Fried Chicken

Pls pardon me ... will share the recipe soon :)

Mee Hoon Kueh - 麵粉粿 (Hand Made Noodles)

Mee Hoon Kueh - 麵粉粿

When I first tried this Mee Hoon Kueh or some call it Pan Mee, it was cooked by my mother in law. It was one of my mother in law's signature dish. My father in law, hubby, my brother & sisters in law they all enjoyed and love this Mee Hoon Kueh so much. This is one of my hubby’s comfort food and it is now becoming my kid’s favorite dish.

Mee Hoon Kueh Recipe

For the dough:

250 g plain flour

1 egg

100 ml water

pinch of salt

1 tbsp cooking oil

To make the dough, just place all the dough ingredient into breadmaker and use the dough cycle to knead it. After the 30 min dough cycle is completed, place the dough in a bowl, cover with cling film & rest for about 1 hour.

For those who don't have a breadmaker at home:

Mix water with salt, egg and oil until well mixed. In a large mixing bowl, add the water mixture to the flour and mix into a dough. Knead the dough for about 5 minutes, until the dough springs back a little when pressed with a fingertip. Shape the dough into a ball, cover with a clean damp towel or cling film and leave to rest for 1 hour.

Anchovy Soup Base

200gm fried ikan bilis (anchovy)

1 tbsp tong choy

chinese spinach (vegetables)

1.5 litre water

6-8 chinese black mushroom (soak in water)

some minced garlic

For garnishing

some green onions

fried ikan bilis

fried shallots

some coriander leaves

Method:

Boil 100gm of fried ikan bilis (keep 100gm of ikan bilis for garnishing) and tong choy in 1.5 litre water. In a wok with little oil, stir-fry garlic & mushroom until it's fragrant. All the fried mushrooms into the boiling soup. Let it simmered for few minute.

Remove the cloth covering the dough and slightly flatten the dough with a rolling pin or using your palms, and then fold it over for a few times.

Tear the dough into small thin pieces and drop it into the boiling soup. Repeat until the whole dough is complete. When the dough is cooked, add in vegetables. Season it with some pepper and salt to taste. Top with fried anchovies, fried shallot, some chopped green onion, coriander leaves & serve warm.

P/S: I love to eat it with the chillies in soy sauce for extra spicy flavors...

To me, authentic mee hoon kueh should be torn into pieces by hand . The pinching of the dough seems to give it extra texture and make it taste better. I love the odd shapes mee hoon kueh!!

My homemade Mee Hoon Kuih - homemade noodles ~


HAPPY COOKING!

AMY

Chocolate Coated Almond Cookies

Hey gals, thank you so much for all the lovely comments. I'm doing good and even gained weight. I didn't weight myself for quite sometime and only realize I've put on so much weight when I try to put on the new pants I got for myself when I was holidaying in Hanoi last December. After back from Hanoi, I wash and keep the pant for CNY. All the clothes I bought from Vietnam I will wash them first before wearing it. It was very dusty there. On the first day of CNY, I take out the pant to match them with my new blouse I bought and do you believe that I can't even button it. It was about 2 inch apart. I've put on 5kg,..arhhh!!!

I promise myself to on diet after CNY. How can I resist all those sinful food right?? lol ~ Most of my friends they don't even realize I've put on so much weight. Maybe it's because I'm tall. I just hope to get back my ideal weight and really watch out what I eat now.

Okay, I don't want to bored all of you with my grumbling. Here goes the recipe I'm going to share today. This is a must have for my kids when it comes to CNY. They love it so much. Yummy almond cookies coated in chocolate...who will say no to this??

TIGER Angpau's cover I got from Hong Kong. NICE?

Here goes the recipe :

Ingredients A

250g butter
1 whole egg
1 egg yolk
100g icing sugar *(actual recipe call for 120g, I reduce it as the chocolate coated on the cookies are sweet enough for me)


Ingredient B

250g plain flour
250g ground almond *(I stir fried them in the work until it's fragrant in low fire, becareful not to burnt it)

200g toasted whole almond *(I toast it at 160c for about 10mins - always keep an eye on it and don't burnt it)


500g cooking chocolate *(melted in double boiler pot)

50 pcs small paper cups

Some rainbow colour sugar rice for decoration *(can use toasted nibbed almost too)


Method:

1. Cream ingredients A till it's well combined. Mix in ingredients B to form soft dough. Wrap the dough with one whole almond and shape it into oval shape. Bake on the lined baking pan at 180c till golden brown. Remove and leave it to cool.

Tip 1 : As I baked double the recipe, I kept the cool cookies in an air-tight container before coated them with melted chocolate the next day.

2. To coat the chocolate :
Melt cooking chocolate with double boil method. Drop the cookies into the melted chocolate before pick it up with chopstick. Place the chocolate coated cookies onto the prepared paper cup. Arrange it on a tray and sprinkle it with the colourful sugar rice or toasted nibbed almond. Leave the chocolate to form at room temperature before storing them into the air-tight container.

Tip 2 : DO NOT REFRIGERATE IT !!! From my experience, once we chill it in the fridge to set the chocolate the cookies won't last long when we took it out from fridge. The cookies will produce moisture and turn wet, it become chewy rather than crispy. The almond too will too turn soft. The worst is, the chocolate that have been put in the fridge will not set well when we take them out from the fridge. It will melts, I don't know why!! I think that's the "pantang larang" we have to bear in mind when making this cookies. PLS TAKE NOTE ok?


Do try this out. It's super duper yummy.... :D

AMY

Welcome Tiger Year !!

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all the readers of my blog a very Happy and Prosperous Lunar New Year. May this year of TIGER bring all of us luck, health & happiness!!! wu...huuu...!!! Ya and before I forget, HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY to all the lovers all over the world... muakss!

AMY

Peanut Cookies

Hello all, here is my version of melt in mouth peanut cookies. I made these for Chinese New Year and it was one of the must have item for my family. I bet once you've try it, you'll surely feel in love with it...! **huh! so proud ya**

Since the Chinese New Year is approaching, I would like to wish all my friends who read this and all the bloggers out there who celebrate CNY a Happy and Prosperous year of Tiger. My wish for the new year is to cook and bake more. Trying out more recipes and share my cooking with all of you.

Jars of yummy melt in mouth peanut cookies.

Aren't they look good as a gift for relatives or friends?

I first bake my peanut cookies using the recipe I got from Agnes Chang Recipe book. But, I found the peanut cookies are a bit too sweet and hard for my liking. I like the peanut cookies to be soft and the melt in mouth type. Not too sweet and more peanut aroma. After a few bakes and I edit the recipe before came out with this perfect peanut cookies recipe of mine. The cookies are full of peanut aroma, soft and not too sweet but it's easily breaks. So, make sure you really handle it with care..hahaa!!

The most important ingredients for making peanut cookies are the peanut we use. I prepare my own peanut. Clean and dries them under the sun before I fry them in the wok with low - medium fire till they are cook thoroughly, until I can smell the peanut aroma all over the kitchen and it's colour turn light brown (becareful, not to burnt it!!). Some people they roast it in the oven but I prefer to stir-fry it with wok.

Look what I found in the peanuts I bought for making the peanut cookies?? All those rotten peanuts, peanut shells and there are even stones in it...

I choose and pick up all the rotten peanuts, stones and etc..before I raise the peanuts under the running tap water. Place the clean peanut in a basket and dry them under hot sun before I fried it. Unskinned the peanuts before we grind it with blender. I grind it until fine, it's very important for produce the fine & soft peanut cookies.

**For those who are interested to try out this recipe please leave me message in the comment with your e-mail address. I will e-mail the tips & recipe to you. Thank you!

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

I'll be away and not free to online for 2 days and I post the Peanut Cookies Recipe here for just in case some of you would like to give it a try.

Here we go ...

Ingredients needed:

600g fried peanuts, removed skin and grind finely.
375g flour
350g icing sugar
1 tbsp butter, soften at room temperature (*optional - but, the cookies will be more fragrant with it)
2 tbsp peanut butter (creamy) (*optional - but, cookies will be more peanut aroma if we add it)
peanut oil for mixing
1/2 tsp salt (taste the dough and add more if it's not salty enough - I put 1 tsp*)
1 egg, beaten with pinch of salt for glazing

Method:

1. Shift flour and icing sugar together in a mixing bowl. Add in the grind peanut, butter and peanut butter, mix well. Slowly add in peanut oil and mix until it can form into soft dough, (I didn't measure the oil, just mix it slowly until the dough can roll into ball without breaking. Becareful,don't over mix the oil*) (Use a wooden spatula to mix it before using our hand...the dough will be oily and sticky at first)

2. Form into small balls, place onto a greased baking pan, or we can lined the pan with grease paper. I press top of the balls with a small round shape mould (Can use pen cap*) Glaze with beaten egg.

3. Bake in pre-heated oven at 180c for about 20-25mins till it crack a bit and golden brown. Remove from oven and let it cool before storing them. (Let the cookies cool before moving them into container as the cookies that's still warm breaks easily*)

Happy trying and let me know the result !

P/S: If you like the bite of sugar in peanut cookies, just replace it with Castor Sugar instead of using Icing Sugar ***


Gong Xi Fa Cai !

AMY ONG

My Hanoi Trip & Food...

Let me explain the reason of my sudden missing in action for the past 2 months. The kids starts their long school holidays and bring all 3 of them to Hanoi for holidays while visit my hubby who working there at the same time. We stayed there for 1 month and spend the quality time together.

My hubby have been there working for about 2 years and I can proudly said that he now can understand and speak vietnamese(wink*). What is it so proud of it??*** Believe me, vietnamese language is not easy to master. Each word sound so funny to me and worst is, they have many different meanings which will bring us to trouble when we use it wrongly.

When he first stepped his foot there. He don't understand even a word of the vietnamese language, not to said their culture or places. Till now, he still can't remember all the name of the streets there but luckily he hire a vietnamese to be his loyal driver. No one can move around in the city of Vietnam without a good driving skill - kudos to them!!. Vietnam, especially the Ho Chi Minh city and Hanoi city are said to have the most terrible traffic system. Dare you drive a car or ride your own bike there??

I have been to Ho Chi Minh once and Hanoi for more than 5 times. I have tried almost all of the food there and today I want share some of the food we ate during our stay there. I hope this will gave all of you a rough idea on what the local people there normally eat.

Minced Pork Rolls - sorry, I don't know what is it called in Vietnamese. These are fried minced pork rolled with some kind of herbs leaves. (Yummy*)

Prawn Sashimi - We can eat it just like that, dipped with the sauce of our choice or wrapped it in the rice springroll skin together with some herbs, vege & fruits (starfruit/mango) of our choice.

Above are the paper look-alike made from rice, springrolls skin.

Side dishes - Fried beancurd.

Crab - A must have!!

My favourite part when eating crab...hehe!

Fried mini spring rolls with meat

This taste just like our "Acar Timun"

Arrh!!! It takes me like forever to upload my pictures into photobucket. I think I better upload them again in my next post. My dear friends, I have been busy with school re-open where now I have to send my eldest son to the secondary school and my 2 princess to the different primary school. I still cannot make up my time to exploring my baking adventure. I hope to be back sharing with all of you my cooking soon. I wish all of you a nice weekend, enjoy!!

AMY

Miss Me ?

I know, I've abandoned my blog for quite a long time. I wonder and I'm curious to know that how many of you notice my dissapperance. Anyone of you start to miss me?? lol ~ ~

I've safely reached Hanoi on 24th Nov with my three kids for a long holiday here. I don't think I can share with all of you my cooking recipe for the time being but, I will try to update my blog with some interesting things, food or places that I have come through in Hanoi.

Please come back for my Hanoi trip post okay? and..., I really miss cooking and baking now!!

AMY