{ Birthday Meal: Rice Vermicelli in Double-Boiled Chicken Soup with Abalone Slices and Egg } 鲍鱼鸡汤面线

It was my husband's birthday and usually during on birthdays, we get to eat Rice Vermicelli or Mee Sua as it symbolised longevity. Egg is a must too. I have a very typical traditional Chinese husband (old fashion :P)

For the soup, I had a blanched chicken in 1.2 litre of water steaming for almost 4 hours. This was only possible for me since I'm using a steam oven. Great thing too as I was really busy on that day itself too. You can using a double boiler to do it to. I don't own one so I usually, I would simmer over low heat if I'm not using my oven but that requires monitoring.

What to you have on your birthdays? My mother used to cook this for me on my birthday too. I'm looking forward to the day someone's cook this for me on my birthday again. I'm old fashion too. :)

Steamed Tofu with Scallops 扇贝蒸豆腐

This is a very easy and fast dish to prepare.  You can replace the scallops with prawns if you like.

Everytime I cook this dish, it will be the first to be finished. It's one of my personal favourite dish but it like it more with scallops though.

Ingredients:

• 1 box Silken Tofu, cut into 8 thick blocks
• 1 tablespoon Chinese Cooking Wine
• 1 tablespoon Sesame Seed Oil
• 8 pieces Scallop, halve if thick
• 2 tablespoon Raw Chopped Garlic or Fried/Roasted Garlic
• 1/4 teaspoon Sugar
• 2 tablespoon Light Soy Sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon Cooking Oil

How to do it:

1. Place tofu top with scallop in a dish or you placed both items separately.
2. Sprinkle garlic on top.
3. Drizzle cooking wine and sesame seed oil over them.
4. Steam for 4 minutes or till scallops are cooked.
5. Remove and drain away the liquid.
6. Place scallops on tofu and set aside.
7. Heat cooking oil, sugar and light soy sauce together.
8. Pour the hot soy sauce and oil over the scallop.
9. Serve.

Note:
The water in drained away after steaming is to avovid diluting the sauce. If you prefer to keep it, please do so.

Assorted Mushroom in Clear Clam Soup 什菇蛤蜊清汤

This is one of my daughter's favourite soup. She loves mushrooms and clams. Okay, She loves the clams more than the mushroom.

I couldn't get short neck clam (花拉）so I got the regular white vienna clams (拉拉）instead. The fussy little eater could tell the difference and did a bit of complaining. =_=|||

Ingredients:

• 400ml Dashi Soup Stock or Water with 1 teaspoon instant Dashi Powder
• 300g Clams
• 3 slices Ginger, julienned
• 1 tablespoon Sake
• 1/4 teaspoon Salt
• Light Soy Sauce to taste
• Assorted Mushroom (I'm using Enoki, Shimeiji and Shitake Mushrooms)

How to do it:

1. Soak clams in salted water to let it 'spit' out sand.
2. Steam clams for 10 minutes or till are slightly opened.
3. Discard those that remain closed.
4. Remove clams and set aside
5. Sieve and reserve liquid from steaming the clams.
6. Meanwhile, bring water to a boil.
7. Add in the reserved clam juice and the rest of the ingredients, except salt and light soy sauce.
8. Bring it to a gentle boil.
9. Season with salt and light soy sauce.
10. Serve.

Note:

• I prefer using short neck clams (if available) than white vienna clams as the former is sweeter.
• Steaming the clams helps prevent having clams that are bad in the soup, thus having to throw the whole soup away. It also help filters any sand/dirt that was not expel out previously from the soaking.
• Amount of mushroom used depends on your liking.

Stir Fry Silky Scrambled Egg with Prawns 滑蛋虾球

I used to have scrambled eggs with tomatoes when I was younger. It was cooked by my aunt and usually the egg was fried till it's brown and fragrant.

I preferred it more fluffy and moist. Here, I added prawns to it to make more tasty.

Ingredients:

• 2 Egg
• 8 - 10 small Prawn, shelled and de-veined
• 1 small Tomato
• 1 teaspoon Cooking Oil
• 1 stalk Spring Onion, diced

Marinade:

• 1/2 teaspoon Cooking Wine
• a dash of Pepper
• a pinch of Salt
• 1/4 teaspoon Cornflour

Seasoning:

• 2 tablespoon Chicken Stock
• 1/2 tablespoon Cornflour
• a pinch of Salt

How to do it:

1. Marinate prawns with the marinade and set aside in the fridge till ready to be used.
2. Gently slice an 'x' on the surface (skin) of the tomato.
3. Place in a pot of boiling water to cook till the skin curl out.
4. Drain and place the tomato in cold water.
5. Peel off the tomato skin and dice.
6. Mix diced tomato with cooking oil and set aside.
7. Heat pan with a tablespoon oil.
8. Pan fry prawns till about 80% cooked.
9. Dish and set aside.
10. Beat eggs with salt.
11. Add in prawns, tomatoes, spring onions and chicken stock premixed with cornflour.
12. Give it a gently mix to blend all ingredients together.
13. Heat a pan with 2 tablespoon cooking oil.
14. Pour egg mixture into the pan.
15. Reduce heat and cook till egg begins to solidify.
16. Dish out when the egg is about 90%.
17. The remaining heat will continue to cook the egg without browning it giving it the silky texture.

Pancakes with Strawberry and Cream 草莓鮮奶油煎饼

This is another recipe that I did for the Bosch recipes using the Bosch ErgoMixx Hand Blender MSM67160.

It is the kids' all time favourite. You can use premix pancake or hotcake mix to do this. You can also make it from scratch as all ingredients required are very common and easily available.

The fruits can be replaced with bananas, peaches, kiwi, etc, whichever is in season. You can also simply serve it with pancake syrup or chocolate sauce.

Ingredients for pancake:

• 100g Top Flour or All Purpose Flour
• 1 tablespoon Corn Flour
• 1/2 tablespoon Baking Powder
• 3-4 tablespoon Icing Sugar
• a pinch of Salt
• 1 Egg
• 100ml Fresh Milk
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 1 tablespoon Melted Butter

Other Ingredients:

• 6 Strawberries
• 100ml Non Dairy Whipping Cream
• 1 tablespoon Icing Sugar
• a handful Blueberries (optional)

How to do it:

1. Sift all the dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.
2. Crack the egg in another bowl.
3. Add milk and vanilla extract to the egg.
4. Attached the beating whisk attachment and set speed to 8.
5. Whisk the mixture well.
6. Add the dry ingredients 1/3 at a time to the egg mixture.
7. Using the same beating whisk attachment, set the speed to 5, whisk till the dry ingredients are incorporated to the egg mixture.
8. Repeat until all the dry ingredients are blended into the egg mixture.
9. Pour in the melted butter and give a quick whisk to just blend it in to the batter.
10. Heat a non-stick pan on low heat.
11. Pour 2 tablespoon of batter to the pan and cook until bubbles appear.
12. Turn it over and continue to cook until the bottom side has browned.
13. Repeat to make 4 pancakes or until all the batter has finished.
14. Set the pancakes aside to cool.
15. Haul all strawberries and slice 4 strawberries.
16. Set aside.
17. Pour Non Dairy Whipping Cream into the measuring beaker.
18. Attached the beating whisk attachment and set speed to 10.
19. Whisk until the cream becomes stiff.
20. Either spread whipped cream on a pancake or pipe it out using a star nozzle.
21. Arrange sliced strawberries on the whipped cream.
22. Spread another layer of whipped cream before placing another piece of pancake over.
23. Scoop some whipped cream to the middle of the pancake and place a strawberry on top.
24. Dust with icing sugar and serve with additional blueberries if you like.

Note：

• If you prefer a sweeter whipped cream, you can add a tablespoon of icing sugar to the non-dairy whipping cream to whip up the cream.

Fruit Popsicles 水果冰棒

I was requested to come out with recipes that were suitable for toddlers or children for the Bosch recipes using the Bosch ErgoMixx Hand Blender MSM67160. This was one of them.

A super easy treat, now made easier with the help of kitchen gadget. My idea was to make it look like a 'slice of' watermelon. What do you think of it?

Ingredients: (makes 4 popsicles)

• 300g Watermelon, chopped into chunks
• 50g Blueberries
• 1 Kiwi

How to do it:

1. Place watermelon in the universal cutter and set to speed 6.
2. Give it a few pauses.
3. Scoop 1 ½ tablespoon of blended watermelon into ice cream moulds.
4. Add 2 to 3 blueberries to it.
5. Cover the ice-cream mould top.
6. Freeze it for 20mins till a thin layer of the blended watermelon has set.
7. Remove the universal cutter from the mixing beaker and cover it with lid provided.
8. Refrigerate the blended watermelon until it is ready to be used again.
9. Repeat step 3 to 6 until almost reaching the rim of the mould.
10. Meanwhile, blend the kiwi with the mixing wand in the measuring beaker until smooth.
11. Scoop 1 ½ tablespoon of kiwi puree into the ice-cream mould to top as the last layer.
12. Freeze overnight.
13. Serve frozen.

Shortbread Cookies 奶油酥餅

Last week I dropped my mobile phone and the screen cracked. Such luck! I was only able to send it for repairs 2 days ago after the Teachers-Parents Conference. After that, I rushed to get butter and flour to make cookies for Teachers' Day. I should have planned earlier but my mind was in a blank.

As I was rushing for time, I didn't get the kids to be involved. I just gave them so fancy papers to make cards for their teachers.

I made some plain shortbread cookies and some with sugar sprinkles. Personally, I preferred the ones with sugar sprinkles as they are sweeter. :P  If you would like a sweeter plain cookies, increase the amount of sugar used. I was lazy to make 2 dough and just make 1 dough with lesser sugar (as stated in my recipe below).

Ingredients:

• 500g Butter, softened
• 100g Brown Sugar
• 170g Caster Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence
• 675g Plain Flour
• 75g Rice Flour
• Demerara Sugar or Coloured Sugar Sprinkles

How to do it:

1. Beat butter, sugar and vanilla till light and fluffy.
2. Add flour and beat on low speed till just combined.
3. Knead dough on a floured surface until smooth.
4. Divide dough into 3-4 portions.
5. Roll each portion of dough between two sheets of baking paper.
6. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
7. Cut shapes out with cookie cutters.
8. Sprinkle with Demerara or Coloured sugar.
9. Prick with fork (optional).
10. Place cut out dough apart as they will expand during baking.
11. Baked in the preheated oven at 150C for 25 minutes or till they turn pale yellow.
12. Stand the shortbread on tray for 2 minutes.
13. Cool on wired rack and store in airtight container.