Steamed fish fillets, surimi with glass noodles

Happy Lunar New Year!
I have this carp fillets sitting in the freezer and since I'm unfamiliar with this fish, I was wondering what to cook with it. My thought process was, ok nothing too complicated like frying and too much effort since I'm not sure ..hahaa. So, let's just steam it in garlic, soy, shaosing wine and oil. Simple enough

Steamed carp fish fillets , surimi with glass noodles
Inspired by Thai steamed prawns like this one by The Woks of Life

Ingredients
350gm fish fillets
100gm glass noodles, soaked in warm water for 10-15 mins. until softened
Surimi sticks, imitation crab meat

seasoning
salt, to taste
2 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
oil for sauté
soy sauce, to taste
sugar, to taste
water, not too much
a dash of shaoxing wine (I've substitute with white wine)

Garnishing
Spring onions, green only
Coriander / Parsley leaves

Preparations:-
1) First prep. glass noodles as mentioned above. Set aside. You can do this in advance and keep in the fridge until you need it.
2) Start by heating water in your steamer. Meanwhile, on a plate, big enough for steamer. Lay the soaked glass noodles evenly. Then place the fish fillets/surimi sticks on top. Sprinkle salt over the fish, to taste
3) In a jar, mix together soy sauce, sugar, water and dash of shaoxing wine. Pour over the fish and glass noodles.
4) Sauté finely chopped garlic in oil, don't burn it.When ready pour all over fish and glass noodles.
5) When water is boiling in steamer, place the fish platter into steamer and steam for 10 mins. After 10 mins. check for doneness. If not continue to steam for another 5 and check again until it is ready.
6) Serve immediately garnished with spring onions and coriander/parsley.

Homemade Yee Sang / Yusheng

To understand what this is all about , please visit wiki

Homemade Yee Sang / Yusheng

Ingredients
carrots, julienned
daikon, julienned (I've used local white radish)
cucumber, julienned
pomelo segments then into pieces (I've substitute with grapefruits) 
+ and other crispy vegetables to your liking
raw salmon (I've used smoked)
friend wonton skin (I've homemade based on this recipe by kitchen simplicity  )

Garnish
pinch of 5-spice powder
pince of white pepper


pickled Japanese ginger (I've made my own by shred ginger finely+water+brown sugar+salt+vinegar)

Salad dressing
Plum sauce (I've used apricot jam)
sesame oil
1 lime juice
pickling juice from ginger

Methods :-
1) Prep. the ingredients the vegetables and fruit. Put the prepped veg., pomelo, fried wonton skin and salmon in a bowl or arrange nicely on a plate. Sprinkle on the seasoning. Mix all the salad dressing ingredients together. Drizzle salad dressing all over the bowl/plate. Check seasoning, adjust if need to. Mix well and serve.

Baked spring rolls

On Chinese New Year, my family would make spring rolls; a favourite of mine because I love fried foods. Chinese spring rolls as far as my knowledge goes, is deep fried. The spring roll wrappers could be bought at the wet market or the frozen section of the super/hyper market. These wrappers are moist and must be kept moist until ready to use unlike the dry rice wrappers for the Vietnamese spring rolls.

For this occasion, since the Chinese spring roll wrappers are not available to me, I've used the Vietnamese dried type. Filling for spring rolls for me growing up only consisted of carrots,jicama, dried shrimp stir fried. I've noticed many add mince meat but. that is completely up to you. Just make sure the fillings are not too wet.

Once stir fried vegetable and meat have been cooled. Pre-heat oven at 180°c.
Soak Vietnamese spring roll wrapper one wrapper at a time in cold water, lay flat and fill it up with filling. wrap. brush with cooking oil. place on baking tray with parchment paper. Repeat process until fillings is finish. Once wrapping done, sprinkle sesame seeds on top of each spring roll. Place in oven and bake for 15 mins. check if the skin is crispy. if it is, then it is done. Otherwise, keep baking until skin is crisp.

serve hot with any Asian dipping sauce of your choice.

Homemade Peanut Sauce

By now, many have figured out the short cut in making peanut sauce. It's really not hard especially if you have peanut butter in your pantry. However, in my case, peanut butter is not regularly featured on my grocery list as I'm the only one who eats it and that's dangerous! :D
One day a dish really needed this sauce to make it complete, so I thought why not give it a go with  toasted peanuts in packet that I've got on hand. The recipe still needs tweaking but the result was very promising !

Homemade Peanut dipping sauce

Ingredients (estimate only)
Peanuts, toasted, it depend on how "peanutty" you want it
oil for cooking
onion, minced
dried red chillies, to taste
anchovy paste, to taste
salt and sugar, to taste
water, as needed

Method
1) Heat oil in sauce pan. Sauté minced onion until translucent. Add in the anchovy paste, dried chillies and peanuts. Stir it a bit. add water , not too much. you can adjust later. cook until peanuts are blendable.
2) Remove from sauce pan and blend to the preferred texture (smooth or chunky) , pour in back to pan . At this point, season with salt and sugar, also adjust water, if needed.
3) Serve room temperature or hot.

Hungarian Steamed Buns { Gőzgombóc }

Going forward, I'll switch to this Hungarian steamed buns recipe when making Chinese steamed buns. Unlike my previous chinese recipes, this produced buns which were so light and fluffy! It has to be said that they are best eaten hot out of the steamer. If you do have left over, then re-steam for short few minutes to soften it again.

Gőzgombóc

serves : 6 pcs.

You must go to the source for a detailed pictorial at Aprosef

Ingredients :-

Dumpling

250gm Flour

15gm yeast

20gm sugar

1 gm salt

1/2 egg yolk

1/2 egg (size “m”)

125ml Milk (2.8%)

10gm butter

1 lemon zest

Stuffing

60gm plum jam, thick divided into 6

To serve with

egg custard

ground poppy seeds

Preparation :-

1. Mix all ingredients for dumplings, knead until a smooth round shape. Place shaped dough in a greased bowl. Grease also the top of dough. Coer with cling film. Let it rest at warm place for 60 mins. Or until size doubled.
2. Once dough doubled in size, roll out and divide into 6 smaller balls. Use you hand flatten it a bit and wrapped in the portioned jam. Take note the jam should be stuffed in centre to avoid leakage. Close dough by pinching it. Shape into nice round.
3. Set aside the stuffed dough. Cover with cling film. Meanwhile set the steamer and when water is boiling. Steam dough on high heat for 15 mins.
4. Serve with custard and sprinkle with ground poppy seeds.