Monday, November 3, 2008

Bakwan Udang

4 November 2008, Selasa pagi,

Dah dari kemarin, bingung mo bikin apaan buat kasih ke tempat driving skul. Pas gw skul, ada ibu yang bersedia menjaga Xiang, n staff disono ramah n baik banget...jadi bikin sesuatu buat mereka sebagai ucapan trima kasih.

Ada temen kasih ide, bikin bakwan udang ala indo aja...idenya boleh juga...tapi liat di kulkas ga punya persediaan udang...wadoh, mesti belanja nih...uda malam lagi..gimana yak?
Entah kebetulan ato ga, husband pulang, eh die bawa bungkusan gede isi nya udang??
Wah aneh tapi nyata...hihihi...kebetulan amat yak...

Ini gw catetin resepnya.
Bahan
300 gr udang cincang kasar
1 bh bawang bombai, cincang halus
1 bh telur kocok
125 gr tepung trigu, ayak
175 ml air
1 blok kaldu
1/2 sdt garam
1/2 sdt lada

Cara
- Campur telur, air, tepung trigu, aduk rata
- Tambah udang n bahan lain, aduk
- Goreng hingga matang n kecoklatan

Kali ini bikin 2 resep, selain buat yang di driving skul, mo bawa buat temen juga n buat nyicip di rumah, makan siang....wah wah...baru kali ini bikin banyakkk banget....mmm mmm..yummy..........

IFEC in Cleveland, night I

November 4, 2:20 a.m.

I have eaten too much food on so many levels.
I'm at IFEC, the annual conference of the International Foodservice Editorial Council. This year it’s in Cleveland. Don’t laugh, Cleveland’s a nice place and quite an accomplished food city, and tonight it proved it.
IFEC joins foodservice trade publication editors and publicists who want our attention. We meet for what are basically a series of 10-minute speed dates in which editors sit at a table and publicists pitch us. We get a lot of work done in a relatively short period of time, and then we go out and eat and drink.
Tonight, after an opening reception at which I skipped the food and just drank coffee, we had a keynote speech by Cleveland native Michael Ruhlman. For half an hour or so, he told us of why Cleveland was such a great food city, gave us restaurant recommendations, took a phone call from his 13-year-old daughter (“Honey, I'm in the middle of a presentation”) and called his friend Anthony Bourdain names. I forget what adjectives he used to describe Bourdain, but I’m pretty sure “degenerate” was one of them. “Deceitful,” too.
That was followed by “meet the press” at which each of the couple of dozen magazines represented talk about themselves so publicists know what we want from them.
Then there was the “Chef Showcase” at which local chefs served up their food, including ingredients provided by sponsors. Restaurants represented included Sergio’s, Lola, Moxie, Dante, Parallax, One Walnut, Fire Food & Drink, CROP Bistro & Bar, Bar Cento and Fahrenheit. It was all far more delicious than it usually is at such events, and I will single at Jonathan Sawyer of Bar Cento whose smoked hog jowls with mustard on toast was extraordinary in its simplicity and deliciousness, the Dijon mustard balancing just right with the pork’s smokiness. And his potato soup that had the same pork, but diced as part of a brunoise that also included all of the other components of the soup (some raw, some blanched), was, well, imagine smooth, creamy potato soup with little crunchy bursts of flavor. How much fun is that to eat?
I didn't know Mr. Sawyer, but he used to be my neighbor, having lived on Seventh Avenue and Lincoln Place when he worked in New York, once cooking in Charlie Palmer’s Kitchen 22, and another tine cooking at Parea, Michael Symon’s short-lived Greek restaurant.
So I was full when we headed to the suburb of Valley View to eat have dinner at Dante, the restaurant of former Aureole executive chef Dante Boccuzzi (who before that opened Nobu in Milan and who was at Silks in San Francisco before that). He’s originally from Cleveland and decided last year to head back home. His wife had their fourth kid, a little girl, about two weeks ago, so congratulations to them.
From there we went to an after-party at CROP, which is research chef Steve Schimoler’s latest venture. The name stands for Controlled Research Operating Platform, but also means, you know, crops. The place has won all sorts of awards in Cleveland, but Steve also uses it as a test platform for products that can be rolled out on a much larger scale. Instead of paying focus groups to try his food and say what they think, he just sees what customers like to buy. But the thing is, he makes food using various high-tech starches such as those the molecular gastronomers are getting into (and that food manufacturing companies have been using for decades) to make dishes that taste great in restaurants, but that can also be made in batches of 800,000, packaged, frozen and sold at Target (which is in fact what he’s already started to do). We sampled a couple of ice creams, including one called ”hot coffee,” which was coffee ice cream with just the right amount of capsaicin added to it that it didn’t have chile flavor, but simply tasted warm.
By the way, Michael Ruhlman pointed out that the country’s first celebrity chef was from Cleveland. His name: Chef Boyardee.
I don’t mean this in a derogatory way, but Steve’s continuing the tradition.

What we ate at Dante:

Cloudy Bay Kiwi Cocktail: Rum, lemon grass simple syrup, house-made sour mix, Fee Brothers rhubarb bitters, and foam of kiwi and chartreuse

citrus king crab arancini
tiger shrimp and green kiwifruit skewers with spicy lime mayonnaise
tempura green kiwifruit (can you guess which fruit sponsored the dinner? Philips Foods sponsored it, too)
Non-vintage Ca’ Tullio Prosecco (Friuli)

Parfait of blue swimming crab, avocado and green kiwifruit, lime jalapeño foam and crisp rice crackers
2007 Riesling, Kabinett, Dr. Thanisch, Bernkasteler Badstube (Mosel-Saar-Ruwer)

Ricotta cavatelli with cauliflower, anchovy and confit of garlic
2005 Lavradores de Feitoria “Tres Bagos,” mad with Tourigo Nacional, Tourigo Franca and Tinta Rariz grapse (Douro)

Charred skirt steak with yuzu neri, shiitake tempura, ginger braised bok choi and clamshell mushrooms
2005 Volver Tempranillo (La Mancha)

And for dessert, by Dante’s new pastry chef, Russ Wheeler, formerly of Mustard Seed Café:
After School Special — chocolate and peanut butter crunch cake, concord grape sorbet and a crispy sesame treat
2003 Select Late Harvest Vidal, Pillitten Estates, Ontario

My ZZR 250

Its time to change my post to something abit up-beat..

Guess what guys?
I got my new KAWASAKI !!!!

but now its in the shops coz the timing chain is lose and there are some parts in the bike that needs to be fix. here are the pictures of my new wife "Ya Tze calles it my 4Th wife". hehe =)

This is my Kawasaki ZZR250, here we her without her fairings (she is naked) hehe.

Here we have the "Butt" of the bike. this one has a single ezxos with a nice sound. vroommm!!

Here we taken off the tank and it looks small.... tingal tulang saje
I guess its getting ready for Halloween

OMG, his an alien!!!! Not really, here we have the bikes coolant being drain out.. (green with Kawasaki)

This is the black oil ( not cooking oil ), its black because of the carbon from the engine.

This is the engine, the heart of the bike. the head of the engine is already taken off so that you see in the inside of the bikes heart.. ( Look into my heart) the song.

This is where the timing chain is located, that is one of the problem now ( timing chain lose and makes loads of noise)

Now here is what made the timing chain lose, there was a broken part that the last owner fix, but was not done properly, so that will need to be re-build....

So now, must wait for the parts and hope by this week i can get it back...
at least can go jalan-jalan on it. even if its to the office and to the hospital...

I will keep smiling =)
Thanks for reading, see you soon.

Home Charcuterie Part One - Making Rillettes

Charcuterie is an aspect of the culinary arts that has long interested me both theoretically and on a more practical level. I find it truly wonderful that something that began as a necessity grew into the art form that we know today.

On the broadest level it encompasses the vast gamut of skills from curing and smoking to drying and salting. In short it is about preservation. It was about making sure that precious parts of an animal that would spoil quickly were not wasted and could be eaten throughout the year, long after the prime cuts had been roasted and consumed. It was about thrift. It was about economy. It was about the reality of slaughter and respect for the animal that had just been killed, making sure that as little as possible was wasted.

In the days before refrigeration and deep freezing, our ancestors had to come up with myriad other ways in which to preserve the meat from the pig or cow or sheep that was far too large to eat within the few short weeks (days sometimes) before the meat started to spoil.

Thankfully, these were tasty and delicious enough for the practice to continue and flourish even after technology made it possible to preserve meat simply with the application of cold temperatures and even now we still enjoy the salamis, hams, pâtés, terrines and other items that they perfected over generations.

But charcuterie is not a practice that many home cooks embrace and it is becoming a lost art beyond the specialist. Which is a shame because many aspects of the practice are easy enough to replicate in any domestic kitchen – not to mention, incredibly cheap.

This surprises some people – pâtés, terrines and salamis are expensive when bought in delicatessens – but the components themselves are the cheaper cuts of meat, those which could not be simply roasted over hot coals: the tough bits, the offal, the bits that need a little more care and attention in order to become delicious.

In the spirit of adventure we set about attempting the charcutier’s art for ourselves this weekend. Keen to keep things relatively simple we shied away from chorizos, salamis or cured hams (plus we really don’t have the space to hang a full pig’s leg just yet) and chose instead to make a pâté and some rillettes, which are one of my single favourites in the charcutier’s entire armoury.



The first time I ever had rillettes was when I lived and worked in west London and invariably got my lunch from the best deli-café I’ve ever had the pleasure to dine in (sadly now a hair salon). They are rich, decadent and so tasty that even the mere mention can bring a smile to my face (see above for Tony Bourdain’s rather excellent summation of this glorious food).

Made with either duck, goose or pork cooked long and slow in fat they are not for those who view calorific items with scorn or trepidation but given the scarcity with which they are eaten, and the all-natural origin of the ingredients, I personally don’t think this is an issue – I’d much rather eat a few spoons of this sort of food once a week than gorge on a microwave chicken tikka masala or other such culinary monstrosity.



For our version of this classic French pâté type preparation we used pork belly and shoulder to be cooked down in some back fat. Once the belly had been skinned (which we use to make pork scratchings – nothing wasted here) it was cubed and placed in a large pot with the cubed shoulder cuts (often used to make high grade sausages) and the rendered fat. After the addition of a little water and a bouquet garni it was cooking time. And it takes a while. Three hours at a tremulous simmer so that the occasional bubble will make its way to the surface before bursting is necessary in order to cook the pork to the ideal texture.



Once cool, the pork was then shredded, seasoned with salt, pepper and a little allspice, before being left for a day or so to allow the flavours to develop, meld together and take on that distinctive Gallic character.

This is food alchemy at its finest. The gradual transformation of base ingredients into a finished product that is infinitely more than the sum of its parts and just to be sure, we made a lot. Certainly enough to keep us, and others, dwelling in happy porcine reverie until well into the New Year. Mmm, rillettes.

Eggs and Potato Mix (Bayd ma3 Batata) & Salad - بيض مع البطاطا



This is a very simple recipe, serves as a quick meal and very good along with pita bread.

For the Eggs & Potato: (serves 1-2)
1 egg hard boiled
1 potato, boiled
Salt & pepper to taste
Seven spices (to sprinkle on top)
Olive oil (about a tablespoon)
- Mash the egg and the potato together and mix well, add salt & pepper. Sprinkle allspice or (7 spices) on top, and drizzle olive oil on the top too and serve hot or cold with pita bread and the salad.

For the Salad:
Few lettuce leaves (any kind you want or mixed greens)
4-5 marinated sundried tomatoes
About a handful of green olives sliced
1 fresh french endive chopped
about a handful of fresh flat parsley
2 green onions chopped
1 fresh tomato (optional)
- Mix them all together and add the dressing: 1 teaspoon of Dijon Mustard or any mustard you like, juice of one fresh lemon, olive oil, salt & pepper to taste, a bit of Herbes De Provence or Italian herbs, mix all together and add to the salad.

VEGETABLE SPRING ROLLS



Ingredients:
FOR THE FILLING:
Cabbage grated coarsely or finely shredded......2 cups
Carrots cut into thin strips .....2
French Beans finely sliced ......1/2 cup
Capsicum ... 1 thinly sliced
Mushrooms ....... 5-6 finely sliced
Garlic ginger paste .... 1 tbsp.
Soya Sauce....2 to 3 tsp
Ajinomoto.....2 pinches
Salt to taste

FOR THE DOUGH:
Maida/All Purpose Flour.....2 cups
Cornflour.....2 tbspSalt

PREPARING THE MAIDA PASTE 1 (FOR SEPARATING THE PANCAKES):
Make a paste of 2 tbsp maida with 2 tbsp oil.

PREPARING THE MAIDA PASTE 2 (FOR BINDING THE ROLLS):
Mix 2 tbsp maida with about 1/2 cup water and then heat it, stirring continuously, till it thickens to a paste.

METHOD:
PREPARING THE FILLING:
Heat 1 tbsp oil. Add the garlic ginger paste. Stir fry and add the vegetables, salt, ajinomoto, soya sauce. Stir fry for 5 to 7 minutes until the water from the vegetables is dried up. ( If there is excess water you can drain it out)



PREPARING THE CHAPATIS:
1. Using maida, salt and cornflour, make a soft dough with the help of water.
2. Make very small balls out of the dough.
3. Take 4 balls. Now, roll each ball into small pancakes as shown in the picture.


4. Take a pancake, first apply the "Maida Paste 1" generously all over the pancake and then sprinkle maida on it as shown in the picture.


5. Now place another pancake on top of it and repeat the procedure, thus making a stack of 4 pancakes one over the other, with "maida paste 1" and maida in between each.
NOTE: Don't apply anything over the top most pancake.


6. Now, roll this into a big, very thin chapati, changing sides as you roll.
7. Heat it on a tawa on low flame till it is slightly cooked on both the sides. Remove it from the tawa and then separate the 4 chapatis and store them in a wet cloth.

PREPARING THE SPRING ROLLS:
1.Take a chapati. Apply the "Maida Paste 2" around the edges of the chapati. Now, place the filling as shown in the picture, turn the sides, then apply paste again on the turned flaps. Now, roll it into the shape of a spring roll. Make sure that the edge sticks to the roll well.


2.Make the rest of the spring rolls in the same way.

3.Heat oil and deep fry till they turn golden brown. Serve hot with chilli sauce.

NOTE: The spring rolls can be stored in polythene bags in the freezer and you can fry them whenever necessary.

In Search of a Midnight Kiss

A friend of mine who's feeling like a misanthrope today, gave me the link of this movie trailer. He watched it already and will lend me the DVD tomorrow. In exchange, I volunteered to lend him my Mexican DVD.

This film is about a 100 million single people in America, 40 million of which are searching for love online. A twenty-nine-year old guy named Wilson is having the worst year of his life. He is new to Los Angeles, has no date, no concrete plans and forgetting that last year ever happened. Until his best friend, Jacob encourages him into posting a personal ad on Craig's Lists (a central network of online communities, featuring free online advertisements). When Vivian, a strong-willed woman looking for right guy at the stroke of midnight responds---a chaotic, hilarious, and touching journey begins. From the producer of my favorite films "Before Sunset" and "Dazed and Confused," comes another film that is comparative to my all-time favorite movie "Before Sunrise"--- only in the sense that it's more "bastos" daw according to my friend. I don't know what he meant by "bastos" but as I read how Rotten Tomatoes and all other acclaimed critics gave their 5 star reviews, I have no doubt that this film is my cup of tea.

This movie will surely be one of my favorites! And while waiting for the day for me to watch this film, I'm also crazy looking for Richard Linklater's film---Waking Life.




I love this photo so much, reminds me of something.


Photos courtesy of Claudia :-)