I Cook: Egg Tart

Yesterday, I spent the whole day with a good friend, Wan Lin, baking egg tarts!!! It took us the whole day to bake as we spent half of the time chatting and watching tv :p...

The idea of baking egg tart started with Wan Lin not knowing what to do with her remaining annual leaves :p... So, we decided to spend a day baking egg tart using a recipe she found some time ago. We, of course improvised a little ;)...

The result of our hard work :D...

Proud!!!

Wan Lin, posing for some pictures...

The ingredients listed here yields about 18 egg tarts :)... Have fun baking...

For egg custard:
- Castor sugar (60g)
- Full Cream Milk (200ml)
- 3 NutriPlus Eggs (whisked)

1. Mix 60g of castor sugar and 200ml of full cream milk in a pot.
2. Heat up the mixture in a low temperature until the sugar is melted.
3. Pour in the 3 whisked eggs into the mixture. Mix well.
4. Sift mixture to get rid of any foam


For pastry:
- Butter (150g)
- Icing Sugar (25g)
- Flour (250g)
- 1 NutriPlus Egg (whisked)

1. Sift 250g of flour in a bowl.
2. Add 150g of butter, 25g of icing sugar and 1 whisked egg gradually until well mixed.
3. Knead into a dough. I just have to include the picture of my "Halloween" dough... :p

4. Refrigerate dough for 30 minutes to 1 hour.
5. Roll out dough to about 1.5cm thick.
6. Cut dough with tart tin and gently press the dough into baking tray.


Baking:
1. Pre-heat oven at 170 degree Celcius for 10 minutes.
2. Bake for 20-25minutes

I Cook: Pau

I woke up one day and decided to make pau.... :S no idea why the sudden urge to do that but I followed through.

So, I went out, did my grocery shopping to get all the required ingredients, had lunch, came home and started making pau... for the very first time in my life :p... I decided to have "ju hu char" as the filling but I did not manage to get "ju hu" (cuttlefish)... so I made "bangkuang char" instead :p...

A lot of time was spent on preparing the ingredients. I cooked the pau filling and then let it cool before I working on the dough.

To my surprise, the pau turned out fine!!! I was so relieved :) ... Happy with the result, I called all my family members to announce the success... even sent them MMS of the pau :p... Hehehe... I then passed some of the pau to my friends for tasting and they had been kind enough to give me some positive feedback.

For pau dough:
- Blue Key Pau Dough (500g)
- Instant Yeast (6g)
- Sugar (100g)
- Butter/Corn Oil (50g)
- Lukewarm Water (250ml)
- A pinch of salt
- Grease proof paper cut into squares

1. Add 6g of yeast and 50g of sugar to 100ml of lukewarm water. Let the mixture set for 45 minutes.
2. Add the remaining 50g of sugar and 150ml of lukewarm water with a pinch of salt to the mixture.
3. Place 500g of flour into a big bowl. Pour the mixture into the bowl in batches. Add butter.
4. Knead for about 25 minutes.
5. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and let the dough rise for 15 minutes.
6. Knead again, this time gently until the dough is smooth.
7. Divide the dough into balls of around 2 inches in diameter.
8. Roll out the balls into thin circles. Wrap the pau will filling and place the pau in a sheet of grease proof paper.
9. Steam pau for 10 minutes. Make sure water from the cover does not drip on the pau when opening.
10. Place pau on a piece of cloth to absorb the excess moisture.


For bangkuang char:
- Cooking Oil
- Chicken Thigh/ Pork Belly
- 6 cloves of garlic
- 500g of bangkuang (yam bean)
- 1 shallot
- 10 shitake mushroom
- 1 tablespoon of salt
- 2 tablespoon of sugar
- 2 tablespoon of pepper

1. Peel the skin of yam bean and carrot. The grate them into thin strips.
2. Slice the mushrooms into thin strips.
3. Steam the chicken thigh until cooked. Keep the stock for later use.
4. Shred the chicken and put aside.
5. Heat the wok and saute garlic and shallots until aromatic. Add in chicken and mushrooms and continue to stir fry.
5. Add in the grated yam bean and carrot with the chicken stock. Stir fry fro another 10 minutes or so until the everything is well mixed and soft.
6. Add salt, sugar and pepper to taste.

I Cook: Glutinous Rice Balls

I've always love "tong yuen" or glutinous rice balls, a traditional Chinese dessert. I enjoy the process of shaping the dough into tiny little balls... or sometimes "piggies".

There are mainly two types of tong yuen, filled and unfilled. Tong yuen is also served with a variety of broth ranging from soya bean milk to simple sweet broth. My favorite is just simple unfilled tong yuen in sweet broth.

Thanks to mom's recipe, I managed to make tong yuen for my hubby :p...

For tong yuen:
- 1 cup of glutinous rice flour
- 100ml of water
- 1/2 cup of rock sugar
- food coloring

1. Slowly add water into the large bowl filled with glutinous rice flour.
2. Knead the dough until it forms a soft paste.
3. If you want to make tong yuen of different colors, divide the dough into portions and add a drop of food coloring to the dough portion.
4. Knead until the food coloring is evenly distributed.
5. Shape the dough into balls or any shape :)
6. Leave the tong yuen to dry for about an hour.
7. Drop the tong yuen into a pot of hot boiling water. They will float when cooked. Once this happens, transfer the tong yuen into the sweet broth.

For sweet broth:
- 4 cups of water
- pandan leave (knotted)
- 1/2 cup of rock sugar
- 2 inches of ginger

1. Boil the water in a pot until it bubbles.
2. Add the ginger and pandan leave, and boil for about 5-10 minutes before adding rock sugar. Lower the heat and let broth simmer for 15 minutes.