Asian Sweet Soybean Milk

Like many Asian who are used to the Asian sweet soybean milk, I cannot stomach the American soybean milk.  What worst is most soybeans produced in the U.S. is GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) product.  Anyway, it doesn't matter to me as I don't like the American soybean milk anyway.  I buy my dried soybeans at the Asian grocery store here as it was imported from other Asian countries. I remembered I helped my mom made soybean milk before but I forgot how easy it is to make our own.  Until I saw Noobcook's soybean post.  I was like wow it is very easy to make our own sweet soybean milk at home.

I measured the amount I used to give my readers a guide.  1 cup of dried soybeans made 1 pitcher of soybean milk for me.  I keep it in the refrigerator because I like it cold.  It should be able to keep for a few days in the refrigerator.  If you like to make your own American style soybean milk, just omit the rock sugar.

Ingredients:

1 cup dried soybeans

1/2 cup Asian small white crystal sugar (pin tang)

Water

A powerful blender

1 piece of cheese cloth

1 fine sieve

Method:

1.  Wash the soybeans until water runs clear.  Soak it in water overnight or until triple in size.

2.  Strain the soybeans.  My 1 cup of dried soybeans now measure about 3 cups expanded soften soybeans.

3.  Put 1 cup of expanded soybeans in the blender, add in 3 cups of water.  Chop, Mix and Liquefy the mixture until well blended.  Pour into a prepared bowl with a big sieve and a piece of cheese cloth on top.  Strain the mixture.  Repeat 2 more times.  

4.  Squeeze the pulp inside the cheese cloth as best as you can to bring out more liquid.  I strain the soybean milk two more times through the fine sieve to make sure it is cleared of pulp.

5.  Pour the soybean milk in a pot and boil in medium heat.  Then turn to low to simmer for 10 minutes to remove the strong smell of raw soybeans.  Lastly add in the crystal sugar, stir until dissolve.  Turn off heat and serve warm or cold.  Keep leftover in the refrigerator to be enjoyed throughout the day.  I made 1 pitcher like you see in the picture.  Enjoy!

Pumpkin Cheesecake

 

I wanted to try a pumpkin cheesecake ever since I tried it few years ago.  It was a store bought frozen kind and it was so good, the memory just stick with me.  I actually prefer the duo version where there was part white and part pumpkin cheesecake.  However, it sort of ended out this way.

You can use graham crackers instead of ginger snap cookies if you like.  Omit the nuts if you prefer. 

Look at my crack cheesecake!!!  This was my first cheesecake and it cracked badly.  Note to self, never offer to bring a whole cheesecake for a party or potluck because you never know how it would turn out.  If you have great tips on baking a non-crack cheesecake, feel free to share with this cheesecake amateur here.  :-)

Recipe adapted from Kraft Foods with slight modification.

Make an 8-inch cheesecake:

Ingredients:

19 ginger snaps

1/8 cup walnuts  (1/8 cup is half of 1/4 cup)

2 Tbsp. butter, melted

2 pkg. (8oz. each) cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup white sugar

1 cup (7.5 oz.) can pumpkin

1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. cinnamon powder

1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

2 large eggs

Method:

1.  Preheat oven to 325'F.

2.  In a food processor, add in ginger snaps and walnuts, process until fine.  Pour in the melted butter and pulse a few times to mix.  Pour into a 8-inch springform pan and press at the bottom of the springform pan evenly.

3.  In a large bowl, beat together softened cream cheese and sugar until well blended.  Add in pumpkin, spices and vanilla, beat well.  Lastly, add eggs, one at a time and beat until blended.  Pour into prepared crust.

4.  Lined a baking sheet with aluminum foil and place under the cheesecake to catch any drip.  Bake for 45-55 minutes or until center is almost set.  ( I baked mine for 60 minutes and my cheesecake cracked, my friend told me I might be over baked, so if you are making this, check your cheesecake at 45 minutes, 50 mins. and so on) How to know if the cheesecake is done?  You gently shake the pan, if the cheesecake is done, the edge should be slightly puffed and it will be set except for a small area in the center that will be soft and jiggly.  Do not insert a knife into the center as this may cause the cheesecake to crack during cooling.

5.  Loosen cake from rim of pan, cool before removing rim.  Refrigerate at least 3 hours before serving.

Butter Cookies & Season Greetings!

 
I wanted to bake some cookies for Christmas, something fun to look at for kids and delicious to eat of course.  I wanted a basic butter cookies and I found the recipe at Joy of Baking website.  Then, I just used my figure cookie cutter and started creating.  I enlisted both my girls to help me to decorate as this was the fun part of making Christmas cookies.  Needless to say, both of them were so happy that they got to help.  Edda did the buttons, Evy did the red sprinkles and I drew the eyes and mouth. :-)

This butter cookies were buttery and crispy when you baked until the edges were brown.  If you take it out too early, the cookies would be soft.   They couldn't wait for the cookies to be cool completely before trying.  Got to say, we all loved it and had fun making it!  We loved the fragrant of the butter!

Hereby wishing all my readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Safe New Year 2011!!!

Before baking

Recipe adapted from Joy of Baking, with slight changes.

Ingredients:

1 cup (226 grams) or two sticks salted butter, room temperature

2/3 cup (135 grams) granulated white sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 1/4 cups (295 grams) all purpose flour, sift

Method:

1.  In a large bowl, add in butter and sugar, beat until combine.  Add in egg and vanilla extract, beat until blended.  Add in sifted flour in batches and beat until combine.

2.  Place the dough on plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or til harden.  Take it out, cut into half, keep the other in the refrigerator and roll the other dough into sheet and use a figure cookie cutter and cut out the shape and move into parchment lined baking sheet.  Use a scraper to help remove the cookie (as this is a soft dough, I turned out having some fat and thin man, hahaha...).  Finish all the dough.

3.  Preheat oven to 350'F.

4.  Decorate the figure cookies as desired.  I used gel for eyes and mouth, mini Reese's peanut butter for baking for buttons and red sugar sprinkles for cloth.

5.  Bake for 15 minutes or until edges are slightly brown.  Cool on wire rack completely before storing in an air-tight container.

Pumpkin Tang Yuan or Pumpkin Glutinous Rice Balls

Happy Solstice or Dong Zhi “冬至节”everyone!  Today is the first day of winter and in tradition, Chinese eat Tang Yuan and reunion meal on this day.  This year I made a pumpkin tang yuan or pumpkin glutinous rice balls.  I used the leftover dough from making the Chinese Pumpkin Sesame Cakes to make this.  I will show some before and after pictures in the next page.

At first I thought of serving it in a thick sweet syrup but later changed my mind and served this in my Red Bean and Black Glutinous Rice Sweet Soup.  Just have to make it sweeter as the tang yuan is plain. 

A nice bowl of tang yuan to warm you up!

Shape it into small balls with your palm, I don't have exact recipe, basically mashed pumpkin mixed with glutinous rice flour.

Then, drop in batches in boiling water until it floats on top.  Dish out and put them in cold water.  Preferably, add some glutinous rice balls in a bowl and then top with red bean and black glutinous rice sweet soup to serve.  You can add a dollop of coconut cream to fragrant it up if you like.

ENJOY!!

Steamed Pumpkin Cake (Pumpkin Kuih)

My one pumpkin can help me create so many new dishes.  If you have been following my blog, I have been popping out all sort of pumpkin recipes recently, have you even noticing it?  And it's not over yet, I still have more pumpkin recipes to share.  Just stay tuned!

I love my stir-fry pumpkin with eggs, so yummy delicious and this steamed pumpkin cake, soft and moist and so well seasoned.  It's so great eating it this way, but I also like it pan-fried because I like the crispy crust on the outside before I bite into the softness inside.

I was so happy I created this recipe.  I never thought of making this kuih in the first place but once I found out that the defrosted pumpkin was soft in nature, I had to change my plan.  Since the soften pumpkin contained lots of liquid so I needed a recipe that suitable for this.  Once I planned on making this, I realized that I only had 100g of rice flour, no more and no less, so I had to create a recipe based on 100g of rice flour.  Luckily it turned out so well and delicious.

This recipe is not hard to make at all.  If you try it, feedback to me ya! ;-)

 

Ingredients:

 

100g rice flour

50g wheat starch (Tang Mein Flour)

2 1/2 cup hot water

300g pumpkin ( I used frozen and defrosted), divided (take one piece and cut into tiny pieces, reserved for stir-frying, optional step)

4 Chinese mushroom, soften in hot water, drain, cut into tiny pieces

1/4 cup dried shrimps, soften in hot water, drain

2 shallots, minced

2 scallion, only the white part, chopped

A little salt and sugar

(A)

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. chicken powder

1 Tbsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. 5 spice powder

Dashes of pepper

1/2 tsp. sesame oil

The shape of my electric steamer bowl.  Thus, the shape of my pumpkin kuih.  :-)

Method:

1.  Heat up a wok, add a little oil.  Add in shallot, white part of the scallion, stir-fry until fragrant.  Add in dried shrimps, mushroom and pumpkin.  Stir-fry until fragrant, season with a little salt and sugar.  Dish out and set aside.

2.  If you use frozen and defrosted pumpkin, the pumpkin is already soft.  So, just process it in a food processor until fine.  If use fresh pumpkin, steam it for 30 minutes until soft and mashed it.  Set aside.

3.  In a large bowl, add in rice flour and wheat starch, whisk well.  Add in hot water and stir-well.  Add in the processed/ mashed pumpkin, the stir-fried ingredients in 1 and season it with (A).  Stir well together.

4.  Pour into a steaming bowl or container (spray it with oil first) and steam in high heat for 45 to 60 minutes.  Depending on the size of your container.  

5.  Once done, take it out, give it a little shake to loosen the edges and turn it out to cool completely.  It will harden a little when cool and easier to cut.  Keep leftover in the refrigerator.  Heat it up in a microwave or pan-fry it to serve.

6.  Serving suggestion:  Cut into pieces, top with chopped green onion, crispy fried shallot and Sriracha chili sauce.

3-2-1 Chicken Chop

Oh man, the way I crisscrossed it, it looked more like liver wasn't it?  Luckily the main star in this dish was not the chicken chop but the sauce that I invented.  I saw a Kikkoman commercial on my Chinese cable and it was introducing it's 3-2-1 chicken chop sauce using it's Kikkoman special sauce (I didn't really know what kind of sauce, might be some sort of special soy sauce), sweet rice wine and sugar.  Oh well, I didn't have the Kikkoman sauce neither did I have the sweet rice wine but I do have other sauces at home that I could experiment with.

I thought of Worcestershire sauce and Shao Xing rice wine instead.  Worcestershire sauce had a bit of sour taste to it like vinegar so I thought it would pair well with some rice wine and sugar.  I also added a touch of sesame oil in the end.  This sauce got our stamp of approval, we all loved it.  If you tried it, credit me for my creation and feedback to me ya.  It would go well with pork and steak too.

 

Ingredients:

1 piece of chicken chop (boneless & skinless chicken thigh and drumstick), cut crisscross line on chicken for even cooking.  Season with a little kosher salt.

3 Tbsp. reduced sodium Worcestershire sauce ( I used Lea & Perrins reduced sodium)

2 Tbsp. Shao Xing cooking wine (Chinese cooking wine)

1 Tbsp. sugar

A drop of sesame oil

EVOO for pan-frying

Method:

1.  In a bowl, prepare the Worcestershire sauce, Shao Xing wine, sugar and sesame oil, set aside.

2.  Heat up a saute pan or wok, add in EVOO and when hot, add in chicken chop, turn the heat to low and pan-fry until brown on both sides and almost cook inside.  Cover if needed (for faster cooking time).

3.  Add in the prepared sauce and let the chicken simmer in the sauce until the sauce thicken and the chicken is cooked completely.  You can turn the chicken to soak in the sauce.  Slice and serve with hot rice.

Stir Fried Crunchy Cabbage

I loved crunchy and sweet cabbage.  I finally found the way after all these years.  I saw it at the Chinese cooking show where the host said never to cut the cabbage but tear it with your fingers.  It will give you a different texture.  But I guess I always took the easier way out, that is to slice it with a knife and thinking that shredded cabbage will cook faster and soften easily.  Not sure why but my shredded cabbage never really gives me the sweetness of the cabbage and the crunch that I looked for.

But now with my new way of handling my cabbage, that is to tear it with my fingers, I found the crunch and the sweetness of the cabbage when stir-frying.  This dish is delicious, you can taste the sweetness of cabbage and the crunchiness.  If you read my recipes, you must have noticed that I have been using quite a lot of fish sauce recently.  I think I found the secret of fish sauce in stir-frying, it really give certain dishes a kick in taste.

Ingredients:

1/4 head of cabbage. washed and tear with hands

2-3 cloves of garlic, minced

1/8 cup of dried shrimps, soften

1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes (optional)

6 extra large shrimps, shelled and cut into half

Fish sauce to taste

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. chicken powder (optional)

Extra virgin olive oil/ olive oil/ any cooking oil

Method:

1.  Heat the wok.  Add oil, when hot, add dried shrimps and garlic, stir-fry for a while.  Add shrimps and stir-fry until cooked.  Move the shrimps to the side of the wok, add in the crushed red pepper flakes and cabbage.

2.  Stir-fry well.  Add salt and stir-fry for a while.  Lastly add 1 tsp. chicken powder and fish salt to taste.  Add a little water (1/8 cup if needed). Serve hot.