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I guess it was one of those nights when we wanted to try our hands on making some of our favorite food and we decided to go cruise the supermarket for something simple to make.

From a simple shabu-shabu beef asparagus wrap idea, we headed down to the eggs section when suddenly, we hit upon an inspiration of making the ni-tamago which we both love. Ni-Tamago is basically a sauce-seasoned boiled egg that has nice firm whites with a runny center which accompanies your bowl of ramen in most authentic Japanese ramen restaurants.

In fact, I also remembered Vinc, C, Jean and I had an 'indepth' discussion on how to make it on the day of their pre-wedding shoot.. heheheh....

So we bought like 14 eggs (10 medium + 4 large) to go home and experiment. Thankfully, the recipes and techniques are no lacking on the internet but I remembered ChubbyHubby's version and went on to experiment with his technique while I also did another version of my own to see if there's a difference.

Our 1st 3 attempts were failures coz we tried different volumes of water, different cooking timings as well as overcooking... and using chubby hubby's method, we also managed to end up with Onsen Tamago after 18-20 minutes.

The trick is the timing and the method which you cook the eggs. CH used a slow-cook method which yields an even texture throughout the whites of the egg while my method is flash-boil cooking which yields a slightly firmer exterior (which is great for removing the shell later on).

Basically the methods are pretty similiar but here's my flash-boil variation:

• a) Bring to boil about 4-5 cups of water (enough to cover the eggs)
• b) When the water's bubbling away, lower the eggs into the water gently to prevent cracking them on impact
• c) Cook for 5 - 6 mins (medium eggs), 7 - 7.5 mins (larger eggs) on high heat
  
• d) Prep an ice bath (volume enough to cover the eggs totally)
• e) Once the cooking time is up, just scoop the eggs up and dump them gently into the icebath to stop the cooking process
• f) Ice the eggs for about 3 - 4 hours while you prep the seasoning sauce.
• g) Gently peel off the shell of the eggs before steeping them into the sauce and leave them in the fridge for at least 4 - 6 hours. I left them for 24 hours actually) - the longer you steep them, the better the taste :D
• h) When ready to eat, leave the eggs to room temperature (you can also heat it slightly in the microwave but dun cut the egg open 1st and then add to your rice/ noodles/ etc
  

Sauce:

• a) Combine Japanese Dashi sauce (in accordance to how many eggs you have) with 4 tbs of Teriyaki sauce, 1-2 ts of Mirin, 2-3 tbs of sugar, water to dilute the mixture a bit and 8-10 slices of old ginger. (I actually used Tempura sauce coz I can't find Dashi)
• b) Bring the whole mixture to boil and set aside to cool
• c) Transfer the sauce to a deep bowl to immerse the eggs for the next 4- 6 hours or more

Try it out and let me know if it works for you!

Labels: Clover, Ranting, Recipes, RICOH GrD, Thoughts

Posted by ShutterBug at 20:56 | Permalink | Comments 9

We are an odd pair... :)

When Ms Clover wanted to do a salad for dinner to bring to work (she is on shift tonight), I decided to pitch in but we have very different ideas of how the salad should turn out and so, we decided to make it a competition using the same main ingredients and do a Salad-2 ways.

The main ingredients consist of Baby Spinach, pan-seared chicken breast & Yellow bell peppers. No time limit and we can use any spices or methods to achieve the end results.

Ms Clover did a warm salad using a Bacon + Sherry vinaigrette toss while I went for the healthier Mediterranean-style salad that uses flavoured olive oil and sauteed bell peppers with spices.





No winners yet coz I liked them both :D

For anyone who's interested, here's my recipe for the Mediterranean-style salad:

Ingredients -

~ Baby Spinach leaves
~ 1/2 to 1x Middle size Bell pepper (yellow or red), de-seed & cut to thin strips
~ 1 piece of Chicken breast, sliced to bite size
~ Fresh basil leaves (about 3 will do), chopped finely
~ French Sea salt + freshly grinded Pepper to taste
~ Basil & Sundried tomato flavoured Olive Oil
~ Lemon juice (adjust to taste)
~ Lemon zest
~ pinch of thyme (dried or fresh is fine)

Cooking -

~ season chicken pieces with a bit of shoyu (soya sauce) or teriyaki sauce, sugar & freshly grind pepper
~ Saute the bell pepper strips with a bit of sea salt and sugar without oil and then add a pinch of Thyme.
~ Pan sear the chicken pieces after seasoning. You can have it a little charred on the surface if you like. No need for oil, just a good non-stick pan will do fine.

Combine the Bell pepper strips, Baby spinach, chopped Basil leaves into salad bowl. Drizzle the flavoured Olive oil over them and toss the combination till even. Squeeze lemon juice over (adjust to your liking) and add sea salt and pepper to taste. Toss the combi one more time to even out the dressing.
You can also add the chicken in at this stage or leave till later.

Serving:

Just before serving, you can add the chicken pieces on top and grate some lemon zest over :)

Labels: Clover, Food, Home, Images, Inspirations, Recipes, RICOH GrD, Thoughts, Us

Posted by ShutterBug at 19:53 | Permalink | Comments 2

Another dinner with the close friends :)

This time round, I ventured a 2 course meal with the help of Ms Clover. It's again simple food that we find easy to prepare as well as to cook coz on Friday, I had to take an assignment in the midst of the afternoon.

We started off with an appetiser of Panfried Foie Gras on Baby butterhead leaf, then a simple homecooked Chinese Borsch Soup (as Char Siu Pau says, for the Soupsters) which I started cooking in the morning, then the mains of pan-seared salmon seasoned with seasalt, basil, olive oil, thyme and lemon juice, raisin & cashew nut pilaf rice and a side sauce of japanese honeyed curry....

Frankly, there are a lot to improve on but at least I managed to get the salmon cooked nicely (juicy and not dry) this time round :) Of coz I added a little secret ingredient (the famed fungus oil) for the smell and taste also...

Anyway, it was a good time of fellowship and Wii-Gaming for the Yveon duo as S_CRV and family had to leave early for lil Edgar's bedtime :)

*thanks you guys for being my 'guinea pigs' on my culinary learning... :p

Labels: Clover, Food, Friends, Home, Images, Inspirations, Recipes, Thoughts

Posted by ShutterBug at 21:20 | Permalink | Comments 4

For the dessert lovers out there... here's the recipe for Tiramisu :D

Ingredients:

• 1 pkt of Lady fingers (usually found in the biscuit sections in Cold Storage/ Jason's/ Tanglin's) We got everything at the Tanglin Mall's supermarket.
  
• 2 shots (60ml) of Espresso (I used Olio Dome's.. yums!)
• 1/2 cup (120ml) of black unsweetened coffee or Long Black
• 1 cup (240ml) of Heavy Whipping cream (I used the brand 'Bulla')
• 1 pd (500g) of Mascarpone cheese
• 1/2 cup of granulated sugar
• 3 - 5 table spoons of RUM/ Kahlua/ Brandy
• Cocoa powder (I recommend the brand Valrhona)
• Unsweetened Dark Chocolate shavings

Instructions:

1) Chill the whipping cream in a whipping bowl (a 2Litre bowl is just nice).

2) Combined the espresso with the long black coffee and chill it also.

3) Take the chilled whipping cream and whisk it till it reach its peak stiffness
(you can use a electrical mixer for this coz it's darn tiring to do it by hand...)

4) Add in the Mascarpone cheese into the stiff whipped cream and fold in the mixture till smooth
(a tip from a friend: you can continue to whisk this mixture a bit to make it taste lighter)

5) Once the mixture is throughly combined, add in the sugar and rum/ kahlua/ brandy and mix till it is smooth.
(You can add more sugar or alcohol as desired... yes, for the 'alcoholics' out there)

6) *Now take a nice 8" x 8" tray or if you don't have one, a square corningware of medium size will do just fine. Just make sure it's deep (about 12 cm depth)

7) Take your chilled coffee/espresso mix and place it in a bowl big enough for you to 'soak' the lady fingers.
(I would go easy on the soaking. Basically you don't want to end up with a limp and soggy biscuit. Just roll the lady fingers lightly and quickly, coating all sides, in the coffee and lay them side by side in the bottom of the tray. Continue to do it till you cover the whole base of the tray)

8) Now take the cheese mixture and pour 1/2 of it over this layer of lady fingers. Smooth the surface with a spatula. This will effectively cover 1/2 of the tray depth already.

9) Now sprinkle the cocoa powder evenly over the surface. You can also add the shaven dark chocolate also.

10) Repeat with the lady fingers soaked in coffee for the 2nd layer, cover it with the remaining cheese mixture and sprinkle in the cocoa powder and dark chocolate shavings.

11) Cover with plastic wrap (aka cling wrap) and chill the whole thing in the fridge till ready to be eaten (3 hrs to overnight for best results). For a 8x8" tray, you can have about 8 to 9 generous pieces of tiramisu servings, depending on how you cut it.

* a variation done in restaurants is using a dessert cup or a wine glass with a big bowl area. The steps are the same as above. Just put in the lady fingers, layer on the cheese mixture and cocoa powder and repeat till the whole glass/ cup is filled. Use a cut-out in tracing paper to create the shapes before sprinkling on the cocoa powder on the very top surface.

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This weekend, we will be doing a cheese cake and tiramisu as well as another go at the Creme brulee @ my mum's place :)

Labels: Food, Recipes, Us

Posted by ShutterBug at 16:43 | Permalink | Comments 3

Who loves soup? :)

I'm one of those who can survive on a meal with just a plain bowl of rice and soup.. any kind of soup (eXcept corn soup. NO, thank you). There's just something about homecook soups and the wonderful aroma that wafts from the kitchen stove

Well, we were out in town again the last few days and coincidentally, have been trying out soups from cafes and restaurants. So far, I still like the spicy tomato soup from Bakerzinn, the french fish soup from le Troquet cafe, french onion soup which Ms Clover cooks once in a blue moon (*hint hint*) and of coz, my mum's soups.

So I thought I would just write this entry to share with you a soup recipe which will surely satisfy the palette of tomato soup lovers

Fuss-free seafood tomato soup

I love tomatoes, full of Vitamin C and it's easy to prepare. This soup recipe is an excellent pick-me-up soup after a hard day's work or on a cold rainy day. The strong attack of the tomatoes on the taste buds just whet up an appetite for anything after that - like snoozing on the couch :p

This tomato soup will be using ready-shelled seafood from supermarkets and canned tomato paste. Reason why I don't advocate using fresh tomatoes is that canned tomato paste is sweeter and has the consistency in the paste compared to having to boil/ peel/ grind the fresh tomatoes. Also, I won't recommend using Campbell tomato soup coz it just taste weird. Besides, it's a fuss-free meal right?

The important thing about the seafood tomato soup is that you want to preserve the nice acidic taste of tomato with a hint of seafood in it. A lot of times we try to over-compensate the saltyness of the tomatoes with lotsa sugar but that will kill the balance of the tangyness of the soup with the seafood. The simplest of food is often the hardest so just keep in mind that it's not the tomato but what you put into the tomato soup that changes the favour.

Ingredients (serves 4):

a) 2 cans of Tomato paste (I used the brand 'HUNT' that can be found in NTUC)
b) 1 or 2 cans of peeled canned tomatoes (also from HUNT)
c) Seafood (fresh peeled prawns/ mussels/ fish chunks/ squid cut into rings which are all prepared and ready in styroform trays in the cold section of the supermarkets)
d) 2 -3 cups of Water
e) Coarse grinded Black pepper
f) 1 piece of Bay leaf
g) Thyme
h) Salt & Sugar to taste
i) Mint leaves for garnish

Additional variations: Tabasco sauce for spiciness. Sour cream for Cream tomato soup, Parmesan cheese to kick up the tangy factor

Preparation:

a) Open the 2 cans of Tomato paste and pour them into a soup pot.

b) Add 2 cups of water 1st and stir the paste till it dissolves. (if you like it watery, then add just 1 more cup of water but if you like it to be of a certain viscosity then 2 - 2.5 cups will be just right)

c) Once the soup mixture is stirred, add in the canned tomatoes. You can either leave the tomatoes whole as that or you can just break them apart to release the favors. I prefer the latter.

d) Stir constantly to a boil and add sugar/ salt to taste.

e) Add the bay leaf and grinded black pepper for that extra flavor to the soup

f) Add seafood. Careful not to let the seafood overcook coz the fish meat may disintegrate or the mussel meat will become too rubbery.

Note: Sample the soup once in a while to determine how strong you want the bay leaf flavor to be. Once you have decided that it's strong enough, remove the bay leaf completely.

g) Finally, add thyme for the sweet aroma.

Serve it hot and add a dash of chopped Mint leaves to complete the garnish.
Goes wonderfully with toasted bread :)

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The next time, i will share my recipe for Lotus roots with peanut soup but for now, I'm looking forward to Ms Clover's Creme Brulee... hehehe

Labels: Food, Recipes, Us

Posted by ShutterBug at 14:00 | Permalink | Comments 4