Make Chinese Dumplings and Potstickers

My boyfriend and I used to head down to this Chinese Restaurant at Desa Palma next to INTI Nilai during our college days. And all he ordered were chinese jiaozi dumplings. Since then they became one of my all-time favorite.

I really miss those dumpling days. So I tried to relive the 'memory' by attempting to make the dumplings myself - from scratch.

It isn't so tough at all, just the part when you have to make the dough can be quite messy. But if you have patience and ample time, then by all means!

Normally, minced pork is used to make the filling, but in my case, since my family doesn't quite fancey pork, I used minced chicken instead.

Ingredients:

Dough:

3 cups plain flour

1 1/2 cups water

1 teaspoon salt

Filling:

1 large bowl ground/minced chicken (or beef/pork)

1 cup finely shredded Napa cabbage

1 clove finely minced garlic

2 slices ginger, finely minced

1/2 green onion finely minced

3 tablespoon sesame oil

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon sweet vinegar

1 teaspoon salt

pepper to taste

A. Here is how you make the dumpling dough.

1. Mix flour, salt and water together. On a flat wooden surface, sprinkle with some flour and start to knead dough.


2. When a smooth dough is formed, knead the dough into a round ball.

3. Divide the dough and roll each piece into a flat circle about 3 inches in diameter.

4. Insert a desirable amount of filling, enough to be covered by the dough. Fold the ends and press the dough together.

5. Pinch the edges until it is pleated.

B. For the filling, simply mix the ingredients, stirring at one direction.

You can either fry, boil or steam the dumplings. In this case, I fried the dumplings by firstly adding oil on a flat, heated pan. Once the bottom of the dumplings are golden bround and crisp, add a halfcup of water until it bubbles. After boiled add another round of water.

Serve!

For more illustrations and other variations, click here.

Make Lemon Squares

If you have lemons, make lemonade! But if you have a lot of lemons, make lemon squares!

"___________" Okay. Lame.

I was trying to figure out what to do with the tons of lemons in the refrigerator. Lemonade sounded tempting, but I wanted a bit more far-fetched. So I googled "Lemon Recipes" and found out that there were such things as lemon bars/squares. The soury taste of lemon didn't seem to incorporate with such pastry or so I thought. So this wasn't so appealing, but given that the recipe was uber easy, I gave it a shot.

What you need:

Crust:

3/4 cup plain flour

1/4 cup confectioner's sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened

Filling:

1 cup white sugar

2 tablespoons plain flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2 egss

5 tablespoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon lemon zest

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 175 C.

2. To make the crust, mix flour, confectioner's sugar and butter until the mixture becmes a breadcrumb consistency. Use fork or your own hands.

3. Pour crust over a greased baking pan. Refrigerate for about ten minutes, then bake for about 15 minutes at 175 C.

4. Meanwhile, for the filling, mix together sugar, flour, and baking powder until the dry ingredients are incorporated.

5. In another mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs. Then pour eggs into the dry ingredients. Add in lemon juice and lemon zest.

6. After the crust is baked, pour the filling on the crust, and bake again for about 20 minutes at 175 C.

7. Dust with confectioner's sugar after baked (optional).

Mine came out very burnt at the end. Perhaps, the temperature could be reduced between 170 C and 160 C. Do check on it occasionally.

The result? Okay I was wrong. Very wrong. The Lemon squares tasted great despite the burn. The tangy, soury taste were to die for. Seriously. I am definitely making this one again!

Make Apple Crumble

The past few days was a torture to my emotional state. And today, when I received the news, I was even more down. The only way to not think about it is to channel my emotions to my passion.

This time, I made apple crumble, sliced apples sprinkled with cinammon and sugar, piled together, and coverd with sweet crumble topping.

I remembered having this at Tony Romas, served hot, topped with cool vanilly ice-cream and caramel. It tasted good, except for the fact that the apples were way too sweet.

So here I am, with the simplest and most basic recipe on how to make apple crumble. One where you can try out yourself.

Ingredients:

8 cooking apples (Granny apples or Fuji apples)

250g caster sugar

1 teaspoon cinammon

120g soft butter, unsalted

350g plain white flour

All you have to do:

1. Peel the apples, core, and slice apples into a half-moon-like shape. Add 3/4 of sugar and 1 teaspoon of cinammon. Mix well. Then, stew apples in a covered pot for about 30 minutes. Stir occasionally.

2. When apples are soft, remove from pot, and place cooked apples in a baking serving dish. Remember, we want the apples to be soft, but not too soft as we don't want a puree). Leave to cool.

3. Next, make the crumble topping by mixing together the butter, flour, and remainig sugar in a mixing bowl. Best to mix with fork (or in this case I prefer using my own hands) until a breadcrumb consistency is achieved.

4. Finally, top the apples with the crumble. Bake at 160 C for 40 minutes. (Remember to preheat oven first).

5. Enjoy hot straight from the oven or chilled.

Apple crumble is a dessert that is best enjoyed with vanilla ice cream, cream, or custard.

Enjoy!

Lotus Seeds & Gingko Nuts Soup

Another hot day in KK and I can't stand the heat. Keep getting flu in the mornings. I wanted to try out something other than yee mai fu chok or lo han guo. I went to Giant to buy some lotus seeds and to this chinese herbal shop in Damai to get some gingko nuts. These two are quite costly though but worth the buy. Gingko nuts are excellent for blood circulation and to ease lung congestion. In Chinese medicine, Lotus seeds are believed to "clear heat" (清熱) and are particularly nutritious and restorative to one's health.

the gingko nuts I bought weren't so fresh ! :S

The gingko nuts I bought weren't shelled yet as I could not find those packed ones. If you bought gingko nuts as such, shell them first with a nutcracker, then peel of their brown colored skin. Cut the nut into half and then remove an embryo-like structure in the middle. In Chinese it is called 'xin'. It is quite bitter and toxic. But for this soup I did not remove the 'xin'.

It is easy to make this soup. The ingredients are:

7 red dates

1 cup dried longans

1 cup lotus seeds

1 cup gingko nuts

rock sugar

about 15 bowls of water

All you have to do is pour them altogether (after soaking for about a minute or so) and bring to boil. Add rock sugar during the final ten minutes or so. Boil for about 45 minutes.

I like it best when it is chilled overnight. Sort of the refreshing and cooling feeling when I drink it the next day :) - I guess now it is called a drink not a soup anymore!

Bittersweet Chocolate Brownie with Crushed Almonds

Today, I decided to make chocolate brownie simply because the result is just too yummy. I have always craved for sweet and nutty pastries. Well, that explains so don't be surprised if my posts are mostly made of sugar and nuts. :)

Brownie or chocolate brownie is hails from the US of A, a semi-flat square or made with chocolate and baked in a sheet pan, something like a dense chocolate cake. A brownie can be fudgy or cake-like depending on the ingredients you put in.

So away with the intro, and because you and I just love sweet, nutty chocolates, I shall go ahead with the baking directions.

How To Make Bittersweet Chocolate Brownie (with almonds)

First of, the ingredients are:

250g caster sugar

180g bittersweet chocolate

180g soft butter

110g plain flour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 eggs

1/2 cup crushed almonds (or walnuts)

some butter for greasing

gorgeous chocolate mixture ready for bake.

Directions:

1. Heat chocolate and butter in a double boiler for about 10 minutes until melt. Use a wooden spoon and stir gently. Then, remove chocolate mixture. Let cool.

2. Meanwhile, put the eggs in a big bowl followed by caster sugar and vanilla extract. Whisk.

3. Pour cooled chocolate mixture into the bowl with eggs, sugar and vanilla. Fold in.

4. Finally add remaining ingredients of flour and almonds (or walnuts). Use a method called cutting and folding to mix it.

5. Pour mixture in a tin (greased and covered with baking sheet) and bake for 25-30 minutes at 160 C.

6. After brownie is baked, remove from oven immediately and let cool.

7. Cut into square pieces and top with icing sugar.

As you can see, there is no use of baking powder or baking soda because you want this dense, chewy and moist texture which is how brownies should be. That makes a brownie different from a cake. The lack of leavening and minimal amount of flour results in a fudge-like bar.

Also, for brownies, it is best to remove them from the oven as early as possible basically when a toothpick test still shows a few moist crumbs, again because we are looking for a dense, fudgy brownie; as opposed to cakes and muffins, the toothpick inserted must come out clean first as an indication that it is ready to be taken out of the oven.

my pictures didn't turn out good. I'll try taking better ones for my next post! with better lighting!

This is my first time making brownies but it turned out great! Except that it was a little TOO sweet for my taste. Next time I will have to reduce the amount of caster sugar! :)

Okay, so how to enjoy a brownie?

Sprinkle icing sugar, top with caramel and ice cream (if you have an extraordinary sweet tooth), glaze with nuts; or simply have it plain with a glass of milk or coffee. You will be in heaven in no time!

Ice-Blended Mango Smoothie

Time for some tropical fruits in the kitchen! The other day I had bananas, and then longan; today I felt like taking some adorable mangoes. I bought Thai some mangoes at Damai and turned them into smoothies at home.

Smoothies are always easy to make. It's all about mixing the right ingredients for the perfect taste.

What you need:

1 cup sliced mangoes, frozen

4 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons plain yogurt

3/4 cup cold water

All you have to do is:

Put them all in a blender and blend away!

Yummy yummy! I love mangoes!

Have a nice weekend!

Jelly in Longan Syrup

My school canteen used to sell a cup of jelly longan for RM1.50 each. I loved it a lot and whenever I have extra allowance, I'd buy it for sure (if there is any left). It tastes good especially during hot days.

I started making jelly when I was six or seven, trying to help out my poh-poh in the kitchen so when I stumbled upon Cooking Crave for her soft jelly in longan syrup, I immediately wanted to try making one :)

Instead of using jelly powder, I used jelly strips instead, following my poh-poh's recipe.

Ingredients:

20g jelly strips

1500 ml water

1/2 cup sugar

3/4 cup evaporated milk

1/2 can longan in syrup

Here is how you do it:

1. Bring water to boil and insert jelly strips. Stir constantly until dissolved.

2. Add in sugar and ideal milk. Keep stirring for another 5 mins.

3. Pour jelly into desired mould, cups, bowls, etc. and leave until cool.

4. Add longan and syrup according to your taste.

My jelly came out a bit hard, probably because I added about 1 1/2 cup of evaporated milk. So better reduce it to 3/4cup.

Enjoy! :)