by Ovidia Yu
Note on molds: Mooncakes molds come in two sizes, regular and small. There are some really lovely traditional hand carved wooden molds as well as modern plastic plunger molds. But for hundreds of years mooncakes were shaped into rounds or squares and decorated by hand (legend has it, with secret messages) so you can do the same.
Ingredients for 8 regular-sized mooncakes:
Filling:
2 12-oz. cans of lotus seeds cooked in water
¾ cup of sugar (or more to taste)
Pinch of salt
6 tablespoons of peanut oil (lard is traditional if you can get it and don’t mind the smell)
8 salted duck egg yolks (Be sure you buy salted duck eggs and not fertilized duck eggs, which are a delicacy elsewhere in Asia but would be unsuitable and possibly shocking here. Remove whites, rinse yolks, coat yolks with peanut oil, and steam for about 10 minutes over low heat. If translucent, the yolks are still raw. They should be yellow gold and crumbly.)
Pastry:
1cup of flour
Pinch of salt
Pinch of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
¼ cup of golden syrup
½ teaspoon of Lye water (This alkali solution is what puts springy chewiness in egg noodles and Japanese ramen. You can make a baking soda substitute—boil 1 teaspoon of baking soda in 4 cups of water for 5 minutes and use when cool.)
2 tablespoons of peanut oil
Flour for dusting surfaces and molds
Egg wash (one egg beaten with 2 tablespoons of water) for glazing
Pastry:
Sift the flour, salt, and baking soda into a bowl. Make a well in the center.
Whisk together the golden syrup, Lye water, and peanut oil in a separate bowl (the mixture will not be homogenous). Pour slowly, stirring the liquids into the flour, forming a dough. Gently knead this until it comes together in a lump. Cover and set aside to rest for two hours.
Lotus Filling:
Drain the canned lotus seeds and place them in a food processor with sugar and a tablespoon or two of water and blend until smooth.
Transfer to a pan and stir over medium heat until the puree thickens.
Add the peanut oil and continue stirring until the lotus puree forms a glossy dough that leaves the side of the pan. This should take about 5 minutes.
Remove from heat and set aside.
Compiling
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Gently knead the rested dough mixture. Divide into 8 balls and place on a floured tray.
Roll the lotus paste into a long tube and cut into 8 pieces.
Press each egg yolk on a cushion of lotus paste and form a ball around it.
Roll and flatten (or flatten with your palm, village style!) a lump of dough and wrap it around a ball of lotus paste (thinner skins are considered more elegant, but thicker skins are easier to work with), and press the edges together until the filling is sealed in. Some people prefer to roll out two small balls of dough, wrapping one around the filling and the second over it in the opposite direction.
Dust your mold with flour and press the ball of dough in firmly.
If you are using a plastic plunger mold, press the handle (over a floured surface) and release your mooncake.
If you are using a traditional wooden mold, flip it over and tap to release your mooncake (it may take several taps).
If you are molding your mooncakes by hand, the traditional shapes are rounds and squares, but there are also house-shaped and fish-shaped mooncakes, so set your imagination free!
Place your mooncakes on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
When you’re finished forming the mooncakes, bake in your preheated oven for 8 minutes.
Remove the mooncakes from the oven and glaze the tops and sides with egg wash.
Return the mooncakes to the oven for another 10 minutes or until golden brown on top and fragrant.
Now comes the hardest part. You have to wait two days for your mooncakes to reach their prime! After your mooncakes cool completely, store them for at least two days in an airtight container to “return oil” from filling to skin. This will make the skins shiny and soft and the fillings less oily.
Aunty Lee’s Guide to All Things Singapore
Her favorite places to check out for food, shopping, and everything in between!
Aunty Lee’s Favorite Food Spots in Singapore
Food courts and hawker centers are the best introduction to Singaporean food because they offer the widest variety of foods. As a general guideline, food courts are mostly air-conditioned while hawker centers are not.
Best Place for First-Time Visitors:
The Food Republic on Level 3 of VivoCity
The decor here evokes the good old-fashioned hawker streets with wooden stools and tables, but with air conditioning, clean toilets, and clearly marked prices. And it is handy if you’re going across to Sentosa. Aunty Lee recommends their thunder tea rice, butterfly fritters, and egg pratas . . . and the kueh tutu (coconut and peanut).
Best Place for Breakfast or Lunch:
Tiong Bahru Market is the best place for an authentic heartland breakfast or lunch. It’s best not to risk trying to have dinner there as most of the stalls close once they are sold out for the day, which usually happens by mid-afternoon. Aunty Lee likes the chwee kueh there—chwee kuehs are tiny savory rice cakes served with a topping of preserved radish and eaten with chili sauce.
Best Spot for Locals:
Lau Pa Sat (meaning “old market”) is what the locals call Telok Ayer Market. Unlike Tiong Bahru Market, you don’t want to get here too early. The stalls inside the pavilion are open all day but every evening around 7 P.M. the road outside is closed off for the satay stalls to set up. Lau Pa Sat dates back to the time of Singapore’s founder, Sir Stamford Raffles. Aunty Lee recommends the barbecued prawns and octopus.
Aunty Lee’s Favorite Shopping and Spots in Singapore
1.Kampong Buangkok. Singapore’s last “kampong” or village. This is what Singapore looked like when Aunty Lee was growing up, with zinc roofs and red mailboxes and open doors. It makes Aunty Lee nostalgic for the calm and quiet (except for birdsong and insect buzz) of old Singapore. But she doesn’t visit often because despite their openness these are people’s private homes and lives.
2.Indri Collection In People’s Park Complex. They have a large collection of ready-made Peranakan embroidered kebayas and batik sarong skirts (and batik shirts for men). Indri is really more a stall than a shop and doesn’t have a unit number. It’s on Level 1 of the People’s Park Complex, just off the central atrium and next to the Security Guard counter. (And if you make it there, Aunty Lee suggests you take a take a quick detour to the basement food court of People’s Park Complex to try their noodles.)
3.Arab Street. One of Singapore’s oldest and most beautiful mosques is found here. Sultan Mosque was built in 1826 by Sultan Hussein Shah of Johor. If you wish to enter the mosque, and are not appropriately dressed, robes are provided. Arab Street is a rich bazaar-style mix of cafés and shops dating from the 1950s selling textiles, carpets, and souvenirs. Aunty Lee also recommends Haji Lane around the corner, where pre-war shophouses showcase the latest up-and-coming fashion designers.
4.The German Girl Shrine and Chek Jawa on Pulau Ubin. Pulau Ubin is Singapore’s second largest offshore island, but completely different from Sentosa. The German Girl shrine, also known as the Barbie Doll shrine, is a yellow hut beneath an Assam tree. Legend has it that it commemorates a German girl who fell to her death in a granite quarry during World War I and some believe she brings good luck. Chek Jawa is Singapore’s only surviving multi-ecosystem site—sandy beach, rocky beach, seagrass lagoon, coral rubble, mangroves, and coastal forest—and protected from development till 2012. Now, in 2016, its time may be running out.
5.And finally, the Mustafa Centre in Little India (Syed Alwi Road). This is a huge department store that sells everything from refrigerators, jewelry, tea towels, and mobile phones to plast
ers and painkillers. In operation since 1971, it is open twenty-four hours a day, every day (including Chinese New Year) and also has a foreign currency exchange. Aunty Lee suggests you take a look around Little India while you are there and explore the ayurvedic medicine shops, fortune tellers, henna tattoo artists . . . and of course sample the roti prata, thosai, dhal, and kebabs!
Aunty Lee’s Top 5 Food Favorites
1.Katong laksa with homemade barley water. Fierce debate rages in Singapore over the most “authentic” katong laksa. It consists of rice noodles served in a rich, spicy gravy with fish cake, prawns, and cockles and garnished with laksa leaf.
2.Kaya toast with soft eggs. A delicious sweet coconut jam. Kaya toast and eggs are a standard breakfast set available all day at most “kopi-tiams” or corner coffee shops.
3.Fish head curry. The head of a red snapper stewed in a sweet and sour tamarind curry with okra and eggplant and ginger flower buds. This is best eaten with fingers off banana leaves but also tastes good with cutlery.
4.Kueh lapis. Multi-layered, multicolored, traditional steamed cakes made of glutinous rice flour, coconut, and sugar. Kueh lapis legit is made of layers of rich batter, each spread over the previous layer and grilled separately, creating the brown lines in the buttery cake.
5.Tau suan. A sweet hot dessert soup made of split mung beans and flavored with pandan (screw pine) leaves. Though widely available at dessert stalls, this is a favorite comfort food . . . and full of protein and soluble fiber, it’s healthy as well as delicious!
Also by Ovidia Yu
Aunty Lee’s Delights
Aunty Lee’s Deadly Specials
Credits
Cover design and photograph by Laura Klynstra
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
P.S. is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.
AUNTY LEE’S CHILLED REVENGE. Copyright © 2016 by Ovidia Yu. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-241649-0
EPub Edition April 2016 ISBN 9780062416506
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