Omelette Sushi: Teriyaki Beef Fried Rice

I am not big on parties. By that, I meant planning and hosting one, as I mentioned when I was planning my Chinese Take-Out Party. But in terms of attending a party, pouring my whole heart and soul into having a good time, eating and drinking my azz off, and acting like a complete fool for everybody's enjoyment, I am your party animal.

I'll dress up or dress down into whatever you wanted me to wear, I'll play the games, and I'll sing and dance to whatever music being played, including "Country Road, Take Me Home". But most of all, I'll be the first to head off to the buffet table, and I'll be the last man standing, still scraping food off the trays, resisting the poor caterers who tried to clear the buffet table. This also explains my choices of party outfits. Although I like to look "nice" (and by "nice" I meant slutty hehe like cleavage cleavage cleavage LOL!), I never wear anything skin tight. I always leave plenty of room for multiple trips to the buffet table and the only reason I find it difficult to breathe is because I am normally stuffed up to my eyeballs with food. HA-HA-HA.


My idea of party food is something tasty and sinful (parties are all about indulgence, aren't they?), something which is substantial enough to bolster the amount of alcohol I might have to drink, and something I can still eat while looking effortlessly gorgeous and not at all animalistic (Mission Impossible? LOL).

So...
something tasty and sinful = nicely marbled fatty beef slices with teriyaki sauce
alcohol bolster = riceeeee
easy to pop into my mouth = bite size + japanese inspiration = omelette sushi =

Teriyaki Beef Fried Rice Omelette Sushi

Recipe
Teriyaki Beef Fried Rice
- 2 cups of rice, cooked one day ahead, refrigerate overnight
- 4 cloves of shallot, finely sliced
- 1 lb thinly sliced, nicely marbled fatty beef
- 1 cup of green peas
- teriyaki sauce, soy sauce, pepper

Saute shallot, add beef, add sauces, add rice, mix well, adjust taste by adding sauces if necessary. Let cool

Omelette
- 4 eggs, beaten
- 2 tsp corn starch
- 1/2 cup milk/cream

Mix corn starch with the milk/cream, pour into beaten eggs, mix well. In batches, make a thin, crepe-like omelette.

Omelette Sushi
On an omelette, arrange some beef and fried rice to form a long tube, wrap carefully (the omelette is very delicate), use a sharp knife to cut into bite sized pieces, secure with a toothpick, which also makes it easier for guests to pick.

If you found the omelette too troublesome to make and too delicate to wrap, you can use nori instead (the dry Japanese seaweed paper which is used to wrap sushi) ^_^

Submitting this recipe to Dhanggit's Perfect Party Dishes blog event to celebrate her little girl's first birthday! Yay!



This dish could also be served in a heated food tray, or just for every day dinner, in a rice bowl :)

Nonononono, I am not done with that, please don't take the tray away, excuse me! Sir! Sir!

Durian Steamed Cake

I love durian. To me it is indeed the king of all fruits, while most people think that it is #1 public enemy (yes, carrying durian in public transport and places is normally forbidden).

But I kinda love that so many people around me absolutely HATE durian.
It means, there are always more durian for me, and when the durian lovers united, we can always think of mean pranks to trap those who can't stand it (oppps), such as:
- Made my friend's fiance do push ups with a huge plate of (fragrant to me, stinky to him) durian flesh underneath, right in front of his face. He almost ran to the bin throwing up
- Smeared durian flesh all over a collague's desk (who is the biggest durian hater in the world), it was hard for the durian lovers...trying not to lick it off and all
- On recent Hong Kong TV program, the host trapped the co-host (Amanda S, the model) to try a "special" fried rice...special = DURIAN. She went all "bleghhh" on TV for durian lovers' amusement.

I love durian for its soft and creamy texture, rich and fragrant scent, sweet, sometimes even bitter, almost alcoholic taste. I normally love durian as it gloriously is. No tampering, no turning it into ice cream, cakes, candies, fried rice (this one is truly perverted) etc. I probably hate durian products as much as durian haters hate durians. LOL

However, after roaming around blog-hopping and seeing gorgeous durian products, I am willing to open my tiny little narrow mind and explore. So, inspired by Ching's Steamed Banana Muffins and Jaden's Durian Frozen Yogurt...and thanks to sous chef's mom for the durian....and sous chef for the discouragements, and the Beijing Olympics for the entertainment...and the academy, and my fans...this is dedicated to all durian lovers and haters out there...here's my...

Durian Steamed Cake
...which was done while China's men's basketball team was putting up a great fight, despite losing miserably to USA, and I learnt that Yao Ming just would NOT follow my shouts of helpful advice (smart man), and whisking while you were watching the game intensely will cause batter splattering all over your favorite pillow covers. Sob sob sob

Ehm, back to the cake

Recipe
- 1 cup durian flesh (remove seeds)
- 1 cup self raising flour
- 5 tbsp caster sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup coconut milk
- 1 tbsp peanut oil
- 1 egg, beaten

Mix flour, sugar and salt, create a well in the middle. Mix egg, coconut milk and peanut oil, pour into flour mix and mix. Add durian flesh and mix well. Pour batter into greased small cups (or you can use paper lining), steam for about 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

The cake mellowed the durian taste down and they are moist, soft and fluffy in pretty, palest yellow shade. Let's see if these will convert my durian hater friends to extreme durian haters. LOL

Now will you excuse me, I have some more pointless shouting to the TV to do *grin*

Grubs for the Games: Cheese Burger with Fried Egg & Caramelized Onions

Confession: I don't generally watch sports.

Except for huge events such as the Wimbledon for tennis, or the World Cup for soccer, or Thomas/Uber cup for badminton (Haha! How Indonesian!)...and of course I watch the Olympics! Especially now that it is so close to home (yes, I call Hong Kong "home" too), which means...
- For once, I don't have to be up in the middle of the night watching the games, suffering from the time difference HAHAHA!
- However, some games are on when I am still at work. Damnnn!!!
- We get to feel paranoid, worrying about all kinds of possible terrorist attacks (explosives were found in the super busy Causeway Bay MTR station. Read the news here)
- We get to see how some Hong Kongers, who usually despise being called "Chinese", now turned more Chinese than the mainlanders. It's just hilarious!

Who do I root for? Being in Hong Kong, I root for both Hong Kong and China, and as an Indonesian, I root for Indonesia, and if those aren't in the game, I'll root for the underdog. :p

What do I like to eat while watching the games? Something comforting to relieve the stress from watching the games...(Yes, I get even more nervous than the players. In 1996, I broke a chair watching men's double badminton final for the gold medal (Indonesia vs Malaysia). Luckily Indonesia won before I wrecked my whole house LOL!) preferably something I could eat with my hands, plate on my lap, right in front of my TV. Here's one that I absolutely love, and it reminds me of cheeseburgers they sell in mobile carts in Indonesia...

Cheese Burger with Fried Egg and Caramelized Onions

(Serves 2)
The Buns
- 2 ready to use burger buns
- butter (softened) or spreadable margarine
Butter the buns and pan fry on a saute pan

The Patty
- 0.5 lb minced beef
- salt, pepper, sugar
- cheddar cheese, cut into small cubes
mix all ingredients, roll into patty forms, refrigerate for a couple or hours, pan fry on a saute pan or grill

The Caramelized Onion
- half onion, thinly sliced
- butter
- worchestershire sauce, salt, pepper, sugar
Saute onion in butter until softened, add worchestershire sauce, salt, pepper, sugar

The Layers
Bun, cheesy beef patty, cheddar cheese slice, caramelized onion, fried egg

Sauces
Mayo and ketchup (cream cheese and Indonesian ABC chilli sauce would be great too)

The sides
Fried chicken, fries and Indonesian pickled cucumber

These coming nights, my azz will be planted on my sofa, in front of my big flat screen plasma TV, and this plate of juicy, sinful treats will be on my lap, waiting to be stuffed into my face between my cheers and boos.

Just hope I won't whack sous chef with the ketchup bottle every time China/Hong Kong/Indonesia/the underdogs misses a point. LOL

Dark & Handsome: My (First) Dark Chocolate Cheesecake

Imagine a sleepy-gloomy-stormy afternoon...me and my giant butt (yes, we could make a few separate entities) seated in a comfy sofa, in front of a big screen TV, watching Beautiful Cooking (if you understand Cantonese, please please pleaseeee watch this program, if you aren't rolling on the floor laughing...I'll give up my muffin tray - and probably get a new silicone ones afterwards LOL), sipping refreshing mint tea, and daintily...err...no...barbarically devour this dark chocolate cheesecake (I managed my between laugh snorts and inhaling the cake in a harmony no taichi guru could ever teach).

Yeah, that was quite an afternoon I had...hehe.

This month seems to be the month of my firsts. First it was my first roast chicken, and now it's MY FIRST EVER CHEESECAKE!!! WOOHOOO!

It all started as an idea for a friend's bday. A super sweet girl that I am (haha), I wanted to bake her some kind of cake/muffin/bread/other baked goods.

So I asked:
me: Hey, what's your favorite cake? (I didn't realize the suicidal nature of this question, I was expecting chocolate, berry, etc anything I can throw into a muffin batter lol)
her: I like many kinds of cake
me: Yeah...but you gotta love something the most? (yeah yeah this is going to be easy...choco..strawber..)
her: Cheesecake! I love many kinds...but I definitely love cheesecake the most!
me: (gulp) Oh!!...(gulp)...Is it like...easy to make? (my Gowddd, I never made cheesecake before!)

THUS

My First Dark Chocolate Cheesecake

The recipe was adapted from Epicurious, I just cut everything in half. If I were to fail, I didn't wanna fail BIG. Hehe

The Crust
-12 sticks of chocolate cream wafer (the recipe called for chocolate wafer cookies, which I could not find in my nearest supermarket. I know wafer, I know cookies, but never heard of both together, let's just make it up then)
- 6 pcs of chips ahoy (wafer + cookies, right?)
- 1/4 stick of butter, melted, cooled
- 1 tbsp sugar

Preheat oven to 175C. Since I don't have a food processor, I crushed the wafer and the cookies in a plastic bag, pour into a mixing bowl, add melted butter and sugar, lay at the bottom of the pan (you should use a spring form pan, but since I didn't have one, I just used 1 small aluminium foil pan and my medium bread loaf pan..oppps). I baked my crust for about 10 minutes, and let it cool while I prepared the cake. I kept my oven on as recommended by the recipe.


The Cake
- 3/4 of 250gr 80% Dark Chocolate Bar, melted, cooled (I used Cadbury. The recipe called for a better quality chocolate, I just selected the cheapest of the bunch hehe, and it was sufficient)
- 2 packs of 250 gr cream cheese, room temperature
- 3/4 cup caster sugar
- 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 eggs

In the recipe, this part sounded easy. Easy enough for me to think that I COULD do it. In reality....

The recipe instructed us to use food processor. I don't have one and I was prepared to use a whisk...until I remembered my friend's hand mixer at the bottom of my kitchen shelf (how did it even get there? A longggg story), which I had never tried operating my entire life. I was SUDDENLY determined to use it. As in, all materials were ready by the mixing bowl and I was still trying to assemble the mixer, fumbling about the user manual. Finally, sous chef had to help and brace yourself, bitches, here we go:

- Cream cheese, chocolate powder and sugar into the bowl
- Sous chef break the cream cheese blocks into smaller chunks using a fork, me taking out the pans with the crust from the oven
- Sous chef was ready with hand mixer on hand, me holding the mixing bowl with oven mitts (we didn't know how the mixer was gonna behave, it could be very very naughty, we were expecting the worst)
- Sous chef tried mixing using low speed, some cream cheese pieces were definitely flying all over the place (yes, that explained the white thingy on your face now)
- Mixing continued, sous chef got the hang of it and now happily switched to turbo (!!!)
- Me, throwing eggs into the mixture, 1 egg at the time, in this order: crack egg - pour egg in - run to the kitchen to throw egg shell - run to the bathroom to wash hands - put on oven mitts - back to mixing bowl holding position - get ready for the second egg (this could be the new sport for the Beijing Olympics. I'm so gonna win a gold medal for this)
- Finally, I threw the last drop of melted chocolate into the mixture, and sous chef did an excellent job mixing. It was smoooooooth
- The mixture was poured into the two pans and baked for about 30 mins (the small pan) and 40 mins (the big pan)
- I let the cake cool, then chill in the fridge and had to repeatedly saying "NO!" to sous chef's repeated question: "Can we try now?"

As I said, NO!

The Topping
- 1/2 cup cream
- the remaining of the chocolate bar (if you haven't already finished it)
- 1 tbsp sugar

In a sauce pan, mix everything together and stir on low heat until smooth, let cool for a bit, pour while still liquid. As I failed to pour the topping 1 cm off the edges, I just pour it all over the top. More topping won't hurt, aye? Let cool, refrigerate.

I am not good with cake decorating...and I don't have the pipe thingy, or the silver balls, or the sugar roses, or the happy bday thing on white chocolate...so this was what I did for the bday cake:
- Write on some sparkly army green paper
- Cut off the edges
- Stick the paper onto some toothpicks with scotch tape
and...TADA!

This post is dedicated to my good friend, Foodaholiv, may your days stay vodkaLIVcious!
Thanks for inspiring me to make my first very own cheesecake.

...oh, and apologies for making you the victim of all my baking "experiments" LOL

Fish Rice Noodle Soup: Bad Girl Gone Good

Meals after meals of rich, decadent and tasty food...it is time for something clean and clear. Yeah. Right.
That doesn't sound like Rita. Since when did she turn to such a good girl? Something's fishy alright.

The truth is...yes, mostly I love everything that's bad for me. But it also feels nice to be a good girl sometimes...so when people (when I say "people", I really meant my mom) ask "Do you eat well? do you eat healthy? Do you eat vegetables?" I could say "Yes! Yes! and Yes!"

Plus, this month, I could see a few birthdays coming, and each will include at least one, if not multiple satisfying, naughty and sinful meals (is it just me? or this sounds naughtier than I intended? LOL).

Thus, just this once, preparing myself for all the foreseeable beautifully orchestrated symphony of cholesterol and fat, I'll treat myself to something clean, clear, healthy, but still with a great deal of yummility to it ^_^

Fish Rice Noodle Soup

Recipe
(serves 2)
- 2 packs of thin rice noodles (mai fan) or you can choose any other noodles
- 0.5 lb of boneless fish fillet (I use seabass fillet), cut into bite size chunks
- 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 2 cloves shallot, thinly sliced
- 1 cm ginger, crushed
- a cup of fish stock or chicken stock
- 2 large tomatoes, each cut into 8 parts
- celery, cut into small pieces
- olive oil
- salt, pepper, sugar, fish sauce
- red chilli, fish sauce and vinegar (for dipping)

Marinate fish with salt and pepper, pan fried in some oil, set aside (if you want it more sinful, you can add corn starch coating and pan fry until golden brown hehe). Saute garlic, shallot, ginger, add celery pieces, add stock, add tomatoes, add hot water if you want it more soupy, add rice noodles, serve with fish fillets on top, garnish with fried garlic pieces or shallot, serve with chilli dip (for the fish).

Sharing this with Presto Pasta Night's Gang, hosted this week by Michelle of Greedy Gourmet
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That was me being a good girl for one meal. Today I had a slice of lemon cake for breakfast, a sinful yumcha lunch and 3 different birthday cakes (chocolate cheesecake, mango cheesecake and black forest)...and it's not even dinner time yet hehe

Boy, it feels so good to be bad :p