Gong Xi Fa Cai, Xin Nian Kuai Le!

I would like to wish all my readers who celebrate CNY:

Sorry so blur because Evy kept saying "Gong Xi, Gong Xi" and Edda kept moving her hands.

Happy Lunar New Year! Let's the feasts begin!

Early Reunion Dinner ~ Steamboat

My brother is in Denver for three weeks. He is here for training. And since he is here, we had an early reunion dinner with him. I prepared Tom Yam steamboat as this was very easy and satisfying. :o)


Vermicelli, napa cabbage, shrimps, fish fillets, marinated chicken breast slices, cutterfish, straw mushrooms, babycorns.


Chai Hsin, romaine lettuce, tofu, DoDo fish balls, fish cake, assorted fish cakes, tofu pok.


Tom Yam soup for steamboat.

I prepared too much again. Left with quite a lot of soup and ingredients. Guess would make Tom Yam Udon noodle with the leftover.

Green Bean Cookies

My modified version of Green Bean Cookies adapted from Rose's Kitchen. This is a crunchy and melt in the mouth kind of cookies.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter (2 sticks)

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

2 Tbsp. cornflour

3/4 cup green bean flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 egg yolk, for glazing

Method:

1. Cream butter, powdered sugar and salt until creamy.

2. Mix in sifted flours and hand knead until a dough is formed.

3. Pinch a piece of the dough and roll into ball. Finish the rest of the dough. Brush the top of each cookie with the yolk glaze.

4. Bake in preheated 300'F oven for 20 minutes.

~Yield about 90 cookie balls.

More CNY Bakes 2008 (2)

Peanut Cookies ~ Another of my favorite! I have great childhood memory with this melt-in-the-mouth peanut cookies. I remember I always sort this out at my late grandma's house to eat (oh yeah, my late grandma used to make kuih and sell, she was a great cookies and kuih maker).



Cornflakes Cookies ~ Didn't use a cookie scoop this time, as I wanted a smaller cookies.



Sugi Cookies ~ After few batches of CNY bakes, the last cookies I made looked like this. LOL! I only wanted an easy way out and too lazy to shape the cookies into balls, let alone the presentation of it. Just roll into cylinder and cut, Evy helps with the pattern on top. Uniquely me right? :P

For peanut cookies, click here.
For cornflake cookies, click here.
For sugi cookies, click here.

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.

More CNY Bakes 2008 (1)

Pandan Kuih Bangkit ~ Decided to add some pandan paste for a change. Don't think it's green enough...haha... Anyway, not very happy with this batch and I think I know why. I used the frozen coconut milk (curdled coconut cream!) instead of opening a new can of coconut milk, didn't think it would make a different but it did (ended out needed more coconut milk). It's not as crispy & light, more towards crunchy and melt in the mouth. Oh well, lesson learned!



Melt-in-the-Mouth Pineapple Tarts ~ Everyone favorite! I stick with the same old pattern because it yield more tarts for me. I didn't use a lot of pineapple filling too, so the sweetness is just "gam gam hor" (just nice).

For my pineapple tart recipe, click here.
For my kuih bangkit recipe, click here.
For my step-by-step-pictures guide, click here.