kuih bingka, also known as Chiu Chu Kuih or in English, "cassava cake"

I got inspired to make kueh [or "kuih" in malay : the malaysian word for a certain class of snacks, most often starchy and steamed, but can also include baked goods and sweet pancakes, generally sweet rather than savoury, but there're some exceptions] all of a sudden. I never liked them as a child, and most of my adulthood, preferring western desserts over Asian ones. In fact, I hated most of them, including mooncake, red bean soup, tang yuan.

However, perhaps I've been away from it so long that I somehow missed it. I don't know. perhaps it's just a case of not knowing what you've got till it's gone. This is a starchy sweet baked snack made from grated tapioca that I had a few times as a child, it's often bought from the local pasar malam [market] and I remember my dad calling it "mok shi koh" [sounds like mopiko! haha] which I guess was its Cantonese name but till this day I don't know. It's not particularly a Cantonese food. It's more of a Malaysian/Malay thing. I remember how he tried to get me to eat it and I didn't want to coz I didn't like it at the time. But now, after seeing it being sold at $2.50 for 4 pieces, I thought I might try my hand at it.

It was really easy to make since I bought the tapioca frozen and peeled from Hong Kong grocery on Clayton Road, and used canned coconut milk.
You can either do this the hard way, by buying fresh tapioca then peeling and grating it yourself, and buying a coconut and opening it, scraping its flesh and squeezing its milk out, or the easy way which I will show you here. This is my adaptation of it from looking at several recipes from books and the internet.

First, thaw 1kg of the frozen tapioca/cassava by soaking it in some water, then cut it up into smallish pieces and put in a blender so it gets blended to mush. Not very pretty looking, but it's supposed to be like that. By now it would be a white messy pulp. Add 350mls of coconut milk, an egg, 1 1/2 cup sugar, a tsp of pandan essence and 40g melted butter and mix well. Pour into a greased baking tin and bake till golden brown on top, around 1 hour but that depends on how big your pan is.

When done, let cool completely before cutting into slices. As in, COMPLETELY [i tried cutting it a bit too early and it stuck to the bottom of the pan] In winter, you could leave it outside to cool down. I couldn't do that coz there were possums in my area.

I was too excited to cut and taste it before it was done and I was glad that it tasted exactly as I had remembered, fragrant, with a subtle coconut milk flavour and a hint of ... something sweet smelling. It had the right bouncy yet sticky texture, and just the right amount of sweetness. Unlike most western sweets, its flavours were very subtle. Funny, though I hadn't had it in at least...15 years, its taste was not forgotten.

pork dumplings, also known as "siu mai"

I got inspired to make this, funnily enough, by a westernized recipe from the Herald Sun, it said to use beef mince and pork fat, but I reverted to my Chinese-ness and just used pork mince. It's so easy to do, just put some seasoned mince pork into the wanton skins, and steam for 10 minutes! Preparing the pork is easy - season it, then add some cornflour and an egg to make it bind and set. For a traditional tasting one, I used sesame oil, soy sauce, spring onions, dark soy sauce, and tiny bit of sugar. You could add chopped chilli, coriander, shaoxing wine and ginger too.

The wanton skins stick when wet, so wet the edges that you want to stick. Serve with chilli sauce.

Desserts

This is the array of sweet treats in a Greek cafe, also in Preston.
There were a few Greek things like baklava and that crescent shaped sugar coated cookie.
Above, the ricotta and chocolate cannoli which we both loved. It was creamy, crunchy and had just the right amount of sweetness that Gav likes. [not very much!]
Here, the kataifi which I ordered only because of its Greek name and I wanted to try something new, and Greek. It looked like it was made with lotsa sugary soaked "meehoon"[rice noodles] but of course it wasn't. I didn't like it however, it was wayyy too sweet for me. Perhaps this wasn't an authentic one? Perhaps it was mass produced. I'll never know coz I don't have any Greek friends.

Balkan Burek!

We chanced upon this Macedonian Burek shop on High St in Preston and were really impressed with the burek. Each slice is $5.50, and you can get a whole one for $22, which I think could feed 4-5 people. Frozen ones are $16, and we saw lots of customers buying them by the takeaway boxfuls.

A burek is a pie with buttery flaky pastry encasing a tasty filling such as meat, spinach or ricotta cheese. We ordered the meat burek, below, and it was served hot and fresh from the oven. It smelled really really good! [as all things fattening do] It reminded me of the Malaysian mamak "murtabak" which is a roti filled with meat, but this one had a lighter and crisper pastry, with less filling. We both loved it and I wished we could try all the types of fillings! Perhaps next time.

taiwanese steamboat

when we boil raw foods at the table and eat them with a dipping sauce, it's called a "steamboat". I don't know why. perhaps coz the morsels of food look like boats floating on the soup and it releases a lot of steam as it boils? anyway, it's a great winter warming meal! here we had some fishballs, pork balls, tofu, chinese cabbage, and thinly sliced pork and beef.
the dipping sauce which is made out of a raw egg yolk, chilli and garlic paste and some other brown Taiwanese BBQ sauce.
the whole thing boils at the table on an electric hot plate.
here's the meat! although it looks like a lot of fat, each slice is very thin and this whole platter is shared with 7 people so I don't think it's as unhealthy as it looks.

Pin Tohng Thai in Potts Point

This is the first time we've had Thai food in Australia. It was our final night in Sydney and we were walking around Kings Cross/ Potts Point wondering what to have for dinner. Pizza, Japanese, Indian and Oporto were available but it was so cold, we wanted something hot and spicy. Never having had proper authentic Malaysian food here, I didn't expect this Thai one to be anywhere near the standard I was used to but we were pleasantly surprised. Everything we ordered tasted just as good as if it were in Malaysia. Or Thailand for that matter [they're next to each other] This little half shop had some Bhuddist statues around and the girl at the counter spoke Thai so I reckon it's definitely authentic.
The tomyam soup was sooo good, really flavourful, spicy and tasted like its real ingredients, and had pieces of lemongrass in it. and it was full of chicken and mushrooms as you can see on top. the serving sizes were SO BIG! we weren't expecting it to be so huge. Each person's serving was enough for 2, really.
Below, the pad prick [fresh chilli] stir fried beef, which was excellent. The seasonings were perfect, the vegtables cooked just right, not overcooked or undercooked so they retained some "bite" and the slices of beef were perfectly tender and as i said, there was such a HUGE serving.
Below, the panang curry which had a rich flavourful sauce that was perfect with the steamed rice, and generous amounts of chicken and vegetables in it as well, with fragrant thai basil strewn over the top. We kinda "forced" ourselves to finish it coz we didn't want to waste any but really, it was enough to serve 3-4 people, so i ended up eating too much and feeling really bloated afterwards......
I highly recommend this place and only wish there were such a Thai place here in Clayton!

Pin Thong Thai

• Shop 2
  117B Macleay St
  Potts Point 2011 NSW
• Phone: (02) 8356 9033

going Japanese

I'm quite pleased with myself - i made this Japanese lunch for hubby! Onigiri and inari sushi. Actually, these were so easy to make, a 4 yr old could've done it. The onigiri were bonito flake and soy sauce filled rice balls shaped into a triangle, then stuck with a seaweed strip. The inari was the easiest - you can buy the tofu skins in packets from asian grocers, these were around $3 for a pack of 8 skins. Just stuff them with sushi vinegar-ed rice. The tray was saved from a sushi takeaway meal [something as pretty as that should be reused!]
Then I decided to show off my pretty sakura ceramic plate that I got in Malaysia.
here they are again! Gav said they tasted okay.