sorry, i'm unable to phonetically spell out the name of this cake in the romanised form i'd learnt in college. it's only been 3 years but i've long forgotten it. talk about short-term memory. anyway, i'll make a bold attempt to explain the 4 really weird sounding words. if you break them up individually and literally, they are "water", "steam", "egg", and "cake". get it?
it's one of my "fun" projects this week, scanning the web for "oriental" recipes on "non-oriental" websites. this dessert is apparently a favourite among the cantonese speakers hence the cantonese name. it's not baked but steamed instead, as with most chinese cakes. didn't know what to expect but the pictures posted on the website were fairly attractive. so i tried it and i wasn't disappointed. the cake turned out really soft and spongy and once i popped a slice in my mouth, the familiarity just hit home through my taste buds down my esophagus to a very welcoming and deprived stomach.
this is what my family calls "goy nng kueh" in hokkien (literally, "chicken egg cake"). it's usually used for praying purposes along with it's darker cousin the "huat guay" (a.k.a. "prosperous kueh"). you see them with a dot of red food colouring sold pretty often in the markets. one my favourite aunts make these delicious things by hand (?!) but i'd chickened out and opted for the trusty mixer. (no serena williams' arms thank you very much!) should have taken another photo to show you guys how spongy it was, but the cake didn't last long between hao-e and i. it was gone in less than 10 hours - hao-e ate it for supper and breakfast!
3.5 more working days. my mind is on holiday! last evening's kickboxing class totally killed me! i huffed and puffed and threatened to punch my imaginary opponent senseless, but in the end, it was i that suffered, not the air molecules that got knocked around. my body is aching like a 90-year-old who's just completed 100 push-ups. i couldn't sleep last night because of the pain. i had to wake hao-e up to massage my shoulder-blades which were so sore and is still kicking up a ruckus behind me. my gosh! i tis old and feeble.
Comments