Friday's Special #1: Pumpkin pilaf with seafood grill

Made this the same day as the egg tarts.  So, I was practically in the kitchen the whole day.  Not complaining really.  I find it therapeutic actually, to be able to potter around the kitchen doing something I enjoy.  But what is also important is the end result of all these bustling: delicious and appetizing looking food that my family and I can enjoy.  Never mind the heat that cooking always generate.  I know I am being fickle minded here, what with all the complaining about being impatient with sweating over an exceedingly enthusiastic wok in the last two posts.  But this is the sort of love-hate relationship with cooking I always have.  On good days, cooking generates a warm cozy feeling, especially when the kids and the hubby shower me with "Mummy!  Yummy!"  On bad ones, this activity is relegated to one of those pesky tasks that I have to perform everyday, just worse than the rest because it made me smell like a hawker center.  I have nothing against hawker centers.  It is just how I associate the smell.  On this particular day, the heat took on constructive symbolism.  I saw it as a way of prepping the body (read as working off some fats) before I pile on more fats from eating ^_^  And I know too that I am being contradictory.  Why am I alternating between a therapeutic pottering and seemingly hassled bustling?  That's just how I am.  All my kitchen activities always started with a relaxed and rhythmic potter but will inevitably accelerate unknowingly into a whirl-wind bustle.  But at least, I take pride in knowing that efficiency is achieved.  

Don't be taken in by the picture.  It is not a one dish meal.  In fact, this is an assembly of three different dishes.  The first is of course pumpkin pilaf.  This recipe has been lying around on my study desk for ages!  Why didn't I make this earlier?  It's the spices involved.  I can't imagine having bits and pieces of spices in every morsel of rice I would be putting into my mouth.  I thought it would taste horrible if I were to bite into one.  No, I've never eaten biryani before.  Sad to say, I am not that adventurous when it comes to eating out.  I'll usually go for those familiar few like dried teochew fishball meepok, kuay tiao soup, fish soup and the most exotic that I would bother to venture, satay beehoon.  Yes, I am that boring.  Anyway, digress, digress.  

Back to the pilaf.  So what triggered the interest to make this?  I have a bottle of mixed spice hanging around in my pantry waiting to be used up as soon as possible.  I can't remember when and why I bought that bottle of mixed spice.  Perhaps it was to make meatballs that will be paired with store bought Napoletana sauce and spaghetti, or was it for that spice and honey cake recipe that I wanted to try?  Whatever it was, it's got to be used, and the sooner, the better.  The spices in the pilaf recipe can be found in my bottle of mixed spice.  That saved me the trouble of gathering and assembling the odds and ends of flavoring.  And I reckoned if I love the taste of five-spice powder in steamed yam cakes, ground mixed spice in pilaf should be acceptable to my tongue.  


Pumpkin pilaf
(Adapted from a recipe published in a magazine titled Young Families, can't remember which issue)
* The original recipe has 600g diced boneless chicken meat.  Since I paired this pilaf with seafood grill, I omitted the meat totally.  The spice used in the original recipe are 3 crushed cardamon pods, 3 cloves, 2 tsp cumin, ½ tsp cinnamon powder.  I replaced all these with 1 tsp of mixed spice.

Ingredients
300g pumpkin, diced into small cubes
2 medium onions, diced (I used shallots, sliced)
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 tsp mixed spice
salt & pepper to taste
1 handful sliced almonds, toasted
1 handful raisins
small bunch of coriander, for garnish
1.5 cups rice, washed and drained
300ml water
2 tbsp oil
Method
1. Heat about 2 tbsp of oil in wok and sauté garlic and shallots until fragrant.
2. Add the pumpkin and mixed spice and sauté for one minute.
3. Add the rice and sauté for another minute.
4. Add raisins, salt and pepper and toss to distribute raisins as evenly as possible.
5. Transfer rice mixture to rice cooker, pour in water and cook like normal rice.
6. Can be served hot, but would taste better if rested for about 1-2 hours.  
7. Sprinkle some toasted almond slices and coriander when serving.


Seafood grill
Recently I borrowed this book called "asianbarbecue" because it was filled with pictures of succulently grilled food that I can prepare using my stovetop grill pan!  About three years ago, I bought this stovetop grill pan, kind of on impulse, with some wondrous imagination that I could cook up some delicious grilled dishes.  Well, truth is, I never quite did.  As said, it was bought on impulse.  I was on a crossroad in my life at that time, deciding to quit and stay at home for the kids, or move on to another field.  And the act of consolation (perhaps it was more of an act of distraction) that I had done was to buy myself some cooking utensils.  Having found this book, the grill pan can finally see daylight and will no longer be shoved into a dark corner of my kitchen cabinet.
I had some scallops left over from a steamboat session I made for the family and my parents.  Naturally, I chose a recipe involving scallops.  As if by chance, there was one that says "Garlic and red peppers scallops" in which one of the ingredients is five-spice powder!  That would have resonance with the pumpkin pilaf.  The amount of scallops I had on hand was small, so I added 3 pieces of sutchi fillets.

Garlic and red peppers scallops (and some sutchi fillets too)
(adapted from "asianbarbecue" by Vicki Liley)

Method
1. Place scallops in a shallow nonmetallic dish.  Combine garlic, chili pepper, five spice powder, ginger, soy sauce and rice wine, pour over scallops.  Cover with cling wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
2. Drain scallops, reserve the marinating liquid to make into sauce.
3. Preheat stovetop grill pan, brush grill with oil.  Grill scallops until their translucent flesh turns white, 2-3 mins, turning during cooking.  Remove from grill.
4. Place the reserved marinade into a saucepan, add the water and bring to a boil.  Allow to boil for 1 minute.
5. To serve, drizzle sauce over scallop.
** Sutchi cooks pretty quickly, so about 5 minutes on each side will be sufficient.  Method of cooking is the same as scallops.


Quick broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage stir-fry
This vegetable side dish is almost a no-brainer.  Basically, I had some broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage left over from previous dishes.  They are not quite enough to make up a dish each on their own, so all of them are thus tossed together harmoniously to be make up our fibrous intake for the night's dinner.
Cut out the cauliflower and broccoli florets, and tear up the cabbage into bite size.  Blanch the vegetables in some salted water for about 1 minute and strain.  In a wok, heat up 1 tbsp of oil and quickly stir-fry the blanched vegetables for about 1 minute, this will retain the color and crunch.  Lightly season with salt and pepper.


When serving, simply assemble all three dishes together onto a large plate.  Drizzle the sauce over the seafood grill, loosely sprinkle toasted almonds slices over the pumpkin pilaf, casually color the pumpkin pilaf with some fresh green coriander and the only thing left to do would be tuck in hungrily!

My first egg tarts

The doting hubby has bought me quite a few types of egg tarts.  I remember eating egg tarts with crumbly and buttery crust that comes with a little crunchy texture, there are also those soft melt-in-the-mouth type of crust.  I am a fan of the former, so Han's peach tart is one of my favorite.  There is also a type of tart, in which the filling is made with soybean custard instead of the usual egg custard.  Whichever the type of filling is, as long as it has crumbly buttery crust with a crunch, I am in heaven!  And so, that prompted me to challenge myself at making egg tarts.

Actually, the thought of mixing and rolling out the dough for egg tart crust is quite daunting enough, not to mention the challenge of achieving a soft and smooth egg custard.  These two obstacles, basically the two main tasks of egg tart making, have had me brushing off the idea of making tarts every time it pop into my head.  But Aspiring Bakers #10: Easy as Pie (August 2011) gave me all the inspiration and encouragement to give it a shot.  I got hold of a recipe for the crust from Mimi Bakery House (but now I cannot find the exact location of this specific crust recipe, *sigh*, I will reproduce it here), which I imagined would give the kind of crust texture I love.  I have a recipe for the egg custard filling from a recipe book I bought recently.  So armed with both recipes, I put myself to the challenge.  

I would say mixing up the ingredients for the crust was not as scary as I imagined.  In fact, it was quite a breeze, since it is a method that I am very familiar with when I make my Mum's butter cookies.  Rolling out the crust dough and getting it nicely tucked into tart molds was a bit of a challenge, but I am glad I persevered.  By trial and error (because I am not sure how much dough is necessary for each mold), I pinched out a portion of dough, roll it into a ball and rolled to ball out flat between two sheets of cling film.  It is a technique, or trick as some may like to call it, that I saw in Rachel Allen's cooking program Bake!.  Jamie Oliver does that same thing too, but with two sheets of baking paper.  No messy floury work surface, minimum clean up, I like it!  Next, I rolled the dough into a disk about 2cm wider than the tart mold, placed it over the mold, coaxed the dough into every nook and cranny, and ran the roller over the top of the mold to get rid of excess dough.  Whew!  Well, that's the whole flow of how I got the dough into the molds.

I think the most interesting part was baking the egg custard filled tarts.  The recipe from the book I bought said to bake it for 25 minutes.  But around 20 minutes into the baking, my egg custard filling started to swell!  It rose like a proud chiffon cake and I was afraid that those filling might just burst inside the oven!  Come to think of it, I suppose chiffon cakes would be jealous of those smooth towering domes the egg custards had achieved.  But at that moment, in an egg tart, it was just pure horrific domes.  I took the whole batch of tarts out quickly, but noticed that those fillings not swelling were still a little wobbly.  Worried that the fillings might not be cooked through, I returned the whole tray back to the oven and let it bake its full 25 minutes.  Never mind the swelling, it is better than being half-cooked, or worse, uncooked!  For the whole of that last 5 minutes, I hovered by the oven anxiously, praying diligently.  "Please, don't let my egg fillings morph into chewy rubber!  Please!"

Upon cooling, the swelling subsided and no, the fillings were not rubbery, or chewy.  In fact, they turned out quite smooth, soft enough (but could be softer), eggy and sweet, complete with my favorite crumbly, buttery crunchy crust!

Two days later, I stumbled upon some information about swelling egg custard filling.  This swelling usually happens around 20 minutes into the baking.  So that means my egg custard is behaving normally.  Okay, I can take that.  When this happens, just open the oven door 2-3 inches and let the tart continue baking.  From Christine's Recipe, I learned that to check if the custard is fully cooked, just insert a toothpick into the filling.  If it remains standing, the filling is done!  This blog mentioned the swelling phenomenon too!  Knowing that my egg custard is normal calms me down tremendously.  I think I will not be too nervous about making egg tarts after this episode.  

The fillings of these tarts swelled and deflated, see how flat they look...

My first egg tarts

Sweet short crust pastry (from Mimi Bakery House)

(*reproducing ingredients and method as I cannot find exact location of the recipe.  My notes are highlighted in blue.)

Group A

200g plain flour

20g milk powder

110g butter

50g icing sugar

1/4 tsp salt

Group B

2 1/2 tbsp cold water

Method for making sweet short crust pastry

1. Mix ingredients A until crumbly.  This is done by rubbing cold cubed butter into the flour mixture with the forefinger and thumb.  Make sure the rubbing action is light and fast.  The final appearance should resemble coarse bread crumbs. 

2. Add in B, mix to form dough.  When I made this, 2 1/2 tbsp of cold water is enough to form dough.  

3. Wrap dough in cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

4. Flatten dough out and press into mold.  Refer to descriptions above on how to flatten dough out without messing up the work top and pressing the dough into tart mold.

5. Prick some holes in the dough before blind baking.

6. Blind bake at 190 degC for about 15 minutes or until light golden brown.

7. Leave to cool.

Egg custard filling (adapted from 怎么做必学热门粿与糕点)

4 eggs

100g sugar

120ml evaporated milk

60ml hot water

Method for egg custard filling 

1. Add sugar and hot water together and stir until sugar completely dissolves. Set aside to cool.

2. Beat the eggs and add in evaporated milk and sugar syrup from step 1.  Strain the egg mixture.  I strained it twice.

Assembling the tart for baking

- Once the blind baked tart crust has cooled, pour the egg mixture into the mold until 80% full.

- bake the egg tarts in pre-heated oven at 160 degC for about 25 minutes until egg custard solidifies.

Putting the swelling fillings aside, I had totally enjoyed making these egg tarts.  We had them for breakfast the next day, and the kids were all thumbs up for this bake.  The Tiny Man had two!  The hubby...is a little more expert at food tasting, just gave me an "Okay lah..."  Next time, I will make better tarts!

One pot dinner: Cabbage rice

Main ingredients for my cabbage rice

Cabbage rice is one of those single pot dishes that I would whisk up whenever I run out of ideas for dinner.  It has happened quite a few times since I started being a stay-at-home Mum.  This is simple to make and the ingredients are easily available.  What is more attractive about this is that there is no need to perspire over an exceedingly enthusiastic wok!  You get meat, vegetables and carbohydrate all in one pot.  What more could one ask for?

As with many dishes that I had made in the past for my family, this is one of my childhood food.  And it is also something my Mum would put together whenever she ran out of ideas of what to feed us with.  Old tricks are useful indeed!

I have tasted a few types of cabbage rice.  Some are paler in color, while others are more tanned with dark soy sauce.  The ingredients vary too: there is the addition of lap cheong (Chinese sausages), some came with long beans while others pile up on chicken pieces.  But the basic ingredients are always there: dried shrimps, snips of fatty pork belly, dried shiitake mushrooms and tons of cabbage.  Well, I guess I should specify that this is what I will find in my Mum's recipe.

Dad is a great fan of cabbage, and loves this dish fanatically.  Even though Mum would be using the whole cabbage (sometimes weighing about 1 kg), he would still complain that there is too little cabbage in the rice!  He still complain, but Mum has learned to ignore him.  I suppose she had learned to reason that we are having cabbage rice, not cabbage-in-a-pot with rice as an accompaniment!

Anyway, I love the smell and taste of this one pot dish, especially if left overnight and reheated.  I know it's probably bad for health, but you know, some things just taste better the next day.  Whenever I make this, I will have it ready a couple of hours before dinner.  Just so that the rice can be cooled to a comfortable temperature, saving the tongue from being burnt, letting the fragrance of the ingredients permeate every grain of rice.  I'd like to call this process "aging".  

Here's the recipe, my Mum's way, just the right amount for a family of four.

Cabbage Rice

Ingredients

1 ½ cups of rice

500ml water

handful of dried shrimps, soak in water for 5 minutes 
4 dried shiitake mushrooms softened
500g of cabbage, add more if someone complains there's too little
3 shallots, thinly sliced
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
150g roast pork belly, cut into bite size
1/2 tsp salt (I used coarse sea salt, so that will be 1 tsp)
dash of pepper


Method
1. Wash the rice and measure out the amount of water required to cook it.  For this recipe, the amount of water required for the 1 1/2 cups of rice is 500ml.  Drain out all the liquid and set both rice and liquid aside.
2. Soak the dried shrimps and shiitake mushrooms, do not discard away both soaking water.  Combine both soaking water and top up with plain water to make 500ml to cook the rice later.  Chop softened dried shrimp roughly and slice softened mushrooms to about 1cm thickness.
3. In a pre-heated wok, wok-fry the roast pork belly without oil.  This will "force" oil out from the roast pork and thus crisp up the skin.  The extracted oil can be used to fry the other ingredients later.  This will add a glossy shine especially to the cabbage.
4. Once the roast pork belly has "offered" all its oil and the skin crisped up adequately, dish them out and set aside.  In the same wok, add a little more oil if necessary.  Saute the shallots and garlic until golden brown.
5. Add the dried shrimps and saute for about 1 minute.  Add the mushrooms, continue to saute for a further minute and add the cabbage.
6. Stir-fry for about 2 minutes then add in the rice (drained of all liquid).  Continue to stir-fry for about 2-3 minutes.  Add in salt and a dash of pepper, mix to combine.
7.  Place the above mixture into rice cooker, pour in the liquid preparation from step 2, place some crispy roast pork belly on top and let the cooker do the rest of the cooking.  Save some crispy roast pork belly as garnish when serving.  
8.  Once the rice is cooked, fluff it out a little with a fork and let it stand in the cooker to cool.  


Of course there is nothing to stop one from serving it while it is piping hot.  But seriously, what is the point of getting the tongue burnt and missing out on a more developed flavor if left uninterrupted for 2-3 hours?

Crumbly skin mooncakes

I got hold of this recipe last year, some time in August perhaps.  It was from the magazine U weekly.  My father-in-law jokingly said that I should make these mooncakes for him; he had willingly offered to be my guinea pig.  I took about one year to get on with making these mooncakes for him.  

When I first made this mooncake, I was really gung-ho.  In what sense?  I tried to make my own yam paste filling.  Searched the net high and low for a "relatively easy and deliciously looking yam paste" recipe, and well, I could not find one.  I doubt I will ever find one that suited my laziness.  So I decided to substitute it with the Teochew "orh nee".  I was attracted by a relatively simple recipe and delicious looking pictures during one of my blog-hop session.  I jotted down the recipe.  Yes, your eyes are not playing a trick on you, I jotted down the recipe, manually.  Even in this age of technology when things are just one click away from screen to print, I prefer to jot it down on paper with pencil, not pen.  And if you have the Pad, I bet you don't even have to print...  In this sense, I am a bit of a traditional, manual maniac.  Anyway, the point is, in the excitement of getting the details down, I forgot to note down the blog.  I could really kick myself!  But what's done is done.  To cut the story short, my "orh nee" did not turn out as beautiful as it should have been, but it was edible.  
Using this "orh nee", I tested the recipe.  The skin was crumbly, not crispy as the original naming of the recipe indicated.  In fact, it sort of melted in the mouth.  The buttery taste was great and the milk powder gave the crust additional fragrance.  With trepidation, I brought some over to my father-in-law.  He said it tasted good, the crust is really soft and fragrant but what's the filling, he asked.  Hahaha, seems like I failed in the filling!
Not daunted, I made more of these mooncakes; part of the repertoire of mooncakes I made this year to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival.  

I had some leftover red bean paste from the mini snowskin mooncakes session in my other post, so why not use them up?  And of course, the red bean paste came from Phoon Huat.  I think I will give making my own filling a rest...

Original naming and recipe from U Weekly
Crispy yam paste mooncake


Filling 

320g yam paste (I used red bean paste)


Ingredient A
185g plain flour
20g milk powder
1/4 tsp salt                                                                                                   


Ingredient B  
125g cold butter, cut into                       

small cubes


Ingredient C
1 egg yolk


Ingredient D
1 egg yolk, beaten for glazing
white sesame seeds, adequate for sprinkling 

Method

1. Divide yam paste into 8 portions, each weighing 40g and roll into balls.  Reserve for use.  Personally, I think this is too big.  So I made balls of 20g each; that means you get more out of the same about of filling and skin.

2. Sieve ingredient A into a mixing bowl, rub ingredient B cold butter* into flour mixture till it resembles breadcrumbs.  Mix with ingredient C to form dough and divide into 8 portions.  As I have reduced the filling into 20g for each, I weigh out the same amount of dough for wrapping; that is 20g.

3. Wrap 1 portion of yam paste into 1 portion of dough.  One of my favorite blogger, Happy Home Baking, has a great way of wrapping fillings into dough, check it out!  Shape into balls, arrange on baking tray, brush with egg wash and sprinkle with white sesame.  When I made these, I didn’t have white sesame.  I used melon seeds instead, and I think they looked better than sesame seeds! 

4. Bake in preheated oven at 180degC for 15-20 minutes till golden brown. 

* I used Golden Churn butter, I use it for all recipes calling for butter!

No hassle dinner: Cabbage steam-fry and chunky vegetable soup

There were days when I totally do not embrace the idea of making dinner over a wok with fantastic "wok hei", which I know will have me engulfed in oily smoke, but I know is a necessary evil to produce dishes jumping with life.  It was one of such days that I came up with these two dishes, thanks to my unwillingness to sweat over some overly heated wok.

You must be wondering why is it called cabbage steam-fry and not stir-fry.  Well, read on and you'll see why.
For the chunky vegetable soup, I simply dump all my ingredients, in different timing of course, into the slow cooker and let the pot simmer on high for the next 3 hours. 


Chunky vegetables soup

 

For the stock

2 chicken breast bones

handful of dried scallops

1L water

100g mince pork

300g wild yam [淮山(huai shan) or 山药(shan yao)]

300g carrot

300g pumpkin

Marinate for mince pork

1 tbsp soy sauce

1/2 tsp corn starch or tapioca starch

dash of pepper

Method

1. Blanch chicken breast bones in hot water, this will produce a clear soup.  Throw away blanching water.

2. Place the blanched bones, scallops and water in a slow cooker and cook on HIGH for 1 hour.  This will be the stock.

3. Cut the wild yam, carrot and pumpkin into roughly 3 cm chunks.

4. Marinate the mince pork and set aside for use later.

5. After 1.5 hours, remove the chicken breast bones and add carrots and wild yams.  As pumpkin softens faster than carrots and yam, add this in at about 30 minutes before the full 3 hours is up.  Scoop the mince pork with a teaspoon into mouthful size and add into the soup at the same time with the pumpkin.  

6. Before switching off the cooker at 3 hours (or slightly longer if you prefer really mushy soft vegetables), add salt to taste.

Cabbage Steam-fry

  
What's steam-fry?  Well, it is literally as the term goes, steam and then fry ("toss about" is perhaps a more appropriate description) until the cabbage is softened and cooked.  That's just how I call this cooking method after I saw how it was done on one of my favorite program, "Morning Market" on NHK.

To me, this method is such a savior when I feel really impatient about being in a hot and oily-smokey kitchen.  I was pretty impressed and honestly awed at the prospect of escaping the smell when I saw how it was done!  See how lazy I can get!  This is what I did.

Ingredients

Half a head of cabbage, shredded into bite size by hand

2 sticks of eryngi mushrooms, sliced about 5mm thick

1½ tbsp shoyu (Japanese soy sauce)

1 tbsp mirin (or 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine + 1 tsp sugar)

pinch of pepper

1 tbsp oil + ½ tsp sesame oil

Method

1. In a non-stick fry pan, place oil mixture and eryngi mushrooms at the bottom of pan. 

2. Next, layer up the cabbage.  Cover and place the whole pan on the stove and heat up.  Let the pan heat and steam for about 3 minutes.

Looks something like this while steaming away...

3. Check that the cabbage has softened and mushrooms lightly browned.

4. Add seasoning,  toss about to coat evenly, dish out and serve.


It's that simple!  

Snowskin mooncakes, two attempts

This is an out-of tune, out-of-season post.  I know it, but I will still do it...

Among the many Chinese festivals we have, I had never quite enjoyed the mid-autumn festival.  To me, it was just a time to buy mooncakes and eat them.  As a child, I did not have the luxury of eating many types of mooncakes or have a lantern to light up.  I could only watch the other kids show off their beautiful lanterns of various shapes and sizes.  There was the occasional mooncakes from relatives and the most common one, the one I loved, was the traditional baked mooncakes with black bean paste.  Mother luck would be shining on me if it came with single egg yolk.  In those days, that was luxurious.  

This year however, apathy towards this festival changed.  I made some mooncakes, just to be immersed in the festivity.  The kids were thrilled when I told them that I would be making mooncakes.  Frankly speaking, snowskin mooncakes are not my favorite even though I had decided to try my hands on these.  But comparing baked mooncakes and snowskin ones, I guess the latter is slightly easier to make and honestly, prettier.  I had two recipes on hand and decided to try both.  

This was my first attempt using a recipe from Happy Home Baking. The method is simple with little fuss, something an amateur like me can recreate with little difficulty.  I enjoyed toasting the melon seeds and mixing them into the lotus paste.  I think I enjoyed shopping for the mold and the ingredients more than assembling the mooncake!  The skin hardened when refrigerated; I guess it was due to the high ratio of shortening to sugar and flour.  But it was gloriously soft and smooth once thawed for a few minutes.  Here are some pictures of what I did.

  

The skin is a bit on the thick side.  As I was rolling out the skin as flat as I could, it stuck all over the place; on the tabletop and the roller.  I am not one who can tolerate a mess, and these sticking dough on the tabletop and roller spells "mess" to me.  The frustration thermometer immediately registered increases, but well, the rolling and unsticking had to go on.  It wasn't until the last few pieces of dough left that I remembered a method I saw on Rachel Allens' Bake!  I placed a ball of dough between two sheets of cling film and get a rolling away!  It worked!  No more sticking!  

 

I used this rolling method on my second attempt using a recipe from She Bakes and She Cooks.  This method produced a more chewy texture that remained soft even straight out of the fridge.  However, this recipe required more preparation, what with the steaming of Hong Kong flour and mixing of hot dough, but  it was well worth the effort.  

 

 

All in all, these were enjoyable afternoons as I potter about between the kitchen and the dining area trying out these recipes.  My girl helped out too!  She is getting good at using the weighing machine as I got her to help with weighing out the dough.  This is definitely good maths practical lessons for her to learn more about weight!  For this second attempt, I made some plain white dough and pandan flavoured dough to create a simple rainbow effect.  Loved the result!

 

Ingredients line-up...

 

And the result...

Actually I submitted this last photo to Aspiring Bakers #11: Mid-Autumn Treats (September 2011).  I didn't have a blog at that time.  It was really satisfying to see my own photo among the other great submissions, but I felt pretty shy as everyone else have such beautiful pictures.  But it's okay, practice makes perfect isn't it?  I just hope that I won't be too lazy to practice, and I would be able to up the improvement ladder.  

 

 

Pulau Ubin, anyone?

On 24^th September, we made a trip to Pulau Ubin.  It was eons ago when I last step foot on the island.  It was much longer for my hubby.  Back then, it was not that crowded.  Well, not exactly that long ago, maybe 10 years back?  The feeling was really different compared to this time.  Perhaps the scene 10 years ago was a little more rustic.  The jetty at Changi Point was definitely more rustic back then.  Now it is more organized and user-friendly, I would say.  The basement where you take a bumboat is sheltered and well ventilate. 10 years ago, there was no shelter.  The bumboat queue is clearly indicated, that means you really do not have much of a chance of boarding a boat heading for another direction. 

That much said, Pulau Ubin, is pretty much the island I left it 10 years ago.  The public jetty where you alight, the welcome sign at the end of the jetty, and the bustling cluster of bicycle rental shops just a stone’s throw away from the jetty.

What inspired a trip to this island was the show Ubin Boy.  My girl and I used to watch it on our local channel "okto" everyday at 4.30pm.  It’s not showing now, but it was an interesting serial featuring how a city boy, used to all his modern day comforts, had to come to terms with life’s reality.  His Dad had lost his well-paying job and could not afford an overseas trip.  To make up for it, his Dad arranged for an “across the sea” trip to let him stay with his Ah Ma at Pulau Ubin.  Get the picture?  Haha!  The serial featured all the adventures he had there, adjusting to the dirty, smelly and sweaty countryside life and the slightly “sua gu” cousin.  We enjoyed the show really much, and my girl was excited about making the trip. 

When we arrived at the island, me, being one who could not leave myself to chances and tread about the island blindly, headed straight for the information kiosk for a map.  Unfortunately, this was what greeted me at the now empty information kiosk.

I almost freaked out!  I don’t want to roam about the island not knowing where I am heading.  Well, we knew we were heading for the Chek Jawa Wetlands but in which direction?!  Frankly speaking, on hindsight, I am quite happy that we didn’t have a map.  Otherwise we would be busy following the map and missing out on the sights along the route we took.  In fact, the island has proper and very visible signage along the way to Chek Jawa, so you really couldn’t get lost; of course provided silly things like roaming off the main road is averted. 

And so, our family of four made our way to Chek Jawa on foot.  Yes, on foot!  It was hot!  The sun was shining strongly and brightly!  Way too strong and bright, but we took it all.  As we walked further into the island and away from the jetty, images of kampong life in the 70s (as I knew it) appeared before us.  A narrow street flanked by shops on both sides leading to the kampong square. 

Kampong square

Narrow street flanked by shops on side

Sleepy doggies

Dogs lazing around soaking up the morning sun looked just so countryside; a scene my kids rarely get a sight of back in our city home.  In fact, I believe city dwellers like us would be shooing the kids far away lest these dogs offer some rabies-ridden bites!  

Following a route, which I later found is the “Tree Trial Route”, we moved along to Chek Jawa.  This route immediately offers plants that bear fruits common to our daily palate, but we never knew how the trees looked like.  The kids were excited to see the papaya, cocoa, jackfruit, banana and star fruit trees.  Here are shots of the fruits and trees that made us gawked!

Papaya

Cocoa

Jackfruit

Banana

Star fruit

The kids’ spirits were high as we chattered, “oh” and “wah” at all the sights our eyes laid on.  Just slightly after the star fruit tree, the road forked with the one on the left sloping upwards to somewhere.   I reckoned since we were on an adventure, then let’s venture to some “unknown”!  The kids loved the idea, and the hubby, averse to roads sloping upwards, resigned to his fate.  At the end of this short, gentle gradient was this blue house.  It was the house in which the main character in Ubin Boy stayed with his Ah Ma.  Unfortunately, it was locked and fenced away, so we couldn’t peek inside.  The sight of it reminded me of my childhood when I stayed with my grandfather in a kampong, in an old attap house.  This one has a zinc rooftop, a more modern type than my grandfather’s attap rooftop.

We descended the slope (the hubby is happier with descending) and the next house along our route is the Village Head’s house.  In the older days when Pulau Ubin still had residents, this was where, as the name goes, the Village Head used to live.  I read somewhere that the Village Head’s son is now living there, and selling drinks to visitors.  I guess that must be true as we saw this sign and an old gentleman (guess it’s the son) sitting at the front porch.  

There’s the family cat too, which woke up from its beauty sleep and walked over to check out four visitors staring at their house.

This kitty headed straight for the two kids, almost freaking them out!  It was quite a funny sight to see them standing frozen not knowing what to do, but at the same time, a pretty sad thing too as we get too obsessed with the concept of sanitary (I was at the side saying “don’t touch it, it’s dirty!”).  When I was a child, I would have rushed up to this fur ball and hugged it.  But then, I know my Mum would have hollered at me to “throw that ball of ticks away!” just as I had warned my children not have any physical contact with it.  Hehe…  Another set that appeared in Ubin Boy which can still be seen here on Pulau Ubin, is this typical Malay stilt house.  In the story, a Malay girl named Bib, came to stay with her grandfather for the school holidays as her parents were busy at work.  When we got to this house, there was an elderly couple at the premise.  The old lady was sweeping away dry leaves at the backyard, and the elderly man was sheltering himself from the sweltering heat at the side porch.  

Stilt house

When I was clicking my camera away, I was in full view of the two elderly.  I’d love to be more discrete but hey, we were really out in the open!  No trees for me to hide behind!  Half the time, I was so worried that the old lady would come brandishing her broom at me!  But, I guess they are used to curious visitors snapping their cameras away, so I was intact and safe.

By this time, the heat had really built up from the cheery Monsieur Sun, and the novelty of the trip was silently creeping away.  The kids, especially the Tiny Man, were heating up and tired.  Look at him, all the telltale signs of some whining cooking up in the Tiny Man’s head.

We were almost half way to Chek Jawa, and frankly, I was pretty impressed with their willingness to walk so far.  And so, using lots of distraction by pointing out the surrounding and a healthy pinch of cajoling, we moved on, now trudging, no longer walking briskly.  For me, I could not resist snapping more pictures of the scenery, especially this one, where the peaceful surrounding offered some cleansing to the mind, despite a rapidly building irritation in the form of a whiny Tiny Man. 

As he sulked, complained and trudged along, which inevitably sent the lava in me boiling, a timely distraction appeared!  It was an orange cockroach.  Saw it scuttled towards the leave trying to hide!  The little creature must be thinking:"I don’t see the humans, there’s no danger!"

This cockroach looked orange, but I think it is 
probably anaemic from living in darkness.

About 30 minutes after this point, we finally arrived at Chek Jawa Wetlands.  We did not sign up for any walks, but ventured on our own following the boardwalk.  It wasn’t too difficult; in fact, it was idiot proof.  There are two boardwalks, Mangrove Boardwalk and Coastal Boardwalk, and these two join up at a juncture.  We chose the direction of Mangrove Boardwalk.

First stop for us was to climb up the Jejawi Tower.  The view at the top was fantastic!  It was calming to see the sea of green underneath you, though rather unnerving for those not accustomed to heights. 

We rested for a while at the viewing tower.  Tiny Man’s mood improved a little with the view.  Not wanting him to descend into another sulking spell, we left the tower and continued with our boardwalk.  Along the way, we spotted some interesting plants and creatures that got the kids pretty excited.  There were the attap palm, the one that produces chewy attap chee in our ice-kacang and chendol.  

Palm attap

We saw mangrove dwelling crabs too.  

Can you see me?

One of the signs mentioned that we could spot mangrove lobster and I told my girl to open her eyes wide to keep a lookout for the lobster.  This was what she did!

Why do children like to take you literally 
when you least expect it?

Unfortunately, we could not find any lobster despite the "widened" eyes but we saw more crabs and tons of mud-skippers at the Seagrass Lagoon.  From the Mangrove Boardwalk we moved onto the Coastal Boardwalk after clearing the Seagrass Lagoon stretch.  Over here, the heat was quite unbearable as we were really walking along the coastline, on top of the sea.  The seawater reflected the strong sunlight, making the rays bounce into our exposed skin.  And it was here that the whining mode set in on the Tiny Man again.  We could not turn back to end the walk, as it would be quite a walk back.  So the only sensible thing to do would be to move on.  Actually, not just the little guy but everyone’s tired.  We had been walking for the past 1.5 hours since we left the jetty!  As if to protest against this unnecessary amount of pounding on the feet, hubby’s sole gave way!  

The little unexpected things in life...

We finished up the rest of the boardwalk in silence, Tiny Man probably cooking up a storm of whines in his head.  Along the way, I suggested to hubby to consider taking the van back to the jetty.  Actually, the island has vans for rental (much like taxis) but we were not sure of the charges (heard it’s negotiable).  So back at the visitor centre at the entrance to the wetland, we spotted a van just emptying its passengers.  Walked up to the driver and asked how much.  What I heard shocked me so much that I burst out laughing!  $10 per person for a ride back to the jetty!  We have four, so that means $40!  Nope, we decided to walk, thank you very much sir!  Poor kids, sweet kids!  They did not protest (though the Tiny Man sighed and sulked) when we broke the news to them that we will be … continuing with our walk! 

To reward them for their fantastic performance, I told the kids that we’d have coconuts once we get back to the kampong square.  And this was their reaction.  Apparently, the hubby felt inspired too!

In total, this walk took us roughly 3 hours round trip from the jetty.  It was quite an achievement, considering the heat and their age.  I am used to walking long distances but the kids are not.  This trip gave me the opportunity to see the physical resilience my young ones have.  It was really heartening to feel their satisfaction and relief when we finally reached the kampong square.  The walk gave the kids three hours to test my patience.   Reflecting on the trip as I write this, I think it gave me precious time to bond with them in a more relaxed way.  I couldn’t have been too patient with them at home when I am perpetually caught up with housework, executing activities like fetching the kids, coaching them in their homework and prepare meals, all in clockwork manner.  

We had coconut as promised; that perked them up a lot.  And as it was threatening to rain (funny how cheery the sun was as we slogged along the path to Chek Jawa and back), we hastened to board the next bumboat back to mainland Singapore.

A final shot, a tired sweetheart, a happily revived Tiny Man.

Will the kids do this again? I am not sure, but the next time we visit, we’ll try cycling.  And kids, there are slopes, up and down.  So be warned!