Baking with kids: Butter cookies

A few months before Baby C turned 3, she had her first baking experience. We picked something relatively easy that she could help with in the kitchen -- butter cookies was perfect since she got to help with the mixing, and cutting out shapes using the cookie cutter.

Baking with your children is a fun activity, but be prepared for some mess in the kitchen and lots of cleaning up afterwards. But the look of contentment on their face is priceless, you can see that they feel so proud for being able to help out in the kitchen.

Both Baby C's grandparents got to taste her "masterpiece" too, and they too werevery proud of her. They probably think it's the nicest butter cookies they have ever tasted!

Mixing it all together

Daddy helping to roll out the dough

Butter cookies

Makes 30

Ingredients

170g unsalted butter, at room temperature

285g caster sugar

1 egg

1 egg yolk

1 tsp vanilla essence

grated rind of 1 lemon

1/4 tsp salt

285g plain flour, sifted

1. Preheat oven to 180C.

2. With an electric mixer, cream the butter until soft. Add the sugar gradually and continue beating until light and fluffy.

3. Using a! wooden spoon, slowly mix in the whole egg and the egg yolk. Add the vanilla, lemon rind and salt. Stir to mix well.

4. Add the flour and stir until blended. Gather the mixture into a ball, wrap in greaseproof paper abd refridgerate for at least 30 minutes.

5. On a floured surface, roll out the mixture about 3mm thick.

6. Stamp out shapes or rounds with biscuit cutters (Baby C wanted round biscuits with the shapes lightly imprinted on, so that's what we did).

7. Bake until lightly coloured, about 8 minutes. Transfer to a rack and let cool completely before decorating.

Cookie cutter

Thanks Baby C for the cute and delicious cookies!

Day 6: 11 April Beckys 30 Days, 30 Giveaways!

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Hainanese Choon Pheah Definitely Not Hokkien Popiah

Hainanese cuisine plays a big role in Penangs food culture and heritage. Although some of the dishes are influence by the Hokkiens and Peranakans, it is distinctively different. The influences are all due to the demographic changes and history. Many centuries back, a Fujian a.k.a Hokkien minister was sent to the Hainan Island to assume the responsibility of the local government, and thus the beginning of the exodus of Hokkiens to the island that was and is still inhibited by the local tribes.And thus, this gave birth to the Hainanese dialect and its cuisine.

Then at the start of the previous century (19th), many Chinese migrants came to the Malay Archipelago to escape the deteriorating living conditions and the Japanese invasion. And with them they brought their heritage and culture which was later merge with Peranakan and Western cooking practices to give birth to the Nanyang Hainanese dishes that are now part and parcel of the Nanyang Flavours.

The border line similarities of dining heritage in Penang are very thin and some times confusion occurs. Many people confuses Popiah() which is a Fujian delicacy with the Nanyang Hainanese Choon Pheah () that is one of the popular dishes that is a must when dining in any established Hainanese eateries or restaurants. The difference is not merely in its outlook, but the taste package and texture and the dipping sauce that comes with it. We are lucky through our research journey to have found people who are equally passionate of the food heritage that are willing to share the treasure that they have amass from their forefathers. Lim Jit Chuan (), who is the head of the family, is an experience chef/cook in the infamous Beach ! Corner t hat used to operate in a MPPP food court lot behind Park Royal Hotel, and now on a piece of land just next to Tarbush in Batu Ferringghi. His son, Wilson Lim who runs a Choon Pheah stall in Long Beach food court off Jalan Batu Ferringghi had graciously open up their kitchen to share with us the making of their Hainanese Choon Pheah which are well accepted by locals and tourist alike.

The making of a traditional Choon Pheah starts with its basic handmade batter, not dough as like Popiah, made from eggs, cooking oil, tapioca and glutinous rice flour and plain old H2O (water). The concoction is hand mixed to introduce air and also to bring out the starchy texture of the Choon Pheah skin.After the batter reaches the right consistency or viscosity, it is then moved to the cooking station where it is individually pan-fried with a thin coat of oil until the shape is formed or firms up. The batter when it is ready to leave the pan, it resembles a piece of crepe but with a more elastic texture. After it is deep fried, it has a crisp then springy mouth feel that is followed with a lightly sweet taste. The Popiah wrapper or skin is only crunchy to feel after being deep fried. Apart from the distinctive difference in taste and texture of the wrapper, the fillings of both Choon Pheah and Popiah also have their own flavour profiles. The main difference lies in the ingredients, seasoning and cooking method. The Choon Pheah filling has in it prawns, meat (can be chicken or pork, mince or chunks), crab meat, julienne cabbage, shredded jicama and carrots, wedged red onions, and seasoned with salt, sugar, pepper and most importantly 5 spice powder to make it authentically Hainanese. The Poppiah fillers are usually julienne jicama or yam bean (sengkuang), chopped green beans, diced bean curd (taukuah), and sometimes with crab meat without the 5 spice powder.After all the ingredients for the Choon Pheah is all julienned and chopped up, they are stir fired and braised until they are tender yet maintains the crisp texture with a sweet savoury taste. The batches of fillings are then left to cool down before being assembled into a Hainanese Choon Pheah.When the stir-fried vegetables and meats have cooled down, poached crab meat is added before the Choon Pheah is finally assembled by the gentle yet efficiently fast paced hands. For each individual Choon Pheah to be cooked evenly, all the assembled pieces have to have the similar size and weight. This will fasten the frying process with fewer complications.Each order of Choon Pheah are normally fried a-la-minute and served fresh from the fryer with a dipping sauce nicknamed ang moh tau yew which is roughly translated to English Soy Sauce. The dipping sauce is actually a concoction of chopped red onions, julienne red chilli, Worcestershire sauce and sometimes HP Sauce or some plum sauce. It shouldnt be your common chilli sauce in a bottle with strong spicy and sweet tastes that will overwhelm the natural sweetness of the Choon Pheah. At the end of the day, the Cho! on Pheah should have a crisp texture on the surface with a soft springy layer of skin before the sweet and savoury tender vegetable and meaty fillings. And the dipping sauce should complement the sweet Choon Pheah with a slightly spiced and tangy taste that enhances the experience rather than colliding with each other.

The followings are some of the places that we know of where you can find Hainanese Choon Pheah on offer with their own interpretations:

Long Beach Food Court @ Batu Ferringghi.

Beach Corner Restaurant @ Batu Ferringghi.

Hollywood Restaurant @ Tanjung Bungah.

Lengkok Burma Hawker Area (Formerly at Senior Citizen Association)

Hai Onn @ Burmah Road.

Hainanese Delights @ 1926 Hotel on Burma Road.

Try them and let us know do you think of them here. How authentic are they?

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The Grumpy Pig, Shanghai

(This is a scheduled post)

Here's another post on a meal we had in Shanghai. Again, I found the restaurant in Sugar & Spiced. I had to fit this restaurant into my must-dine list after reading about all the pork dishes.

The Grumpy Pig is located on Maoming Bei Lu, a charming tree-lined street with old shop houses renovated into restaurants and boutiques. Access to the restaurant from the street is through a Converse shoe store. There is another entrance, with cobble-stoned walkway, at the side. When you sit down, you realize that The Grumpy Pig is really a roof and a glass wall between two buildings. It's really cool and we love the cosy, relaxed atmosphere.



Again, I ordered whatever was recommended by Sugar & Spied although I now feel that if a place is good, I should just order anything.


Potato Salad, RMB25/MYR13/USD4 was good but the portion was shockingly small. It's just potatoes and mayo, isn't it?


Pork Street T! oast, RM B18: "Pork, sweet potato on baguette, battered and fried, with sweet chili sauce"


Pork Rice Bowl, RMB40: yummy especially since three of us were fighting over it.


Pork Wontons, RMB30/MYR15/USD5: the pork is supposedly hand-chopped (that's how my MIL does her SH wontons too) so that the meat doesn't taste mushy. While this was good, I felt that for the price, I could easily eat two bowls of just as good wontons at regular Shanghai restaurants. It just felt rather pretentious for me to eat this in a western restaurant at more than twice the price that SHnese restaurants charge.



Tonkatsu Ramen, RMB45/MYR23/USD7: Since we wanted to leave some space in our stomachs for supper (in Shanghai, the food choice is endless so it's wise not to eat too much each meal), we had to choose between the two most popular dishes, the Grumpy Sandwich or the Tonkatsu Ramen. We went with the ramen because that's what we all prefer on a cold night. My daughter started going "Ohhh" and "Ahhh" about the noodles, but I found it quite ordinary, especially the soup.

Overall, I like the place. The service was excellent, the waiter (owner?) spoke perfect American English, the ambience was relaxed and the food was good although I found the portion small for the prices. That's anothe! r of say ing the prices are higher than you'd expect, especially for the SHnese food, and for a casual restaurant.



The Grumpy Pig
65-4 Maoming Bei Lu65-4(near Yan'an Zhong Lu)
Tel: 6217 3335
Hours: Sun to Thurs 11 am to 10 pm, Fri to Sat 11 to 12 pm

Beef Stir Fry with Chopped Broccoli Recipe

One of the quick and delicious dishes that I love to cook is Beef Stir Fry. This dish is so delicious and easy to prepare. Before we start, let me first give you some pointers so that your beef will be as tender as possible.

The key to making a successful Beef Stir fry lies on the meat itself. I recommend using tender parts such as beef sirloin or tenderloin. Since we are cooking this in a short span of time, it is important to use the softest meat. Another important factor is the thickness of the meat. The thinner the slice, the softer the meat becomes. Try to slice the meat as thinly as you can or have your butcher do it for you. It is a fact that tenderloin and sirloin cost more than other beef parts. If you are in a budget and still want to try this recipe using cheaper cuts, it is recommended that you pound the sliced meats using a meat tenderizer tool.

This recipe can go as it is or along with some vegetables. I used frozen chopped broccoli for this recipe. You may use fresh broccoli too. All you will need is chop the frozen broccoli before cooking them. You may also use other vegetables as an alternative to broccoli.

Beef Stir Fry with Chopped Broccoli Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 lb beef sirloin, thinly sliced
• 1 cup chopped broccoli (frozen or fresh)
• 2 tablespoons corn starch
• 2 1/2 tablespoons oyster sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Cooking Procedure

Sprinkle salt and pepper on the beef. Add oyster sauce. Mix well and Marinate for 15 minutes.

Add cornstarch on the marinated beef mixture. Mix well using your clean! hands.< /li>

Heat oil in a pan.

Stir fry the beef until both sides are done (about 10 minutes in high heat).

Add the chopped broccoli. Cook for 3 minutes more.

Tranfer to a serving plate.

Serve with brown rice. Share and enjoy!

Number of servings (yield): 4

Related posts:

Beef with Broccoli Recipe

Beef with Broccoli Lo Mein Recipe

Stir Fried Beef

LAMMEEYA Home Comfortable Feel Foods

LAMMEEYA have been around for quite sometime. My impression towards the restaurant was a mere noodle house. I was wrong! I didnt know that this place is a hidden gem that serve a great home cook taste food.

Lammeeya Damansara Uptown

Operating Hour

Cozy and nicely air conditioned place to have lunch and dinner. Previously all their outlet walls were decorated with foods on them. Mainly displaying the Lam Mee or known as Loh mee by northern people as this is origin from North Malaysia. This is a franchise name by it self. But for this review, can we get the word franchise out of our mind? Let me tell you why.

Never judge the cover by its book. Lammeeya serves a range of household famous soup which cooked by our mom like old cucumber with pork ribs. The soup boiled just to the right timing without the old cucumbers flesh totally melted. This is what we call pro soup boilers. A bowl of hot soup to welcome you definitely makes you feel at home just like our mom ask us gawk down the whole bowl of soup before starting the meal.

Duck Egg Fried Koey Teow
This resembles the Penang Char Koey Teow. It has a strong aroma of good light soya sauce used to season the koey teow and enough wok hei to cook it. The koey teow is as fine as the Penang quality ones. This simply beats 9 out of 10 hawker stalls in Klang Valley that they claim as Penang Char Koey Teow. I am pretty fussy about my plate of char k! oey teow and this place definitely earn a thumbs up from me. It is not as spicy as the one I usually had as this is toned down to suits all ages.

The signature lam mee (RM13.80) where the shop got its name from. This is the first signature dish that the shop are famous for. Flavorful starchy soup base pair with fat noodle, Chinese cabbage, home made meat ball and prawns simply tasty. Add a dash of vinegar will turbo charge the whole bowl of noodle to another level. If you can take the spiciness add more of the sambal belacan.

This taste real good! Spicy and good.

Pork Vinegar

The pork trotter were just right portion with the amount of lean meat and fats. Vinegar and ginger taste not too over powering makes it suitable for anyone who wanna try it.

Wine Chicken

This is kinda famous in Johor. I last had it in JB where they wrap it with aluminium foil and then steamed. The Chinese Wine were added together with ginger and for me I like my herbal taste to be stronger.

Ginger and Wine Omelette

It may look like a simple omelette but to me after a bite it totally change my perception. The whole dish finish so fast that I just taste a little bit on the surface. But when I intend to go for round 2, the whole plate is empty already.

Stew pork with potato

One of the best seller at LAMMEEYA during lunch hour. It may sound simple to cook but it never fail to make you eat more rice. This is one of the common dish at economy rice stall but I can tell you here it just simply taste better as they are using a better quality soya sauce.

3 Types of steam egg or better known as SAM WONG TAN in Cantonese

3 types of eggs consist of normal chicken eggs, salted eggs and century egg put everything together and then steamed. Add a little bit garlic oil and a dash of light soya sauce.

To make the egg taste even better, try eat it with a bowl of pork lard rice.

Claypot Waxed Meat Rice

Steamed rice cooked in claypot and when the rice were 3/4 cooked waxed meat were added on it. Then the taste and fragrant of the wax meat will blend in to the rice grain.

Pickled Chili & Sweet Sauce Chee Cheong Fun

If you find the the rice is too heavy for you, this is the best choice you should go for. Authentic as good as the Ipoh ones.

Another version come with mushroom and minced meat sauce that has more taste in it.

I wouldnt mind having this as my breakfast everyday as! it is m ore healthy than a piece of roti canai.

Aside of all the great foods, LAMMEEYA carries a wide range of healthy juices drinks and coffee.

Cham Hot (Mixture of coffee and tea)

Organic Soya Bean Milk . Fresh made upon order. No preservatives.

Lotus root and water chestnut juice

Tiramisu

Oreo Cheese Cake

Chocolate Mud Cake

For desert, the super star that blew our mind away is this Banana Crepe with the warm banana dressing which is cook and made on the spot, that pairs very well with the aromatic crepe. Ice cream to compliment along with the hot and cold sensation enough to brighten your day.

*NON-HALAL

Location:
Damansara Uptown:
45G & 47G, Jalan SS21/37,
Damansara Utama, PJ
tel: 03 7725 9513