4th Baking Lesson

I had my fourth lesson at baking last Saturday and I still enjoyed every minute of it. And each time I am there, these thoughts will breeze through my mind “ Will I be able to remember every steps she demonstrated or can I bake as well as the ‘sifu’ ??? Or at least 80% as good as her…. And I tell myself… “ I can do it, if I come home and practice it ”

She taught us 1) Philippine Moist Chocolate Cake
2) Boiled Fruit Cake with Prunes
3) Chicken & Crab Mornay In Pastry Parcel

And we get to take home, a piece each (“,)

***The recipe for a successful pastry is a cup of patience

added with a pinch of courage and a dash of ingenuity. **

it looked like a parcel alrite and it tasted good...YUMMZ

Students' handiwork (",)

I took home a piece of my handiwork :)))

Boiled Fruit Cake....fantastic

this cake was made 7 days before by 'sifu' .

The one that was demonstrated took 3.5 hrs to bake so

she had to bake one in advance for us to take home :)))

Philippine Moist Chocolate Cake.....very rich and chocolatey

Good for chocoholics....:)

I have yet to master it...haha

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Dim Sum - * Pointing to the Heart **

“ While happiness doesn’t come on a plate, dim sum does ”

Dim Sum means “ dotted heart " or “ pointing to your heart " in chinese. But lately people prefer to call it Tim Sum meaning “ touched the heart ” Dim Sum is labelled as ''bad for the heart'' due to ''hidden fat'', but we Chinese still enjoy it. Eat first as the saying goes and deal with it later…. * wink* * wink* Well , it goes well with a cuppa of green tea though.

Dim sum conjures tiny morsels of Chinese tea snacks in bamboo baskets that are popularly eaten at breakfast or lunch. The most popular ones are Steamed Sui Mai, Steamed Har Gao ( prawns dumpling), Radish Cake, Chee Cheong Fun , Char Siew pau, Egg Tarts , Wu Kok or aka Taro Puff and not to forget the famous glutinous rice aka Lor Mai Kai. There are many types of dumplings which are so daintily made and attractive especially the cyrstal clear dough skin prawn dumplings. Nowadays, they have come out with lotz of different dainty looking dim sum snacks.

Piggies love to eat dim sum. Eating dim sum is heavenly . Making it is tedious , therefore I tell you do not grumble about the cost of dim sum …it is worth paying for. We indulge not often coz Daddy complains it is expensive …he rather eat something more filling even if it is expensive ..haha… ( but he doesn’t understand that it is pricey coz of the amount of work involved ) .

I hope to learn from my sifu " Hongkong Dim Sum" one day ....just the thought of it is enough to excite me and set my adrenalin working overtime (",) To think of it , Momsie is a glutton and hungers for skill in baking ,cooking and now thinking of making dim sum...keeke..eek. I always believe in one principal...one is never too old to learn anything , for acquisiton of knowledge is timeless and ageless.

Ming Court @ Ipoh

For 4 person this is ...gluttony (",)

Spring Roll....with century egg...yummz

Fried Fish Balls...Piggy boy's fav

Fish paste wrapped with beancurd skin....very nice
The taste is fantastic

Shrimp dumplings...haha.. forgotten the name(",)

Lo Mai Kai - glutinous rice

I love their paus ...not sweet

Mushroom & shrimps mai

Shrimps Mai...I guess (",)

Shrimps spring roll ... Piggies' fav

double portions here

Har mai...i think

Squid fritters....not so nice

Fish paste balls... *yee wat

Prawns & Meat Rolls

'Chi Ma Wu.' .. made of black sesame seeds

chinese tea compliment dim sum well

this is " char wor " I hope I got it rite (",)

Rating: 4 stars - taste wise

Ming Court
36 Jalan Leong Sin Nam,30300 Ipoh

Phone Number : 05-255-7134


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**Pardon the names of the dim sum in the captions above ,

It may not be accurate for

Momsie knows how to eat and not

remember the name of each snack (",)

P/s This treat was given to Piggy gal who did well in all sem exams.

Congrats ...Piggygal. Hope you enjoyed every morsels of the dim sum.

An Appetizing Delicacy - ' Cincalok ' Sauce

Wow…it’s been quite a while since I last ate this appetizing delicacy . ‘ Cincalok ‘ is specially prepared from traditional recipe and originated from Malacca. The shrimps are soaked in salt water for a period of time. It is sold in bottles of 250 gm . I love the smell of the preserved shrimps….haha only Piggy gal and Momsie love this appetizing delicacy. The guys won’t touch it at all…..* sighz** What a waste ! That’s the reason why I seldom served it for dinner. But today, Piggy gal and Momsie yearned for it…….it added oomph to our food .

It compliments well with fried/ BBQ fish and meat. I can eat 2 bowls of rice if I have this for dinner ….it whets your appetite . Besides this, you can use it to fry slices of lean pork ….a dish I will die for. Will share the recipe of this dish ( Cincalok Fried Pork ) at a later date.

Ingredients used for this appetizing delicacy.........

3 tbsp ' cincaluk '

8 shallots - thinly sliced

7 birdeye chillies - sliced

2-3 limes - squeeze juice

Method:

Mixed all the ingredients together and chilled it before serving

This appetizing delicacy can be eaten with plain rice

or as a sauce eaten with BBQ seafood or meat

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Multi-Grain Butter Cake

Ooops..... I read wrongly, the recipe for this Multi-Grain Butter Cake !!! Instead of using A egg I used double As. Gosh, luckily it turned out nice but not as light as it should be. And it got burned on the top :( . After learning from the baking class I attended a few weeks ago, this was the first time I tried this out and how careless I was in using eggs of wrong grades. (",) Haha, age is catching up ..I guess :)

surprisingly the texture of the cake was okay

despite using the wrong grade of eggs (",)

YUM,YUM,YUM and YUMMY...will try making this again
till this crazy passion of mine dies off ^ ^
Nay, I don't think it will die off until I die off first....* wink **

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Steamboat Party

It is best to have steamboat when the weather is cold , especially during rainy season. I like having steamboat for family gatherings becoz it is the only time when we can talk and eat at the same time. While waiting for the food to cook , family members can chat and have a wonderful fellowship together. Though lots of work is involved in the preparations..especially if you are having the traditional pot using charcoal , I prefer having steamboat at home. It is more fun to have it at home than having it at the restaurant.

The raw ingredients for the steamboat( fish balls, meat balls, cuttlefish, beef slices, chicken slices, prawns, crabs , and a variety of vegetables ) must be fresh and the chilli sauce to go with it must be good. As for me , the fried garlic oil is a must. It goes well with the vegetables.

Last Sunday, we had steamboat for dinner. We had both the traditional charcoal pot and the electric one....* tom yam soup in one pot and ' yok chok chicken soup' in the other * :) There were seven of us and we had a jolly good time. My 'piggies' will be going back to college this coming Sunday * sobz, sobz ** am going to miss them terribly! haha...if I know them, they will come running back every Friday nite after their last lesson :)

the traditional charcoal pot

I used the hot plate for the ' tom yam ' soup... :)
it heats up faster than the charcoal ones

The fried garlic oil and chilli sauce is important in steamboat

:) )) everyone waiting patiently and hungrily .......

fried garlic oil

Beef balls

loved this fried turnip delicacy, crispy and yummZ

beef slices marinated with cooking wine

cuttlefish

stuffed green chillies and lady fingers and sotong balls....

fresh lettuces...goes well with the garlic oil...yummilicious

enoki....piggies favourites

fresh oyster mushrooms

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' D ' for Desserts and Drools

Ooo … desserts are the most interesting part and I gave them a mizz. Haha…I tucked in too much oysters and too much salmon so I have to give dessert a skip. I ate some fruits and made myself ice-kacang with added ice-cream. Their ice-cream were made by the hotel chefs themselves. Very creamy and tasted fantastic. I enjoyed them very MUCHIE….heehee…like a small gal having her first taste of ice-cream.

There were a great varieties of cakes and some sweet delicacies but most of us gave that a skip. But I took some snaps for drooling purposes…* wink, wink ** Piggy gal enjoyed the food the most and I loved watching her tucking in the food hearty.

Cheeeese.....one for the album, Piggies and Momsie

Look! who enjoyed the most......??? (",)

Piggy gal and her chocolate fountain ...haha

Chocolate coated fruits/marshmallows....Piggy gal's favourite

Strawberries, marshmallows and grapes to choose from...

Malaysian Rojak....assorted local fruits ....yummz

my favourite local fruits - yellow & red melons...sweet and succulent

hmmm....we gave this a mizz...can't tuck in anymore

too much of cakes before we came to KL ^_____^

Fruit jellies.....hmmmm forgotten to try this....haha

looks tempting (",)

Can't remember what this is...haha

took this for drooling purposes (",)

The Ice-kacang section....I enjoyed shaving the ice..*wink**

made my own shave ice with the machine there

lotz of fun doing just that...haha

Added two scoop of their hotel made ice-cream to my ice-kacang

the ice cream tasted creamy and yummilicious

I chose strawberry and mint/pistachios nuts ice-cream...hmmmm taste good

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Buffet Dinner @ Chatz Brasserie , Parkroyal Hotel

Buffet dinner at Chatz Brasserie @ Parkroyal Hotel on our second day in KL. The food served was good. I loved the oysters and the japanese spread. Dessert was tempting but I gave the cake a miss!!! :( too full to tuck in anymore food....haha

" International " was their theme for that nite. It was RM78++ per pax on normal nites but we were lucky this trip coz they have this promotion package on . Promoting their " International " nite , we got a very good package. Parkroyal guests were given this 2 + 2 free package deal. So, Daddy treated us to a good buffet dinner for the price of 2….hmmmm lucky Piggies and me :)

' Piggies ' and Momsie...guess where was this taken ???

Rite..inside the lift... we had so much fun together :)

Japanese spread...loves the oysters and salmon

I love Japanese food :) Had a few helpings....... ^^

Can't resist the Salad spread....tastes awesome :o

Can't remember the name of this but it is roast beef with pistachio nuts..YummZ

Yummilicious sushi... :)

Neither can I resist this ..... :)

Only the oysters looks tempting...took a few helpings !!

Succulent...taken with a few squirt of tabasco and a squeeze of lemon juice

fantastico ^^

Japanese spread...octopus being my favorite...took

a lot of the flavoured seaweed, sharkfins and octopus :)

will continue with the dessert pictures later. Stay tuned :