Dad's Mee Siam

Introducing one of Dad's signature dishes---M E E S I A M. I really really love his Mee Siam, every time he decides to cook it he'll make sure to prepare a huge pot of gravy because he knows I will eat it for lunch and dinner for several days. HAHA yeah I know. Just like his every other dish, Dad found his recipe through experimenting and trial and error. His version of Mee Siam is unlike the ones we usually find in Malay stalls. How should I put it, its taste is in between Malay and Chinese. He likes to to use alot of Asam, onions, fermented soya beans, shrimp paste and chilli. The ingredients he uses are not any different from other recipes I suppose, but somehow he just knows how to modify it to make it special. In fact, Dad doesn't record his recipes, so every time he cooks it will be based on memory and AGARation. 

Garnished with omelette, spring onions and dried shrimps

YUMMYYYYYY...now proceed to drool drool drool

Aw Ree Oh

Today we would like to share a cool Oreo Sponge Cake Recipe! Don't fret if you don't have an oven, because this is a STEAMED cake recipe!

Heh Heh our nice spongy pillow!

Ingredients:

4 Eggs (separated)
100g Caster Sugar
250g Cream Cheese
160g Evaporated Milk
110g Top Flour
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
1 1/2 tsp Nescafe and 1 tsp water
1 tbsp browning/ Choc Emulco
10 pcs Oreo Cookies (crushed)

Method

1. Beat egg whites until soft peaks and gradually add half of the sugar. Beat until stiff.
2. Beat cream cheese with the remaining sugar until smooth.
3. Gradually add in the egg yolk and beat till smooth (milkshake like).
4. Add in the flour and milk alternately (mix well).
5.Add in the vanilla essence.
6. Lastly add in the egg white mixture.
7. Add in the portion of Nescafe and browning.
8. Grease and line tray.
9. Pour in white batter and sprinkle crushed oreos.
10. Scatter few dollops of coffee batter. Cover with white batter. Repeat this action until finished.
11. Steam for 30 minutes.

A pretty marbled effect!

Bak Zhang (Rice Dumplings)

Every time when it comes to Duan Wu Festival, I get to eat Grandma's home made rice dumplings. My favourite has got to be Nonya Zhang, the one with the nice coriander powder fragrance, sweet winter melon cubes and chestnuts. Making rice dumplings is alot of work, from the preparation to frying the ingredients and wrapping. I remember a few years back when Grandma brought everything over to our house to teach us how to make Bak Zhang from scratch, it took us an entire day and the frying made the kitchen oily! I concluded that wrapping a dumpling really IS a skill and takes alot of practice to master. I'm ashamed to say that I'm so useless at it...

Well unfortunately, Grandma hasn't made Bak Zhangs for the past 2 years because she now finds it too tiring. She would rather buy than to prepare them herself and she knows exactly where to get good ones! We had some Grandma bought somewhere in Aljunied this year.

It was satisfactory, but still, nothing beats the ones Grandma made before :/