Sea Coconut & Snow Fungus Dessert

This is also another simple dessert which do not require many ingredients. I have omitted "loh hon go" as I do not have another key ingredient -Winter Melon (Dong Gua) to make it like the popular tong shui in Petaling Street-Dong Gua Lo Hon Go. Anyway, this simple tong shui (sweet soup) is equally soothing...

Ingredients:
10 pieces of sea coconuts
10 red dates
Knots of pandan leaves (screw-pine leaves)
Half a pack of candied winter melon (about 5 to 6 sticks)
Some white fungus/cloud fungus/snow fungus
Rock sugar to taste

Methods:

1. Cut the sea coconut into thin slices, discard the old ones which the flesh has solidified as the taste will be enhanced if you solely use the tender sea coconuts to prepare for this soup. You can reserve the old ones to stir fry with other vegetable dishes.
2. Boil the red dates (preferably discard the seed first) with pandan leaves and white fungus until the latter is soften
3. Dump in sea coconuts slices, candied winter melon and cook for another 10 minutes.
4. Lastly add in rock sugar.

Learnings:

1. This soup is supposed to provide the cooling effect if the sea coconuts and winter melon are not boiled for too long.
2. It is encouraged to discard the seed of red dates which is believed will get rid of the heatiness effect (pls don't ask me to prove it scientifically but it has been a practice by our grandmothers)
3. Snow fungus is highly recommended food for consumptions by the vain pots who yearn for good complexions. Snow fungus is a type of low calories food and contains the goodness of the most natural form of collagen and is popularly known as vegetarian bird nest. So basically you only need to consume a lot of snow fungus to maintain a fair and supple complexion. This is the poor men's tonic since it can substitute bird nest therefore it has become my favourite food. There are 2 "species" of snow fungus. One is crunchy in texture and another type is jelly-like. The latter will turn gelatine when it is boiled for long and therefore is most suitably used for sweet dessert like the one required in this recipe whereas the crunchy texture type is suitable for preparation of savoury soup.
   
4. This dessert will produce a clear soup and you can only taste the mild sweetness and fragrance from the red dates and pandan leaves since snow fungus and the sea coconuts are quite bland in taste.
   
5. You can turn it into a cold dessert by shaving some ice and mix it into the soup. Just add some honey if it is not sweet enough.

My Favourite Things- Apple Strudel

Apple strudel is a famous Austrian dessert though some said it's originated from German. i am pretty sure it's of Austrian origin as my first strudel was eaten when I was in Austria in year 1994. We had a dinner at the vineyard and the dessert served was a slice of apple strudel. Much anticipation was given when our tour guide told us that this is a must-eat traditional dish from Austria. Anyway, it tasted almost like an apple pie, nothing like the one that you find in Malaysia. Another evidence is the movie "Sound of Music" with background of an Austrian family. In the sound track of the "Sound of Music" -"My Fourite Things", the apple strudel was also mentioned.

So much about the history of apple strudel...let me tell you a little about my discovery today. Checked my fridge today and noticed there are still many apples in the fruits compartment and also a stack of leftover popiah wrappers. Rather heartsick as most of my family members, including myself are just too lazy to munch on these green apples as they are both hard and sour. I am excusable cos I have weak gums. But I can't bear to see the apple go aging..and rot away. By the way, the popiah skins was since CNY...Hey, what these 2 combinations could turn out to be?? With my creativity, I decided to make them into "Orientalised Strudel". The replacement for the filo pastry is in fact my left over popiah skins. The result is almost similar to the apple strudel, but less oily. If you have leftover apples in your fridge and you have sweet tooth, you may do the same like me ...

Ingredients:

Green apples - 6 nos
Brown sugar - 2 tbsp
Butter - 100g
Cinnamon powder - 1 tsp
Cornstarch - 1 tbsp

Popiah wrappers - 24 pieces

Preparing the fillings:
1. Core and slice the apples
2. Melt 70g (2/3 of the portion used) of butter with a non-stick pan.
3. Put the apple slices in and fry till soft.
4. Mix the sugar in together with the cinnamon powder.
5. The original recipe requires the thickener to be mixed with lemon juice. But since my green apples are real sour, I skipped the lemon juice. So I just mix cornflour with some water and use it to thicken my apple fillings.
6. Cool the fillings once it is cooked.

Methods to "assemble" the popiah wrapper as a mock filo pastry:
1. Brush some butter on a piece of popiah wrapper.
2. Cover with another popiah wrapper.
3. Brush another layer of butter and cover with another piece of popiah skin.
4. Repeat steps 1-3 to get 4 layer of popiah skins stacked up together.
5. Put some fillings in. Fold and seal the edges.
6. Preheat oven to 200 degree celcius for 10 min.
7. Put the pastry on a baking dish lined with non-stick paper.
8. Bake for 20-25 min.
9. Sprinkle with some icing sugar before serving.
10. Watch your tongue, the filling is piping hot!!

Variation:
You may add some roasted almond flakes into the filings.
You may also soak some raisins into rum for 3 hours and mix the fillings.
The end product can be served with vanilla ice-cream or you may decorate by pressing some whipping cream florets on top for serving in a tea party.


Step-by step picture guide:

Get ready all the ingredients, apple, butter, cinnamon powder and brown sugar.

Cook the fillings-Melt butter, add in apple and fry under low fire. Add in brown sugar and cinnamon powder. Lastly, mix some water with cornstarch to thicken the fillings.

Prepare the "filo" skin. You need 4 layers of popiah skin. Brush butter on each layer and stack up the 4 sheets together

Spread the filling

Fold into rectangular shape. Wet the edges with some water to seal it.

Put the pastries in a baking dish lined with non-stick paper. Set to 200 degree celcius. Bake for 25 min or longer to brown.

Sprinkle some icing sugar before serving

Crispy texture, and not oily too..enjoy..

Black Herbal Jelly (Kwai Leng Gou)

My line dancing buddies have suggested to organise a potluck at Kim's house during our weekly line dance practice. Each of them have decided what to bring and somebody has suggested me to prepare the coconut milk jelly.

After pondering for a few moment, i decided to prepare the black herbal jelly as it is relatively more healthy than the coconut milk jelly. Below is the analysis made:

Coconut Milk Jelly vs Black Herbal Jelly
High Saturated Fat vs No saturated fat
Heaty vs Cooling
More complex in preparation vs Simpler to prepare
Minimum nutritional vs value Make the complexion clearer, reduce pimple outbreak, sore throat...

Finally, i decided to get the black jelly mix from Eu Yan Sang. The mixture is originally bitter like one that can be bought from "Kong Wor Thong". However, I have improvised the recipe by making the bitter mixture more palatable. Below is the improved recipe of my own invention:-

Ingredients:
Some pandan leaves
1 packet of 50g Eu Yang Sang black jelly powder mix with 500 ml water
100 g rock sugar
1 Litre water


Methods:
1. Simmer the pandan leaves and 100g of rock sugar with 1 litre of water for 30 minutes.
2. Pour in the black jelly mixture and simmer for another 15 minutes.
3. Remove from heat. Pour mixture into the small serving containers.
4. Leave to cool and chill well before serving.

These are the end result from 2 packets of 50g Black Jelly mix.

You can choose to reduce the sugar content by 10g and serve it with honey syrup.