Tom Yum stuffed Calamari

Tom Yum-stuffed calamari

Alright folks, this is going to be a quick post to assure you that I am still alive and causing havoc in my lab. Hahaha. Recently, Harris Farm Market opened up a store near me and upon checking it out one night I was overjoyed to find a fresh seafood market that featured awesome goodness like sashimi-grade fishes, sea urchin, lots of fresh whole fishes and all those yummy goodness that I could only dream of finding in the usual supermarkets.

This week I made Tom Yum Stuffed Calamari and it's dead easy to make!

Prawn ravioli with green curry dressing

Midnight Bakery original

In South-East Asia it is not uncommon to find a peaceful marriage between noodles with various versions of curry and raviolli is certainly not too distant a cousin from noodles. Dear friends, I present to you the dish that broke my mortar: Prawn ravioli with green curry dressing.

Assam Laksa

Kiki's Assam Laksa

Hello all! It's been a while since my last post and believe me I have been brewing ideas for the next post, this post. I was inspired by an episode of Poh's show that featured Thai cuisine. In that show, a visiting chef made curry paste from scratch. That, combined with the increasingly limited space in my bar fridge (as a result of ever growing number of jars) pushes me to embark on my new experiment: Assam Laksa!

Potato & seafood curries

Rice and two curries

One thing that I miss about Brisbane is the food. Sure it's not as deeply populated by little exotic food corners as Sydney or Melbourne but it is my second home. There's this great restaurant that serves Malaysian and Singaporean fares called Little Singapore. Little Singapore started off in a little shop in Sunnybank's Market Square (before the square burnt down a few years ago) but since the opening, business has been thriving and they now have a branch in the city. My absolute favourite from this place is the butter chicken, which is deep fried chicken chunks accompanied by... wait for it... crispy curry leaves. Yeah, those green goodness rocked my world. Anyway, so when I saw curry leaves in the market the other day, I knew I had to have them despite not having any real plan on what to make. I'm sure they taste great with anything.

Lobster chawan mushi

A little side dish: chawan mushi (savoury steamed egg custard)
From my last lobster recipe, I had a little bit of leftover raw lobster meat which I decided to turn into savoury steamed egg otherwise known as chawan mushi. I think chawan mushi is quite healthy and low in fat. There is no added fat and you can toy with the salt/sodium content as you season the dish. It's virtually healthy whole protein and it's really quite easy to make and it tastes great. You can use any fish or prawns for this recipe. For my other version of chawan mushi, have a look at my previous post on steamed fritatta.

Pan-fried lobster tail in butter and black truffle infused oil

Pan fried lobster tailon a bed of rice

Welcome to 2010! This holiday has given me a fresh chance to relax and just be. Yesterday, I took my little self to the Sydney Fish Market and I snooped all the shops. It was stinky, super crowded, wet and I loved it. What I also love is my little discovery: lobster tails. The holidays and Australians' love affair with seafood gave seafood vendors an excuse to skyrocket their prices, but even outside the holiday season lobsters are pricey. In one corner of a very crowded shop, near the entrace, I saw frozen lobster tails for $69.99 per kilo. The friendly shop attendant at Claudio's told me that one tail, depending on the weight varies between $15-17, which is a huge price gap away from whole lobster with the head attached. So I got her to grab me a small tail and oh what a beautiful tail.

Savoury oat porridge with century egg and pickled eggplant

I love the versatility of oats. You could incorporate it in cookies and muffins to which it adds a new dimension to the texture. Oats also offer many health benefits. It has been said that oats help lower cholesterol re-absorption and therefore promote cardiovascular well-being. Oats are rich source of both soluable and insoluable fibres, the stuff that keeps you regular and help make you feel full longer so that you don't overeat. In fact, oats fall into the category of low GI foods. In lay term this means that oats are more slowly digested, resulting in a gradual rise of blood glucose. This is good news for diabetics and all ye who are battling the waist line.

Dinner party

I decided to throw a little dinner party with a few of my friends last night and what better opportunity to experiment. :P One little trouble, one of the boys is not a fan of seafood and fish to which I'm accustomed to cooking. I didn't feel ready to embark on cooking red meat, so I brought home two whole chicken to toy with. Admittedly, I'm a bit squirmish when it comes to touching raw meat especially when it still looks like a whole carcass, but I was deeply intrigued by the anatomy of a whole chicken since last week when I cooked a whole baked chicken encased in salt crust.

Prosciutto lemon parcels of chicken thighs

Prosciutto lemon parcels of chicken thighs
I borrowed Julie's idea (Masterchef Australia) of deboning chicken thighs, rolled and poaching them in its own broth (made using the bones) then baked wrapped with a slice of prosciutto and lemon. I tied mine up with a piece of string to keep them all together and of course adhering with the fancy idea of dinner party, it's always fun to cut off the string upon serving.

Smoked salmon & dill roll

I had inheritted a whole block of smoked salmon from Tassal at the Sydney good food and wine show. A block of salmon, can I say that? Smoked salmon is hardly a staple pantry ingredient but with this quantity around, I feel that I have the privillige to exhaust every known recipe without fear, but when it comes to naming names... what exactly could I do with smoked salmon apart from old bagel, cream cheese and smoked salmon? Or Salmon tossed around in salad, or pasta dish? For once, I put on my eye cover, resist the temptation of Google search and hey, what about an sushi like egg roll with salmon and its classic best friend dill and cream cheese? Alright so that took a little bit more than just voila, I meditated over lunch. It helps that I have a tonne of eggs that I want to get rid of and I'm attempting another go at making creme caramel.

Espresso souffle of potato and bacon

Espresso sized souffle with soy fish and salad
dressed with the reduction of the fish marinate

I bought a bag of baby potatoes from the neighbourhood fruit and vegetable store with the intention to make baked baby potatoes like the ones that I loved back in my days in the boarding school. But considering that that particular love (and many other things) turned me into a fat teenager I thought of a better idea: a shift towards exercising some inventive energy to churn these babies into something else that is more than ordinary.

Grilled honey and miso salmon & steamed frittata

Steamed spinach and baby tomato frittata

Back to Earth, back to Sydney and back to the reality that Australia is in the middle of a recession. Apart from that, I just got two lotus shaped sauce dishes from Japan city (on special!! :D) that look so pretty when teamed up with sake cups so I need an excuse to parade it.

Grilled honey and miso salmon & steamed frittata

Shitake bread rolls

Shitake bread rolls

This is the latest experimental product to be born from my kitchen, shitake bread rolls, to mark my 26th birthday. They were initially inspired by senbei or Japanese rice cracker. Apart from capturing the shoyu/soy sauce flavour, I wanted to create a bread type that is still soft, with an additional ingredient that would set it apart from other bread although admittedly marrying bread and soy sauce is almost unspeakable. In the end, after rumaging through my kitchen cupboards, I emerged with sesame oil and shitake mushroom and proceeded to make the bread.

I ran a test on my colleagues, refusing to tell them what ingredients I have used until they finish the rolls and tell me what they thought. Most people couldn't figure out the flavour although they seemed to like it. Out of about 20 people, 2 people guessed shitake mushroom, 2 mentioned sesame oil. I think next time I try something weird, I should probably give everyone a ballot paper for votes so I could compile real statistics. Hahahaha.

I will post the recipe after I return from Vanuatu so watch this space. (^^)

Midnight Ramen

Don't do this at home, at least not at this time of the night. I was already in bed, tucked in and some animation playing in my computer right next to me when slowly but surely a craving for ramen that I have tried to suppressed for days crept up to me. So I googled for pictures of ramen, which made it worse! I gave up and got up, went searching in my kitchen cupboard for any ingredients that could be somehow incorporated into making a delicious bowl of emergency ramen.

Scallop Aladin

Black truffle scallops on crispy potato and prociutto - Batch 1

Scallop Aladin, can you please explain this? Why of course. If you look closely, you'll realize that the prosciutto resembles Aladin's flying carpet. Name out of the way, let's get down to the food itself.

Ravi the massive ravioli

my asian-fusion ravioli.
some people eat when they're jittery, i cook. there's something soothing about chopping, stirring, mixing, getting second degree burn on my finger. the feeling is simply grand (no, not the burn). i tried making a fusion ravioli (you'd never get the authentic stuff out of my kitchen) with prawns and vegetable filling and chinese dumpling wrapper that i found in the supermarket. may i just confirm store bought wraps are crap. repeat after me... store bought wraps are crap. store bought wraps are crap. amen.

something fishy

this is called baramundi something something.

just kidding.

je vous présente "miso-lime sauce over garlic panfried baramundi with sides of lime potato and baconed green beans". i've been thinking about sauces a lot lately though it has very bad effect on my expanding waistline. i've been eating a lot since i came back from my trip. *sigh*

so what's in the sauce? i've given away my secret to a friend who inspired this recipe so i may as well give it out. in the sauce is mayonaisse, sesame oil, chinese cooking wine, whole grain mustard, lime juice and miso paste. i used it to cover the fish while reserving the rest for later. as for the potato, it's quite simply boiled briefly... in snobby term, it's blanche (hehe) then panfried with my favourite garlic infused oil with a dash of curry powder, finely chopped shallots and mild chilli and of course the main theme.. generous shower of lime juice. the bean is quite simple.. blanche, then toss quickly over heat with caramelized diced bacon and garlic. the fish is also panfried and later, while the pan is still hot and containing the juice from the fish, i poured the reserved sauce over quickly.. quickly... aw the sauce is breaking!!! stir-stir-stir and pour over the fish and potato.

cut 2 slices of thin sourdough bread (not shown here) to mop the sauce with as a finishing touch. cubes of cucumber (also not shown here) also does wonder to contrast the heavy taste of potato, fish and sauce. the lime is simply simply sublime. excuse me if i'm biased in judgement over my own food.

冬菜包

This is Kiki's 冬菜包. Initially, I wanted to make Chinese style garlic bread, but because the 冬菜 flavour is much more persistent I decided that I should try harder to make it next time. For the dough, I had mixed in a little bit of 五香粉 (5 spice powder) and lots of garlic. I think it's fantastic and it definately will feature in my (future) cafe.

冬菜 (dong cai) is Chinese preserved cabbage. It's brown and salty.

gina's 23rd

tomorrow gina (the nem) turns 23. above is the nem and her cake( blackberry cheesecake, topped/garnished with strawberries)

chocobomb

Lagi ngantuk pas selesai bikin kue ini. menurut rencana tadi maunya mocha mousse cake, tapi akhirnya error mulu. moussenya nga jadi karena tadi coklatnya kiki masukin ke microwave (karena males dipanesin pelan-pelan). begitu kuning telur dimasukin kok coklatnya tiba-tiba jadi keras...! nothing ever goes according to plan. telur yg udah disiapin buat mousse akhirnya buat quiche bawang. kemudian, kue ini jadi mocha cake bersandwich whipped cream dan dilapisi hazelnut ganache. yg bulat diatas itu hasil coklat yg dimicrowave tadi, dihiasin biji kopi.

l'ennui

i decided to bake, at 8.58 tonight. it's peanut butter cream sandwiched between layers of mocha sacher. i accidentally added too much ground coffee... happy birthday, chére blier.