Cereal Prawns

First time cooking this dish - Cereal Prawns for Father's Day celebration!

 

It was a last minute decision, so I had to use instant cereal prawn mix

 

Ingredients you will need are prawns 400 - 500 gm , I used XL grey prawns. Remove the legs and slit the back to remove the vein.  Some curry leaves and 5 egg yolks. You also need to have some Planta margarine.

 

 

Cook Prawns with some oil till cooked.

 

Discard the oil and heat up 4 tablespoon of margarine. When melted, add in the egg yolks and stir fry till cooked. Please use your spatula to chop them up.

 

 

After cooking, strain your egg yolks. Set aside.

 

 

Wipe away most of the melted margarine, and add in 10 curry leaves.  Stir fry a little while.

 

 

 

Add in the cereal mix and fry quickly till fragrant. Use low fire because cereal will get burnt.

 Add in your prawns and eggs and mix evenly.  Serve hot.

 

 

 

Cereal prawns for a hardworking Daddy! Happy Father's Day!

 

Happy Cooking!

 

 

 

 

 

Cookie Pops

 

Today we attended a cookie pops session organized by Bishan North CC.  It is a Parent-Child workshop.  That means an easy to do lesson!

Summary
Make cookie pop mixture using cream cheese and Tim Tam cookies.
Prepare sticks.
Dip stick into melted chocolate and stick into a ball of cookie.
Dip the cookie ball entirely into melted chocolate and immediately coat with sprinkles etc.
Stand them to dry.
Prepare melted white chocolate and add colouring.
Pipe coloured frosting over the cookie pops.


Cookie Pop (about 20 pcs)

Step 1.

Tim Tam cookies  1 packet (200g) and 80 gm cream cheese.

 

You can also use Oreo cookies.

80 gm Kraft Philadelphia cream cheese

 

 

 

Put the cookies in food processor and blend till fine.  Add cheese and continue to blend until combined.  Add sesame/ nuts if using at this stage.

 

Pour all the Tim Tam biscuits into processor and blend.

 

Take the mixture and roll into balls and chill in a plastic bag.

 

 

Step 2. 

 

Some rolled balls and other shapes and lolly sticks.

Prepare 20 lolly sticks, ice cream sticks or satay sticks.
Melt 200 gm compound chocolate (eg. Tulip brand from Phoon Huat) using a double boiler or microwave oven.
Use a stick dip into chocolate and stick into the prepared balls. 
When stick is firm inside, dip the entire ball into chocolate.
Tap at 45 degree angle after dipping to absorb some of the impact. The excess chocolate coating will fall off.
Coat with sprinkles, coloured sugar, nuts etc immediately.

 

Melting chocolate using double boiler

 

 

 

Step Three - Decorating with frosting and other decorations.

 

 

 

 

Melting white chocolate and some Candy melts. 

Melt your white chocolate 100gm or less for decoration.

 

 

 

White chocolate can be mixed with a little liquid colouring to get pink , yellow, purple etc frosting.

 

The candy melt need to add some Crisco shortening to dilute it as it is very thick. Also to use for piping.

 

Other ingredients for decorating the ball

 

Assorted coloured sugar,

sprinkles, melon seeds, crushed peanut etc.

 

You can make your own coloured sugar by mixing caster sugar and 1 or 2 drops of liquid colour.



Stand your finished pops onto a Styrofoam block, or use a bowl of rice or poke holes into a ice cream paper box.

Oreo pops made in 2012. I stand the pops into a glass with rice.

Our instructor used a kitchen mat with small round holes. ( you can buy from Giant supermarket)

Our creations today - I helped to pipe our names Joie and Lily.

 

 

Happy making, everybody!

 

 

 

 

 

Caramel Custard Pudding

I managed to make these caramel custard puddings on my third attempt.  Ingredients are simple, eggs, milk, sugar, water and some unsalted butter.

There is a very neat video on youtube which you can check on the making of the puddings
Cooking with Dog - How to make custard pudding

Caramel ingredients and method:

4 tbsp. sugar, 1 tbsp. water ( I used 1.5 tbsp.)
1.5 or 2 tbsp. Hot water.

Firstly prepare 4 ramekins and use a little unsalted butter to grease all around for easy removal of pudding.

Use a small pot, put the sugar and water and let it melt till you get golden brown colour. Use medium heat.

Remove from fire and then add 1.5 or 2 tablespoon hot water into the caramel and swirl.

Pour evenly into the prepared ramekins.

Custard Pudding Ingredients and Method

2 eggs, 250 ml milk and 5 tablespoon sugar.

Beat 2 eggs and whisk inside a medium bowl.  Make sure whisk head doesn't leave the base of the bowl. Set aside.

Use a pot and put the milk and sugar in. Use the stove and on low fire.  Stir with spatula till sugar is melted.

Pour milk mixture into egg while whisking.

My method : Strain the egg mixture into a pitcher directly with a sieve.

Pour into the prepared ramekins and cover the top with aluminium foil tightly.

I use my Happy Call Pan - brown colour.

Pour some water into the pan and line with a dish cloth on the base. Heat the water with low fire.

When water is warm, place the cups inside and steam for 18-20 minutes with cover  closed.

Make sure that the water does not boil! Or the custard surface will be rough and not smooth.

Put the dish cloth on base with water and heated up.

This is how the custard looks after 20 minutes of steaming.  Please cover the top with foil. Let them cool and place in fridge to chill about 1 hr.


Remove the pudding by using the knife to run round the cups and tilt onto a plate to eat.

Happy cooking!

Steamed Pumpkin Rice Flour Cake

Steamed Pumpkin Rice Flour Cake

This recipe is from thelazychef.wordpress.com

https://thelazychef.wordpress.com/2006/09/22/steamed-pumpkin-rice-flour-cake/

I have lessened the amount from the original recipe as I feared I may not be able to do a proper cake but it turned out quite right.  It can be improved by making the seasoning stronger, perhaps adding slightly more salt.

Original recipe Ingredients :

800 g pumpkin - after skin n seeds removed and sliced into thin pcs.

( I used only about 550g)

Batter Mix

500 g rice flour

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

6 cups hot water

Fillings

80 g dried shrimps ( I used only 50 g) soften with water and minced

2 Chinese sausages diced ( I omitted)

70 g preserved wax Chinese ham ( I omitted)

15 Chinese dried mushrooms (soften and sliced thinly) ( I used only 8 pcs)

1 tbsp salt

1 tsp pepper

Method :

1. Use a wok and steam your cut up slices of pumpkin and mash them while still hot and set aside.

After steaming on high for 10 minutes

After mashing

2. Mince your dried shrimps and shred the mushrooms. 

3.  Use 2 tablespoon of oil to fry the shrimp till fragrant and then add the mushrooms ( and also Chinese sausages/ham) together with the tablespoon of salt and 1 tsp of pepper. Fry for 3 minutes and set aside. 

4. In a separate wok, I used a deep pot instead, pour in your batter and add in the 6 cups of hot water slowly while stirring to prevent lumps from forming.

Looks like coconut milk!

5. Add in the mashed pumpkin and mix well. Add in the filling ingredients and mixed well.  

 Note :If you want stronger taste, please increase your salt.

6.  Turn fire to low and stir continuously until batter is dry and sticky.

Perhaps the mixture can go drier but I stir over in a pot and so it is still a bit wet.

7.  Prepare a square tin and line with plastic - I cut open a large plastic sandwich bag and lined the tin.  My square tin is 200mm x 200mm x 56mm. 

Other recipes online says can oil the tin. 

Pour your mixture in and steam at high heat for 1hr or more. 

 If the skewer comes out clean, remove from fire, cool it and then cut.  If you put in fridge overnight, it is even easier to cut.

Steaming the pumpkin mix.

After steaming for about 1 hr 15 minutes.

Last nite when I made it, I didn't cool it down sufficiently to cut it as I was eager to eat it!

This piece I cut today after overnight in the fridge.  Serve it with some fried shallots and soy sauce.  You can also dribble some sesame oil over it to eat!

Enjoy cooking!