Greg & Nee Back from Taipei

Hi Everyone! We've just got back from a back-breaking, pound-packing, lard-loading 6-Day Amazing Taipei Holiday trip. And it's hard to tell whether the back is breaking from all that walking, or from the weight gain. 

From the museums to the hot springs, the 101 Tower to the night markets, Taipei is such an exciting, vibrant and cultural city with nicey warmy people and Omigosh amount of good food that are super cheap!

We absolutely enjoyed Taipei. In fact, we LOVE Taipei. Taipei is really a techno-socio-politically advanced city yet with all its cultural and historical values very well preserved. I think the photo below basically sums it all up. Either that or it looks more like a Giant Pigeon Destroys Taipei 101 movie.

I love this photo for what it represents. The pigeon is basically perching on one of the traditional gates to the Chiang Kai Shek memorial hall. It has a traditional feel to it & yet it rises together with the modern Taipei 101 behind it.

We shall share about our experience with all of you soon. But we would like to finish blogging a few of our previous trips first before we start on this one. WHIP! Greg, get to work!

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.