busy sunday afternoon

sop, got up at noon, washed up and started preparing food.

first, they made dough for mochi. corn starch, glutinous rice flour with freshly boiled water. stirred until the mixture became gooey, before putting it into the steamer.

steamed diced yam with some sugar till tender, before letting him mash up the whole bowl of it.

by now, the mochi dough was already cooked. she started to mould mochi while filling them with the yam paste. meanwhile, he heated some glutinous rice flour in the wok till brown as per her instructions. turned off the flame and left the stuff in the wok for her and prepared to make the dough for xiao long bao.

yam-filled mochi after coating with the cooked glutinous rice flour. you can probably barely see it, but some of them have been molded in the shape of a heart.


he proceeded to mix all-purpose flour with the hot water, and added flour until the dough was no longer sticky to the touch. he squeezed it, punched it, smashed it, pulled it, kneaded it, threw it into the air, all just to condition it for the next stage. next, he rolled the dough into an elongated shape and cut out seemingly equal pieces. sprinkled flour on the surface before flattening each piece into not-as-round-as-he-would-like shapes. by this time, the usual marinated mince pork was ready to be used. she complained about the tall and skinny peacock-long-baos that he made, and insisted that they were supposed to be short and fat. did it her way anyway, was getting hungry. made little folds on the skirt of the wrap, and this was when he commented that xiao long bao if white in color, should have been made with rice flour instead of wheat flour. unknown which is right or wrong at this moment. to be revisited.

here they are, big long baos.


couldn't find any vinegar, so she used soy sauce, garlic and green onions as dip. nice, but maybe he rolled the skin a little too thick. hahahaha.


being short of a staple, they agreed that he would cook congee again. today he used 2 cups of rice, 12 cups of water, 2 cubes of chicken essence and made small balls of meat from the mince pork, such that the people would get more chances to eat them. unfortunately, the mom again happened to scoop away half of the meatballs. well...let's just enjoy the picture.


had to wash up a real mess of dishes, giving him a backache. but no, no time for any rest yet, there still was leftover mashed yam in the refrigerator! after confirming that she would give up that bowl of yam, he heated the wok with 3 tablespoons of oil and scooped in the clump of yam mash. once fragrant, 50 grams of sugar and 50cc of water were added in an attempt to remake what you eat at chinese banquets. turned up the heat and stirred vigorously until it became gooey and smooth. the recipe he referred to online said to steam it for another 30 minutes. however, he decided to skip it since he was already feeling tired and a taste test seemed ok.

asked for volunteers and there were only 3, wife, littlest brother and himself. the comments were that it was too sweet, and wife requested for a cold one. he made them all eat it up the way it was anyhow. picture of the completed yam mash "orh nee".


oil and flour all over the body, time for a shower and perhaps an early night.

cheesy fried chicken, stir-fried bittergourd and congee

woke up at noon after a tiring day at the beach the day before. had some braised duck with plain porridge before proceeding to affirm the online recipes to start working on dinner.

she was doing some window-shopping online, so he went ahead to mix some all purpose flour with one egg, chopped green onions and salt in a bowl.

when she finally came into the kitchen, she sliced the chicken breast open to make one large piece of meat. dusted some pepper, salt, rice wine, wrapped cheese within, threw the batter on and put it into the refrigerator for 20 minutes. she then ordered him to thinly slice the bitter gourd, since it seemed he liked to chop things up. sliced it all up like a sushi master (maybe not), smashed and peeled some garlic, chopped some chilli padi and ginger.

next, he proceeded to shallow-fry the now-ready-chicken in the wok. around 6 (maybe more) sinful tablespoons of oil on medium heat before golden-browning each side. once done, he placed the chicken onto a plate with paper kitchen towels to absorb the excess oil.

cheesy fried chicken - cut it up with kitchen scissors after it had cooled a little. looks a wee bit like roti john, huh? chicken tasted tender even though it hadn't been bashed up, amazing.


he washed up the wok for the next dish, and by this time, she had finished marinating the minced pork with salt, soy sauce and rice wine. heated 6 teaspoons of oil and started frying the ginger, garlic and chilli till he choked. that was the signal to cook the minced pork. the bittergourd was added only when most of the meat had turned opaque. kept on medium heat and continued with frequent stirs until the bittergourd became tender.

stir-fried bittergourd with minced pork - a little too salty, she had soaked the bittergourd with too much salt and misinformed him to add salt when stir-frying! probably would have tasted fine with plain porridge...alas....


he decided he wanted to cook congee with his newly acquired chicken essence cubes. got a cup of rice, 6 cups of water, 2 cubes of chicken essence and put them to cook in the electric cooker. next was to marinate the remaining mince pork with salt, soy sauce and rice white (nothing new here). wife said to add a teaspoon of flour so that the meat would stick together better for him to make meatballs. mixed well and used a teaspoon to shape some meat before putting them to cook in the congee. had to add another 2 cups of water since it was already drying up, making the ratio of rice to water 1:8.

minced pork congee in chicken soup base. littlest brother commented that the congee looked yellow, but he attributed it to the soup stock. while writing this post, it dawned upon him that he had forgotten to wash the rice. oops. luckily google yielded little negative comments.