'PNG KUEH' (Steamed Glutinous Rice Cake)

As far as versatility goes, I can hardly find anything as delicious and satisfying as glutinous rice--you simply can't fault this amazing white grain either as a savoury bite or a sweet dessert.


My favourite savoury kuehs which I miss the most dearly since moving away from Singapore have got to be 'Png Kueh' (as pictured) and 'Soon Kueh'. Between them, the skin remains an unachievable feat for most.  I found the latter to be a tad tricky, but am proud to show off my homemade Png Kueh here, skin not only the right tint of light rouge pink, but most crucially, all intact and not a tear! Yayy


PNG KUEH (Kueh Skin):


300g Rice Flour, sifted
2 T Tapioca Flour, sifted
600ml Water
2 T Oil
1 tsp Salt
2 drops red food colouring (optional, you can make white ones too)


The skin should be made while you are steaming the glutinous rice, then left to cool as you cook the filling.




Method (for skin):
1. First, combine all ingredients for kueh skin in a pot on the stove.
2. Mix well to make sure there are no lumps.
3. Bring mixture to a boil while constantly stirring.
4. Keep stirring till a dough is formed and not lumpy.
5. The dough is ready when it is no longer sticky to the touch.
6. Remove dough from pot and place on a suitable surface dusted lightly with tapioca flour.
7. Knead the dough well and divide into small ball portions.
8. Flatten the dough into a small pancake and using a tablespoon, stuff filling into middle of dough.
9. Seal up all gaps and roll back into a ball shape. Press onto mould
10. Invert mould and place on a greased banana leaf or baking paper cut to size.
11. Cook kueh by steaming over high heat for 10 - 15 minutes.
TIP: Brush steamed kuehs with oil that has been 'cooked'after steaming so they they will not stick to each other.


PNG KUEH (Filling):
300g glutinous Rice (soaked overnight or at least 3 hours, steamed for 30 min or till soft)
60g dried mushrooms (soaked for 1 hour, sliced into strips)
100g dried shrimps (soaked for 30 min in hot water)
80g whole peanuts (skins on, soaked for 1 hour)
2 T minced garlic


Seasoning:
1 T dark soy sauce
1 T light soy sauce
2 T chicken stock
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp pepper


Method (to cook filling):


1. Heat 2 T of oil in wok.
2. Add in garlic, mushroom, dried shrimps and peanuts and stir-fry till the aromas form.
3. Add in seasoning sauces and mix well.
4. Add cooked glutinous rice and mix all ingredients, set aside on a deep bowl to cool.

Kat's Craft Studio: Chinoserie themed Card & Gift Wrap

Eversince we gave up our 'baby' (cafe and restaurant--named Barang) so that I could indeed go have a real one and accomplish becoming a full-time mummy, I seem to still be hanging on to what's remained of my memory and concept of our nostalgic asian-inspired chinoserie themed restaurant, and I haven't seemed to have given up reminding friends and family that Barang shall remain an integral part of me, in much of how I've chosen to express myself through my arts and crafts.

Lazy-Ezy-Yummy Banana Bread (Choc Chip & Vanilla)!

Recipe makes 8 generous slices (only 6 pictured here as 2 got hijacked by hubby C during breakfast this morning!)

Don't you get let down so often by recipes that claim to be quick yet predictably nearly always falls so short of the taste test? I've had my fair share of those baking misadventures but fact is, all us busy bees want it quick and yummy and hey why not?!

My banana bread recipe is one such 'fast-to-bake-yum-to-eat' wonder. Quite hilarious to think that I stumbled upon it while watching an over-animated fast-talking TV chef at work and just couldn't scribble the recipe down fast enough..speaking of stumbling, I definitely had to make it up as I went along! It's become such an easy and fast recipe that it's simply our household staple..I mash a couple of overripe bananas, toss and whisk in all the ingredients in a jiffy, scrape down every drizzle of the batter into a small loaf tin with my silicon spatula and stick it into the oven for 45 minutes. Voila! Breakfast or afternoon tea is served. 

Also a great recipe for using up those blackened crescents that used to look like yellow bananas.

(Makes 8 slices)

Ingredients:

50g butter, melted

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg, beaten

3 large cavendish bananas, peeled and mashed

1 C brown sugar (or 3/4 C white sugar)

250g self-raising flour

3/4 C chocolate chips

Icing:

1 C icing sugar

1 TB milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 TB butter, melted

Method:

1. Whisk all the wet ingredients including the sugar.

2. Fold in the flour and then add in the chocolate chips.

3. Pour batter into a greased and lined loaf tin and bake 45 min on 180 degrees.

4. Ice the top of the banana bread when it has cooled.

Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee (Singapore Style) without PORK!

On our most recent trip in February this year to Singapore during the Chinese New Year festivities, the best Fried Hokkien Mee I've enjoyed was, surprise surprise...homemade...by a non-local, actually none other than my sister-in-law's Indonesian domestic helper, and she'd followed a recipe out of a cookbook my sister-in-law swears by. 


I've always thrived better as the 'cook-at-home-who-relies-on-tried and tested taste', so after what seems like years of fine tuning I found my own recipe for this Singapore-style one dish wonder, one of my biggest cravings at both pregnancies!  My sister-in-law's recipe includes pork as one of its main and perhaps most pertinent ingredient, since the pork bones are painstakingly stewed to extract the sweet flavour for the stock then used to stir fry the noodles.  My version here, however, uses chicken to substitute pork as my hubby C and I don't much care for pork.  I also use what I'd call the 'busy-mummy shortcut' which is using store-bought chicken stock coupled with my own homemade chicken stock from the day before's Hainanese Chicken Rice dinner.  I also add about a tablespoon of sugar to 'sweeten' the stock, together with a handful of heads of tiger prawns to substitute for the stewed pork bones stock.  Trust me, it's easier and I'd say just as good as it gets. Instead of pork strips I've sliced the chicken thighs into strips and that's that!

My Fondant Figurines: Too Cruel To Eat?

OK, these weren't moulded like today or yesterday...they were my then-new-craze when I was carrying my 20+over week pregnant bump and having all the time in the world (where did those days go??) to make cupcakes for my baby shower to celebrate the coming of Baby B. But looking at my old stash of photos I couldn't resist sharing them with you. How did I get started? Oh, no, I didn't pay for a fondant making course...You Tube's a god-send, you know? And when there's a will, there're books you can grab hold of that show you how. The internet is great too, with talented fondant crafters only too eager to share and tell.  This year I managed to sculpt Cookie Monster, Big Bird and Elmo for Baby B's 1st birthday cake...and was crazy enough to carry the little darlings in a cold pack for 7 hours on board Singapore Airlines...they survived long enough to make it to the party..all till Elmo's red butt started to sweat and melt before they finished singing Happy Birthday.

ANG KU KUEH (TURTLE CAKE)--How can it become a 'Long Lost Tradition'?

When I proudly distributed Ang Ku Kuehs to my friends in  Brisbane to mark baby B's first month (or Man Yue/Moon Yut/)celebrations together with 2 chocolate eggs in a 'goody bag' inclusive of an announcement note complete with the significance of her Chinese name, many were astounded by this unexpected gesture to preserve an age-old tradition. So was I trying to make restitiution for another collateral damage of cultural modernisation? I baulked at hearing how bakery vouchers were now conveniently presented to friends and family in place of giving out Ang Ku Kuehs, so that people could select what they actually preferred and at their own time.  My ears rang from the mere frivolity of this suggestion--I mean, imagine others giving out deli vouchers at Christmas instead of the traditional Christmas turkey roast, ditto the Christmas puddings and Christmas cookies--yes why not get 'em all replaced with pattiserie vouchers! Granny'll just hang up her apron ths year! I pictured myself hovering picket stake signs that screamed 'BRING BACK ANG KU KUEH', with other like-minded sensible people in a march, and was all ready to become a 'voucher-burning-culturist' (borrowed from 'bra-burning feminist').


While migration had meant I'd forsaken my birthplace, I wasn't quite so ready to forsake my Chinese culture.  I stood as one Singapore-born Chinese adamant not to acknowledge that my favourite childhood kueh (cake) popularly served at milestone birthdays has become elbowed out by modernisation. 


Here's my favourite Nyonya Ang Ku Kueh recipe. Please keep it going. For all our sakes.


Ingredients for KUEH SKIN:
120g glutinous rice flour
150g sweet potatoes--steamed and mashed while hot, skins removed
1 T sugar
1/2 tsp salt
3 T vegetable oil
1/4 C very hot water to seal


Other materials required:
1 Ang Ku Kueh mould
Banana leaves/dried lotus leaves soaked and cut into mould size/ if you can't find any of these,
use baking paper which I did in the picture above


FILLING FOR KUEH: - PEANUT FILLING
200g crushed peanuts
100g castor sugar, or less according to taste
1/2 tsp salt
water to mix into a thick dry paste


MUNG BEAN FILLING:
150g dried mung beans (boil till split and mash while hot)
100g castor sugar
1/2 tsp salt
120ml pandan juice


METHOD:
1. Steam split green peas and blend immediately/ mix up peanut paste filling
2. Add glutinous flour, sweet potato puree, sugar and salt into a large mixing bowl.  Whisk or beat (add water to stop it getting overly dry)well to make a soft pliable dough. Add cooking oil a little at each time. Ensure that the dough is not sticky to the touch.
3. Roll the dough into a long log and divide into 12 equal pieces. 
4. Roll each piece into a ball and flatten each piece. Insert filling of preference into centre and seal up ball.
5. Dust mould with excess flour and carefully shape and press ball of dough into the mould.
6. With a few light taps to the side of your hand, tap out the sough and place onto leaf/baking paper cut to size.
7. Arrange on a steamer and steam on low for about 5 minutes. Uncover the steamer and steam kueh, this time uncovered for another 3 minutes till cooked fully.

NOCTURNES by Kazuo Ishiguro – My ''Read & Raise' Book Review-by Kat Ngoi

NOCTURNES – Read & Raise
Nocturnes, internationally-acclaimed writer Kazuo Ishiguro’s (best known for his masterpiece The Remains of the Day) first collection of short stories after volumes of award-winning novels, leaves you pining like a lost lover for what you wish were happier endings and perhaps most of all--closure. However, the style and prose which the familiar single narration weaves each poignant story is typical Ishiguro—rich and rewarding, masterful storytelling at its best.


Each deliberately short lived tale is threaded with the same theme of heartache, regret and disappointment of promises receded, the continuous strife of holding on to life’s hopes and lost dreams. The result is a play of romance, marital love and discord, and the inevitable regrets that lie await in the passage of time. These interwoven subjects pepper the five stories that unfortunately, either purely due to their short length or lack of a satisfying finish, fail to live up to their initial premise as paralleled by the dashed or unfulfilled dreams of the characters.

In CROONER, the first story, a jazz guitarist from a café band in Venice chances upon his late mother’s music idol Tony Gardner and his courage to extend acquaintance with the fading star is rewarded subsequently with a romantic assignment to play aside the aging crooner in a moonlight serenade to his wife steered in a gondola. The guitarist Janeck soon realizes that beneath the romantic gesture lies a grim truth: their marriage has ended and that was an unrequited Gardner’s romantic farewell to his best friend and soon-to-be-divorced wife, Lindy.

The same wife makes a return in another quite unrelated tale NOCTURNE, of her chance meeting and brief friendship with an undiscovered musician with all talent and no looks—just the reverse is true for Lindy Gardner herself. The unlikely pair strike up a memorable episode of nightly escapades in the same hotel they are holed up in while healing from their cosmetic surgical scars. Turns out that they each have hearts as bandaged as their faces, and both require deep healing of the emotional kind.


Having Nocturnes for company is like taking a slow, pensive stroll by the moonlight while a string quartet’s faint music is resonating either in your imagination or in the faraway distance. While you long for daylight to break the melancholy, alas, time seems to stand still, dusk remains and so does your shattered heart.