Homemade Soy Bean Milk

 浓豆浆

Making soy bean milk at home is actually not difficult. Yes, it takes time and effort but once you have tried making it, you will very likely not buy store bought ones because homemade soy bean milk is so much creamier and fragrant.

Ingredients:

260g soy beans

1 litre water (for soaking)

2 litre of water (for blending)

a bunch of pandan leaves

2 tablespoon rock sugar (omit if you prefer un-sweetened soy bean milk)

Method:

1. Rinse soy beans and soak them with water for at least 5-6 hours or overnight (refrigerate if overnight).

2. The soya beans would have expanded 3 times. Rub the beans with your hand to remove the outer skins as much as you can.

3. Top up the water so that the skins float and remove them using a sieve.

4. Discard the water (you can use it to water your plants). 

5. Blend soy beans with 1 litre water until smooth. Depending on size of your blender, you may have to do in batches.

6. Strain the blended soy bean mixture through a coffee sock and hand squeeze the raw milk out. 

7. Put the soy bean pulp back into the blender and blend with the remaining 1 litre water. Repeat step 6.

8. Wash the coffee sock and strain the raw soy milk again (for a smoother texture) before transferring the milk into a big pot (preferably heavy bottom pot so that heat is dispersed more evenly). Skim off the foam.  Bring it to a boil over medium heat, stirring with a wooden ladle (to prevent milk sticking to the bottom of pot) and continue to skim off foam. Watch the heat carefully as the foam may overflow the pot especially if the pot is shallow/small. Once boiled, lower the heat, add pandan leaves and simmer for 15 minutes.

9. Remove the pandan leaves and add rock sugar. Serve when the soy bean milk has cooled.

Cantonese Crispy Noodle (Sang Meen)

广府生面

Zi char or Cze char, is Hokkien for cooking (煮) and frying (炒). In Singapore, zi char stalls are where families and friends gather to enjoy affordable dishes that are cooked to order in a wok. Cantonese Crispy Noodle is a classic zi char dish which you can actually cook at home. Here’s how you can do it:

Ingredients:

2 bundles of fresh wanton noodles (Serves 3 pax)

2 cloves garlic (chopped finely)

9-10 Fresh prawns (de-shelled, de-veined and rinsed in a bowl of water that is lightly salted, about 1/4 teaspoon)

100g Pork slices (marinated with 1/4 teaspoon salt, dashes of white pepper and 1 teaspoon corn flour)

200g Mustard greens (washed and cut into segments)

400g water (add more if you like more sauce)

Crispy pork croutons as toppings (optional)

Method:

1. Heat up sufficient oil in wok until it very hot (almost smoking). Loosen the bundle of noodles, shake off excess flour and arrange half into the shape of a dish. Gently lower the noodles into the hot oil and fry until golden brown and crisp. Note that the noodles will absorb the oil and puff up very quickly. Remember to flip the noodles so that the noodles will be evenly fried. 

2. Next prepare the sauce. Heat up wok and sauté garlic until fragrant. Add pork and prawns and stir fry over high heat until just cooked. Remove pork and prawns from wok. Add water and bring to boil. Add seasoning (1 teaspoon fish sauce, 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce) followed by vegetables, prawns and pork slices. Simmer for a few minutes. Lastly, thicken sauce with corn starch. Pour sauce over crispy noodles, topped with crispy pork croutons and serve hot!

Pineapple Tart

 黄梨挞 /   凤梨酥

Pineapple is called "Ong Lai" in Hokkien dialect, literally translated as "Prosperity Come". To welcome Chinese New Year, many Chinese families would thus love to have pineapple tarts. These tarts are symbols of prosperity, good luck and good fortune. 

Homemade pineapple tarts are the best as we can control the sourness or sweetness of the pineapple jam, as well as how buttery we want the pastry crust to be. Here is my version of buttery and melt in the mouth pineapple tarts.

Pineapple Jam 

(one fresh ripe pineapple makes 6g fillings for about 30 tarts)

(2 pineapples weighing 2.44kg makes 461g jam.)

Cut the pineapple skin and remove the 'eyes' from the flesh. Cut the pineapple into big wedges. Do not cut away the core or hard stem in the centre at this moment as it will facilitate grating.

Grate the pineapple and discard the core/hard stem.

Cook the pineapple flesh together with the juices in a wok over medium-low heat. I did not add spices like cloves or cinnamon as I just want pure pineapple fragrance. Stir from time to time until the juices have reduced. Once 75% of the juices have evaporated, add rock sugar or granulated sugar according to how ripe the pineapples are (approximately 30g to 50g per pineapple), and stir the pineapple flesh frequently to avoid burning the jam. Note: Optionally, can add lemon juice which acts as a natural preservative (around 1 tsp per pineapple) and/or maltose (1 tsp per pineapple). Once the jam has thickened (i.e. can stick to the spatula) and golden brown in colour, the jam is done. It takes about 2.5 hours (from cutting, grating to cooking) for the pineapple jam to be ready. Store the jam in a sterilised air tight container once it has completely cooled down.

Roll the jam into balls of 6g each, and keep in fridge.

Note: Because homemade pineapple jam does not contain preservatives and usually uses lesser sugar, they cannot last too long. So it is best to make the jam as well as the pineapple tarts one week before Chinese New Year.

Pineapple Tart Pastry

Ingredients (makes about 35 tarts of 10g dough each):

125g unsalted butter (soft to the touch, around 20 degree celcius) - I use Golden Churn brand butter.

180g plain flour

10g corn starch (1 tablespoon)

1 egg yolk (15g)

20g icing sugar

1/8 tsp salt

1 spoonful of love

Method:

1. Sieve plain flour and corn starch together and set aside.

2. Whisk the butter in mixing bowl, then add icing sugar and whisk until the butter is pale/white in colour. This takes about 2 to 3 minutes of hand whisking.

3. Add salt and egg yolk, and whisk until just combined. 

4. Add in sieved flour and use spatula to mix using cutting and folding motion. Stop mixing when there are no more flour. Lift dough and throw back into mixing bowl for 5 times. Overmixing will cause the dough to be hard. Lightly press the dough with your finger, and if it does not stick to your hand, rest dough in fridge for 30mins and it is ready. From here, you can either do an open faced pineapple tart or round shaped (ball) tarts.

Open Faced Tarts

5a. Place the dough on a lightly floured bench, and roll it to 5mm thickness. Lightly flour the pineapple tart cutter, cut the dough carefully and place in a baking tray. 

6a. Egg wash the tarts and bake them at 180 degree celcius for 10 mins. Remove from oven and place the balls of pineapple jam on each tart. Return the tray to the oven and continue to bake for another 10 mins. Once the tart is golden in colour, remove the tray from the oven and lightly press on the pineapple balls so that the jam will stick to the tart.

Round Shaped Tarts

5b. Weigh the dough and ensure each is 9g each. Roll into ball, flatten it and place the pineapple jam ball in the middle. Bring the edges of the dough together and seal. Gently roll it in between your palms to shape it into a ball. Optional: Score criss-cross pattern to resemble pineapple skin on the ball using scrapper to make them look like pineapples!

6b. Bake the tarts at 160C (fan mode) for 8minutes. Then, glaze the top of the tart with egg wash (1 egg yolk + 1 teaspoon of milk or half teaspoon cooking oil) and bake at 150C for another 10-12minutes (without fan mode) or until tarts are golden brown.

7. Cool completely before storing the tarts in containers. To prevent the tarts from sticking to each other, lay a piece of baking paper liner between each layer of tarts.

For nastar shape:

1. Put the dough into nastar piping tip, and then press out into a strip of 5cm length. 


2. Place pineapple filing at one end and roll up the pastry, as in a Swiss roll, enough to enclose the jam. Do not overlap the pastry. Cut off the excess pastry.

New England Clam Chowder

 蛤蜊巧達浓汤

Ultimate comfort food with sweet clams, tender potatoes and creamy soup. Slurps!

Ingredients

1kg live clams or 1 canned clams

5 medium size potatoes (get the yellow potatoes for creamier soup)

1 carrot

2-3 celery leaves

1/2 big onion

1 garlic clove

3 strips smoked bacon

Knob of butter (20g)

150g heavy cream

1 loaf of baguette

Method

I bought fresh clams from wet market. Follow steps 1 and 2 to degrit and cook the clams for the soup. Skip these steps if you are using canned clams.

1. Put the clams on a steaming rack(or any rack with holes) in a single layer i.e. do not stack the clams over each other. Place the steaming rack in a basin or pot. Fill the basin /  pot with salted water (1 tablespoon to 1 litre water) up to the mouth of the clams. Do not submerge the clams under the salted water. Cover the basin/pot with a cloth or aluminium foil for 1 to 3 hours and leave a small opening for the clams to breathe. Discard the salted water thereafter and replace with clean water. Leave the clams covered again for 1 hour. Wash the clams.

2. Put the clams in a pot filled with 600ml water, and boil the clams for 5 to 10minutes until the clams opened up. Discard clams that remained closed as they are likely dead clams. Remove the clams from the shells, as well as the clam’s intestines/internal organs. Set aside the cleaned clams AND the clam juice from boiling the clams.

⁹

3. Cut the potatoes, carrot and celery leaves into small pieces (size depend on your preference - whether you want chunky vegetables or cube size). Cut the onion into wedges. Peel and cut the garlic into thin slices. Cut the bacon into 1cm strips.

4. Heat up a large pot, add one teaspoon of oil and fry the bacons until the edges are crispy and golden. Remove the bacons and leave the fat in the pot. Saute the onion and garlic. Then add the vegetables and a knob of butter stir fry for a few minutes. Add the clam juice just enough to cover the vegetables. Simmer until the potatoes begin to dissolve.

5. Add the clams and heavy cream to the soup. Simmer for a few more minutes and season with salt and pepper.

6. Serve with bacon topping and garlic bread. Enjoy!

Recipe adapted from Chef Robert Del Grande

Hong Kong Style Char Siew Noodle

 港式叉烧面

Whenever I make Chinese BBQ pork (a.k.a Char Siew, refer to my recipe here), I will make a bigger batch so that I can prepare this dish effortlessly. I just need to buy egg noodles and green vegetables (e.g. kailan, caixin) and viola, this noodle dish can be ready in under 15minutes.

Ingredients:

100g egg noodle (serves two)

1 teaspoon light soya sauce (or Japanese soba sauce if you have)

1 teaspoon dark soya sauce

1 teaspoon pork lard (or sesame sauce)

1/2 teaspoon oyster sauce

Method:

1. Prepare seasoning for noodle by mixing light soya sauce, dark soya sauce, pork lard/sesame oil and oyster sauce in the serving plate.

2. Bring 1 litre if water to a boil. Cook the egg noodles for 3 minutes. Drain the noodles and rinse briefly under tap water. Drain again.

3. Place the noodles in the serving plate with seasoning and toss.

4. In the same pot of water, blanch the green vegetables lightly.

5. Add homemade char siew and vegetables, and serve hot.

Chinese Dumplings (Jiaozi)

饺子 / 锅贴

I learnt this dish from my sister-in-law who makes excellent Chinese dumplings - from making the dumpling wrapper, filling and cooking the dumplings. It is a wholesome and healthy one-dish meal which I prepare for my family regularly. I make these dumplings in a big batch so that I can freeze some of the dumplings for a quick meal another day - just boil the frozen dumplings (no need to defrost) in a pot of water or pan fry them.

Ingredients:

A. Dumpling wrappers: 3 cups plain flour, 1 cup water (makes about 60 dumplings)

B. Dumpling filling: 

780g minced pork

200g Chinese chives / cabbage

2 tablespoon sesame oil

2 tablespoon light soy sauce

2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon Chinese wine

1 egg

dashes of pepper

C. Vinegar Dipping Sauce

1 tablespoon rice vinegar

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1/8 teaspoon chilli oil (optional)

Ginger (cut into very thin strips)

Method:

A. Prepare Dumpling Wrapper

1. Only two ingredients are required to make the dumpling wrapper. No need for weighing scale either because the ratio of flour to water is 1 cup of water to 3 cups of plain flour. I use the rice cooker measuring cup (180ml). You can use any cup. Just make sure you use the same cup to measure flour and water. 

2. Put plain flour in large mixing bowl. 

2. Pour water into flour gradually and mix using hand / spatula to form a rough dough. Don't dump all the water in at one go. Leave 10% and slowly add to flour. Knead for 1-2mins in the bowl, then transfer to the bench top to knead until the dough is soft and elastic. Takes about 5-10minutes.

3. Put the dough in a plastic bag (to prevent drying) or cover dough with a plastic wrap and rest the dough for 30 mins. The picture below shows how much water is left after my kneading. You don't have to use up all the water. 

4. Cut the dough into smaller pieces and take one piece out at a time to make wrapper. Continue to keep the dough covered to prevent drying.

5. Lightly flour the bench top. Roll the dough using your hands into a log/rope of 2cm in diameter, followed by cutting them into smaller pieces of about 8g (or your preferred size). Dust each piece with flour to prevent them sticky together. With the cut side facing up, use your palm to flatten the dough. Dust the rolling pin with plain flour and roll each dough into a circle of 3cm in diameter. Don't worry, there is no need to get a perfect circle.

6. Jump to Section C below for steps on how to wrap the dumpling.

B. Prepare Dumpling Filling

1. Cut the Chinese chives into very small pieces. If using cabbage, discard the core which is hard and cut the leaves into very small pieces.

2. Mix all the ingredients (except Chinese chives/cabbage) in a mixing bowl until the mixture is sticky. I find that using a pair of chopsticks and stirring the mixture in a clockwise direction for 10 minutes will produce the sticky consistency.

3. Add the Chinese chives / cabbage and continue to mix thoroughly until it almost looks like a paste.

C. Wrap Dumpling

1. Sprinkle generous amount of plain flour all over the tray where you will put the wrapped dumpling.

2. Using the wrapper prepared in Section A (Prepare Dumpling Wrapper) of Method, place the wrapper in your non-dominant hand. Place one heap tablespoon of filling in the center of the wrapper. Fold the wrapper over and pleat the wrapper using your preferred method. Below are step-by-step images of my pleating method.

4. Place the wrapped dumpling on the tray and cover with a cloth or plastic to prevent the dumplings from drying up. Repeat until all the dough has been used up. Note: If there are leftover filling, use a spoon to scoop them into balls and fry them.

D. Cook Dumpling

1. You can either boil the dumplings (shui jiao, 水饺) or pan fry them to make pot stickers (guo tie, 锅贴). The difference is that boiled dumplings are moist and juicy, while potstickers are crispy on the outside and juicy inside.

2. To make boiled dumplings, boil a pot of water over high heat. Then, lower heat to medium and add the dumplings one at a time into the water, and wait for the dumplings to float to the surface. If there are any dumplings that are stuck to the bottom of the pot, gently loosen them with a pair of chopsticks. Pour a cup of water into the pot and wait for the water to boil again. Transfer the dumplings to a plate immediately once the water has boiled again and the dumplings look transparent.

3. To make potstickers, add sufficient oil to a cast iron skillet or non-stick pan, and heat over medium heat. Add the dumplings one at a time to the skillet/pan, pleated side to face up. When the base of the dumplings are light golden brown (about 2minutes), reduce heat to low and pour water* (10ml per dumpling) into the skillet/pan and cover it with a lid to steam the dumplings until all the water has evaporated (about 2-3minutes). Transfer the potstickers to a plate once they are cooked through. 

* to make dumplings with 'wings' (known as Hanetsuki Gyoza (羽根つき餃子) in Japanese), add some plain flour (or potato starch) into the water using a rough ratio of 1 tea spoon flour to 40ml water. Once the water has evaporated, a thin crispy lattice pattern will be formed at the bottom of the pan connecting all the potstickers.

4. Serve the dumplings / potstickers with vinegar dipping sauce. 

Note to self:

150g plain flour 

Pinch of salt

75g water (40g hot water 35g rm temp water ) 

Mix all dry ingredients pour in hot water at 1 side by using a pair of chopsticks to mix than add in the 35g rm temp water Mix all together, knead n let it rest for 30min aft 30 minutes knead till smooth dough rest another 1hour and the dough is ready to use

Basque Burnt Cheesecake

 巴斯克焦香芝士蛋糕

Basque Burnt Cheesecake is said to have originated in 1990 in San Sebastián, Spain. It is well known for its dark burnt top which adds tinge of caramel and creamy custardy filling. You can read this article to know more about this cake and it’s origin. 

Ingredients:

250g cream cheese (room temperature). I use the Philadelphia brand cream cheese.

200g whipping cream (room temperature)

100g mascarpone (room temperature)

2 large eggs (lightly beaten), 60g each

50g sugar

10g honey

4.5g plain flour

13g corn starch

A spoonful of love

Method

1. Preheat oven to 220 degree celcius for at least half an hour and line cake tin with baking paper. I use 6” round cake tin which is 3” deep. Crunch up the baking paper to make it easier to line the cake tin.

2. Use a spatula to beat the cream cheese until it is very soft and spreadable. Add in mascarpone and continue to mix/beat until evenly mixed in and smooth. Remember to scrape the mixing bowl often.

3. Add sugar in three batches to cheese mixture and mix using spatula until sugar has dissolved (i.e. you can’t feel sugar granules).

4. Add eggs in three batches to cheese mixture and mix using spatula until combined.

5. In a small bowl, sieve in plain flour and corn starch. Stir in 1/3 of the whipping cream and mix until there are no lumps of flour. Then stir in the rest of the whipping cream.

6. Pour the flour mixture into the cheese mixture, and use a whisk to mix until fully combined.

7. Sieve the cheese mixture and pour into cake tin.

8. Bake for 20-23minutes, middle rack, no fan with top and bottom heat. Use upper heat to bake for 5 more minutes or until the top is chow-ta/brown. Every oven is different, so do adjust the baking temperature and timings accordingly. 

9. Remove from oven and let the cake cool in the tin on a wire rack. Keep in fridge overnight once cake has cooled. It is worth the wait. 

Serve with a cuppa!

Note to self for next bake:

bake with fan mode, increase oven temp to max during preheating and reduce to 220 degree celcius when baking.

To add biscuit crust, mix 130g digestive biscuits (crushed) with1/2 teaspoon saltand 85g unsalted butter