Friday, January 15, 2010

brainwave



15th january 2010
bgn subuh, try lah tak tido blk. sbb konon nak spend masa utk bnyk bnda lain. nak balas dendam lah nak on9 lame2. skali, on9 tataw nak buat ape da. mandi, lunch, and i wore all black formal attire for BJ presentation. the presentation was ok, and begun at 330pm. miss aida ckp, aku ade slang london. cam pending jap, tang mane la jd standupper (journalist) tuh ade slang london? haha. miss eha plak ckp aku bace cam 'baik2, sweet2' wahaha. and, taw kan dlm camera, badan seseorg nmpk lg jelas/bigger? and, i saw myself caught on tape, gle tembam aku weyh!

btw. i wrote a post yesterday morning aite, and the 2nd last note - awk (orange) is for afiq. and suddenly time d college dia SMS. hahahahahah... and by that time, he didn't read my blog yet. that's what related to my title. brainwave. hebat sngguh! SMS-ing for a while. lots of stuff to talk bout, and ends up at starbucks, for an hour je. thanks awk!

owh yar, so, i was home, til 2pm, college til almost 6pm, at mc d with sofia, dilla, salghee, fatin, til almost 7pm, and i went to sofia's house. timbang. naek 1kg! TIDAKKKKKK. then i met afiq, til 10pm. went home, change my clothes, then gi mapley d sri rampai with nabil. met yan and his gf. til almost 12am, and finally home. but owh yar, i didn't sleep yet, for this whole night. it's 630am now. hurm.

i think i wont sleep. i've got an english class at UIA at 9am, and i need to drive by myself there. so if tdow skrng, confirmed terbabas. and so, 12pm ade meeting FYP (final year project). so, abis english class nnt, rush to college. thee. jgnlah ngantok jap2 lg!

btw. the end of 6th sem!!! no holiday. and monday, the beginning of 7th sem. final sem. gaaa~



p/s; u. thanks 4 this special night.







Beef Wellington with Potato and Parsnip Tower and Peas

Beef Wellington with Potato and Parsnip Tower and PeasBeef Wellington is a delicious way of preparing a quality fillet of beef. It is often perceived for some reason as being difficult to make but the reality could not be further from the truth.

Ingredients (For Two people)

1/2lb fillet of beef
6oz puff pastry
3 rashers of unsmoked bacon
1 medium parsnip
2 medium potatoes
Frozen peas as required
1 egg for glazing
Sunflower oil for frying
Butter for greasing baking tray
Freshly ground black pepper

Sealing Beef for Beef Wellington in Frying PanMethod

The first step when making Beef Wellington is to seal the fillet of beef in a frying pan with a little sunflower oil. The beef should be seasoned with freshly ground black pepper then added to the heated pan and cooked for around half a minute on a high heat on each side until fully sealed. Do not forget to seal the two ends as well as the four sides. The beef should be held upright with cooking tongs at this stage. When the beef is sealed, remove the pan from the heat and allow the beef to rest and cool.

When the beef is cool, three rashers of bacon should be laid out side by side on a large sheet of clingfilm and the beef placed lengthwise in the centre. The bacon rashers should then be wrapped tightly around the beef and the clingfilm sealed, the ends twisted like a Christmas cracker. The parcel should then be refrigerated for at least an hour.

Put the oven on to preheat to 400F/200C/Gas mark 6. Take one third of the pastry and roll it on on a floured board to a thickness of about an 1/8" and so that it is large enough to accomodate the beef fillet with a border remaining of at least 1/2" all the way round. Transfer the pastry on to a baking sheet lightly greased with butter and unwrap the beef and bacon parcel, sitting it carefully on to the pastry.

Beef WellingtonThe remaining pastry should then be rolled out to a similar thickness and to a size where it is going to be large enough to snugly cover the fillet and seal around the edges of the bottom sheet of pastry. The beef fillet and the borders of the bottom sheet of pastry should then be brushed with beaten egg and the larger sheet of pastry carefully placed on top, pressed in to a snug fitting position and sealed gently around the edges between forefinger and thumb. Three small slits should then be made on the top of the pastry to allow steam to escape during cooking and the parcel glazed with the remaining egg mixture. The tray should then be placed in the oven for around twenty-five minutes, until the pastry is golden brown.

The parsnip should then be scraped and the potatoes thoroughly washed. The parsnip and the potatoes should then be sliced across the way in to 1/4" thick discs. Immediately before the Beef Wellington is removed from the oven, the discs should be added to a pot of boiling, salted water and simmered for a total of fifteen minutes.

The Beef Wellington should then be removed from the oven, placed on a plate and covered loosely with aluminium foil to rest, while the potato and parsnip discs cook. The peas should be added to another pan of boiling water and simmered - per the instructions on the pack - for what is usually around three minutes.

The potato and parsnip discs and the peas should be drained and the potato and parsnip discs used alternately to assemble a tower as shown in the top photograph in this recipe. The Beef Wellington should be thickly sliced with a very sharp carving knife and served with the peas, as also shown.

Cooking with Beef

Beef is one of my favourite cooking ingredients and there are of course so many different ways in which it can be cooked and so many different recipes which can be prepared using beef. The book below has to rate as one of the definitive beef cookbooks available on the market today, focusing not only upon beef recipes but how to cook lean beef in a healthy fashion. It is also presently available at bargain prices in the book stores/shops of both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

Szechwan Tripe



In order to be rendered even vaguely edible, tripe must be cooked for at least three hours. And that’s only after it’s been soaked, disinfected and bleached.

Bleached.

Of course, unbleached, or green tripe, is available (most notably in France) but frankly the thought of eating something that until recently was in such close proximity to a vast quantity of cow shit is not that appealing in itself. Bring on all the bleaching agents possible, I say.

Having lost my offal training wheels some time ago (probably when I munched on brain) I felt sufficiently ready for tripe which seems to be making something of a comeback.

I’d barely finished editing the accompanying photos when I read this great piece on Word of Mouth. So now seems good time to plough this particular furrow. Or tap into the ‘tripegeist’, if you will (sorry).

Admittedly I was scared. The slab of tripe had been in the freezer for six months and I was convinced that the GF wouldn’t be able to stomach (sorry. Again) this particular adventure. Her trip to Vegas presented the perfect opportunity.



Trippa ala Romana (tripe cooked with onions, garlic and tomatoes) was initially at the top of my list but reading about Szechwan restaurant Chilli Cool convinced me otherwise.

Bird’s Eye chillies are notoriously hot and Szechwan peppercorns contain a compound called hydroxy alpha senshool which causes a numbing sensation in the mouth. Surely this heat/anasthesia combo would render the tripe so insignificant as to be at least bearable?

Wrong.

After cooking down some red onion, Thai chillies and ginger in a hot pan I added the sliced tripe and then the braising liquid of soy sauce, chicken stock and dark rice wine vinegar along with a hefty number of dried bird’s eye chillies and enough Szechwan peppercorns to mimic the effects of a stroke.



Even through all this the niff of the tripe was palpable. Damp and slightly fetid, it called to mind an old house with a leaky roof, home to a family of dogs and wet sheep. It wasn’t nausea inducing but certainly lodged itself in the nostrils.

It cooked for three hours at which point the tripe was removed and the cooking liquor strained and reduced to a syrupy consistency. I stir-fried some finely sliced ginger, garlic and onion then added the tripe to the wok before spooning over the reduced sauce and adding noodles. Just to make absolutely sure I would neither taste nor feel the tripe in went some more chillies and peppercorns.



It was finished with spring onions, roasted peanuts and even more spices then a spoonful of sugar and a squeeze of lime.

The smell had certainly subsided when eating time came around. It actually smelled and looked thoroughly appetising, especially after fortifying myself with a couple of beers.

In went an enthusiastically large mouthful.

And there it remained whilst I chewed. And chewed. And chewed. Long after the flavour had disappeared, the rubbery nugget persisted, moving from side to side and getting no more tender than a piece of cheap gum. I tried. I really did. But there was no way I was going to force this bouncy ball of cow’s stomach into my own.

Not only was the texture seemingly galvanized, the flavour of the tripe remained even through the atomic spices. Thanks to the numbing properties of the peppercorns I could happily have endured root canal surgery but there was still an underlying and noticeable taste, not quite unpleasant but certainly not nice.

The rest of the tripe was picked out and left on the side of the plate whilst the tasty noodles sated my hunger.

It wasn’t all bad. The noodle dish would be delicious with beef shin, pork belly or even chicken thighs but I’ve found my limit. Even the hardiest of holistic, nose-to-tail eaters have to draw a line somewhere and mine comes right before you need to crack open the bleach.