Kudos to Cocoa for this really authentic recipe of the carrot cake! Once in a while, we get cravings for carrot cake when we least expect it. Now we can finally deal with it! Here’s our white version of this famous Singaporean “hawker centre” food.

This recipe makes 4 servings.

Ingredients:

• 300g of rice flour
• 1 litre of water
• 1 radish
• 1/2 lb of pickled radish (”cai poh”)
• Finely chopped garlic (6-8 cloves)
• Sweet soy sauce (black) or Fish sauce (white)
• Oil
• Eggs
• Chilli (optional)
• Spring onions as garnish (optional)

Making:

Preparing the caipoh in advance

1. Soak caipoh in water for 30 min to reduce the saltiness.
2. Rinse it dry and chopped it finely.
3. Heat a wok with oil, abt 2 tbs or more, fry the caipoh and garlics on medium heat for abt 10 min. Add 1 tsp sugar to it and continue frying for another 5 min. Remove and set aside.

Preparing the cake

1. Shred the radish, place it in a pot together with water and rice flour and mix it thoroughly. Add 2 tsp salt to it.
2. Boil the mixture under medium small fire until the mixture becomes sticky.
3. Transfer to a heatproof plate, steam it for 30 min. (I use two 9-inch metal plates and steam in 2 batches)
4. Remove from steamer and let cool for up to a few hours.

Important: Put the cake in the fridge for at least 6 hours.

When Ready to eat

1. Cut the cake into big pieces.
2. Heat 3 to 4 tbs oil, throw in the cake and pan-fry until just brown. Use high heat for frying so the cake doesn’t stick to the wok.
3. Add caipoh (for each serving plate I uses 1 tbs of caipoh)
4. Fry for a few seconds and then using the frying ladle, chop the cake into smaller pieces. Then pour in the beaten egg.
5. For black carrot cake, add sweet soy sauce. For white, add a few dash of fish sauce, and finally the chilli paste.
6. Serve with spring onion on top of fried carrot cake.

Recently, I was introduced to a song sang by a Singapore Superstar (郭美美), who just released an album. When I was heard it, I was speechless. Duly matched by her superb vocal techniques,her voice was unique and captivating. Incidentally this song is one of my favorite classics. It was originally sang by 柯贵民. For my convenience of playing this on my guitar, I transcribed the chords and included them here.

总 是 不 经 意 地 想 起
你 喜 欢 哼 的 那 首 歌 曲
一 样 温 柔 的 音
依 旧 牵 动 我 的 心
我 曾 寻 寻 觅 觅
想 在 文 字 里 寻 找 爱 情
才 发 现 最 美 的 诗 句
原 来 都 在 你 眸 里

爱 是 你 眼 里 的 一 首 情 歌
轻 洋 着 飘 逸 旋 律
让 我 不 知 不 觉 地 陶 醉 在
你 缠 绕 的 深 情

爱 是 你 眼 里 的 一 首 情 歌
轻 拨 动 我 的 心 弦
让 我 不 由 自 主 地
深 爱 着 你

—

Bb
Dm
Gm
Cm
F
(x2)

Bb
Dm Gm
Eb Bb
Cm F

Bb
Dm Gm
Cm F Bb

My family used to prepare this dish whenever we had huge gatherings, and I simply love this. Thanks to my mum, I got hold of the recipe and prepared this with mm. Heh- the original title of this post is “Prawn Balls”. How boring is that! So mm racked a little of her brain and came up with this… 金裹银球. Pretty cool har?

Ingredients:

• 10 quail eggs
• Bread crumbs
• Minced garlic (1 clove)
• 1/2 lb of shrimp
• 2 pinches of corn starch
• 2 pinches of salt
• 1 pinch of pepper

Making:

1. Mince the shrimp into a paste.
2. Add salt, pepper, corn starch and the minced garlic into the paste. Mix well. Set this aside.
3. Boil the quail eggs for about 10 minutes. Peel off the shells.
4. Wrap each egg with the shrimp paste, and shape it into a ball. There should be at least 1/4-inch-thick paste covering each egg.
5. Roll each ball over the bread crumbs.
6. Once all the balls are done, deep-fry all of them in high heat for 7 minutes (or till they turned golden brown).

A soon-to-be-published Chinese map, if accepted, would mean that it is the Chinese Admiral (Zheng He), not Christopher Columbus , who found the America.

This map shows the North and South America, and is said to be a 1763 copy of another map made in 1418.

This would be before Columbus stepped foot on America on 1492.

But skeptics are checking if the map was made in 1763. Even so, they can say it is still only the mapmaker’s word that he copied if from a 1418 map.

I wonder how true this is…

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Today’s weather is just amazing. A warm 19 degrees C smacked right in the middle of winter! I guess that’s what they call the Pittsburgh weather.

For a few of these days more, I don’t mind putting off my skiing plans for a while.

Now here’s one creative spin-off from the Mac laptop. The iTab is a Mac-based tablet computer modified from the Apple iBooks. The iTabs are built as they are sold on eBay.

The iTab is built by taking Apple’s 12″ iBook laptop, taking the screen off, applying a touchscreen, then flipping the screen around and fastening it on. The whole thing is finished off by putting the leftover screen backing over the top of the iTab, giving it the “rounded white edges.”

For all you tablet PC users wanting to convert to Macs, here’s an option for you. If you are willing to forgo the Apple hardware warranty that is.

It’s funny how the bio-clock in your body works. How strangely accurate and persistent it gets after you set it for a period of time.

For the past few days, I’ve been sleeping at 4 and waking at 12. This sleeping schedule simply would not work when school reopens. In an attempt to fix the internal clock, I forced myself to bed at 12 last night.

Tis ain’t working.  I just woke up and the clock on my table reads 4am. Ugh… help.

After making countless 饺子, mm and I concluded that it was about time we ‘leveled up’. Lets try making 包 for a change.

Our tools and ingredients…

Hah- At least a few of them look decent!

Ready to be steamed…

The finished product fresh from the steamer…

This is the first time I actually stuck out so long on a personal project, i.e. creating a personal web-blog and space. 3 days, 13 hrs and 28 minutes on creating this blog/photo gallery. I’m really impressed with WordPress’s scope of customization. Painful some of the feature and interface tweaking may be, I’m actually feeling very satisfied with this. =) PHP rocks!

Remaining Todos:

• Add links to the photo album template to return to the photos main page
• Add a dropdown box for quick navigation to each photo album
• Finish captioning the photos in the albums
• Get the ‘Photos’ tab to be displayed active when a photo album is being browsed
• Create an status icon for this page
• Load flashfader plugin
• About page
• Portfolio page

I love making mushrooms, ‘coz you can never go wrong with them. This is one of the few ways I deal with portabellas, though I don’t quite like this baked this way. Room for improvement…

Ingredients:

• 3 whole portabella mushrooms
• Minced garlic (2 cloves)
• 3 tbsp of butter
• 1 tsp of salt
• 2 tsp of olive oil
• 2 pinches of thymes
• 1 pinch of oregano
• 3 slices of lemon

Making:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350F.
2. Clean the mushrooms with a damp cloth.
3. Remove the stems and mince them up.
4. Melt 1 tbsp of butter. Marinate the mushrooms with the melted butter and 1 tsp of salt.
5. Heat up 2 tsp of olive oil in a pan. Melt 2 tbsp of butter in the oil. The olive oil helps prevent the butter from getting too burnt too quickly.
6. Mix in the minced garlic and mushroom stems. Add the thymes and oregano leaves. Fry this mixture till it turns golden brown. Set this mixture aside.
7. After marinating the mushrooms for about 10 minutes, coat the mushrooms with the mixture.
8. Put the mushrooms on a baking tray (face up - to keep the juices in). Place a slice of lemon on each mushroom.
9. Bake the mushrooms for 12 minutes at 350F.