didally.com
Of Food and perhaps a little about me
Archive for September, 2007
September 22, 2007 at 12:52 am · Filed under Recipes: Seafood
I LOVE crabs, cooked in any style. Chilli, black pepper, steamed, deep fried and cold crabs. And I love the nice soft creamy roe even more. Argh… I feel like having some right now.
When I was much younger, mum used to cook chilli crabs at home. The crabs were bought live, killed in the bathroom, chopped up into pieces and cooked immediately. As we grew older, mum didn’t cook live crabs anymore. She probably couldn’t bring herself to kill them. I won’t want to kill the crabs alive, thus I won’t attempt to make any chilli crabs or whatsoever at home. So when I spotted small tiny flower crabs in the market, I brought home half a kg for just $2. Yes, it’s that cheap cos they were small and already dead at the market. The intention was to steam them after dinner as a light supper.
Steamed Flower Crabs with Ginger and Wine
9 small flower crabs
1 to 2 tbsp hua teow wine (花雕酒)
4 to 5 slices of ginger, cut in thin strips
Wash and scrub the flower crabs clean. Prepare the wok for steaming. Bring water to boil. Meanwhile, place half the amount of ginger strips on a plate big enough to hold all the crabs. Then lay the flower crabs on the plate. Add the remaining ginger strips on top. Drizzle hua teow wine all over the crabs. When the water has boiled, put the plate of crabs into the wok and cover. Steam for 10 to 12 mins.
Add a splash of hua teow when you are feeling luxurious. In fact, I use them a lot in my cooking these days. I add some when I marinate my meat, or to add a more intense flavor to my eggs or prawns. You may have seen recipes calling for shaoxing wine(绍兴酒), which is in fact hua teow. Some get confused about which to buy without realizing that they are actually the same wine. Hua teow comes from a place in China, called Shao Xing. That’s precisely why people terms hua teow as shaoxing wine too.
While the flower crabs are steaming, I just stood by the wok, smelling the natural seafood sweetness that filled the whole kitchen. I couldn’t wait to dig in! Haha..
These crabs have thin shell and are easy to break them apart. Although they are small, with only tiny bit of flesh, I still enjoyed eating them cos they tasted really sweet. Other than the above method, you can also fry the flower crabs with chilli, just like the usual chilli crabs. They can also be cooked in soup. But just by simple steaming is really good cos you can taste the natural sweetness of the flesh. When I buy them again the next time, I will get the bigger ones. I’m sure they will have more flesh.
September 20, 2007 at 1:37 am · Filed under Food Reviews
One shiok week of their durian mousse cake, my pants became tight. It’s not hard to see it coming. That’s the price to pay for finishing off the whole 1.3kg worth of durian mousse cake with B. But it was SO good. Every mouthful is heavenly full of the durian flesh.
I want to order their other durian delicacies next year. I bought a box of their durian puffs too. When I was there to collect the cake, the other durian products on display overwhelmed me. Sitting on the display shelf are the durian crumble, durian dar dar, durian wafer, durian pudding, durian crepe and the back-by-popular-demand durian pandan & coconut cake. I wanna grab a bite of each!
Goodwood Park’s durian delights really live up to its name. BUT their durian snowskin mooncake is so disappointing. It’s also ridiculously expensive, not worth buying. My sis bought them at the Mooncake Fair at Takashimaya. I wonder if you get better quality ones at the hotel itself.
September 19, 2007 at 4:49 pm · Filed under Food Reviews
There are evenings where you just want to sit back and relax. You surf the net, play games, eat and drink while watching your favorite tv programs. And there are days when you don’t feeling like cooking, not even instant noodles or takeaways. You just want to be a couch potato clad in your comfy pyjamas while having your dinner.
I think of pizzas whenever I’m in such a mood. So I surf around the net for some untried pizza joints instead of the usual Pizza Hut. I wanted to try out Rite Pizza reviewed by Camemberu but ordered mine from Sarpino’s instead after reading some nice reviews about them. Took their 1 for 1, but there are limited choices. Will try out the rest some other time.
It’s a pity that the pizza didn’t came piping hot. The cheese has already harden abit. Taste is not bad, and just the right amount of cheese. I kinda like the Sorento Delight, which is just mozzarella, tomatoes, roasted garlic and basil leaves. San Remo is not too bad topped with my favorite bell pepper and chicken chunks. B says the crust by the side is too hard. But I thought they were ok and still crispy to the bite.
The pictures are not very well taken under the warm lighting. We were too hungry and can’t wait to dig in. Hehe..
Overall, pretty satisfied, but still not quite since the pizza didn’t come hot. I like my melted mozzarella cheese. One more thing is they only give a pack of chilli flakes and parmesan each for one pizza, which is definitely not enough for me. If you do call for their pizza deliveries, do let me know your experience with them, yah?
September 18, 2007 at 5:45 pm · Filed under Recipes: Soup
Feeling heaty? How about a bowl of hot piping watercress soup? Watercress Soup (西洋菜汤) is a cooling soup suitable for hot and dry months. It’s one of the soups I grew up with. And now I cook this quite often as watercress is easily available and is one of B’s favorite soups. Best of all, I can share the watercress with my syrian hamsters. Oh, and they like the red dates and wolfberries I add to the soup too.
Watercress is loaded with iron, calcium, folic acid, vitamins A & C. The westerners use watercress in their salads. So I thought they must have taste good raw. So while preparing food for my hamsters, I pick a stalk of leaves and stuff them into my mouth and munch. Eww.. it’s bitter and weird for my liking. I can take arugula(wild rocket), red coral leaves which are of peppery taste but not watercress. They probably taste better tossed with the right salad dressing. I guess I better not attempt to eat like my hamster. lol
Here’s a tip when using pork ribs for all your soups or dishes. You need to blanch them before hand for a good 5 to 10 mins. This will get rid of all the dirt and awful grey-colored foam which you will find floating on top of the water. Then you rinse the pork ribs before putting them into your soup.
If you do not like pork, you can replace them with chicken pieces with skin removed. Else the soup will be too oily with the chicken skin on. If you want to go meatless, then replace the water with chicken or vegetable stock. You may want to omit the salt then. And if you like your watercress crunchy like I do, follow the steps below. Else just throw in all the watercress in step 4.
Watercress Pork Rib Soup
Serves 2
Watercress (西洋菜), one bundle
800ml water
200 gm spareribs, rinsed and scalded with boiling water
½ tbsp dried wolfberries (枸杞)
6 dried red dates (红枣)
Salt to taste
- Wash and rinse watercress, cut off the stems and separate them from the leaves.
- Wash red dates and wolfberries.
- Pour water into a pot and bring to boil.
- Add red dates, wolfberries, pork ribs and watercress stems into the pot.
- Simmer over low heat for about 30 to 40mins.
- Add salt to taste
- Before serving, add the remaining watercress into the soup for about 5 to 10 mins.
- Serve hot with rice.
There will be MORE soup recipes coming up.
September 14, 2007 at 12:50 pm · Filed under Recipes: Baking
Wow, you did your first soufflé?
Yes. I did.
So did you succeed?
No, I failed badly.
Why?
It did rise beautifully in the oven. Read some tips that I should never open the oven while it’s still baking. But it’s way past the amount of time it’s supposed to be baked and it’s still not golden brown on top. And there are some who said, I can check if it’s done when the toothpick/skewer came out clean. So, I OPENED the oven. And, the soufflé starts to sink. And it sank all the way down.
A soufflé (soo-flay) is a light, fluffy dish baked with egg yolks and beaten egg whites with other ingredients. It can be served as a savory dish or as a sweet dessert. Made from 2 basic components, a base that gives the flavor and beaten egg whites to introduce air into the soufflé so that it will rise. In French, soufflé means “to blow up” or loosely “puff up”.
The common ingredients used for a dessert soufflé are chocolate, lemon, Grand Marnier and a lot more if you are creative enough to come up with your own flavors. Mos Burger fans might notice that Mos Burger previous promotions on Green Tea Soufflé with red beans compote which I thought was pretty unique. Green tea flavored desserts pairs up so perfectly with red beans. There’s another flavor, which I can’t remember.
The savory soufflés are usually made up of cheese, spinach, bacon, onions.. etc. I’ve yet to taste one. But it will be perfect for a morning brekkie, in another form instead of the usual bacon and scramble eggs. And you probably needs a big bowl of this, because it will be so light that you hardly feel full if you were to eat just a small serving.
Traditionally, soufflés are baked in ramekins (the bowl I used in the photo) which has flat bottoms for the soufflé to rise properly. You can also use cups, but make sure they are ovenproof.
I’ve heard so much about how intimidating it is to get a soufflé to rise nicely. And also how the egg whites have to be whipped to the right consistency to get it work. The commonly tested flavor is the chocolate soufflé, which is rich and at the same time light and fluffy. I tasted my first soufflé at Bakerzin served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and I really like it. So when I come across the lemon soufflé recipe in Donna Hay magazine, I gave it a try.
Sorry to tempt you to looking forward (if you are) to this post which is actually a flop. I just want to note down the experience. But fret not, I will attempt to succeed in making the chocolate ones or maybe even the savory ones. Somehow, the base for this lemon soufflé recipe seems too little to be mixed with the egg whites. It’s supposed to yield 8 servings and all I could get was just 2 servings. And it didn’t call for egg yolks for the base. And it’s a little too sweet, you might want to reduce the amt of sugar but I don’t know if it will affect the end result. Will any experienced baker help me try out this recipe and let me know the outcome?
It’s a pity that I didn’t take a photo of them rising in the oven. All I get was 2 ‘deflated’ bowls of unappetizing soufflés. Haha…
Lemon soufflé
Donna Hay Magazine Issue 32
Makes 8 servings
Unsalted butter, melted for greasing
Caster (superfine) sugar for dusting
1 tbsp cornflour (cornstarch)
1 tbsp water
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/3 cup (72⅔g / 2½oz) caster (superfine) sugar
2 egg whites
2 tbsp caster (superfine) sugar, extra
icing (confectioner’s) sugar to serve
- Lightly grease 8 x ½ cup (4 fl oz) capacity ceramic cups with butter and dust with sugar. Place the cups on a baking tray.
- Combine the cornflour with the water, mix to a smooth paste and set aside. Place the lemon juice and sugar in a small saucepan over low heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Bring to the boil, add the cornflour mixture and cook, stirring continuously, for 1 minutes or until thickened. Set aside to cool completely.
- Preheat the oven to 180ºC (355ºF). Place the eggwhites in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until soft peaks form. Gradually add the extra sugar and beat until glossy. Place the lemon mixture in a large bowl and gently fold through the eggwhite mixture. Spoon into the cups and bake for 5 – 7 minutes or until risen and golden. Dust with icing sugar and serve immediately.
