My first egg tart

 

 

Note for myself:

• Great recipe, but try to make the crust thinner. Assuming that way, the crust will be crispier. But lovely crust! It gets removed easily.
• I halved the recipe for both the crust and the filling. The filling fills up just right (nothing extra) making 8 egg tarts.
• I baked at 170degC for 25min in my Fotile oven (mode: no fan on, but bottom and top heat on), but the filling was still wobbly. Baked for another 5min, and they come out looking a little brown on a few of the egg tarts. I would think maintain the temp and bake for a total of 28min, it should be okay. Note: this is only for my own reference. Different oven differs.
• I reduced the sugar content of the filling by 10g. The sweetness was just right.
• I would omit using vanilla essence or I would use real extract from vanilla bean pod. 
• I used disposable aluminium foil tart pan. It's time I get some real tart pan for next bakes.

 

Hohohooo.. I quickly jot down these notes for my own referral so that I can make improvements for my next egg tart bake, which I believe will be very soon. This is a superb recipe. The crust tastes great, with just the right sweetness and butter in it. The filling is good too! I must thank Mui Mui from My Little Favorite DIY for sharing this. She calls this her perfect egg tart. Since it's my first attempt, I wouldn't know which recipe to start with, so I trusted her and attempted her 'perfect' egg tart. It doesn't disappoint me. If you haven't had any favorite recipe for egg tart yet, this is a good one to start with.

 

Both recipes are by Mui Mui from My Little Favorite DIY, adapted from Wendy from Table for 2.

 

Recipe for egg tart pastry

 

Ingredients:

• 250g unsalted butter, at room temperature  
• 1 egg
• 2tbsp castor sugar (I used brown sugar)
• 400g all purpose flour
• I added a pinch of salt

Instructions:

1. In a mixing bowl, beat butter with sugar until fluffy. Add in egg. Mix. Add in flour till it resembles texture of coarse crumb. Prepare a large sheet of cling film. Pour the crumbly dough onto the cling film and bring together to a lump. Let rest for 15 minutes in the fridge.
2. If the dough has become too hard from sitting in the fridge. Warm it up just slightly with the warmth of your palm. Roll dough to about 4mm thickness. Cut with a 7cm round pastry cutter (I just used my rice bowl which measures 7cm diameter). Place round dough disks into egg tart tins (I used disposable aluminum foil tin).
3. Refrigerate the lined tart tins till they are very firm, for at least 2 hours. (I did mine the night before, and left in the refrigerator, with the whole tray wrapped up in a plastic bag).

Recipe for egg tart filling

 

Ingredients

• 150g sugar (I used brown sugar)
• 150ml hot water
• 250ml fresh full fat milk
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs and 1 egg white

Instructions

1. Dissolve sugar in hot water. Chill.
2. Combine sugar syrup, salt, vanilla extract. Beat eggs lightly (try not to incorporate air) and combine all.
3. Sieve egg mixture and pour into a pitcher (for easy pouring), then fill up tart case with egg mixture.
4. Bake in a preheated oven at 170degC for 28 minutes.

Half of this recipe made 8 egg tarts.

 

 

 

This post is linked to the event Little Thumbs Up (June 2014 Event: Butter) organised by Zoe (Bake for Happy Kids) and Mui Mui (My Little Favourite DIY) and hosted by Jozelyn Ng (Spice Up My Kitchen)" 



Avocado yogurt with orange

He pronounced 'Oren' when he saw this. I corrected him, it's 'O-RAN-GE'.

 

 

 

This is a snapshot of my little munchkin enjoying his two-course breakfast this morning. He is now 19month old, weighing 9.8kg. I don't feed him huge portion of food, but I make him an assortment of meals, with different texture, taste and color, so that he'll find joy in eating and at the same time, provided with nutrients from different source of food. I don't stock crisps or biscuits or cookies at home. But I always bake and there are plenty of homebaked bread, buns, cakes or muffins readily available if he decides he wants to snack.

 

This morning, I prep him a simple pasta to be brought over to the nanny's for his lunch. There was extra so I also let him have a small portion for breakfast. The sauce was made from just FOUR ingredients, ie garlic, onion, pumpkin and tomato. It's super easy to make, and requires very minimal seasoning to make it tastes super good. All we need was just a tablespoon of grated Cheddar or a dollop of cream cheese. The recipe was shared here. You can adjust the consistency by adjusting the amount of water or milk added when blending it.  

 

I also served him avocado yogurt with fresh oranges. It's a great breakfast or dessert for the adults too. Here's the recipe:

• 1/2 ripe avocado, chopped into small cubes
• 3tbsp full fat greek yogurt
• 1tbsp honey or 1tbsp apple juice

Place all ingredients in a blender. Blitz till smooth. Pour into a bowl. Top with freshly cut orange segments. Chill in refrigerator for about 10min before serving.

 



Coral glass jelly pudding (sea bird nest pudding)

 

This is my second healthy pudding for the week. The first one was made with just chia seeds and milk or soymilk. This one is made with just seaweeds, also known as sea birdnest or poor man's birdnest, as they resembles birdnest in terms of their dense collagen and high nutrients content.

 

According to an info by Matanjun et al, 2009, this coral glass seaweed (or sea birdnest) contains 10 times richer amount of collagen than birdnest, 37 times more calcium than cod liver. It is low in fat and calories but bursting with nutrients like magnesium, iron, sodium and calcium. In other words, to me, it's a cheap, nice, non-fattening dessert that helps to provide good nutrients for the skin, for my boy it's a healthy nutritious dessert that provides fiber and an array of great nutrients.

 

This coral glass seaweed or sea birdnest is available for sale at Just Health, Sandakan.

 

 

 

 

Preparation:

1. First rinse the sea birdnest with water a few times.
2. Soak the sea birdnest in clean filered water for about 3-4 hours (change the water in between for 2-3times).
3. After soaking, rinse away the water, it is now ready to be consumed or cooked.

In Sabah, they are normally served as:

• Salad - the sea birdnest is chopped into pieces, mixed in with julienned cucumber and carrots, marinated with vinegar or lemon juice, salt and sugar.
• Jelly - see below for recipe
• Sweet dessert (tong sui 糖水）- the sea birdnest is boiled with dried longan, red dates, white fungus, water and rocksugar.

Recipe for sea birdnest jelly

 

Longan, goji and kanten jelly

• 1 kanten brown sugar cube
• 4 cups of water
• 1/2 tbsp. wolfberries (goji)
• 3 dried longan
• 25g sea birdnest, soaked and cleaned

OR

 

Soy and almond milk jelly

• 4 cups of water with 2tbsp almond powder and 3tbsp soy powder
• 25g sea birdnest, soaked and cleaned

1. Boil all ingredients in a pan, stirring continuous, until sea birdnest dissolves.
2. Pour into a jelly mould or a shallow container.
3. Chill for at least 4 hours or until jelly firms up.

Chia seeds pudding

 

 

 

 

 

I have been introducing chia seeds, the superfood, to my clients since many years ago. But oddly enough, I have not started introducing it to my little fella until recently. I guess it's the word seeds that kinda put me off. Other than flaxseed and sesame seed oil, I have not given him any seeds until he turned one year for fear of the choking risk. According to Superbabyfood by Ruth Yaron, most pediatricians agree that you can add these seeds (one of a time, of course) to your baby’s diet at eight months of age!  

 

Chia seeds have become very popular and it is no wonder. It is such a nutrient-compact superfood. I have had couple of chia seeds got stucked to the base of my wash basin, it grows into chia seed sprouts! Nature must have put a concentrated store of nutrients in the seed, which can grow a new plant with no soil and nothing more than plain water. I was crazily sprouting chia seeds few years back. Refer to this link for more info on my sprouting experience.

 

Omelette and chia sprouts sandwich

 

 

These unprocessed seeds, which come from a desert plant grown in Mexico, have been around for thousands of years and were a staple in the diet of the ancient Mayans and Aztecs. Aztec soldiers used to consume crushed chia to boost energy, and the seeds were thought to have magical powers based on their ability to increase stamina over long periods of time.

 

Most importantly, chia seeds are the best plant-based source of omega-3 fatty acids on the planet. Info from here. Omega-3s are glorious, and because they are not made in our bodies, we need to get them from our diet. These fatty acids help build new cells, reduce inflammation, regulate physiological functions, and prevent heart disease and diabetes. improve cognitive function (be smarter!), and promote healthy skin, hair and nails. They are also potent sources of complete protein, and more easily digestible compared to soy, beans or peas' protein. It has 2.7 times more iron than raw spinach, and five times as much calcium than milk! Now you know why there's a hype over it all over the world.  

 

Chia seeds can absorb up to ten times their own weight in liquid. So when placed in water or liquid, they expand and take on a gel-like texture. After a few hours of soaking, the seeds swell up and form jelly pudding texture, making healthy nutritious snacks or desserts for the little ones. My boy doesn't like plain avocado puree, but he loves this.

 

Avocado milk chia seeds pudding

• 1/2 cup fresh milk or soymilk
• 1/2 avocado, medium size  
• 2tbsp chia seeds
• 1tsp honey (optional)

Puree avocado with fresh milk until consistency turns creamy. Add in chia seeds and blend for another second. Pour into bowl or glass and let chill in refrigerator overnight or at least 4hours.

 

Black soymilk chia seeds pudding

• 1/2 cup warm water + 2tbsp black soy powder
• 2tbsp chia seeds

Dissolve soy powder in warm water by stirring or shaking in a tumbler. Add in chia seeds and shake. Pour into bowl or glass and let chill in refrigerator overnight or for at least 4hours.

Sweet potato tang yuan (Rice glutinous balls) with sesame seed filling

 

 

It's winter solstice this Sunday. Mom and dad-in-laws are away for vacation, leaving behind me, hubby, bro-in-law and aunty. I guess there's no big meals for us then, since there's only four of us eating. But aunty has also invited another cousin-family over, ah.. not too bad. Our aunty was a chef, she never disappoints us when comes to reunion meals. I gladly volunteered to prepare the tang yuan for this Sunday's dinner, as there's only 8 of us and it's manageable for me. If it's the usual 30pax dinner, I am not sure if I would volunteer. Not that I don't want to, I am only afraid that I am not capable of preparing big dishes for a crowd.

 

I wanted to prepare purple color balls (glutinous rice balls, aka tang yuan) using purple sweet potatoes, but the purple ones are nowhere to be found when I went to the market this morning. So I just made do with the orange ones, Surprisingly, these orange ones taste really sweet and soft (sometimes I get the ones that aren't sweet). After realizing that they taste good, I made extra batches so that I can freeze them for this Sunday's dinner. Today's version was supposed to be a practice.

 

I started by making the filling. Looking at the photos, you would have thought it's peanut, nah.. it's not. I have plenty of white sesame seeds available, so I made a delicious and creamy one with white sesame seeds. Here's the recipe for the filling.

 

Roasted white sesame seeds filling, this recipe can fill about 100 or more tang yuan.  

• 220g white sesame seeds, toasted in the oven
• 100g molasses
• 80g butter/ oil 

1. Toast white sesame seeds in the oven until fragrant. Becareful, not to burn them.

2. In a blender, blitz the white sesame seeds with molasses until they turn into paste.

3. In a plastic bag, mix with melted butter. Chill in fridge. After about an hour, shape them into small balls.

 

For the tang yuan, here's the recipe, this recipe makes about 60-80 tang yuan

• 220g sweet potato, peeled and steamed  
• 120g glutinous rice flour
• 40g potato flour (this is added to give the glutinous rice balls the QQ texture)
• 1tbsp molasses
• water, about 4-6tbsp added while kneading the dough

Mix cooked sweet potato, glutinous rice flour, potato rice flour with sufficient water to form a smooth, non-sticky dough. Note: Add water little by little while kneading the dough. If the dough is too dry, it crumbles. The water used may differ due to the sweet potato used.

 

To make the tang yuan, take a small amount of dough (about the size of our thumb), roll into a ball, then press to form a small disc that is big enough to cover 1 sesame filling. Place 1 sesame ball in the centre of the dough, seal and roll into a ball.

 

To cook the tang yuan, bring a pan of water to boil, drop the tang yuan into them, let simmer until the tang yuan floats for at least 1min.

 

Recipe of tang yuan adapted from here.

Recipe for sesame filling adapted from here.