Bunnies and Carrots Cake

It was my husband's birthday a few days ago, but I couldn't make him a birthday cake until yesterday. So here's his belated birthday 'cake' - the quotation marks are there because it's actually not a cake, but just a round-shaped styrofoam decorated with fondant....;)! I finally decided not to make a real cake because I knew that we wouldn't be able to finish eating the whole cake. I shall make a small batch of cupcakes or cake pops in the next days to compensate the faux cake :).

The theme of the cake is bunnies with carrots *roll eyes* - I know, so predictable ;)! The people who have been following my blog from the beginning should know by now that I adore my rabbits...;). Well, next time I will make something different!

I modelled the bunnies after the rabbit figurines I saw in Maisie Parish's Fun and Original Character Cakes.

"Yum, yum, yum...!!"

This cake can be a good idea for Easter as well!

Last but not least, I would like to thank Sweetums from My Little Sweet House for this lovely award. I feel very honoured ! Thanks a bunch Sweetums :)!

Salted Egg Fried Rice with Prawns and Kimchi

If you have been reading my blog for some time, I am sure you've noticed that besides being a yum cha fanatic, I also love my carbs, especially my rice and noodles...:). One rice dish, which is an absolute favourite of mine is fried rice, because it's versatile, it's simple to make and it tastes gorgeous! Fried rice is also the first dish that I tried making as a, let's say, 9 or 10 year old (apart from Indomie instant noodles...;)).

This time I added salted duck egg to my fried rice, including Szechuan chili oil and prawns. Try to imagine the taste...! This combo is absolutely brilliant, a real treat to your tastebud! The kimchi is optional, but it gives a good kick as well to your fried rice.

Ingredients

• 1 cup cooked rice (1 day old rice is even better)
  
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 seeded green chili peppers, sliced thinly
  
• 200 g prawns
• 2 tbs olive oil
  
• 1 salted duck egg, minced
  
• 1 tbs Shao Xing wine
• 2 tbs oyster sauce
• 1 tbs Szechuan chili oil
  
• 1 tbs sweet soy sauce
• 1 cup chopped green onions
• Black pepper to taste

Side dishes

• Sunny side up fried egg
• Kimchi
• Tomato slices
• grapes
• Shrimp crackers
  

Instructions

• Heat up your wok to high. Add 2 tbs oil.
  
• Add minced garlic and chilli slices and fry until the garlic is slightly brown.
• Add prawns, Shao Xing wine, salted egg and Szechuan chili oil and stir fry for 1 minute.
• Quickly add the rice, oyster sauce and sweet soy sauce. Stir fry for another 1 minute.
• Add chopped green onions and black pepper before serving and mix well.
• Serve your fried rice with fried egg, shrimp crackers, tomato slices, kimchi and grapes.
  

Sharkfin Dumplings with Spicy Rice-Flake Soup

Of course I didn't use real shark fins...;)! I don't really see the point why anyway. I have tried eating shark fins quite a few times, usually in soups with crab meat. They're ok, but also quite tasteless. The texture is a bit jelly-like and reminds me of cellophane noodles - which I used in my dumplings instead of real shark fins. I made these fake shark fin dumplings quite some time ago, after browsing some recipes from my beloved Chinese Snacks cookbook. I ate my dumplings with rice flake soup drizzled with chili oil and roasted peanuts.

Ingredients (adapted from Chinese Snacks by Huang Su-Hei)
(makes around 30 - 40 dumplings)

(Fake) Shark Fin Dumplings

• 250 g chopped prawns
• 100 g pork fat (I didn't use this)
• 100 g ground pork
• 100 g pre-softened cellophane noodles
• 1 tbs cornstarch
  
• 1 cup chopped green onions
• 2 tbs oyster sauce
• 1 tbs fish sauce
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• wonton skins

Spicy Rice-Noodle Soup

• 100 g rice flakes
• 400 ml chicken broth ( I used 2 chicken thighs to make the chicken broth)
• 2 tbs chili oil
  
• Salt, pepper, sugar and chopped green onions

Rice flakes

Rice Flakes after cooking

Drizzle chili oil onto the dumplings. I used ready-made Szechuan chili oil which is very hot and aromatic.

By the way, I submitted two pictures to Maangchi's site some time ago. My pictures are the Piggy pork buns and Mandu with Kimchi. Please vote for me...!! You have to log in to vote, but it only takes around 2-3 minutes. Thanks in advance for your support - it's highly appreciated :)! Here are the two pictures:

12th Anniversary

No, I have not been married this long. But I have known my husband for a long, long time (at least in correlation with my age!). Twelve years ago on October, 3rd, I got to know him for the very first time...You can say that he's my childhood sweetheart..., or maybe not? Because we didn't get together until a few years later (and by this time I was no longer a child ;)).

Last year I prepared something typical German to celebrate our 11th Anniversary (since October, 3rd is also the German Reunification Day), but this time I prepared a feast - an Asian feast to be exact. A feast, because I spent hours in the kitchen preparing the planned dishes and also because after eating these arrays of food, we were not able to eat dinner anymore...;).

I made kimchi, salt and pepper squid, fried wontons, ebi nigiri sushi and a family of bunny pork buns (unfortunately only Mr Bunny turned out quite good-looking - Mrs Bunny had rather messed up eye make-up ;) and Miss Bunny looked kinda grumpy :(). We also had mochi as dessert. I bought the mochi from my local Asian grocery store. If you want to make mochi yourself, check out my Quick and Easy Red Bean Mochi recipe!

Recipe coming soon...!

Do you see how messy Mrs Bunny's eye make up is? And the head of Missy Bunny didn't turn out well, rather wrinkled, making her look grumpy...

The Bunny Family looks better before steaming I guess... (Btw, if you want to see another cute pork-bun family, check out my Piggy Pork Buns post!)

Mr Bunny is apparently the best looking one in the family...!

Mandu Soup

The weather has not been very friendly the past few days - it's dark, gloomy, cold and wet. Winter is definitely on its way! But this also means, "soup time" for me :)! I have always enjoyed eating different types of soups and stews, especially when the weather is bitterly cold, there's just something comforting about slurping a bowl of warm noodle or chicken soup...! Well..., I don't actually slurp my soup, but I somehow like the word 'slurping' because it reminds me of Japanese cartoon characters who totally enjoy devouring their ramen ;).

Actually I made this mandu soup a few weeks ago, when the weather was not that chilly yet. But I just didn't feel like posting about this soup until now. I used the same mandu recipe as last year and the stock is extremely easy to make: basically just water with dashi granules and sesame oil.

Ingredients - serves 1

• 5 mandu
• 500 ml water
• 3 tsp dashi granules
• 1 tbs sesame oil
• Chopped green onions
• Seeded red chillies, sliced
• Toasted sesame seeds
  
• Thin omelet (optional)

What to do

• Bring water to a boil. Add the mandu and cook for 5 minutes.
• Add dashi and sesame oil. Stir and let cook for another 50 seconds.
• Transfer the mandu soup to a bowl.
• Garnish with chopped green onions, chili slices, sesame seeds and thin omelet.