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Scallop Splendor with Frank

Scallop Splendor

Hey fellow food lover, it’s been a while but all is well and good in Kiki land. Today I’m bringing you a dish that I created to welcome 2012 in style with my friend Frank.

Hello San Francisco!

I baked this in my new kitchen. Yes, I have relocated. I contained my life in 2 suitcases more or less and I arrived in land of the free and home of the brave to receive further training in my scientific career!

Will post more soon. By the way, San Franciscans, you lots are really friendly and I'm loving the cheese selections in Bristol Farm!

Boeuf Bourguignon

The Eiffel Tower right at 11 PM at night. The whole tower sparkled for 5 minutes

We were in Paris a few months ago and stayed at Arts et Metiers at the 3rd arrondisement. For 5 days we roamed the street of Paris, stuffed ourselves silly with Parisian bread and fell in love with jambon...

Sambal cabe hijau

Ground up steamed green chillies

I feel that this recipe may not be suitable for blogging, but I've decided to share it with you all anyway because I think chili is too too underrated. So, for the love of chili this is my recipe for sambel cabe hijau (green chilli sambal) which you could use simply as a chutney or accompaniment to raw vegetables (lalapan) or you could make it as a base to another dish like grilled fish, fried chicken or stewed beef. You will notice that I use the word "roughly" a lot in this recipe and I really think that the roughness of it imparts a free-spirited complexity that complete the identity of this sambal or any sambal for that matter. That said, it doesn't only make an awesome sidekick to another dish, but served on its own with steamed rice, it makes a kick-ass dish of its own. :D It certainly rocks my world.

Vietnamese prawn rolls

Vietnamese prawn rolls

Hello hello!! I hope you've all missed me very much, as much as I have missed blogging about my kitchen actions. This time I've been feeding myself with the very carb-conscious version of Vietnamese prawn rolls, omitting the vermicelli (which is already very healthy and low in fat) and substituting it with salads, tonnes of it! You don't only get the crunch from the bits and pieces of the dressing, the leaves, cucumber and carrots, but also prawns. You can use either freshly peeled prawns or like me, you could use frozen prawns which is of course very versatile and easy to source. This dish is super healthy and gives you a wholesome punch of goodness and it's so easy to make!

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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. :)

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.

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.