Time has past rather quickly this year and it's already that time of the year... when I find myself missing the life I once had in Singapore. Chinese New Year just never feels quite the same here, but then again, I'm not complaining. Looking back since the start of this year, I'm quite content with pretty much all aspects of life at the moment.
Throwback time!
This year's Valentine's Day wasn't spent alone, thanks HW (and KI) for keeping me company. Had a really nice breakfast at The Grounds of Alexandria. Their ricotta hotcake served in a cast iron skillet was amazing, and so was their coffee. Loved the company, loved the atmosphere, loved the food.
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From baKEE |
Which makes me digress to the Hash brown story. Now I always finish my maccas hash brown. Who doesn't right? It's the single best thing on the maccas breakfast menu. Sure, you might not finish your muffin, or fries, or that burger, but you never leave behind any part of the hash brown- that's the unspoken rule, until I met someone who didn't finish his hash brown.
Mindblown.
So I was eyeing this half-eaten hash brown, which was getting colder by the moment, battling in my head whether I should question this person's sanity and morals... or perhaps I was thinking whether I should just finish it somehow without giving the impression that I was a glutton.
Whether a person finishes their hash brown says a lot. It shows whether they have good taste, whether they are prone to wasting food, shows whether they are on the same page as you, whether you can be friends or not. It can mess your own personal morals too. Previously, it was common sense to never leave hash brown unfinished, now this person shows you that it is expendable- it CAN be left half eaten on the tray. People who can sway your moral grounds are often dangerous.
Long story cut short, I come to the conclusion that, just like how the litmus test for a cafe is by how well they cook poached eggs, a telling litmus test for people is whether they finish their maccas hash brown or not. I'd say 95% of people will actually pass this test, but beware of those who don't. Run. Run as far from them as you can.
Anyway, back to present. Chinese New Year!
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From baKEE |
Made two things this year. Gok Jai was the first and it's for my dad because I think it's more a Hong Kong CNY snack rather than Singaporean, but it's usually deep fried. This is a healthier, baked version. It's quite simple to make actually- dough requires: 1 cup plain flour; 2.5tsp sugar, 40g butter, 1 egg yolk and ~40mL water.
Original recipe was like put this in, mix and then put this one, slowly, and mix, and then add the next thing in... no.
I chucked all ingredients together and just went for it with my hand. Still formed a dough. Still turned out fine. Why make things difficult?
The filling was a combination of crushed peanuts, desiccated coconut, sesame seeds and 5 tsp sugar. All which I didn't measure, so... it's a lot of peanuts (80g?), fewer of the other ingredients (10g?), if that helps. Dry roast the peanuts and the sesame seeds before adding the other ingredients and simply mix~
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From baKEE |
It wasn't a smooth journey at all. I underestimated how difficult it was to crimp edges. The dough was also a tad dry because I didn't add all 40mL of the water, but I felt it came together and was a smooth dough. My first attempt was pretty much dough in palm, put on filling, close palm into fist, there you go. My second attempt was just trying to get the damn thing closed in any way possible. Then it all got better. Oven it at 180 till brown. I think it took about 20 minutes... my new oven feels weak.
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From baKEE |
The second I made this year is pineapple tarts. Again. This seems to be a yearly thing now, which my mum was absolutely delighted about, and I trust my dad was too, secretly, though he never really expresses anything but displeasure at the fact that I was blocking his kitchen. Anyway, this was specifically made because my mum wanted me to, and it's such a Singaporean/Malaysian CNY snack.
I might have used a similar recipe to last year. I forgot. Then again, they look different every year. This time, I smushed the dough into a mini cupcake pan, topped with a ball of jam and called it a day.
Dough was still too crumbly and short to enclose the filling. I'm starting to give up on making the enclosed type... but the pastry tasted good and was the melt-in-your-mouth kind, so, for the record: 350g butter, 100g condensed milk, 2 egg yolks, 3.5 cups plain flour. The pineapple filling is really just crushed pineapples and sugar. I used 2 cans pineapple to about half a cup sugar. Oven 160 degrees for about 20-25 minutes and you get a very Happy Chinese New Year.
2 comments:
Mmmm, pineapple tarts!
Those mini-curry-puff looking things look like so much work to crimp
It wasn't too bad actually! Once you get the hang of it, it's much faster than those dang pineapple tarts =_= fiddly things...
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