Nyonya Changs for Dumpling Festival

My first Nyonya Chang, recipe courtesy of LeeLee.


So greedy with my filling that I think I overstuffed every one of them. :P

This is my changs for the Dumpling Festival this year. :) Instead of my usual Hokkein bak chang, I decided to try LeeLee's Nyonya chang. I love Nyonya chang but I always thought it called for coconut milk. But when LeeLee posted her recipe, I saw that there was no coconut milk involved and I have all the ingredients at home. So, why not give this a try. I ended out with too much filling, greedy as always and afraid that it won't be enough. Thus, I still have some leftover filling in my freezer ready for the next batch (I'm out of the bamboo leaves at the moment).

Even though this was my first attempt, I am very happy with the result. The sweetness and saltiness are just nice and I am glad that I get to eat rice dumpling this year! Thanks LeeLee for sharing! :D

One thing about this chang though is a lot of cutting work since every ingredient needs to be cut into small pieces. I think I stood in my kitchen for more than an hour just cutting the ingredients.

Tang Hoon Soup

I was making a pot of chicken stock with my leftover roasted chicken bone cavity and what better way to use this stock than to serve it with tang hoon and fish balls (besides making soup)? Just soaked some tang hoon in warm water to soften it, thaw out some DoDo fish balls and washed some green. Then, cooked the fish balls in the stock and quickly blanched the veggie as well. Dished out and set aside. Prepare a bowl with some soften tang hoon, top with some green (I used baby bok choy) and fish balls and pour the hot chicken stock on top and garnished with crispy fried shallots and chili padi. This was a very easy dinner to prepare and delicious to the last drop.

Chinese Tea Eggs

I always wanted to try the tea eggs ever since I had it at Lily's house last year. It definitely took me awhile but better late than never. Since I am a sucker for easy or recipe that uses less ingredients , I decided to try making it with a recipe I found online that uses tea bag and five spice powder. Well, I guess if you want a good fragrant tea eggs, don't look for short-cut and use Lily's recipe instead. These tea eggs of mine have no fragrant at all and way too salty! Anyway, I took this as an experience and a practice run.

I really like the marbling effect on my eggs. "Swee bor?" (Pretty or not?) Sorry for the yellow lighting since I have to take this at night.

New Product Testing

I decided to give this ChanHong Penang Assam Laksa Instant Sauce a test run when I couldn't find Hup Loong brand assam laksa in the Denver Asian store that used to sell it. So, desperate need calls for desperate measure and I was glad that I saw this at mytasteofasia.com.



I was quite skeptical at first because looked at the picture at the packet, it looked more like a curry laksa instead of assam laksa. And there was no review written on it. But my love for Penang assam laksa prompted me to buy one packet and try it. Desperate need mah!



I am so glad that I gave this a try. This is simply delicious and way better than the Hup Loong brand spices. For the Hup Loong brand, we need to add a lot of extra ingredients to make it good. Whereas, with this brand, the flavor and taste are there, all we need just some lime juice and lots of shrimp paste. So good! I strongly recommended this! :)



What I add, yields 3 bowls:

900ml water
1 packet of the paste
1 999 brand 15oz (425 gm) tomato sardine with half canned of tomato sauce
lime juice to taste
shrimp paste to taste (Hae Kor)

You don't have to add chili padi for this because it's spicy enough. As for the garnishes, it's the norm, shredded cucumber, red onion and pineapple. If you grow your own mint leaves in the house, use that as well. As for me, see no mint leaves because I was unwilling to pay $2.95 for a small packet of mint!!

If you can find this in the store where you live, grab it! If not, you can also order from Ray like me. Hehe...

Edda Update

I asked her to smiles for the camera and this is the best she came out with.


Snacking on her fingers food. No pincer grab yet!

Look at her two teeth at the bottom! Finally smiling for mama.

She is still not crawling yet, but it will be soon. She can sit up by herself from a laying position. I just found her sitting at the end of her crib playing with her toys this morning. And I thought she fell back to sleep because she was so quiet, later I learned that she was actually eating on toilet paper that I put in a basket! Adoi....she loves chewing and eating paper. Yeah, I forgot to look at the end of the crib and totally missed her sitting there happily chewing on the toilet paper. *Duh Mommy!*

She can also scoop from one place to the other. Mostly going backward because she still hasn't move forward yet. She will be on all four, even hands moving forward, but her legs just stay there, and then she just scoop back to a sitting position again. And somehow by doing that, she can shift herself from one place to another.

Update: She crawls today! (June 16th, 2007)

Fish Paste Roll

This is my version of fish paste roll in beancurd sheet. I marinated the fish paste (ready-made) with chopped scallion, carrot and sesame oil. Then, spread it on a square beancurd sheet, roll it up swiss roll style and deep-fry until golden brown and crispy.


Cut and serve with Thai sweet chilli sauce. Delicious!