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. My Tasting Palette .
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. In celebration of food and dining experiences . |
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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
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 |
Thursday, May 17, 2007 For my love Cooking today was fun. To be able to cook with the one I love and for the ones I love. How nice. =) If everyday could be like this. Just cooking and eating. I'll be a really happy girl.  Food!  Yakitori- Chicken with Leek with Sweet Yakitori Sauce. I love leek! Nicely shaped Spinach by J with Toasted Sesame Seeds and Sesame Sauce The Remake of the Tofu with Brie- This time with additional pork floss Japanese Baked CheeseCake  A view from the top of our meal Tuesday, May 15, 2007 Victoria Sponge Cake
Baked the good old Victoria sponge cake for my grandma- for mother's day.
Didn't try it at all but it was bursting of buttery goodness the moment I took it out of the oven. Sunday, May 13, 2007 Japanese dinner (recipes from Harumi's Japanese Home Cooking)  two types of sauces for the steak- wasabi mayo and a citrusy japanese sauce with bonito flakes**** [[Of Cooking Mother's Day Dinner]] These days, I prefer to cook a meal for the people I love instead of taking them out cause I think it's much more personal and sincere. Since my mum much prefers Asian food, my sis and I decided to cook a Japanese dishes for her. But since J is back, he ended up cooking with me instead. I wanted to bake this warm french derssert- Toutiere(apricot pie) but I forgot to marinate the apricots in white wine overnight. So I decided to leave that for another time. We ended up having sake and matcha ice cream from Haggan Daz instead. I think that sake is really an acquired taste; I don't quite like it at this moment. Anyway, everyone enjoyed dinner. And as J and my sis commented that this is the best meal that we've cooked where every dish taste good and everyone is happy with dinner. =)  The steak slices in the making tomato slices, Japanese potato salad, steak Cold Tofu with Brie and toasted sesame Sake baked Salmon with lemons
Thursday, May 10, 2007 Eats [[ Of the recent eating spree]] Have been eating so much in recent days. I have no idea why. Maybe it's in the hope that food can chase away the blues. I still am not sure if I'm successful. First, my family and I went for a simple sunday lunch at the chinese restaurant at Hotel Asia. We ordered dim sum, peking duck, date with spinach and shark's bone soup. The food was pretty decent for its price. And I think I'm growing addicted to shark's bone soup. =))  Sunday lunch- peking duck and dim sumI wonder how the peking duck in Beijing will taste like. Dad says that it isn't as good as the ones in Spore. But well, I'll try it soon.  My new favourite- Shark's bone soup with fish mawOn monday, my cousin, king, sis, grandma and I went to Yoyogi at Robertson Quay for lunch. Sis and I ordered the same lunch set cause we are really greedy and we want both sashimi as well as cooked stuff. The set consisted of unagi, grilled mackeral, some steamed pork wrapped in cabbage, ebi and sashimi. It's pretty good though I am craving for the food at Inagiku! My cousin was surprised when we said that we wanted to head to Canele for dessert after lunch. He was bemused on how we still could eat! But no matter what, there'll be room for desserts. We ordered 3 to share: the blackforest cake, the deceiving pretty raspberry and rose on a shortbread and the rose meringue. I'll quite disappointed that they didnt have the matcha cake on that day. Anyway, the desserts this time were rather disappointing. To start with, I'm not a fan of meringues-I find them a tad too sweet, plus the fact that it was a rose flavoured one. Hmm I just don't like rose flavoured stuff. The prettiest dessert isnt good too. It has ROSE flavoured cream! and the base was a bit too dry.  Lunch set at Yoyogi Desserts at CaneleOn tuesday, I met my sis in town for shopping. And as we walked through the basement of taka, I spotted Royce and I just casually asked her if she has tried it. She has not so I HAD to buy it for her and dad to try. I love Royce chocolates!!  Royce Champagne chocolateLunch at Inagiku Just yesterday, my dad finally kept to his promise and brought my sis and I to Inagiku for lunch. When I eat there, I like to order the same thing cause it's just fantastic. I started of with salad cause I dont quite like chawamushi, followed by 9 types of very fresh sushi (which includes my favourite the chu toro and uni!!), tempura, a soup broth and fruits for dessert.  Salad with citrus dressing. Light and refreshing The best part of the meal. I always face a dilemma of which to eat last- it's a tough fight between the uni and the chu-toro. This time, I saved the chu toro for the last. It still makes me salivate (though it sounds gross), just thinking of it now! The tempura that it's known for. The white fish is so fresh and it goes perfectly with the light batter and mint leave. The soup broth with wakame, fish ball and mushroom My sis's grilled sword fish Chopped tuna belly don that my sis had  The pretty dessert that came with my sis's meal. Mochi with adzuki beans with fruitsAfter lunch, I still met up with KL for desserts at Robertson Quay. We headed to the chocolate factory. We were sitting outside cause it just rained and it was a quiet and cooling spot to sit down and chat. We ordered two cakes to share- an apple crumble tart and a chocolate truffle cake. The apple crumble was just so-so. I found it a little too sweet. It was slightly better with the vanilla ice cream. But then again, I don't think that the ice cream was fantastic. The chocolate cake, on the other hand, was really quite nice. Richly chocolate and moist enough. And the raspberry sauce really complemented it.  Tea at the chocolate factory- french vanilla sencha and chocolate truffle cake with a glazed dried apricot. It's the first time I've seen dried apricot on cakes! The sugar cube that K almost mistook for a breadcrumbI decided to try out the choclate orange cake recipe(from Nigella Lawsons) once again. The last time I baked it for the picnic, it was too soft. This time , the texture is just right, though the top is slightly burnt. The weird thing is that it became black just after 15 mins in the oven! (when the baking time is supposed to be 45mins-1 hr!) It doesnt taste burnt too, so maybe it's supposed to look like that?? HMM.. haven't figured that out. Anyway, this cake is really interesting cause it uses no flour nor butter- just almond meal and mainly orange. So it's real moist, soft and light. But I don't know if most people will like it cause it's not the usual cake you'll find.  Chocolate Orange Cake- in its unadorned state Wagashi!! SY kindly gave us some. These are Toraya wagashi straight from Japan! Toraya is one of the makers of wagshi in Japan and they have supplied confectionary to the Imperial family from the 16th century. I certainly cant wait to visit their store in Ginza, Tokyo.Thursday, May 03, 2007 Japanese Styled Cheese Cake [[Sunshine on a plate]]  Finally got the book Harumi's Home Cooking from the kino sale. I've been eyeing it for quite awhile. My sis and I were craving for cheese cake so J and I decided to try this one out on tuesday. It turned out really nicely- nicely browned on the top. The texture is really soft and light when you eat it straight from the oven. When placed in the fridge, it becomes denser in texture. Both of which are quite nice though I think the unrefrigerated one is slightly better. I should try to add more lemon zest next time or maybe throw in some lime zest as well. Just think that citrusy flavoured cheesecake taste good.  Harumi's Baked Cheesecake
Serves 6 100g digestive biscuits 40g unsalted butter 250g cream cheese 90g granulated sugar 2 eggs 200 ml pure cream 3 tbp sifted plain flour 1 tbsp lemon juice 1. Make sure that the butter and cream c heese are at room temperature. Line the tin with greaseproof paper. 2. Put the biscuits in a plastic bag and roughly crush with a rolling pin. 3. Soften the butter and mix with the biscuit crumbs. 4. Pour the biscuit mix into the bottom of the in and press down lightly to make the base. 5. Preheat the oven to 170 deg C. 6. In a bowl, add the cream cheese, beat until soft and then add the rest of the ingredients, mixing each one thoroughly first before adding the next. 7. Continue until the mixture thickens, then pour into the cake tin on top of the biscuit base. Bake in the oven for 45 mins- 60 minutes. Remove and leave to cool. 8. Once it has cooled, remove from the tin and discard the linging paper and leave on a rack to cool completely. |
