Minced Garlic Meat Rolls

After trying Din Tai Fung's delicious minced garlic meat rolls, I wanted to try making it too. Verdict for my dish is yummy but somehow still cannot be comparable to Din Tai Fung's standard. I wonder how did they slice the pork belly so thin that even shabu is unable to match. Three cheers to Din Tai Fung for their delicated commitment on this particular dish.

My version of minced garlic meat rolls:

Ingredients
8 slices of pork belly shabu (to yield 16 rolls)
2 garlic cloves (minced finely)
Cucumber
Asparagus (garnishing)
Salt and pepper
1 tbsp Dancing Chef suki sweet chilli sauce
1 tbsp mirin
1 tsp crispy prawn chilli

Methods
1) Slice the shabu into halves, seasoned with salt and pepper.
2) Cut cucumber to the height of the shabu, remove seeds and cut into small strips.
3) Wrap each cucumber strip with a slice of shabu and place on steaming plate together with asparagus (optional).
4) Steam until pork is cooked. Set aside.
5) Put minced garlic, suki sauce, mirin and crispy prawn chilli in a microwavable bowl and microwave for 20 seconds.
6) Dizzle the sauce on top of the meat rolls and serve.

Notes
The proportion of sweet suki chilli and spicy crispy prawn chilli can be adjusted according to your preference for spiciness. The above ingredient is for those who can't take chilli well, very mild spicy only.

Hijiki

Hijiki is green to brown in colour when found in the wild. A fisherman and a professional diver harvest the hijiki with a sickle at the time of the low tide of the spring tide of May from March. After collection, the seaweed is boiled and dried to be sold in the form of dried hijiki. Dried processed hijiki turns black. To prepare dried hijiki for cooking, it is first soaked in water then cooked with ingredients like soy sauce and sugar to make a dish.

Hijiki is normally eaten with other foods such as vegetables or fish. It may be added to foods that have been steamed, boiled, marinated in soy sauce or fish sauce, cooked in oil, or added to soup. Hijiki seaweed may also be mixed in with rice for sushi, but is not used as a wrap to prepare sushi. Article source from wikipedia.

I love to eat this with rice or porridge, I call this my comfort side dish ;)

Ingredients
10g dried hijiki
1/2 carrot
1/2 tbsp sesame oil
3/4 cup of dashi stock
2 tbsp light soya sauce
1 tbsp mirin
1/2 tbsp sugar

Methods
1) Soak dried hijiki for 20mins until swell up.
2) Rinse with running tap water for about 3 rounds.
3) Shred carrot into thin and short strips.
4) Heat a pan with sesame oil and add in the carrot and well-drained hijiki.
5) Add in dashi stock and seasoning until the level covers the hijiki and carrot and bring it to boil.
6) Simmer in low heat and stew for about 20-30mins or until hijiki turns soft.
7) Adjust the taste and add in more seasoning if need to before serve.

Recipe modified from http://justbento.com

Steamed Century Egg Tofu

Any century egg lovers? An acquired taste ingredient but it definately goes well with pork congee, don't you agree? Here's another dish to whip up using this ingredient.

Ingredients
1/2 century egg (sliced into small cubes)
1 egg tofu
1/2 of a small dong fen vermicelli
1 stalk of spring onions
Crispy garlic (garnishing)
2 tbsp light soya sauce
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tbsp chinese rice wine
2 tbsp water
Pepper

Methods
1) Cut the egg tofu into 6 pieces and place on steaming plate.
2) Cut dong fen vermicelli into shorter length and soak in water for 5-10mins before use.
3) Place dong fen on top of toufu follow by century egg cubes.
4) Mix all the seasonings and pour into your steaming plate.
5) Steam for 5-7mins on medium fire.
6) Sprinkle with spring onions and crispy garlic before serving.



Double-boiled melon soup with seafood 老黄瓜海鲜盅

Ingredients
A) Melon bowl
1 old cucumber (choose a fatter one to make broader bowl)
Salt water

B) Chicken broth
2 chicken thigh bones (can replace with pork ribs)
Old cucumber chucks
Handful of dried scallops
5 red dates
1 honey date
4-5 cups water

C) Seafood
2 prawns (remove shell and devein, with tail on)
2 slices of salmon (or other fish)
2 crabstick
2 small asparagus

Methods
1) Cut the old cucumber into halve, use a spoon to scoop out the seeds. Slice off a part at the base to make the melon bowl stands. Measure the height of the 2 melon bowls to make sure they fit into your steamer. Slice off extra height and cut into chucks to make the broth.

2) Wrap the base of the melon bowls with aluminium foil in case it leaks and place on steamer. Fill the bowls with salt water to 3/4 full and steam for 15mins using low-med fire.

3) Combine all ingredients in B to make the chicken broth using a pot, I cook for about an hour. The water used is roughly doubled the amount needed for your melon bowls later.

4) When the broth is ready, remove all ingredients and set aside. Bring broth to boil, and add in ingredient C to cook. Off fire once cooked.

5) Throw away the salted water from the melon bowls and add chicken broth to 2/3 full, add in the seafood and steam using low fire for 15mins.

6) Add the dried scallops and a chuck or 2 of old cucumber if there's space to the melon bowl and serve.

Notes
You will notice there's practically no seasoning except for the salted water (thrown away after steaming), but the melon soup is very flavorful. The soup is more than what is required for the melon bowls.

Cheesy Mayo Prawns in Cuppies

Ingredients
12 medium size prawns (deshell, devein)
Garlic powder, salt & pepper (seasoning)
1 tbsp mayonnaise
Dried mixed herbs
1 knob butter
Shredded cheese
6 springroll sheets
Butter to grease

Methods
1) Grease the muffin trays with butter and place the springroll sheets into the tray to form 6 cups.
2) Bake for about 10-15mins at 160-170 deg or until golden brown.
3) Season the prawns with garlic powder, salt & pepper.
4) Heat pan with butter, fry the prawns and mix in mayonnaise and dried mixed herbs.
5) Dish out and scoop 2 prawns into each baked cup, sprinkle shredded cheese and return the muffin trays of cuppies back to oven. Once cheese melted, serve

Mango Mousse Cake

I am so happy that this mousse cake turned out well, again had insomia for 1 night thinking of whether the cake will turn out successfully...hahaha.. Not bad, I had insomia for 3 nights when I baked the angry birds cake mainly thinking of the procedures to put up the whole project ideas. I baked this cake on Sat evening and cooled it, sliced it, applied syrup to prevent dryness and send to fridge to be continued the next morning. The next morning I woke up at 5am, those who know me will know how late I usually wake up on weekends. Started with the mousse and another 3 hours were spent before putting the cake into the fridge to set and wait for the final result. Luckily it was successful =D

Recipe References:
http://v2.munchm.com/recipe/mango-cream-cake/
http://www.anncoojournal.com/2010/11/mango-mirror-cake.html
Molly Tay's mousse recipe, my MM mate (not available online yet)

Baby Shower Gift Again

This time is for baby girl so the theme is Pink & White, simply love these adorable cutters! Delicated to the number 6th kiddo in the family, Baby Angel!



To complete the look, I have managed to get some material for the gift packaging.

Very satisfied with the overall look of it.

To get started these are what we need, the so-called ingredient list in pictoral form:

1) Prepare a working area/mat/board to roll the fondant, dust the area and rolling pin with icing sugar.

2) Take out a piece of fondant, color it with coloring gel and dust with icing sugar to reduce wetness/stickiness.

3) Add coloring only a little at a time, use a toothpick to pick up color from the container. Knead the fondant until the color is well spread.

4) Roll the colored fondant flat & thin before placing cookie cutter (meant for fondant use) to cut out the shapes.

5) Place your ready shapes on a tray/container lined with baking paper dusted with icing sugar.

6) Air dry them so that they are not too soft, I normally use them the next day.

7) Prepare the "glue" using icing sugar and water until u achieve a gluey texture but easy to spread.

8) Glue the fondant shapes onto the cookies and you are ready to pack them.

 Enjoy!

Another set of fondant done for baby boy is at
http://yukiecody.blogspot.com/2012/05/congratulations-to-arrival-of-baby-glen.html