Homemade Ais-Kacang

Homemade red beans, canned palm seeds ("Attap Chee"), creamy corns and green liang fun. Note: I found canned red beans for dessert topping as well but very expensive at $4 a canned! So, decided to make my own.


With shave ice on top.


With evaporated milk and gula melaka syrup and ready to serve!


This is the automatic shave ice maker for home use, by Hawai Ice.

Now we can make our own ais-kacang especially if you live in an area where no M'sian/S'porean restaurants are serving ais-kacang and you have a craving for it. :0)

For those who don't know, ais-kacang is a shave ice dessert that served in M'sia and S'pore. The direct translation of this is red bean ice also known as ABC (Air Batu Campur). It used to be just beans and ice but these days a lot of ingredients have been added. Some even served with special topping such as ice-cream, chocolate syrup or pureed durian. In a warm tropical climate such as M'sia/S'pore, a bowl of this delicious ais-kacang definitely is a great way to cool down the body.

Coagulated Milk

I saw this dessert some time back and decided to give it a try. Frankly, I never tasted it before and was wondering how does it tasted like. I found the recipe at Leisure Cat and it was fairly easy (I tweak my method a little). The ginger juice is used to coagulate the milk and thus this dessert is smooth, very soft and tasted of ginger (sorta like ginger flavored milk).

Ingredients:

8 ounce (220ml) whole milk

1 Tbp. ginger juice

1 tsp. sugar (1 tsp. more for sweeter taste)

Method:

1. Prepare ginger juice by zesting the ginger and squeeze out the juice, strained.

2. Microwave the milk for 1 min 25 seconds. Add in sugar and stir to dissolve. Then, take another cup and pour it back and forth for 10 times to let the air in (Indian teh tarik style, but not too high, wondering whether I can omit this step?).

3. Put 1 Tbp. of ginger juice in a bowl, stir well before pouring in the milk from 2. Then, leave it and don't touch the milk for 3 mins. It should be set after that and serve immediately.

Note: Don't let it sit out for too long because the ginger will become too overpowering.

Fried Seaweed Crackers

No idea what this cracker is called, so I just named it like it is. This cracker normally can be found during Chinese New Year, sold along side all the other CNY cookies.

I saw a deep fried pastry roll recipe at a Chinese forum and it just provided me with the idea of making this. The method is the same, just that I have added a sheet of seaweed on top and roll it together. I cut it diagonally instead of straight down. It sure produces a nicer effect and looks like those sold in Malaysia.

This is a delicious snack that is hard to stop at just a few. Now you can make it yourself and don't have to wait til CNY to eat it. What's more, it's so easy to make! :)

Fried Cutterfish Balls on a Stick

I made something familiar in the supermarket and pasar malam (night market) back home. Usually sold for $1 each and it comes in fish balls, cutterfish balls and shrimp balls.

This snack is super easy to make. Just buy a package of DoDo cutterfish balls (of course you can choose any variety you like), thaw it until soft and deep-fry it in medium hot oil until golden brown. Skewer them into a satay stick and serve with Thai sweet chilli sauce. Kids friendly as well.

Sisters

Just sharing some pictures of them posing for the camera. How sweet to see them all lovey together. :o)

Update on Edda:

Edda is growing teeth! I can feel and see a tooth at her left middle bottom gum and another one on her right. Two at 6+ months!! Evy didn't grow her first tooth until 9+ months. So, this is early for me.

She started drinking from a sippy cup since 4 months. Never on pacifier and bottle (only on bottle for the week when doc. asked not to breastfeed her because of her jaundice). Good for me because I don't have to hide the pacifier or worry about keeping the bottle from her later on. Oh, I gave her water or sometimes diluted apple juice during or after meals.

I also started her on Gerber fruit puffs. I split it into half and let her self-feed herself on her high chair while I cook. Also to let her practise her pincher grab, thus far not too bad, half went into her mouth and half on the chair. Hahaha...

Sago Pudding

I'm not very good at cooking sago (tapioca pearls). The previous few attempts failed on me. I blame it on the sago itself. The sago I got was the largest size and everytime I boiled it, it just broken apart, not looking like pearls at all. But this time around, I decided to try the mini size sago to use in my Bobochacha and to make sago agar-agar.

The package didn't come with instruction but I remember Peony's make the sago pudding before, so I went to her blog to look up for the way to cook the sago. You can find her method here. As usual, I ended out pouring almost half of the package into my boiling water without knowing it will expand to so much. I intended to use it for my bobochacha but I ended out with so much sago that I used half of it to make this sago pudding. I made gula melaka with coconut syrup to accompany this yummy sago pudding. I used the rich coconut cream and thus my syrup became this milky brown color.



I didn't rinse this under cold running water and thus the pearls kind of stick together. Nevertheless, I can still feel the pearls when I bite into it instead of clump. This dessert is very easy to make and absolutely delicious. Do try it yourself ya! :)

Note: You can now buy Gula Melaka via MyTOA.