Air Fried Spring Rolls （气炸春卷）

My dear children, do you remember that grandma loves to fry spring rolls for the family especially during special festival celebration? How lucky we are to have grandma! She has her way of marinate and the ingredients she uses make her spring rolls really delicious!

Now that grandma only visit us once in awhile, mum needs to learn to do it in order to have some spring rolls in our meal.

Mummy always try my best to avoid deep frying food as it's pretty oily and mum grows fat easily. :( So, in order to have some spring rolls sometimes, I would rather use the alternate way of making them, ie. air fried them with minimal cooking oil used (via spraying or brushing).

Here's how mummy made the fillings for spring rolls:-

150g pork minced

80-100g prawn meat (minced them)

3 pips garlic (finely chopped)

3 mushrooms (soaked, diced)

1 carrot (about 13cm - 15 cm long, chopped)

5 small water chesnuts - chopped (note: I have gotten the water chesnuts from the Asian Grocery)

Put all the above in a bowl and add in:-

0.5 tsp salt

0.5 tsp sugar

0.5 tsp sesame oil

1 tsp Chinese cooking wine (Shao Xing)

dash of pepper

**Combine all the above with a spoon until well mixed! Then use a cling wrap to wrap over the bowl of fillings and put it in the fridge for minimum 4 hours / overnight.

Now, the wrapping part....

You need about 9 big pieces of spring roll pastry. Each spring roll pastry can make 4 spring rolls. Hence. you need to cut each spring roll pastry into 4 quarters.

Method:

- Firstly, place a piece of spring roll pastry on a clean kitchen top. Position the piece of spring roll pastry in a way to make it look like a rhombus instead of square.  

- Place 0.5 tbsp or 2/3 (ie 0.66) tbsp of filling on the middle of 1 piece of the spring roll pastry as per the picture above.

- Now wrap the filling by folding up the bottom corner first. Gently tap on the filling to spread it evenly within the spring roll pastry.

- Brush some water with a brush or a finger along the edges, then fold the left corner of the spring roll pastry, follow by the right corner and finally seal it by folding down the top corner of the pastry.

Once the wrapping work is done, you are ready to deep fry or air fry them. To do so, you need to brush each spring roll with some cooking oil or spray some cooking oil over the spring rolls. Preheat the airfryer at 180 degree C for about 4 or 5 minutes. Then, put in all the spring rolls into the airfryer basket or grill pan (personal preference) and airfry them for 15-20 minutes at 180 degree C or until the desirable golden brown spring rolls. Remember to check the spring rolls every 5 to 6 minutes, pull up the basket and give it a shake to make sure that the spring rolls are evenly fried! Alternatively, you may want to follow the temperature guide stated on your airfryer. I am using Philips Airfryer HD9220. The temperature guide for spring rolls is 200 degree C for 6 to 10 minutes.

Simple Baked Paper Wrapped Chicken Parcel （纸包鸡）

My mum-in-law is a very good cook. We all love her cooking very much! One of her famous dish is the paper wrapped chicken parcel. She would either use her small oven or her Philips air fryer to make this dish and it always turned out great! So delicious! Yum!! Unfortunately, I didn't managed to learn from her before migrating oversea. Silly me...Oops...

I must learn from her when I travel back as I find that her marinate for the chicken tasted way better. The problem is that she is a cook with recipe in her heart. She can't tell me the exact measurement for each ingredient. The common answer I would get from her are: "little bit of this" and "little bit of that". lol!

Oh well, I am satisfied with the recipe I have gotten from Mr. Google for now. Learning to be a creative cook and mum, I have attempted many different dishes to make my children love mum more! Hehe...

My children, mum has decided to pen it down for your future reference. And here's the recipe:-
My initial learning was from a recipe book I bought from Popular Book Store Malaysia and from a blog at http://choodoris.blogspot.com.au/…/paper-wrapped-chicken.ht… . Apparently, different people marinated the chicken differently. Hence, I have modified some marinate ingredients to make it my version ..😬😬...

Here's my marinade ingredients for the chicken:
- 1.3kg chicken (mixture of drumsticks and wings)
- 1.5 tbsp cornflour
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp Chinese five spice powder
- 2 tsp sesame oil
- 3 tsp sugar
- 2 or 3 tsp dark soy sauce (thick sauce 晒油）
- 3 tsp oyster sauce
- 2 tbsp Chinese cooking wine (Hsao Hsing)
- 4 tsp light soy sauce
- 2 tsp grated ginger
- 0.5 tsp white pepper
- 0.25tsp garlic powder (optional)
Marinate the chicken for 4-6 hours.

For wrapping each chicken with the baking paper (ie. together with 1 or 2 tablespoon of the marinate sauce), it is very similar to wrapping spring rolls but you need to brush some cooking oil or sesame oil on baking paper before wrapping.. And the last bit is to tuck in the baking paper so that the sauce will not leak when you start deep frying or baking it. (Please refer http://choodoris.blogspot.com.au/…/paper-wrapped-chicken.ht… for better understanding on how to tuck in the baking paper.)

I never tried deep frying method but I have tried both air frying the paper wrapped chicken or oven baked them. I normally prefer oven bake as I could bake everything all at once with my oven. For oven bake, what I do is I would spray some oil on each parcel and bake at 200 degree C for about 50 minute.

My Simple Chiffon Cake （戚風蛋糕 / 雪芳蛋糕）

Chiffon cake is one of my favourite cake. A light, fluffy, soft and moist cake. I love it since very young. Ever since I introduced the cake to my children, they love it too! Never ever thought I would know how to bake a yummy chiffon cake. It was after many attempts, I finally got it right! :) Don't give up if you find that your chiffon cake texture is somehow not as moist or fluffy. It is a matter of practice!

Here is the recipe for the original flavour chiffon cake which I have tried. I came across a recipe from http://tw.gigacircle.com/700591-1?r=18825 - which was written in Chinese. I have tried and not very successful on my first attempt but my reviews over the whole process thereafter made me adjusted the baking method leading to success at last.:)

Here's the ingredients needed:-
You need 2 mixing bowls. One for the egg yolk batter and another one for the egg whites...

Get ready the following ingredients...

(A) 6 egg yolks, 75g cooking oil, 90g fresh milk, 106g cake flour or low protein flour (低粉/低筋面粉）
(B) 6 egg whites, 0.5 tsp cream of tartar, 105g icing sugar (yes, this recipe ask for icing sugar...)

** Use 6 large eggs. However, if the eggs are medium large, then add 1 extra egg to the recipe. Meaning, the recipe becomes 7 egg yolks and 7 egg whites.

Steps for egg yolks batter (A)...
- Combine egg yolks with oil. Mix well.
- Add in fresh milk. Stir well.
- Sift in flour. Stir until smooth (well combined) (as per 3rd photo below)
* Put aside the egg yolks batter to let it rest.

  

 Meanwhile, move on to work on ingredient (B) ie the egg whites...

Steps:-
- Combine egg whites and cream of tartar and whisk with high speed until just frothy. Note: Must do it in one direction only! (- Add in 1/3 of icing sugar. Continue to whisk with high speed until well mixed (doesn't take long)
- Quickly add in another 1/3 of icing sugar and continue to whisk with high speed until combined.
- Add in the balance icing sugar and continue to whisk evenly until stiff (ie the meringue can form a small peak) and will not fall off the mixing bowl when inverted...
(Note: To test whether the meringue is ready, you need to test few spots of the meringue eg. the middle, the left, the right, the north and the south. It is ready for next step if each part tested gave the same peak  pointy look like the 4th quarter photo below.)

Final steps:
- Put 1/3 egg whites meringue into the egg yoke batter. Fold gently with spatula to combine the meringue with egg yolk batter. Gently... Don't rush.

- Then pour this batter into the balance egg whites meringue. Fold gently until just combine. Remember: Don't over do it. Otherwise, you will deflate the meringue...

- Pour the ready batter into an ungreased 22-25cm chiffon cake baking tin
- Pat gently around the baking tin to remove the air / small bubbles that were captured during whisking

- Bake in preheated oven at 160 degree C for about 55min until cooked and light golden brown. (Tip: use a tooth pick to test whether it is cooked)
- Remove from oven. Quickly pat GENTLY around the baking tin and invert it immediately to let it cool.
- Be patient. Let it cool down completely before removing from the baking tin.

(Note: I find that pat gently around the baking tin before inverting works for me. If you live in countries where there are 4 seasons weather, I suggest you need to do this essential step. During my inital learning, my chiffon cake somehow sank regardless of how well and how pretty the cake came out from oven. However, after discovering this tips, my chiffon cake seems to look okay everytime I bake. No more sinking cake after cooling! Yes!)

*I find that this is the best way to cool my chiffon cake. :)

My Air Fried Chinese Sesame Balls (Jin Dui 煎堆/芝蔴球)

Whenever I had yum cha (or Chinese dim sum) with my family, one of my favourites is sesame balls! Never thought I would learn or know how to make them as I used to be so busy with work and life matters back then.

Anyway, here's the recipe for my air fried sesame balls. Note: This recipe made about 24 medium sesame balls)

Mashed sweet potato - 100~120g
Glutinous rice flour, sifted - 300g
Baking powder - 1 tsp
Caster sugar - 145g
Boiling water - 100~120ml (I use back the water for boiling the sweet potato)

Filling: either red bean / lotus paste
- about half the weight of the dough. Eg. 14g lotus paste for each 28g dough
- made them into mini balls for easy positioning and wrapping later

Method:-

Knead all the above until it forms a soft / smooth dough.

Note: To make it easier, use a breadmaker to help with the kneading. Just 1x dough function. (Note: Just use the breadmaker for kneading only. Press stop when it finishes kneading.)
Divide the dough to about 28~30g each. Form balls for easier flattening and wrapping later.

Wrapping: Skin: Take 1 dough ball, flatten (not until too thin to avoid easy cracking when frying)
- put 1 ball of filling in the middle of the flatten dough. Wrap the filling and form into smooth ball again

Coating sesame seeds: do it one at a time - wet the surface of each dough ball with water

- put the wet dough ball into a bowl of sesame. Coat the dough with sesame seed by gently shaking the bowl.

Air fry the sesame balls:-
Brush or spray each sesame balls with some cooking oil. Put the sesame balls into the air fryer, leaving a little space in between each balls to allow raising when air frying.

                                                    

Air fried about 9 sesame balls per batch (preferably using the grill pan instead of the basket)
160 degree C for about 13-15min, 180 degree C for about 2-3 min or until the desired golden brown. (Note: I am using Philips Airfryer HD9220. Temperature guide is for reference. Check and gently shake the grill pan / basket every 5 min to avoid cracking / over frying. You may want to use 160 degree C throughout the whole frying process. It is okay to do that.)