Leftover food @ Home

I am sure most of you know that leftover food in the fridge is to be consumed within 3 days.
Mum cooked so much food and we had lots of leftover and our fridge was full!

We were busy finishing up the food and this was the last lot.




Wondering what we can do, we transformed it into a East meets West dish.
Chinese soup with Spaghetti.




A variation of the usual macaroni that people usually use for soup.
Spaghetti is not bad!

Birthday Fried Mee Suah @ Home

Mum flew back from UK a few days ago after spending 3 months cooking for our sis who just given birth in UK. Sometimes I wonder, doesn't she get tired of cooking? Anyway, Chinese mums needs to eat proper confinement food, so mum lovingly prepares the food to feed to her daughter, so that her grandson gets premium milk! LOL...

It was also a treat for the brother in law, my brother and the girlfriend too. Whatever they want to eat, they tell mum, and my brother will get all the stuff mum needs from Wing Yip, probably the largest Asian grocery store I ever stepped into! For folks in Singapore, it's like bigger than the IT Show floorspace!

Nasi Lemak, Carrot Cake, Chwee Kueh, Ang Koo Kueh (for our little nephew's 'one month' party), Vinegar Pig Trotter, all sorts of curries. So much work. Some say so much love.

Talk about Nasi Lemak, mum cooked it in sis Le Creuset (super cheap there) and cooking rice in cast iron pots really make it taste really good! I tried it once when I was there. My brother emailed to say they have been making it even more authentic by buying banana leaves! The banana leaves there comes from the Philippines! They are trying to make it more authentic, while here in Singapore, most hawkers cut costs to maximize profits. The most we get here is green melamine plates shaped like banana leaves.


Anyway, I was at work and mum and aunt spend the whole day in our kitchen whipping up something to celebrate my birthday. Mum and aunt was sort of like exchanging recipes and ideas. They whipped up the following:

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The Birthday Fried Mee Suah.
It's a combination of many ingredients that you need to peel, cut, soak for hours.

(Actually, I did not know it was to celebrate my birthday, I was the one cooking some of the dishes, I did the simple part by putting it together. haha)

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The Beef, with 'white and red carrot' soup. It was boiling since afternoon it seems.

Talking about white radish / daikon, the topic of why the carrot cake has no carrots surfaced. As usual, Mum always has the answer. What she said is based on Malaysian scenario. She said when she was young, the hawkers used to prepare them with white radish. But some hawkers changed their recipes because of the requests of customers. Did I hear a 'Huh' from you?

You see, many old matriarchs buy expensive Chinese herbs and eat them for health and beauty. Deer antlers and the sorts were and still is expensive. If you spend these sort of money on it, you want to make sure the medicinal effect are not negated. White radish negate the effects. So the matriarchs will ask if the carrot cake has radish in it. If there is, they won't buy it.

So now you have one version of the answer!

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The steamed kampung chicken.

One of my favourite dishes! Which also happens to be one of my sis least favourite food. It's difficult being a mum right when all your children like different food!

We always learn something new. When mum asked sis to cut the garnishing, mum said, you are cutting it the wrong way. To get maximum flavour out of the spring onions, you are to cut it slanted. It has more exposed surface so it will be more fragrant, it also looks nicer. Another tip for you!

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The Nai Bai. Mum teased and said, you always think you are so clever, you fry your version and see lah. See people will eat it or not.

So I took out from my fridge the secret ingredients. XO sauce. Garlic, abalone sauce, XO sauce and a little bit of mirin was all was inside. Easy right?

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The prawn fritters that mum and aunt made.
The ladies were discussing what kind of flour to mix so that you get the crispy bite and you need air bubbles forming so that when you deep fry it, it gets crunchy. Oh... their experiments.

During dinner they were saying the fish monger was so happy that instead of asking for big prawns they asked for small ones. Do you know why they wanted the small ones? So that their shells are not hard and you are suppose to eat the whole prawn. Hard shells have sharp edges that will hurt your tongue!

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Vinegared Pork Trotters.
I never liked this dish. I can't stand the smell of vinegar!

Another story. Do you know that if you live in London, in a suburb where there are not many Chinese, if you know the butchers, they give pork trotters to you for free? The trotters are all clean and fresh, you wonder why it is free? It's because the British folks don't eat them! They are meant for pets!

Yes, laugh all you want. We did too!
My brother is happy too. In fact laughing all the way to the bank because he likes piggy feety and he is getting it for free!

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Mum and aunt saw this kinda huge fish and it was only $8! They said, what a deal and they decided to just simply steam it. Yes, it was nice!

I dare not ask mummy why the spring onions here can be cut this way and not slanted. hahaha.....

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Mum and aunt made Snowskin Mooncakes and konnyaku jelly as well.
They are experimenting with our tummies eh?

Momo got this delicious cake from Ritz Carlton.
The Mango Mousse with Mango Jelly topped with Fresh Mango cake.

I think daddy who loves mango loves the cake a lot! haha...





Oh no. Am I getting very naggy?
So many words!


Anyway, have a great week ahead and thanks for reading! :-)

2010 Annual Food Bloggers Dinner @ Michaelangelo's

I nearly could not make it for this year's Annual Food Bloggers Dinner. But thanks to some last minute rescheduling, I was taken off duty for my YOG Volunteering work and I could attend the dinner!

The dinner this year was held at Michaelangelo's at Chip Bee Gardens. It's such a nice cosy place and I realized I have not been here before!

The organiser this year is Ivan.  (Thanks Ivan for all the hard work organizing it and being so accommodating too!)

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If this menu in the photo above is difficult to read, click on to Ivan's entry here to see the menu and see who else attended the dinner!

I was in Rome in June and because we had to eat there, I had to learn how to order.  Here are a quick FYI. The Italians really take their time to eat and they have many courses!

They start with an "L'antipasto" which can either be a cold or hot appetizer. Then after like what seems like eternity, they then proceed to have their next two courses! The first course is known as "Il primo". It's usually pasta or soup. The second course is known as "Il secondo" which is also the main course. It's where they have either meat, game, poultry or fish.

If you have lots of time, we did since we were tourists, you can order sides dishes known as "Il contorno". Usually some vegetable dishes. Then it's "Il dolce" - desserts! The few days we were in Rome, we learn to appreciate food by eating really really slowly!  Now that's a short 'for your info' segment.




Back to the food bloggers dinner, it was nice to meet a few other bloggers that we have gotten to know via twitter. We finally met and we were all surprised when we met the real person!

The funniest comment I heard was: "hey, I thought keropokman is a 40 over year old man probably with a big tummy!" Are you sure you are keropokman?

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Let me interrupt with the food that interrupted our conversation.

We were served these lovely sundried tomato bread. It's so good that I just was just eating it without the hummus, olive oil and balsamic vinegar that was served. The crust were crispy and yet the inside were soft and warm.

We were served a piece each. This basket that you see here, we 'borrowed' it from the server to take photo. It was so funny. We wondered if we could have more but dared not ask! In the end someone did and we were so grateful to whoever it was that asked for it!

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L'antipasto

Our starter:
Crabmeat Cake with Avocado top with Mesclun Salad, Beetroot Paint & Balsamic Reduction.

When it was served, the smell whiffs pass and you know for sure it's something really good! It was indeed good! One bite into it and you can taste the delightful crab meat that has been conveniently shelled for us. This savoury protein goes well the slightly tart beetroot paint and slightly sweetish balsamic reduction.

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Il primo

Our pasta:
Short Tube Pasta with chunks of Tuna in Homemade Tomato Sauce with Capers, Olives, Chili, Garlic, Basil, White Wine & rich Fish Broth

For the first course, we had pasta. The chunks of tuna was marinated on one side and it rested on the very hot pasta. (I was told the tuna was raw, but because we were all busy trying to take photographs of it, the tuna was 'seared' by the pasta! LOL)

If you are a fan of tomato based pasta, this is definitely for you! The sauce was not too heavy and the cold tuna and hot pasta gives it such a nice contrast.

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Il secondo

For the second course, we had the choice of either Veal or Sea Bream.

This was Momo's second course:
Sea bream blanket with crispy Brick Phyllo on Butternut Pumpkin Puree top with Tomato Salsa

She liked her "Italian style fish popiah".
I had some, it was nice. I like tomato salsa so I thought it was satisfying. But I thought it was the sea bream was a tad too salty. Momo argued it was not. Yeah, she loves salty stuff!





My second course:
Breaded Veal Scallopine pan fried in Butter glace with Veal Jus, Cherry Tomato Salsa & Lemon Wedge.

Don't you think this is nicer? I thought the veal was really charming! But the ladies on the table disagreed and said the fish was way better. It was tender inside and depending on your taste, you might just love the veal jus like I do too!





If you are wondering where Eevon who posed for a few of us, have her manicure, ask her!

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Il dolce

For our dessert:
Pistachio Financier with Strawberry Salsa & Mint

I think most of us could not really appreciate our dessert. We were already so full!
If you are wondering what is a financier? It's similar to madeleines in texture, but it's not madeleines (yes, the madeleines that you get from Delifrance) and it's usually made with almond flour.

It's sweet, really sweet! For once, the food bloggers agreed in one thing! But the strawberry salsa was a tinge sourish so it was ok if you had it together. I must apologize to the chef for not finishing his food! I only had two mouths and I was way too full to eat anything else.

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I got a surprise! In the lucky draw, I won a food slicer! It happened to be the grand prize too! The rest who got prizes got an elegant tea pot with a warmer.

I must thank the fingers of the Pantry Pursuits folks who picked my name!
You know what my mum said when she saw this? We can try to make some home made bakkwa! Slicing it will be easy! *laugh so so loud*




It was a great dinner with great company with these great folks!
DimSumDolly   Divine Essentials  A 1/2 Food Blog  eevon.sg  food.recentrunes.com  The Hungry Cow  The Baker Who Cooks  AromaCookery  Foodie-ah  Miss Tam Chiak  The Importance of Salt  Wen’s Delight  Camemberu  The Dirty Stall  M Eats




Michaelangelo’s
44 Jalan Merah Saga
#01-60 Chip Bee Gardens
Singapore 278116

Tel:  6475 9069