Friday 30 September 2016

Cabbage Meatball Soup

Hi

This is one of the soup that my hubby likes it a lot because it is a comforting soup to have it on a hot afternoon day.  We had this soup on last weekend and it really goes well with the Prawn & Bunashimeiji Mushrooms Fried Rice.
Napa cabbage can make soup very tasty as it contains natural sweetness and the flavor is so clean and fresh.  I used anchovies and soy beans to make soup base as these 2 items are always available in the fridge whenever I’m running out of pork ribs or chicken bones.
HAPPY EATING!


INGREDIENTS

Meatballs
1 pound     Ground pork
1 tbsp        Ginger juice
3                 Spring onion (finely chopped)
1                 Egg
2 tbsp        Light soy sauce
½ tsp        White pepper
1 tsp           Sesame oil
1 tbsp        Hua Tiao Wine

Vegetables
1 pound     Napa cabbage
1                 Carrot

Soup
1.5 litres    Water
Handful of white anchovies
Handful of soy beans
Pepper
1 tsp           Sesame oil


DIRECTION

(1)Marinade ground pork with ginger juice, spring onion, light soy sauce, white pepper, egg and Hua Tiao Wine in a box.  Covered and put it in the fridge for about 1 hours.


(2)Rinse anchovies and soya beans then put into the pot of water.
Bring to boil and simmer 20-25 mins then strain the soup through a sieve to remove the anchovies and soy beans.   


(3)Rinse and cut the cabbage into diagonal pieces

(4)Rinse and cut the carrot into slices.

(5)Remove the marinade ground pork from the fridge.  Scoop about 1 tablespoon of meat mixture and form it in a ball then drop it into the pot of soup.  Do not stir.  Cooked for about 10mins.

(6)Add carrots into the soup pot and follow by cabbage.  Stir gently and cook for 15-20mins.


 (7)Serve the soup and garnish with green onion.





Sunday 11 September 2016

Red Wine Berries Snow Skin Mooncake


Hi
I have to confess I have never make snow skin mooncakes before.  I saw so many bloggers making and they are so pretty.   So I decided I should give it a try too, and I'm surprised it is so easy to make.
I didn’t make the paste.  The red wine berries paste from Kwong Cheong Thye <廣祥泰> is a winner!  I bought their Hong Kong Fried Glutinous Rice Flour and Icing Sugar too, and I think they sell one of the better quality ones.  
I have tried making traditional baked mooncake 2 years ago.  You can find the post here.  But I wasn’t too happy and had lots of difficulties with it.  Haha! I think I would never want to make it again. 

 I’m glad at least I attempted in making snow skin this time.  I’m not sure whether I will be making it again next year.  But if I can find special paste like this red wine berries, I’m sure I will make again.  
I find baking together with friend is a joy and I love to have friends coming over to bake.  This is my 2nd time having Cecilia over.  She is a lovely girl and always willing to share and impart her knowledge.  
 Cecilia brought some durian paste over and we also made some Durian Snow Skin Mooncake too.


The whole process of making these mooncakes was fun.  I really enjoyed making and love the outcome of these mooncakes.
Here wishing all my friends and bloggers a
Happy Mid-Autumn!


INGREDIENTS recipe by Cecilia Yap
Yield about 60 pcs

300g         Fried Glutinous Rice Flour
300g         Icing sugar
140g          Shortening [we used Crisco]
300g         Cold water [we made pandan water]
        

METHOD

Pandan Water
Boil about 1 litre of water with a bunch of pandan leave.

Sieve the pandan leave water.  Dropped a few drops of food colouring into it and stir.

Refrigerate the pandan water until it is cold enough to use.  You can prepare this 1 day before.

Fillings
Remove the paste from the packing and put it in a bowl.  You can add additional red wine, if you could like to.  Mix well.

Divide the paste into 25g each and set aside.


Snow Skin
Mix all the ingredients together until they are well combine.

Wrap it and store in the refrigerator until it is cold enough to work on it. 

Remove it from the refrigerator.  Spread some glutinous flour on the working top.  Remove the dough from the refrigerator and knead further until the dough is smooth. 

The size of my mooncake mold plunger is 4cm x 4cm.  So I divided the dough into 20g each and shaped them into a ball.  

Lightly dust hand with some glutinous rice flour.  Shape each dough into a ball.  Flatten the ball and roll into a disc.  Place 1 paste in the middle of the disc.  Wrapped it around and shaped it into a ball.

Carefully placed the ball into the mold plunger and slowly pressed out the mooncake.  The mooncake comes out nicely and beautifully. The plunger is indeed so much easier to use than the wooden mold.