Popiah

Popiah is a hot family favourite, especially Ah Ma's popiah. Whenever we went to Ah Ma's place, we look forward to her popiah. But in recent years, Ah Ma hasn't done popiah due to all the preparation involved. So I found out from her and also from Jiji our family's recipe. She includes belly pork in her recipe, but I left that out, so that our helper can enjoy it as well.

Having popiah when friends come over is a good idea since only the filling need to be heated up. We can take our time to eat it. So we had popiah when our friends came over on the 2nd day of Chinese New Year. The only problem was finding fresh popiah skin during the new year period. Mummy found out from Jiji that a shop at Bedok North Ave 4(industrial estate) sells popiah even during the CNY period! At a higher price of course!

Grandma’s Popiah

Filling

A
3-4 turnips
3-4 bamboo shoots
1 pkt green beans
2-3 carrots
2-3 leeks
4 pcs beancurd

10 cloves garlic
3 Tbsp tau cheo (red date salted bean paste)
Prawn / ikan bilis stock—4 cups

Method:

1. Slice or grate A finely.
2. Fry garlic and taucheo until fragrant.
3. Add in A. Season with salt.
4. Add stock and boil. Simmer for 20 minutes.

Accompaniments:

1.5 kg popiah skin
1.5 kg prawns – head and shell removed and steamed
50 cents of bean sprouts—blanched in hot water
10 eggs – boiled and chopped
600g chinese lettuce
cilantro
400g peanuts—roasted and chopped
Garlic – grind to paste
Chilli – grind to paste
1 big bottle sweet sauce
Flat fish – fried and grind to powder

Yu Sheng

Having Yu Sheng has become a family favourite every Chinese New Year. Ever since a dear colleague J passed me the recipe, my friends whom I've shared this recipe with have all used it for their yu sheng instead of buying ready-made ones from the stores. The ingredients are much fresher and not "over-poweringly colourful" due to the artificial colouring of the pickled ginger and leek. As you can see, this is also very attractive and naturally colourful--with the green and white radish as well as carrots in place.

Somehow for homemade yu sheng, no matter how little carrot and radish I grate, I always end up with a BIG plate of yu sheng...after adding all the ingredients. But no one's complaining! As this is basically a salad dish, it is really refreshing! A great accompaniment for all the rich foods during this festive season. My mother-in-law loves this dish, over and above the steam boat we have every reunion dinner! She would go for the yu sheng before everything else and would usually be the one to polish off the remnants.

Yu Sheng (serves 10-12 people)

Ingredients

A
2 carrots
½ white radish
½ green radish
½ pomelo
½ bottle pickled ginger
10 pickled leek bulbs
1 dried tangerine – chopped

B
250g peanuts—roasted, skin removed, chopped
30g sesame seeds—toasted
2 pkts crispy biscuits
Smoked salmon—sliced thinly

C
2/3 bottle plum sauce
Juice from 8 limes
2 Tbsp shallot oil
Pepper, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg – to taste

Method:
1. Arrange A. Alternate different coloured vegetables.
2. Sprinkle B.
3. Mix plum sauce and lime to make sauce. Pour on top of veg. Add spices.

Reunion Dinner

We had a reunion dinner with my in-laws on New Year's eve at Mike's place. Tonight is the reunion dinner with my mum and brothers. KL and HN are going to HK with Baby tomorrow, so we had to have our dinner early tonight.

We had yu sheng, steamboat, popiah and for the first time, I tried cooking fish maw soup. Turned out to be okay.

Butter Cookies

My children in particular G has been bugging me to bake butter cookies. They love the butter cookies that Grandma used to bake. Grandma somehow has not been baking for the past few years and especially now with her oven not working.

I modified her recipe and some of the recipes that I googled for. The cookies turned out really well and they are really melt-in-the-mouth.

I used a cookie press for these cookies and decided to keep the dough in the fridge for the next day. However, when I tried to use the cookie press the next day, somehow it couldn't come out nicely. The lesson learnt is to use up all the dough and finish baking the same day.

Ingredients

5 cups plain flour
1/4 cup corn flour
1.25 tsp baking powder
1.5 tsp salt
500g butter
1.5 cup icing sugar/fine sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence

Method

1. Mix dry ingredients well.
2. Beat butter and sugar until light.
3. Add in eggs and vanilla essence.
4. Reduce speed and add in flour.
5. Bake at 180 degree Celcius for about 20-25 minutes.

Pineapple Tarts

Making pineapple tarts is a lot of work and I told myself that I would not bake it this year. But somehow when I got into the mood of festive baking, my hands got itchy and I couldn't help myself but just have to bake some of these since my children and hubby love it.

I modified and incorporated a few recipes that I have to come up with this recipe. The pineapple jam is a mixture of 1 packet of ready made jam as well as 2 fresh pineapples.

Ingredients for Jam

1 packet ready made pineapple jam
2 fresh pineapples
200g sugar

Grate pineapple and separate juice from grated pineapple.
Cook pineapple over low fire for about 45 minutes.
Mix in ready made jam and add sugar. Adjust sweetness accordingly. Stir well.

Ingredients for Pastry

250g butter
50g icing sugar
400g plain flour
2 Tbsp corn flour]
2 Tbsp milk powder
1 egg and 1 egg yolk
3/4 tsp salt

Method

1. Sift dry ingredients.
2. Add in butter, sugar and eggs. Mix well.
3. Brush with egg wash--egg yolk and 1 Tbsp of water.
4. Top each tart with jam.
5. Bake at 180 degrees Celcius for about 20 minutes.

Almond Cookies

Baking Almond Cookies is a MUST! every Chinese New Year for me. It has kind of become synonymous with my festive giving. A good friend CT in particular wanted to order the cookies from me. Where do I find the time to take orders and bake? It's more of a joy to bake for all my dear friends and relatives and those who appreciate the cookies. A colleague of mine also loves these cookies. She once ordered 12 bottles of peanut cookies when I baked some to raise funds for a mission trip for the church.

Thanks to my cousin's wife who gave me the recipe when she came to my place for Christmas dinner a few years ago. She is great at baking and she would take orders every CNY. It seems that she can meet orders of up to a few hundred bottles of cookies/tarts every CNY! I really admire her for she does this even though she is working! She would bake the moment she reaches home from work and would not stop until midnight for the few weeks prior to CNY.

This recipe also works well for ground peanuts. For peanut cookies, I put in more than 250g, maybe about 300g. This makes the cookie really crumbly and melt-in-the-mouth.

Ingredients

1. 250g ground almond/peanut
2. 220g fine sugar
3. 550g plain flour
4. 1/2 tsp salt
5. 3 tsp baking powder
6. 2.5 tsp baking soda
7. 1.5 bowls of canola oil

Method
1. Fry ground almond without oil until fragrant.
2. Mix everything together except the oil.
3. Add in oil to form a firm dough.
4. Roll out dough to about 1/2cm thickness and cut into desired shapes with a
cookie cutter.
5. Bake at 180 degrees Celcius for about 20n minutes.

Kueh Bangkit

Kueh Bangkit is one of my favourites. J loves it too. I will try to bake it every new year and seem to be modifying a little of the recipe every year. The taste is good and authentic but somehow it still has not achieved my ideal standard of melt-in-the-mouth texture. Happened to talk to a good friend Tan whose mum makes fabulous Kueh Bangkits. Tan said he mixes sago flour and rice flour to achieve that texture. I tried to get sago flour from the nearby shops but couldn't find it. But I will certainly try out his recipe!

Ingredients:
1. 500 gm tapioca flour, and some extra for lining purposes
2. 3 pandan leaves, roughly cut into 3-inch length pieces
3. 3 egg yolks
4. 150 gm castor sugar
5. 250 ml thick coconut milk

Method
Fry tapioca flour together with the pandan leaves over a medium heat till light and dry, then sift and leave aside to cool thoroughly.

Whisk the egg yolks and sugar until the sugar dissolves.
Add thick coconut milk a little at a time. Sift in tapioca flour and mix.
Knead well into a pliable dough.

Roll out dough to a thickness of 1/2 cm on a lightly-floured tabletop. Stamp out desired shapes with cookie or kuih bangkit cutters.

Place on a baking tray (lightly floured with tapioca flour). Bake in a preheated oven at 170°c for 20 – 25 minutes or until the kuih bangkit turns dry. Cool before storing.