Orange Sweet Potato Balls

 

Sweet potatoes are starchy and sweet-tasting. They are a root vegetable. We can find an abundant of these sweet potatoes - yellow, orange or purple - in our country. There are many ways of eating them. I like to peel, slice, coat them with a mixture of flour and fry them till they are crunchy. These sweet potato fritters are good as snacks. I also like to make sweet soup with them. Just chop them up into chunks, add water, ginger and pandan leaves and boil till the sweet potatoes are soft. Or they can be added to make bubur cha cha (https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/2474905339152109020/2823936632269896551), another sweet dessert. Sometimes, I like to mash them up to make sweet potato paste as fillings for my pau, bread or jian dui. Or, I just mash them up to be made into sweet potato balls. At times I just cut them into chunks to be cooked with rice into white porridge.

According to Healthline, there are many benefits to be gained from consuming sweet potatoes: 

• Highly nutritious. Sweet potatoes are a great source of fiber, vitamins, and minerals.
• Promote gut health. The fiber and antioxidants in sweet potatoes are advantageous to gut health.
• May Have Cancer-Fighting Properties.
• Support Healthy Vision.
• May Enhance Brain Function.
• May Support Your Immune System.

(Go to healthline.com for more information on the above benefits.)

Ingredients:

• 250 g orange sweet potato (without skin)
• 30 g brown sugar
• 80 g tapioca starch (or potato starch)
• 35 g melted butter (or corn oil)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• Oil for frying

Method:

• Steam orange sweet potato till they are soft.

• Once the sweet potato is soft, transfer it to a mixing bowl. Mash the sweet potato till it is smooth.

• Add sugar, tapioca starch (or potato starch), melted butter and salt to the mashed sweet potato.
• Reduce the amount of sugar (about 5 g) for a less sweet potato ball. Increase the amount of sugar (about 10 g) if you want them to be sweeter. 
• If you want a more bouncy and chewy potato ball, then add more tapioca starch. 

• Mix them up into a smooth dough.

• Heat up a pot with enough cooking oil (so that the sweet potato balls are fully submerged when they are being fried).

• Once the oil is hot, weigh 15 g of the sweet potato dough, roll it into a ball and drop it into the hot oil. Repeat this till all the dough is finished.

• Turn the balls gently so that all sides are cooked evenly.

• Once the sweet potato balls rise to the top and float, it means that they are cooked.

• Remove these balls onto a plate lined with parchment paper.

• Then remove them onto a serving plate.

• (Note: This recipe makes about 25 balls of 15 g each.)

Sourdough Rolled Oats Pancake

 

Thinking of a quick, healthy and tasty breakfast for the 3 of us, I decided to use my starter to make some pancakes - Sourdough Rolled Oats Pancake. Simple and fast to make, it just took me about 20 minutes and our breakfast was done. These pancakes were delicious; they can be eaten on their own or with some butter and jam. I made some with sugar and some without. I ate those without sugar and they were equally yummy.


Ingredients:

• 30 g rolled oats
• 200 g warm milk
• 100 g AP flour
• 30 g butter
• 1 egg
• 45 g rye starter
• 3 g salt
• 20 g brown sugar (optional)

Method:

• Soak rolled oats in warm milk for 10 minutes.

• Meanwhile, add AP flour, salt and sugar to a mixing bowl. Use a whisk to mix up these ingredients.

• Add butter, egg & starter to the bowl. Mix.

• Add the milk with rolled oats to the bowl. Whisk all the ingredients till a smooth batter is formed.

• Heat up a frying pan with some butter.

• Once it is hot, scoop a ladle of batter onto the pan. Cover the pan. Fry the batter over medium heat.

• Once you see bubbles on the top of the batter, open the cover of the pan and flip the batter over to cook the other side.

• Ladle up the pancake onto a serving plate when it is cooked on the other side.

• You may serve the pancakes plain or with butter, butter and jam or honey. They would be delicious too with any sort of curry.

Braised Meaty Pork Bones with Shiitake Mushrooms and Fish Maw

                

I bought so much fish maw for Chinese New Year and cannot finish them. So far, I have only cooked them in free range chicken soup. I have to think of ways to finish them or else they will smell of oil and will not be palatable anymore. Well, I have pork bones in the freezer and I had just bought some Shiitake mushrooms recently from the wet market. And, I want to cook something which will not take a lot of time to prepare.

So, here it is - Braised Meaty Pork Bones with Shiitake Mushrooms and Fish Maw. This is one of the tastiest and easiest dish to prepare when we are busy. The first part involves softening the pork and mushrooms in a pressure cooker with ginger, sauces and lots of garlic. The second part involves braising the pork, mushroom and fish maw in a pot over slow fire. I am using a pressure cooker over gas stove. I keep my electrical pressure cooker mainly for my beans as I do not want my beans to smell like the pork, mutton or lamb that I had cooked in it.

Ingredients:

• 8 big pieces of meaty pork bones
• 6 pieces of Shiitake mushrooms (medium size)
• 1 piece of fish maw of about 1 1/2 feet long
• Cooking oil
• 6 garlic cloves, crushed and skin removed
• 1 inch ginger, sliced
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper powder
• Water - enough to cover the pork bones

Method:

• Wash the pork bones and set them aside.

• Wash and soak the Shiitake mushrooms in hot water till they are soft. Then, remove the stems from the mushroom caps.

• Wash and soak the fish maw till it is soft. Then, cut them into big rectangular sizes.

• Add about 3 tbsp of cooking oil to the pressure cooker.

• Saute the ginger and mushroom caps till they are fragrant.

• Add the pork bones to the pressure cooker followed by the crushed garlic, light and dark soy sauces, salt and pepper powder to the pressure cooker.

• Add water, enough to cover the pork bones.

• Cover the pressure cooker and cook till the pork is soft (about 20 minutes).

• Remove the cover of the pressure cooker once the pressure has been released.

• Transfer the ingredients from the pressure cooker to a pot.

• Add the fish maw to the pot and braise till the ingredients are soft and fragrant.

• The dish is ready to be served. Decorate the dish with green onion or coriander.

Crispy Sesame Pork Slices

 

    

Crispy Sesame Pork Slices is one of the most delicious dishes that I have cooked. It was highly praised by my family for the crispiness and taste of the pork slices. Instead of rice and wheat flours that I usually use, this time I have used potato starch to improve the crispiness of the pork slices. The most fantastic part is that the pork slices did not lose their crispiness when they were coated with the sauce.

Ingredients:

• 200 g lean pork
• Seasoning:
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• Potato starch, enough to coat the pork slices
• Cooking oil for deep-frying
• Sauce:
• 1 tbsp cooking oil
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 3 tbsp sesame seed, toasted till golden brown

Methtod:

• Wash and slice the lean pork as thinly as possible. (Always slice across the grain.)

• Season the pork slices with salt and pepper for about half an hour.

• Heat up a wok with cooking oil.

• Coat the pork slices with potato starch. Take a piece of the slice, shake off excess potato starch and lower it into the oil. Repeat this until all the pork slices are in the wok.

• Fry the slices till golden brown and crispy.

• Remove them from the wok onto a plate lined with kitchen towel and set them aside.

• Mix water, light and dark soy sauce in a small bowl. Add the salt and pepper into the bowl and stir. Set it aside

• Remove oil from the wok which we used to deep fry the pork slices, leaving 1 tbsp behind.

• Add the sesame oil to it.

• Add the garlic and saute till they they are fragrant.

• Pour the sauce mixture to the wok and let it boil. (Sauce should not be too watery.)

• Once the sauce is boiling, add the deep-fried pork slices to it.

• Give it a quick stir so that the pork slices are coated with the sauce.

• Turn off the heat and remove the pork slices onto a serving place.

• Sprinkle toasted sesame seeds onto the pork slices.

• Serve with rice.

Supersoft Sesame Buns using Cooked Dough

I am always looking for soft breads or buns. This is the first time I am using cooked dough method to get super soft buns. I have shaped the dough into long ones to produce hot dog buns. If you were to shape them into round ones, you will be able to get burger buns.

Ingredients:

• 20 g bread flour
• 100 g water
• 120 g milk
• 30 g sugar
• 7 g yeast
• 3 g baking powder
• 320 g bread flour
• 3 g salt
• 1 egg white
• 1/2 egg yolk (keep the other half for egg wash)
• 57 g butter
• White sesame seeds

Method:

• Add 20 g bread flour and 100 g water into a saucepan.
• Cook them over low heat till a smooth paste is formed. (We need about 75 - 80 g of cooked dough for our buns.)
• Set aside the cooked dough till it cools down completely.

• Add cooked dough, milk, sugar, yeast, baking powder, bread flour, salt, egg white and egg yolk into the bowl of a stand mixer.

• Knead the ingredients till a smooth dough is formed.

• Add butter to the dough and continue till window pane is achieved.

• Oil a clean bowl.

• Put the dough into the bowl and let it proof for about 1 hour or till it has doubled in size.

• Punch out the air in the dough.

• Knead it back into a ball.

• Cut the ball into 8 pieces of about 90 g each or 12 pieces of 60 g.

• Roll out each ball into a rectangle and roll up it up into a long roll of about 5 inches.

• Seal the edges by pinching them together.

• Place the long dough, seam-side down on a baking tray lined with greased parchment paper.

• Cover the dough and let them proof for about 30 minutes.

• Egg wash the dough with the remaining 1/2 egg yolk mixed with a tablespoon of milk.

• Sprinkle some sesame seeds onto the dough.

• Bake at 175 degree C for about 18 minutes .

• When done, remove the buns from the baking tray to a metal rack and let them cool down.

Spicy Mashed Potato Cakes

  

I must thank Andromeda Godit of Cook Bake Snap and Post Facebook Group who posted this yummy snack on 8 September 2020. Even though there is no recipe on his post, I think the ingredients to make these Spicy Mashed Potato Cakes are just mashed potato, flour, egg, pounded/blended chili, salt and some herbs like coriander, parsley or green onions or even some mixed herbs. I thus experimented with these ingredients and was able to come out with these cakes. They are good as snack and can be eaten on their own or with chili or tomato sauce.

Ingredients:

• 300 g potatoes
• 4-5 tbsp all purpose flour
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sambal (https://al-luckylady.blogspot.com/2018/02/sambal.html?m=1)
• 1 cup green onions
• Oil for frying

Method:

• Wash, peel and boil the potatoes in a pot of boiling water.

• When they have softened, remove them from the pot into a mixing bowl. Mash the potatoes and set aside.

• Wash and cut up the green onions into tiny bits.

• Add all-purpose flour, egg, salt, sambal and green onions to the mixing bowl of mashed potatoes.
• You may add more sambal if you want a more spicy potato cake.
• You may add more flour if the batter is too soft.

• Shape the batter into round wide cylinders.

• Heat up cooking oil in the kuali.

• When the oil is hot, place the potato cylinders into the oil.

• Fry them till they are golden brown on one side.

• Flip the potato cylinders to the other side.

• Once this side is browned, remove them onto a kitchen towel to soak up excess oil.

• You may serve this snack on its own or with chili or tomato sauce.                                                   

Chicken Braised with Bitter Gourd in Bean Paste

            

                                    

   

I am sure this is a popular dish among many home chefs - Chicken Braised with Bitter Gourd in Bean Paste. One can have his or her rice with this dish alone. It is slightly sweet, salty, bitter and spicy. I would say most people do not like the bitter gourd at first  as bitter gourd is an acquired taste. But once they have tasted it, they would definitely change their mind about it. And this particular style of cooking the bitter gourd makes it one of the delectable dishes around.

Ingredients:

• 1/4  of a medium-size chicken
• 6 inch bitter gourd
• 2 1/2 tbsp bean paste
• 1 piece bird's eye chili, cut into small pieces
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 3 tbsp cooking oil
• 1 cup water

Method:

• Wash and cut the chicken into bite size.

• Wash and cut the bitter gourd into 1-inch rings. Half them lengthwise and remove the seeds and the inner white part. Then cut them into half-inch width.

• Heat up oil in a kuali.

• Saute the garlic till fragrant.

• Add the bean paste and fry them till they are fragrant.

• Add the chicken pieces. Fry them till they are half-cooked.

• Add the bitter gourd and chili.

• Add water and stir to mix. (You may add some light soy sauce if you find that it is not salty enough. However, I did not add any.)

• Cover the kuali and let the chicken and bitter gourd braise slowly till the chicken is cooked and the bitter gourd has softened.

• The dish is ready for serving.