Cooking Heals

This blog is now retired...

2009-09-29T00:19:00.002+08:00

I've decided to migrate my blog to http://cookingheals.wordpress.com/, I find the word press interface more appealing! Please visit there for new recipes and food photographs!

Warm regards,
CY Phang

Happy Valentine's Day 2009!

2009-02-14T12:58:00.002+08:00

I thought I would have time to blog more this year...apparently I spoke too soon! After my trip from Saigon (which I couldn't find time at all to blog!) I have been seriously and crazily busy engaging in a food styling/photography shot for some marketing campaign for Unilever Malaysia. It's a lot of work I tell ya!

Anyway, just dropping a quick note to wish all of you Happy Valentine's Day 2009! Even though I do not have anyone to celebrate with, that doesn't mean I don't love myself as much! *click on the above photo for a larger view*

Grandma has been admitted to the hospital yesterday, she's in a coma and the doctor asked us to be mentally prepared...So we're gonna go back to my hometown tomorrow and spend time with her...

There will be not much time for me (again) to blog it seems....But hopefully the madness will reduce soon!

Once again, Happy Valentine's to everyone, whether you are celebrating with someone special or yourself!

Chinese New Year 2009 celebration

2009-01-27T00:32:00.008+08:00

The past one week or so have been madness, though I could still find time to make cookies for Chinese New Year and photograph a few of them, but generally I have been busy with rushing all workload off before the Chinese New Year celebration started. Was even shooting some conceptual shots for Unilever Malaysia for their new recipe/marketing campaign before I left for Saigon this morning! (Just check out my flickr album to see my recent photos if you do not see me posting here...)

As I am typing now, I'm in my hotel room in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) at almost midnight, arriving today around 4 pm. I just thought I should kick my ass off to write something or I would keep procrastinating again!

I'll start by posting some photos of the cookies/goodies that I have made for Chinese New Year, some for myself, while others for clients and friends, to thank them for their friendship and support throughout the Rat year.

Here I have cream puffs filled with strawberries and cream, and another one filled with creamy corn custard. Really to die for!

On the day before Chinese New Year eve, I made some Ladies Kisses (made with ground almonds) and bought some flowers to decorate the house:

And the most important day for Chinese New Year - the reunion dinner on the eve, which I have decided to set up as a candlelight ambience...I made Hainanese Chicken Rice for lunch, and then followed by a simple menu for dinner: Steamed grouper; poached broccoli with crispy fried shallots and soy sauce; steamed Chinese sausages; braised pork ribs and mushrooms (not shown in picture); and radish, carrot & pork bones soup.

It's almost midnight and time to say good night! My friend and I are taking a Mekong River day trip tomorrow so I hope to post more on my Saigon holiday soon!

Wishing all of you a great,healthy and prosperous Chinese New Year, and the courage and strength to overcome any challenges in the year of the Ox!

I'll end with a family photo taken today (first day of Chinese New Year) with my parents and sister, my uncle, his wife, my aunt and my cousins and nephews/nieces...and my dog Sunnie of course!

Vanilla Poached Forelle Pear and Apricot Mini Tartlets

2009-01-16T11:35:00.006+08:00

This is my favourite among the lot. I love the "fresh morning" look and the texture on the wood.

I figured I had to find a way to consume the pears and apricots aside from them eating raw. So here's what happened to them, inspired by the recipe from here. I modified the recipe to make it easier for me, and put in a small piece of dark chocolate under the pears before baking. Aesthetics results not as good as I wanted it to be...but taste wise is okay. The apricot on the tartlets turned out way too tart (and soggy), so they went all to Sunnie's (my dog) tummy. She loved them though! (She loves any fruits in the stoned fruits family)

This is quite a tedious recipe as I had to poached the pears and apricots first. Puff pastry was store bought. Even then, it was a chore rolling them!

All photos taken around 10 am with natural morning light coming from back of the tartlets. Styrofoam used as reflector on the bottom right of photo.

Food Photography: Mini Forelle Pears and Apricots - playing with textures

2009-01-16T00:17:00.004+08:00

The apricots looked so beautiful that I couldn't resist buying them! I love the texture of everything in the photos, from the skin of the pears, the velvety soft skin of the reddish orange apricot skin, to the folds of the napkin and bowl, and the wood below the bowl.

Lighting info: Afternoon sun (shaded porch) at around 2 pm. Light coming from back of the bowl.

Garlic Pepper Grilled Lamb Cutlets

2009-01-14T22:49:00.012+08:00

My itch for cooking and photographing seem to have bitten me fully today, I just HAD TO MAKE SOMETHING or I would go mad...:-S

I bought half a dozen lamb cutlets before Christmas and never got to them as I was away in Koh Samui, then troubled by my right leg and depressed. As I also newly bought a cast iron grill pan that's worth close to RM 150 (for the sake of food styling...sigh...), I figured today would be a good day to make and photograph the lamb cutlets.

I just wanted something really (and I mean REALLY REALLY) easy to make and taste good as well. So back to the basics...salt and pepper, and finely crushed garlic, to marinate the lamb cutlets for about 2 hours. Nothing else was really needed as I bought the lamb cutlets really fresh (from Mr Ho's Fine Foods in Bangsar Shopping Center), all I needed was to taste the TRUE flavour of the meat. Grilled with 3 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil.

Turned out quite good really, though I really didn't have time to style and photography properly, as I am still not that mobile yet due to my right foot still in pain...

Lighting details for above photo: Natural lighting through window from top of photo.

Lighting details for above photos: Tungsten softbox on left, reflected by gold foil on right.

Photography: Mini Forelle Pears

2009-01-10T18:27:00.010+08:00

They looked so beautiful that I just had to bring them home to photograph! Inspired by this image taken by Tarlette.

I have not been inspired to cook anything lately. Still trying to recover from my post-holiday and troubled leg depression lol...But thought I'll just take a few photos to feel alive!

Lighting source: Natural afternoon light from left of photo through the window. Mirror used as reflector to lighten up the front parts of the pears.

Lighting effects: I wanted the lighting effects to be dramatic so I played with the shadows and texture, with natural light shining over the top of the pears, especially near the peduncle.

Subsequent visit to Chinese Orthopedist today...

2009-01-06T17:41:00.008+08:00

...has made me more relieved....Today I was treated by another older Chinese Orthopedist...which told me that my problem will definitely heal, but just take longer time, at least 2 weeks or so....

Phew, it was a relief to hear, at least there is a time frame now! And he said I can also go traveling to Vietnam, just bring the herbal pills they prescribe to relieve tendon and ligament tightness/pain. I immediately lightened up after the visit. He also aligned my spine and neck by turning and "cracking" them, saying that they are too tight. Now my shoulder and neck feel a lot better and I feel less depressed almost immediately! (Which means I don't have to completely stop preparing and photographing food haha)

He changed the compress to cover my shin...as you can see below...The lower part of my leg is better but the upper part is still sore...

Highly recommended if you have muscle or bone injury/pain...their website is here.

Hot chocolate (and a troubled right leg)

2009-01-06T13:40:00.007+08:00

I have had an injury from walking too much wearing improper shoes a few years back in Australia, didn't know I have flat feet problem then. The same injury was never treated when I first had it, and it went on for a few years. I've seen a couple of specialists in sports injury and orthopaedic but there was apparently no cure for it, physiotherapy and anti-inflammatory drugs didn't help much either. Finally, I've resorted to seeing a Chinese Orthopedist a couple of days back. He said my muscles in the entire right leg are very tensed, and I asked him if my condition will ever heal at all. He laughed and said "Yes it will, just very long time as this is a really old injury". He gave me some herbal compress (as seen in the picture above) and the only way to relieve the discomfort (I sort of pulled my muscle under the right foot a while back and the soreness has stretched up to the whole leg) is to rest and minimise walking...for the muscles to relax back and hopefully to heal...

This has gotten me into depression....which means, I can't move too much, and also means that I REALLY have to rest and minimise moving around, which means...sigh...minimal photography for a while, at least until the foot is settled down a little bit...And also no more travelling for a while! Well I've bought my air ticket and booked my hotels in Ho Chi Minh City during Chinese New Year (about 3 weeks away, January 26, 2009) so I guess I just have to spend most of the time in the hotel room and have to walk carefully in proper shoes!

Anyway....I have already bought all the ingredients to make hot chocolate to photograph so I thought would at least shoot it before I go into hiatus. This may be my last food photograhy series for the time being, until my foot and leg settle down, since I am not allowed to move around too much :-(

I know I would fidget and feel uneasy for not being able to prepare dishes and photograph them, and I have restrictions in my diet too, making it quite difficult for me to come up with fancy dishes to shoot. This is sooooooo depressing (as I'm also still feeling under the weather from the bug in Koh Samui), but what to do, I have to get better for me to continue my passion! What a way to start the new year!

But anyway, I hope I will be able to get back on my feet soon (literally! No pun intended!) and can't wait to prepare and photograph more food again! I'm going for a follow-up check up today and hopefully I will hear some good news!

Fennel, green apple and pomegranate salad

2009-01-01T23:32:00.010+08:00

Here's one of my favourite salads...crunchy, sourish sweet, and bursting with flavours and garlicky taste. Easy to make, and every person who has tasted it simply love it!

Ingredients
1 small fennel bulb (if you are not sure what fennel is, check out here)
1 green apple
seeds from 1/4 pomegranate
1 clove garlic, crushed using a garlic crusher or chopped finely
1 tbsp chopped Italian parsley
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp white/red wine vinegar
1.5 tsp of honey
1 tbsp lemon juice
pinch of salt and pepper to taste
Serves: 2

Procedure:

Cut fennel bulb into half lengthwise, remove the green stalks and hard core, then slice the fennel bulb paper thin.
Peel green apple skin, cut half lengthwise and remove the core. Slice apple thinly, soak in a bowl of water with a pinch of salt to prevent browning. Put fennel and apple slices, and pomegranate seeds in a medium salad bowl.
Mix olive oil, white/red wine vinegar, crushed garlic, chopped parsley, honey, lemon juice, and salt and pepper thoroughly in a small bowl.
Add the vinaigrette mixture from (3) to (1) and mix thoroughly in the salad bowl.
Sprinkle with some toasted pine nuts before serving if wished.

Note:

For KL folks, you can get fennel bulbs in Village Grocer in Bangsar Village or Cold Storage in Bangsar Shopping Centre. I prefer the imported Australian fennel for the bigger bulb and stronger "licorice like" flavour. The local fennel is smaller in size, and much more cheaper.
As for the lighting, I was being lazy today, only used the camera flash with the ceiling fluorescent light, bounced with a styrofoam board on the left of the bowl and the wall.

A brand new year, and looking forward to more food-related activities!

2009-01-01T14:36:00.007+08:00

It's the first day of the new year. I woke up at 11 am, skipped breakfast and walked my dog. Decided that I should write something today to commemorate the new year. My new year resolution? Travel to my dream destinations; more food, cooking and photography related activities; and hopefully a more relaxed and restful year, it's time to improve my social life lol!

Looking at the past year, I've achieved many things, particularly in food related areas, but I'm still always learning and practicing, and they are the only ways to be better and wiser!

Am still feeling under the weather from an evil bug I caught in Koh Samui (food poisoning and flu).

Though still lazy, tired and suffering from holiday hangover, I should still toast to a good end to 2008, and gear up for an even better 2009!

Say Hi to 2009, and Bye to 2008! (with the last lunch of the year...Organic Pumpkin Soup and Herbed Garlic Bread)

2009-01-01T13:57:00.005+08:00

I'm not usually a big fan of pumpkin. Perhaps the only few ways I eat them are pumpkin pie, steamed custard in pumpkin (a traditional Thai dessert), roasted pumpkin (together with other vegetables) and of course, pumpkin soup.

I normally try to improvise pumpkin soup by blending with other ingredients, such as pumpkin carrot soup; pumpkin, sweet potato and onion; cream of pumpkin and carrot soup; etc. But yesterday, I just thought hmmm.....why not just a simple pumpkin soup?

I had a whole organic pumpkin left from making pumpkin, sweet potato and onion soup the other day, before I left for Samui for my Christmas break. It was a small one, so I thought I use it all up and add nothing else to make a pure pumpkin soup for the first time.

It turned out surprisingly delicious and dense, with a creamy and smooth texture, sweet and bursting with pumpkin flavour. I normally use imported pumpkins from Australia (as they are generally sweeter and creamier than the local varieties), but this time, I used a local organically grown one.

And I've never made pumpkin bread without garlic bread. They are a perfect combination for me - match made in heaven, simply to die for! The recipe is very easy, you will not go wrong! So here it is...my last lunch for year 2008...

Organic Pumpkin Soup
Ingredients
300 g of organic pumpkin
500 ml of water
Salt and pepper to taste
Serves: 2

Procedure:

Peel pumpkin skin and remove the pulp and seed. Cut pumpkin into large chunks and steam in a steamer for about 20 minutes or until soft and mushy. Leave to cool.

Pour in the steamed pumpkin flesh together with the liquid from steaming into a blender, add 300 ml of water and blend until smooth and creamy.

Pour pumpkin mixture into a medium pot, add the remaining 200 ml water and simmer with medium heat over the stove until boiling. Add salt and pepper to taste, and serve hot with garlic bread.

Herbed Garlic Bread
Ingredients
1 half baguette, cut diagonal into 2 cm thick pieces, makes about 5 - 6 pieces
1 tbsp of butter, melted
1 large clove of garlic, crushed using a garlic crusher or chopped finely
1 tbsp of fresh Italian parsley + 1 tsp of rosemary, chopped finely (you can substitute rosemary with other fresh herbs)
Serves: 2

Procedure:

Mix butter, crushed garlic and herbs together. Spread using a butter knife onto on side of the baguette pieces.

Grill garlic bread in oven for 4 - 5 minutes (150 C) or until the edge of the crust turns golden brown. Alternatively, you can also toast the garlic bread with a non-stick pan or grill pan on the stove (with the side spread with butter, garlic and herbs on the pan surface) for 5 minutes or until golden brown.

Back again, after more than a year...in memory of my beloved grandpa that passed away a year ago.

2008-12-29T22:28:00.004+08:00

It has been more than a year since I last blogged from Bangkok. It was a long silence since then, perhaps some of you have wondered why I have just suddenly stopped and did not continue my story on my Bangkok holidays.

I just simply couldn't bear blogging since then. On the 3rd day of my Bangkok trip, I received bad news from my sister in Malaysia - my grandpa was admitted to hospital and was in a coma. We rushed back from Bangkok 2 days after, and the moment we touched down at the Kuala Lumpur airport, my sister called with the bad news....grandpa has left us.

It was a tragic experience for me, I felt so bad and miserable that I could not see him before he died. If only I decided to come back straightaway, I would at least have seen him before he left us.

Tonight, as I write, is the eve of my grandpa's death anniversary. I could still remember his laughter and smile vividly, and how much I loved him let me sit over his head and shoulder when I was a little girl. Today, all is gone and he's probably in a better place, just as happy as he was.

He lived almost a century, 95 when he passed away. Hailing from a small village in China, he has never gone back since he came to Malaysia on a boat with my great grandpa and grand uncle. But he was always happy, always with a big smile on his face, regardless good or bad times. Something that unluckily did not pass on to me haha...

This year, I went to Thailand (Koh Samui) again for my Christmas holidays. And it was on this island that I decided I should blog again.

In the past year, I've relatively achieved quite a bit in my food styling and photography journey. I've also managed to develop recipes for a multinational food company and styled and took photos for restaurants. This blog is going to continue with my journey in recipe development, food styling and photography.

I will however, take it easy, and post whenever I have the time and mood, as I've gotten busier with my new endeavours in food styling and photography. But cooking, will always remain a part of me, physically, mentally or spiritually.

Cooking...always heals.

Holidays in Bangkok - Day 1: Arrival

2007-12-26T22:42:00.000+08:00

Today is my first day in Bangkok, and I'm using Blogspot in Thai language! God knows how to turn to English, I just can't see the button to change the language, so I am just clicking here and there, and by sheer chance...here I am.

Arrived at the new Bangkok airport at around 4.30 pm, when mom and I got the rented Honda Jazz from Avis, it was already about 5.30 and by the time we reached the hotel it was 8 pm (the internet said 45 mins to reach the area where we are staying for today)! Thanks to the massive traffic jam, and not very sure of which turnings to take to our hotel, we had to take a big detour, as instead of turning left at one junction, I decided to turn right, and hence took another 1.5 hours to turn back. The traffic police screamed at me as I couldn't tell which road to turn and which one not to. Too bad I didn't understand Thai and he couldn't speak a word of English...oh well.

We walked about 5 minutes from the hotel for dinner at a cafe called Cafe Nero, I ordered soft shelled crab served on rice and fried Thai basil and stir-fry vegetables in green peppercorns...yummy yummy. Mom has roast chicken leg served on rice and stir-fry veggies...Too bad I didn't bring my camera along with me.

I forgot to bring my power adapter and I have only 40% of battery life left on my Macbook...Oh well. I guess I just have to try to buy an adapter from the supermarket tomorrow.

The hotel we are staying tonight sucks...Run down and in bad shape...But oh well, we only paid 1100 baht a night so that's very cheap considering it's Christmas season and everywhere else that I saw on the internet were easily 2000 baht and above for one night...

Thank goodness we're just staying here for one night...and tomorrow morning we're driving off to Hua Hin and Cha-Am to stay at the beach...hopefully a nicer hotel!

Till I post again, it's time to shower and sleep, it's now at 10 pm as I type...Too tiring driving in the massively-jammed Bangkok...The car didn't move an inch for 20 mins when we were in somewhere near Westin Hotel in Sukhumvit...(please pardon my grammar as I am really lazy to read through haha...) No photos taken yet...hopefully will take some tomorrow!

Curry Chicken Rice and My Missing-In-Action

2007-12-09T11:24:00.000+08:00

I have been really really busy and have not had time to update my blog since my last post on my Hanoi trip. Right now as I am writing, I am down with a bad flu and coughing badly. My throat hurts and I hope I don't lose my voice cuz I make a living by talking! (Interpreting rather...)

However, I have been still posting food photos to flickr diligently and from now onwards if there're no updates on my blog, you are most welcomed to view my photos here.

My latest creation was curry chicken rice, I made it just to shoot the photos! Too bad I couldn't eat much of it as it made me cough...

What do you think of my new pictures? I think I've improved a lot since I first taken photos with my Canon EOS 350D! This batch of photos were taken with my new toy, the Canon 50mm f1.4 lens...

My Hanoi Trip

2007-10-21T15:00:00.000+08:00

Sorry guys. I didn't keep to my promise, wasn't able to blog from Hanoi as my trip schedule was very packed and I was away on the sea and off the coast for a few days, so didn't manage to use the computer much, even though there was free computer access at the hotel in Hanoi. And when I came back to KL, I had 1001 things to attend to and didn't have the time to blog at all (but I still managed to post photos to my flickr album :P). I'll briefly go through how my trip went in Hanoi, incorporating the food and dishes I've tried in Hanoi and Halong Bay. I went with mom and we were there for 5 days from September 21 - 25.

Day 1: Arrived in Hanoi.

Our flight left LCCT (Low Cost Carrier Terminal of Malaysia) at 6.35 am so mom and I had to leave the house at 4.30 am! Reached Hanoi about 9-ish am (Hanoi was one hour behind us). We didn't do much after we checked in at the hotel in the Old Quarters. We just walked around and looked for a place to have lunch. Nothing special, just some beef pho (rice noodle soup) and we went back to the hotel and crashed (lacked of sleep the night before!). Hanoi reminded me of Malaysia (particularly my home town Teluk Intan) in the 80's, with lots of people riding motorcycles (most without helmets) and bicycles. After a nap, we took a taxi to the West Lake area and walked around...went to visit the oldest Buddhist pagoda in Hanoi (Tran Quoc Pagoda) there, had coffee at Highland Coffee (I call it the Vietnamese Starbucks hehe) on the lake, walked around the Hoan Kiem lake area after that, had dinner and waited for the famous water puppet show to start.

Woman selling flowers on bicycle in the Old Quarters.

Another bicycle vendor and motorcycles in the background.

West Lake, Hanoi.

Oldest Pagoda in Hanoi, Tran Quoc Pagoda

Had coffee at Highlands Coffee at West Lake

The water puppet show was really amazing and worth watching. Even though the whole show was in Vietnamese but my mom and I totally enjoyed it. Went back to the hotel after the show and retired early as we had to get up at 6 am the next day to catch the tour to Halong Bay.

Water puppet show

Day 2: Halong Bay

We had breakfast at the hotel but it wasn't very good, I just had a bowl of beef noodle soup and some fruits. The tour van picked us up at 7.30 am and headed towards Halong Bay. It was a long road journey, took us about 3 hours to reach the jetty where we boarded our Imperial Junk boat. Tonight, we would spend the night in the cabin on the boat. The boat took us on a cruise passing thousands of islets. Halong Bay is recognized by UNESCO as a World Natural Heritage Area for its exceptional scenic beauty and outstanding geological and geomorphic values.

After lunch on the boat, we visited the amazing Sung Sot cave then went to an island (with man-made beach) for a swim and we walked up 400+ steps to the gazebo at the top to view the spectacular scenery of Halong Bay.

After we got back to the boat, we showered, had dinner on boat and crashed off for an early night in the cabin on the boat docked on the quiet and calm sea.

Our Imperial Junk Boat (the one in the middle)

Other junk boats, from the view of our boat

One of the dishes for our first lunch of the tour
Beautiful Halong Bay from a gazebo on top of an islet

The amazing Sung Sot Cave, really huge! (See the people walking? It's just a fraction of the huge cave)

Halong Bay from Sung Sot Cave.

Another view of Halong Bay from Sung Sot Cave.

Night scene from the window of our cabin.

Day 3: Cat Ba National Park, Viet Hai Village, Cat Ba Island

A day filled with exciting and challenging activities. We cycled for about 45 minutes from the jetty to Viet Hai village situated in Cat Ba National Park, stopped for a drink, then walked to an ancient house (built based on the ancient architecture of Vietnam) through the primitive rainforest and back to where we parked our bicyle to cycle back to the jetty. I was really amazed with my mom who insisted on cycling though one local Vietnamese guy kept riding his motorcycle next to her and tried to persuade her to take his motorcycle (with a fee of course! Cycling was free).

We went back to the boat for lunch and boy it tasted really good as we were really hungry after the cycling trip! The tour crew prepared 7 dishes for us and we finished almost everything!

Above two pictures were taken during my cycling trip in Cat Ba National Park.

The so-called ancient house, was originally meant to be a resort but the construction was abandoned.

Paddy fields en route on my cycling trip back from Viet Hai Village

BBQ prawns for lunch, fresh from the sea around us!

After lunch we were supposed to kayak for 2 hours to Monkey Island/Lan Ha Lagoon for a swim but it was so tiring that mom and I gave up after 45 minutes and kayakked back to the boat instead of heading towards the island.

After that the boat took us to the beach where the rest of the group was swimming and we headed to Cat Ba Island to check in to our resort. Boy, we were really tired and sore! The resort we stayed in had a beautiful beach and was very quiet. We had a 7 course dinner (again) to ourselves (the rest of the group stayed in a cheaper hotel in Cat Ba town) and slept early as we were really tired.

Mom kayakking, I was sitting in the front of the kayak.

Floating village near Cat Ba island.

Photos of Sunrise Resort, where we stayed in Cat Ba town.

My breakfast in Sunrise Resort: Bacon, sausages, pancake etc.

My breakfast in Sunrise Resort: Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup.

Day 4: Back to Hanoi

We woke up at 5.30 am and walked on the cement pavement to the other side of Cat Ba Island from Sunrise Resort, hoping to see the sunrise but we were disappointed. Came back to the hotel to have a great breakfast and met up with the rest of the tour group and headed back to Halong town (where we boarded the boat to Halong Bay), had lunch at a local restaurant, and back to Hanoi.

When we reached Hanoi and after checking in at the hotel, we went to a famous restaurant to try the Cha Ca La Vong, recommended by our tour guide, a restaurant that is famous for just one dish, grilled fish or cha ca. It was a very special dish, worth trying.

The condiments that came with the fried fish (cha ca).

The fish being fried with the herbs in oil on a small stove.

Cha ca ready to be eaten...served with peanuts, some "secret" sauce and rice noodles. Yummy yummy....

Day 5 (last day): Props hunting day

I did not forget one of the main reasons I came to Hanoi - to shop for props for my food photography! Managed to get to Hang Da market that sells lots of ceramics and crafts, besides the normal vegetables, fruits, fish and meat...Spent more than RM 300 just on props (who say Vietnam is cheap???) and souvenirs for my friends! I wish I could buy and carry more though...:-(

Props heaven in Hang Da market!

Mom standing in the background with the ceramics vendors (can you see her?)

These cute little Vietnamese pineapples were just slightly bigger than my fist!

After finished shopping, we walked back to the hotel to pack, checked out and went hunting for lunch. Found a "food court" that looked quite posh with lots of people sitting and queing up. And cheap too! We spent only about RM 25 for 5 dishes and 2 drinks! The "food court" (I found out later from the internet, called Quan An Ngon) is as follows: "Quan An Ngon got started in HCM City five years ago, and judging by the lunch and evening crowds, its new Ha Noi branch seems to be as popular as its southern predecessor. The concept was to assemble the ‘best of street food’ in a setting more conducive to enjoying smart lunches and sultry evening meals. Experienced food-vendors were transplanted from Ha Noi streetsides into a gentrified version of a bustling food market, dressed up in tunics, and stationed at rustic stalls around the perimeter of a large courtyard. Guests dine in the lush courtyard among potted trees under a large canvas marquis, or in one of the large dining rooms or on the balcony in the spacious adjoining villa," writes Johny Shaw in The Vietnam News.

All the above are pictures from Quan An Ngon.

After lunch, we went to our last stop, Museum of Etnology to look at the various different tribes (cultures and houses) in Vietnam. It rained very heavily so we didn't manage to check out all the real model houses (actual sizes) but it was worth visiting!

All pictures above were taken at the Museum of Etnology, Vietnam.

Rushed back to the hotel after that and time to leave Hanoi! Our flight was at 8.30 pm. All I can say is that Vietnam is worth visiting and I'll be back again to visit some other parts! It has so many unique attractions and cultures and so much character!

What I have also gained on the side is the time I spent travelling with my mom. This is the first time that I travelled overseas together with my mom. I normally travel alone. I think we're a lot closer now! (What I think anyway...)

(More photos of Halong Bay and Hanoi can be viewed on my flickr album.)

Last batch of mooncake photos

2007-09-20T17:53:00.000+08:00

Well, my friend Wai Quan lent me her EOS 350D so that I can take it to Hanoi, while waiting for my own 350D to be fixed. Boy, I have been having so much withdrawal for not having my dslr with me, felt so handicapped and disturbed. I felt like my heart and soul is back now haha....But her camera has got some firmware problems, it doesn't shoot in RAW mode and there are no White Balance settings and color tone. Still better than my point and shoot though. At least I've got the lenses and exposure to play with.

Don't think I'm making anymore mooncakes before Mid-autumn festival as I'm leaving for my long-awaited vacation in Hanoi tomorrow. Well my hotel room has got free internet access so I am gonna take lots of pictures there and hopefully upload some of the food photos from there.

I'm typing this from a cafe not far from my client's office, while waiting for my interpreting project to start in an hour's time or so. My internet connection at home is dead at the moment (Apparently I forgot to pay the bill and they have temporarily suspended me, how cruel! What's life (and work) without the internet man!!!) So I'm just quickly uploading all the images while I have access to the internet.

The next post will be from Hanoi I hope...the purpose of the trip is to take lots (and lots and lots) of photos (scenery, people and of course food!), do some shopping for props (key objective hehe) and eat! And by the way, my lighting set is coming sooooooooon and I am so damn happy....finally able to set up my food photography studio!

Stuffed squids with minced pork

2007-09-18T15:01:00.000+08:00

Mom made these for lunch today but I borrowed them to photograph :P. Tasted pretty yummy but what missing is the "character" in the taste of the pork. Would have tasted better if she added chopped coriander (cilantro) into the minced pork and not just chopped carrot only. The coriander will significantly bring out the flavour, I tried chewing the coriander used for garnishing together with the squid and minced pork...really tasted better!

More mooncakes

2007-09-18T13:25:00.000+08:00

Made a new batch of mooncakes today. Everything went fine until the last step! My mooncakes were burnt! *cry* I left them in the oven after I turned off the electricity, so that the egg yolks would be thoroughly cooked by the remaining heat in the oven. But when I took them out 15 minutes later, they were slightly burnt! I cut one, took photos and tasted it...The burnt taste lingered in my mouth :-(

Anyway, the lotus paste didn't turn out that much smoother, though there was a little improvement. In fact, the earlier batch tasted better after 2 days because I could taste the true flavour of the lotus seeds and the skin was not burnt, and was less sweet as well. After 2 days the skin became softer as well, so they actually tasted quite good now.

This batch will have to wait for another day or two for them to mature but I doubt the burnt taste (and smell) will go away! Nevermind...big lesson learnt. My friend Sing Teck said I should keep trying...well it will have to wait till next year then, as mooncake festival only comes once a year (and I'm leaving for holidays in Hanoi soon, and spending mooncake festival there)!

Mooncakes

2007-09-17T12:16:00.000+08:00

These are the inaugural batch of mooncakes I have ever made in my entire life. Lots of work, and I was a bit disappointed with the outcome. The recipe was adapted from The Star Online (Kuali) and I took the shortcut way, maybe that's why the final products were a disaster! The skin was a bit too hard, and the paste was a bit too soft and coarse. I was a bit upset over the results but I'm making a new batch today using a new recipe, so hopefully they will turn out better.

I'm still sufferring from serious withdrawal of not having a dslr camera with me, feel so handicapped and depressed! I have to borrow my friend's Canon EOS 350D to Hanoi but hers doesn't have the RAW format and the white balance setting...apparently problem with the firmware and no one realised for a year until I took at look at it the other day!

Parting dinner for my project manager: Chilled shrimp, avocado and cucumber salad, chili crab, and stir-fry eggplant

2007-09-10T00:02:00.000+08:00

My project manager Sam is going on leave for 3 months to Europe tomorrow...lucky him. Well I am a bit jealous but no worries, I'm hopefully going there myself next year if I can manage to save enough money hehe...

HOWEVER, the dinner was not purposely cooked for him. I was just supposed to make chili crabs (using the swimmer crabs that I bought at the market in my hometown this morning) to eat with buns but he called before I reached home from the night market and sort of invited himself over. I thought...oh well...since he adores crabs, might as well just make a proper dinner for him with a few special dishes or I won't be seeing him for the next 3 months. So in the end it turned out to be a "parting dinner" (is there a better word to use for this?) for him instead.

The menu:

Starter: chilled shrimp, avocado and cucumber salad
Mains: Chili crab, eggplant stir fried with yellow capsicum, dried shrimp and miso
Dessert: Leftover plum genoese with vanilla ice cream

Will just post the pictures first then the recipes later...too tired after a long day driving back from my hometown Teluk Intan to celebrate my grandpa's 93th birthday...

Bon voyage Sam and have a safe trip! Don't forget my caviar and valrhona chocolate!!! *evil grin*

Note: The pictures were taken using a Nikon Coolpix L3 point and shoot so please bear with the quality of the photos!

Recipe:
Chilled shrimp, avocado and cucumber salad

Ingredients (serves 6):
6 medium shrimp, steamed and diced (about 1 cm)
1 Japanese cucumber (use a peeler to create 6 long strips of cucumber, the remaining diced to the size of the shrimp, after removing the seeds)
1 avocado (diced to the size of the shrimp)
2 sprigs of dill, for garnishing

For dressing:
1 tbsp of mayonnaise
1 tbsp of sour cream
3 cloves of garlic, pound into paste using a pestle and mortar with 1/4 tsp of sea salt
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 tbsp of lemon juice
1 tsp of chopped dill

Procedure:
1. Combine all the ingredients for the dressing, mix well and leave aside.
2. Mix the dressing into the diced shrimp, cucumber and avocado.
3. Form 6 circles using the long strip of cucumber. Fill in the mixture of (2) into the circle.
4. Chill in the refrigerator for about 30 - 45 minutes.
5. Garnish with dill before serving.

Recipe for chili crab can be found here.
To thicken the sauce for the chili crab, I've added an egg (whisk before adding in) to the sauce and fry for one or two minutes before turning off the flame.

Plum Genoese

2007-09-07T21:34:00.000+08:00

Again, from the cookbook...all the last few cakes were baked using recipes from the same cookbook. The cake didn't turn out the way I expected..a bit hard (but maybe that's what it should taste like in the first place?). However, it tasted better when I ate with vanilla ice cream hehe...(but what doesn't taste good with ice cream right? ;))

Shooting with a point-and-shoot is a big challenge....I can adjust the WB and exposure on the point-and-shoot but I can't shoot in RAW mode, so that's a handicap for me. Lighting is still a problem, so I guess I will just have to live with the lighting insufficiency (or shoot with day light) until I get my Lowel Tota pak

So bear with my sometimes-good(when shot in day light)-sometimes-bad (when shot using my 250W tungsten light) until I get my EOS350D back or the arrival of the Tota pak (another month to arrive!).

Whipped almond cake with chocolate sauce topping

2007-09-05T11:35:00.000+08:00

Okay, baking mood again. Baked this for my client but the bad news is...my EOS 350D been sent back to the shop to service the sensor and solve a problem. So I shot this using my Nikon digital point-and-shoot on the tripod, the results were better than I expected :P. This cake uses the same recipe as my mango mousse whipped almond cake but this time I topped it with chocolate sauce (it was supposed to be ganache but because the heavy cream in the fridge has gone bad, I used milk instead :-( ).

When I am writing this, I only have 20 minutes to shower and eat before I see my client for my interpreting project...So please bear with the grammar or spelling errors if there are any! Will correct later!

Fried shrimp and turnip wanton

2007-09-03T16:56:00.000+08:00

These were supposed to be made last Friday, when I cooked dinner at my friend's house. But due to the limitation of time (the kids were starving cuz I arrived 1 hour late) so I had to scrap the idea off.

Over the weekend I went shopping for props (again! I know I know...can't help my addiction!) and the ceramic bowl and the small bamboo steamer were specially bought to photograph the wantons. I also asked for a piece of banana leave from the restaurant that I went to have banana leaf rice with my friend yesterday.

I initially wanted to fry the wantons yesterday evening but I was just too tired and lazy. So here they are...hope you love the pictures! They tasted just as good as they looked. I only made a dozen of them, ate two, dad finished 8 of them, and poor mom only had the two last ones!

Recipe:

Ingredients:

20 pieces of wonton skin (round, the bigger size ones)
5 medium sized shrimp, shelled, deveined and cut into small cubes
Quarter of a small Chinese turnip (sengkuang), diced into small cubes, about 0.5 cm
6 or 7 stalks of Chinese chives, leave the top part of the leaves to tie the wonton (lightly boil in hot water), the rest chopped roughly
2 sprigs of coriander leaves, chopped
1 large clove of garlic, crushed and chopped
1 tbsp of soy sauce
1 tbsp of groundnut oil (for frying the wonton filling)
1 cup of groundnut oil (for deep frying the wonton)

Procedure:
1. Heat up a pan or wok, put in the 1 tbsp of groundnut oil then the garlic, followed by the Chinese turnip, shrimps, chopped chives and coriander.
2. Season with the soy sauce and cook till tender and sauce reduced. Dish out and leave to cool.
3. Put half a teaspoon of the turnip and shrimp into the centre of the wonton skin, fold and tie with the lightly boiled chinese chives.
4. Heat up a small pot with 1 cup of groundnut oil until the oil is really hot. Put in the wonton and fry till golden.
5. Drain off the oil from the wonton by using kitchen paper towels and serve with sweet chili sauce if desired.

Fried rice with chinese sausage

2007-08-31T23:46:00.000+08:00

More addiction to food photography. My friend said "You're not addicted to food photography, you're addicted to praises!" Well said, but not fully true. Praises means photos look good, photos look good means improvement. So its improvement I am after, and who knows, I may turn out to be one of the most creative and best food photographers in Malaysia. Am I nuts, ridiculously ambitious or what???

Well....aim for the sky, at least you'll fall on the trees. Good to be ambitious, at least there's a target to achieve and a goal to move towards to. I may not get there, but at least I've given my best, and I will have no regrets.

So here it is...my lunch today, left over rice from dinner yesterday, fried with Chinese sausage, diced carrots, fresh shiitake mushrooms, egg, garlic and spring onions. Simple but yummy!

Recipe (serves 2 persons):

Ingredients:
2 bowls of rice
1 piece of chinese sausage, sliced thinly
2 inch of carrot, diced
5 fresh shiitake mushrooms, quartered
1 egg, lightly whisked
1 sprig of spring onion
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1 tbsp of groundnut oil
1 tbsp of soy sauce

Procedure:
1. Heat up a pan/wok and pour in the oil, put the garlic, followed by the chinese sausage and carrot dices, fry lightly. Add the mushrooms and fry for another minute before adding the whisked egg.
3. Fry for about 2 minutes before adding the soy sauce. Stir evenly.
2. Put in the rice, stir and fry until even. Serve with chopped chili, garlic in soy sauce if desired.

Fresh berries and whipped cream sponge layers

2007-08-31T11:53:00.001+08:00

Was in the baking mood again, and picked another recipe from the same book that I used to make the whipped almond cake with mango mousse. This recipe is a lot easier (requires less time too, about 3 hours in total to bake and decorate), but the taste result was not as good as I anticipated, the sponge layer was a bit too hard and tough and I couldn't find kirsch and potato flour, so I had to adapt the recipe to what I could find. The photos look really good though, the berries turned out looking real juicy.

I've got the hang of whipping cream and whisking egg whites, so I think these are the biggest lessons I learned in this and last baking endeavours. So they are not that difficult after all! Just need practice (and practice, and practice....)

HOWEVER....it was very difficult to cut the cake as there were lots of berries (raspberries, strawberries, blueberries) in between the layers (soaked in whipped cream). It is a very expensive cake to make (just the berries themselves cost me RM 40! (about USD 13))

I chose this cake to bake because I wanted to shoot a vibrant-looking and colourful cake, the pictures turn out very well but I don't think I'll ever make this for someone's birthday or to sell it as I really don't know how it can be cut and served! I had so much trouble trying to cut a wedge and the tower tumbled right after I put the wedge on the plate! Oh well....

More obsession with food photography

2007-08-27T17:37:00.000+08:00

Oh dear...I must be addicted to food photography. I find myself constantly looking for food in and outside the house to shoot. Everytime I go to the supermarket, market or the night market, I'm always thinking of what to buy or cook to shoot. Came across these great looking small mandarin oranges at the night market yesterday, just simply couldn't resist buying them to shoot! Also bought 10 anjou pears so that I can bake them again to shoot the baked pears with vanilla ice cream photos, if I find time that is...

Whipped almond cake layered with mango mousse

2007-08-26T13:40:00.000+08:00

I was in a baking mood on Friday so I thought yesterday (Saturday) would be a good day to dedicate to baking. I wanted to make mango mousse cake but while going through my cake recipe books, I couldn't find one, so I adapted from a recipe that uses wine for the mousse filling and changed it to mango puree. I used fresh imported mango from Taiwan, and pureed the mango flesh with thickened cream.

It was the most labourius cake I've ever baked in my entire life. Baking itself took me 3 hours to complete, and chilling and decorating another 4 hours. But it was worth the effort I guess. The whipped cream went really well, I always have had phobia whipping cream to get them white, light and fluffy. This time around I used thickened cream (friend's suggestion) and whipped manually instead of using the mixer, and made sure everything used was icy cold. The end results turned out really well for the whipped cream.

As I am writing now, the cake is still not cut yet, waiting for my friend Sam to come over so that we could cut together and then take a sliced photo!

Anyway, posting the photos of the whole cake first, but will be back later with the sliced photo. I personally think that the cake looks really good, don't you agree? ;) (Looks like it walked out from a recipe book and waiting to be devoured on the computer screen hehe :P )

I feel like my photography skills have improved tremendously too, compared to my initial experience with the 350D. And I have a better understanding about lighting and polarizer filters now, thanks to my friend Sing Tek!

When Sam arrived, I quickly sliced the cake and took the photos. Lighting was not that good but I didn't bother because I couldn't wait to taste the cake! It tasted sooooooooooooo good, worth every single effort. The mango mousse was so light and creamy, and the flourless whipped almond cake was fantastic, light and not too sweet. The only shortcoming was not enough mango taste in the mousse, next time I will use one whole mango instead of half. The sliced photos (though difficult to get a clean cut):

Baked pears with chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream

2007-08-25T12:57:00.001+08:00

This dessert was served after the seared scallop dish, and it's very easy to make. The picture here looks ugly, but it tasted superb! The combination of the soft pear, chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream melting in your mouth is truly sublime!

Initially I wanted to find a recipe on the internet or go through my recipe books for a baked pears recipe but none seemed appealing or easy enough for me, so I created one myself.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

4 Anjou pears, skin peeled, leave the stalk intact
1/2 tsp of cinammon powder
1 tsp of vanilla extract
1 tbsp of honey
100g of dark chocolate, broken into small pieces (at least 70% cocoa solids, in my case I used Lindt)
1/3 cup of thick cream
vanilla ice-cream

Procedure:

1. Heat up oven at 180 C for about 20 minutes.

2. In the mean time, peel and prepare the pears. Mix the cinnammon powder with the honey and vanilla extract and rub all over the peeled pears using both hands.

3. Wrap the pears with aluminium foil thoroughly and stand them on a casserole before putting them into the oven. Bake for 30 - 45 minutes, until pears soften (use a fork to prick to make sure they are thoroughly soft and baked) and the flavours absorbed into them.

4. While waiting for the pears to be ready, melt the chocolate by putting it in a heat proof bowl over a small pot of water. Remove from the heat and stir in the cream.

5. Remove the pears from the oven and aluminium foil, pour the chocolate sauce over the pears and serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

The following are pictures from other better attempts of shooting:

Seared scallops with garlic mashed potato and butterred asparagus

2007-08-25T09:31:00.000+08:00

Made this for dinner on Thursday, August 23 for a shoot. Lighting was still a problem, but the dish tasted not too bad, except the gravy was a little too salty. This was served together with some rocket, cherry tomato, radish with white wine vinaigrette dressing, and sauteed button mushroom.

Recipe as follows, in order of preparation (serves 4 persons):

Garlic mashed potato

Ingredients:
3 Russett potatoes, scrub and cut into halves
full medium pot of water, about 1 litre
pinch of salt
4 cloves of garlic, roast in oven for about 10 minutes with 180 C
50 g of normal butter (not unsalted)
1/3 cup of cream (or milk)
salt and ground black pepper to taste

Procedure:

1. Boil the water with the pinch of salt and put in the halved potatoes, boil till tender and soft (prick using fork), pour the water away, leave to cool and peel off the skin. Put the peeled potatoes back into the pot, put the butter into the pot and cover for 5 minutes until the butter has melted.
2.Remove the skin of the roasted garlic, put them with the salt and ground black pepper into the pot with the potatoes and mash using a potato masher.
3. Add cream or milk and stir until you get a good consistency.

Seared scallops

Ingredients:

12 Frozen giant scallops thawed and dried with kitchen towels (if you can find fresh ones, that's even better), marinated with 1/4 teaspoon of salt, chopped fresh oregano and 1 tsp of lemon juice
2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp heap of plain flour mixed in 3/4 cup of water (to make gravy)
pinch of salt and grounded black pepper to taste

Procedure:
1. Heat pan till hot and pour in the olive oil, when the oil is hot enough, put in the scallops, sear on each side till golden brown, dish out on paper towels to drain the oil away. Leave aside.
2. Put the pan back onto the stove and heat up, mix the plain flour with the 3/4 cup of water and pour it in. Simmer for about 2 minutes, add salt and ground black pepper to taste.

Butterred asparagus

Ingredients:
16 stalks of asparagus (shoot only)
1 tbsp of butter

Procedure:

1. Heat up butter in a separate pan, and put in the asparagus, stir and cook lightly for about 2 minutes, dish aside.

Procedure to assemble:
1. Put the mashed potato on the base then the scallops, pour the gravy over and finally topped with the asparagus.

Durian and mangosteen feast

2007-08-25T08:54:00.000+08:00

Last Saturday (August 18, 2007) my family and I were invited to a durian feast organised by my kitchen cabinet builder, Signature Kitchen. So my parents, my friend/project manager Sam and I charged to the venue and attacked the durians like there was no tomorrow. Okay, maybe not me, as I was still sufferring from a coarse voice and cough so I did not dare to gobble down so many seeds as the Chinese say that durians are "heaty" for the body. I set my limit to only 5 seeds but in the end eaten 7 of them haha. Another reason was that I had to interpret for a conference after the durian feast so I couldn't risk losing my voice nor let my cough interrupt my voice while interpreting.

There were free flow durians served together with mangosteens. The durians were of first grade but we could only eat so much. Sam was the happiest among all, seemed like he was the one that enjoyed the session most and I actually did a rough count of how many seeds he ate....close to 20! Salute to you dude!

We left with a full tummy and a nauseous feeling...from durian overdose. But surely satisfied and hope to go back next year!

More food photos

2007-08-17T20:25:00.000+08:00

These are the types of food that I eat when I am sick .... (still coughing badly and haven't regained my voice :-( I talk for a living remember...being an interpreter, so no voice, no money!) Yesterday's breakfast: Blueberries, cherries, strawberry with yogurt and muesli. And beetroot, cucumber and carrot juice. Yesterday's lunch: Fish and minced pork porridge. Lunch today: Bitter melon and pork spare ribs stew.

Blueberries

2007-08-15T17:56:00.001+08:00

Just in the mood to shoot blueberries after looking at some nice food photos on flickr. Picture quality has improved, as I shot them using natural light, and some of them shot outside in the porch even!

Panfried salmon and cucumber cubes salad

2007-08-15T17:44:00.000+08:00

Here's a simple dish that I made to photograph: Panfried salmon and cucumber cubes salad.

Ingredients:

1. 100 g of salmon (sashimi grade), cut into small cubes measuring about 1 cm.

2. 1 Japanese cucumber, use a vegetable peeler to slice lengthwise, producing long thin strips, then cut half of the cucumber into cubes measuring about 0.5 cm.

3. half onion, cut into cubes of the size of the cucumber cubes.

4. 2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil.

5. 1 tsp. of balsamic vinegar

6. Two stalks of coriander (cilantro) leaves.

7. a few thinly sliced carrot, shredded thinly.

8. Salt and pepper to taste.

9. For dressing: Mix 1 tbsp of lemon juice, 1 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil and 1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar in a small bowl.

Procedure:

1. Heat up olive oil in a pan, put in the onions followed by the salmon and cucumber cubes.

2. Fry the salmon for about 5 minutes, or until cooked.

3. Pour in the 1 tsp of balsamic vinegar and add salt and pepper.

4. Arrange the thinly peeled cucumber strip into a circle, dish the salmon from the pan into the circle.

5. Garnish with the coriander leaves and thinly shredded carrot.

6. Pour the dressing outside of the circle.

Photo shooting mood

2007-08-13T21:01:00.000+08:00

Had the urge to shoot yesterday and today. I stole some food from mom's cooking and shot the stirfry chicken with ginger and onion from yesterday's lunch, and chinese cabbage, carrot, tomato and pork bone clear soup from today's lunch. I made a simple dish called panfried salmon and cucumber cubes salad and shot it in the late afternoon today.

Am still not that satisfied with the colours but I think my food photos have better composition now.

Cream of pumpkin and carrot soup with garlic and parsley butter toast

2007-08-11T00:03:00.000+08:00

Okay, here's the recipe for the pumpkin and carrot soup that I made the other day. I made again today for my friend from the leftover of the pumpkin from that day.

Ingredients (serves 2 - 3 persons):

1. Quarter of a pumpkin (small).
2. 1 stick of carrot (preferably organic, as it gives you more intense carrot taste)
3. 1 cup of water
4. salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
5. 2 pieces of white bread, crust trimmed and cut into 3 long pieces
6. 2 stalks of Italian parsley, chopped finely
7. 2 cloves of garlic (crushed finely)
8. 1 tbsp of butter
9. 1 tbsp of thickened cream
10. few chive leaves, chopped

Procedure:

1. Cut the pumpkin and carrot into 1 cm thick pieces and steam for about 30 minutes or until soft and mushy, turn off the fire.
2. Melt butter in a small pot and add the garlic, remove from heat then add the chopped parsley. Pour into a small bowl.
3. Let the garlic butter mixture to cool and spread on the white bread pieces.
4. Toast in the oven (180 C) for about 10 minutes.
5. While waiting for the toast to be ready, put steamed pumpkin and carrot into blender and add the water to blend till smooth.
6. Heat up a small pot and put in a small cube of butter, when it has melted, pour the pumpkin/carrot mixture into the pot and boil for about 5 minutes and add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
7. Pour the soup into bowls, pour the cream gently over the surface of the soup, sprinkle with the chopped chives, and serve hot with the garlic and parsley butter toast.

Sardine rolls

2007-08-10T08:46:00.000+08:00

Was not feeling well when I made and shot these. So I ended up baking only 6 of these, just enough to shoot haha. It was supposed to be meant for a demo for the sales guy who distributes Lowel Light in Malaysia but didn't end up shooting using that. This picture here is shot using my old set up before he came, as he was one hour late due to a car accident. Pastry a bit too thick but I was too sick (scorching sorethroat and fever) to bother about it haha...I didn't taste any of them because I could not even swallow. But my friends said they tasted okay...

The second picture was taken next to the window and did not use any reflectors so that's why you can see the harsh shadows. Oh well...learning learning....

Shooting for my photo portfolio

2007-08-06T02:02:00.000+08:00

Okay...today was the BIG day I have been waiting for...My friend Sing Teck came over to teach me how to set my EOS 350D properly to get rid of the "green tinge" that annoyed me for so so so long, and yay...it's gone now! He set up the proper white balance for me, and also the white balance shift/bkt setting...and no more green tinge now! So it was a great start to create photo portfolio for my new webpage so that I can start offerring food photography services!

But I still couldn't get the "warm" food photos that I've always wanted...and he told me it's the lighting...So I have to set up a lightbox next, for soft lighting effects!

Anyway...it was a long day today, I've planned for 5 different dishes (not including dessert) but only managed to cook 4. It was a long tiring day of cooking and shooting, so I decided to cut it short. But the best part was, we get to eat what I cooked! The pumpkin and carrot soup was fantastic, so was the claypot chicken rice. The seared scallops tasted really juicy and sweet, but unfortunately the mashed avocado was a bit bland...

The photos consist of (click on images for high-res pictures):

1. Stewed pork ribs with carrot and potatoes (from lunch, mom cooked but I took photos)

2. Stir-fry paku-pakis (edible wild ferns) with sambal.

3. Pumpkin and carrot soup served with garlic and parsley toast (really yummy, will share recipe later but not sure when haha...been too lazy lately)

4. Seared scallop with mashed avocado

5. Claypot chicken rice (but cooked in rice cooker)

6. Baked cheesecake

7. Bowl of cherries, strawberries and blueberries.

Chocolate chips cookies with pistachios and almonds

2007-08-05T11:18:00.000+08:00

It's been a long long time since I last posted. Have been really really busy and went through episodes of soul searching and emotional clean up. So here I am, back to cooking and photo shooting. The cookies are made using a recipe I adapted from a cookbook. Will post the recipe soon. More pictures coming up soon as I'm cooking up many dishes to shoot today. Finally decided to market my food photography services in a bigger way....so watch me!

Angel hair pasta with minced pork, swiss brown mushrooms in spicy tomato sauce

2007-06-15T09:04:00.000+08:00

Had the spur-of-the-moment urge to cook something to eat and shoot while I was doing some grocery shopping on Wednesday. Nowadays when I cook, I think whether the dish will taste and also look good in pictures, so I will always bear that in mind when I shop for ingredients.

Here's a simple and easy pasta that I cooked for lunch yesterday (Thursday June 14, 2007) that can be ready in about 30 mins (including preparation, but not including picture taking! I only had the luxury of 30 mins before I had to quickly eat and rush for an interpreting assignment).

If you don't like pork (or can't eat it due to religious reasons), you can substitute with minced lamb, beef, or even prawns, seafood and sliced sausages!

Ingredients:

Angel hair pasta enough for 2 persons (or you can use linguine, penne or other types of pasta instead)

10 pieces of baby swiss brown mushrooms (the small ones are firmer), sliced thinly

100 g of minced pork (marinated with pinch of salt)

1 medium onion (thinly chopped)

4 cloves of garlic (crushed and chopped)

1/2 can of chopped tomatoes (Italian Roma tomatoes)

3 sprigs of Italian parsley (coarsely chopped)

3 tablespoon of cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil

salt and organic cane sugar to taste

1/2 teaspoon of dried chili flakes

pinch of dried thyme

4 pieces of bay leaves

shaved parmesan cheese

Procedure:

1. Heat olive oil in a deep pan, put in garlic and onion and fry for about one minute, add thyme and bay leaves, chili flakes then minced pork. Fry for another 2 minutes and add the mushrooms. Leave for 2 minutes before adding the chopped tomatoes.

2. Leave to simmer using low heat for about 10 mins or when the sauce is reduced.

3. While waiting for the sauce to be ready, boil water in a pot for the pasta. Put in the pasta after the water has boiled and add a pinch of salt to the boiling water. The pasta should be ready in about 3 - 5 mins (al dente). Scoop out the pasta and pour a little olive oil over them so that they wont stick together.

4. Check on the sauce, add the chopped Italian parsley and put in the salt and sugar to taste. Pour the sauce over the pasta on a plate and serve immediately with remaining chopped Italian parsley and shaved parmesan cheese.

Note: I learned this from a friend: Never used canned tomato sauce or puree to cook tomato-based pasta! You can either use canned chopped Roma tomatoes (long, oval shape), canned whole peeled Roma tomatoes or canned cherry tomatoes. Well you can always make it fresh but I find that it's too expensve (fresh Roma tomatoes cost a bomb!) and troublesome. I find that the best results come from using chopped tomatoes and it's more convenient too (already chopped, if you use whole peeled tomatoes, you have to mash them up in the pan).

Panfried Rock lobster with butter, served with baby desiree potatoes in lemon juice and italian parsley

2007-05-20T13:05:00.000+08:00

Finally back to posting after a long silence. Been travelling in Shanghai and Taiwan for a conference interpreting assignment and have been dead busy after I got back on May 2. I did not really have the mood to cook after I got back from Taiwan.

Anyway, my friend/interpreter Sam bought some rock lobster meat for me from Sabah (East Malaysia), and I managed to squeeze time to cook them amidst my busy schedule, as he and I are flying to Singapore this coming Monday, May 21, for another conference interpreting assignment in Singapore (can't wait to try the chili crabs!).

Mom cooked two other veggie dishes and I also made the Asian marinated beef steak salad that I last posted before this post. The Asian marinated beef steak salad is a fool-proof dish as it never fails even though I've made it for 3 times. And the beauty is that you can always adjust to your taste bud.

Recipe for pan-fried rock lobster meat (also known as balmain bug in Australia) with butter, served with baby desiree potatoes in lemon juice and italian parsley

Ingredients:

About 10 pieces of shelled rock lobster meat
5 baby desiree potatoes (or any waxy potatoes), boiled, peeled and cut into halves
2 stalks of italian parsley, finely chopped
2 tbsp lemon juice
Shredded lemon peel (1 tsp)
Salt and ground black pepper to taste
2 cloves of chopped garlic
1 tsp of honey

Procedure:

1. For the rock lobster, marinate the rock lobster meat with a little salt and gound black pepper. Pour away any access water and pan fry with about 50g of butter. Fry till rock lobster meat becomes brown and dish out.
2. Put the halved boiled and peeled baby potatoes into the same pan, add garlic and chopped italian parsley and lemon peel. Put in pinch of salt, groud black pepper to taste, and honey. Fry till brown and dish out to serve with the rock lobster meat.

Here's the unorganized version of the Asian marinated beef steak salad recipe:

1. Marinate the steak with finely chopped ginger, 1 tbspoon of soy sauce, 1 tbspoon of peanut oil and freshly ground black pepper for about 30 mins.

2. While waiting, toast a handful of pistachios (deshelled) in a pan on the stove for about 5 – 8 mins. Leave to cool and chop the pistachios into smaller pieces. You can also use roasted almonds (roast in the oven) but I find that pistachios taste better.

3. For the dressing, you need 3 cloves of chopped garlic, juice from one lime, 1 tbsp of soy sauce, 1 teaspoon of organic cane sugar.

4. Pan fry the steak on both sides for about 5 mins on each side (medium rare), well done about 8 mins I think on each side. Pour all the marinate into the pan when its almost done. Dish out the steak, leave to cool, and slice thinly.

5. Then pour in about 2 tbsp of peanut oil, fry the garlic and pour in the soy sauce and cane sugar into the juices of the steak in the pan. Then add in the lime juice. If you like it hot, you can put in chopped red chilies.

6. For the salad, you need 2 cups of watercress leaves, 2 stalks of coriander leaves, thinly sliced onion rings and chopped cherry tomatoes if you like. Toss the salad dressing in the pan with the leaves, onion rings, tomatoes and the thinly sliced steak. Sprinkle with the pistachios and enjoy!

Additional recipe: Angel hair pasta with garlic, chili flakes, button mushroom, white wine and king prawns and toasted pine nuts. (picture can be seen in the previous post, but without king prawns)

Ingredients:

Angel hair pasta enough to serve for 4 persons
1/4 cup of toasted pine nuts (toast them lightly in a pan on the stove)
5 cloves of garlic, crushed
10 medium white button mushrooms, sliced
1/2 teaspoon of dried chili flakes
one bunch of italian parsley, about 5 - 8 sprigs, chopped
12 king prawns, cleaned, shelled and deveined
1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup of dry white wine (optional)
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste shredded parmesan cheese

Procedure:

1. Boil pasta in water until tenderly cooked, usually takes about 10 - 15 minutes for angel hair pasta. Dish them out when done.

2. Fry the olive oil with garlic and chili flakes, put in the sliced mushroom then followed by the white wine and prawns. Sautee for about 8 - 10 minutes and put in the pasta, fry for another 2 or 3 minutes until evenly mixed.

3. Put in the chopped italian parsley, dish out the ready pasta and sprinkle with the toasted pine nuts, parmesan cheese and fresh chopped italian parsley (for garnishing) before serving and enjoy!

April 2, 2007 lunch and dinner

2007-04-08T09:05:00.000+08:00

I was in the mood to cook and shoot, since my folks were out of town, made my job a lot easier hehe! Didn't have time to post though, as I was really busy throughout the week. I made marinated steak, water cress and coriander salad with asian dressing, topped with toasted pistachios for lunch; and for dinner, I invited my friends, MaeV and Sam over for a quick one. I started cooking only at 7.45 pm and because I was so hungry, managed to get it done real fast in 45 minutes! I cooked garlic, button mushrooms, Italian parsley and pine nuts angel hair pasta; and avocado, tomato, watercress salad topped with balsamic vinaigrette and toasted pistachios.

I'm still very busy now, preparing for my medical meeting interpreting in Shanghai and Taipei, so I'm just going to post the pictures now and hope to come up with the recipes later. The recipe for the marinated steak salad was inspired by a picture that I saw on someone else's blog, but modified it a little to suit my taste.

I made the marinated steak salad again yesterday (April 7, 2007) for lunch, using the leftover ingredients from Monday. The second attempt had chopped cherry tomatoes sprinkled on top too...

Marinated steak, water cress and coriander salad with asian dressing, topped with toasted pistachios

Marinated steak, water cress and coriander salad with asian dressing, topped with toasted pistachios

Garlic, button mushrooms, Italian parsley and pine nuts angel hair pasta

Avocado, tomato, watercress salad topped with balsamic vinaigrette and toasted pistachios

Second attempt of marinated steak, water cress and coriander salad with asian dressing, topped with toasted pistachios and chopped cherry tomatoes

Curries and pastes - second batch of food packaging photos

2007-03-27T19:35:00.000+08:00

Here are the second batches of the curries and pastes food packaging photos, shot last Sunday, March 25, 2007. I was recovering from a horrible flu and I guess was not at my peak form to shoot good photos. The photos turned out to be more suitable for magazine shots instead, albeit a bit dark.

There were instant pastes for nasi lemak sambal, prawn mee, chicken curry, fish curry, and curry laksa. As usual, my cousin who needed the service cooked and styled everything, while I just shot the photos. Took a longer time to shoot and convert the pictures as I was very tired and there were more products.

Curry Chicken

Nasi Lemak

Prawn mee

Curry laksa

Breakfast: Bacon & fried eggs, roasted rosemary and garlic potatoes, toast and tomato & lettuce salad

2007-03-17T17:11:00.000+08:00

This was a spur-of-the-moment creation for breakfast today (March 17, 2007). I was supposed to go out for fish head noodles for breakfast today with a friend before heading to KLIA POS Malaysia to collect a parcel from the US (needed customs clearance apparently) but it was raining heavily and he had to run some errands for his friend so I managed to find some stuff in the refrigerator to come up with this. Tasted quite good except that the roasted potatoes were a bit too salty.

Pictures here taken without studio lighting and tripod, just with my external flash.

Recipe for roasted rosemary and garlic potatoes

Ingredients
5 or 6 small waxy potatoes (I used the pink skin ones, which can be found at Bangsar Village's Village Grocer, Cold Storage and Jusco)
1 sprig of rosemary
3 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
pinch of salt

Procedure
1. Preheat the oven for 20 mins (at 180C)
2. Clean the potatoes and cut into 4 quarters, leave the skin intact.
3. Chop the rosemary leaves and garlic finely.
4. Add the rosemary, garlic, salt and olive oil to the potatoes, mix till even.
5. Roast the potatoes for about 20 minutes, serve hot.

Curries...shot to get paid! Woo hoo...I'm "OFFICIALLY" a food photographer

2007-03-11T21:17:00.000+08:00

The BIG DAY in my professional food photography journey. My cousin has approached me to help her take some food photos to used for product packaging. Her company sells packaged instant curry pastes. I bought a new studio lighting a couple of days ago just so that I can get to shoot these photos properly. On Friday night I was trying to get the lighting working and really had trouble getting the effects done properly. Thanks to Sam's suggestion (my interpreter), I managed to make it run properly, and by the time I figured out...it was already past midnight! Oh well, certainly worth the time I guess.

I didnt get paid much for this but now at least I can claim that I shoot food photographs professionally (even on a freelance basis hehe)! The lighting helped quite a bit. Took me like 3 hours to shoot for the 3 curry paste products, and another 3 hours to go through the photos, converted to JPGs from RAW files and burn the CDs.

Let me know what you think of the photos, would love to have feedback! Thanks Sam for the reminder on using the flash function of the lighting! P.S. Kindly DO NOT use these photos for any purposes as you and I can be sued if found to use these pictures. Sorry guys!

I

My signature dish - Asam laksa (Rice noodles in spicy and sour fish soup Penang style)

2007-03-04T13:24:00.000+08:00

Finally, pictures of my signature dish - Asam laksa (Rice noodles in spicy and sour fish soup Penang style) . And since I do not have much time today to post the recipe (it's way too complicated, needs about like 20 ingredients to make this soup noodles). And its the first time I take pictures of this dish as well. Made it for my mom's friends, my neighbours, cousins (and their kids), and a few of my friends for the final Chinese New Year open house thingy..

Shredded white radish, carrot, green mango and red radish salad

2007-03-01T13:47:00.000+08:00

A good way to dispose leftover ingredients...I made this from the leftover ingredients for the Italian dinner on Monday, mainly shredded carrots, radish, green mango, red radish, yellow bell pepper, and coriander. The salad dressing was made from fish sauce, lime juice, organic cane sugar and shallots. (Fried the thinly sliced shallots with peanut oil, then add the rest of the ingredients). Sprinkle some toasted white sesame, pistachios and chopped macadamia nuts (leftover from the baked chocolate pudding) onto the salad before serving.

4-course Italian dinner

2007-02-27T14:22:00.000+08:00

Made this dinner for my tech guy with his wife who is back from Germany for Chinese New Year holidays . He gave me a set of J.A. HENCKELS INTERNATIONAL knives and a knife sharpener for my birthday this year, so I promised him that I would cook a proper meal for him with his knives. The menu: Starter - Mango avocado crab cake served with citrus salad dressed with toasted almond flakes; Main dishes - Pesto linguine with pan-fried bacon wrapped king prawns; roasted baby potatoes, pumpkin, baby swiss brown mushrooms and white onions in fresh Rosemary, Thyme, sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and olive oil; Dessert - Jamie Oliver's Baked chocolate pudding.

Starter - Mango avocado crab cake served with citrus salad dressed with toasted almond flakes

Assembling the mango avocado crab cake

Pesto linguine with pan-fried bacon wrapped king prawns. Unfortunately the pesto did not have enough salt so it turned out quite bland.

Roasted baby potatoes, pumpkin, baby swiss brown mushrooms and white onions in fresh Rosemary, Thyme, sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and olive oil

Jamie Oliver's Baked chocolate pudding. Forgot to put the caster sugar in and didn't turn out the way it should be, but oh well, there's always room for improvement.

Hainanese Chicken Rice (cooked with free-range chicken fed on organic grass land)

2007-02-26T14:02:00.001+08:00

Cooked this for lunch yesterday (February 25, 2007). Served with ginger garlic chili sauce. Recipe follows next time! Laptop running out of battery and have to cook a 4-course Italian dinner tonight for my translator and his wife who is back from Germany for holidays, using the knives he gave me as birthday present!

(Updated on Feb 28, 2007) Okay, here's the "rough" recipe for the poached chicken and the rice. Not quite sure how the "genuine" hainanese chicken rice is prepared, but this is my version of the recipe! :P

Poached chicken

Ingredients
1. 1 whole free range chicken (some people call it kampung chicken or village chicken), preferably between 1.5 to 2 kgs in weight, then it tastes more flavourful as the chicken is more developed.
2. Enough water to poach the chicken
3. 2 tbsp of sea salt
4. 1 cucumber, skin peeled
5. Shredded spring onions and coriander for garnishing

Procedure
1. Clean the inside of the chicken under running water, rub the inside with about 1 tbsp of sea salt, leave for about 5 mins.
2. Boil water in a big pot, enough to cover the chicken. When the water is boiling, put in the chicken and the remaining sea salt.
3. Poach for about 20 minutes then turn the chicken to its other side, reduce the flame. Continue poaching the other side for about 10 minutes or until a chopstick can poke through the chicken - an indication that the chicken is cooked.
4. Remove the chicken from the pot and leave aside to cool before chopping chicken into smaller pieces. Collect the juices dripped from the chicken on the plate, which will be used to make the garlic and coriander soy sauce later.
5. Cut the cucumber into half lengthwise. Slice thinly in 45 degrees slanting, about 3 - 4 mm thick. Put the cucumber slices on an oval plate and transfer the chopped chicken onto the plate. The shredded spring onions and coriander is sprinkled on the chicken just before serving.
5. In the meantime, prepare the rice for cooking. The stock is then used to cook the rice and the remaining served as soup (add a bit more salt and some white pepper powder for more flavour) together with the chicken and rice later.

Ingredients for cooking rice
1. 2 cups of basmati rice, rinsed 2 times with water
2. 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
3. 3 tbsp of cooking oil (best to use blended oil containing groundnuts)
4. 1 tbsp of butter (optional, but tastes better with it, can be fattenning ;))
5. 1 tbsp of salt
6. approximately 3 cups of chicken stock (from the poached chicken in the pot), depending on how soft you want the rice to be.

Procedure for cooking rice
1. Heat up the cooking oil (and butter) in the wok (or pan), put in the garlic and fry for about 30 seconds before putting in the salt and the rice.
2. Continue frying for about 3 minutes or until the rice blends well with the oil, butter, salt and garlic. The pleasant savoury smell is a good indication that the rice is ready to be cooked in the rice cooker now.
3. Remove the rice from the wok and transfer into the rice cooker.
4. Pour in the stock from poaching the chicken into the rice cooker, when the rice is almost cooked, stir it so that it is evenly cooked.

Garlic and coriander soy sauce (to be served on the chicken before eating)

Ingredients
1. 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2. 3 stalks of coriander, finely shredded
3. 3 tbsp of light sweet soy sauce (just add a little sugar to light soy sauce)
4. Approximately half a cup of cooking oil

Procedure
1. Heat the oil in the wok, fry garlic till golden.
2. Turn off the heat and put in the coriander.
3. Dish out from the wok into a bowl, add in the dripped juices from the chicken collected in the plate and add the soy sauce just before serving.

Ginger and garlic chili sauce

Ingredients
1. 4 red chilis
2. 2 small fiery hot chilis
3. 3 cloves of garlic
4. 2 cm square of younger ginger
5. 1 tsp of sea salt
6. 1 tbsp of sugar (in my case, I used organic cane sugar)
7. 2 tbsp of vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar)
8. juice of 3 kalamansi lime juice (limau kasturi)
9. 1/4 cup of water

Procedure
1. Put all the ingredients (except for vinegar, sugar, sea salt and lime juice) in the blender and blend till finely chopped.
2. Pour the blended mixture into a pan over low heat, add sugar, salt, vinegar and the lime juice. It is advisable not to put in all the salt and sugar at once, taste first before you decide if you want more or less of the sugar and salt.
3. Heat for another 1 minute and turn off the heat, leave to cool.

Serving the chicken with the rice
1. Sprinkle with the shredded spring onions and coriander. Pour the garlic coriander soy sauce over the chopped chicken just before serving.
2. Serve with the rice, ginger and garlic chili sauce, and soup. You can sprinkle some chopped spring onions into the soup if you like.

Chinese New Year dinner cooked for a friend - yes, chicken wings again!

2007-02-22T18:06:00.000+08:00

Here's the improved image and flavour of the grilled chicken wings...and this time marinated with chives as well. Brushed a layer of honey over the wings 5 minutes before it was done...tasted sweeter and more flavourful this time cuz I marinated with more lemon juice, garlic and sea salt haha. Also made a radish-romaine lettuce-tangerine-roasted cashew nuts-tomato salad and CY's style seafood marinara pasta (linguine).

The seafood marinara pasta was made from canned whole plum tomatoes, chili flakes, giant prawns, mussels, squids, chopped garlic, onion, bay leaves, thyme, ground black pepper, sea salt and organic cane sugar; and topped with shredded parmesan cheese and italian parsley.

Dinner was finished off with a cup of coffee (instant 3-in-1 coffee unfortunately, don't have a coffee making machine!) with coffee macadamia chocolate chip cookies (made for Chinese New Year).

Kerabu mango (spicy mango salad); grilled chicken wings; poached broccolini with fried garlic slices

2007-02-13T16:00:00.000+08:00

Cooked this for Sunday lunch on February 11, 2007. The grilled chicken wings turned out to be not salty enough, from the point of view of general laymen. I myself prefer it that way, so that I can savour the true taste of the chicken wings. I have not had internet connection for ages...so that's why I have not been updating my blog...oh well...

Recipe for the poached broccolini and grilled chicken wings will hopefully follow later!

Okay, here's the recipe for the grilled chicken wings. Am now writing from below the leaning tower in Teluk Intan, Perak. Unbelievable...the town council has installed a wifi router for free internet access!

Grilled chicken wings marinated with fresh rosemary, lemon zest and juice, crushed raw garlic, honey, freshly ground black pepper, and salt

Ingredients

3 springs of rosemary leaves, finely chopped.

1 tbsp of honey

2 tbsp of lemon juice

1 tsp of lemon zest

2 tsp of sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

4 cloves of finely crushed garlic

10 pieces of large chicken wings

Procedure:

1. Marinate chicken wings for about 2 hours with all the other ingredients.

2. Preheat oven at 180 C for about 30 minutes.

3. Grill for about 20 minutes or until chicken wings turn golden brown.

4. Serve with sweet chili sauce if desired.

Sweet chili sauce

Ingredients:

3 red chilis

2 small fiery hot red chilis

3 cloves of garlic

3 shallots

1 tsp of corn flour

1 tbsp flat of organic raw cane sugar

salt to taste

juice of 3 kalamansi lime (kasturi)

1/2 cup of water

Procedure:

1. Put red chilis, small hot chilis, garlic and shallots into food processor and chop till fine.

2. Heat up wok, put in 3/4 of the water into the pan and pour the chopped ingredients into the pan, heat till boiling.

3. Mix sugar, salt, kalamansi lime juice and remaining water with the corn flour, and pour into the pan.

4. Stir till mixture gets thick and reduced.

5. Leave to cool and serve with the grilled chicken wings.

More pictures on New Year Eve dinner

2007-01-07T15:00:00.000+08:00

Scrambled eggs and sauteed button mushroom with olive oil and balsamic vinegar bruschetta

Australian arugula and korean pear salad with garlic, italian parseley, honey, lemon and white wine vinaigrette, topped with shredded parmesan cheese

Grilled garlic, chili and butter tiger prawns

Linguine with minced lamb and button mushrooms in chardonnay and coriander sauce

Thanks Adam for your pictures!

Old picture of me and my dog Sunnie

2007-01-04T13:14:00.000+08:00

As I was clearing up my stuff to move to the new house, I found an article which me and my dog Sunnie were featured in Marie Claire magazine in 2005. Look at my hair! Dark, long and thick! Now I only have half of that left....sob sob...

New Year Eve 2007 Dinner and Wine: First dinner cooked in new house - Rosemary roasted potatoes, chicken thigh and a whole lot of other stuff

2007-01-03T12:52:00.000+08:00

This is the first dinner cooked at my new house/kitchen. Invited a bunch of friends over for the dinner. Made like 8 dishes but did not have time to photograph all, just manage to shoot two of them - rosemary roasted chicken thigh, and rosemary and honey roasted baby potatoes. The menu consisted of the following:

APPETIZER:
Smoked salmon, avocado salsa and ricotta cheese bruschetta

Scrambled eggs and sauteed button mushroom with olive oil and balsamic vinegar bruschetta

MAIN COURSE:
Rosemary roasted chicken thigh

Rosemary and honey roasted baby potatoes

Linguine with minced lamb and button mushrooms in chardonnay and coriander sauce

Australian arugula and korean pear salad with garlic, italian parseley, honey, lemon and white wine vinaigrette, topped with shredded parmesan cheese

Grilled garlic, chili and butter tiger prawns

DESSERT:

Vanilla ice-cream topped with Lindt chocolate sauce, whisky marinated strawberries and roasted pistachio nuts

Special thanks to all those who dropped by to officiate the first dinner cooked in my new kitchen: Samuel, Jega, Lei Kuen, Adam & friends (not sure of their names - Swee Chin, Tze Wei and Alan (I think) and MaeV. And also for their contribution in bringing beer and drinks, and helping me finish all the food! May you be blessed and happy! Sorry for not having time to entertain you guys before the dinner began and instead making Samuel and Jega helping me instead haha...And lastly, a BIG BIG BIG thank you to MaeV for helping me wash the dishes (life saver you are!)!

Spicy Thai Green Mango Salad

2006-11-25T09:50:00.000+08:00

Sorry for not keeping to my words that I would be posting the recipe of the braised pork belly with yam. Have been crazily busy over the past two weeks. Anyway, here's a new dish that I adapted from a recipe online. Modified the ingredients a bit, to cater to what was available in my refrigerator. This is a really easy dish to make, the key of success lies in the right type of mangoes. But can be a bit time consuming, as a lot of slicing and cutting is involved.

I have always been yearning to make this dish but never had the chance to get the right mangoes. The mangoes that I previously bought were either tasteless or infested by worms when I cut them. You will need unripe sourish sweet mangoes but the flesh should be preferably yellowish (turning orange) but still very firm. This creates the best taste.

Here are the ingredients I used:
PART A
1. 2 medium sized unripe mango - shredded thinly. You can use a shredder but for best aesthetics and mouthfeel, use a sharp knife to slice thinly (about 2 - 3mm thick) and then cut into thin strips.
2. Dried cuttle fish - 2 - 3 pieces, seasoned and ready to be eaten. I bought this from the night market. Tear up the cuttle fish into small pieces.
3. Ginger flowers (Bunga kantan) - you just need a few petals, slice really thinly, about 1 mm wide and 10 mm long.
4. Half a lemon grass - cut the lemon grass length wise and slice really thinly.
5. 2 - 3 stalks of coriander leaves, only use the leaves.
6. 3 - 4 chili padi (small fiery hot chilies)
7. 2 tbsp roasted crushed peanuts (optional)

PART B
1. 4 shallots, thinly sliced
2. 3 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
3. 1 tbsp of fish sauce
4. 2 tsp of organic cane sugar
5. 1 tsp of sea salt
6. 2 tbsp of cooking oil (groundnut oil is the best)
7. Juice of 2 kalamansi lime (limau kasturi)
8. Dried shrimps (1 tbsp) - soaked before using.

Steps:
1. Prepare all the ingredients in PART A and mix together (except for dried cuttle fish, roasted peanuts and coriander leaves) in a big bowl.
2. Heat the cooking oil in pan before adding the shallots and garlic. Fry till golden, add the dried shrimps and fry for another 1 minute. Add the rest of the PART B ingrediets (mix them in a bowl first before adding to the wok) and heat for about 1 minute. Turn off the fire and dish out the sauce, mix into the big bowl with all the PART A ingredients.
3. Stir the salad evenly, and transfer to a plate. Garnish with coriander leaves and dried cuttle fish. If you like peanuts, sprinkle with roasted crushed peanuts. The peanuts I had in the fridge were too old and moldy so I decided to omit them. But the salad tasted just as good!

Results of experiment:
Yummy yummy! A very appetising salad with vibrant colours, good subject for food photography! The slight pungent ginger flower and lemon grass really spiced up the dish's aroma and flavour!

This version uses riper mangoes and crushed roasted peanuts. Didn't taste that good because the mangoes were too ripe :-(

Braised pork belly with yam

2006-11-10T09:18:00.000+08:00

This is a really time consuming dish.

Took me 4 hours in total yesterday before the dish was finally served on the dinner table. It was meant to be lunch but ended up being dinner! :-S

I am a die-hard fan of this dish, partly because of the yam and the fattenning layers of the pork belly and the gravy, yummy yummy! I know I know, evil but tastes oh so good. This is a rather popular Chinese dish in Malaysia, originated from China (with different variations across the country). I've only eaten it at restaurants or roadside stalls but never cooked. So this was my first attempt!

Found the recipe on the net, but it was in Chinese. Will try to put up the recipe in English soon!

The end result was not too bad, except that the skin of the pork was still a bit tough after steaming for 2 hours, the taste was pretty good though!

Close encounter with Michael Wong (Guang Liang - 光良) - more pictures (click pictures for larger versions)

2006-11-05T01:45:00.000+08:00

For some weird reasons, I couldn't upload any more photos after I've published the post, so here are some more pictures.

The pictures of Guang Liang giving his speech, I was just right in front of the podium, cool man!

Guang Liang taken together with my client, Tan Lay Seong.

Close encounter with Michael Wong (Guang Liang - 光良)

2006-11-05T00:41:00.000+08:00

Okay, I know this has nothing much to do with cooking but I'm just very inspired by him after spending a whole afternoon and evening "with" him and thought I have to pen it down.

Guang Liang is the honorary recipient for the Outstanding Young Malaysian Awards 2006 in the category of Cultural Achievement. I've always admired his talents, and have listened to his songs from his first album till now. What I admire about him, is not just his music talents, but his perseverance and passion about what he does best, and also his constant strive for perfection, ensuring that he only produces the best piece of music.

For those who don't know him, Guang Liang is a popular Chinese Malaysian singer and songwriter who is also internationally popular in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and China; and has won numerous important music awards held locally and in the above mentioned countries. He was also the first Malaysian singer who has his concert held in Hong Kong Coliseum, the largest indoor stadium in Hong Kong.

Actually my client for a book I translated recently is the merit certificate recipient for the personal achievement and development category, so I had a free ticket to the dinner cum award presentation. The press conference was held in the afternoon before the dinner and I had the chance of sitting just 3 feet away from Guang Liang, lucky me! I was actually there to help take pictures for my client but spent more time looking and taking pictures of Guang Liang instead haha.

The award presentation was very inspirational, not that it makes me want to be world and Malaysia famous like Guang Liang, but it has inspired me that I should do something for the less fortunate. Which is where cooking comes in. I've wanted to be able to feed the poor and the less fortunate for free. Hopefully this will one day become a reality. I believe that what I have today is a result of what I've done in the past, and deep down inside, I know I have a mission to accomplish, not just for myself, but for the society at large.

My new kitchen will hopefully be a place to cook for charity, without asking for anything in return. It will also be a place that people can come in to experiment new recipes and get together with friends, loved ones, or like-minded people. It's not difficult by the sound of it, but what is tough is how to implement and sustain it.

I am a firm believer in the power of dreams. Without a dream, your wish will never come true. When I first started as a full-time interpreter, I set a resolution that I wanted to become the most sought after interpreter in Malaysia in five years' time. Two and a half years have passed, while I'm not sure if I am already in that position, I have already carved a name for myself in the interpreting profession. When you have a dream, coupled with hard work and perserverance, it will become a reality some day. Just like what my ex has said, and has become a principle that I practise: "Don't try your best, DO your best," and you will definitely be there, one day.

Seared scallops with gingered oyster sauce and soy sauce

2006-11-02T09:54:00.000+08:00

Created this a couple of weeks back. A really expensive dish. A few days before I made this, I had a painful experience of being cheated with "fake scallops" that tasted rubbery and chewy (would not tear even if u chew hard) at the wet market. So this one is the REAL scallops that I bought from Village Grocer in Bangsar Village.

Ingredients (Serves 3):
9 jumbo size scallops, pat dry using kitchen paper towel (defrost if frozen)
1/2 cup groundnut oil
10 thin young ginger slices, shredded thinly
2 sprigs of spring onion
2 sprigs of coriander (cilantro)
1/2 red chili for garnishing
Light soya sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp oyster sauce

Steps
1. Thinly shred the spring onions into 2 inch long strips and tear up the cilantro. Clean the seeds of the red chili and shred it thinly into 2 cm long strips. Soak the spring onion and red chili in water (preferably purified) for about 30 mins to get a curling effect.
2. In a wok (you can use a pan if you don't have a wok), heat up half of the groundnut oil, sesame oil and add in the shredded ginger, fry till golden. Dish out the oil and ginger and leave in a small bowl.
3. Heat up pan, heat the remaining groundnut oil and add in the scallops.
4. Sear the scallops until golden on each side, takes about 2-3 minutes for each side. Dish out the scallops, drain the oil on some kitchen paper towels, and arrange 3 scallops on each scallop shell (in my case, the shells came from Sydney when I was there for work early this year). If you don't have the scallop shells, no worries! You can use white Chinese soup spoons instead, like what you see in my "Props hunting day" post.

5. Mix the groundnut oil with fried ginger strips with light soya sauce and oyster sauce. Pour the sauce mixture over the scallops and garnish with the spring onions, coriander and chili strips.

Note: It is best to get a good quality light soya sauce that is not too salty. Otherwise, it will taste too overpowering and you will not get to taste the scallops well.

Fake "scallops" version, created a few days before the REAL scallops (without additional lighting, just built-in flash):

Props hunting day

2006-11-01T12:27:00.000+08:00

This was meant to be written for yesterday but I was too tired after reaching home and had to wake up like 6 am this morning. Yesterday went to Ikea and Jaya Jusco in MidValley Megamall to hunt for props. Not that I needed them urgently, but just wanted to satisfy my craze for the white Chinese soup spoons and wooden chopsticks to be part of my props. Ikea was for lighting. I have a simple lighting temporarily set up while waiting the right time (money and space concerns) to get proper studio lighting for food photography.

Props are a very important part of my food photography endeavour. They make my food creation more appealing, creative and different (or ruin it otherwise). Plus I get bored of the old ones pretty fast so I have to keep getting new stuff haha. Those I bought yesterday were specially selected for Chinese and Asian dishes, to give them a oriental feel.

The results? Four white chinese soup spoons, ten pairs of sandalwood chopsticks, one piece of orangy red table napkin and a cheap halogen table lamp from Ikea. Oh, not forgetting a piece of acrylic table top (marble-like) and rejected laminated wood kitchen cabinet door given for free from my kitchen cabinet builder, can use as background for my creations. Yay...happy happy!

Grilled lobster with parmesan cheese

2006-10-31T09:28:00.000+08:00

This was created together with the chili crab on Father's Day. It was a totally coincidental creation as the lobsters were selling really cheap at the market, about RM 50 (about USD 13.50) a kilogram, so I bought two of them (A bigger one and a smaller one, total cost about RM 75 (USD 20.30)). Again, a first-time attempt. The results were so-so, but okay for a first attempt. The taste is a combo of asian (curry leaves, ginger) and west (parmesan cheese, parsley), which can taste a bit weird for some people. My personal opinion is that it needs to be improved further haha...

Word of caution: Shelling the lobster is a bit tricky and you need a lot of strength to do it. What I did was I used a big Chinese chopper and hit it with a mortar's pestle to break the shell into two. Make sure you do this on a solid and hard surface so that you don't break it!

Ingredients:

2 tbsp of butter
2 stalks of curry leaves
Chopped ginger and garlic
Chopped Italian parsley (added to parmesan cheese)
Shaved parmesan cheese
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
½ tsp of brown sugar

Steps:
1. Heat up oven (around 180C) .
2. Boil lobster and cut lobster into two (vertically), get the flesh out from the shell and slice into 1 inch cube.
3. Melt butter in pan, fry lobster meat together with curry leaves, ginger and garlic.
4. Add salt, pepper and sugar to the lobster.
5. Scoop lobster meat into the shell and top with parmesan cheese + parsley mixture and grill for 30 minutes.

After thought: This dish and the chili crab is a good example of "cooking heals love and relationship." These two dishes were specially created for Father's Day, all of us happily gathered at the dining table when the dishes were ready. My dad finished every single piece on the plates!

Chili Crab

2006-10-30T22:34:00.000+08:00

Okay, I have to admit this is not an original creation. The original recipe was from somewhere on the web, can't recall where it was from, but I altered the recipe a little bit here and there to make it simpler to cook for me. First time cooking chili crab, it was created on Father's Day this year (2006), together with grilled lobster (recipe follows later, time for bed now! It's 11 pm and drove 3.5 hours in the rain from my home town today) and some stir-fry watercress shoots. Picture not very good as it was taken using my Sony Ericsson k750i, my Canon EOS 350D has not arrived then.

Perhaps when I see fresh crabs in the market next time I will recreate (or improve on) the recipe. I used blue swimmer crabs but I guess it will taste better with fresh mud crabs.

First time cooking chili crab was not too bad, tasted quite yummy actually. If you like more gravy, you can add in slightly more water into (B).

Ingredients:
Sauce (A)
3 fresh red chilies, deseeded
5 dry chilies, deseeded and soaked for about 30 minutes
5 shallots
5 cloves of garlic
2 cm cube of belacan (prawn paste)
Juice of 3 kalamansi (kasturi) lime

Sauce (B)
1/2 cup of tomato ketchup
1/2 tsp of sugar (or to taste)
1/2 tsp of salt (or to taste)
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/4 cup of water

Crabs & etc.
3 fresh crabs, clean and cut
3 cloves garlic (chopped)
2 tbsp of groundnut oil (or any cooking oil, except olive oil - taste a bit too strong)

Steps:
1. Blend all ingredients in (A) using a blender or food processor, leave aside. Mix (B) in a separate bowl.
2. Put groundnut oil into hot wok, when oil is hot, add garlic and fry till fragrant.
3. Add the blended sauce mixture (A), fry for about 1 minute then add crabs and fry for about 2 - 3 minutes, then add (B).
4. Close wok with cover and turn the flame down to cook for about 5 minutes or until crab meat turns from translucent to white.
5. Serve hot with white rice.

Stir-fry chicken with ginger and leek on organic basmati rice

2006-10-29T09:23:00.000+08:00

This dish was created for the same meal together with the Table Water crackers appetizer, as the main dish. It's actually quite a weird combo, Western appetizer but Chinese main course. Anyway, the main reason for making this and the appetizer was to shoot them, eating is just the reward after that! ;)

Ingredients (serves 2 persons):
Two chicken thigh, chopped into small pieces (Ask the chicken vendor to skin the thigh and chop it up into small size for you, save you lots of trouble. You can also use chicken breast if you prefer. For chicken breast, it will taste better if you slice it thinly.)
1 stalk of leek (organic preferably, tastes sweeter)
1 piece of young ginger (older ginger tends to be more overpowering)
2 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped
2 tbsp of peanut oil
1 tsp of sesame oil
1/2 cup of organic basmati rice + 1 cup of water for cooking rice (adjust the water level accordingly, if you want it softer or harder)
Spring onions and coriander leaves for garnishing

For marinate (A):
1 tbsp of light soya sauce
pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper

For gravy (B):
1 tbsp of light soya sauce
1 tsp of dark soya sauce
1/2 tsp of corn flour
1/2 cup of water
Sea salt, ground black pepper to taste. (If you like it slightly sweet, you can put in about 1/4 tsp of raw cane sugar. In my case, I used organic raw cane sugar)

Steps:
1. Marinate chicken thigh with (A). Leave aside for about 30 mins. Cook rice.
2. Clean (leek has hidden dirt between the base of the leaves) and cut leek in slanting direction, about 1 cm thick.
3. Slice ginger thinly.
4. Thinly shred spring onion (lengthwise of about 3 cm) for garnishing later. If you want the spring onion to have a "curling" effects, soak the shredded spring onion in water for about 20-30 minutes.
5. Heat up wok/pan, add peanut oil and sesame oil. When oil is hot, add chopped garlic and sliced ginger until you smell a savoury aroma.
6. Add the marinated chicken into the wok, fry and close the wok with lid (chicken gets cooked faster this way) for about 3 minutes, then add leek, leave in the wok closed for another 2 minutes or so. Remember to turn down the flame to small or it will get burnt really fast!
7. Mix all ingredients in (B) evenly in a small bowl and pour into the wok. Fry for another 2 minutes and dish out.
8. Serve on hot organic basmati rice in a Japanese wide bowl and garnish with shredded spring onion and coriander leaves (see picture) and bon appétit!

Note: You can basically use any type of rice but I find organic basmati rice tastes the best. Also tastes good with Japanese sushi rice. It's best to mix the rice with the gravy before eating so that the flavour of the gravy absorbs well into the rice.

Finger food appetizers using Table Water crackers

2006-10-28T19:44:00.000+08:00

Front: Carrot and cucumber dressed with yogurt and mayoinaise with green olives on table water crackers
Back: Smoked salmon, avocado, organic cherry tomato and creme fraiche on table water crackers

Woke up on Thursday (October 26, 2006) and I had this inclination of making some finger food appetizers using Table Water crackers. Kept seeing round mini-sized finger food around and thought I just have to satisfy my desires or else I won't be able to sleep over it.

So I sms-ed a friend if she wanted to come over to join me for dinner. (See, this is what I call "cooking heals loneliness" :-)). I was alone at home, no one to have dinner with, but dying to photograph some of these mini appetizers. So what the heck.

Ingredient hunting was a pain. Went to Village Grocer in Bangsar Village initially. Headed straight to the chiller to check for Creme Fraiche. Expiry date mid November 2006. Okay, definitely wouldn't be able to finish up by then. Decided to buy it at Cold Storage in Bangsar Shopping Complex, probably have later expiry date.

Next, no smoked salmon!!!!!!!!! That was horrifying! The whole intention to make it was with smoked salmon on creme fraiche! So I bought other things and headed straight to Cold Storage.

"Sorry ma'am, we ran out of stock for smoked salmon."

What????? What is wrong with all the supermarkets today? Thank goodness there was still one last resort, Mr. Ho's Fine Foods. Got it there. Phew!

Here's goes the recipe:

Smoked salmon, avocado, organic cherry tomato and Crème fraîche on table water crackers

Ingredients:
Smoked Salmon
Table Water Crackers
Crème fraîche (A slightly tangy, slightly nutty, thickened cream, originally from France. You can find them near the butter or cheese section in the supermarket)
3 pitted green olives
1/2 ripe avocado, thinly sliced
Cherry tomatoes, cut into 4 pieces lengthwise (oval shape, and organic ones taste a lot better)
Dill leaves for garnishing

1. Spread about 1 tsp of Crème fraîche on Table Water Cracker.
2. Add smoked salmon (about the size of table water cracker, you can fold a bigger piece if you prefer more).
3. Arrange sliced avocado on the smoked salmon and top with cherry tomato, green olive rings; and garnish with dill.
4. Serve immediately before crackers get soggy.

Carrot and cucumber dressed with yogurt and mayoinaise with green olives on table water crackers

Ingredients:

1/2 stick carrot (cut lengthwise)
1/2 cucumber (cut lengthwise)
Plain unsweetened yogurt (2 tablespoons)
Mayoinnaise (1 tablespoon)
3 Pitted green olives, cut into rings
Finely chopped Italian parsley (1 sprig)
Italian parsley for garnishing

Steps:

1. Using skin peeler, peel carrot and deseeded cucumber into 6 long thin strips each.
2. Steam the carrot strips for 5 minutes, set aside to cool.
3. Dice the remaining carrot and cucumber into about 3 mm squares.
4. Mix yogurt and mayoinnaise into diced carrot and cucumber, leave in refrigerator to cool for 15 mins.
5. Arrange carrot and cucumber strips in circle on Table Water crackers. Fill the center with the mixture from (4.) and garnish with green olive rings and italian parsley.
6. Serve immediately before crackers get soggy.

Behind every blog, there's a reason for its existence

2006-10-28T15:44:00.000+08:00

Okay, I know the title is almost the same as my first post. But not quite. Why must I start blogging when I do not even have time to sleep and rest, not to mention to find time cooking. I know if I don't start, I will start losing my recipes. Right now the only place I save my recipes is the area situated between my two ears, and digital photos to remind me how the output look like.

Now some of you may say, you don't need a blog to document the recipes, you just need some discipline to type them into your computer. Yes, you are right again. But, that alone is not strong enough to motivate me to do something about it.

So why then blog? Simple. Hopefully someone will read my posts and when they do, at least I know I am being watched, so I put in more caution and care into what I write and prepare. Simple as that, I need people to whip and push me to put things into action.
So what's next? Recipes, recipes and more recipes. Self-created recipes. Or inspired by other sources. Photos, photos, and more photos about what I created (and occasionally by others). Also not-so-often ramblings about my thoughts surrounding food and life around me.

Please forgive my grammatical and spelling errors if you come across any. Focus on the food and recipes instead! ;)

So watch me, as I slowly build up my little world of culinary arts...

Behind every blog, there's a story to tell

2006-10-28T01:38:00.000+08:00

Smoked salmon, avocado, organic cherry tomato and creme fraiche on table water crackers + Smoked salmon, avocado, organic cherry tomato and creme fraiche on table water crackers. Watercolour effects using Photoshop.

There're thousands of cooking blogs out there, so why mine? Just like the name of my blog, cooking is healing for me. If there's shopping therapy for most women, then on top of that, there's also cooking therapy for me.

Everyone knows that food has healing properties. If you eat the right food, you get to prevent diseases/ailments. But this blog doesn't just talk about eating right, it's about the action of cooking itself.

For me, cooking heals stress, cooking heals pain, cooking heals emotions and loneliness, cooking even heals relationships and love. And most importantly, cooking is a huge part of my life and soul.

Coming from a horticultural background during my undergraduate days, I have had intense interest in plants since I was a young kid. Ironically though, I do not have green fingers. Plants don't thrive when I try to grow them. But, I guess I am still of use, since I can make "dead" plants edible and look enticing to be eaten.

As far as I could remember, I started my adventure in cooking when I was 6 or 7. While other girls in my neighbourhood played chef using cookery toy sets, my toys were the smallest wok you could find, and burning small pieces of wood chips under the wok between two stacks of bricks, and oil, salt, and pieces of vegetables stolen from my mom's refrigerator. I would hide in the backyard and quietly finish my cooking while my parents were out or busy attending to something else.

However, my REAL cooking experience started when my father insisted I should take up home science (more like home economics to be precise) instead of the Commerce option when I entered secondary school. As much as I wanted to do Commerce for the sake of better "prospect", I am glad that I had to follow his order. Since then, I have not been separated from cooking and the art and love of food.

I wasn't a popular student in home science cooking classes as I always insisted to do something different as compared to my partner (two of us shared a cooking workstation). Every year, we had this thing called "Canteen Day" in school where the students would take over the canteen ladies job as we would prepare food to sell and collect money for contributing to the school. I remembered making sardine rolls and some other stuff every year. And when other kids did not get a chance to celebrate their birthday in a big way (I lived in a semi-rural town) , or had their parents organized their birthday parties for them; I had always organized and cooked the food for my birthday parties every year from 10 years old until I left my hometown 8 years later.

When I was studying in the university, my love for cooking and food never faded. Besides studying plants, I had deep interest in making food taste and look good. And thanks to health concerns, I've experimented with all sorts of diet, from "normal" to low-carb to vegetarian to vegan to raw vegan (yes, no animal protein or dairy, and all the rest were eaten raw). Well, let's not go into the boring details of my health problems.

I like to create art with food, making them look, feel and taste good. Cooking for me is a true combination of science and art. Knowing what you eat and what benefits/disadvantages your ingredients bring to you is not less important than making the food you cook look appetizing and taste good.

Stir-fry chicken with ginger and leek on organic basmati rice

With my current busy work schedule and hectic lifestyle (I'm a English-Malay-Chinese translator/interpreter and run a translation/interpreting agency), the art side of cooking naturally dominates over the science, as I no longer practise my horticultural knowledge except for knowing veggie/fruit names, choosing the right or ripe types and storing them properly. Well good enough I suppose. At least my knowledge is not dumped into waste. Oh, not forgetting I use it for my translation and interpreting work as well.

Regardless of how busy I was and am with work, I always find time to cook. The busier I am, the more I miss my cooking time. Hundreds of people have asked me, since I like cooking so much, why don't I have a career that has to do with cooking.

Well, I've always had the fear of losing my passion if I make cooking my full-time job. The analogy is like having a lover outside a proper marriage. You get married finally, enjoying the thrill of a new life together with someone. You have a good husband that brings back the bacon, pays the bills, takes care of your children's expenses, and satisfies your emotional and physical ;) needs occassionally.

But you need more than that. When marriage becomes a big part of your life, it becomes routine somehow. There're always kids to attend to, house chores to be done, and etc. etc. A married life no longer has its passion like it first began. This is the time you look for other excitement, something fun outside marriage ;) Same happens to cooking for me. I will rather keep it as a "lover" outside marriage than the other way round, so that I will always miss and look forward to that little excitement ;). Not that I am endorsing extramarital fun (Hey, I'm a loyal and faithful person!), just something I use to keep you reading my post hehe...

In this blog, I'm sharing my culinary journey and my recipes created wholeheartedly with passion and soul. As much as I can, I try to create recipes from scratch or come up with something after being inspired by a great chef, a special person, a delicious dish, a spectacular restaurant, a wonderful travel journey, or an inspiring cookbook/cooking show. As much as I've enjoyed creating the recipes, I hope you will be inspired and have fun with them, to come up with something of your own. And when you do, listen and see with your heart, and you will feel and understand the healing magic of cooking :)