Salted Pepper Fried Shrimp

This is a popular restaurant dish in Malaysia. The succulent salted and peppered shrimp is lightly coated with rice flour and cornstarch with its shell and head intact and then pan fried with oil or butter. The rice flour and cornstarch give a flavorful crunch to the sweet and succulent shrimp.

Ingredients :

1 pound of medium size shrimp - with or without head but with shell and tail intact.
2 tsp of salt
1 tsp of black pepper
1 tsp of Szechuan peppercorn – crush finely
1 tsp of sugar
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
4 green onions – finely sliced
3 tbsp of rice flour
3 tbsp of cornstarch
2 tbsp of butter
2 tbsp of vegetable oil

1. Clean shrimp thoroughly. Pat the shrimp dry and season it with 1 tsp of salt and 1/2 tsp of pepper. Set it aside.
2. In a big bowl combined rice flour, cornstarch, 1 tsp of salt, 1 tsp of pepper and 1 tsp of sugar. Mix well.
3. Toss the shrimp lightly in the flour mixture.
4. Heat up a frying pan to medium heat. Add in 2 tbsp of butter and oil. When the butter melt toss in the shrimp and let the shrimp pan fried until pink and lightly brown on both side. Stir-in the chopped garlic and give the shrimp a few more toss until it is cooked. Toss in the Szechuan peppercorn.
5. Add in the green onions, dish out out and serve immediately.

Gong Xi Fatt Chai

To family, friends and my blog readers,

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy and Prosperous Chinese New Year. May the year of Ox brings all of you good health, happiness, wealth, peace and joy!

Here are some of the cookies I baked for this festive season. Two types of Pineapple Tarts, Almond London.

Almond Cookies, Green pea cookies and Kuih Bangkit.
I will feature some of the cookies recipe later.

Mandarin Orange Chiffon Cake

This is one of the most requested cake from my family. Actually this is the 1st cake I baked since I came back to Malaysia. Chinese New Year is just around the corner so there are plenty of mandarin orange around so I used it for this cake. You can always change it to orange or lemon juice for this cake.

Ingredients :

1 3/4 Self Rising Flour
1/8 tsp of salt

(B)
6 egg yolks
1/2 cup of sugar
3/4 cup Mandarin orange (tangerin) juice/orange juice
zest of 1 orange
1/4 cup of vegetable oil

(C)
3/4 cup of sugar
6 egg white
1 tsp of cream of tartar

1. Pre-heat oven to 325 degree F. Sieve all the (A) ingredient in a mixing bowl until well combined.
2. Mix ingredient (B) until well blended and then add in ingredient (A) and mix until smooth. Set it aside.
3. Beat ingredient (C) in mixer on high speed until stiff peak. It should not fall out when you turn the mixing bowl over. Fold 1/3 of the egg whites into the egg yolks mixture and continue to do so until egg whites is finish. Remember to fold in gently until well mixed.
4. Pour batter into ungreased 10" tube pan and bake for an hour or used a bamboo skewer to test the cake. Just insert the skewer into the center of the cake and it should comes out clean.
5. Invert cake and let it cool complete in the pan. When is cool, loosen the edge of the pan and remove cake.

Cashew Nuts Cookies

I am already back in KL for over a week. What have I been doing? Eat, eat and eat. I have been spoiled rotten by my families. Anyway, I managed to bake a few types of cookies with my nieces for CNY. Here is one of them.

Ingredients :

210g butter
100g powder sugar
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
250g plain flour
60g corn flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
200g ground cashew nuts
1 egg (beaten for eggwash)
some exra cashew nuts for decoration

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degree F. Sift all the dry ingredients and set aside.
2. Cream butter with powder sugar until light. Add in egg yolk and vanilla essence. Mix well.
3. Stir in the dry ingredients and ground cashew nuts. Mix well. Chill dough in fridge for 40 minutes.
4. Shape the dough into small balls or roll it out and cut into desire shapes. Arrange on a lined baking tray. Brush with beaten egg and place half cashew nut on top of cookies and press slightly to flatten it.
5. Bake for 15 minutes or until it is nicely brown. Cool and keep in airtight container.