. The Tasting Palette .

. In celebration of food and dining experiences .



Interests
    Indulging myself in food porn (online or food magazines)
    Exploring and discovering new restaurants
    Dining and chilling out with my loved ones
    Baking and cooking over the weekends
    Sharing my love for food with others
Wishlist
    Desserts by Pierre Herme- Written by Dorie Greenspan
    Vanilla bean pods (one can never have enough)
    Valrhona Cocoa powder
    Valrhona chocolate
    Macarons from Laduree and Pierre Herme
    Madelines mold
    Pretty cake stands (I only have one and only one)
    YUZU from Japan! (They taste great in almost anything)
    A food tour to Italy and France
    Opportunity to study at Le Cordon Bleu



Tuesday, December 05, 2006

[[Birthday brunch and dinner]]

It was J's birthday yesterday. So I prepared brunch- traditional breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and baked tomato and pancakes. I love pancakes with maple syrup. The simplest kind. Got the recipe off Nigella Lawson's How to eat: The Pleasures and Principles of good food. I still have leftover batter so I made more pancakes for breakfast today. =)beams

Went to Garibaldi for dinner since he likes italian food. We order to apetisers to share- the pan seared foie gras with apricot chutney and the baked eggplant with mozarella cheese and tomato sauce. The baked eggplant was good but it wasn't what I expected. This one was more like a lasagna! The foie gras was good as always.

I ordered the beef tenderloin with potato cake with porcini mushrooms. I love porcini mushrooms. They are the most richly flavoured of its kind. The taste of it simply infuses the potatoes too. What a delight! I gobbled the potatoes too even though I usually don't eat potatoes. The beef tenderloin was tender and it was more raw than medium actually. But I enjoyed it very much- very juicy and succulent.

J ordered the Braised Veal Shank with Saffron Risotto. I'm not a fan of veal shanks- just don't really like its texture. But the saffron risotto was really good. I've heard that its not easy to cook a good risotto but this one was really bursting of the rich saffron flavour- one of the world's most expensive spice. I was really very happy eating it.

Initially, J and I wanted to order our usual boring dessert- either the tiramisu or the Chocolate lava cake(the one that I tried the last time). But we stole a sneak glance at the next table and got inspiration to order this new dessert. It looks really interesting and of course, really pretty! ah..I'm such a sucker for pretty food!

The dessert we ordered was sicilian pastry stuffed with ricotta cheese, with a chocolate biscuit filled with pistachio cream(?), and the green strip was pistachio cream. On the extreme right, there was cocoa powder and turkish delight. Actually, this just taste really good but the both of us can't tell its ingredients.

anyway, I've gotta go. Blog more later!





***

Pancakes (Makes 22 pancakes in a 3 inch pan)
Adapted from "Nigella Lawson- How to Eat: The pleasures and principles of good food"

1 cup all-purpose flour
pinch salt
1 egg
1 ¼ cups milks
2-4 tbsp melted and cooled butter
vegetable oil, for the pan.
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp baking powder


1) Make a mound of the flour in a bowl, add the salt, then make a dip in the top. Crack open the egg and let it slip into this hole at the top of the hiall and, with a wooden spoon, beat well, gradually incorporating the flour from the sides and beating in the milk to make a smooth batter.

2) Stop when the batter’s creamy, change to a whisk and then whisk in the melted butter. Leave the batter to stand for at least half an hour: overnight wouldn’t matter. The batter might thicken in the meantime, in which case, add milk to get the batter to the right thickish light-cream consistency.

3) The trick to pancakes is not so much the batter as in the frying: use little oil and very little batter. The pan must be hot and what I do is to heat oil in it, then empty the oil down the sink before putting in the batter. Use less batter than you would imagine you need- you just want to line the pan. When bubbles come to the surface, the crepe is ready to flip.

* use well-seasoned frying pan. Non stick pans are hopeless, as the crepes they make and blond, pallid and rubbery; the batter seems steamed rather than seared.

***


Baked eggplant with mozarella and tomato paste


Pan-seared goose liver with apricot chutney

Posted by Picasa


link | posted by simin at 1:08 PM |


0 Comments:

Want to Post a Comment?

powered by Blogger | designed by mela