Yummy Food Book - A blog on nice food, pastries and baking recipes

HANOI HOLIDAY TRIP

Dariel — Sun, 06 May 2012 13:43:05 +0000

Goodbye Singapore! Hanoi here I come! I will back on this coming friday. Stay tune on my blog post on Hanoi Cuisine.

RED STAR RESTAURANT – HONG XIN RESTAURANT

Dariel — Wed, 02 May 2012 13:20:42 +0000

I really love May as it a month of 2 public holidays. Labour Day that falls on 1^st May and Vesak day on 5^th May 2012. Since today frog and I are not working today, we had gone to red star restaurant at Chin Swee Road for dim sum with our dim sum khakis. The
restaurant is very well known for their dim sum and my friend had warned us of the long queue. However this does not stop us for going there to try out their dim sum. Indeed the queue was very long and we had waited about 20 to 25 minutes to be seated. The restaurant has an oldies feel and it is very spacious. I thought I was in some Hong Kong dim sum restaurant. Very cosy ambience. The dim sums are placed in the push carts pushed by the waitress. The waitress will push the push carts to your table and you can order what you want immediately. Some of the waitress is very friendly and they will recommend their popular dim sum to us.

Here are what we had ordered:

Long Queue Outside the Restuarant

Finally we are inside the restaurant but still queuing for the table.

Char Siew Sou + Spring Roll + Glutinous Rice

The skin of the char siew sou is flaky and you can see from the photo it look delicious. I love the char siew filling!

Siew Mai

Kampong Steam Chicken + Ginger sauce

The steam chicken is very tender and i love the ginger sauce.It goes very well with the steam chicken.

Egg Tarts

Look at the egg filling. A must try at Hong Xin Restaurant!

Durain Crepe

The crepe is very soft and the durian filling is very fresh. Yummy! We never regret ordering this. Beside ordering the above, we did order roasted duck, yam ball, chinese chive rolls, Har Gua, Zhu Chang Fen, Char Siew Bao, poriddge and herbal jelly. Overall the dim sum that we had ordered tasted delicious and I had not regret waiting in the queue for these dim sum. I will give 7.5 out of 10 for the dim sum served at Red Star Restaurant. Guess we had ordered quite a lot of dim sum and the bill for 6 person cost $153.

I will definitely go Red Star Restaurant for dim sum again. Counting down to weekend…Endure!!!

HAPPY CALL PAN

Dariel — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 13:09:19 +0000

Just last month, frog had bought Happy Call from gmarket. We heard a lot positive comments on happy call and seeing our friends posting delicious food cooked using Happy Call on facebook. This has tempted us to buy the happy call pan. We had tried cooking using Happy Call pan and it is amazing. The oil used for cooking is greatly reduced and surprisingly after frying using the happy call, the kitchen is not oily at all. Food cooked by happy call taste healthier and it makes cooking easier too. Cleaning the kitchen after cooking is not a chore anymore.

Here are some pictures of the food cooked using Happy Call Pan.

Pork Burger + Bean + tomatoes

Pork Patty with Saute Mushrooms + Mashed Potatoes

Stay tune for my updated recipe on the pork burger.

I know that there is a website (Munch Ministry) sharing recipes on food cooked using Happy Call. A very informative website and I am very fascinated that we can actually used Happy Call to bake cakes or even pineapple tarts. Shall try out the recipe some days.

Stay Tune for more updates!

EGG TARTS

Dariel — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 11:51:43 +0000

As you can see from my previous blog posts, i had seldom bake tarts for my family to try. However after tasting the egg tart bake by my colleague, I had decided to try baking them. This is my 2nd attempt trying to bake the egg tarts. My first attempt was a failure as the egg custard did not set even i had bake them for a long time using the microwave conventional oven. Since I had bought the rowenta bench top oven, I had decided to try out the same recipe to see if the egg custard are able to set at the desired temperature and time.

Yes! This time round is a sucess and the egg custard turn out to be nicely baked. The other colleague of mine had tried out the recipe but her egg custard had air bubbles / holes after baking. I guess the diffculty in baking egg tart is to achieve smooth egg custard. The oven temperature and the method in cooking the egg custard both play an important factor in making perfect egg tarts.

A Tray Full Of Egg Tarts

Yummy Egg Tarts for Tea Time

Here is the egg tart recipe by my colleague:

Crust:

Butter 125g

Icing sugar sifted 35g

Egg White 1/2

Egg yolk 1

Plain flour, sifted 220g

Vanilla essence 1/2 tsp

Mix/whisk butter and icing sugar till pale yellow. Add beaten egg white and egg yolk, vanilla essence and whisk till creamy, Add flour, cut flour into butter mixture, knead to an even dough. Refrigerate the dough for 10 mins. Press into mould and bake 175 degree celcius about 10 mins till crust turns white to light golden brown. Cool before pouring the egg custard in.

Egg Custard:

Milk 220ml

Sugar 70g

Egg 3

Vanilla Essence 1/2tsp

Bailey’s (Optional) 1 tbsp

Melt sugar in milk,let cool. Add in beaten eggs, vanilla essence, bailey’s and mix well. Sift egg mixture before pouring into crust. (I had sifted my egg custard 3X before pouring into crust.) Do not let egg custard overflow from the crust. Bake 175 degree celcius for around 15 mins till egg custard is set.

Enjoy Baking!

ALMOND FINGER COOKIES

Dariel — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:07:28 +0000

A very simple and delicious almond finger cookies recipe given by my colleague. It took me about15 minutes to prepare all the ingredients and another 15 minutes to pipe the mixture onto the baking tray. I am using my new Rowena oven to bake these cookies. The sales person had mentioned that the oven can bake up to 4 trays of cookies. I did not try that but I had placed 2 trays of cookies this time round since this is my first time trying out the oven for baking.

Baking in Progress:2 trays of cookies

Conclusion of the using Rowena Oven: Even baking of the cookies placed in the top and middle tray.

Almond Finger Cookies Tray #1

Almond Finger Cookies Tray #2

Ingredients A

100g brown sugar

100g butter

1 egg

Ingredients B

120g plain flour

120g almond powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Preheat oven to 150°C.

Cream ingredient A till smooth. Add ingredient B and mix well.

Spoon the mixture in the piping bag fitted with the star nozzle.

Pipe short length on the lined baking tray.

Bake in the oven for 20 to 25 mins till golden brown.

Enjoy baking!

I had baked egg tarts using the new oven and it was a success! Stay tune to my recipes! Mid week and looking forward to Sat!

MY NEW BENCH TOP OVEN: ROWENTA OC7868 38L ELECTRIC OVEN

Dariel — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 13:18:08 +0000

Finally after much consideration and thoughts, I had finally decided to buy a bench top electric oven instead of the build in type. Previously I am using the Panasonic microwave with convection baking mode to bake my cupcakes, cookies and cakes. However, the quantity I can bake at a time is not as much and it will take a few rounds to finish baking. I find that it is quite time consuming. Thus with my interest in
baking, I had decided to buy a bigger capacity oven so that I bake more in a
shorter period of time. Especially during festive season like Christmas and
Chinese new year.

So the question is : Bench top oven or build in oven?

Initally we thought of the build in oven. Frog and I had looked through the kitchen to
see which are the possible space / area for the oven.
We had go around to source for the build in oven and checked with the staff on
how to re ‘renovate’ the cabinet space for the build in oven.

Advice from the staff:

1. Get a carpenter to do up the space for the build in oven ( Re
renovate – involves knocking down of existing cabinets etc)

2. Go to ikea to buy the ‘box’ to contain the build in oven. Ikea
do sell this kind of ‘box’ that fits most build in oven.

We had checked on the price for the carpenter and it cost about $200 or more for
the carpentry work. The ‘box’ from Ikea cost about $160 or more depends on the
laminate that you choose. Option 2 was out due to space constrain in the kitchen.

After much thinking and planning, frog and I thought that it will be quite troublesome to re renovate the kitchen and not to add on more cost to our pockets. A build in
oven ranges from $700 plus and more Thus the idea of getting build in oven was
out. So next question which brand of bench top oven is better? Any additional
space to place the oven? Another round of sourcing the bench top oven , reading
up online for bench top oven review and space allocation for the oven. I am so
glad that frog go through all the sourcing and planning with me.It makes the buying process fun! 2 brains is better than 1.

After looking through reviews and shopping around, we had decided to buy Rowenta
OC7868 38L Electric Oven. So far, it is the only bench top oven with internal
fan for even distribution of heat. This is a plus point as temperature of the
oven is a very important factor for baking. I had bought the oven from Tampines
Mega Courts. Courts sales person told us that there will be a Rowenta promoter
station at their outlet and he will answer any queries on the oven. Not only
that, we can call him in advance to tell him what cake / cookies we are
interested to learn and he will buy the ingredients and give a demonstration on
how to bake. The promoter is on leave when we went to purchase the oven. I will definitely call and ask him to show us
how to bake butter cake.

Rowenta OC7868 Bench Top Electric Oven

I had started to bake cookies and cakes using the new Rowenta OC7868 oven. Stay tune for oven review. :)

Counting down to weekend! Cheers!

CHINESE NEW YEAR COOKIES CLASS

Dariel — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 13:07:57 +0000

Have you tried baking ten different types of cookies in a day? Yes I did! I had attended the intensive Chinese New Year cookies lesson conducted by Mrs Fong again. I had learnt a lot from her in the class and will try to bake some of her recipes next week. Just went to Phoon Huat and NTUC fairness to get those ingredients and it was very crowded over at Phoon Huat. Guess next year I will stock up the ingredients one month before Chinese New Year to avoid the crowd and get ready for baking! Here are the cookies that I had learnt for the lesson:

Kueh Bangkit

A very challenging cookie to bake!

Kueh Bahulu

Kueh Rose

Almond Cookies

Kueh Makmur

Suji Cookies With Almond

Cashew Nut Cookies

Peanut Cookies

Walnut Cookies Hup Tao Soh

CornFlakes Cookies

Posing with my group mates after the class.

Group photo after the class. Posing with the cookies that we had learnt for the classes. Can’t wait to start baking and try out the recipes next week! Thank you frog for this Christmas gift.

Stay tune for more post!

HAPPY NEW YEAR (2012)

Dariel — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 04:12:12 +0000

Year 2011 had just ended yesterday and let us welcome year
2012! A new beginning of the year and hopefully a great year for me.

In just 3 weeks time to Chinese New Year and stay tune for Chinese New Year cookie recipes.
I will start baking pineapple tarts next week for myself and my family members.
Enjoy this long weekend holiday and hope everyone will have a fruitful and
great 2012 ahead!

ICE CREAM MAKING @ TOM PALETTE

Dariel — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:34:52 +0000

Happen to pop by Tom Palette and know that they are conducting ice cream making classes on Sunday morning. I am a fan of their ice cream and without hesitation I had emailed them to check on the price. The price of the ice cream making class is $60 for 2 hrs session and I find that the price is quite reasonable. Furthermore the ice cream is hand made without using the ice cream maker. That makes me want to learn more on how to make delicious ice cream that they are selling over @ Tom Palette. The class is held every sunday morning from 11am to 1 pm. I had asked Sharon if she is interested to join me and she readily agreed. This is the first time we go for cooking class together.

TOM PALETTE

We are each given an ice cream recipe booklet on how to make various flavour of ice cream. Getting ready for hand on ice cream making. So excited!

The teacher had introduce to us the ingredients and tools in making the ice cream. The main ingredients are whipped cream, full cream milk, sugar and egg yolk.

After his explanantion, it is time for hands on ice cream making session. In this class, we are making horlick and chocolate ice cream. Below are some photos i had taken during the class.

Making the custard

Melting the chocolate

Me posing with the melted chocolate

Ice cream buffet while waiting for the ice cream to solidify. We can choose and eat any ice cream. They even have lavender flavour ice cream. Very unique flavour. You either love it or hate it.

Enjoying my ice cream while waiting for our hand made ice cream from the freezer.

Nice cosy area

After some time of waiting, our ice cream is out of the freezer. Time to churn our ice cream!

Churning in progress!

We had really had fun making the ice cream and I had not regretted attending this class. Tan and I had promised our friends to make ice cream for them. We shall fix a day soon for ice cream making and makan session. Practice make perfect and looking forward to make ice cream for them.

Been busy baking cupcakes for my friends as christmas gift and some orders from my sis, aunty and friends. I am glad that they like my cupcakes and it really makes my day hearing compliments from them. It really motivates me to bake more.

Time to head for the oven to bring the scones out. Stay tune for more updates!

Cheers!

SMRT CIRCLE LINE MAKAN SESSION – SPICY PERANAKAN

Dariel — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:58:03 +0000

Hi all, I am back from my Phuket trip! Shall continue with some back dates of the blog post.

Still remember on my previous post on the SMRT circle line makan session? Below I will blog about the event and the food that I had tried for that day.

Yes finally got to see Dr Leslie Tay in real person. He is the blogger for the famous food blog Ieatishootipost. He had greeted us with a warm smile and a firm handshake. The meet up venue for the makan session was Bouna Vista Circle Line Station at 1.30pm. We had a photo taking session at the entrance of the Bouna Vista Circle line before proceeding to Spice Perananakan.

The lady boss of the restaurant had given us an introduction of the history of Peranakan
and the food that we had eaten.Nyonya (Peranakan) cuisine came about as the result of inter-marriages between the Chinese immigrants and the local Malays. The aunty told us that Chinese man will still want to eat Chinese food despite married to the local Malays. A fushion of Chinese and Malay cuisine. Local ingredients such as chillies, belacan (shrimp paste) lemongrass,galangal, turmeric, etc are used to cook and bring out the flavors in the dishes. The men were called Babas and the women were called Nyonyas.

IKAN TEMBAN (SARDINES)

Fried Sardine topped with caramelised onion sauce. The sardine was dried till very crispy and it goes well with caramelised onion sauce. You can just put the whole fried sardine into your mouth and munch the fish. The lady boss had told us that each batch of caramelised onion sauce will takes around 4 hours to cook with someone closely watching and stirring it to prevent it from burning. It really takes a lot of effort to just cook the sauce but is definitely worthwhile for the quality food.

PAPAYA TITEK

It takes a lot of time to choose the right type of papaya for this Soup. The lady boss mentioned that they are the only Peranakan restaurant that sells this nonya dish. A healthy dish to start off the meal.

SATAY AYAM

In Peranakan cuisine, satay ayam means curry chicken. As we all thought satay means meat in stay stick. The curry is not too spicy and the meat is very tender.

FISH CURRY

The ingredient for the fish curry is fresh and the fish is very tender too. Thumbs up.

KUEH SALAT ( COCONUT CUSTARD)

This kueh is cooked by the lady boss’s husband. It is not too sweet and one word to describe the Kueh Delicious!

It is not easy to prepare quality Peranakan Cuisine and Spicy Peranakan take a lot of effort to prepare their dishes. They will want their customer to taste real authentic Peranakan food. SPicy Peranakan is opened on Saturday if you have small group gathering for 20 people, you can call them up to book the place. They can prepare the menue for you and each person will cost about $18.00.

After the food session, Dr Leslie had share with on how to take good food pictures using camera and iphone. From the picture above, all of us were concentrating in his sharing session.

We are all crowding around Dr Leslie as he is giving us the iphone apps that he had created (ieatHawker). It is really nice of him to give us the apps for free. Thank you Dr Leslie! A very useful guide on where to look for delicious food at the hawker center. The food was categorised and it is very easy to navigate the application. The Map and address of the place will be shown. The app is so handy as it had already summarised Singapore’s Best Hawker Food. You can search for delicious food on the go so quickly. The app will cost $0.99 if you download this app.

After the makan session, it is game time. We are suppose to answer some question in the questionnair by SMRT and whoever can the most answers right in the shortest time can win prizes!

Me with Dr LEslie

I am so happy that Frog had won the book written by Dr LEslie : The End Of Char Kway Teow. Thank you frog!

Frog and I had really enjoyed the makan session organise by SMRT. Great food, good company by Dr Leslie and not forgetting the prizes that we had won. It is really a well spend Saturday!

Click here for the post by Dr Leslie on Spicy Peranankan.