Choc Cake and Creme Brulee

We had dinner at Victoria Station to celebrate Yumi's birthday. Victoria Station is located in Burswood Hotel, right next to Yu Chinese Restaurant.

I ordered the steak with wine sauce, coz I was told their steak is superb. I love the sauce, but my steak was overcooked. They offered to redo one for me, but I was simply too hungry. It was the first day after Day Light Saving was over, so everyone was starving.

Complimentary cake for the birthday girl, looked like a normal choc cake but tasted nice. I liked it :p

Complimetary dessert that came with the steak, I like creme brulee but this was so rich and after the steak, I couldn't eat all of it :(

Overall dining experience: 8/10

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

My FAVOURITE spring roll in the world! Nope, You can't get them in any restaurant because they are home made. My ONLY Vietnamese friend, Binh made them ( I think his mom's recipe???) They were fantabulous!

Think they have mince pork, prawn and some vege.. I don't know the exact ingredient. But they are definitely yummy!!!

Apple Crumble Cake

I baked this cake the other day and got the recipe from www.taste.com.au . Wanted to bake an apple cake simply because I had too many apples at home and nobody planned to eat them.

I did change the recipe a little, mainly reduced the sugar amount. That's something I learned, I always cut down the sugar amount when I follow western recipes. ><


Ingredients (serves 8)
2 apples
2 tbs lemon juice (I recommend use only 1tbs, 2 was too sour for my liking)
2 tsp ground cinnamon
250g caster sugar (I used only 180g sugar)
250g unsalted butter
1 2/3 cup (250g) self-raising flour
4 eggs


Method
Preheat oven to 180°C (not fan-forced). Grease and line base of a 23cm springform cake pan.
Peel and core the apples, and cut into segments. Toss the apples in lemon juice and half the cinnamon, then set aside.
Take 50g each of the sugar, butter and flour, place in a bowl with the remaining cinnamon and rub together with your fingertips.
Place eggs and remaining sugar in an electric beater and beat until very light and fluffy. Melt remaining butter and pour into egg mixture. Sift in remaining flour, then fold in carefully until combined.
Pour into the pan, and carefully lay the apple slices over top. Sprinkle with the crumble mixture and bake for 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. ( I always rely on my skewer)

Fried Udon

I love udon noodle, they are smooth and very yummy when you cook them in the right soup/broth. This time, I decided to fry them instead, just so it was easier to bring it to work.

This is a very simple recipe indeed, something I decided to cook to bring to work the next day for lunch.

2 packets of Udon
4 medium size mushroom (soak in hot water)
300g mince meat (pork or chicken. I used minced Turkey meat, strange I know. Saw the meat in Woolies and thought why not, since Turley is healthier than Chicken and Pork)
1 tbsp Oyster sauce
1 tspn soya sauce (to marinade the meat, with some pepper)
1 tspn fish sauce
1 tspn sugar
1/2 cup of water (put more water if you want more gravy)
2 (big) cloves of garlic
1 tbsp of dry shrimp (minced)

Brown garlic and shrimp together. Put mushroom and meat in till meat is semi cook. Mix sauce with water. Put noodle in then sauce. Fry all together. Put the more water in to simmer if desire (I don't find that neccesary because the Udon that I bought was pretty tender). If you would like some classic noodle colouring, put in some dark sauce to get the Hokkien mee effect. :)

Stir fry till meat is fully cooked, try the taste, add some salt and pepper if needed.

Viola!

The whole process shouldn't take more than 30 mins incl. preparation.