All posts by Annie

Chinese, Egg, Tofu

Homemade Steamed Egg Tofu

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A super-simple, savory steamed dish that you can whip up in a snap.

homemade egg tofu copyright house of annie

Remember a while back I blogged about how egg tofu was just such an amazing thing and if you could find it at your Asian grocery store you should nab yourself at least 4 tubes? I even shared a very simple recipe on how you could cook it. Well, after eating loads of that stuff these days (over here, it’s very easy to find and I cook it at least once every two weeks), I found that we could make this simple tofu ourselves. So for those of you out there without access to an Asian grocery store (or if your store just doesn’t carry these things), you can TOTALLY make it yourself.

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Malaysian, Pork, Shrimp, Tofu, Vegetables

Mum’s Popiah is the Best!

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Updated 31 August 2010
Originally posted 28 September 2008

Popiah (also spelled poh piah, poh pia, baobing (薄饼)), is an Asian dish popular in Malaysia and Singapore that’s like a fat spring roll, only not fried. Think of it as kind of an Asian burrito. Except that the popiah filling itself is much more complicated and contains so many more ingredients than a regular burrito.

Mum’s popiah are the best. It’s a perfect combination of sweetness from the flour sauce, the savoriness of pork and prawns, the spiciness of chili and garlic, and the crunch of cooling vegetables. It’s so yummy, you will gobble it down and hurriedly make another without even thinking about it. I have had popiah from hawker stalls in Singapore and Malaysia, even in Penang, where you will find the best food in the world. Mum’s popiah beats them all.

Mum's Homemade Poh Pia is the Best

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Asian, Bakes, Chinese

Pandan Spiral Moon Cake Recipe

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(Update: If you’re looking for the Traditional Baked Mooncake Recipe, click here.)

Just in time for the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, a special moon cake recipe that will make your head spin.

baked spiral pastries plated

I have a friend here in Kuching who loves to garden. And since she lives next to an empty plot of land, she has put it to good use by cultivating it. When she mentioned that she grew purple sweet potatoes, I was hopeful that they were Okinawan sweet potatoes. I had to ask her if I could come by her house to help her harvest some.

Turns out she got really busy the weekend that we were going but she did dig up some to give to me. The ones she gave me were purple mixed with white and they were dry in texture. In some ways they reminded me of taro (yams) but a little sweeter. And later I found out that they were known as taro sweet potatoes. Well…that explains it…

Despite their dryness (or maybe because of it), I had the idea that I would boil them, mash them and then add some butter, milk and sugar and make them into a paste and use them as a filling for this pastry. After all, during the Mooncake festival, we find Shanghai mooncakes  filled with taro which are very similar in size and shape to these pastries.

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