Rumble in the Kitchen

another long hiatus, and a new blog to start-over. Much had happened for the past year. To summarize, I am back in Kuantan and working at the emergency department. Also, I recently moved into my new house despite not being fully furnished yet... oh well, that's another long story all together.

Anyway, I finally got my own place, so I have access to the kitchen!

Looking back, one of the reason why i enjoyed living in Moscow is the fact that I get to choose what I eat since I cooked myself. Some people said that cooking is an ancient alchemy to transform raw ingredient into delicious dishes, and it is all about science :)

Being a man of science, I reckon cooking is really a teaching of the precise methodology of preparing the ingredient of the correct portion, processing them in a series of sequence refined through ages. So, great wisdom of mankind are hidden in the meal they prepare. It is science and art, yet it fills up your tummy and put a smile on your face!

I returned home tonite after my shift in the greenzone. There were plenty of patients to be seen, so I was famished by the time I got home.

I opened my refrigerator to find some groceries I bought 2 days ago, with the plan to cook up a storm when I've got the time. I bought some cute mushrooms along with some fresh vegetables. Yet, they are sitting in the fridge staring back at me, as a scan through to find something for a quick bite.

In the end, I decided to go ahead and cook.

Funilly, I was eating Heinz bake beans when I read the printing on the tin can. There was this short recipe which is rather simple. Just the right thing for a desperate time like this! haha

So I extracted the selected raw ingredients, then put on my apron and start cutting away~

"a good chef always pick his own ingredient fresh"

chop...chop..chop

dice...dice...dice

pondering about life, looking at the mushroom :p

beware: man working in kitchen :p

As soon as the ingredients are prepared in "proper" manner, off they goes into the pre-heated pot with a small chunk of lightly salted butter from Australia

look at the lovely golden color of the caramelized mushrooms

fresh vegetable is added last so they will stay crunchy

and of course - the secret sauce (learned from the tin can of Heinz baked bean..hehes)

To serve, I toasted a slice of Pita bread. Lightly brown.

and voila! The finished Masterpiece :)

Did I make You feel hungry? Oh well, You can always bug my life for it. I'll probably dutifully obliged :p

Happy 2008!

Happy 2008 everyone!

It’s been a while since i post any blog. Well, it is understandable, i guess, that we all are busy getting down celebrating Christmas and New Year. Now that i finally being able to sit down quietly after the whole New Year hoo-ha, i’d wanna look back in time and see how things have been.

2008 will be my last year being here in Moscow, so Yesterday New Year celebration would be my last one here. At first, i am kind of tempted to go out somewhere to celebrate – perhaps go countdown in Red Square, or go to MGU to see the niteview of Moscow and play some fireworks there. Anyhow, considering the circumstances, i decided to join my friends for a nice warm dinner at their place. To tell you the truth, i’m really glad that i joined them, for i really cherish having a good time with close friends.

We plan the dinner just on night before new year eve. The next day, 9am in the morning, the boys set out to buy all the necessary ingredients for the dinner. After 2 hour, we at standing at the payment counter with the resit mounting to 3800 rub (that’s RM 600!)

Dinner started around 8:30pm after all of us gathered. Here’s what we’ve prepared:
(1) 26 delicious chicken wings from Trypena. Everyone fought for the black ones :p

(2) lap-sap cocktail from Kenny :p (actually it taste nice)

(3) good ol’ French-fries by David and Nicholas (a.k.a Ah Wei) . We finished the french-fries while waiting for dinner to start..mauhahaha

(4) 24 pieces of lamb-roll (with thinly sliced marinated lamb meat wrapped around apple, carrot, srping onion) served together with sweet-sour mint sauce. Yummy! by Me & Fang Jen

due to insufficient sring onion supply, the rest of the lamb is stir-fried

(5) Creamy Mushroom soup well-made by Boon Chin

(6) 36 Super Exclusiv Fried Prawn by Min Jie

(7) Juicy Spegetti sauce with minced pork, large mushrooms by Irise & Enci

(8) Salad by Kuan Mun, Claire and Yoon Chin

(9) Banana Cake with chocolate toppings by Trypena

[ah Wei & Friends]

[cute couple]

[dunno what Fang Jen pose is?? muahaha]

After the superb dinner, we enjoyed some scary ghost stories-telling by Ah Wei and friends :p The just before the clock-struck twelve, we readied for countdown.

At exactly 12 midnite, we countdown and enjoyed the firework displayed outside the window  we toasted for a great previous years and also toasted for the great coming years….

Later we showcased a super-raving Karaokes and then played games till 3am+ (aisk, our team lost and forced to do some “gruesome” punishment) But we all did enjoy the skillful “Dugong fall into longkang” by Fang Jen.. hahahah.

Rice Cooker Bread (Sunday Project?)

after lastweek sucess in making doughnuts, i embark on a new project to bake rice cooker bread 
i got the recipe from here 
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Rice-Cooker-Bread

(actually, i ran out of spegetti, rice and …and all i have in my storage is the ingredient left from the doughnut :p )

see how they turn out to be! nice, rite? Too bad i put too much of salt, so it taste a bit funny 
i’m using them to make french-toast for my breakfast anyhow.

My 1st Doughnut

Last Saturday i made some doughnuts and it was a success! (huhu…so proud of myself)

I got the recipe from my “baking Mentor” :p
here’s the list of ingredient:
Ingredients for dough
350g flour
half teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon instant yeast
30g castor sugar
30g butter
1 egg
150ml milk

Ingredient for coating
castor sugar OR
1 chocholate bar + half can of condensed milk (water heat)

Instructions
(1) heat 150ml of milk till luke warm (not boil)
(2) mix milk, 30g butter, 1 egg
(3) add in flour, salt, sugar and yeast
(4) leave the dough at room temperature for 1 hour, cover with damn cloth
(5) fry it and add sugar/chocolate coating

Anyway, i don’t have proper measuring instruments for the ingredients so i improvise and modified the recipe a bit.

Here’s what i used:
600g flour
1/3 tablespoon of salt
1 packet of instant yeast (suitable for 500g of flour, so said the lable)
2 tablespoon of castor sugar
60g butter
2 eggs
2 cup of milk (with my new nescafe cup)

After mixing the dough ingredients in my pot, the mixture turn out to be too liquid. It is somewhat like “pisang goreng” mixture. So, i consulted my Mentor and she said i have to add more flour. So, i slowly fold in more flour. After adding another 300g of flour, the mixture finally form a soft dough. Instead of using my hands, i used the wooden spatula to knit it a lil’ more. Then i left it for some time so that the dough will raise.
…and after 50 mins….alas! my dough is raised and ready to be shaped and fried.

At first i have no idea how big i need to shape it. However, after some experimentation, i finally got it right! The secret for a perfectly cooked doughnut is not to make a round (cross-section) dough ring with small cross-section diameter. Instead, make it FLAT! In such way, u can make bigger doughnuts!

Next, down it goes into the frying pot. Nothing special here, but it is important to note that the dough expand less after some time. So take as little time as possible between start of dough shaping till it is in the frying pot.

After the tedious task of frying the doughnut one by one, i finally came to the point to coat it. Originally, i wanted to make 4 different types of coating: classic sugar coat, cinnamon sugar coat, apple struddle sugar flavour, and chocolate. In the end, out of laziness, i mixed cinnamon, apple struddle flavour and sugar as 1 coating :p still, the result taste superb 
(though i lost my appetite for it since i had to eat quite a few failed experiment samples :p)

Since i couldn’t have finish all the doughnuts i made, i gave them to my friends. Of course, the feedback is positive.

冬至(winter solstice )

冬至 is an important day in chinese culture. By tradition, we eat 湯圓 (tang yuen) !!

talking about 湯圓, i’ve always thought that they are somewhat too plain to be nice. Mom used to make these simple small glutinous balls with a simple caramel sauce. I am not a big fan 湯圓 myself, but i’ve always eaten it during winter solstice (No second helping though).

NB: large 湯圓 is a big “no no” for me :p i remembered grandma used to make them. They are plain balss without fillings!!! i can still recall how traumatizing it is to yank it down my throat… i think i choke a couple of time trying :p

These few years, i’m away studying in Moscow, so i didnt celebrate 冬至 . Anyhow, some friends do celebrate them and i saw them making 湯圓 with peanut fillings. Never realised it can be made that way (shame to call myself a chinese now).

2 years back, i travellled to HongKong, and there, the 1st time i actually enjoyed eating 湯圓 . They serve it cold with creamy mango ice-cream. Everything just RIGHT!

This saturday will be 冬至 again. So happens that the x’mas bash charity concert will be on the same date…so i supposed that i will be celebrating without 湯圓. (Yeap, 1st Malaysian Idol winner Miss Jaclyn Victor will be performing! Cool, no?)