Steamed Chicken With Chinese Sausage

**Non-Halal Post**

This is the way I steamed my skinned chicken thighs. Marinade chicken with some soya sauce, pepper and a bit of sesame oil. Slice Chinese sausage and ginger. Arrange them all over chicken. I've poured in some DOM Benedictine (left over from my confinement days). You may use rice wine, Stone Ginger Wine, Chinese cooking wine or mirin. If you prefer a stronger taste of alcohol, add liqour after chicken is cooked. Steam till cooked. The steaming time varies according to the amount of chicken used. To test for doneness, prick the chicken with skewer and if juice ran out is clear then it's cooked.

Simple and healthy (well if you use leaner Chinese sausages hehehe). Best served hot with warm rice.

Psssttt: To those lazy bumbums, go make this as your dinner for I'm not cooking dinner tonight either! :p ahahaha

Stir Fried Cabbage

A very basic Chinese stir-fry dish. Wash and shred cabbage. Place in colander (do this not too long before frying). Slice carrots and yellow bell peppers into thin strips. Chop 2 cloves of garlic. Heat oil in wok on high heat and add in garlic. Fry garlic till aromatic. Add in carrots and bell peppers, stir. Stir in cabbage. The water on the cabbage leaves will steam up to cook the cabbage, hence there is no need to add water. The heat itself will also draw out the fluid from the cabbage. Next, add in some oyster sauce to taste. Stir fry till cabbage is cooked before dishing up. Serve hot with warm rice.



Note: Replace oyster sauce with soya sauce for the vegan version.

IMBB#19: I Can't Believe I Ate Vegan! - Vegan Tapas

This time round other than cooking up a challenge, Sam of Becks & Posh threw us a challenge of cooking up something vegan and NOT to spill the vegan beans until after they've finished their meal. Sounds easy peasy but I had a hard time thinking what to cook...

Thanks to our local newspaper The Star, they featured something vegan a few weeks back in their Clove pull-out that got me inspired to cook them up in addition to some other recipes I scoured through the net.

For this round of Is My Blog Burning (IMBB), I've cooked up a storm of Vegan Tapas. According to that article... "TAPAS consists of a selection of small dishes of food eaten with bread. It is considered common fare throughout Spain and served in most cafes, bars and restaurants."

Here's what I've cooked up, all in all 6 types of vegan tapas served with crusty bread.



From The Clove, I've made the Avocado Dip which tasted the best of the lot. I served it cold which is so refreshing.

Avocado Dip

Ingredients:
2 cloves garlic chopped
1 onion chopped
1 tomato diced
¼ green pepper diced
Chopped parsley
1 avocado
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt & pepper
Lemon juice

Method:

1. Mix the chopped onions, garlic, tomatoes and green peppers in a mixing bowl with olive oil and lemon juice.

2. Cut the avocado in half and remove the flesh.

3. Mix the flesh with the chopped ingredients.

4. Add the seasoning and serve chilled.


The next recipe was Mushroom and Garlic with loads of chopped garlic and onion. Slightly on the sour side, maybe I've squeezed too much lemon juice in there. So please use lemon juice sparingly hehehe.

Mushroom and Garlic

Ingredients:
2 cloves garlic chopped
1 onion chopped
Chopped parsley
250g mushrooms sliced
Salt & pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
Squeeze of lemon juice

Method:

1. Heat up the olive oil.

2. Put in the chopped garlic and onions and sauté.

3. Add the mushrooms and cook until tender.

4. Add the chopped parsley, lemon juice and seasoning.

5. Serve warm.


Next up, I cooked Aubergine in Tomato Sauce. Lovely taste but next round I'll cook my aubergine first as it took longer to cook them up. The tomatoes and onions sorta dried out whilst waiting for the aubergine to cooked up. Nevertheless, they tasted superb!

Aubergine in Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:
1 aubergine sliced in rounds
2 cloves of garlic chopped
1 onion chopped
1 chopped tomato
1 tsp mixed herbs
Salt & pepper
2 tbsp olive oil

Method:

1. Fry chopped garlic and onion in olive oil.

2. When cooked, add the chopped tomatoes and mixed herbs.

3. Add sliced aubergine.

4. Add seasoning.

5. Serve warm.

The three recipes below I got them in the net here and there. Of the lot the mushrooms tasted great that my boiboi whacked 4 whole mushrooms in a row! Greedy boi! I let him taste the rest but he only picked this! As for the asparagus, I wished we could get those plump ones but those sold here were so slim. Anyway, this tasted great too when it was hot. Next I found a chick pea based cold tapas. I liked this especially after leaving it over night in the fridge.


Marinated Mushrooms

Ingredients:
3 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion finely chopped
1 clove of garlic crushed
1/2 small glass of white wine
1/2 small glass of water
salt and pepper
350g mushrooms (preferably small)

Method:
1. Heat the oil in a heavy based pan.

2. Add the finely chopped onion and garlic season with salt and pepper and sauté for 5 - 10 mins until the onion has softened.

3. Add the wine and water and simmer for 20 mins.

4. Clean the mushrooms and slice thinly then add them to the pan and cook for a further 10 mins.

5. Place everything in a serving dish and set aside to cool before placing it in the fridge - serve cold. Decorate with some chopped fresh parsley or chives.


Fried Asparagus

Ingredients:
1 bunch of fresh green asparagus
1 lemon
2 tbsp olive oil
salt

Method:
1. Wash the asparagus and cut off the rough ends then cut into pieces about 8cms long.

2. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over a medium heat and lightly fry the asparagus pieces for about 5 mins.

3. When the asparagus pieces start to turn golden brown remove from the heat season with salt and squeeze some lemon juice over them.

4. Place on a plate and serve.


Chick Peas and Spinach Tapas

Ingredients:
10 ounces fresh spinach leaves, rinsed, or 1 (10-ounce) package frozen leaf spinach
19-ounce can (2 cups) chick-peas, drained and rinsed
1 red bell pepper, finely diced
1 tablespoon snipped fresh chives
1 to 2 lemons, juiced or to taste
1/4 to 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Method:
1. If using fresh spinach: Cook the spinach in a saucepan with the water clinging to its leaves, stirring, until wilted. Drain, squeeze dry, and finely chop. If using frozen spinach, follow package directions, drain, squeeze dry, and finely chop.

2. In a bowl combine the spinach with the chick peas, pepper, chives, lemon juice, oil, salt, and pepper.

3. Serve as is or chilled with toasted bread.


When I served to hubby, he asked me whether those dishes are served with rice or not?? OMG silly guy, I told him they're tapas and to be eaten with bread hahahaha... So he happily devoured the tapas and I asked him for feedback. He don't like chick peas and when he first saw it, he asked me how come got kacang putih (a type of Indian snacks)??? Arrrghhh I really feel like piaking (beat) him!!!

He was okay with the rest except for the Mushroom and Garlic which he complained too sour. As expected the Marinated Mushrooms were wiped clean.

Once he finished eating, I check with him if he have noticed anything about the tapas. You know what was his reply? "SOUR" Ahahahaha which is true cos other than 2 dishes the rest used lemon juice. Seems like he didn't noticed they were all vegetables. Great test on him since he's really a "meat" person.

So there... gotcha!!!! I Can't Believe I Ate Vegan!

Thank you Sam for thinking up such a creative theme and method in rounding up.

Check out the hi-tech round up for this IMBB#19. The entries are slowly rolling in!



Tagged with: IMBB # 19 + Vegan

Easy Breakfast Omelette

Easy peasy and quick omelette... stir fry chopped yellow bell pepper and carrots in olive oil. Add in chopped sausages. Fry till browned and add some salt and pepper according to taste. Lightly beat egg and pour over fried ingredients. Let egg set and place cheese over. Fold into half and continue to fry omelette till lightly browned. Best served hot with ketchup, chilli sauce and mustard.

Funny thing is that my boiboi likes to eat eggs in the form of omelette. He disliked hard and soft boiled eggs. He ate almost half of my omelette after drinking his milk!

Cooling Drinks for Hot Weather VII - Apple With Honey Dates

Boil honey dates (mutt choe in Cantonese) and thinly sliced apples till they turn opaque. Add in rock sugar to taste. You can use a slow cooker and leave it on for about 4 - 6 hours. Super cooling (yoon in Cantonese) on hot hot days.

Try a different variation by adding white fungus, red dates, figs and so forth.

Review: Haagen Daz Cafe

We loved to come by Haagen Daz Cafe on our trips to GE Mall along Jalan Ampang. Yes, this outlet is a cafe where you can order orgasmic sundaes and chocolate fondues etc. We used to frequent the one in Bangsar during our courting days but it has since closed.

Hubby would have his usual fix of Affogato which is expresso with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream. Loved the way how the cafe served up Affogato. The expresso and ice-cream came separately. You get to pour the hot expresso over the ice-cream and watch it melt. Lovely, lovely but too bad I can only have a couple of spoonful.



Anyway, we ordered a banana split thinking that my boiboi would like to eat the banana but how wrong we were, duh. Nevermind, the mummy and daddy wallopped the banana together with the yummy ice-cream. Boiboi ate most of the strawberry flavoured ice-cream. This fella is very clever when it come to food. Earlier we had lunch at Cosy House, he said he wanted strawberry ice-cream and we ordered one scoop for him. He ate it with gusto initially and slowed down. Started to poke and play with it instead. I took one spoonful and I know why cos it tasted pretty fake hehehe. Anyway, we didn't make him finish it cos it really tasted very artificial. Die man... how to make so much money to feed him with tasty AND expensive food??

The Secret Recipe Experience

Warning: Loads of rantings and localised expression in various languages including flowery ones in this post. All were written based on my self opinion and experience. Please don't flame me!

Read this first okay.

I tell you hor the Secret Recipe's staffs super blur one leh!!!! Never pay attention or maybe they don't understand me or they never listen... all I asked was "Can you recommend me a cake that is non-chocolate and without cheese?" and I repeated a few times in Malay - their mother tongue! Gee they still recommended me cakes with choclate as part of their name duhhhhh!!! Feel so geram (angry in Malay)!!! When I asked for Almond Coffee, one staff checked and came back said don't have. Hello??? In the first place don't tell people they have ALL the cakes in their catalogue arrrghhhhhh, I really feel like walking out already but I gotta be patient! **tahan**

Next they recommended White Chocolate Macadamia or Tiramisu!!!! Could you believe it??? My face was already very black and long then and I told them that don't tiramisu contained cheese as well?? The staff have to asked 2 colleagues to verify that. Aduhai... I was really pulling my hairs with the kind of knowledge they have on the products on sale. WTF happened??? Staff don't undergo training? They just couldn't be bothered to get to know the products on sale in their shop??? I really feel like lashing out at the manager who looked fresh out of high school... really cheesed (pun intended) off ok!

Anyway, I have no idea why so many people raved about their cheesecake when in my opinion they're just run of the mill cheesecakes. Maybe the opening of the many branches and producing them on bulk really have taken its toll! Hey, Secret Recipe's owners, please wake up.

Sighhh since not much choice left, I opted for the White Chocolate Macadamia which is vanilla sponge filled with vanilla cream and some chopped macadamia coated with white chocolate. When we sliced the cake after leaving out from the fridge for about 15 minutes (remember boiboi sang the Birthday song many times over plus the photo taking sessions hehehe), the cake literally melted. It was so soft and the white chocolate coating melting.

Actually the cake did taste good but we all felt that there were simply too much vanilla cream in between the thin sponge cake. So little cake, so much cream coupled with white chocolate... can you imagine how JELAK (bloated feeling in Malay) it felt after one thin slice? Maybe we ought to put it in the freezer for 15-20 minutes before bringing it out, it would be a better texture than one blob of creamy gooey mess, I mean after slicing. Maybe I should take the picture of the sliced cake cos the one here in their web looked so neat hehehe...

Maybe I should have sticked to the fail-proof Chocolate Banana... sighhh...

Happy Birthday Darling!!!

Today's my darling husband's Birthday. Don't ask me how old is he but enough candles to burn a cake down hehehe... Yesterday I bought a cake from Secret Recipe, not by choice though but since there isn't much choices around the place we were at plus we were in a hurry. Cake review coming up in the next entry.

When I brought the cake back, my boiboi saw the box and he was jumping for joy and he said "Yay, present for daddy" more jumping and trying to open the cake box "Boiboi buy present for daddy one" Hahahaha aiyoh he so cute. Gave his daddy hugs and kisses. Sang so many rounds of Birthday song for daddy too. His daddy darn happy!

Here it is, your very special day, with Birthday wishes hastening your way. May love, good luck, happiness and the best of health always be with you. Happy Birthday Darling!!!


We LOVE you!

Review: Hot Mama Restaurant

Updated 22 August 2008

This place has closed.

----------------
One evening we were over at Low Yat Plaza (the computer items Mecca in Kuala Lumpur) checking stuff out and so decided to cross over to Sungai Wang Plaza (SWP) to check out some items over there too. SWP is amongst the oldest mall around and it is a very popular mall of the younsters. It's forever bustling with activities and crowded with people.

Hubby got hungry and we decided to find something to eat in SWP instead of crossing back to Low Yat Plaza. As we went round and round, it suddenly sparked me that there is a new place to try out after the ravings by the local newspapers and recommendation by friends and of course boo_licious. Took escalator to the 4th floor and Hot Mama is right in front of us.

Sat on a table in the centre and after ordering our meal, I took out my digicam and started shooting hehehe lucky not many patrons around. The decor is rather retro and bright. Lotsa orange and beige colour being used. Check out these bright orange discs dangling from the ceiling. So retro!



Hubby's water chestnut drink with grass jelly (RM4.50) came first. Tasted almost like my water chestnut tong shui.



Next came my Twin Beans Smoothie (RM5.50) which is actually blended red bean and sweet corn with some milk and gula melaka syrup I think, topped with thin green agar strips. I have to say this actually blew my mind. It tastely wonderfully delicious. Errr something like cendol.



This is my Lemongrass Chicken Rice that came with white rice sprinkled with black sesame seeds, sliced tomato, fried egg and boneless chicken thigh marinated in lemongrass sauce ala Vietnamese. More sauce were provided in a separate container. The lemongrass chicken was well marinated and tasted pretty okay.



Hubby's Ayam Perchik rice came with 4 large white rice balls separated with pieces of deep fried keropok (prawn cracker), side salad of tomato, cucumber, lettuce and some carrot strips and extra sauce in a separate container. Ayam Perchik is a famous Kelantanese delicacy which is roast chicken marinated with spices, skewered over bamboo stick and grilled over charcoal fire. The marinade do not taste like authentic perchik sauce but nevertheless Hot Mama's version is not too bad.



I think we need to come back here a few more times to try out other dishes. Quite a number of unique kahwin (married in Malay but I'm trying to say fusion teehehe) dishes here hehehe, hopefully I can post them up some other time.

Pssstttt and you know what, like what boo_licious have reported, this place have plenty of hot hoochie mamas around. Check them out yourself!!!!

Review: Paddington Pancakes

We went to The Curve (a mall located in Mutiara Damansara) recently. There's really nothing much in this mall but anyway we just walked around and as we peered down the walkway where the majority of the restaurants and cafes were, it was brightly lit with fairy lights.



Later in the evening, we wanted to find a place to have a light meal and we dropped by Paddington House of Pancakes. Don't bother to check their web as it has been under construction for ages.



Here's the clean and sleek open kitchen area. As we were forewarned not to expect good service here so we braced ourselves with a lower expectation but still they were lousy even though the place is not packed. Have to wait so long to be served duh! Worst of all, their faces all ash black!!! Can't they be a lil cheery and smile a wee bit? Those things are free you know???



After handing us the menu, oh my the menu is so thick. So many photos accompanying the descriptions. So many types of pancakes in fact hundreds (I think so hehe) of them, both sweet and savoury. We ordered Pile of Dollars to share.



The real thing looked like this... They tasted pretty standard, nothing out of the ordinary. The pancakes came in many small rounds and eaten like a salad. The frank they used, can tell it's those cheap ones from supermarket deep freezer and not any gourmet type.



We ordered this for boiboi.



And the real thing looked like this... which looked kinda different as pictured. Taste wise, the thin pancake is not too sweet and the texture a bit hard, maybe it sat there too long as my boiboi was eating that first. He ate just the pancake pieces laden with ice-cream. Left the banana and strawberries for us. Pretty stingy with the ingredients. Just look at the price!



Might need to go there a few more times to check out the rest of the pancakes since they've so many varieties to choose from but seriously I do think they're not worth it, kinda pricey. Best made them at home hehehe

Mid-Autumn Festival Part 5: A Date With The Moon

I'm going to wrap up my Mid-Autumn Festival post today after a trip to Mid Valley Megamall, sampled some delicious jelly mooncakes, viewed beautiful lanterns at Cheras Leisure Mall and tasted gastronomical Shangri-la Hotel's mooncakes. This trip we're going to taste Purple Cane's tea mooncakes and a very traditional Teo Chew's mooncake.

Purple Cane is actually a chain of tea art centre that contained tea houses, tea shops, a restaurant and learning centre. Their tea mini mooncakes are very popular since their introduction in the year 2000. The best part is actually their innovative packaging. This year saw a repeat of a lantern box kinda design.

Here's how the lantern box looked like. They came with every 6 pieces of mini mooncakes purchased.



Once opened, the inside revealed a tealight. How clever! Oh yeah, one need to peel of some pre-punched holes and open some butterflies/bees windows to let the candle light to shine through.



Check out the beautiful butterflies and bee around.



Even the individual boxes have such butterflies and bee.



There are many flavours to choose from ranging from traditional ones to non-traditional like coconut (RM8.00), coffee lotus (RM8.00) and chocolate lotus (RM8.00) paste. The one we received as gift contained pure white lotus paste (RM8.50) and pure red bean paste (RM6.00).

This is the red bean paste, whoa really pure! The green tea pastry skin smell so fragrant. Not oily at all as I've remembered it every year.



Even the white lotus paste is pretty translucent, not very sweet and oily. Extremely fragrant in smell.



As far as I can remember, I never felt jelak (bloated feeling in Malay) eating them. That's the best part!!! Woohoooo!!! We loved them but they're pretty pricey.

Okay, the next so called mooncake, yes they're known as Teo Chew Mooncake but they don't looked like conventional mooncake. It's kinda flat. I've gotten this from Setapak Teo Chew Restaurant stall at Cheras Leisure Mall. They're pretty famous for their Teo Chew style pastries and they have those yummy deep fried taro mooncake too.



When I opened the wrapper, omigosh, disaster!!! It's so oily bleh... sighhhhh... and the pastry is so flaky that they sorta disintegrate when I cut it, urrghhh. This one is mung bean filling and the interesting thing was they have all sorts of flavours that are very new to me. Some of them contained mui choy (preserved vegetables in Cantonese) which I dared not try hahaha... can't imagine savoury tasting mooncake. Nice to eat but very very jelak. I need to ask my colleague to get me some nice Teo Chew mooncake from Johor.



This ends my belated Mid-Autumn Festival posting. I hoped everyone enjoyed their family dinners, mooncake feast and lantern playing sessions yesterday. I knew we did. Last night after taking my boiboi around the neighbourhood on his little lantern procession, I asked him to hug me and he tell me this "Mummy, boiboi (he mentioned his name lah hehehe) SO happy".

Omigosh my boiboi is really growing up... this is my first time hearing him expressing his feelings without us cajoling him! I was like a bit stunt but I replied him "Mummy is happy too if you're happy. I love you.". Best part he replied "I love you too".

Can't wait for next year's celebration!

FriedChillies Best Series Event 2006: Best Nasi Lemak in Town!!!

Time to do some advert for Friedchillies. There will be a charity event held tomorrow at Indoor Arena, Bukit Kiara Equestrian & Country Resort. I'll just put in the plug here, ehehe lazy to type lah...

Let's face it, Malaysians don't need any excuses to eat. We drive miles to find good food, forge through floods and other natural disasters and never be the first to put our forks down. And now we are asking you and your appetite to eat for a good cause, right in Klang Valley?

Friedchillies.com, your user-friendly web food guide will be organising the anchor event for the first ever Lion's Malaysian Hawker Food Festival. And we are bringing back the BEST NASI LEMAK EVENT! It was so popular in our last ChilliBash that every morsel was finished by noon. Never fear, this time we are back bigger and better with extra barrels of rice and supersize drums of sambal- (just kidding- but there will be a ridiculous amount of Nasi Lemak). So far we have 5 stalls and waiting to hear back from a few more. Confirmed invitees so far: Nasi Lemak Tanglin, Nasi Lemak Dang Wangi Raja Abdullah, Nasi Lemak Tanjung Puteri, Madam Tea Chinese Nasi Lemak, Nasi Lemak D'Condo Segambut. Click here find out more about FriedChillies 2006 Nasi Lemak finalists.

Gluttony has never been so good for the community....

Details are as follows:-

Date: 17th September 2005 (Saturday)
Time: 8:00 am -7:00pm (Fun Carnival), 8:00 am -3:00pm (Food Fair)
Venue: Indoor Arena, Bukit Kiara Equestrian & Country Resort (see map attached)
Charity: In AID of LIONS CyberCare Underprivileged Children Development Programme. (read further to find out more about it.)

Coupons come in books of RM10. E-mail or call me if you want to buy any before the event. Or else there will be coupon booths on the day itself.

Besides our Nasi Lemak event, there will also be other hawkers, and lots of fun stuff to do like telematches, competitions and a huge bouncy area! I don't know about you guys but I'm kinda excited about that. Just remember to bounce before you consume the nasi lemak and not after.

So please come and bring lots of friends, drag your famillies and even strangers you meet on the street.

WHERE DOES THE MONEY GO TO?
Proceeds from the event will go towards LIONS CyberCare Underprivileged Children Development Programme. These good folks basically help underprivileged children in homes (orphanages) get I.T. literate and support them in things like education and leadership camps. They also connect these kids to organisations in the public & private sector, other homes and NGO's by fostering an eCommunity System.

Your money will also go towards supporting Cybercare training programmes
such as:

• Educational Excellence Program (EEP): To date over 650 students have been awarded Merit awards and 5 university students been granted tertiary
  scholarships
• E-Workshops : To date over 1500 children have been trained on computers
• CyberCare and Leaderships Camps: Yearly leadership camps are held nationally
• Youth Leadership Monitoring (YLM): A powerful leadership program conducted in pilot homes around the KL area.
• Student Industrial Assessment and Training (SITA): In collaboration with
  UTAR, SITA focuses on improving the current 3SC system, an electronic
  e-community system currently serving 90 homes across Malaysia and Sarawak benefiting more than 5000 children.

Cheers,
Honey

So please bring your family and friends along for a wonderful time! See ya there...

SHF#12: Cooking up Custard

Time flies and we're moving into the next installment of Sugar High Fridays (SHF). This round, the host, Elise of Simply Recipe have picked Cooking up Custard as the theme. Okay, initially I thought I would be having a tough time preparing something for this event as I'm pretty occupied of late. Anyway, I managed to come across a super duper easy recipe on this theme. Well as usual I did something Asian instead, Thai to be specific. It's usually available for dessert in Thai restaurants.

So what's cooking???

Tadaaa...


So what's cooking inside the pumpkin eh?? It's Pumpkin Custard, a popular Thai dessert. I was going through my recipes and chanced upon this easy peasy custard recipe. It's really so easy that I'm typing in the ingredients off my head now. Here's the recipe:

Pumpkin Custard

about 1 kg whole pumpkin
6 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup coconut cream (I managed to squeezed out 3/4 cup from one grated coconut, otherwise substitute with those canned ones, pati santan in Malay)
100g brown sugar [also known as red sugar (gula merah in Malay) not the typical brown sugar for baking, adjust according to your taste]

Cut off the pumpkin top (the part with the stem) and retain it as a lid but do not cut too big an opening. Scoop out all the seeds and pulp, leaving a thick layer of flesh inside. Wash and rinse, then pat dry the inside.

Beat eggs, salt, coconut cream and sugar together with a hand whisk. As the brown/red sugar are pretty lumpy, strain and pour the mixture into the pumpkin. Cover it with the cut-out lid.

Place the pumpkin in a steamer and steam for 30 to 40 minutes or until custard is firm and pumpkin is tender. Test with a skewer, then cool and put in the refrigerator to chill overnight. Remove and cut into thick wedges and serve.

Note: I think I've over steamed the pumpkin hence the pockmarks on the custard plus the pumpkin is kinda too soft but luckily it wasn't mushy. As I was busying feeding my boiboi his lunch I did not checked the pumpkin when it reaches 30 minutes of steaming. I left it till way past 45 minutes. The top portion that looked lighter in colour is slightly harder in texture than the bottom portion.

Overall, it tasted good and even my fussy guinea pig gave it a thumb up. I brought some to my office and my colleagues gave me unbelievable looks when I passed them the sliced Pumpkin Custard. They didn't believed that I actually made it myself thinking it's a complicated recipe hahaha... they too were overwhelmed by it. One of them, a guy whom I never knew can cook promised to make one for us soon. We shall wait then...

Thanks Elise for hosting this round of SHF. Can't wait for the round up and see what the rest of the world have cooked up.

UPDATED 19th September 2005: The efficient Elise got her round up posted. 70 entries for this 1st Anniversary version!

Mid-Autumn Festival Part 4: Shangri-la's Mooncakes

If you're hungry now, I strongly suggest you to grab a bite first before scrolling down!!! You've been warned ok hahaha I have some of the most yummilicious mooncakes in Kuala Lumpur recently. Just check out the box!!!


(Click for larger view)

I would like to share with you some mooncakes from Shangri-la Hotel, Kuala Lumpur (also known as Shang locally). Their mooncakes are painstakingly made fresh daily by their Shang Palace's pastry chef. To tell you the truth this sua koo (country bumpkins to that effect) have never eaten Shang's mooncake before other than sampling some tiny morsels a couple of years ago during their promotion.

Hubby tried their samples over at their promo stall in Mid Valley Megamall Mid-Autumn Festival. When I asked him how did they fare. He said this "It's like the lotus paste I used to taste long long ago (before commercialisation). You MUST try the lotus paste!!!"

Hohoho... which got me picking up the tiny morsels of lotus paste, white lotus paste and red bean paste. They were indeed very very DIFFERENT! Next we checked out all those lovely looking snow skin (ping pei in Cantonese) mooncakes in their fridge display but those were not available for sampling, duh!

Anyhow, hubby decided to indulge ourselves this year by purchasing one box of mini mooncakes. You can picked any combination of 6 mini mooncakes ranging from the traditional lotus paste (with or without salted egg yolk), white lotus paste (with or without salted egg yolk) and red bean paste to the 4 types of snow skin flavour (custard with birdnest, green tea lotus paste, coffee lotus paste and durian paste). I can't remember the price for each of them but the most expensive was the mini custard with birdnest which retailed around the region of RM22 for one tiny mooncake!!! Hubby picked lotus paste with yolk, pure white lotus paste and 4 of those snow skin mooncakes. I think the combination costed about RM70++, OUCH!!

They also have the normal sized mooncakes that came in mostly traditional flavours but when I took a peep into the box, goodness, it's smaller than the conventional ones we get normally from the famous bakeries. I think they used the medium sized mold! So expensive but yet so delicious... sighhh and not forgetting we're also paying for the exquisitely elegant packaging!

This is how the traditional baked and snow skin mooncakes...



After slicing them, they looked like this...


(L-R: Lotus Paste with Yolk and Pure White Lotus Paste)

Heh if you click for a larger image of the lotus paste with yolk, you'll noticed some errmm empty holes here and there which I told hubby that he got cheated hahaha. Well being a salesman, he quickly twist it around and sold to me that "Ohhh it's just showed that they're hand made and not machine made. Machine made everything is perfect one." Darn, once a salesman always a salesman! Like I've said earlier, these two lotus pastes tasted damn original and pure.

Ohhh as to what's the difference between lotus paste and white lotus paste... the white one is fairer and more refine which is cooked with better grade lotus seeds where the membrane removal process is tedious plus required a few days of labour, less sugar and less oil as compared with the normal lotus paste. I would opt for the white lotus paste anytimes as it's less jelak (not sure of the English equivalent, less stuffed??).

Check out these lovely snow skin mooncakes... drooling already??


(Clockwise from L: Coffee Lotus Paste, the ultimate Custard with Birdnest, Greentea Lotus Paste and Durian Paste)

After slicing them all, I put down the tray and let my boiboi choose which one he would like to eat. He loves mooncakes by the way, thanks to my mom who feed him as snacks of late. You know which one he picked??? My smart boiboi picked the most expensive of the lot hahaha yes the one with birdnest! Since he was the first to have a bite, we asked him how was it. His reply was "It's very nice." and then he put his thumb up "Good". So both of us quickly took a bite... whoa it was so nice... the custard is so smooth and creamy yumyum but I got no commment on birdnest since they're tasteless anyway.

Boiboi requested for his second piece but we made him choose other flavour. Hubby took the durian paste one and pass to him. He took one whiff "DON"T WANT!!!" ahahahaha this boi have a love hate relationship with durian. Some times when he's on an adventurous mood, he don't mind have a few bites of durian but other times he would attempt to eat but the next thing we knew he got this shiver ran down his spine expression hahaha very funny and cute. This durian paste is extremely fantabulous but coming from durian lovers, so you go figure. *evil grin*

We ushered boiboi to try the green tea but he shook his head. Maybe because of it's weird colour? We don't know. So we asked him to try coffee which he refused initially but after we told him it's very nice one and he took a bite. You know what??? He asked for more. That was how fragrant and tasty the coffee lotus paste tasted.

As for the green tea lotus paste, it's really nothing to shout about. I find the Purple Cane Restaurant and Tea House version way better. Review coming right up.

The baked mooncakes can last up to a week whilst the snow skin ones last for 3 days only. Now, that's the difference between Shang and commercial mooncakes which can last up to months of course with the exception of the snow skin ones.

My verdict... GO GET YOUR OWN SHANG'S MOONCAKES... for I'm really over the moon in SHANGRILA!!!

Whilst researching for my Mid-Autumn Festival articles, I came across some news clipping or articles, here are some of them:

Review on Shang's mooncake by New Straits Times.

Kum Lun Tai, one of the famous low chee hoe (Cantonese for oldest brand) for mooncakes in Kuala Lumpur but have since diversified and manufactured their mooncakes using machines.

Tong Kee Brothers Confectionery is usually famous for it's egg tarts but they make mooncakes too.

Museum Chinese Restaurant of Legend Hotel, one of the popular hotel around.

Head on about Mid-Autumn Festival.

For all the various mooncake recipes, key in "mooncake" as the keyword here to obtain a list of traditional and innovative ones.

More articles and recipes over at about.com too.

Oh yeah, wishing everyone a very happy and joyous Mid-Autumn Festival (in case I didn't have time to post my other Mid-Autmn Festival posts on time)!!!!

Mid-Autumn Festival Part 3: Leisure Mall

After round One and Two, here's round Three...

Every year without fail, Leisure Mall in Cheras will hold lantern making competition. All the lanterns submitted will put on display around the complex for public viewing. We hardly visit this mall but this time we fought the traffic jam just to bring my boiboi there to check out the lanterns. I'm amazed with the amount of entries this year and the contestants are really very very creative. Lots of material used were recycled from plastic bottles, food cover, disposable plastic plates and so forth. I've managed to catch some of them in photos but not all turned out looking good as there were simply too many lanterns strung to one line. Darn, I should have brought my dinosaur Sony with 10x zoom! Duh!!!

Let the photos do the talking...


The stalls at the concourse.


Loads of round shaped lanterns around the mall.


Hehehe looked like disco or not? This is the bridge connecting the two buildings.


Some of the lanterns.


A traditional looking lantern.


More lanterns.


More lanterns.


More lanterns.


I liked this with mechanical shadow play where the arms and some of the figures moves. Amazing!!


Look closer!!! The fishes are made of those disposable plastic plates we used for parties.


Hohoho, this one the base is made from a blue plastic food cover. Hahahaha very innovative eh?? The storks in a supposedly lotus pond and check out the lotus root hahaha cool!


Close up on a more traditional one.


Hubby liked this one. Made entirely of those craved wooden fans. Lovely!


The lantern stall, very popular with children.


Mechnical plastic lanterns (DUH!!!) darn noisy with all those super loud tune! Even my boiboi can't stand it that he asked my dad to cover the speaker with tape to minimise the loudness.


Wooohooo Doraemon lantern!!! Cute... Power Puff Gurls too are on the parade but what happened to traditional cellophane paper lanterns??? None were on sale, how sad!


My boiboi can't decide which lantern he wanted that he rounded the stall so many time. Either he's scared of those figurines or those yucky tunes. Finally settled for one inflatable aeroplane with Hamtaro with the tune of the ABC song (even though the seller keep on telling us it's Twinkle Twinkle Lil Star hahaha same tune what aiyoh...). My boiboi darn cute leh, he switched it on and was tapping his feet to the tune whilst daddy paid RM9 for it. Then he was hopping and swinging his head left and right whilst we walked back to the car hahaha and he kept singing the ABC song!


There were many mooncake stalls but only this one captured my attention. This stall owned by HYT (Hei Yuet Thong in Cantonese) had the most beautiful and unique containers for their mooncakes. Adoi so nice... but I didn't buy any hahaha.


This is the single mooncake box. How unique the shape huh??


Wooden box came with handle with traditional painting.


Two tier box with handle. They stuck loads of butterflies on the lighting pillar where other stalls just left it plain.


I loved this the most!!! The pastel colours were so attractive let alone the netting material used. Awwww... very sweet! Anyone don't want this after eating the mooncakes, kindly donate to this greedy Babe :p

Okay, that's about all I have on Leisure Mall. More Mid-Autumn posts coming right up...