Sik Pao Mei Ar?

This weekend I decided to make some hongkong style buns which I havent made for many years (5+ years) , the 'gai mei pao' and 'chern jai pao'. They all came out quite well, maybe shall open a bakery one day for retirement.


Planning to make some different shapes and flavours next time...melon? black sesame?

White chocolate strawberry mousse cake

Last weekend I experimented in cooking a different cake recipe (found on the net), the white chocolate strawberry mousse cake - made from layers of chiffon cake, layers of strawberry and white chocolate mousse, and a layer of chopped strawberries. The mousse recipe is quite simple just 450g strawberries, 2tb lemon juice, 25g suger, 1 tbsp rum, chopped strawberries, 25g caster suger, 350ml heavy heavy cream, 3 tbsp icing suger, 150-200g lidnt white chocolate, 15g gelatin and hot water.

*lesson learnt - lidnt chocolate is kinda flammable , almost caught on fire after a few seconds on the stove for melting. White chocolate became dark chocolate....haiii......

I think the strawberry mousse recipe will be good for a swiss roll made with green tea sponge cake...!

Chicken Lasagne

Today was mothers day and we all decided to make a dinner for our mum which included Chicken and Vegetable Lasagne (a slightly modified recipe given by Jeff), Mashed Potato wrapped with potato (made by my brother) and Salad and Chocolate Soufle (made by my sister) .

Everything came out pretty good! yummm....

Melbourne Trip 2009

Last week, was my first Melbourne trip with a group of friends and surely was a relaxing and full of enjoyment. We went to many places mainly for food from Lygon Street for Italian Pizza and Pasta, Chinatown for Yum Cha ! and nice Shanghai Dumplings and Noodles, Malaysian Food from Singapore Chom Chom and some interesting bakeries such as charcoal bread (from Bread Top) and portugese egg tarts, Cakes from a desert cafe around the casino and the interesting sashimi/oyster breakfast at the Queen Victoria Market -

During my time at Melbourne I learnt alot about God during a Church Convention at the PIAR (Philip Island Adventure Resort), We had a great time talking and sharing about our Christian life and walk with God with other brothers and sisters of Christ. It has motivated me to continue growing with him and learning on his word and also to be great servents of God. It was surely a great time of fellowship along with the fun canoeing, flying fox, and bungee jumping thing.

Black Forrest Cake Experiment #2

Yesterday I attempted my second modified version of the black forrest cake (to finish the jar of sour cherries and chocolate), and with different dark chocolate cake recipe. The chocolate cake was much improved in texture and melts faster in the mouth.

Yumm.. I think I have enough of this cake for now...time to try something else...

Drum or Guitar?

Recently I have been thinking and deciding of a musical instrument to learn and purchase, and this has been short listed to two faviourites , the Guitar and the Drum...

Drums being my long time childhood faviourite instrument (me drumming with a wok as a kid), and guitar being a easy and cool instrument to play and carry around (Guitar Heroes)... haii...which one to choose leh? and not sure which one is more suited to me...any suggestions?

Black Forrest Cake Experiment #1

This weekend I made my first attempt in making the black forrest cake ("hutt sum lum darn go"), with a nice recipe introduced by a friend (LG) . It was made with sour wild cherries soaked in vanilla beans, layers of chocolate cake ("joo go lik"), layers of butter cake , dark chocolate ganache, and dark chocolate mousse (cancelled the alchohol which was important to add). The cake was quite simple and not as difficult as expected, but surely very time consuming to build!!

The cake is very rich with a very strong chocolate (milk and dark chocolate) and burst of wild cherry flavour. Will probably modify/ change the butter cake and chocolate recipe so its more light. The cake failed in some aspects such as -

* The cake ended out way too tall, so had to delete a level, and having to swap the chocolate and butter cake levels around.

* realised the cream type used in the mousse was incorrect. The whipping cream is not same as whipped cream, which caused some dramas, had a chocolate waterfall in the black forrest. Haiiii....

Bacon Explosives...

Today after church we had a celebration for the March babies (Sally, Shmeep or Elaine ,Chao, and Uncle Euan - Happy Birthday to you guys and girls) with a lunch party which included alot of food with the trademark Bacon Explosion by Chef Mak, Japanese Sushi by Dr Kam, Potato Salad by the Yens, and Shepards Pie by me, and other nice drinks and snacks contributed by others.

Heres some photos of the meals. The bacon explosion made with 1.5 kilos of real bacon, and alot of sausage meat. "Can see the ones behind doing warmups before the meal".

And the Shepards Pie made with steak mince, vegetables, mashed potato (with heaps of double heavy cream, cheese ,butter )
Im still pretty full now (5 hrs after the meal) ....need some excercise before I also will explode...

The Architect? or the Builder?

Each year many Architects are getting more and more innovative and creative with their building designs, with new interesting ideas from upside down houses, to giant cube, and warped houses...however are their views of practicality still remain? or shall we just blame it on the builder? But surely wasnt the engineers fault :)

Heres some of the photo's that was sent around today -

Haii...

No Shark Fin Soup arr? Noooooo....

Have you ever had a big craving for a favourite food item (or something else) , and it wouldn’t go away until you obtained the item desired? Whether you get the item or not, how long does the item you crave for lasts? Was it worth such a strong desire and craving for?

I certainly have a craving for food during my intense brain storming before lunch with images of Italian Pasta and Pizzas, Eye fillet steaks, Chocolate Cakes, Curry Chicken, Sashimi Sushi, KFC, Nando’s, A lolly pop and other favourite dishes floating all the way through my mind. Cravings do at times waste alot 'RAM' memory and sometimes 'run time error' in our lives.

Recently I have been thinking how people so intensely crave each day on things in this world and eventually realise the items they crave for do not last forever, such as the taste of nicest foods you eat disappears from your tongue, the best racing car you drive will eventually break down, the money you earn will be spent and the beautiful clothes you wear will eventually worn out. We should be more concerned about craving more on the meaningful items which lasts forever such as the love and care of friends and family which forever is printed on each other’s heart and memories, help and supporting others difficulties , and living in the light with the heavenly father and not let the craving of the perishable items drive you away from what lasts forever and appreciate what has been given to you.

Now, Imagine you were in a situation where you go to a restaurant and something you were really craving for has been sold out? Will you just search for the next item in the list and still be happy or the dangers of craving take over your mind and lives like this video I’ve found on YouTube -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zd0qG0iwTA&NR=1

A learning which I had was “No matter what you eat (whether its really nice like shark fin soup or terrible like vegemite icecream), everything will eventually taste the same (~which is tasteless); however there are other things in which its taste will last forever” - dont let the the wrong cravings slowly eat you away and appreciate what has been made available for you.

“And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever” 1 John 17

Wassup Frog??

For the past ~10 or so years, green tree frogs of all different shapes and sizes (mini to large) appear at the entrance to our house always staring through the door....waiting and waiting.....They sometimes come making stange noises from horn sounds of a car to barking like a dog (seriously) - fellow translator hermit sook sook doesnt know why! ...However I always wondered what the frog is waiting for? Does it want shelter? Does it want food? ...what does it taste like?


Here's one green tree frog that appeared today at the door when I arrived home...It was very...green! Anyway today I also made another cupcake to experiment with vanilla beans - The Vanilla Bean Frosted Cupcake -




Made with 2 2/3 cups plain flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 3/4 cup butter, 1/4 tsp salt, 2 eggs, then is combined with 1/2 vanilla bean (got ripped off at $6 a bean), and 3/4 cup milk, 1 2/3 cup vanilla suger and No frogs. Cooked for 20-25 mins at 180 degrees, then frosted with 1/2 cup butter combined with 125g cream cheese, 1/4 vanilla bean, 1tsp vanilla essense and 2 cups of icing suger and wateva..

After the cake cooking the green tree frog was eaten...ing with its other friends while I ate the very vanilla tasting cake...

Cooking Experiment 1#

Last weekend was start of the new Chinese Year "year of the moo" and also the Australia day falling on the exact same day. We spent most of the time catching up with long time no C friends and relatives, along with the noisy fire-quackers, lion dancing , decorations and the food. I have also experimented in cooking a couple new dishes including the Italian Fusilli pasta in Creamy Pesto Sauce topped with Oven Salt Cooked Chicken

And the Pineapple Tarts (~50% Butter) which is usually eaten during this festive season of Chinese New Year in Singapore..Realised after some research it was made in the wrong shape tho..should be pineapple wrapped around with pastry...not the pineapple sitting on top of pastry...haiii!!!

Anyway hope everyone also had a great time during the CNY time and another great week ahead...

The "Yes" and "No" of Haich Kay?

Just a short random post about some experiences in Hongkong ~

Shorrr Ping Ar? – Besides all the eating and site seeing in Hongkong, shopping has become a major form of entertainment for both the locals and visitors from overseas. Famous shopping centres include Sogo, New Town Plaza, City Gate Shopping Centre and more. Other than actually shopping for goods, there are sometimes live performances to watch out for during the season of sales (not normal in australia) -

This includes the never-ending flow of seelai’s providing free ‘forced’ transport for you to other department sections of the store. I refer this as the S.T.R System (Seelai's That Run). Quite reliable source of transport before you decide to pay them the (fake) H5N2.
-the frequent seelai pileups around ‘red ticket’ so-called sale items, as seen from far away, it appears they are all swinging their arms around like dancing the hongkie Saturday night fever without the music.
-The unified expressions when selecting (sales) clothing - seelai picks up the shirt, pulls both sides of the shirt (maybe to test its stength), follow by a funny 'hmm' expression, and throw it back to the pile of items agressively if not satisfied.
-Tug-of-war between a sales item.... and more...

No Steak lah! - If you enjoy the australian steaks then the following may be relavent to you. Steaks are not recommended for eating in general hongkong restaurants as they will tend to be either specially treated to produce a much tender meat, or either will get a rubbery/plastic steak swimming in a litre of sauce. Edible steaks are usually found in hotels and higher end restaurants (such as promenade restaurant in Hung Hom).

"tai gwai lar, yuw mo pehn deeeeeeeeeee ar" - bargaining in general stores in hongkong is usually not possible as prices are quite standardised for the 'real' non 'farn barn' items. However when visiting the ladies market ("Lui Yun Gar'y"), it become an essential activity to take part in and sometimes very entertaining. Goods are usually bargained according to their type -

clothes - 15% - 20% depending on the quantity you buy. 30% usually results in an immediate elimination from the store.
plastic toys -20%-50%
fake watches - 20%

If you are not satisfied with the price, just say 'tai gwai orr' and slowly walk away. Usually the price suffers a negative inflation as the number of walking steps increase.

"Sik Farn Mei?" - Hongkong is a place to go when it comes to food and eating, however is usually a struggle just to settle your mind where to eat? where is good? ... a simple rule of thumb "common sense" when searching for a nice place to eat is make sure the restraunt is busy and full of customers to confirm its reliability (other than it being newly opened). Empty and quiet ones are usually not nice and to Hongkong people they refer this as ‘part wooy yiing’ ~ so quiet the waitors are busy performing the act of fly swatting.

What are your interesting experiences in Hongkong?~ to be continued....

Ling Moong Cake!

Yesterday I experimented a very quick and simple cheesecake recipe that was found on the net - the lemon creme cheesecake cups ("ling moong cheesy darn gou jai"). The cake came out quite nice with a melting effect as you eat it follow by a vehh lee lemony and cheesy taste, the desert is well served with chinese green tea. The recipe is as follows -


Cake
130g Cake Flour (darn go mein fun)
1/2 tsp Soda Powder (sorrr dar fun)
1/2 tsp Baking Powder (mm jee do?)
125g Cream Cheese (I used 1/2 block of phile cheese)
135g Butter (uw yuw)
145g Caster Suger (bah torn)
1 tsp Lemon Rind (ling moong pei)
2 eggs (darn darn)
1 tbsp Lemon juice (ling moong jup)

Lemon Icing
1 tbsp Lemon juice
40g Icing suger


The instructions are quite simple, just sift the flour,soda powder and baking powder into a bowl.

In a seperate bowl cream the butter and cheese. Then gradually add the suger, lemon rind, lemon juice. Once complete add the eggs one at a time. Then fold in the sifted flour and combine. And is now ready to eat!(Sik dut larr) ....... almost (Gorn Seeew)

Now equally divide the mixture into 12 large sized cupcake cups and bake for about 25 minutes at 180degrees C. Take the cakes out the oven to cool in a rack.

For the icing, just heat the lemon juice in the microwave for 15seconds on high and combine in icing suger. Put the mixture onto the cakes and whatever decoration you want to add (ie. lemon rind etc) and chill before you eat. (Jun hai sik dut larr)

Fit or not?

Today was my first day back at gym since the long christmas break, and was surely a major struggle to begin with. For first time, 2 kilo weights felt like carrying a sheep, push-ups suffered an increased gravity, stretches cracked like thunder “kee kee kaa kaa”, and the six pacs attended their reunion ....haiii!

Wonder when those long lost fitness levels come back....hmmm? ”jun hai charm”, for I dunno who to blame for, the KFC “See lai” or Macdonald “Sook Sook” or the ones who never resist from consuming their famous cooking’s?

This year a new goal has been confirmed, ' to eat healthy......er and to become fitter....for there is the need for strength and health to do something meaningful in this world and for others needs!

The hunt for seafood -->

Today was a very nice and relaxing day hunting for seafood at the heart of Scarborough located within the redcliffe peninsula. The weather was very windy with interesting rain that reappears only when I get out of the car.

During the trip, we caught a range of seafood consisting of barramundi, hake, prawns, scallops, cuttlefish, and potato chips swimming lively through the 豬油 'joo yuw' waters of Morgan as well as fresh oysters in families of 6.

Fact of the day - did you know oysters has many nutritional benifits including high in protein and vitamins and is also natures best source of zinc (~strengthening of the bodys immune system and supports of healing).

Welcome lah!

Welcome to Wheres Will blog,

This will be new place to share some interesting experiences with food, travel, events, and bla bla desu, Hope you have a nice time reading!

Also, Wish everyone a Happy and Enjoyable New Year 2009!!