Air-fryer Sesame Balls

I remembered the sesame balls that I used to have in Malaysia while I was young was filled with ground peanut filling.  After I moved to the US, the ones that I had were filled with mung bean paste or red bean paste.  Even to these days, I have not seen one that's filled with peanut filling, and I missed that.

Then, while browsing my Facebook page, I saw a video clip about an air-fryer sesame balls recipe that caught my attention.  An easier way to make this without the oil and heat while deep-frying sounded just perfect for me.  Furthermore,  by making it myself I can fill it with whatever filling I desired.   So, without further hesitation, let's get working.  I made my own peanut filling by grounding some toasted peanuts and sweeten coconut flakes in a food processor and then added some cane sugar and toasted sesame seeds.  Mixed well to be used as filling.  Sorry, no measurement here as I just eye balling with what I had in my pantry.

Ingredients:

1/8 cup + 1 Tbsp. White cane sugar

175ml warm water

200g glutinous flour

Filling of your choice

Sesame seeds, to suit

Method:

1.  In a bowl, dissolved sugar into the warm water.  Set aside.

2.  In another bigger bowl, add in the glutinous rice flour and pour in the sugar water mixture.  Mix and knead until a soft dough is formed.  You can add more water or glutinous flour to adjust the consistency. 

3.  Then, pinch a piece of the dough, shape into ball and flatten it and wrap the filling inside inside and close it.  Coat the balls with sesame seeds completely. 

4.  Place the sesame balls into the deep-fryer and spray with oil.  Air-fry at 370'F for 10 minutes. Open the air-fryer, and flip to the other side, spray with oil and air-fry for another 10 minutes at the same temperature. 

5.  When it is done,  don't open the air-fryer just yet,  let it sit in there for 5 minutes before open.  Otherwise,  it might cracks.  Then, serve warm!

NOTE 1: It got harden when its cold.  So, air-fry leftover at 330'F for 4 minutes.  Serve immediately. 

NOTE 2:  I still prefer it deep-fried.  Texture wise is better.

CNY dessert

Tang Yuan in red bean dessert soup signified "团团圆圆".

 

Steamed radish cake signified "好彩头"

Pan-fried version.  The other version is healthier without the oil.  I actually preferred it without pan-frying as it tasted nicer as it was soft and yummy.

Recipe:  https://belachan2.blogspot.com/2016/06/steamed-radish-cake.html?m=1

I always go back to my own trusted recipe that I have been using years after years. 

Steamed Layered Sago Kuih

I was in loved with this Malaysian dessert when I first had it in Malaysia many moons ago.  I had no idea this dessert was actually so easy to make as I thought it would be difficult to produce this dessert at home.  I suddenly had a craving for this sago kuih again and went on Google to look for how it was made.  To my utter surprised, it was fairly easy to make and since I have all the ingredients in my pantry, I set up to give this a try!  I would try other flavor next time or other recipe for a different texture? This one is chewy.

I steamed it in my old-time electric steamer and to my total dismay, my 10+ years steamer broke down in the middle of steaming!!!  What a timing for broken down.  So, I had to cover it with foil and finished steaming it in my wok on the stove top.  Today was not a good day for me, one obstacle after another kept on happening to me on the same day!  I wanted to go to the bank to have some document notarize and found out I forgot my cellphone which had my ID card at home ( thus I had to drive home to get it),  then I went to the bank they told me they charged $5 for cashier checks (so I had to go to Walmart), went to Walmart and realized they only took cash or debit card for money order (I didn't have either one so had to drive home), then got a call from school to tell me to come pick up my younger girl because she was not feeling well and had fever (So, had to drive to school), then my steamer broke down half way through steaming (and I had to find alternative way to finish steaming my kuih, I prepared this in the morning before I got a call from the school, supposed to bring it to my friend's house at night.) and because of my girl not feeling well, I had to cancel the plan to have dinner at my friend's house! :-(  Whoa, I didn't expect all these to happen when I had all plan up nicely the night before.  Seriously, life is so unpredictable!  

Vietnamese Honeycomb Cake Revisited

After I visited a Vietnamese Baguette restaurant and they gave me few pieces of honeycomb cake to try, I realized that I haven't been making this cake for a long time.  So, it prompted me to give it a try again.  I got the honeycomb effect and it seem successful, however, I found it on the dry side.  I have no idea why, do you think I baked it for too long?  or I need to add more coconut milk?  Why it is dried?

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!

Glutinous Rice with Shredded Coconut

I like to make this easy kuih if I happen to crave for some Malaysian kuih-muih (Asian steamed/baked cake).  You can either use a rice cooker or a steamer to make the bottom part of this kuih which is the glutinous rice.  For this recipe, I will use a rice cooker to cook the rice since its more widely available in people house.  Serve this as a dessert, snack or breakfast.  This kuih should be finished in 3 days without refrigeration.  The glutinous rice will harden when place in the refrigerator but you can always microwave it before consuming.

Chewy Rice Paper Pan-fried Nian Gao

This inspiration came about when I was watching a Korean Variety Show called "Happy Together".  There was a winning dish that used the rice paper to wrap leftover and pan-fried it.  Just so happen that I still have a small piece of nian gao/ steamed glutinous rice cake in the refrigerator, so I thought rice paper and nian gao would go well together and quickly set out to give it a try.  We all loved this chewy variation of eating the nian gao too.  Now I have a new way to enjoy the leftover nian gao from Chinese New Year!  I bet you all have some nian gao laying around your house too right?  Give this a try!! *wink*

Soft and chewy bite with melted nian gao/ tikoy/ steamed glutinous rice cake with a slight crispiness from the skin, simply divine!  If you don't like it chewy, you can also try my Crispy Springroll Fried Nian Gao.  You can omit other filling and just wrap it with the nian gao alone, crispy and delicious!

Matcha Mochi Cake with Sweet Potatoes/Yam

 

Why green tea you asked?  It's simply because I adore the Redman green tea powder, it's so fragrant and make your baked good vibrant in this beautiful green color.  I made sure I bought some when I went back to Malaysia few months ago. There is no substitution for me!  Not disappointed, my house smelled like green tea when this was baked and this mochi cake really fragrant packed with green tea smell.  If you just want a plain matcha mochi cake, just omit the sweet potatoes.

The texture of this mochi cake is sticky and chewy with the fragrant of green tea and sweetness from the sweet potatoes.  My next experiment will be with taro mochi cake, wait til I get my hands on some taro!

Purple Sweet Potato Mochi Cake

The inspiration of making this mochi cake came from a Korean mom that I talked to.  I never thought of adding sweet potato into a mochi cake until I tasted some that she made.  Hers was different with orange sweet potato and some other things that she added (she didn't give me the recipe though).  Since I LOVE the purple sweet potato because of the color and sweetness, I wanted to recreate her recipe and hence this recipe was born.  I was glad to say that it was a success and we all loved it very much.  On the day it was baked, the crust was crusty and the mochi was chewy with the sweetness from the sweet potato and a little sourness from the raisins, just perfect!  The crust will turn soft on the 2nd day but just as chewy and delicious!  This is definitely my keeper recipe that I want to make all the times.  Next time I want to try it with taro and play with this recipe a little.  Feedback to me if you ever try it!

Seriously it was so hard to stop at just one piece, got to have two!!  Self-control....self-control....

Mochi (Peanut Coconut Filling) 麻糬

I guess you can call this a Chinese style mochi or 麻糬.  I  remembered when I was in Malaysia, I ate this with peanuts and sugar filling (long long time ago).  Over here in the U.S., we have the similar filling too but with added coconut flakes and often time made by Vietnamese Chinese.  We can easily buy this snack at the Asian market so often time I won't be bother to make it myself.  Today, since I have the mood, I made this for my family.  This microwave mochi was very easy to make and took less than 30 minutes.  Evy loved it and wanted to learn from me, but perhaps when she is older as the dough has to be handled when it is still warm and I don't think she is up to it yet.

Sharing with you my peanut, coconut and sesame filling and hope you like it!

Png Kuih/ Png Kueh (饭桃/桃粿)

This kuih is also called Teochew Png Kuih, but I can't call mine that because I didn't use boiled peanuts in my filling, I also out of dried shrimps.  Also I just used my steamed glutinous rice with chicken and shiitake as the filling.  I wanted to kill two birds in one stone you see so that I would have dinner ready as well as afternoon snack or even breakfast the next day.  Because my steamer was small, I had to steam it twice.

My method was unconventional as well as I used a microwave to make the skin.  So, if you are a traditional cook who wants authentic recipe and the traditional way of cooking, skip this post!  This post is for people who loves short-cut and who don't want to spend too much time in the kitchen.

I used the cheap pink plastic png kuih mold to make this instead of the more expensive wood png kuih mold.  Not bad at all as it fell off easily and didn't get stuck to the mold, furthermore, I could still see the print after it's steamed.  For own consumption, I'm happy with it.

Steamed Pumpkin Kuih 2 (蒸南瓜糕点)

This makes a delicious breakfast, afternoon snack, dessert, supper or even lunch.  With the abundance of pumpkin this holidays season, why not give this a try?  I used my old recipe here but this time I used fresh pumpkin to make this.  I steamed the cut pumpkin for 30 minutes and then just chopped it into small pieces with my cleaver.  You can squeeze some water out before adding into the rice flour batter for firmer texture.

Since the steamed pumpkin contained more water, the resulted pumpkin kuih is moist and soft unlike the steamed taro kuih even though the methods are the same.  Serve this with crispy fried shallots, chopped scallion and sriracha sauce.

The undress pumpkin kuih

Kuih Bahlu 2 (Chinese Egg Sponge Cake, 鸡蛋糕)

 

I did a Pandan Kuih Bahlu before in year 2008 and never try it since.  Because I found the recipe a bit dry.  This year I had no plan on making kuih bahlu but while I was browsing and jumping blogs, I decided to check out Sinner's blog.  And then I saw her kuih bahlu recipe posted last year.  I quickly compared her ingredients with the one I made before and found that hers uses less sugar and flour and she also stated that hers produces soft kuih bahlu.  So, I got interested and prompted me to try out her recipe.  I was glad I tried because it is indeed soft and slightly chewy.  Edda and myself couldn't stop popping a few of this once it was cooled.  :-P  However, after I kept it in the container, it turned sticky and moist unlike the dry kuih bahlu we used to.  Almost like the mini egg sponge cake I did in 2007.  So, I don't think this can be kept long.  Guess I will have to play with the old recipe again, like adding oil.

Guess you have noticed the ugly looking kuih bahlu I have right?  I don't have the pretty kuih bahlu mould so I used the mini muffin pan to make this instead.  If you too don't own the mould and wanted to make this, check out my instruction on the next page.  The method is about the same but slightly different.  You can still enjoy the kuih bahlu without the mould.  I guess the next time I go back to M'sia, I need to buy myself two kuih bahlu moulds.

Brown Sugar Glutinous Rice Cake (Kuih Pulut Gula Hitam)

I made this Malaysian cake or kuih to bring to a friend's house.  I won't be sharing the recipe because I didn't make a good job of it.  The glutinous rice turned out too soft and I think I picked the wrong method to do this.  Since I made this without measurement, just estimation, I also found it not sweet enough.  Since lots of people know how to make this, I won't be telling you how.  Just that I added brown sugar and sweeten coconut flakes into the coconut fragrant glutinous rice before putting it into a container to shape.

Surprisingly my hubby liked it and I thought he hardly eat any Malaysian cake.  I would definitely try this again and this time with another method of doing it.  This cake is best eaten on the same day.  It is not recommended to put it in the refrigerator as this will harden the glutinous rice.

I tried to arrange it like a snowflake, haha... does it look like a snowflake?  :-P

Steamed Pumpkin Cake (Pumpkin Kuih)

My one pumpkin can help me create so many new dishes.  If you have been following my blog, I have been popping out all sort of pumpkin recipes recently, have you even noticing it?  And it's not over yet, I still have more pumpkin recipes to share.  Just stay tuned!

I love my stir-fry pumpkin with eggs, so yummy delicious and this steamed pumpkin cake, soft and moist and so well seasoned.  It's so great eating it this way, but I also like it pan-fried because I like the crispy crust on the outside before I bite into the softness inside.

I was so happy I created this recipe.  I never thought of making this kuih in the first place but once I found out that the defrosted pumpkin was soft in nature, I had to change my plan.  Since the soften pumpkin contained lots of liquid so I needed a recipe that suitable for this.  Once I planned on making this, I realized that I only had 100g of rice flour, no more and no less, so I had to create a recipe based on 100g of rice flour.  Luckily it turned out so well and delicious.

This recipe is not hard to make at all.  If you try it, feedback to me ya! ;-)

Indonesian Cantik Manis Kuih

When I saw this recipe at Indonesia Eats's blog, I knew I had to try it.  It looked so pretty in hers as her colorful tapioca pearls retained its color when cooked.  Mine the color seem to be disappeared during the cooking process.  It only has a light tint of green but can't even see it from the pictures.

The reason I wanted to try it is because I have a packet of Korean green bean starch in my pantry and the rest of the ingredients.

This dessert received rave reviews from my hubby and daughters.  They simply loved it.  Just be careful when you stir in the green bean starch, make sure that it is dissolved completely and no lumps present.  If you see lumps, don't scoop it into the mold to cool as it won't be edible.  I let mine harden in the refrigerator and store it in the refrigerator as it is made of coconut milk.  Anything made using coconut milk turns sour easily so remember to store it in the refrigerator.

I am submitting this dish to Indonesia Eats for her CSN store giveaway.

Red Bean Mochi Cupcakes

I first heard about mochi cake through A Food Lover's Journey.  I looked through the recipe and it is a lot like the baked nian gao that I did for Chinese New Year except probably half the recipe called for.  It is an interesting idea to bake it in cupcakes and I wanted to give it a try.  Since I love red bean flavor and have some red bean paste on hand, I made mine into a red bean mochi (glutinous rice) cupcakes.

It tasted like "kuih" (a Malaysian cake), soft, sticky and slightly chewy with red bean flavor.  You can certainly substitute the milk with coconut milk to make it richer. This recipe of mine stays soft even after three days in a container.  Best eaten within three days, might go bad after that. One thing to note though, the paper will be hard to unwrap on the first day it was baked, but easier on the second day onwards.

You can buy the red bean paste in a can at the Asian grocery stores in the U.S. for those who are interested.  Feedback to me when you try this red bean mochi cake.  I had made it twice and loved it!

Pandan Kuih Bahulu (or Kuih Bahlu)

I bought a light non-stick kuih bahlu pan at my recent trip back in Malaysia. This was not the traditional heavy kuih bahlu pan because I certainly wouldn't want to carry those. Since I got the pan, I wanted to test out the pan and I found the kuih bahlu recipe at Rainbows. I added pandan paste into mine because I was curious of how it would taste like. In my first batch, I sprayed the pan with some butter spray and all the pattern disappeared. So, I learned a lesson there. I didn't spray on my second batch and above was what I got. The pattern was not as clear cut because the indentation in the pan was not deep compared the the traditional mold.

Since I have not eaten any store-bought kuih bahlu or any kuih bahlu made with the mold for ages, I couldn't tell how this was. Thus I purposely made this to bring to my friend's house and let them be the judges. According to the hubby, it's better than store-bought and it was pretty good, he said the store-bought one was really dry. According to the wife, it's still a bit dry compared to the one her MIL made. I thought it was kind of chewy. How is it supposed to taste like huh?

Update: I did some research on the web and the texture of kuih bahulu is supposed to be dry, crispy outside and slightly spongy inside and best eaten with coffee/tea because of it's dry texture.

Steamed Pandan Cassava Kuih

I made this for a party and it was well received.  I was thinking instead of the baked cassava kuih that we were used to, I wanted to try a steam version.  The steamed version was not bad too and easy to make.  You can also make this with gula Melaka/ palm sugar for a different fragrant, color and taste instead of using pandan paste.

Baked Red Bean Nian Gao

I decided to make this red bean nian gao to bring to Lily's party and to serve at my party. This recipe was shared by Lin, and it is so worth a try. Thank you Lin for sharing this fantastic recipe. :*



This is seriously good. Tasted so much better with the added red bean, I will make this again next year. Oh yeah, have you spotted my mistake yet? I forgot to swirl the red bean paste around the batter when I dropped it in and thus some part had red bean while other didn't. Not pretty too but look can be deceiving! ;) Anyway, I learned from my mistake.