happy birthday 5pf...

lunch today

miso cod fish and 2 types of japanese mushroom soup with pork bone and ginger

Phew, saved by D!

one of my friend was asking if fixing a vongole is a quick and easy thing. these are things you need to buy, do and prepare for a perfect vongole meal.

soak the clams in water with salt for half an hour

ingredients you need are : small onions, garlic, parley

baby roma tomatoes with vines (as requested by D)

a crab
(i prefer mud crab to flower crab, but we couldn't get any on sat)

and clams. after you soak it, sort out the big and small clams.
Big ones for main meal, small ones for stock.

one bottle of white white with 90% used to cook stock. add all condiments in stock ...

including the seafood, ie crab and small clams
cook them in low heat for 1.5hrs

cook pasta to about 70% done

sieve out ingredients from stock and de-shell crab.
Then cook big clams in stock and fish them out once they open.

Next, stir fry crabmeat, onions and butter till lightly brown
add stock and cook linguine in stock till it is reduced.
you would get some burnt parts around the pan while reducing the linguine,
what you need to do is add the remaining 10% of the white wine to deglaze.
Then add the pasta and big clams to stir for less than a minute.

there you have a well-made vongole!

all in all, i took about 3 hours to get this done....

we didn't think the clams were that good this time despite the size of it. but i still enjoyed the meal, better still D saved the dish in time. well you see, i cooked the pasta till well and didn't realised i had to cook it again in the clam stock (D cooked the previous rounds!).....worried the pasta might get all soggy and soft, i cried help. tutu-tudu-tu.....D to the rescue!! though not as good as what D normally cooked for me, but well still nice. =)

Amuse Bouche - My version!

finger food prior to dinner - grilled chicken breast meat wrapped with skin

i cannot describe the feeling exactly..
but there's a tickling feeling running through my body...
and a sparkle in me everytime i listen to it...
i've lost touch of it for 5 years...
and it came back last night...

the sound filling the room...
makes it all complete once again...
peaceful and calming....

thanks D for the wonderful gift...
u know me...u just know me...

we pamper each other... always... =)

Ickle & lardee

Ickle enjoys reading...sideways...

the milkteef like adventures

and they just got squirky clean..

read more here ... ...

no..............i breathe stale air for 8 goddamn hours
shit!!!!

i'm breathing stale air for the past 4 hours....

a rainbow is supposed to have 7 colors
but it seems to be invisible
no matter how hard you search
no matter how hard you try
you don't seem to find it

perhaps it never did exist
or perhaps it did
and perhaps along the way it got lost
or perhaps it's just not meant to be

home-cooked meals

i enjoy eating home-cooked meals. so as far as possible if my week hasn't been that hectic at work, i would love to make meals for D and myself on weekends. our dinner tonite was wholesome.

there, this is the shaoxing rice wine chicken i mentioned in my earlier entry with more gravy. it was soooo good. we saved some for D's meal this week. glad he enjoyed it.


i'm half a cantonese, so indulging in a big bowl of soup is part of my everyday meal. here we have old cucumber and sharksfin cucumber soup. boiled this for about 3 hours. it's nice and sweet. i loved it!! slurp!

snacks for tea or supper?

today i was busy preparing some hot snacks for D...while he was burying himself under the books of economics so as to complete his assignment due next week. i'm glad i was doing the cooking and not the studying. i hate econs!! oops.

shaoxing rice wine and garlic oil infused grilled chicken

started with something more familiar, ie the parts of the chicken wings (wings...we human actually eat wings..? umm..). the chicken were marinated for 24hours with shao xing rice wine, garlic (had deep fried this) and its oil, soya sauce and a light dash of white pepper. i wanted the taste of the wine to sink deep in the meat of the chicken. that's the way D likes it...then i grilled it so that this can be easier for D to heat up to snack anytime later this week. i had a taste of it when i let D tried the preview of this alcholic dish last night..and i thought it tasted really good. =) i'm gonna do the stir fry version tonight so that we have the sauce for our rice from the wine and chicken juice. can't wait!!

preparation

finished product

petite potato cake

i wanted to make something like bagadil (the malay version of potato cake), but i wasn't sure of the ingredients they have in there. i love the nasi padang place near arab street where they have bagadil and sambal belachan that is simply the best!! i missed having them. so while i was craving for one, i decided to make a western version of potato cake.

i had boiled the potatoes, then mash them with a fork. added some salt, butter, thyme, english parsley and inion then mixed them together with my hands. Thereafter i rolled them into a ball by pressing them hard together so as to prevent them from falling apart then flattening them slightly. i then dipped them into eggs (had added some salt and pepper for taste) before frying them.

i think i didn't had enough oil for frying as i was trying to avoid an oily potato cake and they didn't turn out well. some starting falling apart as i fried them. overall, i thought it didn't tasted good at all. sigh....will do some research and attempt again next time.

D: but i like it!
(D typed this when he saw me blogging. he had 2 potato cakes. despite my disappointment in them....always so supportive...thanks dear!)

once heard, once seen and always remembered

play ...

location : D's room
photographer : D
models : 5pf & D
clothes : stylist's own