HEARTY BREAKFAST WEEK! 23rd September 2007 to 29th September 2007!

Sorry for the double post. In line with the whole 1 interesting food topic a week thing, THIS WEEK IS HEARTY BREAKFAST WEEK!


It should have been HEARTY BREAKFAST DAY! But I figured that by the time everyone gets around to reading this, you'd have had breakfast already. That would have rather defeated the purpose and made HEARTY BREAKFAST DAY! an automatic failure. But never fear! Because wang is a problem-solver. He is a trouble-shooter, a problem-hunter, a dilemma-predator! He has seen fit to extend this interesting topic for a whole week to accommodate those of you who don't wake up at 3 in the morning to read this blog. Which should be just about everyone. o.O

Alright. So this week, observers of Hearty Breakfast Week must do 4 things to complete the quest! This is a bronze quest, so it's not compulsory. Completing this quest gives you +100 renown and +1000 healthy points!

First, you must publicly extol the virtues of having a nice wholesome breakfast or evangelise this worthy cause in some other way. If you can get 3 other people to observe Hearty Breakfast Week, you get +100 renown bonus and +10 respect. If you can get more than 5 people to observe Hearty Breakfast Week, you'll receive a special prize¹!

Second, you must try at least 2 interesting types of breakfast from a continent other than your own. You may choose to incorporate it as part of your standard breakfast if it is inconvenient or difficult to change to a different cuisine entirely. The 2 must be different in style and content from what you are currently having already. Check the wikipedia article on breakfasts for a brief summary of what everyone else in the world is eating. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakfast#Typical_breakfasts_by_world_regions

Third, you must come up with 2 of your own breakfast sets. One of them should be as complete as possible and must be truly satisfying. This means no skimping on ingredients or prep work, even if it means waking up half an hour earlier to prepare ingredients! It has to be an absolutely delightful meal. The second should be an easy to prepare meal that you can enjoy and prepare every morning before you go to school but is still nutritious, sumptuous and most importantly HEARTY! This one should be inexpensive and really easy to do. Bonus points if you can make parts of it edible on the go. Once you have come up with these, don't be selfish! Share it with your friends who are malnourished and sickly in the mornings. Better yet, prepare parts of it for your friends and share the love!

Last but not least, no skimping on your own breakfasts! Make sure you take time to enjoy it and savour the wholesomeness and pleasure of a Hearty Breakfast.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day so make the best of it.

Eat well and prosper,
Breakfast Meister Wang.

¹Terms and conditions apply.

Prep.

Feast is today! So far, it's looking promising. We're within budget and the taste tests went well. Nonetheless, one should never overlook the importance of doing prep work. As they say, it's 1% inspiration, 99% chinese labour working at minimum wage 18 hours a day. Good thing about slave labour is that it's equally crappy every day of the week!

I like to have clear objectives in mind for stuff that I do. So these are the 3 things I will be focusing on this time.

1. Planning and organisation, both before and during the process
2. Control and fine tuning of seasoning
3. Consistency of quality as scale increases

Not exactly aiming to get myself a Diplome de Cuisine from Le Cordon Bleu, but even Neil Armstrong started with one small step!

So later on, I'll be doing the side dishes, the salad and the fish. Terence is handling the mains, ribs and pasta. We'll be attempting the chips together, because it's revolutionary and new! :O I bought Dijon mustard and some feta today. My kitchen is indeed getting more and more westernised. Oh well.

Here's to a heart feast!
Friar (Read: Fryer. Get it?) Wang.

Simple but tasty: Spaghetti pomodoro

Lately, I've been trying to make simple, tasty things that are real fast. So, it's back to the real basics: Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce. It takes about 10 minutes to prep, 10 to cook. maybe 10 to eat, and another 10 to clean up. All in all, it makes a quick lunch or snack.

So far, I've only been using basic ingredients, and very few spices. The the results have been surprisingly good. Jamie's right: Mr Basil and Mr Tomato are good friends! Can't stand the baby talk though it's pretty funny. My favourite line is: We're from Jamie's little Chick-Chicks...

Spaghetti Pomodoro
For 1 person:

Quarter of an onion, thinly sliced
1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
1 or 2 Tomatoes, cut into large slices
Salt and Pepper
Olive Oil
2 Basil Leaves
Spaghetti, as much as you really want to eat.

Heat the olive oil in a small saucepan. Sweat your onions (I hate that word-sweat, not onions). Season with salt and pepper. Add the tomatoes. Cook until tomatoes are soft, but still hold their shape, about 5 minutes. Season again.

As you heat the olive oil, set a pan of salted water on the boil. When boiling, cook spaghetti until al dente - maybe 5-7 minutes, follow instructions on the packet, or when the spaghetti has lightened in colour. Drain spaghetti when done and put into the saucepan with the tomato sauce.

Tear up the basil leaves and mix them with the spaghetti and sauce, then sprinkle a few shreds on top to garnish. Serve with a grater and some parmesan.

Mm.
Terence.

We Eat!

Another round of food at my place. Tentatively, here's the menu.

Pumpkin Chips with Fennel Pesto
Wang's Caesar Salad
Spaghetti with 3 Mushrooms.
Hickory Smoked Baby Back Ribs.
Fish, Simply Grilled with Lemon and Sea Salt
Faii's Apple Pie with Ice Cream.

I still think there's a bit of a disjoint in the menu caused by the ribs, but i'm actually really excited about the ribs, and i don't really want to give them up. We've also come up with a tentative work order:

Saturday:

: Soak ribs in brine. Prepare Rub.
: Rub ribs all over, store overnight.

Sunday:
: Get the coals fired. Pull ribs from fridge.
: Rake coals, get ribs onto grill.
: Turn ribs periodically every half hour.
: Do nothing, drink beer, play poker.
: Prepwork: Prepare drinks, and chill.
Prepare pumpkin to fry.
Prepare salad.
Chop onions and mushrooms.
Do last-minute whatevers.
: Chill, drink beer. Act like nothing's happened.
: Guys arrive.
Start frying pumpkin chips.
: Food starts. Pumpkin chips appear. Baste ribs.
: Salad appears. Take ribs off BBQ. Let rest.
: Cut them suckers up! Serve with BBQ sauce.
: Put fish on grill.
: Fish.
: Pie!

And we're done.

Terence.

Celebrating Salad Day!

My salad day sucked.

Tried to have some 'ingenuity in the kitchen' but i guess my inspiration came at the expense of memory.

Let's just say, forgetting to season your vinaigrette (hmmmm, spelling looks weird) is a recipe for disaster. Tried something with avocado, tomatoes, and iceberg lettuce. Didn't have much else. Troubleshooting hints please (apart from 'Season with salt and pepper'.

For 1 person:

Do what you need to do with the salad leaves, chop up the tomato, slice your avocado into rough cubes. Set aside first.

Chop half a clove of garlic up finely. Smear it across your chopping board with the flat of your knife, and salt it. Then smear the bugger again. You should have a paste. Go ahead and dump this into the salad bowl.

Crush up some herbs. I used rosemary, a bit of oregano. Dump this into the salad bowl. Then drizzle about 3 tbsp of olive oil into the mix. Stir it around, let the garlic paste dissolve into it. Add 1 tbsp of red wine vinegar and mix, mix, mix!

SEASON WITH SALT AND PEPPER.

Toss the veggies in, and toss the veggies about.

Garnish with some parmesan cheese if you like.


Eew. Didn't taste too good now, did it?


-Salad Day Failure,
Terence.

SALAD DAYS - A review

So today was salad day and to give you a brief rundown of the excitingly healthy and nourishing things that happened today, I present you Vertumnus, Roman God of seasons, change and plant growth, as well as gardens and fruit trees! Here he is, rendered as a sumptuous mixed salad by Arcimboldo.

Quite a flattering portrait wouldn't you say?

Alright. Enough gay banter. I tried 2 salad recipes today. Good old Cesar salad with croutons and a broiled pepper salad that Terence, the other manlyman, suggested. Over last week, I also tried an avocado and prawn salad which the master chef Jerome has qlaerly mastered. I guess what they say about trusting a fat cook is true. Sorry phatboi! You aer t3h ownz!

The avocado and prawn thing, and the pepper thing was not really spectacular. Maybe I'll feature them some other time, when I level up skillz in making those salads. My favourite of the lot was definitely the Caesar Salad. When prepared well, this dish is simple, elegant and delicious. It is truly a beauty to prepare and serve. Here's what I did.

Ingredients

• 2 large crisp heads romaine lettuce
  
• 2 large cloves garlic pressed
• Sea salt
• ¾ cup olive oil
• 2 cups unseasoned toasted croutons
• 1 lemon
• 2 eggs
• ¼ cup (1 ounce) Parmesan cheese, grated
• Ground peppercorns
  
• Worcestershire sauce

Before you begin, you should prepare the garlic oil. Place the pressed garlics into a jar of extra virgin olive oil and shake well to combine. Let it stand at room temperature for several hours, preferably overnight.

Romaine lettuce is preferred. It has a sweeter and crisper quality than iceberg. However, if you're in a pinch, iceberg lettuce would suffice as well. Then you will realise how much potential this delicious salad has if you had the best ingredients possible. About 3 to 5 leaves a person is a good estimate if you're preparing this as a main dish. For the smaller leaves, you'll want to leave them as they are. In any case, you won't want to cut or process the leaves too much, because ideally, they should be picked up by hand.

The next key ingredient is the croutons. You could settle with those lousy expensive and utter silly crap they sell in bakeries and supermarkets. OR, you could make your own. Now doesn't that sound like a wonderful idea? This is what I did. I kinda improvised because my kitchen is not exactly adapted to western cooking, but the results are still absolutely delicious. First, cube a few slices of sourdough bread available at the same lousy bakeries and supermarkets. Sprinkle some salt on them and let them dry out in a hot oven with the garlic oil at around 180-200 degrees. Take the pan out every 2-3 minutes and toss the bread cubes and baste them in the garlic oil until they reach a nice golden brown. Take them out once you reach a nice golden brown sheen on them. You'll want them crunchy on the outside, but soft on the inside. They are simply delectable like that.

About 15 minutes before serving, squeeze the lemons into a pitcher. Then boil the eggs for a minute. Grate the cheese into another nice little bowl and arrange all of these on a tray along with the rest of the olive oil, the croutons, pepper grinder, salt and Worcestershire. Have large dinner plates chilled, arrange the lettuce in the largest salad bowl you can find and you are ready to go. To prepare the dressing, first pour 4 tablespoons of garlic oil over the leaves and give them a few rolling tosses. Try to avoid bruising it (or yourself) as you go along, but a few injuries are probably unavoidable >< Sprinkle on ¼ teaspoon of salt, 2 teaspoon of pepper, 2 more spoonfuls of oil, and give another toss. Pour on the lemon juice, 6 drops of Worcestershire, and break in the eggs. Toss twice, sprinkle on the cheese. Toss once, then sprinkle on the croutons and give two final tosses. That's it! A delicious salad is ready to serve!

The salad has a very wholesome flavour about it. Many other recipes call for vinegar or anchovies or others. I didn't use them mainly because it was too inconvenient to lay my hands on them. Like Mr. Cardini, I simply improvised with what I had on hand, proving once again that a little ingenuity in the kitchen goes a long way. Now go have a healthy food, or the salad hunter will come after you and consume your soul!

The evil one is on the hunt.

Be healthy and prosper,
Salad Meister Wang.

SALAD DAYS: 16th September 2007 - 22nd September 2007

I DECLARE TODAY SALAD DAY!

Sam Peckinpah had his Salad Day, so why can't manlymen?

So for salad day, everyone is obliged to eat a leaf of healthy food! Preferably uncooked and with a generous splosh (a word I made up because it rolls off the tongue nicely) of dressing. I recommend Russian, but I'm weird that way.

To whet your appetite, I present to you images of nice and healthy salads shamelessly stolen off the wikimedia foundation!

Here's a nice and wholesome Cold Meat Salad. It gets 8 for featuring meat! God knows we can do with a nice cold sausage now. That and the olive oil drizzle to go with the raspberry.















How about a nice salad platter with cheese and broiled peppers? This one gets a 7 because it looks cute and because I can identify the cheese. Lol. Try guessing it yourself! Answer is at the bottom of the page. Don't peek! Even if I don't know, the great pink unicorn in the sky would and he frowns upon such deceit.



This next one is just an ordinary green salad. Not very impressive. Even the cutlery is quite plain. Plus, the image is titled "SaladShy.jpg" No one likes a coy salad. We want our salads proud and loud! If you have it flaunt it! What's the point of being firm and supple if you're just going to hide behind the celery? We want dressing that is provocative, definitive, strong, aggressive. Sexy but not necessarily raunchy. Coquettish but not too slutty. If you want to be demure, you should have considered being a soup or a bouillabaisse or something like that. I heard cabbage cucumber stews are doing well. Bugger off and take your diffident ways with you. This one gets a 2.5. Only saving grace is the pretty little orange flower.



That's all the pictures I could find on the wikipedia article on salads, unfortunately. So that's the end of my introduction to salad days.

I feel obliged to deal with the fact that yes, indeed, the term salad days does refer to a period of youthful innocence blah blah and all that crap. Bollocks. Food is food. Food should not mix with sex. Except if you're experimenting with *censored*. But that's another story for another time.

For those of you who tried the little guessing game, good for you! The answer is of course, Greek feta. It doesn't have veins, so it's not a blue. It has a nice white solid structure, so it's probably a curd cheese. The slightly grainy texture suggests maybe brynzda, but in the context of the salad and the serving manner (small cubes), feta is a better answer.

Be healthy and prosper!
Salad Meister Wang.

Initial Doubts

Now why would anyone want to read a food blog by some teenage prats who can't tell a cabbage from a lettuce?

I must admit, I'm having some initial doubts about this blog, but we'll see how it goes. I guess this blog is just somewhere where I'll post pictures and recipes that I've done. Hopefully I get some constructive comments that'll help me on. Alright then.

Here goes nothing.
Terence.