Episode 412 - Instant Noodles (Mee) with Class

Instant Noodles - Easy to cook, Delicious to eat

Instant Noodles. Practically a staple food amongst us Asians. Indomee Goreng, Maggi, Mamee or Myojo Instant Noodles can be extra special if you just spent more than 2 minutes and splash a lil creativity to the noodles. Here are two ways you can eat your Instant Noodles the 'Restaurant' way.

Fried Curry Maggi with Prawns

Ingredients: 1 packet Maggi Mee Curry Flavour; 1 egg; 1 shallot - thinly sliced; 3 prawns - shelled, deviened & halved; A handful of carrots - thinly stripped

Method:

Cook your Maggi Mee 80% done as instructed on the pack (less than 2 minutes). Drain the noodles and leave aside. Heat up a frying pan and add a table spoon of cooking oil and put in the shallots and prawn and stir till prawn turns a lil pinkish and the shallots caramelised. Put in the Maggi Mee, crack the egg in and toss the carrots in. Sprinkle the packet of seasoning from the Maggi packet and stir fry thoroughly. Serve immediately with a sprinkle of chives or cut chillies and half a slice of 'kasturi' lime. You can also add slices of 'Tofu Pok' (deep fried tofu usually ready sold in packets in the Supermarket).

Indomee Goreng Goreng

Ingredients: 1 packet of Indomee Goreng; 1 egg; A few leaves of 'Sawi Manis' or Choi Sum Vegetable; A few slices of Chicken meat or Chicken Ham (cut into strips)

Method:

Cook the Indomee Goreng as instructed on packet. Place aside after mixed with seasoning and sauces provided. Heat up a pan and stir fry the vege and chicken meat/ham till cooked. Next, add in the egg (stir it for a bit until nearly cooked) and the cooked Indomee and stir fry in medium high heat until everything is mixed thoroughly. Serve with a sprinkle of deep fried shallots or add the egg-iness by putting a sunny side up on top.

*Tips*: The noodles are best cooked 3/4 done as frying it later on finishes up the cooking process. You can go extra creative by adding other vege such as sweet cabbage or bean sprouts to Maggi and switch the carrots to your Indomee. Cooks better in a Wok with medium high fire where stir frying can be rapidly fast and the noodles will get a lil bit crunchy due to the heat. However, some may find it odd but I love eating my Indomee Goreng with canned tuna!

Instant noodles into fine cuisines. More restaurants should serve it this way because people won't be afraid to try what they know they're eating. :0D Happy trying!

Episode 411 - Kitchen Essentials - The Crab Eating Gadget & Fried Ambuyat at Jade Crystal Cafe

These are the 2 basic gadgets you need to eat your crab or lobster with. Very useful to get the bits of meat out of the body and legs. The top one is actually a nut cracker so, if you have one, it works the same to crack the shells of the claws. The one below is a two ended gadget, one end with a narrow spoon to scoop meat out and the other end is a 2 teethed short fork, also to pick meat out of the narrow areas. You can get one which works well at any Supermarket, costing under B$ 5.00. A pretty branded one would probably cost more than B$20.

Seafood Cracker and Picks

Anyway, came across a pretty interesting dish. It's called fried 'Ambuyat'. First time I've heard of it and first time I've tasted it. Shockingly good! Pretty similar to the fried Carrot cake or Lobak/Char Kwey (one of the best Teochew dishes ever!) which is fried with egg, dried shrimps and bean sprouts. It's available at Jade Crystal Kopitiam & Cafe, Kampong Madang, BSB. Pretty secluded area but I think it's a real worth to go there and have a bite. I had my favourite drink with Soursop in it. I've really missed that because the last I had that was during my Uni years. The cafe also serve various dishes ranging from sandwiches to rice. I had the Nasi Goreng homestyle with crackers and chicken on the side. My friends tried the Ayam Penyet, Nasi Lemak and Fish and Chips. The portion of each dish was just nice for a person. Didn't get to try the Oreo Cheesecake. Heard that it is really good. And not regretting going there at all because we saw our Uni friends who were also dining to the good food.

So, do try the fried Ambuyat! I think some would really like the texture of it in their mouth. I will post a pic once I get hold of a clear one because the one I took was with my phone and it was pretty blur. Alright, see you in the next post!

Episode 410 - Rave comments about Episode 409

If I knew that posting something about Chef Bobby Chinn was going to make my blog interesting, I would have posted it a long time ago!

Ok, first off. I will not deny I get much of my info from other places namely articles that I searched or books that I have. I do apologise if I did plagirise. I do make the effort for putting references at the end but sometimes I do forget to place them as I extract information from various places and heck, this is just a blog. Something I do as a hobby and not for a living. So, if I have posted something which have I made anyone uneasy, I apologise.

I am not going to remove any of my posts as, for me, it's just info & knowledge that I've learnt which I'd like to share with all of you.

Thank you for your kind comments and support.

Lessons learnt.

Episode 409 - About Celebrity Chef Bobby Chinn

If you guys don't know who Chef Bobby Chinn is, then I guess you better read this! French- trained Chef Bobby Chinn came to Brunei not long ago and made an episode here for his show World Cafe Asia which plays on Discovery Travel & Living Channel. This show won him the Asia Television Award for Best Entertainment Presenter 2007 and he has pretty much appeared in several other shows (like BBC's Saturday Kitchen and Full on Food, as well as UKTV Food's Great Food Live) before his big break with his own series. Now, who doesn't find a guy who can cook you good food, HOT?

Half Chinese (yes! he is half Chinese!) and half Egyptian, he has been a chef for many years now venturing on diverse cultures and their authentic and unique cuisines.

As a viewer of World Cafe Asia on Discovery, I found that he's such a fun person. Never fail to put a smile on someone's face while cooking! And when he starts cooking, the ingredients will be as simple as possible, no hassle and the cooking will be downright the same - SIMPLE and EASY to follow.

Chinn was born in New Zealand, raised in England and actually has a BA in Finance and Economics (OMG, Right?), moved to New York City and began working on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange at 11 Wall Street. He came from a family of great cooks and while working in New York, there was where he found his passion for cooking! But before he discovered his love and talent for cooking, he actually attempted selling seafood to mob and even stand-up comedy!

To make ends meet, he waited tables in restaurants and later in San Francisco, a well-known chef called Huber Keller of Fleur De Lys (no, not the one at Qlap) took him in and trained him up. He also then worked with other cutting edge chefs like Jeffery IUnahara, Traci des Jardin, and Gary Danko.

It was when he was relocated to Vietnam that he thought that setting up a restaurant was a great potential for Vietnam's tourism as well as an opportunity to pour in some Western 'touch' into the country's culinary cuisines. And with that he opened some highly acclaimed restaurants such as Restaurant Bobby Chinn in Hanoi and several others including Camargue, Saigon Joe’s in Ho Chi Minh City, Miro and the Red Onion Bistro in the Hanoi Towers. He even wrote a cookbook out of his fusion Western & Vietnamnese inventions of recipes called Wild, Wild East. Lastly, not only he can cook, he can sing too! Last year in March, he actually performed while he launched Wild, Wild East at Starhill Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Pretty interesting eh? More about other Celebrity Chefs in my upcoming posts! XoD Till then, if you love food, dive into it, you might turn out to be a Chef afterall!

Episode 409 - Jamie's American Roadtrip

This just in. Travel & Living just started playing the latest Jamie O's adventure food trips. Aired November 12th, it is showing at 7 pm local time on Sundays. I watched an episode whereby he was in a food competition somewhere in Georgia and he actually won and stated that he never won anything in a food competition before!

On JAMIE'S AMERICAN ROADTRIP, Jamie travels across the USA to parts of this huge continent that few tourists will ever see. In each episode, he delves into the underbelly of American society to discover fascinating stories of real American food and meets some of the country's most interesting but unknown food heroes.

The episodes will cover Jamie's roadtrip to the following places - alongside is the episode description:

New York
Even though Jamie has been visiting New York for over ten years, he has never ventured out of Manhattan. This trip takes him away from the high-end restaurants and five-star hotels he's used to and drops him in the middle of the world's most ethnically diverse area: Queens. On his forays into the city, he uncovers things he's never imagined: a restaurant run in a family's living room, another making home-cooked Colombian food for illegal immigrants and an anti-restaurant 'supper club' scene, hosted in people's homes and providing restaurant quality food for wallet-friendly prices. Jamie decides to host his own supper club, with a menu that pays homage to New York's eclectic mish mash of food cultures.

Louisiana
Jamie touches down in Louisiana just weeks after Hurricane Gustav has wrecked havoc in New Orleans and the surrounding area. Seeking to understand why people continue to live in a place that keeps getting battered by hurricanes, Jamie finds a state full of people who use food as a way to celebrate life and to keep the party going through adversity. Along the way, he meets authentic cooking experts from the region, New Orleans 'gumbo queen', Leah Chase, jazz star and BBQ expert Kermit Ruffins and alligator-hunting grandmother Sydney Mae Durand. As Jamie journeys deep into Louisiana, he finds himself in the company of Creole and Cajun comfort staples.

Los Angeles
Los Angeles is synonymous with glitz, glamour and the American dream. But just a few miles east of the Hollywood sign lives America's largest concentration of Mexican immigrants. Unsurprisingly, Jamie chooses to keep it real instead of living it up in Los Angeles. East LA is notorious for gangs, drugs and violence, but alongside these problems Jamie discovers a community that is proud of its food, committed to family and striving to make the American dream a reality.

Navajo Reservation
With no experience in backpacking or roughing it out, Jamie finds himself in unknown territory during the harsh Arizona Winter. He leaves the tourist trail to spend time with the Navajo Indians on the largest reservation in America. Staying with Mayor Elect Roy Kady, who also happens to be a sheep farmer, Jamie witnesses Navajo traditions up close from spending the night in a Hogan to cooking with elders and receiving a crash course in Navajo spirituality. It doesn't take long before Jamie realises that despite being the original American people, Native Americans are in danger of losing their food culture completely.

Georgia
As the global recession gains momentum, Jamie goes in search of the best cheap food in America. He starts his journey in Georgia, one of the country's poorest states and birthplace of the civil rights movement. Jamie finds a hopeful nation following the election of President Obama, and people determined to make the best food possible with limited finances and ingredients. His journey becomes an exploration of communal dining: pot-luck church dinners, street parties, ladies' tea parties and family roasts.

Wyoming
Jamie wants to see if clichés of Hollywood westerns are all they're cracked up to be. He's always wondered what life as a cowboy is like and in Wyoming, he finally gets to find out. His trip begins in Sheridan, where Annie Proulx conceived the idea for her novel, Brokeback Mountain. Jamie visits a rodeo before heading into the wilds upstate to see if he can cut it living and working on a real American ranch, and cooking for no-nonsense cowboys. (http://press.discovery.com)

A great series to watch! Loving the way he interacts with the people and shares recipes with them! I am yet to get the book :o)

Episode 408 - French Apple Flan

French Apple Flan

Another recipe from my 'Desserts' recipe book I bought. Thought I'd share this with you because it turned out really good. Well, honestly, my sister was the one who tested it out. Though she made a mess out of the kitchen, the flan tasted great. However, a little tip, when we made it the second time round, we added a lil more caster sugar to the filling. (if you want it sweeter, otherwise neglect this) I am a lil bit of a sweet tooth! This flan, has a custardy filling with sweetness & a lil bit of sourness to the it. A great combination for a dessert! Also great for afternoon tea when it's warm out of the oven. Alright, this is surely worth a try! Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

750 g apples (China Fuji Apples); 3 tbspns lemon juice; 4 tbspns warmed, sieved Apricot Jam; 175 ml (6 fl oz) single cream; 2 eggs beaten; 50 g (2 oz) caster sugar

For the pastry: 175 g (6 oz) plain flour; a pinch of salt; 75 g (3 oz) unsalted butter, slightly softened (or let out of the fridge and let it soften in room temperature); 2 egg yolks; 1 tbpsn cold water; 40 g (1 1/2 oz) caster sugar and some icing sugar - for dusting

Method:

To make pastry, sift the flour and salt into a pile on a cold surface and make a center well. Add butter, egg yolks, water and sugar to thw ell and use fingertips of one hand to work together into a mixture that resembles scrambled egg. Work in the flour gradually with your fingertips to bind the mixture into a smooth dough. Press together lightly and form into a ball. Wrap in clingfilm and chill for 30 minutes. Roll the pastry out and line a 25 cm (10 inch) tart tin. Chill the pastry case for 30 min. Peel and core the apples. Slice them thinly into a bowl and toss with lemon juice. Drain the apples and arrange them in concentric circles over the base of the pastry case. brush the apricot jam over the apple slices and bake the tart in preheated oven, 220 degrees celcius (425 degreee Farenheit), Gas mark 7 for 10minutes. Whisk the cream, eggs and sugar in a bowl. Pour the mixture carefully over the apples. Return to the preheated oven and bake at 190 degrees celsius, gas Mark 5 for 30-35 minutes until pastry is golden and the filling is cooked. Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve.

Serves: 8 (1 slice per person)

*Tip*: Serves great with a scoop of Vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of caramel. Can also sprinkle with cinnamon powder. To make a speedy caramel sauce, get those caramel sweets and double broil it like you melt chocolate!

Episode 407 - Dinner at Marina Bay, Miri, Sarawak

5 great dishes plus 3 types of soups , great company and a Wedding Anniversary, equals to a great dinner. We celebrated my parents' Wedding Anniversary at Marina Bay, a seafood restaurant at a spectacular location. Other than enjoying great food, you can also enjoy the great view of the sea especially during Sunset. I love the sounds of waves crashing against the rocks and the wind gushing through my hair, making it look like one of the Storm Riders Haha. Again, this place was introduced by a very handsome boss, who is one of my sidekicks who brought me and my gfs there for dinner a few months back.

We ordered the following: Steamed Philippine Crab with Egg White & Soya Sauce, Steamed Grouper with Soya Sauce, Spinach with Anchovies & Century Egg (I didn't put 's' cos there was seriously just half a century egg in this dish, karit eh), the very nyaman & crunchy Lotus Root with Salted Egg Yolk and my personal favourite with lots of meaning behind it stir fried Venison with Ginger and Chives!

My Dad LOVEd the lotus root! I tell you, it is finger licking good! I mean the idea of combining Salted Egg yolk and curry leaves with thinly sliced lotus root is just out of this world! Spectacular dish! It has the same recipe as the fried chicken at Chempaka, BSB. Will post that one up soon. As for the rest of the dishes, they were good. Very lightly dished out and not oily. The crab was great, the fact that it was humongous and 1 crab could feed 4 of us! I love the sweet succulent taste of crab meat but I really dislike the process of getting the meat out of the shell. Ngeh. Fingers smelled of crab after that. And yes, restaurants should provide that gadget to get the crab meat out of the shell. It's like a little tiny fork but with only 2 teeth. The Spinach was a disappointment. Compared to the one at Rocky Restaurant in Kuching, it wasn't as good. Then there were 3 types of soups we ordered out of hunger haha. We had the Szechuan Hot and Sour Soup, Fish Maw Soup & Mushroom with Sea cucumber soup. Out of all the soups, the fish Maw was the best but the cook kind of put a lil too much vinegar in the Sea cucumber one. All in all, I think they have other better and great dishes which I am yet to try out.

Out of 10, I'm giving this a 6.5! Definitely a place you should try out! How to go? It is at Miri, Tanjong Lobang. The junction to go in is just before the Park Everly Hotel and you can see a huge neon Marina Bay sign. Also, it has a huge seahorse structure at the side of the Restaurant. You might want to check that out too!

Here are the dishes! I kinda forgot to take pics of the soups! :(

In case you're wondering what that yellow hairy stuff on the fish's head is, it's deep fried thinly shredded ginger!

From Top to Bottom:

Spinach with Century Egg, Crispy Fried Lotus Root with Salted Egg Yolk, Steamed Crab with Soya Sauce & Egg White, Stir Fried Venison with Ginger & Chives & Steamed Grouper in Soya Sauce