Chinese New Year Three Wise Monkeys

Chinese New Year is coming very soon. One important celebration for Chinese New Year is the reunion dinner held on New Year's Eve. It's getting more and more common for people to eat out in order to save the hassle of cooking. It's also not easy to come up with a variety of dishes. Are you also racking your head on what to cook? For today, I'll be sharing two easy recipes for you to add to your reunion dinner feast.


Before I move on to the dishes, I also have a Chinese New Year food art to share. Since 2016 is the year of the monkey, I made the 3 wise monkeys, who embody the principle "see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil".


The two dishes I'm sharing today are Oyster Sauce Baked Chicken and Scallop and Asparagus in XO sauce. I'm using Lee Kum Kee Oyster sauce and soy sauce for the chicken and Lee Kum Kee XO sauce for the asparagus.


They are both easy and fast to whip up, thanks to the help of Lee Kum Kee's oyster sauce, soy sauce and XO sauce. These 3 Lee Kum Kee's sauces are a staple in my kitchen and I'm sure it is in many of yours too. All three products are available in all leading supermarkets with limited-time Chinese New Year promotions.


Before I share the recipes, I would like to share about a food photo contest where Lee Kum Kee will be giving away weekly prizes and cash angpow. To enter:

1. Snap a photo related to the theme of "Reunion" with any Lee Kum Kee product;
2. Write a caption for the photo;
3. Hashtag #LKKReunionSG
4. Upload through Instagram or LKK webstite - http://lkksauce.com/reunion/
5. And you stand a chance to win these prizes! Good Luck!

OYSTER SAUCE BAKED CHICKEN



Ingredients:

10 medium sized chicken wings/drumlets
3 tbsp Lee Kum Kee Oyster sauce
1 tbsp Lee Kum Kee soy sauce
1 tbsp Shaoxing Huatiao wine
dash of five spice powder
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp sesame seeds

Method:

1. Marinade chicken with oyster sauce, soy sauce, wine, five spice powder and sesame oil. Cover with cling wrap and leave in fridge for at least 2 hours or overnight.
2. Remove chicken from marinade, place them on a baking tray, lined with baking paper. Reserve the marinade for use later.
3. Bake in the oven at 200C for around 20 minutes. In between baking, flip wings and baste them with reserve marinade. They are ready when both sides are nicely browned.
4. Sprinkle sesame seeds before serving.

SCALLOPS ASPARAGUS IN XO SAUCE



Ingredients:

1 clove garlic, minced
3 slices old ginger
10 fresh scallops
1 pack of asparagus, skin removed and sliced
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp cornflour
2 tbsp XO sauce
2 tbsp water
dash of pepper

Method:

1. Marinate scallops with sesame oil, salt and cornflour for 15 minutes.
2. Heat wok on high heat, add in a little oil. Add in minced garlic and sliced ginger and fry till fragrant.
3. Add in XO sauce and asparagus, fry for a minute and add in 2 tbsp of water.
4. Add in scallops and fry for another 4 minutes or until scallops are cooked. 

Tsum Tsum Deco Sushi

Hello! I'm back to update my blog today with more recent creations. I got a copy of Tsum Tsum deco sushi book in Japan, and tried my hands on making some using the recipes in the book. The book is in Japanese, but there are pictures, and it's not difficult to guess how to make the sushi from there. I will probably be exploring more creations in the book again.


The first set I made was Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore and Piglet. You might have noticed that the sides aren't neat, it was due to the fact that the knife I'm using is not sharp enough. I actually don't have any sharp knifes at home, I've a phobia of them, I'm so accident prone, I think I'll easily slice off my fingers with a sharp knife.


The colors were done using mashed egg yolks, deco furi and sushi mix. It's not that difficult making these as the recipes in the book was very precise, I just need to work harder on the neatness part.


The second set I made was Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy and Pluto. I accidentally mixed in a little too much grounded black sesame with the rice, the rice turned out too dry and not sticky, so the grey portions were tough to roll, lol. Never mind, I'll learn from my mistake, so hopefully next time will be better.


Ingredients used to get the different colours were ketchup, deco furi, mashed egg yolk and grounded black sesame. The pink portion of Kamaboko was used for Daisy's bow and Donald and Daisy's cheeks.


And here's a shot of the different characters from the two sets I made together. Which one do you like?


I don't think I'll be making so many different designs at one go the next time, probably at most just two or three different ones next round.

Pooh bear & Friends Donuts

It has been a long time since I last shared about donuts on my blog. I started experimenting with various designs last school holidays. The ones I'm sharing today belongs to one of my earlier batch. I recently made an updated glazed version of this, I like the look of that one better but that recipe will be shared another time instead.


Pooh, Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore donuts, which one do you like? These donuts are baked, not fried, so the texture is similar to cakes. You would need a donut mould for this recipe, I'm using a silicon one but the metal ones are fine too.


I used Morinaga pancake mix to make this, but if you can't get hold of it, you should be able to substitute with other pancake mix.


I'm only sharing the recipe on how to make Pooh, since he's the easiest. However, you can use the same basic recipe to make the Eeyore, Tigger and Piglet.


I used soya milk and cold pressed coconut oil for this recipe and the donuts turned out really fragrant, I recommend these two combi, but I've also provided alternatives you can use in the recipe.

POOH BEAR DONUT RECIPE

Ingredients:
150g Monrinaga pancake mix
100ml soya milk/milk
1 egg
3 tbsp honey
10g cold pressed coconut oil/vegetable oil/melted butter
A little Wilton yellow icing colours
A little black charcoal powder

Method:

1. Put pancake mix, soya milk, egg, honey and coconut oil in a bowl and mix until all the ingredients are evenly distributed. Scoop out 2 tbsp of batter, add in black charcoal powder and mix well, fill in a pipping bag (A) and set aside. 

2. Add in some yellow icing colours and mix well. Scoop out 4 tbsp of batter and fill in a piping bag (B) and set aside. 

3. Lightly grease donut pan with vegetable oil. Spoon mixture into donut mould till around 80% full. Bake in preheated oven at 180C for 15 minutes.

4. Use pipping bag (B) to draw out circles on a tray lined with baking paper. Bake in preheated oven at 180C for 2 minutes. This will be for Pooh's ears.

5. Using pipping bag (A), draw out Pooh's features on the baked donut, return the donut to the oven and bake for 1 minute. Stick on Pooh's ears using melted chocolate.

6. The same basic dough can be used to make Piglet, Eeyore and Tigger.

Teenage Mutant Turtles & Jack Sparrow

Cowabunga dude! How has your week been? If it's not going too well, hang on a little more, it's almost the weekends. :) Today I'm going to share two creations inspired by shows I watched when I was much younger, lol.


The first one is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (sorry, I shortened that in the title so it'll fit) , I used to watch this on television when I was a kid. I can't really recall much details on what the show is about now, I can only remember that the Turtles names are Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael, Michelangelo loves to eat pizza and their catchphrase is "Cowabunga!". I think that's about all that I can recall, lol, my memory is terrible these days. -_-


And so, I made Michelangelo with his favourite pizza, had to google for the colour of his scarf, as I could not remember what colour it should be. Michelangelo was made from rice wrapped in blanched lettuce, other ingredients used were cheese, nori and tomato. The pizza was actually a fish cake, I added sausages, bell peppers and cheese and baked it for a while.


My boys have not seen the television series before though, they did however watched parts of the movie version on television before, so they are able to recognise this character.


The other movie I took inspiration from was Pirates of the Caribbean, could only remember bits and pieces of the movie, but the one character that left a lasting impression was of course Jack Sparrow, played by Johnny Depp.


I made a cartoonfied Jack Sparrow, using rice and squid ink pasta as the main ingredient. The rice was coloured using some ketchup, the rest of the ingredients used were red cabbage, different coloured bell peppers and hanpan ( Japanese fish cake). I served this with some salad and creamy garlic chicken.


This also reminds me of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland that LT used to be so afraid of, he used to find it scary when he was younger, lol.

Piggy & Chick Sushi

One week of school flew by so fast, I'm slowly settling into the routine again. I miss lazing around during the school holidays, lol.  I finally have my whole morning free to myself. Seems like a lot of time for me to relax at first, but somehow I'm still busy and I've no idea why, but it's definitely not as bad as the past two years.


I've been making so many sushi lately and just serving them on sushi boards for photos. The reason is because it's a lot easier this way than having to pack them in a bento. I also don't have to rush and cook the side dishes earlier before the sun sets, so as to get a nicer photo. However, many of these ideas can be adapted for a bento if you want to do so.


Piggies are one of my favourite animal to make. LT is born in the year of the pig and he calls them his friends. When he's eating pork, he says happily that he is eating his friends, oops. -_- He even ask me to eat him at times when I say I'm hungry, lol.


These piggies are made using rice, fish sausage and nori. I loved how round and chubby they turned out.


I also made chicks sushi. To achieve the yellow colour, the rice was mixed with mashed hard boiled egg yolks. I used nori, carrots and bubu arare(coloured rice puffs) for the details.


I also added egg shells hats for two of the chicks, these were cut out from eggs using a v-shaped knife. I got it from Daiso a long time ago, not sure if it's still available now.


Alright, that's all for today, need to go to bed. I'll try to update at least a recipe next week, have quite a number to update but I keep procrastinating.

Tsum Tsum Toast & Ice-cream

Hello! Happy New Year! Sorry for the lack of updates, school started this Monday and I've been so busy. The boys are finally at the same session this year and their school has moved back to it's original premise, we can walk to school again and I no longer have to make multiple trips to send and fetch them. :)

IT is in his final year of primary school, this will also be the last year he will bring bentos to school, it's really not the norm to bring bentos here. It's going to be a busy year for IT, he's already gotten quite an amount of work on the first day of school. -_- We are happy he got back into the same class again for his final year, and he also got back the English HOD teacher that we like, yay to that. He also got the HOD for Chinese this year, who's well known for giving lots of homework, I hope he doesn't complains too much, lol. :P


I will still be clearing backlog from last year, but will also try to slot in more recent creations now and then. This Pooh and friends baguette was from last year, made this quite a long time back, it was fun making them with different toppings. For more up to date creations, please follow my Instagram, blog postings are a lot slower.


Pooh was made from cheese and nori. Piglet was made using ham and nori. Tigger was made with salmon, cheese, ham and nori. Lastly, Eeyore was made using ham (dyed blue by soaking in blue pea flower water), cheese and nori.


Which one is your favourite? That's LT picking his favourite one, not because he likes Pooh best but he likes ham and cheese combi best, lol.


Pooh and friends in ice cream form this time. Not a new idea, quite similar to the Hello Kitty ice cream I made over here.


I used Deco Furi to colour the rice for Pooh, Eeyore and Tigger. Piglet was coloured using sushi seasoning. It's much faster to use Deco Furi when you need to have multiple colours for your rice.


The ice cream cone was made using rice and aburaage, I cut out the aburaage in strips and arrange them in criss-cross pattern. If you have my bento book, you can check out the details to make the cone on page 32. :)