Shopping at Kwong Cheong Thye - Where to locate Moon cake Paste / Moon cake ingredients, Sichuan Pepper, Osmanthus in Singapore

After reading some really good reviews about the shop on the Moon Cake ingredients, I decided to explore the shop in Geylang during my trip to Singapore.

The shop is operated from Monday to Saturday from 9.30am to 5.30pm.

It is easy to walk to the shop once you reach Aljunied MRT station. According to the google map, it is a 5 minutes walk.

How to go to Kwong Cheong Thye via Aljunied mrt station

I have a good first impression of the shop, they do have various moon cake paste, the moon cake ingredients, mold and packaging. It is a good 1 stop shop if you would like to obtain all your moon cake ingredients.

The moon cake paste start with 1kg. I have tried to ask for smaller 500gram packaging however it was not available. The sales mention that the smaller packaging would normally be available close to the moon cake festival period.

In addition, to their moon cake paste, they have a wide array of their home brand soya sauce and paste for cooking. I finally found my Sichuan pepper which I had search high and low for this spices - I could include this herbs in my Salted Egg recipe next time!

Below are my shopping haul. Others shop for cloths and beauty products and got excited, while my excitement comes from buying special or hard to find ingredients =P

Cost about SGD60++ . I had to get the black sesame seed as it smells so good. I also bought 2 types of dried orange for my exploration later.

Moon cake paste - Low sugar White Lotus Paste and Low Sugar Green Tea Paste - Cost about SGD16-17 each

Though my intention was to buy moon cake paste only, I ended up buying the Light soya sauce and Cili Paste. Separately during my trip, i also bought the Rice Viniger from Korean Shops

Osmanthus, Dried Orange Skin, Sichuan pepper

Electric Lunch Box Recipe: Steamed Egg Custard

The instruction is obtained from the Empress Electric Lunch Box manual. Just in case you have lost the manual, you may refer to the below guide.

Steamed Egg Custard Recipe
1. Break the eggs into the plate and mix evenly.
2. Add proportionate amount of water and salt, and keep stirring in one direction until small bubbles appear in the mixture.

Amount	Water Volume for cooking (in th estainless steel container) ml	Water volume for steaming (in the main unit)	Time
2 eggs	150	200	12

It says in the manual to steam for 12 minutes. However I steam the eggs at the same time as I steam the rice for 30 minutes which does not affect the texture of the steam eggs =)

Electric Lunch Box recipe: How to cook hard boiled eggs

The recipe is obtained from the Empress Electric Lunch box manual.

There is an egg holder provided in the lunch box.

Amount	Water volume for steaming (in the main unit)	Time
5 eggs	200	25

Place the eggs in the egg holder and put in into the main unit

Cover with the upper lid and steam.

Electric Lunch Box Recipe: How to measure and cook rice

How to cook 1 serving/portion of rice by steaming in a kuali or electric lunch box

I took this from the instruction manual as I find the guide useful. I have tried using both the electric lunch box and the conventional kuali for steaming the rice for single/small portion which works for me! I find the method great as previously I had to use a Rice Cooker and their minimum cooking portion is intended for 2 person. Thus there will be times when there are leftover rice and I had to keep it in the fridge which could be troublesome and unhealthy.

With this method, I could cook rice for 1 person only.

Steps for steaming the rice using the Empress Electric Lunch Box.
1. Measure the rice in the measuring cup provided. I use mine from the Empress Electric Lunch box. The cup size measures 100gram of rice. Fill the rice to the RIM. Not lesser and not more.

2. Place the washed rice in the 1.2Lt stainless steel container and add water.

Below are the guide. I find that the 100gram rice is adequate for 1 person.

Rice (cup)s = grams	Water Volume for cooking (in th estainless steel container) ml	Water volume for steaming (in the main unit)	Time
100g	150	160	30
200g	270	180	40
300g	370	190	45
400g	440	200	60

3. Place 1.2Lt stainless steel container into the Main unit. Pour the water as per column 3 above and close the lid. Switch on the electric and cook as per timing provided in column 4 above.



Steps for steaming the rice using conventional steamer or kuali

Rice (cup)s = grams	Water Volume for cooking (in th estainless steel container) ml	Time
100g	150	30
200g	270	40
300g	370	45
400g	440	60

1. If cooking for 1 person, Follow the 100gram guide as per above chart with 150ml water and put it in a large bowl. I tested using stainless steel bowl and it works.
2. Put in your steamer and steam for 30min.

Electric lunch box recipe: Steam chicken recipe (fast, simple, time saving method for single portion serving)

Steam chicken recipe
The most common, simple and prepping in advance that I could think of is steam chicken. I would go to the market, buy a whole chicken, ask the butcher to cut into small pieces and de-skin if possible. When I get home, I would clean and remove any fat that is left.

Next I would put two small pieces/one medium size chicken into small containers. Pour the seasoning and ginger then freeze. When I need to pack my lunch, I would just put the container into my lunch box and go to work without further prepping.

This method involve some work during the initial prepping time but it's so much easy and time saving during packing the lunch box. I would prep during the weekend and by Sunday evening, my freezer would be pack with various small containers!

This recipe is also very convenient for prepping a quick lunch or dinner at home.

Below are my suggested recipe whereby it will taste fragrant and salty as I would omit heavy seasoning for vegetable when paired together.

If you are living alone with minimal seasoning on hand, you could even just season with salt and soya sauce. You may tweak as it is a versatile recipe.

Recipe in each container:
Hua tiao chew 2 tablespoon (or replace with brands chicken essence)
Soya sauce 1/2 tsp
Salt - a pinch
Ginger slices - to taste about 2 tsp
Red dates 2 pcs- slice into smaller pieces (optional)
Wolfberry seed 1 tsp (optional)

Steps
Put all the above into the container with chicken. Cover and freeze it. Pack with lunch box or steam it straight from the freezer by transferring to a small bowl and steam in your Kuali.

ZWILLING J.A. Henckels TWIN Signature 6-pc Knife Block Set unboxing

Finally my knife set has arrived after a very long wait from mysale.

So here goes the picture of the unboxing.

About the set:TWIN Signature is ZWILLING J.A. HENCKELS stamped line, offering sharpness to the aspiring cook. Precision stamped from one piece of ZWILLING Special Formula Steel. FRIODUR® ice-hardened blades guarantee optimal balance of hardness, toughness, and corrosion resistance. Hand sharpened and polished, laser controlled edge. The result; knives that start sharper and stay sharper longer. Ergonomic designed three rivet, full tang handle features a ZWILLING J.A. HENCKELS logo.

Box front - explain about the knife. It mention that knives are manufactured in Germany

Side of the box 1

Side of the box where there are description of the contet. Notice that it says knives are made in Germany, kitchen shears and block made in China and sharpening steel made in Taiwan

Let's unbox! What is inside?

content of box

10 hole knife block

My new toys unbox

It include a warranty card that says lifetime warranty

Instruction manual

I am so happy that I finally bought the knife set after many years of waiting! Btw an interesting fact is that the authorise dealer of zwilling offers free sharpening service! 

Red bean bread recipe

I got this recipe when I attended bread classes. The dough is called sweet bread and you could use it for various combination with hotdog, chicken floss, tuna and cheese.

Today I use it on the ready made red bean so that I could enjoy red bean bread. I found this nice and not too sweet red bean paste at Bake with Yen. On the package it also state that there is less sugar. It only cost rm6++ I will definitely purchase it again.

Hoy Kee Food Industries Sdn Bhd - Low sugar red bean paste. The company is located in Semenyih Selangor. I bought the paste in Bake With Yen.

I notice on the packaging of the Hoy Kee Food packaging, they also have the following paste flavors:
white lotus paste, white bean, pandan lotus paste, lotus paste and pandan bean paste.

For both the sweet bread and red bean I made some modification. I wanted to incorporate black sesame seed and wholemeal flour into the sweet bread dough. As for the red bean, I added toasted white sesame seed as I love the combination of both flavours.

Sweet bread recipe (Make about 18 pcs of bread)

Group A

1. Bread flour/high protein flour 400g

2. Sesame powder 50g (replace with point 1 if unavailable) 

3.Wholemeal flour 50g (replace with point 1 if unavailable)

4. Sugar 75g

6. Salt 5g

7. Yeast 15g

8. Cold water 125g

9. Ice 125g - purpose is to slow down the bread from rising to give you more time to shape the bread.

10. Bread improver 7.5g

Group B 

Melted butter 75g

Steps

-Mix A till the dough can be stretch a bit. This take some practice. Important is to mix at low speed using stand mixer. In between scrap and mix dough evenly. It took me about half an hour.

-Mix B into A. Also at low speed and careful not to overmix. The texture of the dough is soft and elastic. To test if it is ready, pinch a small amount of dough and stretch it to test for window pane test.

-divide the dough into 50g++ ball.

-Put in the red bean paste and shape to a bun/flower.
-Let the bread rest for 40 min. You may spray some water to help the bread rise intermittently.
-Bake in a 175 degree oven for 20min.

Divide the dough into 50gram each

Red bean paste
Ready made red bean paste 500g
Toasted sesame seed (optional) 20g

Just mix the paste and the seed. Divide into 18 portion/28g each.

You may end up using more of the red bean paste if you like more filling. If that is the case, I mix 100g of red bean with 4g of toasted sesame seed.

Shaping the bread
1. Flatten the dough. Put the red bean at the centre and roll into a ball.
2. Flatten the ball and put on the tray line with non stick parchment paper.
3. Use a knife to slit 5 line like a shape of a flower
4. Lift up the flower petal and twist two times. Twist all 5 petals.
5. Spray some water and decorate with some toasted sesame seed.

If you wanted a shortcut or you are press for time, you could always just stop at point 1, spray some water on the bun and decorate with sesame seed. As shaping 18 piece of bread does take up some of the prep time.

Shaping of the bread in progress.