Steamed Pandan Sponge Cake

I have some orange sugar and Eno salt and thought of making a rice flour steamed cake with these two ingredients. The fermentation of rice flour overnight with yeast didn't smell good at all. And the result of this steamed cake was bad, even though it had nice honeycomb effect, but it was hard, smell bad and tasted yucky. I had to give it all to Ms. trash can.

Then, I thought of using the 7-up to make some steamed cake because I remembered I once had a steamed 7-up cake and it was pretty good. This recipe has no butter and oil and the method is like sponge cake. The texture of this cake is spongy and not too sweet. For those who do not have Pandan extract, you can substitute it with pure vanilla extract.



Ingredients:

4 large eggs
2/3 cup sugar (use 3/4 cup for sweeter cake)
1 tsp. Pandan extract
1 1/2 cup self-raising flour, sifted
50ml 7-up or Sprite

Method:

1. In a large bowl, beat eggs with an electric mixer until light and frothy. Add in sugar and continue to beat until thick and creamy, when you lift the beater and write an 8, it will stay there for few seconds. Add in Pandan extract and beat to mix well.

2. Use a spatula and fold in flour lightly in 3 batches (in one direction), lastly add in 7-up and mix well.

3. Scoop batter into individually paper lined silicon cups and steam on high heat for 15 minutes. Best eaten warm on the same day.

Guilin Vermicelli with Minced Pork

I loved this chewy noodle served at Lily's house. It was always a hit. I need to ask her for her sauce recipe. I tried to recreate this noodle at home but it was not the same because different sauce was used. Lily, if you are reading this, please e-mail me your sauce recipe you put in your noodle yeah. I used Guilin vermicelli for mine and stir-fried the minced pork with carrots and scallions until cooked before pouring it to mix with the noodle.



Closed up of my Guilin vermicelli with minced pork. I ate this noodle with the XO sauce too, simply yummilicious. No recipe this time as the sauce is not perfected yet, wrong sauce for this noodle, perhaps I need to add some sugar.

Cantaloupe Sago Summer Drink

I have been seeing this dessert circulating around the Web in recent years. I never make an attempt to make it mainly because some called for coconut milk. Then, some was made with evaporated milk but I hardly stock this in my pantry. And it just happen that I have some condensed milk in my refrigerator so "tada!", why not I used condensed milk instead, got some milky flavor and sugar in one. This drink indeed refreshing especially good during Summer when cantaloupe, honeydew and mango are at its cheapest. Very cool and refreshing drink to serve as a drink or dessert during the hot summer days. My girls and I loved it but not my hubby, he said why wasted a cantaloupe for this? *fume* <---me!





Ingredients:
1 cantaloupe, separate
1 cup water
4 tsp. condensed milk
1 cup crushed ice
1/4 cup mini sago pearls/ tapioca pearls

Method:

1. In a small saucepan, boil water. When boiled, add in tapioca pearls, boiled for 10 minutes uncovered, then turned off the heat, covered and let it sit for 15-20 minutes or until the tapioca pearls turned transparent. Drain in a sieve with cold running water. Set aside.

2. Cut the cantaloupe in chunks for blender and reserved 1/4 (cut into small cubes) to add in later.

3. In a blender, add in water, chunks cantaloupe and condensed milk. Puree and blend until fine, add in crushed ice and blend until smooth.

4. Pour mixture into a serving bowl, add in tapioca pearls and cubed cantaloupe. Mix and serve cold.

5. Keep leftover in the refrigerator.

Lemon Grass Shallots Soup

My mom cooked this soup for me during my confinement month. It left me with good impression as the shallots made the soup sweet and it had a hint of lemon grass. Now, I cooked this soup because I just learned that lemon grass is very good for our general health and anti-cancer. I added ginger just because it is anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory. This soup definitely brings no harm to us so I will be cooking it more often, just for prevention and general health benefit. Best of all, it tasted great. You can eat the shallots with the soup as it will be really soft with a tint of sweetness.



Ingredients:

2 chicken drumsticks
1 or 2 lemon grass, cut and smashed
10 shallots, peeled and keep it whole
1 small piece of ginger
1000ml water
1/2 tsp. sugar
Salt to taste

Method:

1. In a pot, bring 1 little of water to a boil. When boiling, add in the drumsticks. Then add the rest of the ingredients except sugar and salt. Let it simmer at low for 3-4 hours.

2. Season with sugar and to taste with salt. Serve hot.

Steamed Tofu with Minced Meat

My initial plan was to bake some meat balls. Then, I saw a blog post at Babe in the City on this steamed tofu and thought why not since I had some soft tofu. I marinated my minced pork with ShaoHsing rice wine, sesame oil, salt, white pepper, garlic powder, chopped carrots, ginger and scallions and some cornstarch water. Then, I cut out the soft tofu, lay it on a steaming tray and used a melon scoop to scoop a hole in the middle of each tofu. The scooped out tofu I added them into the minced meat mixture (don't want to waste you see) and mixed it well.





After that, I used the melon scoop and a spoon to make meat ball shape balls and placed it on top of each tofu. Lastly I drizzled some soy sauce, ShaoHsing rice wine and sesame oil before putting it to steam at high heat for 15-20 minutes, or until the meat balls are cooked. Serve warm!

This steamed dish was very fragrant with the Shao Hsing rice wine and sesame oil. What best was it was well received by my two girls. Got to make them loved tofu at young age. ;-)

Special Fried Shrimps/Prawns

When I made my Emperor Herbal Chicken dish the other day. I took 1 Tbsp. of the spices out for this dish which I made the next day. It was for the fun of experiment and my curiosity of how it would taste like. Glad to say it tasted great, flavorful with a hint of herbal taste and my two girls loved it. They were not into shrimps until recently, not sure what made them to like shrimps suddenly. But I am so glad that they liked shrimps, easy for me to prepare dinner for them. Just hope that the little one will start eating spicy food soon.





Ingredients:

15 large shrimps
(A)
1 Tbsp. Emperor chicken spices
Salt to taste
Black peppers to taste
1 tsp. chicken stock granules

Cornstarch to coat

Method:

Season the shrimps with (A). Before pan-frying, coat the shrimps with cornstarch and slowly put into a medium heat hot frying pan. Fry until shrimps are curled up and pink. Serve hot!

Vegetable With Tofu

Goodness in one plate again, well be another delicious vegetarian dish, protein and fiber combo. For this dish, I would recommend regular or hard tofu so that it can maintain its' shape. The vegetable I used for this is Chai Hsin (Asian green) and carrot. Again, another easy stir-fry dish using only oyster sauce as seasoning. Evy loved this, not only she ate the veggie but lots of tofu.

In a hot oil, add in chopped garlic, stir-fry for a while, add in the stems (harder part) of the veggie, fry for a little while, add in the greens, fry until soften. Add in a little water and tofu. Then season with oyster sauce, quick stir and serve hot. Quick and easy and I believe anyone can cook this.