Rice Vermicelli Fried Noodle - FUJIAN GAN TSAO MIFEN

If I remembered it correctly, the waitress said it is called FUJIAN GAN TSAO MIFEN - FUJIAN is a province of China.  We never been there, but we came across this interesting very simple and tasty dish at Hong Kong Islander restaurant located in Sacramento.  Office friends were looking for this interesting Dim Sum that he said he really enjoyed - crispy shrimp wrapped in white soft rice.  We all thought is shrimp CHEONG FUN, but he said it is not.  When we described it to the waitress, she was so sure what we are talking about and then, this got delivered.
We all looked at each other for this burnt looking rice vermicelli dish

 We dug in, nevertheless.  Scallop, chicken, asparagus or fennel stems, woodear ... It tasted so good.

 So, I decided to try making it myself at home.  Yes, I know, my kitchen sink is not fixed.  I am improvising one of other sink in the meantime.  (It's a mess in the kitchen because of it.)
After hydrating two packages of rice vermicelli and two Chinese mushroom or SHIITAKE in hot water/after boiling, using Scissors, cut the rice vermicelli at both end. 
The dry vermicelli comes rolled up into rectangular shape. 
When you add it to a bowl of hot water, it hydrates into soft noodle, yet still need more heat to be cooked. 
Before lifting them up with chop sticks or strainer to drain the water off, while it is still in the bowl, scissor them at both end. Slice and chop the hydrated mushroom. 
The mushroom might need hotter water to hydrate than the vermicelli.  You should not see "white" dry stem, but moist mushroom. Otherwise, it will be challenging to slice them and chop.
Add three tablespoon of avocado oil to the frypan.
RESERVE the water that mushroom and vermicelli got hydrated in. 
Strain the vermicelli out of the bowl by lifting them up using chop stick or strainer - Add to the frying pan.
The vermicelli do not need to be totally strained.  It needs some liquid to cook in the fry pan. Let it cook covered at medium heat.  Keep your 'ears' open and listen to the sound while you prepare the meat. What you want to achieve is cooked rice vermicelli with browned on one side.

 Chop up half of chicken breast and thaw shrimp or fish or whatever you got.  I used four shrimps and chopped them up after deveining them.  1/2 Cup chopped green onions, 2 stalks of celery sliced.
Add chicken first into fry pan.  Stir fry for 40 seconds.  Add shrimp.  Stir fry for 30 seconds.  Add celery and green onions.  Stir fry and add mushroom.
Turn to low. 

 Mix 1 TBsp of soy sauce (low sodium) with 1 tsp of Chinese hot chili paste (LA JIAO JAN), 2 tsp of TONKATSU sauce, 1 TBsp of KATAKURIKO - potato starch.  Mix in 1/4 C reserved liquid from hydrating mushroom and vermicelli.  Add more liquid - at least to 1/2 C.  Add to the meat mixture in frypan. 
Turn heat to medium high. 
Quickly add the rest of liquid - 1/3 to 1/2 Cup more and quickly stir before it start to congeal.  As it thickens, cook for 1 minute.  Turn off heat.

 Check on vermicelli often.  When one side is browned, turn off the heat.  Get a serving plate ready.

 Transfer the meat to a dish and flip transfer the vermicelli to the top.  Sprinkle with green onions and serve.   To serve, portion the noodle into section and or break it apart and mix with meat and serve.

It turned out delicious.

MOCHI CAKE in Mini Brownie Cake Mold

If you like crispy or browned end of the brownie, baking in mini brownie pan will get each one the result you want.  I finally got thinking and used my silicon mini brownie mold.
MOCHI CAKE recipe can be found at this blog site - https://rockdavinci.blogspot.com/2009/06/japanese-mochi-cake.html  and  I used 5 eggs and butter for more rich flavor.

Ingredients and Methods:
1/2 Cup Soft Butter - Creamed with Sugar until fluffy and pale yellow
1 Cup Organic Cane Sugar
5 Organic Eggs   
1 bag 16 oz Sweet Glutinous Rice Flour
5 tsp Baking Powder without Aluminum
1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
2+ Cup Milk 
Beat Butter and sugar till fluffy.  
Add egg at a time to the butter mixture and beat well.
Shift gently Sweet Glutinous Rice Flour and baking powder and salt together.  (Be careful of the micro dust when shifting) 
Add to the batter.  
Preheat oven to 425'F. (*Gas oven)
Move the oven rack to the level two from the bottom.
Mix a bit with spatula, and add 1 Cup of milk as you go. Add another 1 Cup of milk.  Is it just right?  a Thick Pasty batter?  too dry, then, add a bit more - a tablespoon at a time.
Add to mini brownie mold.
Place the silicon mini brownie mold on top of dark light weight cookie sheet to hold the silicon mold over the gas oven grill while baking. (old cheap cookie sheet that turned dark will work perfectly) 
Drop the temp to 325'F and bake for 25 min.  But Check at 15 min with tooth pick.  If the MOCHI Cake looks nice and brown at the top and inserted tooth pick comes out dry - it's done.  If not, bake longer and check at 25 min. 
Serve at room temperature.
Top with chocolate chips or nuts or anything you like. 
Because the mini brownie mold is small, you can prepare a 13x9" cake pan or had to wait for the first group to finish baking to bake the second batch; unless, you have two or three cake mold.  It will be fund to bake in all different types of baking mold.  Just be aware of the baking time needed.  And prep the baking mold - coat it with butter/grease and flour.

 

 I should have used the 13x9" baking pan though.  It puffed up high, and as it cooled, it shrunk. Not in a bad way but it might have shrunk down more gracefully. Normally I use Avocado oil to cut down on the amount of 'butter' in my system, but the rich butter flavor with this one was really a hit at the office.

My New TAIYAKI Pastry Mold

I had this Japanese TAIYAKI pastry mold many many years ago.  Back in the 80's, it was a rare find.  There were not very many Japanese store or grocery stores in my area, except in San Francisco Japan town or may be in downtown San Jose.  The TAIYAKI pastry mold only had two fish shape in one mold.  In order to make 20 some TAIYAKI, it would take me close to 4 hours standing and making them.  Now we got so much options.  Local Japanese grocery stores and websites.  I found this particular mold at Amazon.  I was very doubtful about it because each TAI (the name of the fish - I think it's red snapper - the "red" signifies good luck) mold is only 2 inches long.  Compared to my original 4+ long TAIYAKIKUN.  But I need to be able to make it faster.  There are commercial type or electric home unit, but price goes up as the number of TAI mold per unit increase.
To my surprise, this TAIYAKI mold turned out pretty good.
This is my original mold.

 This is my new mold.

 Ingredients:  organic ingredients are up to the Cook
275 g Organic Cake Flour
1-1/2 tsp Baking Powder without Aluminum
2 Organic Eggs
80 g Organic Cane Sugar
1-1/2 C Organic Milk or 2% Lactose Free Milk or any milk
1/4 tsp Kosher Salt
1 can of ANKO - sweet  Red Bean Paste or freshly home prepared sweet Red bean "paste"

PREPARATION -
Stir ANKO to make the paste even.  Transfer into a pastry bag.
Shift flour and baking powder well. Add sugar and salt.  Add eggs, and milk.  Mix well until thick paste.

COOKING - 
Rub in some cooking oil with paper towel unless you own a Japanese oil brush while preheating the mold over medium low heat.  (I use gas range.)
This mold I purchased is coated, but I still coat it with cooking oil to make sure the good fish impression will be printed on the pastry.  *Do Not Use high heat.  *I am concerned with this Teflon or PTFE coated cookware, but I made sure that I cook with it a medium low heat.
Add 1 full teaspoon of batter into each mold.  Making sure there are batter at the fish tail, fins, and eye area.  Center should be quite 'hallow' to form a cavity to be filled with sweet filling.

Working quickly - Squeeze 1-1/2 tsp or use your eye to decide how much ANKO, the red bean paste, in the center.

 Then, quickly add another teaspoonful of batter on the top of the Red Bean.

Close the mold top.  Flip over.

 

Cook two minutes with mold seating at the center of the gas range.
Then, move the mold to right side or the left side to cook 1 minute each side to brown the pastry.
Then, Flip the mold and repeat the cooking process.
Be aware that this new 4 fish mold does not have a 'Stay' clip to keep the mold closed.  The Stay clip in the older mold keeps the hot air and make sure that flipped side batter would brown with good impression of the fish.  This new mold does not have the clip.  I find myself holding the mold closed to make sure the other side brown well with good fish impression.

A REMINDER - *Don't forget that the batter contain baking powder, with or without the 'stay' clip, the batter will swell.  If there are too much batter added to the either side, be aware that the batter would OVER FLOW out of the cooking mold.  Be prepared with moist towel and be ready to trim the extra woozed out batter off the sides of mold.  You will learn as you go how much batter to fill.

TO CHECK FOR DONENESS:  Open the mold slightly and you should be able to see the color of the TAIYAKI.  When beautiful.  While holding the mold handle closed, move it over to a cookie rack.
Open the mold handles.  Allow it to drop out gently onto the cookie rack or use a pointy chop stick and scrape the extra browned batter toward the edge or the center and try to pry the fish out and drop out gently onto the cookie rack.
Serve when it is cooled.
You can use a scissors to clip off the extra crispy attached.

*IMPORTANT Family Note:  Never allow someone to eat Hot MOCHI, hot baked sweet potato, hot TAIYAKI or anything with guey or with Filling.  The family member can burn their mouth or internal throat area badly.
This one could have a bit more filling adding.  Will do in the next batch.

 Time to pack up and ready for cookie exchange?

Tote them to the party in my favorite carry bag.  This aplat carry bag is made to carry 9x13 cake pan, etc, but I use it to carry any goodies that it can hold.

And if you hurry, they are having a holiday sales right now. 
https://aplat.com/