Organic Vegetarian Noodles With Portobello

Recently I cook a lot of vegetarian dishes to clear out the stock from my fridge. Fresh vegetables, if kept too long, will start to lose its texture and taste really bad. Today I'm gonna stir fry organic noodles with portobello, cabbage, carrot and deep fried bean curd. Yes, it's that simple.

The organic wheat noodles is paired with portobello to bring out the meaty flavor. On top of that, dunk the noodles in vegetable-blend sauce to reach the natural pleasant flavor. It's really simple, you can complete this dish within 20mins. As a result, a dish that rely solely on vegetables was our light dinner tonight.

It's my pleasure to share the dish with Presto Pasta Night #135 created by Ruth and hosted by Eat the Right Stuff.

Ingredients:

2 pieces of organic wheat noodles
a handful of julienned cabbage

1 portobello, sliced
half carrot, julienned
4 tau pok (deep-fried bean curd), quartered
half yellow onion, peeled and sliced
cooking oil
120ml water

Seasoning:

1 tbsp of tomato sauce
1 tbsp of vegetarian oyster sauce
light soy sauce to taste

Method:

1. Bring a pot of water to boil. Cook the noodle till soft, yet not totally cooked. This will leave some room for the noodle to absorb the broth when stir-fry later.

2. Heat oil in a wok, saute onion till fragrant and transparent. Add cabbage and stir fry for 2 minutes. Add portobello, carrot (leave half for garnishing) and deep-fried bean curd. Toss briefly.

3. Add seasoning and water and bring to simmering. Add noodles and stir-fry until noodles are dry.

4. Dish out and garnish with carrot.

Vegetarian Golden Mushroom

Mushroom is usually prepared as a side dish more often than not. So, this time I'm going to let them take the center stage for once. This afternoon I was mulling about how to turn my recently purchased button mushrooms into something simple yet appetizing dish, so I dig into some recipe books and came out with my version of vegetarian mushroom.

Firstly, the grated ginger and sesame oil added will lend a unique flavor to this simple mushroom dish. Secondly, frying the fresh button mushrooms will retain their tender texture while keeping the mushrooms juicy inside. Combining these two and what we'll have is a healthy dish with very little additives. So let's savor the dish and boost our body with a good source of nutrients and antioxidant.

Vegetarian Golden Mushroom
Serves 2

Ingredients:

4 fresh white button mushrooms
4 fresh brown button mushrooms
100ml of water
1 tbsp of corn starch, diluted in 2 tbsp of water
4cm² ginger, grated
1 big scoop of cooking oil
Spring onion

Seasoning:
1 tbsp of vegetarian oyster sauce
1 tsp sesame oil

Method:

1. Clean the mushrooms, Trim off few millimeter from the stalk. Pat dry with kitchen tower and make shallow cuts on caps.

2. Heat oil in a wok and fry the mushroom till golden. Remove and set aside.

3. Leave about 1 tbsp of oil in the wok and saute grated ginger till fragrant. Add the fried mushrooms and seasoning to mix well. Pour in the water and bring to boil.

4. Add the corn starch and stir fry to thicken the sauce. Dish out and garnish with spring onion. Serve with rice.

Lemon Cake Baked In Rice Cooker 电饭锅做蛋糕

A couple of weeks ago, I discovered a new method of baking a cake through here. I guess not many of us know about it, including me. But I learned and successfully baked a cake using my Panasonic microcomputer rice cooker.

Microcomputer rice cooker is super intelligent. Furthermore the inner pot is Diamond Fluorine coated, so it's a non stick pot. I manage to flip the cake from the pot without any problem. As you can see, the above photo is the bottom side of the cake.

This is the top view of the cake.

The cake texture is in between chiffon cake and margarine cake. It's moist and fluffy. I simply came out with my own recipe for the experiment. I keep the recipe simple with the essentials in kitchen. You'll just need flour, sugar, eggs and vegetable oil. To add a hint of fruit flavor, I added the lemon rind and lemon juice. I quite like this type of cake, because it contains no margarine, no cream and no butter, just the vegetable oil. It's definitely healthier.

With this, it marked a new record in my baking journey since July 2009. Although I'm just a newbie in baking, but I slowly gain my interest in it. I will slowly polish up my skill to go for more variety of cakes.

Lemon Cake
Yields for 12 pieces

Ingredients:

4 grade A eggs
180gm self raising flour, sifted
120gm fine sugar
50gm sunflower oil
1 lemon, finely grated zest
2tbsp lemon juice

Method:

1. Beat the eggs and Caster sugar under high speed until fluffy.

2. Add the lemon zest and lemon juice. Fold in the sifted flour with plastic spatula.

3. Pour in the sunflower oil and mix well with spatula.

4. Using spatula, transfer the batter into inner pot of rice cooker. Give the pot a few good shake to remove the air trapped in the batter.

5. Bake the cake using "quick cook" menu.

6. When it's done, leave it cool. Upside turn the pot to leave the cake bottom-up a big plate.

Steamed Egg Cake 蒸鸡蛋糕

This is the traditional Chinese steamed egg cake that my mum and my sisters used to make during my childhood. We had it on almost every Chinese New Year. I used to disturb them when they hand whisked the eggs. As a pre-school kid, I wondered why they kept on whisking the eggs for such long period. Now I understand. :) The whisking process is very important to ensure the cake is fluffy. In our family, we don't eat steamed egg cake on its own. We normally eat it with BBQ pork aka bak kuah. :) In this way, the cake will be perfectly complemented by the saltiness of the BBQ pork. That's another precious dining experience with my family in my childhood.

As of now, it's my turn trying to make one steamed egg cake of my own. Of course, with the help of my electric mixer :) I don't have a bamboo basket either, so I replaced it with the steaming tray that came along with the rice cooker. The making process is pretty straight forward. However, patience is needed. I added some hints to each step below for sharing.

The result of the first attempt was very impressive. The cake texture is soft and fluffy with a little bit of bounciness. Taste wise, each bite is full of aroma of the egg, and the orange essence and 7-Up enhance pleasant smell to the sweet cake. Without yeast, baking soda and butter, I think this steamed egg cake can be the healthiest cake ever. Give it a try, I swear you'll love it!

Steamed Egg Cake
Yields for 9 pieces

Ingredients:

4 grade A eggs
170gm all purpose flour, sifted
130gm Castor sugar
50gm 7-Up
3 drops of orange essence (optional)

Method:

1. Line the steaming tray with baking paper and set aside.

2. Beat the eggs and Castor sugar under high speed until fluffy. Add the orange essence and continue whisking for a while.
Hint: I whisked the eggs with highest speed for about 12 minutes. At this stage, you can observed the egg is increased in volume, and the color turned light.

3. Add the sifted flour and fold them in with spatula.
Hint: Fold the flour very gently.

4. Pour in the 7-Up and mix well with spatula.

5. Using spatula, transfer the batter into line steaming tray until 90% full.
Hint: Give the tray a few good shake to remove the air trapped in the batter.

6. Steam over rapid boiling water for 15 to 20 minutes.
Hint: When it's done, remove the cover carefully to prevent water from dripping to the cake surface.

Flaky Swirl Moon Cake From I-One Tasty Puff

I discovered the flaky swirl moon cakes at I-One Tasty Puff! The shop has been operating in Lagenda Height, Sungai Petani for the past few months. It is located at the same row as New Secret (SP) Restaurant and Old Town White Coffee. I've always wanted to buy some Teochew moon cake for the Mid Autumn festival, but just couldn't find it. Even my hubby, a Teochew guy has yet to taste the Teochew moon cake.

So without any hesitation, we bought a box of 4 moon cakes that cost RM34++.

We had 2x single yolk yam paste flavor, 1x yolk-less yam paste and 1x pandan flavor.

I particularly love the single yolk yam paste moon cake. Their homemade yam paste is just perfect, not too sweet. This type of moon cake is either deep fry or bake. This is the deep fried version. Hubby & I gobbled down a moon cake. For the normal moon cake, my maximum intake limit is just 1/4 moon cake provided eating with plain bread.

Happy Moon Cake Festival to all of you!

I-One Tasty Puff

Address: 149, Jalan Lagenda 5, Lagenda Heights, 08000 Sungai Petani, Kedah.

H/P: 012-4761446, 017-4505248