Under the Seaaaaaaa..........

Hey Folks..... a quick update on what went down the tummy just now.
The Mrs naturally jumped for joy and whilst I was blasting Bad Romance Remix... she came skipping up the stairs and looked at the food like little girl in a Barbie shop.

Gastromically speaking....... I did GOOD today... :)

Garlic + Ginger with Milk Gravy Greens

Drunk + Spicy Glass Prawns

Salt + Pepper Fried Squid

Grilled Sambal (Chilli) Crayfish

Ok guys.... I guess this is it for tonight. The Mrs just burped and DAMNNNN did it smell foul!? -_-

you want SEAFOOD? I'll GIVE you SEAFOOD!!!

Well maybe not in that an angry a tone but you get the drift... :)

The Mrs was hopping around mad with request of yet another seafood meal. My burnt pocket smelling its ashes, I give in. If you know my wife, she has a face that the word 'NO' cannot be given to. So unwillingly, willingly I agreed to cook that seafood dinner for her tonight.

Prawns in XO again she said..... she IS an alcoholic actually... WHAHAH but hey... what can I say? She is my wife afterall... I just need to hide all the alcohol in the house, but her nose, trained to sniff out the slightest even of alcohol, will be able to find out where the stash is hidden. So I'm not even going to try.

Uncooked... yes, these are just the prep pictures, but I know they will turn out great! Well, I hope they do or else, I have deproved. Next is Crayfish with Sambal sauce. These puppies will be grilled and then served with thier own juices. Simple enough preping - mixture of sambal + honey + soy sauce + garlic + a bit of water and there your have the dressing, simply laced all over the crayfish and let the marinate get into them buggers and grill..... you'll be crayfish heaven.

Squid, I love squid... LOVE. I decided to strip these suckers down and no more pigments on them but just the white, fair sexy meat of the tentacled wonder. I cut them to size and diamond cut them. Give this a slight dash of oil and let them rest. Later, they will be dipped into a batter of egg + flour + water + dash of sugar. Quick fried in DAMN HOT OIL.... and then removed and cooked again with salt + pepper over high heat with a LITTLE.. and I do mean LITTLE bit of oil and toss these suckers until the smell of burnt salt + pepper fills the air.

This rice dish is a simple dish. The tenticles of the squid, I sliced them and added them into a rice cooker with garlic, teaspoon of the following - soy sauce and chinese black vinegar. A drop of sesame oil, 1 sliced chilli padi and add a table spoon of white wine. Let the rice cook on its own and when you hear the 'click' of the rice cooker, you know it's done!

Sprinkle chilli flakes, dried chives and dried garlic bits. Serving? What serving? You see the spoon? Right, pick it up and open your mouth. There you go... now scoop the rice and shove the spoon into your mouth. Now, tell me..... you mentioned serving style? Not all is about serving it nicely, sometimes, it's all about enjoying what you have in front of you... :)

I'll post the cooked results of the above mentioned food. Well, I have tried the prawns before, but the other 2 dishes? Fingers crossed, they will turn out as per my normal standard.... EDIBLE!

Weekend as a freeloader...

I can't help it, I admit, it does feel good to be a freeloader... :)

A freakin loaded mate asked us for Nonya Buffet and what can I say? NO?!? Of course I jumped on the offer... so did the Mrs and also another friend.... now he is a different story altogether.

Anyway, we had a good dinner at King Coperthorne Hotel and my goodness... what a dinner. The food there was great and the company was also enjoying. Chatting and laughing made us loose track of time but made our memories of school in UK immortal.

After the dinner we went to Sopranos. It's at 7 Portsdown Road. The pictures that I took here were during the afternoon but of course, we went after dinner. But the place is as relaxing in the afternoon as it is at night. We had thier house red which was smooth to the taste and as I prefer Medium bodied wine, this bottle was perfect. Get this... it's SGD 29 / bottle. WHAHAHA...... How can we not order it?!

Anyway, Sopranos has an awesome array of Pasta. Pages and pages of pasta (mind you... it's not like the crap from Pastamania). The different styles of cooking and types of pasta as well... lovely! Inspired, here is a pasta spegg dish that I made from before:

1 Squid 1 Portion Pasta

- Pasta is simple ya? Just make sur eto boil to al-dente
- Clean and cut a whole squid.. make sure you remove the beak and clean the ink sack properly (we are not cooking squid ink pasta today)
- Making the sauce by adding 5 tablespoons of the pasta water and add a teaspoon of pesto sauce
- Quick fry the squid in a little puddle of olive oil
- Add garlic and the the pesto mixture. Add parsley into it as well and a dash of pepper
- Add the al dante pasta to the mixture

Serving this dish is not rocket science and just add parmesan cheese and more parsley.

Did I tell you guys that the whole was FREE for me as it was me mates who paid for the dinner and the drinks!? :) If only every weekend was like this.... perfect and I'll save tonnes!

A friendly stranger came knocking at 1230 AM!!!??

10:38PM -

James: dude you at home?
Eric: yup...
James: I come now.
Eric: Ok

11:45PM -

Eric: where the hell are you man?
James: I am leaving now from home actually.
Eric: wah lau!!

12:25AM -

James: dude, where to make that U-turn ah?
Eric: after the traffic light when you get down from the viaduct.
James: you have food or not ah?
Eric: what you want?
James: anything also can, I haven't eaten the whole day....
Eric: my problem?
James: ........
Eric: I cook something fast with what I have.
James: ok ok thanks.... hehehe
Eric: (due to adult nature and coarse language that I had used, I shall refrain from typing what I said)

The above dialogue says it all right? A d!ck of friend wanted to come over and I had to wait for freaking 2 hours!? Sheesh..... Anyway, how can I disappoint? I did offer to cook him something nice for his b-day 3 days earlier anyway..... But what do I have in the fridge?! Hmmm.... let's see:

- Pasta
- Parmesan Cheese
- Cheese Hot Dogs
- BBQ corn from last night

I was thinking - Skinny freaks like you can take carbo at night and nothing will happen......

Pasta with what-I-have-in-fridge

- Pasta to be made al dante
- I sliced the cheese hot dog and put them into the steamer for 7 minutes and they are ready
- Same goes for the BBQ corn which I steamed as well
- Sauce to be made after the pasta is done: 5 table spoons of the pasta liquid. teaspoon of olive oil. Garlic + cut parsley + dried chilli flakes make for the starting of the making for the sauce. In high heat, heat the pan and olivize it. Add the garlic + parsley + chilli flakes. Lift the pan off the heat so as to not overcook the initial ingredients. Add half a cup of FULL CREAM MILK! (I mean.... LIVE life!! :) Plus it's not me eating at close to 1am ANYWAY!) Add the 5 table spoons of the pasta liquid. Bring the mixture to a boil, Add the Parmesan cheese the last and lower the heat to medium. It should then become milky and slightly sticky. At this time, add the sliced hot dogs and cook for a bit before adding the pasta and cook in low heat.

Serving can't be anymore easier!! Just place all unto a plate and done! Corn on the side and the sliced hot dogs at a side too or if you want, to be sprawled all over the plate. Dashes of parsley / chilli flakes / parmesan cheese......

Ok, I asumed he was near since he asked me about the damn U-turn. Stupid $%^&* I am sleepy!!! DINGGGG DOOONNGGGGG........ freakin c*nt! Me mumm's sleeping you shit on a stick!!!!!!

Colours..... bright colours

I went to JB last week with some mates and it was fun..... dinner and such (no hanky panky - had an episode with the JB police). Whislt waiting for one of the guys to get his hair done, I had time to do what I liked amongst the 3 most common activity in Holiday Plaza - Hair cuit.. NO. Foot massage.. NO. Padi / Mani.. YES. It was 70 Ringgit about 29 SGD so I guess it's ok. Now my nails are bling bling from the polish... wow! Thinking about this, it reminded a nail bar owned by the Mrs' friend - Blk 407 ang mo kio ave 10, #01-757.

We went there before for the opening and as any nail bar, it was BRIGHT... very nice and colourful. This is not big but very homely and I would guess that the nail artists will know the customers from thier families to what thier dogs had eaten?! (gossip.. what else can they do when the nails are being done?)

This brings me to the dish which I made with bell peppers - colourful and tasty, healthy too! I am now on a low carb diet and have been walking for 90 minutes per day and swim about 300m. Let's hope that by the time I go to UK, I would have lost enough weight so as not to look like a puffed up humanoid wearing winter gear.

Tri-Pepper Salad

- cut and dice into small cubes, 3 different coloured bell peppers
- cut and dice also a cucumber
- boil some quail eggs
- cut squid into strips as well and boil them in salted water for 1 minute max in high heat
- make your own Vinaigrette dressing by mixing 3 table spoons of Olive oil + 2 table spoons of Balsamic Vinegar + sprinkles of salt + 1 teaspoon of Honey

Serving is simple, just put everything in a bowl and done! It's fast and easy to do, not much cooking needed. Make sure that the dressing is mixed well and the taste will be glorious. Mind you, this is also healthy! Last ingredient would be diced chilli padi as well. If you may not know, chilli is good as an anti-oxidant as well as good for generating higher metabolism. :)

Ok, it's raining now, so maybe I'll walk later.... the bed and the pitter patter of the rain is like a lullaby.....ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz

So not everyone likes what I cook

It's hard to please everyone I guess? The signs were there.... how initially I was invited to cook, to how the direction changed to someone else. Well, everyone has different tastes right? But what I don't appreciate is the patronizing. And I CAN cook Chinese food too yah..... Maybe it's not even about the food?! It's about me? Oh well... slightly taken aback by the comment but I'm still cooking anyway... :)

Comfort food... I need comfort food!! I can think of one. I made this sometime back but not as comfort food, but if I were to make comfort food, this will be one of them. It's a simple dish that requires cheap ingredients - cabbage / corned beef / bread.

- Use a whole can of corned beef and add half a can of water into the beef in a pan. Cooking it for 5 minutes on high heat
- Clean some cannage leaves and put them into the pan after the beef is put to rest after cooking it for the past 5 minutes
- Lastly, tear off the bread pieces and soak them into the cooked beef
- Transfer the mixture into an oven pan and bake in high heat for 20 minutes
- After 20 minutes is up, lace cheese over the baking pan and let it rest for several minutes in the grill

Serving of this dish is as simple as can be. Just scoop out a portion and serve it. Of course, other garnishes can be added - herbs and chilli flakes will be great. Drizzle olive oil and add dried chopped garlic. Ummmmm mummy........

I just went to the British Border Agency yesterday... I hope that I can get it to go UK for my honeymoon!! :)

Chinese Food pig out with the mates

I just realised that Chinese food is actually cheaper to cook, yes I know we have the shark fins and stuff BUT having bought food for chinese cooking over the weekend, to feed 8, I only spent 100 SGD to cook the dishes. Now I know why Chinese Resto owners have huge a$$ fat wallets..... damn it!

Anyway, the Mrs decided to cook and wow did she cook a storm! My goodness.... I have tasted good food, but DANG! The dishes that she cooked were DA BOMB!!!! In today's edition, I'll just be describing the taste of the food to you all...... WHAHAHHAHAH gLee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pissed Drunk Prawns

Man! Oh WOW! The prawns were swimming in a full glass of Camus XO! A touch of garlic, parsley, white wine and oil were added to add flavour. Quick cooking these suckers for 5 minutes were enough to deliver a sucker punch to the tongue with the explosion of liquor, garlic and original sweetness of the prawns! Sucking the heads of the prawns made the world seem like a better day for just that few sucks that we all made. Bliss in a small package..... sucking prawn scum from its head. What better way to spend the 2nd day of 2010?!

1000 Herbs Chicken

I don't know what the Mrs added in this dish but I felt 'STRONGER' if you get the drift.... the intensity of the herbs made the chicken thighs go mad with full bodied flavour. And the stock that derived from the steaming of this dish for 5 hours made it SPOT ON.... I think, I can only compare the softness of the meat to the tenderness of a certain anatomy of a woman's body. The dancing of wolfberries, ginger, cordyceps, garlic, dried chinese scallops and black fungus in the mouth would make any weak human jump with joy.

Japanese Shrimp Rice

Where do I begin? The saltiness of the japanese shrimps infused with the wasabi seaweed strips just makes this rice dish a simple joy to eat. The fluff of the rice was perfect and mated with half a cup of chicken stock as its cooking liquid added sheer delight to this oral pleasure. The picture perfect mating of greens and orange of the shrimps made this simple yet delicious rice dish a good reason for rice haters to put a huge serving into the mouth.

Minced Pork Stuff Squid

Beauty comes in many forms and in many ways. This beauty of a dish comes in the form of succulent squid stuffed till its about to pop with marinated minced pork mated with chopped chinese shrooms and chillis. The sauce that came with this dish was a relatively fussless sambal blachan mixture of 1 tablespoon and chicken stock with 6 cut chilli padi. Combined with garlic and 1 tablespoon of canola oil into the baking tray, this squid will squirt its black cloud no more if it were to taste itself. Squid don't come close to being a beautiful dish, but this one is!!

3 Eggs and A Veg

To put in one word of how delightful this dish taste - SEXY. Looking at the colours that are finely mixed; orange, yellow, brown, green and golden drops (fried mini anchovies), the sheer joy of stuffing one's mouth with this healthy combination of salted egg, chicken egg, century egg, veg and mini anchovies automatically makes you healthy! A quick douse of hot water unto the veg with a teaspoon of salt and leaving it to cook like that for 3 mins on the side w/o flame will get the veg tasting astonishingly perfect. In a pan of hot oil, fry the garlic and add some chicken stock / beef stock into it (1 cup) and then put in the beaten duck's eggs first. Constantly stiring for 1 minute and adding the chicken eggs next with the heat reduced to medium cook the concoction for another 2 minutes. Turn off the heat and let it rest at the side. Whilst you quickly put the veg into the serving bowl, make sure that the eggs are not over cooked so add 1/3 cup of water into the pan, after which you pour in the cooked eggs unto the veg and garnish it with century eggs and sprinkle the fried mini anchovies. Just like my Mrs, this is a DISH!

Ribeye Dices with Baby Oyster Shrooms

Who said that ribeyes must be used as steak only? This combination of teriyaki marinated beef with baby oyster shrooms almost made me hear MOO with its freshness. The beef was stir fried to perfection in canola oil and let to rest before the shrooms were quickly allowed to sweat and cook in its own canopy of juices. Gorgeously mixed together for another 3 minutes, this allowed the ribeye to maintain its plump and veluptious sensation with every bite between the teeth. Please sir.... can I have some MOOrrrreeee?

Squid Tenticles with Roe in Black Pepper Sauce

Shock, shock, horror, horror at the sight of tenticles (reminds you of a scene from 20,000 leagues under the sea) These suckers were quite big in my book (I know of some mates who are also suckers) and they are normally fried in batter. But what we made was different - we dicided to mate these with minced pork and black fungus and fry them in black pepper sauce. The roe sacs of the squid made the overall taste that little bit more interesting and different. Closing my eyes, I felt like I was taken unto Atlantis with the excellent mix of tenticles / squid roe / minced pork / black fungus. At this moment, I felt like I was AQUAMAN (not AH KUA - tranny)

Pork Pig Just Got Slimmer

No Chinese meal is complete if you do not have the fatiness and heart dangering addition of stewed black soy sauce pork bellies. The fats of this dish simply made the Heart Foundation go ballistic. Having cooked  this poor slab of a victim for 5 full hours, the fats were gone (yeah right.... who am I kidding). Enjoy! Food is afterall meant for enjoying!? Slow cooked to sheer Planet Fitness horror, this dish is traditionally a helping tool in many Chinese households as winter food. In our case, we were just a bunch of fat arses that wanted to gain weight! Ehr-be-deh... Ehr-be-deh... Deh-ats all folks!!!

New Year Dinner with the mates

Heyyyyy ALLLLLL!!! I hope you all had a great New Year and also Christmas yah! Well it's 2010 today and what better to spend the 2nd day with mates. The Mrs decided to do some Chinese cooking! Woooo HOOOOOO........ The menu are as follows:

1) Pork Belly in Stew
2) Stuffed Squid with Minced Pork
3) 3 Eggs Spinach
4) Squid Eggs with Minced Pork
5) Shrimp Rice
6) XO Glass Prawns

The images will follow suit tomorrow. For now, I'll just pass you a day I had with the nephews last week and an insperation to a dish which I made.

It was on an evening when me and the kids had a walk to West Coast Park and we went all the way to end of it. What I saw was something that I did not expect honestly. It's just nice to know that in this cosmopolitan country, simple sights like what I saw was a nice change.

I have never seen this in Singapore so maybe yes, I am a tad 'sua ku', meaning ignorant / naive / mountain goat / dumb-a$$ (in my understanding). With that refreshing view, I remembered of a fish dish that I have made before and so fellow foodies, read on to my: Pesto Fish draped with Cheese.

- I used Salmon for this. Pat the fish into Japanese Crumbs by dipping the fish with egg first. In an Olivized pan, fry the fish crumbs down for 1 minute and lift the other side and grill it on the un-crumbed side.
- Grill some bacon strips as well, 3 will be good for presentation (always use ODD numbers of food for presentation, it looks better)
- Tablespoon of Pesto Sauce and add 1 teaspoon of Olive oil to it and 1 table spoon of water. Add a drop of Honey and in a medium heat pan, cook to the boil.
- Lay a slice of Cheese above the crumbed part of the Salmon and in its own heat, the cheese will melt. Cover the grill pan with a lid and turn off the heat and remove from the stove to prevent from over cooking.

Serving is easy as the image above and in the steps.... bacon / fish / pesto dressing. You can use any fish like Cod or Dory as well. Sprinkle herbs on the fish and also a press of lemon to bring the zing!

Did I tell you that I won in 4-D. SGD 30 thou.... pathetic huh? Well at least it's a win? Good fortune this year? And Fish as well? Year Year Have Fish in Chinese saying means - fortune every year!