三杯雞 (Three cups chicken)

Another one of those traditional chinese dishes that I love but M hates. My mom gave me this recipe when I was in my chinese cooking phase, before I got my French cookbook and starting exploring western cuisines. My initial experiments with this dish were not that successful, I fried the chicken for too long before adding the sauce. A breakdown in communication as I thought my mom said fry the chicken till its completely dried. Lets just say the end product wasn't that good. At least, I have learnt from my mistakes. Anyway, fry garlic cloves and ginger slices in sesame oil till fragrant, add in the chicken and just fry it till its brown on both sides. Add soya sauce, sugar, chinese wine and simmer till the chicken is cooked. Mix in some spring onions and serve with rice. The three cups is referring to 1 cup of soya, 1 cup of chinese wine and 1 cup of sesame oil. I am assuming that the cups are quite small. Its actually quite cute, the names of these recipes.

La Tasca

Went to catch The Departed at the cinema near our place. Had lunch at a La Tasca branch there, a Spanish Tapas bar and restaurant franchise. What I like about this place is that you can just order a few tapas, get a few drinks and just chill out there for a while especially with the view of the West India Quay outside the restaurant. We ordered chicken croquettes, potato bravas, deep fried king prawns and aubergine with cheese, tomatoes and herbs. We ate all that with olive and sun dried tomato bread. The thing about franchises is that you can expect, at the worst, average food so in a way, you are hedging your bets by not trying some fancy restaurant which you may not exactly like. For example, Sabor. The food was alright. I really like the potatoes bravas although M didn't like it as she wanted the potatoes to be crispy. We had no issues with the chicken croquettes and the aubergines. M didn't like the prawns as she found it too small. She obviously hasn't stayed in the UK long enough as its quite difficult to find the real king prawns that you see back in Singapore. All in all, we were fine with La Tasca.

http://www.latasca.co.uk/

As for the movie, I really enjoyed it and I think its better than the HK version primarily because the dialogue in Infernal Affairs is too cleaned up, the policemen and the triads don't sound like people from that side of the line. But The Departed, the language is gritty and hopefully true to the culture of the Boston police force and the Irish mobsters. I am not too sure which ending I prefer though. M likes the HK ending.

Sabor

Went back to Angel to explore the place as I didn't manage to do it last week, had to rush back to prepare the meal for M's friends. We saw a South American restaurant called Sabor on the toptable website with pretty good reviews and so we decided to try it for lunch. The starters were excellent. I had skewered chicken with a lime and citrus dressing with sweet potatoes with a cheese and mustard sauce. The flavours were sharp and delicious. M had corn fritters. I don't really like corn so I can't appreciate it. She said its good though. We were really looking forward to the mains but sadly, they don't meet up to the standard set by the starters. I had steamed red snapper in a banana leaf with coconut rice. The fish was alright, nothing really special and the coconut rice was way too coconuty for my taste. I am not a big fan of coconut so I guess I am biased. M had the cornmeal dumplings. I thought they tasted like muffins and the dressing for the salad that came with it was too strong, an overdose of mustard I think. M didn't like it as well. So not exactly a very enjoyable lunch experience but I guess for the price of 15 pounds per person, I shouldn't complain that much.

http://www.sabor.co.uk

Smoked mackerel

Another one of my lunch favourites, smoked mackerel and bread. You can't really get it in Singapore, aside from Cold Storage, Marketplace where its really expensive. Here, its in Asda and cheap. Its a good healthy lunch item to have, fish, omega 3 and all.

Chicken baked rice

I think Singaporeans first knew about baked rice when Swensons introduced it to their menu a couple of years ago. I am not too sure whether I first tasted it at Swensons or whether I tried it at home. My mom apparently loved it so much, she started making it at home on a regular basis. I think she developed the recipe on her own. I am not too sure. Anyway, its really simple. Fry onions and mushrooms in olive oil. Add in diced chicken seasoned with salt and pepper and fry till the chicken is browned on both sides. Place rice in a casserole dish, pour the chicken mixture on top. Pour in canned mushroom soup and cover with lots and lots of cheese. Bake till the cheese is golden brown. I actually modified the recipe today and I honestly think its better this way. I replaced the onions with the leeks and I think the mixture tasted richer with this change.

M: I am not a fan of baked rice but W's version is good.

Braised chicken, pork and egg with rice

D is here on his weekly visit and I made used of this opportunity to cook something Chinese, something I can't do on a regular basis for M's meals. I am thinking of doing this on a weekly basis as well, was thinking of making three cups chicken next week, when D comes over again. I didn't have enough chicken for a full meal, so I added some pork to it. Its quite a nice mixture of meats. What I did was to fry some garlic (with the skin), shallots, sliced ginger, star anise and sugar till they are fragrant and add the chicken and pork to the mixture. Fry the meats till they are brown on both sides and add dark soya, a bit of light soya, water and five spices. Bring to the boil and simmer. Add some hard boiled eggs and continue the simmering till the meats are cooked. Serve with white rice. Yums.

Of course, the picture is taken by D. I can't possibly take such good pictures. The food arrangement was done by him as well. Looking back at my old food blog, my pictures really suck...

Pork chops with mustard and tomato sauce / Rosti

M loves rosti. The extent to which she loves it scares me. When I first cooked it, she started eating it, not from her own plate, but from mine. I had to increase the amount of potatoes today so that she can have enough. Besides, she has been bugging me to cook it for the last two weeks. Its not something I want to cook often as the preparation work is tiring. You have to grate the potato into a dish and trust me, the palm of your hand will hurt like hell after you grate at least two potatoes. Thankfully, its easier after that. Add melted butter, salt and pepper to the potato mixture. Fry it till its brown and crispy on one side, flip it over and fry the other side. Oh I almost forgot, I didn't fry the rosti. M did it. All I did was to GRATE it and season it. She did everything else.

To go with the rosti, I made another dish from my French cookbook. Pork chops with mustard and tomato sauce. I still remember hating mustard when I was young, I didn't like it on my burgers but again, as always, after making a dish with mustard in it, I started loving it. Maybe its because its dijon mustard and not American mustard. I am not too sure. Anyway, for this, pan fry pork chops (seasoned with salt and pepper) with butter till they are brown on both sides. Remove from the pan. Add white wine and boil till the alcohol is almost all evaporated. Add cream and tomato puree and simmer for a while. Return the pork to the pan and simmer till the meat is cooked. Add peeled and diced tomatoes, dijon mustard and tarragon (Don't use basil! Mistake on my part.) Heat throughly and serve on the rosti. The sauce goes pretty well on the rosti.

Honey chicken

Its porridge day again. In order to survive the blandness of it all, I cooked honey chicken to go along with the porridge. M loves No Signboard restaurant in Singapore and she has a fixed list of dishes that she orders from: honey chicken, cereal prawn and garlic vegetables. Since cereal prawn is not something i can make, prawns are way too small in this country, i have to learn how to make honey chicken. Thankfully, its not that difficult. Coat chicken pieces with cornflour and salt. Prepare batter by mixing an egg, water and self raising flour. Dip the chicken into the batter and fry them till they are crisp and cooked. Remove from the pan. Fry ginger. Add honey to the mixture, be careful not to burn it (I have done it once (M: today)). Return the chicken to the pan. Add a mixture of soya sauce and cornflour to the chicken. Heat throughly and serve with spring onions.

[M: W is a great cook. Looking forward to cereal prawns next week.]

Le Mercury / Potato and leek soup / Chicken Chasseur

Went to Angel to meet M's friends for lunch. Quite a nice place, commercialised but still with a slight hippie edge to it. Had lunch at this French restaurant called Le Mercury. For 10 pounds, you get a starter and a main. Its alright, nothing spectacular, something that comes with the price I guess. I had a crab tian and a rib eye steak with shallot sauce for lunch. I have been craving red meat for some time as I don't cook it at home. Actually, what I really crave is a huge burger not the fast food kind, the gourmet kind but I haven't had the chance to get something like tt. So a steak will do for now at least. The steak was not bad, quite juicy, the shallot sauce went quite well with it. As I didn't feel thristy after the meal, i guess there was no MSG in the sauce, hopefully the beef stock was made from scratch and not from a stock cube. The crab tian wasn't fantastic, but for 3 pounds, you can't really expect real crab meat, instead its just crab sticks. M had roast pumpkin soup and fish cakes. She wasn't particularly happy with it too.

http://www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/reviews/334.html

Subsequently, M's friends came over to our place for dinner and I cooked potato and leek soup as a starter and chicken chasseur as the main for them. For dessert, we had the Gu chocolate souffles.





I think I really expanded my knowledge of soup, not from recipe books, the internet or even restaurants. Its from the cafe at my faculty. Everyday, there's a different soup and I have actually learnt to make most of them. I particularly liked this soup for lunch as its filling, perfect when I am starving after the gym. I love its natural flavours too, potato and leeks. For this soup, bring to the boil and simmer, diced potatoes in chicken stock for 20 minutes. Add diced leeks and simmer for another 15 minutes. Puree the vegetables, return to the soup, mix well, add some creme fraiche and serve.



I really started cooking when I went to New York and bought this cook book, The Best Ever French Cooking Course. Chicken chasseur was one of the first recipes I used from it and after it, I was really hooked on this dish, i must have cooked this on average once every month. I didn't used to like food with tomatoes but after this, i kept buying tomatoes in bulk to use in my cooking. Dredge chicken portions in flour, salt and pepper and pan fry them till they are brown on both sides. Remove on pan. Saute onions, garlic and mushrooms till they are golden. Return chicken to the pan with the juices and add white wine. Bring to the boil. Add chicken stock and a can of tomatoes and simmer till the chicken is cooked. Serve with pasta and rice.

Carluccios and ready made meals

No pictures to post today. Only words to describe what we ate and did. M wanted to go to a designer warehouse sale, Nicole Farhi so we had lunch outside. Carluccios. One of those franchise italian restaurants.

http://www.carluccios.com/CarlucciosSite/pages/home/default.asp

I quite like it, its relatively cheap and you get enormous portions of pasta. I had potato gnocchi with blue cheese and spinach, an excellent combination incidentally, something i would explore on my own when M isn't eating. M doesn't like spinach. M had lasagne. The sale was alright, M didn't manage to get anything, she did get something for me though. Its her new pet project, revamping my wardrobe. We came back late, massive grocery shopping, I have to cook dinner for M's friends tomorrow. Wanted to cook porridge but two hours to prepare chicken stock was too long a wait for us and so we decided to have pasta instead. Waitrose ready made tortellini stuffed with ham and cheese and a four cheeses sauce from Waitrose as well. I added the chicken meat from the preparation of the stock and some mushrooms and thats a complete meal.

Anyway, going to be a long day tomorrow. Hopefully, the menu I prepare is good enough for guests. Its potato and leek soup and chicken chasseur. If all goes well, I will post the pictures tomorrow.

Country chicken saute

To get M to eat vegetables is an extremely difficult chore. You can't just have boiled or stired fried vegetables. It has to look pretty. My creamed spinach was rejected as it looked disgusting according to her. One way I discovered is to fry some rice with a mixture of carrots, peas, sweetcorn and long beans. It looks quite colourful and so thankfully, she has no problems with that. For dinner today, its country chicken saute, comfort food in a way. I love casseroles as they feel so homly and earthy. To me this is what home cooking is all about. For this dish, fry some diced bacon till its browned. Remove from the pan. Dredge chicken portions in flour, salt and pepper and pan fry till they are all brown on both sides. Remove from the pan. Pan fry some mushrooms with butter. Return the chicken and the bacon to the pan, and add white wine and chicken stock. Simmer till cooked.

As I am also in charge of the washing up, I have this habit of limiting the number of bowls I used. So for today, I decided to pour the saute over the rice to reduce the amount of washing. It actually tasted really good, wonderful mixture of flavours; the sweetness of the vegetables and the rich taste of the white wine sauce. Yums.

Baked portobello mushrooms with bacon and cheese / Carrot soup

M and I love soups and mushrooms. In the past, when I went to restaurants, I tend to ignore the rest of the starters and go straight for soups. I have since managed to grow out of my obsession with soups and realised how wonderfully delicious the other appetisers could be. One of them is the classic baked mushrooms with bacon and cheese. I have seen this starter in almost all the franchise restaurants in England, eg Cafe Rouge, Bella pasta, Zizzi. Anyway, I chanced upon portobello mushrooms in ASDA, such mushrooms are incredibly expensive in Singapore and it was there at a corner, selling for 80p per pack. So of course I bought it. For this dish, all you need is to place some chopped bacon and minced garlic on the mushrooms. Lots of cheese on top and bake it till the cheese is melted and brown.



Since I am the cook, i decided to have both soup and mushrooms for dinner. I make it a point to cook soup at least once a week and I happened to buy two packets of carrots, buy 1 get 1 free and all. I needed to get rid of them before they started rotting and so I decided to make carrot soup. I used to dislike carrot soup although I suspect thats 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. To make this a proper meal, I added Orzo pasta to it.

M: We had cream cheese bagels to go with our soup and mushrooms. Oddly enough to finish them off before they went bad too.

Pork with cheese sauce and butternut squash

So its back to the food that M can eat since she's back from her course. I wonder when I will be able to have spicy or Chinese food. I was introduced to butternut squash mash in a Scottish Restaurant in Perth and from then on, mashed potatoes just don't do the trick for me. Butternut squash mash looks better as well.

Cut the butternut squash into chucks, season with salt and black pepper, drizzle some olive oil over it and roast it in the oven till its soft. Mash the butternut squash, add olive oil to give it a bit of consistency and season. This goes really well with a cheese sauce; I love the contrasts, the sweetness of the mash and the savory taste of the cheese sauce. So for the pork, season it with salt, pepper and sage and brown it on both sides. Remove from the pan and add white wine. Boil until its reduced by half, then add in cream and cheddar cheese. Return the pork to the pan and simmer till its cooked.

Chicken curry and prata

M has to go on course today and so I get to eat things I normally can't eat when she's around. Today, its chicken curry, the really spicy kind that i love. M can't handle the spice. D visited today to make use of the internet and so I cooked a huge pot of chicken curry and we had it with prata that he bought from the shops near his place. Its really dirt cheap 99p for a packet of 5 frozen prata and it doesn't taste half bad. It amazing when i came over to the UK seven years, it was practically impossible to buy it here. Now its everywhere, even in Asda. Since M isn't around and I suck at taking photographs, something D has constantly reminded me, I got D to take it for me. You be the judge, whether its alright. [M: The photo is actually quite good.]

Anyway, my chicken curry is probably the Chinese kind in that I fry diced shallots with sambal chilli, then add in chicken marinated with salt and curry powder. Fry it for a while till you see the oil released from the chicken. Add in potato chunks which have been fried with some salt. Mix it all together. Add water and simmer till the chicken is cooked. Pour in some coconut milk and season. Serve with nice fluffy crispy prata. Oh, D cooked the prata and he can actually flip the prata up and down on the frying pan. I keep expecting him to drop it on my kitchen floor. Luckily, he didn't.

Chicken-in-a-pot

This is supposedly a Bulgarian dish according to the cookbook, Chicken the best ever recipe collection. Its a very simple dish to prepare and really healthy as well. M loved it too. [M: we are a happy loving couple. yay. bliss.]. In a pot (obviously), place chicken portions, lots of tomatoes and minced garlic and cover, cook gently for 15 minutes. Add chicken stock, chopped onions, paprika, bay leaves, tomato puree, olive oil, white peppercorns. Cover and cook at very low heat for 2 hours. Played One Piece Grand Adventure with M, trashed her Nami on several occasions, I gloat, she whines, about how I am supposed to let her win. I ignore her. Add parsley and serve.

Stir fried pork with carrots and mushrooms

M loves porridge. Not any normal porridge. Teochew porridge. Chicken soup and rice in it. Frankly, I can't stand it as I find it bland and boring but I have managed to make the most out of this situation by having a chinese stir fry dish with it. M doesn't like Chinese food in general aside from the deep fried battered stuff like cereal prawn and salt and pepper squid. But strangely she's alright with my stir fried dishes if she has her favourite porridge with it.

This recipe was taken from my mom when I started my PhD. She wrote down some of her traditional recipes in an exercise book for me to use. Basically, fry spring onions (the white parts of it) with oil, add pork slices marinated with light soya sauce, salt, pepper and corn flour and stir fry it for a while until the pork is brown on both sides. Add carrots and mushrooms. Add a mixture of chinese wine, sesame oil, salt and sugar and cover till all is cooked. Garnish with spring onions.

Multi-mushroom pasta

This is a Jamie Oliver recipe that I saw on TV with my parents and I cooked it for them the next day. My parents are quite crazy about his shows and my mom has been cooking more and more of his dishes these days. I think his recipes are simple but lacking a certain twang (as he puts it): I normally have to add something extra but this pasta dish came out with no modifications. I cooked this dish in Singapore and M has been complaining that I should cook this for her as she loves mushrooms. Anyway, all you have to do for this is pan fry a variety of mushrooms with butter, olive oil and salt until they are cooked and the juices are out from the mushrooms. Add a bit of lemon juice, some parsley and mix spaghetti with it. Parmesan cheese and black pepper.

Grilled cheese sandwich

I used to eat this almost every day for lunch. Every week, I would buy a packet of Bernard Mathews Turkey Ham, a packet of Sainsbury's Mild Cheese slices, Tomatoes and use it for this sandwich. All it involves is placing all the ingredients on a slice of bread (wholemeal bread) with the cheese on top of course and grilling it for around 5 minutes till the cheese is bubbling and brown. Satisfying, hot and simple.