Exploring My Origin: Bak Chang

I am back in my hometown for the weekdays and I had gotten myself busy with, yes you guess it, cooking! Well, I know I’m pretty late but since I only got back last two days, I pestered my Lai Ma (nanny) into making bak chang with me.

Bak chang is actually Chinese meat dumpling that is usually made during the Duan Wu festival. As all Chinese festivals, this one too has a legend behind it. This day is to honor Qu Yuan, a wise minister in China who was greatly loved by common people. Due to despair of the government and the defeat of his country, he drowned himself in a river. After that people searched for him in the river with long boats, beating drums as they went and throwing dumplings into the river to feed the fishes so that they won’t eat his body. After that, on this day, fifth day of the fifth month in the lunar calendar, it is then customary to enjoy bak chang (commonly known as zongzi) in memorial. Dumplings are made and enjoyed while dragon boat races are also held alongside, in commemoration of the initial search.

Since young, I had always enjoyed these dumplings, thought it is only quite recently that I learned of the meaning behind it. There are many types of chang (dumpling) made here in Malaysia. The usual ones that I know of is bak chang (which I made this time), which is savoury, and the kan sui chong, which is the sweet type, made plain with lye water and to dip with kaya or coconut caramel. These two are my usual favourites. Bak chang comes in two types, the dark or the white ones. Foodcrazee had talked bout the white ones here. The usual ones that I always had were the dark ones, which is the one I made this time. Bak chang usually have sam chang bak (pork belly), Chinese mushrooms, dried shrimps, either pak mei tau or lok tau (split green peas), salty duck egg yolk and of course, my personal favourite, fong lut (chesnuts).

The process was tedious, as I had expected. But I was adamant to learn and make it; else the tradition and method will be lost. After all, making this dumpling seems like a very good addition to my ‘exploring my origin’ project.

When I got back, I was only half expecting my Lai Ma to make bak chang with me, I had requested since last week, as she is the type who needs to be in the mood to do something. Nowadays, it is up to whether she feels like it or not, or she is tired or not. This time I got lucky, she asked me bout it and then took everything out to prepare. She said she made some before hand and there are leftovers ingredients. The only thing that I needed to do was to walk 5 minutes to the local tim chai (mini store) nearby and get some beans and extra bamboo leaves for wrapping.

So far there are many variations in making this bak chang, but to me my Lai Ma’s bak changbak chang was out and ready to be devour! All I can say is, my cravings had been answered.

Bak Chang

Alright, the whole process is pretty tedious and seemingly complicated, but don’t feel daunted, take up the challenge and make it. As for me, my chang is much simpler, with less ingredient but nevertheless yummy. I also left out the usual salted duck egg yolks, because the selfish me do not like it.

For the recipe, I break down to few parts for easier preparation. Most of the ingredients, especially the spices and flavourings are all in estimation as, I have said, we Chinese cooked by whim, with fingers dipping in and tasting as we go. It is always a splash of this and a dash of that and some jiggling of this and some spoonfuls of that. My Lai Ma said, cooking by taste is one of Chinese secrets to good cooking, as all ingredients we use differ, our own tastes of what is salty and sweet also differ, therefore we cooks know best to tweak to our the situation and our liking.

As for the wrapping, I wish I could be a better artist to illustrate it, but oh well if you still do not understand, you can head on to Teckie to see the video of her mum wrapping the bak chang, she had also written a comprehensive detail of the preparation. Be careful bout the wrapping as either if wrongly wrapped or too loosely tied, it will leak and come unwrap, resulting in a mess that cannot be salvage. We lost one of it (must be the one I wrapped, he-he.

Ingredients:
1 kg glutinous rice
800g – 1 kg pork
200g of pak mei tau (not too sure but I guess it is soy bean)
200g (35-40) fong lut (chestnuts) (depending how many you want to put in your dumpling, we have two for each)
8-10 Chinese dried mushrooms (or 16-20 small ones)
Handful of har mai (dried shrimps)
Handful of minced garlic

Additional fillings (I did not add):
Salted duck egg yolk
Hou see (dried oyster)
Lap cheong (dried Chinese sausage)

20 bamboo leaves
8-10 ham choong chou (literally the dumpling weed plant. You can use any string here)

Marinate for pork (in estimation):
2-3 tbsp of five spice powder
Pinch of ajinomoto (I wouldn’t want this but my Lai Ma insists)
Pinches of salt
2-3 tbsp of white pepper
3-4 tbsp of oyster sauce
2-3 tbsp of dark sauce

For the frying the rice (in estimation):
3-4 tbsp of dark sauce
4-5 tbsp of soy sauce (or to taste)
6-8 tbsp of five spice powder
3-4 tbsp of pepper
5-6 tbsp of oyster sauce
Pinches of ajinomoto
Pinches of salt

For frying the fillings (in estimation):
2-3 tbsp of five spice powder
2-3 tbsp of oyster sauce
2 tbsp of pepper
3-4 tbsp of soy sauce

Method:

Day before (or in the morning):
Soak rice with water for at least 6 hrs and up to one day.
Cube the pork and marinate for 8 hrs or overnight

Few hours before cooking and wrapping:
Soak bamboo leaves in water till soft. Then gently wash with running water, wiping with cloth. Stack it up face down in a basin, and then submerge in water until use.
Boil the chestnuts and beans till half cooked.
Soak the dried mushrooms in hot water till soften, then remove stem and halved it (for big ones)
Clean the har mai a few times, running through with water
Drain the soaked glutinous rice.

Cooking the rice:
Heat up 3-4 tbsp of oil in a wok.
Throw in garlic and fried for a minute.
Then add in the glutinous rice and stir fried.
Slowly add in all the frying ingredients, tasting as you go.
Lastly, add in the soy bean, then fry and mix evenly.
Add spices if needed.

Cooking the fillings:
Heat 3 tbsp of oil in wok.
Then add in garlic and stir fry for a minute.
Add in har mai, fong lut and mushrooms.
Fried for few minutes and mix well.
As usual, add in all the fillings spices one by one and fry till evenly mix.
Add in the marinated pork and continue stir fry.
Add in water (bout quarter bowl).
Fry till dry.

For wrapping:
Gather 5 strings together and fold it half, then tie a not to form a bundle
Then prepare a place to wrap, something like this:

Place together ingredients and leaves below it, along with spoon.

Take two leaves and overlap on each other in opposite sides, slightly slanted.
Twist in the middle and turn to shape a cone.
First line the bottom and sides with the rice and bean mix.
Then add in the fillings in the middle: ½ pork, 2 fong lut, 3 har mai and 1 mushroom
Then top loosely with rice.
Turn it upward to close up. Pull it down slightly.
Then turn in and fold the sides.
Fold the top leaves together, then turn down the side.
Now its in a triangle shape.
Tie it with ham choong chou, around the dumpling two times then knot it firmly.

Final cooking:
Put in all the tied dumplings into a huge pot of boiling water, submerged totally in the water.
Boil it for 4-5 hrs, topping up with boiling water every hour or so.
Then take out and hang it to dry.
Peel open leaves and devour!

Make 16-20 big dumplings
(It can keep for few days or few weeks in the refrigerator)

MADeleines

I am MAD. Well, disappointed mainly. I had attempted my hands at making madeleines but it failed. These madeleines tasted like, well, just mini butter cakes. Besides, it was kind of too eggy to my liking, I suspected the eggs I used were not fresh enough. And of course, the mould that I use was not the madeleines mould, I just used the mini tart mould that I happen to chance upon while out with my dad and bought it along with a hand sifter (my dad pays, I’m unemployed and broke, he-he). The results are not up to my expectation, as this recipe was a hit out there with the KC forum members, so I am hoping it would be some great pop-in-the-mouth madeleines. Oh well, the problem surely lies with me, I just have to find out where (besides the not-so-fresh-eggs and the not-the-right-mould). Maybe I should try some other fail-proof Madeleine recipes out there. Any suggestions?

Self-employed in the Kitchen

J had started work today, leaving me this unemployed (starting work in July) girl alone. So I decided to be self-employed in the kitchen instead. Before this, besides hunting for job, we had been enjoying life; hence you see my lack of cooking/baking and more of scouring for food. Now it is time for me to fire back up my culinary skills.

My internet was down because we did not pay the phone bill. Yea, shame on me, but it just somehow slipped my mind. So I had no chance to surf around for recipes. That’s a habit of mine; looking through foodblogs in search of some inspiring recipes despite all these while I had been piling up on it.

So today with no internet, I finally look through my to-do list. It amazes me how much recipes I had saved up, with the sincere heart and hunger to make them. I was attracted by many recipes (well it is love at second sight since I had first saved them here), but the thing is, I do not have lots of essential ingredients in my pantry right now. For instance, milk or yoghurt or buttermilk or brown sugar is out. That practically cancels out most of the dessert recipes. I’m feeling sugar high right now, so I am just looking through this section. I chance upon this recip, from the baker which I had saved in my to-do list for as long as I couldn’t remember. LOL.

Well, this recipe took my attention the second time because it is flourless and butter-less! Now this is what I call a dessert for the weight watchers. Oh yes, and it’s a cookie recipe, which the baker decides would fare much better as cupcakes. So I decided to make these mini cupcakes. boy, was it good! It was like the heaven for chocolate lovers. It is crunchy at the top and thick and gooey in the middle. The nuts lend a good crunch to the entire cake texture. Now you chocolate lovers out there, who need a fix but want to watch the waistline, go make a batch yourselves. Due to the resulting look of the cakes, I decide to name it

Mini Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes

The recipe is fairly easy. Reading the instructions I was worried at first how it would come together with just two egg whites as the liquid ingredient, but surprisingly it binds well, not too sticky to handle and the ‘dough’ taste yummy! (Yes I am a bad habit cook that loves to taste things that she cooks). Some additional steps that I added was, first toasting the walnuts for better taste and then sifting the sugar and cocoa for lighter and more uniform batter. Before baking it in my muffin pan, I cut out the baking paper to roughly line the holes because with all the sugar in the dough, it is bound to stick like madness, and I am thankful I did this step, as it helps tremendously in taking out the mini cakes with the shape still intact. I think if you have cupcake cases, it is a good time to use them here. Besides, I had split the recipe in half, because I have so little to feed and I am worried I might finish off the whole batch! Oh and I feel that the sugar amount can be further reduce by ¼ and it would be perfect, more chocolatey and less sweet, the way I would really like it.

6 tbps unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar
pinch of salt

1/2 tbps vanilla
2 large egg whites

1 cups walnuts (toasted at 200 for 5 minutes then coarsely chopped)

Preheat oven to 350F/180C
Sift together cocoa powder, confectioners sugar, and salt in a bowl
Combine the liquids, vanilla and egg whites in a bowl
Slowly add the liquids into the dry mixture, beating at low speed with an electric mixer
Then beat the batter at medium speed till glossy
Stir in the walnuts
Line the muffin pan with baking papers/cups
Spoon about two heaped tablespoon of batter into the cup
Bake in oven for 20 minutes, till it looks like molten lava

Makes 6 mini cakes

Happy Birthday KC!

KC is someone I might say I get to know due to fate. When I first came to KL to study, I came with a 1984, and then we bunked in a Convent senior from basketball team, temporary until we find a place to settle on. Then, KC was my senior’s boyfriend, therefore we get to know each other. From there, after shifting, we sort of keep in contact loosely until I shift over here to our place now, he so happen to have broke up, needed a place to shift and voila, he became our housemate once again.

As a friend, KC is amazing. He will do anything at all for his friends, always there whenever any of us needed help. He took care of me and my fellow 1984 housemate like sisters, protective and loving. We three in the house had once even named ourselves family.

Well, last monday was our dear KC birthday, I had decided to bake him a cake, although I know he does not really like one, but well, what’s a birthday without a cake. So, as I had put it at the weekly drools for so long, I decided to make Swee San’s

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

I made a few changes due to the unavailability of some stuff, and also due to a hunch to make things come together after certain changes. Ah, you bakers out there would understand.

At first look of the recipe, I had decided that the amount of sugar is too much, so I cut down quite an amount, and besides, we could not get white sugar in Tesco, imagine that, so we bought more of the brown sugar. I warn that even my amount of sugar is too sweet to my liking. Cut down more if you don’t want to have diabetes. Since having more brown sugar than white (in oppose to original recipe), I worry it would be too wet, thus I mixed all-purpose flour to the cake flour, in hope to make it drier, tell me if I’m wrong. Then, as Swee say, the corn flour addition is to make the cake fluffier and softer; I’m getting texture crazy here. I had also change the cream cheese frosting bit, since I don’t have enough butter, I added more cheese, partly also because I love cheese, so I want it to be more cheesy.

Anyhow, a few flops happened. First after baking at designated time and the toothpick came out clean in the middle. I took it out. Once cool, I remove from pan and found the sides all sticky and gooey and superbly sweet. All the sugar somehow formed a candy there. So I cut the sides all off and made a mess, with craters here and there. One lesson learnt: ONLY cut the cake once it is completely cooled! Then another mistake came with my impatience. Once the cake is semi-cooled, I attempted to frost the cake, partly because I’m impatient and partly it is late and I just want to get it done with. That is when disaster strikes. The frosting started melting as I starting spreading it. It became too hard to handle, steaming down the side. Second lesson learnt, ha-ha. I stopped at once, salvage what I can back to the rest of the frosting and chuck it into the fridge. After chilling few hours (yes I have yet to sleep), I frosted it with more luck, but sadly found the frosting with residue of icing sugar. Sigh; there goes my first cake frosting.

Ingredients
1 cup vegetable oil
500g brown sugar
200g coarse sugar
3 eggs

3 cups sliced carrots (2 large or 6 medium)
1 ½ cup coarsely chopped/bashed walnuts (roasted in 200C for 10minutes)

Sift:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups (375g) cake flour minus 1tbsp
1tbsp corn flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoons mixed spice

Method:
Preheat oven to 180-190C
Grease deep 23cm (9 inch) round loose-based cake pan (line base with baking paper if you do not have loose-base one)
Beat oil, sugar and eggs until thick and creamy
Transfer mixture to large bowl
Stir in carrot and chopped walnuts
Then mix in sifted dry ingredients little by little till incorporate
Pour mixture into prepared pan, bake in moderate oven about 1 1/4 hours
Cover cake loosely with foil halfway through cooking
Stand cake 5 minutes; turn onto wire rack to cool.
Spread with cream cheese frosting and decorate as desired.

Cream cheese frosting:
25 g butter
120g cream cheese, softened
250g icing sugar mixture

Method:
Beat butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy
Gradually beat in icing sugar bit by bit

Worth the Search

Well, after reading the Klang pork ribs at KY, I had mentioned it to J that I would like to try it out someday. Sweet J decided to bring me there today, despite that he had no idea where it is. Usually KY would draw a map of the place he reviewed but just so happen he did not do so for this one and he only gave a vague direction that it is between the old bus terminal and an Indian movie cinema. Well, we took many turns around the bus terminal in Malaysia crazy heat and saw no cinema in sight. J was cursing KY all the way, sorry KY, but in the end we took one round, because there was a road block for fixing (which could explain why we did not get there in the first place) and then I spotted the cinema and shouted in delight. We took a U-turn at the roundabout and finally got to the place. The food better be good.

We sat down, and ordered the Pai Guat (pork ribs) straight due to recommendation, and J having been there once long time ago (his friend took him that’s why he do not know the way) and remembered that the curry was good. So he ordered the mutton curry and then I ordered Chai Sim (Chinese Flowering Cabbage), for good measure. J poured the dark sauce all around my rice, saying this is the Klang way. Well I kinda like the idea of blending into the culture and eat the way the people here do.

Then we dig in. Burp. The meal was great! Thanks KY. The pork ribs were really and I mean really tasty; the outer skin is crispy and the meat was juicy, done to the perfection. The sauce was sweet and paired really well with the ribs.

The mutton curry was also not to be left out as the meat was really soft while the curry was, just like how I remembered eating my Indian friend’s mum’s home cooked mutton curry. It is like the real authentic Indian curry. The veggie taste, well, just like veggie.

We also ordered the home made soy bean, served in a huge glass bottle, which every table seem to have it. no regrets here as the soy bean is fresh, certainly taste without preservative, not too sweet, I like it. We finished the whole bottle!

So if any of you decide to go there when you’re in Klang, I can only give a vague direction too, you can curse me that time I understand. At the huge roundabout in Klang town, take the direction towards Hospital TAR Klang, then turn left on the second turning and you will see an old cinema (Panggung Wayang Seri Intan) in front, and on your right is the row of stalls. The one we went was the one with all the big colourful umbrellas, kind of in the middle, you can’t miss it. Look out for this guy chopping the pork ribs.

We talked to the lady who served us, she was really nice. She was really amused when I took the food picture and asked whether I am taking her picture or the food. She surprised us at the end of the meal by speaking English (she must have heard J and I speaking in it) and chatted with us. J spilled me out and says that I would be putting up her food on the Internet for promotion and she was really happy, smilling ear to ear and telling the others about it. I would be going back again, as J said the fish is good too; we saw it at another table. With good food and good service and at reasonable price, the lady can be sure to see me again!

You Gotta Be Cool

Just like how Boo from masak-masak complained bout the weather, I am here to do so too. Luckily recently the weather is cooling down, but few days before it was like living in the middle of volcano. The sun was so scorching hot I sometimes believe my hair would sizzle if I stay any longer outside. The air was like the oven heat after a lovely muffin bake. The only think one can think of every time we are out, even in the car, is something really cool, better yet icy to drink. At times I would go for ais kacang, but for this time, we are attracted to another local icy drink, cendol.

Oh yes, cendol is actually a type of dessert, I believe from Indian origin, very popular and authentic to Malaysia culture. It usually consists shaved iced, with green cendol (this is the thin worm like pandan flavoured flour noodles) drown in coconut milk and drizzled with gula melaka (this pair seem to be in every local dessert). The usual fillings would be red beans, cincau, jellies, kacang and sometimes glutinous rice. Cendol is really unique in taste, the gula melaka (the most important ingredient here in my opinion) and coconut milk blends real well, along with the smooth worm-cendol and the rest of the fillings is great. The shaved ice completes this drink to be the ultimate thirst quencher and body cooler.

As for the one I’m talking about is the one at Taman Megah. We were just driving home on Sunday midday, cooking in our Proton oven (our national car) and we just had to stop by this stall to cool down before out insides boil over. The cendol here is really good, but I have yet to try the pasembor or rojak. Compared to the one in Taman Bahagia, this is more superior, but according to J, the rojak in the former is better. Oh well, you cannot get the best of everything at one go.

After our cendol fix, we head home with smiling faces, and paid no heed to the crazy weather.

A Day Without Food Blog

I had read this earlier on at Tigers and Strawberries and then at Chez Pim, which then dawn on me the severity of the matter. I remember vaguely that I had read about this issue before earlier this month (or last month, I’m not sure) on the newspaper at the Tech section, and had thought it was totally baseless. I thought it was just an issue that came across the service providers’ mind, but now it seems this crazy idea could actually be the next thing of the future.

For this matter, I would join in with the rest of the food-gang against this and make today a day without food blog!

Tagged with: Net Neutrality + Day Without Food Blogs

Two Girls on Food Hunt

L had came up to KL for her internship and so it only means two things, bad news is there would not be any Penang food reviews BUT the good news is there would be more PJ/KL food review, by us of course! Well today we manage to meet up for dinner and L had a sudden craving for pizza, yes this dear friend of mine always have cravings of some sorts at some time.

So we head on to Vivo at The Curve, which we had a celebration last month for one of the 1984, which got us to remember the pizza offerings there. Besides, we remembered the nice lady boss, who when learnt of my friend’s birthday, gave us a complimentary Blueberry Pizza served a dollop of vanilla ice-cream. It was really thoughtful of her, and very good customer relationship management I might say.

They had this set promotion for one person, which is a personal pizza with mushroom soup for RM 9.90. Seems like a good deal so L and I each ordered one, so that we can try two types of pizza.

L ordered the Bed of Mushrooms (on the left in the picture) which was really nice. It was topped with various mushrooms, some black herbs (we cannot seem to identify it but it was good), crumbled feta cheese, splashes of olive oil and a very surprising but wonderful addition which is almond flakes. We both agreed it was exotically good. As for me, I ordered Romeo and Juliet (right) which was pizza topped with turkey ham, tomatoes, pineapples and olives, not too bad but it was overshadowed by the earlier one. Overall, the pizza base was good, thin enough to be crunchy yet still with some chew.

As for the mushroom soup, it was good enough for us, slightly creamy and flavourful, certainly not like some other pizza outlets which are those like out of the can and watered down.

There is some collection of cakes at the dessert section, but I have yet to try that, but the earlier mentioned Blueberry Pizza was good. This picture was taken by the birthday girl during our last visit.

Do give it a try if once you are in The Curve and have nothing to eat. But to my humble opinion, other than the pizza, the other various foods were just so-so.

Vivo

The Curve

Mutiara Damansara