Ayam Bakar

Broke from shopping at Orchard and craving for indonesian food? Then head to Lucky Plaza or more aptly known as Little Phillipines. There are 2 fantastic eateries attracting customers of all walks of life and colour. [The last time round, there were a group of hot transvestites eating at one of the two indonesian cafes there]

1. Ayam Bakar Ojolali, #03-03, telephone: 62353597

Click on Menu.

Here's the Cripsy Fish Set that comes with rice which isnt in the picture.

Their signature dish "Ayam Bakar", grilled chicken with rice. Tender to the bone and well marinated with an addictive sweet BBQ sauce which will linger in ur memory for the longest time.
Pink Coconut Drink which Nata De Coco and strips of coconut flesh; Nevermind that coconut is fattening... every bit of it is worth it.

2. Ayam Penyet Ria, #04-25/26

Menu here

The Ayam Penyat which is the smashed fried chicken is great and it comes with a mean chilli sauce and a sliver of tempeh which I cant comment much on cos its one of the rare things I wont put in my mouth.

Oxtail soup was nothing to scream about cos I found it too salty.

I didnt have space for dessert but I saw their Chendol served in a tall glass n it looked pretty good. Will try it next time round.

Choc-y Mousse

When people want chocolate ice cream, they forget about the humble mousse. Yet this mousse is the next best thing if you cant make ice cream do to the lack of patience (you can actually make ice cream without a machine) or equipment.

I simply love the gorgeous silken divinity of this chocolate mousse. We had to use up the UHT double cream lying in my fridge so this recipe was perfect since it uses relatively a lot of double cream compared to ice cream. My sis was very surprised that chocolate mousse is so low maintenance and easy to make. Here it is:

Ingredients (serves 6)
300g good-quality dark chocolate, roughly chopped
3 eggs
1/4 cup (55g) caster sugar
1 tbs good-quality cocoa powder, sifted
300ml thickened cream, plus extra whipped cream to serve
Grated chocolate, to serve
Method
Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of gently simmering water (don't let the bowl touch the water). Stir until melted. Remove bowl from heat and set aside to cool slightly.
Place eggs and sugar in a large bowl and beat with electric beaters for 5 minutes, or until mixture is pale, thick and doubled in volume. Fold in cooled chocolate and cocoa powder until combined.
In a separate bowl, whip cream until thickened (be careful not to over-beat). Use a large metal spoon to carefully fold the cream into the chocolate mixture, trying to keep the mixture as light as possible. Spoon into 6 serving glasses and chill in fridge for at least 1 hour. Remove from fridge 15 minutes before serving, then top with extra whipped cream and grated chocolate to serve.
Notes & tips
Add your favourite spirit. To keep it French, go for Cognac (or another quality brandy) or Grand Marnier, adding 1 tablespoon to the melting chocolate.For a flavour twist, add a tablespoon of vanilla extract to the chocolate as it melts.Chocolate and coffee make a great pairing, so try adding two tablespoons of prepared strong black coffee to the chocolate when melting. For a cool treat, serve the mousse as a semifreddo - freeze for about 3 hours (but don't freeze solid).
Sourcedelicious. - September 2004 , Page 44
Recipe by Chrissy Freer

Glorious Food from HK

Some pictures all the way from HK to tease your eyes with.


Street stall selling Waffle Balls


Suckling Pig


I actually felt bad eating the poor, frail quail

It's been a while!

I'm back from the land of roasted meat and glorious dim sum and desserts.

Always important planning for food while holidaying there because many of the HK eateries either serve overly saltish food or expensive fare. A bowl of rice can cost 10-20 HK dollars there, the equivalent of 2 to 4 S$. Quite ridiculous but thats how the cookie crumbles.

Milk pudding from Yee Shun Milk Company off Nathan Road.

If you have IFC Mall on your itinery, drop by Honeymoon Desserts which has a massive menu of chinese desserts to choose from. One of the best desserts ever tasted is their Thai glutinous rice balls in vanilla cream with mango. (in the middle of the picture below) Their mango pancake was also unique and scrumptious to the last bite.

I think you can point out which is the Thai black glutinous ball in vanilla cream and the mango pudding.

Other than desserts, my only meal time recommendation is this dim sum place called Maxim's Palace.

3rd Level, Low Block, City Hall, Connaught Road Central and Edinburgh Place. tel. 852/2526 9931. Dim sum HK$17-HK$29 (US$2.20-US$3.75). AE, DC, MC, V. Daily Mon-Sat 11am-3pm, Sun and holidays 9am-3pm, for dim sum. MTR: Central.

Be prepared to wait for at least 1 hour if you dont make reservations and if you are there on a weekend. But once you are seated, the food is fast. Dim sum ladies will come round tables with trolley in tow telling you what she has in her trolley. Get her attention if you want anything shes offering. It's a fantastic style of serving food actually.


Dim sum Dolly


Tasty fried squid

From top clockwise: steamed radish cake, siew mai,chee cheong fun, cha siew bao and pork spare ribs


Fried shrimp nuggets

mango pudding.

Oh so divine

Ugly Chocolates.

You know how Starbucks' Ugly Currypuff looks like so this is my version of Ugly Chocs. Of course it wasn't at all intentional. Went to the market this morning and bought a ice cube box on impulse and decided to use it as a mould for customised chocolates. It's uber easy! I think it's one of the best things to do/eat to awaken the soul.

-Melt the baking choc (I use Phoon Huat's couveture chocolate droplets of more than 70% cocoa) in a double boil plus a few droplets of Peppermint Chocolate Baileys or any alcohol you have at hand that you think mixes well with chocs. (Rum, Brandy...to name a few)
* Put the Baileys in before you turn on the heat. I learnt it the hard way yesterday. Any change in temperature in melting chocolate will cause the chocolate consistency to be terribly lumpy.

-Taste the chocolate to see if it's sweet enough. If not, add powdered/icing sugar and mix with a spoon.

-Turn the fire off.

-Add slivers of almonds or whole roasted almonds into the chocolate or coat fruits. Red seedless grapes, blueberries, strawberries and cherries are superb.

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Inspiration

I can't remember exactly how I came across the cakegirls but every single time I look at their beautiful works of art my mind goes ablank. Their cakes, I feel, are fit to be showcased at a museum. Absolutely breath-taking. They even have cakes in the form of an Ipod Mini, sushi and Cinderella's glass slipper. Check out their website.

losing my fdblog virginity.

Half a dozen of blueberry muffins out of the oven. In a matter of 1/2 an hour, half went missing. They were suppose to be for breakfast the next morning. My mom and sis were that speedy with these. There were so many muffin recipes out there but this one promised light and fluffy muffins. It's also the first time I introduced yogurt and wholemeal flour into my baking (Mom's a health freak). Initially, when I saw the hard and grainy wholemeal flour, my sis and I thought adding it in would ruin the texture of these supposedly light and fluffy muffins but they came out a little crusty on the outside but fluffy inside which gave it a little extra crunch. Since I didnt have plain yogurt at hand, I made do with fruit yogurt from Anlene. Also added a little white chocolate chips and almond slivers in the mixture and then topped a dash of cinnamon and granulated sugar on each muffin mixture.

P.S. I halved the recipe. Pictures up soon!

3 cups of all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp baking powder1
2 teaspoon baking soda1
2 teaspoon salt
10 Tbsp unsalted butter (1 1/4 stick), softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1 1/2 cups blueberries
1 Tbsp flour (if using defrosted frozen berries)

1. Adjust the oven rack to the middle-lower part of the oven. Preheat oven to 180 d.c.

2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside.

3. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar together, beating until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating until incorporated after each one. Beat in the grated lemon peel.

4. Beat in one half of the dry ingredients until just incorporated. Beat in one third of the yogurt. Beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients. Beat in a second third of the yogurt. Beat in the remaining dry ingredients and then the remaining yogurt. Again be careful to beat until just incorporated. Do not over beat. Fold in the berries. If you are using frozen berries, defrost them first, drain the excess liquid, and then coat them in a light dusting of flour.

5. Use a standard 12-muffin muffin pan. Coat each muffin cup lightly with olive oil or grapeseed oil using a pastry brush, or with a little butter. Or use one of those convenient vegetable oil sprays. Distribute the muffin dough equally among the cups. Bake until muffins are golden brown, about 25 to 30 minutes. Test with a long toothpick (we use a thin bamboo skewer) to make sure the center of the muffins are done. Set on wire rack to cool for 5 minutes. Remove muffins from the tin and serve slightly warm.

Adapted from The Best Recipe.


Special thanks to Brandon who attempted to help with the blog's technical faults.

The blog talks.

Hello World.

My main role is to help you make improved choices where eating is concern and to document my progress on being a better cook + baker.