Chinese Recipes | Cooking Tips | Good Eats

Tag:Choux Pastry Puffs, Dessert, easy dessert recipe

For a cook who hardly bakes, this is probably another idiot-proof recipe that cannot go wrong. Some other idiot-proof baking recipes include my friend, Angela’s crunchy raisin cookies, and Rasa Malaysia’s Portuguese Egg Tarts.

I decided to give this Choux (pronounced as “shoo”) Pastry Puffs a shot after reading about it in The Baker Who Cooks. The recipe looks so wonderfully simple and her Choux Pastry Puffs turned out so pretty.

However, my paste mixture of flour, milk, butter, eggs, a bit of salt and water did not turn out as shiny as hers. (That’s why she is the baker who cooks and I am the cook who hardly bakes.)

I also do not have the basic equipment like pastry tips and pastry bags to pipe the choux paste onto the baking tray, so I improvised by using a small ziploc bag as my pastry bag, and nipped off a corner for the choux paste to be squeezed out. (No pictures for that as it looked a bit messy :p)

After piping, smooth out the tips with a finger dipped in cold water, so that the tip will not burn in the oven. (Picture below was before the smoothing)

I was pretty satisfied with how my Choux Pastry Puffs turned out. I managed to make about 20 medium 1.5″ puffs from half the ingredient measurements from the original recipe.

After cooking, the choux pastry formed a crisp shell with a moist lining and hollow center making it ideal for filling with both sweet and savory delights. They make wonderful finger food.

Choux Pastry Puffs Recipe
from “Joy of Cooking - All About Party Foods & Drinks”

Ingredients (yields about 2.5 cups choux paste):

- 1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 cup whole milk
- 8 tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 4 large eggs

Method:
1. Bring the water, milk, butter and salt to a boil over medium heat.

2. Add the flour all at once and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until the mixture pulls away from the sides of the pan. Continue to cook and stir the mixture for about 1 minute, to eliminate excess moisture. Allow to cool for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. Beat in eggs one at a time, by hand, with a wooden spoon or on low speed with a mixer. Make sure paste is smooth before adding each egg. Beat the dough till smooth and shiny. Pipe paste onto pan according to desired size.

4. Preheat oven to 400degF. Bake for 15 mins then reduce the oven temperature to 350degF and continue to bake until golden brown and very firm to the touch, which will take about 10-15 mins more. Serve warm.

Note: Choux paste can be covered and refrigerated for up to 4 hours. When it is cold, you do not need to bring the paste to room temperature before baking.

I did not have a custard filling recipe, so I used a Vanilla Cream Filling Recipe. If you are making the Choux Pastry Puff according to the above recipe ingredient measurements, according to The Baker Who Cooks, she made 66 small (about 1.5″ in diameter) puffs from it, then the vanilla cream filling ingredient measurements below will be just enough.

Vanilla Cream Filling Recipe:

- 6 tbsp sugar
- 2 tbsp cornstarch
- 1 cup milk
- 2 beaten egg yolks
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1. In a pan, combine sugar, starch, and gradually add milk, stirring constantly.

2. Cook and stir over medium heat until the filling becomes very thick and begins to bubble.

3. Remove from heat and slowly pour egg yolks into pan and stirring constantly. Cook and stir mixture over low heat.

4. Add in butter and vanilla extract. Transfer filling to a bowl and set aside.

Lessons learnt:

1. I am supposed to hold the piping bag with the tip at a 90 degree angle to the baking sheet and just pipe the choux paste straight down instead of making twirls. This is because by making twirls, I got some holes at the base of the pastry puffs and fluid fillings will ‘leak’.

2. The pastry puffs will expand when baked, so remember to leave about 2 inches gap between the piped paste. I didn’t do that, but thankfully the baked puffs did not stick together.

3. Read the recipe book if you have it! I actually bought the book (Joy of Cooking - All About Party Foods) after the Choux Pastry Puffs post by The Baker Who Cooks, but I did not refer to it when I made this. Doh! There are more tips in the book.

4. The vanilla cream filling was too liquid (that’s why I drizzled some over the top of the Choux Pastry Puffs). Perhaps I could cook it a bit more or as Rasa Malaysia advised, to add more cornstarch.

On the whole, *pat on my back* my Choux Pastry Puffs with Vanilla Cream Filling tasted quite good. :) It wasn’t too sweet or buttery so it was very easy to eat one after another. Easily. :D

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Tag:Beef, easy chinese cooking, easy chinese recipe, stir fry

This is an easy Chinese recipe for anyone who wants to dish out a quick Chinese stir-fry at the end of a hectic day (as if my day was so hectic I needed this) :)

The real reason why I had cooked this was because my fresh rice noodles had gone bad, so I could not make Beef Hor Fun. Now let’s see… the last time I used half that packet of 2 lb rice noodles for my Char Kway Teow was… OMG! it was the beginning of this month! No wonder!

I should have either used all of it that time or put the remainder in the freezer. I have since learnt my lesson.

Anyways, since I already bought my beef flank steak (about 0.8lb for $5.87), I quickly rummaged through my refrigerator and pantry to see what I could use to dish out something from that chunk of beef.

Thankfully, I had these:

Ingredients (Serves 3-4):

- 0.8 - 1 lb beef flank steak (cut across the grain into thin slices)
- 3 slices ginger
- 2 cloves garlic, sliced
- 3 stalks spring onion, cut into 1.5″ lengths, diagonally (they look nicer when cut diagonally)
- 1 tsp oyster sauce
- 1/2 cup corn starch solution (made from 1/2 tsp corn starch dissolved in cool water)

Seasoning for beef:
- 1/2 tsp salt (not so much salt here because you are going to add oyster sauce during the stir fry process)
- a few dashes white pepper
- 1/2 tsp corn starch
- 2 tsp Chinese cooking wine (I used rice wine)

Cooking Method:

1. Mix beef with seasoning ingredients. Set aside for 15-30 mins.

2. Heat up 2 tbsp vegetable oil in wok. Medium heat. When oil is hot enough, add sliced ginger and garlic and stir fry until lightly browned and fragrant.

3. Add beef to wok and stir fry well until color of beef changes. Add spring onions and oyster sauce. Mix well.

4. Add corn starch solution a little at a time until desired gravy thickness.

5. Serve with plain white rice.

Cook’s Tips:

1. In order to get thin slices, you can freeze the fresh beef for about 30 mins in the freezer before cutting; or if taken out from the freezer, let it defrost for about 5 hours in the fridge then take it out to cut.

2. For leftovers, I reheated the beef in the oven (broil at 450F) until they turned slightly more brown. Then I served them with dry Instant Noodles and Dodo Fishballs, topped with spring onions. Delicious.

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Tag:asian cooking, herb, Ingredient, lemon grass, weekend herb blogging

It never occurred to me that lemon grass is classified as a culinary herb until I started doing some research on my second post for the Weekend Herb Blogging event. This week, the host is Tomato from Melbourne, Australia.

Lemon grass is commonly used for Asian cooking, especially for Thai, Malaysian, Vietnamese and Indonesian cooking, in soups and curries.

They are as long as green onions, have a woody stalk and only the bottom whitish part can be used (i.e. about 6 inches from the base). Cut off the lower bulb and remove the tough outer leaves.

Bruising the lemon grass releases the aromatic oils from the juice sacs in the stalk. Usually I cut them into 2 inch lengths and use the back of my knife to pound it. When you sniff the lemon grass after pounding, you will find that it has a citrus lemony fragrance.

Lemon grass is also known by the name Citronella. Citronella oil is used in soaps, as a mosquito repellent in insect sprays and candles, and also in aromatherapy. It is known to have a calming effect that relieves insomnia or stress.

I made a hot and spicy Tom Yum Goong (Prawns) Soup recently and used lemon grass as an ingredient.

Below are some of the other ingredients used. Not in the picture are: tom yum paste, sugar and fish sauce. For full recipe and cooking method, refer to here.

When serving, remove the lemon grass pieces as they are too fibrous to be eaten unless they are sliced very thinly or pounded until softened using a mortar and pestle.

I have a couple stalks left in my refrigerator and am eager to make more soups and curries. So stay tuned!

Note: Lemon grass can be found in Asian supermarkets and cost $1.99/lb in Ranch 99.

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Tag:Dessert, make pastry dough, Portuguese Egg Tarts

Eat Portuguese Egg Tarts and lose 40 pounds in 2 months!

As Tigerfish pointed out, this Google Ad has been appearing in Rasa Malaysia’s website for the longest time. Eat her food and lose 40 pounds. Woohoo!

So I decided to make Rasa Malaysia’s famous Portuguese Egg Tarts.

I halved all the ingredient measurements cos I only made six, since this is my first attempt. You will notice I have many ‘first attempts’ here in my food blog. I am interested to try out new recipes, especially for food that is familiar to me. This is my new hobby.

Tigerfish, have you made yours yet? I know BuddingCook already made her Portuguese Egg Tarts for a Christmas party. And yes, this recipe is easy to follow and definitely a keeper.

Ok. Enough advertisement and pimping for Rasa Malaysia, just in case she floats to cloud nine and decides to stay there.

I realized I didn’t strain the filling through a strainer after beating the egg, which probably resulted in the little white bits on the custard mixture.

The Betty Crocker Pie Crust Mix has a crumbly flaky type of texture. The buttery taste was delightful! The kitchen and living room were filled with the sweet aroma of pastry when the tarts were almost done.

My new recipe attempts usually need to go through stringent QA testing before I let J eat them. So, two Portuguese Egg Tarts went to QA leaving me four to share with J.

For those of you who like to make pastry dough from scratch, here are a few pointers that I have gotten based on my research:

1. Baking is a science. Measure your ingredients carefully as too much flour makes a tough pastry; too much liquid gives a soggy dough; too much vegetable shortening / lard makes the dough greasy and crumbly.

2. To get a flaky, tender crust, handle the dough lightly by mixing the ingredients gently with a spatula. Kneading will cause excessive production of gluten which will make the pastry chewy and bread-like instead of light and flaky.

3. When handling dough, use your fingers instead of the palm of your hands as the fingers emit less heat than the palms.

4. When breaking down the butter or fats (vegetable shortening / lard), it’s ok to leave them in firm separate pieces, some fine and like crumbs, others the size of peas.

5. Water is used to bind the dough. As a rule of thumb, the flour, fat mixture should be moistened only to the point where it can form small balls that hold together when pressed with your fingers.

6. When rolling pastry dough, use a cool surface like a marble slab or a clean smooth countertop (I’ll line the counter top with plastic wrap and scatter some flour). DO NOT roll dough next to an oven or in a hot kitchen spot as this will cause the fats to melt.

7. If the dough becomes too soft during the rolling process, gently remove it from the work surface, slide a baking sheet below it and refrigerate it until it firms up.

I am going to make the second batch of this Portuguese Egg Tarts soon, using the remaining half packet of Betty Crocker Pie Crust Mix (I’ll make dough from scratch another day). I really think I can eat Portuguese Egg Tarts and lose 40 pounds in 2 months. Will you make them too?

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Tag:Food Review, lo bak, malaysian food, Maxwell Food Center, ngor hiang, penang village

This picture is posted in fond memory of the wonderful taste of Lo Bak from Penang Village. In Singapore, we call this dish “Ngor Hiang“, although “Ngor Hiang” really just refers to the Crispy Fried Pork Roll. Correct me if I am wrong, in Hokkien dialect, “Ngor Hiang” means “Five Spices” because Five Spice Powder is one of the ingredients to make this Crispy Fried Pork Roll.

I will definitely have my fill of Ngor Hiang at Maxwell Food Center when I am back in Singapore. Perhaps I now need to eat there more than once, so that I won’t be craving for Penang Village’s Lo Bak when I am back to the Bay Area.

Then again, the more I eat the same thing over a short period of time, the level of satisfaction I gain each time decreases, ya? (Basic Economics’ Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns) How many times can I eat my Ngor Hiang at Maxwell Food Center? *Dilemma Dilemma*

I thought I had begged Penang Village to stay open? *Sob* *Choke*

J liked their Shrimp Pancake and Hot and Sour Chilli Sauce while I liked everything. Even though this Lo Bak dish was sold as an appetizer, I could make this part of a main course, cos there was just so much food.

The Shrimp Pancake was light and not doughy; the Crispy Fried Pork Roll was meaty without being too overwhelming; the Preserved Egg was cooked to perfection - the egg yolk was still a little moist. The Tofu was crispy and goes very well with the Hot and Sour Chilli Sauce. The Nonya Achar was really the traditional kind made from the Rempar mix of dried chillies, candlenuts, turmeric, lemon grass, galangal, shrimp paste, dried shrimp, rice vinegar, sugar and salt.

This shall be my last post on the food I have tasted in Penang Village.

Penang Village - All the best to you. Please re-open some place else in the Bay Area. Pretty please?

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