u m a m i

Cooking class- Party Food Part 2

Part 1: click here.

Dish 2: Tuna Balls

This was my favourite. A very addictive snack that combines the salty-savoury tuna with fluffy mashed potato in a crisp shell.

The recipe is quite simple. The secret ingredient is curry leaf which imparts a distinct aroma to elevate this simple snack into something a little more sophisticated.

 

Chop onions, baby green chillis and a generous handful of curry leaves. Boil and mash some potatoes. Drain tuna from can.

In a saucepan, saute the aromatics. Grind black pepper onto potatoes and add to the pan. The tuna goes in too. Season and mix well. Sprinke some breadcrumbs at the end.

Let the mixture cool. Honestly I would have been happy to stop here.

When the mixture is cool, roll it up with the hands into little bite-sized balls. Dip into beaten egg and then breadcrumbs. Deepfry.

Dish 3: Prawn fritters

This reminds me very much of the malay snack cucur udang. It combines a simple batter and chopped fresh prawns.

Take 1.5 kg of fresh prawns, yep that's quite a lot of prawns, yum yum. Peel and chop the prawn meat. Mix into a batter of flour and water together with plenty of chopped onions and baby green chillies. Deep fry and serve.

These snacks go well with chilli sauce. Champa also whizzed a green sauce by combining yoghurt, coriander, chilli, salt and lemon juice together; this sauce was especially lovely with the samosas.

As the sun went down, we sat around a table chatting, eating and drinking. The family cats couldn't contain their curiosity and came down to join us. We left M & J's home with three versatile recipes in our minds and memories of a laughter and food-filled afternoon. 

MEME- The Cook Next Door

When David of A Banana in Australia tagged me to this cooking meme, I was thinking, Oh No! I am no good with memes. Everyone knows I am an imposter at cooking. My vino friends sigh that I still cannot differentiate left from right or old from new.  I am also not the type to do personality tests to check which kitchen condiment I closely resemble.

But, well, turns out this meme is right up my street. It allows me to do my favourite thing which is to blabber and wax nostalgic about my younger days. It was started by Nicky of Delicious Days .

What is your first memory of baking/cooking on your own?

Cooking: I was about 9, I think. Instead of studying, especially if the subject was Mandarin or Math, I would hang around the kitchen. To observe Chan-Che peeling prawns, cleaning chicken kidneys, cooking dinner, making rempah; sometimes I asked questions and sometimes she assigned me simple chores like cutting cucumbers or beating eggs. Sometimes she would throw in small wisdoms that still float in my head, like" never add water when frying kangkong, or only salt the fish moments before frying"

Eventually Chan-Che let me fry a whole egg by myself. Then I graduated to roasting peanuts in the wok. Once or twice I fried rice for our lunch.

Baking: That would be at Marymount Convent School, where I made Rock Cakes-recipe in our Home Economics text book which comes after Tea / Coffee. I was 13 then and it was my first time using an oven.

Before then, we had an oven in the house but neither Chan-Che nor Mummy knew how to bake. So the oven was more an object of curiousity, we opened the glass doors to hear the metallic echo, and sometimes stored our toys and books inside.

Who had the most influence on your cooking?

At first I thought of Chan-Che, but later I remember that I only seriously started cooking when I went to study in London. The main person who guided me was my aunt L.

We call L aunt even though she is close to our age, about 5-6 years older than us- because her father is my grandfather and her mother is my grandfather's third wife. I credit L with opening my eyes and palate to foods I would never have discovered on my own. Aunt L has her own family to look after now, but back in London almost 20 years ago she was also our surrogate-mother figure, looking after me, her younger siblings and other cousins.

I first arrived in London a week before Christmas. L made the roast goose, a large platter of lamb chops and helped grandmother make some chicken curry for the Christmas Day feast. That set the standard. Pretty soon it was my turn to cook. My cousins helped me to make spaghetti bolognaise with minced beef and tonnes of vegetables, no recipes, we threw everything in the pot and boiled them well. When it was served, all the meat had melted and disappeared. Obviously there was room for improvement.

L is not really the best cook I know, but she was adventurous and really loved cooking elaborate meals for us. She didn't have many cookbooks but what she had, she used extensively. The Yan-Kit So cookbook which was our bible, sometimes Ken Lo contributed a recipe. A thick book on classic English foods, though we ignored those recipes that instructed boiling the meat. She shared tips she learnt from going to cordon bleu classes, I learnt what is shortening, and ventured to make my first quiche, first custard, first shepherd's pie. We were always cooking, it could be creme caramel, or her mum's special siew yoke.

So, yes, L. While Chan-Che dispelled any fears of entering the kitchen, I have L to thank for encouraging my curiosity and for being around at a time when I either could learn to cook and eat well, or be lost and subsist on instant noodles and institution food like some of my university mates.

Do you have an old photo as “evidence” of an early exposure to the culinary world and would you like to share it?

No. Our family had one camera and it stayed in its special box most of its life. Photo studios are places one go to to have pictures taken.

Mageiricophobia - do you suffer from any cooking phobia, a dish that makes your palms sweat?

Not really, but recently I've had some disasters with making zhong nai- a milk pudding set with ginger juice.

What would be your most valued or used kitchen gadgets and/or what was the biggest letdown?

Most valued: The wok. It steams, fries, boils, smokes and roast.

Biggest letdown: The mezzaluna mincing knife I bought when we honeymooned in Paris. The cleaver does a better job.

Name some funny or weird food combinations/dishes you really like - and probably no one else!

Only when I am not feeling well: cut-up overcooked ramen in canned mushroom soup.

Fu yu (fermented bean curd) mashed with rice wine, sugar, sesame oil.

Minced parsley (loads of it), scallions, chilli and anchovies, mashed and bound with olive oil. A versatile sauce to go with boiled vegetables, fish or pasta. I know many people who hates parsley and anchovies.

What are the three eatables or dishes you simply don’t want to live without?

1. Rice and by-products: I need rice fix at least every three days. Fine beehoon every week.

2. Mangoes.

3. Roast duck. Crispy aromatic duck. Duck with sour plum sauce. Assam duck. Erm, duck.

Any question you missed in this meme, that you would have loved to answer? Well then, feel free to add one!

Three quickies:

Your favorite ice-cream… Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie

You will probably never eat… dog meat.

Your own signature dish… stir-fried chilli-shrimp eggplant.

I would like to tag the following three to continue this game, hope they will participate:

Obachan from Obachan's Kitchen & Balcony Garden

Piggy from Piggy's Cooking Journal

TH from Chaxiubao

Cooking class- Party Food Part 1

 

When we told M & J that we loved the party snacks they served at their home and one of us asked about the recipe, M graciously allowed us to invade her kitchen and watch them goodies being made.

We were introduced to their wonderful helper who led the class. This pretty lady is Champa, she comes from Sri Lanka and is very shy and soft-spoken. She patiently took us through the steps and did all the work while we asked silly questions and escaped from the hot wok when the heat got too much.

I cannot remember the exact quantities, our other friends were the ones taking down detailed notes and filming the whole thing in video. My narrative is less structured, figuring we can always improvise at home. We learnt to make three items.

First dish: Chicken samosas.

Take some big red onions. Chop finely. Do the same with baby green chillies.

Have on hand mashed potatoes and minced chicken.

Heat oil in a deep pan. Saute the onions and chilli, add the chicken and stir through till partly cooked. Now the potatoes. Seasonings was Champa's secret masala blend and chilli powder. Finally, some green peas for little bursts of sweetness. Remove from pan and set aside.

Make the pastry: Involves flour, water and a touch of oil. Knead till done.

Make a little slurry of flour and water. This is for sealing the samosas later.

Roll the dough out thinly. French rolling pin optional. Cut into discs, then halve them.

To make cone, dab slurry on one side (see bottom left picture), then fold the other end over and seal.

Yes, I have plump hands and fat fingers. I was also wearing my strawberry T-shirt that day.

Then if you are Champa, you do the "twirl"; it makes a nicer cone.

Stuff as much as you can of the fillings. Seal the edges with slurry. Crimp with fork, or do the curry puff finger crimping thing if you know how (me! me!). More hands make light work obviously.

 

Deep fry. This dish took the longest time to make, because of the dough and the frying, but it is worth it for its homemade taste. Champa's masala blend makes this samosa special, the heat starts off gentle and mild and warms up when you get to the middle. It was even better when we toasted it some more for breakfast the next day.

Next post: In Part 2, we will discover more recipe ideas that also involve potatoes, onions and baby green chillies.

Spice Tree

My dedicated makan friends M&F have sussed out all the good eats in the Joo Chiat/ Katong /Geylang foodie hot spot. For a recent weekend meet-up, they brought along two boxes of what I reckoned are the best curry puff in Singapore.

The sardine puffs were especially commendable,generous of sardine instead of the usual onions, with a curry that tasted like somebody created a special blend just for it.

The regular curry puffs also has its customised spice mix, and you can actually see pieces of chicken.

Xin Jia Xiang

What do you get when you put two cooks with different styles in the kitchen? Fusion-Confusion?

Not at the Xin Jia Xiang, scene of the June makan session. The mainlander Chinese cook does his beautiful thing with typical mainland-style dishes while the local cook adds an Asian touch with,  you-guessed it, plenty of hae-bee hiam.

Left: Chilled Pork and liang-fen starter.

Right: Green beans stir-fried with hae-bee-hiam. The beans were just the right doneness of crunchy and sweet. Hae-bee-hiam featured again in another dish of scallops stir-fried with more of that spicy fragrant condiment.

Another excellent local style dish was the Sum-lo beehoon. Sum-Lo is a style for three-layered dish, in this case fine beehoon (rice noodles) was fried with seafood and then crisped on the top and bottom layers. I love fried beehoon and this was very nice indeed.

The China style really shone through in the house specialty, seafood hotpot. An enormous claypot was borne to the table (see how it almost eclipses the gas burner underneath) and let to simmer till the contents bubble. Generous helpings of fresh seafoods, including crabs, live prawns, sea cucumber, fish and clams were fished out eagerly. Then a little soup was drunk- wonderful saefoody sweetness with smoky tastes of ginseng and perhaps a tad much pepper. As a final touch, the waitresses brought round plates of blanched beehoon to soak up more of the soup. No mere beehoon soup this.

More of that sure China touch in the braised pork ribs. Tasted like the ones I had in Shanghai, all tender and infused with vinegar and spices. With mantous to mop up the delicious gravy.

Dinner concluded with yam paste-eggyolk balls rolled in pastry and then deep-fried. Alternative filling was a nutty sesame paste. Not really necessary for dessert at this stage but we managed.

Weeks later, the huge pot seafood hot pot kept coming to mind whenever I pass by the neighbourhood. And the sum-lo beehoon.

Sin Jia Xiang Restaurant Pte Ltd
251/253 Outram Rd, S(169049)
Tel : 6224 7433
Fax : 6227 3191

Rufus

Curious about Rufus, our other pet? Click here.

Where did I eat May 2005

The May eating-out journal: better record it before the memories gather cobwebs in my tiny overcrowded brain.

Food court at Anchorpoint: Why? Lunch with makankakis. One of them wanted to try the 'best pizza" in town. Not quite, but the pies were loaded with plentiful fresh ingredients. If they were thinner and crispier, maybe. Other good options, the thosai and xiao long bao.

Soup Restaurant (1/2), United Sq: Crowded as usual. Dishes other than the samsui chicken very mediocre, oh why why do I bother? The service staff, terribly lazy and indifferent, maybe they are fed up with the good business.

Ya Kun Kaya Toast, United Sq: Standard continues to decline, food and service wise. But I only go for the cold butter slices anyway.

Royal Copenhagen, Takashimaya Shopping Centre:  I have to thank my good friend G who brought me here when it first opened nearly 10 years ago, and in turn I introduce this spot to quite a few friends. It remains a favourite place to have tea when shopping along Orchard Rd. But I haven't been shopping much, and this place have had a revamp of the decor and menu in my absence.  Banished from the menu is the crepe filled with fresh whipped cream and drizzled with jam- I cannot figure why they would remove such a delicious treat. Though I was soon mollified after eating some honey date pudding, an elegant portion neither sickly nor too sweet and accompanied by a generous dollop of that light-as-cloud cream. And who can remain cross sipping tea from such beautiful china, no?

Crystal Jade (2/10): Once at the Korean restaurant in Taka, and once at the La Mian Xiao Long Bao at GWC. Why is my favourite Korean restaurant run by Chinese?

Haebok Korean Restaurant, Novotel Apollo: I wanted to like this place, because the owner is Korean and he is so nice. The side dishes were more interesting than Crystal Jade's, and they kept giving us refills without our prompting. The kimchee soup packed a good whallop and I loved the seafood pancakes.

Why then didn't I enjoy myself? My beef was, well, the beef. Seriously. the BBQ beef was very disappointing, it tasted wet, like an amateur stir fry effort. The problem may have been the generous portion of beef, which may have overcrowded the grill pan and  caused a steaming effect instead. Most patrons would grill the meat themselves, usually one slice at a time, so to be fair maybe they are not used to weird customers like us who prefer the beef to be cooked before being brought to the table.

Epicurious (1/ 5): Sunday brunch with the dogs. it gets quite hot though. Cannot remember what we ate.

Cellar Door, Bukit Timah: Another occasional brunch place. Don't know what yoghurt they use, it was really light, smooth and creamy. I substituted the bacon with some yummy meaty sausages. Husband gets a little irritated everytime we eat here because the wait staff seems to treat their Caucasian customers better than the locals.

Bali Nasi Lemak, Geylang: It is run by a friend's in laws, but I am not being biased when I say how much I like eating here, and would eat here all the time if only I have a gene that  resists cholesterol. The chicken wings come in two versions, crispy or doused in a finger-licking, lip-smacking honey soy sauce. The sambal petai is always fresh and feisty. Most important, I am happy just eating the rice with just some sambal ikan bilis here. Another bonus to eating here is watching the colourful local characters come and go, but the police cameras mounted opposite have dampened the action quite considerably.

RSSH: The rains made me crave something hot and soupy, so to RSSH it was. If Andrew is around it gets more fun, because he is always test-driving new recipes and dishes. So on this visit we sampled his latest creation, a mutton begedel, which is a vast improvement on the usual greasy potato bullets other places flog I must say.

Farmhouse Village. Second visit with family. The food  was good and cheap. My Chinaman Father approved, helped in large part by the chineseness of the whole place.

Pho Hoa, Holland V: Because it has outdoor seating and because I like their sng-buay (preserved sour lime) soda.

Blood Cafe, Paragon: went for lunch after checkup at the gynae's. The Siam Sour is their take on the mee-siam. What came was pasta in a creamy sauce which was mee-siam like only because it had some sourness from squeezes of lime. But it wasn't wholly unpleasant, even taking into account the extremely salty bean curd sheets which was piled generously on top, that day I happened to be in the mood for salt. I had a slice of cake which compensated  much for the weirdness of the pasta. Note to self, Paragon is not a safe place for the wallet. Bought birthday gifts for husband. New handbag and clothes for meself.

Bakerzin, United Sq: I hate their new name, sounds really silly and unimaginative. Their cakes can still please though, I quite enjoyed my Mont Blanc which was piped over with generous trails of chestnut creams. Their Ginger Milk Pudding is excellent too, much nicer than my home-made attempts.

Spizza, Balmoral: We are moving away from the Ursulas and Claudias. My new favourite is Tiana, the salmon & mascarpone makes lovely pairing on top of pizza crust.

Lai Heng Noodles (1/2): Although I have only eaten here twice this year, husband goes there almost every month. Husband has converted mummy into a fan too, she initiated the request to eat here when the parents were in town.

Whitebait & Kale: This time our dinner did not go well. The waiter was very moronic about the dogs and about the bread that came only after the first course. Dessert was a nightmare, the already not-quite delicate pavlova was buried alive by cement masquerading as whipped cream and the whole bloody carnage emphasized with violent streaks of ugly red jam (regretful flashbacks to ethereal cream at Royal Copenhagen). Chocolate mousse was more like chocolate brick. But the live clams were good, and so was the vegetarian risotto. Bad start, good middle, poor finish- Total Impression: Very Bad. We won't be back for a long time.

Shun Juu, Robertson Quay: As usual, husband over-ordered too many stick-things with bacon. I went home with indigestion.

Kaisan (1/3): Where we went for restorative recuperative cuisine the day after the Shun Juu blow-out. Grilled something fish with lemon was mucho oiishi. Surprisingly the therapy worked, I found room in tummy for some Thos chocolates.

And of course the monthly makan session at Gim Tin.

And at work, continue to enjoy Sergeant Chicken Rice at the Chevron Building because my boss likes the chicken and so must I then, even though I am loathe to cross the overhead bridge and expose myself to the evil sunrays. Still it was nicer than what is available up yonder at the Crunchy Carrot, IMM, which serves food that is, gasp, worse than Han's, a total crime even if we took into consideration the 30% discount if we ordered before 12 pm. A better option is the eggy crepes filled with pork floss from Shihlin XXL Taiwan Snacks. And when I absolutely must have lunch in the building, the sandwiches and coffee at Spinelli are quite acceptable, even more so than the offerings in the foodcourt next door.

Oops, no more photos for May. So we have instead the view of the next-door condo's rear staircases.

KL June 2005

The short weekend in KL was mostly spent with family. Did not have time to meet friends, sorry J! Maybe next month...

Some messy pictures of meals eaten with family. Second sister has given birth to her third child, so that makes me aunt to a total 2 nieces and 3 nephews. The children are growing up quick and developing their personalities and quirks. Her eldest son M, age 4,  says the most amazing things. On the rather long walk from the carpark to the playground at Lake Gardens, M went philosophical on us, saying in a resigned tone, that "we'll get there when we get there". Yet when it got quite hot and sunny, he sat down at the park bench and said "I want air-con." He is also developing a sophisticated palate, preferring block cheese to Krafts, and he has a thing for salamis. So the kids enjoyed udon with chicken and salami casserole for lunch, made by their doting aunt my third sister.

And then there was the raucous dinner with mum, dad, my brother, his wife and their kids at a Japanese restaurant in Sri Hartamas. Now there are so many restaurants in this area which gets me confused, not to mention how frequently they come and go. So Sugimoto's must be doing something right. It is not even located on the ground level and yet it was full on the Monday night we visited. Their menu is wide ranging, one can get sushi, sukiyaki and more modern fusion type dishes. Some dishes were a little over-salted and messy but there were some  tasty dishes too. Vigra rolls, not sure if it was meant to spell that way, have loads of avocado strips on top which won over everybody. Spaghetti mentaiko was superb with plentiful amount of the spicy cod roe. My little nephew was very naughty and noisy, so I called him Denise (after the Menace). His father, i.e my brother was not amused. Anyway we ordered a vast amount of food and went home with protruding bellies.

Finally saw Sepet. A sweet and unpretentious movie dealing with a potentially touching subject. But the ending sucked. It has Harith Iskander in it, never a bad thing, but his role in the movie was kept very low-key. There were two songs in the movie which I discovered I liked very much, turned out they were by Sam Hui; ignoramus me is not familiar with his songs which was a pity because he is really talented, his lyrics deep yet not preachy, funny and thought-provoking too. To make up for lost time, husband bought me the double-CD of his greatest hits. I am learning how to sing Long Ji, Sam Sing.

Went shopping and discovered a new snack. These traditional handmade Japanese crackers embedded with nuts (pistachio, cashew, walnuts or macadamia - my favourite is pistachio) are snappy-crunchy-yummy. A little expensive but it is Japanese, see. At the Isetan supermarket, 3rd Flr, KLCC shopping centre.

KL is finally coming into its own and I am really pleased about it. It used to be that friends and relatives come to Singapore and get a bit awed by our seeming trendiness- the shopping is supposed to be better, we are soo hi-tech, also can catch mega- musicals at the durian, Breadtalk. Of late the tide has been somewhat reversed.

For one thing, their TV seems better- Astro's remote-controlled TV guide was in place long before SCV revamped theirs, and their run of Jewel in The Palace was finished while SCV is only showing it here next month.

Their economy looks a little more robust. Lots of tourists, especially the freely-spending Middle-Easterners. The property market is still quite hot especially in the serviced apartment sector.

Their newspapers are better. The Edge beats our Business Times flat out and it even comes with colour supplements at the weekends. The Star feels a little tabloid-y but it compensates with its thickness. And I can only guess that the Chinese papers are full of insighful writings and bursting with latest news, because people even go out especially to buy the evening editions.

Food is another example. RotiBoy of course. The Japanese nut crackers which Singaporeans remain ignorant of. And that to die for roast duck in PJ that my colleagues cannot stop going on about. Restaurant trends are evolving at a dizzying speed- Shangainese, Arabic, kopitiam, Penang, cha charn tng. In less than 4 months One Bangsar has sprouted a brave colony of trendy dining spot, similar outposts were spotted in town. Most of the new places would be more good looking than good tasting, e.g. picture above was of a salad of young jackfruit served at Cungdinh at One Bangsar. The salad tasted fine, but the other dishes we sampled did not really rise above average. But after that lunch I could still go across and buy cucur udang for 40 cents a piece from the makcik across the street. The prawn fritters were bathed, no, flooded with plenty of lipsmacking enak chilli sauce whick soaks into the delicious fried dough to imbue it with more deliciousness, the whole treat just as satisfying as I remember from my childhood days.

The atmosphere in KL is different too. It has a little more purpose and confidence, minus the stress factor. People do not seem so obsessed with being seen in the right clothes or toting the latest gadgets. Not like the locals are ulu, many high street names are in town. They do know how to pamper themselves, some of the malls have dress designer shops and cigar purveyors and even art galleries.

My regular manicurist has been lured to KL to help her friend set up a nail studio in Bukit Bintang Plaza. I could not get an appointment with her in Singapore so I went to have my nails done at her KL place. She was supposed to stay till she has trained a team of people to do the job, and then return to Singapore where she still maintains her own business. But while talking to her, all I heard from her was how much she likes being in KL and how convenient and cheap everything is. People are so nice, workers have very good attitudes, and the food,wow. I asked her, so when are you planning to come back to Singapore, because if she doesn't who can I trust with my nails right, and she went a little sheepish on me and didn't answer me just kept erming- and -hmning, turned out she has been seriously considering uprooting her life in Singapore and starting anew in KL.

That made me envy her quite a bit and wished I could do the same. Life in Malaysia seems more pleasant, especially when contemplated from the comfortable lounger in the cool white  space of the nail studio. I am not much of a social commentator but I do get fed up of life in Singapore. For example, I am irked that just because traffic is bad, they raise ERP charges. Apparently motorists like myself deliberately use the roads and cause traffic jams. It is not because I need to go home after a long day at the office. Is this type of arrogance better than the inept ways of their Malaysian counterparts?

At least in Malaysia people get left alone. No ERP, therefore no one knows that you went to Kajang to visit your mistress/geomancer/ favourite satay stall. In Malaysia they have tollbooths too, but mostly at newly built roads, not the main expressways.

If you graduated overseas and did not return to the motherland, you don't get labelled quitter. Sometimes I check myself, in case whatever I am doing can get me fined or worse.

It is not that it is easier in Malaysia but over there, people just deal with it (watching a bit too much West Wing), whatever the problem, they don't whine and expect the government to solve their problem and in return the government doesn't bother them much. Here the government cannot even trust its people to cross the street. It isn't that I am bashing the country that has given me my husband and my career, but I wish those in public service here will stop patronising the public, stop taking the dubious moral high ground, stop reinforcing their delusions of power (fines! litigations! wishy-washy talk!) and do some actual work for the taxpayers (like me) who pay their salaries. Because this country prides itself on its meritocratic principles and never loses an opportunity to trumpet this ideology. Prove it, and maybe I will complain less.

Zhong making

umami-mummy taught me how to wrap zhong last weekend. A good thing to learn because nowadays people just cannot be arsed to make their own anymore. Takes too much time and effort.

Click here for some folk story about zhongs.

First, procuring the ingredients- not easily available in supermarkets or wet markets. Mummy had to ask people to buy it from dried goods wholesalers.

Second, the prep takes at least two days. Cutting up the meat, washing and soaking the bamboo leaves, removing the skin from chestnuts etc. Easier if there is help, it is a lonely job picking out the jasmine rice that sometimes gets mixed into the glutinous rice.

So, to the ingredients. All ready and laid out when I arrived just a little after noon.

Left: Glutinous rice and mung beans. The rice has been mixed with some rough-chopped garlic and shallots.The mung beans are an essential ingredient in our family recipe- there must be lots and lots of it, definitely more than the rice. Mummy usually makes a bunch for Daddy that has extra beans.

Right: Red beans and rice. Mummy is not Cantonese, so she has never quite acquired the taste for the mung bean version. She prefers red beans, there is therefore a red bean version.

The fillings, or stuffings. 

Next important ingredient is pork. Must be fatty pork. Seasoned with dark soy, oyster sauce, salt, pepper and sugar. A little five-spice powder too, but only a bit, because we don't really like this weird powder. Fifth brother likes his zhongs with extra pork.

Right: The yolks from salted eggs. Mustn't leave this out or people will complain too. Sometimes there are two pieces inside, ooh.

Other ingredients: dried shrimps, dried chestnuts lightly cooked with oyster sauce, stir-fried shitake mushrooms. The chestnuts this year was not very tasty, but the mushrooms made up for it with its distinctive fragrance and succulent chewiness. I suggested to Mummy maybe next year we should add dried scallops.

I remember we had dried oyster in the recipe at some point too, but somehow it has dropped from favour.

The wrapping:

Filling

Make a pyramid pocket. If the leaf is too small, use two. The stem end should be pointing away from you- if not it will fold funny, like what happened to me.

Spread rice scantily on leaf. Layer with beans and the rest of the filling ingredients. Mummy likes to layer rice-beans-filling-beans-rice, I deviate a little from this by scattering beans in between the fillings too.

Everybody is scared of carbohydrates and prefer the fillings and beans anyway so there isn't much rice in each dumpling, compared with commercially available ones. I manage to get away with just 1.5-2 dessertspoons of rice per piece.

Pack as much as possible. Mummy is the expert here.Just for comparison, see the picture on the right? The ones I made were in the bunch on the right. All were at least half the size of hers. 

Folding

Here is where the art lies. Mummy packed so much into the dumpling, but still nothing spilled out. It takes a bit of practice, especially the first fold, and it is important not to squeeze or wrap too tightly or the rice would either not be evenly cooked or leaks out during boiling.

Tying is also a little tricky, but it was quite a doddle for me. My expensive education finally paid off-with the versatile surgical knot-tying skill I could tie them dumplings safe and secure.

The dumplings got boiled in a big vat of salted boiling water for 2-2.5 hours depending on size. Then they cooled by the window.

Dumplings ready to eat. Mung bean and red bean versions.

Maternal grandma makes a gorgeous kan-sui (lye water) zhong stuffed with red bean paste, but they scheduled the wrapping on the day I went back to Singapore. Maybe there will be one or two in the freezer when I next visit.

Bon appetit! Happy Dumpling eating!

Dumpling weekend

Mummy is making dumplings this weekend and we're going up to KL tomorrow morning to learn the family recipe.

But I will miss the dogs.