Tahu Isi ~ Stuffed Tofu

                                 

This is a traditional street food in Indonesia, crunchy on the outside and super moist on the inside, and tingly on the tongue if you eat it with chilli padi. 

It is actually kind of stuffed tofu and pretty easy to make for afternoon snack or party.

Basically you stir fried some vegetable such as carrots, long beans, cabbage, and etc or you may add some prawn or minced meat, and stuffed them inside a fried tofu which has been emptied inside or tau pok and finally cover with batter and deep fried until golden brown. And woolaaa... They are ready!!!

If you want some guideline, you can see the recipe below.

Ingredient (amount vary on the tofu size and the variance of vegetable you used)

Fried Toufu (slit on one side and scoop out the inner part to make a wallet to fill the stuffing)

~ I used Tao Pok for short cut so I don't need to dig out the tofu inside

~ you can choose to deep fried your own tofu using firmed tofu

Carrot, shredded

Bean Sprout 

Taoge

Long Beans, cut to 2 cm length

Cabbage, shredded

Prawn/Minced Meat (optional)

Spice Paste (this proportion is for approx. 12 tofu)

3 cloves small red onion

2 cloves garlic

1/2 tsp pepper

A pinch of salt

few bird eye chilli (optional)

~ grind/blend the spices into smooth paste and divide into 2/3 & 1/3

Batter (this proportion is for approx. 12 tofu)

1 cup Plain flour

2/3 cup Water (add more water if required to attain thin consistency)

1/3 of the spice paste above

1 egg

Directions

1. Heat 2 tbsp of oil and take 2/3 of spice paste and stir fry all the vegetable & meat until just about witted and add in 2 tbsp water and season to taste with sweet soy sauce, pepper and salt. Set aside to cool for stuffing.

2. Combine the flour, salt and 1/3 of spice paste in a bowl. Add water and stir until a thin consistency is attained. Add in egg and stir well. Set aside.

3. Using a small spoon and packed each tofu with the prepared stuffing. 

4. Heat oil in a deep fryer. Dip the tofu in batter until well coated and drop gently into the oil and fry until golden brown. 

5. Served immediately when its hot with bird eye chilli (if you dare) or on its own.

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Turtle Melon Pan (Japanese Style Pineapple Bun)

When I started this project, I thought of doing the Cantonese pineapple bun, so I Google about it and the more I Google, my plan changed. I decided to make the cute turtle melon pan that I always see at the Japanese bakery, who doesn't love cute snacks right?. After my intensive study, I realised they are actually the same kind of thing, only one is called pineapple bun and the other is called melon pan and both has nothing to do with the fruit pineapple and melon beside the shape. I understand in Hong Kong, some of those old cafe had lard in their pineapple bun recipe, but seems like its kind of difficult for me to get lard so I moved to healthier Japanese version.

In short:

 Melon Pan/Pineapple Bun = Bread  Dough + Cookie Dough. 

So, if you know both recipe or had your own preferred recipe, you got yourself a melon pan recipe in hand.
And to make a turtle one, you just need to shape the bread dough and assemble it, just like how this lady (Hippomum) has done it here at step no.5. If you are unable to understand Chinese, let me explain to you how to assemble in the highlighted steps below. She had also done a Totoro version here.

Here is the recipe:
Serves: 10
(depend on whether you are making baby turtle or mommy turtle, if you are first time making bread I suggest you can half the recipe as assembling turtle takes time)

Ingredients

Bread Dough
200g bread flour
5g instant yeast
35g caster sugar
100ml warm water (not too hot for hand)
20g  beaten egg, room temperature
1/2 tsp. salt
20g butter, room temperature

Cookie Dough
50g butter, room temperature
50g beaten egg, room temperature
70g sugar
160g cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp of pandan flavouring/green food colouring (optional if you want a green turtle)

Direction

1. First, you need to make the cookie dough as it require time to set in the fridge.
2. In a stand mixer (optional), whisk the butter for awhile. Add sugar and continue to whisk until pale and creamy, approx 3 min. Add egg little by little and mix well. (Optional) Add the pandan flavouring/green food colouring and mix well.
3. Shift in cake flour and baking powder and mix well until everything comes together into a dough. 
4. Cover with plastic wrap and shape it into a log and refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour.

5. Next, we can make the bread dough. Mix warm water, salt and beaten egg together.
6. In a stand mixer with dough-hook attachment, first mix together bread flour, instant yeast and sugar until even. (Kneading with hand will take at least 20 min)
7. Gradually mix in the warm water mixture and turn the speed to medium, and knead the dough until it's silky and elastic, appprox 5 min (the dough may seem slightly dry at first but should come together at the end, if not add 1 tsp more water).
8. Then add the softened butter in 3 additions. Only add the next addition when the previous one has been evenly kneaded into the dough for at least 7-8 min. The dough should be soft and moist, but pulls away cleanly from the bowl when the machine run and makes slapping sound against the side.
9. In a large bowl, form the dough into a ball and cover the bowl with plastic wrap (to keep the surface of the dough from drying out), and leave to proof in a warm place at 30C for 30-60 min or until it has doubled or tripled in size.
(You can use the proof function on your home oven by first preheat the oven to the lowest setting 30C/40C then turn it off 15 minutes before you put in the bowl of dough. Place 2 cups of recently boiled hot water into the oven, next to the dough to ensure the bread dough is not dry up. Ensure the oven door is closed during the whole proofing process.)
10. Once proofed, coat your finger in flour and poke the dough. If the hole stays, it's ready. If the dough springs back, it needs to proof more. If the dough shrinks, it is over proofed. 

11. Finally, assemble the melon pan, in a turtle shape if you want. I learn this from this blogger hippomum.
12. Place the dough onto a working surface and punch out the air with your palm. Divide it into 10 equal pieces using a knife. 
To make turtle shape:
For each piece, cut out 4g (head), 6g (divide into 4 legs and one tail) and the rest for body. Quickly form them into balls. Place them on a baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap and rest for 15 minutes.
13. Take out the cookie dough and cut them into 10 pieces and shape them into balls. One at a time, roll out the cookie dough between two layers of plastic wrap, place the turtle body in the center and enclose it in the cookie dough. With a scraper or knife, cut the criss-cross pattern on the cookie dough. Finally glue the head, legs and tail onto the body (use a bit of water if necessary). 

Optional: You can sprinkle some sugar on the cookie dough for better flavour.
(The pastry crust softens very easily, so work with only 1 or 2 portions at a time, keeping the remaining pastry crust refrigerated.)

14. Place them on lined baking sheet and  cover with plastic wrap and leave to proof in a warm place at 30C for 20-30 min. (you can use the proof function on your home oven as above)

15. Bake at 180C for 10-12 minutes. (Depending on the heat of the oven, cooking time may differ). Place them on a wire rack to cool. Ready!!!

Enjoy the fun baking process!!! Its ok to fail, bread is always hard to make, you need lots of failure to be successful, or maybe you are baking genius.

I still want to study more on how to make bread extremely moist in the mouth, if you can teach me, please do share it on my facebook page. 

Sharing some illustration of my turtle toy and my turtle melon pan. 

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Ice Pop ~ Green Bean Flavor

Is the weather too hot to bear? Especially when the ministry of environment keep warning us on the prolong hot weather for the next 4 months... Do you wish to have something cold to chew on?

First thing come into my mind are those ice pops/popsicles that we used to eat when we were young (of cos not referring  to those 90s when they only know ice cream).

Ice Pop is basically a popsicle made usually from anything like juice with fruits or any sweet dessert or anything you can think of like sweetened young coconut water with shreds of young coconut meat. I used to eat the kind with sour plum juice, they are especially refreshing.

In this post, I would like to share the green bean flavor. First of all you have to make the green bean soup, where you can find my recipe here. 

Instruction:

1. Fill up the mixture into a single ice pop plastic bag tube (a funnel would be), secure and tight up with rubber band.

If you are in Singapore, you can get these plastic bag from SKP. I believe in modern days now, you will use those pretty color popsicle mold instead of my traditional plastic bag tube. However, the plastic offers a little built in protection from sticky fingers, and they can be totted around for a picnic or backyard barbecue with little fuss. 

2. Freeze for about 3 hours/overnight or until sets.
*for the big batch definitely needs to freeze longer.

Enjoy!!! and Lets endure the heat together!!!!

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