Love Letters Cookies (Kuih Kapit)

Chinese New Year is a big event for Chinese and part of the holiday celebrations, various snacks and goodies are being prepared. Love Letters cookies or also known as Kuih Kapit is one of  the popular cookies in Singapore and Malaysia during the Chinese New Year.

The cookies is mainly consists of rice and plain flour, coconut milk, water and eggs. The taste of this cookies is similar to sweet type of ice cream cones. The cookies is very fragrant due to coconut milk and sugar that caramelized and vey cripsy also. 

INGREDIENTS: (about 80pcs)

(Adapted from:  https://www.google.com/amp/s/mykitchen101en.com/delectable-homemade-kuih-kapit-love-letters-biscuit-light-and-crisp/amp/)

• 100g Rice Flour
• 50g Plain Flour
• 3 pcs Eggs
• 150g Coconut Cream 
• 200g Water
• 100g Castor Sugar (can add 50g more if you want sweeter)
• ¼ tsp Salt

Procedure:
1. Whisk the eggs until foamy. You can use hand mixer is you have one.

2. Add in the coconut milk, water, sugar and salt, mix until sugar is thoroughly dissolved.

3. Sift in the rice flour and plain flour, mix until the batter is smooth.

 

4. Strain the batter to ensure no lumps, then rest the batter for 20 to 30 minutes.

 

  

5. Preheat the Love letter maker, pour in 1 tablespoon of batter. Amount of batter for each piece depends on the size of your mould.

 

6. Cook about 1 to 1.5 minutes or till the cookies turn golden brown. You'll get the right timing for your maker after few tries. 

 

7. Fold the love letters very quickly and while still hot. The cookies cools down very fast and get hardened fast. Careful not to burn your hand when doing this

  

8. Repeat step 5 to 7 until all the batter are used up.

9. Keep the cooked love letters ib an air tight container to keep it crispy.

10. Enjoy it as a snack or with cup of coffee or tea.

Puto (Philippine Rice Cake)

Puto is an all-time Filipino favorite kakanin or snacks, that is always present in almost every gatherings. This goes well with coffee and to make it more interesting you can eat it together with freshly grated coconut meat or "niyog". The juice of the coconut meat when chewing really blends well with the puto.

Do try my recipe here in making my puto. 

Serving: 24 pcs mini puto or 12 pcs normal size puto

Ingredients : 

1 cup flour
1 egg
1 Tablespoon melted butter
1/2 cup Sugar
1 Tablespoon Baking Powder
150 ml Fresh Milk
Pinch of Salt
Slices of cheddar cheese for topping (optional)

Procedure:
1. Prepare puto moulder
2. Boil water in steamer.
3. In a bowl mix all the dry ingredients
4. In another bowl mix all the wet ingredients
5. Pour the mixed wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mixed till are no more lumps
6. Pour the mixture in puto moulder up to 2/3 of the mould
7. Place in a steamer and steam for 10 to 12 mins or till th puto is cooked and raised.
8. If using cheese for topping, place it on top of puto 2 mins before the cooking time to melt the cheese.

Please share with me your puto photo here and your comment when tried my recipe. Thank you!!

Hopia

Hopia

Hopia is a popular Filipino flaky pastry that is traditionally filled with red beans paste or mung beans paste. It is very popular as a gift or souvenir, when ever someone came back from a trip. It is now also comes in different filling like,  purple yam (ube), jack fruit (langka) and pineapples. 

Hopia with Purple Yam filling

Hopia word is from Chinese word hò pià (好餅), meaning ‘good pastry (https://www.tagaloglang.com/hopya/).
Indonesia also have their own version of hopia called "bak pia" and in Malaysia their "tau sar piah" is also similar to Hopia.

Today, I crave for this pastry and baked for afternoon snack I used purple yam and red beans for filling. I use my Taiwanese pineapple cake molder for my purple yam and normal round cookies cutter for my red bean. Hopia is very easy to make.

Hopia with Red bean filling

My Taiwanese Pineapple cake molder

Hopia Recipe:

Ingredients :

Dough 1
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 tsp of salt

Dough 2
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cups vegetable shortening (or lard or butter)

1 egg for egg wash

Fillings:

Red Bean Paste  
Purple Yam (click the link for the Purple Yam Jam)

Procedure:

For the Red Bean Paste:

For Dough 1:

1.  Combine all the ingredients, and mixed. Once all ingredients are mixed together use a hand to slightly knead the dough. Once you feel the dough is already soft, set it aside and prepare the Dough 2.

For Dough 2:

1.   Mixed the flour and sugar then add the shortening

2.   Use two forks to cut in the shortening in the flour, once the shortening has been covered with flour use hand to mixed it until it come together (soft dough texture)

Combining the two Dough:

1.  Using a rolling pin flattened the Dough 1 into 1/8 mm thickness (use a baking sheet or cling film/wrap as a base).

2.  Then distribute evenly the Dough 2 on top of the Dough 1.

3.  Using a spatula flatten the Dough 2, to make sure it will stick to the Dough 1.

4.  Tidy up the sides, remove the excess dough. Then roll the dough into a log. Tidy up the ends again, to make sure you have a flat ends. Let the dough rest in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Preparing the desired filling:

1.  While the dough is resting prepare the desired filling, by scooping it and make it in a small balls

Making the Hopia:

1.  After 15 minutes take the dough out of the fridge and start pre-heat the oven at 200deg C.

2.  Cut the dough on your desired thickness or how big you want your Hopia to be.

 

 

3.  Flour your rolling pin and the cut dough, then roll and flatten it into circle. Place the filling on the center and closed it. Use a moulder to flatten your Hopia. I use cookie cutter for my red bean filling and square mold (Taiwanese pineapple cake molder) for my purple yam.

4.  Place the Hopia on a baking tray lined with baking sheets

5.  Beat the egg and brush it on top and side of the Hopia prior baking.

6.  Bake the Hopia at 200deg C for about 15-20 minutes or until the top turns to golden brown

7.  Cool down and serve

Chicken Adobo (Chicken in Soy Sauce and Vinegar)

Chicken Adobo  (Chicken in Soy Sauce and Vinegar)

Chicken Adobo is one of the Philippines signature dish and every Filipinos favourites. Adobo is from Spanish word "adobor" meaning marinade, sauce or seasoning. My son also love this dish so much, every time I will  ask him of what dish he wants me to cook for him, without a second thought he will tell straight away “ Chicken Adobo”!.

What so special about this Philippines dish? Why it is love and like by everyone? Probably the perfect blending of the vinegar and soy sauce marinade that suits very well with Filipinos taste buds. This dish is somehow best eaten a day after it was cooked, the meat will fully absorb the sauce and became more tender. This is best serve with steaming hot white rice (drooling already here).

My son is one among who love this dish so much. He can stand to eat this dish even every day. We are cooking this dish almost every week and my son is the happiest person in the house if we are having this dish no need to call him twice during mealtime. 

If you search "Chicken Adobo" in the net, you can find many and different ways how to cook this dish. Others will add boiled eggs or chicken liver or pineapples chunks to have a sweetness taste. Some they mixed with pork meat and some will fry the meat when it cooked and pour the sauce after.

My way is the how my family cook this dish, traditional and simple. You can follow below recipe if you wonder why this dish is very popular dish in the Philippines.

Chicken Adobo  (Chicken in Soy Sauce and Vinegar) Recipe

Ingredients:

   

• 1 kilo chicken, cut into desired pieces
• 2 tbsp. oil
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 pc. onion, diced
• 2 tsp brown sugar
• 2 tbsp Oyster sauce
• ½ peppercorns
• 2 cups water
• 2 medium size potatoes, quartered and slightly fried (optional)
• 6 pcs hard boiled eggs (optional)

For Marinade:

• 1 tsp. ground pepper;
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 medium lemon, squeezed and seeded
• 1/2 cup vinegar
• 1 cup soy sauce
• 4 pcs bay leaf

• 

Procedure and cooking instructions: 

1. In a large bowl, mix in the soy sauce, vinegar, ground pepper, garlic, bay leaf and chicken pieces then marinate for 2-3 hours or overnight. Set aside the marinade sauce. (Do not discard the marinade sauce)

2. Heat cooking oil in a deep pan or wok and fry the potatoes until half cooked, then set aside.

3. From, the same wok where the potatoes were fried, sauté garlic and onion, until become all translucent.

4. Add in the marinade chicken and sauté until the chicken meat becomes white and sides starts to brown.

5. Pour now the marinade sauce, oyster sauce, brown sugar, peppercorns and water into the chicken then simmer for 30-40 minutes until the chicken become tender and thickened the sauce. Checked and stir it from time to time to prevent burning at the bottom of the pot. Add in the fried potatoes and hard-boiled eggs if using then simmer for additional 10 minutes. If the sauce is drying up fast, add water about ½ cup or less. 
    
 Note: You can use pressure cooker to speed up the process to 15 minutes, but need to reduce the water to 1 ½ cup. After 15 minutes de-pressurised the cooker and add in the potatoes and eggs then simmer for additional 10 minutes

6.  Add salt and pepper to taste. If you want it drier cook a little further or with just enough sauce.

7.  Transfer to serving dish. Serve hot with rice. Enjoy eating!

Note:

If you want your meat crispy, once the chicken is soft remove from the pot and pan-fried them until the skin turns golden brown, then place chicken on the serving plate then pour the adobo sauce.