Chwee Kueh (Steamed Rice Cake 水粿）

One of the popular breakfast in Singapore is...Chwee Kueh. It is a steamed rice cake which topped with preserved radish, usually it go with chili sauce. I bought my small cup shape containers from Singapore and today it is just right to put them into good use. I have a few recipes with me on how to make chwee kueh, eventually I landed on Anncoo Journal recipe. Thanks Ann for sharing her recipe and the problem she encountered, I changed the water content a bit and added wheat starch, it makes my first chwee kueh a successful one. The texture of the chwee kueh is soft and smooth! I think I'm lucky!

Hokkian Style Deep Fried Nian Gao

I bought a medium size Nian Gao for AUD 5 from Glen Waverley before CNY and leave it on the shelves until white fungus crawled all over it. Then I bought another one from Box Hill and this time I leave it in the fridge to prevent same thing happen to the Nian Gao.

I cut the Nian Gao into small sliced and keep half to prepare with another recipe. For this post, I'm using my previous recipe which is from my mother. The crispy fried Nian Gao, and the sticky gooey filling with the taste of sweet potato, always make me think of home.

Recipe from Ah Tze's kitchen play

Ingredients:

1 medium size Nian Gao, sliced into thin slices.  

50g plain flour

a pinch of salt

100 ml water, or lesser

sweet potatoes, sliced into thin slices.

oil for deep frying

Steps:

1. Heat oil in wok.

2. Mix the flour and salt, add water and stir into a smooth sticky batter. (gradually add water)

3. Sandwich nian gao into two pieces of sweet potato, dip into the batter and fry over the medium heat until golden brown. (Remember not in high heat to prevent the nian gao from burning and the sweet potato undercook) 

4. Test the softness of sweet potato with a chopstick, it should be able to prick through the sweet potato easily. Drain on kitchen paper before serving.

Clitoria Flower Glutinous Rice Cake (Pulut Tai Tai 3)

Do you remember that I bought the blue pea flower or clitoria flower from my trip to Malacca sometime in Nov 2011? yes... it comes with me too ... hehehe! I place the dry flowers in zipper bag and keep it in the freezer, this is the way to let it stay in good condition for long period :) 

I'm glad that I have these flowers with me or else it will be very difficult for me to get it here. This is the third time I make the glutinous rice cake and I'm using my previous recipe which is original from My Kitchen Snippets. 

600g glutinous rice, wash and soak overnight

350ml coconut milk (I used 200ml)

150ml warm water

4 pandan leaves 

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp sugar

10 blue pea flowers, soak in warm water, crush it to extract the blue colouring

Steps:

1. Wash rice and divide it into two equal portion. Soak one part in water and another part in the blue pea flowers juice. Leave them overnight. Soak the rice overnight will help in steaming process.

2. Drain both the rice, put them side by side on steaming tray. Warm the coconut milk, sugar and salt in the microwave for 30 seconds. Stir and mix well.

3. Drizzle in about half of the coconut milk into the rice. Arrange the pandan leaves on top of the rice and steam the rice over rapid boiling water for 10 mins.

4. Remove the steaming tray, put the pandan leaves aside, mix both rice together and drizzle the balance of the coconut milk, put pandan leaves back on top of the rice again and continue to steam for another 15 mins or until the rice is done.

5. Remove the steaming tray, discard pandan leaves, even out the rice with a spoon and using a banana leaf or aluminum foil press down the rice until well compact.

6. If possible put something heavy to weigh down the rice. Leave it cool.

7. Slice the rice cakes and serve it with coconut jam.