Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Merry Christmas and Happy Boxing Day!

Spending my first Christmas away from home, and it is different. Although it's nice, it's just different. Well, I ate a lot that's for sure just minus the partying I guess. 

I just feel a tad more homesick because it's the festive season. I would usually spend time with family and friends: eating, drinking, and definitely laughing a lot. So, I have a pretty quiet Christmas this year. Also, because it is December, I get a little sad. Just thinking about 6 years ago makes me sad. December is a pretty rough month, my late father's birthday and also his death anniversary. 

But I'm loving Boxing Day, went out early in the morning to shop, and it's amazing how SO MANY people would wake up early to shop on Boxing Day. I see the reason; SO MANY GREAT DEALS!

This year, I spent Christmas with the Mings'! Almost vomited my food because I was so stuffed. 


Oh! You know, winter solstice is one of my favourite festivals. Partly because I get to get involved in making the glutinous rice balls. My grandma NEVER lets me help her cook any dishes, she gets all cranky every time I try to help her. So yeah! Since I wasn't able to celebrate it back home, why not celebrate it here right? So, it was a very Malaysian celebration (even we had a Malaysian Christmas where I made Bak Kut Teh), we had a few friends over for nasi lemak. I was glad I managed to pull it off, the sambal tasted just like how my grandma made it back home- SUPER HAPPY. Also made ayam goreng berempah and tang yuan (because it's not a celebration without it!).




My failed You Tiao, it tasted more like Churros than the actual You Tiao.



I guess that's it for today, a short brief post.


Till then,
xx


Finally, my busy days are slowing down. It has been hectic between parties and stuff. I fell sick during Christmas and that's really not a nice way to spend Christmas. Also, this Christmas was a real quiet one since my uncle passed away.

I celebrated my first Christmas with the company I'm working at. First, we threw a client party (for the clients, of course) then it was our annual Christmas party which was a Kids Themed Party. I don't know, I thought the 'Kids theme' was vague, kids nowadays just wear adult clothes but just in tiny sizes ( I mean that's how I feel ) So I decided to get a onesie instead together with Laura and Yu Ston. We all bought Unicorn Onesies! 


    Yeah, we are the unicorns from the hood!
The party was also a pot luck style kind of party so finally, I have a reason to cook! I don't really need a reason to cook but I just needed time. I picked the simplest dish to do - Beef Stew! I was thinking that it has been raining a lot and what's better than warming up bellies with a wholesome bowl of beef stew right? I took the recipe from Jamie Oliver - Beef & Ale Stew because he really has some quick fantastic dishes you know like the one I did!


This dish in particular was really simple to make, trust me on this. :)

All you need is:

3 fresh or dried bay leaves
500 gm Quality Diced Stewing Beef ( I used beef chuck )
500ml Guinness/ Beef Stock
2 sticks celery
2 sticks carrots
2 medium onions
Olive Oil
Garlic
1 heaped tablespoon of plain flour
400gm tinned chopped tomatoes
seasalt
ground black pepper

1) Slice up that vegetables of yours!

2) Saute your vegetables along with the dried bayleaves.

3) Add in the meat and flour, cook it some more!
4) Season lightly first because the sauce will get saltier as it reduces.
5) Add in your stock and tinned tomatoes!

Voila, it's as simple as that! I actually slow cooked mine in a crock pot over night, the results was awesome! The meat was so tender and it was all just pure awesome :)

One note tho, I never really follow the measurements stated the above. Yeah, I used that as a guideline but I trust my instincts more LOL!

*You can read it more here, if you don't like the way I explain it haha: Jamie's Beef & Ale Stew*

Back to the Christmas post, sorry, I side tracked a little bit. I can't help myself when I explain about food.

It was all pure fun, we had a Secret Santa gift exchange. I got my Santi a gift voucher from Boudoir by Soong Ai Ling. I thought it was the perfect gift for my Santi because this is really not your average mani/pedi parlour. This is the place where pampering your nails are taken to another level (my opinion) getting served with a glass of wine or even champagne and some tooth aching macaroons. What else can a girl ask for right?

Farah got me the Best of Sephora gift set and I really love everything about it. I don't usually put on much make up because I really suck in applying them to my face.So, I'm super happy when I receive things like blushers, lip stuff, mascara, eyebrow stuff and eyeliners.


The night ended with everyone happy and we were all taking so many pictures that night! 

                         All the kids

                     Meet Justina!

I guess that's it for now! Yeap this post is way over due too. I was suppose to post it up last year lol but I'm always lazy to transfer pictures out from my phone to the laptop. So yeap, I'm just updating this while I'm sitting in the train. 



The Blue Unicorn signing off! 

I've been so busy for the past few weeks with convocation and everything that I was trying to find the time to blog about my recent visit to DC Restaurant by Darren Chin.

No words can describe the experience I had at this restaurant. I think it was one of the best fine dining experience I ever had. It's probably of the company I had to! Claire was back from The States and it has been over a year plus since I last seen her. I never knew it was her cousin's "Bachelorette" dinner until I was in the car with her but I knew her cousins were coming along. I ordered the 3 course meal, don't be fooled with the 3 course meal because you WILL have other dishes in between. I left the restaurant with a satisfying tummy and I was stuffed.

Meet Claire, my close friend from my Uni days. (HAH! I feel so old using the word from my Uni days LOL! I just graduated 2 weeks ago)

Okay back to what I was blogging about.

I really like the concept of the restaurant, it gives me the 'less is more' kinda vibe, a minimalist.
When we entered the restaurant we were greeted and asked to drink some cucumber kind of shot. Then we took a look at the private/event area.

This is where the chefs will work their magic right in front of you :)


Once you go up the stairs, you could peep through this window. Want to know how your food is prepared? Take a peek into this magical window. Lol. 

Every table had an iPod shuffle, you can listen to the introduction of the Restaurant to the theme/concept while waiting for your amuse bouche to be served. Okay, so first we got served with a basket of freshly baked breads with Pamplie "raw" unpasteurized butter by baker Jo. Baker Jo is really one talented baker/chef, well I would know because we were in the same class! In fact, all of them are talented :D There were a selection of breads but I forgot what it was :( However, the butter was something different. I've not tasted butter like that before.




For the first Amuse Bouche, we had Japanese pumpkin cream/anis emulsion/sago crisp/roasted pumpkin/pine needle soil/pumpkin oil/fried pumpkin leaves. The second was Mushroom 'farci' (stuffed) with cured duck & guinea fowl/chestnut puree/bitter endive salad/sliced raw mushrooms. Oh, I was in love with my second amuse bouche dish. I just love everything on the plate, probably because Duck and Mushrooms are my favourite food!
The first Amuse Bouche

The second Amuse Bouche

Then for the Entree, we were served with 100% wild caught fillet of "Kurau" (caught in Port Klang) Oh I saw the pictures on my Facebook, damn the fish was huge./razor clams with smoked olive oil/spinach puree/almond emulsion/Avruga caviar/toasted almonds/side accompaniment of brioche crisps/foie gras spread (it was on top of the brioche, EVERYTHING went so well together)/sliced almonds/pomegranate gel. Then a surprise Pre Entree was served, compliments from the chef...heheh...the perks of having chef friends..joking. We also had the Pre Entree which was the Grilled Gambas/Red pepper puree/sauce nantua/ "petit pois" (green peas) cream/caramelized baby onions/ buttered coco beans/parmesan tuile. 


The Entree - "Kurau"

I think I expressed my love a little bit too much in this blog entry because I was about to say I love my main course! It was wholesome and sophisticated. So I had Slow Roasted milk fed lamb 'en parmentier'/lentils du puy/sherry jus/side accompaniment of seared veal sweetbreads/onion glaze/grilled Eryngii mushroom with soy glaze/Porcini emulsion/rocket swiss chard salad. Honestly, I couldn't finish my Mains because I was already so stuffed from all of the previous dishes.

That was my first time I tried seared veal sweetbread. It was so soft that it just melts in my mouth and this was the accompaniment for the Lamb en parmentie.

It was just pure lamb goodness underneath them mashed potatoes. The sherry jus was too good that I can't get enough of it.

Okay before I go into the dessert section, how all of these courses work is that we get to choose from a:

2 Courses - Entree + Mains OR Mains+ Cheese platter or dessert

3 Courses - Entree + Mains + Cheese or Dessert

5 Courses - Well you get the whole thing!

Since I had the 3 course meal, I had a choice to pick between cheese or a dessert. Well, I really enjoy cheese so I pick the cheese platter. I'm also not much of a sweet tooth even though I bake a lot. They had this goat cheese marinated in brown sugar which I thought it was a piece of caramel fudge.

Preparing them beautiful cheese

Mmmm...blue cheese, my fav.

 Some parmesan cheese shaver which makes the parmesan shavings look like a pretty carnation flower

Oh, pretty cheese


Claire had the chocolate coulant, look at that chocolate just oozing out from the centre of the cake!

All full and happy :D

Thank you for the AMAZING dinner! Talented bunch :) 


Went out last week with the girls. We were debating on which cafe to visit. One of my friends suggested we visit Standing Theory at SS 2 so we did!

It's a small place but I thought they could have put in more tables. Anyhoo, I didn't take a lot of pictures because I didn't had the mood. Also, they have a really limited menu. 


We had surfing chicken, VD roll (Vietnamese pork sandwich) and B.C.C waffles. The waffles had smoked bacon, fat baby corn flake ice cream, bananas and Gula melaka. I really love the waffles. Actually, I think I love the waffles because there's bacon. MY LOVE FOR BACON, I can't explain my love for bacon. LOL
Overall, the food was just alright for me. 

On a lighter note! I think my hyperacidity has finally calmed down. I've been having really bad gastric pains and so much of air/wind in my stomach. It's a torture. I've been having this for 4 years and it gets worse each time. 
The pain used to last me about 5 days then it went up to a week. Recently the pain lasted me for 3 weeks which was really sucky. I had to eat on time, if I delayed a little bit then I'll vomit but it's all alright now! Woo! 





Woke up yesterday and asked my family if they wanted burgers or pasta? 

My brother wanted burgers so burgers it was! Looked up at Heston Blumenthal's perfect burger recipe and I was like oh man that's a lot of work plus I don't have a meat grinder at home. I'm thinking if I should get the grinder attachment for my kitchen aid. Hmm.. 

So yeah, I went grocery shopping to get ingredients for the pork burgers that I was about to make. 

Went to Long farm to get my minced pork and got 2kg of mince pork. Why did I get so much? Because mom asked to get more. I'm always cooking too much, it feels like I'm cooking for a whole village all the time. 

I made apple pork patties. I figured hey why not? I actually took the recipe from  lamb meat ball recipe and then just tweak it because that's what I do best. *flips hair* I kid, but that's reall what I usually do. 

Nush gave me this recipe book a while ago as a gift and I freaking love this book because it's funny. 

I also made apple compote as a spread to go with the Pork Burgers, I'm like why not?! Since people use caramelised onions/onion jam as a spread for beef burgers so why not I use Apple compote. Hun asked me why I like complicating my food and I just told him that I want to be out of my comfort zone where I do something different. I'm glad I followed my gut? Because it sure balanced the flavours of the burger :)

Voila! I wanted to make Heston Blumenthal's Perfect Chips but the time to make those were a little bit too long. Plus, my thermometer went missing and I'm still sad about it because it's not cheap! :( 

I'm thinking about making an apple pie this weekend. Hmm.