Gearing up for the Lunar New Year or Chinese New Year as most people know it can be a manic experience. Having to make special dishes and deserts as well as buying exotic fruits to celebrate an auspicious year can be overwhelming! I wanted to make a batch of won tons to each during the week and in advance should the need arise.
In all honesty, I have made this based loosely around Vietnamese Foody's Wonton Vietnamese Noodle Soup (mi hoanh thanh)recipe, a mix of my mum's and my own interpretation! So the end result will be more catered to my own tastes, most likely a yay then!
Yay or Nay: Yay
I can't lie, it was good! Delicious in fact! The only downside was that I'd overcooked the won ton just to make sure that they were cooked on the inside. Chuc Mung Nam Moi / kung hei fat choi / Happy New Year
While flicking through this month's Good Housekeeping magazine I was instantly inspired by this recipe for Best Outlaw Carrot Cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream by Daphne Oz. It conjured up memories of my friend's mum's version, plus I had a few leftover carrots which I would happily sacrifice!
If you don't know already, Daphne is Dr. Oz's daughter and is on the lineup for TV's The Chew. I have watched the show before but her recipes never really stuck out to me. Apparently this is from her book The Happy Chef which I have no real desire to get but worth looking at if this recipe is any good. Now,
I'm not usually a fan of celebrity/TV chef meals as I feel like they're
not that original and never end up being that tasty either but you
can't go wrong with carrot cake right?
Yay or Nay: Nay
I deliberately did not make the frosting as I am not a fan of it. There were a few ingredients missing such as the molasses and I subbed whole wheat flour for all plain flour, and dark brown sugar for light brown sugar which could have affected the final result. It didn't have a whole lot of carroty/cinnamon flavour, the cake was moist when it came out but dried up pretty quick. This recipe required quite a lot of ingredients and steps to it, I'm sure there are simpler recipes that are much tastier in my opinion!
When the temperature drops, straight away I crave something warming and hearty. But when you know it'll get back up to the 90s you kind of want something in the middle. As I was flicking through the Pure Delicious cookbook, this recipe for Mulligatawny Soup caught my eye with it's bright yellow liquid and contrasting pop of colour from the pomegranate seeds.
Now, I have heard of mulligatawny soup before and was pretty sure I had had it before, but there's no harm in testing it out.
Yay or Nay: Yay
This soup has a similar flavour profile to a Vietnamese Curry my mum makes, or even Katsu curry so it was definitely a hit. The only issue was making this in advance meant that when we were ready to eat this (the day after) it was waaaay to thick, almost like a stew but it was still tasty. Then again, it could have been the fact that I didn't have enough chicken stock for 8 cups, so I tipped what was left of the box in and figured it would be enough!
TIP: Don't add the stock and rice until you're ready to eat otherwise you won't get the consistency of soup.
