Yam Rice 芋头饭

Serves 2

Ingredients
- about 1/3 - 1/2 a mid size yam (skinned and diced into small bite sized cubes).
- 100g of dried shrimp (hei bi), pre-soaked and chopped up
- 4-5 big chinese dried mushrooms, pre-soaked till soft and sliced into smaller pieces.
- 100g minced / lean pork. If using lean meat, just cut into smaller pieces.
- uncooked rice for 2
- Water
- 5 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
- 5 cloves of onion (finely chopped)

Garnish
- spring onion / parsley
- fried shallot crisps

Seasoning
- light soya sauce
- sesame oil (1 tsp)
- pepper
- dark soya sauce
- five spiced powder (1/2 tsp)
*I can't really say how much of each to put, it really depends on whether you like it more salty or bland. If you like the rice to be darker, add more dark soya sauce.

Method

If you are using lean/minced pork, pre-marinate the pork with light soya sauce and pepper.

Rinse the rice with water using the rice cooker pot. Add water as if you are cooking normal steamed rice. Drain out the rice water into a bowl. Set aside.

On a heated frying pan / wok, add 2 tablespoons of sesame oil and stir fry the onion and garlic till fragrant. Add the dried shrimp and mushrooms, turn up the heat source and if it's too dry, add cooking oil. Add the pork and when it's half cooked, add the yam and continue frying for about 1 min. Add rice into the pan and fry very quickly till it's all well mixed, add all the seasoning to taste. Pour in the rice water + about half cup of water (using the rice cup), do a quick stir and transfer everything into the rice cooker. Cook the rice as per normal.

When the rice is cooked, use the rice spatula to stir and loosen it up before serving.

Note
Can also use lup cheong instead of minced/lean pork. I used the latter as it's less sinful. 

Scones

Makes about 20 x 1.5 inches round scones.

Ingredients
Self raising flour - 2 cups, sifted
Milk - 1 cup
Cold unsalted butter - 60g, cut into smaller pieces
Caster sugar - 2 tbsp
A pinch of salt

Optional
Chocolate chips / raisins / dried cranberries

Method
- Pre-heat the oven to 220 degree celsius.
- Using your finger tips, rub the flour, sugar, salt and the butter together until it resembles breadcrumbs. You can add in a handful of dried fruits or chocolate chips to the mixture if you like. Otherwise, you can leave it plain.
- Make a well in the centre and pour two-thirds of the milk into the well. Using a spatula, start mixing it together gently. If it's too dry, add the remaining milk until the dough comes together. If it's too wet, add more flour.  Don't over handle it.
- On a floured table top, gently knead the dough four or five times and roll out the dough flat to about 3cm in height using a rolling pin. Don't knead it too much as it'll become hard.
- Using a 1.5" round cutter, cut out the dough and placed them on a greaseproof baking tray. Brush the top with milk or egg wash.
- Bake in oven for about 10mins, until nicely browned and a toothpick inserted into the centre of scone comes out clean.
- Remove from oven and transfer onto wire rack to cool.
- Serve with salted butter / cream cheese or your favourite jam.

Remarks
- If you placed the scones on the baking tray close together (almost touching), they will have soft sides and less crispy crusts. If you place them apart, they will be crusty all over. If you want crusty scones, cool them uncovered. If a softer crust is desired, then wrap the hot scones in a clean dish towel.
- Scones are best served warm.
- I used milk instead of cream for a lighter and healthier scone.
- If you don't have self raising flour, you can replace it with all-purpose flour, but add 1.5 tsp of baking powder to each cup of flour you use.

Walnuts and Chocolate Chip Brownies

Makes about 16 slices, 2x2 inches each.

Ingredients

Unsalted butter - 110 g (can be cold from fridge)

Semi-sweet chocolate - 5 oz / 150 g (chopped up)

Eggs - 3

Caster sugar - 170 g

Cocoa powder - 2 tbsp / 15 g

Plain flour - 100 g

Vanilla extract - 1 tsp

Salt - 1/4 tsp

Semi-sweet chocolate chips - 50 g

Walnuts - 60 g (chopped up)

Method

- Pre-heat the oven to 180 deg celsius.

- Melt the butter and chocolate bar over a pan of boiling water. I use a big metal bowl (those metallic one). 

- Remove from heat source and using a whisk, mix well.

- Stir in the sugar and cocoa powder. Next, add in the vanilla essence and the eggs, one at a time.

- Using a spatula, mix in the flour and salt. 

- Stir in the chocolate chips and walnuts the last. 

- Pour into a 8-inch square pan that is greased at the side and with greaseproof paper at base of pan.

- Bake in oven for about 25 minutes. 

- Do not overbake, a skewer inserted in the centre should come up abit moist. If it comes up totally clean, it's overbaked!

- Remove from oven, serve warm or cool with vanilla ice cream. 

Remarks

- If you do not like it too sweet, you can omit the chocolate chips and add more walnuts.

- For plain brownies, omit the chocolate chips and walnuts altogether.

- Use good / premium chocolate and cocoa powder as it'll affect the taste of your brownies. I used Hershey's baking bar (i mixed 4 oz of semi-sweet with 1 oz of unsweetened) and Hershey's cocoa powder.

Baked Rice with Cheese, Broccoli, Ham, Mushroom and Tomatoes

Serves 2 persons

Ingredients
1 cup of uncooked rice (I used brown rice)
Water to cook the rice (as per how you will usually cook rice)
Salt - half teaspoon
Butter - 20g
Garlic - 5 cloves, washed and smashed
Olive oil
Brocolli - 100g, washed, blanched in boiling water and chopped up into small pieces
Ham - 100g, cut into bite size
Brown / white mushrooms - 100g, washed and diced.
Cherry tomatoes - 6, washed and diced
Campbell mushroom soup
Mozzarella Cheese - 200g

Method
- Rinse and cook the rice with water using a rice cooker, add the salt, butter and garlic at the onset.
- When the rice is cooked, remove the garlic cloves and add the broccoli bits and mix together.
- Pre-heat the oven to 200 degree celsius.
- Using olive oil, stir fry the sliced mushrooms and ham till just cooked.
- Transfer the cooked rice onto a baking dish. Spread generous amount of the campbell soup (undiluted) onto the rice using a spoon.
- Cover the rice with ham, mushrooms and cherry tomatoes.
- Spread the top with generous amount of mozzarella cheese.
- Bake in oven for about 20-25mins till the cheese melts and turns golden brown.

Yam Cake 芋头糕

Ingredients

5 shallots
Half a mid size yam (using Ikea rice bowl, it's about 1.5 bowls) - washed and diced into cubes
2 bowls full of water (using the same type of bowl)
1 bowl full of rice flour
2 heaped tablespoon of cornflour
1/3 bowl of dried shrimp (hei bi) - soaked, washed and chopped up into small pieces.
Optional - fist full of dried mushrooms - soaked, washed and chopped up into small pieces

Seasoning
- 1 teaspoon of wu xiang powder
- salt and pepper to taste
- Sesame oil

Method
- Fry the shallots with sesame oil till fragrant.
- Add the dried shrimps and mushrooms and fry for about 2-3 mins. Add more oil if needed.
- Add the yam and a splash of water. Fry for about 5 mins under high heat.
- When the yam is slightly softened, turn the heat down to low.
- Mix the rice flour, cornflour and water well, pour it into the yam mixture.
- Stir and mix together at a brisk pace and add seasoning (wu xiang powder, salt and pepper) to taste.
- The mixture would become thicker and lumpy as you continue stirring, remove from heat source and stop stirring when it reaches a thick but not dry consistency.
- Pour into a metal / non stick cake tin or pan and place it in a steamer. Steam for about 1 to 1.5hrs till the paste has set.

Do not attempt to cut the cake when it's still hot. Let it cool till room temperature. It'll harden further and less sticky.

Serving suggestions
- Cut into smaller slices, fry both sides of the cake.
- Add fried shallots, dried shrimps (fried), spring onions to serve.

Peanut Cookies

Makes about 70 - 80

Ingredients
Grounded peanut - 300g (You can buy the grounded peanut from Fairprice)
Castor sugar - 150g
Plain Flour - 250g
Vegetable oil (I used Canola oil) - 200ml (use only enough to hold the dough together)
Salt - 1/4 teaspoon
Peanuts / Cashew nuts (halved) - a handful
Egg Yolk for glazing - 1

Method
- Preheat oven to 200 degree celsius.
- Sift the flour and sugar, add salt and mix well.
- Add the peanut powder and mix.
- Drizzle half of the oil into the flour mixture, using your hands, knead into a dough till the sugar has melted. Do not pour all the oil in at one time. If the dough breaks easily, add in more oil. Try rolling a small piece of the dough into a ball and if it doesn't fall apart, the dough is ready.
- Scoop a teaspoon of the dough, roll into small balls and place them on the baking tray with baking paper.
- Place half a peanut / cashew nut on the top, pressed it in gently, glaze and put in the oven.
- Bake for 17-18mins.

Molten Chocolate Love

Jas, my colleague, got me a set of ramekins for Christmas (how thoughtful!) and she suggested I try this recipe she saw on youtube. Thanks Jas! 


Makes about 4

Ingredients

Large eggs - 2

Large egg yolks - 2

Butter - 5 tablespoons

Sugar - 3 tablespoons

Premium dark chocolate - 3.5oz (standard bar)

Plain flour - 3 tablespoons
Cocoa powder - 4 teaspoons

Vanilla essence - a few drops

Salt - a pinch
Icing sugar - for dusting

Vanilla ice cream

Method

- Generously grease ramekins with butter. 

- Whisk the eggs with sugar till pale and fluffy.

- Melt the chocolate and butter over indirect heat.

- Combine the chocolate mixture with the egg mixture.

- Sieve cocoa powder and mix.

- Sieve flour and mix.

- Add in salt and vanilla essence and mix well.

- Pour batter into the ramekins and leave them onto a baking / casserole dish.

- Cover with cling wrap and chill it in the fridge for 30mins.

- Preheat oven to 220 degree C.

- Pour tap water into baking dish till it's about half full. 

- Bake for 12-15 mins.

- Leave the ramekins to cool (out of the baking dish) for about 10 mins before removing.
- Serving suggestion: use a sieve to dust icing sugar over the cake. Serve with scoop of vanilla ice cream and berries at the side. 

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGgwdacErks