Wishing you Gong Hei Fatt Choy!

It is the time of year again to celebrate this festive season with your family and friends!

This is such a wonderful short clip! Petronas you did it again!

Reflect on yesterday.

Live for today.

Hope for tomorrow.

Why not make these cookies for Chinese New Year too!

 Golden Cornflakes cookies

 Don't forget to make my sifu's (master) Melt in Your Mouth Peanut cookies 

Gong Hei Fatt Cai! Wishing you happiness, prosperity, and longevity! :)

Gong Xi Gong Xi Gong Xi Ni!

Chinese New Year is just around the corner!

How are all your preparations going? Loads to cook and prep?

I wished I was able to bake some cookies for CNY but unfortunately, my oven decided to take a holiday.

Oh well, it's alright, I guess I would just have to find another way to make some other desserts that do not require the oven?

Anyways, here's a list of some of the cookies/dessert that I turn to during this time of year.

My Ondeh-ondeh (sticky marbles)

How about some Honeydew Sago Pudding (Sai Mai Lo)

Or perhaps some Golden Cornflakes cookies

 Love peanuts, try this Melt in Your Mouth Peanut cookies (recipe from my sifu aka master)

 Want something hot..perhaps some Sweet Peanut Tongsui (Sweet Soup)

 or something different like Sago Gula Melaka (Sago Palm Sugar).

Happy collecting lots and lots of Angpows for those who are unmarried and happy giving Angpows who are married! :)

Gong Hei Fatt Choy...in advance!

Chinese New Year Honeydew Sago (Sai Mai Lo) Dessert

How was your first day of Chinese New Year?! Had lots of food and snacks? Collected lots of angpow? That's great! Anyway, I thought I'll share with you a recipe of one of my favourite desserts.

 Honeydew Sai Mai Lo (Honeydew Sago Dessert)

It makes such a great dessert during the summer months because it is really cooling and refreshing. 

Hope you'll enjoy this dessert as much as we did :)

Serves 4

All you need are:

1/2 of honeydew

3/4 cup of sago (Tapioca Pearls) - Coles sells it.

1 cup of coconut milk

1/2 cup sugar

8 cups of water

All you need to do:

1) Boil water, when it is boiling,

 Add in the sago. 

Stir every once a while, otherwise it'll stick. Boil for 10-15 minutes, till the sago turns translucent. 

*Make sure not to over boil it. As long as most of the sago is translucent, you can stop boiling it.

2) Rinse sago thoroughly with cold water in a strainer. Set aside.

3) In a pot, boil the sugar and water till the sugar is dissolved and becomes a syrup. Set aside to cool.

4) Chop the melon in two,

 and blend one of it in a blender until it becomes a puree. Set aside.

5) Use a melon ball scoop or chop the remaining honeydew in to small cubes. Set aside.

6) Add the puree, chopped honeydew, sago and coconut milk into a large bowl. Mix.

7) Add the syrup into the bowl to taste (depending on how sweet you want it) and mix properly.

8) Cover with wrap and chill it in the fridge for about 3 to 5 hours. 

9) Serve.

Enjoy! :)

Gong Hei Fatt Choy everyone!

Today is officially the 1st day of the Rabbit year!

(adapted from Vectorstock)

To everyone who is celebrating Chinese New Year

I wish you happiness, prosperity, health and love all year round!

Gong Hei Fatt Choy!!

Chinese New Year Golden Cookies

How about some Golden Cornflake Cookies?!

It is quite common for you to find these cookies during the Chinese New Year period.

It is easy to make and simply delicious!

All you need are:

2 1/4 cups of Cornflakes

1 cup of self raising flour

85g of sugar

110g of unsalted butter, soften

1/2 tsp of vanilla essence

1 large egg

All you need to do:

1. Put the butter and sugar into a large bowl.

2. Beat until it is pale and fluffy.

3. Add in the egg and vanilla essence, mix properly.

4. Add in the cornflakes and flour into the mixture.

5. Fold until just incorporated.

6. Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees.

7. Spoon teaspoon size onto your baking tray.

You can decorate the cookie dough just before you put in the oven with more cornflakes if you like.

8. Bake for about 19 minutes or until golden in colour.

Enjoy! :)

Chinese New Year Tong Sui

So Chinese New Year is around the corner! It is in 3 days time! Have you thought about what to make for dessert yet? I'm not sure whether this is served on Chinese New Year, but it is definitely one of my favourite.

How about some Tong Sui? If you're wondering what's "Tong Sui", it is a Chinese sweet soup where it is served as a dessert after a Chinese meal.

I used to have this growing up in my home town. And sadly, it isn't easy to find it anywhere, at least not the good ones.

So here, you can make it at home.

Sweet Peanut Tong Sui

  (adapted from Nyonya Food)

All you need are:

12oz peanuts (skinless)

Rock Sugar (to taste) - you can get them from the Asian Mart

8 cups of water (for Option A)

All you need to do:

There are 2 ways you can make this. If you have a pressure cooker, use Option A and if you don't, use Option B (this is what I did, as I don't).

Option A - with Pressure Cooker

1. Soak the peanuts overnight, make sure all is in the water.

2. The next day, rinse thoroughly.

3. Transfer to pressure cooker, add water (depending on your pressure cooker, you might want to add or reduce the amount of water accordingly). Cook for 15 minutes on high heat.

4. Then cook for another 30-40 minutes on low to medium heat.

5. Turn off heat, let it cool till you can remove the lid. 

6. Heat it up again with low to medium heat and add rock sugar to taste. 

7. Boil it until the peanuts are thoroughly soft.

8. Serve it hot/warm.

Option B - with Normal Pot

1. Soak the peanuts overnight, make sure all is in the water.

2. The next day, rinse thoroughly.

3. Transfer to a pot, add water and a ceramic spoon (old saying, to help the peanuts soften).

4. Cook for 6 hours on medium heat, with lid slightly opened. Do make sure to keep an eye on the water level. As you would have to continuously add hot boiling water as the water level goes down. 

5. When your peanuts are thoroughly soft, add rock sugar and boil for another 5-10 minutes until all the sugar are dissolved (break in smaller pieces, makes it easier to dissolve).

6. Serve it hot/warm.

Enjoy! :)

Chinese New Year Melt in your mouth Peanut Cookies

Here's a secret recipe that I would love to share with you all. This recipe has been requested. So here it is, thanks to my sifu (master) aunty Jess.

These cookies are the ones that you get during the Chinese New Year period...but...even better because these ones MELTS IN YOUR MOUTH! :)

I should have taken a step by step picture, but I forgot, next time okay. But here's a picture of my peanut cookies which I have packed for Chinese New Year!

All you need are: 

500 gm peanuts  ( toast and grind till fine )

400 gm plain flour

120 gm icing sugar

1 tsp salt

275 - 300 ml corn oil or peanut oil

All you need to do:

1. Pre-heat oven at 180 degrees.

2. Sift flour, icing sugar and salt into a large mixing bowl.

3. Mix in the grinded peanuts and mix it evenly.

4. Make a well in the center of the ingredients and pour in the corn oil.

5. Mix well to form a soft dough, and make small balls. (size of a marble)

6. Bake for about 15-20 minutes.

Enjoy! :)

Chinese New Year at Rhodes Phoenix

Gong Hei Fatt Choy to all celebrating!!

This is a celebration with lotsa red colours. Most people will be dressed in red, and discouraged in wearing BLACK.

Those who are married would have to give out angpows to those who are not.

Because I am not back home, I missed out on that.

But thanks to my lovely cousin who got married recently for the angpow :) and of course to my parents too :)

It is the usual tradition where people will "lou yee sang".

It is actually fruits, vegetables, salmon or jelly fish with crackers mixed up in some sweet sauce.

Everyone will use a chopstick to wish for good things while tossing the yee sang.

  

Because I am not home, a bunch of us gathered on this special day for a Yum Char session at Rhodes Phoenix.

We had Dimsum :)

Though there were much more food than that, but we were all too engrossed in our food that I forgotten to snap photos before it was all gone.

Overall, it was quite pricey, but it was alright.