Yum Cha for Dinner

I don't have to go out for yum cha now - well, maybe. There's only one restaurant that does yum cha at night in Perth: The New Moon on James Street.

I sometimes have a craving for mini siu (烧麦). I used to buy this specific brand of pre-made frozen siu mai. Basically, you snip the package corner & just microwave for 2-4 minutes. 12 instant mini siu mai as a snack! Easy much simpler than driving out for one bamboo basket of 4 pcs.

Ok not the healthiest snack: there's probably additives and very little actual meat or prawns in the pre pack.

Tuesday nights are my non-TM work night. So I cheated with what I had on hand to make this! It's not restaurant standard pretty... But I can work on that.

The Taste of Asia has the recipe p. 72. I didn't have prawns on hand, so my variation contains:

350g pork mince

4 spring onions (white & green bits all chopped finely)

1 tspn of Massels vegetable concentrate powder

1 tspn of chicken stock powder

20-30g of soy sauce

2 eggs

Wonton skins (used 1/2 a large packet)

Some Chinese cabbage (inner heart leafs roughly broken/chopped)

Method:

- you can use the TM to mix but I found it pretty easy by hand.

1. Boil 1ltr of water in TM bowl (7mins, Varoma temp, Sp3-4) cover lid w measuring cup.

2. Meanwhile, spoon mince mixture on to sheet of wonton add small pinch of leaves to cover top of siu mai. Squeeze tight flatten bottom. Place in Varoma tray/receptacle.

3. Repeat 2 until mince all used or receptacle filled.

4. Remove measuring cup.

5. Place Varoma receptacle set on TM bowl, cover with wet clean towel. (18mins, Varoma temp, Sp3). Chinese steamers always 'seal' so less steam escapes. Wonton skins are sometime dry so if not enough steam soaks in it will be chewy!

6. Sides:

I roughly chopped 1 bunch of bakchoy and added that to the bowl's remains water (3mins on 100C), removed vegetables as side dish/garnish. You can add some oyster sauce on top of the vegetables but I like the plain which went well with my siu mai.

I had the left over liquid as a clear soup :) what you might call "short soup" in restaurants. The flavor/oils from the siu mai had dripped down. If you had left over mince you could add to this with left over Chinese cabbage for a delicious 'longer soup'.

If you followed the steam rice recipe in EDC, you can definitely have this & vegetables with the rice. If this is the case and you want soup left - consider adding more water in the beginning (start with 1.5 ltr).

Tips:

1. Lightly greasy the Varoma receptacle.

2. Don't pack the siu mai too tightly!

3. If using soy sauce either use only the chicken stock or Massel. Both I found to be too salty to eat without rice or soup.

Honestly, sometimes life gets in the way of living.

Sometimes, life throws us curve balls to test if we still have the tenacity and elasticity of mind to bounce instead of *k-splat* on the pavement. Two interest curve balls these past two weeks to 1. excuse my lack of posts and garner sympathy, 2. to just share what's been on my mind:

Curve ball 1:
There's been a restructure at my day job. My position / role is fine, but... it's a different environment now to work in. This is the second one I've been through in approx. 6-8 months. Well honestly, was in an environment previously that had the "restructure" thing hanging over my head for over 10-12 months, it's nearly 1.5 years of pending "redundancy" feeling. I'm a bit over it and just over-exhausted to even pep myself up.

Curve ball 2:
Recently, I woke up one morning and couldn't turn my neck and move my left arm. This is not to do with any sports injury - I'm not a sportswoman by any stretch of that word. It freaked me out - still in quite a bit of pain and can't lift anything with my left hand. Tingly sessions sporadicly go through my arm. Overall an uncomfortable experience. Yes I've seen a doctor, there was a pinched nerve, some vetebrae adjustments and inflammation of the muscle/tendon groups around the area.

I'll bounce but... it just means I will be spending more time else where for the time being. With that being said, it's likely I'll use cooking as a way to de-stress. Lifting the TM bowl on my left hand is a bit difficult right now...

I'll fix up the previous posts on receipes and maybe add a little something to my other "dining out" blog. don't give up on me, I'll still keep posting. So keep an eye out and I'll surprise you later.

Baking night: Mighty Muffins for Puffins

Ok honestly who feeds puffins? I don't even work in academia.

I made banana muffins & savoury cheese scones/muffins! Post on recipe variation later here's some photos to tempt your taste buds.

The smell is driving me mad despite having a full dinner out! I don't know how many of these would actually make it to work.

Banana Muffins:

I read up on various recipes and here's what I used & did:

Ingredients:

2 large ripe bananas

100-120g Butter (room temp)

100g Brown Sugar (more if you like sweeter - original recipe said 180g, I nearly died from a heart attack. Bananas are generally pretty sweet already)

240 Self rising flour

2/3 tspn of bi-carb soda

1 tspn of vanilla essence or you can use vanilla pod ground/extract

2 eggs

3 tbspn of warmed milk

Method:

1. Add Sugar + Butter, Sp 4, 30 seconds to mix in

2. Add all other ingredients, Sp 4, 25 seconds.

3. Canola spray/grease up muffin trays. Pour in. / otherwise, use little cupcake paper wraps and just pour straight in! No greasing required.

4. Bake for 20 - 25mins on 180C.

5. Leave in tray for 2-4 mins, remove and cool on a cooling rack.

You can probably combine Step 1 & 2 together and have no problems!

I really like Savoury above Sweets. So Savoury Cheese Scones were next.

Ingredients:

Method: