Unholy Xmas Roast Chicken

I invited Vater und Mutter over for Xmas dinner, because no one was at home when I called on Xmas eve to say "come over for Xmas eve dinner". So I ended up slaving over a hot stove one day before going back to work the next day. Bad idea #1.

Tried to take a shortcut. Asked Mutter to help me check how much the delicatessen was selling roast chicken so that I only needed to cook fries, make a salad, brussel sprouts and soup. Mutter reported that the chickens were going at 2X their usual prices. So she said "buy your own chicken and cook it." Bad idea #2.

Standing at the supermarket eyeing the chickens balefully. Should I get the usual spring chickens (which I am used to making) or a giant bird? Chose the big bird. Bad idea #3.

Bloody chicken was a pain to roast. It took more than 1 hour to roast, not including the time to marinate and insert garlic and ginger slices under the skin.  I stuffed it with ginger, garlic, onion and apples, and slathered the skin with butter, sesame seed oil (my god, I just realized I dumped two types of oil on that bird), soya sauce and mirin. I finally blanketed the birdie with bacon slices.

In the end, it was still 90% cooked so had to zap it in the microwave again.  But it was moist and flavorful. Thanks to my basting the bird and and flipping it over half way through.

Other than sushi, everything else was made by me :D

Hokkaido White Chocolate Cookies

Hokkaido White Chocolate Cookies [img source: The Traveling Hungry Boy]

I have always been fascinated by this white chocolate cookies ever since Mutter brought a box home from her Japan trip with Vater. The cookies came with two loving pussy cats, and was light in taste with a melt-in-your-mouth quality.

Today I was reading "Popular Cakes in Hong Kong" when I cam across this recipe for said cookies. Don't look as pretty but I hope anyone who reads this, please give it a try and tell me how is the recipe? Maybe I could do it as part of Xmas presents (provided I am not exhausted. I am very easily tired nowadays).

Ingredients

Cookie Dough

60g butter, 40g icing sugar, 4g emulsifier

30g egg whites, 20g sugar, 60g low gluten flour (低筋)

  

Chocolate filling

100g white chocolate, 40g whipping cream

Method

Chocolate filling

Bring whipping cream to boil. Add white chocolate to melt. Rest at room temperature for one hour.

Cookie Dough

Soften butter at room termperature. Cream emulsifier and icing sugar until pale yellow and slightly fluffy.

Whisk egg whites and icing sugar when peaked.

Sieve flour and stir in soft butter. GHold in egg white by twice to combine.

Spread egg white batter on slit mat. Place in preheated oven. Bake at 160 degree celsisu for 10-15min.

Assembly

Pipe chocolate filling on biscuit. Top with another biscuit. Press slightly

Leftover cabbage, love for tomato, beef - what do you make?

Russian Borsch :D

Japanese cold salad for combating hot weather

Two weeks ago, it was incredibly hot in Singapore (yes, the fact that it is raining everyday now is such a 180 degree irony). Plants were visibly withering in the heat and so was I. The thought of cooking in the hot kitchen made me feel ill, but B1 is a man who is obsessed with home-cooked food so he emotionally blackmailed me into making dinner.

We compromised that I would make a salad, because it was simply too hot. I think even he couldn't harbor the thought of eating hot food in this heat. So I made Japanese cold noodle salad. I once made it at home, and even my fastidious Vater liked it.

sigh. I think I went overboard while using the microwave's thaw function

The last time I made it, the primary ingredients were vinegar and mirin. This time I dumped in natto as well. It added an interesting texture to the dish, I thought, as did the bonito flakes.

 For veggies, I used letuce, cherry tomatoes, olives, corn, endamame. I boiled some spaghetti till al dente, then dumped in the veggie, fried egg bits, and bonito flakes, before tossing the entire mixture with mirin, natto, vinegar and a bit of sesame seed oil. I chilled the salad before eating. It cooled down my inner fire quite a bit *pleased*.

Dear B1's Mother, this is what I feed Your son

B1 took revenge on my loving to tell my mother everything by telling his mother I don't feed him enough...

This is what he gets for breakfast. Is this not enough? Nuked eggs, Australian brie, Arugula salad, St Leaven's bread.

Just one bite and I have become a massive fan of this thick bread slices from St Leaven. You can buy a loaf (about 8 slices) for S$2.50, and it has a nice milk scent. :D

Simply Porridge

I am not sure if you know that there are at least two kinds of porridge familiar to the chinese people. One is where you boil bits of meat and vegetables into a seasoned rice soup before eating it with a fried yutiao. The other kind is known as Teochew porridge, is like a typical chinese meal with rice soup instead of plain rice and other dishes (like banchan).

I had a massive craving for Teochew porridge but because I had bought some ingredients for Japanese cooking, I ended up with a weird hoggle poggle of niku jaga, wasabi octopus, natto, preserved daikon etc.

I bought the wasabi octopus from the Isetan supermarket. It was nasty and expensive (about S$7, you can see it in its entire serving in the saucer). Don't buy it :D

Blackforest Ham

12 and I have this friend, DrZ (used to be Inno...) who has a massive thing about blackforest ham. Everytime he is peckish when playing CoH with us, he would disappear for a while, before coming back with blackforest ham. Since he is a pretty good player, he has two guys who always want to play with him (not me and 12. I can't speak for 12, but I am fascinated by this dude, who is the same age as me, has the determination to catch up to all his life's goals after, as I quoth, "played around too much in his 20s"). Our running gag was guy D was president of the "Blackforest Ham" fan club, and the other guy, its secretary and treasurer with their own "Blackforest Ham Weekly" publication.

Anyway after hearing about blackforest ham for the 100th time, I decided to buy some of it when I was at Culina. DrZ said that the ham costs about USD5 per 100g, I guess it was like 5SGD per 100g here. Almost the same...

It tasted pretty smoky, but I think I prefer apple ham. :D HM told both of us it was a German ham, anyway.