~: Roselle Flower Tea (洛神花茶)

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Roselle Flower Tea (洛神花茶)

I have seen this fresh Roselle Flower during one of my previous trip at Desaru Farm. The Chinese Medical Hall sell the dry version. At times, it is pre-pack with some other type of herb as well.

While browsing the vegetable stall at the wet market this morning, I come across the fresh Roselle Flowers. Going at 100 grams for S$0.50. The lady boss told me is good for lowering cholesterol level. Since I have not taste it before, I decide to give it a try.

You have to remove the fruits from the flower bulb. Put one pot of water to boil with the flower bulb. After 25 mins, you will notice the flower bulb turned to pale transparent colour. The water appears as purple. Now, you can add rock sugar to your taste.

It taste a bit sour, similar to Blackcurrant or the Ribena drink. Wonder if Ribena did extract from this Roselle Flower.

Tips from Ai See - Not to waste the flower bulb after boil. Add spoonful of sugar and made it into jam. I shall try the next round.

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English-Chinese Flour Glossary

1) Low-protein flour/ cake flour
低筋麵粉 [Chinese]
Hakurikiko 薄力粉 [Japanese]
Notes: wheat flour, 6-8% protein
Cake Flour is a superb quality, soft-as-silk flour. It has excellent tolerance to a high amount of butter and sugar, resulting in cakes of good volume. This flour is best used for baking sponge cakes and very rich cakes like pound cakes.

2) Medium-protein flour/ all-purpose flour
中筋麵粉 [Chinese]
Notes: wheat flour, 10-12% protein
Plain Flour is an all-purpose flour, best used for making cakes, pancakes, pastries, batter and as a thickener. This flour is also ideal for Oriental specialities like Chinese dumpling (bao), Chinese dough fritters (yu tiao) and roti prata.

3) High-protein flour/ bread flour
高筋麵粉 [Chinese]
Notes: wheat flour, 13%-14% protein
Bread Flour is a high-protein flour, ideal for making all varieties of bread, buns

4) Self-Raising Flour
Self-Raising Flour is a premium quality flour blended with the right amount of leavening agents. It is best suited for baking cakes, hot cakes such as American pancakes and cookies. It is also excellent as a batter for frying chicken, fish, prawns and banana fritters.
1 cup self-raising flour = 1 cup cake flour + 1 tsp baking powder + pinch of salt

5) Superlite / Hong Kong Flour
Superlite is a super soft flour. It is best used for making Hong Kong type steamed buns (bao), Japanese castella cake, Malay sponge cake (kueh baulu) and others where a specially soft and light texture is required.

6) Top Flour
Top Flour is an extra-fine quality flour to give exceptionally smooth and fine texture for your baking needs. It is especially ideal for baking very fine cakes; such as chiffon cakes, swiss rolls, crepes, cake doughnuts and butter cookies

7) Wheat starch
澄麵粉 [Cant.] tung mein fun
澄粉 [Mand.] deng4 fen3
Suitable for making chinese dim sum like prawn dumpling (ha kau), nian gao and turnip cake

8) Glutinous rice flour/ sweet rice flour
糯米粉 [Chinese]
Shiratamako 白玉粉 [Japanese]
It becomes thick when mixed with water and heated. Chinese dim sum and local desserts made from glutinous flour are smooth and shiny.
Notes: Cooked, or dry-fried, glutinous rice flour is sold as a different product called 熟糯米粉／糕粉 gao fun [Cant.]. According to Kuali.com, “You can dry-fry glutinous rice flour yourself but it will not be as fine as the commercialised kao fun. Those that are imported from China are very fine. Try looking for this item in provision shops around your area.”Cooked glutinous flour used for making Snow Skin - Ping Pei (chilled) mooncakes and banana rolls

9) Rice flour
粘米粉／黏米粉／在來米粉／在萊米粉／再來米粉 [Chinese]
Jyoshinko　上新粉 [Japanese]
Used frequently in chinese dim sum like turnip cake and yam cake, and local desserts like kuih lapis and kuih talam.

10) Corn flour/ cornstarch
生粉 [Cant.]
粟粉／粟米粉／玉米粉／玉米澱粉
Corn flour is very useful for gluten-free quick breads. As a thickener, having double the thickening properties of regular flour. It is widely used for thickening sauces, gravies, and puddings

11) Water chestnut flour
馬蹄粉 [Chinese]
Its best uses are similar to those for corn-starch, e.g., as a thickener and breading material. It is mixed with a small amount of water before being added to the hot mixture to be thickened.

12) Tapioca flour
樹薯粉／木薯粉／茨粉／(菱粉／泰國生粉／太白粉／地瓜粉)
Consumed as a vegetable, or used in bread baking or as a thickening agent in liquid foods, custards, puddings etc. When cooked, tapioca swells into a pale, translucent jelly.
Malaysians use this flour frequently in kuih making, e.g. kuih bangkit, kuih bongkong and onde-onde.

13) Potato flour
生粉／太白粉
Katakuriko 片栗粉
Gives smooth and transparent result when used as thickener in soups or sauces. Sauces thickened with potato starch turns thinner after cooling.

14) Sweet Potato flour
番茨粉
蕃薯粉 fan1 shu3 fen3
地瓜粉 di4 gua1 fen3
Normally used as thickener and in making of chinese dim sum.
Gives crispy skin when used as coating of fried food.

15) Soya bean flour (toasted)
Kinako きな粉
Soy flour turns up in an amazing array of food products, including fudge and other candies, pies, doughnuts, cakes and rolls, pasta, pancake mixes and frozen desserts. Some meat loaves and other prepared meat products use soy flour. Baked products containing soy flour tend to brown more quickly, so it may be necessary to shorten baking time or lower the temperature just slightly.

16) Sago flour
沙谷粉
Used as thickener or Kueh Bangkit

17) Arrowroot flour
葛粉
Kuzuko葛粉
Used in diets requiring bland, low-salt, and low-protein foods. It is, however, mostly used as a thickening agent for sauces, fruit pie fillings, glazes, puddings, but can also be used as a flour substitute mixed with rice flour for gluten-free baking.

18) Mugwort flour
Yomogiko 蓬粉
A flour used in making in sai biang, molded steamed cakes served in celebration of certain Chinese festivals.

19) Hoen Kwe flour, Green bean flour, Mung bean flour
Commonly used in making Malaysian kuihs (like pandan layer cake, cendol) and Indonesian desserts.

Baker's percentage

As long as you're making the same bread, no matter how much you want to bake, you may easily calculate the amount of each ingredient with baker's percentage method. To determine the baker's percentage, the weight of flour is always set at 100%. All ingredients are measured by their weight in relation to that of flour. The total must add up to over 100%.

Example :

Calculate the baker's percentage according to the amount listed in a recipe.
Baker's percentage = (weight of a certain ingredient / weight of flour) x 100

Flour - 1000 g (100%)
Sugar - 30 g (30/1000 x 100) = 3%
Egg - 200 g ( 200 / 1000 x 100) = 20%
Sea Salt - 10 g (10/1000 x 100) = 1%
Yeast - 30 g (30/1000 x 100) = 3%

Based on the above percentage and re-compute the weight of each ingredients.

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Saturday, August 15, 2009