Fried Loh Shi Fun

 

Loh Shi Fun is also known as silver needle noodle, rice pin noodle, bee tai bak and rat tail noodle. It is made from rice flour and shaped like a 2-inch long rat tail. Thus, the name rat tail noodle.  Most of the time it is fried with eggs, beansprouts and prawns. However, some people braised it with meat. While others cook soup with it. Whichever way it is cooked, it is delicious as it is smooth and has a taste of its own. Fried loh shi fun is a good alternative to rice. I fried it once in a while when we were bored with eating rice.

Ingredients:

• 450 g loh shi fun
• 2 eggs
• 2 pcs Shiitake mushrooms
• 3 cloves garlic
• 15 g dried prawns
• 50 g fresh prawns (medium size)
• 150 g bean sprouts
• 1 pc red chili
• 1 stalk chives
  
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp salt or to taste
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 2 tbsp cooking oil
• 1 tbsp sesame oil

Method:

• Preparation

• Wash and soak Shiitake mushrooms in hot water till soft. Slice them thinly.

• Peel and chop the garlic.

• Wash and soak the dried prawns. Chop or pound them finely.

• Wash, peel an de-vein the fresh prawns.

• Wash and transfer to a colander to drain of the water.

• Wash and chop the red chili finely.

• Wash and cut the chives finely.

• Frying

• Heat up a wok with cooking and sesame oils.

• Add the mushroom slices and dried prawns and fry them till they are fragrant.

• Add the garlic and fry them till they are slightly brown and fragrant.

• Add the fresh prawns and fry them till they are half cooked..

• Add the loh shi fun, bean sprouts and red chili.

• Add the seasonings - light and dark soy sauce, salt and pepper.

• Stir fry till all the ingredients are cooked.

• Ladle them up into a serving bowl or plate.

• Sprinkle the chives on top.

Chives Pancakes

 

I bought so much chives - to fry with kueh teow, to stirfry with bean sprouts, to make chive omelette and to stirfry with taukwa. After all these, there was still some left. Usually, chives do not keep for long. So I had to think of ways to make something out of them rather than binning them later. Secondly, my family had been having lots of bread and the traditional sweet pancakes and kuih for breakfast. So, it was good to give them a change and to reduce the sweet food they had been having. That was when the idea of Chives Pancakes came in.

Since this was my first time making these pancakes, I weighed, washed, cut, mixed and wrote down the ingredients as I went through the process of making them so that I can use these measurements to make them again later.

Ingredients:

• 150 g all-purpose flour
• 75 g chives
• 10 g dried prawns
• 25 g carrot
• 25 g mushroom (1 medium sized mushroom)
• 20 g red chili (1 pc of chili)
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp white pepper
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce
• 300 g water

Method:

• Add flour to a mixing bowl.

• Wash, drain and cut the chives to about 1.5 cm long.

• Wash and pound the dried prawns.

• Wash, peel and grate the carrot and then chopped them up.

• Wash and soak the mushroom and then cut them into tiny pieces when they have softened.

• Wash, de-seed the red chili and chop it up.

• Add the chives, dried prawns, carrot, mushroom and red chili to the mixing bowl with flour.

• Break 1 egg into it.

• Add seasonings of sesame oil, pepper, salt and light soy sauce to the mixing bowl.

• Add water to the bowl and stir to mix up all the ingredients. Note: If the batter is too thick, the pancake will be hard. It should be a bit runny so that the pancake will be thin and soft.

• Oil a non-stick pan (24-cm) with a very thin layer of oil.

• Scoop a ladle of batter into the pan.

• Swirl the pan so that the batter cover the whole pan.

• Cover the pan.

• Once the bottom of the batter is cooked, flip it over.

• Remove the pancake once the bottom is cooked.

• Repeat till all the batter is finished.

• You can serve it on its own or with ketchup or chili sauce.

Fried Potato Pancake

    

  

Potatoes are edible tubers, available all over the world and at all times as the potato plants are perrenials. When we think of potatoes we always think of them as being a high carb food. As a result many people have lost interest in the potatoes as they prefer low carb food. But due to its carbohydrate content, potatoes are more energy packed than any other popular vegetables. Its fiber, vitamins (for example, vitamin C) and minerals (especially potassium) contents enable us human beings to perform at our best. Potatoes rank highest for potassium content among the top 20 most frequently consumed raw vegetables and the top 20 most frequently consumed raw fruits (www. potatogoodness.com). One important benefit of potassium is that it helps in maintaining our blood pressure as it helps in widening our blood vessels. Potatoes also help in our bone and heart health and many more. 

Potatoes can be cooked in many ways; according to finedininglovers.com, 63 ways!!! The most common are mashed, fried, baked and roasted. I have fried potato pancakes as breakfast cum snack for my family.

Ingredients:

• 325 g potatoes
• 25 g rice flour
• 10 g corn starch
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 stalk green onions, cut into 1-cm length
• 1 red chili, chopped
• 1 egg
• Water
• Cooking oil

Method:

• Remove potato skin, wash and cube them into very small pieces and place them into a pot of boiling water.

• Cook them over high heat for 20 minutes. Potato cubes should be soft but not broken up.

• When they are done, transfer them to a mixing bowl.

• Add rice flour, cornstarch, salt, black pepper, minced garlic, green onions, red chili and egg to the bowl.

• Mix the ingredients till they are well combined. Add some water if the mixture is too thick.

• Heat up cooking oil in a wok/pan.

• Place egg rings in the wok/pan.

• When the oil is hot, scoop the potato mixture into the egg ring.

• When the mixture has firmed up, remove the egg ring. Alternatively, if you do not possess any egg rings, scoop the mixture onto a cling wrap and mould it into an oval shape.

• Fry the potato mixture till they are golden brown.

• Remove the potato pancakes onto a kitchen towel to absorb excess oil.

• Arrange the pancakes on a serving plate.

Banana Cheese Toast

   

 

 

Banana Cheese Toast is an easy and fast recipe to make. It is great for those who are always in a rush in the morning. I got this idea from My Weekend Plan where there are many easy-to-make recipes whether they are breakfast, teatime or supper. This educational site is very useful for all bakers, whether beginners or seasoned; there are many interesting ideas, tips or tricks that one can learn from.

Ingredient:

• 8 pieces of bread slices (can be wholemeal or white bread)
• A bit of butter
• 2 bananas
• 4 slices of Cheddar cheese
• Some black sesame sees (although white ones can also be used)
• 1 egg + 1 tbsp milk for egg wash

Method:

• Cut off the 4 brown edges of the bread slice.

• Butter 4 slices of bread on 1 side.

• Mash the bananas.

• Spread the mashed bananas on the buttered slice of bread leaving a border of about 1 cm from the edge of the slice.

• Place a slice of cheese over the banana.

• Place the other slice of bread over the cheese.

• Use a fork to press the edge to seal it with the bottom slice.

• Egg wash the top of the bread and sprinkle some sesame seeds on it.

• Bake at 175 deg C for 10 minutes or until they are golden brown.

Burger Buns

 

   

   

Burger Buns are easy to make. Instead of buying them we can bake them and have them fresh. We only need to decide on what fillings we want to layer on them. The combinations are endless. But first...bake the buns. I have a lot of pandan plants in my garden so I just use the leaves to encircle the dough for baking. After baking I changed the pandan leaves to fresh ones.

Ingredients: (to yield 8 buns of about 73g each)

• 150 g warm milk
• 3 g yeast
• 30 g sugar
• 325 g bread flour
• 1 egg
• 6 g salt
• 40 g butter

Method:

• Activate the yeast by adding warm milk and sugar to the mixing bowl of a stand mixer. Sprinkle the yeast on top.

• Once bubbles have formed add bread flour, salt and egg to the mixer.

• Knead the dough till a ball is formed.

• Add butter and continue to knead till window pane is reached.

• Proof the dough till double in size.

• Punch down the dough and divide it into 8 pieces (or 7 pieces for bigger buns).

• Place the dough onto cake liners and place them on a baking tray.

• Let them proof till double in size.

• Egg wash the buns and sprinkle some sesame seeds on top.

• Bake the dough in a pre-heated oven at 175 deg. C for 18 min.

• Remove the buns from the baking tray to a metal rack to be cooled down.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Bundt Cake

 

   

Chocolate and cream cheese is a good combination in a cake. The cream cheese makes the chocolate cake even more moist. I just took my old Chocolate Cake recipe and part of a baked Cheesecake recipe to make this cake. Baking it in a bundt pan gives the cake a very beautiful shape. It can be decorated with chocolate ganache to make it an even richer cake.

Ingredients:

• 250 g salted butter
• 250 g castor sugar, can be reduced
• 4 large eggs
• 70 g cocoa powder
• 100 g self-raising flour
• 62-65 g milk

• 225 g cream cheese
• 60 g castor sugar
• 45 g milk
• 8 g self-raising flour

Method:

• Butter a 10-inch bundt pan well. Set it aside.

• Pre-heat oven to 170 deg C.

• Prepare the cream cheese layer first:
• Let the cream cheese come to room temperature in a bowl and be soft enough for whisking.
• Add castor sugar to the bowl.
• Whisk the cream cheese and sugar till the sugar dissolves and the mixture is smooth and creamy.
• Add milk and whisk them well to combine.
• Add the self-raising flour and mix well.
• Set aside.

• Sift the self-raising flour and cocoa powder twice. Set the flour mixture aside.

• Add butter and castor sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer.

• Cream the butter till pale and fluffy.

• Crack an egg into a bowl to ensure non-contamination if the egg is bad. Add the egg to the bowl and mix well. Repeat till all the eggs are used up. Scrape down the side of the bowl from time to time to ensure that all the ingredients are well-combined.

• Add the milk to the mixture. Mix well.

• Fold the flour into the butter mixture using a spatula, a third at a time. Gently mix them up till no trace of the flour can be seen.

• Pour roughly 35 % of the mixture into the bundt pan. Level the batter around the bundt pan with a spatula.

• Pour the cream cheese mixture on top of the batter.

• Pour the remaining batter on top of the cream cheese mixture, covering it. Level the batter with a spatula.

• Bake in the pre-heated oven for 50 minutes. Test for doneness using a wooden skewer which should come out clean.

• When done, invert the cake onto a metal rack to cool it down.

Green Onion Chinese Pancake

   

We love pancakes both the traditional thin ones which we called mee hoon kueh in Hokkien as well as thick fluffy ones which were made by beating the egg white and folding it into the pancake batter. Both of these are sweet pancakes. Some people prefer the savoury ones, for example, the Green Onion Chinese Pancake.   

Ingredients：

• A. Dough:
• 200 g all-purpose flour
• 140 g water
• 1 tsp salt

• B. Filling:
• 1 bunch of green onions (more or less depends on yr liking.)
• 1 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp black pepper (very peppery. Can be reduced according to taste.)
• 1/4 tsp chili flakes/paprika, optional
• 40 g oil

Method:

• Add all the ingredients in (A) into a mixing bowl.
• Knead the ingredients till a smooth dough is formed.
• Cover the bowl with a wet towel and let the dough rest for 1 hour.

• Wash the green onions and take only the green part.  Let the water runs off the green onions. Cut them into small pieces of about 0.5 cm long.
• Add the green onions into a bowl.
• Add the all-purpose flour, black pepper, chili flakes and oil.
• Mix them up well.

• Divide dough into number of pieces of pancakes desired, either 4 big ones or 6 smaller ones.
• Take 1 pc of dough, roll it into long rectangle.
• Brush the dough with filling mixture.
• Sprinkle green onions on top.
• Roll up dough into a long thin roll.
• Take this long roll and coil it up.
• Use a rolling pin to flatten it as thinly as possible into a round pancake (like a roti canai).

• Fry it on a pan without oil till each side is golden brown.