Roast Drumsticks

I always have some drumsticks and chicken wings stored in the freezer, because you can always whip up some quick and easy dinner with these ingredients. Also, the drumsticks and wings are always on specials at Woolworths or Lennards. I can get them for $2.99 a kilo most of the time :)

Some nights, I will just get some drumsticks out, prepare for the next night's dinner so that I can have an easy evening by putting everything into the oven when I get home and diner will be served in an hour :p

This is just a very typical, simple roast drumsticks I make from time to time and the left over is great for lunch the next day with some green salad.

Marinate:

2 tsp five-spice powder

3 cloves chopped garlin

1 tbsp sweet chilli sauce

1 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp soy sauce

black pepper

2 tspn dark soy sauce

Marinate over night for the ebst results. :)

I will often put a layer of sliced sweet potato under the drumstick, when the drumsticks are cooked, the sweet potato slices are full of flavour and absorb all the chicken juices and marinate...Yum!

You can also put some potato, carrots, capsicum on a separate plate and put them in the oven with the chicken. So, one meal can be cooked at the same time :)

Deadly Choc Cookies

Wow, I just realised I haven't posted any food posts for a LONG LONG time. I have been cooking and baking a lot, but I jsut didn't have time to sit in front of the computer to blog about them. All because of HER

Anyway, I need something very sinful a couple of days ago, and I wanted to try out my new oven. So I baked some deadly choc cookies, I used the recipe from Nigella's Express. You can get the recipe from her website :)

INGREDIENTS
125g dark chocolate, minimum 70% cocoa solids
150g flour
30g cocoa, sieved
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
125g soft butter
75g light brown sugar (I used 50g)
50g white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg, cold from the fridge
350g (2 bags) semi-sweet chocolate morsels or dark chocolate chips ( I used 250g)

Also I added 2 Ts of milk to the mixture in the end.

Preheat the oven to 170°C/gas mark 3. Melt the 125g dark chocolate either in the microwave or in a heatproof dish over a pan of simmering water.

Put the flour, cocoa, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a bowl.

Cream the butter and sugars in another bowl. (I use my freestanding mixer, itself an odd source of comfort to me.) Add the melted chocolate and mix together.

Beat in the vanilla extract and cold egg, and then mix in the dry ingredients. Finally stir in the chocolate morsels or chips.

Scoop out 12 equal-sized mounds (I made more than 20, I think I made about 20 by using a normal teaspoon)– an ice cream scoop and a palette knife are the best tools for the job – and place on a lined baking sheet about 6cm apart. Do not flatten them.

Cook for 18 minutes, testing with a cake tester to make sure it comes out semi-clean and not wet with cake batter. If you pierce a chocolate chip, try again.

Leave to cool slightly on the baking sheet for 4–5 minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack to harden as they cool.

Verdict:

The cookies were yummy and not TOO sweet. So my colleagues who are on Weightwatchers had a piece and glad that it wasn't as 'deadly' as she thought it would be. :p

I kept a few pieces in my drawer at work, in case I have the sudden choc craving again!

Instant Chicken Rice!

I was at Chan Brothers one Sunday, was doing my normal Asian ingredients shopping. Time to stock up my instant noodle again (especially my dear bf started eating instant noodle now). I saw a 'rather' new packaging on the shelf, when I said it is rather new, I mean it could be in the market for a long time but I have just came across it.

I have always been very skeptical about instant rice and porridge, never thought they would be nice, I prefer fresh, fluffy rice. Anyway, I decided to buy one to try. I think it costs around $2, can't really remember.

So I took it to work one day and prepared it during lunch time. All my colleagues were very curious and couldn't wait to see whether it would turn out allright.

The instructions given were to soak the rice in boiling water for 5 minutes then pour out the mear from the seal foil pack and put the container into the microwave, heat it on high for 2 minutes.

After the initial 5 minutes, the rice was half cooked! I was so excited and thought, hey! this could turn out good. BUT I was sooooo disappointed when I pour the meat out, only 3 pieces of chicken! 3! THREE! Can you believe it? The rest were bits of carrot and bake beans!

I didn't have my phone with me so I couldn't take a pic. :(

It tasted OK, but bloody disappointed with the freaking 3 pieces of chicken. I ate only half the rice because there weren't enough chicken, carrot and beans.

Verdict: NOT going to buy it again.

Silly Me

I wrote an entry about Seoul Korean - Northbridge but posted it to my other blog! Click HERE if you are interested to read that.

Vegetarian Noodle

Every 1st and 15th day on the luna calendar, I am a vegetarian. I will only eat vegetables, bean or eggs. For the previous 15th day, I decided to make vegetarian noodle. Something very simple and yummy.

Ingredients:
half a carrot - shredded
4 chinese mushrooms - shredded
handful of shredded cabbage/chinese cabbage
2 cloves of garlic - diced

Sauce:
1 tbsp vegetarian oyster sauce
2 tspn dark sauce
1 tspn fish sauce
salt and pepper
1 tspn sugar
150ml water

1 packet of noodle (egg noodle/yee mee/instant noodle)

Brown garlic, put in carrot, mushrooms and cabbage. Stir fry till carrot and cabbage are semi soft, put in noodle. When noodle is getting soft, stir in sauce. Coat noodle with sauce, then add in water, cover the lid and simmer for 5 -10minutes. You may adjust the amount of water depending how much gravy/sauce you want with your noodle :)

Curry Laksa @ Asian Cuisine

I was craving for curry a few days ago, so when I had a chance last Thursday. I dropped by at Asian Cuisine on Collins Road to have a bowl of curry laksa. :p

The curry was very flavourful, very tasty. I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, my favourite curry laksa is still the one @ Northbridge food court, it is more expensive tho, $14 per bowl if I am not wrong.

Unfortunately, I got very thirsty after eating this curry, I think they used a lot of MSG. :(

Asian Cuisine do serve other yummy food like Wonton Mee, Fried Squid, Curry Ckicken Rice, Sambal Fish (my favourite), Mee Siam and Char Kuay Teow.

Asian Cuisin on Collins Road, Willetton.

Close every Monday and Tuesday

Pretty Agar Agar and Konyaku

I love agar agar, jelly, konyaku jelly since I was little. I can eat agar agar as my meal, crazy I know! Agar agar and konyaku are such easy recipe that no brainers could make them as well. Anyway, made these for Karen's engagement party as I was busy house hunting so I could only make something as easy.

I tried to mix sago and agar agar together, they turned out very well, the sago were transparent so they made some pattern on the agar agar. As for the agar agar, I just used the pre-mix and added coconut milk in it.

Made the konyaku with pre-mix as well and added lots of fruits to make them as colourful as possible. I get very happy when I see colourful (naturally) jelly. :p

SG Food Tasting 2 - KFC Hot Devil Drumlets

They were sooooo Yummy! We walked past a poster and I told Matt, "I am sooo going to try this!"

So when we walked past a KFC, I insisted us to go in, I wanted only a box of drumlets. I ordered the Thai Spicy drumlets.

They were sooo good, so juicy, so crispy, no tasty and oh so FATTENING, Matt let me have 2 and he had 1. I don't why they don't sell this in Perth! Why! WHy! Why!

SG Food Tasting - PIZZA IN A CONE

Yup, that's right. Eating pizza in a cone. When we walked pass the stall, Matt actually stopped to look at the menu and so did I. As usual, I was all excited, trying to look around the stall, checking the oven they had. The oven has a mini conveyor belt and several holders are placed on the belt.

So I approached the guy manning the stall, asked him what's he selling. He said PIZZA IN A CONE. Matt wanted to try and I was extremely curious, so I ordered one, one of their popular flavour - chicken curry; East meets West. Hahaha

Ahhhh... so the cone is actually a pizza base, then they put all ingredients in the cone then top with cheese, then placed the cone in one of the holders and the cone will pass through the oven on the belt. When it reached the exit, it was cooked!

I couldn't remember how much was the pizza, but it was only a few SG dollars, maybe $4.

IT WAS YUMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CHEAP, CONVENIENT AND YUMMY! We bought the pizza from Takashimaya food court.

I spoke to the man while waiting for the pizza, I told him I want to take the franchise back to Perth. He passed me a business card immediately. Hahaha... I think this has potetial in Aust market. Aussies love pizza, and how convenient to be able to eat pizza like eating an ice-cream for only $3-$4 each?

Anyone interested in a joint venture?

Red Cray Restaurant

I went to this restaurant with my parents, uncle and aunt, and a family friend when my parents visited Perth in April. Hahah.. and I am only writing about this in September :p

The food wasn't too bad, but wasn;t as good as I have expected. However, this restaurant is always so busy and if you want to dine there, you have to make reservation 1 week in advance (at least). We got in last minute thanks to my cousin who works there.

It was my shout that night and the bill came to about $250.00 after staff discount, thanks again to my cousin. So it was about $60 per person, mind you, that's because we ordered the most expensive dishes in the restaurant. We ordered 2 executive seafood platters, dad had lobster and with risotto, uncle had steak with lobster.

This is the executive platter that I shared with mom. The platter is meant for 2 persons. Mom doesn't take butter nor cheese. So she ate most of the lobster while I eat the cheesy fish.

Dad's lobster and prawn risotto. I didn't think dad enjoyed the dinner as he doesn't fancy seafood and he loves having rice for dinner. He asked me what's risotto, I told him it is rice, short rice... haha he didn't like it. He said it tasted funny. I told him not to touch his food till I took a pic of it, he asked me why must I take pic of all the food he eats. Hahaha...

Red Cray Restaurant

Sandringham Central
86 Great Eastern Highway
Belmont

http://www.redcray.com.au/profile.html

Sweet and Sour Pork

Wow.. I have been so slack with my food blog. I have so many pics in my folder but I was so lazy to blog about them :( I fail as a food blogger ><

Anyway, made this several times and tasted pretty good. :)

Excuse the bad picture, think my hands shook again :(

Ingredients:

400g Pork (chops or tenderloin), pound the meat then slice

2 onion

1 large green capsicum

Canned pineapple cubes

Marinade:

1 tsp light soy sauce

1/4 tsp dark soy sauce

1 small egg

1 tbsp tapioca flour/plain flour

Sauce:

3 tbsp tomato sauce

1 tbsp oyster sauce

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1-1/2 tbsp sugar

1/2 tbsp vinegar

1/4 tsp salt or to taste

1/2 cup water

Marinate pork for a couple of hours.

Fry the pork slices till it is golden brown. This is a healthier way. I did try to deep fry the meat and taste good as well.

Slice onion and sauté till softened.

Add in capsicum. When capsicum is slightly soften, pour in the sauce ingredients. Bring the sauce to boil.

Return meat to the wok and add in pineapple.

Cook till the meat is covered by the sauce. Dish out and serve with rice.

Yum!

Dragon Palace Restaurant

I was craving for dim sum last weekend, but Matt didn't feel like it on Saturday, so we decided to have dim sum on Sunday instead.

Sunday morning, I woke up at 10am and kept hassling Matt to wake up and remind him that he promised to have dim sum with me. He couldn't resist my pastering, and finally woke up and took me to Northbridge.

As we've expected, all the dm sum restaurants were already packed at 11:30am. We wanted to go to Jade Dynasty as I think their dim sum is good and service staff are extremely efficient. Matt was frightened by the waiting crowd, so we detour to another restaurant. Then we decided to try this new restaurant called 'Dragon Palace', diagonally opposite ATO.

We were given a number and was told there would be a 15-20 mins wait. So we sat down and waited....waited. Finally we got to be seated, we were seated on a stage.

I think the stage is meant for wedding dinner, blablabla... Anyway, I was concerned that we wouldn't get any food as all the carts were moving on the floor below the stage! The staff assured me they will bring the food up.

Then we waited over 20 mins for our tea! We started eating (even finished a few plates) before we were given our pot of tea! We had to ask 3 different people for our tea, and finally the 3rd person got us our tea...tsk tsk BAD SERVICE!

HOWEVER, the food was good. Yummy and juicy dim sum..... but the service really did put me off. Matt knew I was fuming because he said my face said it all...hahahaha You know me with customer service. ><

Anyway, the food isn't cheap. For example, a small plate (smaller than other restaurants) of fried squid tentacles cost $5.90. (o.O)

P.S. while waiting for our table, we checked out their menu. :p the dishes aren't cheap at all. Hehe must try one day to see if the dishes are as good as their prices.

Address: 66 Francis Street,Northbridge WA 6003
Cuisine: Chinese Price: $40-$55 Entree & Main
Phone: (08) 9227 8882 Fax: (08) 9227 8008

Arirang

Last Saturday, Matt and I were bored and the weather was freezing. I couldn't think of where to have dinner, then it striked me that I had always wanted to try Arirang, Korean BBQ.

So I got their number from the web, and made a booking for 2. When we got there, we could smell the bbq, smelled divine and I warned Matt that we would get very very smelly haha

We were seated on the first floor where no one was cooking, so Matt got very concerned if we would be the only table that was going to cook, i told him "I dont care! ME gonna cook!". he just laughed and then I realised he was a Korean BBQ virgin! Hahaha lucky he has me now, take him to try different cuisines. Matt is a pretty conversative eater, not very adventurest especially when it comes to Asian delecacies like chicken feet, 'fatt choy' (hair looking vegetables), tofu and etc.

We ordered a normal banquet and a seafood banquet, with the attempt to try different food on their menu.

Normal Banquet $28.50 per person

entree

A delectable combination of:

Honey Chicken
lean skinless chicken pieces battered + pan-fried till golden in a honey soy sayce. Absolutely heaven!

Mandu
seasoned pork and vegetables dumplings fried to perfection. served with a soy dipping sauce.

main course
A combination platter of our finest BBQ meats including:

Duk Bulgogi
lean chicken fillets, marinated in our sweet soy sauce.

Bulgogi
fine slices of lean beef, marinated in our sweet soy sauce.

Deaji Bulgogi
finely sliced belly pork marinated in our hot chilli sauce.

Main meals are served with rice, miso soup, namul [seasoned vegetables], kimchi, dipping sauces and lettuce leaves. Cook the meat over the charcoal grill, place the meat, rice + dipping sauce in a lettuce leaf and consume with delight!

seafood banquet -$33.50 per person

entree
A delectable combination of:

Honey Chicken
lean skinless chicken pieces battered + pan-fried till golden in a honey soy sayce. Absolutely heaven!

Mandu
seasoned pork and vegetables dumplings fried to perfection. served with a soy dipping sauce.

main course

A combination platter of our finest seafood including The freshest fruits of the sea: chilli squid,scallops, mussels + king prawns served with our special tangy dipping sauce. Main meals are served with rice, miso soup, namul [seasoned vegetables], kimchi, dipping sauces and lettuce leaves. Cook the meat over the charcoal grill, place the meat, rice + dipping sauce in a lettuce leaf and consume with delight!

To be honest, I prefer the normal banquet compare to the seafood one because the marinated taste so good! Matt doesn't eat pork but he loved the pork they served. I like the pork and beef. The honey chicken was so yummy! We love them, and I gave Matt an extra piece because he was starving haha... I must learn how to make that chicken. The chicken is not like those honey chicken you get from those Chinese rice stall that is covered with batter. Those side dishes like the pickled vege and potatoes were yummy too, they served this plate of cucumber, they weren't pickle cucumber, just normal cooked cucumber, tasted so yummy. Matt does not eat cucumber very often, he doesn't like the slippery texture, but he liked this particular cucumber. :p

We had 2 drinks each and Matt had a coffee after his meal, the total bill was $88.00. I think it is pretty ok. Not cheap, but we felt that it was worth it. Good food and service. Just hope that the portion can be bigger.

Matt had fun eating and cooking at the same time.. hahaha. In the end, both came out smelling each other and commented how divine we smelled.

Apricot Yogurt Cake

I have lots of yogurt left from making the non-bake yogurt cake. So I found a recipe online to bake a fruity yogurt cake. I chose this Apricot Yogurt Cake because I thought the sour apricot will make the cake quite interesting and the feedback on the recipe were great.

I made a mistake while baking this cake, so the outcome wasn't as good as I have expected but definitely edible and not sweet AT ALL.

It will be a great dessert for my aunt and she is diabetic.

Recipe as follow:

300g canned apricot halves, drained, sliced
125g butter
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 eggs
1 1/3 cups self-raising flour
175g Apricot yogurt

Method:
Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease base and sides of a 6cm-deep, 20cm (base) springform cake pan. Line with baking paper. Pat apricot dry with paper towel.

Using an electric mixer, cream butter, caster sugar and vanilla until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
Stir in flour and 1 tub of yoghurt until well combined.


Spoon half the cake mixture into prepared pan. Smooth surface. Top with apricot. Spoon remaining mixture over apricot. Smooth surface.


Bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Stand cake for 5 minutes in pan.

Remove from pan.

Place on wire rack to cool.

Too pretty to be eaten

I ordered some cupcakes from here for my father for Father's Day gift. Ordered 2 dozens in total, 1 for my father and 1 for my nephew. Alice was very nice, she took some pictures and emailed them to me. The cupcakes are so pweeeettttyyyyy.....

Chilled orange Yogurt Cake

This cake is by far my favourite, it is very light, healthy (no flour, no cheese), appetising and super yummy!

I will post the recipe when I have time :p

Sorry, I know the photo quality is pretty bad ><

Buttered Prawns

I cooked buter prawns over the Foundation Day weekend. I love prawns and especially buttered prawns. I found the recipe from Cooking Momster, I followed the recipe and the prawns turned out fantastic. It wasn't difficult at all to be honest, just a little patience is all you need when cooking the butter and milk together. Everyone said the prawns were yummy!

This is what it looks like when you mix the milk and butter together. Becareful, this mixture get burned easily, so keep the heat low and keep stirring.

This picture is taken from Cooking Momster, I forgot to take a picture of my buttered prawns, but they look the same (I swear!).

Recipe is as follow, again, the recipe is taken from Cooking Momster.

Ingredients :

500gm fresh water prawns (I used frozen king prawns, I don't know what fresh water prawns are ><)

1 tbsp corn flour

3 tbsp butter

1/2 can evaporated milk

2 sprigs curry leaves (I used fresh curry leaves from the garden)

1 tsp chopped chilli padi (I used normal chilli, the super hot ones from my aunt's garden)

1 tsp sugar

Method :

1. Coat the prawns with cornflour.In a pan of hot oil, stir fried the prawns till it turned orange colour. Dish up and set aside.

2. Melt butter in a pan. Pour in the evaporated milk.

3. Stir fry at low heat till it dry up and formed granules.

4. Then add in sugar,curry leaves and chilli padi and fry till fragrant.

5. Add in prawns and mixed well.

Banana Cake - AGAIN

Matt loves banana cake. He asked if I can bake it again, so here it is. I am getting sick of baking banana cake now, I can mix everything and put it into the oven in less than 20 mins.

I will try some non-bake cheese cake tomorrow, that's if I can get a big round baking dish tomorrow.

Wish me luck ;)

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!!!