Sunday, December 09, 2007

bento magique


my bento 1: black sesame & brown rice onigiri (rice ball) topped with umeboshi (pickled japanese plum), braised lotus root marinated in sweet soy sauce, all on a bed of shredded cabbage.
my bento 2: omelette bed, tuna salad, Korean pickled raw squid and vegetarian sausage.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

24 on the 24th


又再過了一年了...
我今年已經畢業, 工作. 希望明年可以順利繼續念PhD... 再三年, 年級已經大了. 就是要專心得鑽錢照顧爸媽. 恩, 就這樣.

今年的生日過得很開心. 謝謝大家. (^_^)

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Egg Benedict

Happy new year! Insomnia has striked again and I find my self reading recipe books and watching cooking shows on YouTube. Things on my mind at the moment are 1. worrying about the never arriving contracts from the new lab. 2. wanting so desperately to plan my getaway from Brisbane and 3. a little drama in my private life. I tried jogging, cooking and gardening to calm my mind a little but they don't seem to help. Last night I managed to sleep a bit after midnight but I ended up having this unpleasant dream about making egg benedict on my bed and ruining my beautiful white sheets. I used to get these unpleasant sleeps when I worried about my experiments or about a month before piano recital or exams.

Anyway, so why egg benedict? A few days ago I was unable to sleep until about 6AM; I Googgled "breakfast" and landed my self on Breakfast Blogger. My favourite entry is Room Service at the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan: NYC breakfast #3. I love staying at hotels though sometimes I get a bit scared and sometimes paranoid. There are so many entries which feature eggs (naturally) and the author(s) kindly inserted a Youtube video on how to make Truffled Egg Benedict. I'd heard of this name before and I think I even have the recipe somewhere in one or two of my books but I never really paid attention to it or knew what it is exactly.

After the nightmarish dream, I decided that I MUST make egg benedict, but first I need bread. I had left bread out of my shopping last night because I'm such a bread snob. Well, not really. It's just that, why buy commercially made bread with preservatives and funny chemical in it when I can make my own fresh loaf the way I like it (with tons of salt, chilli and garlic). So first thing was making bread. It was a good loaf, unlike the one I made 2 nights ago that ended up being like a really massive cracker (>"<).




Egg benedict as I understand it is essentially poached egg presented on a tower of toasted bread or English muffin and bacon, topped with a generous dollop (or whatever it is supposed to be called) of Hollandaise sauce; while the asparagus serves as a garnish and nutritional booster.

This is my first time making Hollandaise sauce; it's a bit like mayonaise except the egg is whisked with some heat involved. I didn't use clarified butter of course and the egg was fried sunny side up instead of poached. Maybe I'll follow things more religiously when I start cooking as a career. Hehehe. On the side is tomato, quickly pan fried (Yes, it looks soggy. It was soggy. I'll try better next time) and some potato cubes that I boiled for about 30 minutes then pan-fried with some curry powder and lemon grass. 30 minutes sounds a bit excessive and I had never done it before but they were soooooo soft with slightly crunchy exterior. It sort of just melted in my mouth after I broke the crunch. I should eat more potatoes (or maybe I should stick with my low calorie vegetable soup for a while, considering my escalating weight).

I tied my sister to the dining chair and made her eat it. Just kidding. She is, as always, my voluntary guinea pig, my sweet sweet kitchen test rat. She liked it. I'm happy. Let's hope tonight I could sleep in peace. Amen.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

knottin' noodle

自己做麵條真好玩. 今天晚上我又再做. 照片上的是香菇味跟Bonito 味的.

剛剛 YouTube 上有看到一個 CHEF 做麵條. 看起來好像在看人家表演功夫. Click here to watch the noodle 師傅.太利害了!!! 現在會了自己做, 希望不會再吃 泡麵... 但我還是做不到泡麵的湯那麼 yummy. (>"<)

Aku sedih, nga jadi ke Korea.

Monday, January 01, 2007

fresh new year, fresh noodle














Happy new year!! (^o^) I hope everyone has had a great 2006 and a fantastic holiday. My parents came over for my graduation and left on Christmas day. I got miserably ill that day and couldn't stomach anything solid for a few miserable days. I recovered just in time to welcome the new years with my cousins and their cousins, one of whom came from Adelaide for the Christmas break. I went along with them to the city and on our stop at Borders I found a recipe book for pasta. I knew I shouldn't buy another recipe book so after hugging it for about an hour, I let go, keeping in my memory the basic recipe to make fresh pasta.

I've always wanted to make my own fresh noodle. I have this Korean DVD and its opening scene is of a guy making noodle in a really peaceful and homey kitchen. Today I made my first batch of noodle/pasta (call it whatever you like). I flavoured it with dried chilli. It turned out well except I think I needed fresher eggs and I should have rolled out the noodle a bit thinner (I don't have pasta maker, so I rolled it out with baking pin).














I quickly tossed the final product in my garlic infused olive oil, lemon juice, freshly cracked black pepper, dried chilli and flat parsley and topped it with a bit of shaved parmesan.