Chocolate Covered Cornflakes Cookies

From the boo boo of my previous post, I created this Chocolate Covered Cornflakes Cookies.   This is a yummy cookie.  Almost like my chocolate clusters yet a bit different.  Since some of the cornflakes cookies that I made early won't stick together, I have resorted to use chocolate to bind them together.  I couldn't waste a bowl of fragrant buttery and crispy cornflakes mix.  Chocolate is excellent especially in this cold weather (super cold winter here), I don't even have to store it in the refrigerator.

Closer view of the cookies.

My two trays of cornflake cookies, now finished, all in our tummies. :P

Ok,  back to the draft on this cornflake cookies, if I failed again, more chocolate one will be created.  Even though the chocolate ones are delicious, but this plain one has it own place in our hearts, even my girls who love chocolate wanted to eat this too, Evy said both were good.  To me, this is more suitable for warm weather as chocolate will melt if it's warm. 

Cornflakes Cookies without Flour

If you are my avid reader or someone who have tried my Chinese New Year cookie recipes, you should know I have been making cornflakes cookies for years. The one that uses flour and oil/butter. This year I wanted to try something different. Cornflakes cookies without flour and I am still experimenting with the recipe. Let me perfect it first before I share it with you because I am having problem for some to stick together. I ended out creating another version of this cookies, the chocolate covered cornflakes cookies which is equally delicious if not more.



Sharing pictures of this delicious treat for now. Recipe will be share once I perfected it. First, I need to go buy more cornflakes cereal.

Green Curry Paste Cookies

I had been thinking...whether to create new Chinese New Year cookie recipes for 2010. I came across Laksa Cookies last year but never tried it. 1) Living aboard good laksa paste was hard to come by. 2) I am too lazy to make my own paste (too much extra work just to make a cookie). And then it kind of strike me that I knew a good Thai green curry paste and in fact I had it at home. So, why not make a Green Curry Paste Cookie instead of the Laksa cookie for us who live overseas? Hence, this cookie was inspired by Laksa cookies and I was eager to try it out. So, sharing with you my tried and tested Green Curry Paste Cookies. This cookie is crunchy and very spicy! Definitely for adult who likes it spicy. And of course tasted like Thai green curry! 





Ingredients:

(A)
1/3 cup canola oil
1/3 cup icing/powder sugar
(B)
50ml coconut cream
1/4 cup packed Thai green curry paste ( I used Mae Ploy)
(C)
1 + 3/4 cup all-purpose/plain flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda

Method:

1. Hand whisk (A) until blended.

2. Add (B) and hand whisk well.

3. Lastly add (C) and use a spatula to stir it together. When it almost come together, use your hand and knead into a dough. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

4. Roll the dough out and cut out with the desired shape of your cookie cutter. Place on parchment paper lined baking pan.

5. Bake in preheated 300'F oven for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

~Yield about 53 cookies with my rose shape cookie press cutter.


This is how the flower cookie cutter press looks like.  I forgot whether I bought it at Giant or Jusco supermarket in Malaysia.

Pandan Sesame Pizzelle Cookies

This is a new Chinese New Year cookie recipe I invented for 2010. I didn't know how to name it so I just name it as it because this cookie is baked in a pizzelle maker. It stays crispy after it's cold and it stays that way which I like because I didn't want to bake or toast it again. This was a recipe I accidentally created last year but it was a plain version. For this year, I added pandan paste and additional white sesame seeds. Since the majority of the flour used was rice flour, to me it tasted like rice cookie with the fragrant of coconut milk, sesame seeds and Screwpine leaf (pandan). Edda loved this and has been asking for it everyday.




Ingredients:

125gm rice flour
100gm cornflour

85gm all-purpose flour

250gm sugar

200ml coconut milk

3 eggs

1 tsp. pandan paste
1 Tbsp. black sesame seeds
1 Tbsp. white sesame seeds

Method:

1. In a big bowl, use a hand whisk and whisk coconut milk, eggs, pandan paste and sugar together. Then, add in all the flours and whisk again until blended. Lastly, add in black & white sesame seeds. Whisk and mix well to combine.

2. Heat Pizzelle press and brush with a little oil and pour about a tablespoon of batter in the middle of the press. Close the lid and bake until the light indicator tells you that it's done. Remove with a chopstick and let it cool completely before storing. [I used setting 4 on Cuisinart pizzelle press.]

Chicken Rice Dinner

The spread of our Chicken Rice Dinner using Prima Taste premix. I heard a lot of great thing about Prima Taste Hainanese Chicken Rice from bloggers and readers alike but never got a chance to try it. My chance finally came when I received a packet as a gift from a relative from Singapore. My review: I really liked it, super easy to make and the taste was pretty authentic, really cut down a lot of labor work because I didn't have to make the chili and ginger sauces.


The white chicken. Tender, soft and moist with the fabulous sauce. I used two chicken thighs.


Baked chicken for my hubby who won't touch white chicken.


Chicken rice cooked with sauce provided.


The leftover chicken broth from cooking the chicken and rice. Just add some green, soft tofu and seasonings to create a soup.

All I needed to buy for this dinner were 4 chicken thighs, 1 English cucumber, some scallions, 1/2 block of soft tofu, some nai pak (Asian green) and rice.

Sweet Lily Buds and Lotus Seeds Soup

This is a pretty common Chinese sweet soup in Malaysia. I know I didn't like this soup when I was little or when I was back in Malaysia. It is just not my thing especially the lotus seeds and lily buds, not something that youngster would like. But as I got older, my taste bud changed as I am more into healthy food these days or food that would provide benefit to my body as to the opposite. I came into this soup again and the benefits of drinking this simple soup really changed my mind about this soup. This soup is said to be supporting heart, nourish kidney, fight memory loss, insomnia, loss of appetite, nourish brain especially for students or white collar workers who need to use brain to think a lot and anti-aging. I believed in Chinese medicinal soup for prevention and overall body wellness so I guess I will cook this sweet soup frequently from now on. Yeah, I thought my girls wouldn't like this soup but surprisingly they both loved it, even finishing all the lotus seeds, longan, wolfberries and lily buds I gave them. I seriously thought they wouldn't eat the lotus seeds and lily buds like when I was young.



Ingredients:

15g dried lotus seeds
15g dried lily buds
10g wolfberries (Goji berries/ Ke chi)
12 red dates
12 dried longan
800-1000 ml water
Rock sugar to taste

You can add 1 or 2 beaten eggs if you like (optional)

Method:

1. Rinse lotus seed, lily bud, red dates, wolfberries, dried longan under running water. In a pot, add in water, let it boil. When boiling, add in the rest of the ingredients except rock sugar.

2. Turn the heat to low and let it simmer for 2 hours. Add in rock sugar to taste and continue simmering for 10 minutes.

3. Add in beaten eggs (if used) to create egg drop soup effect before serving.

Vietnamese Fried Springrolls (Cha Gio)

We loved Vietnamese fried spring rolls (Cha Gio). I loved the texture and crispiness of fried rice paper, it added a touch of difference from the usual fried Chinese spring rolls or egg rolls. It was quite pricey to order it in a restaurant as it costs about $2 a piece. So, I decided to make it at home. I got to put more ingredients in my filling as usually what we got at a restaurant was filled with minimal ingredients. It was definitely a treat but I hated that my hair smelled of fried oil afterward.




Ingredients:

(A)
Ground Pork
Wood ear fungus, soften
Carrot, shredded
Green onion, chopped
Glass vermicelli, soften in hot water, cut
Fish sauce
Sesame oil
Salt
Black/ white peppers
A touch of sugar

Vietnamese rice paper
Oil for deep-frying


Filling before wrapping.

Method:

1. Mix (A) together in a bowl. Let it marinate in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

2. Soften the Vietnamese rice paper in warm water, place filling on it and wrap it up spring roll style. Set aside and finish the rest.

3. Heat up oil in a wok. When hot, turn the heat to medium and deep-fry Cha Gio in batches. About three at a time and be careful not to let it touch each other as the skin would break. Deep-fry until golden brown in color, drain on paper towel.

4. Serve with Thai chili sauce, or Vietnamese Nuoc Cham (sweet vinegar sauce).

Note: 

1)  I read that by adding a little sugar in the warm water to soften the rice paper will help the rice paper to brown evenly when deep-frying.

2)  Adding an egg or two in the filling might help the rice paper to remain crispy, the filling has to be dry so that it won't create moisture when fried and soften the rice paper.

Baked Chickpeas/Garbanzo Beans

I love this canned chickpeas, it provides such a convenient for me. I have since used it in stir-fried, my version of Japanese curry and baked it as snack. Sharing with you the crispy snack version. You can create your own seasoning mix for the chickpeas as well. A healthy and easy snack for your afternoon.




Ingredients:

1 canned of chickpeas/ garbanzo beans
Olive oil
Cumin powder
Paprika
Fennel seeds powder
White sesame seeds
Sea salt



Method:

1. Washed and drain chickpeas in a colander. Spread them on a baking sheet and pat dry with paper towels.

2. Sprinkle some olive oil (or extra virgin olive oil) on top, add some cumin powder, paprika, fennel seeds powder, sesame seeds and sea salt to taste. Mix them well with your hands and spread evenly on the baking sheet.

3. Preheat 400'F oven. Bake for 30 minutes, stir them at 15 minutes. Turn oven to broil (500'F) and broil for 3-5 minutes or until crisp.

Chicken with Dried Tofu Knots

While shopping at the Asian market, I saw this interesting dried tofu knots. It looked like the dried beancurd sticks but tie in a knot. I wanted to buy but hesitated because I never eaten or cook with this before thus I passed it up. Then, months ago while spending a night at my friend's house, I was introduced to this by her mother in-law. I learned a few cooking tips from her MIL as well and she told me I only need to soften this with cold water and not the hot water. She made Bak Kut Teh (Malaysian Herbal Pork Ribs Soup) with this tofu knots and I had a chance to try it. Needless to say I loved it as I love anything made with tofu, as it is healthy! So, recently while shopping at the Asian market in Denver, I bought few packets of this to cook at home. This is good as a side dish for steamboat/hotpot too.



Ingredients:

2 skinless and boneless chicken breasts, sliced
1 bowl of dried tofu knots, soften in tap water (I used half a packet)
Water to cover
Oyster sauce to taste
1 Tbsp. salted yellow beans, mashed

Method:

In a medium saucepan, heat up a little oil. When hot, add in the sliced chicken, give it a quick stir-fry. Add water to cover. Let it boil. When boiling, add the salted yellow beans and oyster sauce to taste. Add in tofu knots and turn the heat to low and let it simmer for 30 minutes. Do a taste test and season accordingly. Serve hot.

Minced Meat Noodle

I bought some packets of fresh Pho rice noodle (the noodle that served in Pho soup, Vietnamese beef noodle soup) thinking I can serve it with chicken soup. But I don't normally like to serve the same thing often which brought me to think of another way to serve this fresh noodle. As my readers know, I love Korean drama and almost in all K-drama, there have this so-called Jajangmyeon (炸醬麵), homemade hand pull noodle with dark black bean sauce made by Korean Chinese. So, I had this idea of making my own Chinese version of Jajangmyeon with this Pho noodle. I didn't have the Korean black bean paste, chunjang so I made my own version of dark sauce. The end result, we totally loved it! Evy said it's so yummy, when are you going to make it again? Well, wait til I buy more noodle first, I told her. This is definitely a new noodle dish that I am going to make again for my family.





Ingredients:

1 packet fresh Pho noodle
1/2 lb. minced/ground pork
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 big bowl of washed bean sprouts
4 bowls of water

Sauces: LKK oyster sauce, ABC sweet soy sauce, LKK premium dark soy sauce, LKK black pepper sauce.

Thickener: potato starch/cornstarch + water

Garnish: crispy fried shallots, Kadoya sesame oil and chopped scallion

Method:

1. Marinate the ground pork with soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine, white pepper to get rid of the smell. Stir well and let it marinate in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

2. Boil a pot of water. When boiling, briefly cook the pho noodle until soften, according to packet instruction. Drain and place in individual bowls. In the same boiling water pot, quickly blanch the bean sprouts. Drain and set on top of each noodle bowls.

3 In a wok, add in a little oil, chopped garlic and fry until slightly golden brown. Add in marinated ground pork and fry until no longer pink. Add in water (to your liking, but enough to make gravy for 4 bowls of noodle). Then, add in the sauces. Let it boil and add in thickener. Stir until gravy thicken. Scoop into each individual bowls.

4. Garnish with crispy fried shallots, scallion, even sliced red chili if prefer. Add a dash of Kadoya 100% pure sesame oil before serving.