Cookout! and other late posts.

This is a retrospective post on 2 events: making bread & butter pudding and our last cookout.

Bread and Butter:

The original recipe was for 6, but i did a half-recipe as a tester, and split it into 4 ramekins. This was the last ramekin! I think the pointy-tipped presentation is a winner, and the crunch when you bite into it is a delightful textural contrast to the rich, soft custard. The marmalade glaze could've been done better though, but i didnt' have my blowtorch with me. Next time i'll use better quality marmalade, and caramelise it into a crust.

Cookout!

Wang has already taken it upon himself to post pictures of my kitchen, so i'll not describe that. The cookout was totally impromptu - Wang was to come over to take photos of the pudding, and i decided an hour before that to try out a recipe that has been sitting in my mind for ages.

Pork belly in 3 different ways!

First, i cut the pork belly into thick slices. I was going to cut it into thin slices after that, but the plan backfired - it's near impossible to cut thawed meat properly (with my limited skills). After that, i soaked the meat in brine (salt, brown sugar, pepper, cumin, cinnamon). The brine was a success - the meat was soft, moist and flavourful.

After that, i planned to sear it, and make an apple sauce to go with it. There's something about rich, fatty pork and tart, sweet apples that is really good. Anyway, at this point in time, Chin arrived, to show the newbies how it's done.

First, he caramelised the apples on high heat, then he added more butter and sugar. He asked for cream, but all i had was milk. As a substitute, he used more butter and milk. The end product:

Sweet, tart rich goodness, without the heaviness!

The first slice of pork belly was cut into strips and panfried. The pan was degreased and a red-wine sauce made with the fond. Good stuff.

The second slice I browned off, and sauted. The apple sauce was drizzled over, and we fussed about presentation for ages.

The first plate:

Plain and unappealing.

This just wouldn't do. Chin rearranged the plate, and squared off the piece of pork. Second plate:

More colour and variety.

Just for kicks, we did it a third way:

A more conventional plating.

We agreed though, that the dish needs more colour and more vibrancy. There were a lot of yellows and browns, and not enough variation in colour to make it very appealing to eat. Texture-wise, the crunch of the bed of raw apples was a nice contrast to the chewy, moist pork, and the soft sweetness of the caramelised apples. The basil was sadly non-functional though.

The last piece of pork will stew in obscurity, for there are no pictures, and no more mention will be made of it.



Until next time,
T.

Manly Men acquire cave painting tool!

Or at least its modern equivalent.

I went through my cupboard the other day. Wow. The stuff in there was interesting. However, most interestingly, I have found a digital camera! =D So finally manly men will have pictorial documentation of adventures. It's a very old lumix, so I apologise for the rather crappy quality of the images...



So this is post-As notes pile. It looks deceptively little, but my shelf is rather deep and the actual amount notes I have are about twice as much.



I found my digital camera here! It was hiding in the PSU box. Massive book on the layer above is my SATs book.

Okay enough frivalous photos. I present to you my humble little kitchen:

This is my cooking area. Unbelievably small and claustrophobic.



By comparison, this is Terence's cooking area. His stove has a non-existent gradient function. It is either a hot enough to boil a monkey's bum, or off.



This is my fridge. It is incredibly empty, both because I eat so much and because my grandparents have gone back to China and so we are not cooking in the epic proportions they used to any more.

Being a typical Chinese household, we have our own little store of secret dried herbs and spices that can resuscitate a dying cow if necessary. Now, never before seen images of Wang's private store of secret ingredients, taken at the risk of ninjas sent by the Family slipping Eno into my drink. =D Another story for another day.



Rather messy =S But speaking of messy, one more frivolous photo, this time of my table. Haha i am seriously untidy.



I am rather spartan and surprisingly quite organised when it comes to my cooking area though. Partially because it is amazingly empty too. =S We cook and make do with just about anything we lay our hands on at home. Consequently, my ingredients area is extremely small and very poorly stocked. That also means every time I have food project I end up doing quite a lot of shopping because I usually do not have anything at all.



Hahaha. So that is it. A simple introduction to my cosy and rather claustrophobic working space =)

Peace,
Photography Meister Wang

Guilt trip

I feel rather embarrassed. My postmortem of the feast lies festering in the edit bin like an overcooked beef stew that's been on the boiler for the last 2 months. It's unbelievably repulsive and starting to smell. So I don't know. Should I go back to it? It's like watching a really bad movie. You start it but you really can't be bothered to finish it. Yet, some time later, you regret not finishing it and you feel like going back to it again, but you know it will be torturous and uncomfortable going through it again. Am I making any sense at all?

At this point, I am feeling rather incompetent. So I shall not try anything adventurous. But I do feel obliged to share the following rant. I feel that for all our cooking adventures, the one thing we have failed to cover adequately is Chinese. I watched a television programmed where they talked very intelligently about how the Chinese, in China especially, are distancing themselves from their culture. Universities have taken a very western interpretation of art and literature, which is lamentable, really. I feel rather strongly about it, but that is really not relevant here. So, I shall try to fight back in my own little way, by dedicating the next series of posts to Chinese cuisine, from the exquisite delicacies of an Imperial Palace, to the simple peasant's dish that our grandfathers and grandmothers enjoyed.

Chinese cooking is fundamentally very different from the western style of cooking, in much the same as Chinese dining is different. The two main differences are variety and dish structure. You know what they say about us Chinese. If it has limbs and moves, we will eat it. And we will not just eat any part of it, we must eat the whole damn thing, or we shall feel an inexplicable sense of regret. Thus while various cuisines from other parts of the world may show a specificity to the produce of the native region and at most a few of its neighbours, Chinese cuisine is far more varied in scope. The point is not that the Chinese have had more exposure to variety. Rather it reflects the remarkable adaptability of our style of cooking.

On the second point, Chinese dish structure reflects the fact that Chinese cooking is and always has been a communal thing, as compared to many Western traditions. This difference is manifested in both senses of the word, in the structure of the plates and literally, dishes used to present the food, and the structure of each individual menu item. In terms of the cutlery and utensils, chopsticks are not the only difference. It is rare to find to find the plates so common in Western restaurant because in traditional Chinese homes, the only food personal each meal is a bowl of rice and the occasional bowl of soup, though both are usually taken from a bigger communal tub or bowl. Thus, dishes are also prepared with the concept of sharing in mind. A part of the art of preparing chinese food is dividing it into portions, whether it is slicing beef, dicing chicken or chopping vegetables.

A word, perhaps, at this time about the menu. Chinese menus typically do not follow any particularly structured presentation. There are distinctions within the menu, but these are more by type of food, i.e. cold dish, meat, vegetable, soup. So overall, a chinese gastronomical adventure is very much different from a western one if only because the food and flavours hit you in a deluge rather than through a well planned process. The primary impact of this is that chinese cooking is a lot more concerned with the big picture of flavours and hence less "specific" than western cooking.

Okay that wasn't exactly a marvelously insightful or well written piece. This weekend I shall attempt pork trotters soup! And I have found myself a digital camera! So expect pictures =D

Peace,
Wang the Slanty Eyed One.

We're back, from outer space!

Ok, the crap has ended, and we're back in the groove.

The cooking has started: wang's whipped up a dinner with chin, and i've just made astonishing bread and butter pudding. If i may say so myself, of course. Anyway, if you've been waiting, we'll start posting again soon - i'll do one by next weekend.

To keep you occupied, here is a food quest!

QUEST: Recreate the Ramly Burger.
for extra points: find out what 'ramly' means.

Notes: The only Ramly burger we're talking about is the 'special burger' - a patty of chicken or beef wrapped in egg. The other burger is just not 'special' enough. Heh.


Cheers!
Terence.