Power Brekkie

The other day I cooked brekkie for me and hubby. I don't normally bust out the egg/ham/toast for brekkie, but yesterday was a special day.

Power brekkie

The omelette was real simple to make, basically some liquid eggs, one scallion, three drops of soy sauce, a tablespoon of pancake mix (to make it more chewy), a dash of sugar, and some salt and pepper to taste. The ham was already premade, so all I had to do was heat it up.

Frying up the omelette

The only downside was that it stuck to my omelet frying pan, even though I buttered it up nicely.

While hubby had this, I had some pumpernickel bread with nutella. Since hubby loves to put everything in the fridge, the Nutella was lumpy, cold and hard to spread. So after I toasted the bread and spooned on some Nutella, I microwaved it for 20s.

The bread still turned out pretty hard to chew, but that's okay because the Nutella made up for it.

Nutella-bread

I also made some Vietnamese coffee. Real easy, real delicious. All you have to do is use a French press to brew some coffee, dump in 1/4 can of condensed milk (here I used La Lechera, a Mexican condensed milk) and some ice cubes.

Viet-style coffee

What a wonderful way to start the day.

Golden Unicorn

For the older folks, eating dim sum is akin to a Sunday get-together at a burger joint. We visited Golden Unicorn the other day for a celebratory meal.

One of the reasons why I love dim sum is because I love anything in a bun. I guess I'm just a sucker for msg-loaded things stuffed in chewy dough. Another is the fact that you can pick anything off the rickshaw you want and not have to wait for service.

Speaking of service, Golden Unicorn is quite expedient. By the time I came out from the washroom, there were these seven baskets already before us.

Dim Sum

We dug right in. The lady pushing the cart came by with some congee, so we grabbed one. It was pretty creamy like the one I made the other day with my Crockpot (that took 8 hours to cook!). The "skinny" pork as they say in Chinese was a bit on the dry side, so I had to spit it out. The pork chops at the bottom of the top picture was much more tender, and the squash complemented it nicely. The best part of this congee was the thousand-year-old duck egg, which was tender and wasn't slimy like they are normally if you eat them by itself.

Thousand-year-old duck egg and "skinny" pork congee

Here is one of my absolute favorites - shrimp-chive dumpling. It's actually a family tradition at home; we grow our own chives and use only the freshest shrimp from the Atlantic (according to my Dad the shrimp on the Pacific is all contaminated with industrial pollution).

Xsection of shrimp-chive dumpling

This tasted awesome, but then I started wondering whether that awesomeness is because of the shrimp that tasted way too fresh-off-the-boat. I quickly gulped down some tea to wash it down.

Meat zhong-zi

The meat zhong-zi tasted pretty good - it was just the right combination of sweet and saltiness. The sticky rice was cooked to perfection for a melt-in-your mouth experience. Even for a non-meat lover like me, I had to give it up for the tender pork bits inside.

Another favorite item was the shrimp wrap in XO sauce. I didn't grab a picture of it, but the sauce was out of this world. 

Eggplant with crab meat

The fried eggplant was probably the least favorite item on the table, as it took considerable rounds to finish it. It was too much on the oily side, and the stuff inside was not recognizable to human taste buds. I think it was something like a doughy crab mix. 

One of the ways you can judge the quality of a dim sum joint is by its egg tart. These came on a plate, glistening golden yellow with the oil on the custard reflecting in the light (see the heart shape below?)

Egg tarts

One bite gets approval from all my 200,000+ tastebuds. Its light, flaky crust complements the soft, mellow core nicely. Since our other two guests aren't dessert fans, I took another bite from hubby's before my calorie-counter kicked in and warned me of the consequences.

All and all, this was a perfect celebratory meal. Although our two guests didn't eat that much (one was saving his stomach for a BBQ, and the other didn't feel like eating all that much), I think I ate wayyyy more than I could handle. But the funny thing was that perhaps because of all the tea and msg, I wanted more! Can't wait to come back here.

Golden Phoenix

**** (4/5)

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Kids-friendly

Gnocchi n Tomatoes

Last night I tried my hand at gnocchi. I had it once at a restaurant in East Village, drenched in heavy cheesy sauce. So I wanted to make a lighter version out of it. Here is my original recipe of:

Gnocchi du beurre

Gnocchi du beurre

1. Boil gnocchi in a pot of 1/3 water, 2/3 chicken stock (any type of stock will do). You can measure the parts according to your pot and as long as the liquid covers the gnocchi you are good.

2. After the water boils, turn down the heat and leave it in for another minute or two. This will soften the gnocchi. Scoop out the gnocchi with a pasta drainer.

3. Set the gnocchi aside. Meanwhile, heat up 1/2 tablespoon of butter in a frying pan. Make sure the butter is evenly distributed around the pan.

4. Dump (for a lack of better word) the gnocchi into the pan, and swirl around in medium heat. You can spice it up with your fav sauces if you'd like, but I stuck with the original version to retain its authenticity. I added in a dash of sugar for flavor, and some salt and pepper for taste.

5. If you are a calorie counter like me, drain the extra butter out of the gnocchi on a piece of paper towel.

Draining the butter out of the gnocchi

6. Shave on some sharp-tasting cheese before serving.

You'd be surprised at how good this simple recipe tastes.

Since my hubby likes to buy things and forget about them a minute later, I found an over-ripe avocado and mango sitting around. My creativity kicked in and I decided to cook them on a whim.


Maple Ginger Mango Avocado Salad

Maple Ginger Mango-Avocado 

1. Cut the avocado in half, scoop out the flesh

2. Cut out the mango, retaining as much flesh as possible, then dice up the flesh

3. Mix with a generous drizzle of maple syrup (has to the original stuff or it ain't Canadian!) and some ginger vinegraitte

4. Add in a few pieces of pickles for crunchiness

I thought it tasted just fine, but this was definitely not a hit with hubby, who dislikes "weird-tasting" Asian-fusion food. I guess this isn't for everyone.


Tomatoes n Eggs

Tomato n Eggs

You know how people throw rotten tomatoes to boo people off-stage, and smash eggs on people's windows as Halloween pranks? You know what my Mom says to that?

"Good heavens! Why are people wasting so much food these days? I'd pick it up and cook it!"

(As a side note, my very asian Mom actually saved an egg from a parachuting egg project when I was in grade school, and made this dish out of it that night)

This is perhaps as authentic a dish as you can get in terms of Chinese home-cook cuisine. Almost everyone's first cooking project starts out with this one. There's almost no way you can mess it up, unless you're like me and didn't know how to turn on the stove the first time I started cooking.

Anyways, the recipe is really simple, but to get the right homemade taste is not. This time, I'm very happy to announce that I actually made it to the right sweet-salty proportions =)

1. Cut up some ripe tomatoes and a few slices of onions

2. Heat up the pan. I didn't need to add any oil since I still had the butter from the gnocchi, which I think acted as a mega flavor booster.

3. Dump in the onions. Wait until the onions start sizzling, then drop in some egg to cover the pan. I used a liquid egg mix, but you can use normal eggs too.

4. Turn down the heat so the eggs do not overcook. When the eggs settle down, poke it around with a spatula to break up the pieces.

5. Dump in the tomato pieces, and turn to medium heat. Then cover pan with a lid.

6. Mix together half a tablespoon of corn starch, three tablespoons of water (I used the leftover chicken stock from the gnocchi boiling), some drops of soy sauce, and a dash of sugar

7. While the tomato is cooking, dump in the mix. Continue to cook until most of the liquid has been absorbed.

This was a definite hit! Hubby and I both loved it. I think it was the butter that did the trick.

Although I make fun of my Mom's asian-ness, I'm a victim of the Asian stinginess too. In order not to waste the liquid from the gnocchi, I boiled a potato to make some mashed potatoes for next time =)

Noodling Around

Other than breakfast cereal, I'm really not a fan of instant stuff, especially noodles. But the other day my roommates convinced me otherwise. I caught a bite of their instant noodles (though they insisted it wasn't instant), called Silver Line Noodles by Wu Mu. They mixed it with this awesome soybean veggie ja-jiang sauce, sliced in some sausages and eggs and made a light, delicious, 5-min meal out of it.

So I decided to give it a shot too.

Silver Line Noodle

I tweaked the original recipe a little bit by sprucing up the noodles with chicken stock. You can use any kind of stock you like, or stick with plain water. Here I used 2/3 water and a 1/3 stock. The noodles are done after the water boils. For softer noodles, you can turn the heat down to a simmer for another minute. But careful not to leave it there too long because the noodle tends to get soggy quickly. 

I put in a batch of noodles (they come in 5 batches), which was enough for hubby and me (of course that is assuming you eat like a bird like I do). After the noodles finished cooking, I scooped it up with a strainer and put it in a bowl. I used the rest of the stock to heat up my left-over spinach.

Being ambitious, I decided to concoct my own peanut-sauce for a taste comparison. I melted a tablespoon of peanut button, added in a dash of soy sauce, half a tablespoon of vinegar, and a teaspoon of sugar. You can spice it up if you like by adding a dash of peppercorn. 

Noodle Sauces

And of course no ja-jiang noodles would be complete without some palate-cleansing cucumbers. They were pretty hard to slice perfectly into slivers, so I'm on the look-out for a good food processor or vegetable slicer.

Aftermath of the eggsplosion

Unfortunately I didn't hard-boil the eggs enough, so I decided to microwave it. And what ensued 40 seconds later was the mega eggsplosion. Note to self - do not put eggs into the microwave, or if you do, do it in intervals of 5s. 

Food prep

I sliced up some sausages and prepared a similar soy-sauce vinaigrette for the cucumbers (see above for details). The noodles were getting a little stuck together at this point, so mixing it was kind of difficult. I used about 3 large tablespoons of the pre made soybean sauce for half a cup of noodles. Then I scooped up what was left after the egg-tastrophe, put in ham and spinach and voila!

Finished product

I gave hubby the soybean sauce noodles, and I had a bowl of the peanut noodles. I thought my peanut noodles was pretty tasty (perhaps biased in my own creation), but hubby thought the pre-made sauce was better.

I couldn't finish my bowl because the peanut butter got a little sickening after a few bites, so I saved the rest for later. Next time I'd like to try my newly minted sesame sauce. 

While taking a leisurely walk later that night, we passed by a raman noodle shop. We peeked in to see the stereotypical raman customers, and I said to hubby, "I'll bet mine is much better." 

Thankfully, he agreed.

Eataly

Last night a couple of friends and I went to Eataly for dinner and a movie.

Eataly is perhaps the most ascetically dizzifying grocery store around. Although quite the tourist trap, one has to appreciate its efforts to be (over)stocked with gourmet Italian delicacies. Jordan said he would love to try the squid ink pasta sometime, just for the heck of it.

As the old saying goes, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do", so while waiting for a friend to arrive, hubby and I grabbed some gourmet Italian coffee. The lines were uber confusing (one for order and another for pickup; there were no signs of course, or if there were it was in Italian), so we helped direct traffic a bit for poor coffee-mongerers who were lost and caffeine-deprived. 

I got some hot chocolate and hubby got a cappuccino. I'm normally not a fan of hot chocolate but oh-my-oh-my it was divine! It was kinda like drinking molten dark chocolate foam. I actually couldn't finish it because it was too heavy, but I think it'll pair nicely with a light fruit tart or soufflé (so it doesn't get too congested). 

We somehow managed to grab a four-people seat in La Verdure, the crowded all-veggie section of the in-house restaurant, ironically situated between the meat and the fish section (and next to the bathroom). Hubby commented that it was quite of weird eating in the middle of a grocery store, but being a foodie I kinda thought the concept was neat. 

While waiting for our order, we dipped some light rye in olive oil. The complex texture of rye complemented the slightly fruity olive oil well (or was that because of my congested sinuses?). The waitress recommended the house special of the day, which went right over my head, since half of what she said was mambo Italiano.

Cannelloni with stuffed ricotta cheese and basil

Two of us go the cannelloni with stuffed ricotta cheese. The texture on the homemade egg noodle was cooked just right - not too al dente and not too soft. The ricotta and basil mixture was substantial, while the sauce on top complemented the mild taste nicely.

Risotto con piselli e aspargi 

I got the risotto sprinkled with green peas and asparagus, with parmigano reggiano. I had confused risotto with fusili, so until I got my plate, I was under the impression that I ordered some sort of pasta. But to my surprise, a bowl of cheesy congee was presented before me, with pieces of fresh asparagus and green peas mingled in between. And it almost tasted like congee too - fluffy, light and seasoned just right for my tastebuds. My only complaint is that the peas were a little overcooked (granted, it is hard to control while cooking with rice). 

Verdure alla piastra

Jordan got the warm farro salad with shredded cabbage, broccoli, carrot, asaparus and I think pieces of shallots. He didn't comment on how it tasted but I'm sure it was quite lovely. 

Afterwards, we got some gelato. The lineup was quite long, and the patron behind us was complaining  - "Does it take that long to scoop up ice cream?"

Alas young grasshopper, it was not just any ice cream. Frishte recommended the salt caramel, which was indeed out-of-this-world. She got pistachio, a smoothly blended nutty flavor where you could actually taste pistachio bits. The salt caramel was wickedly cracked ice I must say, but I recommend the small size because the sweet-saltiness can be too much of a flavour bomb after a while. It also melts pretty quickly so don't be embarrassed to lick the edge of the cup to avoid sticky fingers!

Salted caramel cracked ice (notice the drip around the edge?)

Thankfully we got a little exercise while eating our gelatos by walking a few blocks to the theatre. I was highly tempted with the soft pretzel, but my innate dietician advised me otherwise (especially since I haven't eaten really anything for the past week). 

Although "The Avengers"was a little below our expectations - too much special effects, not enough story line - the meal was bellisimo. Four out of five stars for Eataly.  

Eataly 

****

$$

Hard to find seats

Not Your Average Breakfast Cereal

Toast, oatmeal and even honey nut Cheerios can get boring at times. For a change of pace, I like to eat Chinese instant cereal. It comes in a variety of flavors, like black sesame, taro with purple yam, barley with job tears, pumpkin...the combination is left to your imagination. (The only minus is that they come in a super large pack, so you can't mix and match)

All you have to do is open it up, put in some hot water, stir and enjoy! The only part to remember is to put in at least 70C water, or else it won't liqudify, and make sure to stir in a clockwise (or counter-clockwise) direction until all the lumps disappear.

Swirling goodness

One Mean Jerky

I'm not a big carnivore, and also not a fan of spices, but recently I found this awesomely delicious beef jerky -  Soo Jerky's Fruit Flavoured Beef Jerky.

It's got this sweet twang with a nice balance of saltiness and Chinese five spice flavor (but it's not remotely spicy, and that's for my non-spice tolerant tastebuds), that just melts in your mouth. Of course you have to chew it a little bit, but it's not as hard as the American jerkies.

There's other flavours too like Spicy Satay Pork Jerky and Five Spices Beef Jerky. You can find this brand and the Formosa brand of jerkies in any Asian grocery stores near you.

My mom prefers to make her own beef jerky, because she thinks everything nowadays is loaded with msg. She cooks it pretty well but it dries up very quickly, so I'm trying to find a method to make it more tender to last longer. If you guys have any suggestions, that would be greatly appreciated!