Sweet Potato Balls stuffed with Nian Gao

Hub and the girls are not a fan of the traditional yam and sweet potato sandwich with nian gao, so I have to prepare something different. And I remembered I had made some sweet potato puff balls before and this time, I'll just stuffed it with the sticky cake instead.

This recipe uses tapioca flour instead of glutinous rice flour.

Ingredients:

• 230g sweet potato, steamed (I microwaved with water) and mashed
• 150gram tapioca flour
• 50g rice flour
• 15g corn flour
• 25g sugar
• a pinch of salt
• 2tbsp oil
• 1/4 cup of water
• oil to spray
• nian gao cut to small cube, roughly 1.5cm size, recipe for nian gao is here

Steps:

1. Mix all the ingredients except the sticky cake and knead till it forms a soft dough.
2. Once it is ready, scoop roughly a big tablespoon of it out and flatten it. Put a cube of the sticky cake and wrap it up, shape into a ball.
3. Place the balls in the air fryer and set at 160c for 5mins.
4. Then spray some oil on the balls and shake it around so that it is well coated and AF for another 5mins. Do not stuff too many balls into the basket to avoid them from sticking together.
5. Once ready, take it out to cool but do not stack them up yet as this will deflate the ball.

Curry Puff aka Karipap

Air Fried Version

Oil fried version

Bought some nice yummy curry puff from a fellow Malaysian last week but it was rather salty. So, I thought I'll make some myself so that I can control the flavour better. At the same time, was trying to see the difference of the fried vs the air fried effect on the puff.

I personally thinks that the oil fried one tasted better but hub can't really tell the difference (maybe coz he ate the cooled one while I had the hot one).

Ingredients:

Pastry:

• 250g all-purpose flour
• 50g rice flour
• 50g tapioca or corn flour (I used tapioca)
• 50g butter
• 50g vegetable oil (out of supply, uses olive oil)
• 130ml icy cold water + pinch of salt (i didn't use the salt, forgotten)

Filling:

• 600g potato, peeled and diced (I used half potato and half sweet potato)
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 tbsps curry powder (for seafood)
• 1 tsp tumeric
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• Some curry leaves
• 1 cup water (+/-)
• Salt to taste

Methods:

1. Heat up the oil and salute the onion till it is translucent. 
2. Add in the curry leaves and potato and slightly stir it around.
3. Next add in the curry powder, turmeric and salt and stir the potato.
4. Slowly add in the water, bit by bit till you reach the consistency you want, thick and the potato is soften. It should take about 7-9mins. Set it aside to cool.
5. For the dough, mix all the flour together in a big bowl. Stir them around to mix it evenly.
6. Heat up the butter and oil and once warm and butter melted, remove from heat.
7. Pour the oil mixture into the flour and stir them till they mixed up properly. It should be crumbly.
8. Next add in the cold water and knead the mixture till it forms a soft dough. Set aside and cover with a cloth and let it rest for about 15mins.
9. Divide the dough to 24pcs and flatten them out, fill it with the fillings and shape as desire.
10. For frying, heat up the oil and once you can see the oil movement, lower the temperature and fry till it is light brown.
11. If Air Frying, AF at 180c for 14mins. Remember to spray some oil on the puff prior to "frying" it.

Sweet Potato Bread

Not sure bout the consumer, but the maker is a bit bored with plain white or chia seed or milo bun, so for a change, we are having sweet potato bread this time round.

Slight change to the original recipe that I had found from To Food with Love (she uses purple yam and butter, I used sweet potato and oil and too heavy handed on the overnight sponge).

Ingredients:

Part 1

• 300g bread flour
• 35g sugar
• 1/2tsp or 3g salt 
• 1.5tsp or 5g yeast

Part 2

• 100g Overnight 5c batter, recipe from here

Part 3

• 145ml cold milk
• 30g egg (roughly 2/3 of a L size egg)

Part 4

• 120g sweet potato
• 30g olive oil

Method:

1. Mix the ingredients from part one till well mixed then add in part 2 and part 3. Knead all the ingredients to form a dough either manually or using Bread Machine or your mixer using the dough hook.
2. Next add in ingredients from part 4 and continue to knead till it form a smooth and elastic dough. My dough is rather soft and a little sticky.
3. Leave the dough to rise/proof in a warm place for roughly bout 45mins to an hour till it is almost double in size. I covered the mixing bowl with a wet towel to keep it moist.
4. Punch the dough down and knead it briefly. If your dough is like mine kinda sticky, oil your work surface and your hand to ease the handling of the dough. 
5. Cut the dough to shape according to your preference. If you planning to make bread slices, roll the dough out flat and rolled it up. Place it in the baking tin (lightly oiled) to proof for another 1hour to 1hr15mins. Make sure you leave some space for the dough to rise or get bigger.. :D
6. Preheat oven at 180c for roughly 10mins.
7. After proofing, brush the dough with the balance of the egg.
8. Bake at 180c for 20-25mins depending on your oven's heat.
9. Remove and cool the loaves before trying to slice it.

Taiwanese Dessert - Sweet Potato Cubes

I had been wanting to try to make the sweet potato cubes or the taro cubes for some time but just not sure why I didn't get into it. But recently, looking the tapioca starch and also the soy milk that I had for a while, I thought why not? Instead of letting those stuff rot, let's try make taiwanese style dessert.

And someone's post in FB just came the right time to inspire me with this dessert.

Ingredients (I made 4 small bowls of these):

• 700ml soy milk (unsweetened)
• 25g sugar
• 10g gelatin
• 100g sweet potato sliced as thinly and small piece as possible
• 45g tapioca starch/flour
• a pinch of salt
• 1/2 tbsp of sugar
• a pot of water to boil the cubes
• 4 tablespoon of cooked and lightly mashed red beans
• 8pcs of grapes
• 8 pieces of mango slices

Methods:

1. Steam the sweet potato for about 5-10mins depending on the size you have cut it. To test if ready, just use a fork to try mash it and if it works, it is ready.
2. Premix the tapioca starch, salt and sugar (1/2tbsp) while steaming the sweet potato.
3. Once the sweet potato is ready and hot, pour it into the dry mixture and mix till even. You can use the fork or your hand to mashed the sweet potato.
4. Shaped it to desire shape. I make them squarish. If the dough is too mushy, add a little more of the flour. Set aside.
5. Heat up the soy milk and add in the sugar (25g), stirring to dissolve it. Once dissolve, remove from heat and let it cool for a while. Slowly stir in the gelatine. Pour to the bowl/container you will like to use. Leave it in the fridge to set.
6. Boil a pot of water and add in the Sweet potato cubes. It should take bout 3-4mins to boil and turn off the fire.
7. Take out the soy jelly that is setting in the fridge (bout 10mins) and it should be semi set.
8. Arranged the sweet potato cubes and the other ingredients on it. Leave it back in the fridge.
9. It should be ready to serve after about 30mins in the fridge.

Salad Craze

Recently, I'm on a little salad craze after watching too much MKR. So decided to do some. Here there is two different salads, roast chicken with roast sweet potatoes salad and rump steak with roast pumpkin salad.

For the roast chicken salad:

Ingredients:

• 5 pieces of chicken drumstick, minus the bottom part (that's how it was sold)
• 1 piece of medium size sweet potato, skinned and cut to cubed of roughly 2x2cm
• 2 pieces of medium size red onion, wedged to roughly 2cm size
• 1 medium size potato, cut to cubed of roughly 2x2cm
• olive oil, salt (use less coz the olives are rather salty), pepper and curry powder
• a handful of sweet peas, removed the sides and cut diagonally across
• 5 pieces of mini radishes with the leaves (washed and sliced thinly)
• half a avocado, sliced to wedges
• spinach
• a handful of crumbled feta cheese
• a handful of black olives
• half a lime juice (for the dressing)
• 1 tablespoon of honey (for the dressing)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil (for the dressing)
• juices from the roast chicken (for the dressing)

Methods:

1. Arranged the first four items in the baking tray, lined with baking paper.
2. Drizzled with olive oil and sprinkle with freshly grounded black pepper and salt.
3. Sprinkle the curry powder on the chicken only.
4. Roast in the oven at 200C for about 20mins.
5. Add in the sweat peas at the last 5mins.
6. Let it rest in the oven for about another 5mins after turning off the power/fire.
7. Mixed all the ingredients for the dressing together till the honey is dissolved.
8. Mix all ingredients together in the mixing bowl along with the dressing and served.. yum

For the pumpkin salad:

Ingredients:

• Roughly 300g pumpkin, skinned and cut to cube, approximately 2x2cm
• 2 pieces of medium size red onion, wedged to roughly 2cm size
• olive oil, salt, pepper
• a handful of crumbled feta cheese
• a handful of spinach
• quarter a lime juice (for the dressing)
• 1/2 tablespoon of honey (for the dressing)
• 1/4 tablespoon olive oil (for the dressing)

Methods:

1. Similar to the above, lined the baking tray with paper and arrange the pumpkin and onions in it. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
2. Roast in the oven, 200C for about 20mins.
3. Mixed all the ingredients for the dressing together till the honey is dissolved.
4. Mix all ingredients together in the mixing bowl along with the dressing and served.. yum

Little Bread

I attempted making small sizes bread last week so that Sophie can hold and eat them on her own. The bread taste good, but the skin is kinda hard.

Main ingredients are sweet potato yam (purple in color) and parmesan cheese powder.


Next time I will do a steam bake instead to get a softer skin.

Btw, daddy put the bread side by side like this and ask you guys to comment what comes to your mind.. hahaha....

Baby's Porridge

This is what mommy prepared for Sophie yesterday:



- broccoli
- carrot
- red bario rice
- sweet potato, yellow flesh, purple skin