Peanut butter cookies

I still remember the first time I tried my hands at baking. I was about nine, and had just read this activity book which detailed a number of fun things to do, one of them being cookie baking. And for some reason, I immediately decided that the cookie baking activity was the one I would have to do. Like the next day. I also remember my mum trying to help me out, but my 9 year old self was adamant that I would do it myself… which wasn’t the wisest decision in the world.

Everything went well, until the cookies were taken out of the oven. My eager hands reached out for a cookie, but they were nothing like the chewy yummy cookie I envisioned. In fact they were rock hard. I kid you not. And that was when I retraced my steps and realised that I forgot to add butter to the cookie dough. That batch of cookies ended up in the bin (for obvious reasons), and I learnt a very good lesson about the importance of butter in baked goods.

Fast forward to the me of today, where the eagerness for baking has become even more pronounced. I’m always on the lookout for good recipes, and when I saw these peanut butter cookies on Smitten Kitchen, I knew I had to make them. Not only did they look fabulous, but they were Deb approved! Perfect. I especially liked the fact that they were rolled in sugar, which made them look extra pretty.

And you know what, I really really loved these cookies. I daresay this is the best recipe I’ve tried (and I’ve tried a fair number of them), and I wasn’t even using peanut butter chips! I used chocolate chips as peanut butter chips are not easy (nor cheap) to come by in London – so they weren’t as peanut buttery as they could potentially be, but I was still one happy bunny. A very happy one.

As always, I cut down on the amount on sugar in the recipe (something I learnt from my mum, who always uses only 2/3 of the amount of sugar stated in a recipe, and you know what – it always works). I used 1/4 (instead of 3/4) cup of caster sugar, and kept the same amount of brown sugar – but did feel that the cookies were a tad too sweet! I suspect it may be because the cookies were then rolled in sugar, which added to the sweetness of the cookie. But you know, a little sugar never hurt anyone… so it’s okay.

But yes. Try making these, and if you’re a peanut butter fan I promise you won’t be dissapointed.

Peanut butter cookies
Ever so slightly adapted from this recipe on Smitten Kitchen (who adapted it from the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook)

• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup peanut butter (I used chunky peanut butter because.. well it’s more peanutty)
• 1/4 cup caster sugar
• 1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup chocolate chips (use 1/2 cup chocolate chips and 1/2 cup peanut butter chips if you can get your hands on some)

• For sprinkling: 2 tablespoons sugar, regular or superfine (I used caster sugar)

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.

2. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium sized bowl. Set aside.

3. In a large bowl, beat the butter and the peanut butter together until fluffy.

4. Add the sugars, and beat until smooth.

5. Add the egg and mix until just combined.

6. Add the milk, vanilla extract and the flour mixture, and beat thoroughly.

7. Stir in the peanut butter and chocolate chips with a spatula.

8. Place sprinkling sugar on a plate. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls into the sugar, then onto baking paper lined cookie sheets, leaving 3-4cm between each to allow for expansion.

9. Using a fork, lightly indent and flatten the cookies (traditionally people form a criss-cross pattern, but I chose to only have parallel lines). The cookies in their pre-baked state are rather crumbly, so be careful to not flatten the cookies to enthusiastically, as they may fall apart.

10. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Cookies may appear to be underdone, but they are not and will firm up whilst cooling.

11. Cool the cookies on the sheets for 5 minutes, then remove to a rack to cool completely.

Tang yuan (glutinous rice balls)

Tang yuan is a traditional Chinese dessert which is well loved by all generations. They’re basically glutinous rice balls (either filled or unfilled) that are served in a sweet broth. They’re most popular during the winter solstice (Dongzhi festival) – usually celebrated in December (it was on the 22nd last year), and symbolizes the day in the year where the day is the shortest. After this celebration, the Chinese believe that the days will be filled with more hours of sunlight, and therefore and increase in the amount of positive energy. In addition, eating these during the winter solstice also symbolizes becoming a year older. (I choose to ignore this last fact, because if I truly age a year everytime I eat tang yuan, I would cringe to think how old I am now…)

Besides eating these during the winter solstice, tang yuan are also made on special celebrations (such as Chinese New Year) and used as an offering to the gods. They are also served during weddings, where I was told (a long time ago by one of my aunts) that it is considered good luck for the bride and groom to not chew on the tang yuan when eating them – i.e. it is better if you swallow them whole. Now, this is easier said than done as these little babies are seriously sticky!

There are many variants of tang yuan, and as I mentioned earlier they can be either filled or unfilled. The unfilled tang yuans tend to be smaller in size (I’m not sure why), and also tend to be more colourful. The fillings for tang yuan vary – popular fillings are black sesame paste, peanut paste and red bean paste.  The tang yuan are then cooked in a pot of boiling water, and served with a sweet broth. Again, there are many types of sweet broth – my favourite is a sweet broth made with ginger and rock sugar. (Other variants: red bean soup, a combination of fermented glutinous rice/sweet osmanthus/rock sugar)

Now, I’d never made these before last year as I always thought they were really hard to make. And I was wrong. VERY wrong. These little babies are one of the easiest Chinese foods to make, and I’m not kidding. All you need are 3 ingredients – how much better could it get? And of course, since I discovered how un-difficult these are to whip up, I have been making them on a semi-regular basis. These photos have rather embarassingly been sitting in my pile of archives since last year, and I’m glad that I’m finally getting round to blogging about them.

Tang yuan (unfilled)
From this recipe on Nyonya Food

• 2 cups glutinous rice flour
• 1 tbsp caster sugar
• 200ml water
• food coloring (optional)

1. Mix glutinous rice flour with sugar in a large bowl.
2. Add the water, and slowly knead until it forms a soft paste that does not stick to your hands. (The mixture is very gloopy and sticky at first, but the more you knead it, the less sticky it gets)
3. If you wish to have colourful tang yuans, divide the dough into portions, and add a few drops of food colouring to each portion. Knead the dough until the food colouring is evenly distributed throughout the dough.
4. Shape the dough into 1-2cm balls.
5. Drop the balls into a pot of boiling water. The tang yuan will float to the surface of the water once they are cooked. Once this happens, transfer the tang yuan to the sugar broth. (The reason for boiling the tang yuan in a separate pot is so that they won’t “cloud” up your sweet broth. It’s not a compulsory step though, and on my lazy days I do just cook the tang yuan in the sweet broth to make washing up easier.)

Tang yuan with black sesame paste filling
Adapted slightly from this recipe on Rasa Malaysia

• 230g (just under 1 cup) glutinous rice flour
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup black sesame seeds, toasted
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, softened

1. Grind the black sesame seeds until they form a fine powder (I used my mini food processor).
2. Heat a small pan over medium high heat, and transfer the ground sesame seeds into this pan. Add the softened butter and sugar to the mixture and stir until it forms a smooth paste.
3. Set aside to cool in the fridge.
4. Whilst the black sesame filling is cooling in the fridge, prepare the glutinous rice balls. The method for this are similar to that described above.
5. Divide the tang yuan dough into 20 balls.
6. Flatten each ball in your palm, and place a pinch of black sesame paste in the middle of each flattened disc. Fold up the edges (towards the centre of the disc), and press to seal. Once you have done this, lightly roll it into a ball. Take care to not get too excited with the rolling, or you may end up with a burst tang yuan and lots of sesame paste in your hands!
7. Cook the tang yuan as above, in the boiling hot water.

For the sweet broth:

• 4-5 cups water (how much water you use depends on how much broth you want)
• 2 pandan (screwpine) leaves, knotted
• 1/2 cup rock sugar/brown sugar/caster sugar
• 2 inches of ginger

1. Boil the water in a pot until it starts to bubble.
2. Add the pandan leaves and ginger, and boil for 5 minutes. Add the sugar, turn the heat down, and simmer for 15-20minutes.

What is Malaysian food?

People often ask me what Malaysian food is like, and I’ve found that it’s not as easy to describe as I would have thought. I usually have to explain that Malaysia largely consists of the Malays, Chinese and Indians – and we each have our own types of food. This is an overgeneralisation, but I find that Malays are fond of using coconut milk in their food, the Chinese deep fry as many foods as possible, whilst the Indians love ghee. But as I said, this is me being generalised, and there is obviously more to each cusine that what I have mentioned above.

But of course, it’s not just these foods that make up the Malaysian food culture. There is a little (or big) something called hawker food. Hawker food is basically food you get from roadside stalls, and are usually fairly inexpensive. There is a wide variety of food available, and you can always find many kopitiams (directly translated as “coffee stalls” – or hawker centres/food courts (a place with a variety of stalls) all over the country.

As these stalls are usually set out in the open (with simple tables and stools), dining in a hawker stall is by no means Michelin star dining. My mum told me that when I went to a hawker centre for the first time (after living in England for about a year), I refused to sit down on the seats as I said “it’s dirty”. Now I doubt it was actually dirty, but when you’re not used to the setup of it all, I could potentially see how it might seem a bit icky… But if you look past the simplicity of it all, you will find that the food is usually a-ma-zing.

Penang prawn mee (or Hokkien mee as the Penangites call it) is a delicious noodle dish served with a prawn based soup which is one of my favourite dishes ever. The soup is made from boiling a large amount of prawn heads in water, much like making a chicken (or in this case, prawn) stock. It’s either served with noodles alone, or a mix of noodles and rice vermicelli.

Curry mee (also known as curry laksa/Singaporean laksa) is a spicy coconut milk based dish served with noodles. This is actually not one of my favourite dishes, which is rather surprising as I looove anything with coconut milk in it. My mum loves it though!

Lor bak is a dish that consists of a variety of snack-like foods – prawn fritters, bean curd wrapped sausages, fried tofu, century eggs, cucumbers… anything goes really. This is served with two sauces: the lor bak black sauce (a starchy and mildly sweet sauce with streaks of beaten egg whites) and a chilli sauce. You basically dip it in the black sauce, followed by the chilli sauce, and then eat. Believe me when I say it tastes like all sorts of wonderful.

Char koay teow is another one of those famous hawker foods that everyone wants to try when they visit Malaysia. It roughly translates into “fried rice noodle strips”, and is cooked in a steaming hot wok. There is one main characteristic of this dish – it is cooked with pork fat, and has little crunchy squares of pork lard. So for obvious reasons, this is not the world’s healthiest dish. But you know what, it tastes so good that it’s alright to make an exception, once in a while that is.

This particular stall is one of the more famous char koay teow stalls in Penang – we (or I anyway) call it the “goggle man stall”. The man in question wears a gigantic pair of goggles whilst cooking, which explains the name. He sells his char koay teow in one of the coffee shops along Lorong Selamat.

Ais kacang (directly translated as “ice beans”) is a dessert commonly served in hawker stalls. It essentially consists of shaved ice (which is made with a special machine) and red beans, and is topped with various (bright coloured) syrups. Nowadays, vendors make the ais kacang more interesting by using using a mix of red beans, cendol, agar-agar cubes, grass jelly and sweet corn to form the base of this dish. This is then topped with the shaved ice, syrups, and in this case – ice cream!

I managed to get a photo of the machine in action (much to the amusement of the vendor who must have thought I was completely crazy). The rate at which ice shavings are produced from the gigantic block of ice is truly amazing. And slightly scary – I do not want to imagine how sharp the blades/spikes are!

Joo Hoo Eng Chai (joo hoo = cuttlefish, eng chye = kangkung/water morning glory) is a dish I’ve never seen anywhere outside of Malaysia or Singapore. The dish itself is simple, and consists of boiled cuttlefish pieces, blanched kankung leaves, a savoury sweet sauce (similar to rojak sauce), chilli sauce, and a  chopped peanut topping.

Popiah is another popular snack back home, and is essentially a fresh spring roll (i.e. not deep fried). I prefer these fresh ones to the deep fried ones, but unfortunately these aren’t easy to find here in London! They’re made from a thin crepe (not the usual spring roll filling), and filled with a variety of ingredients – turnip, jicama, bean sprouts, prawns, crabmeat, egg. A hoisin-esque sauce (and sometimes a chilli sauce) is then added before the spring roll is rolled up. Some stalls also top the popiah with the same sauce. The popiah pictured above are the best I’ve had, found in the town centre of Bukit Mertajam (a town on the mainland side of Penang).

Chee cheong fun – similar to the cheung fun (rice noodle rolls) you find in dim sum restaurants everywhere. The one difference with this Malaysian version is that they are not filled with prawns/char siu and are served plain with a hae kor sauce (which is a sweet black sauce made from shrimp paste). I used to favour the Hong Kong prawn filled chee cheung fun when growing up, but have now switched allegiances to this version. A case of absence makes the heart grow fonder I think…

Ban jian kuih (Hokkien) or Mi jian kuih (Mandarin) – a fluffy peanut pancake that when eaten warm, can truly make you swoon with delight. The best way I can think of describing the texture of this pancake is that is is very similar to crumpets. So much so that on one of the days I had a major craving for these (when in London), I bought some crumpets, slathered them with butter, chopped peanuts and sugar, and baked them. Beggars can’t be choosers.

Tau foo fah (soft tofu pudding). This soft tofu is made from coagulated soya bean milk, and has a silky smooth custard consistency. It is served with either a light or dark sugar syrup – I prefer the dark sugar syrup, which is made from palm sugar infused with pandan leaves. Mmmm. I have been on a mission to find good tau foo fah in London to no avail – I’ve only found it on the menu of TPT in Chinatown, and it is not very good. Completely un-silky. If anyone out there knows where to get good tau foo fah in London, please let me know. (On a different note, you can however find good tau chui (i.e. fresh soya bean milk) in London – Leong’s Legends in Chinatown serves the best version in my opinion)

Chicken rendang, served with lemang. Chicken rendang is a dish that originated from Indonesia, and is slow cooked in a mixture of coconut milk and spices for several hours until the mixture dries up. This process results in tender and flavoursome meat. The usual spices used for this dish are ginger, galangal, tumeric, chillies, lemon grass, and kerisik (grated coconut). On the other hand, lemang is a traditional food of the Iban people in South East Asia, and is made from a mixture of glutinous rice and coconut milk. It is cooked in banana leaf lined bamboo sticks (that are hollowed out) – the bamboo sticks give the lemang it’s characteristic shape, whilst the banana leaf ensures the lemang is fragranced beautifully.

So there you have it – a quick glance into some of the foods that are integral to Malaysia. It is definitely not an exhaustive list, and there are many foods that I haven’t mentioned here (which I will hope to blog about in the future!). I shall leave you with this photo of what a table at a hawker stall looks like post-meal….