Chicken Pie

The chicken pie made by Fad Mom really makes me salivating, you can view it HERE ~ I love savoury pastry. Immediately, it drives me to DIY my own version of chicken pie as well. Recently I'm really into pastry making, it's really easy to prepare and the results never upsets me ☻ I always believe the recipe shared by Fad Mom, she just got the same taste buds as me and I just proceed with the DIY pastry recipe she use from Baking Mum. Ya, her recipe is SUPER EASY. I got the pie dough ready in less than 15mins and put it in the fridge before I started to work on the pie's filling.

As for the pie's filling I've followed Fad Mom using the chicken thigh's meat as it'll be more tender and delicious but I marinate & cook it my own way. You may marinate the chicken according to your preferred seasoning - it is flexible. I prefer the dry version of filling and using less ingredient on it. Simple is just as nice !!

"Look at those chicken pies" ~☻ It doesn't look like my work at all...hahaha!!! Yay, my kids offered to help me fill the pie filling and do the pattern on it. They are just creative right???

What you need for the pastry???

DIY pastry recipe from Baking Mum:
250 g plain/all purpose flour
200 g butter, softened
110 g plain yoghurt
1 egg yolk
1 tsp sugar (optional)
pinch of salt

What to do?

Put all the ingredients into the mixing bowl except yoghurt, and mix to a crumble. Add in yoghurt and mix to a dough. Dough will be very soft, so need to keep it refrigerated for at least 30 mins.

While the dough are in the fridge, we can start to get the chicken pie fillings ready. I marinate the chicken for the pie with some seasoning overnight. It's a very simple way of marinating and delicious pie fillings that you can try. I don't have any particular flavor for the chicken, just mix and match with some seasoning I have in my kitchen ☻

My recipe for the Chicken Pie's Filling:

400~500 g chicken thigh/chicken breast (boned in, skinned & diced)
1 carrot, skinned (diced)
1 large onion (diced)
120 g button mushroom (blanch & sliced)
*2 tbsp olive oil for stir-frying the chicken*

Marinade the chicken with:

1 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 tsp Knorr's Chicken Seasoning Powder
Few shakes Garlic salt (to taste)
Few shakes Parsley flakes
1 tsp sesame oil
some pepper

1 tbsp corn fllour mix with 3 tbsp of water (to thicken the gravy)

1 egg (beaten) - for glazing

What to do?

Heat a non-stick pan with olive oil. Saute diced onion till it's fragrant and soft.

Add the diced carrots and continue cook for a while. Stir in the chicken continue to cook till it's juices are sealed and in medium heat. I didn't add water because the onion, carrot and chicken will produce water when we cook them. Taste the chicken and see if it's up to your preferred taste.

Add in mushroom slices, stir to mix with the chicken. By this time, it'll be a bit dry. Pour in the cornflour mixture and give it a quick stir to thicken it. Voila~ the pie filling are ready.

Okay, the FUN part of making pie. All my kids offer themselves want to help me with this. It's just like another clay shaping session for them.

To assemble the pie:

1. Preheat oven at 180c.
2. The recipes above yield 5 pies of 4"/10cm mini mould I use.
3. Roll the pie dough on the floured marble surface about 1/4cm thick, as long as it won't tear when we lift them up.
4. Line it in the mould with extra hanging out. Slightly press lightly to the shape of the mould used.
5. Cut the excess dough with scissor followed the shape of the mould.
6. Fill in the pie fillings. Cover it with another rolled dough on top and cut the excessive dough follow the shape of the mould.
7. Press the edges of pie with the back of fork to stick them together and on top of the pie, make some holes using the fork. This is to let the steam released when we bake it.

Glaze the pie with beaten egg and baked it at 180c for 35~40mins or when the pie turns brown, it's done.

Note: The crust are nice... it's slightly crunchy on the top and soft at it's bottom. It's firm and won't breaks easily, that's the crust of chicken pie should...and I omit the teaspoon of sugar in the recipe. I make this for supper last night. The pies are all snapped up in 30 mins time. Guess what??? After finished doing all the washing, it's almost midnight ~ poor me!!!! ☻

Meat Frankfurter Rolls

Feeling lazy to cook?? The kids getting bored eating rice everyday??? This is what I cook for lunch today. Ya, I admit of being lazy ~ lol ☻ My kids sometimes get bored with rice and they're asking for something new. Bread?? yay~ it's their favourites!! But, I can't just let them eat the bread with peanut butter or jam alone. I have to make sure they got a proper meal even they are just having bread as lunch. What I do is, I make this meat and vegetables as the fillings for the bread, it's more healthy and the kids loves it lots.

It makes a perfect meal when served with baked potatoes and some french fries. We can have some vegetable salad as side dishes too.

Here is the recipe for this quick & easy meal.

What you need!

4 Gardenia Frankfurter Rolls/buns, cut a line at the center
1 tbsp butter


Ingredients for the fillings

200 g loin pork meat/chicken breast (diced)
1 medium onion (diced)
1 medium tomato (diced)
1/2 tsp or more ground black pepper (add more if u like more black pepper taste)
1 tbsp bean paste ("tao cheong")
1 tbsp sugar
few shakes of Italian herbs
salt to taste (if the bean paste are salty enough, just omit the salt)
1 tsp of corn flour mix with 1 tbsp of water
1 tbsp olive oil

What to do?

Marinate the diced loin meat with black pepper and italian herbs for at least 20 mins.
Heat the non-stick pan. Add some butter and heat the bread till it's slightly brown.
Add in the olive oil and stir fried the onion till it's soft. Stir in the diced loin meat. Cook for a while.
When the meat started to turn white colour, add in a tablespoon of bean paste. Continue to stir it till it's a bit dry.
Add in the diced tomato, continue to stir and add in all the seasoning - sugar & salt to taste.
Stir in the corn flour mix to thicken it.

Fill the meat fillings on the bread. Yay~ you can have a bite on it now!! ☻

Slurpssss...it's simply yummilicious!!

Notes: Becareful when adding the bean paste, try 1/2 tbsp first and taste the cooking before you add more of it. Different brand of bean paste have different saltiness taste. We can add cubed carrots, corns, mushrooms, green peas as well to your preference. I just cook this with what available in my fridge ☻

Egg Tarts

All my kids are a big fan of Egg Tarts, they just love it so much. Each of them can finished up to 3 tarts at one time and sometimes asking for more. One egg tart are selling at 80cents at the market, not to mentioned the one sold in the bakery and see how much I have to spent for just the egg tarts for them. Egg tarts are the must-learn recipe for me and when I came across this easy yet simple egg tart recipe at Let's Get Wokking!, I bookmarked it immediately☻ After getting all the ingredients and the egg tart's mould. I start working on the pastry in the morning and sit them on the fridge first before I sent the kids to the tuition classes.

The egg tarts turn out great apart from it's a bit too brown to compare with the one made by WokkingMum. I think I shall reduce the temperature to 160c next time. It taste extremely yummy, crunchy pastry with the jelly soft egg custard fillings...yumm!!! It taste heavenly when you took a bite on it when it's still warm. Taste wise, not too sweet to my liking. I add a tablespoon of custard powder in the egg mixture for the tart's filling and the tarts looked amazingly golden yellow in colour. I will definitely make this again very soon ☻

Let me share the recipe here:

What you need!

Ingredients For Crust

• 340 g Cake Flour/Plain Flour
• 230 g Butter, softened
• 70 g Caster Sugar
• 1/2 Egg, beaten

Ingredients For Custard Fillings

• 3 Eggs
• 80 g Caster Sugar
• 70 ml Milk
• 230 ml Water
• 1 tbsp Custard Powder

What to do!

1. Cream butter and sugar with mixer.
2. Add egg and mix till it's well combined.
3. Add flour and mix into dough.
4. Put the dough in a bowl, cover it with cling wrap and keep in the fridge for 30mins.
5. While the dough are refrigerated, whisk the eggs, sugar and custard powder for custard fillings until thick and creamy.
6. Add milk to the mixture and continue to whisk until well-combined.
7. Add water gradually and continue to whisk together. Set aside.
8. Now the crust shall be ready. Weight dough into 30g each (depend to the size of mould used).
9. Roll it into ball, flattened it with our palm and press it into egg tart's mould. It's about 1/2cm thick.
10. Spoon the custard fillings. Becareful not to drop the filling mixture at the side of the crust as it will turn brown when we bake it later.
11. Bake the tarts in preheat oven at 180c for 25 mins, till the crust slightly brown and the egg custard is set.
12. Wait till it's cool before turning the mould upside down to remove them.

Notes: I add one tablespoon of custard powder in the filling's mixture to get the more yellow colour of tarts. Don't worry if the filling are still soft when you finished baking the tarts, it'll set when the tarts are slight cool down. Make sure the tarts are cool already when you remove them from the mould. The tarts that's still hot breaks easily.

Makes approximately 18-20 tarts. I got 19 tarts using the 5cm size mould ☻

Happy Baking!

Sweet Potato Ondeh-Ondeh

Ondeh-Ondeh have been my favourite nyonya kuih since my younger days. I still remember I will buy this ondeh-ondeh in my school canteen almost everyday. At that time, they sell six ondeh-ondeh for only 20cent, that's really cheap!!! ☻ The ondeh-ondeh I used to eat is the one made from glutinous rice flour dough wrapped with chopped Gula Melaka which is totally different with the one I make today. I came through this special sweet potato ondeh-ondeh with coconut fried with gula melaka fillings recipe at Baking Mom and decided to give it a try.

I use the purple coloured potato to make my ondeh-ondeh. I always prefer the purple fleshed sweet potatoes, it's soft and sweet. We can just steamed or grilled it and eat them topped with some honey or sugar.

Here is the Ondeh-Ondeh recipe from Baking Mum: Do give it a try!!! ☻



What you need!

600 g sweet potato, steamed & mashed
150 g tapioca flour
3 tbsp caster sugar
2 tbsp pandan (screwpine) juice or 1 tsp pandan extract
1 tsp green colouring (optional)- if the sweet potato used have no colour
1/4 cup water
250 g (about 1/2 big coconut) shredded coconut, add 1/2 tsp salt and steamed

Filling:

250 g Gula Melaka (palm sugar)
3 tbsp caster sugar
2 tbsp water
1/2 tsp salt 1 coconut, shredded-use only the white part of the flesh
1 tbsp corn flour mix with 2 tbsp water


What to do:

Boil a big pot of water. While waiting for the water to boil.

In a big bowl, mix mashed potatoes, tapioca flour, sugar, pandan juice and knead it into dough. Add water 2 tbsp at a time, slowly knead the until the dough are soft not too dry or sticky and can roll into a ball.

Roll the dough into small ball, flatten and put the fried coconut filling in it. Wrap it up nicely and roll it again. Continue to do this until the dough are finished.

Put the wrapped ondeh-ondeh into the boiling water and cook. When the ondeh-ondeh floats to the top, the dough is cooked. Roll the cooked ondeh-ondeh in the steamed white coconut shreds.

Serve hot with a cup of tea.

Prepare the filling:

Cook and stir the chopped gula melaka, sugar and water in low heat till dissolved. Sift the sugar mixture onto the shred coconut, add in salt and continue cook in the low heat. Pour in the corn flour mixture and continue to stir till the coconut sugar mixture thicken. Leave it to cool a bit before use it.

Note : Mix the white shred coconut with some salt and steamed it to prevent it turn sourish. Make sure the fried coconut filling are not too watery for easy wrapping and make sure the potato balls already floats before you take them out from the boiling water ☻

It's delicious!!!

HAPPY COOKING !

Banana Muffin

My house have a lot of bananas. I bought some bananas the other day when I go to the market and at the same time my mother also bought some for me. What to do with the ripe bananas and I don't think we could finish them all in time. I just want to turn them into muffin rather than leave it there, wait till it got rotten and end up in the rubbish bin.

I first try to amend the mandarin orange muffin recipe in Fad About Food into banana muffin by replace the mandarin orange with banana. But, it turn out to be too sweet and the muffin's batter spilled out half way I baked them. Very ugly looking muffin I got. I don't know what's wrong with it. Maybe the oven is too hot and the batter are too watery because I just add in the mashed bananas without deduct the amount of milk and butter used in the recipe. I failed on the first try!

After I taste and look at the muffins, I decided to go for the second try. This time, I reduced the amount of sugar, milk and butter. I bake the muffins at 160c instead of 180c for 20 mins, my oven tend to get too hot when it's 180c. The top of muffins got burnt easily while inside are not yet cooked. It'll starts to spill out later on.

I cross my fingers and hope it will turn out right this time. Guess what? ... it really turn out great, the best banana muffin I've ever tried, it's soft, moist and delicious. The muffin itself are not that sweet and with the added natural sweet of the banana flesh, it taste just heavenly yummy. I finally got the best recipe for the banana muffin. My kids loved it so much!! They finished half of it when the muffins still hot. Next time, I don't have to worry that I can't finish the ripe banana anymore ☻

Banana Muffin Recipe

Ingredients:

4-5 ripe bananas, mashed
250 g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon ground
80 g caster sugar
2 eggs, slightly beaten with fork
60 g milk
60 g butter, melted
2 tsp vanilla essense
pinch of salt

1 or 2 banana, sliced into 1/2cm chunks

What to do!

Sieve flour, baking powder and cinnamon ground together. Set aside.

In a big bowl. Stir and mix butter, milk, eggs and vanilla together. Add in sugar and salt. Mix till well combined and add in the mashed bananas. Mix well.

Fold in the sieve flour at one time and mix slowly till well combined. Remember not to over stir the batter.

Scoop the batter into the paper cup, add the sliced banana chunks and cover it with some batter. Fill about 8/10 of the batter, leave some space for the muffin to raise when we bake them.

Bake at preheated oven at 160c for 20mins or till it's cooked, when the toothpick inserted at the center of the cakes came out clean.

This yummy banana muffins are great for breakfast or teatime snacks. It's great for picnic too. My daughters bring them to school as their teabreak snack. Do give it a try if you love bananas. I bet you'll like it! If your kids at home don't take fruits, just bake this for them, I'm sure they'll love it ☻

How do you like the pink paper cup I use for this banana muffins??? I think they are very photogenic. They just look so good in the pics, aren't they?? ☻

Note: The recipe for this banana muffin are just perfect. You don't have to reduce the sugar or anything in the recipe. Just make sure the banana used are the ripe one. If the banana you used are big then 4 is enough, if the banana are small then you might need 5 bananas.

Makes 12-14 muffins - depend to the size of paper cup used.

Happy Baking!! ☻

Carrot Cake

I bought 3 packets of carrots, 5-6 carrots in one packet at Tesco the other day. After using some of it for fried bee hoon. I still have 2 packets of the carrot in the fridge. I just bought Alex Goh's new cake recipe book yesterday and while I was flipping through the pages, I saw this American Carrot Cake recipe. Since I got all the ingredients for the cake, I just give it a try. The cake are soft and fluffy, not too sweet and yummy. I put more walnuts - 150g. Worth a try, it's yummy. Great for breakfast paired with a cup of freshly brewed hot coffee.
I was in rush this morning and I didn't manage to make the cheese topping. I think it'll sure taste heavenly with the topping... yum, yum. I will definitely make this again in future with the cream cheese topping. I love cheese! ☻

Ingredients:

(A)
3 eggs
150 g milk
300 g sugar
1/2 tsp salt

(B)
180 g vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla essense

(C)
280 g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsps ground cinnamon

(D)
200 g carrot, shredded
120 g walnuts, chopped

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Topping Ingredients:
250 g cream cheese
60 g butter
100 g icing sugar (original recipe use 120 g)
1/2 lemon zest, grated
2 tbsps lemon juice

Method:

Cake
1. Whip (A) until creamy. Add (B) and whip until well blended.
2. Sieve in (C) and mix until well blended.
3. Add (D) and mix well.
4. Pour the batter into greased and lined 30 x 23 cm pan. Bake at 180c for 35-40 minutes.

Topping
1. Beat cream cheese until smooth. Add butter and beat until well blended. Add sugar and beat until well combined.
2. Add lemon zest and juice. Mix well.

To Assemble
Spread the topping over the carrot cake.

(Recipe from Alex Goh's Fruity Cakes Recipe Book - page 84)

Notes:

This carrot cake can be eaten plain without the cheese topping. You may also add 100g chopped pineapple to enhance the flavour of the cake.

I bake this cake at 160c for 50 minutes. I notice it takes longer time to get the center part of the cake cooked. I will try to use 2 smaller cake pan to bake this cake in future. Adjust the temperature and the baking time to suit the oven used.

I toast the walnuts in the oven at 150c for 5 minute before add it in the cake mixture. You can always replace the walnuts with some other nuts to your preference.

This cake are moist and not too sweet but if u prefer the healthier one, just reduce the amount of sugar use in the cake recipe ☻

Steamed Moist Chocolate Cake

I've been busy in the past week, guess what I've been up to?? It's school first term holiday from 13th - 21st March and I've been spending the time with my kids, my hubby are back for holiday from Hanoi and my sister in law, nephew and nieces in KL come to visit us as well. I don't have much time to cook and baking at all ☻
I'm so sorry to keep all of you waiting for the recipe. This chocolate moist cake are my son's favourite and he has been asking me to bake this cake for him several time. We doesn't need to have an oven to get this cake done, all we need is just a steamer and it taste just as good. It's easy to prepare as well. If I'm going to rate this cake, it should be 5 stars rating - very yummy!!!

Here goes the recipe for this cake ☻

What you need:
180 g butter
200 g caster sugar
200 g full cream evaporated milk
2 eggs, slightly beaten with fork
100 g plain flour
50 g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp vanilla extract or 1 tsp vanilla essense
2 tbsp of rum (optional)

What to do!
Combine caster sugar, evaporated milk, vanilla extract or essense and butter in a saucepan.
Stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved and butter is melted, turn off the fire and keep warm.
Add the beaten eggs into the slightly cold evaporated milk mixture and stir till well mix.
Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and baking soda into a large mixing bowl, then pour the eggs mixture over the flour and stir till well mix (cake batter should be runny) ☻
Heat up the steamer.
Lined and greased a 8 or 9 inch round baking pan.
Pour the batter into the lined pan and place the pan into the steamer and cover the top of the pan loosely with a piece of aluminium foil.
Cover the steamer and steam over medium heat for 45 mins.
Cool the cake in pan before turning out for further decoration.

Chocolate Fudge Topping
200 g condense milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract or 1 tsp vanilla essense
2 tbsp corn oil
20 g cocoa powder, sifted
a pinch of salt

Combine the sifted cocoa powder, condense milk and oil.
Stir over low heat till thicken.
Add in salt and vanilla extract or essense.
Cool the chocolate topping a little before spreading on the cake.

Refrigerated before serve it.

Notes:

1. The sweetness of this cake are just nice, not too sweet and it's very chocolatey taste.
2. I did not line the cake pan, but i greased the pan generously with butter.
3. Boil a kettle of water as stand-by while steaming the cake. This is to top up the water in the steamer if it dries up…(Optional, but i find it useful…) ☻

HAPPY BAKING!

Steamed Yam Cake - 芋頭糕

Being diagnose with diabetes my mother couldn't take sugar and eat most of the cakes I baked. My poor mom, she just smells and look at them but won't even take a bite on them, she is a very discipline patient☻ Today, I make this steamed yam cake specially for her. I wish that she can join us, eat with us and enjoy it. It has been quite sometime I last cook the Yam Cake, our all time favourite. It's best to be eaten with sweet chili sauce.

Ingredients:

400g yam (peeled & cubed)
2/3 tsp chinese five spice powder

For batter:
200g (2 cups) rice flour
800g (4 cups) water
50g topiaco flour/cornstarch
1 1/2 tsp salt or to taste
1/4 tsp of pepper

For garnishing:

100g shallots (sliced & fried)
80g dried shirmp (soaked, fried & coarsely chopped)
2 red chilies (sliced)
some spring onion (chopped)

Method:

Mix the batter ingredients using wooden spoon, make sure that all lumps of flour are dissolved. Strain the batter if necessary.

Heat 1 tbsp of the remaining oil when frying shallots, add in the yam cubes, five spice powder and fry till they are cooked/soft. Pour in the batter to mix with yam, keep stirring in low heat till it thickens up. Keep on stirring the batter as the topiaco flour makes the thickening a lot faster. Beware not to burn the batter.

Once the batter are really thick. Remove from heat and pour the batter mixture into a steaming pan.

Steamed in the preheated steamer at high heat for about 40 minutes or until it's cooked through. Leave to cool before garnish it with fried dried shrimps, fried shallots, chopped spring onion and slices of red chilies.

Voila ~ the yam cake is ready to be served !!!☻

Note: Don't worry if the cake turn out a bit sticky and soft when it is hot, it will become firm when the cake is cool. Mommy, I hope you'll like it! ☻

Cottony Soft Honey Cups

In my younger days, my grandma used to buy this type of cake for me. We call it "Keh Nooi Ko" in hokkien, it's a simple cake, cottony soft and light. Not too oily and not too sweet. I'm so happy when I see something similar in Fad About Food, I want to thank Constance for sharing the recipe of this unique cake in her blog. Although this is not the exact "Keh Nooi Ko" but I just love the aroma of eggs in this cake. It reminds me of my childhood days, the time when I was running bare foot, playing glass marbles, playing the jumping strings made from rubber bands with a group of friends. This cake are best to eat along with a cup of hot chocolate or coffee. Yumm...! ☻

*Source of recipes from Fad About Food

Ingredients:

5 large egg yolks
25 g castor sugar
60 g butter (melted)
60 ml warm milk
1 tsp vanilla essense
pinch of salt

90 g cake flour
20 g corn flour
1/2 tsp baking powder

5 large egg whites
40 g castor sugar
1/2 tsp lemon juice

Method:

Sieve cake flour, corn flour and baking powder together and set a side.
In a bowl over a basin of hot water, whisk egg yolks and sugar till thick.
Add in melted butter, warm milk, salt, vanilla and continue to whisk till all are mixed well.
Fold in the sieved flour.

In another bowl, beat the egg whites till it is fluffy and soft peaks. Add sugar, lemon juice and continue beating till it reaches stiff peaks.
Fold the egg white mixture into the egg yolk and flour mixture, taking care not to deflate the egg whites too much.

Spoon batter into the lined paper cups and baked in preheat oven at 160c for 20 mins till it's light golden brown at the top and tooth pick inserted comes out clean.

Note: Makes 10-12 cups. I make this recipe twice a day, my kids love it so much! ☻

Onion Cinnamon Chicken Stew

Being a housewife with 3 kids, sometimes I ran out of idea on what to cook for the children. I prefer something simple, delicious and easy to prepare. I came across this yummy Onion Cinnamon Chicken Stew recipe at HappyHomeMaker's blog. After gone through her step by step pictorial recipe, I decided to give it a try and guess what?? My kids enjoyed it so much, it's yummy. Thank you for sharing the recipe! ☻

Ingredients:

3 large whole chicken leg - chopped into 4-5 pieces

Marinate the chicken:
2 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp dark/black soy sauce
1 tsp salt
a few shakes of white pepper

Other ingredients:

1 large cinnamon stick - smashed into smaller pieces
5 large potatoes - cut into wedges or chunks
5 large onion - peeled & sliced, you can add more if you like onion

more oyster sauce, soy sauce & salt for seasoning

Method:

Heat 2 tbsp oil in a pan, stir in the marinated chicken and cook for about 3 mins.
Add in potatoes, onions & cinnamon sticks, stir to mix.
Season it with 2 tbsp oyster sauce, salt to taste and stir to mix all the ingredients thoroughly, about 3 mins.
Add about 2 cup of water. The water should cover half of the chicken & potatoes. Stir and bring to boil.
In lower heat, simmer the chicken stew for about 40 mins, be sure to stir every few minutes for even cooking as the water does not cover everything.
Check the taste of the stew and adjust it with more salt or soy sauce to your own preference.
Let the stew stand for 30 mins to 1 hour, so the flavours are all totally infused.
Voila! This simple & delicious onion cinnamon chicken stew is ready to be served with rice.

Note: For those who have kids at home. Try this yummy onion cinnamon chicken stew, not only the kids love it, I'm falling in love with it too! ☻

Bacon Onion Bun

It's quite sometime since my first bread attempt and I still have the bread flour left untouched until I use it to make pizza the other day. I was not very satisfied with the bread I made the first time and wish to try it again for the second time. I use the same dough recipe from Fad About Food but, this time I'm going to use Wendy's bacon and spring onion filling recipe.

I divided the dough into 12 small balls to make 12 small bacon onion buns. It's the same as the first time, my buns were all gone in less than an hour time. This is the courage that my kids gave me to bake more for them☻ Crispy bacon and onion in soft freshly baked buns, mmm.. who can resist this??

Ingredients for bacon onion filling:

4 slices of bacon
1/2 cup green onion - chopped finely
few dashes of black pepper
few dashes of garlic powder
some Italian seasoning
some Parmesan cheese

Method:

Place the bacon in a plate with paper towel, microwave it until crispy. Remove the excessive oil with a paper towel, crumble and mix with chopped onion.
Add the black pepper, garlic powder, some italian seasoning on it.
Divide the dough into 2 and rest for 5 - 10 minutes in a bowl, covered.
Divide each dough into 6 small ball. Shape the dough into small triangular shape, fill it with the bacon and onion filling at the centre, sprinkles some Parmesan cheese on top and roll it up become a small bun.
Bake in the preheat oven at 160c (325f) for the first 18mins and at 190c (375f) for 2 mins to brown to buns.

Happy Baking!

(Non-Halal) Old Cucumber Soup - 老黄瓜汤

Soup is a must dishes in most of chinese family. This soup is one of my favourite. Old cucumber is not only cooling for blistering hot days but is also good for the skin. I read in a magazine that it helps to prevent aging, it is also high in dietary fiber, calcium, iron and rich in vitamin A, B6 and C. In Chinese Herbology, we believe that all the food we take have the 'yin' and 'yang' properties. 'Yin' foods have the cooling properties while 'yang' foods, on the other hand have 'heaty' properties. Some foods are 'neutral'. Long time ago the chinese people believes firmly that our diet (along with factors like stress, climate and lifestyle) plays an important role in achieving balanced 'yin' and 'yang' for an individual. In a country like Malaysia, where it's humid & warm all the time. Once a while we consumed cooling foods to get rid the heat in our body and this old cucumber soup is definitely a must. I think this soup is also very beneficial for others in summer time.

Old cucumber is actually matured cucumber. It has a brownish hard skin on the outside. It looks like a melon because it is fat and squat. The picture above is how the old cucumber look like. The older the cucumber, the better it tastes!☻

Ingredients:
1 medium size old cucumber (老黄瓜)
500 g pork ribs
10-15 dried red dates - rinse with water
4 dried scallops - soaked & rinse with water
some dried octopus - rinse and cut into small pieces
1.5 litres of water
salt to taste

Method:

Blanch your meat - if you are using pork ribs, blanching is necessary for a clear soup.

Keep the cucumber skin on, wash and scrub the skin. Seeded and slice it into 1 inch chunks.

Bring the 2 litre water to boil. Add in the pork ribs, old cucumber chunks, dried octopus, dried scallops & red dates. Boil furiously for 10 minutes or so. Then simmer the soup in lower heat, cover the pot and let it simmer nicely for 2 hours. Get rid of the excess oil (which floats to the top) using a fine steel sieve.

Season with salt before serving.

Note: Dried octopus and scallops are added for the added flavour of this soup☻