Tangerine & Pear Dessert with Tangyuan

Today is the last day (大年十五）of Chinese Lunar New Year, also known as Lantern Festival (元宵节). It is one of the traditional practise to serve sweet glutinous rice balls dessert on this particular day. Lazy to make the glutinous rice balls from scratch, I just bought a packet of mini taro & sweet potato ball and added into the sweet broth. 

After weeks of indulging of festive goodies and rich food, most of us must be feeling our body getting rather 'heaty'. Try brewing this sweet dessert soup for your family today, as all the ingredients used suppose to help nourish the lungs, reducing phlegm and coughing! 

Ingredient

• 150gm fresh tangerine (net wgt after peeling) *
• 300gm Chinese pear, peel & cut into cubes
• 15gm sweet apricot seeds
• 15gm bitter apricot seeds *
• 120gm rock sugar
• 1.5L boiling water
• 1 packet mini taro & sweet potato glutinous rice balls

Method

1. In a double boiler, combine all ingredients and water. Cover and cook over low heat for 1.5 hours.
2. Cook mini yam & sweet potato glutinous rice balls according to package instructions.
3. Serve hot/warm tangerine & pear dessert with cooked glutinous rice balls.

*Note : this sweet dessert has a slight bitter aftertaste. If you do not like the bitter taste, remove the white membrane from the tangerine as much as possible. Reduce/omit the amount of bitter apricot seeds and replace with additional sweet apricot seeds.

Beetroot Pancakes

Happy Valentine's Day! 

Want to prepare a hearty breakfast for your love ones today ? Try this lovely pinky beetroot pancakes  :D 

They looked so thick & fluffy!

Oh my look at the fuchsia pancake batter!

To get even size pancakes, drop about 1/4 cup batter onto a lightly greased pan. Wait for the bubbles to appear on the surface and the sides started to set. Gently flip over and cook the other side briefly. Use low heat at all times to prevent over browning.*

How's the taste of this beetroot pancakes?  Either you like it or hate it ^0^ hahaha 'cos I know some of you may turn off by the muddy taste of the beets. But these pancakes tasted not too bad lah ^.^ Somehow the roasted beets tasted much sweeter compared to steam version and with raspberry jam added into the batter, it helps to reduce the muddy taste a lot!

Ingredient

• 300gm beetroot
• 120ml seedless raspberry jam
• 250ml buttermilk
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla paste
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 125gm plain flour
• 90gm oat flour (grinded old fashioned rolled oats till fine)
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

Method

1. Scrub beets cleanly. Wrap beets in foil and roast in preheated oven at 200 deg cel for 50 mins until tender. Remove from oven and to cool completely. Cut off the end and remove the skins. Transfer the beets to a food processor and puree it until smooth. Measure out 3/4 cup of the beet puree.
2. Combine jam, buttermilk, eggs, vanilla, olive oil and beet puree. 
3. Whisk plain flour, oat flour, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add in wet ingredient and stir until just combined.
4. Heat up a non-stick pan over medium heat. Lightly coat the pan with oil. Spoon about 1/4 cup of batter into the pan. Cook over low heat for 3-4 mins for each side. *

Recipe ref : panerabread.com

Fried Nian Gao (炸年糕)

Seriously this is my first attempt of making fried Nian Gao! When my mother was around she would usually fried this for us during the festive period. That was a long time ago when I last tasted this snac, almost forgotten how it should taste like ^0^. So I bought a large sticky rice cake, weighing 800gm, for this Chinese Lunar New Year. With this large sticky rice cake, I managed to make two version of fried Nian Gao, one encased in spring roll and the other coated with egg batter. Which do you prefer?

Sticky Rice Cake, Taro & Purple Sweet Potato

Sticky rice cake sandwiched between slices of taro and sweet potato, this is to be coated with egg batter before deep frying.

Mashed taro & sweet potato spread onto spring roll wrapper and rolled up with a slice of sticky rice cake.

Spring Roll Nian Gao 
Ingredient

• 300gm taro (wgt after peeling)
• 200gm purple sweet potato (wgt after peeling)
• 50gm fresh grated coconut
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1/3 tsp salt
• 300gm Nian Gao (sticky rice cake), cut into 2" long strips
• Spring roll wrappers
• cornstarch water to seal spring roll

Method

1. Slice taro & sweet potato and steam them separately until soft.
2. Mash taro & sweet potato while its still hot. 
3. Add coconut, salt & sugar into the mashed taro and mix till well combined.
4. Place wrapper onto a flat surface.
5. Place a tbsp of taro filling and tsp of sweet potato onto wrapper, lightly spread it out.
6. Place 1 piece of nian gao over and wrap.
7. Brush edges with cornstarch water before rolling up.
8. Fry the rolls over medium low heat until golden brown. Cool down slightly before serving.

Note : Unfinished portions can be stored in fridge. Grill in oven on high for 10 mins till crisp and serve!

Recipe ref : WendyinKK

Fried Nian Gao in Egg Batter
Ingredient

• 200gm sliced taro (wgt after peeling)
• 200gm sliced purple sweet potato (wgt after peeling)
• 250gm Nian Gao, chilled overnight and sliced to fit btw the taro and sweet potato

Batter (mix well till free of lumps)

• 4 tbsp plain flour
• 1 tbsp cake flour
• 1 tbsp rice flour
• 1/2 tbsp tapioca flour
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 40ml to 50ml water
• pinch of salt

Method

1. Heat up some oil over medium low heat.
2. Sandwich the nian gao with taro and sweet potato on each side.
3. Coat the sandwich with batter and gently put into the oil and fry it over low fire until golden brown. Drain on paper towel and cool it down slightly before serving.

Note : Unfinished portions can be stored in fridge. Grill in oven on high for 10 mins till crisp and serve!

Recipe ref : Annielicious Food

Kueh Belanda (Traditional Love Letters)

After a couple months hiatus from blogging, I'm finally trying to resume my 'work' slowly. No baking cookies nor cooking for this coming Chinese Lunar New Year as I want to continue my rest and relax mode ^0^. Until one fine day my dear friends plan a get-together to make Kueh Belanda (Tradtional Nonya Love Letters) using charcoal fire!! I do not want to give this a miss as it will be my first time making this traditional cookies. With our team work, we manage to churn out several containers of aromatic charcoal fire love letters! A tiring and back-breaking process, but it is a fun and definitely an unforgettable experience.

Extracting of fresh coconut milk done by Alan 

Subsequently eggs (10 eggs for a batch!) and sugar are beaten together, follow by adding in fresh coconut milk and finally the flour mixture. The batter is then sieved and ready to be used!

Preheating the mould before starting our back-breaking process of grilling the kueh belanda >.<

My role....tending to the heated moulds and in the process I burnt quite a handful of them while chit chatting away with my team mates hahahaha...^0^""

Irresistible aromatic & crispy homemade love letters!! *hehehe the background pineapple tarts are bought from a neighbourhood bakery which they freshly bake them everyday. 

Thanks Alan for sharing this wonderful recipe! 

Ingredient (approx. 80 pcs)

• 250gm rice flour
• 50gm tapioca flour
• 320gm fine sugar
• 400ml fresh coconut milk, first squeeze only
• 1 tsp salt
• 10 large eggs 
• 1 tsp cooking oil (for greasing moulds the first time)

Method : refer to Alan's blog for full details ^.^

Kueh Belanda making team mates – Alan from Travelling Foodies , Annie from Annielicious Food and Edith from Rumbling Tummies. Though is a tiring and back-breaking process, having like-minded friends getting together make this job less boring and more fun with all the laughters!