Hi, anyone has tried the manufactured Popiah skin, Tee Yih Jia brand, from Singapore ?

1) In yesterday's Zoom session, I tested making fish paste with a batch of Ling fillets - as you can see from the photo of a dollop of the fish paste fried in oil - it was a bust - it's too flaky and lacks any starchiness to produce proper fish paste for yong tau foo/fish balls etc. 2) I've also attached a copy of the fish paste notes by @Swee Low from when he did a masterclass on the topic over 20 years ago in Melbourne's Victoria Market, run by a chef from China. I tried to clarify some points but Swee says he can't remember because it was so long ago, but take a look and see if you can figure it out 😁

In Australia, there are 300,000 recipients and 200,000 in the waiting list for the Home Care Package. The package is used to encourage aged persons to stay at home instead of going to the retirement home. An annual sum between $10K to $100k allocates to each recipient. One of the usages be funded by this package is Meal Preparation and Support. There are few companies catering food deliver to home, and the SaH recipients need to pay for 30% of the food price as the money cannot used for the raw ingredients, but 70% for cooking, admin plus additional delivery charge can be funded from the package. I think new scheme has imposed between 15% to 85% additional as copayment to the food cost. Details are not available yet. Now there is an opportunity that this group to be explored. Currently, there are no Asian food offered by those food catering company. I'm sure there is at least 1% of SaH recipients are Asian, so there is a demand of Asian food catering to be deliver to home. Food including dim sim, dessert , laksa, CKT, chicken rice, ma lai koh, siew bao, steam char siew boa... can be pre-cooked and be frozen. The food will be delivered in a special ice-packed box. The courier service in Australia access ot almost everywhere. ( and Gov paid for delivery fee). I think Lite and Easy is doing it, and frozen food can be in the container last for a week. Once the food arrived, they could place in the freezer. When the food is ready to be consumed it can be reheat in the oven, microwave or air fryer. I see this is a business opportunity to develop this home delivery in Australia. Like to hear from the team on this idea. Swee

Making Hor Fun (Rice Noodles) During the Cookalong under Jackie’s expert guidance, I successfully learned to make Hor Fun using the recipe for Wat Tan Hor (Kuay Teow Siram) whilst Jackie was frying onions (yes, more onions!) and making Rice Noodles for Chee Cheong Fun. Cathy was making Onde-Onde. I totally agree with Jackie that Cathy’s Onde-Onde are award-worthy & she is a total Pro now. Jenny was late joining, but she wasted no time & jumped straight into action. Watching Jackie devouring her Chee Cheong Fun for breakfast, I was salivating buckets! My only complaint was I had given away my steamer set sometime ago, so I had to make do with the Chinese Dim Sum/Yum Cha basket which was too small for the job. While Jackie crafted 1 big Hor Fun sheet, I struggled churning out 3 tiny ones to match hers. She started making the CCF batter minutes after me, she overtook & wrapping up the job long before I finished. Think I need to buy a bigger Dim Sum basket. Neverthless, I was very happy with my Hor Fun. It was so light & smooth. I made Wat Tan Hor with the Hor Fun. I charred the Hor Fun in small batches in wok-scorched heat first. Then I made the sauce to cook the meat & Hor Fun followed by breaking in an egg after switching off the stove. The Wat Tan Hor was scrumptious & the wok hey from the charred noodles was spot-on! Grateful thanks to Jackie for the guidance. 💕

Hi everyone, as mentioned in my previous post, I lost my voice early this week and unfortunately I still can't speak without breaking into a ridiculous cough, as I found out today working at my market stall. Can I suggest we reschedule our Open Kitchen Hour 1 Zoom cook-along from Friday (ie. tomorrow) to Monday evening my (Sydney) time at 7pm instead? I'm going to assume I'll be okay by Sunday morning for Open Kitchen Hour 2, so no change there. This means this week's sessions will look like this - Open Kitchen Hour 1 - Sydney, Australia Mon, 3 Nov 2025 at 7:00 pm AEDT London, United Kingdom Mon, 3 Nov 2025 at 8:00 am GMT Vancouver, Canada Mon, 3 Nov 2025 at 1:00 am PDT Open Kitchen Hour 2 - Sydney, Australia Sun, 2 Nov 2025 at 7:00 am AEDT London, United Kingdom Sat, 1 Nov 2025 at 8:00 pm GMT Vancouver, Canada Sat, 1 Nov 2025 at 1:00 pm PDT Tagging the usual attendees and the new members just in case you miss this, and sorry for this late change - @Annie Thomson @Cathy Raff @Jenny Wijesinghe @Carol Kuok @Christine Loh @Swee Low