Char Siew Pau

It's been a long time since I last update my blog and it's looking more like a foodie blog now :) I bought a bamboo steamer not long ago, and thought I should make myself some char siew pau (one of my must order dish when i go for dim sum). I made some char siew yesterday using aunty lily's recipe, http://lilyng2000.blogspot.com/2005/07/char-siew.html, and made the pau today, http://lilyng2000.blogspot.com/2005/06/char-siew-pau.html.

the final results. i am quite satisfied since this is the first time i made pau. The fillings is quite dry, I will remember to make more gravy next time.

the char siew i made the day before

the pau mix that i used

dough flaten, ready for the fillings

the char siew fillings

the pau before steaming. To know how to pleat the pau, watch those videos on youtube, loads of them :)

steam the pau for 10 min

ta-daa... looks a bit ugly, got to improve my pau pleating skill :)

Lazy Meal

I tried a very simple dish tonight, tomato eggs, which turns out very nice and sweet! See the recipe here.
Sorry for the quality of this photo, poor lighting, will try harder next time :)

Blueberry muffins!

I have my own Saturday kitchen this weekend, trying out James Martin's blueberry muffins, see the recipe here. I bought more blueberries than the recipe asked for and thought it does not matter . However I found out that too much is not necessary a good thing :) Its a bit runny and blueberries everywhere!

Sweet & Sour Pork

I made yummy sweet & sour pork few weeks ago, deep fried the pork myself, but cheated on the sauce, its from Uncle Ben's :p

My indulgence for the day

Pancake with chocolate, banana & pecan



Am practicing to prepare pancake for Shrove Tuesday :)

Tori kara age

I got this recipe from the wagamama cook book. Its a japanese dish, but this recipe has introduced western ingredients e.g. thyme and oregano. The chicken is marinated with sake, ginger, soy sauce, sugar and oyster sauce, and then coated with egg and herbs mixture for deep-frying. I like the taste of the chicken, its extremely delicious :) Oh yea, I also made some vietnamese sauce (fish sauce + chillies + garlic) to go with this dish. The idea of the sauce and side dishes (salads and pickled carrots) is from my friend, Doreen's cooking blog :)

Carrot Cake

I made it! Hehe, now at least I knew how to bake one type of cake - the carrot cake. My mom is good at baking, but somehow I never pick it up from her. I remembered she used to bake birthday cakes for us every year when me and my sisters were kids, and we loved it.

Now that I have so much free time during the weekends in the UK, I've decided to indulge myself in baking (yeah, indulge... just love the smell of something-is-baking :) and so I've asked Grace for her cake recipes, and she has pointed me to this carrot cake recipe. Its quite easy to make, except the grating part, coz I dont have a food processor. First try, the cake turned out to be too moist, coz I use the wrong size of grater that produced too much carrot juice. Then thanks to Grace again, for taking a picture of her grater and showing it to me. and Voila, the cake was perfect at my second attempt!

A girl and her sushi

This little girl who used to work at Wasabi visited me last week, and made me some fabulous sushi.. yum..yum.. There are crabstick sushi, tuna with sweetcorn sushi, cucumber sushi and salmon sushi.

and in return, I made this Viv's special Banana Boat for her :p
Little girl: I bet you guys are drooling now, hiak hiak hiak....

Let's welcome the year of the RAT

This is the first year (in my life) that i am not home for chinese new year :(( sob sob... I missed all the good food especially bak kean (which my sis insist that bak kean is me, so i shouldn't have missed it), jiu hoo char and the sea cucumber soup.

I still went to work as normal since today is not a holiday in the UK. However, thanks to the chef in our office canteen, we had a chinese new year lunch today, which look like this..


not very nice, i find it too 'soupy'. but still.... its better than nothing.

& look at what I had for dinner tonight!
Yeah, its the chinese dumplings! Thanks to Enya who made these and teach me how to make them as well :)

This weekend, I am off to nottingham. Will be looking out for all the CNY events especially the lion dance & dragon dance!

GONG XI FA CHAI!!!

Currys Weekend

not this weekend though, it was two weekends ago :p I cooked one big pot of mum's recipe curry chicken, and so every meals on that weekend are something related to currys...

this is how it looks like... and taste just like what it's like back home :) just that the dried chillis are not fully grind.

currys with bread

curry mee hoon

the stir-fry vege to go with rice and curry chicken

Malaysian Lunch

Last Wednesday is a special day for me, the canteen in our office prepared lunch with the theme Malaysian Day. The canteen boss used to work in Malaysian before for few years. Am totally flattered when I saw a big Malaysian flag hagging on the food counter, they even set up a quiz for us to guess the raw ingredients that are commonly used in Malaysian cooking. Although the food is not as good as they are in Malaysia, but it did satisfy my longing for asian food and currys.

The Menu:

- Beef Rendang
- Sambal Udang
- Kurma Ayam
- Nasi Lemak
- Char Koay Teow
-Fried Vegetables
- Ikan Bilis
- Fresh Petal
- Bubur Kacang Hijau
- Onde-onde (decorated with dried guava!)

all these for only £3.50. But for me, this is bit too mixed-up...

the bubur kacang hijau comes with an onde-onde decorated with dried guava...

In the mood for Chinese New Year

in the UK.....

Yeah, thanks to Alind, I received my first double ang pow this year by post.


and thanks to Gary, I got my Bee Cheng Hiang bak kua. Things that are hard to get really did taste nicer, I remembered I dont really fancy bak kua when I lived in Malaysia. But it is simply delicious when I had them with bread last night :)

I bought some clementines (which is just like our mandarin oranges) as well from the market

Viv's Spaghetti alla Carbonara

I have been watching Rick Stein's Mediterranean Escapes on BBC every thursday last November while I am cooking myself. The kitchen is attached to the living room in the flat that I stayed previously, thus I have the luxury of watching the TV while I cooked and eat! I enjoyed the show alot and didnt missed a show.

Came upon his recipe book one day while I was shopping at Marks and Spencer and decided to try the spaghetti alla carbonara recipe from Sardinia. Since the recipe is from the Mediterranean, I cant find the original ingredient and have to use the substitute instead, like the Sardinian pecorino sardo cheese and Pancetta, which I replace with Parmesan cheese and british smoked back bacon. I didnt even know what is Pancetta in the first place, and like what most people will do nowadays if they need to find out about something, yeah, just google it, and you will have your answer. Pancetta is an Italian type of bacon produced from belly of pork which is seasoned, then rolled up and dry cured.

Here is the result:

Viv's Nasi Lemak

made in the UK ;) Went to the chinese supermarket in Leicester last Sunday, and came upon this ready made nasi lemak sambal paste, so I decided to cook nasi lemak, since I missed it so much. I also bought the pandan leaves from the shop, can guess how much it costs? about £1.20 for about 15 leaves, I think. The 'end result' is not too bad, considering that this is my first time cooking nasi lemak. The ikan bilis is super crispy, and its given to me when my sis visit me last month. According to her, she bought the best grade! The sambal didnt taste so good though. Next time got to prepare my mum original recipe, but first got to get myself a mini chopper!!

nasi lemak & the sambal prawns

the expensive pandan leaves

Introducing Taramosalata

Taramosalata... what a name! is a new food I tried last weekend, recommended by my sis who lived here in the UK previously. I bought it from Marks and Spencer, and thought that it is an english food, apparently its not. Its Greek food, made from cod roe with lemon juice, and its pinkish in color.

Try it with toasted bread on a Sunday morning, tasted raw to me at first, but after a few bite, I do enjoy it. Unfortunately, I had stomach ache just shortly after eating it. Nevertheless, I tried it again this morning (hehe, cant waste it just like that), and nothing happens. so, it was not the taramosalata that caused my stomach ache yesterday after all :)

I do have a small problem with the food here, always ask me to finish within 3 days after I opened it, and these includes milk, youghurt, ham, cheese, and yes, taramosalata! My breakfast for the next 2 days will be the pinkish thingy with bread!

quite a big tub to finish within 3 days!

on my bread :) yummy

Great time with good frens

@ 23rd dec, a bunch of girls pre-celebrated christmas, new year, mou ren's birthday, n 庆功宴 of mou ren visit to msia... @ paya serai, PJ Hilton

Holidays over! back to work!

Back to office today! So Sien, after a long holiday...

Looking back, I didnt actually do a lot of things.. mostly sleep & rest at home, went movie marathon at 1U (two movies in a day), & joined the usual group of TC *short form for tham chiak* members from FF gym to the historic city Melaka for good food.

Its really not a good choice to visit Melaka on a public holiday! All the restaurants are crowded with ppl. All these ppl are willing to queue outside the shop under the hot sun for dunno how long just for the food... Aiyoh... That's why we missed the best 'lap lap kai fun'in melaka, the shop just opposite OCBC, & have to settled for the 2nd best in town. And its a relief when we didnt see a queue outside the satay shop. The pineapple sauce is really nice. We then decided to let our stomach takea break, so we went to a newly opened shopping mall. Actually the main purpose is to get away fromthe hot sun, & enjoy the free air-con, hehe, in the end, everybody got something.. (hai, what to do, nike got sales, & it just looked too tempting). Initial plans for dinner is satay celup, but alas, the queue is there again, & this time with umbrellas under the rain..omg.. So, we decided to turn around & had portugese food for dinner instead. Hmm, I would say the best I had is the fruit juice from a road-side stall just beside tan kim hock shop, kekeke.

Now, just lepak2 in office for two days, then its weekend again! The much anticipated event of this weekend.. David Tao concert in Bukit Jalil this Sat!!! woo hoo hoo...just cant wait...& someone is coming back next Monday!!! ;D

the making of... tau foo fah

Since I have a long 5-days holiday, with not much things to do, so after a lazy afternoon nap, I went to ah sek's house to learn how to make the tau foo fah!!! When I reached his house, Ah Sek, the tff sifu was waiting for me with all the ingredients ready, hehe... Under the sifu strict & patience guidance, *those who knew ah sek will know how strict he is :D & the fact that he is a tuition teacher* ....tadaaaa.... here is the results



Cant believe it! Tff is ready in about 1.5 hours... Altho my sifu said I already took too much time, but then im excused since this is the first time =) Im not praising myself here, coz the credits goes to the sifu & also the recipe owner, the tff standard is really upto par with the nice tff stalls out there... texture is extra soft with nice rich soy bean smell...

p/s: wanna take this opportunity to thank the sifu for being patience with me.... who seldom got her hands dirty in the kitchen, kekeke...

Just eat, eat & eat

CB came back last weekend, & since our common interest is *FOOD* :D we spend the whole week mostly searching for good food, not forgetting to do the necessary chores also lah, like looking for lightings for my new house, & property hunting =)

Here come the list of what we had... =)

• pho hoe vietnamese restaurant @ the curve
• the prawn claypot rice @ damansara
• Daorae korean grill @ Sri Hartamas
• Alexis @ Bangsar
• Vietnam Kitchen in USJ
• Homecook steamboat (with the famous pig stomach soup)
  
• DU hokkien mee (definitely better than Jalan 222 one)
• Just Thai @ 1-Utama (Phad Thai & the tom yam soup are the best!)
  
• Tiramisu @ Suchan Deli, opposite UH

Daorae Korean BBQ...


@ Alexis, Bangsar... the milk shake is delicious, mee siam is so-so only


steamboat at YW's house... followed by drinking sessions =) Sharlene's recipe for the Tanduay Rhum (products from the Philippines) cocktails is really nice! Everybody likes it!
p/s: sorry, no pixs of the steamboat, coz the camera girl too busy eating till she forgot to take the most important pictures, kaka
pp/s: the sunset pix is taken on the way to YW's house :)


Suchan Deli's Tiramisu... drooling... drooling... i especially love the nuts on top & the strawberry sauce.. but its quite expensive, one piece cost me RM9.35

Im goin to be very hardworking at the gym for the next two weeks, & you should know why :p