Steamed Radish Cake

Homemade steamed radish cake can be so flavorful, soft and delicious!  I always keep a daikon in my refrigerator or Korean round radish.  I used it to make soup, banchan (Korean side dishes), etc.  One day since I have all the ingredients at home, I said to myself, why not make some radish kuih?  I love radish cake, either pan-fried or eating it soft and fresh with Sriracha, so satisfying! This method is considering a short-cut method since I don't have to cook everything in a pan until thicken and then steamed it. Just mixed and steamed!

The end result is so good.  Just substitute taro for taro cake and pumpkin for pumpkin cake.  Or leave it out for a white plain rice cake! (Then you can cook some savory chai por/preserved turnips to eat it with) This recipe should be interchangeable.  Good Luck experimenting!

Lazy Egg Tarts

 

When I saw this egg tarts made using puff pastry at Nasi Lemak Lover's blog, I immediately bookmarked it.  Simply because I am lazy and simple or short-cut recipes attract me.  Just so that I had a piece of frozen puff pastry waiting to be used and my girls and I loved loved egg tarts (in any crust), so this recipe came in the right moment.  Each of us had three pieces after it came out of the oven and it was pretty good for a short-cut recipe.  However, I would prefer to use the pie crust for this instead of puff pastry the next time as it couldn't hold lots of filling as I was having difficulty in stretching the thawed puff pastry to fill the muffin hole.  

I would use the custard filling recipe again and make my own crust the next time I feel like eating egg tarts.  Definitely not a bad way to get a quick fix.  However, I would recommend the refrigerated pie crust instead of frozen puff pastry if you don't want to make your own crust and want a quick craving fix..

Chinese Pumpkin Sesame Cakes

I saw this Pumpkin Sesame Cakes in a Chinese cooking show recently.  It was a pumpkin recipes special and it featured this and a steamed variety.  For the steamed one, the cooking host shaped the dough into a little pumpkin and then steamed it until cooked.  She served it with some sort of sweet syrup.

I was attracted to this pan-fried version as it looked really tasty.  What's more I am also a big fan of sesame seeds so of course I had to give this recipe a try.  I was also curious of how it would taste like.

I gave it a bite to let you see the texture inside of this cake.  It tasted like nian gao, since it was made of glutinous rice flour I guess.  Slightly chewy and not bad at all.  Mine was not sweet enough, I would prefer it to be sweeter.

Siew Mai II (Pork Dumplings II) & Award

Need to take a break from posting my CNY bakes to post this and to pass on this lovely award to fellow blogger friends. :)





I made siew mai again last week, this time using Nilmandra suggestion of adding a pea on top of each siew mai. How was it? Look nicer, right? I didn't have cilantro this time, so I made this without it. I found that the siew mai was more fragrant with the added chopped cilantro. Anyhow, it's still tasted good. Oh by the way, Evy helped me to put the pea on top of each siew mai. She is at this age of wanting to help in the kitchen.

Ingredients:

(A)

1/2 pound ground pork

8 large shrimps, minced

1 tsp. Ginger juice or 1 Tbsp. minced ginger

1 green onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 Tbsp. sesame oil

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. sugar
Dashes of white pepper

(B)

1/4 cup of minced carrots for decoration

Some frozen green peas for decoration

Round wontan wrappers, as needed

Method:

1.  Add (A) in a bowl and stir in one direction until blended.

2.  Take a piece of the round wontan skin and place a sizable amount of filling in the middle, hold the skin up to cover the filling.  Decorate the top with some minced carrots and place a green pea in the middle (optional).  Finish the rest of the siew mai.

3.  Steam in boiling water for 15 minutes, using a bamboo steamer or any steamer that you have.  Serve with chili in oil.

Steamed Siew Mai (Pork Dumplings)

Decided to use the leftover filling from the Wontan Rolls with Nori Sheets to make Siew Mai. Serve with my homemade Chili in Oil. Everyone loved it! Guess next time I would have to make more.



Siew Mai is an item commonly served in Dim Sum restaurant. Some more expensive one added one whole shrimp in the siew mai. Homemade siew mai is healthier because the restaurant added lard in the siew mai to make it tastier. Not sure whether they still use lard in preparing their siew mai these days? Because of this we always order the Har Gow (Shrimp dumpling) instead of siew mai.