It is actually not difficult to make burger patties. All we used are :

INGREDIENTS TO MAKE BURGER PATTIES

600 grams minced pork
1/2 cup bread crumbs (we used the yellowish type meant for deep frying)
1 egg
1/2 cup chopped onions
1 tablespoon cornflour

Flavourings (depending on what you have)

dash of Worchestershire sauce
dash of Maggi seasoning (the yellow cap, thin, tall bottle with square bottom?)
dash of black pepper
dash of cayenne pepper (a mix of spices)
salt

Mix all the ingredients and flavourings in a big bowl and smash the blob of minced meat against the inner side of the bowl to sort of firm up the patty. Then, using a clean plastic bag or cling wrap, roll the patty to the thickness you want. Leave this layer of meat in the fridge for a few hours for it to firm up further.

Using an appropriate size cup or bowl, ‘cut’ the patty into equal sizes and wrap them into clingwraps and freeze if you want to store the balance. Alternately, you can roll the patty into balls, and then, flatten it. We found that to be more tedious than to ‘cut’ them like how you cut cookies.

My two older sons pan fried the burger patty till cook and brown. Then, they wrap it with egg like how burger stalls do. Plenty of black pepper, mayonnaise, Worchestershire sauce and cheese made the burger as good as Ramly’s. Only less halal.

I never like the idea of buying local burgers from the burger stalls because the meat patty contains a lot of animal fats. If you don’t believe, try frying a piece and see how much fats oozed out. I wonder which part of the animal they use for these burgers?

Now, barbee burger is a easily available because we can store them in the fridge. You can use minced chicken or minced beef but we have never try them yet.

This is the siew mai before steaming. I put a tiny piece of salted duck eggs on top. The skin I used is the frozen wantan skin.

For variety, I also used century egg to give it a black dot. Eventhough the siew mai looks not too bad and taste good, the skin is too dry.

For the second batch, I wipe the moisten the skin with some water and yet, they turned out as dry.

This is the ‘mimic-king professional food photographer’, classic Chinese dish food photo. Can you see the flour still looking dry in the middle siew mai? This plate has been steamed for a long time and yet, the skin doesn’t seem to absorb some water to make it softer.

The other thing is the siew mai I made does not ooze oil and therefore, doesn’t taste as good those sold by dim sum shops.

Sigh…anyone knows why the skin is dry?

However, there is another huge root vegetable, very much like a big sweet potato which is also call the arrowroot. I bought one today because I am curious what it tastes like. Like all root vegetables, it is best slow boiled with pork ribs, red dates, dried shitake mushroom and garlic to make a nice soup.

(I like to parboil the spare ribs before I cook them in the soup. This is to avoid murky soup.)

Ingredients used in arrowroot soup

Arrowroot – About 500 grams, remove skin and cut into cubes
1 dried shitake mushroom – soak (use more if you like)
6 red dates – de-seeded
Few pips of garlic
Pork ribs – About 300-400 grams (parboil, wash clean)
Water – About 1.5 litre
Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Bring water to boil and put in all the ingredients. Let the ingredients boil for about five minutes. Turn down fire. Let simmer on low fire, in covered pot for about 1 hour. Season to taste.

Here are what I used. The arrowroot has very thick skin. After removing the skin, I cut them into cubes. It has very strong smell of the earth and smell ‘green’ too. Luckily, after cooking, it gives off a pleasant fragrance, very much like lotus root. In fact, the soup tastes exactly like lotus root soup, earthy without the ‘green’ smell.

The root vegetable has very coarse fibres and I don’t think I like eating it. It is hard even after being cooked in my pressure cooker. However, the hearty soup is tasty.

Do give this root vegetable a try the next time you find it in the market.

Hah! Nothing a Hainanese woman cannot achieve. First, I called up my eldest sister-in-law, who is my hubby’s eldest sister. They are Hakka and I thought she sure know how to do it. But she hasn’t even heard of this dish! She told me their grandmother cooks mostly Malaysian flavoured nyonya dishes.

So, I Googled and figured out the recipe myself. I steamed the yam and mashed it. Then, I discovered I have ran out of tapioca flour. But have no fear, I got plenty of tang meen fun and corn flour. I substitute the tapioca flour and actually ended up with very nice texture. I guess tapioca flour alone would make the yam coins or abacus seeds rather slimy. Using corn flour and tang meen fun makes the yam still rather floury.

(steaming the yam is better than boiling it as it doesn’t absorb water so much. Leave the yam to cool and dry first before mashing)

Remember that I am making this yam coins based on my cooking instinct and may not be the traditional Hakka recipe. Here’s what I do :

Steam 300 grams of yams and mash it. Cutting the yam into tiny pieces will make it cook faster.

In another bowl, put in about 200 grams of tapioca flour. (in my case, I used 50 grams tang meen fun and 150 grams corn flour)

Half a cup of boiling hot water. Pour the hot water into the flour to partially cook it. Using a wooden mixing spoon, mix the flour and hot water into a ball. When cool enough to use your hands, knead the mashed yam with the ball of flour.

I added a pinch of salt, pepper and five spice powder to make the yam coins more flavourful.

When you get a nice, smooth ball of dough, roll them into oblong pieces. Just add more flour or water to get a nice ball of dough. It is hard to judge the quantity as some yams are more floury while others are watery.

(actually, after making potato gnocchi, this is easy peasy. I call this yam gnocchi, pronounced no-ki)

Make long strands of the dough, cut into tiny pieces and use your finger to press a bit. Imagine what a Chinese abacus seeds are like? Just about that size.

Boil a big pot of water and throw in the yam coins. Let them boil till they float up. Transfer into a big bowl of tepid water (room temperature water).

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(the ingredients mentioned below)

Stir fry recipe

Based on what I ate at the food bloggers’ gathering, I added these to stir fry.

200 grams of minced pork, flavoured with some soya sauce, pepper and bit of corn flour

Black fungus (better to use the hardy type but I don’t have them so I use the small ears)

Stalk of Chinese celery and spring onion, cut into inch long. Chinese celery is mandatory to give the flavour.

Fist full of dried shrimps

Tiny fist full of dried squids, Jiu hoo see (the tiny strands?)

Garlic – chopped

Oil

Flavourings like some fish sauce, pepper and salt if required

Method

1. Heat oil and stir fry the squid and dried shrimps till they are crackling and crispy
2. Add in garlic and continue stir frying
3. Add minced pork and Chinese celery
4. Add black fungus
5. Stir fry them well
6. Gently put in the yam coins and gently mix well and heat through. You need to be gentle to avoid the yam disintegrating as I have used more yam than flour to give the Hakka abacus seeds more flavour.

Serve.

My Hakka hubby and Hakka sons loved the dish. So, yay! Hainanese woman won the award for stealing a Hakka recipe and making it so tasty. Next time, I am going to make them in big batches and feed them to my four Hakka sisters-in-laws and trot around proudly because Hainanese women are good cooks. Hehehe.

If you are a Hakka, can you share the real Hakka recipe with me? I have been looking around and get various versions so I do not know which to follow.

The other day, I also ‘ta pi lor’ at home because I was in the Chinese New Year mood after I bought some tangerines. It was an impromptu steamboat dinner. I just boiled some soup with chicken and Chinese white cabbage.

Grab a few things from the market and we have all we need to have an enjoyable meal.

If you need Chinese steamboat recipe, you can find it on my other food blog. I also posted a Chinese New Year steamboat recipe in an older post on this blog.

Enjoy ta pi lor, ok?