Dragon Year

Today is the 4th day of Chinese New Year. For those who didn't know, it actually goes on for 15 days. 15 days of celebration with food, food, food and more food!

I did a count for Mr. and this year his 8th consecutive Chinese New Year away from his family. Not too bad for me but this year I missed home a lot. Why? A sign of getting old??

Pineapple Tarts
I also managed to get more organised and made some Chinese New Year goodies and cooked a few dishes for Reunion Dinner. Finally had more than a week break during Christmas period and I started making my 1st batch of Pineapple Tarts using the late Mrs Leong's recipe.

Pineapple tarts is a must for me every Chinese New Year. Without fail I will make sure to make some for self consumption. Mr. love them. It's not hard to make but just very time consuming especially on the jam. I always cooked the jam the day before and fridge it before used.


Me granting fresh pineapple using a very antique tool which I bought back to Melbourne during my most recent trip home. Not too sure is it available in SG as it's from Malacca. Super handy tool and made granting a lot easier and fast! I used to had this process but not anymore :D


1st batch of pineapple tarts consist of 6 medium size pineapples and managed to end up with more than 140 of tarts. I shared most of it with friends and keeping about 30 tarts for self consumption.

I did a 2nd batch the weekend before Chinese New Year again for some friends which missed out on the 1st batch and more for self consumption. This time round, I used Little Teochew's recipe for the base.

In comparison, Mrs Leong's base is firmer not as sweet while Miss Teochew is more "melt in your mouth" texture. Both are as good and really depends on individual preference.

Kueh Bangkit
I tried my hand making Kueh Bangkit. I love them and haven't had them for years! Totally clueless who to make it, I went to late Mrs Leong cookbook for help again. I was having doubt how it will result. But never expect it will turn out to be hard as a rock...LOL


Me frying the flour for Kueh Bangkit. Did I fry it long enough? Maybe not. But I definitely made a mess. Flour all over the floor, stove and onto me. Dough was too wet and I ran out of flour. :((((
In the end, I left the mixture in the fridge. Fried more flour and continue the next day. Guess that's definitely a no-no :(((((


Kueh Bangkit which I bought in KL. I would love a wooden mould but doubt I will be able to hid it from the strict Australia customs. Not going to even try.




Raw Kueh Bangkit. It took me quite a while to get the hang of using the mould. The dough kept getting stuck.


Freshly cooked Kueh Bangkit. Nice color, smell really yummy but too hard to even bite into...LOL
Definitely going to try them again. I'm not going to give up on them but not too sure when I will succeed.

Peanut Cookies
I made these just before Chinese New Year. @eiin was very kind to share her mum's recipe and I can't resist not to give it a go. Although it's really fast and easy to make, I still went lazy and used pre-grounded peanut which I had in the pantry. One thing for sure, I will toast and ground my own peanut next time. I strongly believe it will improve the taste and smell.





Reunion Dinner
We invited some friends to have reunion dinner together.


Yu-Sang from Red Hot Wok. This was really yummy. When we first saw how big serve this dish was, we were all afraid half of it not only to be eaten. But we all surprised ourselves because more than 90% actually went into our tummy.


For dinner, we had Yu-Sang, Prawn in Spicy Pineapple Gravy, Roast Duck and Soy Sauce Chicken, Mushroom with Broccoli and Vegetarian Fried Vermicelli. Missing on the table was Chicken Herbal Soup.

I cooked 4 dishes in total and I think I managed well. Started cooking Chicken Herbal Soup the day before and let it continue to cook in my trustable thermal pot. Took me less than 20mins to fried up the Vegetarian Vermicelli. Pounded the rempah for Chilli Prawn the day before and cooked the dish just before starting dinner. As Mushroom with Broccoli, the mushroom was braised in Chicken Soup and some seasoning a few days before and freeze till dinner day.

 

After dinner and all dishes done, another round of food started. This time round dessert: Bubur Cha Cha, Agar Agar and of course Pineapple Tarts and Peanut Cookies.



How did you spend your Chinese New Year?

Food I Tried/Eaten During My Trip

I actually started this post few weeks ago but didn't manage to finish it at all *sigh*. Reason being I'm too busy or am I too disorganised or I'm too lazy??? Too lengthy???

Well all the photos posted on this entry all taken during my latest trip to Singapore. Spending more than 2 weeks, I in fact didn't satisfy a lot of my craving! I can't believe I didn't eat much at all.....not much appetite. Mostly due to the extreme heat and humidity and also without CL :P. Note: I didn't manage to take all the food I eaten during the whole duration of the trip.

I spend the 1st 3 days hiding at home eating my favourite chef homecook food, spending quality time with my family members and doing a lot of catching up with them.

My 1st outing was to CityLink, Marina Square and Millennia Walk with my best friend,her hubby and godson. We had lunch at a Japanese place at MS. Honestly I don't remember the quality of the noodle because I was busy talking...hehe. The dessert was pretty nice though, a good mixture of red bean paste with two different types of rice balls. But the service was shocking! The place was almost empty as it was early and a lot of families were still doing their house visiting instead of shopping. The waiter who served us can't even hold a basic english conversation. I had difficulties conveying my order to him. I never expect that in a restaurant in the city with a high chance of tourist walking in.

The next day, I met up with my best friend again and this time she bought me to the newly open Ion at Orchard. We had an early lunch before starting to shop. I had a short tour around on the million dollar renovation food court at the basement (is it really necessary??? food taste nicer??) before we decided to try the Katsudon which 8-days magazine recommended. The tonkatsu was very well done, not dry inside and super crispy outside. Plus it's not soak with oil even though it's deep fried. As for the curry, nothing to shout about.

Basement of Ion has a lot of food stalls selling quite a huge range of food. 50% are japanese style food. We shared some Takoyaki. They were definitely different from those I used to have. These were huge, filled with ingredients, not tough inside. I also bought some japanese steamed rice cake for my Godson and also nephew. Mum told me Truman loved them.

Cai Fan(vegetable rice) for lunch, Dad and me went to get takeaway before we popped into Sis's place. This is CL's favourite, a huge choices of vegetable, meat, seafood, tofu, curry, eggs etc for you to chose. We packed 4 packets of rice each with 3 different combination of vegetable and meat. In total it cost less than S$10. Good budget!

Daddy also bought me and Mum to Zion Road market to have the famous Char Kway Teow. I also ordered some Satay to share because I had craving for Kueh Tupat. I also ordered a huge glass of freshly squeeze sugar cane juice with lemon. I had so many glasses of sugar cane juice during that 2 weeks.

I never fail to have my Gui Ling Jao and herbal tea after my visit to Guan Yin Ma Temple at Bugis. I'm a strange creature because the more bitter the herbal tea is, the more I enjoy. 

Chinese style pancake (Mi Jian Kueh) is another favourite snack/breakfast of mine. I did tried making them, passable but a lot of room for improvement.

Daddy and me also went to have Nasi Briyani and Indian Rojak at Little India Hawker Center. I loved Indian Rojak and so far have no luck getting them in Melbourne. It's a hassle to make as it consist of too many different ingredients plus I feel that the sauce is the most critical.

I walked past the hawker center and I couldn't resist to pack a packet of Chicken Rice even though I'm meeting my ex-colleague for dinner later that evening. It's a popular store and there wasn't any queue. Fantastic! Bought 2 packet, 1 for myself and 1 for daddy. It only took me 5 mins to finish it.

More Homecook Food

I have being spending a lot more time in the kitchen ever since we moved into the new place. We aren't very familiar with the suburb yet, clueless where to find cheap and nice food after dark, + tight budget. I'm not complaining coz I'm trying out more recipes + finding short cuts in cooking....hehe.

2 weeks ago, I pratically didn't step out of the kitchen. I started the day cooking a huge breakfast which consist of cheesy sausage which we bought from Vic Market the day before + tiny tomatoes + avocado + mushroom + Nigella's style poach egg + a bit of green + bread. Both of us were struggling to finish our breakfast coz I cook too much....haha



Next was Nigella Feasts DVD : Chocolate Chip Muffin. My birthday was coming and instead of bringing a cake on the actual day, I baked some muffin to bring into the office on Mon. CL love it coz there are lots of chocolate chips. Everyone enjoy it which I'm happy about.



For dinner, I took out the cookbook Shiok! and cooked CL's favourite. Fried Prawn Noodle. Although it's my 1st try, I reckon it taste pretty good. CL's enjoyed it alot. I have to think about what else I can add into the stock to increase the taste a bit stronger.

This is another breakfast which I cooked last week. This time round, I reduce the potion so that we won't have to struggle to finish our food. :)

Carrot cake

I had craving for carrot cake for weeks or even months! I was kinda hoping I could end my craving during Singapore Day but left the event in disappointment.

So few weeks ago, I finally move my lazy bum and tried making some. I made the carrot cake on Saturday store it overnight and fried them up the next day.

CL's prefer the white style of carrot cake while I perfer the black. So I ended up frying two plates in each style.

Black carrot cake
White carrot cake with Mum's chilli

It was nice but the carrot cake turn out to be a bit too hard. I still can't figure out why. I did follow the recipe very closely. Steam it for too long? Over cook? The black carrot cake lack of sweetness, will have to add more ABC sauce next time. I will definitly continue to hunt for more recipe and try it again.

Lim's Noya Hut

Finally, we manage to eat at Lim's Noya Hut. The place was close for vacation when we visited them just a week before CNY. Both of us were so disappointed as we were craving for popiah!!!

**Elsie and Stan >> we found popiah! I must bring you there :) . No idea do you like them but they serve Gado-Gado, Achar, Har Mee, Satay, KL Hokkien Mee and more.

Hubby ordered Char Kuay Teow. I ordered Assam Laksa. Plus we also ordered Otak-Otak and Loh Bak to share. Yum!!!! Their Char Kuay Teow is penang style. Assam Laksa is so delicious that I finish all the soup! The Loh Bak is so home made. As the Otak-Otak is prepared in a different way, not really what we expected. But the taste was alright.

We were disappointed that we couldn't have their popiah as it's only being serve during the weekend. Same as chicken rice and some other Malaysia/Singapore hawker food.

Hubby initially wanted to end the dinner with Chendol. But we were too full! They serve ice kachang too.

Before we left, I had takeaway kueh! 1 peanut Ang Ku Kueh, 1 green beans Ang Ku Kueh, 1 slice of Kueh Lapis and 1 slice of malay kueh. I found Ang Ku Kueh!!!!!!!!!



OMG I got to ask Hubby when is our next visit...hehe