Siu Yook (regardless how it's spelled) = Roast Pork.Feeling kinda "hypoporkinaemic" whole of last week - thanks to GFAD who spammed Facebook and Twitter with her home-made Siu Yook, I got 2 slabs of pork belly and made these yesterday.  Just to satisfy some cravings, hah!(Read about my 1st attempt and 2nd attempt at Siu Yook!)Another angle...Slice 'em up...Then chop 'em up!They tasted good with some instant noodles! … [Read more...]

We all know that the Chinese celebrate the one-month "birthday" of a baby by serving red eggs (and pickled ginger and yellow glutinuous rice with curry and red angkoo kuihs! - but that's another story, hehe!).  We Chinese love the color RED as it embodies happiness, good fortune and EGGS have always been a symbol of Life.  It isn't surprising at all to note that the traditional red-dyed eggs are not only featured in babies' one-month celebrations, they are also served during … [Read more...]

Should there be a reason for eating cake?No, not really. Not when you get one of those baking bugs biting you!  I can go for months without turning on my oven... but when the bug bites, I can be baking more than one cake a day.  That's what happened today. First of all, I have a slab of cream cheese sitting in my fridge, fast approaching its shelf life and I had to do something about it.  Having bought some couverture chocolate recently, I whipped up a chocolate sponge and cut it … [Read more...]

I know the past few posts here had been focusing on stuff that I made/baked.  When the cooking/baking bug bites me, it's always like this!  Sometimes when I don't have the inclination or too lazy, I can stay off baking/cooking/making stuff for weeks and weeks... but when the mood hits, this is what happens!So, for the sake of my good friend, Xara, I'm putting this up for her :-))  I made these a few weeks ago when I was playing around with all the lovely colours I got from natural … [Read more...]

Tomorrow is the 15th day of the 8th month, according to the Chinese lunar calendar and that's when the Chinese (and probably also all other races here in Malaysia - we are 1Malaysia, right!) celebrate the Mid Autumn Festival.  It originated from farmers, back more than 3,000 years ago, celebrating the end of their summer harvest and it seems on this date, the summer moon is at its roundest, fullest and brightest.  Traditional foods for this celebration are of course, the … [Read more...]

Inspired by the many beautiful photos put up by fellow food bloggers in their blogs, I decided to try my hand at making some "ping pei" (snowskin) mooncakes.  I'm not much of a mooncake fan so that's why I opted to try making some mini ones.  Being small, mini mooncakes are not that "jelak" and I do think they look cuter too!Ping pei moonies are not that difficult to make, actually.  It's the same principle and procedure as making Angkoos!  Furthermore, there is no … [Read more...]

Ever since I started making angkoos a couple of weeks back, I have been busy trying out various flavours and colours using all-natural ingredients.  For the past few weekends, the steamer in my kitchen has been put to good use and by now, members of my family have gotten quite tired of tasting the angkoos I make!  Fortunately, my neighbour is still very receptive towards my kuih offers, LOL!From the very first attempt and subsequent attempt when my purple angkoos were born, I turned … [Read more...]

Back in my childhood days in Ipoh, one of the simplest and most delicious, (at least, to me) soups my mom cooked was Eggs and Mint Leaves Soup.  Sounds weird to you all?I love mint leaves.  I'm not sure if that's an "Ipoh thing" but I love lots of it on my curry laksa, assam laksa (of course!), assam fish, salads... I just love its fresh aromatic flavour.I also know some people absolutely detest mint leaves - they'll pick it out tediously from whatever dish that's served with it! Hehe, … [Read more...]

Gosh, I must have been bitten by the "angkoo bug"! I have been researching and experimenting on various types of angkoo after my first attempt at this delicious nyonya kueh. Encouraged by the initial results, I decided to try a different version of that kueh.So, last weekend I made a purple variant of the Angkoo. The recipe was adjusted to not use 100% glutinuous flour. Instead, to get the all-natural purple colour, I added this...Yes, that's sweet potatoes, of the purple kind!No artificial … [Read more...]

The past few weekends had been pretty hectic for me. Like last Sunday where we had to go back to Ipoh to check on my mother who was admitted to the hospital for surgery. And that was after the Saturday which was spent in Bayan Indah (yes, again!) where we had a "culinary challenge" for my colleagues. More about that in a later post.Talking about Bayan Indah and Rohani Jelani's classes, someone asked me whether I would actually replicate those recipes at home. Yes, of course I would and I have … [Read more...]