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.

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.

Kitchen-krazy #2: Vegetarian Mee Hoon

Since today is chor yatt (first day of the lunar calendar), I decided to cook simple vegetarian mee hoon enough for two person for dinner.

The ingredients are pretty simple:
1/4 of a packet of mee hoon (rice vermicelli)
1/8 of the whole cabbage (sliced)
1/2 of a carrot (sliced)
3 cloves of garlic (chopped)
5-8 cili padi


How to cook:
1. Soak the mee hoon for about 20 minutes until it is soft.
2. Prepare garlic, cabbage, carrot and cili padi.
3. Heat up the wok and pour in 3 tablespoons of oil.
4. Put in the garlic and stir fry till it turns brownish.
5. Add in sliced cabbage and carrot.
6. Stir fry for about 3 minutes and scoop up.
7. Add in 3 tablespoons of oil into the now empty wok.
8. Throw in the mee hoon and 3/4 cup of water.
9. Add salt (athough I prefer soy sauce), oyster cause and dark soy sauce (or caramel soy sauce).
10. Throw in the cabbage and carrot.
11. Stir fry for another 5 minutes and the dish is ready.

Kitchen-krazy #1: Over the Weekend

It's been years since I really cook an entire dinner meals for friends. So I decided to cook simple dishes for the five of us.

The preparation especially chopping onions and garlics kinda time consuming.

And for the first time in my whole life, I clean the fish which includes scraping the scales, cutting the fins and removing the entrails in its cavity. Well, it wasn't really a comfortable experience but I'm glad I was able to do that considering I've only seen my ex-housemate in university did it once. Same goes to the prawn-cleaning session whereby I took off all the shells and the veins.

Earlier of the day, I started preparing jelly as desserts. I tried agar-agar santan but because I don't have a proper mould and I was too impatient with the jelly, it didn't turn out well but still edible. Luckily the jelly in cups (rose flavoured jelly with longans) turns out to be just nice.

The menu for that evening was:

Main dish
Chicken rice (thanks to Sarah!)
Japanese tofu and egg
Lady's fingers masak sambal belacan (with lots of dried shrimps)
Baked beans and eggs (the easiest to cook but turns out to be a DISASTER and not presentable)
Ketchup prawns (which is rather EMBARASSING because I wrongly estimated the portion)
Stir-fried fish with soy sauce (and lots of fried onions)

Drinks and dessert
Sprite mixed with lychees and longans
Jelly in cups (rose flavoured)

Never in my life felt that Saturday can be such a long meaningful day. Think I should start experimenting and cook more And get better pictures too.