HCFoo can cook tang yuen in ginger syrup

Tang yuen, tang yuan or tong yuen is not only eaten on Dong Zhi (Winter Solstice). Traditionally, many Chinese people eat tang yuen on Lunar New Year (Chinese New Year) too.

Last week, I made tang yuen for my guests for the first time.We were having Chinese New Year gathering and I thought it would be perfect to have some tang yuen after dinner as dessert.

My mother's recipe is simple and it is without the sweet fillings. Here is how you can do it too:

Ingredients (for 8 -10 pax):
1 packet of glutinous rice flour
5-6 screwpine leaves (pandan leaves)
1-2 packets of rock sugar
Ginger
Food colouring (rose flavour)
Water

Method:
1. Put the flour in a large bowl and using chopsticks or your hand, mix the warm water in a little at a time.



2. Knead the dough in the bowl until it is soft and smooth. If it feels a little dry, wet your hands and knead again. Put in some food colouring and knead all over again.



3. Remove about one quarter of the dough and break off gum-ball size pieces. Repeat with the rest of the dough. Put them aside and let it rest for a short while.



4. Now prepare the soup by boiling the water. Put in rock sugar, ginger and screwpine leaves (pandan leaves). Taste the soup see if it is suit your taste.



5. While the soup is boiling, boil some water in another pot. Put in the balls one by one into the rapidly boiling water. Stir a few times to prevent sticking. Once the balls start floating, drain and put it into the soup.

6. Now the tang yuen is ready to be served.

If you cannot finish them, you can keep them for another day by putting them into the fridge. By the way the tang yuen turns out to be quite nice. Yummy!

Wishing you guys Happy Chap Goh Meh. It's the Chinese Valentine's Day today. You're still in time to make some tang yuen for your loved one on the 15th day of Chinese New Year.

To eat or not to eat outside?

Cooking dinner can be very time consuming. I mean you go to work in the morning and spend almost the rest of the day in the office. And not to mention commuting to work and back home which most of the time the traffic is congested.

So by the end of the day, you just want to simply tapao food home or have dinner with colleagues or friends somewhere nearby your workplace.

I always have this habit of eating at the same place (or few places) all the time for my dinner. I don't like to go to fancy restaurants or to the recommended places in food blogs. I simply enjoy simple and familiar food (that suit my taste) without burning hole in my pocket.

However when eating almost the same thing for every dinner can be very boring. So, sometimes I'll just cook simple meal. And today I'm all alone in the house cooking some bacon, baked beans, sausage and egg with some lettuce for dinner. With self made minty jelly and two episodes of Gilmore Girls, the evening can still be very appetizing too.

Kitchen-krazy #3: Agar-agar (jelly)

No time to update my blog recently but I did find some time to make some jelly over the weekend.

The ingredients are cheap and simple:
1 packet of agar-agar
1 can of longans
1/2 packet of rock sugar
Food colouring (rose flavour)
Ribena
Pandan leaves

How to make:
1. Wash and soak the agar-agar / jelly for 20 minutes.


2. Put the agar-agar, pandan leaves, rock sugar into hot water and boil it together.
3. Continue to stir the mixture until all the rock sugar and agar-agar melts.
4. Separate the mixture into two bowls; add the first bowl with rose flavour and another one with Ribena flavour.

5. Pour the flavoured mixture into plastic cups.
6. Add longans.
7. Let the agar-agar cool off first before you close the plastic cups and put them into the fridge to chill.

Why I want to eat at Friday's

If you have been to T.G.I Friday's and happened to celebrate your birthday or someone else's, you'll definitely see their staff singing/rapping (and clapping away) a birthday song for the birthday girl or boy. And the song/rap is actually based on the tune 'We Will Rock You'.

So, based on that, I'm writing my own version of 'We Will Rock You' in this special post and hopefully will grant me a chance to win free dinner at T.G.I. Friday's and that RM1k.

It’s Monday blue, let’s hit Friday’s soon
During Ramadhan, better get there on time and dine
‘Nuff cash in my pocket
I’m no cheapskate
Order our food and wait for our plates

Let me, let me win this
Let me, let me win this

Weiss, friendly waiter, attends us
Pickin’ from the menu, that ain’t easy thing to do
We have huge appetite
And in delight
Gotta snap pix for blogging site

Let me, let me win this
Let me, let me win this

So, do you think I deserve this
Pleadin’ with my eyes gonna come back one of these days

I’ve got mud pie in my head
And bill to pay
Somebody please ask me to diet today

Let me, let me win this
Let me, let me win this

if you haven't know I love mint chocolate

I love mint chocolate whether it is ice-cream, cake, sundae, sweets or chocolate bar. And I especially love Baskin Robbins' mint chocolate chip ice cream. I would rather leave the outlet empty handed if the flavour is not available that day, which rarely happen because it is their permanent flavour.

Here are some information about mint chocholate chip ice cream (not necessarily Baskin Robbins). It is an ice cream flavor composed of mint ice cream, usually green, but sometimes white in the natural flavors, and small chips of chocolate. In some cases the liqueur creme de menthe is used to provide the mint flavor.

Mint chocolate chip ice cream is considered one of the world's most popular ice cream flavors.

Too bad I did not get a mint chocolate birthday cake for my birthday.