Hope to improve the appearance the 'next time'
Really cant recall when was the last time I made Apple Pie. The good thing for home made bakeries are I reduced the quantity of sugar tremendously. My home made bakeries are less sweet compare to the commercial bakery shops. This apple pie doesn't look nice but taste good. My family really enjoyed the pie, especially my husband snap up almost half of it, when the pie is ready to be served. Hehe.... Here is the recipe
675g cooking apples
100g sugar
6 cloves caster sugar for dredging
Short Crust Pastry
350g plain flour 1
/2 tsp salt
175g of butter
flour for rolling out
- Set the over at 200 degree C ( depend on individual oven, I set my at 140)
- To make the pastry sift the flour and salt into a bowl, then rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs
- add enough cold water to make a stiff dough.
- Press the dough together with your fingertips.
- roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface and use just half to line a 9" pie dish.
- Peel, core and slice the apples.
- Place half in the pastry-lined dish, the add the sugar and cloves.
- Pile the remaining apples on top, cover with the remaining pastry and seal the edges,
- Brush the pastry with eggs and dredge with caster
- Use a fork to prick some holes on the pie to let go steams during baking times
- Bake in oven till golden brown about 30 to 40 mins.
Rub in method till resemble bread crumbs
Divide to 2 doughs
Roll on flat surface and line on Pie Dish, Please note my error here is - the pastry should over hang the pie dish about 1/2 inch.
Add in the sliced apples, smashed cloves and sugar
Brush with egg and use a fork to prick holes to release air during baking
Tips
I mixed sliced apples, sugar and smashed cloves together on step no. 7 and 8.
I omitted the dredging of sugar.
The original recipe call for 750ml pie dish, mine is 10'' pie dish, I presume 9" should be perfect.
My son and eldest daughter reached home 3.30am on 25th December for their year end break. Whole family went for dim sum at 9.30am and do some marketing. Back home, both of them continue their sleep. I decided to prepare a traditional Apple Pie (photos and recipe will post soon) for the family.
This is my 1st attempt to make flourless chocolate cake, quite happy with the result. Syabas! (means congrats) Most important Tammie love this cake, the texture is super moist, and she named the cake as 心太軟 (soft heart), Hmmm... Sound appropriate, nice name!
Original recipe is to dust some icing sugar on the cake, but for very obvious reason, I omitted this step. I did not use ground almond too.
Special thanks to christine Ho for sharing the recipe. Click here for the recipe.
Ingredients:
- 250gm dark chocolate
- 5 eggs, separated
- 120gm caster sugar - I reduced to 90gm, still find a bit sweet, will go for 80gm for next attempt
- 150gm unsalted butter
- 50gm ground almond (almond meal), optional - I omitted this
- Icing sugar, for garnish - I omitted this
This is my mother, husband and Tammie's all time favorite; Tammie said this dish top the list of all style/ways of cooking chicken dishes. When frying the chicken, the aroma of the dish filled the whole kitchen, my daughter knows that her most favorite will be served on the dinner table soon. Hmmmm.......... so do try out the recipe and compare is it better than the famous Sri Kembangan Paper Wrapped Chicken?
But I prefer to bake them in the oven for very obvious reason, less oil and less messy and most important is that is the easiest and simplest way to prepare.
Here is the recipe of my very own creation.
Ingredient
4 chicken whole thigh - Wash and cut into 4 pieces per chicken thigh ( I used Kampung chicken 菜園鸡 which is more tasty and meat are firmer)
Marinate the chicken with the following
3-4 tsp my special home made 'aromatic spice'
2 tbsp Oyster sauce
1 tbsp honey
2 tablespoon of Chinese Shao Shin Wine
Wrapping paper as shown in the photos - cut into 10" X 10" square
Oil for deep frying
Method
Marinate the chicken for hours or preferable overnight.
Take a piece chicken and wrap with paper tucked in the paper nicely. Wrapped up all the chicken piecs.
Heat up oil for deep frying, lower the fire and put in the wrapped chicken pieces and deep fried on both side at about 5 mins each side. Make sure not to overcook it.
Unwrapped the paper and enjoy the yummy Paper wrapped Chicken 纸包鸡
Note: I have these secret recipe"aromatic spice" special prepared season salt passed down from my old antie for marinate meat. It comes very handy whenever I cooked Char Siew, Sweet and Sour Pork, Lamb Chop, beef, Chicken etc, either bake grille, deep fried, I just add some "aromatic spice", honey and chinese shao shin wine and be able to cook up delicious yummy dishes. I am intend to put on sale these very special "aromatic spice" RM8.00 per packet of 200gms excluding postage!
The contents include salt, five spice powder, garlic, and herbs, no preservation.
I will cooked less rice whenever I prepare this soup, everyone love to eat the sweet corn, carrot and potatoes; my children normally add some butter in the smashed potatoes, its yummy according to my children. So with all these "ABC", we eat less rice. We do not take the meat.
Ingredients
1 kg meat bones/1 skinned old chicken ( wash and clean)
1 carrots - skinned and cut into big pieces
3 pcs potatos - peeled and cut into chunks
3 tomatoes - quartered
2 big onion - quartered
1 sweet corn - cut into big chunks
1 level tablespoon of Peppercorn - smashed
2 litre water
Method
- Blanched the bones/chicken with hot water, keep aside
- Boiled the water in the pressure cooker.
- Add in all the ingredients and cover the pressure cover
- Pressure cook for 20 mins. Off the fire, wait for 5 mins, release the pressure before open the cover of the pressure cooker. Add salt to taste and serve hot.
Or
- Boil water in a pot, add in the bones/chicken, sweet corn and peppercorn for 1/2 hours
- Add in carrot, potatoes, onion continue to boil for another 1/2 hours on medium fire
- Add in tomatoes and boil for and 10 mins.
- Add salt to taste and serve hot.
Note: I did not add any salt in the soup as the taste as good.
Ingredients :
2-3 pcs Dry sliced Abalone, (wash and soak in water for about an hour, retained the water to add in the soup later on)
50 gam Ginseng roots,
3 - 4 pcs white fungus,
10 gm yoke chuk,
1 tbsp kei zhi,
7-8 red dates,
1 - 2tbsp dry longan,
1 bird kampung chicken ( can used old chicken instead)(remove the skin and chopped in 4-6 pcs)
Method
- Put boiling water and all the ingredients except white fungus and kei zhi in slow cooker and cook for 3-4 hrs.
- Add in white fungus and kei zhi 1/2 an hr before the soup is ready to serve.
Note
I normally stored some chinese herbal in my refrigerator, and just hand picked the herbal at random whenever I want to prepare herbal soup. There is no exact measurement on the amount.
I am in the believe that when cooking at home , I dont really measure the quantity of ingredients to put in the cooking, rather I follow the traditional way of agak agak (estimate), and the end result mattered most.
Stir Fried Black Pepper Udon
For the recipe I will guide on the method of prepare the dish, as for the quantity and ingredients are will up to individual likings. Hope you enjoy the dish.
Ingredients
- Udon noodles (1 person 1 packets will be sufficient)- washed and drained
- Prawn, fish cake, sotong (squids), sliced meat and or any other ingredients of your choice,
- and marinate with a bit sugar, cornflour and fish sauce (dont know why I like to add fish sauce in my cooking)
- Green pepper - slice into strips ( you can add yellow pepper and red pepper)
- Big onion - slice into strips
- Chopped garlic
- 2 tbsp of Black pepper sauce
- 1 tbsp of oyster sauce
- salt to taste
- some black pepper corn corsely smashed
- some oil for cooking
- some dark soya sauce
Method
- Heat up some oil in the wok add in the chopped garlic fry till aromatic, add in the big onion.
- Add prawn, fish cake and sotong stir fry a while
- Add in oyster and black pepper sauce, add some water, put in green pepper and udon noodles
- Add in dark soya sauce. Keep frying till all well combined
- Lastly add in the smashed black pepper and mix, dish up and serve hot.
These cake is quite easy and simple to prepare, I got the recipe from my daughter's school mate.
My daughter Tammie has tasted the cake from her friend, since then, she is craving for the cake.
She got the recipe from her friend, and here I would like to share with you.
Recipe adapt from one of the cheesecake recipe book.
Recipe for the base
Sugar Dough Crust
200gm softened salted butter
100 gm icing sugar
1 egg
380gm plain flour
1 tsp vanilla essence
Method
- Beat butter and icing sugar until well combined. Add in egg and beat well.
- Lastly add in flour and vanilla and mix into a dough
- Press dough onto 9" round springform pan and prick some holes with fork to release air, so that the pastry will not puff up during baking. Bake at 160 degree C until golden brow. Remove and leave to cool.
Note:
Can makes 2 sugar dough crusts for 9' pan
Pastry can be wrapped with plastic wrap and store in the freezer for 1/2 year
Cream Cheese Filling
A
300 softened cream cheese
5 oreo biscuits used only the cream filling
100gm butter
100 caster sugar ( I reduce to 70gm)
B
3 egg yolks 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp corn flour
40g dairy whipping cream ( I omitted this after few try and error)
6 pcs oreo, crushed
Method
- Beat A at low speed until smooth. Add in eggs one at a time and mix well. Mix in vanilla, corn flour and dairy whipping cream. Lastly add in oreo biscuit crumbs and mix well
- Pour cheese mixture onto crust and bake at 170 degree C for 30 minutes
- Let cake cool in the oven with heat off for 1 hour. Chill in the fridge for 6 hours or overnight.
My husband said he can't wait for 6 hrs, he only can wait for 6 mins to savvy the cake.
This is another simple and easy recipe of my own creation.
Marinate salmon block with coarsely pounded black pepper, fish sause, pepper, chinese shao shin wine and my own "wah yim" (optional) for few hrs. Heat up a pan, add in some butter and pan fried both side of the salmon. Add in the left over marinate sauce. Make sure not to over cooked the salmon, say few minutes on both sides will do, otherwise the texture of the salmon wont be as tender as it should be. Dish out and lastly squeeze some lemon juice on top and serve. Happy trying!
Bitter Gourd is said to be one of the best vegetable-fruit that helps improve diabetic and toxemia conditions. Check out the nutrition information and facts about bitter gourd here and here.
Did anyone notice that there is no oil on the surface of the soup! This is because I am using lean meat. Hmmmm...... Best!
Refer to Wikipedia for Lemon Grass
Ingredients
10 stalks of lemon grass (Serai) smashed
rock sugar to taste (I omitted the sugar, taste as nice)
1 lemon (sliced thinly)
Method
1. Boil enough water in a pot with smashed Lemon Grass and rock sugar for about 20 mins to 1/2 hour.
2. Off the fire and add in sliced lemon rings
3. Serve hot or cold.
As for myself I prefer to drink without sugar, will add honey instead for my children and chilled in the fridge for a cold and refreshing drink.
You may prefer another post of Healthy Lemongrass ginger Tea .
Recipe adapted from Y3K Recipes 38 Issue 09/10-2007
