| Page 100

Air-fried stuffed you tiao recipe (aka dough sticks or 油条)

I actually shared this photo last year when I was reviewing the Philips Avance Airfryer last December. This stuffed you tiao is actually one of my favourite dishes at our family gatherings but in recent times, my mum has not really made these as she has cut down on the number of deep-fried dishes she does for health reasons.

But of course you already know that I have an awesome Airfryer, so I can whip these up any time I want without the guilt. And so I did recently when I celebrated my mum’s birthday at my place.

I think it’s a nice touch to be able to cook a dish that my mum used to cook for me in return on her birthday. 🙂 And since I really love this dish so much, I decided that I shall have it on my blog so that I can easily refer to it any time I need to – and for your reference as well, if you need.

Air-fried stuffed you tiao recipe (aka dough sticks or 油条)

Author: Simply Mommie

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 20 mins

Total time: 35 mins

Serves: 4-6

A healthier version (i.e. air-fried) of the traditionally deep-fried stuffed you tiao

Ingredients

2 pairs of you tiao
200g fish paste (I used a bowl of Bobo fish paste)
about 100-150g prawns
2 tablespoons egg white
½ teaspoon sugar
a dash of sesame oil
a dash of ground white pepper
a dash of hua tiao jiu
corn flour (for dusting the tops)
1 tablespoon oil (for brushing onto the top of the you tiao)
sesame seeds

Instructions

Split the two pairs and cut each stick into 4 segments - you should yield 16 pieces.
Using a pair of kitchen scissors, snip open the top of the you tiao to make room for the stuffing.
Wash and devein the prawns. Chop or mince the prawns - depending on how much bite you want when you eat the you tiao.
Mix the minced prawns with the fish paste, egg white and the condiments (except the cornflour, oil and sesame seeds).
Divide and stuff the mixture into the you tiao.
Preheat the airfryer to 180degC.
Meanwhile, dust the tops of the stuffed you tiao with corn flour then brush with oil.
Top with sesame seeds.
Airfry the youtiao in 2 batches (I laid them out in a single layer) - 180degC for 10min. If deep-frying, simply deep fry the you tiao at this step.

Notes

1. I did not add salt at all as Bobo fish paste is salty enough.

For more fish & seafood recipes, do check out the Fish & Seafood section in this blog for a complete directory of recipes (with thumbnails).

Other Airfryer recipes you might be interested in:

Air-fried cod bites

Chicken cutlet with lemon sauce

Easy Garlic Bread Sticks

~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you enjoyed this post, please share your thoughts in the comments or share the post with your friends by clicking on the social media buttons below. Do hop over to my Facebook page where I connect with my readers and I would love to have you following me on Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram too 🙂

Open-ended fun with Velcro craft sticks

Velcro craft sticks

So I’ve had this in my to-do list like … erm, let’s just say, for a very, very long time. I finally got down to making these velcro craft sticks for the kids – and I’m so glad to share with you it took me no longer than 5-10 minutes to dig out my craft sticks in the colours I wanted and add in the velcro dots.

Not sure how the kids would take to these, I decided to just make a pair of each of colour – and it’s really great that these were rainbow-coloured too!

Little boy didn’t really know how to match up the velcro dots so that they would stick so after awhile, he let his sister do the building.

With my girl, we talked about more shapes like the pentagon, hexagon, octagon etc., how many sides the shapes have, while we stuck to simple basic shapes like the square, triangle and rectangle with my boy.

I didn’t really direct how they should use these sticks and left it mainly up to them at first and realised that my girl formed shapes and played with creating patterns (e.g. blue, purple, yellow, blue purple yellow).

When my boy was alone with me while his sister’s at school, I got him to match the pairs according to the colours, and we talked about colours (you could discuss this in another language too – for us, we used Chinese). Since we had 1-1 time, I also taught him about the rough and puffy sides of velcro and how he should match them up so it was also a sensory activity for him as he touched all the velcro dots and told me whether it was rough or soft. He especially loved to dangle the sticks stuck onto each other in mid-air. Actually I also noted that aiming to let one velcro dot match up with the other took some judgement and fine motor skill so this is quite a good activity for toddlers. *no photos for these activities and observations as I didn’t want to disrupt his learning*

The kids also extended the activity on their own one fine day by taking out their beanbag turtles – in the exact colours – and matched the sticks to the turtles and eventually the craft sticks became swords for the turtles, and a war ensued. 🙂

If you have any more extension activities for these craft sticks, please drop me a note! 🙂

Other sensory activities:

~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you enjoyed this post, please share your thoughts in the comments or share the post with your friends by clicking on the social media buttons below. Do hop over to my Facebook page where I connect with my readers and I would love to have you following me on Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram too 🙂