Category: Blog

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Curry Puff

Would you love the juicy curry potatoes in the curry puffs of the 60s and 70s ? Well I do …

Would you love the chunky curry chicken pieces in the curry puffs of the 60s and 70s ? Well I sure do too …

The easy way to have good curry puffs, ONLY if you reside in Singapore, call my friend Mr Ting at 91470462, he delivers free if you give him a big order … 🙂 seriously he does a pretty mean puff and I do not get a commission, just sharing a good puff that I found.

Juicy Curry Puff
Juicy Curry Puff

Today’s curry puffs have gone in many directions and varieties, haven’t they? We have some who have factorize their operations … by factorize, I don’t mean the mathematics kind, I merely borrowed the pun for referring to the factory production process of most of my favorite snacks of the 60s and 70s.

There is nothing wrong, I guess with ‘factorize’ IF, and that would be a BIG ‘IF’ they had kept up with their quality. I like mine with a balance aroma of curry spices and juicy fillings. Most of what I could now find are usually rather dry on the inside; either because they are not fresh or the new production process had altered their original flavors.

One new thing I do like, of today’s curry puffs are the layered crispy skin style. I know some traditional folks out there would prefer the non layered version, nothing wrong with that I guess, but I did modernize my taste preferences over the years.

Well if you are craving for some good curry puffs, ONLY if you reside in Singapore, call my friend Mr Ting at 91470462; Hmmm … this does seem like an advertisement doesn’t it … ha ha ha.

There are many receipes on the web and I am sure you can find better ones, but well, here is one if you would like to try to do it on your own, it is not simple, if you want a good curry puff, you have to put in the effort or call … okay not more jokes, here we go, how to make curry puffs:

For the fillings:
170 g diced chicken meat in 7 mm cubes – I like to use thigh meat, you can use breast meat too.
230 g diced potato in 5 mm cubes – I like the local Asian potatoes which are less mushy.
A few pieces of curry leaves (5 will do)
3 tablespoon of thick coconut milk
30 g diced carrot in 5 mm cubes
A stalk of crushed lemon grass
3 tablespoon of curry powder
A dash of sugar and salt
30 g chopped tomato
170 g minced garlic
A cup of water

Layered Curry Puff
Layered Curry Puff

For the skin dough:

Inner layer oil based dough:
150 g of a good plain flour – if you could get the Japanese kind, that is the best.
70 g of Golden Churn Butter

Outer layer water based dough:
370 g a good plain flour
170 ml hot water
50 g margarine
A dash of salt

How do prepare the curry puff:

Curry Puff’s Filling:

Marinate the diced chicken with curry powder and a little salt (you can skip the salt if you want a healthier puff).

Warm up the pan with a little oil. Make sure the heat is not too strong, if the oil starts to smoke that is too hot. Once ready, throw in the minced garlic and stir till fragant – do not over cook the garlic else it will turn bitter. Now you can add in the lemon grass, curry powder and curry leaves. Depending on your heat setting, stir fry the mix for less than 3 minutes – remember not to burnt the mix.

Diced carrots, potatoes and tomato can be added into the mix now and stir fried for about 5 minutes; watch the potatoes, you want them cooked, not mushy. Add a bit of water if the mix is too dry, you need the mix to be like a paste.

Now is the time to add in the chicken, you don’t want to overcook the chicken as it would turn rough and tough, especially if you are using chicken breast or fillet meat. Have a taste of the paste and if you really want to add a dash of sugar and salt.

Ribbon Edge Curry Puff
Ribbon Edge Curry Puff

Once the chicken is done, the last thing to go into the mix is coconut milk and cook for another minute. The mix should be in a paste form else you could have added too much water earlier, you will then have to cook it a little longer to dry off the mix which could overcook the chicken.

When done, you can set it aside to cool. This paste can be pre-prepared and left in the fridge.

Now for the skin dough:

Outer layer water-based dough:
Bring the water to a boil in a pot, add in the butter and a dash of salt if you want. Turn off the heat and add in the floor. It is hot, so get a spatula and mix well and when it is cool enough, knead it till smooth. If the mix is too dry, it will not be smooth, add a little water and knead till smooth. Divide it into 9 parts and set it aside while we work on the oil-based dough.

Inner layer oil-based dough:
Mix the butter and flour well and divide into 9 roughly equal parts. If you like to, you can also add an egg to the dough mix for extra flavor; before you divide it.

Now we are ready for the final steps:
Take one part of the oil based dough and wrap it with one part of water based dough. Flatten it with a rolling pin, you can also use a water bottle if you don’t have a rolling pin. Roll it flat roughly into the size of a 4R photo, then roll it up like a carpet and flatten and roll up and flatten one last time; Try to flatten it into a circle shape as best as you can. It should be about the size of a 4R photo but round in shape.

Scope the paste into onto the skin dough, making sure you fill up half the circle and be carefull not to let the paste go onto the edge of the dough, you need about a 7 mm edge around the dough so that you can close the puff with a good seal. Now fold over the other half circle of the dough over and seal the edge by pressing down with your fingers.

To get a really good seal you need to fold the edge with a pattern. Start by holding the semi-circle puff on your left hand (I am right handed so you need to reverse this if you are left handed). Using the right hand’s thumb and first finger and starting from the right most edge, press the edge to flatten it. You would now have a semi circle puff, with the right most edge flatten like a coin shape sticking out. Now place your thumb below this coin shape flat, halfway forward towards the left and bring it up and over to the forward edge towards the left and again flatten it. Repeat this till you reach the far left end of the puff. You would get a nice wavy edge and if you had been careful not to let the paste onto the edge, this will ensure that the edge won’t open up when you fry your puff.

Repeat the above for the remaining 8 parts.

If you have one of those modern electric frying pots, that is nice, you can fry the puffs till golden brown. If not find a pot and put in oil, enough to over the whole puff, so it would be good to get not too big a pot and you probably need oil to fill about 50 mm (2 inch). Heat up the oil, moderately, not let it smoke (too hot). You can try and put in a wooden chop stick into the oil, if you can see tiny bubbles coming up from the sides of the wooden bubbles, that is hot enough. Place in the ready puffs and fry till the skin is golden brown. Remove to cool and serve warm.

If you have read till here, thanks for your interest and go get the ingredients and have a go, but if like me, you realise that this although may not be rocket science, but you have better things to spent your time, well, you already know it … a easy way to have good curry puffs, ONLY if you reside in Singapore, call my friend Mr Ting at 91470462, he delivers free if you give him a big order …

Ok, I stop here … ha ha ha … I’m going puff, poof, puck …

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Mount Everest

The view was magnificient & breathtaking, however nothing else matters more than the lesson we learn and how do we use the information from the lesson to formulate the knowledge we need to feed our lives with.

Do you know what I am refering to?

Everest is just a mountain, Yes an 8848m high mountain. The first man that manage to reach the top spent a considerable amount of time, resources and risk his life to get there. Truly a remarkable feat.

Today, I bought a local plane ticket and within half an hour, I’ve was able to admire its magnificence with a lot less time, resource and risk.

In our lives today, are we still trying to climb the mountains of challenges or did we open our minds to seek more efficient means of facing our challenges?

… Iearn I am too …

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Riding out the Recession

“Riding out the Recession” – The Singapore side of the story ?

These are my personal candid notes and immediate thoughts as I listen to the presentations. So don’t pick my bones.  This a a grassroot leaders briefing conducted at the National Community Leadership Institute.  The topic headline was 7th Leadership Dialogue on “Riding Out the Recession”.

The dialogue’s Guest of Honor was Mayor Zainudin Nordin of the Central Singapore District. Here are some of his points at his opening speech:

The Reserves will be used: Does this mean that the recent rise in NASDAQ over the last two weeks will not sustainable and our government do not foresee a positive response in the next 3 quarters – would that mean that the new US government policies may not work? OR is viewed by our government that it may not work?

Preservation of Jobs – a system that is viewed as old school isn’t it. I do agree that it works, the last economic crisis has shown to results to cement this system. But the community’s expectations needs to be managed. After so many pass ‘presevation of jobs’ style implementations over the previous economic crisis, what have we learned and would do different this time to manage the community’s perception?  I may have miss it, but so far I don’t see it, the stressing and re-stressing on ‘Preservation of Jobs’.

GRLs have been doing what they have been doing, whether being told or innovatively done their best to help the heartlanders. May I ask what has been done to help the GRLs who were econmiically affected ? Have we ? Did we ? GRLs are being briefed on how to help the heartlands. Who ? may I dare ask, Who ? is there for a GRL to turn to for help if they themselves are economically affected.  Do remember that they usually don’t fall into a serviceable category in the myriad complex of rules for assistance. Are the GRLs in need ready to come forward for assistance? or do they simply fade away from community while we busy ourselves with helping the heartlanders ? … I don’t know, so don’t shoot me. These are just my random thoughts as I sit in the NACLI autditorium.

Benefits of having targetted job fairs closer to the heartlanders – the idea of being nearer to the heartlanders are great and I agree they are effective. Could we … have we thought of the possible issues of ‘face’ of the heartlanders. I recognise the need and agree with the benefits of the targetted job fairs, we may also need to be able to see how we can also not ‘disgrace’ the economically affected heartlanders on top of their current situation.

Mayor Zainudin feels that the ability of GRLs being able to talk in the heartlander’s lingo helps to bridge the gap between the policies and the heartlanders.

Final message from Mayor Zainudin: Stay Relevant and Caring, ride out the recession and emerge a stronger nation.

Ms Chang on Community Care Scheme – a multi prong approach with the emphasis of “Government as a last resort”. Agree that is a good system.  Can we also realise that there is a dire need for the government to NOT project themselves as ONLY willing to save a house on the brink of being burned down. The many other mult-prong help is great, can we STOP highlgihting ‘Government as a last resort’ Because it is NOT – With various schemes already in place, it is surely NOT. OK, I am repeating myself again, STOP saying ‘Government as a last resort’.  Just as our innovative Fire Department has done, they have moved away from putting out fires to preventing fires; we see them in our annual drills, we see them inspecting public buildings and factories.  That’s grassroots work, the government is not the last resort, isn’t it ?

1800 2220000 – CommCare Hotline.  Do you know ? I didn’t.  Maybe I must have doze off when this was highlighted.

Can we do more to ensure that this number is everywhere, so that heartlanders in need but have not been reached by a GRL can gain assess to this help? What are the efforts already in place for doing this ? Are these efforts enough

Karen from WDA spoke on SPUR: Centred on re-training to plug the skill gap for a working heartlander; to gain new skills and an unemployed to gain the skills needed for a job in a hiring sector that they need certification for. I like these efforts as it helps those who help themselves. This is what I called and termed as efforts where the phrase ‘Government as a last resort’ does not accurately project what has been done for the heartlanders

Coming up next was a video on ‘Riding out the Recession’ – Rice Party at Yio Chu Kang. Job Fairs at Tampines, why is there no IT system being use to track all the job seekers, what about a PA job portal to do job matching? Use a Job Portal to aid the recording and matching process and use and SMS and phone system to contact the job seeker who does not have internet access. Sunday Market; low cost stalls. Making Banner Bags at Henderson. Home to Home visits at Marsling.  Great video.

Moving into KopiTalk session

At the KopiTalk session these are my thoughts – We need a portal, an expanded portal that would track the needs of the needy. This portal should:
1. For a GRL to record the need of a needy heartlander and the actions taken, e.g. referred the heartlander to CDC for a job or for a certain scheme by WDA, CommCare etc.
2. The CDC official can then update on this system what has been done or not done or done buy not reciprocrated by the heartlander or it was a success and the heartlander found a new job with or without a new skill.  These case studies can serve as real life testimonies for the other heartlanders sitting on the fence.
3. The GRL can review the records if this needy heartlander comes by again and help moderate a new situation or challenge.
4. Employers can place their needs for a match to fill up their gaps.
5. These information from 4 can also be used to identify skill gaps from available job seekers and used to match the right training for the needy and fill the job available.
6. These information becomes a great resource for identifying success stories to inspire those who did not take actions to do so.
7. And many many more possibilities with such information.

KopiTalk: Job Fairs are great, however they carry a negative conotation. Can we innovatively create a more positive atmosphere ? Say we have a seasonal Residents Day (Spring, Summer, Autumn & Winter). In the Residents Day, we can have all the usual fun activities for the families and on the side we have the job fair, we have an entreprenueral corner to help those who like to start their own biz give a try, use comical dramas to bring forth the message of the available assistance schemes from WDA and all other agencies. Use talks about “Money Management”, “Analysing the Financial Markets”, topics that are closer to the heart and interests.

KopiTalk: The street smarts are usually not a problem, they would have all their network and running around to get themselves up and running again. The group that is worrisome, driven to sucide are maybe; a MNC employee who got retrenched and the MNC gave them a nice retrenchment package, so financially they are not immiediately in need. But they feel a lost of face to be seen at our job fairs, so since they don’t have an immediate job need and are financially ok because of the retrenchment benefits, they withdrew into themselves and close their doors. This is a downward spiral and they start to nibble at their cheese and they spiral from a month to 6 to a year to two years and their employability goes off the chart on the negative end. This is the worrisome group that we need to draw out into a social activity like a Residents Day.

Dialogue with Mayor & PA CED

What about the asset rich and cash poor heartlander? How can we help them ? E.g. a heartlander unfortunately purchased the flat during the peak times and is now out of a job. So they have a flat that cost them $300k, there is still a $100k mortgage on it and the new flat scheme gives the loan off to a bank, so this heartlander still has to pay $1000+ a month on his mortgage loan. But they don’t have a job. The bank piles up the interest, they can’t feed the family. Are they poor? No, they are asset rich and cash poor. They can’t sell the flat because the valuation is now only $200k.  Just as in the US sub prime crisis where families forelorn their homes.

I like the scheme where HDB buy off the remaining lease from old couples and the money goes into a financial instrument that allows the old couple to receive a monthly stipent. Can we explore on a case by case basis to apply this to the needy heartlanders ? The heartlanders can have the option to buy back the lease at a later date if things turn to the brigther side. Just an added effort to help them tide over this mamoth crisis.

Altitudes / Values that has cause us to feel shame with lower end service jobs – e.g. cleaners, sweepers.

Start from our kids, get our schools to mediate the values required to respect these lower end service jobs. This is what our nation need to do paying it forward. It is already happening in other developed countries, where degree holders are cleaners. This financial crisis is not the last, there will be another one coming even if we survive this one. History has already shown this to be true.

We as a nation need to pay it forward

Finally, my usual disclaimer: Don’t believe a word I say, What I say ONLY comes from my personal experiences and immediate thoughts that arise out of this forum as I participate in it. It does not make me right. It does not make it wrong. If you see something here and have a better idea, do share, if it works, keep doing more and improve on it. If it does not work stop doing it and try something else.

Mayor stories: Singapore is a miracle or is it? – I think Singapore is a lot of hard work. A lot of sweat and blood of our determined heartlanders in the 60s and 70s. The presevence they exhibited, they are probably now in their 70s, they sweat to bring us to where we are today.

The Big 3 US car behemoth may fall, but they will come back stronger, we have to be ready.

Mayor Cat story: mouse wants to know where the cat is, idea is to put a bell on the cat, but who will do it. WDA solution, re train the mouse to bark like a dog and chase off the cat. Response from the ground: today’s cats are so well fed, they won’t chase after mice.

Well that’s it, this is my Saturday morning thanks to the nomination of my fellow grassroots who volunteered me for this forum.

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Theme: Unknown 2.0

“Theme: Unknown 2.0”

Well this is a free theme from WordPress, I like the colors and I didn’t want to spent time tweaking it.  So I am using it as is.  I have been wasting a lot of my time trying to be a perfect.

Perfection is an illusion

Do you agree ? Perfection does not exist, so here I am trying to talk myself out of wanting to tweak here and ot tweak there, in the end, the more important parts get neglected.

Perfection is an illusion

Just like the fact the I am came to accept: Control is an illusion.

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2009 Happy New Year

“2009 Happy New Year”

Add to Technorati Favorites

Ok, now I’ve got my own website at https://limpengheng.com/ I’ve also dabbled with the setup of WordPress, Joomla, PHPwiki & Forums. I think I’ll stick with WordPress for the moment. My WordPress blog is ready at https://limpengheng.com/how-to check it out and leave me a word on what you think of it.

On the flip side; the Singapore Mediacorp production at the Marina Bay was are letdown. I paid $18 + $1 SISTIC fee for 8 people to have a good time there and what did I get? I got 5 top class emcees (I know some of you would disagree, but I’ll be gracious about it) who was addressing the TV crowd, who ONE was not there in body and soul TWO didn’t have to pay $19 THREE could NEVER provide the event with the required ENERGY.

There was one emcee that took care of us, the live paying audience. He is not top notch, but I give him top marks for trying. Oh, he tried very hard, but he is not quite there yet. You can feel the lack of energy levels from the audience. We are a mirror of each other, Mediacorp didn’t show us the energy, the audience reflect back the same to them. The lack of enthusaism from the audience was so very obvious that at one point, Gurmit voluntarily step in to help rally the audience energies a little. As for the other 4 emcees, well they were professionals, they play up to the TV cameras and cameras ONLY. We the 7,000 strong live audience were actually non-existent.

My take here is if Mediacorp is producing the event for the TV audience (nothing wrong with that) WHY DO YOU MAKE US PAY ? ? ? IF YOU MAKE US PAY, THEN DELIVER US VALUE.

And when the ticket sales were low, all Mediacorp did was lament about poor ticket sales, no wonder you got poor ticket sales, I think they got a bunch of marketeers who does not know how to market and worst of all, you can’t even deliver. Even I a marketing dummy would have scramble for a last minute solution e.g. 3 days to the event, I would have announce and all $18 ticket holders are allowed to bring one extra person, so 1 $18 ticket enters 2 people. I am sure immediately it would have filled 65% to 70% of the seats compared to the 40%. Furthermore, others on the side would not mind paying $18 per couple to go in at the gate. Nooo… No No, how can they do that right, no wonder you guys can’t sell your tickets. You not only didn’t think out of the box, you got stuck to your tiny corner of your box, your box office.

Well, maybe that is why I am not Mediacorp and I am not a marketeer. I don’t understand these people and their mentality. Hmmm … maybe if I think like them … even if I am half a Mediacorp, not bad eh …

Now for what I like: the fireworks. The fireworks is like the saving grace for the whole event. Even my 75 year old mother, who could not understand a thing they say on stage enjoyed the fireworks. She commented that watching the fireworks live was indeed a very difference experience from watching it at home.

The next thing I want to lambast at is the crowd control, it is totally unacceptable. From the human walking crowd to the block car park exits. I know, you gave all the warnings about driving there and advice to use public transport. Fellas, go get a life, this is Singapore. People who own cars didn’t pay COE & road tax to leave it at home. Wake up. I can understand the safety concerns to close off certain roads for the safety of the human walking crowd, but my gosh!, please use some brains. Whoever planned the whole control thingy, must have never been in a crowd and has totally no understanding of crowd dynamics. As for the cars stuck in the car park, I sat in the car park lot for 15 minutes, the cars along the exit path never moved an inch. That was the time, I told my family of 8 that we should get off and find a place to sit out the jam.

We found Carls Jr open (pass midnight) kudos to the company, I will surely return, one other joint was open, but I can’t remember its name, sorry. 7Eleven was as usual 24×7, jammed with the crowd needing a drink while waiting in an endless queue for taxis – how does the taxis get in with the massive jam? So it is a vicious cycle. The brainless planners did not cater to the car traffic, so the crowd can’t get out of the place.

Businesses lament about the bad time, the economic slowdown, the this, the that – Well I say YOU ASK FOR IT. There was easily > 20,000 strong crowd stuck in Marina Bay at 12:30 am on New Year’s Day. Even a Fruit Juice kiosk knows how to ring in the New Year by keeping their kiosk and cash register open pass 1:00 am. Carls Jr. was great. What happen to all the rest? Well they all went home to catch the Mediacorp New Year program and fireworks on their home TV. And they say business is bad and they have to cut this and cut that.

So, I guess I am the dummy who paid for 8 tickets to get myself stuck in Marina Bay on the last few hours of 2008 and the first couple of wee hours of 2009 New Year’s Day. THANK YOU VERY MUCH MEDIACORP FOR STARTING MY 2009 WITH A POOF.

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Using the NVU Editor

“Using the NVU Editor”

I’m now at the MPS Masterclass by Jo Han.  Vincent is helping everyone with simple web page editing using NVU editor.  It looks simple enough for everyone to use.  Try it if you want, just google for NVU.

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Class with JoHan Mok

“Class with JoHan Mok”

Ok, I’m all ready for the MPS Masterclass tomorrow at Kaplan Financial. I’ve actually had my PayPal account for a few years, I remembered the first blog I set up was for my hobby club; the Marine Parade Radio Control Modelers Club.

The club is a sub activity group with the Marine Parade Community Club, under the purview of the People’s Association (PA). The reason for the blog was because in those days, PA had a 10 page guideline for all websites. I took one look at it and pass it on back to the office and decided not to built a web site. So the blog, as it states at the top is the UNOFFICIAL web site of the club. My first blog post was in 2006 August 10, Wow! never really bother to check, now that I see it, it was indeed quite a while ago. Thereafter, being the Chairman of the club and the only one who would bother, I simply write what I want. I also recorded the various overseas events for which I was invited as the event Referee. The first was to the Asian Championship in Malang Indonesia. Subsequently, in a similar capacity, I attended events at Jakarta, Taichung, Pattaya, Ichirino & most recently Kuala Lumpur. The highest traffic was recorded when I reported on the iFMAR World Championship in Ancol Jakarta. I used various Web 2.0 photo sharing sites to host the photographs I took on my trips and videos were uploaded onto Youtube. I manage to get viewers embeded into the blog for Flickr and Webshots. Youtube is a breeze, they gave the embed codes, I simply modify the sizes to suit my blog template. On hindsight, one thing I would have done, if I were to do the site again, I would first set up a membership list. I would have easily amassed thousands of members by now for this blog on my hobby.

Ok, that would be enough of history. Since January 2008, I’ve retired from my Chairman post from the club. I decided that it is time to get serious with what I know on the internet and stop monkeying around.

Tomorrow this monkey is going to put everything I know into some real use. I trust that the MPS Masterclass is going to blow me away. ha ha ha … Ahem … ok ok, my jokes doesn’t get any better, so I’ll stop here tonight.

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Setting up my blog

“Setting up my blog”

Thanks to Andrew Boey‘s guidance and prompting, I’ve now got my GoDaddy domain setup done, got my HostGator account working. In preparing for Jo Han’s class this weekend; I’ve managed to re-confirmed my account details in Paypal & ClickBank. And completed my registration at PayDotCom – the site kept upselling during registrations with pretty attractive offers, I called up Jo Han’s enquiry number and was told that I don’t need any of those upsell items, so I got through the process soon thereafter. Andrew reminded me about Adsense, so I have done that up.

So, I am here to share my experience if you need to chat with someone regarding the following:
GoDaddy
HostGator
PayPal
ClickBank
PayDotCom
Adsense

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Hosting my blog

“Hosting my blog”

Alright, got my HostGator done.  But I’m too tired today to do anything further, so I simply copied my Blogger.com page at http://phlim.blogspot.com and pasted it into the root directory of my hostgator account as index.html.  And Viola!, page is up.  Okay now I need to sleep, still got a job to do tomorrow.

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Meeting of minds

“Meeting of minds”

It was great to meet up with like minded partners at Funan MacDonalds yesterday morning. Andrew Boey help us set up a plan and gave us some starting tips on what to do first. We registered as a member to his website.

Now I’ve got my domain name selected and would be setting up a hosting site.

I’ll share more once the above two is completed.

I don’t think Blogger.com likes me to redirect this blog over to my new site, but I’ll see what I can do to put up a link and continue from there.

In the afternoon, I was a volunteer at the South East CDC’s MoneyWise program at Simei Community Club.  I hosted 2 needy families to a MoneyWise board game.  It was rather fun, the two families were very proactive and both feedback that it was a good hour of fun at the game.

At the event I met Ms Belinda Koh and Hoong Yip, I met them previously at the SECDC Office during our MoneyWise training a week ago.  Both are from YMCA and Hoong Yip is looking for students who need to projects for their Community Immersion Program while Belinda is from the Childcare & Development Centre; she is looking for teachers and assistants for her Sims Branch in Geylang.  I promise to help them pass on the requests to my connections.  If you are reading this and can help, let me know.