Sunday, December 27, 2009

Spring onion pancake


What to do when all you need is a handfull of spring onions, but the smallest quantity on offer at the shops are fat bunches of leavey stalks of spring onions? Such is a question that often plaques society today but the Taiwanese have the perfect solution for that: spring onion pancakes! A few years ago, a mother of a friend of mine took me under her wings and showed me how to make these savoury pancakes from scratch and ever since then I've toyed and experimented with the recipes and today I believe that I have perfected the recipe to suit my taste buds and hopefully those of many others. I incorporated yeast in the dough to avoid tough texture and I use chicken broth to maximize the savoury flavour.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Bakcang/肉粽

Be careful when handling bamboo leaves
as they are quite sharp and may leave you with paper cuts, or bamboo cuts

It’s been a while dear readers. I have again been occupied by my beloved research project and after a long time, rather than finding the time, I made the time to make another attempt at making bakcang and thereby taking the chance to capture my mother’s recipe in photographs for anyone who happens to stumble into my cooking blog and intrigued enough to recreate this in their own kitchen. Come on, if i can do this in my miniscule kitchen you can too!

Monday, October 26, 2009

Prevention & Treatment

Packed lunch for a day of work and research


Tuna with chili and mayonaise, white bait,
cucumber, rice and a flower of Japanese preserved radish and eggplant



Brunetti's chocolate mousse

Monday, September 28, 2009

Pahlawan tanpa tanda jasa... nasi


Nasi adalah pemeran latar belakang utama di berjuta-juta makanan yang dihidangkan di meja keluarga terutama di Asia. Namun, tanpanya untaian rasa asin, manis, asem, pahit kehilangan jati diri mereka. Hampir mustahil bila kita mencari satu saja rumah moderen yang tidak dihiasi dengan rice cooker. Kehadirannya meringankan perkerjaan ibu-ibu dan, let's face it, pembatu rumah tangga di seantero nusantara. Tapi hari ini aku menolak untuk memakai rice cooker. Hari ini aku berhasil masak, eh salah, menanak nasi tanpa rice cooker. Ajaib? Tidak juga, hanya saja mukzizat seperti ini sampai saat ini bukan kejadian sehari-hari di dapur sekarang di mana waktu menjelma menjadi komoditas yang langka dan sangat mahal.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Nguing nguing nguing

Chocolate rollie (pre-baking)

This is my new experiment. I placed a flat layer of chocolate dough on top of the soy milk dough I made last night and rolled them together into a log which I then cut into little wheels. I could almost shape them into little rose buds but I'll leave that to next time.

Imagine me and you

Croissant-shaped soy milk brioche

I couldn't wait until tomorrow to bake my little croissant wannabes (see previous post). I really should have just done one to see what time does to the dough. Anyhow, baking a soy bread really morphs the aroma that lurks around as a very welcome by product. The scent is dominated by a nutty tone which trully surprised me because I didn't think this one ingredient would make such a big difference.

Anyhoo, I'll leave the tasting to Sunday morning breakfast. Good night world. :)

Saturday, September 26, 2009

月亮代表我的心

Croissant shaped soy brioche

Hoooiiii, I am still alive and well (^^). I've been rather busy in the lab, thus the absence of new posts in my Midnight Bakery blog. Nevertheless, the Midnight bakery is still chugging some steam at (some) nights.


I'm currently experimenting with soy milk as an ingredient in my bread if not to substitute milk to counter my lactose intolerance , then for novelty's sake.

Monday, August 17, 2009

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.

Sunday, August 02, 2009

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.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Creme caramel for two


Making creme caramel I believe is fueled by an unforgetable experience and may take a little dash of curiousity and a whole of courage. How could it not? I mean, who has the time (let alone patience) to sit there and ponder when the sugar solution looks like it's about the right color, and wait... did we know that caramel is essentially burnt sugar (to a degree)? I for one certainly didn't know this until my obsession with food pushed me to the culinary section of book stores and internet corners. So... if you had read my previous entry, you'd know that I had the intention of making smoked salmon roll, sharing one ingredient with creme caramel. No ready made creme caramel could emit that genuine caramel flavour of a home made and certainly no store bought could beat the satisfaction of making it yourself.

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.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Dumplings

Fresh dumplings

My next holiday destination is China. Yes, it is indeed true and sad, I am a Chinese who has never stepped foot in China. I was invited to lunch by two of my colleagues who had passed their medical exam after only 8 weeks of preparation which if I may say is trully an exceptional achievement. The table was filled with happy dialogues and exchanges in Chinese in which I found my self lost after 15 minutes or so, unable to catch up with the conversations and jokes that were thrown around. Nevertheless, I was happy to have a place on the table amongst the esteemed senior scientists. A thought often tickles my mind, how about China after PhD or even after PostDoc? I do miss Asia, especially the food.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Uglicious

Pizza A la Midnight Bakery

Red bean

Wholemeal bread with red bean paste filling

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Nasi Tumpeng Mini

I thought I'd make a weekend of cooking Indonesian dishes, all to go around a mountain of nasi kuning (yellow rice), known as nasi tumpeng. Nasi tumpeng is the national celebratory dish of Indonesia that marks most birthdays, christenings, graduations, anniversaries, independence day celebrations, etc (you get the gist). It is essentially a conical shaped rice and can be made with plain rice, coconut flavoured rice or yellow rice (flavoured with tumeric and its other spices friends). The dish is often elaborately decorated and accompanied by a host of side dishes.

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Ayam bakar bumbu Ayam Goreng Kokita

Grilled chicken

You can get these packets of Indonesian chicken marinade in the supermarket or in the Asian grocer. You see, with 6 religions in the country, everyone is averse to consuming some sort of meat products. The Muslims don't eat pork products, the Hindus avoid beef products, and then you have minorities Buddhists who are vegans like my great aunts. Chicken, like the national anthem, unifies the country from Sabang to Merauke and I believe that it is for this reason that Indonesians develop such diverse ways of cooking chickens. I almost feel obligated to spell chicken with a capital C.

Monday, June 08, 2009

My idea of a minestrone

My idea of a minestrone with anchovy fillet and basil pesto

The university campus where I did my undergraduate had a great little pizza cafe at the edge of its campus, near the student union area. It's called the Pizza Cafe and as the name suggests, they make and sell pizza, fantastic wood fire oven pizzas with generous toppings from A-Z inspired by movie titles. What was perhaps not so well advertised was their amazing minestrone, which in my own personal experience was totally and completely out of this world.

Saturday, June 06, 2009

Egg with kecap manis

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

This all is really just an excuse to play with my camera :P

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Shio Saba

Hi everyone, I am back from my PhD-induced blogger coma. All is well again for the time being, the sun is shining, although this scenery is far from the current reality of Sydney's winter rain. Yup, t'is the season of thick coat, funky winter boots, gorgeous scarfs and wintery food. I'm itching to make my own minestrone soup with some serious tomatoes and legumes, and depending on how chirpy I feel, maybe even celery (uggghhh).

Friday, May 15, 2009

Soto Ayam

Soto ayam

Yup, still the same old story. I'm under a lot of pressure to produce a nice presentation to show of what I have done in my one and a half year of PhD. My supervisor told me not to stress, my colleagues said that I will be fine, yet I cannot help but feel anxious. When I started my PhD, I felt a little bit out of place but the feeling is accompanied by a strong hope that in time, I will develop all the skills to know, to do and more importantly, to be. Here I am, having done almost one and a half year of it. Having reached this stage, I have come to realise that it isn't enough to hope that I will acquire knowledge, but to actively and constantly seek out for more. I do wonder if anyone in this business ever feel satisfied with themselves, if the most confident of my colleagues and supervisors ever do, and if such exists, I wonder if I will ever reach that peace myself.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

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.

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Bubur Ikan Sudirman (Fish porridge a la Sudirman)

Bubur ikan Sudirman

Winter has precipitated over the Southern hemisphere. It's cold, it's dry and the the sound that of the wind blowing through the thin opening of the window into my kitchen moans for something to soothe and bring home the warmth. In my family, there's no comfort food like porridge.

Monday, May 04, 2009

Nasi Goreng Laksa

Nasi goreng Laksa

"Today's steamed rice is tomorrow's fried rice," so recites many forwarded joke emails on what defines an Asian. Another one of my favourite is "You know you're Indonesian when you carry a bottle of your own chilli wherever you go." Well, with the airline rules to strict these days, I can't do that but I was so delighted when I found a Nando stand selling any 3 sauces and marinates for $10 in the Kingscross festival.

Sunday, May 03, 2009

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

Blancharu review

Trout with roasted pepper on the top and prawn ravioli with basil sauce on the bottom

For my birthday this year, I went to Blancharu for dinner as a treat. Blancharu is a Franco-Japanese restaurant run by chef Harunobu and it serves Japanese cuisine with French influence. The ambiance is warm and welcoming while staff are friendly and seems to know their stuff well.

Beef steak on potato

Saturday, May 02, 2009

Vanuatu 2009

The sandy beach of Hideaway island

My skin colour set me apart from the locals and the usual tourists, but I couldn't feel more at home in Port Villa. It felt like I had taken a step into a time rich society nestled in paradise where all they need is supplied by Mother Nature. The water is clean; the earth is rich and the people honest and friendly.

Friday, April 24, 2009

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. (^^)

Thursday, April 23, 2009

New camera!

My new camera, taken by my Sony Ericsson P1i
Tonight I have bought my self a piece of happiness. Allow me to explain. Since the unfortunate death of my Dick Smith branded camera (my first ever digicam, mind you), I have had to live with posting photos of food taken by my mobile phone. It's a good camera for a phone-cam and as for the phone itself, it's a multi talented little dude. However, a phone cam is a phone cam. I'm not entirely satisfied with the quality of the pictures, the zoom sucks and 3 mega pixels is a bit tight to live with in today's high tech society. I get a little bit depressed when I see nice photos with killer macro in other blogs and in Flickr. At the same time, I don't feel qualified enough to hold an SLR in my little hands. There is the need to graduate from some light photography course to own one and let's face it, their cost (or worth) calls for a deeper pocket and a more serious enthusiasm. There seems to be a mountain of camera brands, each promising fine captures. Which one do I buy? What should I look out for? How do you decide if the camera and features offered are worthy of the price tag?

Armed and accompanied by my bossiest and most cam-savvy friend, I marched to Ted's in the city. We reviewed a Canon IXUS, an Olympus, and Nikkon Coolpix. After annoying the sales assistant long enough, I enquired about the possibility of getting a discount and was faced with firm rejection. Nevertheless, I cuddled a Nikkon Coolpix S220 home. It's light, it's silver, it has minimal number of buttons, it takes SD card. It's like buying a puppy.

Dear readers, I hope you are as excited as I am in anticipating my next food blog entry with photos taken by this new baby. For now, I am in search for a name for my new baby. Any suggestion?

Friday, April 17, 2009

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.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

I heart dill

I have a new favourite herb. It's dill!! I found this while walking around in a local grocery store. Just yesterday my sister bought dill aiolli at the Woolworth food dome at the Easter Show and it's fantastic!

Friday, April 10, 2009

Miele's 2009 guide for Asia's Top 20 restaurants

Please click on the picture for an enlarged version
As a passionate food blogger and food traveller (I'm being honest here, the main reason that I travel so far is food), I am only too pleased to be contacted by Miele to spread the word on public voting for Miele's 2009 guide for Asia's Top 20 restaurants.

I am especially proud of the rich variety and quality of food that Asia has to offer. So with this, I encourage every one of my reader who are in Asia to vote. From Kuala Lumpur to Seoul, Jakarta to Tokyo and Bangkok to Taipei... Bring it on folks!

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.

Midnight Bakery Easter bun in 10 easy to follow steps!

Dough ingredients:
500 g plain flour
1 Tsp instant yeast
3 Tbsp green tea (either powder or leaves, or a mixture of both)
4 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
100 g good quality butter, cubed and thawed in room temperature
400 ml H2O or milk
extra plain flour
1 packet of red bean paste (you can get this in Chinese or Asian grocer, orrr you can make your own if you're really really bored or really really enthusiastic)

Method
  1. Mix all dried ingredients together, that's the flour, yeast, tea, sugar and salt. Chuck in the cubed butter too.
  2. Pour in liquid (milk or water) and mix all the ingredients together. At this stage, the dough is all sticky, but cast that doubt aside and keep kneading and rub in the butter into the rest of the dough. You could add extra flour if you like to reduce the stickiness but please don't overdo it. This process takes between 10-20 minutes.
  3. Now the dough should hold itself and when you poke it with your finger, the indent springs back. Leave it to rest for about 3-4 hours.
  4. Has it doubled in size? Good, now punch it down and knead gently very briefly (brief is like 1-2 minutes). Roll it out to a log and divide the dough to fist size. From this you'd get about 15 little fist-sized doughs if your hand is as big as mine.
  5. Flatten the dough into disk. The practical way of doing this is just pressing down the dough with your palm until it's the size of your hand with your fingers spread out. On the centre of the disk, put a tablespoon of the red bean paste and then close it up by pinching the edge of the disk together. Turn it upside down so that the smooth side is up, round up the ball and put in on your baking tray or a cake mould if you prefer.
  6. Rest them for 3-6 hours. I rested mine overnight.
  7. Before you bake the buns, preheat your oven to 160 degree Celcius for 10 minutes and glaze your buns with milk. Be gentle at this stage.
  8. Bake the dough for about 25 minutes. This is the part where you put up a wooden stool and watch it brown with a cup of coffee or tea. It's especially fantastic in winter or autumn! If you live in the Southern hemisphere, now is the time to do it.
  9. You may want to decorate it with the traditional cross made of icing sugar and milk or chocolate like I did, but if I may suggest, the bread is great on it's own. The icing sugar crosses only adds extra sugar that you really don't need taste-wise.
  10. Bon appétit!

Crisp Crosp

Midnight Bakery Easter bun
Come Easter season, I find hot cross buns everywhere and with all honesty, I'm not a big fan of spiced buns. It was great a few years ago when chocolate chip hot cross buns came into fashion and this year, a bakery chain started selling mocha flavoured buns. I twiddled my thumbs while brainstorming for a novel taste this Easter until last week when I found red bean paste in a Chinese grocer and thought "Aha, red bean pasted filled buns!"
Green tea bun with bean paste filling & chocolate
Back at home, it is more common to find red bean pasted filled steamed buns though the color of the paste is usually black, perhaps due to the sugar, bearing in mind that close to everything was home made and kitchen-savvy costumers (which is almost all of mothers in that time) don't approve of dyes.

My mom used to buy steamed buns from a home baker who has recently retired. She started selling every evening from about 6 on a busy street opposite Kaisar supermarket in Pontianak. About sundown, the sky in the city is black with swallows and they're especially concentrated in that area. The birds go back to their nests in people's balconies or rest on the electric cables and being there at the time is like trying your luck. Mom would usually go and buy some steamed buns while the rest of us wait in the car. One time I remember watching people in boredom until I heard my little sister squeaked in delight "Ada yang kena!" (Translation: It got someone) Yes, we were evil little brats. I wonder what kind of aunts and mothers we would become.

Thursday, April 09, 2009

Easter Bunny

Green-tea bunny bread with chocolate drizzle and glazed cherry
You know Easter is around the corner when your neighbourhood bakeries start selling hot cross buns and display chocolate Easter bunnies in the windows. Here in the southern hemisphere autumn is starting to set upon us too. The air starts to get a bit chilly and it's a welcome change from the humid warmth of summer.

Green tea bunny twists
Easter means a four day weekend and appetite in the form of my big sister is coming. It's true that food rates very highly in our family itinerary no matter where we go. I've been playing with a few ideas of menus in my head for her visit, but one thing is for sure... the theme is Easter.
Today I have made green tea bread, borrowing the idea from my green tea cookies. The base recipe for the bread itself is sort of similar to challah and brioche. It smells softly of milk even though it's not part of the recipe. I tried to work the dough into bunny shapes, adding glazed cheeries to replace dyed egg in traditional challah. I can't wait to feed her first thing when she arrives tomorrow!Green tea bunny dough
You might need a bit of imagination to see the bunny in this green tea twist, but I hope not as much imagination as it takes to find the rabbit on the moon.

Monday, April 06, 2009

Sourdough Saga

Plain onigiri/lemper/飯糰
If you are anticipating the product of my sourdough project, with utmost regret I must inform you that it had not turned out like I had hoped. I choose not to display its photo for its very sight evoke a deep heartache. Johnnie Jnr, as I have come to name my starter affectionately, was no doubt an active yeast culture, but sadly the dough was something else. The aroma was wonderful but the bread was crumbly and dense, nothing like the sourdough I bought at the market the morning following the death of my bread. This is not the end of my sourdough project. When time permits, I will start another batch of sourdough starter and hopefully, a successful sourdough loaf! For this week, I shall stick with rice to ail this heart ache.

Eat! 吃飯! Makan! Manger!

“There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home” sings Dorothy while she clicks her red heels together. I love fairy tales but I have to say that although I agree, there are some places that come close to it, food wise at least. I spent the weekend in a Sydney suburb that is healthily populated by Indonesian restaurants, Kingsford, and indulged in really homey food in Ayam Goreng 99 and Ratu Sari. Every so often, refreshment like this comes with inspiration.

Barramundi with cracked sea salt and sesame oil
I came away from this weekend with a pantry full of assortments of chili sauces (email me if you would like some recommendations) and a whole barramundi fish. I met a very nice Indonesian guy who works in a fish monger in East Garden and instead of selling me yesterday’s catch of ikan kembung (yellow tail) or mackerels (I wanted to make shio saba), he recommended a fresh barramundi fish. I love this kind of service where a vendor would explain his/her products. I came away with a bag of fish roe too. At home, my mom likes to cook a fish called “B-K” (which I deeply believe is mackerel) and often on the same meal she’d have deep fried fish roes from the same fish. They sort of look like sausage and it’s delicious. After I moved to Sydney, I discovered a Korean restaurant that does fish roe soup with tofu in the city and I love it so much I want to make it myself! And so I did, or attempted to.
Fish roe soup with miso and kochujang
Tonight I married Indonesian cuisine with Chinese with a touch of Korean. I’d credit Korean cuisine more but I’m afraid I might not do it justice with my lack of knowledge on how to cook proper Korean food. This will have to do for the moment.
Ikan bakar sambal terasi
For the love of chili, I’ve spread a healthy dose of sambal terasi on top of the grilled fish. Can I just say, it…. Is…. Divine…. As always, rice as our humble but delicious and nutritious staple stays in the background; nevertheless a meal is not and never can be defined as a meal without its presence.
Atap-seng, South-East Asian umeboshi
You may notice this pickled plum in the background as a garnish to my fish. This is sort of like the Japanese umeboshi. I was over the moon when I found this in a Thai grocery. Back in grade 6, my friends Elvinta, Elinda, Juliarosi and I used to make our ways to my aunt’s place before, in the middle of and after after-school tutorial to satisfy our thirst for a pickled we so fondly called “atap-seng” in the local Chinese dialect. I believe “atap” is the name of the fruit while “seng” means sour and over the years, the product had disappeared from the shelves of supermarkets, home stores and “warung”. You cannot imagine my joy when I found this stuff here in Sydney. Compared to umeboshi, it’s far more powerful in salt and the bite. If you pick it with your chopstick, the brine tracing the chopsticks is enough to make your whole face pucker.