Lo Mai Gai (Vegetarian)

Lo Mai Gai is a mixture of Chinese ingredients wrapped in glutinous rice and steamed in a large lotus leaf. I'll tell you how to make the vegetarian version of this. Normally they use chicken.

First, the preparation of the ingredients:

First make sure you soak the glutinous rice in cold water for about 1-2 hours.

Then also soak the lotus leaves in hot water.

You also need Shitake mushrooms, the full grown ones. You just cook them in water for about 15-30 minutes depending on the size of the mushrooms. Do not throw away the broth. You will need it later on.

What is also essential is to have the vegetarian chicken, we use Quorn for that. These were frozen, we let them warm up to room temperature first. Then just fry them in oil before use. They already have taste to it, so no need to add any flavour.

We are also adding some vegetarian stewed mutton to it. These can be used on the go. Just chop them into small pieces.

Fried chestnuts (and peanuts) are optional.

But black fungus "hei muer", is a must. Just soak them in water before using them. Then wok them with some oil and add some soy sauce and oister sauce to it.

Now we are ready to make the Lo Mai Gai.

1) Preparing the filling

Throw everything together (the mushrooms + broth, the chestnuts, the vegetarian meat, hei muer) and add black soy sauce, oister sauce, sesame oil, pepper, salt, sugar at will to it. Experiment!

When you know it tastes ok then add maizena + water to thicken it.

Here's the result.

2) Steam the glutinous rice 
Add a pinch of salt to the glutinous rice and add some vegetable oil too. Then put the rice (with some water) in an oiled pan and steam it for 20 minutes.

Here's a video on how to steam the rice.

3) Wrap and steam

Here's how you wrap it and then just steam it for 10-20 minutes.

Cannelloni

Cannelloni is something I have never eaten before. I'm going to make it myself today as it is a vegetarian dish.

It's basically pasta with ricotta and spinach, dressed in tomato sauce. It's kind of a lasagna with ricotta.

Ingredients are:

Tomato sauce:
- 5 tomatoes
- 1 cup of tomato concentrate
- basil
- olive oil
- some olive parts
- red wine
- salt
- pepper

Ricotta paste:
- 250 g spinach (sliced)
- 500 g ricotta
- 100 g parmezan
- nutmeg
- pepper
- salt
- olive oil
- 12 pieces of cannelloni

First you just make the tomato sauce like we always do. Cook the tomatoes and the tomato concentrate until they are soft. Add some red wine and olives. Finish it off with some salt, pepper and basil. Very easy. Just make sure it's not too dry. If it's dry, add some water to it.

Next on you make the ricotta paste. Just mix all the ingredients together and stuff the cannelloni up.

Finally throw the tomato sauce on top of the cannelloni and add some cheese on top of it. Mozarella is recommended.

Bake it for 30 minutes at 180°C.

Here's another recipe:

Roti / Chapati

I don't like Indian food, but while flying the Indian airplane to Hong Kong I had roti (chapati). And it's the most delicious bread I have ever eaten. It was almost like a croissant, but flat.

Here's how you make it, you just need flour, salt, oil and water. Knead it and bake it in a pan.

Vanilla Cheesecake (easy recipe)

I have made a post about cheesecake already, but this version is much easier to make and we have a video of it by my favourite chef The Seasoned Cook. Just follow the video.

You will need this for the cheese base:

- 3 eggs

- 500 g full farmer's cheese

- 200 g sugar

- table spoon vanilla

You will need this for the sour cream topping:

- sour cream

- sugar

- table spoon vanilla

You will need this for the pastry:

- 500 ml Graham Cracker crumbs

- 70 g butter

- 50 g sugar

Puff Pastry Shells

Here's how you make vol-au-vent puff pastry shells. Never thought of that.

Boiling Egg

Here's how you boil an egg. You want to have a silky egg white covering a gooey egg yolk paste. Because this is the most healthy for you. Don't eat raw eggs as mixed egg whites and egg yolks will reduce vitamin uptake. Consumption of raw egg whites can interfere with biotin (which is present in egg yolk) absorption. This is due to a constituent called avidin which is destroyed by cooking. Conversely, hard boiled eggs create inflammation when eaten. This is because the yolk gets oxidized and causes inflammation in your body. This is also true for scrambled eggs. So please eat your egg boiled.

Here's how.

1) Add water to the pan and put the egg in the pan, cover the top of the egg with water.
2) Bring to a boil
3) Remove pan from fire and wait 6 minutes.

Or you just buy an egg boiler.

Cheese Croquettes

This is a video of Fans of Flanders, a program about Flanders Belgium.They will show you how to make cheese croquettes. Here's my recipe.

Ingredients:
- 80 g butter
- 85 g flour
- 200 ml milk (add more if it's too thick)
- 4 tbls Affligem Tripel (or just use some white wine)
- 2 separated eggs to coat the cheese croquettes
- 125 g grated cheese (preferably Old Bruges)
- Breadcrumbs
- Salt and pepper
- Nutmeg
- Frying oil

Melt the butter and add flour. Cook it for 1 minute.
Add the milk, then the Affligem Tripel.
Add salt and pepper.
Add nutmeg.
Add cheese.

Then pour it in a casserole dish and put it in the fridge for 2 hours.
Afterwards you cut them into large pieces and coat them with the eggs.

Here's how to coat them:
Roll them in the egg white.
Roll them in the breadcrumbs.
Roll them in the egg yolk.
Roll them in the breadcrumbs.

Then place them in the fridge for half an hour and then deep fry it at 180 °C.

Youtiao

Youtiao's are by far the most delicious Cantonese breads out there. You can use them when eating salted rice porridge.

This is my result, it is pretty good if I say so myself.

The ingredients are:
- 500 g flour
- 300 ml water
- 10 g baking soda
- 5 g baking powder
- salt and sugar

Dissolve the baking soda with some of your water reserve. Dissolve the baking powder with some of your water reserve. Mix all ingredients together.

Knead it. Let it rest for 20 minutes.
Do this 3 times again.
Roll the dough out and let it rest for 4 hours.
Roll the dough out to 0.5 cm.
Make the youtiao and deep fry it.

Here's how we fried it, with a malfunctioning damper...

Cheung Fun

Here's a nice recipe for making Cheung Fun. It's something every Cantonese person will eat in a restaurant.

It's very easy. These are the ingredients:
- 230 ml cold water
- 70 g rice flour
- 1 tablespoon wheat starch
- 1 tablespoon corn starch
- some salt
- 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil

Just mix it together and leave it to stand for 1 hour.

Then steam it in a glass casserole for 7 minutes.

For the sauce you use:
- 2 teaspoon sugar
- 4 teaspoon water
- 4 teaspoon soy sauce
- 2 teaspoon sesame oil

Here is another way to make it, but this time you use a cloth. The steaming will be much faster.

Har gow

Har Gow is a dim sum of (vegetarian) shrimp. You can also use spinach as filling which I like even more.

This class will teach you how to make the dough. What you fill it up with is up to you. Spinach filling as an example is easy to make. You just boil the spinach, put it in ice water. Then chop the spinach up. Add some sesame oil, salt, sugar, vegetable bouillon and cook it a bit. Add some maizena and that's it. Experiment with it.

Now here comes the difficult part: the dough. You should watch this video on how to make the dough.

The exact ingredients:
- 1 cup wheat starch
- 1/4 cup potato starch
- 1/4 cup tapioca starch
- salt
- vegetable oil
- 1 cup boiling water

(in the video we do it on eyesight because the chef is very experienced ...)

First add boiling water to the wheat / potato starch and knead it a bit. Then add the tapioca starch and continue to knead it. You can already add some oil to it. After kneading, we close it off and wait a few minutes.

Then we knead some more until it's ready to be used.

The following video will teach you how to make the dumplings. Try to make them as thin as possible, then the dumplings will become translucent. Then steam it for 5 minutes and it's done.

Vegetarian Lo Pak Ko

Lo Pak Ko is a delicious appetizer in many Hong Kong restaurants. Actually it is easy to make, but it takes a lot of time to do so.

The ingredients for a group of people are:
- 1 Chinese White Radish (Daikon) (1350 g) (which I will call white beet for convenience)
- 1600 ml water
- 450 g rice flour
- Chinese mushrooms
- Quorn vegetarian meat
- salt
- sugar
- pepper
- sesame oil
- sun flower oil

First we prepare the ingredients. Mix 2/3 of the water with the rice flour. The mushrooms need to be soaked in hot water, then chopped in thin slices. Chop the daikon in thin slices. Prepare a steaming pan with some sun flower oil for later on.

Now we pan fry the mushrooms, daikon and vegetarian quorn meat with the rest of the water. We add salt, sugar, pepper, sesame oil to taste. Cook it for about 15 minutes, turn off the heat, then add the rice flour mixture. Mix until it becomes a sticky substance.

Put it in the oiled steaming pan and we steam it for about 1 hour until it sets. Leave it to cool for 2 hours. Best is to even let it cool down in the fridge for a night. It will cut better.

Next on we chop them into square blocks and pan fry them in some oil.

That's a lot of work..., but it's worth it. I like to use spicy oil with this.

Vegetarian Duck

This vegetarian Peking duck recipe is one that will surprise you. It tastes just like real duck. It's a recipe that is being used throughout all vegetarian restaurants in Hong Kong.

What you will need is fresh frozen bean curd sheets like this one. Do not use the dried bean curd sheets as it will not work, you will need frozen bean curd sheets. The texture should be like "plastic". These bean curd sheets are made out of soy beans.

So the first thing you do is fold them up, moisten them up in a bowl of water until they are white colored and have the soft texture. This will take half an hour. Afterwards we make sure the water gets drained, we put some holes in the "duck" and deep fry them.

Here's how you prepare it.

Here's how you fry it.

And here's how you make the sauce and mix it with the fried bean curd sheets. We use: anis, sesame oil, dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, vegetarian oyster sauce, salt, sugar, mushroom flavour and water. Just throw them together and the magic will happen.

Then we just cut up the duck and we have created Vegetarian Duck!

Vegetarian Chow Mein

This is my favourite Chinese dish, I always eat this at the restaurant and it's vegetarian.

Basically you need 2 things. The egg noodles and the vegetable mix. Let's start with the egg noodles.

1) Egg noodles

You need to find yourself these thin dried egg noodles. Any brand is ok. I use the Sau Tao Egg Noodle brand.

Boil them in water for 5 minutes until they are loosened up. Strain them until dry, then fry them in sunflower oil until they are crispy. Don't fry them too long. That's the first part.

2) Vegetable mix

You will need fried tofu, blanched broccoli, shitake, green vegetables, sliced carrots. Anything will do. Put a good amount of oil in your wok and add all your ingredients. Stir fry them while adding some salt and pepper. Also add water to create a base for the soy sauce. After cooking it for several minutes you will add the soy sauce. I use a mixture of oyster sauce, dark soy sauce, sesame oil and light soy sauce. When the taste is ok, lower the heat and add a potato flour/water mixture to thicken the sauce. It's all experimental. Just try it. What you can also do is add all the ingredients together and then pour the sauce in the vegetable mix all together.

These are the sauces that I use.

Wan Ja Shan Vegetarian Oyster Sauce

Kimlan Light Soy Sauce

Lee Kum Kee Dark Soy Sauce

Potato Flour to Thicken Sauce

Then you just pour the sauce on top of the fried egg noodles and it's done!

The preparations:

The real cooking stuff:

Brownie

Very, very nice recipe and ridiculously easy to make. The brownie with a soft inner body and a crunchy coat.

You will need:
- 60 g butter
- 130 g pure chocolate (without sugar)
- 60 g sugar (if you need more sugar you can go till 80 g)
- pinch of salt
- 1 egg
- 75 g flour
- pinch of cacao powder

First melt the chocolate with the butter on low heat. Then mix the sugar, salt, egg, cacao powder in a separate bowl. Add the two mixtures together. Slowly add the flour into the mixture while mixing.

Bake for 35 minutes at 160 °C.

This is the result and it's delicious.

Another recipe is from a colleague of mine and seems to be a completely different recipe:

1. Mix 100 g butter with 100 g of pure chocolate. Trade in butter for a bit of vegetable oil/coconut oil to get chewiness.
2. Mix 200 g (dark brown sugar + granulated white sugar) to 2 eggs for 10 minutes. (white sugar glazes the top of the brownie, brown sugar gives texture)
3. Mix the eggs/sugar mixture with the chocolate mixture.
4. Fold 100 g self-raising flour to the mixture.
5. Approximately 20-30 minutes in the oven at 170 °C. Do not overbake.

Brazilian Cheese Bread

Something I've never heard of before, until the World Cup of Soccer 2014 started. Apparently these balls are a delicacy in Brazil. They are called Pão de Queijo.

You will only need 4 ingredients:
- 100 g glutinous rice flour
- 100 ml milk
- 50 g parmezan
- 1/2 table spoon oil

First mix the rice flour with the milk..
Then mix it with oil and parmezan.
Then bake it in a 180 °C oven.

That's it.

Now let's try if it's edible...

Fettuccine Alfredo

Everyone can make pasta with cream, but it takes skill to make pasta with Alfredo sauce because the key is to add the egg yolk to the pasta without making scrambled eggs.

The Seasoned Cook gives a very good class on how to make this:

Follow these instructions in the right order, you can choose how much you add of each ingredient:
1) First cook the pasta and drain it.
2) Add the egg yolk to the pasta and mix it while it's hot (but not too hot because you'll get scrambled eggs).
3) Add the hot cream.
4) Add pepper, Parmezan cheese.
5) Add olive oil.
6) Add parsley

Penne Pesto

Penne with pesto is delicious and healthy.

To make the pesto we just mix following ingredients:

• 2 cups fresh basil
• 3 table spoons of pine nuts, toasted
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 table spoon of lemon juice
• ½ cup olive oil
• ¼ cup Parmezan cheese

Then we cook the penne.

Next on, we reheat the pesto in a pan and add the cooked penne. Do not overcook it or the cheese will melt and you don't want that to happen. Add some more olive oil to coat the penne well and season it with herbs like basil, oregano. Add salt and pepper to your taste.

If you want to add a little more texture to it, you could add pan fried mushrooms to it and deglaze it with white wine and a little bit of cream.

Chocolate Mousse

Chocolate mousse isn't easy to make, you need to do the right things at the right times. Use the right temperature and time to mix everything.

First, make a pate à bombe.

For three people we use these ingredients.
- 3 egg yolks
- 3 ounces of sugar: 80 g (use less sugar if you don't want it to be too sweet)
- 0.75 ounce water: 25 g

Whisk the egg yolks while boiling the sugar sirup. When the sugar sirup has reached 120 °C, then slowly pour it in the egg yolks while mixing.

This is the result:

Then we melt the chocolate. Be sure to buy chocolate without any sugar in it or otherwise you will have to decrease the amount of sugar in the pate à bombe.:
-3 ounces or 80 g chocolate.

And we mix it to the pate à bombe.

If you want the chocolate mousse to be lighter of texture, you can whip those 2 left over egg whites and add it to the mixture at this stage. But I don't use it. Add a pinch of salt to get a special taste.

Next, we whip some cream to stiff peaks. Don't forget to cool the cream with an ice bath, otherwise you won't succeed in getting it whipped.:
- 4 ounces or 100 g cream. Use more cream if you want it to be lighter of texture.

And fold it to the mixture.

Then put the mixture in a cup and store it for more than an hour in the fridge and it's done.

Mochi Mochi Ice Cream

This Japanese Youtube channel is very nice. Today I learnt to make Mochi.

Here's my dough, it works pretty well!

I used the ice cream I created yesterday (with the Japanese technique) to fill them up. You should try it!

Hum Sui Kok (Vegetarian Pork Dumpling)

Normally this is done with pork, but I use vegetarian pork.

Here is how we make Hum Sui Kok, a delicacy especially in Hong Kong. You should try it.

The recipe for the dough is like this:

40 g tang flour (same as wheat starch)

160 g glutinous rice flour

60 g sugar

40 g palm oil

1/4 cup of boiling water

125 ml cold water

Let's try making the dough.

First we have the ingredients:

Then we knead the dough. I just mix everything together, but if you want to do it properly, you can use cold water for the glutinous rice flour and boiling water for the wheat starch.:

Make balls:

And fry it low to medium heat:

What you put in the dough, you can choose yourself. Experiment with it!

Chocolate Parfait

I recently found another way to make parfait (ice cream without an ice machine).

The only difference now is that we don't need to make a sabayon on the stove. We just make the sabayon by mixing hot syrup into the egg yolk mixture.

Here's how the Japanese people do it and they know how to make desserts for sure. I like this technique because it's much easier to do, you can't burn your egg yolks on the heat. But if you still want to do it the traditional way, here you go.

Ingredients:

I made my variation on it by adding cacao powder to the whipped cream and to the sabayon. This will create chocolate ice cream.

I can't wait for the result.

Crispy Layers

Remember how I made the Hashbrowns? I had difficulties to get the crispiness in it.

I may have found the secret on how to make the crispy layers on them. The key is to use two different kinds of starches/flour.

The first one is "wheat starch", which is mostly used for Chinese steamed dim sum. To use this wheat starch, you must use boiling water and add it to the wheat starch to create a glutinous mixture. Do not add too much water, otherwise it will be too watery. Do not add too few water, otherwise you make dough for dim sum, which is not what you want.

When you have created the glutinous mixture, you add that to the main dish, in this case: hashbrowns. This way your hashbrowns will be held together. I don't know the exact measurements yet, I still have to experiment.

Secondly, you use potato flour and add that to the mixture of hashbrowns. This gives the crispiness to the hashbrowns when you deep fry them. You can add more of potato flour than wheat starch.

The third technique, and this is my favourite one, is to use self raising flour with some water and salt. That will give the crispiest layer you can ever dream of. The mixture should be viscous, but not too thick and not too watery.

Now, I learned about a last method from the best chef in the world.
Watch how it is done here:

Now you experiment with these.

Apple Tart

Today I made the most difficult form of apple tart I have ever made. It cost me 2 hours to make it.

Basically I used these 3 videos from TheSeasonedCook to make it. He is one of my favourite chefs.

1) First we make apple sauce. For my recipe I used 2 whole apples. You just microwave the apples with some lemon juice and water:

2) Second, we make the dough. I used:
- 1 egg
- 500 ml of flour
- 188 g of butter
- a bit of salt
- 100 g of vanilla sugar (you could add more if you like)

It was fun making it.

3) We bake the apples with butter, white wine, some sugar and cinnamon. I used 3 apples and some cinnamon with honey. Then I put it in the oven. At the same time I baked the pastry. Afterwards, we fill the tart with the apple sauce, the apples and some custard.

For the custard I used for my recipe:
- 150 ml cream
- 4 egg yolks
- 40 g of vanilla sugar (you could add more if you like)

You can then add vanilla sauce to it:

This is my result: