chinese glutinous rice

why?

I had half a pack of glutinous rice left in my cupboard after my udang rempah experiment and some lap cheong bought over Chinese New Year that is crying to me to use them! I researched for recipes and came up with my own concoction mixing two recipes together (Lo Mai Kai and Lotus Leaf Rice).

success?

Yummmmy, I love glutinous rice and it is definitely comfort food for me.

Here's the recipe.

Chinese Glutinous Rice

INGREDIENTS

200g of chicken fillet, cut into bite sizes

250g of pork belly, thinly sliced

100g of dried shrimp, soaked till soften and drained

600g of glutinous rice, soaked for 3 hours and drained

10 dried mushrooms, soaked in hot water and keep the water

1 lap cheong

20 small shallots, thinly sliced

corriander and spring onions

dark soya sauce

light soya sauce

oyster sauce

sake (can also use chinese wine)

pepper

corn flour

sesame oil

vegetable oil

DIRECTIONS

1. Marinate the chicken and pork belly in 2 tbs of dark soya sauce, 1 tbs of light soya sauce, a dash of pepper, 1 tsp of corn flour, a dash of sesame oil and 1 tbs of sake. Chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
2. Fry the shallots in 2 tbs of vegetable oil till brown.
3. Add in the lap cheong, dried shrimps and mushrooms. Fry till fragrant.
4. Add in the meat with 2 tbs of light soya sauce, dark soya sauce and oyster sauce, a dash of pepper and sesame oil. Fry for about 10min.
5. Add in the rice and fry till evenly coloured and add 200ml of mushroom water. Fry till rice slightly expanded.
6. Scoop into a pan/bowl and prepare steamer.
7. Steam for 45min.
8. Serve with corriander and spring onions.

failure?

I wished I hope peanuts!!! That would complete the whole experience, I might even try this recipe again with peanuts and also steaming the rice wrapped in lotus leaves!

salmon and pesto

black forest cake

why?

This is LR's favorite cake and somehow I just never got around trying this recipe. So I invited SW over to experiment with me. She had a Western recipe(probably yielding a denser cake), but as for me I was searching through blogs to find an Asian recipe that would yield a chiffon type texture sponge. I finally decided on using the recipe from Lil's Wai Sek Hong's blog.

failure?

YES! Goodness, I took so much care to seperate my egg yolks from the white, cleaned the mixing bowl very thoroughly, made sure all my ingredients were at room temperate etc... I read all the comments of bakers who failed in their chiffon cake and made sure I would not go down the same path!
But, I still ended up with a cake that barely rose and cracked in the centre with a little 'mountain' that really resembled a volcano :( What went wrong! So because of the failure of my chiffon cake, I could only slice what I had into 2.
Then, SW suggested we try her recipe, and even though I was tired and disappointed, I gave in because she was so convinced hers works! But I hate to say this, her recipe was worse! The cake came out with a rubber texture, but that made me feel much better about my failure! Haha....

2 thoughts though:

1) I'm not perfect no matter how hard I try

2) Comparison can make you feel lousy or give you a false sense of pride, so why
compare?

success?
Layering my BFC and decorating with the shaved dark chocolate cake was my only saving grace :)