Simple

My aunt dropped by today for a visit. Haven't seen her for quite awhile. She brought along with her a really yummy tasting roast duck. We, including my kids were happily chewing on it.

As we still had so much left over, she suggested that we can have Shredded Duck Meat Porridge for dinner. Can you believe this is the first time I prepared porridge this way. It turned out really nice.



What you need:

Plain porridge
Shredded duck meat
Duck meat gravy (provided by seller)

Method

Prepare porridge as usual.

Shredded duck meat, removing all fats.

Once porridge is ready, add a ladle of duck meat gravy, top it off with duck meat and serve hot.

It is worth it.

I am not a huge fan of green bean but I like red bean though. The way I like it as in Red Bean Creme. Smooth and yummy.

Therefore, I always look forward to wedding banquet to see whether they have it as their dessert. The only thing is that it is always too sweet to my liking.

This dessert involved a lot of work even though I got super duper machines to do the job and the outcome is satisfactory.



What you need

600g red bean (soak overnight)
14 cups of water
250g lotus seed (soak and remove stem)
Rock sugar to taste
Pandan Leaves

Method

Boil red bean with water till soft. Drain but keep the water.

Put it in a blender and blend till very fine paste. Sieve through a fine sieve. You need to press them through the sieve. Put them back into the water.

Steam lotus seed till semi soft.

Add lotus seed, pandan leaves and rock sugar into the red bean soup.

Simmer till sugar dissolved.

Note: Depending how creamy you want them to be, dilute it with water accordingly.

Lemon Chicken

I participated in a forum and this week, their theme is lemon. Couldn't think of anything really exciting. I remembered when I was down with chicken pox many many years ago, the first dish that came to my mind when I recovered was my mom's Lemon Chicken. She wasn't around when I called, so therefore, I got to improvised my own recipe. Verdict: Not too bad.

 

New

After bread making, I have attempted another new experience - sweet making. I bought a bottle of rose water during one of my grocery trip. Don't ask me why, I just did it without having a clue what to do with it.

Jan and Blondie came to my rescue, they got a recipe for Turkish Delight and a Rose Petal Pound cake respectively. Sweet making is so new to me, so I decided to venture into it. Knowing how I hated failure, Jan went ahead and try it, it was a success.

The result of mine was not so satisfactory.

My next attempt, I will have to reduced the sugar to 150g. I couldn't get that chewy texture too. My cousin said that to achieve a very chewy texture, you need to boil it longer. Perhaps it was the heating temperature that I didn't get it right. Too afraid that I will burnt it as I wasn't using a non stick pot. I have a packet of snow powder on hand, so I decided to use that for coating and it works.

Verdict: I was pretty surprised that son like it because generally, he doesn't really take soft candy.



What you need:

25g gelatine
100g sugar
¼ tsp citric acid
½ tsp vanilla essence
2 tsp triple strength rose water
few drops of food colourings (optional)
snow powder (50g icing sugar + 25g corn flour)

Method

Place 200ml water in a large saucepan. Sprinkle the gelatine on the liquid. Set aside for 15 min until the gelatine is spongy.

Add the sugar and citric acid, place the saucepan over gentle heat, stir constantly until dissolved. Bring the mixture to the boil and boil for 20 mins without stirring. Remove from the heat and allow to stand for 10 mins.

Stir in the vanilla essence, rose water and colouring (if use). Pour into a wetted 15cm square tin. Leave uncovered in a cool place for 24 hours.

Sift the snow powder on to a sheet of greaseproof paper. Turn the Turkish delights onto the paper and cut into small squares using a sharp knife dipped in the icing mixture.

Toss well in the mixture so that all sides are coated. Pack in air tight container lined with waxed paper and dusted with the snow powder.