that's one big (*$^@!

HOLY! Happy day today, I went down to Simon Johnsons, an up-market grocer to collect my little order which I made a week ago and woohoo!

Take a look for yourself!

Black gold in a plastic bag! That's 60g of Australian Winter Truffles! WOOO I'm gonna have a ball with this when I get back to Singapore. I feel so tempted to rip it out of its plastic just to smell its lovely aroma but I must not remove it from its seal just yet, not till I get back to Singapore!

This has boosted my morale for tomorrows exam! I feel extremely confident now! So wish me good luck tomorrow! I'm gonna go rest and focus on tomorrow's exam now. So until next time, さようなら.

the calm before the storm

So I've been really busy preparing for my upcoming exam on Monday & Tuesday therefore my blog update frequency has gone down significantly. I've been reading through all the recipes and trying to memorize all the important details of everything that we have learnt up to now. For example, stock cooking times, what different thickening agents are used for. Oh a bloody nightmare, so many things to remember.

On Monday, we made a roast beef with all kinds of vegetable garnishes. I have no idea where the pictures which I thought I took of the beef and its vegetable garnishes went to so I'll just skip that. No, I'm not getting lazy. I really have no memories of taking a picture of it. Everything is so routine now, I don't know how it could have slipped my mind to take a photo of the roast beef. Anyway on to Tuesday.

On Tuesday, we made pasta from scratch with a Tomato Basil sauce & a guinea fowl with mushrooms and leeks. I have never had guinea fowl before but it was pretty yummy. Especially when it was eaten with the mushrooms and leeks. I have never had oyster mushrooms as well, which was one of the mushrooms in the mixture and I really like it. It's got this subtle earthy flavor to it that I really enjoyed eating. I'm not a great fan of shitake mushrooms by the way unless its in Bak Chor Mee aka Mushroom Minced Meat Noodle. OH!!!!! I miss Bak Chor Mee.



I realised the awesomeness of fresh made pasta. Its so much more tasty than those dried pasta and its texture too is so much better. It also open millions of possibilities with the flavour of the pasta, for example, truffle linguine or spinach linguine. Not to mention it comes with this satisfaction of having made your own pasta. I see only pluses when it comes to making your own pasta. So to everyone out there, make your own pasta dough! You'll enjoy the results of your labour, which is not even much of a labour since its so easy to make. I'll put the recipe below. On a side note, you'll probably need a pasta machine that I have seen cost $60 in Singapore.
__________________________________________________________________
Pasta Dough
Bakers Flour 200g
Eggs 2 x 60g
Olive Oil 1 tbsp
Salt

Semonlina Flour for dusting

1. Sift flour and salt into a basin and make a well.
2. Whisk eggs and oil together and pour into the well.
3. Mix the flour and egg mixture together to form dough.
4. Knead until the dough is firm and smooth and silky.
5. Let rest for 45 mins before cutting.

__________________________________________________________________

On Wednesday, we made Lamb Noisettes & a Cointreau Souffle. Did I ever mention how much I love sweet souffles! I remember when I was younger, going to this little French Cafe called Cafe De Amigo and always having their French Onion Soup and their Lemon Souffle. Om nom nom nom, those 2 dishes are to die for. It's so hard to find a good onion soup nowadays in Singapore.

Oppps I'm side tracking and ranting there. Back on topic, lamb noisettes is basically a deboned T-bone rolled up to form medallions and served on a crouton. We also served it up with braised lettuce and cheatau potatoes. It was pretty hard to get right because the medallions were thick and it was easy to burn the exterior of the lamb without cooking the inside. I served up my lamb a tad bit undercooked but my souffle was nice and tall. It looked very much like the one in the picture. Take note, those dishes are not mine but the chef's.




The chef also made a Salmon Tartare with a Cucumber Salad which was a teacher's demonstration only. I don't eat cucumber so I didn't have any of the salad but the Salmon Tartare was delicious while maintaining the flavour of the salmon. It was marinated with lemon juice, lime juice, sour cream, dill, sugar and mustard.

Since my exam is coming up in a couple of days, I have been practicing the menu. Yesterday, I went to Kevin's place to make the Beef Consomme and Herb Crusted Lamb Rack and today, I decided to practice the lamb rack one more time and yay!!!!!, it came out nicely, my thermometer is a saving grace! Here's a picture of the lamb rack I did today. I feel more confident about my exam now.


Ok, I'm going to get back to remembering stuff now, alot of things to remember for my theory exam. So til after my exams, 안녕히계세요, aka goodbye in Korean!

a view to a fill

"The genius of love and the genius of hunger, those twin brothers, are the two moving forces behind all living things. All living things set themselves in motion to feed and to reproduce. Love and hunger share the same purpose. Life must never cease; life must be sustained and created."

Turgenev, Little poems in prose, XXIII

I came across that in a book. A little interesting poem that I think is both meaningful & romantic.

As promised, here are some pictures of the food that was made on Tuesday & Wednesday. First up, we have an artichoke salad with prawns. This was a teacher's demo only so we did not have to make it but something funny happened because the chef had prepared the artichoke and he forgot to put it into the finish product of the dish, seeing as it was an artichoke salad and all. The greens are lamb's lettuce and it was yummy, simple and yummy.


Next on the menu was a tournedos of beef. This one we made and thankfully I got it right. I've been having a problem with the doneness of all my meats but it seems like I'm getting the hang of it now. Just in case, I bought myself a meat thermometer. No more undercooked or overcooked meat for me anymore! And I am certainly not going to take a risk like that during my up coming exams if a steak is called for.

The tournedos of beef was served with a sauce choron which is a derivative of bearnaise sauce. The sauce choron was gratinified over the steak and served with parisienne potatoes, which is little globes of potatoes covered with glace de viande which makes the potatoes gooey, sticky, beefy and salty. Simply yummy! The pictures don't really show how sticky they are but just imagine beef caramel and you'll get an idea. Bearnaise sauce and hollandaise sauce are both warm emlusion sauces and strangely though, when I make these sauces, they always have this tangy flavour in it which I thought was bad but apparently the chef said it was good so I guess that is how it's suppose to be. YAY!

On Wednesday, we made Veal Cutlet Bonne-Femme, which just means veal cutlet prepared in a homely manner and shortbread biscuits. The veal cutlet was not bad, I'm not a great fan of beef being cooked more than med-rare because it gets a very irony taste which I dislike but unfortunately, the chef wanted the cutlet medium so I did not have a choice.

The chef then made this pretty little dessert with the shortbread biscuit and fruit coulis.

We weren't suppose to make the biscuits but because the lesson was easy, he asked us to try making it and boy I didn't eat so many biscuits at one go in my life. I made 9 large biscuits and ended up eating 7 of them one of the other. Apparently my chef noticed me eating the 7 and started nagging me about eating so many.

I just couldn't stop myself, it went nicely with the whipped cream that was made to accompany the biscuits. It was sweet and crumbly. Om nom nom nom. Below is the picture of the cookies I made. Little devils!


During the weekend, I mostly stayed at home because of the cold, but I did go out for dinner with Kevin and we went to this place called Sapore Della Vigna which served some pretty lovely italian food. I'll talk about once Kevin sends me the pictures of the food.

Next week, we'll be cooking kangaroo meat. Grrrrrr giant rodent meat. So anyway, till next time, adio.

jagged gorgeous winter my ass

I hate winter! It's cold, gloomy and unlike in Singapore where I can turn off the cold by just turning off my air-con, I can't turn off the cold of winter. Thank goodness I have a cute new song to listen to which has an awesome MTV. You must watch it below.



Anyway I'm sorry for missing last week's posts, I've been very busy freezing my ass off and hiding under my blanket to keep away the cold. I also have my exams in less than 2 weeks so busy busy busy. This week we only had 2 days of lessons because Monday was a public holiday, apparently it was the Queen's birthday. Not the Queen of Australia, the Queen of England. However, they do have politicians that argue and are always interrupting one another and overall, not being very civil or well mannered to one another. They always show the bad side of their politics on TV, I think they seriously should not wash their dirty linen in public for the international population to see.

Because it was the Queen's Birthday, my friend and I decided to take a trip out to the city by ferry for a little photo taking session and for the experience cause I don't have very much reason to take the ferry and to my surprise, Sydney does have a very dreamy atmosphere to it when you're heading to the city by ferry. The ferry goes down this meandering river which you can see the city getting closer and closer to you, with a different foreground at every instance. The river is lined with all types of water front housing from the modern contemporary to the rustic and it seems private boats are a dime a dozen here. I wouldn't mind going fishing in Australian waters with some beer and good company. Seems extremely fun and stress free and best of all, we can eat the fish we caught straight out of the water if we bring a portable gas stove, can't get any fresher than that. Om nom nom nom.





Did I mention that there were tons of speed boats dashing past our already fast moving hydrofoil ferry. Hmmm it sure sounds nice to have the wind in your hair as you pilot one of those speed boats. I can imagine this whole Miami Vice thing going on.

As we got closer to the city, we had to pass under the Harbour Bridge. I have been for while, wanting to take a photo of the Harbour Bridge from below, ever since I went to Pancakes on the Rocks the other time. It's like this giant construction of twisted metal and concrete that seems on one hand cold and uninviting but on the other, lively. Maybe it's just the endless traffic moving along the bridge or maybe its the hundreds of people climbing up the bridge everyday to peer down on the city, that gives it its life. Whatever it is, it's quite amazing when you stand below it and notice how grand it really is and how miniscule you are compared to it.




Shortly after passing under the Harbour Bridge, the ferry passed the Sydney Opera House. This is not the first time that I have seen it in person, I came to Sydney before but it was during summer and the flies around the Opera House made it hard to want to hang around any longer than a minute. Due to that the Opera House didn't make much of any impression. But now I get to see it cast on a blue sky backdrop and like its neighbor, the Harbour Bridge, it too had this certain aura of grandeur to it. Not just from it's size but from its importance and reputation it has built up over the years. It's not the design that makes it amazing but the millions or billions of people who travel from far and wide to see it, and they leave a little something behind when they visit it, not something visible, not something tangeable just something you feel when you look at it. That is what makes a monument a wonder of the world. I have not visited any of the 7 Wonders of the Modern World but if I did, I'm sure it would be even more grand than the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.

When it was time for us to alight from the ferry, it was only 11am but we were starving so my friend and I headed to a little Italian restaurant for lunch and my god it was terrible. I think that 95% of the restaurant in Australia are shit! With such great produce, one would expect the potential for great food to be far more common than 1 in 20. But oh well, I'll just tag that meal as sustenance and nothing more.

After lunch, we carried on our little photo journey around what they call Circular Quay and the Rocks. It's a very up market region with all the expensive and well known restaurants being around this area. For example Est. Restaurant @ Establishment, run by Peter Doyle who is regarded as the father of Modern Australian Cuisine. The picture below is of the bar at Establishment. As the restaurant is on the upper floors of the building, I was unable to get a photo of the place. Anyway, the bar speaks loads of how the restaurant would be like.


Circular Quay is also an enormous tourist trap. Steer away from here if you intend to shop for things. We did come across this busker who was jamming some awesome Latin grooves with his guitar. I would have stood there longer to listen to him if the weather weren't so cold.


By the time we had seen what we could see in that area, it was already 2pm and it was time to head back to the city. So we took a walk down one of the main streets back into the Sydney CBD area. On the way back, we came across this building.



This is apparently the Sydney General Post Office. It has housed within it, The Westin Hotel & Macquarie Bank office towers. It is quite a beautiful building with its neo-classical facade. Good thing my friend knows plenty about Sydney, so we went on into the building and boy it was as awesome as it was on its exterior facade as you can see.

Its design resembles very closely the Singapore National Museum, with the exterior facade maintained and fusioned with modern design ideas. The clock tower looks so dreamy when staring at it through the sun roof, from the interior of the building.

After that, we decided to go to Darling Harbor and to our surprise they were having a Jazz & Blues Festival there. It was pretty damn crowded at Darling Harbour but in pursuit of some nice Jazz, I wouldn't mind the hustle and bustle. Although to my dissapointement, most of the acts were just setting up but fortunately, there was one group performing at the main stage and they were pretty good. I don't really remember the groups name but I did manage to snap a photo of them performing. Too bad sound isn't visual. On that note, I recommend everyone to go watch the MTV for Death Cab For Cutie's song, Soul Meets Body.


I'll leave this post as such, it's getting late and since my internet is capped, it's taking a long time to upload the photos. I'll carry on about my classes tomorrow with some pictures of food so till next time, vale!

a sight worth seeing

So over the past weekend I decided to abuse my DSLR and hence I went on a little photo taking spree, or rather as spree-like as I can.

I have never seen autumn or rather, I have never seen any seasons. So when I came to Sydney, and I was greeted with all manners of yellow and red trees, I knew I had to capture autumn on my camera to remember my first season other than summer.


This was taken near my apartment. I took it while I was waiting for a bus to IKEA. You may think it's silly and nothing out of the ordinary, but when you have stared at green trees all your life, a tree with yellow and red leaves can create excitement.

As I was saying I was waiting for a bus to IKEA which is located in a suburb called Rhodes. It is quite a nice suburb, quite a big difference from all these other homely, stepford wives communities. It had plenty of young couples and seemed like a modern suburb.


This wasn't the first time that I have been here though. Remember that all my furniture is bought from IKEA and when I first came to this suburb, I was greeted with a pretty ocean side park and a gorgeous sunset. Unfortunately for me though, I did not bring my DSLR on my first visit here but this time round, when I brought my camera, it was just cloudy and dark but there are always nice scenes to capture, regardless of the circumstances. I may not have been able to capture a glorious fiery sunset but I snapped something just as awesome.




It was quite a pretty sight despite the gloom, a beautiful gloom. Sadly, you don't get to see things like these in Singapore. Or rather I haven't.

The pictures above are the pictures of Rhodes shopping centre. My weekly haunt or so to speak. I come here to buy my groceries and whatever home items  I need. It is pretty much a shopping centre for the suburbs. Full of storage ideas, grocery shops and home-ware. Nothing much else to do here other than buy necessities. Even the food here is bad, but then again, plenty of restaurants in Sydney are like that.

But, there is one ray of hope amongst all these fast food joints and so called asian food. It is a little place in my suburb called Singapore Kitchen! I couldn't be more lucky to have found a Singapore food joint near my apartment that served some relatively good and dare I say possibly one of the best Singapore food outside of Singapore.

When I walked in, I saw a newspaper cutting on the wall about the restaurant & Nyonya food, something about firing something up and it had a picture of the owner holding a flaming wok. I don't think it was something about him burning down a building so I knew right away that this place might have potential. The owner was after all Singaporean.

I ordered 2 dishes that day and first up was Otakotak. At about $6AUD for 2 small pieces of otak, it might have been pretty steep but I seriously missed Singapore food and I would have paid an arm and a leg for a bowl of Bak Chor Mee a.k.a Mushroom Minced Pork Noodles.

The otak was pretty tasty and had to me, an authentic Nyonya flavor. It reminded me of the otak I tried to make a while back with a recipe from a Nyonya cookbook, but better. I could taste the spices in it and the fresh fish flavor along with the sour of the lime leaves. The chilli in it was just right and hit the spot. Overall, a good otakotak but just a little pricy.

The second dish I had is the Singapore local favorite of Hainanese Chicken Rice. What better way to judge the standard of a restaurant claiming to be authentically Singaporean by how good its chicken rice is. 

I wouldn't say the chicken rice I had was awesome. Only Tian Tian Chicken Rice in Maxwell Market and Ghim Moh Hainanese Boneless Chicken Rice deserves such an accolade. But it was pretty good. Better than even some chicken rice that I have had in Singapore. The chicken was tasty and not dry although the rice could do with more flavor. The chilli could have also used more spice and garlic and perhaps the owner should be less thrifty with the chilli. It was after all $9.00 AUD for a plate of chicken rice. Overall it was a pretty good meal and it has settled the craving for some of the foods I missed in Singapore, for now...

I believe this will be the start of many more visits to this Singapore eatery.

The next day, I decided that I shall have to visit Fish Market again to satisfy my craving for some tuna sashimi. I managed to drag Kevin along with me for lunch and boy did we have a feast. But before I get to that, let me show some pictures of the Fish Market that I've been boasting about so many times. It has a lovely smell of the sea that obviously comes from the fresh seafood, kind of reminds me of Fish Market and Bistro in Singapore, but better...

This is just one of the merchants at the Fish Market called Claudio's. There are alot of other merchants there but I was told that this one had the best and freshest oysters so whenever I come here, I'll get the oysters from them. As you can see, the seafood varieties are endless and fresh! Now if there is one thing I must praise Australia about, it is their quality of fresh produce. The seafood, the poultry, the cattle, the vegetables, they are all lovely and fresh and when you eat it & cook with it, you can tell the difference between it and the crap you buy from the supermarkets in Singapore. The number of varieties of produce is incredible and truly, that is the best part about Australia from the point of view of a person who loves to cook and eat.

We ordered quite a lot of food that day. Abalone sashimi, tuna sashimi, fish and chips, a dozen fresh oysters and half a dozen each of oyster mornay and oyster kirpatrick. It was a good meal. Filling and satisfying. I'm amazed I didn't end up in the hospital after eating a dozen oysters and a boat load of raw seafood like when I was younger.

After the meal, I went out to the port side of the fish market and managed to snap a photo of the ANZAC Bridge.

I decided also to take a walk around the city to take a few photos as Kevin had to go study and here are a couple of photos I took of the people and the city. I decided to call the 2nd picture "Man vs Gravity".

Later during that week, my classmates and I had a meal at yet another Spanish restaurant in the city called Capitan Torres. That was not a typo, it is capitan not captain. It was quite a good meal. We had quite a number of entrees such as chorizo sausages, garlic prawns, mussels and then shared a seafood platter of sorts, a paella and suckling pig.

Seafood platter

Paella

Mussels

Garlic Prawns

Suckling Pig

Can I just say that the suckling pig and the paella were wonderful! The crispy skin and juicy meat of the suckling pig was awesome and I could just imagine having it with an ice cold beer! Umm heaven! The paella too was tasty although i think the rice was a tad bit overcooked. After finishing almost everything, we realized that no one had touched the crabs so it was left to my friend and I to devour them. Singaporeans and Malaysians truly possess the skills and the "thick skin" to devour whole crabs because everyone else was so afraid of the crabs but we just tore them apart and consumed them without much problems except for the tarnishing of our once civilized image. Hmm I miss chilli and butter crab from Long Beach now!

I realized that I am currently about 3 days behind in my blog posts. I have not written about the past 3 days of school. So I'll get to it asap! So until next time, pileuleuyan.