Halloween Decorated Sugar Cookies

Happy Halloween, dear readers!  This post is really just to say 'hey' on our favorite spooky holiday and to share some of the stuff my little girl and I have been churning out this month for a bake sale!  It's the reason behind the belated postings this month, please forgive!

That's right, it's our old favorite holiday cookie activity, making decorated sugar cookies to celebrate the day.  Previously we've made them for Xmas, Valentine's Day and Easter, and now, finally we made them for Halloween!  We're going to share some new cookie decorating tips we tried out that are totally right-on and also share the new royal icing recipe that we're using that totally upped our cookie game!

Papos Secos Portuguese Rolls

One fine day not long ago my hubby asked me if I knew how to make the kind of bread that is used for the famous Macau Pork Chop Bun 澳門豬扒包.  Pork Chop Bun is a super popular snack in Macau, consisting of a deliciously marinated fried pork chop placed inside a bun (locally called a piglet bun or 豬仔包) that is crispy on the outside and deliciously soft on the inside.  Macau's own version of the hamburger, lol.

I was so very tickled pink cuz hubby never asks me to make bread.  He just be weird like that.  So I dove into the research.  What was this mysterious bread that made the Macau pork chop bun so special?

It turns out, I believe, that this bread bun originated from the traditional Portuguese bread rolls called Papos Secos.  Makes sense, since Macau was a Portuguese colony for over 400 years. To test my theory, I made some papos secos and am quite pleased to report that if this bread isn't it, it's darn tootin' yummilicious enough to be it and more!  Bread that's crispy on the outside but oh so soft and luscious on the inside, we were hooked so hard on this bread at once.   And it's the perfect bread for sandwiching a pork chop or whatever else you want in your gosh darn sandwich.  And, ultimate proof of the pudding, hubby has asked for it again and again!

Hangzhou Pian Er Chuan Preserved Vegetable Noodles 片兒川

My hubby became enamoured of this humble little noodle dish after reading a story about the tennis player Wang Xinyu 王欣瑜.  When asked what her favorite food was, she wistfully replied that it was the noodle dish her grandparents always made for her when she visited.

And there it was, that invisible yet undeniable connection between yummilicious food and love.  The amore each of us put into the food we make for our loved ones, unconsciously connecting us together through time and distance.

So what is this favorite noodle dish of Wang Xinyu then?  It is the classic Hangzhou Pian Er Chuan Preserved Vegetable Noodles 片兒川, a specialty of the Hangzhou 杭州 city in Zhejiang 浙江 province (my mama's province!)  Think sliced bamboo shoots, sliced marinated pork, preserved vegetables topping silky noodles in a rich aromatic broth...nom, nom, nom!  Very delicious and easy to make!

Tokyo Yakiniku Yazawa Grilled Wagyu Beef

Dear readers, a Wandering Eats post!  We took our little girl to Tokyo this summer, her first time.  What a city, a city amongst cities, a queen bee for sure!  The Blade Runner energy of it all was something to feel and see!

And the eats. Omgosh, we ate and ate and then ate some more.  Everything was so frick'in-liciously good.  One of the highlights was the grilled wagyu beef restaurant that we found one late night.  Oh my, oh my, seriously AMAZING just melt in the mouth beef-y feast of the ages!

Dubai Chocolate Mooncake 杜拜朱克力月餅

Yeah, yeah, I know.  It's Dubai Chocolate again.  Obssessed much, lol?!  But, seriously, how could I resist?  After successfully making homemade kadayif noodles, pistachio cream and then the gorgeous Dubai Chocolate Mousse Cake, we were pretty much over the moon with how well our efforts came out.  And with our favorite festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival 中秋節, just around the corner, well, isn't Dubai Chocolate just the perfect match for a mooncake filling?!  

Our Dubai Chocolate Mooncakes 杜拜朱克力月餅 are filled with nutty, crunchy pistachio kadayif cream at the heart of a chocolate flavored bean paste, all encased in delicate traditional patterned mooncake skins.  So pretty and oh so delicious!  My little girl ate all my first batch already, hehe!

Dried Krill Seaweed Soup 銀蝦紫菜湯

Chinese soups are wonderfully healthy and yummy.  Did you know that there are all different sorts of Chinese soups?  There are the long cook kinds of soup where a lot of ingredients are slowly simmered over many hours to a rich, health enhancing and savoury perfection.  So good!  There are also the nourishing soups that are specific to tweaking the balance of your body.  And then there are the soups that you can make quick and easy, on a daily basis, to augment your daily meal and comfort your soul.

This soup one is one of the latter.  Fast, super healthy and yummilicious.  And so satisfying!  My hubby's crazy easy to make but oh so super delicious Dried Krill Seaweed Soup 銀蝦紫菜湯.  Total soup-iliciously nom nom territory!

Dubai Chocolate Mousse Cake

We took the elements of the trendy Dubai Chocolate Bar and transformed them into a most fabulous Dubai Chocolate Mousse Cake!  Two special fillings, a layer of crunchy, nutty vibrant pistachio kadayif cream and a layer of airy, rich chocolate mousse are encased inside layers of a moist chocolatey chocolate cake, all of which are lovingly frosted with a chocolate ganache frosting.  OMgoshdarnit...can you tell that we love, love, love our chocolate, lol?!

Homemade Kadayif Noodles

Round and round and round we go...  These are the delicate paths we follow to the making our own Homemade Kadayif Noodles!  And just what are these kadayif noodles, you may be asking?  

Well, have you ever heard of 'Dubai Chocolate'?   Ever tasted the creamy, crunchy pistachio filling in a Dubai Chocolate?  Well, you need these fine kadayif noodles if you're going to get that exquisite crunch!  My little girl introduced me to Dubai Chocolate and we quickly became hooked onto that incredibly nutty, creamy, crunchy pistachio filling inside the chocolate.  We wanted to try making it at home!

We soon realized that, while pistachio is fairly easy to obtain, pre-made kadayif noodles are 1) hard to obtain and 2) kinda expensive.  Luckily, after some research, we realized that these delicate kadayif noodles can be made at home with a wee bit of effort and time!

Pistachio Kadayif Cream Filling

Can you guess what this is?  It's something that you've definitely heard of before, if not seen, if not tasted!  This is a part, the most important part IMHO, of the latest, greatest food wave that's been going, well, around the world really.  I was hesitant at first to try it, thinking it was just a fad that would fade before two blinks of the eye.  But it didn't, of course, and my darling little girl finally persuaded me to spend a pretty penny to buy a bar of the famous "Dubai Chocolate."  This pistachio filled chocolate bar was, to my surprise, really quite unique and OMgosh totally delious!

And what is the most important part of the Dubai Chocolate Bar?  Well, it's the utterly unctuous Pistachio Kadayif Cream, of course, as shown in the photo above.  This gorgeously green creamy filling combines the buttery, nutty, slightly sweet lusciousness of ground pistachio nuts in a delightful contrast with the crisp crunch of the fine kadayik dough strands.  This nutty and creamy filling is the heavenly contrast to chocolate that makes the Dubai Chocolate so irresistible!

Nom, nom, nom, and just like that we were hooked!  But, woozer, the 'Dubai Chocolate' anythings sure are expensive!  So we found out, with a bit of research, that you can make Pistachio Kadayif Cream at home with just a wee bit of time and effort.  (And with that creamy filling we went on to make a Dubai Chocolate Pistachio Cake, omgoshdarnitall, to die for, check it out!) 

Shallot Infused Oil 红葱油

This simple flavor infused oil is something that we happened upon accidentally as a consequence of making my favorite cold Chinese noodle dish, the deceptively simple yet delicious Shanghai Spring Onion Scallion Noodles 葱油拌面.  Omgosh, how I love, love, love these noodles!

Anyhoo, after making these noodles we were left with the oil used for frying the spring onions and shallots.  And discovered to our delight how utterly fragrant and yummilicious this infused oil was! 

Ever since then we've kept a jar of either spring onion or shallot infused oil in our kitchen at all times!  Today we're making Shallot Infused Oil 红葱油, a subtly sweet, garlicky and oniony fragrant oil that we use to drizzle over finished dishes to add that final extra flavor layer or simply to make the most delicious stir fry with.  Oh man, oh man what a game changer this shallot infused oil is!