i just made the tastiest salad ever.

what was inside:

1) romane lettuce (washed and cut)
2) onions (sliced)
3) bits of pan-fried chicken (marinated with italian herbs, freshly ground black pepper and light soy sauce)
4) cheddar cheese (shredded)
5) crispy silver fish (just the dried ones from supermarket, wash it and lightly pan fry it)

dressing:
1) olive oil
2) malt vinegar
3) light soy sauce
4) freshly grounded black pepper.

will be great if you could add in some diced tomatoes and croutons. just to balance flavours out.

Banana Toffee Pie - Revisited

I guess you've read the previous post by Mel. In actuality, the pie DID NOT turn out as I had expected :P. So I consulted the chef (Thanks E!) and here are a few tips to improve the pie:


1) RUB the butter (with your fingers) into the crushed digestive biscuits. E used about half a block. She wisely told me that it would be better if I DIDN'T know the ingredients. I would use butter that has been softened to room temperature for easy of manipulation and that glorious squishy feeling =)

2) KEEP STIRRING the condensed milk (not evaporated, not fresh, not low fat)...unless you like crunchy burnt bits. Also, work quickly with the toffee-ed condensed milk otherwise you'll be stuck with a HUGE lump. Don't say you weren't warned..=)

Go crazy with the recipe. Layer with more biscuits or bananas as desired. The sugar rush is what you seek =)

banana toffee pie

on the very same night we produced the new dish of '07, oceanna and i made up this banana toffee pie. someone gave her this recipe and its pretty easy... and... choking sweet siah.

so what do you need?

a can of condensed milk
10 digestive biscuits (mashed up)
20g of butter (softened)
abt 100g bananas (sliced)
whipping cream (whip it till its stiff!)

step 1: open can of condensed milk and boil it over small fire. remember to stir constantly or you get lots and lots of burnt toffee! a bit burnt enough already.

step 2: crush the digestives. spoon out enough into the base of your pie tray. say about nearly 0.5cm thick on the base is good. put in your 20g softened butter, mix well with the crumbs in the base tray. make sure that its all nicely stuck together like a cheesecake base.

step 3: condensed milk toffeed yet? if it is, turn off the fire! it probably will thicken after a bit of interaction with the air when the sugars in the condensed milk crystallises. spoon out 2 big spoons of it and layer it nicely atop your pie base.

step 4: put some sliced bananas on.

step 5: put more digestives

step 6: repeat step 3 to 5, till you hit the top of the container you have. now then give it a good squish on the top to make sure that its all nicely gummed up.

step 7: put your whipped whipping cream on top and ta da!

new dish 2007

oceanna and i came together to cook today again. we've been cooking for the last 2 weeks and i'm actually becoming prouder and prouder of what i do, what i cook.

besides the recipe that you are about to see for the very fantastic dish below... i've actually included a recommendation to a new cafe, that i really like and i hope that you guys can give it a shot - help chef david and peter make it better. here's the map... oops, long list right? look for food for thought! its a cafe name lah, not food for you to think about. whaaaaaaat the fish only.

now more abt FFT. simple and small setup, but totally introduces a variety of food that one would find absolutley refreshing. its light and gentle on the tongue. really!!! they only serve 3 types of food mah... 3 Ss! Sandwiches, Salads and Soups! try to know ah?


Yes, now onto our new dish. yah lah yah lah, i know that i cannot shoot photograph as nice as chubbyhubby and make it actually tantalising looking. BUT! what you see is what you get. hey, i tried ok... using my err... canon powershot compact that's really 3 yrs old :D

now. potatos first. just thinly slice it and pan fry with oil. no need butter. leave the skin on hoh. that's where the nutrients are.

french beans and rashers. puah, this one hoh eh. french beans chop off the ends. chop into half. chop some garlic up. lightly fry the garlic, just to get the fragrance into the oil. then toss in the beans. fry them!

take out your bacon. put 1 piece onto a chopping board. put some beans in... about 7-8 pieces on and start to roll the beans innit. now turn on your oven toaster (brillant device!) to heat it up before you stuff the rest of the rashers you rolled into it. stick a toothpick if you want into the rasher that is rolled with beans, just to hold it together. grill the set together in the toaster oven for 10 minutes.

chicken... now this one very simple. marinate with... oyster sauce, light soy sauce, italian herbs, 5 spice powder (magical ingredient) and... freshly grinded black pepper. grill on your hot pan.

ta da!!!!

Crispy Pork Belly

You'd need pork belly meat which comes with layers of lean meat and fats to do this dish.

Other sauces for marinate:
Oyster Sauce
Shaoxing Wine
Sugar
Pepper
Light soya sauce

Mix the sauces together and dunk in the cut pieces of pork belly. Leave to marinate for at least 2 hours, stirring occassionally every half an hour.

Fry the pork belly (without oil and using a non-stick pan/wok). Let the heat melt the porky fats out and the sugar in the marinate caramelise the pork.

This tastes oddly like roasted pork. Especially if you are overseas and cannot find decent ones.

Baked Rice

We usually get this baked rice dish in Swensen's (the ice-cream shop) in Singapore, but strangely... Its not sold in Germany at all. Maybe they just love their sausages too much.

Anyway, ingredients:
Rice (cooked. You may want to refer to cooking rice without the actual rice cooker blog)
Cabonara Sauce (or any other creamy soups)
Italian Herbs or Oregano
Cheese
Milk

Optional ingredients (recommended):
Ham
Meat
Shredded omelette
Mushrooms
Tomato

Steps:
1) Fry the rice with garlic lightly. This gives a nice flavouring. Remove from fire.
2) Oil the baking tray lightly with olive oil.
3) Dunk in rice and your optional ingredients into the baking tray. Mix it up.
4) Dunk in cabonara sauce and milk (probably 1 cup's worth). Stir. Make sure the mixture is sufficiently moist before you go to the next step.
5) Lay sliced tomatoes atop the rice mix. The sour tomatoes have a nice foil to the rather creamy dish.
6) Sprinkle lots of shredded cheese on top of the tomatoes layer.
7) Bake at 180 degrees celsius for about half an hour or when the cheese browns.

It takes less than half an hour to prepare and probably an hour to eat. The best part? You don't have to attend to the rice as you leave it baking!

HOTPOT STEAMBOAT

Hotpot! One of those essentials anyone cannot miss if they are actually Asian, especially if you are Chinese.

Lets start from basics: How to make the stock base.

Ingredients:
Chicken or pork bones
Red dates
Dried scallops
Wolfberries
Water

Put all the ingredients into a pot and boil. Once the water boils, lower the flame to a simmer. The longer you boil these stuff, the better the soup base gets. Usually after the soup boils, I would transfer everything into a slow cooker (another Asian wonder). So as the slow cooker boils, I can prepare other ingredients for the hotpot.

What else do you need for hotpot?

Things like these:

Vegetable stuff: Oyster mushrooms, golden straw mushrooms, shitake mushrooms, wong bok (long cabbage), xiao bai cai and whatever else you like

Meats/Seafoods: Chicken strips (marinated in oyster sauce and pepper), pork strips (marinated too), fish strips (marinate with light soya sauce, ginger juice, shaoxing wine and pepper), prawns, yong tau foo and other stuffs.

Rice without the Rice-cooker

Ah, this might sound almost blasphemous... How is it likely to cook rice without the rice-cooker? I mean... Its the classic rice-cooker that every Asian family would probably own. (i mean the middle class ones, at least). Well, sometimes you just want to have rice for yourself and maybe, one other person? You can't possibly activate the entire rice-cooker... It doesn't make sense! So what can you do?

Just use the gas-cooker method. (actually it works perfectly with any other fires too. been there, done that)

Measuring the rice:
This is important. Don't want to start off on the wrong foot. Usually if you are cooking for 2, use a small measuring cup and measure ONE level cup of rice into your cooking pot (must come with cover)

Wash the rice with clean water. TWICE.

Fill the cooking pot with cleaned rice with water. How much? Now this is the tricky part. Use your pinkie. The first joint of the pinkie to measure out the level of water from the level of the rice.

Turn on the gas stove. Put cooking pot with lid on the fire. Stir ocassionally.

Lower flame to simmer once the water boils. Keep stirring ocassionally.

Once the rice is soft, check water level. By now it should be close to zero and just enough to steam. Turn off the fire. Give the rice a good stir. Replace lid. Keep lid on for at least 20 minutes to allow the rice to steam in the heated pot.

Rice. Oh, glorious rice. Got leftovers? Cook fried rice. What's fried rice without leftover rice?