Cooking

Preparing fennel, cooking kale and an all-fruit Cape gooseberry, avocado, date and apricot wrap!

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fennel

We got a nice bulb of fennel while grocery shopping during the weekend. It was primarily due to the placecard they had – it sounded good so I bought it. It’s not the cheapest thing at RM 31.90/kg and my love is so good that she knew the fennel I was holding would be around RM 6 before I went to the weighing machine.

fennel price

It turned out to be RM 6.76 but close enough for government work! smirk

I like this vegetable – I had to watch a YouTube video to know how to properly cut it (there’s a bit of root inside that requires a wedge cut with a sharp knife) and I gave it to Ling raw to see if she liked it for my next cooking experiment.

cleaning fennel

It tastes like liqorice, you know, the black candy that’s sold in a long string. It’s due to the strong aniseed flavor, which can be quite intense when eaten raw but goes away when you cook it.

kale

The bunch of curly kale is a US import and quite expensive at RM 52.49/kg. The two stalks we got cost RM 20 and it felt pretty light to me. Kale and fennel are things we haven’t tried before so I wanted to cook it.

curly kale

It was done two ways – I already knew I wanted to steam mine but my dear stir fried hers with some shallots and oyster sauce and I must say, it tasted really good! This kale in this dish alone costs RM 10 though but well worth it.

stir fried kale

Back to the fennel, I wanted to add it into this new all-fruit wrap that I did for breakfast but I totally forgot about it. It was still an interesting experiment though.

fruit wrap

You will need:

  • Natural dates with branches
  • Avocado
  • Nutella
  • Apricots
  • Tortilla wraps
  • Cape gooseberry (known here as Physalis)

apricot avocado dates wrap

The interesting bit about this all-fruit wrap is that everything except for the Cape gooseberry can be split in half and has a seed inside – the avocado, the apricot, and the dates.

avocado

I like eating good dates – these are Tunisian ones still on the branches, semi-dry and premium ones sold under the “Black Amber” label.

dates on branches

I basically put the avocado (with bites taken out of it coz we were hungry) on first and then added the apricots and dates.

fresh apricots

All of these are split in half by hand and the pit thrown away. I just arranged the halves of the respective fruits on the tortilla wrap.

physalis

The Cape gooseberry is sprinkled down the middle for an acidic, citrus-y bite. I’ve seen a lot of high end Japanese bakeries use this as a decoration and the shroud (the leaf like things on the side) is *not edible*. I wonder what the people eating those pastries whole would feel like. Heh.

Physalis (which is what Cape gooseberry is marketed as here) is a nice berry though – it’s yellow and the larger it is, the sweeter it becomes.

cape gooseberry

I finished off the wrap by putting a bit of Nutella on top of the avocado (it tastes great together) before chilling it in the fridge for 5 minutes and wrapping it up.

The dates provides the saccharine sweetness, with the apricots bringing it’s own mild nectarine fructose into the mix, and the avocado gives off a smooth mouth-feel with the Cape gooseberries there for a sour bite.

avocado nutella wrap

I can’t say it’s a successful wrap coz there’s not enough “moisture” inside – I think adding yoghurt would do wonders for it. It’s still a nice experiment even though I totally forgot about the fennel.

I used all of it for a nice cottage pie, as well as my version of the kale – coming up in the next post! 🙂

Herb marinated thigh with grilled Portobello mushroom, okra and chicken couscous

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This is a completely home cooked meal that we made from scratch *together*! 🙂

chicken couscous rice

Of course, we didn’t rear the chickens, plant the mushrooms or made the couscous but other than that, everything was done properly and it turned out to be a wonderful meal! I wanted her to have a good impression of couscous since I like it so we made that with chicken essence from cooking the chicken!

couscous chicken

You will need:

  • Chicken leg/quarter – drum and thigh (one per person)
  • Herbs (fresh is better)
  • Portobello mushrooms
  • Fresh milk
  • Salt and pepper
  • Okra
  • Couscous

I didn’t take the traditional photo coz some things were done on the fly. I also decided against using the OXO Chicken Cubes and went with the flavorful chicken goodness that the pressure pan cooker produced.

chicken

The chicken leg (cut that includes the drum and thigh) were selected very carefully – my dear choose two of the best on offer, with a larger one for me. Strangely enough, this cut is called Chicken Maryland in some places, but for me, that is a dish, not a quarter cut of chicken.

marinated chicken

It was then marinated with a variety of herbs and spices for a full 24 hours while wrapped in an air-tight bag inside the refrigerator.

frying chicken

The chicken was then taken out of the bag and then fried with a bit of oil inside a pressure pan. The bits of garlic and lemon used to marinate the chicken is also fried alongside but save a bit of the juices for the end.

grilled chicken

The pressure pan was then closed and the chicken allowed to cook for 30 minutes with a turnover at the middle. That’s her part, cooking the chicken. I did the much easier couscous and BBQ mushrooms. 😉

chicken essence

I bought store-brand Tesco couscous. I wanted to go for the whole wheat version but at her suggestion went with this instead. You’re supposed to add 1.5 parts of water to 1 part of couscous.

cooking couscous

However, I decided to use 1 part water and the remaining 0.5 parts were composed of an equal mixture of fresh milk (which I find makes couscous taste better) and the sauces from the pressure cooked chicken.

couscous

I cooked the couscous and let it stand for 5 minutes before fluffing it out to individual grains using a fork. It turned out fine except for a little caramelization at the bottom, which was discarded.

Oh, and we also blanched some okra (lady fingers) in hot water and ate most of it before leaving two (2) each for the dinner plates. smirk

portabello mushroom

The Portobello mushrooms are the huge teacup sized ones that cost RM 4-5 each and should only be cooked for a minute or so to retain the awesome juiciness of these flavor absorbing beauties.

grilling mushrooms

The couscous was infused with the natural flavor of chicken derived from the juices during pressure cooking and tastes absolutely wonderful! It’s a bit like chicken rice, except it’s couscous.

xx hot peri peri

I didn’t think the dish needed any other flavoring but put in some Nando’s XX-hot Peri-Peri Sauce anyway. I reckon our version tastes better than Nando’s any day! :p

chicken couscous

It was an awesome collaboration in the kitchen that resulted in a delicious dinner!

Death by Chocolate Ultimate Breakfast Wrap

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death by choc wrap

I made this sinfully delicious wrap for *breakfast* over the weekend. I just woke up and wanted to get something to eat. We went grocery shopping the night before and we always get a huge tub of ice cream before heading back. My dear picked this one:

death by chocolate

It’s appropriately called Death by Chocolate Premium Ice Cream. It’s described as “a chocolate lover’s delight featuring decadent chocolate ice cream, chocolate candy pieces and crunchy almonds”. It also has bits of chocolate brownies inside!

death by chocolate ingredients

To make the Death by Chocolate Ultimate Breakfast Wrap, you will need:

  • Wholegrain tortilla wraps
  • Death by Chocolate Premium Ice Cream (or any other ultra chocolate ice cream)
  • Soft cheese stick from a bakery
  • Muesli

The muesli is not just there to give it a healthy illusion – it actually tastes really yummy! It’s Dorset Cereals – 50% of the contents are fruit, nuts and seeds. I was eating the Super Cranberry, Cherry and & Almond – described as “an exquisite blend of cranberries, cherries and almonds with raisins, sultanas, sunflower seeds and toasted cereals”. It’s essential for the crunchy texture it provides!

muesli

I also thought that putting a soft cheese stick (we got it from a bakery) would make this a more substantial meal since we’re going to share it. I was right since it was so good I think she ate more than her fair share. smirk

I scooped out *almost a pint* of the Death by Chocolate ice cream into a tortilla wrap and sprinkled muesli on it before adding on the cheese stick. I couldn’t actually wrap it so we ate it like a soft taco.

death by chocolate us

I had one bite and she had one bite and we started taking bigger and bigger bites and before long it was all gone. It’s coz we used so much ice cream in the wrap, it’s the exact opposite of the healthy Greek yoghurt sandwich I made. This one is absolutely delicious – so much so that it was devoured more than eaten. Haha!

death by choc

I gave her more though coz I know she really liked it. <3

Pork & Prawn Salsa Burritos with Century Egg + Cheddar Cheese

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surf turf fajitas

I’ll call it Surf and Turf Burritos except it doesn’t exactly qualify as such. Heh. I made this for our anniversary – it’s a bit of an eccentric mix between East and West, and it sounds like fusion gone completely wrong but for some reason it works! 🙂

pork prawn century fajitas

You will need:

  • Plain flour tortillas
  • Prawns (shrimp – and lots of it)
  • Pork (minced)
  • Newman’s Own Medium Chunky Salsa
  • Duck century egg
  • Aged cheddar cheese
  • Iceberg lettuce

minced pork

We got the Jamie Oliver Pink Himalayan Salt and Tellicherry Black Pepper on sale. It was something like RM 7.99 each from Meatworks, which makes it a pretty good deal. I used it to season the pork and prawns.

jamie oliver tellicherry pepper

I actually wanted to make crispy tacos for our anniversary but went with fajitas (burritos to be more concise, it doesn’t have grilled meat and it’s wrapped) instead – our brand of choice is Mexican Discovery Plain Flour Tortillas.

newmans own salsa

I first pan fried the minced pork with a bit of olive oil and added ½ of a 1.5 kg bag of defrosted peeled prawns into the mix before adding in the salt and pepper.

salsa reduction

The salsa was added into the mix at this point instead of during the wrapping process. I figured the prawns and pork could do with a bit of taste. I simmered the concoction on low heat until it reduced to just a bit of sauce.

pan heating tortillas

Next, I diced duck century eggs (there are chicken and quail versions nowadays too but I like tradition) and cheddar cheese into bite-sized chunks…

iceberg lettuce

…and went all ninja on the iceberg lettuce. smirk

pork prawn fajitas

The tortilla wraps were heated for a few seconds on a frying pan (that’s why we used Mexican Discovery, it has a higher moisture content and can be subjected to this) before being used as a base to wrap all the ingredients.

wrapping burritos

I scooped in the hot pork and prawns salsa mix before adding sliced iceberg lettuce, century eggs and cheddar cheese. The entire tortilla is wrapped up burrito style.

The trick to doing this well is to not over-fill the tortilla wraps.

berkeley farms moose tracks

My love came with dessert – a double slice of cake, which we ate with a 1.5 pint tub of Berkeley Farms Moose Track ice cream. The ice cream is loaded with peanut butter cups (kinda like Reese’s Pieces) and fudge and I originally thought this Californian ice cream was pretty crappy but changed my mind after eating it a second time.

It’s a good desert to finish everything off!

ling hb fajitas

I think it has become somewhat of a tradition for me to cook during our anniversary and I’m glad I managed to do it this time too. I’m lucky to have you dear! *hugs*

century egg fajitas

The pork and prawn fajitas may sound a bit weird but it goes well together. Try out the duck century egg and cheese combo – they both have that umami taste to it, and I’ve finished the rest of the tortilla wraps with that and a bit of lettuce and honey glazed ham. 🙂

Sweet pineapple + Greek yoghurt sandwich with alfalfa sprouts & beans, vintage cheddar and Chiang Mai strawberry on Poppy seed bread

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pineapple yoghurt sandwich

I made this vegetarian (it’s almost vegan if not for the dairy products) sandwich for my dear one morning. We went out grocery shopping and I took whatever I thought would taste good in a breakfast sandwich – a sweet start to the day.

I don’t want to toot my own horn but this is one damn good sandwich! 🙂

You will need:

breakfast sandwich recipe

  • Dole pineapple slices (the canned stuffed that comes in a ring for burgers and such)
  • Greek yoghurt (plain)
  • Alfalfa sprouts (I got a mixture of broccoli and alfalfa sprouts)
  • Combo beans (comes with slight sprouts and adds texture)
  • Aged vintage cheddar
  • Strawberry jam (I used a gourmet Chiang Mai strawberry spread)
  • Poppy seed bread

I chose to use poppy seed bread as it goes really well with this. We had 3 different kinds of bread at that time and this seemed the most appropriate choice.

greek yoghurt

The true secret to this sandwich though is the Greek Yoghurt. I got the plain, natural full cream version and the texture of this compared to regular yoghurt is remarkably similar to sour cream. I ate a lot of this when I was in university (alfalfa sprouts too) and loved it – it’s thick, spreadable, and piles on like nothing else.

bean sprouts

I spread scooped about a good *heaping* inch of the Greek yoghurt on one side of the bread and used the Chiang Mai strawberry gourmet jam on the other.

alfalfa beans sprouts

Next, I spread some mixed beans with sprouts on the Greek yoghurt side of the bread (so it’ll sink in and provide texture and taste).

…and topped it off with a healthy handful of alfalfa and broccoli sprouts.

homemade vintage aged cheddar

The last bit on this side before putting it together is adding some crumbled pieces of premium handmade no-preservative vintage Tasmanian Farm True Cheddar Cheese that’s been aged for 18 months. This can be a bit intense so you’ll notice there’s *two different sandwiches* – I spread just a little yoghurt and omitted the cheese for my dear.

I took a pineapple ring (refrigerated) and put it on the Chiang Mai strawberry jam side for the finishing touch!

his hers

It’s an awesome sandwich, if I say so myself. The secret to making it good is that everything (except the bread) needs to be in the fridge so it’s cold. It’s supposed to be a breakfast sandwich.

I like making sandwiches and I consider this fruit and yoghurt concoction with cheese on poppy seed one of my best sweet breakfast sandwiches. I use my love as a taster, she’s an awesome cook, but she’s honest with my sometimes (admittedly) bizarre culinary creations. I’ll know if my sandwich experiments failed.

breakfast sandwich

This isn’t one of them. 🙂

greek yoghurt sandwich

The pineapple ring and strawberry provides a tangy morning juice kinda vibe and the slightly sour thick Greek yoghurt goes well with the fruits and alfalfa sprouts and beans for texture and taste. The 18 month aged true cheddar cuts across with a savory tango on your tongue. It’s a very refreshing start to the day!

Home made deep-fried Mars bar

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deep fried mars bars

Deep-fried Mars bars are the stuff of legends. It originates from fish and chip shops in Scotland and is the epitome of unhealthy eating! I decided to make my own using a entire new bottle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) to give it a healthier veneer. 😉 I not only did it with a Mars bar, but also battered and deep fried some other of our favorite candy bars.

candy bars

  • Snickers
  • Mars
  • Twix
  • Kit Kat Chunky
  • Cadbury Crunchie

I opened up a new bottle of fairly good quality EVOO – the bottle costs about RM 30 and you can’t reuse the oil since deep frying Mars bars causes the oil to turn entirely black (a snippet I heard from an interview in Scotland, where the battered deep fried Mars Bar originated) and chocolate will sink to the bottom.

deep fried mars bar recipe

Here’s my recipe for the deep-fried Mars bar:

  • Aroma Banana Fritter Flour
  • Colavita Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • Mars bar (and the other candy bars)

plating

This project was done for our anniversary – I wanted to make Ling something sweet which also means something to us. Those are our 5 favorite candy bars and I wanted her to try the notorious battered deep fried Mars bar for our anniversary.

evoo

It’s very simple really – I heated up the 500 ml of EVOO in a frying pan until it’s hot (contrary to popular belief, fair quality EVOO can be used for deep frying – you won’t reach the smoking point) and prepared the batter.

batter

I should note that this brand isn’t ideal as it doesn’t coat the chocolate bars properly. I have beer batter meant for fish and chips from NZ in my pantry but I totally forgot about it. The banana fritter batter only has baking powder, flour and salt so you can use those three in the right proportions if you want.

deep fried mars bar

My first test was done with the Cadbury Crunchie bar – I had hoped that it’ll melt the honeycomb center but it didn’t. I also realize that the batter was too thin and fixed it for the rest of the chocolate bars. I then battered and deep fried the Twix, Kit Kat Chunky, Snickers and then Mars last – after I have perfected my technique.

black oil

I coated the Mars bar with the batter and dunked it into the hot oil. It tastes a while to melt everything. 1-2 minutes is ideal since it melts down most of the chocolate bar inside the batter while retaining its shape.

fried candy bars

Deep fried Mars Bar verdict:
It’s the best! The gooey caramel and nougat melted while the chocolate was runny – biting into it is awesome. The crispy batter gives way to a hot mess of goodness! Surprisingly, Snickers gives Mars a good run for its money with the addition of peanuts.

deep fried candy bars

Twix did really well too, the biscuit inside softened and turned it into something *magical* and I loved the deep fried Kit Kat Chunky as well. Crunchie was disappointing coz the honeycomb center didn’t melt but the other awesome candy bars more than makes up for it.

eating deep fried mars

You wouldn’t believe it but between the two of us, we ate all the candy bars! I made my dear promise to eat half (she ate more like 1/3) and we both agreed that the deep fried Mars bar is a delectable, if somewhat expensive venture (due to the use of EVOO).

deep fried mars

We loved it! Just be prepared for the sugar rush of your lives! 😀

Cooking at MAGGI Celebrity Potluck with Belinda Chee!

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cooking belinda

I had the awesome opportunity to cook with Belinda Chee a couple of days ago! She created a hearty Fish and Vegetable Soup recipe and I helped her create the dish. It’s a contest called Celebrity Potluck organized by MAGGI and we were the second team to present a dish.

maggi celebrity cooking

I asked Belinda about why she choose this recipe – it’s something that she cooks herself at home and it’s easy to cook but tastes delicious at the same time.

maggi kitchen

The first team came up with a Seafood/Vegetable Tom Yam Soup. Peter Davis (of Mixed Martial Arts fame) cooked the first one and Sazzy Falak cooked the vegetarian version. It’s basically the same thing, except one has more protein in it, had a nice chat with Peter about MMA competitions and weights categories too.

belinda chee

Anyway, I actually cooked twice in this MAGGI Celebrity Potluck event. The first was helping Belinda out with her recipe and it goes like this:

fish vege soup recipe

Yup! I didn’t realize that the walls of MAGGI Masak-Masak Kitchen was actually hand-written with the 3 recipes from the 3 different teams. It was so nicely done I thought it was the décor!

sixthseal belinda

The trick to Belinda’s Fish and Vegetable soup is to stir-fry the thinly sliced shallots with a bit of oil in the pot first before anything else. Chopped garlic and ginger was added to the mix and sautéed for a while for that extra bit in taste.

chef muluk

The item that makes this really fast and easy are the MAGGI Ikan Bilis Stock Cubes. These are soup cubes (ikan bilis is the local word for anchovies) that produces the wonderful flavor and aroma. It’s really very versatile as I came to find out later.

tasting

I tasted it while we were cooking and it’s delicious! You just need 2 MAGGI Ikan Bilis Stock Cubes for 1 litre of water – it’s a standard, convenient pre-measure that makes it easy to scale up or down.

sarawakians

That makes it really convenient to cook delicious and fast dishes! Two MAGGI stock cubes for each liter of water, it can’t get any easier than that. It’s also surprisingly tasty since the ingredients they use basically concentrates the flavors so you get instant stock/soup/topping/whatever you can think of.

cooking belinda chee

The Fish and Vege Soup was left to simmer for 15 minutes and served to the audience afterwards. I didn’t get to eat this one coz it was all gone by the time I got down from the kitchen on the stage. Haha!

mystery ingredient cookoff

No worries though coz there’s a second cooking competition! I was paired with Belinda again and 4 other members of the media joined us for the MAGGI Mystery Ingredient team challenge to create a dish with the following:

  • 1 mystery ingredient
  • MAGGI Stock Cubes
  • Ingredients from the table
  • 30 minutes for everything

mystery ingredient

It felt like a I was in one of the popular cooking shows on TV. Heh. We got “Dory Fish Fillet” from the mystery box and there was a mad rush to grab items from the table.

ingredients table

We could only use those and some of them were nicked by other teams and once it’s taken, it’s gone, we had to make do with what’s left!

masak masak kitchen

Our well equipped kitchen island!

dory fish fillets

We wanted to make something a little different so we went fusion and decided to bake the fish fillets. We’ll just use ginger, garlic, shallots, button mushrooms and celery (I know, a lot of people went “Celery?” too, but it worked out well) to pile on top of the dory fish fillets.

baking

The fillets were sliced and then marinated – the most important part of the cooking. It was a quick marinade (more of a topping) made with MAGGI Tom Yam Stock Cubes. We crushed two of the cubes into 2 tablespoons of water (it’s very versatile – you can use it like this too) and then realized we didn’t have starch to thicken the mixture (!!!).

cooking contest

Luckily, there was custard powder on the table. It’s flavor neutral e.g. not sweet, and it coagulates the tom yam topping to the texture we wanted, so that’s perfect! We dissolved that into the hot water with 2 MAGGI Tom Yam Stock Cubes and poured the mixture on top of the fish fillets before adding MAGGI Thai Chilli Sauce and MAGGI Concentrated Chicken Stock and chucking it into the preheated oven (220 Celsius) for 5 minutes.

siamese fish fillets

We were running out of time and we thought 5 minutes wasn’t enough but that’s all the time we had in the 30 minute cooking challenge. It turned out fine coz dory fish fillets cooks really fast! We all tasted it and concluded it was delicious!

judges

I ate a lot of it myself coz it was so good! There were a couple of fish fillets left after we plated 3 of them for the judges (Siew Ling, the Brand Manager was one of them) and everyone came in and ate some. We didn’t have enough to serve everyone – it’s my fault guys, sorry, I was the one who ate the rest of the fish fillets. I evaded the question at the time, but it was me who ate it all. I apologize. It was tooooo good! smirk

team belinda

Our dish was presented to the judges and we didn’t win but we all got a consolation prize anyway! It was a large senduk (a kitchen utensil used for scooping stuff from liquids) which was perfect! I cook a lot more nowadays since it’s a common hobby I share with my girlfriend. I cook for her sometimes, she cooks for me sometimes. The MAGGI stock cubes will really come in handy here. I want to try out Awal’s recipe for Golden Braised Chicken with Fresh Mushrooms. It was the winner and a well deserved one! It’s so tasty that I must cook it at home – I shall be using the recipe add to my kitchen accomplishments! Haha! 🙂

maggi stock

It was a really fun session! Thanks for helping with the photos Sue Ann! 🙂 I got to cook in a nice kitchen (the MAGGI Masak-Masak Kitchen is really something) and got great tips from the MAGGI Executive Chef (Chef Muluk) and I learned the versatility that comes with MAGGI Stock Cubes. The sky is the limit, it’s not just for soup, but can be used for practically anything! I can’t wait to try it in my kitchen. I’m planning to cook a nice dinner as a surprise for my girlfriend during our anniversary and I bet she’ll love the golden braised chicken. It’s always better to cook than to eat out, I believe – cooking comes from the heart.

maggi celebrity potluck

We named our dish Siamese Fish Fillets. The crunchy texture of the shallots and ginger goes really well with the baked dory fish fillets topped with MAGGI Tom Yam Stock Cubes. I’ll share the recipe we used if anyone is interested! 🙂

Tiny Noodle with Oyster Flavor

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tiny noodle oyster

I found this on the shelves while grocery shopping. We were there to buy stuff for sandwiches and ended up buying two different ramen instead. This is one of them! It’s made in Taiwan and retails for RM 7.90 per packet.

tiny noodle oyster flavour

You just gotta love the translation – tiny noodle. smirk It’s basically instant oyster mee sua.

cooking mee sua

The packet is huge! It’s meant to be cooked in a single session for 3 servings with:

  • 2 individual packets of noodles
  • 2 flavor sachets
  • 2 oil with spice sachets
  • 2 packets of starch

water

The instructions are all in Chinese and it calls for 2,000 cc of water, which is 2 liters. I was a bit surprised at the ratio, considering the tiny (heh) amount of noodles but it’s correct. I measured the water out using 4 x 500 ml bottles.

starch

The starch needs to be prepared separately using a bit of water to dissolve the powder. It’s added in at the last moment, producing a starchy mimic of Taiwanese oyster mee sua.

adding starch

It really can’t compare to the oyster mee sua at Shihlin but it’s not too bad for instant noodles. Adding a salchichon slice or some pork floss does wonders in improving the flavor! 😀

oyster mee sua

Short mention:

There’s a contest on Facebook where you can win a 4G LTE modem with 3 months data for free! Just show your best Usain Bolt pose and upload it!

He has several poses that he always does if you’ve seen him in action. He’s not just the fastest sprinter on earth, he’s quite a charismatic person too – I’m sure you’ve watched in awe as he left the competition behind at the Olympics.

I always need more data (especially at super fast speeds where I can download stuff faster) so I’ll join the contest during lunch break later. It’s very simple.

Take a photo, bolt over to the Celcom First Facebook page and upload the photo using the Can You Bolt app for a chance to win! 🙂

Chilli Crab Noodles with Scallops and Asparagus

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This is a really simple but delicious meal. It’s basically ramen that’s been spiced up with “premium” ingredients. The chilli crab instant noodles caught our eye while grocery shopping in Seremban – all of the ingredients were bought there while on the way back from Melaka.

chilli crab noodle scallops

The “semi dry” bit sparked a bit of discussion between us about how it’ll turn out so we chucked it into the basket. It turned out to be a great decision! Myojo Chilli Crab Flavor Semi Dry Ramen is currently our favorite brand of instant noodles.

chilli crab noodle

It’s a lot more expensive than regular instant noodles though – there’s only 4 packets in the RM 12.99 pack but this Singaporean ramen weighs in at 135 grams per packet (regular ones are somewhere between 65-80 grams)! I remember my girlfriend telling me it’s like eating out since each packet is slightly over RM 3 (!!!).

frozen scallops

I also got a packet of scallops – these cost RM 32.50 for just five (5) of the juicy mollusks but I wanted to follow the seafood theme. 😀

sandwich ham

Ham was her addition. It’s pork sandwich ham from the cold cuts section but she insisted and I have to admit, it turned out well.

asparagus

The final item to round up the chilli crab noodle dish is asparagus! I’ll tell you a funny story about it:

pan fried asparagus

I was doing all the cooking and heated olive oil in a frying pan before dumping in the asparagus. I was using a spatula to push it around and we were both standing around the heating element chatting and noticing nothing amiss.

cooking asparagus

It then dawned on me that we didn’t have water so we had to scramble to add water and salt to cook the asparagus.

cooking ramen

What was even funnier was that we found out (much) later you *can* actually pan fry asparagus but we didn’t know it at the time.

scallops

The scallops were pan fried till golden brown and an egg done sunny side up for good measure.

chilli crab instant noodles

Ham was added to the chilli crab noodles and since we didn’t have bowls big enough, we used a rice cooker pot to serve it. Haha! It was good though, we couldn’t finish it and reheated the rest by using the “Keep Warm” setting on the rice cooker the next morning (which tasted even better).

scallops asparagus egg

It’s pretty good, these semi-dry noodles – if you follow the instructions carefully, it turns out to be like noodles coated with gravy. It’s so good we’ve been looking for it ever since! 🙂

How to cook kangaroo meat: A kangaroo roast dinner!

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cooking kangaroo

This is perhaps one of my greatest culinary achievements. I did this in Melbourne during my last day there. I wanted to cook a full course dinner with kangaroo roast as the flagship for my loved one and here’s the recipe for everything!

raw macadamia nuts

I bought everything at Coles Express in Melbourne CBD.

coles receipt

The grocery shopping bill came out to AUD 70.19 (about RM 221) so that’s how much it costs.

raw kangaroo roast

There are five (5) courses to the dinner:

kangaroo roast dinner

Italian Salad with Fresh Garden Greens and Honey Balsamic Dressing
This is the starter (of sorts) – gotta have foliage in the diet.

Roasted Stuffed Chicken with Gravy
I’ll call this the appetizer since that was how we ate it.

cooking seafood

Sixthseal’s Seafood Supreme (TM) with cream, white wine and garlic – prawns, Tasmanian mussels, bacon, cheese, exotic mushrooms and macadamia nuts with traditional bread
This is the best dish I came out with, according to Ling, and I’m quite proud of myself. It tastes really great! I think it deserves that (TM) bit. 😉

Herb & Garlic Kangaroo Roast
This is the main dish – the one I slaved over for hours, coz I wanted her to try kangaroo meat.

kiwiberry cranberry fondue

Kiwiberries + Raspberries with Caramel and White Chocolate sauce
I’m quite proud of this dessert too!

That’s the menu for the night and I started out by preparing the salad.

Italian Salad with Fresh Garden Greens

coles-salad

It’s a bit of a cheat since it came in a ready made bag but I can’t cook everything from scratch. Haha! Even the sauce came in a miniature bottle that was right beside the salad. It’s “sweet, crisp leaves balanced with shredded radicchio and a hint or aromatic parsley”.

coles italian sauce

I just put the entire contents of the bag into a salad bowl and poured in the 125 ml honey balsamic dressing. It’s store brand but quite good. Ling actually ate a lot of this.

italian salad

I didn’t.

Roasted Stuffed Chicken with Gravy

roast chicken

This is her suggestion coz she thought I’ll take a long time with the kangaroo roast. She was right. We bought 1/2 a stuffed chicken. It comes in a bag and you just need to chuck the bag into the oven and heat it up.

microwave bag

The bag works to keep the moisture in. I kept the bag to use for my kangaroo roast too.

stuffed roasted chicken

It’s pretty good since you can’t very well go wrong with a pre-cooked item from Coles. The stuffing was salty, the meat was tender and it’s delicious coz we were so hungry at that point. I was still slaving over the kangaroo roast at this point.

Sixthseal’s Seafood Supreme (TM) with cream, white wine and garlic – prawns, Tasmanian mussels, bacon, cheese, exotic mushrooms and macadamia nuts with traditional bread

seafood recipe

My proudest dish! I must tell the entirety of this story.

garlic prawns

We bought garlic marinated prawns from Coles – it comes in a package so we didn’t need any other sauces. We were just there for a day and didn’t want to buy large bottles of seasoning.

bacon

I also went to the meat counter and got a rasher of bacon. It’s huge! The bacon measures 1 1/2 feet long and several inches wide – there’s a photo of me holding it later. I wanted the rinds to cook with.

macadamia

Macadamia nuts were from the raw produce section. It’s raw nuts at AUD 33.98 / kg. That makes it AUD 7.56 (RM 25) for the handful of a few nuts I grabbed! I calculated, that’s RM 1.30 per nut. 😡

exotic mushrooms

The mushrooms came in a pack that that was labelled 3 gourmet mushrooms – there are two familiar ones (they aren’t “exotic” to Asians) but the orange fungi is new to me.

cheese

I went to the cheese counter and chose bocconcini – a mild mozarella type cheese that you keep submerged in liquid. It would be really hard to find this here but I ate bocconcini for fun as a snack when I was studying in Melbourne.

bocconcini

The best thing we saw was the Tasmanian mussels!

tasmanian mussels

It was marked down to just AUD 0.50! That’s a 92% discount! It was such a good bargain that I wanted it for my seafood bonanza. It’s the best buy of the trip – there’s always price cuts but this just takes the cake.

traditional bread

The traditional bread is supposed to go with this dish to wipe up the creamy gravy (and also to go with the kangaroo roast). There are no preservatives and it’s very good bread – artisan bread handmade using kibbled wheat. AUD 5.50 (RM 17). It’s not cheap, this 800 gram loaf of traditional bread.

seafood ingredients

The ingredients!

seafood stew recipe

I sliced up the bacon rinds and fried it for a bit before dumping in the rest of the bacon.

bacon rinds

I then added in the mussels with all the cream, garlic and white wine marinate…

mussels

…and then the prawns with it’s own garlic marinade.

prawns

Awesome stuff!

cooking seafood stew

A wonderful smell was starting to waft out and this was when I threw the raw macadamis nuts in.

seafood stew macadamias

Added the mushrooms and cheese last and let it simmer for a bit.

adding bocconcini

It’s delicious! I cooked a mess…

adding mushrooms

…but Ling plated it so nicely it could be a restaurant dish!

sixthseal seafood supreme

Ta da!

seafood bread

It tasted wonderful – sweet and salty, with lots of seafood and delicious liquids for the traditional bread to soak up.

Herb & Garlic Kangaroo Roast

kangaroo mini roast

I had a lot of trouble with this. I set the oven wrongly and the bag nearly caught on fire (which has the potential to trip the fire alarm, causing a huge fine).

kangaroo roast

Luckily, she smelled something burning and I sorted it out.

eating kangaroo

I wouldn’t want to go through the arduous process, but it was 3 am when this was finally ready.

kangaroo meat

It’s worth the time and the blood, sweat and tears I put in though – it’s cooked to perfection!

roasted kangaroo

Ling tried it and had several more pieces, she said it tasted like liver. Oh well, at least she’s tried kangaroo meat now.

me bacon

I liked it – I ate quite a fair bit of the kangaroo roast. It’s gamey and flavorful, with chewy meat. I’m glad we didn’t cop out and go for kangaroo burger patties or kangaroo steaks – a kangaroo roast is the proper way to eat kangaroo meat. Lovely stuff!

Kiwiberries + Raspberries with Caramel and White Chocolate sauce

kiwiberry

This is the dessert I made for her – kiwiberry is a small fruit that looks like mini kiwifruit and tastes like kiwifruit but it’s much sweeter. You can just pop it into your mouth to eat it without peeling anything.

kiwiberry-chocolate-dip

The raspberries are fresher too and I mixed both fruits into a glass (don’t have a parfait server).

chocolate caramel dip

I had two dips of caramel and white chocolate and I spooned each in turn into the fruit mixture to create contrasting textures.

kangaroos

It was so good we finished the fruits the next day by dipping it straight into the leftover caramel and white chocolate dip. 🙂

kiwiberrry cranberry

I had fun cooking for her. It’s a nice change, and it’s kind of her to rinse the plates before I loaded the dishwasher coz I was bushed by then. She got to eat kangaroo meat and it was an awesome way to spend the last night in Melbourne together. It’s a lovely end to a wonderful trip!

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