As long-standing readers here may have noticed, I like the idea of making from scratch at home products which are often bought as ready-made commercial products. I’ve had a reasonable amount of success with soya bean milk, tofu and salted eggs, which are all very easy.

I’ve also considered making soya sauce at home. While it can be done, as I mentioned in my earlier posting, I’ve decided not to try (at least for now) after chatting to a food scientist who used to work at Kikkoman. During the commercial production process at Kikkoman factories, there is assiduous testing to make sure that the fermentation process does not attract toxic microbes instead of the ‘right’ kind of bacteria, which can easily happen. I’ve also heard how difficult it is to make tempeh at home, and I assume it’s partly for those same reasons.

Another type of food I thought of making at home is Chinese pickled vegetables: mui choy, chye poh, kiam chye — all the things that would give the right ‘kick’ to my somewhat bland dishes. Today’s Sunday Times food question column by Chris Tan addressed this precise issue. The bad news is:

They are not as easy to make as they might seem, requiring successive rounds of drying, seasoning, salting, brining or steaming. These methods may look simple or crude but they are very sensitive to the quality of the starting ingredients, the ambient humidity and temperature as well as the microbes naturally present in the immediate environment.Hence, an experienced eye is needed to tell if the fermentation or preservation is proceeding correctly. Doing this kind of multiple-stage preserving at home is very tricky, frequently entailing much trial and error. Therefore, nowadays most people are content to leave it to the specialists.

The good news is that “many Asian cuisines have easy recipes for mildly sour, briefly fermented pickled greens that are designed to be made and consumed within a few days.” Examples of pickled gai choy, which is a kind of mustard green, include Laotian som pak, Filipino burung mastasa and Vietnamese cai chua or dua chua.

The advice from Chris Tan concludes with this advice:

The Japanese pickling tradition also has many quick pickle recipes. For a good introduction to methods and ingredients, I recommend the book Tsukemono: Japanese Pickled Vegetables by Kay Shimizu.

I don’t have that particular title, but have already been pouring over TSUKEMONO―Japanese Pickling Recipes (Quick&Easy) which is part of my collection of food books. Unfortunately, I’m not familiar with how the different types of Japanese pickles taste and I’m not a big enough fan of pickles in general to go all out on experimenting. I wonder if quick pickles will taste more like nonya acar, rather than anything like chye poh…?

Recently, some friends gobbled down two plates of chye tau kueh from the hawker centre in front of me whilst I munched on my gluten-free carob muffin. They felt a bit guilty comparing their fried dish with my healthy snack but actually I really wished I could eat chye tau kueh too!

I came home and flipped through my mountain of cookbooks and finally found a somewhat poorly-written recipe for ‘Singapore-Styled Stir-Fried Turnip Pudding 星洲炒蘿蔔糕’ in a Hong Kong produced cookbook called Asian Snacks Cooking Course 亞洲小食製作教程.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a more authentic recipe in any of my Malaysian cookbooks (an excuse to buy even more :) ?!?). Anyway, it worked really well so am sharing here with you. You may want to compare this recipe with the one from Lily’s Wai Sek Hong.

This is a great snack option that’s wheat- and gluten-free, also no sugar. As long as you don’t find fried foods too unhealthy :).

INGREDIENTS FOR STEAMED RADISH CAKE

960g white radish/daikon
320g rice flour

Wash, peel and chop the daikon.

Use a blender to puree it, then using a sieve, squeeze out as much juice as possible. You need 3 cups of daikon juice.

Mix rice flour with daikon juice in a pot over low heat. The original recipe only uses the juice, but I put in all the daikon pulp as well so as not to waste it.

Stir until it the mixture thickens. This part requires careful attention as it can take quite a while to thicken on low heat but if the stove is too hot, it will clump together very quickly.

Pour the thickened batter into a greased mould, such as an aluminium cake tin. A 9-inch round tin is actually better than the one I used in the photo because it won’t be so full, and because the cake won’t be in such a thick layer, it will take a shorter time to be fully cook. Dark-coloured heavy cake tins are not good for steaming, they don’t seem to conduct heat very well.

Steam for 1 hour. Test for doneness with a chopstick, which should come out clean.

FRIED RADISH CAKE

Cut the steamed and cooled cake into cubes.

Fry ingredients of your choice until fragrant, such as garlic, shallots, minced meat, red or green chilli, spring onions. Add seasonings of your choice.  Traditionally, this is cooked with thick dark soya sauce and preserved turnip and preserved Chinese sausages are a must, with a special chilli sauce for those who like it spicy.

Add the steamed radish cake cubes and fry until browned.

Push ingredients to one side of the wok (or remove from pan), add a beaten egg and when semi-cooked, toss well with all the other ingredients.

My version shown below is cooked with salt (or organic tamari), garlic, stir-fried shallots, green and red capsicums, and topped with raw spring onions and deep fried shallots.

Verdict: close enough to the real thing to keep me happy! Loved the distinct daikon taste in the cake. Now if I can just figure out how to make preserved turnip or chye poh at home, the other members of the family might actually enjoy this as much as me :).

Nearly 1kg of daikon makes a lot of chye tau kueh and I had this in my lunch bento for days!! Next time I’ll only make half the quantity!

For ages, I have been watching my family members eating tinned baked beans for breakfast, unable to join in because of the tomato sauce which is high in glutamates, amines and salicylates (not to mention plenty of salt & sugar)!! The other day, I finally got down to making Failsafe baked beans from the recipe in the Friendly Foods cookbook.

The result was wonderfully satisfying! Even my family members who are used to the over-flavoured commercial version pronounced this ’surprisingly edible’.

RECIPE

300g (1 1/2 cups) dried beans – navy, cannellini or flageolet
1 leek, washed and sliced
2 sprigs parsley
1 clove garlic, peeled
2 x 5cm pieces celery
2 Tbs soft brown sugar
1/4 tsp citric acid
3/4 tsp saffron threads [which I omitted, hence the anemic colour of my baked beans]
sea salt

Wash beans and soak overnight with 1.5 litres water. Drain the next day.

Place beans & leek in saucepan. A heavy-bottomed pot for slow-cooking is good, such as a cast iron pot. You can also use a crockpot.Main-Main Masak-Masak › Edit Post — WordPress

Tie the parsley, garlic and celery into a bouquet garni with a piece of string and add this to the pot.

Pour in enough water to cover the beans. Simmer uncovered for about 1 hour or until tender. Remove the bouquet garni.

Add the sugar, citric acid, saffron and salt to taste. Simmer for another 10 minutes.

Here I used dried organic navy beans which I bought at Nature’s Glory.

If you don’t have time to soak the beans overnight, you can use canned beans. It can be hard to find navy/cannellini/flageolet beans, but I’ve seen them at Carrefour and Cold Storage, as well as at health food stores like Eat Organic and Nature’s Glory. Basically, check the stores which stock more western ingredients.

With navy and cannnellini beans being more unusual products in Singapore, even the non-organic canned ones only come in relatively expensive foreign brands. The good news is that tinned, organic navy and cannnellini beans are available at about the same price as non-organic ones :), S$2.30 per tin for Eden brand. Other organic brands cost about a dollar more.

***************

6/12/8 Update:

Tip 1: Make a large batch, divide into serving portions and freeze. Defrost as necessary.

Tip 2: Aside from eating baked beans with bread (gluten-free bean bread for me) and rice cakes, it’s also good with rice. Especially quick and easy if you have cooked rice on hand at all times in the fridge or freezer.

Following my attempt at making firm tofu using nigari as a coagulant, I picked up some Glucono-Delta Lactone (GDL) coagulant at Phoon Huat and decided to give this dessert-style tofu pudding (a.k.a. 豆花 douhua/tau huay/ tau foo fah) a go. GDL is thought to be a more healthy coagulant compared to inorganic calcium compounds.

Unlike moulded tofu, silken tofu doesn’t require any special container and produces a greater volume of tofu in relation to the amount of soya milk used. Typically, it takes less than an hour to be ready for serving.

William Shurtleff’s Book of Tofu says that

[GDL is] an organic acid that solidifies soymilk in much the same was that lactic acid or a yoghurt starter is used to curdle dairy milk. A newly discovered solidifier made from natural gluconic acid, lactone makes it possible for the first time to solidify very thin soymilk, and even cold soymilk, by simply heating it to somewhat below the boiling point.

Following the recipe in Shurtleff’s Book of Tofu:
1 tsp lactone, dissolved in 2 Tbs water
3 1/4 cups soya bean milk
1 Tbs matcha green tea powder
3 Tbs sugar or honey

1) First, I began by making soya bean milk and measured out 3 1/4 cups whilst it was still hot.
2) Mixed in 1 Tbs green tea matcha powder and 3 Tbs sugar. As matcha often clumps up, it helps to sift it into the milk and use a whisk to make sure it is thoroughly incorporated.
3) Dissolved the 1 tsp lactone in 2 Tbs of water.
4) Poured the lactone solution into the soya bean milk, whilst gently stirring.
5) I made individual portions by dividing the still liquid soya bean milk into 6 custard cups. You can also leave the tofu to set inside a single pot. There is no separation of curds and whey, unlike the other method of making firm tofu.
6) The Book of Tofu says to let the soya milk stand uncovered for half an hour while it cools and sets, then cover with cling film and refrigerate. I made the mistake of covering the custard cups with cling film right away, and ended up with condensation on the inside.

Verdict: compared to commercially prepared tofu, mine definitely tasted like an amateur’s attempt. The texture, while very light and soft, could have been smoother. There was also a faint sour taste The green tea flavour was quite subtle, and the amount of sugar was just nice – I wonder what it would have tasted like without any sugar at all?

Anyhow, this is definitely worth another try. The Book of Tofu says that nigari makes the most delicate and delicious silken tofu, so I may use that alternative the next time.

My previous tofu-making postings:
Coagulants for homemade tofu
Making tofu at home
Making tofu at home P.S.
Another word on tofu coagulants

I’ve been trying out dim sum recipes (steamed radish cake, water chestnut fritters and chewy pumpkin cake) from the cookbook by chef, Chan Chen Hei, without any idea who he is.

But I’ve just discovered that he’s opened a new restaurant at the National Museum of Singapore (the same place with this food history exhibit that features traditional coconut graters among other things). Not that I’ll be able to try it out… I’ve stayed far, far away from any kind of Chinese restaurant after single-mouthful tasters left me feeling unwell for an entire week, on more than one occasion.

Anyway, Chef Chan will be co-presenting a lecture at the museum on ‘Ancient Chinese Food’ with Huang Zhuolun 黃卓倫, the food writer from Lianhe Zaobao, on Sat, 20 Sep 08 from 4-5pm. Get the full details at the National Museum website’s section on Lectures on Food & Culture. There are other sessions on tea (16 Aug) and chocolate (29 Aug) as well.

If you’re into learning about food and cooking but relate more to organic, healthy and holistic instead, the hands-on classes on tofu & okara, fermented foods, raw food, vegetarian cooking, baking bread (no oven necessary), traditional Chinese snacks and spreads made from nuts, seeds & fruits, then the sessions at Wholesome Living look quite exciting.

I’ve not been for any food classes before so if have any experiences to share, do leave a comment :).

After being featured in a Newsweek article about packed lunches for preschoolers, Lunch in a Box wondered if bento are a growing trend in the U.S.

Here in Singapore, I’ve begun to notice an increasing number of recent bento cookbooks published in Malaysia. These are bilingual English-Chinese and feature a range of Chinese, Japanese, western and local Malaysia/Singapore foods. The most commonly-found title is this one:

However, I haven’t bought any of these myself because if you already know how to cook, bento isn’t really about the recipes, but about how to combine foods in an aesthetically-pleasing as well as nutritious way, and how to pack the foods. Learning the principles of traditional Japanese cuisine (based on traditional Chinese medicine), which extend to bento, has been the most interesting and enlightening aspect for me. I’m also searching for unfamiliar foods and new ways of cooking them to extend the variety in my food intolerance-restricted diet, and I love the simplicity and back-to-basics character of many Japanese dishes, which is why Japanese cookbooks fascinate me. The Malaysian bento cookbooks don’t include any of these ideas, being a straight collection of recipes with large colour photos of the food packed into cutesy boxes.

The gorgeous photos are another reason why I love well-produced bento instruction books from Japan, and unfortunately the standard of Malaysian cookbooks doesn’t quite match up.

Another aspect of the reproduction of bento culture is in terms of the plastic boxes. While you can find attractive and reasonable-quality lunch boxes at Japanese stores like Daiso, there also exists a selection of cheap, China-made ones. They are very much bento-style, with dual layers, snap clasps and cute pictures, as well as some insulated containers. I’ve seen them at Mustafa (when I went shopping for the coconut grater), but thought they were not worth mentioning as they are very poor quality and more expensive than Daiso’s $2 boxes.

This homemade tofu thing is getting complicated.

Yesterday, I came across this information from Wholesome Living, an organic shop in Singapore that conducts all sorts of cooking workshops:

Commercial bean curds contain chemical substances such as bleaching agent, de-foaming agent, preservatives and coagulant (calcium sulfate a.k.a. gypsum). Commercial tofu manufacturers usually utilize calcium sulfate as a coagulant and marketing it as high calcium food to mislead consumers that it is a good source of calcium to prevent osteoporosis. In fact, this inorganic calcium will cause various health problems such as renal stone problems and so forth. Furthermore from the TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) perspective, consuming too much commercial tofu will make your body too ‘YING’.

[Wholesome Living conducts a Tofu, Soy Milk & Okara 2-session workshop that teaches tofu-making with non-mineral coagulants.]

Various websites, especially those promoting particular brands of calcium supplements based on water-soluble organic calcium (e.g. calcium aspartate etc.), support these points; see here, here and here.

On the TCM view of tofu, Paul Pitchford’s fantastic book, Healing with Wholefoods, elaborates:

For most people, its yin, cooling quality needs to be altered by thorough cooking; adding warming spices such as ginger is particularly helpful for cold persons. . . . Eating massive amounts of tofu regularly (as some Americans do) can contribute to kidney-adrenal weakness, loss and graying of hair, impotence, frigidity and decrease in sexual sensitivity.

At the same time, calcium sulphate is the oldest tofu coagulant used in China, with 2000 years of history (see here).

According to this Singapore-oriented discussion thread from 2005, Phoon Huat stopped selling gypsum (sometimes mistakenly equated with borax) as it was banned from sale, and therefore began stocking Glucono delta-lactone/GDL instead.

(GDL), which is naturally found in honey, fruit juices and wine, is the coagulant used for making silken tofu. As the Wholesome Living workshop teaches the making of silken tofu, I suspect GDL is the ‘non-mineral coagulant’ being used. The action of GDL is different from nigari & gypsum type coagulants as it works as an acid, not as a salt (see Asian Foods: Science and Technology by Catharina Yung-Kang, Wang Ang, KeShun Liu, Yao-Wen Huang).

Sounds like GDL is the way to go, especially for soft tofu for 豆花 douhua/tau foo fa/tau huay.

Read my previous posts on tofu-making:
Coagulants for homemade tofu
Making tofu at home
Making tofu at home P.S.

After making soya bean milk at home, with okara and yuba as by-products, the next logical thing to try was making tofu. It was so easy and gave me a great sense of satisfaction (^_^). I refered to the ‘bible’ of tofu by William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi.

For the coagulant, I used nigari, purchased from a health food store (Nature’s Glory). This is the coagulant usually used in Japan comprising mostly magnesium sulphate and is made by evaporating sea water. Shurtleff advises that ‘calcium sulfate, a fine white powder, is sometimes mislabelled in the West and sold as nigari. The latter usually has a coarse, granular or crystalline texture, natural nigari is beige and refined nigari is white.’

Aside from nigari, Epsom salts/magnesium sulphate (a popular antidote for food intolerance reactions!), gypsum/calcium sulphate, lemon or lime juice or vinegar can also be used as coagulants. The coagulant used for Chinese tofu is gypsum/calcium sulphate. Glucono delta-lactone (GDL) is a naturally occurring organic acid that is used to produce ‘silken’ tofu. Read more in my earlier post on coagulants for tofu.

The choice of coagulant affects the texture and taste of the tofu, as does the amount used. For firmer tofu, use nigari; softer tofu, use calcium sulphate. The amount of pressure used when pressing the tofu and the length of time it’s pressed also influences how soft or firm it is.

For a quantity of soya bean milk using 1 1/2 cups soya beans + 16 cups water, Shurtleff suggests:
* for subtly sweet, nigari tofu: 2 tsp natural nigari (magnesium chloride) or refined nigari (calcium chloride)
* for mild, soft tofu: 2 tsp Epsom salts (magnesium sulphate) or gypsum (calcium sulphate)
* for subtly tart or sour tofu: 4 Tbs freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice or 3 Tbs apple cider vinegar.

Here’s what I did:

To use nigari, dissolve 1 tsp nigari in 1 cup water. Reduce quantities as appropriate.
For every 4 cups soya bean milk, use 1/2 cup nigari solution.

1) Start by making soya bean milk. See the detailed instructions at Just Hungry.
2) After boiling the milk for 5 mins, remove from heat and leave to cool for another five minutes.
3) Slowly add coagulant and stir gently. Watch the curds form.

4) Leave for 10 mins and allow curds to settle in the bottom.
5) Prepare tofu-mould. Ideally, use a square/rectangular box with holes. If not, you can improvise with a colander but you will end up with an unevenly-shaped piece of tofu (see photo below). Next time, I will try using one of those plastic boxes for storing ready-made tofu from Daiso, or by Lock & Lock, which have an inner container or even non-tofu specific Daiso plastic containers with inner strainers.
6) Place a piece of muslin cloth into the colander/mould.
7) Gently scoop the curds into the muslin cloth. Squeeze out whey liquid.
8) Fold the cloth over the top of the curds.
9) Place a plate or something flat on top of the curds, and weight it down. I used an unopened 1kg bag of rice and balanced a heavy tin can on top.
10) Leave to set. The firmness of the tofu depends on how long it is left to set and how heavily it is weighted down. I left mine for about 3hrs and ended up with the firm consistency of taukwa, which can be easily fried.

This small slab (about 12cm or 5 inches across) was made from 2 cups of soya bean milk.

What to do with the whey liquid? If you’ve added the correct amount of coagulant, the whey will be amber-coloured and taste sweetish. Too little coagulant and the whey will be cloudy from bits of loose curds; too much coagulant and the whey will taste bitter.

Don’t throw away the whey as it’s full of B vitamin nutrients, protein (9% of the protein originally found in the dry soya beans) and natural sugars. You can add it to soup, use in cooking in place of other liquids, or even use it as a biodegradable soap! According to Shurtleff, traditional tofu shops in Japan use the whey to wash their equipment at the end of the day because the soy lecithin in whey cuts through fats. Whey can also be used as a facial wash or shampoo (how’s that for homemade, environmentally-friendly, chemical-free toiletries ☺?), washing and polishing wooden floors or woodwork to give a natural, seasoned look, as well as a plant nutrient.

Please check out Just Hungry’s detailed tofu-making instructions complete with step-by-step photos (she’s got a real tofu press!).
The comprehensive Wikipedia entry on tofu.
Read about the history of tofu in China here.

Don’t forget to check out my postscript to this entry, with many more links, including how to make your own tofu mould/press from a used milk carton!

Interestingly, custard powder was invented in 1837 by Alfred Bird because his wife was allergic to eggs and couldn’t tolerate real custard. Till today, Bird’s brand is one of the most popular brands of custard powder, and probably the only brand you’ll find in Singapore supermarkets.

As I noted here, commercial custard powder is basically full of nasty additives you’re better off avoiding. In this recipe which called for custard powder, I simply substituted some cornflour instead. Interestingly, many dim sum recipes call for custard powder — the British colonial influence on Hong Kong food, perhaps?

Recently, in Brown Rice Paradise, I saw a natural foods version of custard powder, which contained cornflour, yellow colourings (annatto and a turmeric-derivative) plus vanilla. However, while annatto is naturally-derived, it is the only natural food colouring “found to cause as many adverse intolerance reactions as artificial colours and to affect more consumers that artificial colour” (read here).

Anyway, this natural-foods version of custard powder shows that aside from the yellow colour (which isn’t all that important), you can pretty much duplicate the function of custard powder with some cornflour and vanilla essence. Yay (^_^).

Another vegetarian bento (ditch the omelette strips in the bee hoon and this would be vegan) that also tries to be anti-candida, plus low in salicylates, glutamates and amines.

Main dish:
* fried bee hoon (rice noodles) with garlic, cabbage, omelette strips, topped with fried shallots; seasoned with salt only;
* chap chye: dried soya mince, dried soya bean sticks (foo chok [Cantonese], 腐竹), Japanese freeze-dried kouya tofu (read more here and here) cut into chunks [I love the taste and texture of this style of tofu, which I only tried for the first time a few weeks ago], strips of konnyaku, cabbage, mung bean noodles — braised with a tiny bit of chopped garlic and miso.

Side dish:
* chunks of fried homemade tofu –> my first taste of my first homemade tofu!!
* cut-up pear.

Unlike the brown rice steamed cake I tried a couple of months ago that went straight into the bin, this brown rice cake turned out rather well. One friend described them as tasting just like those ‘piglet’ mooncakes made from the batter of baked mooncake skin (see recipe here). In fact the method of making mooncake skin is remarkably similar to this brown rice golden syrup slice, except that mooncake skins use normal plain wheat flour, not rice flour. Some mooncake batter recipes even use golden syrup too!

This recipe is taken from the ‘Friendly Foods’ cookbook so is great for those with food intolerances. It’s low in natural food chemicals (salicylates, amines & glutamates) and free from egg, dairy, gluten and soy.

Ingredients

oil, for greasing
495g (3 cups) rice flour [I used organic brown rice flour with wonderful results]
1 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 cup golden syrup [reduced from 1 cup]
125ml (1/2 cup) oil
1/2 cup soft brown sugar [reduced from 1 1/2 cups]
185ml (3/4 cup) warm water

1) Sift flour and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl.
2) In a saucepan, combine golden syrup, oil and sugar. Stir over low heat until sugar dissolves, 3 to 4 mins. Allow to cool.
3) Add syrup and warm water to dry ingredients. Stir until combined and pour into greased and lined baking tin of 20 x 30cm dimensions.
4) Bake in preheated oven at 180℃ for 45 mins or until golden. Allow to cool in tin for 5 mins before turning onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Verdict: a new baking method for me, which I’d never tried before and the result was very satisfactory. The cake doesn’t rise much and is extremely crumbly. I wish I had put more effort into spreading the batter out in the pan evenly as I ended up with some parts thicker than others.

The main problem was that even with drastically reducing the amount of golden syrup & brown sugar, this was reeeeallly reeeeally sweet. I had to temper the sweetness by eating it with fresh thick cream (as shown in the photo) or cream cheese — both extremely delicious *yum* (^_^)! Can you imagine the original recipe also includes a sugar icing?!?

I stored the cake in the freezer and put them in snack bento in the morning, leaving them to defrost naturally over the course of a few hours. Determined to enjoy the yummy pairing with cream cheese, I put some into a bento condiments container, then put that into another box with a tiny bento ice pack. 8hrs later, the cream cheese had survived and I had a wonderful tea time snack (^_^).

One of the most popular reads on this blog is my posting on steamed Chinese radish cake 蘿蔔糕. The same basic recipe can be adapted for a whole range of other root vegetables — such as pumpkin, sweet potato or yam — and a supporting cast of ingredients. These are traditionally preserved Chinese sausages and meats, dried shrimp, dried Chinese mushrooms etc., but you can substitute anything of your choice.

As I discovered with the steamed radish cake, it’s also no problem to omit the secondary ingredients and still have a tasty dish, especially if you are trying to cater to food sensitivities and avoid nasty preservatives. This is a good recipe for food rotation and avoiding wheat, gluten (does the 1 Tbsp of cornflour count?), sugar etc.

This time round I used a yam (a ‘real’ yam, not the taro I have been calling ‘yams’), and a slightly different flour mixture from the radish cake. This recipe is based on a ‘Five Spices Yam Cake’ from the bilingual cookbook, ‘Steamed Cake & Kuih Muih 蒸蛋糕與糕點的喜悅’ by the Malaysian publisher, Famous Cuisine.

Ingredients

400g yam (peeled and cubed)
handful of chopped shallots

For batter:
300g rice flour
1 Tbsp cornflour
1 Tbsp wheat starch
1 1/2 tsp salt
800ml water

1) Mix batter ingredients well, using hands to make sure that all lumps of flour are dissolved.
2) Stir fry the shallots until fragrant, then add yam cubes and fry till they are cooked.
3) All filling to the batter, keep stirring on low heat till it thickens. Be careful as the corn flour causes thickening very quickly.
4) Remove from heat and pour into a steaming tin.
5) Steam in preheated steamer at high heat for 35-40 mins or until cooked through. Leave to cool.
6) Serve with toppings of your choice, for example – as shown in photo:
* homemade chili sauce made from fresh pounded chillies only
* chopped spring onions
* fried shallots
Other possible toppings:
* sesame oil
* sesame seeds
* dried seaweed such as nori strips or aoi nori
* furikake
* soya sauce (for those who aren’t sensitive to it!)

This steamed cake turned out more firm than the radish one. And while the radish was cooked until it disintegrated and mixed with the flours to form a smooth batter, in this recipe, the yam and shallots floated to the top creating a distinct layer. This is most delicious eaten steamed & warm, but also great for bento.

It’s ‘summer’ time again, or rather, the hot season in Singapore, which means that refreshing cool snacks like jellies are very suitable for tempering the heat. Last year I experimented with the wonderful agar-agar, which creates jellies that do not melt in the tropical heat, making them ideal for putting in bento. The texture of agar-agar is firm and crisp.

In contrast, konnyaku jellies are chewy or “QQ” in Chinese slang. Several years back, konnyaku jellies were all the rage in faddish snacks in Singapore; many stalls sprung up and soon disappeared (just like bubble tea, Portuguese egg tarts and Roti Boy). These days, you’d probably have to make konnyaku jelly at home if you want to eat it, which from my point of view, is a much healthier way to go, allowing you to bypass all those nasty artificial colourings and flavourings.

While agar-agar and kanten are derived from seaweed (the terms are often used synonymously, but technically they are derived from different strains of seaweed), konnyaku, also known as konjac, is derived from a starchy root vegetable or corm. According to Wikipedia,

Konjac (Amorphophallus konjac; syn. A. rivieri; Japanese: 蒟蒻/菎蒻; こんにゃく; konnyaku; Korean: 곤약; gonyak; Chinese: 蒟蒻; pinyin: jǔ ruò), also known as konjak, konjaku, devil’s tongue, voodoo lily, snake palm, or elephant yam (though this name is also used for A. paeoniifolius), is a plant of the genus Amorphophallus. It is native to warm subtropical to tropical eastern Asia, from Japan and China south to Indonesia.

Just Hungry has a good introduction to the varieties and usage of konnyaku here. I love to use the noodle form, shirataki, in hotpot meals because unlike regular noodles, they do not go soft and soggy if cooked for a long time,

Konnyaku goes through various kinds of processing to make the different form it appears in commercially. This article provides a recipe for turning konnyaku flour into a versatile firm jelly, by adding an alkali, such as calcium hydroxide, usually in the form of pickling lime, or in traditional Japanese methods, extracted from eggshells.

Konnyaku is often promoted as a healthy food as it is virtually zero-calorie and is high in fibre, rich in minerals and is alkaline (read here) as well as absorbing toxic substances during digestion and elimination (see here).

However, so far all the brands of konnyaku jelly power I have come across in the shops contain various additives, sometimes in the form of colouring and flavouring, but many include carrageenan as the main ingredient, not konnyaku! Seaweed-derived carrageenan is used as a thickener and gelling substance. While carrageenan does not generally cause food sensitivity problems, it has been reported to be carcinogenic. However this article from the organic company, Eden Foods, clarifies that while chemically-treated ‘degraded carrageenan’ (non-food-grade) is a known carcinogen, food-grade or ‘undegraded carrageenan’, has been shown to be safe for consumption. Don’t forget that consumer agar-agar powder is also chemically bleached of colours and seaweed smells (see my earlier post).

Konnyaku jelly made with ‘Pinglin Baozhong’ oolong tea and kiwi seeds

Making konnyaku jelly is easy as one simply needs to follow the instructions on the packet of the jelly powder. One packet is enough for one litre of liquid. About 250g of sugar is included in the recipe but this isn’t necessary at all, just add however much you wish.

Having had great success with my earlier tea jellies – Pu-Erh agar-agar and mugicha agar-agar, I used the same idea to make konnyaku jelly. The Pinglin Baozhong tea is a very fragrant variety of oolong and the delicate aroma came through very well in jelly form. I added in a small amount of sugar — about 50g — which was perhaps unnecessary as it wasn’t enough to make the jelly sweet or add to the taste.

For visual effect, I also used kiwi seeds, which are sold in dehydrated form right next to the packets of konnyaku powder in Phoon Huat. As you can see from this Phoon Huat video on how to make konnyaku jelly, for some reason kiwi seeds are presented very much as an integral part of the way to make konnyaku jelly – I have no idea why. The seeds are easily rehydrated by soaking in water for twenty minutes. The suggested amount was half a teaspoon of dehydrated seeds for 1 litre of liquid jelly, but in retrospect, I think twice that amount would have been fine too.

The recipe for konnyaku jelly on the back of the packet says to use one-eigth teaspoon of citric acid. This makes the jelly more chewy. I forgot to add it in! but the texture was still very satisfactory. I wonder if the tannic acid in tea helped with that.

The photo shows my snack bento with two konnyaku jellies. The good news is that I found that, like agar-agar, they don’t melt either. Yay!!

I’m in a big konnyaku jelly craze right now. The other day, in the organic cafe at Fu Lu Shou Complex, Yogi DIY, I had a soya milk drink with flaxseed powder and cubes of honey (?) konnyaku jelly. The combination of flavours was very nice but I thought the preparation was rather sloppy as the flaxseed powder was in clumps and not properly stirred into the soya milk, while the jelly had obviously been made in a regular ice cube tray and the moulds overfilled such that the shapes were very untidy. It would have been much nicer to use ice cube trays in decorative shapes ☺ (plenty in Daiso!).

As honey is high in salicylates, I might try making a maple syrup konnyaku jelly next…. [Speaking of maple syrup, be careful not to end up buying maple-flavoured syrup by mistake; the real stuff is more expensive, but doesn’t have to be exorbitantly so - Carrefour sells organic pure maple syrup for just $9 a bottle, whereas it’s usually $15-$21 for other brands in health food shops.]

When you hear the words ‘rice cake’, is this what you think of?

Quite possibly yes if you frequent health food shops and are on a gluten-free diet. This style of rice cake actually reminds me of the traditional Chinese puffed rice cracker, 米通 mi3 tong1 [Mand.] / mai tong [Cant.].

However, as this Wikipedia entry reflects, many cultures have ‘rice cakes’ and the term encompasses an incredibly diverse range of food items produced from rice. Rice itself comes in thousands of strains, can be in the form of rice grains or rice flour, and can be boiled, steamed, baked, grilled etc.

Several weeks ago I tried out a recipe from a Taiwanese book labelled with the English name, ‘Brown Sugar Rice Cake’, and in Chinese, ‘黃鬆糕’(lit: yellow, light cake). I was attracted by the short list of simple ingredients and easy method.

Ingredients

300g glutinous rice flour 糯米粉
200g rice flour 大米粉
150g dark brown sugar 紅糖
150cc water

Method

1) Dissolve the brown sugar in the water. Discard any sediment.
2) Put the two kinds of rice flour in a bowl and add in the sugar water.
3) As the mixture will be lumpy, use your hands to break up the lumps.
4) Pass the mixture through a sieve to create the texture of sand. This is the most time consuming step, especially since there is quite a large volume of ingredients.
5) Prepare a tin by oiling the surface, then lining it with a wet cloth. Pour in the mixture and smoothen the top surface.
6) Steam for 10-15 minutes.
7) Leave to cool, then cut and serve.

That’s what the book says. My finished cake looked nothing like the photo in the book and it tasted awful! And here’s an awful picture of the cake! You can even see the holes where I poked a chopstick to test if it was done.

As with most of my other steamed cakes, this one seemed to take much much longer to be fully cooked than what was stated in the recipe (I must be doing something wrong, OR I simply can’t tell when the steamed cakes are ready :/ !). Admittedly, I didn’t follow the instructions to use line the tin with a wet cloth and just used cling film (as is illustrated in the same recipe book) to make it easier to remove the cake from the pan [17/4/08 update: in the comments to this post, CantonPixie reminded me of the dangerous dioxins released when cling film is heated! oops!]. In the photo you can see I’ve removed it from the pan after it set to continue cooking it in the hope that it would eventually be done!

Let me rewind — I actually think the root of the disaster started when I tried to get creative and replace Chinese rice flour – a very fine, light powder that puffs into the air at the slightest movement and leaves a layer of white all over the kitchen and you – with organic brown rice flour, which was heavy and sort of in damp clumps in the case of the type I bought. The cake had a sourish, uncooked taste even after being steamed for more than 45 minutes, and it’s quite likely that was due to the flour (which flour? I’m not sure, but my glutinous rice flour always makes delicious glutinous rice balls!).

Finally, we gave up steaming the damned thing, which didn’t look anything like the photo in the book, which showed a dry, crumbly texture resembling coarse sugar grains. In contrast, you can see from my photo that the cut edge looked like dried-out plasticine – yuck. I tried to rescue the dish by chopping the block into bite-sized squares then boiling them as one would do with glutinous rice balls. The taste remained unpalatable and I ran out of ideas how to salvage this disaster.

Moral of the story: ‘rice cake’ can mean a lot of things, ‘rice flour’ can mean a lot of things, don’t ‘anyhow’ substitute ingredients (as we would say in Singlish/ Singapore English), and well, you win some you lose some.

N.B.: If you want to try the recipe, you might want to also watch this YouTube video for making a very similar kind of Korean rice cake (and yes, it’s 15 mins in the steamer for 1kg of rice flour! I am definitely doing something wrong….).

N.B.: for further advice on using different kinds of flours, please see my page on Flours.

One of the very earliest things I wrote about on this blog was making Chinese sated eggs at home (as well as a good reason to do so). Eight months and four batches of a dozen eggs later, I’m extremely happy with my eggs but have realised that the eggs do not keep so well once they have been removed from the brine (I use five weeks of soaking in brine).

The first week out of the brine, they have beautiful, bright orange yolks with an even tone. Three or four weeks later, they look like this:

Notice that the yolks have become a strange colour and developed an uneven texture. The whites also taste more salty than before. Overall, the taste is still fine and I enjoy my homemade eggs very much, not to mention feeling reassured that there are no unwanted artificial colours or preservatives and having sense of satisfaction of having made them myself.

The solution is to make a smaller batch of salted eggs each time and try to finish them within two weeks. As it takes five weeks to make them, one might start a mini-production line and have a few lots of eggs at different stages of the process.

However, that means finding space to lay out the all bowls of brine. They do get a bit sticky on the outside of the container and there may be flakes of crystallised brine so you’ll want a hardy kitchen surface, or else a plastic tray to place beneath the bowls if it’s a surface that needs protecting. Perhaps if one has a set of large stackable containers, you can use those for soaking and stack them vertically to save space, with the eggs that will be ready first put on the top.

Ever since I started experimenting with different foods in an attempt at food rotation, I’ve been thinking of cooking this dish. It’s made from Chinese white radish, also known as daikon (and most confusingly, can be called ‘carrot’ when translated into English, as I’ve noted here).

What held me up was trying to think of substitutes for the usual preserved meats and dried products that usually go into this dish: laap cheong Chinese sausages, laap yok waxed pork, dried shrimps, dried mushrooms. Without the seasoning of oyster sauce, soya sauce and sugar, and no flavourful ingredients I wasn’t sure how this dish would work at all.

In the end I just went ahead and made it absolutely plain and believe it or not, it was absolutely delicious! There are no fillings in this lor bak gou at all, and no seasoning apart from a tiny pinch of salt, but the familiar taste is unmistakably that of lor bak gou ☺.

Everything is in the additional toppings which can be adjusted to suit individual taste, so those family members who want to load up on laap cheong and bottled chilli sauce can do so as well, leaving the rest of us to enjoy this in a more simple fashion.

The toppings shown in the photo are chopped spring onion, homemade fried shallots, sesame seed furikake and sesame oil — my favourite way to garnish this basic lor bak gou.

This dish is suitable for bento, and the toppings can be packed into dedicated bento condiments containers, or even just wrapped up in folded aluminium foil. Personally, I prefer to eat lor bak gou warm and I didn’t try it in any bento this time round.

When I compared different recipes, the interesting thing was that they all used a different combination of flours in very different quantities. For example, for approx. 600g of radish:
a) 450g rice flour + 50g tapioca flour
b) 1400g rice flour + 80g tapioca flour
c) 450g rice flour + 1.5 Tbs corn flour + 1.5 Tbs wheat starch
d) 280g rice flour + 40g cornflour
e) 200g rice flour + 40g wheat starch
f) 150g rice flour

[To find out more about these types of flours, have a look at my info page on flours for Chinese & Japanese snacks.]

I decided to go with the quantities in what appears to be the most reliable of my cookbooks, Dim Sum by Chan Chen Hei, a renown chef who’s worked at top restaurants and hotels in Hong Kong and Singapore. The method was adapted from combining instructions in various cookbooks.
Ingredients

500g-600g white radish
200g rice flour
40g wheat starch
1 litre water
salt to taste

1) Peel and shred the radish (using a ceramic peeler and ceramic julienne slicer, if you have them ^_^). You can also chop the radish into strips, it’s said that these larger chunks give a better texture to the final dish.

2) Mix the flours with just enough water to form a smooth, liquid paste.

3) Pour the remaining water into a pot, put in the radish, season with salt to taste, bring to the boil and cook until it has turned transparent and soft.

4) Reduce the heat to low or turn off the heat completely and stir in the flour mixture. Combine thoroughly until thick and sticky.

5) Grease a container to hold the radish batter for steaming. If you wish, you can line the container with cling film to make it easier to remove the cooked radish cake intact. You can use any dish suitable for steaming, or even a disposable aluminium cake tin (cling film not needed, because you can transport, store and serve the radish cake in it, no need to remove the cooked product from the container) . In my experience, try to avoid anything that’s too thick and heavy or which does not conduct heat well.

6) Pour in radish mixture and smoothen the top. Preheat the steamer and steam on high heat for at least 30 minutes. It could take as long as 1hr, depending in the quantity and shape of the radish cake. Test the middle with skewer or chopstick; if it doesn’t stick, the dish is done.

There will be a watery liquid on the surface. Just leave it as it will be absorbed as the radish cake cools and prevents the surface from becoming dried out and cracked.

7) As the cake cools, it will firm up. You can then slice, garnish and serve.

Optionally, you can pan fry the slices until brown and fragrant, then garnish and serve.

Personally, I think this tastes best when hot. I kept it in the fridge and heated it up before eating. However, I found that it did not microwave very well. The outer edges would be hot and the centre still hard and cold, so I ended up having to reheat by steaming. Which isn’t really a bad thing since we should try to avoid the additional EMF exposure from microwaves — not to mention the questionable effect eating microwaved food (read more here and here), if we weren’t already so addicted to their convenience.

We have an electric stove at home, and it’s slower to heat up and cool down than a gas stove. My personal method to speed up the steaming/boiling is as follows:
1) Boil sufficient water for steaming in the kettle.
2) Whilst the kettle is boiling, heat up the pot on the stove by putting just enough water to cover the base.
3) When kettle has boiled, pour contents into the pot, which should be at boiling point by now.
4) Invest in good quality pots as the heat conduction is noticeably superior and the contents will boil faster.

16/4/08 Update: Just found this video of a cooking show demonstrating how to make traditional Hong Kong-style steamed radish cake, which is characterised by Chinese sausages (in Taiwanese dialect with Chinese subtitles).

13/6/08 Update: see also my steamed Chinese yam cake.

I’m back to experimenting with steamed Asian snacks. These ‘exploded’ steamed cupcakes (which probably accounts for their name in Chinese which means ‘risen cake’) are quite common. In Singapore, they are usually referred to by the Hokkien pronunciation, huat kueh, but I’m more at home with the Cantonese name, fatt gou, which is also used in the Malaysian Chinese bilingual cookbooks.

While all the Malaysian Chinese recipes I’ve found use yeast, the recipe in this Taiwanese book of Chinese cakes used only baking powder – much easier and also avoids triggering possible food sensitivities to yeast I might have.

Ingredients

350g low-protein flour /cake flour
150g wheat starch 澄粉
20g baking powder
125g sugar [reduced from 350g]
1 egg white [see my method of separating eggs]
50ml oil [I used coconut oil for flavour]
250-270ml water

For brown-coloured cakes: cocoa powder to taste
For pink-coloured cakes: 150g strawberry jam

Method

1. In a bowl, mix the white sugar, egg white, oil and water until evenly combined.

2. Mix the cake flour, wheat starch and baking powder in a large bowl. At this point, I noticed a slight sourish, sort of chemical smell coming from the flour mixture but I’m still not sure what it was.

3. Add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients. Mix until there are no more lumps of flour. Unlike normal wheat flour-only batter, the addition of wheat starch makes this batter clump together more easily and therefore can be cleanly divided

4. Divide into 2 or three portions depending on number of colours/flavours desired. Add in the cocoa powder and/or strawberry jam to one portion each and mix well. I made cocoa and plain.

After adding cocoa powder to the batter, it because a bit more stiff, and this produced a better result. After trying out one batch of mixed cocoa & plain cakes, I realised this and added more cake flour to my white batter.

5. Pour the batter into cupcake moulds. I made three sizes: large (round and square), mini and bite-sized, using a combination of silicone baking cups and an aluminium tray with bite-sized shapes which I lined with paper cups.

Do not use square moulds as I did. None of the square cakes was able to produce the desired flower-shaped ‘explosion’ on top, as you can see below.

6. Steam the cakes. IMPORTANT: the water must be at a rolling boil, on high heat and do add sufficient water to steam the cakes for 15 minutes. Given the amount of dough I had, I had to steam the cupcakes in three batches (could have squeezed into two lots if I had been organised enough).

The first thing is that I was very pleased with the successful splitting of the cake tops, unlike with the brown sugar steamed buns 黑糖饅頭 I made some time back. Only for the round shapes though, as I noted above.

If you look at the second photo above, particularly the large brown cake, you’ll notice the cakes have an attractive glossy sheen. This effect is created by the wheat starch. The glossy skins can be easily peeled off, just as with char siew pau.

Texture-wise, it had a distinctive very crumbly texture that reminded me of Chinese steamed buns I’d eaten in shops and restaurants before, perhaps char siew pau skin. It was great to produce a kind of texture I’d never made before, yet one that was immediately recognisable to my palate.

However, that strange smell from the flour mixture gave the white cakes a slightly odd taste. This was masked by the cocoa powder in the brown ones. So perhaps one should avoid making these cakes in ‘plain’ flavour. But this also raises a worrying issue – just what is that smell/taste? The first thing that came to mind is that chemicals are often used to bleach and process flours. Wheat starch probably requires more processing than regular flour so is a likely candidate for chemical additives. I have used wheat starch before without noticing anything (such as here), but then again it was only in much smaller quantities. While I have been eating these cakes with no reactions, the idea of chemical fumes from my flours is rather off-putting and certainly undesirable.

Another important point to note is that these cakes do not seem to freeze well and cannot be reheated in the microwave. Microwaving them the same way I do with all my muffins and cakes so far turned them into hard lumps with plastic skins. So you’ll need to steam them to reheat, and even this did not produce a nice texture on the inside.

While I was pleased with the shape and texture, my concerns about the wheat starch and the fact that these do not freeze/reheat well mean that they are not practical as part of my weekly bento/snack reserves.

For health reasons, processed meats full of fats, poor quality cuts, various animal parts, artificial flavourings, preservatives and other additives have not touched my plate for a long time. So when the Singapore government banned the import of processed meat products from two China brands, Maling and Narcissus, last August, it didn’t bother me (though it affected enough Singaporeans to generate a slew of new reports, cries of desperation from a Sunday Times columnist, and plenty of angry noises on the internet). I was even rather glad that the spam-loving members of my family would no longer be able to indulge their unhealthy desires.

The fact that the ban might actually be a blessing in disguise was further emphasised when I read a story in the Sunday Times a few days ago that the six branches of Xin Wang Hong Kong Cafes in Singapore have started making their own luncheon meat, spicy diced pork and stewed pork ribs to replace Maling products.

To make luncheon meat, minced pork is mixed with egg white, oyster sauce, flour and other seasonings, packed into metal cans and steamed for an hour. Then it’s sliced and pan-fried. The result tastes close to the real thing, but with a firmer bite.

Some customers, like sales executive Carol Lai, 26, prefer it to the canned version. She says: ‘It’s less salty than the original. You can actually taste the pork, and it doesn’t taste so processed.’

Who knows what seasonings go into the ‘homemade’ version – definitely MSG would be my guess, but it’s probably still better than the factory-made Maling product, and with less preservatives.

As regular readers of my blog will know, one of my interests is how to produce common food products at home, rather than relying on mass-produced commercial items. Bread, salted eggs and soya bean milk are some basic foods which I make at home, and I’ve also been fascinated by the process of making soya sauce and tofu. And now I’m inspired to try out homemade luncheon meat too (with minimal seasonings for me, of course)!

Sadly, good things don’t last:

Photographer Matthew Tan, 46, says: ‘The taste is not bad, but frankly I prefer the original, which has more fat and is softer on the inside.’

This is one reason why the cafes will go back to Maling’s luncheon meat and Narcissus stewed pork ribs once the suspension is lifted. Another is that these pork products are laborious to make.

Mr Yong says: ‘Cooks have to come in two hours earlier every day to prepare them, and the manpower could be used to prepare other dishes instead. Costs have also increased by about 15 per cent, as we use fresh pork to make them. More importantly, Singaporeans grew up with Maling and Narcissus, so we’d still use these brands.’

Never mind, ‘homemade’ luncheon meat or not, I won’t be eating at any Xin Wang Hong Kong Cafes anyway. There would still be far too many ingredients likely to cause nasty food reactions for me. See this list of food additives to avoid and these factsheets on possible symptoms. Don’t discount emotional reactions like feeling irritable and angry, as well as less obvious physical reactions like foggy-headedness — along with itching and hives, it’s my most common reaction when eating out, usually enough to make me feel unable to function optimally for any mental tasks and on occasion I’ve even felt too ill to make my way home unassisted :(.

I’ve made soya bean milk at home quite a few times (as mentioned here and here) and written about how one could make soya sauce at home too. Today’s Sunday Times food question column by Chris Tan addresses the issue of making soya bean curd/tofu at home.

The basic process involves setting soya bean milk into a solid form by using a coagulating agent. Chris Tan explains the differences between the types of coagulants, which also helps us to understand the different ingredients used in commercial tofu.

The three main types of coagulants are:

1) Calcium sulphate, a.k.a. gypsum. As this is also one of the ingredients in plaster of paris, the Chinese word is shi2 gao1 石膏, which can also refer to a plaster cast for a broken bone, so don’t be surprised if you see poorly-translated Chinese language cookbooks calling for ‘plaster of paris’. This coagulant is used in Chinese-style tofu, and produces a more soft, moist texture. Available from Chinese provision or medicine shops.

2 ) Nigari. A extract of seawater containing a high proportion of magnesium chloride. Used in Japanese-style tofu, and explains why some Japanese tofu-makers use seawater. A smoother,  subtly sweeter effect is created by using nigari. Powdered or liquid form available at Japanese supermarkets and health food stores such as Nature’s Glory.

3) Glucono delta-lactone (GDL). An organic compound developed a few decades ago, and makes a delicate, pudding-like tofu. Instant tofu kits from Japanese supermarkets use GDL, alongside packets of soya bean milk powder to which you add water. Many years ago, when I visited an aunt who lives in Britain, she made a soya bean curd dessert 豆花 for me using one of these kits; as I remember, the texture was very smooth.

Each type of coagulant produces different textures and subtle flavours, and commercial tofu manufacturers often mix up blends of coagulants. You’ll need to experiment and see which you prefer. Food intolerance sufferers might find they are more sensitive to certain types of coagulants as compared to others.

Read about my experimental attempt at homemade tofu and further information on coagulants:
Making tofu at home
Making tofu at home P.S.
Another word on tofu coagulants

In some Chinese regional customs, glutinous rice balls are eaten on the 15th day of the Chinese New Year (i.e. 21 Feb in 2008). As this is known as the Yuan Xiao 元宵 Festival, the glutinous rice balls eaten at this time are often called yuan xiao rather than tang yuan 汤圆, which are eaten during the Winter Solstice Festival (冬至, Dong Zhi) , although the names are interchangeable, depending on the regional vocabulary.

Hence, a common question is whether yuan xiao and tang yuan are identical, and the answer depends on who is answering. This China news source describes the terms as interchangeable and this site about Guangzhou uses ‘tang yuan‘ for the Yuan Xiao Festival food, whereas my Taiwanese friends certainly recognise a difference. Taipei Travel Net explains how yuan xiao and tang yuan are made in very different ways. The yuan xiao method sounds pretty difficult to me! I wonder if one could use the tang yuan method and pass it off as yuan xiao?!?

Incidentally, I don’t think glutinous rice balls are a typical feature of the 15th day of Chinese New Year in Singapore and Malaysia. Here, tang yuan is much more strongly associated with the Dong Zhi 冬至 Festival for Winter Solstice. Moreover, the 15th day of the Lunar New Year tends to be celebrated not as Yuan Xiao 元宵 – also known as the Lantern Festival in China – but as Chap Goh Meh (十五暝, ‘fifteenth night’), following the Hokkien/Fujianese tradition. Just to complicate things a little more, in Singapore and Malaysia, ‘Lantern Festival’ refers to the Mid-Autumn Festival 中秋节 (15th day of 8th month of lunar calendar).

Well, with family reunions symbolised by round glutinous rice balls on our mind in the run up to Chinese New Year, it’s an opportune time to start experimenting with non-traditional variations again, as I did around Dong Zhi 冬至 last December. My favourite was the five-coloured glutinous rice balls taken from a wagashi recipe book.

Today, I tried making mitarashi dango, shortcutting by adding sugar to some sukiyaki sauce I’d made up ages ago and had sitting around in the fridge. Never having tried genuine mitarashi dango before, I have no idea if mine tasted the way it should have. Nevertheless, I was really surprised how much I enjoyed a dish which didn’t sound very appetising to me from the description :). [26/2/08 update: Read the latest post from Just Hungry about mitarashi dango.]

My mitarashi dango look rather pale. Perhaps my sauce wasn’t thick enough to stay coated on the dango, or quite possibly the surface was still wet from the water the dango were boiled in so the soya sauce just slid off the slippery surface.

Having satisfied my curiosity with this experiment, I probably wouldn’t make mitarashi dango for myself to eat very often, because the sauce is has things that are are simply unhealthy (refined white sugar) as well as those that might cause a food intolerance reaction in me: even if using macrobiotic grade version, soya sauce=fermented, mirin=alcohol (while cheap supermarket versions are made with dodgy additives), dashi=glutamates. Actually, the sauce tastes somewhat like bee cheo! Well they are both types of thick, sweetened soya sauce.

Together with the mitarashi dango, I made up my own variation of green tea glutinous rice balls drizzled with brown rice syrup.

I’d posted my experiences in making glutinous rice balls before (here, here and here) but here’s a quick summary of my top tips:

1) 60g (125ml cup measure) of glutinous rice flour mixed with 1/2 teaspoon matcha green tea powder. This is enough to impart a subtle matcha flavour without being overpowering, but you could add a pinch more if you prefer. The quantity of matcha I used previously was too much. Don’t worry if the dry flour looks very white, after you mix in the water to form a dough it will become a pale green, and the colour will become more intense after cooking as well.

2) Use warm water. I read this in a Chinese recipe book and Commoi from Frank Tastes suggested in the comments here that this is meant to make the dough texture smoother.

3) Amount of water is slightly less than amount of flour. Please remember to mix the water in using your hands so that you can accurately gauge the consistency of the dough. Use just barely enough water for all the dough sticking together. If it is slightly too soft, you won’t be able to shape nicely-formed round balls. If it’s a bit too dry and cracks apart when you try to roll it, then just dab your hands with water.

In the event that you have unfortunately added too much water, you can either try to add in more flour, or simply leave the glutinous rice balls for a while and they will dry out and harden. Today, I left my overly soft green tea dango on the kitchen worktop whilst I went about making another dish, and by the time I was done, the green tea dango were much easier to roll into smooth round shapes.

4) For me, the best way to get even-sized balls is to use a chopping sheet with measurements. 1 cup of flour will produce about 20 glutinous rice balls. I roll the dough into a thick sausage shape and cut it into five pieces, then re-roll each of those pieces into a smaller sausage and cut them into four pieces each. This is easier than trying to make one long sausage, of even diameter throughout, to cut into 20 sections.

5) Once the balls have been shaped, pop them into a pot of boiling water and when they float to the surface they are done.

Do not put the cooked balls onto a flat surface for a prolonged period of time as the bottom will become flat and you won’t have nice round balls any more. So it’s best to cook them just before eating and leave them suspended in water until it’s time to serve them.