Cassava Cream With Crab, a Soup

Ingredients

1 lb cassava
3 cups chicken stock or vegetable stock
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
3/4 lb crabmeat
olive oil

Directions

1. Peel the cassava, cut it in small pieces and cook it in water until soft. When it's soft, mash it, mixing it with the stock little by little. A mixture or a food processor gives excellent results. Use the clearest, best quality stock you can.
2. Meanwhile, steam some crab – use water with some lemon. Or, just use flaked crab meat. Make sure there are no cartilage pieces.
3. Season the cassava in stock, now add the crab meat. Let the crabmeat heat up in the hot soup. Pour into a tureen or individual bowls, and sprinkle with salt and pepper and a few drops of olive oil.

Serves 6 -8

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Curried Cassava and Crab pasteles

FOR THE PASTELES (CRAB CAKES):
1 cup crab meat, frozen OR canned
1/4 pound cassava (a root; also called yuca), peeled, boiled and grated OR ground
1 green pepper, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1/4 tablespoon curry powder
2 tablespoons lemon juice
6 tablespoons mayonnaise
Salt and pepper
1/8 cup all purpose flour
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup bread crumbs
Peanut oil (for frying)
FOR THE PIQUILLO RED PEPPER SAUCE:
2 ounces Spanish pimientos, finely chopped
4 ounces mayonnaise
FOR THE PAPAYA AND MANGO CHUTNEY:
1/2 cup finely chopped mango pulp
1/2 cup finely chopped papaya
1 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon white vinegar
Tabasco sauce to taste
TO SERVE:
Assorted salad greens, like arugula, romaine and Boston lettuce, shredded
Rosemary sprig

TO PREPARE THE PASTELES:
Combine crab, cassava, green pepper and garlic, in a mixing bowl. Mix well. Add curry, lemon juice and mayonnaise. Season with salt and pepper.

Have ready a dish with flour, a bowl with the beaten egg and another tray with the bread crumbs. With your hands, form 4 rectangular cakes or pasteles.

Coat pasteles with flour; dip in egg and coat with bread crumbs. Refrigerate, covered, for 1 hour.

Fry pasteles in peanut oil in a deep skillet or frying pan, over high heat, until golden on both sides. Remove carefully with a slotted spatula and drain on paper towels. Place pasteles in a baking dish.

Bake in a preheated 325-degree F oven 6 minutes. Keep warm.

TO PREPARE THE PIQUILLO RED PEPPER SAUCE:
Mix chopped pimientos and mayonnaise well in a mixing bowl.

TO PREPARE THE PAPAYA AND MANGO CHUTNEY:
Mix all chutney ingredients well in a mixing bowl.

TO SERVE:
In center of serving plates, place about 1/2 cup assorted salad greens. Add one pastel on top and top with Chutney. Pour Red Pimiento Sauce on plate, around pastel. Decorate with a rosemary sprig.

Makes 4 servings

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Cassava leaves with Salted Fish (Peda)

In my childhood I have a favorite dishes my mom usually made. Luckily, my wife still remember the recipe for this dish, so I gone to local market first thing on the morning. I found out that cassava leaves has a several kind to choose, so I must pick the right one which will be tendered after cooking.
So lets get down to the business:

Ingredients
1 med-sized Salted Fish (Peda)
1 bunch of Cassava Leaves, pick the greener one
Banana leaves for wrapping

Spices
5 Red Onions
4 Onions
1 Big Red Chilli
10 Chillies
3 Tomatoes
5 Sour Starfruit (Belimbing wuluh)
1 tsp Salt and Sugar
Seasoning

Cooking process

1. Wash the Cassava leaves firmly, add some salt and mix them well.
2. Sliced Salted fish for 4-5 parts.
3. Chopped the Spices, then put into a bowl, add salt, sugar and seasoning. Mix them well.
4. Put most of the Cassava leaves on top of Banana leaves, then put the mixed spices and salted fish. Cover it using the rest of Cassava leaves, and then wrap the Banana leaves.
5. Steam it for 1 hour.
6. After the dish is well cooked, serve it with warm rice.

Enjoy

served 4

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Tapioca Cookies

A light and melt-in-the-mouth cookie often served during all sorts of festivals in Southeast Asia. Although many have decided to buy the festive cookie from bakeries or supermarkets, the home-made ones still taste the best. The cookie-making scene is what I missed most about every Chinese New Year. Here is a low sugar version of my mum's original recipe.

Ingredients:

1. 600 gm tapioca flour, and some extra for lining purposes
2. 3 pandan leaves, roughly cut into 3-inch length pieces
3. 4 egg yolks
4. 150 gm castor sugar
5. 250 ml neat coconut milk (from 1 1/2 coconut)
6. 1 1/2 tablespoon/25gm margarine (or vegetable butter)

Preparation:

1. Heat oven to 170C.
2. Heat a clean wok or a large saucepan, and stir in the tapioca flour and the cut pandan leaves. Keep stirring the flour on low heat till it is dry and feeling light.
3. Leave flour to cool down to room temperature, and sieve into a large mixing bowl.
4. Beat egg yolk with castor sugar, till all sugar is dissolved and mixture thickens. Pour the mixture into the flour, little by little, and mix well.
5. Now pour the coconut milk, little by little again, into the flour mixture, and knead into soft dough.
6. Take a handful of the dough, roll it out to about 5mm- to 7mm-thick, and cut it into small diamond-shapes (about 2x2cm). Alternatively, you can use a dough cutter. See Versatility Note for traditional method.
7. Place shaped dough in a shallow baking tray lightly lined with some extra raw tapioca flour, and bake for about 20-30 minutes.

Versatility Note:

1. Most Asians will use a specially designed mold (looks somewhat like a fancy ice tray) to shape each biscuit (as shown in picture). To do this, sprinkle raw tapioca flour over the shaped molds, stuff and press dough into each shape, then turn it over and knock it against a strong, hard surface, to get the dough out in respective shape.
2. When placing dough in the baking tray, arrange them at least 0.5 inch from each other. This is to prevent the biscuits from joining each other and becoming one big piece, because the dough may rise and expand.
3. This is a sugar-reduced version of the original recipe. So if you really want it sweeter, increase the amount of sugar to your taste.

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Tapioca Jell-O Dessert

This recipe is quite refreshing, and comes in really handy when you have a lot of left-over mandarin oranges from Chinese New Year. You can also buy those canned mandarin oranges, if you are too busy, or if it is not a mandarin oranges season.

Ingredients:

1. 2 packets tapioca pudding mix
2. 1 (3oz.) box of orange jelly mix
3. 2 2/3 cups water
4. 1 tube (8oz.) Cool Whip whipped cream
5. 2 mandarin oranges, peeled and separated

Preparation:

1. Place tapioca mix, orange jelly mix and water in a small pot, bring to a boil, and cook till it thickens; stir constantly.
2. Remove from heat while continue to stir constantly, let it cool down.
3. When it is cool, mix in the whipped cream and mandarin oranges and transfer into dessert bowls.
4. Place them in the refrigerator to set.

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