serene’s posterous

The 3 cups refer to equal amounts of sesame oil, rice wine and soy sauce.  Eu-Jin and I cooked this over the weekend. 

We fried about 10 cloves of garlic, several slices of ginger, the white parts of scallions and some chopped up Thai chilies in sesame oil.  We then added about a pound of chicken thighs to the wok to stir fry.  After frying for a bit, we added about 1.5Tbsp of Shaoxing wine, 1.5Tbsp of soy sauce, 0.5Tbsp of dark soy sauce and a bit of sugar.  When the pieces of chicken looks mostly cooked, we added some water and then left the chicken covered, stewing at low heat for about 30min.  Finally, we added some basil and the green parts of the scallions.  It smelt good!

After seeing the little advertising balloons around campus, hearing about it from friends, and reading about it today in the daily, I couldn't resist trying the frozen yogurt at Fraiche on campus today.

After hours in the lab this afternoon, a friend and I walked over to Tresidder a bit past 7pm.  There wasn't a line, and the manager was kind enough to let us try the 3 different frozen yogurt flavors: natural, chocolate and soy.  At $2.95 for the smallest cup without any toppings, it wasn't a cheap dessert.

I had always been a fan of the tart "natural" flavored frozen yogurt.  Before the recent craze on frozen yogurt, it was not easy to find places with good tart frozen yogurt.  While I don't think it is really worth it to pay so much for frozen yogurt and I don't think it is all that much healthier than ice-cream, I did enjoy the natural frozen yogurt.  It is not as tart and tangy as the frozen yogurt I had when I was a lot younger, but that's probably because this yogurt is "homemade, organic, and European-style" and therefore supposedly creamier.  But I liked the mouth feel and the subtle taste.  Maybe this can be a once-in-while treat, and perhaps next time I will get toppings too.

On Friday, we headed over to Ray's for the sort-of Chinese New Year dinner that we have done several years in a row.  It is a smaller group this year - only 4 persons, and a last minute thing.  I cooked the noodle dish (for long life!), which is essentially egg noodles fried with dried Chinese mushrooms, napa cabbage and red bell peppers (plus lots of garlic and onions and some chili).  I also cooked the shrimp in chili-egg sauce, which is sort of a cheat because the sauce came from Prima Taste's "Singapore Chili Crab" sauce paste.  Ray cooked the rest of the dishes: sugar snap peas, steamed orange roughy with tofu and tomatoes, and grilled salmon, plus the most excellent molten chocolate cake dessert with strawberries. 

The evening concluded with the viewing of the exciting BSG episode on SciFi.  I don't really follow BSG and I only vaguely know what's going on in the storyline.  Nevertheless I found this episode particularly gripping.

Well...it is more like fake chawanmushi or egg custard.  It didn't turn out smooth like the chawanmushi in japanese restaurants because I didn't bother to strain the egg mixture through a fine sieve and carefully control the temperature.  Also I used chicken broth instead of bonito stock, so the taste won't quite be the same.

I got the tea cups with lids from Daiso.  Mix one egg with about 1/6 cup of chicken broth gently with chopsticks so that no bubbles are formed.  Add about 1 teaspoon of sweet mirin sauce for flavoring. Add whatever you like to the egg mixture.  In this case, I put in 2 raw shrimp into mixture.  Steam the tightly covered cup for about 15 minutes in low heat.  When it is done, there would only be clear soup when the custard is poked with a stick.

I finally bought some red beans for red bean soup.  It seems vaguely festive for Chinese New Year...  Cooked it the same way as I cooked green bean soup from a few weeks ago.  But since the beans were bigger, the cooking time was longer. The pretty blue bowl was made by a friend.  It is just the perfect size for soupy desserts, breakfast cereals and fruits, and is a bowl I reach for quite often these days.

Eu-Jin forwarded me this article from WSJ (photo is from the article) today.  Chinese New Year is coming up on Monday.  This will be my sixth new year in a row away from Singapore.  Yet another year of missing out on the meeting up with relatives, feasting on tasty pastries (including versions of pineapple tarts mentioned in the article) and other goodies, the make-your-own popiah at my aunt's home, and the meals cooked by my mom and her siblings.  As much as I miss the food, I doubt I would actually go bake those pineapple tarts.  Too much effort!

I don't have a hang-up about brussels sprouts because my mom never cooked it.  Therefore, I don't have terrible memories of nasty, overcooked boiled brussels sprouts.  I don't eat them too often since Eu-Jin doesn't like the bitterness of the vegetable.  But when I saw them at Sigona's Farmers Market at the mall, I jumped at the chance to bring home some brussels sprouts.

I was inspired by this recipe.  I added chopped garlic to fry with the brussels sprouts, and used very little cheese (Parmesan) because I thought it made the dish too salty and heavy.  The photo was from my first batch, which I burnt a little because I left the pan too hot.  When I cooked the same dish again later in the week, they turned out a lot better, albeit a little too oily.

Sadly, we didn't buy many souvenirs back from our short vacation to Turkey.  That's because we only carried a small, carry-on legal backpack each, and they were already mostly full at the start of the 10-day trip from the warm clothing (and Eu-Jin's camera gear) we had to pack.

I was fascinated by all the tasty food available in Turkey.  I only managed to taste and bring home a small sample of enormous range of sweets and candy.  We went to 2 confectionery shops: Ali Muhiddin Hacı Bekir (twice in 2 different locations, including the original location) and Koska Helvacısı.  But other than a small slab of helva, I got the rest of the candy from Ali Muhiddin Hacı Bekir, which I really like.  It has a traditional feel, with the hard candy in large jars, the great variety of lokum (turkish delight) displayed in little plates, and a giant weighing scale.  The lokum, in particular, seemed really fresh.

The photo shows the candy I bought.  Clockwise from bottom:

1) Pistachio lokum - this was the tastiest of the lot (even Eu-Jin likes it), because there were a ton of pistachios encased in the soft starchy candy.  I think I bought the more expensive double pistachio version.

2) Hard candy - Rose and Ginger-Lemon Flavored.  The rose is unusual, and the ginger-lemon had a good tartness in the white lemon bits.

3) Helva - I think it is some kind of sesame oil plus sugar paste with pistachios.

4) Almond paste - This is not bad, but it is apparently a little too sweet and not sufficiently fine compared to the best versions from Turkey.

I was out of ideas about what to make for dinner to go with the brown rice steaming in the rice cooker.  Fortunately I came across a can of chickpeas in my cupboard and made chickpea hot pot inspired by this recipe.  I used broccoli and frozen peas and added half the quantity of diluted chicken broth (Trader Joe's low sodium version) because I was cooking the brown rice separately.  I liked having the hint of orange in the broth from the half cup of freshly squeezed orange juice.

It is funny that baked beans is one of my comfort foods.  My mom usually has a few cans of baked beans at home to make this simple dish of baked beans and potatoes.  Essentially, you fry some cubed potatoes and then add a can of baked beans in.  I do make a few minor changes to my mom's basic recipe.  Sometimes I would use a mix of potatoes and sweet potatoes.  And I do like frying some finely chopped garlic and onions with the dish as well.  Easy vegetarian meal with some steamed vegetables and brown rice: