WokandSpoon

Favourite things

2008-10-09T13:40:00.004+01:00

4 months have passed since my last post and I’m still suffering from a lack of inspiration to cook up anything interesting, so this post is just an excuse to put up some photos of some of my favourite things.

Cold Hoegaarden beer on a hot day

A berry sundae dripping with red sauce

And last but not least, the little monster on moving day!

Absolutely sinful

2008-06-21T12:24:00.008+01:00

Sleep deprived as I am right now, I still can’t say no to chocolate cookies!! These cookies were easy to make despite only having 2 hours sleep the night before!
Sickly Sinful Chocolate Cookies
Ingredients
½ cup unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 ¼ cups self-raising flour
¼ cup rolled oats
Roughly ½ cup cocoa powder (I guess the lack of sleep is getting to me as I don’t remember exactly how much cocoa powder I used!)
Roughly 1 cup chocolate chips/ chocolate chunks (White, milk or dark. I used a mixture of milk and dark chunks)

Cream the butter and the sugar until fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla to the creamed mixture and beat well.

Add the flour to the beaten mixture and fold in lightly. Add the oats and the chocolate chips or chunks

Line your baking tray with a baking sheet and drop small spoonfuls of the mixture on baking sheet.

Bake the cookies at 180C for 12-15 minutes. Remove when slightly soft, the cookies will harden when cool.

Mini-me

2008-06-04T14:09:00.003+01:00

What have I been cooking up lately?

Meet Mini-WoknSpoon who emerged well-done out of the oven on the 27th of May!

Happy Chinese New Year!

2008-02-05T21:18:00.001+01:00

Ok, I admit, this is probably the most boring Happy Chinese New Year post but I'm too brain-dead from work (which has been sucking the soul out of my poor body) to be creative.

Anyway, I hope you all have a happy and prosperous new year, while stuffing yourselves with lots of yummy food!

GONG XI FA CHAI

Rain rain go-away

2008-01-20T09:49:00.000+01:00

England, as I have discovered, is full of 2 things. Round-a-bouts and rain!

The never-ending rain over here has got me all nostalgic for summer, which seems like a long long time away at the moment.

The only way to counter the gloomy state of affairs over here is to make a summer berry treat with blueberries from some sunny country on the other side of the world. Well, it’s either that or stick my head in a HUGE tub of ice-cream…which I can say that I am tempted to do given that our heating has gone a bit crazy and refuses to turn off!

This recipe adapted from Allrecipes isn’t dairy-free but Hubs was even willing to overlook that and suffer the consequences! Hehe!
Ingredients (adapted from Allrecipes)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup brown sugar (Allrecipes uses white)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 (8 ounce) container plain yogurt (Allrecipes uses blueberry flavoured yogurt)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 tablespoons butter, melted
2 cups blueberries

Preheat your oven to 175C (or 350F).

Line a 12-cup muffin tray with muffin liners.

Mix the dry ingredients together (flour, sugar, baking powder).

Mix the wet ingredients (yogurt, egg, vanilla extract, butter) and blueberries in another bowl.

Combine mixtures and spoon into muffin tray. Bake for 25 minutes or until cooked.

Mini black cherry (almost dairy-free) clafoutis and Happy New Year

2007-12-30T20:50:00.000+01:00

I was first introduced to the clafoutis back in Australia when Hubs and I just moved in together. Having never tasted it myself back then, Hubs used to rave about his mum’s clafoutis aux cerises (cherry clafoutis) until I could almost smell it baking in the oven. As it was just the beginning of our relationship, I wasn’t quite ready to ask my ‘potential mother-in-law’ for her clafoutis recipe, so I went on the hunt for my own.

8 years later, I don’t hear Hubs going on about his mum’s clafoutis anymore (as good as it is)! Hehe!

Anyway, as Hubs is now dairy-intolerant, I had to adapt the original recipe to an almost dairy-free recipe (except for the butter for greasing!). I was a bit unsure of how it would turn out using a ‘soya cream’ but I didn’t hear any complaints from Hubs.

This super-easy-1-bowl recipe is adapted from Donna Hay’s Modern Classics 2. I usually just make one huge clafoutis but as we now have a mini-fridge, I had to make mini-clafoutis as it’s easier to store the leftovers.
This is what I used:

Butter for greasing
Caster sugar for dusting
1 can (425g) pitted black cherries (drained)
1/3 cup plain flour
1/3 cup caster sugar
2.5 teaspoons vanilla extract (I added more vanilla extract to hide the “soya” taste in the batter! The original recipe only uses 1 teaspoon)
1 cup dairy-free (soya) cream or single cream
3 eggs

The original recipe suggests preheating the oven to 180C but I found that was too hot and so preheated to 150C.

Grease an 8 cup capacity ovenproof dish with butter, and dust with sugar to prevent sticking. I used a muffin pan (holds 18) to make the mini-clafoutis.

Put the flour, sugar, vanilla and cream in a bowl and whisk. Add the eggs and whisk till smooth.

Pour the batter into the muffin tray then add the cherries. Or you could add the cherries first then pour the batter over (original recipe).

Bake for 35-40 mins and voila, easy-peasy clafoutis for a cold winter’s evening.

Dust with sugar and serve.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

2007-12-24T10:13:00.000+01:00

Wishing all of you out there a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Hope your plates are stacked and your glasses are full!

Exhausted

2007-12-09T12:20:00.000+01:00

Judy from Grandmother Stories is right. Moving to the UK involves a lot of rubbish. Big mounds of garbage unfortunately. However, on the bright side, we’ve managed to chip away at a teeny tiny section of that garbage and whoohoo – we’re almost settled.

We have a roof over our heads and that roof comes with a nice warm kitchen. What more could you ask for? Um, well, that kitchen could have come with a gas cooker however, it has electric hobs!! I’m not usually best friends with electric cookers however I think I’m going to have to make an effort this time. I tend to forget that you have to take pots and pans off the hobs once I’m done otherwise it will continue to cook (and burn) while the hob cools down!

Other than that, a new and extremely frustrating and exhausting job (and life) has unfortunately robbed me of all creativity and prevented me from blogging (and also reading your blogs) more often (If only money grew on trees!).

My lack of energy has definitely been reflected in my poor attempts at cooking. I’m sure Hubs will start complaining soon about having to eat the same things night after night after night. However, I still prefer to eat my boring attempts at cooking rather than Hubs’ attempts (trust me it’s not pretty when he gets in the kitchen!). Anyway, I not only need a ‘money tree’, I also need an ‘energy tree’!

This has been our dinner for the last 2 nights running: stir fry green beans and tofu with rice…zzzzzzzzzzzz. Well, at least it’s balanced!

Ps.
Also, a big thank you to all of you for checking back here to make sure that I’m still surviving England and the English weather!

Nearly back

2007-12-02T17:52:00.001+01:00

….give and take a week or so!

Grumpy me

2007-10-12T15:51:00.000+01:00

Wow, a month has just flown by and it really amazes me how time can fly even when you’re not having fun! Yes, yes, I’m still little Miss Grumpy at the moment and still living in a B&B. However, there is light at the end of this very long and narrow tunnel! We’ll be finally moving into our flat on the 20th and that’s only just over a week away.

Living in a grotty B&B (why or why doesn’t the B&B lady ever clean?? In fact, I’d even clean the place if it weren’t for the fact that we’re paying them good money to stay there and by principal, we’re paying so I shouldn’t’ have to clean!) for a month has resulted in bad diet, bad sleep and a very grumpy WoknSpoon. And don’t even mention the fact that Australia lost to England in the Rugby World Cup last weekend!

Despite having access to a miniature kitchenette, I haven’t really felt motivated to cook and we’ve been living on takeaway food and ready-made meals (including packaged fresh and canned soups) that we can throw in the microwave. I’ve never actually eaten those ready-made meals that you find in the local supermarket before this episode and I think I never will E.V.E.R again!

In fact, the thought of a ready-made meal is making my stomach churn so we are running out of things to eat…which makes me even grumpier.

Anyway, no lovely photos of mouth-watering food to share however I do have one photo which always makes me smile: Hubs in Germany with a gigantic meat skewer!
1 week to go and counting!

Tortilla du Fond du Frigo

2007-09-13T15:50:00.000+01:00

Firstly, I'm going to just say that I’m never ever ever moving countries (except either back to France or Australia of course) ever again! I won’t share the gory details but let’s just say it has been a complete nightmare, what with the house hunting, the job hunting and everything else!

We’re currently living out of our backpacks and in various B&Bs in the lovely Surrey countryside, which actually sounds more exotic (and expensive!) than it actually is. On the bright side…we’ll hopefully be settled in…say…2 months!

Otherwise, moving enables you to develop creativity by trying to use up all the odd bits and pieces that are left in your fridge 2 days before you move out. (I don’t like wasting!)

Here’s what I chaotically put together with what wasn’t already green with mould in our Frankfurt fridge - a tortilla.

A Tortilla du Fond du Frigo (loosely translated to “Bottom of the Fridge Tortilla”) to be precise. I like to give my meals French names – it sounds much more posh and edible ;-)

Ingredients
1 spanish onion diced
1 medium sweet potato sliced (I microwaved the sweet potato slices in order to cook the tortilla faster)
½ a very wrinkly old red capsicum sliced
7 eggs
lots of minced garlic
bits of left-over, wilted “fresh” coriander chopped
½ tsp salt (or to taste)
pepper to taste
olive oil for cooking

There are probably a million ways to make a tortilla but I beat eggs in a bowl and added the cooked sweet potato, red capsicum, salt, pepper and coriander to the eggs.

I first gently browned the diced onion and garlic in a non-stick pan. I then added a little bit more oil to the pan and then poured in the egg mixture. The egg mixture was cooked over a low fire until it was pretty firm. Then the hard part, I flipped the entire tortilla over to cook the top-side. Do this carefully as if you have a big pan, the big omelette will break up into little pieces…though, this is still very edible!

And voila, 20-30 minutes later, you have a delish hot meal to sit down to!
ps.
Thank you to everyone for all your well wishes. Hehe! But after the move we’ve just had, you’re all obviously not wishing hard enough! ;-)

Selamat Hari Merdeka

2007-08-30T19:40:00.000+01:00

Selamat Hari Merdeka to all the Malaysians out there!
I won’t be blogging for a while as we’re in the middle of yet another move! This time to the UK! Well, at least theoretically to the UK as I’m still waiting for my visa and we’re supposed to move this weekend. What a nightmare!

Anyway, see you all in about 3 weeks when hopefully, we’ll be happy, merry and all settled in the UK!

Bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens….

2007-08-29T07:58:00.000+01:00

Here are a few more of my favourite things! (ie. More eye candy for all you homesick Malaysians out there!)

The satay man in Kuala Lumpur (KL). All that satay just waiting to be grilled.

KL satay. This came with only a little bowl of satay (peanut) sauce. Back in the old days when I lived in Klang, you would get a big bowl! The ketupat (the cubes of rice in the foreground) also used to come wrapped up in coconut palm leaves...those were the days!

Wantan mee complete with pickled green chillis. Hubs loves this!

Ice kacang, one of my favourite desserts (seems like I'm saying "favourite" a lot here!). I was disappointed with this ice kacang. It was nothing like the ice kacang of my childhood which was full of red beans and attap chee, topped with shaved ice and completely drenched in condensed milk and syrup. This version was light on the condensed milk and syrup, had no attap chee and had a high ice to bean ratio!

Comfort food snacks from my childhood: assamboi (dried plum things) and picked green mangoes. The assamboi are the dried up shrivelled looking things. They're not pretty but I find them very more-ish!

I don’t know what these little biscuits are called but when I was a little girl, I loved them and my mum used to buy them all the time! I pigged out on them when I was in KL and then bounced around from all the sugar in the colourful toppings!

And last but not least, tropical fruits! Pure heaven!
Duku langsat

Rambutan
and my personal favourite, mangosteen!

I'm giving myself all these cravings by posting these photos! ;-)

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens…

2007-08-26T12:02:00.000+01:00

…these are a few of my favourite things!

My mum’s fantastic homemade super hot and spicy nasi lemak (she cooks it without using a recipe!)! I ate plates and plates of this in Melbourne! By the time I was done, I was sweating, peeing and pooing ikan bilis (anchovy) sambal! ;-)

(the photo doesn’t do it justice!)

Diving off Perhentian Besar in Malaysia. It’s like swimming in one giant heated aquarium.
(Photo by one of our dive masters Ozzie – sorry Ozzie, had to swipe your photos as we have none of our own!)

Oh and naturally, the slightly expensive (it’s an island – they have to ship food there!) meals after the dives.

Being a fairly small island (I know, even though it’s Perhentian Besar, it’s still small. "besar" = big in Malay), there are not a whole lot of decent eating places. In fact, most of the places actually served up pretty crappy food!

However, it was still Malaysia so even the badly cooked food was still way better than many many Asian restaurants here in Europe!

Among our regular eating haunts on Perhentian Besar were the Tuna Bay restaurant and Abdul’s (my personal favourite for the beach we were on).

Iced Milo at Tuna Bay! (Yes, I know it’s just Milo but I haven’t had it for ages!! There's no Milo in Germany.) Very average mee goreng and kuay teow at Tuna Bay but eating right on the beach made up for it!
The Hubby’s satay at Tuna Bay.

Not too bad kangkong belacan at Tuna Bay (my mum does better!).

Plate-licking hot and spicy sambal sotong (squid) and sambal long beans at Abdul’s! Mmmmmmm! We ate here a lot but I just kept having the same favourite dishes: sambal everything!

Also….
Thanks everyone for all your very sweet comments about missing me! It's nice to be loved ;-) hehe!

I’m still catching up on all the fantastic eye and mouth watering meals that everyone’s been posting on their blogs! So much food and so little time!

Before I forget, a bit belated but thanks Sharmi for the Rocking Girl Blogger award. I’d like to pass it on to a billion of you out there but it looks like everyone has already been nominated at some point or other! So this is for for every foodie female out there including:

Grandmother Stories
A whiff of lemongrass
Everything4sweets
Flog&Rosbif
You're all Rocking Girl Bloggers!

2.5 weeks later

2007-08-24T21:54:00.000+01:00

First of all, thank you everyone for all your Happy Holiday wishes! I had a great time and why oh why do holidays go so quickly?!

So, what do I have to show for 2-and-a-half weeks of constant eating my way through Melbourne and (very briefly) Malaysia? Tighter pants and an enormous muffin top (yes, it has grown, even in 2.5 weeks!)! Oh yeah, and a much smaller bank balance ;-) It would be great if it was the other way around: smaller muffin top and a bigger bank balance!

Anyway, with all good intentions, I had planned to document and photograph each and every morsel of food that touched my lips. However, unfortunately, as soon as I laid eyes on that first dish of spicy Korean calamari in Melbourne, all those good intentions just got sidelined and all I had at the end of those meals were just empty dishes!

So, what exactly did I do in Melbourne?

Seeing as I wasn’t taking photos of the food that I was scoffing down, so, what exactly did I do in Melbourne?

Well, I was discovering all the changes that Melbourne had seen since the last time I’d been there…I discovered that Melbourne was now a proud owner of at least one Krispy Kreme outlet! I can’t remember where I first read about these sumptuous doughnuts but I know that I didn’t think twice about hot-footing it in there (more than once!) and walking out with a box of pure sugar, which I had to fight both my Husband, AND my mum for a taste! Grrrrr!

Disorganised

2007-08-04T23:06:00.000+01:00

I have to be the most disorganised traveller ever. Before every trip, I make a firm resolution to have everything packed and ready to go a day before the actual departure date, but somehow, that just never happens!

It’s 11:46PM and I’m still up! But on the bright side, I’m nearly done stuffing my (and the Hubs’) luggage with tons of Lindt chocolate. I’m sure the Australian Customs are going to think that I’m trafficking hazelnut praline!
Well, I’m sure you’re all eagerly waiting the results of the draw. I had 15 bits of paper in my paper salad as you can see. (Can you see the TV reflection of some very bad late night program in the bowl?)

Anyway, the lucky recipients of Tim Tams are:
Cookie Baker Lynn
Jaden from Jaden’s Steamy Kitchen
Padma from Padma’s Kitchen
And last but not least,
Wandering Chopsticks

Um, yes, I know that’s 4 names and not 3…but hey, it’s late and I was on a roll!

So ladies, can you please email me (wokandspoon@gmail.com) your snail mail addresses! Ta!

Urggh, it’s 12:07AM already!

See you all in 3 weeks!

Last minute!

2007-08-01T18:05:00.000+01:00

After overwhelming evidence that half of the foodie blogging world has never laid eyes on a Tim Tam, this has compelled me to share some of the joy around. So, seeing as I’ll be in Melbourne for the next 2 weeks, and I’ll be in reach of Tim Tams (all day long!), I’m going to send a packet of Tim Tams to 3 deprived foodie bloggers.

Before I go any further, I really apologise but I’m going to disqualify foodie bloggers who live in Tim Tam accessible countries ie. Australia, New Zealand, UK, and um…Malaysia and Singapore…unless of course, you swear on your wok, blender and overworked oven that you have never ever let a Tim Tam cross your lips and have absolutely no way to obtain any of that most craved for sweetness.

The other disclaimer is that if you are one of the chosen ones and have a packet with your name written all over it, I will do my best to airmail it to you. However, while Australia Post is very reliable, I am in no way responsible for any hungry postman, postal worker, customs officer and others who decide that the packet is for them rather than for you.

Oh, and I’m also not responsible for melted Tim Tams sitting in letter boxes in the heat of summer (for those who are actually having a real summer!). I’m also too lazy to check if I can send foodstuff to where ever you are (customs restrictions for your country?), so I’ll just cross my fingers, stick the stamps on and post!

Anyway, if you’re interested, let me know (email, comment etc) before 9pm Saturday (Frankfurt time please!) and I’ll put all the names in a big salad bowl and pull 3 names out (you can send me your snail mail addresses later). I’ll hopefully be able to organise and let you know before I leave on Sunday.

Ps.
If I was a millionaire I would send you all a packet! Unfortunately, the Lotto Fairy hasn’t yet come my way!

Salade Niçoise à la Wok ‘n Spoon

2007-07-31T19:53:00.000+01:00

The plan was to eat vegetables all week, leading up to our 10 day holiday in Melbourne (and 2 days in Malaysia!) but you know, I just can’t do it!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m the last person to be diet obsessed but dieting was a small price to pay. Much better than having to hear those “oh, you’ve put on weight…you look so much better now, rather than before when you were too thin” comments from my family! (I do love my family dearly!)

The only problem is that I’m sooo very very bored with salads. Plus I think all this vegetable eating is zapping me of any creativity that I had in the kitchen.

Anyway, back to the salad eating.

The Salade Niçoise is named after its origins: Nice (that’s Neece as in Fleece not Nyce) in the south of France. There are of course uncountable versions (mine included) of this salad but the basic ingredients of a Salade Niçoise include green beans, tomatoes, olives, boiled eggs and tuna. I call any salad with boiled eggs and tuna a Salade Niçoise ;-)

I was a little bored with raw vegetables so I lightly pan fried courgette, red and yellow capsicum and mushrooms for the salad. I also added one of my favourite “salady” vegetables: Mache.

Mache is one vegetable that I had never heard of or seen in Australia. Wikipedia lists its English name as “corn salad” (??). I was introduced to the mache in France and absolutely loved it. However when I first saw mache, I asked the Hubs what it was, and his reply was “some kind of salad that cows eat”! Guess that makes us cows!

I also didn’t add any tomatoes to the salad, but instead added blueberries (they’re in season!). Yes, I know, that’s a bit weird but I’m trying to make Hubs eat more blueberries (high in antioxidants).

The salad was initially just plain vegetables.

Then I thought, if I eat that, I’ll be hungry in 1 hour and end up in a bad mood, and be scouring the kitchen on the search for any hint of chocolate! So, I added the tuna and eggs!

Ingredients for Salade Niçoise à la Wok ‘n Spoon
1 courgette (lightly pan fried)
½ a red & ½ a yellow capsicum (lightly pan fried)
4 mushrooms (lightly pan fried)
2 large handfuls of mache
½ onion
¾ cup blueberries
200g canned tuna (enough for Hubs and me. I love canned tuna!)
2 boiled eggs

Sweet chilli dressing for Salade Niçoise à la Wok ‘n Spoon
(this makes enough for 2)
2 tsp lime juice
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tbsp sweet chilli sauce
2 tbsp water
½ tsp sesame oil

And there you have it, another exciting salad night at Wok n’ Spoon’s!

It’s all a lie

2007-07-27T07:21:00.000+01:00

The truth is finally out.

I’m not a real foodie.

I’ve just come back from a week of eating my way through the Charentes and Paris, and you know what? I didn’t take a single picture of food! Despite the big eating fests to celebrate the Hubs’ 30th birthday, I don’t have a single photo of food.

Zip. Nada. Nothing. Not a pixel.

I should hang my wok in shame.

The problem? Well, you know, after a nice glass of pineau (or two), I forget to take photos! I blame it on the French and their apéros.

Oh well.

Anyway, here’s a photo of some tomatoes ripening at my in-laws, and young grapes on the grapevine…well, it’s food!

ps. I'm looking forward to catching up with all your blogs soon! Yummmmmmm!

Very berry chocolate brownie muffins

2007-07-20T09:51:00.000+01:00

I have always been fascinated by berries, berries of all and any types. I think it all started back when I was young and read Enid Blyton’s books. The characters in her books were always out picking and eating strawberries, blackberries or raspberries, while all I had in Malaysia were rambutans, lychees, longans and mangosteens. Ok, I admit, it wasn’t so tough having the Malaysian versions!

Anyway, one variety that I have always wanted to try (but never got around to it) is the groseille (red current). For about 4 years, I actually didn’t know what it was called in English…until yesterday when I went on a mad hunt trying to find the English name for it.

I love the bright red colour and the little succulent-looking berries. Seeing some at the local fruit and veg shop the other day, I decided to buy a (big) punnet! I rushed home and eagerly dived into the punnet to try my newly acquired treasure.

And urggghhhh…..they were really really REALLY sour!

Someone could have warned me!

So I’ve had this big punnet of sour red currents for a week and now I only have 1 day left to use them up before my extra long weekend in La Rochelle (yay!)!

What do you do with sour red currents? Sour fruit salad? Sour jam? Sour compote? Sour fruit pie? Chocolate brownie muffins?

Yep – you read correctly, chocolate brownie muffins...with sour red currents.

Ingredients and Recipe (adapted from The Joy of Baking)
150g chocolate chopped or broken into bits
1/2 cup butter
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 large eggs
3/4 cup (105 grams) all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup of red currents
(Makes 12 muffins)

Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water. (I was lazy and just melted the 2 ingredients directly in the saucepan).

Mix the chocolate and butter well, and when melted, let the mixture cool for a couple of minutes then add in the sugar. Mix well. Add the vanilla and the eggs one by one, mix well.

Finally, add in the flour and salt and oh, mix well! Then add in the red currents and gently stir until the currents are evenly distributed throughout the batter. Be careful not to squash the currents like I did!

Pour batter into the muffin cups or tray. Bake at 325F (170C) for roughly 20 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the centre of a muffin has moist crumbs sticking to it.

The muffins were absolutely delightful and moist. They weren’t as compact and heavy as brownies, and the tartness of the groseille balanced out the sweetness of the chocolate so it wasn’t sickly sweet (especially important after I’d eaten about 3 in a row!).

Anyway, on that note, have a great weekend everyone. I’m off to the parents in-laws for an extended long weekend in ~~sunny~~ La Rochelle.

To beet or not to beet?

2007-07-17T20:03:00.000+01:00

That is not the question.

The question is but how to make the humble salad more interesting?

And unfortunately, the answer my friend, is definitely not blowing in the wind. I’ve been eating salads for the most part of 3 weeks now and I’m bored bored bored.

My pants aren’t any looser, my muffin top isn’t any smaller and I’m heading for a great big chocolate binge! I spent 10 minutes in the chocolate aisle at the supermarket today, trying to decide if I wanted Lindt with whole hazelnuts or Lindt with chili, before telling myself that I had dried cranberries at home that I could snack on instead. Yes, I know, dried cranberries are also loaded with sugar, however providing I don’t eat 3 packets, dried cranberries are still better than chocolate!

Anyway, I’ve been cruising the ~~streets~~ foodie blogs looking for the perfect lover for my left over rocket, and I’ve found it in Argus’ World. (Thank you Argus!)

Beetroot.

I bought cooked beetroot (I’m too lazy to deal with raw beetroot) and the delicate sweetness was an ideal match for my peppery rocket. Topped with smoked salmon and a scattering of sunflower seeds and it was heaven on my taste buds.

Add to that a light drizzle (or a heavy downpour in my case) of a creamy Asian flavoured dressing and I was once again inspired to chow down on salads for the next 3 weeks….um…ok…maybe 3 weeks is exaggerating, but at least for the next week!

Salad ingredients for 2
Rocket (about 2 big handfuls)
4 beetroots (cooked) sliced
sunflower seeds
150-200g smoked salmon

Garlicky creamy Asian salad dressing (adapted from CooksRecipes)
1 tbs mayonnaise
1/2 tbs soy sauce
3/4 tbs sugar
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp sesame seed oil
2 tsp water (omit if you like a thicker dressing)
2 tsp minced garlic lightly fried in olive oil

Mix the mayonnaise, soy sauce, sugar, pepper, sesame seed oil and water well until the sugar is no longer grainy. Lightly fry the garlic in oil. Drain the oil then add the garlic to the dressing. This makes roughly ¼ cup of dressing.

Then, drown your salad in the dressing!

Ok, I know, eating salad drenched in dressing sort of defeats the purpose but I can’t just eat plain salad!

7 things

2007-07-16T08:16:00.001+01:00

I’ve been tagged!

Thanks to Sharmi from Neivedyam, Sunita from Sunita’s World and the Cooking Ninja , I’ve been feeling guilty for the whole weekend, not being able to sleep or eat (!!!) due to the remorse that I’ve been carrying around for procrastinating with this tag.

Ok, maybe it’s not that dramatic (just kidding Ladies!) but it has been at the back of my mind!

Coming up with 7 random things about myself wasn’t easy. I tried to make it as “foody” as I could but you know, the stress and old age, my memory isn’t that good anymore! Oh well, here goes:

1. I’m ethnically Chinese but I can’t speak or read a word of mandarin (apart from a very small handful of characters)! When I was little, I hated the mandarin classes in school as well as the mandarin classes that I had to do after school so I never really put any effort in and made every excuse I could to skip the classes.

I totally regret that now because when I go to Chinese restaurants, I can’t read the Chinese menus and am forced to either order what I already know or go with the boring “foreigner” menus. One day, I’ll properly learn to read mandarin!

2. I was a real tom boy when I was young and would climb trees and run around the neighbourhood with all my boy friends (not boyfriends! I was 7 or 8!). However, the only time I liked playing with soft toys (I never liked dolls!) was when my mum made little pandan cup cakes, filling the house with the most beautiful aroma. I then got to have little tea parties with real tea and pandan cup cakes with my soft toys! MMMmmmmm.

3. I like eating ketchup and plain white rice.

4. I’m a danger in the kitchen. I once burnt rice on an electric stove.
About 10 years ago, I was visiting a friend of my mum’s in Bath and decided to make dinner. I had fish, veggies and rice, everything for a nice meal. The only problem was that I had never cooked rice without a rice cooker before. I ended up putting in too much water in the pot so the rice was very very gluggy. Then once the rice was ~~over~~cooked, I didn’t take it off the stove, which meant that the electric element, continued to cook the rice…until I started smelling something burning!

So much for my cooking skills! I had just made burnt, dry chuk.

My mum’s friend was very nice however and ate the burnt, soggy rice!

5. Another reason why I’m a danger in the kitchen, I forget that I have things on the stove! I once forgot that I was boiling 2 eggs until I heard 2 loud explosions coming from the kitchen! It was the eggs! The water had dried up and the eggs had exploded from being in the saucepan without any water! Quite dangerous!

6. I love chocolate! I can eat an entire mega long (I think they’re 500g) Milka chocolate slab with whole hazelnuts all at once! Without getting sick…and still wanting more.

7. When I was studying in Québec a long time ago, I cooked seeni sambol (Sri Lankan maldive fish sambal) for 8 friends and it was sooooo hot and spicy that we all had what my cousins and I call, “burny” bums, for the next 2 days ;-)

Only 4 out of those 8 are still friends.

Oh, and my husband obviously didn’t mind as he was also one of the 8!

This tag has been going around the food bloggers in the last week so I’m not sure who has and hasn’t been tagged yet. And I also have to tag 7 people! I don’t have that many friends :-(

Ok, I tag:

Tigerfish from Tezcape
MeltingWok
WanderingChopsticks
Argus
Cynthia from Tastes Like Home
Retno from Kedai Hamburg
Judy from Grandmother Stories

Ps.
Oh, and because I really really slaved over this tag, you all have to do it too ;-)

Tilapia à la nectarine salsa

2007-07-14T07:08:00.000+01:00

The great thing about food blogging is getting to know all the other incredibly creative food bloggers out there and then ~~stealing~~ being inspired by their ideas. After seeing Jaden from SteamyKitchen’s delightful mango-melon salsa and also EastMeetsWestKitchen’s equally luscious lychee salsa (thank you ladies!), I wanted to make a fruit salsa too!

The only thing standing in my way was the lack of quality fresh mangos or lychees in Frankfurt. What to do? Well, substitute!

I’m terrible at creating (and following) recipes so here’s what I roughly used for my fruit salsa:
2 very ripe and super sweet nectarines
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp lime juice
¼ Spanish onion diced (I like raw onion!)
fresh coriander chopped
pinch of salt
pinch of chilli powder

Mix all ingredients, mash the mixture a little and voila, there you have it – a nice sweet, salty and spicy salsa.

The other thing that I didn’t really think about is what to have the salsa with! I was so keen on the salsa that I didn’t think about what to serve the salsa with. Luckily I had some Tilapia (that almost sounds dirty!) filets on hand.

I don’t ever remember seeing Tilapia in France or in Australia so I have no idea what kind of fish this is. When I bought it, I just pointed, said “Ja, ja, ja” and paid! Anyway, the fish is just simply seasoned with a salt, pepper and olive oil mixture.

I love fried fish but I’m not big on the frying part as the apartment tends to be filled with super fishy odours for days on end. So to make the frying time shorter, I zapped the fish in the microwave for a few minutes till semi-cooked, then lightly fried it to brown the sides.

I piled everything on top of some rocket and that was last night’s meal! I am still eating semi-healthily to compensate for all the German beer that I’ve been drinking. Only 3 weeks till we leave for Melbourne so I need to keep the spare tyre under control!

Anyway, I really loved the fruit salsa with the fish but the Hubs inhaled the salsa quickly so he could squirt ketchup all over the fish! Hmmmpfff! Some people have no taste!

Carbs galore!

2007-07-11T12:36:00.000+01:00

Still on the subject of last weekend, what else did we eat apart from very expensive Tim Tams?

Well, German food of course!

German food was definitely great opportunity to replenish my body with those food groups that I’ve been missing: sugar, carbohydrates, fat….! To add to that, there was a huge street festival in our neighbourhood filled with just food and alcohol! And for a change, it didn’t rain! What more could we have asked for?

Anyway, in Frankfurt, the best place to fill up on German food on a cool ~~winter~~ summer’s day but the traditional Frankfurter Ebbelwei taverns.

Ebbelwei is apfelwein (apple wine) or in other words, apple cider. I’m not really sure exactly what the difference is between apfelwein and cider (apart from what I can find on the Internet) but apfelwein tastes less sweet than cider and has a cloudier liquid.

In any case, we’re lucky that we live in Sachsenhausen where our main street has 2 of the oldest (so they claim) Ebbelwei taverns in Frankfurt. These taverns are filled with long, solid and dark wooden tables and benches, and are often filled with merry Germans digging into hearty meals!

The first couple of times that the Hubs and I went to one of these taverns, we were completely unfamiliar with the food and so ordered by pointing at dishes that someone else was having at the table next to us! This time round, we knew what we wanted!

This is what I had.
This dish is apparently a Frankfurter speciality: Grüne Soße (pronounced “groone sosse”, something like that). The sauce is a mixture of herbs and sour cream, yogurt or cream. This lovely sauce is served usually over plain hard boiled eggs and potatoes.

Hubs on the other hand, being very dairy-intolerant, decided on the stereotypical German meal: sausages, sauerkraut and mashed potatoes. His mashed potatoes seemed to have been mixed with what we thought was apfelwein, which gave it a little sweetness.
And we washed all that down with apfelwein naturally! 2 hours later, we all strolled out of the tavern clutching our bellies ;-)

Here’s a picture of what apfelwein is usually served in! Ok, the jug’s not usually that big but you get the picture ;-)
And this picture is for Lyrical Lemongrass who loves German beer! No, it’s not the umbrellas that you should be interested in; it’s what’s written on the umbrellas: Schöfferhofer, my current favourite German weizen beer.

Australian delicacy

2007-07-09T10:59:00.000+01:00

There’s an Australian delicacy that’s quite rare over here in Europe (well, at least in France and Germany). However last Saturday, there was a stand full of these goodies just down the street from me.

I’m sure you’re all thinking…Australian delicacy…hmm..kangaroo burgers? Crocodile ham? Koala steaks? Wrong wrong and wrong.

I’m talking about the humble TIM TAM. Ok, you might say well, Tim Tams aren’t Australian anymore; they’re American as Arnott’s is now American owned. But that’s beside the point. Tim Tams were born in Australia as far as I’m concerned!

What are Tim Tams? It’s basically a synonym for a little “slice of heaven”! Well, ok, maybe I’m exaggerating a little. It’s basically a chocolate cream biscuit sandwich enrobed by yet more chocolate! In other words, it’s the ultimate comfort food!

Anyway, over the weekend, my in-laws were in town and coincidentally, there was a huge street festival in our neighbourhood, where that particular Tim Tam-filled stand was. So naturally, I had to share a part of Australian heritage with them.

So, how much would you pay for a packet of Tim Tams?

I paid 5 euros!!!!! But it was worth every centime!