Lotus Root Chicken Soup

My 3 kids they love to drink soup and will always ask me to cook them soup. Lotus Root Soup - one of my family's favourite and it was my elder daughter's favourite too. There is few methods to cook this soup. We can double-boiled it, cook it with the pressure cooker or just cook it the normal way. I love to cook the soup with double-boiled method as I found the soup won't dries up and manage to retained it's natural flavour. We can have very clear soup as well.

I cook this Lotus Root Soup with my pressure cooker. My kids love the peanuts to be soft and it takes longer time to cook it with normal method. I add some white radish to enhance the flavor and the soup taste sweeter too. Try it out!

Lotus Root Chicken Soup Recipe


Ingredients:

1 whole chicken, clean and cut into 4 piece
500 gm lotus root, skinned and sliced 1/2cm thick
1 white radish - about 200 gm, skinned and sliced
50g peanuts
10 red dates
1 tbsp wolfberries (optional)
some dried cuttlefish, wash and cut into smaller size
1500ml water

salt to taste


Method:

• When the water boils add in the chicken pieces, lotus roots & radish slices, peanuts, red dates, wolfberries and dried cuttlefish.
• Simmer the soup for 45 mins or till the peanuts reach our desire tenderness.
• Add salt to taste.
• Scope out the excessive oil on the soup surface and serve warm.
  

Note: If using pressure cooker, let the soup boils for 20 mins in the covered pressure cooker before turn off the fire, release it's pressure and make sure the pot really cold before open it.

AMY

Cream Puff With Fresh Strawberry

I always love to bake and cook. It has become part of my life and how I always wish that I can have more time to spent on experimenting new recipes everyday. I like to try out new recipes but my first choice of the recipe to try shall be something that my kids would enjoy eating. I have started baking cream puffs 10 years ago. It was a recipe shared by a friend of my mother in-law. I use to bake cream puffs with her recipe until recently I think I have found another great one from KITCHEN CORNER. Thank you so much Grace!!

At first I just attracted to the lovely pictures of her cream puffs, beautifully decorated with fresh berries and look so yummy. I feel like want to have a bite on it. I give her recipe a try and I think I will stick to her recipe for cream puffs now. The puff appear to be more in shape and the custard taste just nice, not too sweet and not too thick. It's just GREAT !! (*hope you know what I mean here =)

Cream Puff Recipe (Yields 20 puffs)

For the Pastry:

70g plain flour

3 beaten eggs

100g water

60g unsalted butter

Pinch of sugar and salt


Method:

• In a cooking pan bring to boil water, butter, pinch of sugar and salt. Off the heat, add in the plain flour and mix with a wooden spoon until well combine and become smooth dough.
• Add in half of the beaten eggs and keep stirring until the egg mix into the mixture. Once the eggs completely mix with the dough, you will find it quite dry and hardly to mix.
• Continue add the beaten eggs slowly, little by little into the dough and continue mixing. You might not finish using the beaten eggs.
• Control adding the eggs to get a smooth and silky consistency of the mixture. When you spoon up the mixture, it should drop back to the pan very slowly. *The mixture should not too dry or too wet
• Transfer it into a piping bag and pipe out about 20 dollops of mixture on a baking tray lined with baking paper.
  
• Dip your fingers with some water and gently touch the top of the mixture. This is to prevent it over burning while it's baking in the oven. Then spray some water on the mixture surface. (Not too much)
• Bake at 200'C preheated oven for 15 minutes until it puff up then turn the temperature to 170'C and bake for another 15 minutes. Transfer the puff on a wire rack to cool down.

For the Custard Filling:

3 egg yolks

200ml milk

60g castor sugar

20g plain flour

10g unsalted butter

1 tsp vanilla extract/essense

Ways to cook it:

• Boil the milk with sugar in low heat until sugar dissolve but not boiling. Meanwhile, mix the egg yolks and flour into thick paste but no lumps in it. *Add two tablespoon of milk if you find it too dry to mix.

• Pour the dissolve warm sugar milk mixture into the egg yolks mixture. Pour slowly, little by little and mix with a hand whisk until everything well combine (*strain the mixture if necessary) Then, pour back the mixture into the cooking pan. Cook in very low heat and keep stirring until it thicken.

• Once the mixture thicken, remove from the heat and keep stirring until the heat slightly cool down but slightly warm. Then add in the butter and vanilla extract. Continue stirring until well combine. (*It look silky smooth at this time)

• Transfer the custard into a plate and cover with cling film. Make sure the cling film touch on the mixture, this is to prevent it from skin forming on its surface.

• To assemble the cream puffs: Spoon in some custard fillings then sandwich it with some strawberries. Chill the puffs in the fridge before serve.

p/s: This recipe needs a lot of stirring. A very good hand exercise... hahaha!


Happy Trying & Enjoy!

AMY

Double Chocolate Cupcakes

AMY

Easy Sardine Puff

I bought 3 packets of this frozen puff pastry the other day and decided to give it a try today. I made this Sardine Puff for teatime snack today. The puff turn out very crispy and flaky. I found it's a bit too oily but overall it's yummy!! Great to be eaten with a cup of hot coffee on raining day...hehe!!

I wrapped the puffs this way for a change, rather than wrapping it in the traditional pillow puff and surprisingly it turn out just great. I love to see how it cracked open on the top and show it's fillings.

Sardine Puffs Recipe

Ingredients:

1 packet of frozen puff pastry (I use Kawan brand, consist of 10 pieces)

1 big canned sardine in tomato sauce (remove bones, drained from the tomato sauce)
2 onion, diced
2 tsp minced garlic
1 lime, juiced
chili powder, to taste (optional)
salt, to taste
pepper, to taste

some cooking oil

Method:

• Heat a pan with oil and saute onion and garlic till fragrant. Add drained sardines in and 3 tbsp of the tomato sauce.
• Mash coarsely when cook it.
• Season with chilli powder, salt and pepper.
• Add lime juice and cook for 1 more minute or till it is dry.
• Set aside and let it cold.
• Preheat oven to 200c.
• Place some filling in the middle of each square skin (make some holes on the skin with fork) and fold the four edges to the center.
• Press the edges with our fingers to seal it.
• Glaze with some beaten egg and bake till puffed and golden in colour.

HAPPY BAKING!


AMY

Simmered Long Bean Rice

At times when the lazy bugs attacked me, I will cook this for my family. Easier, faster and less washing involved. This savoury rice are always my family's favourite. Just add in any ingredients of our choice. One of my family favourite are Yam Rice, Roasted Pork with Mustard Cabbage and Long Bean Rice.

Simmered Long Bean Rice Recipe

(A)

350g rice (wash, drained well) - I use Thai Fragrant Rice
600 ml water - *it depends to the type of rice we use*
1 tbsp chopped shallots

(B)

2 chicken drumsticks with thigh (skinned, cut into bite size)

200g long bean (cut into 2 inch or diced )
1 stalk chinese sausage (sliced or diced )
30g dried shirmps (chopped)


Marinade:

1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp pepper
1 tbsp "Shaoxing" cooking wine
salt to taste


For Garnishing:

some fried shallots
1 stalk spring onion

Method:

• Marinate chicken with the marinade ingredients for at least 2-3 hours.
• Heat up 2 tbsp oil, saute chopped shallots until fragrant. Add in entire ingredient (B), stir-fry briskly until aromatic.
• Add in rice and toss well. Remove, transfer to the electric rice cooker, pour in water. Cover and cook until the long bean rice is cooked through.
• Garnish it with fried shallots and spring onions. Serve warm.

*Note: Becareful when adding water to cook the rice. Add enough water for cooking rice, you can measure it before frying the rice. Too less or too much water will end up uncooked rice or the rice is too sticky.


HAVE A NICE DAY!!


AMY

Pandan Chiffon (Screwpine Chiffon)

Chiffon again!!! I hope you all won't get bored with my chiffon adventures here. Yeah, I've finally master it already. I was so happy when my friend tried the chiffon recipe here with a great success. I really happy when she told me her kids enjoyed the cake so much and repeatly asking her to bake chiffon for them.

Pandan (Screwpine) Chiffon are one of the most common chiffon we have here. We can always buy this at the bakery or morning market. I don't really like the one they sell out there as I found they use too much of pandan essense or pandan paste. The pandan smells too strong for me and sometimes they are too sweet as well. I use the recipe from Kevin Chai's - Chiffon Cake Is Done and did a few changes to it, I always found his recipe very sweet and need to reduce the sugar used. I use my own way baking it too. The cake turn out soft and fluffy, very fragrant & very yummy! Do give it a try and tell me what do you think okay??

Chiffon cake are easy once you have master how to beat the egg whites foam. Make sure the egg whites you beat reached stiff peak before we mix it into the egg yolk mixture. ***Always use clean, dry, oil free mixing bowl for beating the egg whites. The egg white must not have any egg yolk in it, not even one drop of egg yolk. This are two important thing you must take note before start beating the whites.

Pandan Chiffon Recipe

- adapted from Kevin Chai's - Chiffon Cake Is Done

Egg Yolk Batter:

• 6 egg yolks (always use large eggs, room temperature)
• 80g caster sugar (I use 60g* and still a little sweet for my tastebuds, pls reduce it to 55g*)
• 150g coconut milk (I prefer the fresh coconut milk, thick one pls!)
• 2 tbsp pandan juice (I hand pound 8 pandan leaves with some water, use less water possible)
• 1/4 salt
• 1/4 tsp pandan essense (I use pandan paste and omit the green colouring)
• 1-2 drops green food colouring (omit this if you use pandan paste*)
• 4 tbsp cooking oil (I use sunflower oil)
• 140g plain flour

Egg Whites Foam:

• 6 egg whites
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar (I replace this with 15g of corn flour)
• 100g caster sugar

Method:

1. Egg yolk batter: Hand whisk egg yolks with sugar till it's a bit dissolved. In coconut milk, add in pandan juice, salt and pandan paste - it's already with green colouring in it. Stir to mix.
2. Pour the coconut mixture into the egg yolks and hand whisk to mix. Add cooking oil and mix well.
3. Fold in flour slowly until it forms batter and no lumps. Set aside.
4. Prepare the egg white foam: In another bowl, beat egg whites till it form soft peak. Gradually add in sugar till it finished. Add in corn flour and continue beating at high speed until frothy and stiff peaks form.
5. Gently fold the beaten egg whites foam into egg yolks batter until it is well blended.
6. Pour batter into ungreased 9" (22cm) chiffon pan. Bake in preheated oven at 170c (I bake at 160c for 30mins) for 30-40mins or until it is cooked.
7. Remove cake from oven, immediately invert cake onto table.
8. Wait until it is completely cooled before unmould it.

Happy Baking!

AMY

Scones or English Biscuits??

I love it with blueberry jam *

My friend told me that this is English Biscuit. I don't know if this is scone or biscuit, I haven't tried the English Biscuit before. To my curiosity, I tried to bake this recipe shared by Happy Home Baking the other day. It's low fat, not too sweet and the texture are soft. My daughters even think that this is bread and ate 3 little scones at one go. She just love it!! I would like to thank HHB again for sharing this recipe. Thank you!

I make it smaller size and I get 13 scones with the recipe shared by HHB.

Please click HERE for the recipe of this yummy scones, or I shall said it's English Biscuit.

Happy Baking!

AMY