Scones

"I'm craving for scones. Should we drive to Miss Marple tomorrow morning?" Minister asked this morning.
"I can try bake some scones if you don't mind being my guinea pig. I have never tried baking scone before. But can't expect me to produce ones which are the same as Miss Marple." I warned.

 Scones served with Miss Marple Jam without Cream

Few hours later at 3p.m. "I'm really craving for scones. Do you want to bake some and we have it for afternoon tea?? We can have it with Miss Marple Jam" Minister asked.
"OK" I answered. Entered the kitchen with my How To Be A Domestic Goddness bake book in hand. Pre-heated the oven while I measured the ingredients. Mix everything together to form a dough, keeping in mind not to over work it and be gentle unless I want to feed my Minister with rock hard scone instead. Rolled the dough flat and cut into round shape using a cutter. Pop into the oven for 10mins and hot, delicious scone is really for tea.



It's my 1st time making scone and was really surprised how easy and fast it was! The recipe called for cream of tartar and that's the only baking ingredient which I never used nor buy. Went online and manage to search for substitute using baking powder. Felt it shouldn't really matter or make any different by substituting as it's just to make the scone light and fluffy. I also halved the recipe as I don't think we will be able to finish 12 scones as what Nigella stated. In the end, I still ended up with 12 scones. Most probably because I rolled the dough too flat. Reminder to myself: To have higher scone, don't roll the dough too flat.

"You like it?" I asked after Minister took the 1st mouth-full.
"Oh Yeah!" He answered as he went for the 2nd scone.

Success!!!

Ban Mian

One stone kill two bird, I'm actually cooking Mei Cai Kou Rou with my favourite pot and making use the time to update my blog. OMG looking thru the entry, I have being blogging lesser and lesser. I have taken so many food photos, tried a few new places but not discipline enough to sit down and write about it. Reckon it's not going to get any better. Especially with my 6 weeks vacation coming soon.....seriously overdue especially for Minister! Hmmmm maybe it's still a bit to far to start counting down.

Read Jeroxie entry on Ban Mian and realised I had never blog about this dish. Mum used to cook this dish very often when I was really young! During then it wasn't even popular and couldn't be found in the hawker/coffee shop. I always thought it's a very traditional Hakka dish like Lei Cha. In my teens, I started hating this dish same as Lei Cha. Frequency of Mum cooking it also decreases.


As I got older, I began to appreciate both dishes. Lucky for me, Minister's family is also Hakka and he loves both dishes. Both of us grew up practically eating similar Hakka dishes.


Ban Mian is a simple and nice dish which I tend to cook when I have chicken stock in my freezer. Mix some flour with water to form a dough and either by hand flatten some dough and tear into pieces or using a rolling pin roll it flat (thickness depend on individual) and cut into pieces. As for the side ingredients to go with it really depends on what I like and what's available. But 1 ingredient which is a must is Ikan Bilis (Anchovy). To us, it's not Ban Mian if there isn't it.