Japanese Cotton Cheesecake

I am the type person who do not really like cheesecake. However, I am amazed with this fluffy and soft cheesecake. The taste is mild and this cheesecake is not as dense as the traditional cheesecake and yet the cheese flavour taste so good when it melts in your mouth. I was first get to know about this cheesecake 6 months ago and I have no time to explore it until these few days when it is nearer to X'mas since this is holiday season and no activities for kids as well.

The secret of baking this cake is the egg white. You must have a stiff white egg in order to get a fluffy soft cheesecake. You may refer to this link on "How to beat egg white."

Initially I thought using more egg white will help the texture but it turns out very wet and soggy. Thus, in this recipe I have reduced the egg quantity in order to improve the cake texture.

Another thing to take note is the batter. It is necessary to sieve the batter in order to remove all the big lumps. This will make your cheesecake more perfect.

Ingredients
40g Cake flour
15g Cornstarch
40g Butter
125g Cream Cheese
80ml milk
3 medium egg yolks
75g sugar
2tbsp lemon juice
3 medium egg white


1. Preheat oven to 150'C

2. In a bowl, combine milk, butter and cream cheese together. Heat and melt them using a double boiler method. Slowly whisk them until a smooth mixture is formed. Let it cool down.

3. Sieve both cake flour and cornstarch together and put aside.

4. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks with 40g of sugar until pale yellow. Slowly blend in the milk cheese mixture from step (2) and then add in lemon juice.

5. After that, slowly mix in flour into the mixture (4) until the mixture is homogeneous.

6. If there is large lumps, sieve the mixture (5).

7. In a clean bowl, whisk egg white with sugar until a stiff white egg is formed. Please refer to "How to whip egg white".

8. After obtaining a stiff egg, fold in the egg white slowly into the cheese mixture (5). Please refer to "How to fold in egg white".

9. Pour the batter into a wrapped square tin or spring foam. Bake the cake in a boiled water pan. (Similar method as you bake cheesecake).

10.Bake the cake at 150'C for 1hour and 20 minutes. You may test the cake readiness using the toothpick method.

11. Once it is ready, off the oven and let the cake continue to sit inside the oven with the door ajar for another 5-10 minutes. A sudden change in the environment temperature will cause the cake to shrink.

12. Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool down fully.

13. Chill the cake in the fridge for overnight and ready to serve.

Sambal Kangkung

Kangkung also known as water spinach is a vegetable that is usually found throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. It is easily grown in front of our house compound and due to this, it is a common dish in our daily life.

There are a lot of methods of cooking this dish but the most common is stir fry this vegetable with chili and belacan. Since the stem is hollow, water spinach can remain its crunchiness after cooking. This dish is really nice especially when it is served with hot rice.

To make the chili paste, it is important to use more onion than garlic. The paste will taste better if there is more onion in the paste, If you prefer more spicy, you may increase the number of chili in this recipe. In order to get a fine paste, add in some oil in the blender and blend. Using oil is better than water as the paste will eventually fry in the oil till fragrant.

When frying the chili paste, low heat is used in order to avoid any burning on the chili paste. A chili paste is ready when you see oil flow out from the paste.

Ingredients 
1 clove of garlic
6 pcs of shallots
3 chilies
belacan to taste
3 tbsp or sufficient oil to stir fry chili paste
300 g of water spinach, cut into 3 inches long
100 g prawn, remove shell and devein

1. Blend garlic, shallots, chilies and belacan together. You may add in some oil (2 tbsp) so that it is easier to blend into fine chili paste.

2. Pour the blend chili paste onto a pan. Heat up the pan. If there is not enough oil, add in another 1 tbsp into the paste. With low heat, stir fry the chili paste until oil is flowing out from the paste.

3. Add in prawn and stir-fry for a minute. Turn the fire into high heat. Then, add in water spinach and stir-fry for another 30-60 second or until the water spinach is cooked.

Black Bean and Spareribs Soup

Black bean has a lot of benefit from TCM point of view. It is good for the spleen and kidney while reducing blood fat level. Due to its benefit, this soup nourishes the Yin by regulating blood chemistry, benefit the kidneys and darkens hair. Thus, this soup is good to be taken during Summer.

It is very easy to boil make a delicious Chinese Soup. You should use high heat to bring the soup to boil at the very beginning. After boiling for about 30 minutes, you may turn to low heat and simmer the soup for the specified time. Soups made with such varied heat usually taste milder and they have better medicinal effects.

Make sure you serve soups before meals, or even better, before dinners. As soups are like solutions of various nutrients, it's best to serve them before meals on an empty stomach. The absorption in the digestive tract is the most efficient at that time.

Ingredients
300 g black beans
20 pieces of red dates, soak and clean with water
600 g spareribs
1 dried octopus (about 38 g)
salt to taste

1. Rinse spareribs. Scald it in boiling water for 3 minutes. Remove and set aside.

2. Rinse the remaining ingredients. Soak black beans and octopus separately in warm water for 30 minutes.

3. Boil 2 liter of water in a pot. Upon boiling, add in black beans, spare ribs and dried octopus in the pot.

4. Use high heat for 30 minutes and reduce to low heat and cook for 1 1/2 hours.

5. Finally, add in red dates and continue to cook for another 30 minutes.

6. Taste with salt before serve.

Braised Sea Cucumber with Pork Ribs

It is Chinese New Year and this year, it is a meaning year for me as I have a chance to cook for my family as well as my husband's family. Besides steamboat, I also prepared Sarawak Laksa for my family. I was trying something new and light so that we are not always stuffed with food!

Since my dad is quite a 'tradition' person, my mom did make his favorite dish, braised sea cucumber with pork knuckle. As for myself who does not really like knuckle, I modify the recipe by replacing the knuckle with pork ribs. The results turns out really good especially if you are a health conscious person as pork ribs do not give as much fat as knuckle.

Besides the ribs, I also add in some dry scallops to bring up the taste of this dish. Scallops need to wash and soak overnight. Keep the water so that you can use it to braise the ribs. Mushrooms also need to soak over night. You may soak the fish maw until they are soft before braising them with sea cucumber. Since I am a lazy person, I did not soak the fish maw. Instead, I braise directly with the pork ribs. I find out the taste of the fish maw is better if I braise directly with pork ribs as the fish maw tends to absorb the sauce of the gravy.

The only step that you need to take note is the time to put in sea cucumber. It is to make sure that the ribs are soft before adding in the sea cucumber. Sea cucumber takes shorter time to braise, normally I will take another 30 minutes. It is all depending on your taste buds.

Last but not least is the ginger. I will normally marinate the ribs, mushroom and sea cucumber with some ginger juice for around 30 minutes before cooking.

Ingredients

300g pork ribs

600g of sea cucmber

2 cloves of garlic ( do not mince)

10 pieces of mushrooms, soak overnight

3 pieces of dry scallops, wash and soak overnight. Keep the water

3 pieces of fish maw

Black moss, soaks with water

4 tbsp of ginger juice

1 carrot, cut into slices

Light soya sauce to taste

Salt to taste

2 tbsp cooking oil

Water

1. Marinate the pork ribs, mushroom and sea cucumber with 1 tbsp of ginger juice respectively for 30 minutes.

2. Heat up 1 tbsp cooking oil, stir fry mushroom and add in some salt to taste. Stir fry for a minute and set aside.

3. Using the same pan, heat up 1 tbsp oil. Add in garlic (with skin) and fry till fragrant.

4. Add in ribs and stir fry till the outer layer of ribs is cooked. Add in water just to cover the ribs for braising. 

5. When the water is boiling, add in dry scallops and its water. Add in also fish maw and mushroom. Keep stirring the fish maw until the fish maw is soft and soak into the gravy. Let them braised until the ribs is soft. It normally takes around 30-45 minutes depending on the size of the ribs. You may add in some water if the water dries up.

6. When the ribs is soft, add in sea cucumber and carrot. Continue braise for another 15-30 minutes until you get the desire softness for the sea cucumber. 

7. Finally, add in the black moss. Wait for another 1 minute before taste with soya sauce and turn off fire. 

NOTE: You may add in oyster sauce in order to get stronger flavor. 

Caramel Custard

I was 10 years old when it was my first time tasting this custard in an old shop near my hometown, Ipoh. The egg was so smooth and silky. During that time, we were not afford to have one order per person, so three siblings was sharing an order. You can imagine how precious that custard to us. We ate the

custard very slowly so that we could really taste the flavor of the custard. I could still recall that we drank every single drop of juice of the custard. My sister even licked the plate!

I was happy that I am able to taste the same custard during my trip last year. Although it is a bit too sweet for me now, it recalls a lot if my childhood memory. Even my kids love it so much.

In order to give a memorable experience for my kids, I am learning to make so that my kids will enjoy the similar food that I had during my childhood... Let the good memory flows to the next generation.

Ingredients

Caramel 

5 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp water


Custard

3 medium eggs

500ml milk

80g sugar

1tsp vanilla essence


1. To make the caramel, mix the sugar and water together. Heat with low heat until the sugar is melted and caramelized. Put a tbsp of the caramel into a bowl. For this recipe it can coat around 4 bowls. Let it set and cool down.

2. Heat up water and get ready for steaming the custard.


3. Mix all the custard ingredient together. Sieve the egg mixture to remove the bubble and any residue. Transfer the eggs mixture into 4 bowls that has coated with caramel.


4. Steam for 7-8 minutes using low heat. If the heat is too big, you may leave around 1 cm gap between the cover and pot (I am using chopstick to hold the cover). This is to ensure that the egg is not overcooked due to the high heat while maintaining a smooth egg surface.


5. Off the heat and let the custard to sit in the steam for another 5 minutes.


6. Remove the bowls from the pot and let them cool down before putting them into the fridge. Refrigerated for at least 5-6 hours before serving.

                                        

Taiwan Braised Pork Rice 'Lu Rou Fan' (滷肉飯)

This is a street food that you can easily find in Taiwan street. This is one of my kids' favourite due to the sweetness of the gravy. The preparation of this dish is quite easy but the cooking time is a bit longer. It needs at least one and a half hour to braise until the meat it soft. In order to make sure that the fat does not collapse during cooking, I have used this practice: 15 min boiling and then, 15 min off fire. Repeat this steps until the meat is soft and tender. I do understand that this step is a bit tedious, but it is worth when you see a perfect dish is served.

Another secret of this dish is to have wine in this dish. The presence of rice wine will bring back all the fragrant of the spices. On top of that, with the rice wine being added during cooking, this will reduce the cooking time of the meat.

As for sugar, it is important to use rock sugar as this sugar will give a different sweetness as compare with normal granulate sugar. It may due to the different ingredient and processes to make these sugar.

Although this dish takes quite long to cook, but the effort is worthwhile especially when you see how much your family love this dish.

Happy Cooking!

Ingredients

400g pork belly

4 cm of cinnamon

5 pieces of cloves
2 pieces of star anise
4 cloves of garlic
4 shallots
Light soya sauce to taste
Dark soya sauce for the color (optional)
100ml Chinese rice wine
Rock sugar to taste
Water to cover the meat (around 250ml)

1. Mince the garlic and onion in small pieces.
2. Cut the pork belly into 1cmx1cm size.
3. Heat up the wok and stir fry the pork belly. Do not put in any oil. Let the oil or juice from the meat flow out. You may adjust the fire accordingly if the fire is too high.
4. When the outer layer of the meat is cooked, put in rock sugar and cook till the rock sugar melts and wrap the meat. This is important is the caramel will enhance the color and taste of the meat.
5. Add in minced garlic and onion. Stir fry for around 2 minutes.
6. Then, add in light soya sauce, dark soya sauce and 500ml of rice wine. Stir fry around 1 minute before adding in all the cloves, star anise and cinnamon.
7. Add in sufficient water to cover the meat and braise for 1.30 hour or until the meat is tender. Try not to add water in between unless the water dries up.
8. Once the meat is tender add in the entire wine and cook for 2 minute.
9. You may serve with hot rice.

How to fold in egg white

Besides having a stable stiff egg white, folding process of the stiff egg white into the cake batter is an important step. Properly folding egg whites into your batter makes your recipe light and fluffy and so, care must be used to keep from over mixing the fluffy character of the egg whites away.

It takes time to understand and familiar with the folding process. Do not worry, practice makes perfect. I ever failed this step and spoiled my whole cake. Hopefully the following steps and attached video can help you to master the folding process.

Put about 1/3 of the whipped egg white into the batter. Using a large spatula, cut a path down the middle of the mixture with the edge of the spatula. Then gently turn half the mixture over onto the other half. Continue cutting down the middle and turning a portion over. Do not stir. The purpose of folding is to retain the air you have beaten into the whites. Be careful to only work the batter enough to incorporate the whites, and never use an electric mixer for this step. Repeat the same steps for the entire of the whipped egg white.

Tips:

Do not add the egg whites until you are ready to do the folding process.

Make sure all other ingredients are thoroughly mixed before adding the egg whites.