Hokkaido Milk Toast (Japanese style)

Here comes another tangzhong recipe again, my favourite Hokkaido Milk Toast (北海道牛奶麵包). Yes, I’m really addicted to making breads with tangzhong. It’s the most reliable method to make soft and fluffy breads as far as I know. The bread can be kept for days and still very soft and fluffy. Best of all, the method is very natural, no chemicals needed.

Honestly, the tangzhong dough is extremely sticky, due to the moist added by tangzhong, so that it’s quite challenge to handle by hands. Yet, my breadmaker is very loyal and does all the hard kneading job for me.

This is a very popular Japanese style toast, with rich flavour of milk. Many fans of my Chinese blog tried this recipe were amazed with the results. Ever knew that this kind of Japanese milk toast costs very expensive in Asian bakery stores? Having got this recipe at a very handy place in my kitchen, I can bake as many as I want, for breakfasts, morning teas or afternoon teas.

Pumpkin & Sweet Potato Feta Pie

I didn’t know that my daughter is a big fan of feta cheese until I baked this Pumpkin & Sweet Potato Feta Pie. When I was about to sprinkle the feta onto the vegetables, she grabbed a big piece of it. She told me that’s her favourite cheese after enjoying the big bite. Not surprisingly, I found my hubby is not quite into the cheese. My daughter’s palate is quite different from my hubby’s. Being a home cook, I always have to juggle, sometimes swing back and forth in cooking some western and oriental dishes to suit their different palates.

Nearly half of the 8 inch pie was eaten by my daughter. As for myself, I love the shortcrust, as it’s easy to make and yummy. The caramelized onion was cooked with a well-balanced sweet and tangy taste, going so well with the pumpkin and sweet potato.

Butter Prawns

One of the good things that I love about food blogging is receiving feedbacks from my readers’ email. Through all the email exchanges, I shared their joy and satisfaction after trying my recipes. Thank you all for your encouraging feedbacks.

Amongst all the encouraging feedbacks, here’s a unique one from Eric Tan, a reader in Malaysia, that’s a wonderful recipe I didn’t ask for. When I saw this popular Malaysian recipe, Butter Prawns, fine tuned by himself appearing in my inbox, I said to myself that was a must to try. Yet, without any reason, it took me quite a long time to try it out. Finally, I’m glad I did. It’s a fantastic dish. Thank you, Eric.

The butter prawns were so creamy and delicious. Although Eric made a remark that the curry leaves are optional, I strongly recommend to use them, that often used in Malaysian and Indian cuisine, because you’ll find the little leaves add extra aroma and enrich the taste of the dish. Eric’s recipe calls for salted egg yolks. Excellent, I still had some homemade salted eggs in the fridge. By stirring in the mashed salted egg yolks, not only did the whole dish was brightened up, but also created more depth in the savoury taste.

Red Bean and Black Glutinous Rice Dessert

Here comes a traditional Chinese dessert, red bean sweet soup, that was requested by my reader via email. This popular dessert has many different versions, widely accepted around South Asian countries. If you go for a traditional Chinese banquet, you’ll notice this dessert would often be served to wrap up the dinner. Lotus seeds are always paired with red beans in Chinese dessert. Kindly note that right in the middle of a lotus seed, there is a dark green core. It must be removed before cooking because you don’t want your dessert turns bitter. I also added black glutinous rice this time. The black glutinous rice is very healthy, rich with vitamins B and helps strengthen our blood system. It’s very popular to top with some coconut cream when served.

Stir-fried Green Beans with Minced Pork (乾扁四季豆)

Green beans (四季豆) are so good to have in every meal. It also can be used in any cuisine. In Chinese cooking, my daughter likes it briefly fried in hot oil in order to enhance its natural sweetness, then stir fried with ground pork, blended with some hot spices and sauces. This dish is very popular and you can easily find it on the menu of every Chinese restaurant. But they might have different versions, whether it’s stir fried with pork mince or just omit the pork as a vegan dish. It goes really well with steamed rice.

Stir Fried Spinach with Salted Egg

Having made a few salted eggs at home, I couldn’t wait to try how they tasted like and made several traditional Chinese dishes with them. My dear readers, when you read this post, please don’t take the said sentence word by word literally, even though I intended to cook some traditional Chinese dishes. Truly, the dish I share today came from a very popular traditional one, yet I changed a lot in the way of using ingredients and cooking.

When it comes to stir frying spinach, both century egg (皮蛋) and salted egg（鹹蛋）are widely used in order to create a combination of silver-like and golden colours mingled with jade-like spinach. On top of that, the dish has a very beautiful title, 金銀蛋菠菜 (literally means “Silver and Golden Eggs with Spinach”). The dish itself is quite humble, yet both the taste and name of the dish are very appealing. Well, when I cooked this dish again, I deliberately omitted the century egg. That said, many imprudent producers incorporate more poisonous lead into the curing process than before, that really puts me off. Since then, I haven’t eaten any century eggs for ages. Here comes my version, Golden Egg with Spinach.

Nutella Cream Horns (Tangzhong Method)

I’m so addicted to making bread with tangzhong. That’s the most reliable and amazing method to make soft and fluffy breads I found so far. Last week I made two batches of cream horns with Nutella cream inside. I always keep at least one bottle of Nutella in my pantry as my daughter sometimes likes to have it on toasts for supper. I whipped a few tablespoons of Nutella into the cream and pipe them inside the horns that just cooled a bit after popping out from the oven. Oh, I have to confess that it’s so amazing that I couldn’t resist eating one after one.