An Epic Curious Odyssey

Woah guess who's back! BACK AGAIN!

2009-12-26T18:02:00.000-08:00

So I'm finally back.

Decided I shall get this blog out from the closet and clean off the cob webs. I have finished my formal studying and I'll be joining the work force soon, good lord what a nervous and exciting event in my life. When people ask what I'm doing now, or one of those internet forms ask what my profession is, I can't select the option of student anymore. Woah what a mind blowing thought!

Anyway I am gonna be doing alot of cooking on the side to keep my skills up along with experimenting with all manner of ingredients for friends, family and others who desire to feast. So that shall be documented here along with all my daily deeds.

So ciao guys! Until next time.

that's one big (*$^@!

2009-06-21T01:56:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-20T01:55:00.000-07:00

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

Sift flour and salt into a basin and make a well.
Whisk eggs and oil together and pour into the well.
Mix the flour and egg mixture together to form dough.
Knead until the dough is firm and smooth and silky.
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

2009-06-14T01:36:00.000-07:00

"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

2009-06-09T03:10:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-01T08:45:00.000-07:00

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.

there's something fishy going on

2009-05-27T04:30:00.000-07:00

Woah! I've never known a school to have such a big cock up in my life.

We were suppose to be making 2 fish dishes today, the whiting and the salmon but unfortunately for us, the school had other plans. They had some order screw up where they thought we were to go to this place called the Fish Market which has not been on the school's curriculum for two years. So we did not have any raw produce to create the dishes on the menu.

Fortunately for us, the chefs came up with a plan B, we could not do the whiting but they found some salmon and although it was frozen, at least we had something to cook with. We were also short of some other ingredients such as fish stock and sorrel to name a few. We only had enough fish stock for about 13 people so the other class in the other kitchen did not have fish stock to make their dish with. I heard from them that the fish stock they lacked was replaced with vinegar. ACK! I shun at the the thought of replacing fish stock with vinegar.

Anyway, to deviate from the topic, I realized that I haven't shown the exterior of my apartment so here is a photo of it.

Quaint isn't it? Looks like some sort of homely little cottage. Something a city boy like me isn't very used to. I feel more comfortable with the high rise buildings of Singapore's concrete jungle around me. I feel like a monkey who seeks comfort in hiding amongst the tall trees.

Back to the topic at hand, although we were unable to make the whiting dish, during our demo class, the chef was able to make it. The dish is called Merlan Colbert where colbert is the style in which the fish is prepared. The spine of the fish is removed, leaving a small part of the spine at the tail and the head intact. The eyes are also removed to prevent it from exploding when it comes into contact with the deep fryer. The dish is like a whole fish fish and chips without the chips and instead of tar tar sauce, it is served with a Beurre Maitre d Hotel aka parsley butter.

The Merlan Colbert is the one in the foreground and the one in the background is another whiting, prepared Colbert style but instead of being crumbed, it is coated with tempura batter and served with tar tar sauce. The tar tar sauce was delicious but when it comes down to fish and chips, I think I love Singapore's fish market & bistro alot more. Did I mention that the parsley butter was yummy too.

The other dish which was the salmon is called Supreme de Saumon a L'Oseille. We made a sauce called a Beurre Blanc to accompany the pan fried salmon and by god, that sauce has to be the most unhealthy thing I have ever eaten. It had 200g of butter and 260ml of cream in it and one of my classmates asked in disbelief if 200gms of butter was the right amount. The sauce obviously had other ingredients such as white wine, vermouth, shallots, sorrel and fish stock but the amount of butter and cream looked like it could clog some major arteries.

But on a side note, the sauce was unsurprisingly yummy! Why do I say unsurprisingly? Well it's because unhealthy food = awesome food! And that is a fact. Salt and fat is flavor after all. The top one was done by the chef and the bottom on was done by me. Mine was a tad bit underdone though. The chef said he would eat it, but some people might not. I don't know if it means he likes it or not or if it were good. I was cleaning up when he called me to review my dish so I was not around but a classmate said he said it was good so I don't know, but just in case, if I make this again, I'll go for the more mainstream, medium well (cooked & juicy).

The dish in the soup bowl is the last dish the chef made, it is a sort of thick fish soup called Fish Veloute. There not much I can say other then I felt rather "eh whatever" about it. It kinda tasted a little like a can of cambell soup, one of the cream of something. The soup is usually used as a base for other dishes so I can't really be blamed for thinking as such.

I don't believe I have shown you the kitchen where we work. So here are a couple of shots of it.

So there you go. That's our classroom and with that, I come to an end for this post. I'm tired and I just want to relax and watch some tv so til next time, arrivederci!

i am on a see food diet

2009-05-26T02:26:00.000-07:00

As you can tell from the title, it is to most, a poorly orchestrated attempt at humor. Any food I see, I eat... Boy I wish I was born with an awesome sense of humor. Anyway with that little administration work complete, lets get back to my class.

So it is day 2 of week 5 today and we had fish on the menu today. We had to make 2 fish dishes and to tell you the truth, the only problem that came from today's menu was the Hollandaise sauce we had to make to accompany one of the dishes. First up on the menu is Filet de Breme Meuniere. An interesting fact about this dish is that meuniere means miller's wife. This dish was given the name because the bream fillet that we cut from the fish is dredged in season flour and then pan fried til it is golden brown and because the miller's wife always had access to flour. The fish was served with butter that was cooked until nut-brown and sprinkled with finely chopped parsley and lemon juice. The dish was tasty and had a nice zing from the lemon juice. The butter had a nice nutty flavour and accompanied the tender, moist fish nicely.

__________________________________________________________________
Filet de Breme Meuniere

1 Whole Bream
1 Lemons (1 peeled, pift removed and sliced across into circular fillets)
1/2 Lemon's Juice (strained)
50g Butter
Parsley (very finely chopped)
Seasoned flour (flour with salt and pepper)

1) Fillet the bream and remove the skin
2) Dredge in the seasoned flour and fry over medium heat (Put it down on one side in the pan untill golden brown then flip over and fry for another 10 seconds til just cooked, it shouldn't need much longer than that)
3) Cook 50g of butter over a low-medium heat until the butter turns a nut brown and begins smelling like actual nuts.
4) Remove from heat and put in the lemon juice and parsley then immediately pour over the cooked fillets and serve. (garnish with the lemon fillets)
__________________________________________________________________

Next on the menu is a soft poached whole trout with hollandaise sauce. I found the trout absolutely scary. It had a thick layer of slime that made picking the little bugger up nigh impossible and our chef wanted us to minimise the handling and not wash it because he wanted the slime on it. Imagine the number of trouts that became flying fish today.

The trout was poached in an aromatic cooking liquid called a court-bouillon which is made from boiling carrots, onions, water, vinegar, peppercorns, bayleaves and parsley. My chef recommends changing the vinegar component to a nice white wine because the vinegar flavour is too intense and this dish required the court-bouillon to be served on the dish.

Interesting fact #2, the slime was to be kept on because when vinegar was poured onto the fish, the slime would turn a blue color. It was solely for presentation but it was a pretty interesting thing to see. The slime protects the fish against disease and the chef told us that a good trout, in addition to all the normal verifications for freshness and quality such as smell, clear eyes, pink gills etc, should be handled as little as possible and a sure sign of this is the amount of slime on the fish. If you look very carefully at the picture of the trout, you will be able to see the blue color I am talking about.

I think I cut the carrots too cute. They look for some strange reason like flowers and reminded me of this game, LOCO ROCO when I placed the carrots on the plate. Thank you IGN for having the only screenshot of the game that had flowers in it.

The dish also had hollandaise sauce that was not pictured and turned potatoes as well. I have made hollandaise sauce before when I was in Singapore and it did not come out very well. This time round though, the sauce was absolutely yummy, zingy buttery and shiok! I'm so happy they taught us to make hollandaise sauce. Now I can make egg benedicts for Sher. :-D

I did not have time to take a proper photo with all it components in place because I accidently scrambled my hollandaise sauce and had to remake one, which put me very far behind. Everything was going extremely well till then, but despite that, my final products were all pretty good so I'm happy about that.

I'm extremely happy today and as promised, I managed to get a photo of my Creme Caramel in a proper mould so here it is.

And like the photo of the trout, I didn't have time to arrange the things nicely for a camera shot so that's why the photo isn't as awesome as it could be. The creme caramel was served with a nice little whip cream that was made using cream, caster sugar and vanilla essence, mixed together in a bowl and whipped til stiff. It is called Creme Chantilly. I do not have the recipe for it but it looks simple enough. If you want it sweeter, add more sugar. If you want a stronger vanilla flavour, add abit more vanilla. Use your own discretion to make it as it's a very simple thing to make. If you look hard enough, you can see the Creme Chantilly on the Creme Caramel at the back of the photo. A simply lovely dessert combination.

Tomorrow is another day of fish. This time around though, the fish up for slaughter is salmon and whiting. I can't wait for the day when tuna is on the menu. I love tuna! Its lovely reddish colored flesh, its sublime flavour. Ummmmmm delicious, just thinking of it makes me want to go out and get some tuna sashimi.

I'm gonna go dream of some sashimi now because there are no japanese restaurants around my place so I'll leave you with an awesome picture I managed to snap. I bet that after seeing this, you'd wish you could have any number plate you wanted. So til next time, au revoir!

5/1 Basic Crs, Cuisine, Le Cordon Bleu 2009

2009-05-25T03:20:00.000-07:00

So I've decided to raise the frequency of my updates because simply put, I have nothing to do. I was told by my girlfriend Sher that I should perhaps put in more recipes. So with her being the senior blogger and all, I'll take her advice.

Well today was day 1 of week 5 of my course and we made a Chicken en Cocotte Grand Mere, which is a whole roast chicken with bacon, butter saute-ed button mushrooms and glazed button onions topped with a sauce made from veal jus and the chicken juices. I had to stick my hand up the chicken's ass and pull out its heart when I was cleaning it. Quite a strange experience, felt like some fatality out of Mortal Kombat!

I actually thought it tasted pretty good despite of my lack of love for chicken. The sauce was rich and tasty and made the dish pretty good. I realized that French cuisine is more than just about techniques. They use butter in practically all their dishes and that makes their food very rich and tasty. If I were to eat chicken, I would only eat it in Hainanese Chicken Rice and maybe in French Cuisine.

The other thing that we made was Creme Caramel.

This was one of mine. I had to put it into some stupid ugly mould therefore I had trouble trying to get it out. That is why was sits before you is a grotesque monstrosity. I have 2 more in school which are in proper moulds so I'll take a photo of it tomorrow. It should be alot better.

There isn't much I can describe about Creme Caramel. It's pretty good, nice caramel flavour with a hint of vanilla. And because I have never made this before, I'm amazed that the caramel which I thought had set was actually a liquid and when i removed the Creme Caramel from the mould, the caramel just flowed down the side of it. Simply amazing!
__________________________________________________________________
Creme Caramel

180g Sugar
60ml Water
500ml Milk
1 Vanilla Pod
3 Eggs
2 Eggyolks

First up, create a caramel with 100g of sugar and 60ml of water. Slowly dissolve the sugar in 40ml of water and boil the mixture til it brown and turns a nice golden brown color. Take care not to put anything inside to stir the caramel. Just swirl the pot around, and when the color is obtained, add the last 20ml of water and immediately pour the caramel into moulds. About 1/2 cm deep.

Next, boil 500ml milk with a vanilla pod in it and mix 2 eggyolks and 3 eggs together in a seperate basin with 80g of sugar. When both tasks are done, combine them and give it a nice whisk to mix them thoroughly. Take note to allow the mixture to sit a while to remove as much air from the mixture. Scooping out the foam that forms at the top fo the mixture and knocking the mixture also helps facilitate the removal of the air.

When as much air is removed as possible, pour the custard mixture into the moulds with the caramel and allow to bake at 165 degree celsius in a long deep basin about 1/3 filled with warm water for as long as it takes the custard to set.

You can make sure the custard is set by shaking the moulds and see if it wabbles. If it wabbles, it means that it needs more cooking. The rough time for cooking is about 35-40 mins.

Do not serve the creme caramel immediately, allow to cool in a fridge before serving.
____________________________________________________________

Last thing that was made during the lesson was a Warm Goat Cheese Salad that was a teacher's demo. Let me tell you a story about myself. It wasn't only until recently, that I started eating vegetables, much less salads. With the awakening of my dream of becoming a chef, I have become more open regarding the types of food I eat. I still do not eat bean sprouts but they are still bland disgusting noodle wanna-bes.

Anyway back to the salad.

The dish is essentially a salad served with a piece of goat cheese on a crouton with a red wine vinaigrette. The goat cheese was marinated overnight with walnut oil, basil, rosemary, lemon thyme and dried bay leaves and the vinaigrette was made from the emulsion of red wine vinegar, the same walnut oil used to marinate the cheese. It also had shallots, garlic and dijon mustard in it. Imagine the flavors that the dressing was packing. It was a lovely salad. Short and sweet.

Tomorrow we have fish on the menu. I'll update more tomorrow, it should be fun. Til tomorrow, zai jian!

another 7 days on

2009-05-23T23:38:00.000-07:00

So today I've decided that I shall take some pictures of my apartment to show everyone. Its rather quaint but you know what, it's only a house to me, it will never be home. After all, home is defined by the important people in my life. Oh, how I miss Singapore & everyone, especially my Sher. Anyway, this here is the hall.

I can proudly say that the entire apartment is furnished by IKEA. To all the IKEA haters out there, it's cheap and good furniture, what's there not to like? The next part of our tour takes us to the kitchen and laundry area.

I haven't gotten my chopping board and another set of knives that I have been eyeing so at this point of time, I haven't done much cooking. But rest assured, once my kitchen is fully functional, I'll be churning out dishes after dishes of food using my newly attained knowledge of the culinary arts. One of the things that I can't stand about the kitchen which sadly I cannot change, is the damn stoves, they are electric coil stoves and they are hell of a slow. I want fire, no, I NEED fire!

Next up in the tour is the toilet. I try to minimise my time in there because it isn't really my ideal toilet, I hate the tiles alot. It's esthetically unpleasing and the tiles are cold as ice in the morning It's a freezing nightmare when I step out after a shower.

Last but not least is my bedroom, I don't have much to say about it, its just a simple no frills bedroom. A bed, a light, a wardrobe and a "side" table. You'll see why I inverted commas the side table when you take a look at the room.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is a fine example of poor planning. I ran out of space at the side of my bed to put the side table. So with that, we come to the end of the tour of my apartment. Did I mention that this is going to be a really long post?

Next on the agenda is the food cooked on my 4th week of school. This past week was abit of a mixed week for me. On the first day, we had to make 2 desserts, one was a cherry flan called Clafoutis aux Cerises in french and the other was disgusting rice pudding. It is beyond me how anyone can like rice pudding, it's unbelievably sweet and tastes strongly of sugar, it has no natural flavours in it except for the vanilla pod used and even though I love vanilla, it just wasn't enough to sway me to rice pudding. The Clafoutis on the otherhand was lovely. Although mine wasn't really up to par in the department of texture (I overbaked the flan pastry called Pate Sucree), the flavour was spot on. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of it, it was a complex recipe and I didn't have time to snap a photo of it. So, I will cheat and show you a couple of pictures of it which I got from the internet.

Imagine yourself flying through the sky and imagine a perfect clafoutis, each cherry suspended in a soft cloud of sweetness and delight. As you look down from above, you can barely see the top of each cherry shyly peering back at you from the top of the cloud. Then imagine biting into that cloud and feeling a crumbly texture followed by a soft melt in your mouth one and then you are hit with the slight tang and sweetness of the cherries and the lovely flavours of the Clafoutis Filling. Heaven on earth. I think that by far, this is one of the best desserts I have ever had. I would recommend everyone to go out and find yourself a Clafoutis aux Cerises and serve it with a Sauce Anglaise which goes lovely with alot of pastry desserts.
_________________________________________________________________
Sauce Anglaise
500ml Milk
1 Vanilla Pod
60g Sugar
5 Eggyolks

Slice open the vanilla pod and scrap the seeds out and put the seeds and the pods in with the milk and bring to a boil.
Then whisk sugar and eggyolks together and then add the boiled milk and whisk thoroughly.
Finally return the mixture to the pot and heat over low to medium heat until it has a coating consistency and then strain.
_________________________________________________________________

Day 2 got more interesting, I loved the menu for that day. It consisted of Braised Lamb Shanks with Red Wine Jus, Risotto, buttered french beans and turned glazed carrots.

The lamb shank was braised til it is about to fall off the bone. That is how you tell the lamb shank is done. The jus was made from the reduction of the braising liquid. Overall, the lamb was juicy and tender and the sauce was delicious and silky.

One thing I learned so far is that there are 2 kinds of meat, 1st class cuts of meat and 2nd class cuts. 1st class cuts are like tenderloins, rib eyes etc that don't require much cooking to be tender and can be served as steaks. 2nd class on the other hand are like shanks, cheeks which are more flavorful but require long cooking times and are ideal for braising.

The chef made something else that day that was for demonstration only so I did not have to make it. It is called Galantine de Caneton. According to my chef, it is a lost art as not many chefs nowadays know how to make it. The recipe requires the skin of a duck but any other poultries's skin can be used to make a different kind of Galantine. The skin has to be removed whole and in as perfect a condition as possible, with no punctures on it other than at the appenditures.

The skin is then used to wrap a mince mixture of veal, pork, bacon, cow tongue, spiced salt, cognac and eggs (binding agent). Strips of ham, tongue, pork speck (lard) are arranged in the mince and truffles and pistachio nuts are added to the mix. It is then rolled into a sausage shape and tied up to retain the shape. It is then poached in a chicken stock for about 1 1/4 hours and allowed to cool and served cold. The end product is something like this.

I had to take the picture of it from the internet because I wasn't able to snap a photo of the Galantine made by my chef as it was served the day after. Let's just say it was delicious. It had alot of different textures going on inside the Galantine because of the lard, the tongue, the nuts and the minced meat. And the flavour is exactly how you think it would be like. Truffly, meaty and flavourful with a hint of pistachio.

On the last day, I had to make a cheese souffle, which is an extremely useful skill because you can make so many different kinds of souffles. I also had to make a Supreme de Volaille Chivry which is essentially a stuffed chicken breast served with button onions and mushrooms and topped with a chive, tarragon and shallot cream sauce. It is stuffed with very finely minced chicken which is mixed with cream and egg whites and passed through a sift in order to make a thick chicken paste. I'm not that great a chicken fan so I'll be as unbiased as possible and say that the chicken was juicy and tender and the sauce complimented the sweet button onions and chicken nicely. The cheese souffle had a lovely cheesy flavour. Afterall, there is no such thing as too much cheese. It had cheddar and parmesan cheese in it and that combination of cheese was great for the souffle.

Well that is it for week 4, tomorrow marks the beginning of week 5 and mid way to my practical assessment on week 8. I'll remember to take more photos when I go out during my off days so I can write more about Sydney as a sight seeing spot. Til next time, tata!

welcome to the roach motel

2009-05-23T00:41:00.001-07:00

I realized that as each day passes in the suburbs, the more and more routine my life becomes. Wake up, eat, watch tv, power nap, wake up, eat, watch tv, proper nap. But all in all, it's alright, I've got some pretty good authentic Indian food near my house, and although not as spicy as Singaporean Indian food, it's become my comfort food here!

A slight break from my routine of naps, eating and watching tv is the overseeing of the "cockroach holocaust" in my apartment. Those little bastards are annoying me beyond compare! I've bug bombed my house once already, laid those little poisonous food traps all over my apartment and some how they are still alive. They maybe able to survive a nuclear holocaust but they aren't gonna survive me. I think that living with these roaches has eliminated my roach phobia. I have been invigorated by my new found hatred for them. Why can't they be cute like this?

Instead, they are shady, sneaky deviants like this chappy over here.

If I were to see a guy dressed like this, I'll make sure to empty a can of bug spray in his face.

Anyway I'm writing this post on the bus on my iPhone, a programme called blogpress (I love this app). And the reason for such is because I've decided to bomb my house again. I used 3 cans before, now I'm using 6. I'll be damned if those monsters are still alive after this. Road to roach-freedom, I thread on you like Dorothy thread on the yellow brick road, diligently and never straying, until all these cursed bugs are annihlated from my apartment.

Anyway I'm not gonna post about school yet, until I get back, food and roaches don't mix very well. So till the next post, auf wiedersehen!

australian food = pizza and burgers?

2009-05-18T03:19:00.000-07:00

So this past weekend has been good. Finally I have found places in Sydney that have food which I would actually recommend to people. First on the list is Cafe Otto, I went there for my friend's friend's birthday. It has a very average ambience and the most annoying thing was that it had no wines on the menu but it had some pretty interesting things on it, I was pretty much spoilt for choice when I read it. For example, a sweet potato risotto with king prawns, there were a few other things they listed as ingredients in the recipe but I forgot them. I had a Mediterranean burger which had in it roasted red capsicums, a roasted eggplant, a lamb patte, tzatziki and all the usual stuff in a burger. But I have to apologise, I just had to dig in, completely forgot to take a photo before I got my grubby fingers all over the burger.

The burger was pretty awesome except for the fact it might have been a tad bit too dry. This is a fine case of an that idea was good, dam good but the execution of it was bad. The flavors balanced each other out nicely, the gamey robust flavor of the well marinated lamb patty, the char-grilled smokey flavor of the eggplant, the sweetness of the capsicums and the sour, cleansing flavors of the tzatziki. But as I said before the patty was a little dry and the choice of bread was very bad, the sour dough had a tough crust which made it very hard to cut and eat and it seemed a little stale because of that. Overall, I will still recommend it to people as it was just a busy service for them. Our table alone did have almost 20 orders.

The next place on the list is Pancakes on the Rocks, which is in a place called, surprise surprise, the Rocks. The Rocks is the area where the Sydney Opera House is located and sadly, I have yet to go there for a sight-seeing trip. Maybe I'll go this Wednesday and snap some photos of the ocean and the Opera House. Ok back to Pancakes. When I got there, there was a crazy queue outside, I was wondering to myself what the big deal was about, it was just pancakes and I was right! It was just pancakes with a very different texture from normal pancakes. The crumbly texture did not appeal to me but it might appeal to someone somewhere.

So I'm not recommending this place based on it's specialty but based on the pizza which I had. I had a double smoked ham pizza with pineapples, fetta cheese, spicy salsa and pesto. It was quite a lovely pizza. The salsa and fetta cheese made the pizza sweet, tangy and creamy and the pesto gave the pizza its much needed balance due to the overwhelming sweetness of the pineapples. Overall, a good place to chill out and enjoy a late night supper as it is one of the few places in Sydney that open til late.

I have one more place that I want to recommend but I do not have the pictures yet as I did not take the photos on my phone's camera, the place was too dark. I'll get to that once I get the pictures. On a side note, I saw an awesome sunset. It was as though there was a volcano in the sky. Take a look for yourself. The top of the clouds had a dark grey color like cooling volcanic rocks and the bottom of the clouds look like glowing magma. Too bad I did not have my DSLR with me again! It would have made an awesome picture. I have decided that i shall bring my DSLR with me wherever I go so I do not miss any photo opportunities.

So that is all for today, I'll tell you about the last eatery I went to when I get the pictures to back it up. Let me just say that it was freaking awesome!

to live more = liver

2009-05-12T07:46:00.000-07:00

So this week is the 3rd week of class, and as promised, I'll talk as much about school as I can.

So this guy up here with the tall hat is Chef Steve, he's my teacher and a damn fine one at that. He has an amazing encyclopedia of food & wine knowledge in his brain, and he has a mad crazy passion for food. In his hand is a piece of calf's liver. A bit horrifying for some and to me, not something I'd hate but not something I'd crave for. This was served up on Monday. Oh I forgot to mention I have classes 3 days a week, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Back to the menu for Monday. We had to cook up a calf's liver on a bed of buttered spinach, topped up with bacon and French fried onions which is essentially onion rings and a sauce of veal jus. Those up top were made by Chef Steve. In regards to my dish, I accidently overcooked the liver as I have no idea how fast liver cooks but everything else was good according to the chef.

The 2nd thing on the menu on Monday was a grilled baby octopus with baby spinach and black olive salad with lemon vinaigrette. As above that is Chef Steve's not mine. Mine had tad bit undercooked octopi but again everything else was good. I have come to a conclusion that my weak point is my cooking of meats so I got to work on that!

As for Tuesday's lesson we had a herb crusted French rack of lamb served with ratatouille provence with a beautiful, delicious, glossy veal jus sauce flavored with the off-cuts of lamb, tomatoes and onions. I once again undercooked my lamb which was suppose to be MED-RARE but came out RARE... Other than that, it was a good day. The chef thought my ratatouille and the sauce and the herb crust was good, only the meat was a tad bit undercooked.

Oh... Did I mention that everyday is tiring? but worth being tired for. For once in my life, I'm enjoying studying.

firing up the stoves.

2009-05-11T16:50:00.000-07:00

So it has been 3 weeks of class & damn, it has been a mighty fun 3 weeks. I was nervous as hell when I first started lessons at Le Cordon Bleu. The kitchen was like a chaotic, nerve-wrecking and intimidating metal dungeon, with all sorts of death traps, from boiling vats of oil, 260 degrees ovens, blacking flaming stoves and shiny operating tables that pass of as workbenches for the dissection of raw produce. Truly horrifying!

But it has been 3 weeks now and it has turned from hell to a lovely classroom for the creation of to me, the most intimate of art forms. Which other art form can claim that it's appreciation is derived from the ingestion into a fellow human's body?

I remember the first week was basic week. We were getting acquainted with our knives and were doing all sorts of precision cuts for vegetables. Such as mirepoix, julienne and brunoise amongst others. We also learned how to turn potatoes. Basically, the first week, I term it as vegetable week. The 2nd week was more interesting, we started playing around with flour and basically made a variety of doughs. We made a Quiche Lorraine, a Pissaladiere which is a French style pizza with olives, caramalised onions, anchovies and capers on a bread like crust and lovely puff pastries with the pastry lovingly cared for and tended to for 2 days so that it can be used for the last day's lesson. It was made into a very curry puff looking pastry with a stuffing made from foie gras, mushrooms, shallots, cream and parsley and a little poached pear tart with an apricot glaze and a hidden stash of lovely custard. Freaking awesome pastries if I must say so myself. The chef made my day by saying it was the best he had all day! I love cooking!!

I'll introduce my chef later when I get back from school and explain more about school and week 3.

intro + 21 days

2009-05-07T04:29:00.000-07:00

Short intro about myself, my name is Git, I'm 24 years old and I've decided to turn my life around now rather than wait till I'm 30. I gave up the prospects of a boring career as an engineer to pursue my long-standing passion for the culinary arts. In doing so, I have wound up in Sydney Australia studying cuisine in the world renown school of Le Cordon Bleu.

I have been here for about 3 weeks now and attended 2 weeks of lessons and I must say, even though it was a culture shock when I first touch down in Australia due to the slower pace of life, I'm starting to get used to it, slowly and surely. I first tried to reject their culture but I learnt that when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

One thing awesome about Sydney is that there is great shopping. There are many brands, many indie designers and they are all neatly organized for you. For example above is a beautiful Victorian Style Building called Queen Victoria Building a.k.a QVB, inside, you can find branded goods on the first floor and 2nd floor, and on the third, you can find the shops of local Australian designers who I must say, have alot of talent. There is another place called Paddington where all the indie designers can be found, maybe when I go there again, I'll remember to bring my camera with me.

Does anyone remember a chocolate brand called Lindht? Well they have a shop in Sydney along Darling Harbor. Darling Harbor is like the Clarke Quay of Sydney. You can find plenty of good food there and there are plenty of bars and clubs there too. Well my friends brought me to Lindht and by god, I had the best macarons in my life there. The macarons there did not have an overpowering cream between the pieces of meringue, the flavors were subtle and just right and the texture was simply melt in your mouth. I had a champagne macaron and a hazelnut macaron and they were both equally awesome!

That is all I'm going to talk about in my first post, stay tuned for a snippet of my school life.