gavin's pressure test

last night's challenge was a fusion dinner with malaysian nasi goreng kampung and a western grilled fish with lemon and rosemary dressing wrapped in bacon. i had no hand in it this time as i was completely knackered from a busy week at uni so gav planned everything [a first!] and did everything. although..I'm not sure if I would've paired up nasi goreng with a bacon fish fillet dish... ee lane was fine with it so i went along.
eelane and ivan have a very nice little kitchen, small but cozy and everything within reach. gavin did everything so we girls decided to just sit back and judge him. he spent about 90 minutes chopping, slicing, saute-ing and plating up!

this nasi goreng kampung was made "western" not intentionally but since we had leftover bacon we just chopped that up and put it in! also we didnt have any kangkung, pity. but the tiny bits of robust chopped chilli and ikan bilis made it taste quite close to the original!
the bacon wrapped fish had a really delicate lemon and rosemary flavour. gav got this recipe from jamie oliver's book.
for dessert we melted some cadbury chocolate with a little milk so it became sort of a "sauce" in which we dipped sliced bananas, mashmallows, cherries and strawberries. on hindsight, I would've melted some marshmallows with the chocolate to make a thicker sauce, and green apples just don't go with chocolate! the best things to dip were the bananas and strawberries.

sofia's at Preston

I love this family style italian place -
Sofia Restaurant,

103 Bell St,
Preston, VIC 3072

they have really delicious pastas and pizzas and risottos. above is the mexican pizza that had generous servings of spicy salami.
we ordered the pasta mista for 2 but it was more like for 4! i can't imagine 2 people who could finish eating all that coz it was so huge! you have a choice of 3 types of pasta so we chose seafood carbonara, mushroom risotto and prosccuito.
a close up of the pasta - we couldn't finish eating it all although there were 4 of us. I think the cream just fills one up really quickly. If I could come here again I'll want to try the ceaser's salad and some of their gelati for dessert.

instant noodles

I crave hot meals most of the time, whether it's breakfast lunch or dinner. more so now that it's winter but i did in malaysia too so it's not really because of the weather.

i can't do that thing where you have yoghurt and cereal for breakfast, then a cold sandwich for lunch. Probably because I'm Chinese. I love having a steaming bowl of rice porridge at breakfast, noodle soup for lunch and hot rice and curry for dinner. So, at Uni ystd, I took advantage of the microwave at the mature student's lounge and made myself this nice steamy bowl of instant noodles. i actually brought the noodles, a raw egg and my chopsticks all the way there! [talk about impractical!] it was worth it though coz buying a meal at the campus centre would've come up to at least $8, most of its hot meals are around$10 and a ham sandwich is $7.30! that's insane.

portuguese egg tart attempt

mum got inspired after watching a bill granger episode where he used ready made puff pastry sheets to make tart crusts.
pastel de nata, or Pasteis de Belem [originally named] are puff pastry tarts filled with vanilla custard. I couldn't find much info about them in english. they're kinda like chinese egg tarts except that the pastry is puff, not shortcrust. and of cousre the distinctive patches of "burnt" custard skin.

the custard was made from scratch but it somehow didn't stay flat and smooth on top.
i suppose these things take many attempts to perfect but for a first try they look okay.
traditionally they're supposed to have some blackened spots on the custard's surface.

malaysian /spanish lunch

today's lunch was to celebrate mum's birthday. I regretted having breakfast so late coz there was so much food! instead of going out to a restaurant they each made their own dishes.


when a bunch of malaysian aunties get together you can expect good food. i wonder whether it would be the same when my generation become aunties. on top here is auntie suppman's paella. i think she got inspired by sandra's paella on masterchef. there were mussels, olives, roast capsicum, shrimp, turkey breast and olives in it.

here's that much hyped up crust from its bottom!

she also made a mango pudding using aeroplane jelly and fresh mango.
another auntie made this penang lobak which is somewhat like a roll made from minced pork and other root veggies encased in a soy wrinkled skin. [fuchok!]
my mum made this siu yoke [ salty roast pork] with crispy crackling skin.
for dessert there was a cappucino cheesecake from the cheesecake shop.

it was really rich and creamy and alcoholic. the base tasted like it was made from crushed anzac cookies or something involving dessicated coconut and golden syrup. delicious but i personally prefer the lighter, fluffy European type cheesecakes made with ricotta.
speaking of masterchef, i hope Poh wins. we'll see tomorrow!

not an olive.. but an olive vegetable!

I love this stuff - stringy, black and suspended in greenish-yellowish oil. what it is exactly, I don't know as I don't read chinese chracters but It's definitely not an olive by western definition. perhaps it's some leafy vegtables preserved in olive oil. or perhaps it's the leaves from an olive tree instead of its fruit?

It's really good with plain rice porridge [some folks call it congee to differentiate it from western oat porridge]. I love teochew style porridge with salty things that vary in texture - crunchy fried anchovies, salty pickled vegetables, salted duck egg, canned luncheon meat and these preserved, processed jarred things from china. sounds scary and unhealthy, i know. i suppose that's why it ought be eaten only occasionally!

roti kosong / pratha/canai

not that i missed mamak food but...

after church today auntie sup mann made these for us. first she mixed up some flour, oil, salt, milk and water into this dough ball and kneaded it to release the gluten. then she let it rest for 8 hours. after resting, the dough gets divided into individual portions.
first she flattened it into a flat piece.
then on an oiled surface she flipped it out real thin and folded it into layers, then a bit more oil.

then onto an oiled hot griddle! or frying pan in this case since there was no griddle.
it tasted just like any mamak's roti canai. yummy! so easy right? here is a recipe but we substituted the ghee for rice bran oil and it tasted just fine. i reckon there're so many ways to improvise on it, like adding chopped onions, sardines, an egg for the classics like roti bawang or roti telur, but also "aussie-fied" versions using beetroot and bacon and egg or spinach and cheese.... or pumpkin and fetta....

jiao zhi/gyoza/mandu - they're all quite similar

with some ready made pot sticker skins from the preston market, auntie and i made these jiao zhi today. they're really easy to do, just mix up some pork mince with lotsa chopped garlic, ginger, chives and soy sauce and white pepper and that's your filling! [i like to add a splash of rice wine/fish sauce as well] each "skin" gets about a tablespoon of filling and sealed with a bit of water and shaped any way you like [as you can see, mine are all irregularly shaped!] a bit like ravioli. as usual, the chinese are not very good at documenting recipes precisely, this is because we just taste as we go along and adjust the amounts from experience. anyway if you want a proper recipe there're heaps on the internet.
they're yummy steamed or fried but of cousre steamed is much healthier! i like them with a black vinegar dip with some sliced fresh chillis.

domino's

domino's pizza is so good... it's so full of stuff on top that you can hardly see the cheese underneath. this one on top [greek] had so much chicken, olives and fetta. a bit too salty but i liked it anyway. still, it makes me wonder how we came to be so overindulgent. it probably would've been just as good with only half the ingredients on it.
hawaiian is always a favourite, with sweet pineapple pieces against the salty ham. yum

nando's peri peri

the chicken is sooo good and the chips are so satisfying. nothing like a hot, salty fatty piece of potato chip on a cold winter's day. the spicy, flavourful crisp chicken is hard to beat too.

duck fat

we rendered some duck fat from this duck we got a preston market. it was so so so scary to see SO MUCH FAT on the duck! i was quite disgusted when I first saw it. now you know how they keep warm in the icy water. and buoyant too! we threw most of the fat away until I read somewhere that it can be used to cook stuff in, like fried potatoes or fried eggs. apparently the french cook many things in duck fat! who'd have thought?
so we used it to make this fried rice. although I don't like the flavour of duck [too much of a gamey/ducky smell] the fried rice didn't smell like duck at all and was nice and fragrant. I doubt I'd be buying duck anytime ever but "waste not, want not" is my philosophy so I won't have a problem with using up the rest of this duck fat in tasty ways.