Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

I found this from 2006! You can even see my old kitchen (the one with natural light as opposed to my current kitchen with very little natural lights. Pictures from that period are so much nicer)

This is the basic Thai red curry that I added a whole bunch of not-so-Thai vegetables to it. Any veggies will most likely do. I like the combination of broccoli, carrot, zucchini, green beans, tomato and tofu puffs*. Don’t forget the Thai basil. It makes everything much nicer.

You will need (for four people), one small carrot, a handful of green beans, a small zucchini (not a huge one like I got from Jim’s – I’m still so impressed about its size, seriously), one tomato, a handful of broccoli florets, five-six tofu puffs (halved). You’ll so need one tablespoon of Thai red curry paste (I use Mae Ploy due to its availability in Australia), a small can of coconut cream (I like Ayam and Aroy-D), and about a tablespoon of fish sauce (I insist on a Thai brand). Substitute with soy sauce if you’re a vegetarian.

As I said previously, it matters what curry paste and coconut cream you use. You need to taste. Sometimes you won’t need to fish sauce and some times you’ll need a bit of sugar to round it off if your coconut cream isn’t sweet (note: coconut cream is naturally sweet. I’m not talking about the sweetened coconut cream that you put in your pina colada). Read the rest of this entry »

When I was in Melaka last year (we went twice because we liked it so much), I was very determined to eat as much laksa as I could. What do you know? One could eat laksa for breakfast, lunch and dinner after all! I did.

Let me blurb on a bit about the laksa that we got in Melaka. It is either the laksa lemak which is basically a noodle dish with curry soup with various ingredients such as fish balls, tofu puff, boiled eggs, fish, cucumber and laksa leaves (which are a kind of basil – I believe they are the same as what is known as Vietnamese mint here in Australia but I could be so wrong) or the assam laksa – with tamarind and fish soup base. Laksa are quite different depending where you go – in different states of Malaysia and Singapore, they are all slightly different. In Australia, laksa is always the laksa lemak. I personally don’t really like the assam laksa at all. I find it funny and fishy.

Anyway, suffice to say I had a lot of laksa and they were all fantastic. Of all the laksa I have had, I have to say Melaka is definitely the place for it. The laksa at Nancy’s Kitchen was relatively spicy with a good blend of crunch cucumber.

Josh ordered the house fried rice, which really was spicy. It had liberally amount of fresh chillis with the usual sambal balacan and the crunchy ikan billis (the small fish you deep fry and eat whole, excellent source of calcium). He picked out most of the chilli and still found it spicy though. I rather liked it but then I wasn’t such a pussy Read the rest of this entry »

I thought I might share some pictures from Brotzeit, a German restaurant in Singapore. From recollection, there are two outlets: one in Vivo City and another at City Hall.

Just the two of us for lunch on the day. We ordered the usual favourite, the mixed platter. It included a few variaties of the German wurst (sausages) with pork, beef, lamd and chicken with some saurkraut, pickles and a bit of salad on the platter.

We also ordered the German-style potato salad:

And ‘roasted’ vegetables (although I wasn’t quite too sure why they came out looking and tasting just like a bowl of  steamed, buttered vegetables but I was hungry and really couldn’t be bothered arguing):

Read the rest of this entry »

Yes. I am guilty of butchering the real Mongolian lamb. But we were very hungry and needed some quick fix.

For the two of us, I cut one lamb leg steak (about 150 g.) into cubes. For vegetables, I chop up a small carrot, half a large zucchini, half an onion, a handful of cauliflower florets, half a red capsicum and a handful of long beans.

I toss the cubes of lamb into a smoking hot wok (I <3 my wok! I bought it for like $12 and seasoned it myself and now it’s beautiful) with the onion slices. I fry them up until the lamb is browned, which only takes a few minutes. I toss in the carrot and cauliflower (these take a bit longer to cook) until they’re softened before I toss in the rest of the vegetables.

(before sauce)

I then cheat (massively) and add a pack of Lee Kum Kee Mongolian Lamb sauce. And it’s done.

Well, that was easy, wasn’t it? Serve with perfectly steamed rice (which I don’t really steam because I now have a rice cooker! Yay!)

I’m getting quite sick of zucchini actually but I shall soldier on.

This is from last week after I made cauliflower and cheese and had leftover Bechamel sauce (which actually sat quite nicely in the fridge for a day without complaining too much). Since I am such a terrific wife, I throw together a nice bit of pasta for Josh’s lunch.

I dice up whatever vegetables I have lying around (what’s new?) and that includes zucchini (again!), red capsicum, cauliflower (how much food can one make from cauliflwer? I still have some more left), and a bit of ham. I toss them into the tasty Bechamel sauce and simmer them for about 5 minutes or until the veggies are tender.

On the side, I boil up some wholemeat pasta. Once done, toss the pasta into the sauce. I find a nice vine-ripened tomato from Jim’s garden, peel it and squash it in. I dress the tomato slightly with a bit of balsamic vinegar mixed with olive oil. And then it goes into the lunchbox with leftover cauliflwer and cheese for Josh for the next day with some shaved parmasan.