Burgundy beef stew

I don't normally cook beef, for health reasons, red meat and all but for the last few weeks, I have been craving for beef stew, probably the result of trying the one at Cafe Rouge and being of the view that mine is better. This beef stew is one of the first recipes I tried from my French cookbook. During that time, I had a housemate E who was allergic to chicken and couldn't try most of my cooking since I normally cook chicken 80% of the time. So I made this stew for us, one day. He really liked it.

So to cook this, fry some bacon/gammon till they are brown and remove from the pan. Add stewing beef to the pan and brown on both sides. Remove from the pan when done and add in diced carrots, garlic, celery and onions. Saute till soft and add in 1 1/2 tbsp of flour. Mix well. Pour in red wine (preferably Burgundy) and add 1 tbsp of tomato puree and bouquet garni. Bring to the boil and return the meat to the pan. Add enough beef stock to cover the vegetables and simmer for 3 hours. Meanwhile, saute some mushrooms in butter till golden and add them 30 minutes before the end of the cooking time. When cooked, remove the bouquet garni and stir in some fresh parsley.

Olive oil roasted chicken with mediterranean vegetables

Our Christmas roast chicken lunch was quite a success. The chicken came out of the oven, the skin crispy and savoury, and the flesh moist and tender. I can't wait to cook this recipe for my family and friends, should they visit.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Rub the chicken all over with olive oil and season with pepper. The chicken I used today was 1.175kg. Place a lemon quarter in boiling water and cook it for around a minute. Stuff the lemon inside the bird along with a sprig of thyme and some sage leaves. Put the chicken, breast side down, in a roasting tin. Roast for 30 minutes. Remove the chicken from the oven and season with salt. Turn the chicken right side up and baste with the juices from the tin. Surround the chicken with potatoes, mix well with the juices and return to the oven to continue roasting for 20 minutes. Add capsicums, (I used one yellow, one red and one orange capsicum), diced celery (2 sticks) and 6 garlic cloves (unpeeled). Drizzle more olive oil and mix in 3 sprigs of thyme and more sage leaves. Return to the oven and cook for another 30 minutes till the chicken is cooked, turning the vegetables occasionally.

Chicken tomato bake

Roast chicken meal is postponed to tomorrow lunch as per the orders of M. Instead, I modified my mom's baked rice recipe to make what I call, Chicken tomato bake. Basically, pan fry diced chicken, celery and leeks in olive oil till the vegetables are soft and the chicken is brown on both sides. Add in mushrooms and continue frying for around 2 minutes. Pour in a can of tomatoes, mix in some fresh parsley and season with salt and pepper. As is the case with baked rice, place cooked rice in a baking dish and pour in the chicken tomato mixture. Spoon in a layer of creme fraiche and sprinkle lots of cheese on top. Interestingly, we found out that if you use mild cheeses like mozzarella, you get a nice layer of melted bubbling cheese on top. But if you use medium cheeses like cheddar, you get a crispy layer of cheese. Anyway, bake in the oven at 200 degrees for around 15 minutes or till the cheese is brown.

M prefers this to the traditional baked rice as she doesn't like tinned soup. She thinks its cheating.

Farfelle with chicken and cherry tomatoes

So its Christmas eve lunch and M is busy at work. (I know its sad, we all think its sad). Left by myself, I didn't want to demean the occasion (as insignificant as it may be) by having instant noodles and also so that I can take photographs of my food in sunlight, I decided to make a proper meal. Obviously, I didn't want to mess up the kitchen especially since I am going to make roast chicken with stuffing and all for Christmas eve dinner, (M says that she will be home), the logical choice was pasta.

Place diced chicken in a bowl and mix well with diced rosemary and white wine. Season with salt and pepper. In a pan, fry onions at medium heat for around 5 minutes. Add in the chicken and fry till the chicken is white on both sides. Add cherry tomatoes, balsamic vinegar and paprika. Simmer for around 5 minutes till the chicken is cooked. Mix in cooked farfelle and diced rosemary. Season and serve.

Chicken with chorizo

For those who don't know what chorizo is, its a spicy Spanish pork sausage with a texture akin to that of Chinese sausages (lap chong) but with a stronger smoked, rather than sweet, taste. It goes very well with tomato based casseroles as it adds a rich complexity to the sauce. I have another recipe for chorizo, chickpea and chorizo stew but as M can't stand the taste of chickpeas, its going to be hard for me to cook it.

First, spread paprika evenly on chicken portions and season with salt. Pan fry it with olive oil till the chicken is brown. Be careful not to cook it at too high a heat as paprika burns easily. Remove the chicken from the pan and place in an oven proof dish.Fry sliced onions for a while and add garlic and chopped up chorizo. Fry for around two minutes and add white wine, canned tomatoes and bay leaves. Bring to the boil and pour the tomato mixture over the chicken. Bake the chicken in the oven at 190 degrees with a lid for around 40 minutes. Remove the lid and cook further for another 30 minutes. Serve with pasta and bay leaves to garnish.

Carrot soup

I used to dislike carrot soup although I suspect that is because I have never tried it before. During my Phd years, the school cafe served carrot soup once every week and without any other hot food to eat (only hot food is soup at the cafe), I tried the soup and I have fallen in love with it ever since. Chop up potatoes, onions and carrots and fry them with olive oil till softened. Add chicken stock, a pinch of nutmeg, lots of paprika if you like the kick, bay leaf and the juice of an orange. Simmer for around 40 minutes and puree the vegetables. Return the puree to the pan and the remaining liquid and reheat.

My last picture of carrot soup wasn't exactly that good as it wasn't taken in sunlight. These days, I am starting to develop this habit of cooking enough for three meals so that I have food for lunch as well as be able to take photographs in sunlight.

Fish soup

M doesn't like a lot of things. Vegetables, beef, lamb. The list goes on. Sadly, fish is one of them. Specifically, the cooked fish should not have any bones, it shouldn't taste fishy and she won't eat salmon or trout. Cooking for M requres adherence to a long list of rules and guidelines.

Anyway, fish soup is what I cooked for dinner. All it involves is frying some diced onions, celery and garlic. Add some white wine and simmer for 1 minute. Add canned tomatoes, a bay leaf and fish stock and simmer for 8 minutes. Finally, add diced fish ( I used a mixture of cod, haddock and tuna) and simmer yet again till the fish is cooked. Add some shredded basil and serve hot with bread.

Marcus Wareing at The Savoy Grill

We had a lovely lunch at The Savoy Grill, another one of Gordon Ramsay's restaurants. The weekend menu is quite good value. 25 pounds for three courses. M had the foie gras parfait, the wild mushroom risotto with poached egg and parmesan shavings and the blackberry trifle. I had the Scottish smoked salmon and gravadlax, served with classic accompaniments, roast rib-eye of Scottish beef with Yorkshire pudding, roasted vegetables, potatoes and beef sauce and the royal chocolate cake.

M really loved her foie gras. She said that it was light but with no concessions to the richness of the foie gras. The prune and raisin compote and the salad were excellent complements to the sweet taste of the foie gras. Interestingly, there may be some japanese influence on the dressing for the salad as we can detect some Japanese sesame oil in it. There's definitely a whole lot of mushrooms in the risotto. It was literally bursting with mushroom goodness. The risotto was light as well. Normally, you get a heavy cream-based risotto and after you eat it,you can't eat anything else. But this risotto was definitely light on the stomach. M actually finished all of it. The poached egg went very well with the risotto as the egg yolk gave a silky texture and an additional complexity in taste to the sauce. The dessert came on a trolley, with everything on the dessert menu laid out for all to see. Its perfect for M as it allowed her to choose the most aesthetically pleasing dessert of them all. Her blackberry trifle was made with real fresh blackberries, not the processed ones you see even in a pot of Marks and Spencer trifle pudding.

My Scottish smoked salmon was sadly nothing exceptional. Perhaps, my tastebuds are not developed or it could just be that they have been messed up by copious quantities of smoked salmon i have had at buffets in Singapore. I can't tell the difference between the smoked salmon you buy at the supermarkets and the ones smoked by the cooks themselves. Of course, we don't really know whether they smoked it themselves. Still, I always enjoy smoked salmon and the potato salad went well with it. My roast beef however was exceptional. The beef was tender and juicy. When you have a bite of it with the sauce, you could tell the difference between the beef gravy and the taste of the beef itself. Its quite possibly one of the best roast beef I have had in my life. Its certainly comparable to the ones I have had at Lawry's in Singapore. My royal chocolate cake was brillant, not too sweet, just the natural taste of the cocoa and dark chocolate.

M considers this her favourite restaurant in London so far and I have to agree with her for the price and the quality of the food

Chicken stew

M cooked today! (I am checking whether there's a blue moon outside.) Ok, there is an actual valid reason for this. Its my birthday and she decided to cook dinner for me as a gift.



Once upon a time, in our nottingham days, when we were still young and she, particularly carefree as she was a student then, she was a better cook than me. And this chicken stew with dumplings is what she used to prove her point then. That and her magnificient mushroom soup. So it is nostalgic for me to have this again. It has been 6 years since she has last cooked a proper meal for me. Hopefully,it doesn't take another six years for her to cook next as she is actually still pretty good at it.

Fish! Borough Market

Its back to Borough Market again. Its my birthday today and M decided that we should go to one place in London where we will both enjoy ourselves rather than go to yet another designer warehouse sale where I will be left bored and cranky in a corner, kicking at dust bunnies.



So we spent the afternoon browsing through the wares at the stalls. We bought more escargots, eggs fresh vegetables, onion bread and extremely expensive French cakes picked out by the extravagant one herself. There's really so much here for foodies, olive oil, wine, truffles, cheeses, organic juices, fresh pasta, tofu and meats everywhere. Its one place I will definitely bring my parents to when they visit me.



For lunch, I wanted to try out this fish and chips stall I saw at the corner of the market. On closer scrutiny, I realised that they had a restaurant next to it, serving seafood. (what else?) And being in "I don't feel like walking around and eating my food" mood, M and I decided to try the food there. As you can see from the picture above, the restaurant is called Fish! Borough Market.



M had the grilled scallops wrapped in pancetta on a roasted mushroom with salad and roasted cherry tomatoes. The scallops were fresh and well cooked with a strong grilled taste. I love that taste. (M: not bad.) The only problem with it was the price, an exorbitant 17 pounds but I guess that's the price you have to pay for scallops and M really loves scallops.



I ordered the fish and chips. The cod was competently cooked with a light batter. Nothing really special about it. It could do with a bit more salt and the fish, I suspect, wasn't that fresh as it had a slight fishy taste. The chips on the other hand, were excellent and you could tell (hopefully, I am right) that they were freshly cut. The best part of the meal was surprisingly the mushy peas. I am not a big fan of mushy peas but today, i finally found one that I really enjoyed. Savoury with a hint of lemon and mint. I don't mind going back here again just to try out the rest of its seafood dishes. I have this strong suspicion that the rest of their dishes are much better than their fish and chips

Summer tray baked salmon

M has to work overtime tonight and thats why salmon is on the dinner menu. (M doesn't like salmon, not even smoked salmon). This is another of Jamie Oliver's recipes, from Jamie's dinners to be precise. Cook some mixed vegetables, such as peas, beans, cauliflower and carrots for about 5 minutes. For me, I just used a packet of Bird's Eye frozen vegetables. Drain and place the vegetables in a baking tray. Add some butter, olive oil and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper. Mix well. Place the salmon steak, seasoned with salt and black pepper, on top of the vegetables. Sprinkle some dill and basil over the fish and vegetables and cook in the oven for around 10-15 minutes at 230 degrees.

Potato, rocket and cheese soup

I first had a bite of rocket/roquette at the No 5 Bistro in Bath with my parents and I have fallen in love with it ever since. I just love its peppery taste and the sensation of oils released onto your tongue when you chew on it. Sadly, M isn't a great fan of it and so I don't get to eat it that often. But there's one of M's rules that I managed to exploit which is that if she can't see the vegetable in its full solid glory, it is more likely than not that she is willing to eat it. And so the end result is this soup, potato, rocket and cheese soup where the rocket has been dissolved into. It tasted just like broccoli and stilton soup but thats probably because I chose to add cheese to the bbc recipe. We had it with Waitrose ciabatta. Wonderful dinner for a winter night.

Oyako-don

When I was rummaging through the dark recesses of my kichen cabinets, I came across a bottle of dashi that M's mother had left. Alarms bells started ringing when I saw the expiry date: 8/12/2006. I decided to use it immediately. So I went online to check out what I can do with the dashi and Oyako don was the answer. Its really simple and easy to prepare, especially suited for quick dinners since M is coming home late these days. As a preliminary note, each bowl of oyako don should be prepared individually. Mix 40ml of dashi with 60 ml of chicken stock and bring to the boil in a pan. Add in diced chicken and diced onions and simmer till the chicken is cooked. Add mushrooms and simmer for around 2 minutes. Add in some spring onions and pour in beaten egg. Cook accordingly depending on how cooked you want your egg to be and pour over some cooked japanese rice. Serve with japanese chilli powder.

And to think I used to make oyako don without the dashi sauce...

Chicken and butternut squash casserole

Praise to the Powers that be for the BBC food website! I am really running out of chicken recipes to cook but thank goodness, I managed to find something interesting to cook from it. That said, the recipe does seem strange. It would not normally occur to me to make use of butternut squash and red wine in the same dish. But it turned out alright. I wouldn't say that the taste was heavenly but it it was quite savoury; the mixture of red wine, chicken stock and butternut squash. [M: "quite good, quite good, the stock is quite good."]

Oh and I added mushrooms to make the meal a more balanced one.

Bayswater / Gold Mine

We went to another warehouse sale. This time, its at Portobello and again we are reminded of how small M is. She found a few items that she liked but as she is simply not as big as her caucasian counterparts, none of them fitted her. Thankfully, I have no such problems but I didn't buy anything in a show of solidarity. (M: Liar!) Ok, its because I didn't feel like spending money on clothes when I don't need them till next year September.

As Bayswater is close by, we decided to go there for lunch. M had a craving for Peking duck and so we went to Gold Mine, a Chinese restaurant recommended by her sister. I honestly can't stand Four Seasons even though their duck is pretty good for Chinese duck in this country but their service is just atrocious. These days, I have little patience and tolerance for bad service. Thankfully, the service at Gold Mine was pretty alright. We can't really expect Chinese waiters to be friendly/cheerful/amicable but at least we got unobstrusive service. And the food was quite good as well



We ordered salt and pepper squid and we are pleased to announce that we have found a successor to the Nottingham version. It was just good. A light batter, not overly floury. Not too fried, not too oily and definitely savoury. The only problem I see with it is that its a bit too salty. But M has no problems in that aspect. She says that such squid is supposed to be salty. Thats why its called salt and pepper squid. Duh.



The Peking duck was delicious too, again for the standard of Chinese food in this country. I have definitely had better in Singapore but still it was good. M really likes it. The meat was tender but could have been more succulent. More importantly, the skin was thin and crispy and that is enough to satisfy M's tastebuds.

Just one note: the photos are smaller because I am using my mobile phone to take the pictures of the food. I still feel very self conscious using a camera in a restaurant.

Seafood pasta

Another one of Waitrose's recipes. I had the urge to cook it after eating the marinari at Picasso last saturday. I wanted to compare a tomato based seafood pasta with a garlic butter based one. Fry garlic with butter, add in diced spring onions and chilli. Add in your seafood selection. I used a mixture of haddock, prawns, crab sticks and mussels. Cook for a few minutes till the seafood is piping hot. Place cooked spaghetti on top and mix well. Serve with parsley and black pepper.

Conclusion: I think I prefer the tomato based seafood pasta as the taste is richer with the tomatoes and white wine. This is fine as well, its just that the taste is not as complex. Furthermore, do not use wholewheat spaghetti with this dish as the taste of the pasta itself will overwhelm the garlic butter sauce. [M's view and I concur]

Egg noodles with creamy egg sauce

D is here again. Well, he was here for the last few weeks, its just that the things I cooked weren't good enough to post on the blog or I have already done so previously. For example, two weeks ago, I made fish curry. Unfortunately, it was not from scratch, it was from a packet mix. Anyway, today, I made egg noodles with creamy egg sauce, the kind you see listed on takeaway menus. Its really simple, just stir fry an assortment of meats, mushrooms, vegetables and seafood, pour in some chicken soup and crack a few eggs into the mixture. Pour over cooked egg noodles. The trick to making the creamy egg sauce is that while the egg is stirred into the soup, it should only be half cooked when you pour it over the noodles. Oh and you need quite a huge number of eggs. Very cholestrol laden meal. Serve with crispy onions on top of the noodles.

Salt and pepper chicken

I am officially running out of chicken recipes to cook, from my cookbooks that is. I think I need a new cookbook. *explicit hint.* After an afternoon wracking my brain, poring over these books, I finally settled on this dish, salt and pepper chicken with M's favourite porridge. When M and I were at Nottingham, one of our favourite chinese dishes was the Szechuan salt and pepper chicken wings/prawns/squid/ribs at HK Hse, the best Chinese takeaway in Nottingham. Sadly, they have since changed their management and the standard of their food is nowhere near its once giddy heights. We are still searching for a takeaway/restaurant to replace it but sadly to no avail. So I guess its up to me to make an attempt to replicate it. Unforunately, i am missing one key ingredient the szechuan peppercorns but I thought I'd try making it without it just to see whether its alright.

To cook it, mix flour, salt, white pepper and 5 spice powder. If I had the szechuan peppercorns, I would add it here. Coat the chicken pieces in the flavoured flour and deep fry them till golden, crisp and cooked. It turned out pretty well, the taste obviously wasn't right but still, it is crispy chicken after all and its hard to not like it.

Mediterranean chicken

I love the natural flavours of this dish, the tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, celery, onions and red peppers combining into a rich vegetable sauce, healthy yet delicious. M was literally salivating to this dish, Mediterranean Chicken. She kept gushing about how the chicken skin tasted just like the chicken skin she loves at KFC, crispy and savoury. I think the secret is paprika as I sprinkled quite a bit of it on top of the chicken before I baked it in the oven. So to cook it, first saute onions and garlic in a pan for 4 minutes. Add in the red pepper and celery. You can include courgettes in the list of vegetables. Its in the recipes in my Chicken cookbook. Its not in my cooking as I hate it. Cook for 5 minutes and add in the tomatoes, sundried tomatoes and some balsamic vinegar. Place the vegetables in a oven proof dish. For the chicken, stuff some cream cheese into the space between the skin and the flesh. Put the chicken on top of the vegetables, drizzle some olive oil, sprinkle the key ingredient, paprika and bake in the oven for 45 minutes at 180 degrees.



Serve with pasta and you get a happy beaming M.

Potato and mushroom soup

When I first saw this recipe, I thought it was some strange fusion soup as it required soya sauce and after our fiasco with our carrot cake, we were both expecting and wary of another culinary disaster. M was practically shaking in fear that our dinner would turn out to be a mess. But I persevered, refusing to take the easy way out by making a soup that I am familiar with. Furthermore, I haven't cooked any new soup recipes for some time and so I was determined to discover the next brillant soup. Thankfully, it worked out well. M ranks this soup third behind tomato soup and fish soup. The soup looks exactly like cream of mushroom soup but once you try it, it tastes of potatoes, shallots and mushrooms, a more complex tasting soup perhaps.

Welsh rarebit

So its Sunday Brunch again. We made Welsh rarebit, a recipe from the BBC website. At first, I thought that it was a recipe for rabbit stew, rarebit and rabbit, the two words just sound and look alike. But on closer scrutiny, I discovered that its actually an egg and cheese recipe. According to the dictionary, rarebit: a dish of melted and seasoned cheese on toast. Its simple to make and excellent for lazy Sunday lunches. Just click on the title of the entry for the recipe

Picasso

Kings Road is not a good place to have a meal without proper planning. If you went there on a Saturday, with no idea where you were going to have your lunch, you would be just like us, wandering up and down the road like a bunch of lost sheep. At some point in time, we got so sick of the search, we just went into the nearest restaurant and had our lunch. The place was called Picasso and even though, it was situated along the bland row of fashion chains populating Kings Road, it was surprisingly good. Home cooked Italian food, rustic, simple and wholesome. I had the marinara, spaghetti with clams, prawns and squid. It had a rich tomato sauce, a sauce with actual depth unlike the stuff they serve at Cafe Nero and an enormous helping of seafood. M had the penne ragu. She said that it tasted just like the way her mom cooks it. So I assume thats good. So a good discovery in the middle of exorbitant shopping land. Unfortunately, the food left me extremely thirsty while I waited for M; she was doing her usual window shopping so I guessed they must have added a great deal of salt into the food. When we got home and ran an Internet check on the restaurant, we were amused to find that it is one that Gordon Ramsay frequents.

We also went to the Chelsea Farmers' Market. I was expecting something like Borough Market but as M puts it, its not even a real market. Its just an area with some shops and thats it. We went to an organic supermarket there(L, you will love it) and bought some organic icing sugar and caster sugar for our planned attempt to make carrot cake tomorrow. (Fingers crossed(Edit: sadly it didn't turn out that well, we will try again next week) I bought some white tea as well. I am really going into a tea craze, I have green tea, white tea, some flower tea and earl grey in my cupboards and I even bought a teapot today from Habitat. It was quite a good bargain, 6.80 pounds for a Bodium teapot with a detachable compartment for the teabags/tealeaves. Oh and I finally bought a coffee mug to replace the one I broke for my coffee machine.

For dinner, we ordered takeaway. Our very first takeaway meal at our London apartment. Not too bad, we actually resisted getting any takeaway for almost three months. But the craving for greasy Chinese food became too much for us to overcome and so we ordered it. I was also too lazy to cook anything for dinner after our day out. So we ordered from this restaurant, Taste of China, Chicken fried rice, King prawns and broccoli on crispy noodles and salt and pepper prawns. The chicken fried rice was good, the classic taste of takeaway fried rice. M had a huge craving for it. The crispy noodles was unfortunately not crispy anymore but the sauce was alright. Similarly, our prawns weren't crispy but again, the taste was the one we were looking for. Conclusion: the food is alright if you have a craving for greasy chinese food but the delivery time was too long for it to be a really good meal. That said, we might order from this takeaway again, dishes that would not be affected by the delivery time.

Pork chops with tomato sauce

Strangely, this week, I have been cooking food which I messed up the first time round for this blog with the use of the wrong ingredients. The last time I tried making this French dish, pork chops with tomato sauce, I used basil and that really had an adverse effect on the taste of the sauce. This time, its the right herb, tarragon and yes, the sauce is finally acceptable to both M and my tastebuds. The picture looks better too.

Mashed carrots / Spaghetti with chicken and tarragon sauce

This time, I got it right. The use of single cream instead of creme fraiche does make a huge difference to the sauce. Its now thick, with a smoother consistency as compared to the last time I cooked this. To make this more of a pasta dish rather than a chicken dish, I deboned the chicken portions, mixed it into the tarragon sauce before pouring it onto the spaghetti.

I wish I could take all my photographs in daylight as it really does make a difference but as long as one of us is working, its hard to do so. What I can do now is to take close up photos of my food as the surroundings can look very drab at night.

Chocolate fridge cake

Sunday is going to be our pudding/dessert making day (hopefully) from now on provided we can finish eating whatever we have made the sunday before. Instead of going out, we will just spend the day at home, messing up the kitchen with flour, digestive biscuits and syrup to produce (hopefully) something decent. Beginner's luck prevailed for us or perhaps the recipe we used is easy (lesson 101: pick easy dessert recipes), our first stab at making a cake was a success. We made chocolate fridge cake, a recipe we found on the bbc webpage (once again, click on the title of this entry for the recipe.) I first heard of such a cake, a flourless cake from my mom. She had seen it on the Jamie Oliver show but didn't manage to write down the details of the recipe.

The chocolate fridge cake tasted just like brownies with apricots and raisins within.

Sunday lunch: Souffle omelette with fresh herbs and cheese / Baked tomatoes

Food photographs tend to look the best in the daytime. Natural light just gives it a certain glow and its impossible to replicate it using a camera (I think). So today, we decided to make use of the fact that M doesn't have to work on Sunday to cook something nice and to make full use of the sunlight for our photos. As its sunday, brunch food is well in line with the day, we made omelettes with tomatoes. I said we as M actually did the most difficult task of all for the omelette, whisking the eggs BY HAND till they are stiff. I can't whisk. I honestly can't. I just can't master the strange circles I have to make with the whisk. She spent 20 minutes whisking it, heh and I only then realised that we had an electric whisk hidden in the depths of our cupboards. She wasn't exactly happy after that. Anyway, this is no ordinary omelette as you should have already guessed from the fact that M has to whisk the egg. I got the recipe from the bbc website, so you can just check it out yourself. Just click on the title of this entry. For the tomatoes, I drizzle some olive oil and balsamic vinegar, seasoned the tomatoes and baked them in the oven for around 10 minutes.

The Big Easy

We went to yet another posh street, Kings Road for M to do her weekly obligatory window shopping although today she managed to break through the window, into the shop to purchase a couple of items. For lunch, (the only thing I am interested in today), we went to The Big Easy, an American restaurant on Kings Road. This restaurant came strongly recommended by a number of food guides. (http://www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/reviews/516.html) Its also said to be one of the top five restaurants to have steak at in London



I had the The Classic Chophouse Burger "prepared from the Finest Prime Chopped Scotch Beef with French Fries & House Made Coleslaw. Aberdeen Angus beef burger char-grilled & served with lettuce, tomato, red onion & a pickle." I can say that my craving has been satisfied. It was a good burger. For me, the beef has to have that char grilled taste, it must not be dry, it should be moist and juicy and it must be savoury obviously. The burger does meet all these criteria and so I am a happy camper. I don't mind coming back again to try their steaks.

M had the Bar-B-Q Home Smoked Ribs "Hand trimmed, extra meaty ribs, slow smoked & finished on the char-grill with our special recipe Bar-B-Q. sauce." Her favourite ribs is the one at Tony Romas and she said that the one we had today compared favourably to it. It was meatier than the ribs at TM but the sauce was not as good. Therefore, she considers it a tie.

Tuscan chicken

With this dish, we finally used up all the peppers we bought from Borough market, a grand total of 6. Basically, we made roasted peppers and tomato soup on monday, the tuna pasta with red pepper sauce on tuesday and the tuscan chicken today. We did not take a picture of the soup as it looked too much like tomato soup. (M: it was tomato soup, just that there's pepper inside it), Are we sick of peppers yet? M says no but thats from someone who's not planning the cooking. Anyway, Tuscan chicken, a recipe from my Chicken the best ever recipe collection cookbook. Brown chicken portions on both sides in olive oil and remove from the pan. Saute onions and red pepper till soft and add in crushed garlic. Return chicken to the pan and add in white wine, a can of tomatoes, sun dried tomato puree and oregano. Bring to the boil and simmer till the chicken is cooked. Sprinkle breadcrumbs on top and put it under the grill till the breadcrumbs are golden.

Oh almost forgot, I was supposed to add cannellini beans into the mixture but as M can't stand beans (in general, actually), I didn't do so.

Chinatown / C and R restaurant

Singaporean / Malaysian food is quite difficult to locate in England but we managed to find a restaurant for it. Its called C and R restaurant and its located close to the infamous Wong Kei in Chinatown. I decided to treat D and his gf to a meal there to celebrate the completion of my phd thesis. I have eaten there on a number of occasions previously. D and I had Singapore fried prawn noodles (sotong mee), His gf C had the hainanese chicken rice while M had the Prawn noodle soup. All in all, we were quite happy with the food as the cooking was at least equivalent to that of the average hawker stalls in Singapore. In addition, we had teh tarik, kopi tarik and ice kachang for dessert. For a bunch of people who have been away from Singapore for some time, this was truly heavenly fare.



Subsequently, we did some shopping in Chinatown, specifically, I bought more cai sim. Its practically impossible to find cai sim in the British supermarkets here. They do have pak choi but for a very exorbitant price. So, I normally go to Chinatown to stock up on such green vegetables. M needs some greens in her diet. As we wanted to have udon soup tonight, we bought udon and japanese chilli powder. M bought some strange flavoured crisps. I hope its nice.



So for dinner, I added sukiyaki sauce to chicken stock to make udon soup. I also marinated some pork in teriyaki sauce and grilled it for a while before adding it to the noodles. And the white stuff is tofu.

Borough market / Baked eggs italian style / Baked escargots with truffle butter

Was dragged out of bed, early in the morning by M to go for a Reiss warehouse sale at Brick lane. Aside from having to navigate through lanes of a dubious nature, we could not find anything to buy even though the the prices were low. I was understandably cranky. But things got better subsequently after we went over to Marylebone high street to do some window shopping. According to M, she likes the place more than Angel as its quieter. It is after all a posh part of town, full of shops with articles I can't afford. It is good just to look around especially the kitchenware stores. After that, to get rid of her KFC craving as she puts it, (keep eating KFC until she's sick of it) we decided to go to KFC yet again just eight days after our last trip. Thankfully, she seems to have gotten sick of it. She had, on her own, 2 pieces of chicken, 1 hot wing and 1 crispy strip. Hopefully, I don't have to have it for a long long time.

After lunch, we went to Borough Market at London Bridge, a gourmet food market where as you can see in the picture, we bought quite a bit of stuff for the fridge and larder.



a) Melon
b) Cherry tomatoes
c) Red and yellow peppers
d) Ciabatta and foccacia (Buy one get one free!)
e) White truffle cake and Plum cake (25% off!)
f) A jar of escargots in truffle butter
g) eggs



So with our purchases, I made baked eggs italian style, a recipe from the cooking for one cookbook. Just crack an egg into a ramekin dish, mix chopped and deseeded tomatoes, basil, chives, olive and place the mixture on top of the egg. Cover it with cheese and bake in the oven at 200 degrees for 20 minutes.



In addition, we baked the escargots and ate it with the ciabatta which M used to make garlic bread. Its pretty good value, 27 snails (M counted it)in that jar for just 5 quid and yes, it tasted really good. And yes, the snails do look like they are in an assembly and its thanks to M that they look as such.

Chicken braised with red wine (coq au vin)

M didn't think that this dish is nice initially as it didn't look good. I have to agree that the dish's appearance isn't that colourful like some of my other cooking and that it just looks brown and bland. Can't really do anything about it as the dish is essentially braising the chicken and vegetables with red wine such that everything just looks brown. But thankfully, the taste of it was alright. M said that if she closed her eyes when she ate it, it would taste good. She also commented that the colour of the sauce looked like that of red bean soup and she hates that soup. Well, I loved this dish, L and J have had it and they have said they liked it as well. To cook it, brown the chicken portions on both sides and set aside. Fry whole shallots for 2 minutes and add flour to it. Mix well and add red wine. Bring to the boil and add chicken stock, the chicken, mushrooms and bouquet garni. Simmer for 45-50 minutes. Remove the meat and vegetables and boil to reduce the sauce by 1/3. Return the chicken and vegetables to the pot and reheat. Season and serve with either rice or pasta.

M, at the end of the meal, has declared that she likes the dish now and that she has overcome her initial aversion to the colour.

Chicken, bacon and leek casserole

The first time I cooked this, I made the mistake of adding salt to the casserole and it turned out really really salty. So this time, I wised up, the salt from the bacon was sufficient. So to cook this, brown chicken pieces on both sides and remove from the pan. Fry bacon till brown and add in the leeks, cook till the leeks turn brown as well. Place leeks and bacon into casserole dish and place the chicken on top. Add a bit of chicken stock, cover tightly and bake in the oven for 1 and a half hours. The leeks should have the consistency of cooked cabbage and melt right into the sauce. The meat should fall off the bone easily. Serve with pasta

Spaghetti with garlic, chilli and mushrooms

A quick and simple pasta lunch. Just fry some garlic in olive oil, add in diced mushrooms and chilli and mix in the cooked spaghetti. Season with salt and pepper. Drizzle some good quality olive oil. Add some parsley on top and its done. I ate this with some smoked mackerel. Yums

Tortellini with sundried tomatoes

With M on leave, its been meal after meal outside. KFC, Ubon, La Tasca. Yesterday, M wanted to go to some designer sampler sale and so we had to wake up early in the morning and go all the way to the city so that the best of the stock would not be lost in the span of an hour. She went on her merry way, into the sale, I went my tired way into Cafe Nero where I had a strong cafe mocha, a almond and blueberry tart. I read half of Eragon there. We watched Wicked the Musical after that. Its not too bad but not fantastic. The songs were not memorable but the storyline was brillant, funny and subversive, the way I like my fairy tales. Its essentially the backstory to the Wizard of Oz. I am going to get my hands on a copy of that book.

So today, we decided to spend it on mundane chores, grocery shopping, ironing (her, mwhahah she's going to be stuck in front of the ironing board for the whole board, leaving me free to do my own stuff mwhahahah). For lunch, I cooked tortellini (Asda: I obviously can't make stuffed pasta yet, maybe one day, in the distant future) with sundried tomatoes. So to cook it, fry carrots and onions for 5 minutes and add chicken stock, can of chopped tomatoes, crushed garlic and tomato puree. Simmer for 10 minutes till the carrots are soft.Add in the chopped sundried tomatoes and basil and mix well with the tortellini. Serve with grated cheese and black pepper.



For dinner, we decided to have something light so its just tomato soup with orzo pasta and garlic bread with cheese. M made the bread!

Ubon by Nobu

Went to Ubon by Nobu for lunch today. M's treat for my submission of my thesis and finding a job at last. This is probably the most expensive Japanese meal I have had in my life. Thankfully, its one of the best. We had miso chips with tuna and scallops for starts. Interesting mixture with a sweet sauce. Ingredients blended well and I quite like it. Its just for 4 such pieces, 7 pounds is just too exorbitant. Luckily, the mains were much more value for money. I had the Ubon In and Out Bento box. Its 31 pounds and yes, it is pricey but you get so much in the boxes that the price is worth it. There's tempura prawns, black cod with miso, tuna sashimi, 9 pieces of sushi, rice with some sauteed vegetables and miso soup. The tuna sashimi was absolutely amazing, with a shallot, wasabi and sesame sauce. M's main was the beef and tempura luncheon set for 25 pounds. For that, you get a mountain of beef, i am not joking, I can see two steaks in those beef slices. I am not a big fan of it though. The beef was not very tender and you could not taste much of its natural taste. The sauce reminded me too much of Southern American cooking and I am never a fan of that. The tempura was good though although with tempura, you can tell if its poorly cooked easily but you can't tell the difference between good tempura and mind blowing tempura. For dessert, we had the chocolate bento box, a chocolate fondant with green tea ice cream. I quite liked it although the price was a bit steep, 9 pounds.

I would go there again, just to try out some its more unique dishes, like the wagyu skewers and the crab claws. oh another thing, do people use spoons to drink miso soup? M says they do. I have never done it

Oh go catch Borat. Its hilarious. Well, Borat just makes me cringe a lot but the reactions of his American victims, in relation to homosexuals, the Iraqi war and Jews, absolutely priceless.

Creamy boscaiola

The Italian (or more specifically, pasta) craze continues. But before that, M is on leave today and we went out to the city to satisfy one of her many cravings. KFC. She's been talking about sinking her teeth into a chunk of fried chicken since she got here and finally today, we had the chance to get it for her. We ordered initially, a variety meal: 3 pieces of chicken, 2 hot wings, 1 crispy chicken strip, 1 large fries and 1 large coke. I have to admit, it was good. I haven't had KFC for at least a year, if I am not wrong. Amazingly, it wasn't enough for her even though we divided it evenly. I had to get two more pieces of chicken, shared between us of course, to satisfy the craving. Well, at least she's happy and sometimes thats all that matters. I wonder what her next craving is.

Anyway, for dinner, we had creamy boscaiola, another recipe from my Cooking for one cookbook. Its really simple and its like carbonara without the eggs. Fry bacon and mushrooms in olive oil. Add cream and boil for 5 minutes till the sauce thickens. Mix in chives and pour over cooked spaghetti. Serve with parmesan cheese (not for me), parsley and black pepper.

Roasted butternut squash fusilli

I think I am getting bored of cooking French food for my western dishes, been doing that for quite some time and I decided a change of cuisines was necessary. Since L was saying how she had an italian cookbook and that she wanted to use it, this gave me the impetus as well as the inspiration to move into that field as well. So yes, its pretty much official. I am going to cook more italian food from now on. So to start with, I made Roasted butternut squash fuslli today. Roast the squash in the oven at 200 degrees for 40 minutes or till its soft and mashable. Blend the squash with chicken stock, cream, parmesan cheese and a pinch of nutmeg till you get a smooth sauce. Mix cooked fuslli with the sauce, add some chopped chives and spring onions, warm it a little and serve.

M absolutely loved the dish and parmesian cheese actually, she added an amount way beyond that stipulated in my cooking for one cookbook. I am not really a fan of parmesan cheese, I am more a cheddar and mozzarella person and so i found the taste of the sauce way too overpowering for me. I think the next time I cook this, I am going to leave the cheese out from the blending and add it only on top of M's plate.

Chicken and vegetable soup / Tuna souffle

Getting bored of using the same cookbook for most of my dishes and so I decided to use a cookbook I haven't really read for a long time. Was at Junction 8 Bishan NTUC, waiting for my mom, browsing through cookbooks and I thought this wasn't too bad. Cooking for One and so I got it for my student days. For today, as we had a heavy lunch at Tiffinbites, we decided to have something light. Just a soup and something special.



The weather is changing and so chicken and vegetable soup was on the menu, to make sure that M doesn't fall ill while braving the cold. She is rather susceptible to invisible organisms especially since she's been putting in a lot of OT these days. So all I did for this soup is to throw in some chicken meat, peas, carrots, cauliflower, onions and potatoes into chicken stock, simmer till they are all cooked and you have a really healthy meal.



To prevent this meal from being too bland, I whipped up something special from the cookbook. Tuna souffle. This is my first time with this recipe and I honestly didn't expect anything to happen, i.e. the souffle to rise and puff. I was staring at it through the oven glass initially. I went to check something on the internet. I came back and I was astonished to find that it was actually rising. The recipe involves mixing bread crumbs, cream and spring onions and letting it stand for 2 minutes. Add in tuna, lemon juice and eggs. Mix well, season and pour it into the ramekin dishes. Cook for 20-30 minutes in the oven at 200 degrees till the souffle is golden and well puffed. Serve with spring onions on top. I am really really happy with this dish.

Steamed fish with minced pork, mushrooms, ginger and chilli

Having fish at a chinese restaurant is an extremely expensive affair. It can easily go beyond 10 pounds (fish for three to four persons) depending on the restaurant of course. D said he hasn't had it for some time and I said me too, so I decided to cook it for lunch today. Did quite a lot of prepatory work for this dish. Went to Asda early in the morning to buy a sea bream (farmed in Greece!). The fish has to be really fresh or else it won't taste nice. Corresponded with my mom on how I should cook it. I knew the basics behind it, the problem was how long I was supposed to cook the fish for. Thankfully everything came out alright. For a sea bream around 15 cm long, I steamed it for around 14 minutes and it turned out just right. Not overly cooked. The seasoning has to be adjusted a bit,its a bit bland, but just a little. All in all, I am quite happy with it.