Sinful Sunday

This post is the reason why I rarely head to the Subiaco Station Street Markets. I realised that it is very dangerous for me to walk past the La Galette de France patisserie.

This pastry, which I do not have the exact name for, looks like your typical danish without the custard. And despite all of that icing sugar, it wasn't overly sweet.

I actually had such a difficult time choosing what I wanted from the patisserie. I had to pick between croissants, fruit tarlets, danishes, brioche, just to name a few, and they are all freshly baked! If only I can have pastries like this for breakfast every day! Thank goodness I do not visit the markets every weekend!

The best roasted pork in PJ Section 17

A special dedication to pork lovers! You can get the best roasted pork ('siew yok') at Hong Seng restaurant in Section 17, Petaling Jaya. Their roasted pork is very nice, especially the skin; it is sooo crispy! *ket-cha...ket-cha...*

During this visit, we ordered a mixed platter of roasted chicken, BBQ pork ('cha siew') and roasted pork for 4 people. The total bill was RM39, including rice and soup for each person!




A week ago, I passed by this restaurant and had to order the roasted pork rice to go, which was only RM5.


It's sinful to waste good food. Ask for more~!

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the Simple dish

As promised, the recipe for Italian Chicken Casserole I made for dinners previously. I saw this recipe initially on a Campbell's stock box, however I found the exact same recipe from Masterchef Australia's website (note: it is not one of their official recipes).

Honestly I forgotten about the tomato paste, and I made my own simple chicken stock using the bones (rather than the Campbell's). Me, being me, I did not add the unnecessary starch of plain flour as the plain flour serves the purpose to only thicken the sauce. I still loved the simple flavour and added my fresh basil to it, after all basil is the reason why I made this dish.

Adaptation: Use other vegies you prefer/ have in the fridge. I used broccoli along with the other vegies suggested.

Its' really simple!

Basil overdosed!

From my previous ''French'' dinner, I had leftovers of basil and can't just let it go wasted. Pretty much meal after meal, basil was included. I jokingly told Jin that I overdosed on basil as I moved from a French theme to an Italian theme, Thai as well as another Italian?  

This is the Italian Chicken Casserole, with an adaptation. Rather than putting them in the oven, I had them cooking over a stove. Complete recipe will be posted later, but I just had to say how much I dislike my green bits (vegies and basil) to appear black in this picture. *sulks* The thai-themed food is not posted, but all I did was a Basil fried rice (and forgotten about the chillies) *double sulks*.

My leftover cheat pizza, where I only had my last bits of basil. Everything 'leftover-ish' in my fridge appeared on the pizza- pastrimi, red capsicum, basil, tomato paste, and cheese on my last piece of lebanese bread! Ta-da~~ my unhealthy meal of a week.

Pss... I do normally reward myself after a week of work and gym with an unhealthy meal and the pizza was one of them. Normally its chips.

(it is soooo Mich)

My anal bits

And if you're thinking about a different definition of anal, you are so wrong.

This post wouldn't be a review or a recipe. It would be on ... My 'anal retentive' habits on food.

Such 'anal' personality will lead to a person's effort for control: orderliness, stubbornness and a compulsion for control.

As I was walking home after work, I gave it some thought- I get way upset when the following things happen to my food. So my three anal habits include:

1) I hate my fruits bruised, often it happens to my pears.
2) I hate my egg yolks to break. My friend once had to fry eggs three (or four, I can't remember) times to serve me the perfect sunny side up.
3) I hate ppl who presses down my rice when serving them. I like them perfect looking. So if I was served rice with its perfect bowl mould, I like them that way. The rice has to stay ''tall" throughout my meal, even as I spoon and eat them.

What led to this post? I had my pear bruised this morning =(

Good snacks?

The only reason I bought this brand: It was on S.A.L.E! Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to test out this flavour of cranberry and pomegranate.

It is obviously baked, and the amusing part of the packaging they promote these bars as a high source of antioxidants. Among the listed ingredients, a whole 36% goes to ''fruit''. Despite the promoted flavours, cranberry puree was only 0.2% and so is pomegranate. The rest of ''fruit'' goes to Apple puree (disappointed to the max)!

One word summed this product for me: Sweet.
Will I buy it again? Most likely no (pss...unless its on sale again, and it has to be HUGE discount e.g. 66%).
Would they help me in my 'healthy-eating' plan? No.Instead of having these as a travelling/commuting snack, they now serve as desserts.

The classic Chinese takeaway!

Tonight's dinner! I was pleasantly surprised, not to mention it was a 'buy one free one' purchase. Thanks to entertainment card vouchers =) I did contemplate quite a bit because I have been previously disappointed badly by a similar franchise.

Again, playing with colour editing and all =). This is their Combo Box, thin egg noodles with roast pork, lean beef, chicken, prawn, shrimp and Asian vegies wok tossed in oyster sauce. I really enjoyed this- it reminded me of a noodle dish back home. Thank goodness I have rationed it, the first word that came into mind was addictive.

I started off wanting to eat their Mee Gee Seafood Box- thick egg noodles with prawns, calamari, shrimp, seafood flakes, fish cakes, tofu and Asian vegies wok tossed in a Malaysian style sauce but I ended up trying both different noodles (can't contain the excitement of mine!) with an extra side serve of cabbage stirfry. The Malaysian sauce has a slight sourish taste (which I love), and a slight coconut cream taste (which I detest). If I could rephrase the taste of this noodle dish differently, it would be a 'dried-up' laksa sauce.

.

Nevertheless, a meal I thoroughly enjoyed tonight (and tomorrow) because I managed to split the two small boxes into three portions. *all smiles* 

My Eating Experience in HK!

This is a very outdated post. Looks like my memories of Hong Kong from a couple of months ago revolve around the dining table only but I just have to share them. Feast your eyes on these mouthwatering dishes! Enjoy!

My first dinner: Roast Pork, Roast Duck and Steamed Chicken.

Look at the steamed rice; the bowl is as large as the plate of steamed chicken.


However, after dinner (and after all the shopping) we were still peckish. We had this radish cake entre for supper. This restaurant can be found near the 'Ladies Market' in Kowloon.

Our mains for supper: Curry fishballs (with squid and radish) and...

... 'roti canai'! Seriously, I was a bit amused *it was really crisp too!*

Our mango desserts for supper! Yummilicious! This one is a mango and glutinous rice ball dessert.

Mango with pomelo dessert.
*Seriously, these were to die for! I recommend them!*

Yum Cha Breakfast! This 'chan thang' was just down the road from our hotel on 'Si Yau Kai'. I always order this - plain 'chee cheong fun'.

'Yau char kuai' wrapped in chee cheong fun *this was so yummy! The 'yau char kuai' was still crispy and it was stuffed with spring onions and shrimp*

More stuff during dim sum: 'Lau sa pau' (top dish) and a plate of ginger and sesame dessert (sorry, I cannot exactly recall what it was called).

'Lau sa pau' - really 'lau' out (i.e. the filling was literally leaking out; it was hot too!)

This one was an interesting dish. I was craving for proper red bean buns and they only served this. It is some form of fried pau with red bean filling. It was good, though. I wish I had more!

The 'pau' was crispy and surprisingly not as oily as I imagined it to be *yum!*

Proper 'tau fu fah' at Yuen Long, with the ceramic bowls and spoons in a tiny shop! I should have had another bowl! It was so good. You could choose to add brown sugar syrup or normal syrup.

Clay pot chicken and mushroom rice! Totally awesome for a cold night.

We enjoyed the mango desserts so much that we decided to return on our last night for supper. Red bean dessert (top left); Mango dessert with glutinous rice balls, again (top right); Mango dessert spread which includes a custard pudding in the middle (bottom tray).

*If only I could be back in HK right now for a weekend feast. Wouldn't that be fantastic?*

Ratatouille- where's the rat?

The movie which inspired many others to make the dish!

Referring to the previous post of our French theme, here's a recipe to my Ratatouille (very much based on Julia Child's and other random reads)

Both zucchinis and eggplant were salted and left to stand for 30 minutes. This technique drains out the water content in these vegetables.

Recipe which serves 4 (entree-size based on my judgment)
1/2 red onion
2 1/2 zucchinis
2 1/2 capsicums
2 Lebanese eggplant
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup fresh basil, roughly chopped
Salt and pepper to taste, olive oil too

1. Saute the eggplants and zucchinis lightly, doing it one layer at a time on a pan. Set aside.
2. Fry the red onions and capsicums. Season to taste.
3. Add in tomatoes. Simmer until the juices evaporate.
4. In the pot/ casserole dish (which I do not have), layer the vegetables and let simmer for 30 minutes ensuring the vegetables do not burn.
5. Stir in basil at the end before serving.

Two very similar pictures, because I am still experimenting! At the same time, I really dislike taking photos during the dark at my place. The lightbulb does not help too. Can I blame the camera too? =P

note: Apparently the flavours develop overnight making it a more intense flavoured dish. I did not have any leftovers to prove it personally, but will definitely make this dish again.

Bonjour~~

To celebrate a housemate's 26th birthday (shh...he better not read this!), we decided to organise our own version of Masterchef with a French theme. We attempted to do a three course meal, and I had the responsibility of preparing the main course (which I am truly lousy in). When we were busy preparing in the small kitchen of ours, it felt like a team challenge =)

The irony of it, my prepared dish was ratatouille and it looked more of an entree than a main. On the other hand, the entree of salade de riz had a portion size of a main! It wasn't the only thing we did wrong or to best describe our meal, my housemates made adaptations/improvements e.g. the rice salad had a slight fusion adaptation (note: soy sauce for colouring?!!)to it.

Clafoutis au chocolat et baies mélangées, a rather dense chocolate cake to me. The amusing thing again, this recipe is very different from other clafoutis recipe I have known. It didn't have flour in it and other further adaptations to its original recipe.  

French was such a wrong theme for us to start with, however, we had an amazing night entertaining ourselves with the "adaptations" and laughter. We also had the company of Doctor Parnassus and Percy Jackson.

Happy Birthday, dear housemate and friend of mine.

Home cook dinner

1. Lotus Root with Pork soup -
Ingredient: pork ribs,red dates,peanut, scallop and water

2. Stir Fried broccoli -
Ingredient: broccoli and minced garlic



3. Fried Meat Shreds with Egg Gravy (the color will look nice if the egg is yellow after cook..)
Ingredient : pork, Chinese mushroom, Chinese sausage, young Ginger, red chilling and eggs

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