Baked Tapioca Cake (Kuih Bingka Ubi)

This yummy Nonya kuih is very easy to make. Just mix and bake!

Ingredients:

• Grated tapioca 1 kg
• Butter 150g
• Raw (or white) sugar 150g
• Thick coconut milk 300ml
• 2 large eggs
• Vanilla essence 2 tsp
• Salt 1/2 tsp
• Pandan juice 45ml (optional)

Note: I have reduced the sugar in this recipe. After mixing together the ingredients, taste the batter and add more sugar if you prefer a sweeter cake.

Instructions:

If you are grating the tapioca yourself, peel and grate finely to the consistency in the pic below.For convenience, we bought grated tapioca from the coconut seller in the wet market.

(Optional) Prepare pandan juice by grinding 150g of pandan leaves with 1/2 cup of water, in a blender or food processor. Put the pandan pulp into a straining bag and squeeze to obtain juice.

Preheat oven to 200 deg C.

Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl and stir until well-blended.

Pour mixture into a 9 inch round baking tin.

Bake for 45 mins to an hour, until cake is golden brown on top.

Cool before slicing.

Variation: Tapioca Pancakes

You can also make tapioca pancakes using the same recipe.

Simply add to the batter another 45ml of concentrated pandan juice. If you prefer a greener pancake, you can add a little more juice but do not dilute batter too much. If you don't have pandan juice, use a few drops of green food colouring.

Place a lightly oiled nonstick pan on medium heat.

To make one pancake, pour 1/4 cup of batter into the pan and level batter with the round side of a spoon.

Cook until pancake is brown on one side, then turn and brown the other side.

Yusheng (鱼生) Raw Fish Salad

It was yusheng for dinner tonight, as we had half a box of prepacked yusheng condiments and sauce left over from Chinese New Year, expiring soon.

For the uninitiated, yusheng, meaning raw fish in Chinese, is a colourful salad that is usually eaten during the Chinese New Year, for good luck and prosperity.

The dish is traditionally made with sliced raw fish and shredded vegetables such as carrot, white and green radish, cucumber and coriander, as well as coloured pickled ginger, deep-fried flour crisps, crushed peanuts, toasted sesame seeds and pomelo. Thin strips of abalone can also be used in place of raw fish.

Our yusheng tonight was vegetarian as we had neither raw fish nor abalone on hand.

Just before eating, we added prepacked plum sauce mix, deep fried flour crisps, toasted sesame seeds and crushed peanuts, as well as home-made deep fried wonton strips for extra crunch.

The act of mixing/tossing the salad with chopsticks before eating is called "lo hei", (Cantonese for "scoop up"). Meaning that you are scooping up good luck, wealth or whatever it is that your heart desires for the new year.

All at the table will toss the salad together, while calling out auspicious New Year greetings and wishes. It is believed that the higher you toss, the better your luck will be in the new year. When we eat this dish at home during the Chinese New Year, we stand on chairs, tossing the salad as high as we can, at the same time wishing everyone abundant happiness, good health and prosperity in the new year!

Qi Ji 奇迹 @Heartland Mall

Qi Ji at Heartland Mall was fully packed at 1.30pm on Sat., 29 Mar 08. Fortunately, a table was available within minutes of our arrival. With the way tables are squeezed together in the cafeteria-style food outlet, it's really not a conducive place to sit and chat for long as diners at neighbouring tables can hear every word of your conversation and vice versa.

We ordered Set 1 Nasi Lemak which came with ikan bilis, peanuts, chicken sausage, fried egg, otah, sambal chili and breaded fish cake. The fish cake is missing from the pic above as the kitchen ran out of it when they were filling my order. Freshly prepared fish cake was subsequently delivered to our table, crispy on the outside and soft inside. Actually, I am quite impressed they remembered as the place was bustling with people.

I found the rice a tad soft for my liking (I prefer fluffier and drier rice) but it was lemak enough and very fragrant. They definitely did not stinge on coconut milk and pandan leaves.

The sambal chili complemented the rice well but could have been spicier. Side dishes were average in taste, nothing to rave about. Still, it's value for money at $3.90 per set.

The laksa was edible but a disappointment. Gravy was much too thin. Could have done with more coconut milk and laksa leaves to add fragrance.

At first glance, the tauhu goreng was rather unappetising. Thick, dark brown peanut gravy covered the tauhu and vegetables, resembling a mound of body waste - the solid kind!

The gravy was far too sweet, without any distinctive flavour. The saving grace was their generosity with peanuts that were quite fresh. Would suggest reducing the sugar and adding some tamarind juice to provide contrast and lift the flavour.

Mee Siam

We ordered the mee siam when we found we still had room for more and because everyone around us seemed to be eating it. Forgot to take a pic as I was busy tucking in by then.

The mee siam gravy seemed rather thin and pale at first. However, after adding a good dollop of sambal chili (left at the counter for customers to add on their own), I could understand its popularity. It had exactly the right balance of sourness and sweetness, and was fiery enough to satisfy me.

Qi Ji is a good, cheap place to enjoy hawker-style food in airconditioned comfort. We paid less than $17 for 4 dishes and 3 hot drinks.

They have outlets island-wide, including Marina Square, Tiong Bahru Plaza, Century Square and Hougang Mall.

Marrybrown Fried Chicken

I have never been a fan of Kentucky Fried Chicken as I find their chicken not crispy enough, not to mention ungenerous in serving size and choice parts. Succulent thigh pieces are rare, with tough breast meat and skinny wings frequently foisted on the customer. Don't bother asking for your favourite thigh pieces only as the restaurant believes in "equitable distribution" or equal misery. For every 2 or 3 pc order, the customer must put up with stringy breast and skinny wings in order to enjoy ONE piece of choice thigh.

There's also the exorbitant price of chicken-only purchases. Unless you go for the set meals which include coleslaw or other side dishes (but I only want chicken!), just 2 pcs of chicken alone will set you back by S$5!! I can buy a whole BBQ chicken from Carrefour for that price!

For fellow fried chicken lovers, try Marrybrown the next time you're in JB. It's truly our heaven. Only ask and you shall indeed receive... Enjoy for less than RM14(S$6), five huge and scrumptious chicken thigh pieces which are crispy on the outside but tender and juicy on the inside. Eating them on the spot is highly recommended but the chicken will taste just as good the next day, after 5 minutes in the toaster oven.

Marrybrown also serves a more than passable nasi lemak set, which comes with sambal chilli, achar (non spicy kind), crispy papadam, ikan bilis, crunchy peanuts and one piece of fried chicken. They are very generous with the rice which is nice and fluffy but may not be lemak enough for some. The sambal could be a bit sweeter, IMO. Loved the achar.

Spicy Chicken Feet

My mum's healthier version of a popular Chinese dim sum, stewed chicken feet, which is usually deep fried before it is stewed. Here, we omit the deep frying but they taste just as delicious.

First, wash and declaw chicken feet with a pair of scissors, then boil them in water. Discard water.

Add fresh water to pot, just enough to cover chicken feet. Add Maggi Extra Hot Chilli Sauce, Thai sweet chilli sauce and tomato sauce to taste. Salt or soy sauce if desired. Warning : Maggi Extra Hot Chilli Sauce is super hot so use sparingly if you can't take too much heat.

Simmer on low heat until feet are soft and gelatinous but still firm. If stewed for too long, the skin will disintegrate. Mum cooks hers on low heat in a crockpot. When chicken feet is done, thicken sauce with a little cornflour mixed with water. Add a little sesame oil after turning off heat.

Serve spicy stewed chicken feet with rice or on their own. I like mine with extra sauce to pour over hot steamed rice. Yum!

Note: You can use leftover sauce to stew more chicken feet or even chicken wings.

Orange Butter Cake

This recipe substitutes raw sugar for white sugar and makes a superbly moist, not too sweet cake. Note that sugar has already been reduced to half the amount in the original recipe, so do not reduce it further.

Butter 200g (I use SCS brand for its great buttery taste)
Raw granulated sugar(light brown colour), 100g
Four egg yolks
3 egg whites
1 tsp raw sugar
Plain flour 170g
Milk Powder 2 tbsp
Baking powder 1.5 tsp
Orange juice, freshly squeezed, 90ml
Zest from one orange, finely chopped
Brandy 4 tsp
Vanilla essence 1 tsp

1) Beat butter and sugar until light. Add 4 egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat mixture until creamy.

2) Add orange zest, followed by vanilla essence and brandy. Beat to blend.

3) Sift flour, milk powder and baking powder together 3 times.

4) Preheat oven to 175 deg celcius.

5) In a separate bowl, beat 3 egg whites with 1 tsp raw sugar until stiff i.e. egg white forms soft peaks and should not flow out when you turn bowl over.

6) Fold flour, egg white and orange juice into butter and egg mixture gently. This must be done manually, do not use beater. Blend gently in one direction, until ingredients are just blended. Important : do not overblend.

7) Pour batter into cake tin lined with baking paper. Bake at 175 deg c for 10 minutes and then 150 deg c for 30 mins to an hour. Check with wooden skewer (clean satay stick ok) at 30 mins to see if cake is still wet in centre. If wet, let it bake for another 10-15 mins before checking again. My cake was done after 30 mins at 150 deg c. Might be different in other ovens as my oven is more than 20 yrs old and I suspect the temp might be a bit off.

The Orange Lantern Vietnamese Restaurant

Visited the Harbourfront outlet on 18 Mar 08. At 4.30pm, the place was empty.

Service was good and prompt but for several long minutes after we were seated, there was irritatingly loud clanging noise from the kitchen, the kind made by banging a spanner against a metal pipe. Not the best welcome for someone with a raging hunger-induced headache!

For 3 persons, we ordered the Imperial Rolls, Pho Bo (rice noodle soup with beef), Mango salad, Bo La Lot and Fish Net Spring rolls.

Bo La Lot, grilled beef in betel nut leaves, was the most impressive of all the dishes, probably because it was the most fun as you had to wrap the rolls yourself.

There were 2 skewers of tiny beef rolls, which were a mixture of minced beef and herbs wrapped in betel nut leaves and then grilled. You could eat the beef rolls on their own or wrap them in rice paper, together with lettuce, raw bean sprouts and bun (a kind of noodle, like laksa noodles but much thinner and softer).

The beef rolls had a very subtle fragrance from a Vietnamese herb which I couldn't identify. No, not the taste of betel nut leaves, which didnt really have any distinctive taste, as far as I could tell.

The Imperial rolls were very crispy and not oily at all. Tasted pretty good when dipped in the sweet and sourish fish sauce-based dipping sauce. The same sauce was served with the Bo La Lot and the Fish Net Spring Rolls.

The mango salad was fresh and crunchy, but nothing spectacular in terms of taste. IMO, the portion served was a bit too small for $7. The restaurant might wish to consider increasing the serving size. Afterall, green mango is very cheap.

Fish Net Spring Rolls

We ordered these after trying the Imperial Rolls but were disappointed as they were not as good or as crispy as the Imperial Rolls ( I guess that's why the latter were named " Imperial". Good enough to serve royalty??) Oil used to fry the rolls was probably not hot enough as I could feel oil leaking out of the rolls when I bit into them.

Pho Bo (Rice Noodle Soup With Beef)

Saved the worst for last - the Pho Bo was horrendous - soup was cold and tasted only of fish sauce. Can get much much better Pho Bo in Vietnam, for a fraction of the price... but of cos have to take plane there lah.

The rice noodles were not the authentic Pho which I ate in Vietnam, very smooth and soft noodles which you can't seem to stop eating as they slip down your throat so easily. The ones at Orange Lantern had hard edges, tasted very much like the dried thin rice noodles from our local supermarkets, which you rehydrate by boiling in water, definitely not freshly made.

The sliced beef was ok but the brisket was unbelievably tough and dry AND the beef smell was so overpowering that my mum later said she had contemplated spitting out the one and only piece she tried but was too polite to.

Had planned to have Vietnamese dripped coffee after the food but were pretty stuffed.

Bill came up to about $45 for the 5 dishes.

Would I go there again? Perhaps, but only for the Imperial Rolls and Bo La Lot. Stay away from the Pho soups!!

Jetstar now offering promotional return airfare of $200 (incl. taxes) to HCM city. Definitely worth considering, if only for some authentic Pho!

Canon Powershot A590 IS

Bought a Canon Powershot A590 IS at the IT Show held at Suntec on 7 Mar 08. It comes with Optical Image Stabiliser (OIS), a mechanism that will reduce the blurring of pics. The A590 can run on two AA batteries so it's great to travel with.

Priced at $369, it came with 2 memory cards (2GB and 4GB), battery charger, camera bag and memory card reader.

Check out this useful review of the A590 IS. Comes with test shots and all.

Nasi Lemak

My family has been enjoying (I hope!) nasi lemak for the past 3 Sundays...cooked by yours truly. It's a dish I can eat all day long!

Visit kuali.com if you need a recipe for cooking the rice but do use basmati rice instead of normal long grain. Basmati rice grains stay separate when cooked and are dry and fluffy, perfectly complementing the lemak taste of coconut milk.

Use only fresh coconut milk as you will never achieve the same effect with tinned milk. Don't stinge on pandan leaves either. The subtle fragrance of steamed pandan leaves intermingling with the rich aroma of coconut milk is heavenly and will have you reaching for second and third helpings.

I like to brighten my nasi with a bit of colour. If I am feeling industrious, I will pound pandan leaves to extract the juice. The pale green colour enhances the appearance of the dish significantly, especially if served on plain white porcelain plates. When I just want a quick meal, I use a little food-grade green colouring instead.

Every foodie knows the chilli paste is as important as the rice in nasi lemak. I have yet to discover the perfect chilli paste recipe so I am using a brand of nasi lemak chilli called AT, made in Malaysia. I bought it from a wet market stall and it is quite close to the real thing. Contains dried chilli, candlenuts, shallots, onions and lemon grass. Unfortunately, it also contains preservatives so I am still on the lookout for a great chilli paste recipe.