I love everything braised especially pork. It's pork ribs in soft bone on Wednesday. I love this to the max. I wish I can braise the whole pig.
Then the pig leg's tendon which was so thick and hard was completely soften when I put them in the slow cooker overnight. The tendon was really good maybe I'll do it again but in a different dish. After done with two dishes, I know bak kwa is coming my way so I decided to make an English grant loaf.
That was one very heavy loaf. And that loaf was left with two more slices only. Hhehheehhee...
That's my bak kwa squashed in between the heave loaf. I just chop my two slices and left the rest of the loaf on the chopping board.
Mi mama made lots and lots of buns. I can live on bread alone. The cheesy sausage rolls were *nom nom nom*
More sausage rolls.... *nom nom nom*
Then we have the red bean paste buns as well. Aaaahhh.... I think you know my life is all about food... and more food...
I don't know why this dish is called 'Prosperity Pot'. I changed the main ingredient of sea cucumber to fish maw. I just do not fancy eating sea cucumber. I love fish maw to the max~! I wonder why in Chinese cuisine that's deem to be expensive has broccoli. Broccoli ain't expensive at all. Then there's quail's eggs, mushrooms, carrots and pig leg's tendon. I have no experience in handling the tendon so we ended up separating the tendons into another plate. It's worse than chewing on thick and hard rubber.
Hubby wants more green on the table. It's the most green I've ever seen on the table. I have to think really hard how to stir fry that vegetable. In the end I used the sambal dried shrimp that went really well, according to the hubby. I didn't even try a leaf of it.
Nestle fried ice-cream made an appearance in the evening. My precious got straight A's in her SPM and that's all she asked for. Got her two boxes of deep-fried ice-cream... before long I won't be surprise when hubby makes his own...
Last Monday was my first time using cultivated ginseng. It was given to us in a hamper for Chinese New Year. Eu Yan Seng has really good stuff and excellent cooking instructions or I wouldn't know what to do with those two pieces of ginseng.
My first time double boiling was while making that kaya. This was my second time using it as I have extra time in hand on Monday, I decided to give it a try. Since I have 4 hours and more, it should be a good dish and I only had one dish in mind.
4 hours later, I have decided that I don't mind double boiling even if 8 hours was needed. After braising, double boiling is top in my list of cooking techniques. Steaming becomes too common and easy. The chicken meat was so good I wished I have more. The combination of red dates and dried longan made the soup so tasty. I know I don't repeat what I cook but I'm going to do this again next week. Just one more time as I have another piece of cultivated ginseng. Makes me feel hungry looking at this now. I can still remember the tasty taste of the soup in my mouth... *slurp slurp slurp*
I'm a bit slow in updating this virtual kitchen diary of mine. Can't find any extra time in hand. Well, last Saturday nite, hubby kept saying that he's going to surprise me. He loves anything crunchy or deep-fried or both. In the morning, I woke up seeing him busying himself in the kitchen, using up my leftover Borg's puff pastry. He has even prepared that ingredients for the puff fillings. I wonder what time he woke up.
While waiting for his pastry to take shape, I have the fried chicken to keep me occupied. It's really crispy and I can eat a few if only there's a few. Hubby is weird. Whenever the food was superb, it's so limited that only one person was entitled to one. When he made horrible food, there seemed to be no rationing at all, but there's a free-flow instead.
I wanted to have my fried chicken with Thai chilli sauce but he said he has made something better. He made cheesy dip~! Oh, that's just marvelous and that's only our breakfast before going to church on a Sunday morning. Really heavy stuff to eat in the morning and because I woke up late, there's no time to even gobble down the puff. So, we went to worship God and came home for lunch.
I asked hubby to make me chicken soup but since we didn't have any, he made mushroom soup instead. I sent the bowl back to the kitchen because it was too diluted. He went back to perfecting the mushroom soup until it was really creamy. Love him for that~!
That's the puff with curry chicken filling or was it with pork belly? I'm not sure which is which but the taste was awesome. For dinner, we went to Nippon Yataimura.What a way to relax on a Sunday~!
This is hubby's trademark punch and it's to die for~! All who have come to the house would agree unless you are a health freak who refused to eat anything sweet. I, on the other hand, love them sweet and salty but not overdoing it at the same time. My life is at equilibrium. Right now, while typing away on the black keyboard, I'm waiting for the hubby to make mushroom soup.
I did not cook on Wednesday because we were really tired of eating. Why would people want to stuff themselves full only during the Chinese New Year? Shouldn't we dine like a king every single day? On Wednesday, I made fried rice the lazy cook's style of dumping everything into the wok. I did not even bother with the seasoning. I had two big plates of fried rice yet my stomach felt like it has been abused. So, on Thursday I decided to make something wonderful. It's not 'poon choy'. It's just a platter with everything, cooked separately yet together. What's so grand about having abalone? It's just... abalone. I love my braised pork belly... done it to perfection and I do like those razor clams. Sea cucumbers are yucks~!
Hubby has an odd liking for bitter gourd. So, I cooked a dish for him. He bought such a huge bitter gourd for himself. Whenever I was about done cooking, I would try out the taste. It was so horribly bitter, sucking on paracetamol would be better than this.
Mi mama enjoys baking small and minute cakes. The left was chocolate while the right was rainbow. I prefer the rainbow butter mini cakes. Hehehehee.... Adios, gonzales~!
The next day when I woke, I found myself crawling to the kitchen again. Another day, another different dish. This was on Tuesday and we had lesser people coming over. I have dumped ikan siakap and changed to ikan merah. Tilapia fillet is always welcome and I like salt water fish compared to fresh water fish.
The gravy for the fish overflowed so hubby transferred them to another plate.
I killed a big bird for the cast iron pot. It felt really good tearing at the tender chicken. Before long, hubby's friends started walking in to have another bout of reunion.
Looks like this kitchen seems to be a good place to reunite people. They had a good fun talk but I was so tired I collapsed myself on the bed upstairs then in less than an hour, from a cook in the house I turned into a driver. I'm glad hubby got to meet all his long lost friends.
This was on Monday, the 5th day of Chinese New Year. The previous night I just tagged along with hubby to his reunion dinner and I had a load of fun taking photos. It was surely a joyful time to serve others. I just remembered swinging myself to the market and then lo' and behold, I was in the kitchen almost the whole day. Annie in da' house~! My best friend forever~! Then, hubby's friends from yester-years came as well. What's on the table?
Mi mama made two containers of omelette in order to get rid of the egg white left in a barrel. It was really thick and good.
That's bacon roll. In the morning when I started rolling this, I was thinking to myself why the heck I pick this tedious roll. The fish paste was so watery I thought it would never solidify into a proper roll. Then, after I started rolling the bacon and putting them aside before frying them, it became a solid bacon roll. Thus, I was really happy with myself. I'm a bit sorry for myself that the photo was a blur and I only had one piece of that photo. Argh~!
This was even more tedious. It's not even meat balls. They're tofu balls. Thank God we have lots of kitchen appliances and what-nots. Hubby has bought a packet of netting that can be used to squeeze out the water from the tofu then they were all deep-fried. If hubby wasn't around, maybe I would have pan fry them in a flatten style instead of making them into those shape.
Ohhhh....ooohhhh... this is so my kind of dish... with scallop and the fake abalone made of squid, braised peanuts and mushroom. When all were done and on the table, I began to panic. WHY NO MEAT????? No pork???? No chicken??? I went straight to slaughter the chickens...
The chicken did not grow fast enough. I didn't have much to offer but in the end, it was all enough. I always forget that everyone else was such a small eater. We were the biggest eaters. I eat more than the hubby. I need to serve a meat or two because I can't survive without them.
It felt really awesome to see the plates empty. Whenever I go to restaurants that served fantastic food, I will lick the plates clean. The chefs would be elated to see the plates completely empty and sparkling clean. Do you know that it's really interesting to listen to the older person's stories? They have so much to tell, their experiences and everything. After hubby's friends have made a move, we called the neighbour over for tea break. Yeah, I know... we were just done with lunch.
This is mi best amiga, Annie from Sinkapoe... I forget to take the photo of our tea break. It was the best chocolate cheesecake by mi mama. Terrible me only brought it out after the guests have left. We kill that cake until we couldn't move anymore. And after that, horrible me forget to say goodbye to my friend when she left. Oh, why should I say goodbye to her? I can't wait for her next trip back. No need to say goodbye la... hope you're not offended though. You're not my guest, you're more like family. Family members are not that kind to each other... *hehehehe*
After everyone has left, all of us crawled to bed but I only had one hour of snoozing time because we had someone coming over for dinner~! That's Mabel and her hubby... her hubby not in the photo coz lazy me no more strength to take photos. Thank you for dropping by.... hehehhe....
I did some changes to the menu. The lunch groupie has no prawns because mi amiga, Annie, is allergic to prawns. Since she's allergic to prawns, no one else got to eat prawns. But this Mabel and hubby also no eat prawns. So, I ended up having an overdose of prawns. But it's my favourite so overdose also never mind.
I totally forgot about this can of longan in the afternoon so night time we had a great time slurping this sweet thing up. I was thinking maybe we should open up the house during Chinese New Year for next year but after standing in the kitchen for the whole day, I scraped that idea off completely. But I will still host parties once in awhile maybe in the field opposite so it wouldn't be too cramped inside the house. Just a thought.... just a thought....
