Eggless Durian Tiramisu

It has being such a long time since my last making of Tiramisu. This yummy dessert is often one of my choices while dinning in most western restaurants if they have this dessert available in their menu section. Today’s recipe is specially made for one of my best friend, whom Rey and I wish to cheer her up by using one of her favorite fruit “Durian” as ingredient. So let’s take get ready and take a look at this Eggless & Sugarless East-West Fusion type of Tiramisu whereby Fresh Durian Paste is used in this recipe.

Tiramisu is one of the most popular Italian cakes whereby Savoiardi is dipped into Strong Coffee then layered with the whipped mixture of Egg Yolk and Mascarpone. But today our ingredients will be slightly different whereby we will use Durian and Chocolate Milk to replace the usual Strong Coffee and Egg Yolk. So I am sure this is a great recipe for durian lover as well as those who don't prefer using raw egg yolk as one of the ingredients.

This is a very simple recipe that you can prepare in the morning and served it as dessert after dinner or during gathering. I am sure everyone will be able to follow the steps and made your very own Tiramisu without any hiccups. If you don’t prefer Durian you can always exchange it with other fruits like mango, strawberry, raspberry or etc just let your imagination run wild……

Ingredients: serves 8
1 Packet of Sponge Fingers (24 savoiardi)
250g Mascarpone
300ml Whipping Cream
300g Fresh Durian Flesh
200ml Chocolate Milk
Dutch Cocoa, for dusting

Method:
1. Pour chocolate milk into a shallow dish. Set aside.
2. Beat the durian paste and whipping cream in a large bowl with electric beaters for about 15 seconds till thick and creamy.
3. Add in mascarpone and give it a quick whisk until just combined.
4. Dip Sponge Fingers biscuits, 1 at a time into the chocolate milk then arrange in a single layer over the base of the container. (do not dip the sponge fingers for too long or else it will be too soggy and spoilt the taste of the tiramisu)
5.Cover the biscuits with a layer of the mascarpone mixture and repeat another layer on top, ending with the cream.
6. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Dust generously with cocoa and serve.

Note:
~ This recipe can make two 12 x 12 cm square plastic containers.
~ You can Thickened Cream instead of Whipping Cream if you prefer a more creamy texture.
~ Chocolate Milk can be replace with plain low-fat or full cream milk.


So by looking at this….. Are you interested to try out my combination of Tiramisu whereby you can have “Durian + Cheese + Cocoa” together in one dessert :) And most important it is without any trace of Raw Egg and extra Sugar…… And if you are interested in more chocolate and cheese dessert maybe you would like to take a look at this "Durian Cheesecake With Chocolate Fudge" too!

2010 Singapore Blog Awards - Best Food Blog

Dear Readers,

I am so excited to share with you that this is the 2nd year my blog "Cuisine Paradise" has been shortlisted (out of more than 1000 other blogs) to be one of the 10 Finalists for the category under Singapore Blog Awards - Best Food Blog. Voting is open to public from 24 May 2010 till 30 June 2010. You can vote only ONCE for each category per day.

Just like previous year, if you like my blogs and recipes please help to cast your valuable votes for me, ok :) But proceeding, , you need to register an account as a member with the blog award organiser (OMY.sg) if you are not a member yet. So if it is not troublesome for you to help, please follow the steps below for your voting:-


Steps for voting my blog:-

1. Register as a member of OMY if you are not a member. You can find the online registration form here (click here to register). For overseas voter you can use your passport number for the "Nric/Fin" option.

2. Upon successful registration as a memeber, login onto the Singapore Blog Awards Category link @ http://sgblogawards.omy.sg/category/ where you will be directed to the Voting Page .

3. On the left side of the screen, you will see something similar to the photo shown belown, click on the Best Food Blog(最佳饮食部落格) category to display all the 10 finalists so as to cast your votes.



4. You will see a PINK label "VOTE" on the bottom right corner of my avatar . To cast your votes, you need to click on the word "VOTE" instead of the picture which will be re-direct you back onto my foodblog URL.

5. You will see this yellow confirmation box for you to verified your voting. Click on the word "Confirm" and upon successful voting, you will see a Yellow label showing "VOTED" on my avatar.

6. Other than supporting my blog with your votes, you can also participate in voting for other categories to stand a chance to win these fabulous prizes too (click HERE to view the prizes) . Good Luck Everyone!


And lastly, remember to help me cast your vote whenever you are free to login into the "Voting Page". Thank you everyone for your all support! Because of each of your valuable votes and time, Cuisine Paradise is able to be listed in the top 10 finalists or even stand a chance for this year winning award too :)

Local Nonya Kueh

Nonya(Peranakan) Kueh is one of the famous tea-time snacks that are available throughout the day at most of the coffee shop stalls or food stalls at shopping area. Usually most of the kueh are made from grated coconut, coconut cream, rice flour and gula melaka. Sometime tapioca flour and green bean four are used to give the kueh a distinctive soft, pudding like but firm texture.

Above are some of my favourite Nonya such as(description starts from top down) :-

1. Kueh Salat - This is made of two layer whereby the cooked glutinous rice is at the base and topped with a layer of eggs and coconut milk custard. You can read more on one of my recipe Here.

2. Getuk Ubi - Is sort of "Mashed Steam Tapioca" that is topped with grated coconut that is infused with red sugar/gula melaka. There are two Steam Tapioca Kueh recipes which I would like to share with you at:-
~ Steam Tapioca Cake
~ Steam Ubi Kayu

3. Pulut inti - Blue Glutinous rice topped with caramelised grated coconut and wrapped in a cut banana leaf/plastic wrapper to resemble a square pyramid.

Are you familiar with these two??? Lapis Sagu(rainbow layer kueh) and Kueh Dadar(pancake wrapped with grated coconut) which I am you can get it at most of the stalls near you. I remember I used to love Lapis Sagu where I will peel it layer by layer before eating.

Siam Kitchen

Siam Kitchen is a modern restaurant that served causal Thia cuisine with several branches around different parts of Singapore such as Bugis, Jurong, Suntec, Causeway point and etc. Their menu range from Appetizers(Deep Fried Chicken in Pandan Leaf, Lemongrass Chicken Wings), Salad(Green Mango Salad), Savoury Thai Soups(Tom Yum, Thick Fish Maw Crabmeat Soup) and many others including dessert such as Fresh Mango Slices with Sweet Sticky Rice.

Green Curry - Chicken (Gang Keaw Wan) is Green Curry cooked with chicken, baby eggplant and sweet basil leaves. The portions of the ingredients seems generous with a lot of Thai green eggplants but the chicken pieces seems to be a little miserable less. And we also find that the curry sauce is kind of salty too.

Other than the Green Curry we also ordered the "Clear Seafood Tom Yum Soup" which is a clear sour soup which is flavored with fresh lemon grass and kaffir lime leaf that consists of fish, squid, prawn, tofu and etc.

Local Delights

What do you usually prefer to have for your breakfast or tea-snack? Here are some of the local traditional kueh that you can find is most hawker center or coffee shop stalls. Most traditional Chinese kueh are made of either Rice Flour or Glutinous Rice Flour that wrapped with either sweet or savoury fillings.

Fried Glutinous Rice - 糯米饭 is a kind of savoury dish where they stir-fry the cooked glutinous rice with some dark soy sauce and seasoning then served with extra garnished like peanuts, spring onion, dried shallot and chilli sauce. A good Glutinous Rice dish lies on the preparation of the rice as it cannot be overcooked or too mashy if not it will affect the texture of the end product.

Png Kueh - 饭桃 is best served after pan- fried together with drizzles of sweet dark soy sauce & chili sauce onto it. It is usually wrapped with glutinous rice, diced mushrooms, dried shrimps and roasted peanuts over a thin layer of pink colour rice flour wrapper. I love to eat this since young from the influence of my dad and I remember we only get to eat this during Chinese New Year or special occasion.

Soon Kueh - 笋粿 is a steamed Chinese dumpling that is made of rice flour skin and often stuffed with turnip strips and dried shrimps. This is also eaten with some sweet dark soy sauce and chili paste. There are a few types of Soon Kueh depending on their dialect group or fillings. The soon kueh that my mother-in-law made consists of dried mushroom, minced meat, turnip strips and dried shrimps and she also used steamed yam together with the rice flour to make the skin wrapped which maken it more tasty and fragrance.

Astons @ Sembawang Shopping Centre

What pops into your mind first when we talk about cheap and nice western food with with perhaps a restaurant serving standard. Maybe you will think of Astons, Botak Jones, UNO Beef House, Char-Grill Bar or some other place which is good and cheap.

Astons which is located at level of Sembawang Shopping Center has both indoor and outdoor dinning area. It was on a raining evening that we went and the crowds of about 20 people are queuing outside waiting for seats since it's only the indoor dinning area that is available.

We are asked to place order of our food while waiting for the next available seats and the waitress seems to be very impatient when we are looking through at the menu. Most of the customer in the queue felt so odd that it seems like we are being force to decide our order within less than 5 minutes time. And yet we have to stand there waiting for at least 20 t0 30 minutes before entering the resturant.

After about 45 minutes of waiting time, we finally managed to get our seats and settle down for dinner. While in the restaurants, we saw a few hiccups from the tables around us like:- the steak is over cooked rather than medium raw, chicken chop is not proper cooked through, food and drinks have being wrongly served to the customers and etc.

Finally about 5 minutes our food arrived, but unfortunately it's also a wrong ordered which does not belong to our tables. With hungry mood, we have to wait for another 10 minutes for our correct orders to be served. But this round they served the food without any cutlery and drinks, and for them to take the cutlery it takes another 5 minutes.

At the point I was kind of annoyed with their service and furthermore our medium raw sirloin steak has became over cooked steak instead. And our drinks only being served half way through our meals after a few reminder. Although the food look decent and presentable but the taste is not as good as what they have over at their East Coast branch a few months back. Still wonder how come there is such a long queue while inside most of the customers are complaining about the wrong orders .......

2010 Taiwan Trip - Day 8

Finally this is the last post on our Taiwan Trip where I get to share with you those places of interests and local food that we had during the entire trip. I hope that by this post, you will have some ideas on what to expect and look for if you are planning for a trip over there. Overall this is a fruitful trip for us even though we are kind of disappointed that we didn't managed to stop by "Alishan - 阿里山" due to the road maintenance.

After our morning breakfast, everyone of us starts to divided into groups and go for our last minute shopping before leaving for the airport to Singapore. Since we have only about 4 hours or so before gathering at the Hotel Lobby to process to the airport, we decided to shop around Ximending - 西门町 which is about 10 minutes walk from our hotel.

During the walk, we happened to bypass a grocery shop where they sell a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables. Some of our tour mates bought some of their local vegetables such as "White Bitter Gourd - 白玉苦瓜", "Loquat - 琵琶", "Honey Star fruits - 蜜汁杨桃" and etc which we can't get them from Singapore.

Most of the shops in Ximending opens around 11am due to the late operating hours at night. At daytime, the view of Ximending is much clearer without those large crowds of people walking around. So it is easier for us to spot some of the famous food stalls where we can fill our tummy before leaving Taiwan,

This "Lao Tian Lu - 老天祿滷味" is shop that is specialised in selling all kind of Braised - 卤 food such as Duck Wings, Duck Gizzard, Duck Tongue and etc from the head to the feet. Since our family is not a fan of all these we didn't get any to try out, but according to some tour mates who bought and try most of them give positive comments on their products.

Around the corner which is near one of the junction in Ximending, there is one famous stall selling Braised Goose Meat and Noodles which is known as "Ya Rou Bian - 鸭肉扁". According to the story, the boss of the shop was known as "Ah Bian - 阿扁" and since he was selling "Duck Meat Noodles - 鸭肉面" at road side stall most of his customer known him as "鸭肉扁" which comes about his name.

We ordered a bowl each of the Bee Hoon and Noodle Soup to go with the Goose meat. Although the braised meat is fragrance and nice but we find that the meat was rather a bit tough to our liking. On the other hand, the soup noodles was great with it tasty soup base and ingredients.

Most of the people will suggest to you that when you visit Taiwan, you have to try their famous "Ay Chung Rice Noodle - 阿宗面线" which is actually Mian Xian - 面线 with Big Intestines - 大肠. This place is always crowded with customers whereby you have to stand and eat or sit on stools without tables. The original Ay Chung Mian Xian comes without any sauce and you can add in yourself such as:- chilli, vinegar, garlic and etc. Their noodles taste so different from what we have over here in Singapore and it's a great comfort food during cold weather too.

Soon it's time to say goodbye to Taiwan while we are at the waiting area to board the plane back home to Singapore. I am sure everyone of us enjoy our stay during these few days and surprising Rey cope pretty well with the weather, food and the long travelling journey and etc. And while waiting for the plane, he don't seems to be willing to back home as he still enjoying his trip in Taiwan and wish to stay longer.

Since this is an late afternoon flight, we were be having our dinner on Board and the return meal is just as good as what we have during our flight to Taiwan. As you can see, the kid's meal includes chicken baked pasta, chocolate, biscuit, fruit salad, juice and etc. While for the adults, we are having either beef stew with mashed potato or braised chicken with rice. For dessert, each of us is given a tub of Hagen Dazz Strawberry Ice-cream.




p/s: Thanks for your patience while waiting for me to update these Taiwan posts for the past 1 month. Hope you have enjoy reading them :)

Youtiao & Fried Butterfly

What is your favourite local snack whenever you walk past the hawker centers or coffee shops? For me, sometime I love to get hold of either one of these "Youtiao - 油条" or "Butterfly Bun - 麻煎／花煎" together with a cup of Black Coffee(Kopi O) to start off my day before attending those piles or work.......

Youtiao - 油条 is a deep-fried dough stick which has a crispy crust on the outer surface, tender and fluffy when bite. Usually this is eaten during breakfast together with congee or soy milk but some of the people like me would love to dip it with Coffee before eating. There are also many other ways of eating this snack, for example:- Youtiao Rojak(a kind of salad dish that is commonly found in Malaysia and Singapore) or Deep-Fried Sotong Youtiao and etc.

Butterfly Bun - 麻煎／花煎 has a similar texture like Youtiao but it is smaller in size and it is coated with some sesame seeds to give it that extra fragrance and taste. This butterfly bun has a slighter sweeter taste compare to Youtiao and I love to eat this while it is still hot which will give it a better taste.




P/s: Anyone can recommend/share your view on a good stall selling these in Singapore?