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.