Steamed Yam Cake

So good even without garnish

I have made many steam yam cakes but this recipe beats all !  The first batch was a trial run for a cookout and I could not stop snitching it from the moment it was cooked, even in its hot, oozy state.

This is the real McCoy but the secret lies mostly in the stock used, as kitchentigress has pointed out. Use water instead and it will just be, meh.

I  deviate a wee bit from the original recipe. Even so, this abridged version is delicious!

With adaptations from KitchTigress

For 10.

Ingredients :

40g dried shrimps + 30g shitake dried mushroom – soaked overnight / microwaved for 5 minutes

300g yam cubes, about peanut size

50g shallots, either stored bought or fried until crispy

salt, 5 spice, pepper, light soya sauce – for seasoning

oil reserved from frying shallots

Rice water gruel -

200g rice flour

240 ml water from soaking dried shrimps and mushrooms

600 ml chicken stock

Method :

Soak the dried shrimps and mushrooms overnight. Reserve the water.

Alternatively microwave the dried shrimps and mushrooms in a deep microwavable bowl. Drain and reserve the water.

Chop the shrimps and mushrooms finely. I used very small shrimps and did away with the chopping.

Cut the yam to peanut sized cubes.

If making shallots from scratch, fry in oil until the shallots are crispy. Set aside. Reserve the oil. Otherwise, use ready to eat shallots.

Use the oil and fry the yam cubes until soft but not yet brown on medium heat. Set aside.

Fry the shrimps and mushrooms with seasoning until fragrant, on medium heat.

Combine the shallots, yam, shrimps and mushrooms. Set aside.

Mix the rice flour with the reserved shrimp/mushroom liquid.

Pour the flour mixture to the pot. Add the chicken stock.

Cook the mixture over medium high heat until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Turn off the heat and tip in the combined ingredients. Mix well.

Transfer the batter to a medium sized aluminum tray. Steam for 40 minutes.

Cool well before cutting the cake with a pastry cutter.

Soon Kueh ( Turnip dumplings in crystal skin )

Amplify the flavor with killer sambal chilli. Sedap ! 

Garnish with baked garlic bits for crunch.

It is a misnomer to call this snack soon kueh when there isn’t a shred of bamboo shoot ( ‘soon’ ) in it. In my memory, soon kueh will always be associated with this old Teochew hawker who came every afternoon, hawking her wares on 2 straw baskets tethering on both ends of a split bamboo pole. We bought it most days because she was a distant relative. 

Soon kueh was a poor man’s snack when bamboo shoots grow abundantly in the backyard and with some flour, could be transformed into a lip smacking meal.  I can no longer tolerate the smell of the shoots because I had too much of them in my system from spending many typhoon months while working in Taiwan ( where all you had is bamboo shoots ! ). Crunchy turnip is a different story altogether.

I have experimented using rice flour but it proved too brittle to handle. Tapioca and potato starch were easier for the newbie and the dough is pliable for a longer time.  Don’t berate yourself for not achieving the thinnest wrapper at first but lots of soon kuehs later, you will possibly make a wrapper so thin Din Tai Fung’s recruiters will come knocking at your door.

This garlicky version is dedicated to my garlic loving teenager who simply love the stinky bulb.

Dough adapated from here.

Ingredients :

¼ cup of dried shrimps

¼ cup of minced fresh garlic

¼ cup of soaked shitake, minced and squeezed dry

1 big turnip, julienned and chopped

½ cup of water or stock

1 sprig of scallions, chopped

¼ tsp of chicken granules

a dash of oyster sauce

a dash of salt

a dash of light soy sauce

3-4 tbsp of corn starch

Method :

In a frying pan, heat 2 tbsp of oil.

In medium low heat, sauté shrimps, garlic and shitake until fragrant, about 5-10 minutes.

Add turnip, scallions and water. 

Cook , covered, at medium heat, until the ingredient is almost dry.

Add the rest of the ingredients and combine.

Set aside to cool.

Dough :

A )

160g wheat starch

50g sweet potato flour

1/8 tsp fine salt

¼ tsp sugar

( Combine in bowl A )

B) 

2 TBSP canola oil

500g boiling water

( Combine in bowl B )

C)

200g tapioca flour ( Bowl C )

Method  - making the dough :

In mixing bowl ( A ), combine components ( A ) ; wheat starch, sweet potato flour, salt and sugar.

In container B, combine oil and hot water.

Pour the hot liquid in ( B ) to contents in ( A ) . Stir with a pair of chopstick until the flour in ( A ) is combined.

Transfer the scalded flour in ( A )  onto the tapioca flour in  ( C ).

Knead the contents until it comes together as a pliable dough. Be careful not to burn your hands.

Making the skin :

Pinch off 40g of the dough and make it into a smooth ball with slightly oiled hands.

Cover the rest of the dough until you are ready to make the next soon kueh.

Dip the ball into the tapioca flour.

Flatten the ball into a disc using a flat pastry cutter. Roll out the disc, about the size of your palm. I find it easier to roll out the disc by pressing the rolling pin on the flat cutter that is resting on the dough.

Neaten the edge of the soon kueh using a medium sized bowl as a template.

Spoon the ingredients onto the disc. Encase the ingredients and seal it by pinching the edges together.

Transfer the soon kueh to a heavily oiled plate.

Repeat the procedure until the ingredients / dough is used up. By rolling out the discs and then encasing the ingredients as you go along, there is less chance of the dough drying out.

Steam over high heat for 10 minutes or until the skin turns translucent. To handle the cooked kuehs, used oiled chopsticks and utensils to prevent tearing.

Chwee Kueh ( Steamed rice cakes with chopped radish )

Looks so innocently easy to do

I am on a chwee kueh trail. So far, I did three trails, 2 were huge failures but the last one got me to where I wanted to.

The earlier batches were total disasters. Anyone looking at it will be hard pressed to even remotely identify what I made. ( reasons : unsuitable utensils and high heat caused blisters on the cakes, overly salty radish topping ,  cake so mushy it could not hold its shape )

The ratio of the 3 kinds of flours   ( rice, corn, wheat starch ) is critical if you are picky with the texture of the rice cake.  These, I took great pains to experiment. It was a stroke of luck that  I ‘mistook’ my hand for a measuring spoon and scooped more wheat starch than planned. What an eureka moment because the rice cakes turned out perfect – soft to the bite but firm enough to handle !

I steamed the chwee kueh in the hollow of the cupcake baking tray , 4 inches above a pot of water that did not fit very well. Another eureka moment again because the medium heat gave the rice cakes a nice shiny finish !  

If there is anything to improve , it would be to soak the chopped radish more to reduce the salt. Even so, I polished off 5 of the cakes before remembering to serve them.

Makes 24 kuehs, cupcake size.

Credits : rumblingtummy

Ingredients ( batter ) :

75g rice flour

10g corn flour

10g wheat flour

360ml water

a pinch of salt

1 tsp canola oil

Ingredients ( radish topping ) :

1 cup chopped radish, soaked and rinsed 3 times until it is no longer salty. Drain.

2 cloves of garlic, minced and pressed.

3 tsp gula Melaka

2 tsp oil

Method ( rice cake ) :

Prepare a cupcake tray and a steamer with 1 cm of water. Oil the cupcake depressions.

In a pot, combine all the ingredients for the batter.

Cook over medium low heat under the batter is about to thicken, stirring constantly. The batter should NOT congeal or thicken but remain liquid.

Put the batter over the prepared tray.

Steam the batter over medium-low heat for 15 minutes, until the batter changes from white to translucent, covered.

Allow it to cool as it is, about 15 minutes.

Remove the steamer cover and cool further. Remove the rice cakes with a toothpick.

( Radish topping ) :

Fry the garlic in oil under it is soft but not brown.

Add the chopped radish and gula Melaka. Add a tsp of water if needed.

Fry until the gula is melted and caramelized.

Serve with the rice cake / chwee kueh.

Yam Pudding

It's back to my roots with yam pudding

I started off my food ministry in church with this dessert.  Encouraged by its popularity, I made it often and was  called the 'or nee' or yam pudding lady.

The easy version was to cook the peeled yam with minimum water under pressure, drain and mesh, before adding the condiments and sugar. I liked its 'rustic' style, with the occasional lumps which reminded my guests that was indeed homemade.

Recently, I have the opportunity to meet with some acquaintances, all cooking experts in their own right. I decided to present a smoother and 'upgraded ' version because I wanted to put my best feet forward, which explained the sieve and ricer procedure.

Fresh gingko is far superior than the canned or prepared version.  For that, my long suffering hubby processed the gingko nuts an entire afternoon so that I could showcase the dessert.  Hope my new friends liked it as much as I did.

For 10.

Ingredients :

1 medium yam

200ml coconut milk

1 cup fresh gingko nuts, peeled

Syrup:

2 bunches of pandan leaves

2  l water

2-3 cups sugar, depending on preference

Method :

Peel and cut yam, 1 cm thick

Steam the yam until soft, about 30 minutes.

Rice the yam with a ricer.

Pass the riced yam through a sieve.

To prepare the syrup :

Boil pandan leaves in the water, about 20 minutes.

Discard the leaves. Retain the water and discard portion with broken leaves or sediments.

Now boil the sugar with pandan infused water until volume of water is halved.

Add the gingko nuts and boil for 10 minutes, or until the nuts is cooked and has turned translucent.

Remove the nuts and continue to  boil syrup until liquid is reduced by another half.

Assembly;

Mix yam, coconut.

Add syrup until it reaches the consistency desired. It is about right when the paste coats the back of a spoon without lumping.

Stir in gingko nuts.

Serve hot or cold.

Or Nee , or Yam mud (pudding) in Teochew dialect

Brown bean rice cakes 豆糕

Bean Cake

This humble breakfast rice cake which is one of hubby's favourite does not have a name.  Whenever he wished to eat it, it would be a lengthy description of its contents before I knew what he wanted. The  hawker  in the market  called it  豆糕  or 猪脚糕 . Go figure why it has anything to do with a pig's hock.

This recipe went through several deconstruction processes  by this cook here. It is basically a rice cake with brown beans  and bean sprouts, steamed then deep fried. Hubby would not even touch the steamed version but devoured every single freshly fried cake. 

Feel free to replace an equivalent amount of cooked peanuts for brown beans and shredded carrots for bean sprouts.

Steamed cakes, before frying

Makes 10 cupcake sized rice cakes

Ingredients :

200 g rice flour

300ml tepid water

1 cup bean sprouts

1/2 cup fried shallots

1 cup cooked brown beans

1 tsp canola oil

Pepper and salt

1/4 tsp msg

Method :

Mix all the ingredients in a microwave safe bowl.

Microwave at 30 second intervals until the mixture is just slightly  runny.  Stir in between intervals. It should be at the desired thickness after 2 minutes.

Oil a muffin tin with canola oil.

Spoon the batter into the muffin tin. Steam for about 20 minutes to cook the rice cake. The rice cake is cooked when the  batter is no longer opaque white.

Cool completely.

Deep-fry the rice cakes until golden brown. Serve hot!

Glutinous Rice Balls with Piantang

Festive rice balls in red, eaten during the Chinese New Year and Mid Autumn festival

We had an wonderful evening  witnessing  the dazzling skills of Yevgeny Sudbin with the SSO.  The other reason it was special was because my favorite SSO concertmaster,  Alexander Souptel , was back for the performance. I could not decide what I enjoyed more, Sudbin's fingerwork or Souptel's  charisma with his violin.

Due to our  schedule, most concert evenings mostly make for hasty dinners, which we do not enjoy. All was not lost as we often had suppers to wrap up  the evening of music.

This supper was created from another of hubby's oral archives.  The concept was from his late mother  and details were hazy .  I had a field day working with edible playdoh  recreating  hubby's childhood snack.  There was no strict measurements and it was not difficult to get it right by gut feel.

( PianTang or bar brown sugar can also be substituted by palm sugar commonly known as gula melaka. )

There is always the urge to personalize the rice balls. Later batch had mathematical equations drawn on

Ingredients :

Finely ground glutinous rice flour

Tepid water , colored with food dye , color of your choice

Pieces of cane bar sugar, cubed ( PianTang )

3 cups of finely ground peanut

In a mixing bowl, pour liquid over the flour and  stirring with your fingers until the dough resembles playdoh consistency.

You may not need to use up all the  water

Use a measuring spoon and scoop a spoonful of dough.

Push a sugar cube into the dough. Do this for all the entire batch of dough.

Chill for about 3 hours.

Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil. Drop the rice balls into the boiling water gently.

The rice balls are ready when they float on the water.

To serve, coat them with finely grated peanut or serve with sweet ginger soup.