Sweet Potato Bread V2.0

Finally I got to try and make my sweet potato breads again, this time, I was thinking of making as a sort of buttermilk filling in the breadroll. The sweet potatoes were basically roasted in the oven so as to retain most of the sweetness instead of boiling it, where the flavors would be lost in the liquid^^

And with the help(well kinda, she wanted to make a flower?!?) of Selina, we set out to rolling and trying it out.

Well I've basically made 2 types, one was by frying it as much like a belineir and baking it in the oven^^


This one is the fried one, I liked its texture, though what I realised was that the frying actually makes the texture of the dough abit dull and also it masked most of the sweet potato filling...


These ones are the baked ones, yup the odd looking flowery one was done by Selina, she was sooo excited with it that she almost didn't let me take a photo shot of it; she claims she was extremely hungry and wanted to wolf it down hehe;p


I kinda misjudged the amount of filling that had to be in the dough, and turns out that I put in a tab bit too little, oh well now I have to make a V2.1 soon...

Its fun trying to teach yourself the rights and wrongs of cooking^^

Back to your roots per se...

I had a short trip back home to Brunei recently and I can't say enough how much I missed everyone back home, and the best thing was I got to catch up with everyone again^^

It was mad fun, getting into the group dynamics again and we hung out at the Bistro dela Tungku (courtesy of Lady Fa, she's so gonna kill me when she reads this hehe;p) Well this beautiful Bistro is located in Rimba and its location is only known to a few people and the food is always great!! Everyone's always having fun and letting down their hair(well not me, my hair is short enough, though Jasinta was having fun hahaha;p)and this time round we had Argentenian BBQ.

I can still smell(Rina, for your info I've washed my hair hehe;p) the smoke form the BBQ pit, where there was a whole carcass of lamb there Roasting and the Chicken, not to mention the salads & gorgeous spread of food, mmmm droolz....



It was a fun night to catch up(literally, we were there till 2am) and the good food that we had, I still look it up on my taste memory - mmm fingerling potatoes, prawn & avocado salad, tuna pasta, and the list goes on.... And I did bring back something from home - eclairs hehe;p

An unexpected Outing^^

This was kinda an impromptu gathering where it was supposed to be a whole group of me and my friends but, in the end just came down to just me, selina & 'mother' hehe;p
The occasion was basically 'mother' got a nice windfall(well can't really call it that, but it just sound nice^^) and she wanted to treat all of us to good fish head curry^^ Do I hear some people drooling hehe;p

So, we headed over to Juroung west where there's this Kopitiam stall that is well known for their fish head curry and might I add, I was kinda curious to find out how they make this curry on the island^^

Turns out I was pleasently surprised with the curry as featured below:

Honestly, I've yet to try out fish head curry made with a combination of milk(coconut & evaporated milk), I was sooo taken aback with the clever usage of the milks as it provided a nice silky texture and also a play on the palate as you could feel the milk soilds, those that has been refined and coagulated with the gelatin found in the fish head. Not only that I was blown away with the usage of pineapple as an acid where it impart more of a bite instead of the usual runny gravy that you usually find with this dish^^

I can still feel the texture of the curry gravy on my tongue, and the fish head was cooked just right, it was not so overdone and the cheeks were attacked by me first hehe;p Sorry Selina & 'mother' but the cheeks were the most wonderfully moist and tender part of the head^^ And still drooling for more^^



Well we did have a food spread of a many different varieties of food, but I must say the curry takes the cake so I won't bore anyone with details of the so-so food stuffss^^

And another discovery was that Selina ordered something which was very intriguing... and from what she told me this was a dish which the Hakka contingent of the Chinese dialect have on Chinese New Year (yes, if your all still wondering, I'm still in Chinese New Year mode hehe;p). The irony of it was that she's not Hakka, instead she's from the Fukien Dialect - Surprise, Surprise!!



The interesting thing about this dish is that in order to eat it, you need to pour tea soup over it and mix it all up and voila, a healthy vegan dish on its own for you to fill your tummy^^ I'm still uncertain or rather, I've forgotten what this dish is called, so I'll have to ask Selian whats it called again;)

Not as Expected...

Conceptually I thought I would be able to readapt a classic; however fantasy sometimes doesn't realy translate into reality. I know my taste memory is still very green and I've got a long way to go when it comes to being a great cook; I was hoping this could've worked - Oh well at least I found one way this dish doesn't turn out right^^

The dish in particular is a classic bread & butter pudding... This time I was hoping to incorporate caramelised taro into it. For those of you who aren't sure, taro is what we called yam in Asia^^



I guess my first mistake was cutting it into a Brunoise instead of the Macadoise. Another thing that I didn't expect was the reaction I would get with the sugar & taro, it almost turned into sludge when I was done pouring over it. However mistakes learned, I could alwaays try another way of making it^^

Look out for version 2.0

Sticky Rice cakes^^

For those in the know, well its a chinese tradition, that every Chinese New Year, Chinese families will make this treat; its like wishful thinking(being prosperous and having abundance) and a reminder of your roots(don't foget where you came from and family bonds)^^

I'm not sure of the spelling in english but its called the nian kao - I hope I got the spelling right hehe;p



How my family makes this is usally with a nice slice of yam stuck together with the rice cake and fried in batter; so I was extremely surprised when I saw another way of making it^^ See here on the Island, one of my friends actually took the time to wrap it in springroll pastry and the result as you can see from the above was very different both in texture and in tatse^^

It was sooo refreshing to see the rice cake oozing out of the pastry and moreover a crunch when you do bite into the treat^^

Fritters what?

Since I'm still on the path of rediscovery, I was scheming through a book, which has always inspired me time and time again whenever I read it; its like a totaly different book whenever you read it another time^^

This time round, while I was reading the book, I came across chef Jasper white's recipe for Apple fritters, and I realised that its been a long while since I actually had some myself. So I made my own adaptation for apple fritters, and it was with a yeast batter, mainly because the apples that were in my chiller were very very sour (kinda surprised by those granny smiths^^).



Although, I didn't have any icing sugar in the kitchen, I drizzled some honey and maple to give it some nice balance^^ Yum^^

A toss of Salads and stuff...

I've been doing some thinking while charging straight ahead on since the year of the Ox has come to play... I'm thinking, I need to find more stable ground on where I am, where I'm heading and where I want to be...

Its odd, after all this time of upping and leaving my home, and after a heck load of trials and revelations back home, getting out of a bad relationship, and not cooking for over a year... I knew I came over to the Island to find myself, and find myself I did, though, I feel its still missing some things, maybe my tenure with my current place is about to be up (and not at a right time with the current economic season, though I'm optimistic^^)

My love for cooking, I feel is still growing, its not come to a stop yet, I feel like its time that I really started to get into the real world of cooking, I miss the real combat ground, where one honors and do right for the ingredients, ideas and concepts of my peers, something I've missed alot when I just starting out.... The passion is still there, just that I thought I had killed it as my former life back home, though now I'm more confident in my skills, I wanna move forward and keep getting better...

I'm getting there, and the journey so far has been extremely insightful for me, getting to re-acquaint myself in the field that I know I will be in for a loong time ahead^^ I know I'll reach my destination, when, I don't know, but I do know that I don't want to stop, I want to get better in what I love doing and which is my Passion!!

Yakitate Sing-pan!! Well Kinda hehe;p

I've always had the fasination for making Polo Pau(am not quite sure how they spell it) since I first started learning how to make bread; mainly because this bread is unique in a sense, its baked with a cookie crust on top of it...

So I decided to create my own(and what I found out was that this is a very popular bread in Japan and its flavored with musk melon!! Am drooling, just thinking about the flavor combinations) I've always noticed that even though its baked with the cookie crust, the crust is never crispy and crunchy, well the fact that bread dough and cookie dough have to be cooked in different temperatures - there has to be a way to make it come out right, right?


As you can see I basically made a crumble crust, and held it together with some buttermilk^^ Its a little off the mark, though you will have to forgive me, its my first time making it^^
The major thing mising from this bread is a form of color, well amd just gonna try again next time to make it come out even better^^


The next one will be better^^

Pizza, We should open a pizzaria; well maybe not... yet...

Jason was saying that since he was leaving soon, he wanted to have some pizza, and no, its not the ones from work, it had to be different - basically handmade;) So it fell to me to make its since he was leaving soon(and I did promise to make it for him before he left) and I had to kinda remember the recipe off the top of my head, because its been a long while since I've made any bread^^

It was kinda like a trial and error thing, though I found my rythm in making the dough easily as if it was second nature to me, eventhough its been sooo long since I made anything with bread^^





I ended up making 2 pizzas with different toppings on both, one was a classic Hawaiian and the other was my creation of Smoked Salmon Pizza^^

It was funny when pizzas were done, everyone was scarmbling to get a slice hehe;p

Something Imprinted in my Mind from Adelaide...

For those of you who don't know, I was studying in Adelaide a long, long, long time ago, and one of the distinctive things I've always been reminded of Adelaide was one of its night specialties(well not really because of the fact that most people would be drunk to remember this food hehe;p)...

Its called a pie floater; what it basically is.. its a really really thick pea soup and placed in the middle is a really fatty pie that has been turned upside down, hence the name pie floater. The great thing about this is that in order to really enjoy it, you would have to be on the verge of being drunk and that's where the hunger pangs come it, and this dish is synonymous with Adelaide(as its the only place in Australia you can get it!!).

So I decided to make one, kinda like an intrepetation on it, and since my kitchen padawan was gonna fly the coop soon, and I thought he might like to see something different^^


So? Whatcha think about it? I know it kinda looks more classy then its original predecessor(believe me, it aint easy to find its picture on the web)

Frankly, I enjoyed it, though I wished I had better cheeses to work with in my kitchen, it was the cheap mass produced chesse, so the soup became abit too thick for the milk fats of the cheese, but all in all everyone enjoyed it^^

Something Sour to keep you healthy... and it aint a whiskey sour;p

Here's something I found a couple of days back when I was getting some bread at the convenient store close to where I stay. And guess what I found?

I know some of you might think that I've gone bonkers with this but what the heck, eh? Its called plum vinegar and it comes in 4 different flavors^^


I'm pretty sure there's gonna be a ton of ways to make stuff out of this base, I especially love the acid that it gives, its not too overpowering and apparently from the back of the package it says its a natural breath freshner (don't know about that, but we'll see)...

Now to find a way to make something for this, I'm thinking salad or maybe a nice sauce accompaniment for an entree or appetiser... hmm... decisions... decisions...

As Requested^^

Wow! Been a heck of awhile since I last posted anything, guess with the Ox year well under way, I've been charging ahead like the ox hehe;p

Well the first post I decided to put up the pictures of the Pineapple Tarts that I made somewhere in between the Chinese New Year week...



As far as the comments I got, everyone was kinda surprised with the cookie, as it was done in a way that it was light and crumbly, some even thought it wasn't cooked, though I assured them it was^^ And considering this is my first attempt at making them, I kinda liked it; though I must say the Pineapple marmalade on the top should've been given some acid to counter the caramelisation process in the oven^^

Anyways am still very hapy with the outcome^^

Coleslaw? No, Jackslaw hehe;p

I'm pretty sure this hasn't been tried out yet; as most people find the smell of the humble jackfruit a little too pungent for their liking, though I've always been a fan since I was a wee toddler^^

I thought I could try to make an asian version of the every trusty coleslaw and this is what I came up with, I'm open to comments^^


Ta-Dah!! A simple Jackfruit with Longan slaw drizzled with a chilli lemon vinagrette^^

B'fast Smarts^^

So here I was the other day during my breakfast shift, things were going slow, and I do mean S-L-O-W...

I was thinking on making a simple breakfast with strawberries and I ended up making a full breakfast with a simple strawberry side-_-.. I know...silly me.. hehe;p
However I think the result was quite well...


See a simple breakfast of grilled ham & cheese sandwich, cheesy sausage strips, fried egg and honey mapled glaced strawberries with a sweet mayo drizzle^^

Filling^^

Battle of Buttermilk...

Its been awhile since I last blogged Hehe;p
So I thought I should come up with this odd title for this entry^^

Well, this came about during the first & second days of Chinese New Year; and we had a ridiculous amount of 'controlled' items for staff meals, so my outlet chef and the other assistant decide to have a battle to see who could make the best buttermilk shellfish^^ I'm guessing some of you know who won, hehe;p

It was quite close, just the fact that I was a little slower in finishing (as we all know good food takes time^^), my buttermilk crayfish was liked most by the staff in the outlet^^


Another look at the winning dish^^