4 months and still counting.

I haven't been writing for awhile due to several reasons, mainly because I've been ridiculously busy, however, having to say that, I'm glad that I still manage to cook at least a few times per week. Cooking is not just a therapeutic experience, it is also very comforting to cook for someone you love, obviously, the person whom I'm talking about here is no other, but my dearest boo, aka Paul.

We spent a lot of time in the kitchen, playing our own individual role when comes to domestic tasks. I cook while he puts the laundry away, hangs them and keeps them. (Occasionally some almost mishaps) Sometimes he would help me out in cooking; cutting butternut pumpkin etc. Needless to say, he's a wonderful sous chef. A damn bloody gorgeous looking one too.

4 months have flied, I haven't stop cooking and Paul is still alive after eating food cooked by me. Somehow I'm cooking more than usual, especially with my birthday gift from Paul: Nigella Lawson's recipe book. I tried some recipes from her book and I think I'm not exactly a book follower in terms of following the measurement and sometimes I'm too cheapskate to get some ingredient knowing that I am probably going to use it once. The results haven't been compromised and sometimes substituting an ingredient is a form of innovation and creativeness displayed in cooking.



One of the many dishes--
Sunday Brunch:
Hakka Yong Tau Foo: vegetables and tofu cubes heaped with fresh fish paste, spring onions and chillies dipped in yellow bean and garlic sauce.

Domestic Bliss

Paul and I have moved in together for more than 7 days. Still alive and loving. So far being together in the same time zone has been a blissful joy and a new found serenity in the house when we unpacked and fixed some of the furniture. Very efficient team work, I must say. Besides the unhealthy oily smell from our neighbour's kitchen, we are rather satisfied with the apartment and still couldn't settle on a favourite corner in the house, currently, our bedroom's balcony is my favourite corner for various reasons.

The main reason is Paul and I have been having our meals in the balcony; It is probably going to be the area for us to ponder, read and have our meals. I am very much looking forward to every meal we will be having in this corner.


Our first brunch.


Our first dinner.


Our first time cooking together.

I'm quite certain that I will be uploading more photos of our meals in the near future.

Our supposedly famous export

In 2008, a local beer company served chilli crabs along with its beer in London as part of their beer festival, I wonder about the reviews and had they been successful to seduce the British to drink more of the beer or eat more chilli crabs?

It's really hard to pin down on which is the singular Singapore's national dish. One of the running choices is definitely our famous chilli crab. Some have unofficially claimed chilli crab for the title; our national dish. In my opinion, life is merrier with more than just one national dish. It's even better if you could share the dish with friends. So Paul and I decided to get our fingers dirty with the mud crabs, albeit not from Singapore, I think they are from Sri Lanka. Rumour has it; the crabs were fed on dead human bodies hence the seemingly unnatural mutant size. Oh well. Who cares when they are cooked in the mouth-watery spicy and sweet gravy; a mixture of ketchup, some chopped chilli and etc. They tasted so deliciously good and it was interestingly more tasty when you licked the gravy off from your fingers.

A note is to be highlighted-- beware of friends who aren't too experienced with the cracking a crab procedure. However, as long the diner has a good sense of humour and a heart to get in tune with the locals, flying crabmeat sight is accepted with a quiet chuckle in public.


A lovely time with Paul. Messy, fingers licking and laughter.
(G rated)

Smorgasboard

We had a mini smorgasboard last friday to celebrate Waichin's birthday. She plays such an important role in our job scope, primarily to keep us on our toes with our expenditure by her maternal instinct; nagging. Anyway, Waichin has an aptly appetite to try something different but never had the opportunity to do so, therefore we decided to give her a surprise in a true scanadavian style. Something that she has never tried before, and would never ever imagined. Luckily, our dear emily has a danish husband, so we've managed to keep this particular smorgasboard as authentic as possible.

Let's start with the main course, Emily has cooked some rather delicious meatballs using her mother in law's recipe for the first time. Her herb sauce went very well with the meatballs. Of course, a traditional smorgasboard has to have herrings in some weird sauces such as curry sauce and mustard, honestly, I can't stomach herrings, it's pretty gross to me and I can't hide my grimace. Not to offend any scanadavians (since I'm a big fan of scanadavian's design), I guess I should say it's an acquired taste. As for my contribution to the feast, I made crabmeat canape and potato salad.



Food served:
meatballs with herb sauce
dark bread
herrings in sauces
crabmeat canape
potato salad
smoked salmon
apple, peach and strawberry strudel
cake and cookies baked by audrey

We were supposed to have schnapps but no one was game enough to drink during lunch time because there were lots of work to catch up after the celebration. And waichin deals with figures. Important figures. Anyway, I think it's okay to get drunk in the presence of friends but not colleagues.

Well after almost 2 weeks of deep searching for crabmeat, I'm glad I've managed to cook something different for waichin, a very lovely colleague. She was quite speechless and could only utter,"I'm so touched" in cantonese which most of the colleagues couldn't understand, but I guess there is not a word better than her smile.

Chook! Tandoori!

About 1.5 weeks ago, I bought a big tub of plain yoghurt, supposedly to use it for oatmeal masque, but I don't need that much of yoghurt. Instead of wasting the yoghurt and doing nothing about it, I decided to set a new challenge in my culinary adventure; cook tandoori chicken! Despite my kitchen does not have a tandoor, and I am still having the love and hate relationship with the oven but I'm willingly to take a leap of faith and make mistakes along the way.

Getting the right ingredients, especially the spices is quite important. Please boycott marketplace at Raffles City when comes to getting spices. They're selling a small bottle of cardamon seeds at S$14.00 (7 euros) That's absolutely daylight robbery! Maybe I should post this highlight in SG expat forum or something. Anyway, I paid less than S$2 for the cardamon seeds that I used.

For the ingredients, you need cloves, chilli powder (you may use ceyanne powder), about 6 table spoon of plain yoghurt, lemon juice, cardamon seeds, coriander powder, cummin seeds, mashed garlic and ginger, salt, grounded pepper. Not forgetting, we need our dear CHOOK! Chop it! Please trim off the visible chicken fat.

Pretty easy steps
clean the chicken and stab it, strategically, of course. Mix the chilli powder, some salt and ground pepper. Massage your chicken with the mixture. Yes, after all that stabbing, you massage the chicken with love and tenderness.

Following after that, use a big container/round container. It's wise to use a container because you could just cover the container and leave it in the fridge for the marination.

Now it's time to make the key mixture which consists of yoghurt, lemon juice, cloves, cardamon seeds, cummin seeds, coriander powder, mashed garlic and ginger, grounded pepper and salt. Once it's ready, add the chicken. I wanted the dish to be slightly spicy and also to look abit more red, hence, I added abit more chilli powder.

One important tip: Marinate the chicken for at least 8 hours or overnight. (not more than 2 days) Thaw the marinated chicken for 30 minutes before grilling it.

Preheat the oven to over 450 degrees, and the cooking time is 45 minutes. Check the chicken once in awhile while it's cooking in the oven and brush it with alittle bit of olive oil after you drain the excess marinade.

Serve it with garlic couscous and some chopped yellow peppers, onions, tomatoes and cucumbers.

Time to put on some punjab music, raise your hands and move your shoulders.

Buongiorno

Lately lunch hour has been more interesting because of my sudden cooking spree. Fridge at home is overwhelmed with food, ingredients and spices. Mom is getting less "nazi" about sharing her kitchen. I guess subconsciously all the cooking distraction has quietly replaced as an approved solace after a long day at work.

For this dish: Prawns Aglio olio, I'm glad that I've prepared all the ingredients a night before, thus, waking up just in time to cook was quite a breeze and I wasn't too late for yet another blood draining weekly meeting.

It was quite a joy to prepare the ingredients because of the process of cutting the fresh parsley; it left a very refreshing soothing smell on my fingers.

Ingredients
De-shelled prawns
Fresh Parsley
Olive oil
sherry wine
1/2 red chilli (you may use paprika)
14 cloves of garlic, that's right, 14! it's never enough!!!
1 yellow pepper (sliced) as a side dish

Try not to cook yellow pepper, it should be eaten at its raw state at all times! Do check out the table below for the wonderful nutritious value! (From http://caloriecount.about.com)



Overall, I've enjoyed my lunch tremendously and should have added more chilli or used chilli padi to set my tongue on fire. Anyway, having yellow pepper as a side dish was quite a complimentary to the olive oil induced aglio olio.

Farty Day

I remember watching a Japanese movie called 'Udon' on my flight to Tokyo(Transit). Of course, just as the movie title suggests, it's all about udon, udon, udon, the quest to seek for the best udon in a remote Japanese village or town. The plot is obviously predictable and it didn't take me long to switch to the usual boring video games which seemed far more interesting at that time. To be honest, I am not a huge fan of udon. I guess what we have here are mostly not the freshly made quality ones hence the inferior taste and sometimes I feel like I'm chewing white long slimey worms.

So to make the dressing, use...
white rice vinegar, mirin, sesame oil. Just mix them in a bowl


The main ingredients
udon, shredded omelette, cooked marinated chicken (you may use shredded ham), chopped tomatoes and onions (I added 2 onions and resulted my heavy silent farting much to my colleagues' oblivion or maybe not) Luckily, the fart wasn't smelly if not I would have been awarded the farty queen title.

Back to the food, lastly, pour the dressing and add mayonnaise as the final touchdown. Serve it cold. Garnish the salad with shredded seaweed.

I did enjoy the udon salad heartily, but I still prefer soba. Maybe next time, I will just add a teeny bit of wasabi to jazz things up alittle. Wonder if the Japanese would ever invent wasabi cigarettes. Maybe they already did.

The Possibility of Taste in the Mind of Someone Living

Maybe I'm an Italian in my previous life. I could live on pasta for days, weeks and possibly months if I'm creative enough. Well, I'm supposed to cook marinara spaghetti, but since I'm a fussypot, I don't eat mussels or clams (well, seriously all those shell creatures should be left alone in the first place) So my version consists of squids, prawns, shitake mushrooms and oyster mushrooms.

For the sauce- it's pretty easy to make. The sense of satisfaction of saying--"i made my own sauce.." shines like a glow on your culinary skills. Put on your best smug smile.



Mix a can of full tomatoes with tomato paste and fresh basil. If it's too acidic, just add a little bit of sugar. Well if you have port, that's even better. Control yourself though.

Pescetarian or not

I could very well be a Pescetarian if there's no existence of bacon. Yes, the semi-crispy unhealthy bacon that comes with the very alluring smell of high Cholesterol which should be frowned upon. However, Dr Paul Hutchinson suggested a possibility of genetically modified bacon in future...grown from trees. "Ewww!" I said. Such an atrocious thought! Hopefully, I don't live long enough to be a witness of this possible shocking creation.



Stuffed yellow pepper- with bacon, garlic and couscous served with chick peas, tomato, spinach salad(with italian dressing).

Mad about Salt and Vinegar

It's quite apparent that I'm a salt and vinegar fanatic and I can't resist them when I'm in M&S. In fact, I don't hide my excitement very well.



Anyway, I would highly recommend Marks & Spencer's handcooked crisps. Please get yourself a pint of English ale or any lager. Share it with a friend to complete the experience.




Please don't bother to try Kettle Brand's Sea Salt and Vinegar chips. It's horrendously salty unless you are suffering from salt deficiency. Then try Kettle.


Something about salt.
Drinking a mixture of two-thirds cow's milk and one-third salt-water, in the mornings, on an empty stomach was recommended as a cure for diseases of the spleen. A mixture of salt and honey was applied topically to clean bad ulcers and salt-water was used externally against skin diseases and freckles.

G is for Gina and Gwyneth

I can't remember who suggested to have dinner on a lazy monday, well, definitely not me because I'm the laziest, and the least enthusiastic about having dinner on a MONDAY!

Anyway, Missy Gina can't wait to whip out this mysterious salad dressing inspired by Gwyneth Paltrow's recipe (I think). Well, the dressing turned out pretty good. An academy nod, indeed.


Ingredients
Carrots, miso, sesame oil, honey, cider vinegar, ginger. (Use a blender)

Well you can use any greenies to go along with this dressing which looks quite like a facial masque. Looking at the ingredients, it does have the potential.

The dinner was fabulous- garlic chicken wings cooked by Cheryl, rocket leaves salad with G's dressing and rosé wine provided by moi. I do miss 3 of us chatting with no boys around. Somehow I reckon Pierre got the hint or he was resting due to the supposedly carrot allergy.

Lentil-Chicken Stew

The key ingredient is fresh thyme . Yes, please throw away any dried thyme in your kitchen. No amount of dried thyme could measure up to fresh thyme or save your soul. This is a message to my colleague, Bk who is a huge fan of dried oregano. Time to switch to fresh herbs, my friend.

Ingredients
one whole chicken, baby carrots, red skin potatoes, a can of lentils, shitake mushrooms, french beans, fresh thyme, chicken broth, salt, grounded peppper, sherry wine, garlic, onions, butter

Drums rolling--
Wash the chicken, cut them into pieces. Marinate the chicken with abit of fresh thyme, salt and sherry wine. Put them aside as you prepare the rest of the ingredients; cut all the vegetables into chunky pieces.

Sauté the onions and garlic (until slightly golden brown)
Add the chicken pieces and more fresh thyme.
Please make sure you have a big enough pot. Thanks to my mom's collection, she has a pot which I believe 2 human heads could fit in.

While the chicken pieces are getting cooked, add the chicken broth (about 4 cups, I'm terrible at measurement. I've probably inherited the flaky measurement standard from my nanny)

Leave the chicken broth to boil, then add the rest of the vegetables and the lentils. Don't forget the sherry wine (about 2 table spoons) Lastly, salt and grounded pepper to taste.

Special note: To have the creamy texture-- add a bit of butter (recommended size of the butter: you can find on an airplane) before serve. If the stew is too watery, do add some corn flour mixed with water if necessary.

Prep time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: About 2 hours.
Best time to serve: the very next day with pine nuts/garlic couscous.

Verdict-- I have inspired my colleague, WC who would like to learn how to cook the dish, and another colleague, BK who kept asking me about the recipe. The rest of the subbie (my colleagues) seemed to love it. Well, truthfully, stew is a no brainer dish. It's all about cooking time. Nevertheless, stew is always a comfort food for me.