Kuih Momo

This is not so much of a kuih, i suppose. It's a cookie of some sort. Some people call it kuih makmur and I guess somehow that degenerated into momo, which I think is much cuter and more suitable for the flurry looking balls.

Some readers have been asking me for the recipe last year, and I've promised to share it this year. As most of you know by now, I am not so much of a cookie maker. By nature I am a lazy person, and I can't see the joy of putting in so much effort into shaping every single little piece of these cookies which will end up with one bite only.

However, this one is easy, I think. And anyone can do it. What differentiates a good momo from the average ones is that the good ones should burst in your mouth upon eating, with a nice buttery fragrant. That is why I don't use ghee. I just use good old butter. The burst feel comes from frying the flour. I use glucose instead of icing sugar which I find too floury in the already floury cookie. It gives a nice cold feel on your tongue before the burst.

So here is the recipe:

make about 80 or so pieces, plus or minus

250 gm of good quality butter like anchor, golden churn in block

350-370 gm of plain flour

enough glucose, about 300 gm or more to coat

1) Over medium heat, stir fry flour without any oil until fragrant and you can see a light tint of brown. Set aside to cool. Sift into a bowl.

2) Melt butter and slowly pour into the centre of the flour. Mix and knead well.

3) Shape into round balls and bake for 20 min at 160 deg celcius without fan or till the balls are cooked through and the bottom slightly light brown.

4) Cool for a few mins before throwing them into a bowl of glucose to coat thoroughly. Place into small cups and cool to lukewarm before packing in airtight container.

Just a word of warning though, kuih momo is something that either people really like, or really hate. At least that's what I've gathered from the many comments that I've heard before. But nevertheless, I have them every year. They're my must-have Chinese New Year cookies & I hope you'll enjoy them too.

Nee's Proton Saga

The truth is, she never had one.

The Proton Saga cake was conceived around the time when the national car first came out in 1985. I do not know who invented this recipe. The only Google search results that pair together 'Proton saga' & 'cakes' were 'Proton Saga selling like hot cakes'. So I abandoned the search altogether. Maybe if you know a thing or two about this, leave some comments below.

Here's Nee's attempt a building the national cake.

It's basically a Malay steamed cake. I'll let Nee tell you about it.

Nee:

There are basically two recipes. One for the inner red, green and plain blocks, and the other one for the outer dark layer. The recipe is very rich with kaya, horlick and condensed milk, that one piece will send the weighing scale needle jumping by the kilos. So I am contemplating whether I should blog the recipe or if anyone would even want to eat it.

But the result is seriously good. Soft, yet rich and dense. And highly addictive too.

By the way, I was singing some patriotic national RTM songs when I was doing this. Out of the blue!

Personally I think Nee is crazy to incorporate this into her already packed schedule. Mind you, this was done for fun.

5 Years of Wedded Bliss

Well, we'd like to think of it that way lah. Of course there's ups & downs, & lots of adjustments in between. But at this point in time, looking back, we can only see the ups...

Greg & Nee is now officially married for 5 years, since yesterday.

The first 5 years were very blessed years, & we look forward to the next 10 with full anticipation.

It feels like we have just only finished the appetizers & are just about to go into the main course. Thank you for being with us & we hope you'll take the journey with us into the next phase of our lives.