what's cooking at cafe LF in 2008?

is fishing really to be frowned upon as it is against the teaching of ahimsa... although i loved fishing as a kid, i haven't been for ages... killing a living thing for the fun of it / or as a hobby is really not on... then came the new year holidays and mcduck and i went up to the hawkesbury river and guess what i did - i went and "murdered" an innocent living fish! (that was my first thought as i drew the fishing line up the last 5 min of our 4 hour fishing expedition - i thought we would be leaving empty handed)... then i witnessed the horrific banging of the fish head by mcduck (as i was too distraught to end the fish life after my failed attempt to loosen the 'suicide' fishing hook... so i asked mcduck to do the dirty work of ending poor fish's life quickly)

it was painful to watch the stiffened body in rigor mortis floating in our plastic bucket... during the entire trip home its stiff body was packed with ice in our esky...

the hook had the name 'suicide hooks' on its packet... and it truly was, as it hooked itself tightly on the fish's throat... the only way i got it out was when i cleaned out the fish's insides in the kitchen...

the only way i knew to honour the fish's sacrifice of its life was to cook him in the best way i knew and eat it with gratitude... so i prepared it for traditional steaming...

i scaled it and carefully cleaned out the gills and insides... and garnished with shreds of ginger, shallots, coriander... and bathed it in a mixture of soy sauce, water and sugar...

the whole family enjoyed our fish - thank you fish for giving us nourishment

lets move away from the sensitive topic of non-vegetarianism and into sweet sweet desserts...

by trial and (little) error, i recently found out an easy way of making the legendary hong kong cafe style mango pudding... i just put the fruit, milk, surgar in the blender and blended with the correct amount of gelatine water mixture (10g gelatine for every 500ml of liquid requiring gelation - this includes the hotwater dissolving the gelatine)

i made a layer of mango pud v easily and then i tried to top it up with a layer of banana pud...

it rested in the fridge for several hours...

then the bilayer banomango pudding was there to be enjoyed... yum! and so easy!

i have also been following jamie O on jamie at home... jamie is so inspirational! (but the gardener on the same show seems abit grim - he should smile more! you r on camera man!)

although i came home late from work, the lingering jamie energy in the kitchen prompted me to make homemade egg yolk pasta (yes! i made it and i still don't own a pasta maker)... and what to do with 4 egg whites? meringue of course (it was also on his last show)

4 egg whites, 200g castor sugar, 150 degrees celcius for 1 hour in the oven - perfect crunch on the outside, chewy within!

but quite fattening as i used an entire tub (that's a whopping 600mL!) of double cream for whipping...

almond bits and mango pieces... yum and done! it's a good party dish... (and so was the home made pasta in tomato and lentil sauce... too bad - none left for photos)