Shat Kek Ma

A dear friend brought this back from Malaysia for my family. It’s a popular snack food in Malaysia. The snack is called Shat Kek Ma. To me, goodies from Malaysia which I cant find in Vancouver are precious commodities. I am so thankful to friends who made their trip to Malaysia and come back with such priceless gifts.

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Shat Kek Ma is a sweet snack made from flour, wheat molasses, sugar, cooking oil and eggs. You can find other brand of Shat Ket Ma in Chinese groceries like T&T but they are not as good as this particular brand from Malaysia.

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Snacks

Polly, WB and I brought our kids to the Steveston Park for a picnic. It is the time of the year where kids get to enjoy the outdoor life. Steveston Park had a new water park installed last year. This is the first time I visited this waterpark.

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The water park is very popular with young kids. Of course there are also moms with very young toddlers. Nanzaro came with us to the park but he decided to spend time in the library as he is a teenager now. He hates it when people call him a kid.

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Besides the water park, there is also the playground for kids to swing, climb, slide and all. Kids nowadays are very lucky to have such facilities provided free for them.

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Polly also brought along some washable paints for the kids to do some painting. Well, someone forgot the brushes but hand painting seemed to be more fun.

We brought along some snacks to munch because we intended to go out for lunch later. Here are some of snacks we had.

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Puffed Wheat Cake

This Puffed Wheat Cake is Jean’s grandson and his friends favourite. They cant get enough of it. Jean said they practically inhale them and she cant keep up with their demand.

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The Puffed Wheat Cake is a great snack for young children. They are very easy to make and only has few ingredients in it.

Ingredients

  • 8 cups puffed wheat
  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 2/3 cup corn syrup
  • 1 cup packed brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

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Click on the link below for the instructions.

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Oyster Jade Boat

Selena partnered with Betty to demonstrate in the Caring Place Community Kitchen. In this way, the participants will not feel too pressured to come out with two dishes at a meeting.

Selena made a finger food called the Oyster Jade Boat. This is a great finger food which can be served on Japanese cucumber, celery or iceberg lettuce or any kind of vegetable which can be eaten raw and has the shape which can hold some filings.

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The Japanese cucumber which was used here gives this finger food a very nice crunch. This dish is perfectly name as the green in the cucumber is as green as a piece of jade and its shape is like a boat.

Ingredients

  • 8 Japanese cucumbers
  • 3 dried shiitake mushroom, reconstituted
  • 3 button mushrooms
  • 1/2 carrot
  • 2 pieces of savoury pressed tofu
  • 3 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 1/3 lb ground pork
  • 2 tablespoons rice wine
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil
  • 3 tablespoons oyster sauce
  • white pepper
  • tomato and cilantro for garnishing

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If you would like to serve this as a vegetarian dish, omit the pork and use vegetarian oyster sauce instead.

Click on the link below for the instructions.

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Bak Kwa

We had a picnic among friends just in the past weekend. It was perhaps the largest we had organized with over 50 adults and children attending. We could not have chosen a better weekend as the day was simply beautiful and a great time to be outdoors. Feels like summer already to us!

It was a pot luck picnic and as usual, everyone tries to bring something unique to the picnic to share. Suanne had a great idea to make something new for a change — Bak Kwa (or Rougan in Mandarin or Yoke Kon in Cantonese). Bak Kwa is basically dried meat … perhaps like the western Jerky but not quite. Bak Kwa is miles better than any Jerkies in the world, I swear.

Surprisingly the way to make it is a simple process although it could be tedious and time consuming to prepare the slices. There is a two step process … the first is to prepare dried slices from minced meat (Suanne used pork) and then the second part is to grill it to release the juiciness.

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The pictures below does not do justice to the taste. Well, it was my first time grilling the Bak Kwa but really it should look like this (click here). However it looked, it actually tastes not bad … not great but really good.

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Update 03-Mar-2010: Someone wrote that this recipe originates from the site Lily’s Wai Sek Hong. Because this recipe had been posted almost 3 years ago, I cannot recall exactly where this recipe originates from.

Here is how you make it …

Ingredients

  • 1 kg ground pork (from the part called Mui Tao Sao)

Marinate:

  • 1 1/2 tablespoons fish sauce
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 200g sugar (more if you like it sweeter)
  • 1/8 teaspoon five spiced powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon kam cho (licorice) powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon white pepper
  • 1 tablespoon oil
  • 2 tablespoons rose wine
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons honey

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Click on the link below for the instructions.

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Tim Tam

I had heard a long time about this snack which is very popular in Australia. I came across this at the Real Canadian Superstore some weeks ago. I would have…

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Brussels Series: Lunch Snack at the Atomium and Brupark

The highlight of the day is to visit the Atomium. This monument is a national icon of Belgium and is as iconic as the Eiffel to Paris. I have seen pictures of the Atomium but had no idea what is was like up close. More about the Atomium later …

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I went to Brussel Centraal railway station to catch a train to Heysel Park.

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I was still hungry after that little breakfast of Waffle. I stopped at a food stall at the train station called Maciotto. I had seen Maciotto in several stations before and thought I should check this out. They sell traditional Italian snacks. Since I thought that there would be nothing much for lunch at the Atomium, I got myself a snack as brunch.

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I got something called the Diavoletto Pollo (I think the word diavoletto means devil in Italian). This 3 Euros snack contains tomato, chicken and olives. Anyone can tell me more about Diavoletto? I had never come across this before.

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Vegetarian Tempura

Winnie’s second dish is fried vegetarian tempura. She used various root vegetables like sweet potatoes, taro and zucchini.

It is very simple to make as she uses the tempura batter mix from a box. Just add water to the right consistency and it’s ready for dipping the sliced vegetables for frying.

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Deep fry the vegetable tempura in small batches and drain them on paper towel to remove excess oil. It does not take long to fry the thinly sliced vegetables.

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Banana Shrimp Cake

Banana and shrimp does not normally mix, does it? However, these Banana Shrimp Cakes are great finger food. They are crunchy on the outside and soft, sweet and savory on inside.

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The Banana Shrimp Cake will go great with almost any type of sauce dip.

Ingredients

  • 2 bananas
  • 150g shrimp meat
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 2 tablespoons corn starch
  • 2 tablespoons egg white
  • 1/4 cup bread crumbs

Seasonings

  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 2 teaspoons cornstarch

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Click on the link below for the instructions.

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