Lotus Seed Paste

莲蓉馅

If you have time, you should prepare your own lotus seed paste as there are no additives and preservatives. You can also adjust the sweetness to your liking. The paste can be used as filling in mooncakes or steamed buns. Below recipe is adapted from this blog. 

Ingredients:

100g dried white lotus seeds (without brown skin)

50g sugar

20g maltose

55g vegetable cooking oil

Method:

1. Soak the dried lotus seeds in water for a few hours or overnight, then remove the core (green center, which is bitter).

2. Put the seeds in a pot and add sufficient water to cover the seeds. Bring to boil, then lower heat and simmer until the lotus seeds are soft. This takes about 30 minutes. Reserve the cooking water for step 3 below.

3. Drain and mash the seeds through a sieve while hot. Alternatively, use the blender to puree the seeds. Add the cooking water, one tablespoon at a time to the mashed/pureed lotus seed until you get a smooth texture.

3. Heat up the wok with 1/3 of the vegetable cooking oil. Transfer the mashed lotus paste to a wok, add sugar and maltose, and stir fry the paste over medium-low heat for 2-3 minutes. 

4. Then add the remaining sugar and cooking oil in two batches, and continue to stir fry until incorporated. Finally, add the maltose and keep stir frying until the paste is easily foldable and does not stick to the wok. Remove from heat and leave to cool completely.

 

Homemade Kaya

香兰咖椰

Kaya is a sweet and creamy/custardy jam made from coconut milk, eggs and sugar. It is served in toast with butter in most coffee stalls. Kaya comes in two flavours: pandan or caramel. I'm sharing the recipe for pandan kaya which is less sweet. 

Ingredients

6 large eggs (355g nett)

360ml fresh coconut milk

100g sugar

5 pandan leaves

Method

1. Prepare pandan extract: Cut pandan leaves into small pieces and put into blender with 100ml of the coconut milk. Sieve the mixture, squeeze the pulp to extract as much pandan liquid as possible. Discard the pandan pulp thereafter.

2. In a container/bowl, lightly beat the eggs and sugar until sugar dissolves. Sieve the egg mixture into a small pot, add in the pandan extract and the remaining coconut milk. Stir using a small whisk to combine.

3. Set up bain-marie: Prepare a big pot and put a steaming rack in it. Fill up with water until it just covers the steaming rack. Place the small pot with coconut egg mixture on the steaming rack (so just a small amount of water touched the bottom of the small pot), turn on the stove heat and bring the water to a boil. Then lower heat to medium-low and keep stirring the coconut egg mixture in one direction. Note: High heat will cause the coconut egg mixture to curdle and kaya will be lumpy.

4. It took me 1.5 hours to cook down the mixture and get my preferred thick and custardy texture and consistency. Remove the small pot from bain-marie once done and continue to keep stirring at room temperature to cool the kaya down. Once completely cooled, store in a clean and sterilised jar and refrigerate. Best consumed within 2 -3 weeks.

Pesto Paste

香草酱

Ingredients (makes 130g, enough for 2 servings [70g] of pesto pasta)

45g toasted pine nuts

30g sweet basil (leaves only, no stems)

6g parsley (leaves only, no stems)

30g grated parmesan cheese

60g extra virgin oil (cold, refrigerate for 20mins)

1.5g salt

9g lemon juice

Method

Blend all together in blender for 20 seconds or until well blended together. Done! It's that easy.

To serve, cook your favourite pasta, cut some cherry tomatoes and throw in a few pieces of mozarella cheese balls and mix in generous amounts of pesto. Like this:

Recipe adapted from : Brain legerstrom youtube video, pasta salad 3 ways