Smiling Mouth Cookies 笑口枣

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You can find this post (and more!) over at my new home: 

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When I was little, I had terrible teeth. Big, ugly, rabbit teeth. Each tooth had a mind of its own and grew in a different direction to the one next to it- I’m not kidding. It was terrible. I didn’t mind too much- after all, I’d grown up with them. But I tried to hide them as much as possible- like smiling with my mouth closed (at least for photos). Which wasn’t an easy thing. Because when I’m happy, I just can’t seem to close my mouth! Looking back at photos, especially those in year 6, I can’t tell which ones I look worse in- the ones where I’m trying to close my mouth but end up with a funny face or the ones which I just let my teeth stick out. School photos were horrible because the photographer always made us say something like ‘yes’ (actually they still do….) and not only would that be awkward (the way it still is), but I’d have to try to close my mouth lightning fast, which I never managed to do.

I remember a (sort of )conversation with some friends in primary. A girl was pondering over the issue of getting braces- except that, she had pretty much perfect teeth. When I mentioned that I would probably be getting braces soon, she responded with something along the lines of 'If I had teeth like yours, I’d definitely get braces’ (only the real quote had words like 'ugly' somewhere in there too....)=[ I eventually got braces in year 7. They didn't really hurt after the first couple of weeks but my orthodontist told me not to eat chocolate or drink fizzy drinks when I had braces. Being the good girl I am, I actually listened and went off chocolate and fizzy drinks for a whole year (I definitely don't have that self control now)- it was not until I had them off that I realised that no other orthodontist told their clients to do so. But with my braces off, not only could i start eating normally again, I also had straight teeth, meaning that I could finally smile properly- a good happy smile, which I use a lot now =] I never really noticed how much I smiled until someone called me 'smiley'. I sometimes smile instead of saying hello, I smile when I'm embarassed, I smile when I don't know how to respond to something. I even finish sentences with smiley faces, both on my blog posts and in comments ;) My fingers just wander over to the smiley face sign instead of a full stop........ I really love happy things- which is why I love the name of these cookies. And they're delicious too! 'Smiling mouth cookies' is the direct translation from chinese, incase you're wondering about the weird name- because apparently, the split looks like a smile (I don't really see it....) My mum had promised me she'd make these with me, after reading it in one of her chinese cookbooks. But being busy with school work and various other things, this promise got forgotten until one day, after school, a food topic on the chinese radio triggered my memory. Off I went on a rant about how my mother had promised me to cook all these things but we've never gotten around to doing them (to be fair, she keeps a LOT more of her promises than I do), which eventually led to her suggesting we make these cookies right there and then! Despite having a load of homwork due, I quickly hurried around the kitchen to grab all the ingredients, before my mum changed her mind. It didn't take too long- my mum read the recipe whilst I measured everything. I did all the mixing and kneading, shoving my mother's helpful hands out of the way every time she tried to grab the dough off my to have a go- yes, we love the hog the fun bits! As luck would have it, we could only find enough seasame seeds in the house to coat three cookies, so we attempted to coat them with coconut, which we realised would not work. So we went back to the pantry, turned the whole thing inside out, and finally find a brand new packet of seasame seeds! *phew* The cookies fry quickly, it only takes about 20 seconds or so for them to float up and another minute to brown but we leave it there for a couple of minutes longer, since the recipe said 6-8 minutes. The coconut cookie browned within the first few seconds, and the coconut got burnt- so don't try these with coconut! They're sweet and crunchy, but the inside is slightly softer and the seasame seeds give it a really nice flavour too. Definitely the type of food to keep me going throughout the night.......to finish all that homework I'd been putting off ;)

Find the recipe on my new site:

http://berrynutritious.com.au 

Gumshara ramen, 32cm ice cream and other stuff in the city...

We rarely ever travel out to the city- we only really go there once or twice a year. If it isn't for something important, or for a school excursion, then it's most likely for food. Guess why we were here this day?

I'd been itching to start eating from the moment we walked out of Emperor's Garden and so within a few hours, we stopped by Gumshara Ramen- one of the main reasons why we made this trip to the city. I'd been pestering my parents to take me here for a while, after reading the excellent reviews that all Sydney bloggers were giving this- I just had to try it!


Tonkatsu Ramen $8.50

It was still slightly early (I think), and so the food court isn't too full. Between the four of us, we only ordered two bowls of ramen, saving our stomachs for other food (we also ordered a pad thai from another shop but I forgot to take a picture!). After a short wait, both our bowls of ramen arrive, and I eagerly wait to dig into the thick flavoursome soup. Unfortunately, this excitement is followed by a slight disappointment as we realise that there is barely any steam coming out of the bowls. My first sip confirms this- the soup is warm. Perhaps slighlty warmer than 'warm' but definitely not steaming hot, the way I like all my noodles to be. The soup itself is pretty good- it's tasty and definitely unlike any other ramen soup I've ever tasted, although it wasn't as good as I'd expected it to be.



Garlic tonkatsu Ramen $10.50

We enjoy the garlic tonkatsu ramen better than the other one, perhaps because of our love for garlic and the fact that the soup is slightly more flavoursome than the other one. Again, it is nowhere near as hot as we'd like it to be, which we find to be the mainthing we have against it. The soup is very very thick, which I don't mind too much (after all, that's what's so special about it!) but which my parents don't really like. Leaving, with very sticky mouths, we head over to Dixon Street food court for part two of our lunch.


We somehow manage to forget to bring water along, which is why our mouths are stick sticky from the ramen broth. Which is why the sight of sugar cane juice being sold beings much delight (well, to me and my sister anyway.....we love sugarcane juice!) A large cup of freshly squeezed sugar cane juice was the perfect accompaniment to our food. This one had a little squeeze of lime juice in it too, giving it a little something, although I prefer just sugar cane juice.....



I'd stopped here for lunch once with my friends after wandering around trying to find somewhere to eat. Walking down into this food court, we could immediately smell Asian food- the disctinctive smell of wok. It's awfully stuffy in here though, but I guess it's bearable when you're eating good food! Last time, I'd had a pad thai for $5 (the price was really what lured us)but never really had a chance to savour it because we were running late. It wasn't the best I'd ever had but for $5 it wasn't bad and had a really good 'breath of wok'. This time however, we noticed that the price had increased to $6, which was still pretty good for a pad thai (but it doesn't sound as good as $5 =])


Pad Thai- $6

The dish arrives and I'm pretty sure it wasn't like this last time- the noodles are awfully thin. Although pad thai noodles are usually thin, they're not this thin- it really doesn't taste right! The pile of sloppy noodles don't look or taste too bad, but are lacking a bit of flavour and the breath of wok wasn't really as good as last time. Nevertheless, it's pretty good value and it isn't too bad although we did wish that we had ordered the hige sizzling dishes that everyone else in the foodcourt had ordered.....


We then wander over to Darling Harbour, and walk around a bit, taking pictures and feeling much like a tourist despite the fact that I'd been here at least 10 times before.


We pass The Fudge Shop, and it brings back memories of how I used to just stand there, watching the people make fudge. I couldn't quite remember what fudge tasted like (I'm pretty sure I've only ever had it once, and it was here too!) and decide to buy a slice.


But there are too many flavours to choose from!

After a couple of minutes of indecision, I settle for a slice of the choc chip fudge. It was soft, super sweet and so delicious! It wasn't cheap though, with the slice costing around $4.50- but I ate it super slowly, and it ended up taking me a week to finish it. I'll definitely have to try making fudge one day......


32 cm ice cream! $2.70

I'd been wanting to come here ever since reading about the 32cm on these blogs. It wasn't exactly the easiest place to find, and even when we found it, they told us that they only served the ice cream at 2:00pm. We came back here later because I wanted the ice cream so badly =]

We order a chocolate and strawberry ice cream ($2.70) and are delighted when we get it- it was so tall and pretty! Sharing it between the four of us (although the majority of it got eaten by my sister) made it way too easy to finish. We found the best way to eat it was to slurp off one layer of ice cream at a time- it comes off really easily, and makes it really easy to share!


3 colour drink $4.50

Dehydrated, and tired after walking around for quite a while, we decided for one last stop before going home- market city food court. First we order a drink, this time, a three colour drink, which is unlike any other three colour drink I've had- it's got a lot of coconut milk! But it's delicious all the same. Despite the inviting smells of sizzling dishes (which did not smell as good as the ones in the food court before) and varaious other good food, we settle one yet another pad thai (our third one this day!)


Pad Thai $8.50

....and a pad see ew which I forgot to take a picture of (how forgetful can I get!) This pad thai was definitely the best so far. Although the colour wasn't as intense as the others had been, the taste was better- a good combination of the tangy pad thai flavour mixed with just the right amount of sweetness was enough to satisfy our stomachs for the trip back home =]

Gumshara Ramen
Eating World Food Court
Shop 209, 25-29 Dixon Street
Chinatown

The Fudge Shop
Shop 267, Harbourside
Darling Harbour, 2000 NSW
Sydney, Australia

Smile Korea Mart
630 George Street, Sydney

Pai Pau 排包

When I was about 12-ish, I had a slight obsession of reading books so much so, that I even brought along books on holidays. Our luggage was always overweight by the time we got back to Australia, as a result of the amount of shopping we’d do, so, much to my dismay, my mum would only let me bring two books. She never specified how thin the books had to be, and so I always brought my thickest books, which can get pretty thick when some of them were like three books in one….hehe



Of course, I grew out of that phase (eventually) and nowadays, you’ll more likely catch me in the food section of a bookstore than the fiction section. And I never take books with me overseas anymore- I bring books back =] My cookbook collection is really small, compared to my collection of novels but I’m not quite sure what’s big, and what’s small- which makes me wonder, how big is your cookbook collection?? I have books which I buy, intending to try most of the recipes and some which I buy just because it’s cheap and the pictures pretty (and there’s a slight possibility I’ll try one of the recipes). And then there are my Chinese cookbooks- the ones which undoubtedly get used the most.

I love my Chinese cookbooks for a very simple reason- they have the recipes which appeal to me more than anything else. Because no matter how much I love to try new things, I’ve found that the food I like the best is definitely Asian. Perhaps it’s because I grew up eating asian food, but I prefer soft fluffy bread to crusty sourdough, I prefer soft and light sponge cakes to rich and buttery butter cakes, congee over porridge……the list goes on. The Chinese cookbooks I've seen are significantly different to the English ones I read- for one thing, they are almost all glossy, colourful and full of pictures (even if the photography isn’t any good…..) They also have a love of including step by step pictures.



Unfortunately, I don’t can’t read Chinese. But somehow, I manage to work my way through those recipes, either through the pictorial guides, the (terribly) translated English or pestering my mum to read them aloud to me at times. Yes- my mum reads me cookbooks =] Which is why I can now slightly manage to read words such as sugar, salt and flour.

On my (sort of recent) trip to Hong Kong (which I have yet to finish blogging about.....), I purchased a book on breads 'Hong Kong Breads' by Yau Yung Ling. I've taken an interest into bread making, ever since my first successful loaf and the realisation that the only reason my bread attempts failed was because of dead yeast. One of the first recipes I attempted was this Pai pau (排包- which literally translates to rows of bread), a common bread in Hong Kong, which is pretty much a basic asian bread dough which is shapped in rows which you pull apart to eat.

I love pull apart breads. I love how you can feel the incredible softness of bread as you rip it apart, before you take a bite and feel the fluffiness. I even like to pull my sandwiches apart- when I'm at school, I like to pull of each of the crusts, one side at a time, and eating them before starting on the centre. Which I why I knew I was going to try this bread. The bread dough used in this recipe has a slightly high butter content to the basic dough used in the rest of the book, giving it a bit of a better flavour.



It seems however, that I can never escape disasters in the kitchen and my first attempt at this resulted in an almost inedible loaf. I'd (once again) used yeast that had been left out for too long. I've since read that yeast can be stored in the freezer so hopefully, I won't come across that problem again for another year or so......

The second attempt was a lot better, and yielded a very soft and fluffy bread. The only problem was I'd put the rows too close together during the proving, and so the rows all moulded into one after rising and baking, resulting in one loaf which wasn't really pull-apart-able. Well, not neatly anyway. So we cut it up =]



It didn't actually turn out as soft as it looked in the cookbook, and not quite as soft as asian bakery bread, but we loved it just the same!

And here's a tip from the book:


Don't knead with your head!!

Pai Pau (or, as named in the book, Egg and Butter bread)

Recipe from Hong Kong Breads by Yau Yung Ling

Ingredients
476g strong flour
112g caster sugar
7g yeast
56g butter
168g
warm water
1 egg
1 egg yolk
56g milk
Some yellow food colouring-
egg yellow or lemon yellow (optional)
4g bread additive (I used bread improver)
some beaten egg for topping

Place all ingredients except butter into bread machine (according to the directions your bread machine manual!) Set to Dough function. Add in the butter after 8 ~ 10 mins into the kneading cycle. When the dough has finished kneading, remove dough from machine and put it in a bowl covered with cling wrap Leave to ferment for 30minutes.

Divide the fermented dough into 16 pieces.
Roll each piece into a long sausage like shape. It should be a bit longer than your palm- about the width of a loaf pan.

Place 8 pieces of rolled dough next to each other in a row, so that they form a rectangular shape. Leave small gaps in between them. Do the same with the other 8 pieces, unless you want a huge/long pai pau.

Leave to ferment for 45 minutes or until double in size.

Brush egg wash on top and bake at 200oC for 15 minutes or until
golden brown.