food attack!

i have ridiculous food cravings that hit me all the time. it gets worse when i’m in a bad mood or when i have tonnes of deadlines to meet.

whenever i get stressed by deadlines i have to have sweet food. i don’t even like sweet food very much. but i bought half a dozen of krispy kreme doughnuts today cos damn it, i gotta have unhealthy sweet food! guess they’ll last me a couple of meals. they were sinfully satisfying though.

can’t figure out which food attack is worse. i finished most of the cake during the last attack and i’m all by myself this round.

if i die young from a heart attack it’s because school killed me.

the accidental salad

i used to hate salads with a vengeance, until i realised the beauty of it - quick and easy to prepare. still, i avoid salads as much as i can. mainly because i don’t like the taste of raw veggies. why eat uncooked plants when there’s meat?

i was all out to prepare meat patties for dinner, until i checked on the microwave and realised i had cooked the chicken mince instead of defrosting it. there wasn’t anything much i could do with a bowl of cooked chicken mince so i decided to turn it into a salad instead.

so i threw in random ingredients and it turned out pretty nice. doesn’t look too appetizing, but it tastes fine. guess this is one recipe i would be using often, cos it’s a one-bowl recipe and hey, i’m lazy.

i can’t believe i’m doing this on my blog, but i gotta note down the ingredients cos i have never managed to replicate the better food i cook. so there, for the sake of future meals, this was how it went: a bowl of chicken mince, half a chopped onion, two cloves of chopped garlic, coriander, chopped tomatoes, a chopped boiled egg, a tiny can of four-bean mix, a slice of cheese, some cream cheese, dash of salt and pepper. so the basic idea is, nuke the chicken mince, mix it with the onions, garlic, salt, pepper and coriander and nuke it for a minute. mix in the other ingredients, adding in the cheese and cream cheese on top of everything. nuke it again until the cheese melts and mix everything nicely.

loving korean food

it might be the desperation to consume asian food when i’m here, but it’s over here that i start exploring korean food. with the number of korean immigrants in australia, it’s not difficult to find authentic korean food everywhere. in fact, it’s easier to find korean food than singaporean food in canberra.

there’s this korean grocery store in the town area that sells quite a lot of duh, korean stuff. so once in a while i’ll drop in to stock up on interesting food. mrs. owner of the korean grocery store is extremely cheery. she bounces around the store to rearrange the store and when she stops near you, she greets you with a big smile and a warm “hello! how are you doing?” it feels kinda familiar there cos i hear the korean customers calling out to mr. owner with a “ahdjoosee!” and mrs. owner sending off customers with a sincere “kamsahamnida!” yeah, i admit i’ve been watching too many korean dramas.

back to korean food, last semester i found little boxes of kimchi and spicy dried shrimps. the spicy dried shrimps were terrific but the kimchi was a little disappointing. so i had a bad impression of kimchi, until the house owner had a little dinner gathering and a korean classmate of their daughter’s turned up with fresh, authentic korean kimchi. oh gosh, i fell in love all over again.

the best thing about the korean grocery store is they sell tonnes of instant korean food. instant meaning anything that can be thrown into the microwave or boiling water and ready to serve in less than ten minutes. they have an endless variety of dumplings with different fillings. there were even different types of vegetarian dumplings, can you imagine?

i made another discovery today:

breaded hotdogs!! did i ever mention that i have a soft spot for hotdogs and sausages? piping hot sausages and hotdogs can make me a very happy person. and these breaded hotdogs made a great snack, even though they were grossly overcooked. i supposed the korean instructions were trying to say “microwave on medium for 2 minutes” but i could only recognise the numeral “2″ so i microwaved it on high instead.

oh well, this is gonna be a staple in my freezer anyway! yummy food at affordable prices!

timeliness

timeliness is when the landlady comes over with a thick, warm slice of orange butter cake just when i was contemplating what to have for brunch.

a slice of smooth, dense cake with the top still crispy.

food makes me happy.

alcoholic cure

as a kid i never liked the winter melon drinks my mum used to make when we complained of sore throats and fevers. it’s some kind of dried winter melons i think; i’m fine with winter melon soups. it’s been such a long time since she made that drink. i didn’t remember that it was a drink i hated and answered “okay” when she said she would make me some of that today. i’m on the verge of sore throats and fevers again, must be the crazy weather over here in singapore.

so i’ve been downing the suspicious drink and man, it really tastes like it’s got alcohol in it. the drink looks totally harmles, almost transparent and smells a little sweet when you sniff at it. it comes with those strips of winter melon which my sister loved. after taking a gulp of the winter melon drink, i suddenly remembered to stay far, far away from those melon strips cos i hated that too.

i still hate the weird taste. but i guess i’ve remembered why i dislike the drink and i’m gonna reject it anytime my mum offers me that in the near future.

that potent brew

kopi-o gao

i finally found an instant coffee that satisfies my dark desires for caffeine. instant, considering i only need to add sugar and hot water to the coffee powder. instant coffee used to only mean 3-in-1 coffee satchets. my friend from last semester tried to introduce me to those swanky coffee powder where it had to be brewed or something; it required some apparatus called a plunger. i’ve never figured that out cos i don’t see the need to. homemade coffee should always be instant

nescafe espresso is my saviour for this semester, it packs a powerful punch compared to other brands of coffee. i used to buy international roast but the coffee was a sissy cousin of the thick, aromatic coffee i crave for. that sissy coffee was always in a shade of brown nowhere close to black and the taste was bland. that purely served as a caffeine boost.

the moment i took a whiff of this new love, i knew it was the one. the coffee’s rich and robust. something like the kopi-o i’ve always liked.

the last time i drank kopi-o-o (double power!) to stay up all night was during ‘O’ levels, the night before the history paper. now i can relive my kopi-o moments.

it feels good to find true love.

mid-autumn festival

who’s hiding them?

 

happy mid-autumn-mooncake-lantern festival, people.

i’m mooncake-less this year and even though i’ve never finished more than 1 mooncake every year, i suddenly feel like having some. i just can’t find any over here, damn.

and to those unenlightened souls, there are mooncakes with red bean fillings and yes, they’re my favourite.

char siew fun

 

because i still have frozen wontons (they’re getting frostbitten!) in the freezer, i felt like wonton noodles. which calls for char siew, or it wouldn’t be like wonton noodles at all. therefore google proved useful again as i sieved through the numerous cooking blogs and finally found something idiot-proof.

what i love about this is that the preparation is so easy, just throw in the few marinades and leave the meat to sit there for 4 hours while i work on my assignments. and it doesn’t require a bloody oven! okay, maybe the cooking time of half an hour isn’t exactly good, but it’s still quick and easy considered to other char siew recipes.

i randomly chose a long strip of meat labelled “pork fillet” and which resembled a piece of char siew because i have no idea how 五花肉 looks like. i think it turned out to be the right cut of meat anyway.

so there, my wonton noodles for dinner!

yeah, it looks brown cos i’m not gonna invest in red food colouring. what am i gonna do with the remaining? make red half-boiled eggs everyday? as long as it tastes the same, i’d eat it even it’s blue in colour.

wonton goodness

because it’s the term break and i’m pretty much stuck at home with nothing to do, i have lots of food i want to try cooking.

so the challenge i scheduled for today was wontons.
it was a rather slow and tedious event, considering i took about 3 hours to prepare and cook everything and especially since there were not many ingredients in wontons. it was the slow chopping and grating (manually with a knife, can you imagine!) that took a really long time. and i now believe my mum’s claims that there are different kinds of ginger - yellow ginger, blue ginger and what not.

the process was hazardous and full of obstacles. the very first one was when i realised there was no bloody can opener in the kitchen. the canned food i’ve bought so far always comes with pull back rings, so they were not problems. even with a proper can opener, i usually take about 20 to 30 minutes to open a can, cos the physics of opening cans just escapes me.

so anyway, without a proper can opener, i had to poke a hole into the side of the can with some bottle opener thingy. then, i used a pair of powerful kitchen scissors to cut up the can. throughout the whole ordeal i was paranoid about cutting my fingers on the lethal metal edges. but fortunately it didn’t happen.

the second horrifying moment was when i took a wrong guess and added the wrong soy sauce. the recipe stated “soy sauce” and making a logical guess that the filling would need some colour, i added dark soy sauce. the raw filling looked abnormally brown and that’s when i realised the recipe really meant light soy sauce. doesn’t really matter, cos i ate my wontons whole without taking gu-niang bites so i didn’t notice the colour of the cooked filling anyway.because i was adventurous i tried different ways of wrapping the wontons. the triangular one was good but messy. the crumpled ball versions were easy and good but used too little filling. i tried another one which was just horrendous-looking, i wonder why all the usual recipes recommend that wrapping method.

the soup looks reddish cos i added the unwanted prawn heads into the soup, along with leftover onions and some garlic. it tasted a little strange with wontons, but i have to say it was pretty good by itself.

so there, my wontons adventure for the day. and i’ve got about 45 wontons left in the freezer.

——-

post-edit: okay, as requested, here’s the stuff needed for a wonton adventure. the recipe was taken from some website i can’t remember…

all quantities are approximate amounts, cos i don’t have weighing scales and what-not. sheesh, i can’t believe i’m posting recipes on my blog. the earth must be rotating on the wrong axis.

1) 300g minced pork/chicken

2) 6 tablespoons chopped onions

3) 1 1/2 tablespoons grated ginger

4) 4 tablespoons water chestnuts

5) diced prawns (i bought 300g of whole cooked prawns and shelled them)

6) 3/4 to 1 teaspoon salt

7) 3/4 teaspoon sugar

1/8 teaspoon pepper

9) 1 1/2 tablespoon light soy sauce

10) 1 beaten egg

11) 60 wonton skins

mix items 1 to 10 in a nice big bowl, adding the beaten egg last. place some (i really mean a little) filling in the middle of the wonton skin and scrunch up the four corners. squeeze hard, but don’t tear the skin. OR, place some filling on one side of the wonton skin, near the middle. wet the four edges of the wonton skin and fold it into a neat triangle. make sure the edges stick nicely.

boil some soup or water, whatever. throw the wontons in and wait for them to boil. there you go, wontons!

modified tastes

i was out at the shopping mall and decided i should reward myself with some outside-lunch since i’ve been good and hell, it’s the term break after all.so i decided to give the chinese stall at the food court just one more chance.

the last time i bought noodles with soy sauce chicken from them, it was damn bloody salty. since then i haven’t had the guts to try their food again. usually the chinese food over here are a lot more salty and i have no idea why. maybe they’re catering to foreign tastes of something, but then again the angmohs dun eat such salty food also mah.

i thought char siew would be a safe choice, they can’t possibly add too much salt to char siew, right?

the lady at the stall took her time slicing the char siew and arranged them to cover the entire bowl of rice and the few stalks of choy sum. then. she spooned some suspicious thing which looked like minced garlic and ginger while i stared in absolute horror. *alarm sounds. i hate garlic and ginger unless their pungent tastes are “well hidden”. then, she squeezed enough of some strange looking liquid to fill a river. it looked like a mixture of dark soy sauce and something, which i hate too. i don’t like dark soy sauce in my rice.

i sat down miserably at an empty table and tasted the suspicious looking thing. basket, it was damn bloody salty. salty enough to kill the taste of garlic and ginger. and i still have no idea what that strange looking liquid was. the char siew tasted like, pork.

there goes, no more adventures at that chinese stall ever again.