Weekend Specials #2

Last weekend was such a delightful one. We had so much good food I can't even decide which meal I liked best. They were all chinese food, cooked by my awesome dad. First up is a nice comforting dish for a weekend brunch, we had Century Egg Porridge, or otherwise more popularly known as Pei Tan Chok. I love the pungent aroma of the Pei Tan and its creamy yolk. It works well together with salted eggs, which Dad also included to give the overall a pleasant savoury flavour.

Recipe
(for 5 adults)
-2 cups of rice
-1 litre water
-minced pork
-2 century eggs (sliced)
-2 salted eggs (diced)
-soya sauce
-fish sauce
-white pepper
-sesame oil
-spring onions (chopped into small pieces)
-fried shallots

a. Marinate minced pork with 1tbs soya sauce, 1tbs sesame oil, white pepper.
b. Once porridge comes to a boil, start scooping small batches of marinated minced pork into porridge.
c. Add salted egg pieces, followed by century egg slices into porridge.
d. Once porridge is cooked, add in seasoning ( soya sauce, fish sauce, white pepper, sesame oil) to your own liking.
e. Garnish with spring onions, fried shallots and chilli slices (optional) when ready to serve.

Next, we had Ipoh Hor Fan for dinner. For the stock, Dad used chinese mushrooms, chicken and a special mushroom sauce. For this dish, Dad wasn't able to tell me his proper recipe offhand because as I mentioned in my earlier post, he's an agar chef. :p

Here are some photos of the Ipoh Hor Fan we had.

I will write about the rest of the food we had for the weekend in the another post. Till then, take care!

Fruitcake Special

It's the weekend again so it's time for a new blog entry! Today's post shall be on.........

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I'm actually not a huge fan of fruit cakes because I remember my bad experiences with some wedding fruitcake souvenirs. Those were really sweet and intense, too yucky for my liking. My mum baked a Grand Marnier Orange Fruit Cake some time back. Hers was buttery, firm and moderately sweet, less rich and extremely pleasing to eat.

Preparation for this wasn't as straightforward because Mum had to soak the mix fruit in fresh orange juice and grand marnier for a week before adding to the recipe so that the flavor of the dried fruit could be enhanced. Even after the cake was ready, it was kept wrapped at room temperature for another week before we actually cut and ate it. 

So if you would like to try this out, go ahead and follow the recipe :)  

450g mixed fruit
100ml Grand Marnier
100ml freshly squeezed orange juice

Soak mix fruit in orange juice and grand marnier for a week in the fridge.

250g butter
4 eggs
120g sugar
225g all purpose flour
100ml Grand Marnier

a. Preheat oven to 140C. Line baking pan.
b. Cream butter and sugar until smooth.
c. Add in eggs individually, make sure to beat well after each addition.
d. Sift flour into butter mixture and beat slowly until smooth.
e. Fold fruit mixture into the batter.
f. Pour batter into baking pan and bake for one and a half hours.
g. Remove cake from oven and drizzle Grand Marnier immediately over hot cake.
h. When the cake is completely cooled, wrap cake and keep at room temperature for a week before consuming.