Mango Sago

An easy afternoon treat.

Ingredients:

750 g of very ripe mango (about 3 small ones)
60 g of pearl sago
1/4 cup of evaporated milk
some tadpole jelly (optional)
some sugar

Boil a pot of water. Add in sago. Once it turns transparent, the sago is cooked. Pour sago into a sieve and run cold water onto it. Sieve until dry and put into a large bowl. Add in 2 tbs of sugar. Mix well.

Blend 2 mangos to form smooth puree. Add in milk. Blend well. You might need to add in some syrup depending on the sweetness of your mangos.
Cube the remaining mango. Set aside.

Blend ice cube till fine.

Pour the mango + milk into a small bowl. Add in some mango cubes, sago and tadpole. Top with some blended ice. Enjoy...

Agar-agar Curd Punch

When a friend of mine in Sydney told me they are going to a spanish restaurant tonight, the first thing that came to my mind was Sangria. I wanted to make this for tonight until I realised that the bottles that are sitting in the fridge, are white and sparkling wine. Never mind, I will buy a bottle of red next time.

Then, I remembered what Mum said yesterday. She went to my aunt's place and was served a glass of agar-agar drink. She said, very easy to made; 1 pack of agar-agar and 4.5 lit of water??? That's lots of water for 1 pack of agar-agar. After her explaination, I now realised that, the agar-agar is not going to solidify like the normal agar-agar. But instead, the agar-agar forms extreme watery soft curd as it's so diluted.

So what about the sangria? From this fruity cocktail, I was inspired to throw some diced orange, lime and nashi pear cubes into the agar-agar curd. It will be better if I had peaches or nectarines in my fridge:)

For 20 servings:

1 pack of agar-agar powder
4.5 lit water
400-500 gr of rock sugar (it's not as sweet as white sugar)
3 pandan leaves

Bring all to boil. Let cool and chill.

Garnish:
2 oranges
6 limes
1 nashi pear
ice cubes

Pour into a glass and plunk in the fruit cubes and ice. Enjoy....

Note: It's nice even without the fruit cubes:)

Another Mango Salad

I made another mango salad. This morning, I bought a raw mango from the wet market. The other time when I made mango salad, the mango was too ripe and it's sweet instead of sour. Firm and sour, the raw mango is just perfect for salad. Today, I added some turnip juliennes for more crunch. Fresh and delicious!

Egg Tarts

Egg tarts anyone? Here is the recipe from my auntie who bakes very well.

Crust:
170 gr butter
250 gr plain flour
1 egg
1/2 tbs sugar

Mix all together in a bowl. Press dough into the mould so that it covers the bottom and the side of the tart mould.

Custard:
1/2 can (187.5 ml) evaporated milk
7 eggs
240 gr sugar
500 ml water
5 pandan leaves

Boil water, sugar and pandan leaves until sugar has melted. Chuck away the pandan leaves. Leave to cool to room temperature. In a separate large bowl, break the eggs. Add in the syrup and milk. Strain the mixture through a muslin strainer.

Spoon the custart filling into the prepared tart shells. Bake for bout 25 minutes (200C)

Tofu and Prawn Fritter

Ingredients:

1 block of hard/firm tofu around 7x7x3 cm
5 extra large grey prawn, peeled, deveined and removed head
2 cloves garlic
2 chilli padi
1 egg
1.5 tbs rice flour
1/2 tbs corn starch
1/2 tapioca starch
1 tsp pepper
salt

Blend tofu, prawns, egg, garlic and chilli until smooth. Add in the flour. Fry in hot oil until golden. Served with some carrot/cucumber.

Putu Piring/Putu Bambu

Putu piring/putu bambu is a local traditional steamed cake of the South East Asian. It's soft and has cottony texture with a dash of palm sugar in the middle. It's normally served hot on a banana leaf with some grated coconut. Putu piring is pupular in Singapore and Malaysia whereas Putu Bambu is a more well known term in Indonesia. The ingredients are basically the same,the only difference is the moulds. Putu piring uses flat plate mould where as putu bambu uses bamboo mould of about 5-7 cm height.

This cake always brings back my childhood memory in Indonesia. At where I used to stay, we rarely found "abang-abang"(meaning brother---aka the seller), selling putu bambu on his push card at night. I would be so excited when I heard the "tu-tu" sound given out by the steamer. As the abang-abang didn't frequent our street that often, putu bambu was always the long awaited night snack. I remembered once when Mum and I, heard the faint "tu-tu" sound after our dinner. Knowing that I love putu, Mum asked our helper to track where the sound came from, and buy a dozen of them. Wrapped in a banana leaf, the putu bambu smelled wonderfully pleasant. Once I put it into my mouth, a warm squirt of palm sugar burst out. The combination of sweet palm sugar with slightly salty grated coconut was just marvelous!

After reading a recipe about "putu ayu", which is another type of steamed cake, I get inspired to find putu bambu/putu piring recipe. I managed to find only one Singaporean's recipe from the net. There is another Indonesian's recipe, though the name is Putu Ayu, the recipe somewhat similar to putu piring's recipe.

This time, I tried the Singapore's recipe. The putu came out soft and cottony, however when it turned cold, the texture became harder. I will try the Indonesian recipe next time and see if it remains soft even it has turned cold.

Skin:
2 cups of rice flour
160 ml water + 1/2 tsp of salt, mixed well
6 pandan leaves, torn into pieces

Filling:
1/3 cup of desiccated coconut with 1/2 tsp of salt, steamed
150 g palm sugar/gula melaka/gula jawa

For serving:
banana leaves
1/3 cup coconut without skin, grated

On a frying pan, roast rice flour with pandan leaves in batches for about 3-4 minutes. Take out the leaves and let cool.

Combine finely chopped palm sugar with desiccated coconut.



Pour water on to the roasted flour.



Using a sieve, press the dough through to form A breadcrump look alike texture.



Take a spoonful of A onto the mould. Add in 2 tsp of palm sugar filling and cover it with another spoonful of A.

Steam for 5 minutes. Serve on a banana leaf and sprinkle with steamed grated coconut.

Korean Snack and Candy

Multi-grain, sweet, salty, spicy, crunchy.... utterly delicious...

I was delighted to find this in the local supermarket, here in Singapore:)




This candy has a layer of icy cool creamy flavour sandwiched in between the harder mint layers.
Found this at a Korean grocer at Cineleissure Orchard:)

Otak-otak

This is a popular Indonesia fish cake wrapped in a banana leaf. The Indonesian type is different from the otak-otak found in Singapore or Malaysia which is spiced up more complicatedly with chilli and spices. It's easy to make it here in Singapore as fish paste is readily available in the supermarket or wet market. Otak-otak is normally serves with peanut sauce. As my family loves eating otak-otak without the sauce, the whole process was even easier for me:)

400 g of fish paste (2 packs of "Bobo" brand fish paste)
1 pack/200g of Kara coconut milk/thick coconut milk
240 g of tapioca starch
2 egg whites
2 tbs of spring onion, chopped finely
1 big clove garlic, chopped
1 tbs spanish onion, chopped
1.5 tsp salt
1.5 tbs sugar
touch of seasoning

Mix all ingredients together. Spoon a teaspoon ful on a banana leaf and stapple both ends up. Bake until cooked around 5-6 mins.

Note: boil banana leaves for 3 minutes to make them easier for wrapping.

Longan Frappe

Few bunches of longans had been sitting at one corner of the fridge, everyone was too lazy to peel and eat the fruit. Fine... I made a frappe out of them before they turn bad.

20 longans
10 ice cubes

Blend!

Chilli Crab, anyone?

Many times we would eat at this place when my parents, friends from overseas are here in Singapore. It used to be in my "must have list" when I came back from Sydney for uni breaks. This place is none other than the "Macpherson Kopitiam", somewhere in Serangoon area. I had tried many places, but still I think this is where you can find the best Chilli Crabs, and not to mention other kinds of seafood.

The crabs are from Srilanka, though I'm not sure if it's similar to the Mud Crab in Australia. You could choose the medium to huge, real huge one! For the crabs and "lala/pipih", we always order from this stall somewhere opposite the famous turtle soup store.We haven't had any "empty, meatless" crabs, they are always full and the crabs are cooked just well that they are not overly hard and not forgetting that they are always fresh. We have another favourite stall somewhere in the middle of the foodcourt for the best grilled stingray with sambal. Besides those, we had roasted chicken wings and oyster omellete.

My family loves seafood particularly crabs and prawns. I enjoyed eating these two things when my parents are around. They will peel for us (my sis and I, bro is skillful enough in this), so that we could eat as much as them. If not, it's going to be a battle to get the meat out, especially those from the claws. Today, my brother was kind enough to peel us some:)

We dun quite like the crabs cooked with bihun though. Perhaps because it's not their house special. Other than that, today's meals were scrumptious!

Black Pepper Beef

Ingredients:

150g Topside Beef, sliced thinly across the grain.
(in a bowl, add in 1/6 tsp of bicarbonate of soda with 1/4 cup of water. Add in sliced beef (to tenderise the beef). Let it rest while you prepare other stuff)
1/4 carrot, sliced
2 stalks celery, sliced diagonally
1 tbs of coarse black papper
salt
1 tbs of oyster sauce
1 tbs of dark soy sauce
4 cloves of garlic, smashed
1 tbs of cornflour
1/4 cup water

Rince the beef with water, add in cornflour, mix well. In a wok, heat up 3 tbs of oil. Fry garlic till golden. Add in beef and black pepper. Follow by carrot and celery. Spice it up with the seasonings. Add water and wait till boil.

Claypot Simmered Tofu with Prawn

Ingredients:

250 g of soft tofu (cut into large cubes)
1/2 carrot, sliced
2/3 cup of button mushroom (fresh/canned)
6 grey prawns, devined
1 tbs of fried shallot
1 tbs of chopped chinese celery
4 garlic cloves (smashed)
salt
pepper
1 tbs of fish sauce
1/2 tsp of seasoning
1/2 cup of water
cornstarch mixed with water for thickening

With 3 tbs of oil, fry smashed garlic till golden in a non-stick pan. Set aside garlic. Use the remaining oil to fry the tofu cubes until slightly golden. Set aside. Still using the same oil, stir fry carrot and mushroom. Put garlic, tofu, and vegetable inside the claypot together with 1/2 cup of water. Add salt, pepper, fish sauce and seasoning. Simmer until water 1/4 less. Add in prawns, making sure it's just cooked, but not overcooked. Stir in cornstarch. Dress it up with chopped chinese celery and fried shallots.

Chocolate Ice Cube Drink

This idea is adapted from Nordljus. It's fun, pretty and just nice for this hot weather. As the recipe calls for basic ingredients that you will have at home, I thought why not give it a try...

Chocolate Ice Cube
200 ml low fat milk
50 g of dark chocolate
2 tbs of Milo
1.5 tbs of sugar

Simmer all ingredients until chocolate is completely melted. Let cool. Pour the mixture into ice cube tray and freeze.

Pour skim milk/low fat milk over the choc ice cube. Sure loved by kids!!

Pics for Japanese Cheesecake

I am so annoyed with Blogger! From yesterday night I was trying to attached some pics of the Superb Japanese Cheesecake into the entry but I couldn't. Ok, fine, I thought. So, I wrote another entry on Japanese Curry, and same thing, I could't attach a pic too. Fine...........

This morning until now, I have been trying to attach pics for the Japanese Cheesecake entry again. Still... unsuccessful... Puphhhhhhhhhhhh......
Tried the Curry entry... hoooray, it's ok. Tried the cheesecake entry again, again, again and again... untill I get very agitated by the whole processes.

Anyway, I decided that I will just post them here in this entry...