that small plate that many times made such meals good value for money!

Shared below was the homemade Hakka Pen Cai (客家盆菜) that we improvised from the ingredients that we had on hand. In fact, to me Pen Cai had no fixed recipe; you can opt to put in any ingredients you like in the basin.

What’s more important was how to arrange them in a basin. The key to note was to ensure the absorbent ingredients at the bottom of the basin. Traditionally, the bottom layer was always stuffed with vegetables with plain taste such as Chinese cabbage, radishes, pigskins and bean curd. The middle layers were usually pork and Chinese dried mushroom. On the upper part of Pen Cai, meat, seafood and luxurious ingredients such as abalone, oyster, scallops and sea cucumber were placed.


Don’t be put off by the long and daunting list of the ingredients and steps. Though preparing Pen Cai can be tedious and time consuming, I think it is still acceptable to do it once a year.



Pen Cai 客家盆菜 - Yinhomemade version

  So, what were the feedbacks from my family members? by our nephews and nieces except the baby abalone which was slightly overcooked with rubbery texture and the gravy not being thick enough.

Next year, SIL and I had planned to make it more flavourful with proper veggies and added with more meat and starchy gravy!  

Happy Chinese New Year 2013

Just want to wish all my Chinese friends and readers a prosperous, harmonious and healthy Snake year ahead!

新的一年，

愿您抱着平安，

拥着健康，

揣着幸福，

携着快乐，

搂着温馨，

带着甜蜜，

带着财运，

拽着吉祥，

迈入新年，

快乐度过每一天!

As usual we will be heading back to my hometown Penang for Chinese New Year celebration with our family members.

In fact, by the time I finished typing this post it would leave us just 7 hours before we hit the road. Fingers cross for traveling in odd hours of 4am in the morning, and we would be able to avoid the traffic jam. 

I knew that I had been lagged in my kitchen; I had to admit that I had not made any special preparation for this Chinese New Year (CNY) at all due to work commitment.  However, I will try to come out with some CNY dishes when we are back from Penang for Chap Goh Mei the 15th of CNY (元宵节) celebration.

To make up, sharing below are some of the old CNY dishes I introduced before. Click here to go to the posts.



Yogurt Bread 优格菠萝土司

Hong Kong Pineapple buns into Pineapple loaf bread

It’s has been a while since I last made bread of new recipe. I went through the fridge and noticed I still had some left over homemade yogurt made last week.  With that, it crossed my mind that I could try out making Yogurt Bread.  The following recipe was adopted from the Taiwan famous bakery Master Meng 100 bread recipes (孟老师的100道面包) which had yogurt as one of the main ingredients. As for the yogurt recipe, just click on the word and it will direct you to my old post on how to make homemade yogurt.

The direct translation of the Chinese name  优格菠萝土司 of this bread is Yogurt Pineapple loaf bread, originated from Hong Kong signature Pineapple buns (菠萝包) with a layer of sweet butter dough on top as bread topping. However there is no pineapple in the ingredients. Pineapple was used in the name because the layer of sweet butter dough cooked to golden brown resembled the pineapple skin.

The top crispy golden brown butter layer made the cutting of the bread a bit difficult but the sweetness of the buttery top balances the mild sour yogurt flavor of the bread.

Yogurt Pineapple Bread 优格菠萝土司

 Emm… my words to describe were “Sweet on top and soft fluffy inside.”

Sharing below is a visual tutorial on the Yogurt bread making, happy watching.

Pulau Aman Mee Udang (Prawn Noodles)

Care to have a bowl of Prawn Noodles?

Following up from our recent trip to Batu Kawan,Seberang Perai to Auntie Chun Li’s house, we found out her house was only 2km away from Jetty Batu Musang, the gateway to Pulau Aman. 

We decided to take a ferry excursion trip to take a look at this small island. The island was merely a 10 minutes boat ride from Batu Musang Jetty, at RM6.00 per adult and RM4.00 per child for a two-way fare.



Nothing much of sight seeing to expect from this small Malay fishing village island. We expected to finish venturing the island within 2 hours. The absence of good beaches on this island was made up by the fresh seafood available.

 

At the beach the main activities we saw along the beach were clams digging and fishing.

This island was well known for its giant mantis prawn and the island was famous for its “Mee Udang” (prawn noodles).


There were a few Mee Udang restaurants on the island, the famous one was Restoran Terapung Pulau Aman. which was the one we patronized that day.



A plate of normal Mee Udang priced at RM6 and special with extra prawns priced at RM10.

 

While we had spicy mee udang, we ordered Prawn fried rice for Ming Ray.
 

Homemade Teo Chew Cai Kuih /Teo Chew Dumpling

This seem to be my last post for year 2012, with just second away to 2013. I would like to wish all of you :

 Happy New Year !

Welcome 2013

Penang Teo Chew Vegetarian Cai Kuih




On the 15th December, we made a road trip to our hometown in Penang and later on our return journey extended our trip to Batu Kawan, a small town located along the route not far from Penang, to visit Auntie Lan’s sister. Auntie Lan’s brother-in-law recommended a local skilful Thai massage lady in Batu Kawan for therapeutic Thai massage to treat hubby’s chronic back pain and my repeated knee ache lately.

The massage was not the typical Thai massage for relaxation but rather like pressure point massage which hurt quite a bit. My body was said to have too much “wind” and the advice given was to reduce the consumption of ice and cold drinks.  Thankfully, other than the agonizing pain suffered on our bodies,  our tongue and stomach however got to savour one of the best homemade food.

Auntie Lan’s sister, Auntie Chun Li is another great cook. She is especially good at cooking vegetarian food. One of her specialties is the Teo Chew Cai Kuih  (Teo Chew dumpling). I told her that I wish to video tape her vegetarian Cai Kuih making and upload to Youtube. Both husband and wife were so happy to share the recipe and looked forward to be featured in Youtube.

There are 2 types of Teo Chew Cai kuih, traditional Cai Kuih which is using rice flour with thicker skin texture and chewy in taste. Another type which Auntie Chun Li shared here is using wheat starch. The pastry skin is translucent and thinner than the rice flour version. As this is Vegetarian Cai Kuih, Auntie Chun Li replaced Chinese Chives (韭菜) filling with Amaranth (苋菜) and using vegetarian meat in replacing dried shrimp and pork mince.

Sharing below the step by step video which I had uploaded in Youtube:

For recipe kindly click below link.

Sun, Sea,Sand and Thai food

Escape to Koh Lipe

This year instead of our yearly routine family island trip to Redang Island, we decided to try out new island since we noticed Redang island was getting overly crowded and so commercialised that the nature of the island was deteriorating quickly each year and it was no longer as secluded as our past experience.

A few years ago, we started to hear about Koh Lipe, one of the islands in the Tarutao National Marine Park located in the Andaman Sea, off the coast of Satun Province of Southern Thailand. At that time the island was still pretty deserted and the accommodation choices were limited, not so suitable for family with small kids. Last year when JS’s Canadian residing sister and hubby spent a holiday there and came back with good comments highlighting to us that the island had since been developed with various choices of lodgings from budget to lavish to accommodate family travellers, it prompted us to reconsider this option again.

With the island only a stone’s throw from Langkawi Island in the North of Malaysia and within easy reaching distance in the high season from May to October, we decided we would give it a try this year. Hence we planned the trip to coincide with our half marathon race at Penang Bridge International Marathon on 18th November which was also in the North of Malaysia. We made the journey to Langkawi island the day after we completed the race by travelling on a 3 hours ferry and spent a night at Langkawi. The very next morning, we embarked on another 45 minutes high speed boat ride at Langkawi Telaga harbour across the Andaman Sea to Koh Lipe.

Telaga Habour @ Langkawi

The weather in Koh Lipe for the 4 days we were there wasn't very good but we had luck. Weather was sunny on the day we arrived, 19th November. Our resort was located at a pristine beach (Pattaya Beach) just next to Satun Immigration Check point.


I was thrilled to find out the resort was well above my expectation, with modern air-conditioner, water heater for shower and satellite TV channels (albeit only one channel HBO in English, the rest in Thai). The power supply wasn’t stable and we experienced frequent power trips but overall I would say it was very decent accommodation for family stay.

Bundhaya Resort

 

We spent 4 days 3 nights with 2 full days of chartered snorkelling trip on our own.

On the 2nd day of the trip, when we started our first daily boat trip, it was a gloomy morning. But luckily the weather slowly cleared up as the trip went on. We had good time the whole day. Sunlight could be better for underwater photography in the morning but in the afternoon it was excellent. At the first snorkelling spot we anchored, it was really wavy; I hesitated to dive in. But once we got in the water, I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the underwater world we saw. Lots of sea anemone and soft corals, I would say much healthier marine life than in Redang that we admired so much before.

Anemone and clown fish

That night, it rained heavily from 3am. It was still drizzling the following morning at 8:30am when we were about to start our second daily boat trip. The weather looked really bad out in the sea, with many patches of dark clouds in different parts of the horizon, some of which were heavy rainfall we could tell. The only spot that was still clear with sunshine was the first spot we were heading towards, Koh Hin Sorn. It was a 45 minutes boat ride and we were traveling in the only sunny spot in the entire horizon, really weird! Throughout the entire morning, as we moved from one spot to another, we were chased by rain clouds left, right and centre. The good thing was that it was never really windy and the sea remained calm all the time.

Rain cloud

 
We had light drizzle for a short while having lunch on the beach of an uninhabited island but other than that we had pretty good sunlight surprisingly the whole day. Near Koh Hin Sorn somewhere in the middle of the sea, we saw the best snorkelling spot - a site with patches of stunningly colourful and healthy soft corals. It was wavy and the current was strong but we still spent a lot of time there enjoying the rare underwater sights.

The corals garden

 


Our auntie remained on the boat while we snorkelled and she would only get down when we were on beaches. Sometimes she fed fishes with some left over rice from our lunch packs. Surprisingly, she seemed to enjoy very much too for the 2 days of boat trips. I reckoned she must be one of the oldest Asian tourists at the Island.

Ming Ray was impressive for his age to say the least. He handled the current and wave so well it seemed like second nature. He had totally no fear even when he choked at times and at places where we had a bit of concern. He had so much fun we almost always had to reprimand him every time we wanted to move to the next spot as he was always unwilling to get back on the boat. It's very difficult to find good mask/snorkel/fin set for his age. The set JS got him was not very good in quality but he still managed to handle well.

On the second day, he just ditched the mask for his swimming goggles instead as the mask just kept leaking due to poor workmanship. This was also the first time he used a snorkel. And for a first timer, he could skin dive to a depth of 13 feet to mess with things underwater quite naturally with his snorkel and still managed to clear his snorkel easily when resurfaced. We were a bit stunned with his ability to be honest. Whenever he found something interesting in the water he would be so proud and excited to show to me and JS.
 

Ray the Stingray 

Other than snorkelling, we had great dinners every night. Seafood was fresh and relatively cheap. And for a family who loves Thai food, it was just great.

BBQ fish, Thai fish cake and squids

Besides the food, we enjoyed so much with the drinks too. We enjoyed fruit shakes every day. They came in a wide variety of fruit choices including mango, banana, watermelon and coconut. Not only it satisfied our taste buds but kept us cool for the day, a big thumb up

We left Lipe to return to Langkawi in the morning of the fourth day. We were drenched by heavy rain when we were boarding the boat. Our luggages were also wet. Nevertheless we were pleased it didn't happen to us during our 2 days of snorkelling trips. The high speed boat left the rain behind within 10 minutes of the boat ride. Turning back we could see Lipe totally devoured by rain clouds. We left with a pleasant memory of the experience we had on the island, some serious sunburn marks on our bodies, the kind blessings of the weather and dozens of great photos for sharing here.

Cheese and Bacon Scones 芝士培根烤饼

Are you new in baking yet wish to bake your own bread with zero failure? Not much time to spare in the morning yet longing for a good English breakfast?  Then this recipe is the best bet for you. J

This recipe is very simple.  Just mix dry and wet ingredients, no yeast, no long proofing time and with some light kneading before throwing the dough mixture into oven. Voila!  You get to enjoy a good English quick bread- Scones breakfast in no time. The recipe shared below is for savory scones. If you like sweet flavor scones, replace the cheese and bacon with chopped dates or fruits of your preference.

I learnt this recipe from the North Shore Women Centre cooking class when I resided in Auckland. The Centre organizes a free Healthy Budget Eating Cooking class once a month, even until now I still received email notifications from them on the invitation to participate in this free cooking class. I missed those days; it was such a great experience for me where I got the chance in meeting up a group of charming Kiwi ladies and learning along with them on Kiwi food and culture.

You can check out more recipes I learnt from this centre here.

The scones I made back in Auckland