Busselton Jetty

Haiyaiyai, I've been meaning to post ages ago, but I just can't seem to move my butt to upload these pictures.

I finally did it.

Oh well, here are some pictures we took over at busselton jetty, a jetty which stretches out 2km into the ocean. We caught three huge squids on lure! With a different story to each one! Hohoho, I have the time, I'll tell you the stories :P



The first squid my mum was hooked on to this fish. When I was rushing over I saw this squidy shape on the surface on the water and down went my lure and wala!



The 2nd squid was caught like normal, just casting and retrieving the lure.



The third squid was the best! I had a live bait on float and was talking to my dad when I couldn't find my float on the surface. Ended up a huge squid took my live fish at the surface! Well, I reeled it back (oh, with a little bit of fight this one) and when I was pulling it up it dropped back down into the water.

Heng ah, my squid lure just beside me I plopped it down and it whacked it. Lucky lucky!


And we got some fishes as well, mostly my dad.



I got sunburnt all over but it was worth the trip, and this was the result of our squid.

Sticky stick

My grandma's over here to stay for a month and when grandma's here, you know what that means. Lots of nice food!

(Don't worry mum, your food is still NUMBER ONE)



Here's a little what granny did today. Home made muah chee with home made peanut powder.

Mmm mm!

Carrot... I like!

What's your kind of carrot cake? The savoury kind with dark sauce, preserved vegetables and fried with an egg which you can find at your hawker centre or the slice of soft and moist cake filled with sultanas and walnuts and topped with a delicious cream cheese frosting that you can find at most cafes, or at my place.

Oh yeah, I'm a sucker for good carrot cakes and even though I found a place which sells damn good carrot cakes (even better or on par with Cedele's), I prefer to bake my own because I can substitute in gluten free flour and make everything edible without a consequence, at least to me.

Mmm mm! A strong dose of cinnamon, a good handful of sultanas and a chokeful of chopped walnuts is definitely enough to get me going.



Here's my recipe for my healthy carrot cake:

2 cups self raising flour
3 tspn cinnamon
3 tspn vanilla essence
1/4 tspn nutmeg
1/2 tspn salt
4 eggs
3/4 cup apple sauce
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sultanas
1 cup chopped walnuts
3 cup grated carrots

1. Mix eggs, sugar, apple sauce, oil and vanilla essence
2. Sieve flour, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg
3. Stir in 1. into 2.
4. Mix in grated carrots
5. Stir in chopped walnuts and sultanas
6. Bake in oven at 175 deg C for 50 minutes or toothpick comes out clean

Pancake Weekly #3: Qunitessential

In this era of increasingly fast moving technology, taste buds and everything else on the planet, ham and cheese is so yesterday. Therefore, men often have to seek new, exciting stimulants to reignite (or re-erect) their senses. Corny? Maybe a little. Putting words into action, behold a new flavour that has been created for this week's Pancake Weekly. A flavour so enticing, a combination so bold, that it will bring you to your knees.

Shrouded in a blurry wrap of nutty, sweet darkness, a yellow cream so natural but so unconvincingly good that it get you thinking why you never felt the urge to consume it before. Of course, I certainly hope one day I can somehow teleport my creations for all my readers to sample, but until that day comes, lets just rely on my psychic powers alright?

Now a nut may be addicting, but a nut flavoured chocolate is a product that packs much more punch than that.. much much more. Fast forward a few decades where creative taste bud-talented men used to manually blend nuts into chocolate, we now have Nutella, Aaah! Brilliante! Dig it with a spoon, swipe it with your finger or scoop it out with your tongue [eewww, admit it, I know you do it], Nutella provides the same aphrodisiac-like results to anyone, which is, uber happiness.



But just expand your imagination a little by spreading this brown goo on a pancake; Umm, should be wackingly good. Now come on, try expand your imagination a little more, force your chemoreceptors to work a little harder, or try starving it into creativity [this can be done by eating plain rice 5 meals a day, 7 days a week, please seek medical advice before doing this].

Okay so here's what I got, you've got this nice pancake and you spread Nutella on 3/4 of it right? What happens to the other 1/4 then is you grill a banana right, and mash it right there. Following which you wrap the pancake around the banana, and roll the whole thing up. I'm not going to describe to you how it tastes like (nothing short of spectacular) because I hope that you're gonna try it yourself.



Another way is to sandwich it in a MJK like manner. Now, I know it doesn't look like a lot, but it definately tastes a hell lot more than it looks.

Pancake Weekly #2

Whaaad? Has it been five days since my last post?! Oops, Okay I'm sooo sorry cause the past week had been nothing less than a whirlwind of events and a nuclear explosion in my tummy.

Why, you ask? Because my family was back in Singapore and I had the honor of filling their stomachs (and mine) with good ol Singapore food, to the verge that I'm quite sick of eating out now. Think about it, I finished 2 full tanks of petrol in a week just by travelling around and I gained an unwelcomed 3kg, most of which unceromoniously deposited on my waist. Sad but true.

So I'll definately be introducing a few restaurants over the next few days but for now, lets do a little catching up with pancake weekly alright?



Ham & Cheese! Boy, do they rhyme so well that it can be a brand name by itself.

Welcome to Ham & Cheese inc! We have ham & cheese hamburger, ham & cheese fries, ham & cheese sausages, ham & cheese hashbrowns, ham & cheese brownies... er... sundae ice creams... NEXT!

Mmmm! So Sammilicious! (so delicious~!) It's so tasty, tasty it'll make you crazy! T to da A to da S T E Y girl you tasty, T to da A to the S T E Y girl you tasty! [hands in the air and doing the hurley, yeah babey]

Something my girlfriend goes crazy for, fry some ham/bacon, slap on some cheese and fold them all up in a pancake. Shuuuuuuuuuuuweet! Or salty.

Pancake Weekly #1

I've decided! Due to my undying love for min jiang kueh, I'm going to start a Pancake Weekly which will feature min jiang kueh or any other pancakes in different [read awesomely delectable] styles and fillings. Oh yes, please don't be turned off sometimes though, I have the knack to produce weird stuff. [Hai! Watashi Orihime san!] Oh yes, my brain churns out weird recipes and cravings which normal people [eg. you] find weird but weird people [eg. me] find normal. Geddit? I hooooooope so..

Alrighty folks, I hope you're not sick of min jiang kueh posts because heres another one [it doesn't really matter because I'm going to post them whether you like them or not mwahaha!] Min jiang kueh with caramelized baked banana kueh dadar style! Shuuuweeeeet I say. Ooo I see you babey! Shakin' that ass, shakin' that ass!

Oven-baked caramelized banana; soft, silky, warm, creamy inside without the unhealthy fat which comes with deep frying and wrapped with soft, spongy, awesomely good pancake. You bite into riiight, and you feel the soft banana-ey insides squirt out and next you start to taste the light yet tasty batter. Mmmm umamai.. Mmmm sedap! You see, good food can cross language barriers, like how superman can.. wear his underpants inside out! [Okay, that was lame and unrelated]



Heres how you do it, which you should because its good.

Simply wrap bananas (I like to use the small ones [not Del Monte] as they are much sweeter) in an aluminum foil and baked at 200 degrees for 10 minutes or till bananas are soft and mashy.

Carefully place them on the pancake which you should make thinner this time round, and fold the sides of the pancake inside. Next, fold the bottom up and roll. Its like making poh piah, if you still don't geddit, go order some poh piah and watch how they make it k?

Do you know the taste of heaven?!

I made min jiang kueh yesterday.

[enters state of nonsensical madness]

Oooooooooooh yesssssssssssssssss, min jiang kueeeeeeh. Mah salvation! Oooh the hunger, the joy, the sponginess, the taste! The.. the.. awesomeness. Oh yeah babey, this is what I call the haute-ness uh huh uh huh. I see you babey, shakin' that ass!

Aaaahahaha I'm crazy. Yeah I'm a crazy dude who have the hots for that hot mama [points above, and below, and above again.. and above and below] Oookay, I shouldn't do anymore posts on min jiang kueh. I can feel everyone closing this window, deleting their bookmarks.. BLOCKING THIS SITE! Nooooooooooooooooooooo!

But min jiang kueh is good! It makes you high without the need for estacy! That soft, spongy, porey pancake with the taste of sweet, baked flour and oooh, that fragrant goodness. [I really think this must be what its like to be in heaven] When you slap on some peanut butter, its goodness X 3. Slap on some kaya and O MY GAWD its like food porn woohoo!

Sorry, I shall stop now.



Recipe:

150g All Purpose/Self Raising flour
10g Tapioca/Potato flour
1 cup water
5 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 egg

Instructions:
1. Mix well and heat non-stick pan on medium heat
2. Lightly oil pan and pour batter depending on how thick you want it to be (I personally use 2 ladle full for a 12 inch pan)
3. Cover the pan
4. Remove approximately 1-2 minutes or after pancake is fully cooked and bottom is lightly browned
5. Spread on kaya or peanut butter and grow some angel wings
6. Don't you know min jiang kueh gives you wings?

More loving

Oh did I mention my mum cooks a kick-ass chicken too?



Well, now you know.



And some pon teh. At least thats how I think it's pronounced.

My love

These are what I had during my trip home:

Achar





Made by my dear Mom a.k.a the most awesome mom in the WWW. No lar not the internet, Whole Wide World!

Nonya Bak Zhang



I wrapped them okay. Quite standard right?!



Loads of meat and a little rice for a glutton like ME.

Mum knows best

Ahh, this is what I've been waiting so long for. Mum's cooking, absolutely yummy! It doesn't really matter how much good food there is in Singapore, nothing compares to mum's cooking. I'm sure most people who grew up on your mum's cooking have the same sentiments.

This are some of what I ate back home in Perth. Enjoy!



Home made nonya bak zhang.



Nasi Lemak with kickass chicken wings and home made sambal chilli. The spices used in the chicken wings made them soooo yummy my sis and I practically grew up on those.



Mum's beef stew which is SUPER yummy!



Herbal chicken



And some cabbage to go with it.

Well, this will be my last post on Perth and I'll be back to regular blogging soon. I'll be back there in February though so look out for more posts!

Because I'm Chinese

Sure, there are many styles and techniques of cooking out there and every nationality will have their own unique ways of whipping up a tasty meal. But what always amazed me is the chinese technique of stir-frying.

Growing up in a family where there are always yummilicious chinese food cooked fantastically by my mum, I guess it's only naturally that I've always been interested in cooking, chinese style of course. Not sure on how to go about doing it though, I'll just throw in the ingredients and start acting like a pro, trying to flip the food in the wok (and the outcomes weren't exactly ideal).

Well, it's only recently after I ate a super good beef hor fun at Quan Ji (Amoy St FC) that I tasted the "wok hei", or breath of the wok as some may call it. Man, that subtle, slightly charred taste made me realise that there is much more to the technique of stir-frying.

For one, I didn't know that a high heat must be used with fast strokes and ingredients must be added separately. Hrmm, now that got me thinking.



Anyways, I actually thought of this dish when I was lying in bed one night, thinking of how to enhance claypot olive rice served in Thai restaurants. By simply adding sweet black sauce minced pork (loved it when I was a kid) and frying the rice separately, and then adding olive leaves (can be bought in NTUC), you'll get a savoury and fragrant olive rice with a hint of chilli and sweetness from the pork.

Very well-received by Qin and her brothers.



And then there's San Bei Chicken or Three Cups Chicken. *Slurps* I especially love this kind of strongly flavoured dish such as Gong Bao Chicken etc. Apperently they named it this way because there's a cup of black sesame oil, a cup of soya sauce and a cup of rice wine used. Beware though, it's very heaty and cannot be eaten too often.



Woot! I loved the way it tasted! Btw, these pictures do NO JUSTICE to the taste of the dish and the QQness of the chicken. The black sesame oil and ginger did wonders.

Don't believe me? Just try it yourself.



And just to throw in a vegetable dish for health's sake. As usual, the vegetables were too large. I'll take note to chop them up more finely in the future.



And last but not least, home-made Ching Tang boiled by Qin which ended our dinner nicely.

Recipe (San Bei Chicken):

Ingredients:
4 deboned chicken thigh (skin and fat removed)
1/4 black sesame oil, 1/4 cup soya sauce, 1/4 cup rice wine
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
2 heaping tbsp of garlic
1 portion of ginger thinly sliced.

Steps:
1. Marinate chicken with 1 tbsp soya sauce, 1 tspn cornstarch and 1 tbsp sugar for 1 hour.
2. Heat wok on medium high and add in sesame oil and ginger. Wait till slightly thickened.
3. Add in garlic and stir fry till the garlic releases it's fragrance.
4. Add in chicken and let it brown slightly before stir-frying briefly.
5. Add in sugar, soy sauce and rice wine stir-frying briefly.
6. Change heat to low and let simmer for 5-10 minutes.

Suprise suprise!

Yes! I'm finally going to reveal what made me so busy for the whole of last week. Since it was my gf's 21st birthday, I wanted to give her a nice suprise and thus, the past week had been hectic as I feverishly thought and carried out my ideas.

*Snores* Okay okay! I'll stop beating about the bush! Don't you fall asleep now.

On the day of her birthday, I suprised her by bringing her to Harbourfront for dinner. Haha, I lied about dining at a fabulous restaurant but instead, this was what I planned!

Yup! Sky dining a.k.a Cable car dining. She told me about it before and I think its just so romantic dining on a cable car. Needless to say, she totally loved the experience and the pleasant suprise :)

What I can say is its a really nice experience but you can start to get nausea during the main course when the cable car is a little bit shakey. The food isn't that good too but well, I guess it's for the good service and the nice ambience.

Food served included Tomato soup w/ garlic crostroni, Grilled chicken and Pan fried fish and Apple Crumble at the end. I thought all of them were pretty okay except the Pan fried fish which was -.-



After dinner, I finally gave her the suprise which I had planned so hard for. The "top secret" mission which I talked about previously.

First off, I created a birthday card each for Qin and my mum. Don't think that they look easy to make. It took alot of time mind you!




I was also creating and experimenting with Angel cupcakes in my kitchen trying out my own recipes on different frosting and fillings and have proudly came up with these!




Blueberry Angel cupcakes w/ blueberry cream cheese frosting and Chocolate ganache Angel cupcakes w/ molten chocolate filling and another w/ a combination of both. I tried the cupcakes myself and think they were damn good! Not trying to sell myself here but my friends thought they were good too.

Qin also love chocolates and so I went to get Royce Bitter Chocolate and their much talked about Chocolate Potato Chips.



The bitter chocolates were TO DIE FOR. It totally melts in your mouth and sends you to chocolatey heaven. Seriously. The chocolate potato chips were not that nice though.

And last but NOT LEAST. I made a caricature using Photoshop which was really hard work. Got a photoframe from Ikea and decorated it with pebbles and paint.




Put it all together with a touch of creativity and this is what you get!





I arranged twenty-one 100% handmade-by-me cupcakes at the well-cleaned car boot lined with blue cotton cloth and created smoke using dry ice. Not bad aye?

Well, that's all for our 21st birthdays. Hope you enjoyed my posts! :)

Good friends make the world go round

Just look at that! Home-made Angel food cake with kaya filling, topped with peanut butter and covered with almond flakes! All my favourites!



The Angel cake was thoughtfully baked by my good buddy Qun gen for my birthday as he knew that I'm all for low-fat cakes and he included all the kaya and peanut butter because they are my favourite spreads. Mmm, wonderfully done! Thanks alot man for all the thought and hard work! And also thanks for always willingly helping me out whenever there are problems. :)

And check out what Richie got for me!



Omg, look at that! A book all about chocolates!




Yup, totally awesome!

The book covers the history of chocolate to various kinds of chocolate and of course kick ass recipes. And what I love about is that they provide measurements in cups, oz and grams saving me all the trouble of conversion. Thanks alot Richie! It's an awesome present and I'll try out the recipes real soon!

Last but definately not least, look at what my good bro Des made for me.



I was blown away when I saw this. A T-shirt which he designed himself which looks really, really cool.



Yup, thats me you see in the picture.



I really appreciate the T-shirt especially the words and the lyrics, they made it all the more meaningful. Thanks alot!

Thanks alot guys for all the effort. I really, really appreciate it. Thanks!