The process of making Nonya Chang revisited…(Part II) （娘惹粽）

Posted on May 21, 2014 by Kenneth Goh

Dragon Boat activities are basically carried out during the Chinese Rice Dumpling Festivals (Duan Wu Jie (端午节）in Mandarin）and during these festival, rice dumpling were prepared for offering to the famous ancient Chinese Poet, Qu Yuan (屈原). Though the origin of rice dumpling is from China, however, overseas Chinese have incorporated each countries local elements into their version of rice dumpling. A peranakan lady is also called a nonya and their cooking blends both Chinese traditional and localized Malay elements. This post will detailed the process of preparing the Nonya version Chinese Rice Dumpling (hereinafter refer to as “Chang” or “Nonya Chang”).

This is Part II of the Nonya Chang series and will provide a simplified method of preparing the Chang. Part I of the series talk about the history of Chang and Nonya Chang, the reasons why less and less Chang prepared at home and the reasons why Chang command such a high premium. You can read it HERE.

The process of preparing the Chang will involve the following processes:

1. Cleaning of leaves;

2. Preparation of rice;

3. Preparation of fillings;

4. Wrapping of Chang;

5. Steaming of the Chang

The recipe below is a rather simple recipe that both my wife and myself likes. I have been using this recipe for more than 5 years. Both my wife and myself do not like other ingredients in the commercial Chang like chestnuts, dried shrimps etc.. and in our first attempt, we agreed that we shall only have 3 main ingredients, pork, mushrooms and candied winter melons and we have been using the same ingredients since then. Therefore, this is a very good starting basic recipe for Nonya Chang.

WHAT IS REQUIRED

The table below summarizes the ingredients required for making about 30 Chang from 1.2 kg of rice or about 40g of uncooked rice per Chang.

Column one shows the ingredients or material required. Second column shows the measurement in box. I have purposely used the box as a measurement unit as it is easier for me to measure and can keep my material systematically. I have also included the weight equivalent that I measured during the process for your reference. But my recommendation is to USE THE BOX MEASUREMENT AS IT IS QUITE ACCURATE.

Another way of measuring based on the variable measurement, weight measurements and my experiences are in the following ratios:

RICE (2) : MEAT (2) : MUSHROOM (1) : CANDIED MELON (1)

Ingredients	Variable measurement	Weight measurement
Diced pork belly （五花肉丁） (a)	1 box*	600g
Minced pork belly （五花肉碎） (a)	1 box	400g
Mushrooms （香菇） (b)	1 box	415g
Candied Winter Melon （冬瓜条） (c)	1 box	480g
Glutinous Rice （糯米） (d)	2 box (about 8 cups of rice)	1200g
Coriander powder （芫茜） (e)	2 bags of 25g each	50g
White pepper（白胡椒） (f)	2 bags of 15g each	30g
Five spice powder （五香粉）(f)	2 bags of 5g each	1og
Chopped garlic & shallot （蒜泥及小葱头碎） (g)	0.5 box (divide into 2 equal portions)	300g
White sugar, dark soya sauce, light soya sauce, salt (白糖，酱清，酱油，盐） (h)	to taste
Cooking oil （食用油）(i)	0.5-1 cups
Bamboo Leaves (竹叶） (j)	100 leaves
Reed strings or cotton strings （草绳） (k)	5o strings
Pandanus leaves（香兰叶） (l)	20 leaves
Butterfly pea flower （蝴蝶豆） (m)	10 flowers

NOTES:

(a) Pork Belly Meat

Traditionally, the pork were being boiled in the water and after cooked, it was manually diced into about o.5 cm cube. However, in order to save time, I have used a mixture of minced pork and diced pork that were sold in the market.

(b) Mushrooms

Instead of dicing the mushrooms into cubes, I have buy the cut mushrooms, soaked it and use a blender to process the mushrooms into small biteable chunks. I know older generations are very particular about the dicing of mushrooms into cubes but for me it is acceptable because all the ingredients will be cut into very small pieces.

(c) Winter melons

This will also be diced into small cubes of 0,5 cm. Usually, the size of meat, mushrooms and winter melons are of the same size. These I have manual diced it instead of using food processor because if winter melons are too small, when cooked, you will not be able to “find “ it when you bite the fillings.

(d) Glutinous rice

Meat to uncooked glutinous rice ratio should be 1:1. This may sound a bit unbelievable because rice will expand when cooked whereas meat will shrink in volume when cooked. The shrunk volume will be made good by volume of mushrooms and winter melons.

(e) Coriander powder (divided into 2 packets)

Coriander powder IS A MUST in Nonya Chang. It is this ingredients that make Nonya Chang its unique flavour.

(f) Five spice powder and white pepper powder (divided into 2 packets)

These two items are rather optional. It is traditional that we put the white pepper powders but for five spice powders, just a bit (to your taste) will do. Five spice powders is the usually used in the other Bak Chang, it should not be too much until it over “shadows” the aroma of coriander powder.

(g) Chopped Garlic and Onion (divided into 2 portions)

This again is optional but for my recipe, we used lots of chopped garlics and onions. It is my personal opinion that both the rice and fillings should have the fragrance of garlics and shallots. Just chopped it using a food processor.

(h) White Sugar, Dark Soya Sauce, light Soya Sauce, Salt (h)

Most recipes in the net will give you minimal seasonings and all these seasonings are OPTIONAL and should be adjusted accordingly to suit your families palates. One thing that I have to highlight is that seasonings are important to ensure your rice and fillings are tasty. In additions, if you are boiling the Chang instead of steaming the Chang, even more seasonings are needed as the water will dilute your rice and fillings. You will not want to prepare something that is tasteless and only you know exactly the taste for your family.

(i) Cooking Oil (divide into 2 portions)

These oils will be needed to fry the rice and the fillings. You can adjust the oil quantity accordingly. Depending on the type of meat you are using, if it is pork belly, after you fried for a while, fats will be converted to oil and you only need oil just enough to fried the garlics and shallots. Any excess oil can be drained off before you wrap the Chang.

(j) Bamboo leaves

You can either use the fresh bamboo leaves or the dried bamboo leaves. However, it is difficult to get big size bamboo leaves nowadays. You will need to prepare at least 2 times the number of Chang to be wrapped plus another 10% for spoilages. E.g, using my recipe above, since I am making 40 Chang, I will need 40 x 2 = 80 leaves plus another 20 leaves set aside for reserve use.

You have to clean and soak the dry leaves in water for at least about 1 hours or until you feel the leaves are soft and easy to be twisted in any shape. If you want it to be faster, you can used hot water. Alternatively, just soak it overnight.

Traditionally, Nonya Chang uses the big Pandanus leaves for the wrapping and it is one of the things that differentiate it with other Chang. Even in Kuching, Sarawak, people still uses these Pandanus leaves. However, in Singapore, it is very hard to get hold of these leaves and one leaf will cost you about SGD1 which can be cut into 3 pieces for the wrapping.

pic courtesy of www.sgkopi.com

It is hard to find the images for big Pandanus leaves. I have managed to get hold of some pictures from www.sgkopi.com to share with readers. If we are using Pandanus leaves to wrap the Chang, more works are required. Firstly, you have to cut the leaves into the sizes that you like. It will be followed by dethroning the leaves and you have to peel off certain veins such that the leaves are softer. It will then be washed and “blanched” in the hot water to soften the leaves.

So, in order to save time, the big bamboo leaves imported from China is still preferred.

(k) Strings

Since I managed to get hold of the reed strings or straw strings, I preferred to use them. The reasons no other than preserving the traditions. If you can’t, just use cotton strings (as used in the cross stitch or knitting of table cloths or dish cloths) or nylon strings. If you are a newbie , I would advise to USE THE COTTON STRINGS as it is the easiest to tie and reed string will break. as for the nylon strings, you have to make it thinner and it is not advisable to boil under high heat.

Note that the 1st picture is using Pandanus leaf plus a bamboo leaf and uses nylon strings; the string used in the second picture is using a cotton string and the 3rd picture is my Chang wrapped using Bamboo Leaves and reed strings.

(l) Pandanus leaves

As it is hard to get the big Pandanus leaves, I have used some small Pandanus leaves which was cut into small pieces for uses in the cooking of rice and can be recycled by wrapping inside the Chang.

(m) Butterfly Pea Flower (optional)

The butterfly pea flower shall be used for the colouring and it is optional. As far as I know, besides colouring the rice into blue or indigo, the flower do not have any other purposes in the cooking. If you plan to use this, soaked the flowers in hot water for 1-2 hours, let the colour diffuse into the water and use these water to soak the rice before cooking. In my demonstration, I did not use these flowers.

These are the pea flowers that I just pluck this morning and after submerging into the water for an hour, the colour of the water become bluish. After one hour of soaking the rice, the rice is slightly bluish. As I have only used 4 flowers for demonstration purposes, therefore the colour is slightly lighter. If you insist to have blue colour but do not have any pea flowers, then, use blue colouring.

STEPS OF PREPEARATION

Cleaning of leaves and strings

Clean the leaves using a new sponge and wipe the leaves. Soak the leaves in hour for 1-2 hours. Use hot water if you want the leaves to be soften faster.

Preparation of Glutinous Rice

If you looked at the recipes in the net, they are likely to advise you to soak the uncooked rice over night or at least a few hours. However, as this is the short cut method, I have steamed the Chang instead of the boiling the Chang. I will cooked the rice and therefore no soaking of uncooked rice is required.

Wash your rice with clean water and sieved it when done.

If you want to use the pea flower, you will have to soak the rice in advance the let the blue colour penetrate into the rice.

In a big frying pan, pour in some oil and put half of the chopped garlics and shallots. Stir fry over medium fire until the fragrance begins to spread in the kitchen;

Add in half of the coriander powder, white pepper and five spice powder to the mixture and continue frying until the garlics and shallots start to turn brownish. This is pretty fast and you have to carefully monitor it, otherwise, it will get burnt.

Add in the glutinous rice and fried until well mixed (not cooked and it should be quite fast). Add in seasonings and take a few uncooked rice to taste.

I have to remind again that you should be rather heavy handed with your seasonings, otherwise, the rice will be tasteless.

Cut the Pandanus leaves into small pieces and throw into the uncooked rice. Transfer half to your rice cooker. (Half of the rice is about 4 cups which is just nice for my rice cooker. However, if your rice cooker can cook 10-12 cups of rice, you can just put all the uncooked rice and cooked it once)

Add water (about 1 cup of uncooked rice with 1 cup of water). Stir it to mix well. (Glutinous rice is sticky and when you fried it, your seasonings may be stick just one part of the rice. Therefore, this step is required to ensure all seasonings are evenly spread to the rice).

Select “glutinous rice” function in the rice cooker and it will takes about 45 minutes to 1 hour to cook. Occasionally stir the rice to see if the bottom of the rice is burnt, if yes, stir it to prevent further damage;

After about an hour, the rice is cooked. Transfer to a big container, set aside and let it cool before the wrapping starts.

If you are unsure about the water needed, add less water first, Then add more water when you find that it is not cooked or start to get burnt. It is ok to have a bit of rice uncooked because you will continue to cook them when you steam the Chang later on.

Try to take a small spoon and scope some to taste. If you find that it is not tasty enough, add more seasonings at this stage to salvage your rice. But use liquid seasonings rather than solid seasonings. E.g. use light soya sauce instead of using salt at this stage.

Preparation of fillings

In a big frying pan, pour in some more oil and put the other half of the chopped garlics and shallots. Stir fry over medium fire until the fragrance begins to spread in the kitchen;

Add in the older half of the coriander powder, white pepper and five spice powder to the mixture and continue frying until the garlics and shallots start to turn brownish.
Add in the chopped mushrooms and fried a few minutes over medium until you can smell the fragrance of the mushrooms.
Add in the diced pork belly and fried until say 50% cooked. It is not necessary to be fully cooked because the frying will continues.

Add in the minced meat and fried to say about 70% cooked. Note that the minced meat was not added together with the diced pork belly because minced meat is easier to cook.

I preferred to add in the seasonings along long the process because I want the fillings’ colour to be dark brownish. The earlier you put it your dark soya sauce, the easier your meat will become darker;

Add in the diced candied winter melons. Mixed well and add in sugar and other condiments.

Remember that the fillings is quite a lot and you have to be heavy handed with your seasoning.

Off the heat when all the fillings are well mixed and the colour is even. Not need to be extremely concern whether the fillings is well cooked. Any uncooked fillings will be cooked again during the steaming process.

By now you should note your filling is quite oily. Get ready a container, place two spoons on the bottom and put another bowl upside down on top of the spoons. Transfer the fried fillings to the box and let it cool before you wrap the Chang.

The main purpose of this step is to let the oil dripped down to the bottom so that your fillings on top will not be greasy. You can then throw the oil away. This is the traditional method that my mum used to do. However, you can try just to sieve it and let the oil dripped out.

Before wrapping the Chang, let’s recap what you should have in the table.

Wrapping of Chang

The following pictures was taken by my daughter as I only have two hands cannot capture the image. So it may not be that clear.

Well, since you are using cooked rice, that makes your life easier, you can shape the Chang first

On a cutting board, roll the Chang into a long roll, divided it into about 60 g each and shaped it into a ball.
Take two bamboo leaves and make it in a shape of a cone.

Take one ball and try to make a hole in the middle. If you find that it is sticky, just dip your finger into some clean water and pat it on the glutinous rice.

Take a spoon and scope some fillings to fill the cavity;

Take another ball and flattened it and cover the fillings. If you want to add Pandanus leaves, add it now;

Put some water in your hand and press the rice downwards until you feel that there are no air between the rice and the fillings.

Press the tail of the bamboo leaves to cover the top portion and shape the tail like a swallow tail;

Twist it side wards to follow the shapes of the Chang. By now, your Chang should be in triangular shape and you should be able to hold the Chang with one hand.

Take a string and looped around the Chang tie using a live knot.

If you find that Chang are not really in the shape you want, try to adjust it now. Loosen the string or adjust the bamboo leaves to shape it to the desired shape.

After wrapping, check that there are no holes resulted from rough handling and there are small areas that are not covered with the leaves. These are “loopholes” that will create problems for you. If you boiled it , the rice will flow out (not all of course) and all the seasonings will be diluted with the water. It will also become sticky. JUST ENSURE THAT THERE ARE NO HOLES IN THE CHANG.

If you are newbie, don’t be greedy. Wrap a smaller Chang first, smaller is easier to wrap.

I hope that you can understand what I have described above and I have a YouTube video below to show you how to make the Chang at Zhong Zi- How to wrap Chinese sticky glutinous rice dumpling. Note that this video is sourced from YouTube and courtesy of Ms. Brenda Chiew.

How to wrap Chineses Sticky Glutinous Rice Dumpling

If you are still not confident to wrap the Chang, why not try this:

I press my Chang in the shape of a bowl and steamed it. If you are not particular about the shape, you can still taste the Chang.

Steaming the Chang

Steam the Chang for about 10-15 minutes to let the glutinous rice to take shape. Note that unlike the traditional method where you will need to boil the rice which shall take at least 2-3 hours.

Your Chang will be ready and serve it when cool such that the glutinous rice will not be overly sticky.

If you look at the Chang that I have prepared, you will note that the rice stick to each other meaning the rice is very soft. This will be better for those that have gastro intestinal problems.

The light greenish colour at one of the corner is the green tea bean paste that I have added since I have some at home. There are a lot of Teo-Chew adding “Oni” or “芋泥” (a type of yam paste) to the Chang and the taste is awesome.

CONCLUSIONS

This post has taken me 2 days to write and its getting longer. I may have a supplementary short post to highlight to you some tips on making the Chang. Once again, I have to stress again and again that my way of writing food preparation series is not really asking you to follow exactly my recipe. I would shared with you my steps in a simplified manners. I hope that readers can via my post, learn some thing, incorporate some of my steps for your convenience and create your own versions.

I hoped that readers can try the method as mentioned in this post to make your own Chang and clear some misconceptions of Chang making. This method have several advantages:

1. Considerably shortened the preparation time.

Using the rice cooker to cook the rice and steaming the Chang will at least saved 4-5 hours of preparation time;
The usage of food processors to process your garlic, shallots, mushrooms and meat will save at least another 2-3 hours;
The usage of box measurement will cut short your measuring time.

2. Using cooked rice instead of raw rice will increase your chances of success.

Cooked rice is easy to wrap into your desired shape and it will not leak out from the leaves. Tying the cooked rice Chang will be much easier than the raw rice Chang as it is softer.
Usage of cotton strings will also help to ensure the Chang can be tied and no hole in it.
Usage of bamboo leaves instead of traditional big Pandanus leaves will also shortened the process of cleaning the leaves and easier to wrap;

Take your first step to make some Chang for your family today. Whatever the output will be, your family will appreciate your thoughts and giving all the supports you required. Cheers.

del.icio.us Tags: postaday,10,8,food preparation series,bak chang,rice dumpling,nonya chang,singapore,malaysia,candied water melon,pandan,pandanus,娘惹棕，端午，粽子

UPDATED ON 21 MAY 2014

Just wrapped 15 cups of rice, altogether about 45 dumpling. Pictures are new pictures taken.

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Is there any relationship between Dragon in a boat and a Peranakan Women?….The process of making Nonya Chang revisited…(Part II)

Posted on November 23, 2013 by Kenneth Goh

Dragon Boat activities are basically carried out during the Chinese Rice Dumpling Festivals (Duan Wu Jie (端午节）in Mandarin）and during these festival, rice dumpling were prepared for offering to the famous ancient Chinese Poet, Qu Yuan (屈原). Though the origin of rice dumpling is from China, however, overseas Chinese have incorporated each countries local elements into their version of rice dumpling. A peranakan lady is also called a nonya and their cooking blends both Chinese traditional and localized Malay elements. This post will detailed the process of preparing the Nonya version Chinese Rice Dumpling (hereinafter refer to as “Chang” or “Nonya Chang”).

The process of preparing the Chang will involve the following processes:

1. Cleaning of leaves;

2. Preparation of rice;

3. Preparation of fillings;

4. Wrapping of Chang;

5. Steaming of the Chang

WHAT IS REQUIRED

The table below summarizes the ingredients required for making about 30 Chang from 1.2 kg of rice or about 40g of uncooked rice per Chang.

Another way of measuring based on the variable measurement, weight measurements and my experiences are in the following ratios:

RICE (2) : MEAT (2) : MUSHROOM (1) : CANDIED MELON (1)

Ingredients	Variable measurement	Weight measurement
Diced pork belly （五花肉丁） (a)	1 box*	600g
Minced pork belly （五花肉碎） (a)	1 box	400g
Mushrooms （香菇） (b)	1 box	415g
Candied Winter Melon （冬瓜条） (c)	1 box	480g
Glutinous Rice （糯米） (d)	2 box (about 8 cups of rice)	1200g
Coriander powder （芫茜） (e)	2 bags of 25g each	50g
White pepper（白胡椒） (f)	2 bags of 15g each	30g
Five spice powder （五香粉）(f)	2 bags of 5g each	1og
Chopped garlic & shallot （蒜泥及小葱头碎） (g)	0.5 box (divide into 2 equal portions)	300g
White sugar, dark soya sauce, light soya sauce, salt (白糖，酱清，酱油，盐） (h)	to taste
Cooking oil （食用油）(i)	0.5-1 cups
Bamboo Leaves (竹叶） (j)	100 leaves
Reed strings or cotton strings （草绳） (k)	5o strings
Pandanus leaves（香兰叶） (l)	20 leaves
Butterfly pea flower （蝴蝶豆） (m)	10 flowers

NOTES:

(a) Pork Belly Meat

(b) Mushrooms

Instead of dicing the mushrooms into cubes, I have buy the cut mushrooms, soaked it and use a blender to process the mushrooms into small bitable chunks. I know older generations are very particular about the dicing of mushrooms into cubes but for me it is acceptable because all the ingredients will be cut into very small pieces.

(c) Winter melons

(d) Glutinous rice

(e) Coriander powder (divided into 2 packets)

Coriander powder IS A MUST in Nonya Chang. It is this ingredients that make Nonya Chang its unique flavour.

(f) Five spice powder and white pepper powder (divided into 2 packets)

(g) Chopped Garlic and Onion (divided into 2 portions)

(h) White Sugar, Dark Soya Sauce, light Soya Sauce, Salt (h)

(i) Cooking Oil (divide into 2 portions)

(j) Bamboo leaves

pic courtesy of www.sgkopi.com

So, in order to save time, the big bamboo leaves imported from China is still preferred.

(k) Strings

(l) Pandanus leaves

As it is hard to get the big Pandanus leaves, I have used some small Pandanus leaves which was cut into small pieces for uses in the cooking of rice and can be recycled by wrapping inside the Chang.

(m) Butterfly Pea Flower (optional)

The butterfly pea flower shall be used for the coloring and it is optional. As far as I know, besides coloring the rice into blue or indigo, the flower do not have any other purposes in the cooking. If you plan to use this, soaked the flowers in hot water for 1-2 hours, let the color diffuse into the water and use these water to soak the rice before cooking. In my demonstration, I did not use these flowers.

STEPS OF PREPEARATION

Cleaning of leaves and strings

Clean the leaves using a new sponge and wipe the leaves. Soak the leaves in hour for 1-2 hours. Use hot water if you want the leaves to be soften faster.

Preparation of Glutinous Rice

Wash your rice with clean water and sieved it when done.

If you want to use the pea flower, you will have to soak the rice in advance the let the blue colour penetrate into the rice.

In a big frying pan, pour in some oil and put half of the chopped garlics and shallots. Stir fry over medium fire until the fragrance begins to spread in the kitchen;

Add in half of the coriander powder, white pepper and five spice powder to the mixture and continue frying until the garlics and shallots start to turn brownish. This is pretty fast and you have to carefully monitor it, otherwise, it will get burnt.

Add in the glutinous rice and fried until well mixed (not cooked and it should be quite fast). Add in seasonings and take a few uncooked rice to taste.

I have to remind again that you should be rather heavy handed with your seasonings, otherwise, the rice will be tasteless.

Cut the Pandanus leaves into small pieces and throw into the uncooked rice. Transfer half to your rice cooker. (Half of the rice is about 4 cups which is just nice for my rice cooker. However, if your rice cooker can cook 10-12 cups of rice, you can just put all the uncooked rice and cooked it once)

Add water (about 1 cup of uncooked rice with 1 cup of water). Stir it to mix well. (Glutinous rice is sticky and when you fried it, your seasonings may be stick just one part of the rice. Therefore, this step is required to ensure all seasonings are evenly spread to the rice).

Select “glutinous rice” function in the rice cooker and it will takes about 45 minutes to 1 hour to cook. Occasionally stir the rice to see if the bottom of the rice is burnt, if yes, stir it to prevent further damage;

After about an hour, the rice is cooked. Transfer to a big container, set aside and let it cool before the wrapping starts.

If you are unsure about the water needed, add less water first, Then add more water when you find that it is not cooked or start to get burnt. It is ok to have a bit of rice uncooked because you will continue to cook them when you steam the Chang later on.

Try to take a small spoon and scope some to taste. If you find that it is not tasty enough, add more seasonings at this stage to salvage your rice. But use liquid seasonings rather than solid seasonings. E.g. use light soya sauce instead of using salt at this stage.

Preparation of fillings

In a big frying pan, pour in some more oil and put the other half of the chopped garlics and shallots. Stir fry over medium fire until the fragrance begins to spread in the kitchen;

Add in the older half of the coriander powder, white pepper and five spice powder to the mixture and continue frying until the garlics and shallots start to turn brownish.

Add in the chopped mushrooms and fried a few minutes over medium until you can smell the fragrance of the mushrooms. Add in the diced pork belly and fried until say 50% cooked. It is not necessary to be fully cooked because the frying will continues.

Add in the minced meat and fried to say about 70% cooked. Note that the minced meat was not added together with the diced pork belly because minced meat is easier to cook.

I preferred to add in the seasonings along long the process because I want the fillings’ colour to be dark brownish. The earlier you put it your dark soya sauce, the easier your meat will become darker;

Add in the diced candied winter melons. Mixed well and add in sugar and other condiments.

Remember that the fillings is quite a lot and you have to be heavy handed with your seasoning.

Off the heat when all the fillings are well mixed and the colour is even. Not need to be extremely concern whether the fillings is well cooked. Any uncooked fillings will be cooked again during the steaming process.

By now you should note your filling is quite oily. Get ready a container, place two spoons on the bottom and put another bowl upside down on top of the spoons. Transfer the fried fillings to the box and let it cool before you wrap the Chang.

The main purpose of this step is to let the oil dripped down to the bottom so that your fillings on top will not be greasy. You can then throw the oil away. This is the traditional method that my mum used to do. However, you can try just to sieve it and let the oil dripped out.

Before wrapping the Chang, let’s recap what you should have in the table.

Wrapping of Chang

The following pictures was taken by my daughter as I only have two hands cannot capture the image. So it may not be that clear.

Well, since you are using cooked rice, that makes your life easier, you can shape the Chang first.

On a cutting board, roll the Chang into a long roll, divided it into about 60 g each and shaped it into a ball.

Take two bamboo leaves and make it in a shape of a cone.

Take one ball and try to make a hole in the middle. If you find that it is sticky, just dip your finger into some clean water and pat it on the glutinous rice.

Take a spoon and scope some fillings to fill the cavity;

Take another ball and flattened it and cover the fillings. If you want to add Pandanus leaves, add it now;

Put some water in your hand and press the rice downwards until you feel that there are no air between the rice and the fillings.

Press the tail of the bamboo leaves to cover the top portion and shape the tail like a swallow tail;

Twist it side wards to follow the shapes of the Chang. By now, your Chang should be in triangular shape and you should be able to hold the Chang with one hand.

Take a string and looped around the Chang tie using a live knot.

If you find that Chang are not really in the shape you want, try to adjust it now. Loosen the string or adjust the bamboo leaves to shape it to the desired shape.

After wrapping, check that there are no holes resulted from rough handling and there are small areas that are not covered with the leaves. These are “loopholes” that will create problems for you. If you boiled it , the rice will flow out (not all of course) and all the seasonings will be diluted with the water. It will also become sticky. JUST ENSURE THAT THERE ARE NO HOLES IN THE CHANG.

If you are newbie, don’t be greedy. Wrap a smaller Chang first, smaller is easier to wrap.

How to wrap Chineses Sticky Glutinous Rice Dumpling

If you are still not confident to wrap the Chang, why not try this:

I press my Chang in the shape of a bowl and steamed it. If you are not particular about the shape, you can still taste the Chang.

Steaming the Chang

Steam the Chang for about 10-15 minutes to let the glutinous rice to take shape. Note that unlike the traditional method where you will need to boil the rice which shall take at least 2-3 hours.

Your Chang will be ready and serve it when cool such that the glutinous rice will not be overly sticky.

If you look at the Chang that I have prepared, you will note that the rice stick to each other meaning the rice is very soft. This will be better for those that have gastro intestinal problems.

CONCLUSIONS

I hoped that readers can try the method as mentioned in this post to make your own Chang and clear some misconceptions of Chang making. This method have several advantages:

1. Considerably shortened the preparation time.

Using the rice cooker to cook the rice and steaming the Chang will at least saved 4-5 hours of preparation time;
The usage of food processors to process your garlic, shallots, mushrooms and meat will save at least another 2-3 hours;
The usage of box measurement will cut short your measuring time.

2. Using cooked rice instead of raw rice will increase your chances of success.

Cooked rice is easy to wrap into your desired shape and it will not leak out from the leaves. Tying the cooked rice Chang will be much easier than the raw rice Chang as it is softer.
Usage of cotton strings will also help to ensure the Chang can be tied and no hole in it.
Usage of bamboo leaves instead of traditional big Pandanus leaves will also shortened the process of cleaning the leaves and easier to wrap;

Take your first step to make some Chang for your family today. Whatever the output will be, your family will appreciate your thoughts and giving all the supports you required. Cheers.

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Is there any relationship between Dragon in a boat and a Peranakan Women?….The process of making Nonya Chang revisited…(Part II)

Posted on June 4, 2013 by Kenneth Goh

Dragon Boat activities are basically carried out during the Chinese Rice Dumpling Festivals (Duan Wu Jie (端午节）in Mandarin）and during these festival, rice dumpling were prepared for offering to the famous ancient Chinese Poet, Qu Yuan (屈原). Though the origin of rice dumpling is from China, however, overseas Chinese have incorporated each countries local elements into their version of rice dumpling. A peranakan lady is also called a nonya and their cooking blends both Chinese traditional and localized Malay elements. This post will detailed the process of preparing the Nonya version Chinese Rice Dumpling (hereinafter refer to as “Chang” or “Nonya Chang”).

The process of preparing the Chang will involve the following processes:

1. Cleaning of leaves;

2. Preparation of rice;

3. Preparation of fillings;

4. Wrapping of Chang;

5. Steaming of the Chang

WHAT IS REQUIRED

The table below summarizes the ingredients required for making about 30 Chang from 1.2 kg of rice or about 40g of uncooked rice per Chang.

Another way of measuring based on the variable measurement, weight measurements and my experiences are in the following ratios:

RICE (2) : MEAT (2) : MUSHROOM (1) : CANDIED MELON (1)

Ingredients	Variable measurement	Weight measurement
Diced pork belly （五花肉丁） (a)	1 box*	600g
Minced pork belly （五花肉碎） (a)	1 box	400g
Mushrooms （香菇） (b)	1 box	415g
Candied Winter Melon （冬瓜条） (c)	1 box	480g
Glutinous Rice （糯米） (d)	2 box (about 8 cups of rice)	1200g
Coriander powder （芫茜） (e)	2 bags of 25g each	50g
White pepper（白胡椒） (f)	2 bags of 15g each	30g
Five spice powder （五香粉）(f)	2 bags of 5g each	1og
Chopped garlic & shallot （蒜泥及小葱头碎） (g)	0.5 box (divide into 2 equal portions)	300g
White sugar, dark soya sauce, light soya sauce, salt (白糖，酱清，酱油，盐） (h)	to taste
Cooking oil （食用油）(i)	0.5-1 cups
Bamboo Leaves (竹叶） (j)	100 leaves
Reed strings or cotton strings （草绳） (k)	5o strings
Pandanus leaves（香兰叶） (l)	20 leaves
Butterfly pea flower （蝴蝶豆） (m)	10 flowers

NOTES:

(a) Pork Belly Meat

(b) Mushrooms

(c) Winter melons

(d) Glutinous rice

(e) Coriander powder (divided into 2 packets)

Coriander powder IS A MUST in Nonya Chang. It is this ingredients that make Nonya Chang its unique flavor.

(f) Five spice powder and white pepper powder (divided into 2 packets)

(g) Chopped Garlic and Onion (divided into 2 portions)

(h) White Sugar, Dark Soya Sauce, light Soya Sauce, Salt (h)

(i) Cooking Oil (divide into 2 portions)

(j) Bamboo leaves

pic courtesy of www.sgkopi.com

So, in order to save time, the big bamboo leaves imported from China is still preferred.

(k) Strings

(l) Pandanus leaves

As it is hard to get the big Pandanus leaves, I have used some small Pandanus leaves which was cut into small pieces for uses in the cooking of rice and can be recycled by wrapping inside the Chang.

(m) Butterfly Pea Flower (optional)

These are the pea flowers that I just pluck this morning and after submerging into the water for an hour, the color of the water become bluish. After one hour of soaking the rice, the rice is slightly bluish. As I have only used 4 flowers for demonstration purposes, therefore the color is slightly lighter. If you insist to have blue color but do not have any pea flowers, then, use blue coloring.

STEPS OF PREPEARATION

Cleaning of leaves and strings

Clean the leaves using a new sponge and wipe the leaves. Soak the leaves in hour for 1-2 hours. Use hot water if you want the leaves to be soften faster.

Preparation of Glutinous Rice

Wash your rice with clean water and sieved it when done.

If you want to use the pea flower, you will have to soak the rice in advance the let the blue color penetrate into the rice.

In a big frying pan, pour in some oil and put half of the chopped garlics and shallots. Stir fry over medium fire until the fragrance begins to spread in the kitchen;

Add in half of the coriander powder, white pepper and five spice powder to the mixture and continue frying until the garlics and shallots start to turn brownish. This is pretty fast and you have to carefully monitor it, otherwise, it will get burnt.

Add in the glutinous rice and fried until well mixed (not cooked and it should be quite fast). Add in seasonings and take a few uncooked rice to taste.

I have to remind again that you should be rather heavy handed with your seasonings, otherwise, the rice will be tasteless.

Cut the Pandanus leaves into small pieces and throw into the uncooked rice. Transfer half to your rice cooker. (Half of the rice is about 4 cups which is just nice for my rice cooker. However, if your rice cooker can cook 10-12 cups of rice, you can just put all the uncooked rice and cooked it once)

Add water (about 1 cup of uncooked rice with 1 cup of water). Stir it to mix well. (Glutinous rice is sticky and when you fried it, your seasonings may be stick just one part of the rice. Therefore, this step is required to ensure all seasonings are evenly spread to the rice).

Select “glutinous rice” function in the rice cooker and it will takes about 45 minutes to 1 hour to cook. Occasionally stir the rice to see if the bottom of the rice is burnt, if yes, stir it to prevent further damage;

After about an hour, the rice is cooked. Transfer to a big container, set aside and let it cool before the wrapping starts.

If you are unsure about the water needed, add less water first, Then add more water when you find that it is not cooked or start to get burnt. It is ok to have a bit of rice uncooked because you will continue to cook them when you steam the Chang later on.

Try to take a small spoon and scope some to taste. If you find that it is not tasty enough, add more seasonings at this stage to salvage your rice. But use liquid seasonings rather than solid seasonings. E.g. use light soya sauce instead of using salt at this stage.

Preparation of fillings

In a big frying pan, pour in some more oil and put the other half of the chopped garlics and shallots. Stir fry over medium fire until the fragrance begins to spread in the kitchen;

Add in the older half of the coriander powder, white pepper and five spice powder to the mixture and continue frying until the garlics and shallots start to turn brownish.
Add in the chopped mushrooms and fried a few minutes over medium until you can smell the fragrance of the mushrooms.
Add in the diced pork belly and fried until say 50% cooked. It is not necessary to be fully cooked because the frying will continues.

Add in the minced meat and fried to say about 70% cooked. Note that the minced meat was not added together with the diced pork belly because minced meat is easier to cook.

I preferred to add in the seasonings along long the process because I want the fillings’ color to be dark brownish. The earlier you put it your dark soya sauce, the easier your meat will become darker;

Add in the diced candied winter melons. Mixed well and add in sugar and other condiments.

Remember that the fillings is quite a lot and you have to be heavy handed with your seasoning.

Off the heat when all the fillings are well mixed and the color is even. Not need to be extremely concern whether the fillings is well cooked. Any uncooked fillings will be cooked again during the steaming process.

By now you should note your filling is quite oily. Get ready a container, place two spoons on the bottom and put another bowl upside down on top of the spoons. Transfer the fried fillings to the box and let it cool before you wrap the Chang.

The main purpose of this step is to let the oil dripped down to the bottom so that your fillings on top will not be greasy. You can then throw the oil away. This is the traditional method that my mum used to do. However, you can try just to sieve it and let the oil dripped out.

Before wrapping the Chang, let’s recap what you should have in the table.

Wrapping of Chang

The following pictures was taken by my daughter as I only have two hands cannot capture the image. So it may not be that clear.

Well, since you are using cooked rice, that makes your life easier, you can shape the Chang first

On a cutting board, roll the Chang into a long roll, divided it into about 60 g each and shaped it into a ball.

Take two bamboo leaves and make it in a shape of a cone.

Take one ball and try to make a hole in the middle. If you find that it is sticky, just dip your finger into some clean water and pat it on the glutinous rice.

Take a spoon and scope some fillings to fill the cavity;

Take another ball and flattened it and cover the fillings. If you want to add Pandanus leaves, add it now;

Put some water in your hand and press the rice downwards until you feel that there are no air between the rice and the fillings.

Press the tail of the bamboo leaves to cover the top portion and shape the tail like a swallow tail;

Twist it side wards to follow the shapes of the Chang. By now, your Chang should be in triangular shape and you should be able to hold the Chang with one hand.

Take a string and looped around the Chang tie using a live knot.

If you find that Chang are not really in the shape you want, try to adjust it now. Loosen the string or adjust the bamboo leaves to shape it to the desired shape.

After wrapping, check that there are no holes resulted from rough handling and there are small areas that are not covered with the leaves. These are “loopholes” that will create problems for you. If you boiled it , the rice will flow out (not all of course) and all the seasonings will be diluted with the water. It will also become sticky. JUST ENSURE THAT THERE ARE NO HOLES IN THE CHANG.

If you are newbie, don’t be greedy. Wrap a smaller Chang first, smaller is easier to wrap.

How to wrap Chineses Sticky Glutinous Rice Dumpling

If you are still not confident to wrap the Chang, why not try this:

I press my Chang in the shape of a bowl and steamed it. If you are not particular about the shape, you can still taste the Chang.

Steaming the Chang

Steam the Chang for about 10-15 minutes to let the glutinous rice to take shape. Note that unlike the traditional method where you will need to boil the rice which shall take at least 2-3 hours.

Your Chang will be ready and serve it when cool such that the glutinous rice will not be overly sticky.

If you look at the Chang that I have prepared, you will note that the rice stick to each other meaning the rice is very soft. This will be better for those that have gastro intestinal problems.

The light greenish color at one of the corner is the green tea bean paste that I have added since I have some at home. There are a lot of Teo-Chew adding “Oni” or “芋泥” (a type of yam paste) to the Chang and the taste is awesome.

CONCLUSIONS

I hoped that readers can try the method as mentioned in this post to make your own Chang and clear some misconceptions of Chang making. This method have several advantages:

1. Considerably shortened the preparation time.

Using the rice cooker to cook the rice and steaming the Chang will at least saved 4-5 hours of preparation time;
The usage of food processors to process your garlic, shallots, mushrooms and meat will save at least another 2-3 hours;
The usage of box measurement will cut short your measuring time.

2. Using cooked rice instead of raw rice will increase your chances of success.

Cooked rice is easy to wrap into your desired shape and it will not leak out from the leaves. Tying the cooked rice Chang will be much easier than the raw rice Chang as it is softer.
Usage of cotton strings will also help to ensure the Chang can be tied and no hole in it.
Usage of bamboo leaves instead of traditional big Pandanus leaves will also shortened the process of cleaning the leaves and easier to wrap;

Take your first step to make some Chang for your family today. Whatever the output will be, your family will appreciate your thoughts and giving all the supports you required. Cheers.

Hi, Let Start Cooking the Laksa …. An In Depth Analysis and Pictorial Procedural Description Of The Famous Sarawak Laksa (Part III)

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Kenneth Goh

PART III COOKING THE SARAWAK LAKSA

Part I and Part II are rather “theoretical” and this post will show you the practical steps to prepare the Sarawak laksa.

To make a delicious bowl of Sarawak Laksa, besides having some good laksa paste that I mentioned in Part II, there are few important things that you should note in your course of preparation. The process of preparation is rather laborious and I will list out the steps and unlike other posts, you should consider follow the order of steps here to save your time of preparation..

WHAT YOU NEED?

In this post, the units or quantities listed out here is for about 15 bowls of laksa and you should reduce it accordingly after taking into considerations the number of persons and personal preferences.

Fresh Prawns or Shrimps (1kg)
Chicken Breast (0.75kg)
Coconut milk (500g)

For coconut milk, you can use fresh or packet coconut milk. If you like it more milky (lemak), you can add in more coconut milk. If you are health conscious, either substitute it with evaporated milk or don’t add any milk at all. Have you ever heard that this delicacy is a “cardiologists nightmare”?

Thin Rice Vermicelli – 1 kg (about 2.5 packets commonly sold in the markets)
Home-made laksa paste or ready-made laksa paste – 1.5 kg (2-3 big packets commonly sold in the markets)

Do you know that to qualify a dish as laksa, the noodles must be either thick or thin rice vermicelli in it? Curry Mee is not a laksa as per definition of laksa here. At home, we do eat it with instant egg noodles .. Smile

Calamansi (about 20-30 pieces)
Some Sambal Belachan
Bean Sprouts
Coriander leaves and Chinese celery chopped into small pieces

One of the most important condiments in this dish is Sambal Belachan, a type of condiments made from shrimp paste. You can know more about belachan here. That is why sometime Sarawak Laksa is called Sarawak Sambal Laksa. I have buy the over-the-counter sambal belachan in Singapore and the taste just blends especially well with the soup.

If you have kids at home and they do not take spicy food, actually, when making the Laksa Paste, you can ignored chilli as an ingredients. So the laksa broth or soup that you cooked will not be spicy and you can let your kids have this. When you are eating on your own, just have one big scope of Sambal Belachan in it, the taste will be similar with those paste that have chilli in it..

MAY BE I SHOULD CONSIDER MAKING LAKSA PASTE FOR SALES TO CHILDREN OR SILVER AGE MARKET. THEORITICALLY, SARAWAK LAKSA WITHOUT COCONUT MILK AND TOO MUCH OIL SHOULD BE CONSIDER AS A HEALTH FOOD SINCE IT IS FULL OF SPICES AND HERBS…

The coriander leaves that you see in my picture is the type sold in Singapore and West Malaysia. Traditionally, in Kuching, Sarawak, coriander “seedlings” were used. However, it is harder to get it nowadays. In my old days, as one of my brothers do not like the strong smells of coriander leaves, we use Chinese celery instead. Until today, I still have the habit of mixing these two leaves as a garnish for the laksa.

THE COOKING BEGINS…

If you don’t want to add seasonings like “axinomoxo”, then try to follow these steps as it will save you time and seasonings! Joking.

Step 1 – Blanching the Chicken Breast

Clean your chicken breast, boil your water and put in the chicken breast. The minimum amount of water required will be at least to cover the chicken breast. But you can use more water as it will be used later.

Use medium heat and boil for about 20 minutes until cooked. Don’t cook too long because you breast will be juicy as all the juice will be in the soup.

Traditionally, in Kuching, chicken breasts were used because it is easier to hand shred and with less bones. However, you can also use the whole chicken. If this is the case, you have to use high heat to bring the water to boil, submerged your chicken and simmer for 30 minutes. Once cooked, dip in ice cold water. You can refer to my post on chicken rice here.

Hand shred your chicken breast and set aside for use.

Remember to keep your “chicken stock” for future use.

Step 2 – Blanching the prawns

Clean the prawns. Blanch the prawns with the chicken stocks in Step 1.

Personally, I prefer to blanch the prawns with shells at it will keep all the juices. If you shell the prawns, the blanch prawns will be less tasty.

This process will take only about 5 minutes. Sieve the prawns and set aside the “prawns and chicken stock”.

As long as the prawns are cool, shelled the prawns and devein it. If you found that the prawns are dirty after you devein it, use some cooked water to clean it.

DON’T THROW AWAY THE SHELL, keep it for next use.

Step 3 – Making of additional Prawn Stocks

In another pot, put in some more water and boil the prawn shells until the color starts to turn whitish. If you don’t need that much of soup, continue using the stock from Step 2 to cook the prawn shells.

The stock in the first picture is the prawn + chicken stock as mentioned in Step 2 (from blanching of chicken breast and the fresh prawns).

The stock in the third picture is the prawn stocks from boiling the prawn shells;

Look at the color of the stock, the milky color means that the soup is very concentrated and you can just take a spoon and taste it. It will be very delicious. A side note, if you are not cooking Sarawak Laksa, when you shelled the prawns, just keep it in the fridge until a sizeable amount, then use this step to cook the prawn stock, then you can use this stock to cook the Hokkien Prawn Mee or Penang Prawn Mee!

If you are concerned about the chicken oil and if you have time. Put in the fridge and let the oil solidify, just throw the oil away.

Steps 4 – Cooking the Laksa Soup

Put the home made laksa paste into the stock from Step 2 and 3. Bring to boil, add in coconut milk and other condiments. Off the fire immediately when it start to boil again. Otherwise, the coconut milk will turn into coconut oil and your laksa broth will be spoilt.

Remember that if you are afraid of having high cholesterol, use evaporated milk instead. How much coconut milk to add is very much depends on your personal preference. I remember when I was young, my parents sometime cook laksa without coconut milk….

Besides adding salt as a condiments, I have the habit of putting fish sauce instead.

Note that the color of my laksa broth is very bright because I use only fresh red chilli. If I used dry chilli, the color will be darker.

Cooking laksa will definitely yields quite a lot of oils. Just scope it away before you use the broth. Like chicken stock, you can put in the fridge for 2-3 hours, let the red oil solidify and throw that away. Heat up and serve. In that case your stock will look quite dull (brownish in color).

Step 5 – Making the Egg Omelets

Break the eggs, put a few drops of cooking oil, use fork or chop stick to slightly beat it until all the yolks and the whites are completely mixed.

Have a hot pan, pour some egg mixture into the pan. Either use a spatula to spread them evenly. You can also do this by twisting your pan slight in a circular motion.

As soon as the egg mixture is firm in the bottom and you can smell the fragrance of fried eggs, just scope up the omelets, let it cool and shred in fine long pieces.

Note that if you are using a non stick frying pan, there is no need for you to use oil for frying as long as your pan is very clean and free from any food particles. You can also add a few drops of oil to the egg mixture before you pan fried them.

THIS STEP CAN BE PERFORMED IN BETWEEN ANY STEPS BETWEEN STEP 1 AND STEP 4

Step 6 – Blanching The Bean Sprouts and Rice Vermicelli

In a frying pan, fill in some water and drip a few drops of cooking oil. Bring to boil, blanch the bean sprouts (approximately 5 minutes). Sieve the bean sprouts, set aside for later use.

Use the same water to blanch the rice vermicelli. That will take about 10-15 minutes depending how soft you want it to be. The process can be shortened if you have soaked the uncooked rice vermicelli before hand.

Once you sieved the rice vermicelli, quickly put it under running tap water (or if you don’t like to drink from tap water, use some cold boiled water) for about 2 minutes.The purpose of this step is to ensure that you have some springy rice vermicelli instead of soggy rice vermicelli that stick together.

The few drops of oil also have the role of ensuring that the rice vermicelli would not stick together. In addition, that small amount of oil will help you to “preserve” the color of your bean sprouts. It will look fresher instead of cook.

If you cannot stand the tails of the bean sprouts, you can hand picked the tails before you blanched them. For me, I usually hand picked the tails but when I run of times, I will just eat with the tails!!

This step is best carry out before you serve the guest.

Step 7 – Assembling and Garnishing

After a few hours of ordeal, you should start to “regret” making this dish! Lets have a quick recap of all the ingredients before serving.

You should have blanched rice vermicelli, blanched bean sprouts, chopped coriander leaves and Chinese celery, cooked Sarawak Laksa broth, blanched prawns, shredded chicken breasts, stripped egg omelets, calamansi and sambal belachan.

Take a bowl and assemble the ingredients following the sequence as in the picture (from left to right then to second row…) This, I believe will be the best presentation of your Laksa Sarawak. While the rice vermicelli have submerge in the soup, your prawns and the color egg stripes are sitting happily on top of you reddish gravy, Do you think it is appetizing.

CONCLUSIONS

In Part 1, the definition of Sarawak Laksa, its uniqueness and the popularity have been discussed HERE.

Part 2 dwelled into the details of making the Sarawak Laksa Paste with a list of all major raw ingredients, its procedures and a comparison analysis between recipes. Please refer HERE.
Part 3 detailed how Sarawak Laksa should be prepared.
Hopefully, this will benefit those who are keen to learn more about Sarawak Laksa and for those who are overseas, as all these spices are mostly imported from Middle Eastern countries, you can start making the paste using the powder form purchased from Indian stores. In that case, you will not worry about the kitchen equipment required, how to cook and grind the raw materials, it will at least cut short half of your time. I believed that this is also what our manufacturers in Sarawak is doing.
This is a long post that dealt with lots of research, reading and testing. If you found that it is useful, please forward to your friends. I will be most happy to answer any queries they have. Any factual findings that are not accurate, please drop me a line to let me know.

Appreciate your time reading this series and ENJOY YOUR HOME MADE SARAWAK LAKSA…

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 .

Hey, I have invented my own Sarawak Laksa Paste Recipe !!!……… An In Depth Analysis and Pictorial Procedural Description Of The Famous Sarawak Laksa (PART II)

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Kenneth Goh

PART II – THE SECRET OF SARAWAK LAKSA PASTE

INTRODUCTION

Most Sarawakian households cooked their laksa from ready-made laksa pastes made popular by the Tan’s Family in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Most people will not even bother to question how these pastes were made as the prices were reasonable and it can be easily purchased in major shops of Kuching, Besides, people were told that it is hard to home-made the laksa paste as it is laborious, time-consuming and a great number of ingredients were needed. In an article by Bernama New Agency dated 20 March 2006 (“LAKSA SARAWAK PASTE SET TO GO GLOBAL”), it was written

“…...Refusing to disclose his recipe, Tan (refer to Mr. Barrette Tan, the son of the Late Tan Yong Him) said the original paste to make Sarawak Laksa comprised of a mixture of 20 herbs and spices needed to blend well with the noodles”

WHY MAKING MY OWN PASTE…

Guai Shu Shu was invited to a gathering of about 15 old classmates residing in Singapore and Southern Peninsular Malaysia and Guai Shu Shu promised them that he will cook laksa for the gathering but did not check the stock of his laksa pastes. In his mind, he still remembers that he had two 600 g packs of laksa pastes in the kitchen shelf. The night before the gathering, Guai Shu Shu discovered that he only had a pack of 300g laksa paste. That obviously is inadequate to serve 15 people and they have put high expectations on the laksa since they have not eaten laksas for a long time. Not to disappoint these old “comrades”, Guai Shu Shu decided to make his own laksa paste and the search begins…

At around 6.00 a.m. the day of gathering, Guai Shu Shu was browsing the internet searching for a recipe of Sarawak Laksa paste. He is delighted to have found Recipe A and Recipe B (will explain in detail towards the end of the post). Based on these two recipes, Guai Shu Shu head towards Geylang Serai Market in Singapore to purchase the necessary ingredients.

FUNTIME AT GEYLANG SERAI

Guai Shu Shu stopped by a store owned by one rather friendly Indian Muslim woman and told her that he wanted various types of spice powders. He asked her for a piece of paper and jotted down a list of all the ingredients in the recipe’s original units and he asked the woman to give him the powder equivalent of these raw ingredients.

To my surprise, she was also not sure of such equivalents. (For example, the powder equivalent of 2 cm of fresh galangal). After she glanced through his list, she took out some small plastic bags and asked him to decide himself how much powder he wanted. She would ask, “SGD 50 cents of galangal powder, enough for you? You want more? SGD1 is like this much?”. Guai Shu Shu knew that he had no choice but to decide for himself. Therefore, since nobody knew the equivalent units, he made the decision not to follow the recipe exactly. Based on his understanding of spices, he bought about 10 spices ranging from SGD50 cents-SGD2 each. When he told her that he wanted SGD50cents of clove powder, she looked at him and said, “Encik, clover powder is very expensive, SGD50cents is around 1 teaspoon only!!!” She is kind enough to label for him all the powders he bought. When the list was completed, Guai Shu Shu started to go through with the woman the other type of powders in the containers that is not in his first lists, and he ended buying almost all the powders that she sold except turmeric powder (actually, this is the yellowish curry powder that differentiates Sarawak Laksa from curry laksa).

He really enjoyed the process of buying the spices, the woman is helpful and most of important of all, he never knew that there were such things as lemon grass powders, galangal powders, lemon grass powders… and not to mention belachan powder readily available in the market. All the recipes in the internet will only state units like cloves of garlic, pieces of dry chilli, number of candle nuts, cm of belachan and etc. He had cut short his preparation process by using the raw ingredients in its powder form. This had saved him a lot of time. The only thing that she don’t have was the shallot powder and Guai Shu Shu have had prepared his own shallot paste by pounding the fresh shallots.

After marketing all the necessary ingredients, Guai Shu Shu told his wife (who is also a Sarawakian) that he wanted to make his own laksa paste, she looked at him at disbelief and just said to him, “You better don’t “main-main”(Malay word of play)!” meaning she did not trust him and what would happen if he was not successful! Since Guai Shu Shu had bought all the ingredients,he was determined wanting to make the paste, otherwise the ingredients would be of no use to him.

WHAT HE BOUGHT EVENTUALLY…….

The following are the ingredients that Guai Shu Shu have bought. The picture on the right of each picture is the raw ingredients for the reader’s reference. As neither the sales lady nor Guai Shu Shu actually measured the ingredients, these quantities are estimated quantities based on his memories and will serve as references. A more meaningful comparison will be the ratios of each ingredient and an analysis will be done to reconfirm the ratios of the ingredients.

	~200 g of galangal powder~ 25 g of white pepper powder
	~100 g of candlenut powder~100 g of belachan powder
	~5 g of cumins powder~5 g of fennel powder
	~150g of lemon grass powder~5g of clove powder
	~10 g of nutmeg powder~100 g of coriander powder
	~300 g of garlic ginger paste~300 g of shallot paste
	~150 g of fresh chilli paste~ 100g of tamarind paste
	~ 150 g of peanut powder~ Salt to taste ~ 100 g of white sugar ~300-400 g of cooking oil

Overall, there are about 19 raw ingredients comprising about 1.0kg of dry powders and 850g of wet ingredients, Actually, this pretty closed to the 20 ingredients that Tan had mentioned above and there are a few items that were not included in my recipe above. These were star anise powder and cardamom powder. Therefore, this recipe should be pretty closed to Tan’s family recipe.

Overall, the gross uncooked paste weighs around 2 kg (inclusive of cooking oils)

THE GAMES BEGAN – MIXING THE DRY INGREDIENTS….

Pour the ginger and garlic paste into a big mixing bowl followed by the remaining wet ingredients, namely shallot paste, chilli paste and tamarind paste.

Put all the dry ingredients on top of the wet ingredients (2nd picture);

Start mixing the ingredients and make sure that all the ingredients were well mixed.

If you find that the mixture is too dry, add in some plain water until the final mixture resemble a paste as in the 4th picture.

Once the color of the ingredients is consistent, the paste is ready for the next step.

COOKING THE PASTE

Put the cooking oil in the wok and heat it using small to medium fire. You can begin by using half of the oil and add gradually when you realized that the ingredients are too dry and hard to fry (see below);

Initially, the raw ingredients are reddish in color before frying and the oils are very clear. Once you start frying, you will notice the ingredients start to absorb the oils. As long as you can still fry it smoothly, there is no need to add in more oil. Watch out for the heat used, the heat used should be medium heat and not high heat. Your mixture will get burnt even before it is cooked;

The third picture was after 1o minutes of frying. Note the oil color had changed to orange and the paste had started to change its color too. By this time, you should begin to smell the aroma from some cooked spices..

Cook for at least another 20 minutes or until the ingredients begin to separate from the oil. When the temperature is high, the moisture contents in the paste will boil and evaporated. Therefore, as you are using the same amount of oil to cook the dry ingredients, the excess oil will start seeping out of the mixture when there were less and less moisture.

When the color started to turn brownish, add in the sugar, salt to taste and peanut powder. Note that you may not be able to correctly add in the right quantity of salt at this point the time, but that is perfectly okay because you can adjust it when you cooked the laksa soup. However, for sugar, the role is not really to act as condiment but more to “color” the paste to the dark brownish colors. As Guai Shu Shu have used fresh chilli, the color of his pastes were rather bright. Most recipes use dry chili and if you used dry chilli, the color will be darker and you can see chili flakes in your pastes.

Fried for about 5-10 minutes until all you sugar start have melted and caramelized. Off the fire and if possible, let it stand for a night before cooking it. The fragrance will be stronger and more oils will be excreted.

It took at least 45 minutes to properly cook this paste.

MY FINAL PRODUCTS AND A BRIEF ANALYSIS..

On the left was final laksa paste that Guai Shu Shu have made and on the right was the laksa gravy cooked with his home-made paste . He had objectively compared his paste with the ready-made paste and have the following findings:

Texture – The ready-made paste was much softer with more liquid in it. All the ingredients were very fine. His version was slightly harder but once it was boiled in the soup it dissolved in the soup. The harder texture of his paste was attributed to higher heat used to cook the ingredients initially. Once they lost the moisture content too fast, they will start to form small chunks. Therefore, the heat should not be too high and it takes patience to do this. As this is the first time he cooked this manually, the consistency will definitely cannot be compared with those pastes made by the machines.

Fragrance – He concluded that the taste was quite close to the ready-made paste and he gave himself about 80/100. His classmates who have eaten the laksa have no major complaints about the taste. Of course, the taste can be further improved by trial and error like what Tan’s family have done initially.

THE SEARCH CONTINUES – LAKSA PASTE RECIPE IN THE INTERNET

On the day following his gathering, he continued to search for Sarawak Laksa paste in the internet and jotted down the ingredients of each recipe. In fact, there were not many recipes over the net and goggling “Sarawak Laksa paste recipe” shows only 1,250 results and most of them were not actually recipes but users asking for the recipe. However, he had managed to to get hold of about 6 recipes, and the most complete recipe should be the recipe published by 3hungrytummies in November 2011 with the title “Secret of Sarawak Laksa Paste Revealed” (Note: this is Recipe A that I have mentioned at the beginning of the post”). Surprisingly, this recipe was published by 3 guys residing in Melbourne and testing out the paste overseas. Is it possible that because they could not get the ready-made paste, they have to depend on their own to make their paste. They were diligently enough using all the raw ingredients but Guai Shu Shu have opted to use ingredients in its intermediary form mostly powder and paste.

Guai Shu Shu is determined to find out what constitute the unique flavors of Sarawak Laksa and he used excel spreadsheet to perform an analysis of all the recipes that he obtained from the internet. The summary were tabulated as follows:

	A	B	C	D	E	F	GSS
Shallots	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Garlics	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Onion						x	x
Galangal	x	x	x	x	x		X
Dried Chillies	x	x	x	x	x	x	X
Red chillies	x	x				x	X
Lemon Grass	x	x	x	x	x		X
Tamarind	X					x	X
Candlenuts	X	x	x	x	x		X
Cumin Seeds				x			X
Fennel seeds				X			X
Coriander seeds	x			X			X
Star Anise	X
Cloves	X						X
Nutmeg	X						X
Cardamoms	X						X
Cinnamon			x			x
Sesame seeds	X
Belachan		x	x	x	x		X
Dried Shrimps						X
Peanuts	x						X
Sugar	X						X
Salt	X						X

Source:	A:	http://3hungrytummies.blogspot.sg
	B:	http://allrecipes.asia/recipe/1987/laksa-sarawak.aspx
	C:	http://www.pickles-and-spices.com
	D:	http://almaraz97.blogspot.sg/2012/02/laksa-sarawak-sambal-udang-kering.html
	E:	http://koleksiresipi.blogspot.sg/2004/11/laksa-sarawak-dan-sambal-udang-kering.html
	F:	http://www.bukisa.com/articles/78517_laksa-sarawak
	GSS:	Guai Shu Shu recipe

CONCLUSIONS

Based on the above brief analysis,Guai Shu Su is of the opinion that:

The must-have ingredients for the laksa paste are shallots, garlics, candlenuts, galangal, lemon grass and corainder seeds.
The ratio of galangal to shallots should be about 1:1;
Coriander powder, garlic, candlenuts and lemon grass are equally important and the ratio should be at least half of the galangal or shallots volume;
All the spices should be used in moderation about 1/20 of the volume of galangal. These are not absolutely necessarysince many recipes do not use them;
The statement that “Sarawak Laksa Paste required more than 20 herbs and spices to produce” is valid and acceptable.
It can be rather time-consuming to make the paste specifically in the process of frying/cooking where only low to medium heat can be used to cook the paste. In addition, assembly of all the ingredients can also be a tedious process.

Guai Shu Shu will continue to test his own laksa recipe. In the event that they are new findings, it will definitely be shared with readers. It is hoped that readers can also try the above recipe and feedback to me.

The final post of this short series will focus on the preparation of Sarawak Laksa.

Happy reading.

Hey, My Laksa Secret Recipe Was Stolen!!!……… An In Depth Analysis and Pictorial Procedural Description Of The Famous Sarawak Laksa (PART I)

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Kenneth Goh

INTRODUCTION

Like any other Sarawakians, I am proud of our own version of laksa, Sarawak Laksa. It will not do Sarawak Laksa any justice if I did not do a detail post on Sarawak Laksa. In fact, Sarawak laksa have gained popularity over the years and its importance cannot be ignored. Goggling “Sarawak Laksa” will yield 243,000 results where goggling “Assam Laksa” and “Curry Laksa” will only yield 143,000 and 158,000 results respectively.

Sarawakians believed that Sarawak Laksa is unique and cannot be compared with any other laksas in the regions. Sarawakian living in Sarawak can have laksas for almost any meals (be it breakfasts, lunches, dinners or suppers) where Sarawkian residing overseas are thinking dearly of their laksas in hometown. Their luggage will never lack of one or two packets of ready-made laksa paste for bringing over to their country of residence overseas. It is a treasure to them and only cooked in special occasions to entertain guests as a showcase that Sarawak laksas are distinctively better than any other laksas in the world!

Traditionally, laksa paste ingredients have been considered as family secrets belonging to a few families in Kuching, Sarawak. During my parent’s time, it was the “Swallow” brand of paste that we recognized as laksa. However, due to the discontinuation of “Swallow” brand, I have bought countless brands of laksa paste with various types of “birds” logos. But none was closed to what I have eaten when I was young. May be this is one of the reasons that foodies in Kuching are always arguing who have the best laksa in Kuching and in Sarawak. Of course, who had the best laksa will always a matter of personal preference and the differences always lies in the ratios of the species used.

This series is rather long will both be “theoretical” and “practical” and comprise 3 posts as follows:

Part 1 – Sarawak Laksa and Its Origin
Part 2 – The Secret of Sarawak Laksa Paste
Part 3 – The Detail Preparation of Sarawak laksa

It is hoped that readers will bear with me for this long post. In my humble opinion, posting on how to cook the Sarawak Laksa using over-the-counter laksa paste purchased is of no value added to this blog and wasting readers’ time. Readers can find these preparation procedures all over the internet and in fact, at the back of the laksa paste label, there are clear instructions on how to cook the Sarawak laksa.

LAKSA AND SARAWAK LAKSA DEFINED……

“ Laksa is a popular spicy noodle soup from the Peranakan culture, which is a merger of Chinese and Malay elements found in Malaysia and Singapore, and Indonesia.

Sarawak laksa (Malay: Laksa Sarawak) comes from the Malaysian state Sarawak, on the island of Borneo. It is actually very different from the curry laksa as the soup contains no curry at all. It has a base of Sambal belacan, sour tamarind, garlic, galangal, lemon grass and coconut milk, topped with omelets strips, chicken strips, prawns, fresh coriander and optionally lime. Ingredients such as bean sprouts, (sliced) fried tofu or other seafood are not traditional but are sometimes added. “

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laksa)

Many blogs and websites may have using the above quotes to define Sarawak Laksa as there were not many information pertaining to the definition of Sarawak Laksa. In Wikipedia.com, Sarawak Laksa belongs to one of the variants of two main laksa categories as follows:

Curry Laksa (coconut milk based gravy comprises curry laksa, laksa lemak, laksam, Katong Laksa)
Assam Laksa (tamarind based gravy comprises Penang Laksa, Perlis Laksa, Kedah Laksa, Ipoh Laksa, Kuala Kangsar Laksa,

Other variants of laksas (used both coconut milks and tamarind in its gravy), besides Sarawak Laksa, will include Johor Laksa, Kelatan Laksa, Bogor Laksa, Palembang Laksa, Banjar Laksa.

ORIGINS OF LAKSA AND SARAWAK LAKSA

Per Wikipedia, laksa origin is unclear. However, it is strongly believed to be closely related to the Hindi/Persian “Lakshah” referring to a type of vermicelli which in turns derived from the word Sanskrit lakshas meaning one hundred thousand. In Indonesian Malay, laksa refers to “sepuluh ribu” or 10,000 signifying many strands of fine white vermicelli noodles in the dish.

The origins of Sarawak laksa is equally unclear and there were no literature that clearly confirmed its origin. However, it is widely agreed the popularity of Sarawak Sambal Laksa pastes were popularized by the Tan Family in Kuching in the 1960-1970’s.

In the article “Tasty State Secret” written by Paul Si of “thestar.com.my”, origins of Sarawak laksa paste can be traced back to the time when the late Mr. Tan Yong Him started experimenting his own concoctions of herbs and spices in the early 1960’s and packaged his laksa paste for sale under the “swallow brand”. The paste started to gain popularity in the 1970’s when economy picking up and people started to frequent eating outlets. Stall owners in the hawker centers and coffee shops were able to use the over-the-counter laksa paste and cook the laksa for sale and household can buy the paste and cooked the laksa at home. (Note: the swallow brand had discontinued due to family differences in opinion and I understand the Barrett Brand belongs to one the late Tan’s sons and you can now buy the Sarawak Sambal Laksa paste on-line via www.laksasarawak.com).

While the above paragraph provided a brief history accounting for the popularity of Sarawak Laksa and its unique flavors due to Tan’s hard work and own concoction of Laksa paste, but why Tan had had these ideas to start of his trial and error spice puzzles remained unclear. The same article mentioned that “old timers recalled that people did not eat out much in the leans years follow World War II so first memories of eating laksa at a coffee shop were set in the late 1950’s”. So questions that still ponder in my mind would be were there any laksa being sold prior to 1950’s; if it was not popular eating out then, was there any home cooked laksa? Is the laksa paste ingredients consistent among households? Is it dominated by only one race? At the time of writing this, I could not locate any literatures to offer the answers. If answers to these questions were negative, then, the honor of popularizing Sarawak Laksa would have to be accorded to the Tan Family.

CONCLUSION

From the above write up, the following preliminary conclusions can be drawn.

Laksa in short can be defined as a bowlful of rice vermicelli, under the influence of Malay, Chinese or Peranakan Cooking that have a unique soup based with either coconut milk or tamarind as the main ingredients. It should be noted laksa should only use thick of thin rice vermicelli and in accordance to this definition, “curry mees” or “curry noodles” do not fall under the category of laksa.

In the Malay Archipelagos stretching from Burma to Indonesia, most regions have their own versions of laksas of either curry based or tamarind based or a mixture of both. Therefore, it will not be a surprise at all if the region of Sarawak also have their own variants. As like laksas in general, Sarawak Laksa’s origin is unclear and it is possible that prior to World War II, the laksa in Sarawak could be the same as other regions in the Malay Archipelago. However, the present unique flavors of Sarawak Laksa and its popularity among the Sarawak was very much due the entrepreneurial spirit and diligence of the late Tan Yong Him’s. The fact that Sarawak Laksa is widely accepted among the Sarawak Chinese Community could be another piece of evidence of Tan’s contribution.

In the next post, I will detail out an analysis of Sarawak Laksa Paste ingredients as compared to Guai Shu Shu’s version.

HAPPY READING and I am most happy to receive more information on the history and origins of Sarawak Laksa for this pride Sarawak “state” delicacies.

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Who Said Bread Puddings Must Be Prepared As Such…..Bread Puddings “Reinvented”

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Kenneth Goh

THE “GUAI” IDEAS…

Guai Shu Shu is a “Shu Shu” that is Guai (literally translated to an uncle that has a bewildered behavior or behaved in an odd or even abnormal manner). Yes, Guai Shu Shu never contented with the present state of his surroundings; he like to explore; he like to change and he likes to mix and match. In his mind, he is thinking: “what would happen if chocolates were added to breads; breads were added to eggs; eggs were added to cakes; cakes were mixed with milk; milk were mixed with banana; banana were mixed with sugars, sugars were mixed with scones, scones mixed with donuts…………..etc. etc.. etc.”

After dinner, he took out a mixing bowl and a baking tin, he wasted no time wanted to experiment and confirm his new mix and match ideas. He started to bake this “modified version” of egg puddings or bread puddings or chocolate puddings???? He knows for sure that if no actions were taken to address these idle “chocolates, breads and bananas” in the kitchen, they would soon be “kicked” out of the house…

BREAD PUDDINGS “DEFINED”….

As is consistent with my Food Preparation Series and Creative Food Series, I will have some quotes from “Wikipedia” with regards to the food items that I am going to post. I believed that readers should have a better knowledge on the topics instead of just “whole heartedly” follow what I mentioned in the post.

“Bread pudding is a bread-based dessert popular in many countries’ cuisine, including that of Cuba, Ireland, Great Britain, France, Belgium,Puerto Rico, Mexico, Malta, Argentina, Louisiana Creole, Germany, and the southern United States. In other languages, its name is a translation of “bread pudding” or even just “pudding”, for example “pudín” or “budín” in Spanish; also in Spanish another name is “migas” (crumbs). In Mexico, there is a similar dish, capirotada.

There is no fixed recipe, but it is usually made using stale (usually left-over) bread, and some combination of ingredients like milk, egg, suet, sugar or syrup, dried fruit, and spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, mace or vanilla. The bread is soaked in the liquids, mixed with the other ingredients, and baked.

It may be served with a sweet sauce of some sort, such as whiskey sauce, rum sauce, or caramel sauce, but is typically sprinkled with sugar and eaten warm in squares or slices. In Canada it is often made with maple syrup. In Malaysia, bread pudding is eaten with custard sauce. In Hong Kong, bread pudding is usually served with vanilla cream dressing. In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany, black bread is used to make “black bread pudding” (Schwarzbrot pudding). In Hungary it is called ‘Máglyarakás’ which is baked with whipped egg whites on top of it.

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_pudding)

RECIPE FOR BREAD PUDDINGS……? SUBSTITUTABLE?…

Besides understanding what is the output, it would be nice to spend a bit of time to understand the ingredients used and the rationale of using such ingredients. Understanding the role of the ingredients will help you to find suitable substitutes and exploring your own new recipes.. Theory is still important…

In the above quote, it is stated clearly that “THERE IS NO FIXED RECIPE” and usually made from… The important word is no fixed recipe. You can easily made substitutions to almost everything but the bread and eggs. Even then I have substitute the bread with some Chinese New Year Cookies and you can read it here.

The theory behind the proposed usage of bread and eggs are the need to have some glutens and liquids to hold the “mixture” in shape.. Any things that contain gluten are possibilities to explore. Gluten is a protein in the flour that when combines with water will produce an elastic and web like structure and if it is too technical, just think of it as wheat flour. For example, bread, scones, muffins, biscuits, breakfast cereals, donuts…..These are called “strengtheners”…..

However, baking flour alone will yield you nothing, you need liquids… Eggs are used because it is a perfect binding agent (meaning hold the flour together) and give you a nice aroma. Eggs here serves both as a role of “strengtheners and tenderizers”. Other liquids can be explore such as milk, melted fats (butters), waters.. Use your sense to mix and match and you will soon find an optimum combination that you and your family like. But remember “Garbage in garbage out”, if you want a simple taste, white breads will do. If you want other flavors, you can have cinnamon rolls, chocolate donuts etc. and it would not do you any harm as long as the ingredients are still edible and you like the tastes.

WHY STALE BREADS ARE USED

Looking at the Wikipedia quote again. “……..and usually made from stale bread……” Stale breads are breads just a fraction of time away before fungi and mold finds its new home, meaning breads that are not that fresh, textures have slightly change, in your house already a few days but before it turns moldy…The “inventors” of bread puddings have found this wonderful combinations to hide away all the negative perceptions of these stale breads. They used eggs and milk and butters to enhance to taste and texture and making foodie would not able to resist a bite without knowing how it is prepared.

The definition of stale bread above should be expanded to include “the heels and pesky ends of your bread toast”, stale muffins, scones, cookies, buns etc. etc. etc. You can “collect” all these ingredients and put it in the fridge and once it reach a sizeable quantity, just made a bread budding and declared to your families that “For better future, we will implement cost savings measures, we have to be more budget conscious now. Lets have some stale breads for breakfast today..….” Be right back

WHAT I USED

I have some lindor chocolates, some meiji dark chocolates, and some chocolates from Lambertz in Germany. I have difficult to eat all these chocolates as some are either too bitter or extremely sweet …

I have half a loaf of French loaf already with me for about a week, You can see the bread crumbs all falling out when I cut it signifying that the bread was too dry;

Some stale breakfast loaf as a “foundation” for my puddings. The sides have started to “shrink” meaning a lack of moisture and should be consumed as soon as possible.

Some bananas. Why bananas? I bought a bunch of banana and after a few days of eating, I still left with 4 pieces and fruit flies kept visiting them, I thought I might as well threw it in.

Some fresh full cream milk – don’t worry if you don’t have this or if you are health conscious, just substitute with 100% fat free milk or even just make some milk using your kids milk powder, or soya bean milk. The role of milk is to moisten the dry ingredients and to make it creamy. Of course, there is a thread off between health food and mouth watering sinful cuisines. Yes, plain water can also be used;

Some sugar – depending on the “type” of “sweet tooth” you have, some sugars to sweeten it. Yes, I forgot to say, condensed milk or creamer is a perfect substitute.

Some eggs – better use this as it help to bind the mixture. Any substitutes… can try corn starch..(I substitute corn starch for my vegetarian pineapple tarts and it work perfectly well.)

Some melted fats – Margarine or butter or vegetable shortening?.. you choose yourselves. These are called “shorteners”. I want a buttery flavor and I have some margarines left in the fridge, so I melted some butters and margarines…

HOW MUCH, HOW MANY,……..

For some readers who are keen to try, I have used the following measurements for the liquid mixtures:

6 whole eggs;
4 cups of full cream milks;
1.5 cups of sugars;
1 cup of melted margarines and butters;

As for the dry ingredients:

half a French Loaf (small sized);
4 pieces of stale breads (front and end)
One left over lemon icing scone;
One leftover chocolate donut;
About 20 pieces of candy chocolates;
4 over ripe bananas.

Again and again, the above measurements are for your reference only. How much it actually required will depends on the ingredients that you used. Some of the bread are drier and you will need more liquids. Used your best estimates. Don’t worry, in the event that your liquid mixture is not adequate, poor in some more milk or water…

PREPARING YOUR LIQUID MIXTURES..

In a mixing bowl, break your eggs, add sugars, milk, melted fats and used an egg beater to whisk the mixture until well mixed and if possible, all the sugars dissolved. Of course, you can use an electric mixer to do the job. Set aside for later use.

LAYERING YOUR INGREDIENTS

Here come the process that I like most and it all depends on your own creativities.

First layer – four slices of breakfast loaf. Intentionally used them in this level because it will be easier for you to scope out the puddings and it wouldn’t break;

Second layer – chocolates that I can’t appreciate in its “present form”. Actually, these are all branded chocolates but have been sleeping in my fridge for quite a while;

Third Layer – French loaf cut into small chunks. I used a scissor to cut it and frankly, this is the first time to use a scissor to cut my breads and the satisfaction is extremely good seeing this small little white bread chunks;

Fourth Layer – Banana slices. Is it not beautiful?

Fifth Layer – slices of lemon icing scone and chocolate donuts bought from Starbucks three days ago. I sprinkled some dried cranberries (it possible, soaked in hot water or rum) on top to make it look more appetizing.

“BATHING” THE INGREDIENTS…..

Pour your liquid mixtures into the layers of dry ingredients. Don’t rush, let it go and fill all the holes that they can find. Alternatively, you can soaked all the dry ingredients first and dump everything in the baking tin…Then, you would not have a nice layer in your final puddings.

I like to “poke” the dry ingredients. Once you poked, suddenly, all the liquids will disappear (try to think of a sponge). You will be surprise to see how much liquids these breads can absorb. Poke and pour and poke and pour and poke and pour until you are satisfied that all the breads are full and cannot take in any more “drinks”.

I am cruel and I use a spoon to press them again and ensure that none of the breads are telling lies… You should feel that some of the ingredients started to “float” and pressing will not decrease the liquid quantities any more;

Being “kiasu” or afraid to lose, I usually pour some more milk to sit on top of the mixtures and in another 10 minutes or so, it will disappear. Actually, the breads like human being, needs time to absorb the liquid…

Heat your oven’s to about 180 degree Celsius and bake for about 30 to 45 minutes or until set. Until set means when you push your baking tin, you are pushing a tin full of solid or semi solid instead of a tin of water. Imagine you are eating an egg tart or bean curd jelly “tau hua”.

Temperature of the oven can also be adjusted. Only you know your oven well, if you find that your pudding is slightly burnt and yet to get set, lower the temperature. In this “experiment”, after 30 minutes, I have lowered my oven temperature to 150 degrees because the center of pudding is still not that firm and the top layer appeared to get burnt.
If you looked carefully, you will see that I am using “steam bake” method for the baking of the pudding. Steam bake means you put some water in the oven and let the water vapors generated to moisten your puddings. However, this is not absolutely a must if your liquids are enough.

After 40 minutes, my pudding is ready. Overall, it took about one and a half hour from preparing the ingredients until “full completion”. Can you see the crispy top layer.

In the unlikely event that you don’t have any oven, don’t worry, just steam it. It will turn out as delicious except that you do not have the golden brown top layer.

PUDDINGS DISSECTIONS AND ANALYSIS……

I only “cut” plus “scope” the puddings this morning. If you look carefully and go back to the layers that I have mentioned above, you will be able to identify the various in this “ugly” puddings.

Remember the second layer of chocolates? It was replaced by a light yellowish layer of egg puddings. When you bake, the chocolates will melt; if it is too hot, all the fats will be excreted leaving a layer of cocoa powder. When they are empty spaces, the eggs and milks will drip down to fill the cavities and become egg puddings. Actually, this is the layers that I like most. Soft and tasty and complement the hardier texture of all the other ingredients.

As I have used lemon icing scones, the top layers of the puddings have a rather strong lemon flavor, the middle layer have some chocolates that oozes out when you bite them and some sweet slice of ripe bananas. And that follows by a layer of hard to resist egg puddings…

SERVING

My wife have a bowl without anything added and this is my kid’s version:

Yes, serve with some cold chocolate fresh milk.

If you serve this as a dessert, you can serve with maple syrups, ICE CREAMS…..

UGLINESS…..

Lastly, my wife complained that the shape looks terrible when I put one scope into the bowl. I protested that bread puddings should look something like what I baked. Shapeless means it is soft and moist.. To defend my ground, let’s look at some of the pictures in the internet.

	Austin Leslie’s Creole bread pudding with vanilla whiskey sauce, from the late Pampy’s Restaurant in New Orleans, Louisiana Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_pudding
	This capirotada, or Mexican bread pudding, features layers of nuts, cheese, dried fruit, and bread drizzled with cinnamon-infused sugar syrup. Source: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/capirotada-mexican-bread-pudding
	Amaretto Bread Puddings Source: http://foodmuses.com/2009/12/14/amaretto-bread-pudding/
	Budget conscious cost saving puddings Source: http://kwgls.tumblr.com https://instagram/kenwugls https://twitter.com/kengls

This is a rather long post and I hope you like the post. Feel free to try your own versions and share with me about your own adventures.

Cheers.

Come and have a cup of Chrysanthemum Tea （菊花茶） …

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Kenneth Goh

Chrysanthemum tea (Chinese: 菊花茶; pinyin: júhuā chá) is a flower-based tisane made from chrysanthemum flowers of the species Chrysanthemum morifolium or Chrysanthemum indicum, which are most popular in East Asia. To prepare the tea, chrysanthemum flowers (usually dried) are steeped in hot water (usually 90 to 95 degrees Celsius after cooling from a boil) in either a teapot, cup, or glass; often rock sugar is also added, and occasionally also wolfberries. The resulting drink is transparent and ranges from pale to bright yellow in color, with a floral aroma. In Chinese tradition, once a pot of chrysanthemum tea has been drunk, hot water is typically added again to the flowers in the pot (producing a tea that is slightly less strong); this process is often repeated several times. Chrysanthemum tea was first drunk during the Song Dynasty (960–1279). (source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysanthemum_tea)

The weather is hot and why not have a cup or a glass of chrysanthemum tea to cool you off.

WHY THIS DRINK

There are lots of reasons that you should consider drinking chrysanthemum tea. Among the reasons are:

a natural coolant to lower your body heat;
It can assist in the treatment of acnes, pimples, toothache, headache, throbbing nerves in the gum;
rich in Vitamin C and help to relieve heaviness of head during cold and provide relief in sinusitis discomfort;
ability to lower cholesterol level;
detoxification of liver;
ease digestion after a heavy meal of greasy foods;
assists in treatment of block arteries and coronary artery disease;
providing relief to sore throat, redness, itchiness and dryness in eyes；
It has lots of minerals from calcium to magnesium to potassium and vitamins like Vitamin B1, Vitamin C etc.

This drink is extremely easy to prepare but some friends of mine have misconceptions that the preparation troublesome. They would rather pay SGD1-2 for a glass of or SGD0.50-SGD1 for a tin or packet of chrysanthemum tea.

Therefore, I have decided to share the steps with readers who have never prepare this tea before and assure you that it is not troublesome at all to prepare some chrysanthemum tea for your family.

WHAT IS REQUIRED

Dried chrysanthemum, brown rock sugar and water. You can buy both the dried chrysanthemum and brown rock sugar at the Chinese herbal shop.

PREPARATION STEPS

Get ready some dried chrysanthemum and wash away the dirt. Put these washed chrysanthemums into a pot filled with water. Boiled for about 10 minutes. Add in rock sugar and boiled for another 5 minutes. Sieved and serve hot or cold. If you found that the chrysanthemum tea is too concentrated or too sweet, just add in some more hot water.

Note: Don’t boiled the chrysanthemum too long because it can then become very bitter. You can add in some more water and re-boil the flower for the second time. After it boiled for 5 minutes, add additional rock sugar to taste. For this boiling, the color should be lighter and the taste is less concentrated.

VARIATIONS

The above method is the method that we used to cook in Singapore or Malaysia. Another method is to hot water and mix steep for about 5 minutes. However, the drinks will become less concentrated. If you used the mix steep method, you can also consider add in some wolfberries, ginseng and licorice.

source: www.blucraneacupuncture.blogspot.com source: http://boldcathybold.blogspot.sg

CONCLUSIONS

Chinese (in fact other Asians like Korean and Japanese) believed that chrysanthemum flowers possess medicinal values and an excellent “cooling” herbs. Constant drinking of this flower tea will help to improve immune systems, liver detoxification, fat cleansing and cool down your body temperature. As such, knowing how to make this herbal tea will definitely be a preferred alternative when compared to purchase the packet or tin drinks in the grocery stores.

Happy reading.

Why Not Cook Your Mother A Meal Of Chicken Rice This Coming Mother’s Day?

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Kenneth Goh

Hainanese chicken rice is a dish of Chinese origin, and is most commonly associated with Hainanese, Malaysian and Singaporean cuisines, although it is also commonly sold in Thailand. It is based on the well-known Hainanese dish called Wenchang chicken (文昌雞), due to its roots in Hainan cuisine and its adoption by the Hainanese overseas Chinese population in the Nanyang area (present-day Southeast Asia). Hainanese chicken also appears as a specialty in Vietnamese cuisine. Mother’s day is approaching and it would be a bad idea to prepare some dishes for her and why not consider Chicken Rice. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainanese_chicken_rice)

As explained above, chicken rice is a common household dish and hawker’s saleable item. It is welcomed by population of all age groups in Singapore and Malaysia, be it children, teens or adults and all levels from workers to top executives. Singapore is famous for its chicken rice (actually, I am not sure about the reasons behind this since places like Ipoh, Malaysia are also famous for their chicken rice) and is deemed to be a “national dish”. It is also one of the items served by Singapore Airlines for its business class and first class customers.

My kids loved chicken rice and I decided to cook chicken rice yesterday since they have been mentioning it for quite a while. In fact, they are having chicken rice at least one to twice a week at the school canteen.

IS CHICKEN RICE DIFFICULT TO PREPARE? – Simplified version of chicken rice preparation

Chicken rice is basically “chicken” plus “rice”. If you are not fussy and able to forgo a lot of minute details in the dish preparations, you will score possibly a pass in your preparation.

If I am not having meals at home, my mother in law can cook a pot of chicken rice serving our family (2 adults and 2 kids; 2 women, 1 girl, 1 boy) with just two drumsticks. This was how she did it. She cleaned the drumsticks; mixed the uncooked rice with a few spoons of chicken rice sauces sold in the supermarket; added a few sticks of pandan leaves; put it in the rice cooker; put the drumstick on top of the rice and in the rice cooker. This is a super quick way to cook, my mother in law was using the steam generated from cooking the rice to cook the chicken and let the juices drip into the rice. It took her only 20 minutes to cook. There was no complaint from her daughters and grandchildren as the three women family members don’t really like to consume meat. They just want “chicken-rice flavored white rice” and they are more than happy to give all the drumsticks to my son. HOW BRILLIANT IS MY MOTHER IN LAW!

However, if you and your family members are food critics, then you may take a while for you to prepare an entire dish until the level acceptable by the foodies. The next question would logically be what differentiates a plate of delicious chicken rice from the “yucky” one.

WHAT CONSTITUTES A GOOD PLATE OF CHICKEN RICE ?

Usually, the chicken rice was assessed based on the following criteria:

RICE
Fragrance	Should emit a nice aroma which basically is a mixture of fragrances from pandan leaves, ginger and garlic
Texture	The rice should be soft but still maintain the original grain shape. It should not be soggy (meaning too much water added) and greasy.
Color	Color should be slightly yellowish that and not plain white. Yellowish color makes the rice looks more presentable and appetizing.
CHICKEN
Texture	Should be soft and juicy. Therefore, simmering/poaching of chicken is one of the critical processes in this dish preparation.
Appearance	A bit glazy, skin should not be broken. However, most households will throw away the skin and de-bone the chicken before serving it.
Fragrance	As original as possible

CONDIMENTS
Chili sauce	Beside spicy, chili sauce must also have the fragrance of sesame oil, ginger, garlic and lime.
Specially made soya sauce	The soya sauce should be thick and slightly sweet
Ginger sauce	Gingers were freshly ground and overall sauce must be tasty enough

Before I go ahead, I have to caution that my recipe is the healthy version but the outputs resemble those chicken rice sold in hawker centers or posh hotels or restaurants. You got the hint? Smile If you found my ingredients are not that healthy, just substitute with what you usually use. Of course, not the chicken and rice!!! I will justify the usage of my ingredients.

PREPARATION PROCESS

Getting Ready….
	One medium sized chicken. When you buy the chicken, you have to make sure that you have a pot big enough to submerge the whole chicken. I have used a smaller chicken because I only have 4 persons for the meals. For your reference, I have paid SGD 4.80 for chicken, therefore, it is rather small. I do not recommend to use frozen chicken as the taste would not be the same. Additional chicken feet in preparation of chicken stock (may be SGD 1 for 10 chicken feet) and keep the chicken fats for frying the garlics and gingers. One cube of ready made chicken stock (optional). Lots of garlics, gingers and bits of fresh tumeric (optional).
	2 bundles of pandan leaves. It is definitely recommended if you are in Malaysia and Singapore but if you cannot get it in your countries, you can go without it but use more gingers and garlics instead. Some coriander leaves, tomatoes and cucumbers for garnishing. Light soya sauce, thick dark soya sauce, cooking oil, sesame oil for condiments. If you can’t get the thick dark soya sauce, you can use the normal dark soya sauce and add in some rock sugar
Preparing the ingredients….
	Pound the garlics and gingers as fine as possible. Add in a bit of tumeric if desired. Set aside for future use. Note that I have included a small slice of tumeric for the purpose of color the rice. Tumeric is a good coloring agent and in fact, it blends quite well with ginger and garlic. You can see from the second picture that the pounded mixture is a big yellowish. But do not add too much until it covers up the fragrance of garlic and ginger. In a bowl, get ready some chicken stock cubes, dissolved in hot water and set aside for later use.This step is optional but I opt to do it because I need not to add a lot of condiments such as light soya sauce, salt etc. to the chicken rice later. Sliced some cucumbers and tomatoes and set aside for later use. Personally, I would think that a plate of chicken rice is incomplete without slices of cucumber in it. The role of cucumbers and tomatoes is to negate the greasiness of the rice and chickens since it is just “chicken plus rice” without any vegetables. Size and shape of cucumber is up to individual and here, I have slice it into funny shapes for future garnishing. Tomatoes are optional but I love the color and it blends well with the chicken rice.
Preparing the chicken ….
	Clean the chickens and pluck off any feathers and hairs found. Chop off the heads and legs. The legs can be used for preparing the chicken stocks. If any chicken fats were found, wash and keep these fats for future use. You may consider to use coarse sea salts to rub on the chicken skin such that you have a smooth polished chicken skin. I did not perform this step as I did not have any coarse salts with me. I have purposely bought some additional legs for the preparation of chicken stock as I found that one chicken is just not adequate to bring out the fragrance of the chicken rice. The garlics and gingers quantities in this picture were for reference only.
	Get ready a pot of water. Throw some garlics, gingers, pandan leaves and bring to boil on high heat. When the water is boiling , submerge the whole chicken into the water with its back facing up. Add in the chicken bones and feet. You can also consider to stuff the chicken with the garlic, pandan leaves and some spring onions before you poached the chicken. The reason letting the chicken having its back facing up is because chicken breast takes longer time to cook and positioning chicken this way will make sure that breast are fully cooked Lower heat and simmer for approximately 30 minutes
	Get ready a pot of water. Throw some garlics, gingers, pandan leaves and bring to boil on high heat. When the water is boiling , submerge the whole chicken into the water with its back facing up. Add in the chicken bones and feet. You can also consider to stuff the chicken with the garlics, pandan leaves and some spring onions before you poached the chicken. The reason letting the chicken having its back facing up is because chicken breast takes longer time to cook and positioning chicken this way will make sure that breast are fully cooked Lower heat and simmer for approximately 30 minutes.
Cooking the rice…..
	Use some type of measuring cups (be it the cooking measuring cups or your rice cooker cups) and pour adequate quantities chicken stocks (from simmering/poaching the chicken earlier) to the rice and make sure that it is just adequate to cover the rice. Note: How much liquid (in this case chicken stock) is needed to cook the rice is very much depends on the types of rice you have. Some rice may need more water to cook than the others. On the rice cooker and when cooked, fluff rice gently with chopsticks (while loosening rice and avoid rice burnt at the bottom of the rice cooker. Leave at “keep warm” settings for about 10-15 minutes and a plate of chicken rice is ready.
Serving your chicken rice…
	Get ready a bowl, add some light soya sauce, sesame oils, and a bit of left over chicken stocks and mix well, set aside. Cut your chicken into parts, arrange on platter over a bed of sliced tomatoes and cucumbers. Pour sesame soya sauce oil over the chicken and garnish with coriander leaves. In this picture, I have deboned the chicken and the whole plate of chicken are boneless In separate condiments bowls, serve chili sauce, ginger sauce and thick soya sauce as dips. Serve with warm rice and some chicken soups. There should be some chicken stocks left after you used it to cook the rice. I just throw in some tomatoes, chye shim, and tofu to make some soups for my kids to eat along with the rice.

Here is the chicken rice and does it look appealing to you? Overall, I think I spent less than SGD 10 for the entire dish for a meal of 4 family members. This price is not adequate for you to have a plate of chicken rice at a posh restaurant outlet. At a local food court, if we order one whole chicken plus four plates of rice, one plate of vegetables, plain chicken soup, you will need at least SGD to have that. We can’t really finished the meals and we still have half a pot of rice left and about one third of chicken left.

The “aftermaths”…..….CHICKEN PORRIDGE

I used the left over chicken “stock” from submerging the poached chicken in the ice water, throw the chicken rice, the meat into the water and boil for about 15 minutes. Add condiments and garnished with fried onion, coriander leaves and chopped onion and a bowl of chicken porridge is ready for breakfast.

WHY NOT COOK SOME CHICKEN RICE FOR YOUR MOTHER THIS MOTHER DAY? IF YOU CANNOT COOKED FOR HER, WHY NOT FORWARD THIS POST TO HER AND SAY.

“ MUMMY, HAPPY MOTHERS DAY,

Mom, You’ve cooked for me with love all this while and how I wish I could prepare this dish for you this Sunday to assure you that your kid have grown up and able to take care of themselves. However, since I am not free to cook this Sunday, why not we have the most famous Chicken Rice in Singapore at the famous Mandar…. Hotel in Orchard Road instead? Mom, I love you….. “

Just joking!!!

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO ALL MOTHERS;

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO MY WIFE – MY KID’S MOTHER ; AND

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO MY WIFE’S MOTHER – MY MOTHER IN LAW………

Enjoy reading and look out for my National Flower Series – Spain (Red Carnation).

Malaysian Singaporean Chinese Food -Kueh Pie Tee

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Kenneth Goh

Kueh Pie Tee is a thin and crispy pastry tart shell filled with a spicy, sweet mixture of thinly sliced vegetables and prawns is a popular Peranakan dish. The shells are made of flour and though some stores will make them from scratch, they can usually be found ready made in most supermarkets. Similar to popiah, the main filling is shredded Chinese turnips and carrots, and usually these two dishes are sold by the same stall in hawker centers. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kueh_Pie_Tee)

Once you made popiah (you can refer to my post Malaysian Singaporean Chinese Food – Popiah Sarawak Style), you will think of making some Kueh Pie Tee or “Top Hats” or “小金杯“ of which the ingredients for the fillings are basically the same. Kueh pie tee are usually served as party snacks and the presentations are usually eye catching and outshine other appetizers. Yesterday, I prepared some kueh pie tee using the fillings left over from making the popiah.

RELATIONSHIP WITH POPIAH PREPARATION

Making popiah, as explained in my earlier post, is a laborious “project” that involved using lots of ingredients, processes, kitchen utensils. Therefore, I wouldn’t want to prepare quantity of fillings solely adequate for making the popiah. In addition, I knew very well that if I cannot finish using all the fillings, I can use it for making kueh pie tee, fried spring roll or become a dish for next day’s meals. In fact, it is rather difficult to estimate the exact quantities of the filling required for the popiah due to inconsistency in the sizes of popiah rolled by party guests. Some greedy one would roll a big fat popiah whereas some others may rolled a small one for fear of weight gain, blah blah.blah..

FRESH VS OVERNIGHT FILLLINGS

One may questioned whether it is okay to keep overnight the fillings. My answer is yes. Foods will not become bad or contaminated immediately if you have used a clean spoon to scope the fillings and packed it in a clean container before putting it in the fridge. Once in, don’t take it out before your next use. Of course, not too long. My own guideline for keeping these type of vegetable dishes are not more than a week..

WHAT IS REQUIRED

Besides the popiah fillings which basically consist of julienned jicama, French beans, taukwa, bean sprouts etc. , you will need to have some Kueh Pie Tee cups.

To make the Kueh Pie Tee, you will need to have a mold and deep fried your batters in hot oil. The basic ingredients for the batters are plain water and wheat flours. However, most families would claimed that they have the best recipe for the cups with variations in type of flours and liquid which is reasonable since there are only two basic ingredients. Some add rice flour for a firmer texture and would not be soggy that easily or potato starch. Some add melted butter to the batter so that they have a buttery fragrance. Some add gassy drinks like seven up believing that it will be more crispy.

Whatever it is, I have decided not to make my own cups and purchased in a rather well known “peranakan” or “nonya” shop in Singapore. The reasons are dual fold. Firstly, I do not have the mold and secondly, it involved large quantities of oils for frying. As at May 2013 (intentionally written down as such for future reference), I bought 50 cups for S$17, working out to be 34 cents per cup. If you are still keen to explore the process of making these cups, please visit here.

Beside the left over popiah fillings, I have added two fresh ingredients, namely blanched prawns and egg omelets.

These two are actually optional. In the olden days, prawns were not included as it is quite pricey. However, with the overall increase of family disposal incomes, people are looking for better quality of foods and prawns were included on the assumption that it will make this traditional delicacy look more presentable and appetizing. It would not be a surprise that in future, abalone slices may be added to show signs of wealth in parties for the rich and famous (since most traditional delicacy such as moon cakes, rice dumplings etc. already have this expensive ingredients added).

Eggs are also optional but since it is cheap, might as well add it since my kids love eggs.

STEPS OF PREPARATION

I am rather reluctant to detail the steps of preparation here as the process is very simple and I felt that too detail a description of the process with undermine my readers abilities to cook. The basic steps are:

Get ready the kueh pie tee cups;
Scope one spoon of the filling (refer to my popiah post) into a cup;
Top with eggs, blanched prawns and garnished with spring onions or coriander leaves or Chinese celery leaves as necessary.

From the steps listed above, is it not simple? In fact, it is. It is that simple. As it is a party snack, how you topped your fillings become a crucial element in attracting the guests to take a bite of your kueh pie tee. You may design your own pattern and I can assure you that there are countless possibilities depending on your own creativities.

Kueh pie tee should not be prepared too early in advance as the fillings will make the cups become soggy or not crispy. Therefore, if you are having pot luck parties, it is best that you only fill your fillings may be 10-15 minutes before the party starts. A soggy cup will definitely ruined all the hard works that you have invested in these delicacies. Alternatively, you can consider just give the cups to your guests and let them help themselves.

CONCLUSION

If you looked at my posts, I have intentionally left out the exact quantities of the ingredients for the preparation. My rationale is simple, I am sharing with you how I prepare this in my very own manner and you can use it as a reference in your own context. I believed that I am still far from qualify to teach you how to cook. I always encouraged readers to try their own version after reading my posts. Don’t be ashamed of your own recipes. You should be proud of what you have tailored made for your family or the parties. Since it is not patented like Yangchow Fried Rice, who say kueh pie tee must be prepared like what I said above?

Happy Reading.

GUAI SHU SHU

Guai Shu Shu is a "shu shu" that is "guai"….

Tag Archives: Food Preparation Series

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Hi, Let Start Cooking the Laksa …. An In Depth Analysis and Pictorial Procedural Description Of The Famous Sarawak Laksa (Part III)

Hey, I have invented my own Sarawak Laksa Paste Recipe !!!……… An In Depth Analysis and Pictorial Procedural Description Of The Famous Sarawak Laksa (PART II)

Hey, My Laksa Secret Recipe Was Stolen!!!……… An In Depth Analysis and Pictorial Procedural Description Of The Famous Sarawak Laksa (PART I)

Who Said Bread Puddings Must Be Prepared As Such…..Bread Puddings “Reinvented”

Come and have a cup of Chrysanthemum Tea （菊花茶） …

Why Not Cook Your Mother A Meal Of Chicken Rice This Coming Mother’s Day?

Malaysian Singaporean Chinese Food -Kueh Pie Tee

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