Yam Paste Dessert (Orh Nee) - Alternative Method

We recently found that the NTUC supermarket at Hougang One sold peeled yams in vacuum packs of 500 g. This was definitely better as it can be kept in the fridge for a longer time. It will also be easier for me to slice it into smaller pieces as the skin of the yam was already removed. 

I used these yam to make a yam paste dessert (orh nee) on Sera's birthday since she liked to eat it so much.


Ingredients:

500 g yam (cut into slices)
200 ml of coconut milk (I used the "kara" brand)
150 g of sugar
3 to 4 pandan leaves (optional)
pinch of salt (optional)


Steps:

1. Put the yam slices (with pandan leaves) on a steamer rack and steam for about 30 min until the yam slices turn soft. 

2. Once the yam slices are soft, turn off the fire and mash the yam slices.

3. Add coconut milk, pinch of salt and sugar to the mashed yam. 

Previously, I also added some cooking oil and then put the mixture in a slow cooker to cook it further. It needed a a lot of time to cook to the right consistency. This time round, I steamed the above mixture for another 10 to 15 minutes (took less time). I omitted the cooking oil as I didn't really like the taste of it in the yam paste dessert. I also added a bit of water as I found the mixture to be too dry. 

It was then ready to be served.

Related post:

Yam Paste Dessert (Orh Nee)

Our New Kitchen Door

Our kitchen door could not close properly for more than a year. A few weeks ago, it finally came off its hinge at the bottom when Sera pushed it. Ardon managed to push it to lean against the wall and luckily no one was hurt. By pushing the kitchen door to the side, it obstructed the door of the storeroom and made it quite difficult to take things out of the storeroom. The kitchen door was a wooden bifold door which was quite heavy and already more than 13 years old. So it was about time to get a new one rather than just repair it. 

Old kitchen door 

Hence we began our search for a new door. I was attracted to the eco series from Ministry of Door and contacted them for some information. One of the staff then came to take measurements first and gave me some information about what types of door we could install at the kitchen entrance. Actually I would prefer a sliding door but, due to some design constraints, a sliding door was not feasible. If we really wanted one, we have to install the frame in the living room and it might not look good. The person who took measurements told me I could consider either a bifold door or a swing slide door. He told me the swing slide door that their company used was not from PD door. We can slide the door to any point up to the midpoint (not necessarily at the midpoint) and swing it open, unlike the PD door where we have to slide it to its midpoint before we could swing it open. So we fixed an appointment with Rachael at the  Ministry of Door to visit their showroom (by appointment only) so that we could test the mechanism of the bifold door and the swing slide door to make a better decision.

Rachael explained to us that the swing slide door could actually swing open 180 degrees (same as PD door). However, it does not have the mechanism on top of the frame that holds the two panels of the door together at midpoint that the PD door has (before pushing the door to swing out). I have read some online comments/reviews that the PD door often got stuck. We have also tried the PD door before in some relatives' home and realized that it was not so easy to slide it to the correct/fixed middle position to swing it open. We were glad to have found a better alternative (in our view, as some people may prefer it to slide to the middle fixed position before swinging the door open as it is more stable). We preferred the swing slide door to be able to swing open more easily so that our children will also find it easy to open and close the door. Since we were going to install the door in such a way that it would be swinging towards the kitchen, it did not matter even if we could not close it nicely in the middle position. I preferred something different since we were getting a new door anyway and I was reluctant to use a bifold door again. A normal swing door would require more space to swing open as the kitchen door would be quite wide. A swing slide door would be the best option.

Satisfied with the slide and swing mechanism of the door, we finally opted for it. The brand was SK brand. I had previously tried to look online for reviews on SK swing slide door but could not find anything so I thought it might be a good idea to share with you. The designs were more limited (eco series not used for this swing slide door) when compared with the bifold doors from Ministry of Door but we thought that the mechanism was more important than the designs. We could always decorate the door later if we wanted to. We could mix and match the colours of the acrylic panels used for the door. We chose frosted glass (it was actually made of acrylic) with cream acrylic in the middle. The frame was made of aluminium.

After paying the deposit, the door was ready to be installed about one week later. We had the door installed with the door swinging towards the kitchen and to the right looking from living room. 

View of SK swing slide door from living room

View of door swung open without sliding fully to the middle

View of door swung open with door fully slid to the middle

Top of door frame

Two hinges on the right side of frame

Side view of door

You can see from the last picture above that the door was quite slim. We couldn't swing it open 180 degrees due to space constraints. The sliding feature would be useful to open the door halfway when we wanted to open the storeroom door to get something. We do not need to close the door fully so anyone can still go into the kitchen without too much problem. 

Here is a video of Sera demonstrating how she opened and closed the swing slide door. I told her to open and close it gently and she was able to do so with ease.

Follow @AnneLimMN

Lean Pork with Preserved Vegetables

I got the idea of cooking this dish from the MediaCorp TV drama serial,  "Spice Up" 《幸福料理》. I thought it was quite easy to prepare so I tried it out two days ago.

I did not follow every step exactly as it was shown by Gao Mingjun  (starring Patrick Lee) in the show. This was what I used.

250g lean pork (frozen pork)

80g preserved Vegetables

Steps:

1. I cut the lean pork into smaller strips. I used the preserved vegetables that were bought from NTUC. No further cutting was needed for this.

2. Then I added some salt, pepper, 1/3 egg white, sesame oil and tapioca flour to the lean pork.

3. I heated up some oil in the wok, added some garlic and stir fried them. 

4. I put in the marinated lean pork, stir fried until they were about 60% to 70% cooked.

5. Then I added the preserved vegetables to the pork and cooked until the pork was tender. 

6. I added some chilli powder to the dish. (original recipe used fresh red chilli). 

This dish turned out quite nicely. The pork was tender and the colour was white instead of the usual light brown. I believed it was the egg white that made the pork tender and white. Lynn almost thought it was chicken meat. The preserved vegetables wasn't as crunchy as Gao Mingjun's dish since I did not soak them and squeeze out the water like what he did. We didn't mind though. So overall, I would think it was an appetising dish. This turned out tender and tasty.