Auspicious Day With Auspicious Porridge–Eight Treasure Porridge (八宝粥）

INTRODUCTION

It is such an auspicious day that I am writing this post. I swear it is not pre-planned. Today is Mid Autumn Festival aka Moon Cake Festival, it is a festival that is celebrated by all Chinese worldwide. As request by one of the Google communities, I have written a brief write up on Mid Autumn Festivals HERE which you may want to have some casual reading.

The cuisine that I am going to post today is a vegetarian dish called 8 treasure porridge (八宝粥). There are so many versions of this one pot dish in the internet but the recipe that I am going to share is from my kind neighbour. She liked to cook this porridge and after I tried it for the very first time, immediately I fell in love with it. Since then, I had liked to cook this dish in important festivals such as Chinese New Year Day where the whole family were supposed to be on vegetarian diet for one day.

I have cooked this yesterday not because of the festival, but because I craved for the porridge since I am still on my vegetarian diet. I gave two boxes of the porridge to my daughter’s schoolmates mother, she immediately asked for the recipe when she reached home. She commented that the taste of the porridge was totally different from what she had tasted in the vegetarian stalls.

I did not know where my neighbour get the recipe but I found that there are certain ingredients that we used were not found in other 8 treasure porridges sold by the vegetarian stores. Both the ingredients were mock meat acceptable to all vegetarians and without these two ingredients, the taste will definitely be different.

As this was our dinner last night, I did not have much chances to take pictures and the poor lighting make the picture a bit disappointed. But trust me, this is a very different 8 treasure porridge and it is definitely good for casual dining or a presentable dish in important Buddhist religious occasions.

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WHAT IS REQUIRED

Though the name is 8 treasure porridge, however, we tend to have more than 8 ingredients and I do not think all my ingredients are in the picture.  I should have used 11-12 ingredients here. Most of the ingredients are nuts and a few ingredients and some mock meat.

• 1 cup of uncooked rice – not in picture （白米）

• 1 cup of jujube （红枣）

• 1 cup of peanuts （花生）- soaked

• 1 cup of cashew nuts （腰豆）

• 1 cup of lotus seeds （莲子）- soaked

• 1 cup of gingko nuts  （白果）- soaked

• 1 cup of red carrots (cut into cubes) （红萝卜）

• 1 cup of dried mushrooms (soaked and cut into cubes) – not in picture （冬菇）

• 1 cup of mock duck (must have) – (素鸭）

• 1 small packet of “fat Choy” or “black moss” （发菜）

• 1 packet of about 2 sheets of mock goose (素鹅）(must have)

• 6-8 cups of plain water (if not adequate, you can add in water later)

Mock Duck

Mock Goose

Please do not ask me why they were called mock duck or mock goose, frankly, I do not know. While the shape is difference, the taste is nothing like duck of goose. Both are made of wheat gluten, oil, soya sauce, sugar, salt and packed with proteins. They do have their distinct flavour but I can’t describe exactly what is the flavour. They can generally found in Chinese grocery stores that sell vegetarian supplies. These two items are the two most important ingredients in this porridge and without it, the taste will be different.

  “Fat Choy” or “ Black Moss”

This a type of moss now commercially cultivated in the Gobi dessert and Chinese Government do place a restriction in harvesting the moss. The meaning of having these mosses signifies prosperous since the syllables in Chinese name is the same of both “Fat Choy” and “Black Moss”. I hereby quote what Wikipedia had explained about this moss.

“Fat Choy (Nostoc flagelliforme), also known as faat Choy, fa cai, black moss, hair moss or hair weed is a terrestrial cyanobacterium (a type of photosyntheticbacteria) that is used as a vegetable in Chinese cuisine. When dried, the product has the appearance of black hair. For that reason, its name in Chinese means “hair vegetable.” When soaked, this vegetable has a very soft texture which is like very fine vermicelli.” (Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_choy)

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STEPS OF PREPARATION

Preparing all other ingredients

• Clean all ingredients (except mock duck and mock goose) and you may want to soak the peanuts and lotus seeds (if you buy the dry type). Cut into almost the same size as the peanuts and set aside for the later use.

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Frying the mock goose

• In a frying pan, have some cooking oil under high heat, fry the mock goose until crispy. When cooled, cut into thumb size pieces and set aside for the later use. (Note: While it is good to have minimum oil in the cooking, however, without performing this step, the fragrance will not be there. However, you can try using “air fryer” but I am unsure whether the taste will be the same.)

• Depending on your preference, you can use the same oil to stir fry the mock duck, gingko, lotus seeds, mushrooms, carrots etc. for a few minutes such that the mock goose and mushroom aromas blends with the other ingredients. Set aside for later use. This illustration bypassed this step to minimize the usage of cooking oil in the porridge and the taste will not be compromised much.

• Clean your rice and place in the rice cooker. Add in all other ingredients except “fat Choy”. Select porridge function for cooking the porridge.

• Just a few minutes before the porridge function was done, add in fat Choy and seasonings. Suggested seasonings are light soya sauce, salt, sugar or other flavour enhancers. Note that some of the ingredients already have some seasonings, please take some porridge out for tasting before you put the condiments.

Note that you can also use pressure cooker but remember to select the porridge function if it have. Alternatively, I have ever cooked the porridge over the stove and in this way it is easier for you to monitor the desire texture of your porridge though the cooking time may be longer. As long as all ingredients are soft, the porridge is considered as done.

 

• Best served hot with “you tiao” – a type of Chinese plain dough fritters or additional crispy “mock goose”. Both these are optional.

 

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CONCLUSION

As I have said earlier, I fell in love with this special porridge when I have my first bowl years back. I  am confident you will like it too. Bookmark this page for your future usage. You may want to cook it during Chinese New Year like me!

Hope you like the post today. Cheers

If you are looking for more CHINESE NEW YEAR COOKIES,  you may want to visit this post summarizing all relevant Chinese New Year Cuisines.

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For more recipes, you can refer to my RECIPE INDEX here and you can follow me at PINTEREST or visit this blog’s FACEBOOK PAGE .

 

 

If you are a Pinterest user and you are interested to have more recipes, you can join or follow this Pinterest Board set up by me  where there are more than 1000 recipes worldwide and pinned by various bloggers: FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED PINTEREST BOARD. You can also join the Food Bloggers and Foodies United Group Facebook Group to see more recipes.

One Number Ratio Baking Adventures – Layered Pound Cake ………

This is a post with no recipe. This is Guaishushu’s baking adventures.

As mentioned in Guaishushu’s zebra pattern pound cake, Guaishushu don’t like to follow recipes and remember numbers. Therefore, Guaishushu is constantly experimenting his 1 number pound cake ratio theory, that is 1 egg : 1 butter : 1 flour : 1 sugar : 1 milk (hereinafter refer to as “One number Ratio”) and today, he applied this to the famous Indonesian Layered Cake (Kek Lapis). However, as he is in the experimenting stage, he did not care much about the details on the additions of spices, control of temperature and etc.

He assured that he will publish a full post with detailed recipe and illustrations.

The origins of Indonesian layered cakes is believed to be the Baumkuchen/Tree cake, an authentic cake in Germany and Holland. However, due to the Dutch colonization of Indonesia, the Dutch had modified the traditional version by incorporation of local spices. Therefore, the Indonesian layered cake is called the lapis legit (spiced layered cake) whereby a spice mix were added to the batters.

Based on Guaishushu’s One number cake ratio pound cake as mentioned in this post, Guaishushu believed that “one number ratio” can apply to cup cakes, fruit cakes and other cakes such as layered cake. Of course, the cakes could not be called baumkuchen but it is just  a “layered pound cake” baking using total different ingredients ratio..

The taste of the cake is similar with the pound cake but the texture is difference, slightly denser. Putting the legit spice mix, it will taste like the Indonesia Kek Lapis Legit.

The difference with the original texture of pound cake  is because of the differences in the method of making the layered cake though ratio is the same. The constant layering of the cakes will make it dense. In addition, the temperature used is higher to make the layered cake therefore becoming drier. With slight tuning of the oven temperature, timing of layering, the cake can be as beautiful and as delicious as with other common Indonesian layered cakes.

While most common layered cakes will required about 10-30 eggs, this cake only uses 5 eggs. In addition, some recipes uses 500g butter whereas this is the pound cake that uses 250g of butter only. That could also resulted a cake that is denser and less moist than other layered cakes.

 

 

Just give readers a glimpse of how to bake a layer cake, you will have to use top heat for baking. Put a few tablespoons of batter each time until the top layer turns brownish. Continue until all the batters finished.

 

Well, that is Guaishushu’s experimentation with the making of layered pound cake. Do making of layered cake have  any short cut? Can the “one number ratio” applicable to a layered cake? Guaishushu believes that the answer is yes!

 

Guaishushu will continue to experiment more recipes using this “one number ratio” and this layered cake will be further modified and tested before the recipe is published.

 

Have a nice day and cheers.

 

What I cooked today (家常便饭系列）- 13-7-2013–Tomato Yimin Noodles (茄汁伊面）

On 13 July, 2013. – Tomato noodles

Today’s dinner, i have cooked the a noodle dish which is a fusion dish between the famous Sarawak tomato noodles and Kuala Lumpur Style fried Noodles (Cantonese Yimin).

The main difference between the two is the gravy and type of noodles.

	Sarawak Tomato Noodles	Cantonese Seafood Yimin
Type of noodles	Fresh fine egg noodles fried in oil usually just before serving	Ready made fried egg noodles in a round shape. Noodles are coarser
Gravy	Tomato puree or tomato sauce with no egg added	Clear gravy with beaten eggs added

Since I have nothing much to comment on what I cooked today, I have decided to have my cooking illustration in this post.

Authentic Sarawak Tomato noodles

In Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia, the tomato noodles are a type of egg noodles, deep fried and soaked in a gravy made from tomato puree and sauce. The gravy is clear and orange in color.

pic courtesy : http://mile.mmu.edu.my

In Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, West Malaysia, there is another type of Cantonese noodles, called Cantonese Yi Min, a ready made deep fried noodles and soaked in a clear whitish egg gravy and cooked with seafood and meat.

pic courtesy: http://wongpenny.files.wordpress.com

The uncooked Cantonese Yimin is like the picture below and I bought it in a Singapore provision shop that sells other types of Chinese dried goods.

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WHAT IS NEEDED?

Most if not all ingredients except the noodles (Yin Min) are substitutable to your liking. Measurements is for reference and for cooking a meal of 2 adults and 2 kids.

• 250 grams of shrimps or/and cuttlefish

• 250 grams of sliced pork/chicken

• 250 grams of fish cakes cut into slices

• 200 grams of fresh leafy vegetable such as choy sim

• 1 8 inches diameter fried egg noodles (Yimin) usually available in Chinatown especially Cantonese provision shops

• 100 g of tomato ketchup;

• 4 eggs – crack and slightly beaten

• 50  g of corn starch/potato starch

• 2 tablespoons of white vinegar

• Seasonings such as salt, flavour enhancers

• 5 cloves of garlics and shallots – chopped into small pieces

• Pinches of salt and 1 tablespoon of sugar.

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STEPS OF PREPARATION

• In a big and dip plate, placed your noodles in the centre.

• In a small mixing bowl, place tomato paste/puree and corn starch, add half cup of water, stir until well mix and set aside for later use. Your tomato starch solution should be orange creamy in colour. You can also add the seasonings of your choice at this point of time).

• In a hot frying pan, put 3 tablespoon of oil, fried the chopped garlics and shallots until golden brown or until aromatic.

• Add the sliced meat (pork of chicken) and fried for about 1 minutes;

• Add the sliced fish cake, cuttlefish (if any), chopped vegetable and fried for another 1 minutes;

• Add 1.5 cups of hot water to the pan and bring to boil under high heat.

• Add in tomato starch solution and bring to boil.

• Add in the prawns, beaten eggs. Pour your beaten eggs slowly into the boiling tomato gravy, use a chopstick of fork to slightly make a circular motion in the gravy such that the egg will be broken into tiny pieces in the gravy.

• Add in vinegar, sugar, salt and any other seasonings that you like (e.g fish sauce, light soya sauce, mushrooms concentrate, pepper etc.) and bring to boil.

• Once boiled, slowly scoop out your gravy and pour on top of the noodles. The noodles will gradually soften. You can prepare your gravy first and pour on the noodles only when you want to have your meals.

• Let it soak for about 5 minutes before putting it in separate plates for individual servings. This will help the noodles absorbed the gravy making the noodles tastier.

• Serve hot in individual plate.

 

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CONCLUSION

• This is the first time I published a cooking illustration in “What I cooked today series”. Cooking illustration that are less complicated will be published in this blog’s sister Facebook Page – Guaishushu’s Page. Please refer to this page for simple cooking illustration for daily meals.

• This noodle is neither the famous Sarawak tomato noodles nor the famous Cantonese Yimin noodles. It is a fusion of the two. I have used the Cantonese Yimin noodles and soaked in tomato egg sauce. The end product is better than I expected. As the Cantonese Yimin noodles are coarser, they are able to absorb more gravy making the noodles tastier. The texture of the noodles are better and will not break too easily as compared to the Sarawak tomato noodles.

• As for non-Asian readers, shall I call this Asian Style spaghettis? You will like it as the noodles are soft and smooth with tomato fragrance.

Hope you LIKE the post and let me know after you try out the dish.

Cheers and have a nice day.

   

For more recipes, you can refer to my RECIPE INDEX here and you can follow me at PINTEREST or visit this blog’s FACEBOOK PAGE .

 

If you are a Pinterest user and you are interested to have more recipes, you can join or follow this Pinterest Board set up by me  where there are more than 1000 recipes worldwide and pinned by various bloggers: FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED PINTEREST BOARD. You can also join the Food Bloggers and Foodies United Group Facebook Group to see more recipes.

Bachelor’s Tomyam Noodles–Quick And Nice…

INTRODUCTION

I am struggling whether I should post this simple noodle preparation. It is just that simple and up to your own creativities. I am thinking, will putting up this post insult my reader’s intelligence? Will it qualify as a professional blog post? Is this consider as an recipe? Well, after struggling for 10 minutes, I have decided to post this dish to gauge what is my reader’s reactions. Due to this impromptu decision, therefore, unlike other post, some pictures were not available.

This is a super fast dish that I cooked for myself today.  From cooking to eating to cleaning, it took me less than half an hour.  It is ideal for those who just want a simple, quick and nutritious meal.

 

WHY THIS DISH

I am alone by myself at home and I don’t feel like cooking for myself. Usually,  I would just eat the breakfast leftover items for lunch. But I have been eating breakfasts as lunches for the last 3 days and my body tells me that I need something that don’t taste like “breakfast”.

Cooking a dish for myself is never a problem, I just search my kitchen cabinet and my refrigerator and see what I have at home. As my kids were away on holiday and we will not be cooking these few days, therefore, my perishable stocks were very limited and this is what I found, a packet of Tom yam instant noodles.

As I have never fancy any instant noodles, this packet of instant noodles is not attractive to me at all especially if it is plain (meaning water plus instant noodles). But suddenly, it come across my mind and asked myself, why not cook myself some Tom Yam noodles. So I take out a pot and cooked my superfast Tom Yam noodles.

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WHAT YOU NEED

As far as I am concerned, there is nothing that you can’t put it. I usually cooked based on what I have especially the side vegetables. What I used this time:

• One pieces or dry egg noodles – this is exactly the same as your instant noodles except it is slightly firmer;

• Some cherry tomatoes – supposingly to be eaten as fruits but since I have some in the fridge, I just dump it in.

• Some chicken breast meat (optional) cut into small chunks – I had this in the fridge for quite a while and since I will not be cooking for the these 2 weeks, I have to “get rid” of it. But frankly speaking, it taste better with some meaty flavor;

• Few pieces of chili (optional) – These chili were specially flown from China given by one of my guest who stay in Guangxi China. It is supposingly very spicy but for me, it is slightly more spicy than the red chili but not as spicy as chili padi.

• Tom Yam paste – It is good to keep some ready made tom yam paste at home for making quick soups, fried noodles and etc. My wife have bought this vegetarian tom yam paste which I don’t think there is much differences. The only difference in ingredients that I can think off is the shallots and garlics since Buddhist vegetarian were not allowed to consume any shallots and garlics.

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STEPS OF PERPARTION

I have no picture to show as this post was rather impromptu and only decided half way when I was cooking. In fact, it is such a simple dish that there are only 2-3 steps and further elaboration will “insult” my reader’s intelligence. If you really can’t understand what I am trying to say, just imagine you are cooking some instant noodles in a pot.

• Take out a pot and pour in some plain water. Put a few table spoon of tom yam paste (depending on taste) and bring to boil. Throw in other ingredients in these orders – meat, chili, tomato, egg noodles. 

• As I am using chicken breast and cut into small chunks, it is rather quick to cook. The smaller your meat is, the easier it is to cook! You can use some sweet potato flour or corn flour to slightly cover your meat before you put them in the pot. The role of these flours is to keep the juice inside the meat and also make its texture smoother. For me, as I want it to be quick, I have not perform this step, I just put my meat in without adding any corn flour.

• Boil for 1-2 minutes until your noodles have soften.

• I prefer to rest it for a while until the noodles absorbed all the soup and this will make it tastier and softer.

• Variations – There are many variations that you can have. You may want to add some eggs. or sausages. some cabbage, red carrots, celery, etc. and the lists are endless. These are all up to your imaginations and creativities.

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FINAL OUTPUT

In the picture, does it look appetizing to you?

To make it look better you can consider using mushrooms for black color, red chili for red color, baby corns for yellow color and carrot for orange color.

Compare to the 1st picture and the last picture, you can see that noodles is softer as it had absorbed the gravy.

Taste wise, if you want it more sour, you can squeeze some lime juice. For me that is just nice. It is essentially tom yam cooked with chicken stock and if you like tom yam, this is a suitable meal for you!

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CONCLUSIONS

• Not all foods need to be elaborately prepared before it is considered as tasty. Simple meal like this is ideal for those who are kitchen phobia or short of time to prepare a nutritious meal;

• It is nutritious because the ingredients that were used are simple (like my post on Nasi Aruk here) but packed with proteins and vitamins. Tom yam paste itself is full of herbs and spices that is beneficial to the body.

• It is healthier because no oil and further seasonings were used. IT IS DEFINITELY HEALTHIER THAN INSTANT NOODLE AS NO MSG WAS USED。When you ate plain instant noodles, most people will craved for stronger flavor as the taste is very monotonous and you need seasonings to make your palate “happy”. With slight additions of meat and vegetables, your attention will gear towards your meats and vegetables. The soups will have some meaty flavor and you don’t feel the need to add any more seasonings. Is it not healthier?

• It is fast to prepare, full flexibility and you can substitute any ingredients with what you have at home.

Because it is so flexible, it essentially means there is no recipe. So, do you like this type of simple dish or you think reading my post is wasting your precious time?

I treasure your feedback and let me know how you feel about it.

Happy reading and cheers.

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I have recently open a Facebook community page ‘AUTHENTIC SARAWAK FOOD AND HISTORY” and I hoped you can support the page by visiting the page. If you find the page benefits you in some way, please give it a “LIKE”.

The page is intended to become a center of collection of unique Sarawak Cuisines. For those who don’t know where is Sarawak, Sarawak is one of states belong to Malaysia and in the Island of Borneo. It is famous of its eco-tourism and multi racial society. Its unique cuisine are cuisines like Sarawak Laksa, Kolo mee and scarce vegetables such as jungle fern shoot, hairy eggplant etc. PLEASE COME  AND UNDERSTAND MORE ABOUT SARAWAK CUISINES HERE.

 

        

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Thousand apologies.  I have to put this picture here due to technical error. Otherwise it will mess up my Tumblr. accounts posting and my Facebook posting.