Chinese Style Steamed Eggs

Oh, this is one dish that is so easy to make, but so delicious with rice. The egg turns out as smooth as silken toufu, with a savoury, fragrant aroma.

In addition, you can add whatever ingredients to the egg mix you fancy - it only depends on what's available in your fridge, and what your tastebuds clamour for.

I've got two recipes here, but the basic steam egg preparation is as follows:
1. 1 egg to 100ml of water (or Chicken stock. The amount is 1 egg to 100ml of liquid.)
2. Pepper and Salt to taste
3. A bit of Chinese cooking wine for fragrance
4. Fried shallots, a teaspoon of sesame oil and spring onions for garnishing.

The method is to simply beat items 1-3 and pass the mixture through a sieve into a dish for steaming. The sieve will remove most of the bubbles so that you get a smooth texture for the egg. After that, you can then arrange the other ingredients you want into the dish.

Finally, the crucial step is in the steaming of the egg itself. Make sure that the dish is covered when steaming. This helps prevent water condensing onto the egg mix, and scarring it; ensuring a shine to the egg. Steam with a very low flame - which means that you should not hear the rapid boiling of water that you usually do when steaming other dishes. Steam until the egg is set, which can be between 15-20 minutes, depending on the amount you made and the size of your wok/steamer.

You can check whether the egg is set by using a knife and poking the centre of the dish. It's done when the egg doesn't run.

Steamed Eggs with Mushroom and Toufu
Ingredients:
3 Eggs
200ml water
100ml Chicken stock (I use the liquid Knorr Chicken stock from the box.)
1 tsp Hua Tiao cooking wine
Pepper and salt to taste
2 dried Shitake mushroom, soaked to soften and sliced
1 box Silken Toufu

Method:
1. Assemble the egg mix as explained above.
2. Arrange the mushroom and toufu as desired.
3. Cover the dish and steam for about 15 to 20 minutes on a low fire, until the egg is set.
4. Garnish with fried shallot, sesame oil and chopped spring onions. You might want to garnish with sliced fresh chilli if you like it spicy.

Steamed Eggs with Quails' Eggs and Toufu

Ingredients:
3 Eggs
200ml water
100ml Chicken stock (I use the liquid Knorr Chicken stock from the box.)
1 tsp Hua Tiao cooking wine
Pepper and salt to taste
6 Quails' Eggs, hardboiled and shelled
1 box Silken Toufu
1 Salted egg yolk

Method:
1. Assemble the egg mix as explained above.
2. Arrange the toufu and quails' eggs as desired. You don't have to stop at 6 eggs - any number is fine. *winks* Put the salted egg yolk in the centre of the dish.
3. Cover the dish and steam for about 15 to 20 minutes on a low fire, until the egg is set.
4. Garnish with fried shallot, sesame oil and chopped spring onions. You might want to garnish with sliced fresh chilli if you like it spicy.


The list of ingredients to add to the egg is really up to the imagination. You might want to try:

• Crabsticks
• Button mushrooms
• Sliced fish (like threadfins)
• Sliced fish cakes (especially those cute Japanese patterned ones)
• Sliced meat (marinated with a little light soy sauce for between 10 to 30 minutes)
• Gingko nuts
• Wolfberries
• Broccoli
• Carrot strips

Mango Cake

Ah, Mango Cake - so light, so sweet, so mango-y!

Ethan once said that mangoes got a taste that causes his tastebuds to dance excitedly; how true and how aptly described.

This recipe is by way of a wonderful cook, Leelee Hugbear, whom I aspire to be kitchen-wise and in being kitchen-wise. heh. She has a wonderful cooking blog here.

Mango Cake (Based on Leelee's recipe from M4M's archive)

The Sponge Cake
Ingredients:
4 eggs
100g castor sugar
100g cake flour
12g cake stabilizer/Ovalette
20ml water
1/2 tsp mango essence
90g melted butter

Method:
1. Line a 9”x9” square cake tin.
2. Beat all ingredients except melted butter at high speed for about 6 mins or until creamy.
3. Add in butter to the mix and mix well.
4. Bake at 200 deg C for 10-15 mins.

This will yield a cake about an inch in height. Don't worry if it's too flat; the mango mousse filling will give height to the cake later. Allow the cake to cool, then prepare the mango filling when you are ready to assemble the cake.

The Mango Filling
Ingredients:
300g mango puree (about the size of an average honey mango, puréed in a food processor)
13g gelatine powder
1/2 tsp mango essence
a few drops of yellow colouring
300g dairy whipping cream

Method:
1. While processing the mango, add in the gelatine powder. Then boil the mango mix until the gelatine is dissoved. Leave it to cool down.
2. Whip up the whipping cream. Add the cooled mango mix, the essence and colouring and mix the lot well.

Assembling the Cake, Part 1
1. Prepare an 8" cake ring.
2. Use the cake ring and press it onto the sponge cake. Cut the cake to fit into the ring, and then half the cake height-wise. You should get two 8" circles of cake.
3. Put the topmost cake, brown-side down into the cake ring.
4. Pour about 1/4 of the Mango Filling onto the cake in the ring.
5. Add in slices of mango onto the filling.
6. Pour another 1/4 of the Mango Filling on top of the mango slices, making sure that all pockets of air are filled.
7. Put the next slice of cake on top of this layer.
8. Pour the rest of the Mango Filling on top of this cake layer and smoothen the filling out as much as possible.
9. Allow the cake to chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours. Overnight chilling would be best.

Assembling the Cake, Part 2:
1. Once you unmould the cake ring, you get:
2. I whipped up about 150g of whipped cream with some icing sugar for taste to frost the sides of the cake:
3. I decorated the cake with mango slices to my fancy. Using cookie cutters, I pressed out flowers from slices of mangoes. I wanted a 'mosaic' effect for the cake, so it was diamonds and squares and triangles to cover the top. It's actually up to your creativity to decorate the cake.
Leelee also suggests either glazing the mangoes with a simple apricot glaze (apricot jam + water, boiled then cooled) to give the fruit a shine, or before unmoulding the cake to set the top layer of the cake with mango slices in agar-agar jelly.

And here's a view of the different layers of the Mango Cake. Yummy!

A friend suggests that I try this out with durians the next time I bake... and I'm thinking about strawberries as well! This is quite a moderately simple baking project - do give it a try.