happy bday! tank q mcduck & snowflake!

tank q for mcduck's generosity by taking me back in time, into the decadence of art deco, sampling the ultra-fattening long aged steak / wagyu steak
http://www.rockpool.com.au/sydney/bar-and-grill
contemp art deco... all these "window", "square" patterns look v shanghai 1930

the crusty soredough started to filled me up..
the aussie ham platter was v nice
the $110 wagyu steak with marble score 9+ was v juicy... each bite lubricated with copious beef drippings... mcduck's aged grain fed fillet was a revelation (although it was cooked to only "blue", it was not bloody, just soft and tender)



mcduck enjoyed the rubarb pud...
i liked the brittle-popcorn and passionfruit mashmellow better... will def be researching to recreate the brittle-popcorn...

we enjoyed the end of the night at the jazzgroove futures festival...
http://www.jazzgroove.com
bday cake as well (curtesy of snowflake)

DIY sous vide at home: lamb steak

it must have been heston's feast on sbs that reminded me of molecular gastronomy...
suddenly, the harold mcgee book came out... and i discovered there were website such as sous vide extreme...
there must be a way to do "cooking a piece of meat in a vacuum bag in a water bath at a constant temperature" at home and cheaply without forking out few thousand bucks for a prof cooker...
after much web surfing and a visit to the local coles, came my light bulb moment, "coles prepacked steak, already marinated, cooked in topstove water bath with my trusty thermometre" (not forgetting that i had no food saver vacuum pack machine nor the prof water bath at hand)

the piece of steak had to be thin enough so that i didn't have to watch over the stove for hours and hours on end...

and it helped that the piece of meat was already sealed (thanks coles) and protected in a tasty marinade (thanks coles)
so with my candy thermometre showing the water temp being held at 58 degrees celcius, i floated the meat package (bottom sitting on top of a pair of chopsticks so not to touch the bottom of the pan) for 45 min or may be an hour at the same temp...
this was achieved by first getting 58 degrees in the roasting pan, then putting the pan over the smallest flame on the stove & watching the themometre, adjusting the flame if required...

the cooked meat in the bag did not look v appetising... however, the colour change of the meat pre and post cooking could be well spotted...

with the bag cut opened, i had instant sauce as well...
i did not bother to do any surface high heat searing for extra caramalisation or for any extra taste enhancing millard reaction... i simply sliced and served...

sliced marinated lamb with isreali couscous, mint and orange carrot salad with pumpkin seeds & simple broccoli

the nicest piece of lamb i have ever tasted! it didn't even taste like lamb... v tender, v juicy with a subtle meat flavour - and it was just a $4 piece of premarinated coles lamb?!
heston, thomas, farran and the gang are right...
next time i'll try some even cheaper, stewy cuts - according to bloggers out there, it would be like eating prime fillet cuts...

hot summer "liquid breakfast" in ice bath

sydney has gone tropical of late... the weather has been muggy humid and hot hot hot...
when i came back from yoga into our lounge room of 29 degrees (still 9-ish in the morning)... the heat just put me off breakfast...
but i have already expended lots of energy with my morning exercise and my stomach was growling... what to do?
thanks to mcduck's x'mas pressie, circa 2006 (or was it 2007?)... i could whip up my all in one liquid breaky in a flash...
for my all in one liquid breaky...
1 or 1 1/2 crushed wheatbix, few tsp flaxseeds, semiskim milk...

and the all important banana... yup no sugar or honey...

blitzed...

i did not have frozen banana and i didn't use frozen watermelon this time...
but i refrained from blitzing icecubes - 1) i didn't want to blunt the blades 2) i didn't want the melting ice to dilute my breaky ...

so taking inspiration from my food memories from a hk cafe...
i did my own "ice-packed/ice-stabilised" drink, in this case my breaky smoothie...
let it rest for several minutes... my breaky drink became icy cold... and i instantly felt cooler and more satisfying (for my stomach) in this ridiculous sydney summer heat...

yum!

upcycle homemade leftover bread chocolate cake

what to do with packets of bread in the freezer?! some of them with frostbites and all as they have been in the freezer for months on end...
may be i could substitute flour with my leftover bread and make a chocolate cake...
so here i went, tweaking another recipe... my own turned out to be:
300g breadcrumbs (made from semi defrosted rye bread from the freezer, quite dried as it was several months old)
1 cup sugar
4 heaped tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp sodium bicarb
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup canola oil
2 tbsp white vinegar
2 tsp vanilla extract

it was another food processor job, first i blended the bread into crumbly, crumbly crumbs... then i added the other dry ingredients and blended... then slowly poured down the mixed wet ingredients in the funnel while blending...

the resulting batter was quite dry / crumbly... no matter... i packed it into a 20cm round tin lined with baking paper...

added walnuts on top... and sat it on top of a bain marie...

40 min in 175 degree cel' oven... let cool and tipped out...

moist and crumbly at the same time... yum! and less junk in the freezer!

homemade vietnamese gio lua (vietnamese luncheon meat)

just the weekend passed, mcduck made a delish rice noodle / viet ham (VLM vietnamese luncheon meat)... it was so delish... i just couldn't stop adding another piece and another (of the VLM)... at 7-8 bucks a roll, mcduck was rationing the portions... so i decided to have a hand in making my own...
after much research on the internet, and tweaking several recipes, i decided to make it with chicken thigh instead of the usual pork or chicken breasts...

approx 2kg of thigh cost about $20... i didn't bother cleaning up the sinew... i left the little bits of fat for moisture...
the rest of the marinade ingredients were in my pantry already... my recipe went like this:
2kg chicken thigh, diced into small pieces
5 tbsp fish sauce
4 heaped tsp chicken powder
2 tbsp sesame oil
4 tbsp veg oil
1 tsp pepper
2 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp tapioca flour 2 tbsp baking powder
*mix everything together and let it stand for an hour or several*
then i processed the meat in the food processor...
in 4-5 heaped tbsp of meat each time... processed for several minutes... rested between processing

until the meat became abit glossy and not sticky to the spatula... the meat became elastic...
i wrapped the meat in bamboo leaves and Al foil...
a note on the leaves -in the authentic version, banana leaves should have been used, i used the dried bamboo ones... had to be boiled and washed (v dusty and dirty)... cos i used the leftovers i had in the freezer, the leftovers from the time when i made sticky rice dumplings... i guess using the fresh banana leaves would be less work & more fragrant...
packed a bowl with the meat...
packed it on the lined bamboo leaves over Al foil...
rolled...
rolled...
tied both ends...
rolled over with Al foil, tightly...
rolled over with a 2nd sheet of Al foil... tightly again...
stringed, packed and lined up in my fish kettle...
covered with boiling water and simmered for an hour...

an hour later... after checking with the meat themometer (with internal temp 80 degrees cel' and beyond)... it was safe to be taken out...
and let cooled...
then came the unwrapping...
wow... it looked promising, liked the one from the shops...

and it tasted like that too! now i can have as much VLM as i want and not get told off! plus i will have 2 extra rolls waiting in the freezer for a rainy day...