Category Archives: Gastronomy

Roast pork wraps

28 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by in Gastronomy, Home Cook Food

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I thought my work will tone down after a month or 2 of peak period. But, it’s now stretching to almost 3 months already. And I don’t foresee it lightening for April either. Sob sob.

Even with tiring hectic schedule, I try to cook whenever I can. Why? Because it helps me to de-stress. LOL… I know it’s weird. The only thing I hate is the washing up. But, hubby generously offers to wash up after dinner because he knows I am stressed out. Thank dear!

Since I am quite tired myself, I try to keep the cooking to a very simple meal. The Roast pork wrap is simply one of my favourite. It’s so easy, it only took less than 15 minutes to prepare, cook and serve.

Ingredients

  • 2 shallots
  • 8 cloves of garlic
  • 3 bird eye’s chilies
  • 1 box of Roast pork (about 2 servings)

Sauce

  • 1 tablespoon miso paste
  • 1 tablespoon sweet sauce (hoisin sauce)
  • 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar

Diced finely the shallots, garlics and chilies and fry them until fragrant.

Stir Fry the condimentsThe main STAR of the nightAdd the roast pork and stir in the sauces (I usually mix the sauces together first) and give it a good stir-fry until every piece is coated evenly. le Sauce Just prepare some big leafy salad (I prefer to use green coral) and cucumber ribbons (Just use the vege peeler and slice across). It’s ready to be served. Dinner !!!

Salad, Cucumber and PorkRoast Pork Wrap

Plopped in front of TV and enjoy a good comedy while chomping down my dinner and sipping on peach cider. Great way to unwind… after a long hard day.

Fresh Pasta with my Atlas 150

25 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by in Gastronomy, Home Cook Food, Kitchen wares, Shopping

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Lesson one – DO NOT WASH your Atlas 150 !!! sob sob… being an OCD, I can’t help myself. I washed it… sigh. AND, I found some rusty bits on the cutter wheels. But, if you do get some rust, don’t worry. This is what me and my bro did to clean it up. We made a batch of dough with cheap flour and water only into very dry and hard dough. Using that, we ran it thru the cutter a few hundred times (me – exaggerating) and thank God the dough manages to pick up all these rusty bits… So, I’ve learned my lesson. Just use a slightly damp cloth to wipe everything and leave it at that.

I whipped up a batch of dough using 300gm of flour and 3 eggs with my trusty Kenwood Kmix. It’s my first time using my dough hook. It’s fun and so easy to use. After mixing everything into a ball, I let the machine knead it for about 2-3 mins before kneading it with my hand. Let the dough rest for about 30mins and it’s ready to be churn into pasta. Yippee… Dough PreparationLet me tell you – Pasta making is NOT a job for one person! You need at least 2 people. One to row the pasta and one to cradle it as it roll out. Thank God I had 3 other people helping. One to roll, one to cradle, one to lay them out to dry and mum for helping to wash up the mess we made. Lol. Hehehe…

Flattening the dough

The Atlas rolled out the pasta perfectly. It was really easy to use. First we rolled the dough using the ‘0’ setting a few times until we get the basic shape we want. Then, we start going up the dial. We made 2 batches, one up to ‘8’ and another to ‘9’. It’s too thin for fettuccini. Sigh. I think I would prefer it thicker. The next time, I’ll stop at ‘5’ or ‘6’. Dial on pasta maker

Very important to allow your pasta to dry sufficiently before throwing into the boiling water. I don’t have a drying rack… so we had to find a innovative solution. hehehe. Don’t worry, it’s clean. I glad-wrap the whole table surface. Drying Pasta

Fresh pasta cooks really fast. So, be very careful to test your pasta from time to time until you get the bite you want.

Tada… 2 flavours for the night.

Carbonara Fettuccini

Cabonara Fetucini

And Smoke Salmon and Saute Scallop Fettuccini

Pan Fry ScallopSalmon Scallop pasta

Can’t wait to try another batch…

Café-Café Restaurant – KL, Malaysia

24 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by in Gastronomy, Local Restaurants

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It was a weekday (the exact date for our anniversary) and unplanned. Hub just decided on the spot when I meet him after work. We call café-café to check if they have a spot for 2 and off we go. Traffic was surprisingly ok and we manage to rock in there really early, before 6:45pm. The place was still empty.

Romantic-Dramatic ambience

Greeted by friendly staff and they start us off with some refreshing drinks. The place is still as pretty and romantic as I remember it. It was almost 5 years since we last come here. Hub brought me here when we were still dating. So, it was kind of sweet of him to bring me here for a quiet dinner that night.

The menu has definitely changed over the time but I still see some familiar dishes on it. We ordered their fix menu and chatted happily sipping on our wine while waiting for our food to arrive.

For starters…

Honey Truffles Prawn Foie Gras Scallop EscargotThe prawn was quite fresh. hub love it… We both like the pan sear foie gras (the portion is much smaller than it was last time). Scallop was over-cooked (sigh…) and we were abit shock by the escargot… because on the menu it mention Escargots in Ratatouille. This is Escargots à la Bourguignonne! We felt that it was a little too heavy on the garlic (and hub is a super garlic fan somemore).

For mains…

Black Angus TenderloinLamb Medallion

Black Angus Tenderlion and Lamb Medallion. Beef quality was not impressive. Lamb was ok. In fact, hub and I both preferred the condiments around that plate more than the main star itself. oh well…

Before dessert, they present us with strawberry / raspberry sorbet which was rock solid hard. lol… we were abit shock because normally sorbet we have are nice and fluffy. a tad too sweet for palate cleanser…

After that, they serve us petite four. I love the earl grey and green tea cake on the right. The cheese was so-so… the macaroons is an acquired taste (The flavor is too intense and unique, so-not-for-me). Hub almost laugh when i was struggling to not spit it out. lol. it’s definitely the most horrible macaroons flavor we have ever try. And, we have tried ALOT….

Petit Four

 

For dessert,

Chocolate Lava cakewe had the chocolate lava and Crème brûlée. The original fixed was tiramisu. But, I’ve taste enough tiramisu in Malaysia to know non i can find here is comparable to what I have in Europe. So, I gave up on tiramisu in Malaysia. They were nice enough to change it for us. I really like the lave cake. It’s very nicely moist and fresh. The scatter of slightly salted sesame crumbles is a very nice touch for the palette.

I can’t say that the food is great all the way. There’s definitely some hits and miss. But, we had fun and the ambiance was still romantic. Happy Anniversary dear.