How Do You Like Your Eggs 19092015

Poached egg or fried egg? It's entirely up to you how you live your life, what you attract into your life and how you eat your eggs....

#elise&emma #mynewbabies #my essentials #practicalaromatherapy #thesecret #rollonblend

Sartori Wine Tasting 250815

Wine tasting with Frances at Neroteca. Nice selection of cured meat and cheese. I know it's all about wine tonight but I just can't help it.

A Little Break In Between 10032015

Bad timing on my side. I was stucked at the City Hall during their lunch break. No prize for guessing what I did. Instead of lunch, I went for dessert!

Table for Three 09032015

Cooked for 3 tonight. My best buddy, Danielle came over for dinner. It's nothing too fussy. A new recipe from my client turned friend Lucy, bitter guard with Szechuan mustard soup. It was so nice. I'm going to repeat this more often.

What's for Dinner 11022015

By now I have lost track of how much white fungus I've consumed in just a mere few weeks! I've read it everywhere that it's as good as bird nest making it food for complexion. I cook it with everything that I could think of. Papaya, chicken, coconut....

Guess what? I'm having white fungus soup again. Surprisingly unsurprised huh?

What's For Dinner 09022015

The weather is getting a little too warm now making one feeling heaty. Time for some cooling food for the body. Oolong American ginseng fiber chicken soup and stir fried bitter gourd with pork slices. The sambal ikan bilis was just making its guest appearance for dinner. I was making it for my morning breakfast with bread slices. There's just too many onions in the kitchen and I had to use them up.

What's for Dinner 06022015

Shanghai rice with pumpkin soup

Soup for Soul 040215

Been craving for some proper home made soup and also my skin is getting crazy breakouts due to all those stress at work.

Made with two chicken ribs, soaked white fungus, lotus bulb, wolf berries, ginger and Hua Tiao wine. All ingredients into the pressure cooker and a pot of wholesome home made soup emerged an hour later.

Canelé de Bordeaux

A canelé is a small French pastry originated from Bordeaux, France where they were baked by nuns in the 18th century. It was said to be the ultimate pastry. It's what the Creme brûlée wants to be when it grows up.

I never personally tasted it before but somehow I managed to imagined its taste as I stumbled upon the article one day. The only thing I could bake was butter coffee cake and usually I don't have a clue about baking other stuffs what's more of knowing how things will turn out or taste like by just looking at the recipes and yet the imaginary taste seems to lingered in my mouth and mind for the next few days. Sounds crazy but I was craving for something that I never had before. 

So I've decided to give it a try. I used silicone cupcake mould instead of the copper mould, it was too expensive to buy for a baking noob like me.

The making of noob canelé:

Heat up 2 cups of milk with 3 tablespoon of butter and leave it aside until it's cold enough for you to dip your finger into it.

Then, mix 100 gram of plain flour with 100 

gram of icing sugar, 2 whole eggs and 2 egg yolk. Slowly mix them up to avoid trapping any air bubbles into the batter. It is not supposed to expand or raise during baking. Then add in 1/4 cup of french rum and 4 teaspoon of vanilla essence along with the milk mixture just now. And that's it. Place the batter in the fridge and let it sit for at least 36-48 hours before baking. Stir it again the 36 hours. By this time, there shouldn't be much air bubbles trapped inside.

On the long anticipated day, heat the oven at 240 degree celcious for 30 minutes. Grease the moulds with butter and pour in the batter to the top. Then start baking them at 240 degree celcious for 15 minutes and turn down the heat at 190 degree celcious for 45 minutes. Try to move the tray nearer to the bottom during the last minutes as we want to have even caramelised dark bottom. Otherwise we'll end up with white ass canelé.

The verdict: I was blown away by the sweet dark caramelised outer layer. Then the wonderful rum infused custardly taste and texture has instantly won me over. It's exactly what I had imagined.

Warm Pig's Trotters in Vinegar by the Big Brother

It's been raining for days now and I'm starting to miss the warm sunlight. My body is reacting badly to all the humidity and coldness. My fever kept coming back because of this.

Thank goodness for this wonderful bowl of warmness from the Big Brother. Home cooked pig's trotters with ginger and black vinegar. It was made with the ginger we bought during our day trip to Bentong on Christmas. It helps to warm up the body, good for my cold and bloatiness. 

Plain white rice makes the best companion but when one's hungry, anything quick and easy will have to do. Creativity and  efficiency goes hand in hand when it comes to this. The Soba comes to the rescue!

*Princess Emma does it again, she's getting good at bombing my photos nowadays.

Savory Glutinous Rice Balls

The year is coming to the end with the celebration of the Winter Solstice. Looking forward for a wonderful brand new year.

This year is the second time I tried to make the glutinous rice balls. I failed the first time because I used the wrong flour. It was very funny. I put them to boil and I waited forever for them to float when they are cooked. They just sunk to the bottom of the pot.

It was said failure is the first step to success so I will try again this year with a twist. I made the savory type as I wanted to keep my sugary/ sweet food intake low so that I won't burst my quota. I want to reserve them for chocolates, cookies and such. 

There's a lot of ingredients going into this compared with the sweet version. I had the soup base made from chicken bones, soy beans and anchovies. Then there are chicken slices, mushroom slices and lotsa cilantro. This goes really well with chopped chilli with garlic and some juice.

I managed to find 3 guinea pigs for this experimental dish. So far, they are still alive and kicking.

Chicken Enchilada Soup

It's just too much hassle to cook for one single meal and having to do the dishes afterwards. I always try to cook in bigger portion and divide it into single portion batches and freezes them. Same amount of dishes to clean, doubled or tripled up the ingredients and just a few minutes extra ensures a lazy person like me a home cooked hearty meal most of the time. On my busy days I'll just chuck the frozen meal into the science oven( I really adored the way Jennifer Lawrence called the microwave oven this way in American Hustle ). I'll be cooking new items and store it on other days so I won't get bored eating the same meal 3 days in a row.

There's a little prep work to be done before putting everything into the pressure cooker. The black beans need to be soaked for a few hours. Sauté chopped onion until they caramelised then add in the garlic, bird eye chilli's, cumin, tomato purée with some Hungarian sweet paprika. The chicken breast, sweet corn and black beans goes into the pressure cooker along with the sautéed ingredients with salt, bonito granules and pepper to taste. Cook them under pressure for 90 minutes and they are good to eat. Can be garnished with grated cheese and parsley according to your preference. 

Bon appetite