recipe is: crumbly mini tartlets

PASTRY:

Ingredients


160 gm butter
30 gm icing sugar
220 gm flour (remove 2 tbsp and replace with 2 tbsp cornfour)
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1 egg yolk for glazing


Method

preheat oven to 180 celcius


cream butter with sugar till light and fluffy. add egg yolk and vanilla essence and mix til just combined

add in flour and mix into a dough. rest in fridge for 10 mins

on a lightly floured working surface, shape the dough to your own liking, either roll into mini balls, or using cookie cutters or rolled out to make mini tartlet rolls. if the dough is a bit hard coming out of the fridge to shape, knead it a bit to warm it up a little to make it more pliable

apply the jam filling to the tartlets. glaze with egg yolk, put on a greased/lined baking tray and bake for about 20 mins til light golden brown


FILLING:

Ingredients

4 red apples, skinned, cored and roughly grated

grated rind of 1 lemon

3 heaped tbsp of brown sugar

2 tbsp lemon juice

1/4 tsp salt

1 small stick cinnamon

2 star anise

5 cloves


Method

put all the ingredients in a saucepan or frying pan on a medium heat and fry til most of the liquid had evaporated, stirring occasionally. once most of the liquid has evaporated, turn down the flame and keep frying, stirring to keep it from burning (especially if not using a non-stick pan)

the sugars will start to caramelise and thicken further. keep stirring til almost completely dry. this will take about 1 hour, depending on how moist is the fruit to begin with


Notes:

the dough might be a little bit hard to work with as it is quite crumbly. take care not to break it during the shaping, filling or glazing processes.

other jam fillings can be used to substitute. this is normally made with pineapple jam fillings. just make sure cookie fillings are used and not normal bread jam as it is too wet for these cookies. jams with some fibre is recommended compared to pureed jams.

adjust the sugar content to suit, as some apples are sweeter than others. once almost all the liquid has evaporated during the cooking process, do a taste test and add more sugar if needed.

recipe is: mee siam ala twohands

Ingredients



to ground into a fine paste

~ 3 - 4 stalks lemongrass

~ 5 -6 shallots

~ 5 cloves of garlic

~ 2 candlenuts

~ 3 tbsp dried shrimps



300 gm mee hoon, soaked in water til soften, drain and set aside

2 tbsp chilli boh

2 tbsp tauchu paste (salted preserved soybean)

a handful of chives cut into 6cm lengths

3 handfuls of beansprouts

salt to taste

2 taukwa (very firm tofu), cut into strips and fried til golden brown

2 eggs, made into an omelette and cut into thin strips

2 - 3 limes, cut into halves and deseeded

4 - 5 tablespoons oil




Method

heat the oil in a big, deep frying pan or a wok on a medium flame and add in the grounded ingredients plus the chilli boh and tauchu. turn down the flame and slowly sautee the paste til it's aromatic, about 5 - 8 minutes, taking care to keep stirring round to keep it from burning

turn up the flame and add the mee hoon and stir fry to mix thoroughly, it helps to use a pair or tongs or chopsticks to mix. add a bit of water if the mee hoon is too dry. add salt to taste if needed

add the chives and beansprouts and stir fry to mix for another 3 -5 mins. dish up, garnish with taukwa, omelette and a squeeze of lime juice.


note:

the chilli boh can be substituted with 5 - 6 dried chillies, soaked to soften, drained and added to the ingredients to be grounded.

ingredients can be grounded in a blender or with a pestle and mortar. i initially use a blender and then pound it with the pestle and mortar to get a finer paste.