Post #51

thought i'd make meatballs again, but with a diff sauce. i felt like something more gutsy than a cosy homemade tomato sauce, so i started jotting down a few ingredients and food friends that might go well together. turned out to be a hell lot of chopping =.= for some reason i had a vision of all the complimenting elements (other than the meatballs) to be v finely chopped as i didnt want a thick sauce, so that the tiny pieces themselves would form part of the sauce. but it was so worth it! must have been one of the tastiest sauce i've made!

aside the chopping, this sauce took so long to cook, just because i kept taste testing, then adding this and that to achieve the right taste. hehe, that's why i can never write recipes with precise quantities of ingredients....


-Meatballs in pepperoni, red capsicum and lemon chilli sauce-

started the wok with onion and leek, then some pepperoni. let them caramelise a little before putting in some stock, then chilli, then pop the cameralised but half cooked meatballs back in the pan, add tomato paste, paprika, white wine, then lemon juice, capers, lemon zest and the usual salt, sugar and pepper. once you're happy that the meatballs are cooked, throw in the red capsicum and parsley and its done.

served with linguini or rice - YUM.

Post #50

wow~ this is the 50th food post!! *pat on the back!*

saw an interesting recipe recently and thought i'd give it a try - ginger powder puffs with strawberry jam:


the recipe requires gem-scone tins which i dont have at home, so the alternative was to spoon the mixture onto baking trays lined with baking paper. the result should be "feather-light bite-sized sponge cake" but mine turned out to be soft biscuits.. hehe, the texture is a bit like the traditional chinese biscuits 光穌餅, but with ginger powder flavour =.=

strawberry jam bubbling away:


the finished product served with strawberry jam and whipped cream with a sprinkle of ginger powder:


-Ginger powder puffs with strawberry jam-

hm... i think i prefer the real 光穌餅, it was one of my childhood favourites, but they dont sell the proper ones here Y.Y

Post #49

i candied some almonds just for fun last night. i originally wanted to make a relatively thick caramel coating but i didnt have the patience, and ended up having a sprinkly sugar coating. it was still yummy tho. :)

i used half the candied almonds in a salad and the other half in a yoghurt dessert. both simple and fast for moi cooking for moi-self!


-Fennel + orange salad with candied almonds-

the salad was so fresh and tasty it was almost like half a dessert. i made the vinaigrette dressing a tint sweeter for a more balanaced overall flavour - mixing verjuice, honey, mustard grains, orange zest, olive oil and a lil pinch of salt. it went well with the candied almonds! ;p~~


-Fig and yoghurt with honey + candied almonds-

Post #48

hehe. havent been a v creative cooking week this week. i cooked the hainanese chicken rice again, but with some little improvements this time. Lessons learnt from the last around, like, i bought some bay leaves to put into the rice and i didnt score the chicken maryland this time cos they actually steamed ok without scoring, and i was able to hand shred larger pieces of chicken meat. :)

its interesting how a lot of our daily cooking is driven by what leftover we have in the fridge. many occasions i would irresponsibly stock up diff ingredients because i want to try out a new recipe. then i spend the whole week or two trying to use up the remaining ingredients in a meaningful way, working my way through whats the next thing that will go off if i dont cook it soon...


-Stir fried pork + chicken vermicelli with pickled vegetables-

hehe *slightly embarrassed* i dumped a lot of due-to-die ingredients into this vermicelli dish. chicken pieces from the congee, the neverending packet of pickled vegetables (still some more sitting in the fridge...), chinese celery (ahem.. the last 2 stems since the last vermicelli dish), and shitaki mushrooms i used on the same day to make udon (at least this is fresh!!)

a veg dish:


-Stir fried chokos with dried shrimp-

chokos is one of my fav savoury melons! as much as i love eating them, i dont like cooking them all that much. i mean, when you look at it, you're kinda put off with the whole prep work! look at its bumpy shape, and you know its not easy to peel. also, chokos release some slimy substance when you peel them, so make sure you put on a glove! then there's a stone inside the melon, which you need to cut out before chopping! but i guess its worth the effort, cos they have such clean sweet flavours in them :)

Post #47

hubby got the flu :(

so i cooked him a chicken congee - using the chicken drumstick bones to cook the soup base.


-Chicken + dried scallop congee-

Post #46

still had half a pot of the pumpkin veg puree left, so on monday i took the whole pot over to mum's and cooked a ham and pumpkin risotto (well, 3 part arborio rice plus 1 part risoni as i ran out of rice... =.=)! or else i would probably need to have pumpkin soup every night for the whole week to finish it off!!

stole sis' fresh ricotta. hehe. love love love that golden orange colour! oh, the orange bits are carrots by the way...


-Pumpkin and ham risotto with fresh ricotta-

also made a quick salad. i like having a salad to go with risotto, because risottos are quite heavy stuff, so it's good to have a salad to lighten up the taste buds.


-Fennel, green + pear salad with white wine vinaigrette-

Fennels are selling quite cheaply at this time of the year! and i found that the bigger they are, the stronger the liquorice flavour! i quite like this unique taste, and as long as you have something citrus or some fruits or some mixed green to go with it, the liquorice taste would not dominate :)

Post #45

i "cooked" for myself tonight. i actually wont post what i "cooked" tonight but i just wanted to share my findings! i had some leftover ma po tofu in the fridge but no rice. as it takes time to cook rice, i was looking around the kitchen searching for alternatives. something thats kinda like rice which i can eat with to finish off the ma po tofu. and i ended up making couscous. it worked surprisingly good especially the dollop of xo sauce i added in the end! haha. my lazy attempt ended up to be quite an OK meal for one. :)

now, back to proper posting.

i ran out of cooking ideas on the weekend. usually i would have had a good idea of exactly what i want to cook before i go grocery shopping. but this time, i was just wondering in the chinese grocery shop and ended up picking some oyster mushrooms and button mushrooms. with some beef and leftover fresh cream at home, i'll just cook a simple stir fry using oyster sauce - the good old reliable oyster sauce when you run out of ideas~!


-Beef and mixed mushrooms in creamy oyster sauce-

this time, apart from using the normal garlic and eschallot to start the wok, i chucked in some of the white part of the shallot, chopped diagonally, and i found that added a lot more flavours! will save them up from now on and wont waste them on garnishing!!

Post #44

i got a new cooking toy from sis the other day - a super heavy gift! haha.

da-laaaaan! my own mortar and pestle:



i have always wanted one of these, and even more so after watching Luke Nguyen on Masterchef!! haha. now i can use it for some vietnamese and thai cooking~ FUN!!!

the first dish i made out of my new toy is pork chop.


-Lemongrass pork chop-

it was so fun bashing the garlic and the lemongrass as opposed to chopping! and i love the smell of lemongrass - absolutely divine~!

Post #43

havent cooked pumpkin for a long while. somehow i associate pumpkin with coldness even though they sell them all year round, i still see pumpkin as a winter veg. i love pumpkin thats super sweet, but sometimes you get the odd ones with not much taste, and it kinda puts you off. :( but i do like the bright golden orange colour, and that raises my appetite level :)

this weekend, i attempted this combo of pumpkin soup and pasta, which contained more veg than you think! :) veg are good for you!!



i actually cooked this dish in 2 processes. the first was to cook the veg, like you would cooking a pumpkin soup (and i cooked this the night before. sometimes when you split processes into 2 manageable halves, it makes the job less daunting! hehe.) - pumpkin, carrot, leek, fennel and onion, with a splash of veg stock and water. bring to the boil and then chuck the pot into the thermal cooker, and thats it for step one. :)

next day the pot of pumpkin soup should become quite mushy and a little press with a wooden spoon should break the veg up. then use the pumpkin puree as a base and cook it with risoni, in the same way as cooking risotto till the risoni is cooked. just before done, chuck in some chopped spinach and pour in a circle of cream and its done!


-Pumpkin risoni with chicken dices + spinach-

Post #42

two chinese dishes i cooked last weekend. simple and fast ~ the joy of chinese cooking!! :)


-Fried egg omelette with onion + snake bean-

hehe, the beauty about fried egg omelette in chinese cooking is that you can simply chuck whatever you like into the egg - prawns, bbq pork, beans, garlic chives, bitter melon and even just onion on its own is v sweet and tasty!!

the other dish is a variation to ma po tofu:


-Ma po tofu + eggplant-

just added the eggplant in for fun! the eggplants cut into dices in similar sizes to the tofu. i still have not mastered the art of choosing good eggplants. miraculously the one i bought this time has absolutely no seeds!!! i've tried diff varieties, the fat ones and the skinny ones, and have had good and bad experiences with both types. i'll just need to keep my fingers crossed....

Post #41

we're finally committed to eat the 2 pies sis bought AAAAAAAAGES ago from harris de wheels! now i can tell you that they last VERY long in the freezer :) you just need to let them sit and defrost for a lot longer before shoving it into the oven.

and of course pies are best friends with potato mash and gravy!! hehe... mountain-high potato mash with cameralised onion - look at this beautiful stack!!! v exciting!!! hehe.


-Harris de Wheels beef pie with potato mash + caramelised onion-
-Fennel orange + apple salad with citrus vinaigrette-

also made this fennel orange + apple salad to balance out the meatiness. v fresh + crisp!! i love fuji apples :)

Post #40

we went to visit our cousins and their newborn bb little sebastian at their home last saturday. i thought it'd be nice to bake a cake so that we could have a nice arvo tea and of course to play with bb seb as well!! and because sis didnt get to eat the fresh orange chiffon cake that i baked last time, i've decided to bake another one (hehe, and so that i can use up the rest of the coconut milk as well!! :) )

this time i made a variation to the cake. instead of orange, i attempted to make an english breakfast tea flavoured cake. and because i wanted to coat the whole cake with chantilly cream, i only cut it up into 2 layers:



the finished cake, coated with chantilly cream and topped with crunchy almond and honey:


-Tea chiffon cake with almond crunch + honey-

hm.... looking v homemade indeed =.= my failed attempt to coat an even smooth layer of cream. maybe its time to invest in a palette knife?!

this one sliced up:



the flavours worked quite well together, although it needed a bit more of the tea flavour. the honey and almond on top was a little surprise!

Post #39 - mum's day

its mummy's day today!! this year, mum prefered to stay at home rather than to eat out, which means that sis and i had to cook. we've been scratching our heads as to what to cook for mum. its so easy when it comes to cooking for dad, cos we'd know right away that seafood/sashimi/steak would please him. mum on the other hand eats anything but doesnt like anything in particular... well, other than bread anyway... but we cant really serve bread on mummy's day!

so we've decided on 2 v diff dishes but both perfect for a cold winters day - seafood soup and korean bibimbap :)

the seafood soup recipe is from the gourmet traveller magazine - currently my favourite food magazine!! a lot of yummy seafood in one pot of soup - scampi, bream fillet, redfish fillet + mussels! a bit expensive but fabulous for special occasion.


-Mediterranean seafood soup-

super tasty and sweet soup, but the flavour wasnt strong at all because of the veg goodness - onion, fennel, celery, cherry tomato, potato and a little pinch of saffron!!

sis' korean bibimbap - i helped with preparing the spinach, the chinese mushrooms and the bean sprouts! :)


-Korean bibimbap-

with the korean side dishes:


hope mummy had a happy mummy's day~ :)

Post #38

i have a soft spot for rice noodles. absolutely love it in all the diff asian cuisines. vietnamese pho - the silky smooth rice noodles in clear beef broth. cantonese stir fried rice noodles - with beef + bitter melon in a thick glossy black bean sauce. singaporean/malay char kway teow - the chilli and the wok heat. thai pad thai - the slightly chewy texture of the rice noodles as contrasted with the crunchy bean sprouts + chopped peanuts. LOVE all that!

i think we take advantage of these cheap eats. when it comes to cooking with rice noodles, its actually not that easy. i find it an absolute struggle to stir fry rice noodles and always end up with a plate of gluey stuff all stuck together =.=

hehe, so i've kinda given up on stir frying rice noodles, but a diff version thats so much easier to cook is to stir fry cheong fun (the rolled rice noodles)! the ones you see at yum cha:


-Stir fried cheong fun with beef + chinese cabbage-

because the rice noodles are rolled up, its so much easier to stir them around in the wok without breaking them. add dark soy to give it that nice dark colouring and plenty of soy sauce and salt for seasoning! in the end, stir in an egg and a large spoonful of xo sauce. YUM~!

Post #37

we have 2 ppl in the household both love sausages and potato mash. i'm not a big fan, but hey cooking is all about making the ppl you care about happy!! hehe, getting the goosebumps?! ;p

pan fried beef + cameralised onion sausages, potato + pea mash, onion sauce and a drizzle of black truffle oil:


-Bangers and mash-

Post #36

winter comfort food. one of my favourites is chinese radish or daikon because of its clean sweetness. perfect in hotpot and braised dishes, and in radish steamed cake as well of course!

a while ago i was looking for some radish in a korean grocery shop and all i could find were massive-sized green radish. and i thought... thats not daikon, thats green radish, the ones we use in red carrot and green radish soup! just that its... massive?! so i went to another grocery shop, also a korean one, but found the same thing =.= then i thought, thats not right. koreans eat loads of daikon!! pickled and in hotpot. so i bought one home, only to find that it IS a daikon! hehe, apparently the skins of the korean ones are green whilst the chinese ones are white :) taste wise, i think they are pretty much the same.


-Pork rib and chinese radish with black bean sauce-

Post #35

its been so so long since my last dessert post. you know... desserts arent the day-to-day absolute necessity :) *excuse excuse*

this is actually masterchef poh's recipe. well, partly anyway. i couldnt be bothered with the pretty chocolate ganache and the hazelnut topping.


-Orange chiffon cake with chantilly cream-

but at least i attempted to slice it up into 3 layers and applied the chantilly cream!! hehe, not v even layers tho....



and just whilst i was posting this, i revisited poh's recipe and oops... apparently i should have inverted the cake when it's still in the tin =.= err, i took the cake out right after it was baked and rested it on the rack to cool. he, no wonder it was a bit deflated... hm...