Blueberries

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!