Making Vanilla Ice Cream

Tried this recipe and was really surprised that it turned out so well , the texture was similar to what I get from the commercial ice cream, be forewarned though, this has a pretty strong ‘milk’-ish flavour, but I guess one could replace the fresh milk with chocolate or strawberry flavoured milk to get some variety.

Ingredients A

•  3 egg yolks
• 60g castor sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 150g fresh milk

 

Ingredients B

• 200g Whipping Cream

 

Method :

1. Mix A until well combined. (Pix  showing egg yolks + sugar +vanilla essence and in the process of adding milk to the mixture) 

 

2. Put the bowl containing mixture A in a pan filled with boiling water ( Double boil )  and stir for about 10 – 15 minutes until thicken . Remove from heat and leave to cool. Sift the mixture.

 3. Beat B until stiff ( until you terbalik (upside down)  the container also the mix will stay in the bowl).  Add A into B and stir well.

 

Pour into container and freeze overnight or until set. Mine set in ~ 10 hours

 

 I had ice cream + fresh pineapple for breakfast the next day..what a terrific way to start the day

Rice Dumplings

The hardwares

• Bamboo leaves – soak these overnight in water , and if you still find that they are not soft enough, boil them in water. ( if the leaves are not soft enough, they will be brittle and breaks easily during wrapping)
• Strings – you will need to soak these too ( unless you are using the raffia strings)
• A big pot to boil the dumplings

 

The yummy stuff /ingredients

 1 kg of glutinous rice, soak in water for a while, drain- add some salt and oil and mix well  ( some versions will also call for adding some  soya sauce and thick soya sauce into the rice and fry it for a bit before wrapping)

 Pork , cut into big cubes , marinate overnight with :-5 spice powder, pepper, salt, sesame oil, oyster sauce, thick soy sauce and soy sauce

 Split green beans- soaked in water for 10 – 30 minutes

 Dried prawns – soaked in water for 1-2 hours

Mushroom- soak to soften , marinate overnight with 5 spice powder, oyster sauce, thick soy sauce, soy sauce and some sugar ( retain  the water used for soaking to boil the dumplings )

Chestnut- soak overnight and remove the bits of skin/shell that are caught in the crevices

Salted egg yolks ( divide 1 yolk into 4 portions)

 Optionals :- dried sotong, peanuts, broad beans, Chinese sausages  etc

 NB: for 1kg of glutionous rice, we made ~ 35 pieces of s-sized  dumplings

 

Keeping it under wraps

The most challenging part of dumpling making is of course the wrapping, and the number of leaves used will depend on the shape and size of the dumplings. This is the version that my mum makes.

If you would like to see a video of this , please click here , or read on

1.take 2 leaves, cross them at the centre- make an X

2. twist the leaves to make a conical  shaped ‘mould’  (like the shape of an upside down nasi lemak )

3. put all the ingredients into the mould

4. Add additional leaves at the sides if required

5. Fold-down both sides of  the leaves –covering the contents of the dumplings

6. Fold over the leaves at one end

7. Fold over the leaves of the other end

8. use a string to secure the dumpling 

 

9.ending up with a knot on the ‘under side’ of the dumpling

10. Cut away the excess part of the leaves

11. Boil the dumplings – in order to save time, you could start to heat up the water while wrapping the dumplings, add some salt into the water ( you can also pour in the water used to soak the mushrooms).  the time required will depend on the size of the dumpling, the ones that I did ( considered small size) took about 1:15 hours, larger sizes may take up to 2- 2:30 hours.

Bon appetite !!

NB: to make things easier / if you chose not to ‘wrap’ the dumplings, what you can do is lined a  bowl use for steaming with lotus leaf / bamboo leaves, pour in the ingredients, and steamed it.

NB2: i was reminded not to  forget to give credit to the photographer.

Banana Tapioca Rolls

Another recipe i tried from ‘Delightful Sweet Treats- Y3K, my secret recipe series’

Ingredients :

a) 400g grated tapioca

40g tapioca flour

30ml concentrated coconut milk

b) 150g castor sugar

½ tsp salt

200ml diluted coconut milk

2 blades pandan leaves

c) Some colorings – red, green, yellow ( I omitted colors and opted to go natural )

d) 6 ripes bananas

150g freshly grated white coconut shreds

¼ tsp salt

 Method

 1) Boil b) and after all the sugar had dissolved, discard the pandan leaves

2) Mix ingredient a) and pour into 1). Stir well. If you want coloured rolls, divide these into portions and colour each portion with the colourings . I didn’t use any colours (-i.e. tapioca natural colour -yellowish)

3) Pour the different colured mixtures into individual tins, steam the mixture for ~ 10 minutes over high heat. Let it cool.( important to let it cool before the next step, as while it’s hot, it’s very difficult to handle ( sticking to the tins and breaking up etc) and once it cool down, you can ‘peel’ it off the tins easily.)

4) Place 2 bananas lengthwise and roll it up like swiss rolls. Coat it with coconut shreds ( added with some salt). Slice it before serving.

Notes :

1. Please ensure that for each steamed layer, it’s not too thick, the height/thickness of the mixture should be about 1-1.5cm when you pour it into a pan for steaming, any thicker and you might have a problem ‘rolling’ up the bananas. I halved the portion above and used a square tin which is about 9″ x 9″
2. If you want green rolls, you can use some juice from the pandan leaves ( maybe from 5-6 leaves)  and add to a)

 The verdict :-

Not too difficult to make, and the results looks pretty nice -with  the coconut shreds and all and taste pretty good too.