No-Frills Recipes ... cooking, baking & excerpts on travel

  'Tau you bak' in Hokkien or 'Braised Pork Belly in Soy Sauce' in Cantonese is a very homey dish.  The main sauces are light and dark soy sauce with the addition of some spices like cinnamon, pepper and star anise and in this recipe I also added some oyster sauce, which is optional.  The addition of hard boiled eggs infused with the intense gravy makes this a very delicious and tasty dish.  Pair it with some sambal belacan to make it more appetising and appealing. Tau Yu Bak  ~   Braised Pork Belly in Soy Sauce ( 豆油肉 ) Ingredients 700 gm pork belly cut into 1.1/2 inch 1 Tbsp oyster sauce 1 Tbsp light soy sauce 1.1/2 Tbsp dark soy sauce 8 cloves garlic 1 cinnamon stick 2 star anise some pepper rock sugar to taste Hard boiled eggs Method Marinate the pork belly with oyster and light soy sauce for a few hours or preferably overnight. Saute the garlic with cinnamon stick and star anise with some oil in a wok. Toss in the marinated pork.  Stir-fry, add in the some hot water

Lactation cookies are Greek to me until I googled for more information.  My daughter introduced this to me and she said they are easily available online. These cookies are mainly for nursing mothers who require an ample flow of milk supply to feed their babies especially the new borns.  The three key milk-boosting ingredients which have been known to increase milk supply are Brewer's yeast, Flaxseeds and Rolled Oats.  Some recipes do not require Brewer's yeast and yet yield good results and some recipes use coconut oil, vegetable oil instead of butter.  Basically they taste just like healthy Choc chip Oatmeal cookies but the added ingredients do help to generate more milk in nursing mothers. Lactation Cookies  ~  哺乳期曲奇饼   Ingredients 125 gm butter 160 gm brown sugar 1 egg 120 gm plain flour 1/2 tsp baking soda 185 gm rolled oats 20 gm chopped almonds (optional) 85 gm dark chocolate chips 2 Tbsp Brewer's yeast 1 Tbsp Flaxseed meal (ground Flaxseed) 2 Tbsp water 1 tsp vanilla

  Previously I used the breadmaker to help me make bread using the tangzhong method as I find the dough a bit wet and messy to handle by hand.   I was very keen to give it a try after browsing through the posts of  ''Bake with paws''  and was indeed very happy when I finally, yes, finally managed to handle the dough by hand.  I noted her tip of not adding the milk all at once and to add it gradually as different types of flour have different degrees of absorption.  I managed to get 10 soft, slightly chewy buns and I freezed some of them for a few days, defrosted and reheated before consumption.  They were just as good as freshly baked.   Baked Char Siew Buns ~ (Tangzhong method) ~  叉烧面包  (adapted from  'here'  ) Ingredients  - Tangzhong 25 gm high protein flour 120 ml water Main dough 300 gm high protein flour 1 tsp dry yeast 2 Tbsp sugar 20 gm milk powder 1/2 tsp salt 30 gm butter, softened 40 gm whisked egg 100 ml milk (I used only 80 ml) 1 whole egg + 1 tsp

  I was a bit apprehensive when I wanted to try making a chiffon cake with wholemeal flour.  If I were to use wholemeal flour totally, will the chiffon turn out to be dense or will it not rise or only rise a fair bit? As wholemeal flour is heavy and coarse I had to make adjustments to the normal recipes I used for my chiffon cakes.  So I browsed through my chiffon cake recipes and decided on a mixture of wholemeal and plain flour with an additional egg white to fluff up the batter.  I was delighted when the finished product turned out well, the cake didn't collapse when inverted and the taste was good, light, soft and refreshing wthout much hint of coarse wholemeal.  Wholemeal Chiffon Cake   ~   全麦戚风蛋糕 Ingredients (A) 5 'L' egg yolks 30 gm light brown sugar or caster sugar 75 ml vegetable oil 75 ml milk 75 gm wholemeal flour 45 gm plain flour 1 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp vanilla a pinch of salt (B) 6 'L' egg whites 75 gm light brown sugar or caster sugar 1/2 tsp crea