Ma Lai Gao is a steamed sponge cake, normally found in Dim Sum restaurants.

Good Ma Lai Gao should be light, airy and fluffy. It should be bouncy to the touch with no fancy additions of embellishments or toppings.

This Ma Lai Gao is pillowy soft, fluffy and has a springy texture. It is light and spongy and lightly sweetened.

Ma Lai Gao can be served hot, warm or at room temperature. Unfinished cake can be kept in the fridge, simply refresh it by steaming it for a few minutes.

These miniature pancakes are also known as Silver Dollar Pancakes.

Silver Dollar Pancakes are a stack of small pancakes, originally targeted at children.

Fresh blueberries are in season, toss some blueberries into these traditional pancakes for a fresh and tangy taste.

These pancakes are tender, light and eggy. They may be small in size but big in taste.

Serve them with any toppings: butter, golden or maple syrup, fruits, bacons, sausages, ham etc.

They can also be used as a base for savoury appetizers or sweet desserts.

Tau Kwa Pau – Fried Beancurd stuffed with a variety of chopped ingredients and served with a dollop of braised duck gravy.

This traditional hawker snack are normally sold in Teochew Braised Duck stalls. However, this is a food item that you don’t find readily in modern Singapore. Hence, not many people know of or have eaten it before.

Needless to say, the chopped ingredients used to stuff the Tau Kwa Pau are food items sold at these stalls.

I have tried this dish several times over the years. Based on my memories, I try to recreate the nolstagic flavours of this dish at home.

Recreating a hawker dish can be daunting because most of these dishes are labourious and time consuming to prepare. Sometimes these dishes are not just difficult to cook, there are also limited informations about them.

Soft beancurds are lightly fried till golden in colour. Ingredients such as braised duck, braised eggs, fish cake and vegetables are chopped into small chunks and stuffed generously into the beancurd. I served them with a splash of braised sauce and freshly made chilli sauce on the side.

The crunchy vegetables, soft beancurd, eggs, duck meat provide a contrast in taste and texture and bursting of flavours in every bite.

Although these Tau Kwa Pau don’t taste exactly like the one I tried, but they are seriously delicious.

Yummy once-a-year treat.

Nian Gao (年糕 – 年高) or New Year Cake symbolizes 年年高升, which means May you achieve greater heights every year.

Nian Gao is a sticky chewy cake made of brown sugar and glutinous rice and steamed in a banana leaves lined mold.

There are many ways to eat Nian Gao, but I am used to pan frying sliced nian gao with a simple flour batter.

Gao 糕 (Cake) sounds like 高 (Tall) in Chinese, hence these cakes represent growth and achievement in the new year.

Today is Chinese New Year eve, here’s wishing everyone a Happy and Prosperous Lunar New Year.

恭祝你新年快乐，步步高(糕)升。恭喜恭喜!

Fried Prawn Ladle Cake or Cucur Udang is a type of street snack. There are many variations, some make it with diced prawns, turnips, carrots, bean sprouts etc and mix all of these into the batter before deep-frying.

My version here is just tossing a handful of chopped scallions into the batter and placing a whole prawn over the top.

I am not a big fan of deep-frying, in fact I am fry-o-phobic. The sputtering oil, the scalding temperature and the lingering smell are intimidating. However, deep-fried food are universally appealing.

Deep-frying imparts a crispy and tasty flavour, like this golden bowl-shaped snacks. They get snapped up fast and are sinfully delicious.

Burned three fingers while deep-frying these. Cooking is not an easy task, from the planning, marketing, preparing to the cooking. We often spent hours to cook and clean up but lesser time eating.

These are fried spring rolls with shattering crispy skin and filled with crunchy vegetables, dried shrimps and pork.

Spring Rolls are great as appetizers and snacks. They are festive essential – a symbol of prosperity due to their resemblance to gold bars.

Chinese like to eat Spring Rolls during Chinese New Year as a way of welcoming the arrival of Spring.

Make extras and keep them in the freezer, and fry them whenever needed.

Most people have tried Fried carrot cake or Chai Tow Kway as this is a popular hawker food. Have you tried this deep-fried version?

This version is a common street snack known mostly to older generation of Singaporeans. It has become a rarity in modern days.

Radish cake is made of radish and not carrot. The main ingredients of radish cake are radish and rice flour, this mixture is steamed in block, then cut into smaller pieces and deep-fry till golden in colour. Deep-frying gives the cake a golden crust.

Traditional deep-fried radish cakes are rectangular or triangular shapes. There are some innovative hawkers who cut it into sticks/fingers, making them look like local French Fries.

Unlike commercial ones, my version here has a delicate sweet taste of radish. They are cut into mini triangular shapes and deep fried till crispy on the outside and soft and chewy inside.

This homemade delicacy is a savoury and sinful treat.

As a self-taught home cook, I cannot remember how many times I tried making this. I was determined to learn to cook this, not only because this is one of my favourite food but also because good traditional food are slowly disappearing.

This is one of those versatile food that you can eat for breakfast, as a snack or even serve as a light lunch.

A good yam cake should be light and fluffy and filled with chunks of yam in every bite. A feature of home-made yam cake is you get lots and lots of yam chunks, you have the luxury to add more condiments such as dried shrimps, dried mushroom and Chinese sausages.

Although I have since learnt to make this cake successfully, I made this normally around Chinese New Year. This is one of those Chinese New Year food that you can prepare in advance and consume during those busy days of hosting or visiting friends, and when you are too tired to cook.

This is truly a local delicacy.