Roast Pork & Spiced Pear

So with nothing planned for dinner, I took out the remains of the pork belly I had.

South East Asian Duck Curry

This duck curry recipe is all about the spices. As it is a South East Asian dish, it mixes both Indian and Malaysian/Singaporean ingredients to achieve its particular taste. I only buy my duck from the Luv-a-Duck brand as they have the most succulent and tasty ducks!

Cockle Shells (blood cockle)

Let me start of by saying I absolutely love love love these little shellfish. It's almost a fetish for me, made much more severe due to the fact that I am not able to get these shellfish in Sydney (until today). I only get to eat them when I go back to Singapore, but when I do I can go quite mad with greed. I've been known to buy 4kg to share between four friends in one sitting...we unfortunately were only able to eat half of that amount.

Ten Time Saving Cooking Techniques

1. Defrost frozen food in a bag under running water. The running water heats up the food much faster than if you were just to leave it in a tub of still water. The water doesn't have to be gushing out of the tap, just let it drip.

image by: Robert S. Donovan

Guinness Ice Cream Float

This post is four days in lieu of St. Patrick's day...it's better late than never right? Although, to be fair, the bottle shops were totally sold out of Guinness until yesterday and so I couldn't have done this post prior.

Plus, I spent the day in Hyde Park drinking the Guinness that was on tap at the St Patrick's day celebrations. I saw sandwiches with black pudding and a fried egg on top which I really wanted to try but the queue was way too long. I settled instead for a German Bratwurst smothered in Sauerkraut and mustard. I don't think the organisers could find many Irish food vendors here in Sydney since I saw mostly Chinese, German, and Turkish cuisine. The energy of the place however, was just buzzing...thanks in part to a band called Good & Lively, and some traditional Irish dancers.

Growing on My Balcony Garden

For your food to be delicious, quality fresh ingredients are needed and there's no better way to do this than to have your own garden. I have a balcony garden where I built two planter boxes and have a handful of pots. I'm able to have quite a surprising number of herbs and plants growing in the garden and I supplement my dishes with these greens whenever I can.

I present to you some of my plants...

Lime flowers...they will give me more limes!

Top Ten Food Related Pet Peeves

This is my list of Top Ten Food related annoyances. I am constantly bewildered, perplexed and flummoxed by these situations. Don't you get annoyed by these things too?

image by: G & A Sattler 

  1.     People who don't eat their vegetables.

  2.     People who Only eat vegetables.

  3.     Westernised Asian food being passed off as the real thing.

image by: » Zitona «

Avanti Pasta Machine

The Avanti Pasta Wiz is the machine I use to make my own homemade pasta. It was bought on ebay for $5 AUD, which is the only reason why I can say that it is an OK machine. It does the basics fine. It rolls the pasta and I can choose the thickness of the pasta. With the attachment, I can cut the pasta into various widths. With this machine, I will get pasta.

However, that being said;

Why Would I Buy The Nespresso Pixie?

I used to own a basic espresso machine and after a few months of buying coffee beans, grinding them up, and packing the grinds properly into the machine, I got tired of it. Sure the coffee was delicious but I didn't always want to go through all the hassle. Call me lazy, but I suspect most people feel the same way.

image by: ashraful kadir

Thai Pork Pad Krapow

This is my "go to" Thai dish and incorporates three of the four Thai flavours of Sour, Spicy, Sweet, Salty. Whenever I go to Thailand, I eat this dish regularly and I've eaten it anywhere from street side stalls to hotels (room service). I like to order a hot bowl of Tom Yum Goong to go along with it.

Mushroom, Maasdam & Stilton Blue Ravioli

Chopped up mushrooms, a block of Maasdam cheese and a generous wedge of Stilton blue make up the filling in this home made Ravioli. No meat is used, but the cheese and mushroom impart such a richness and meatiness to this dish.

The steps are; make the pasta, make the filling, assemble the ravioli and cook them. Cook the tomato sauce and serve.

Please see this post for instructions on making your own pasta.

For the filling:

• chop up 250g of mushrooms
• shred a one inch cube of Maasdam cheese
• chop up about the same amount of Stilton blue. (adjust for your own taste here) Just about any other cheese you fancy will do if you don't like blue cheese.
• mix together and lay on the pasta sheets.

Assemble the Ravioli by brushing the pasta with water and folding the pasta sheets into half lengthwise. Push out as much air as possible. Cut in between each packet of filling to make squares.

Homemade Pasta

To make a good homemade pasta, you need good flour, fresh eggs, and a little time. It's so simple and yet yields the most delicious and basic of cooking ingredients. 

• flour (Tipo '00', fine semolina or just plain flour if you're out of anything else)
• eggs (1 egg to 100g of flour)

Mix into an almost non sticky ball of dough and knead till smooth. Rest for at least 15 minutes. (make your pasta sauce while waiting). Flatten the dough into a rectangle. Run it through the pasta machine at it's widest setting, around 4 or 5 times until silky and shiny. Continue to run the pasta dough through the machine at progressively smaller settings until you get the thickness you want. I usually like setting no. 6 on my Avanti pasta machine.

Beef / Mutton Curry

A rich, spicy Indian curry never fails to get my tummy going. Just before cooking this, I was out of home at a nearby shopping centre. Passing by the food court, an aromatic waft of curry hit me, making me turn around and pay attention to the stall it came from. Well needless to say, after inspecting their food I headed home and started cooking.

A good curry isn't hard to make, but it's not a case of just adding curry powder to meat. I always add freshly ground spices to the curry powder to get that extra oomph.

Salt then slice the beef into bite size pieces and dice the following:

• Onion
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Cut chillies
• Tomatoes

Grind up in a motar and pestle these spices:

• Cloves
• Cinnamon
• Cardamom
• Star anise

Har Cheong Kai (shrimp paste chicken)

Shrimp and chicken don't sound like they go together, but when I first tried Har Cheong Kai (shrimp paste chicken), I was bowled over by the taste. And now, it's become one of my favourite ways to cook fried chicken.

I use Belachan, which is shrimp which has been salted and fermented. It is widely used in South East Asian cuisine and can be found in most asian supermarkets.

Pork and Chive Dumplings

These are my absolute favourite food to cook and eat at home, only problem is that I always stuff myself! I can't believe I've eaten close to fifty dumplings in one sitting.

Lots and Lots of chives, the chinese type, is critical to the flavour of the dumplings. I only stop adding chives when the pork almost doesn't hold together.  

Durian Puffs

These puffs can be stuffed with any manner of fillings. All that needs to be done is to make the profiteroles from choux pastry, cut each profiterole in half, and stuff it full!

Eveleigh Organic Market

One of my favourite places to go to on Saturdays is the Eveleigh Organic Market, located just around the corner from the Redfern train station. I like to cycle there and get some exercise out of it (a few kilometres from home), but my problem is that I can only carry so much on a bicycle.