Creamy Sweet Corn & Bacon Pasta Recipe

Sweetness of corn & saltiness of bacon. I always love such a combo. Initially I made this for my toddler (OMG, feeding my son bacon - that makes me a bad mom, right? Oh well... just once in a while... and mommy wants some too!). So here goes.

Recipe
(serves 2)
- pasta for 2 (measure using those pasta measuring rings), I used spaghetti
- 2 fresh sweet corn kernels
- 2 strips of bacon per person (I used lean back bacon and removed the fat)
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- butter, cream, salt, pepper

Cook pasta according to the instruction on the packet - do not overcook. If pasta's done before sauce is done, drain and set it aside. Meanwhile, melt about a tbsp butter, add garlic, saute until fragrant, add bacon, add corn, cook until there's a bit of brownage going. Add cream to your liking (I added about 120 ml), season with salt and pepper. Toss the pasta with the sauce and serve hot.

Add some fresh herbs if you like. I didn't since I'd have to pick them out one by one as my big boss (the toddler) demanded. Oh man, I'm such a loser mom.

Anyway, enjoy the pasta!

Homemade Pasta with Black Truffle Paste or XO Sauce

So, I've finally tried making my own pasta at home! Thanks to Linguini Fini's goodie bag!
Look at all the mess I've made, but it's so worth it!


I don't have a pasta maker, so I hand rolled my pasta. I also didn't know how maltagliata pasta's supposed to look like and at that moment, it didn't occur to me that I could google it. Duh! Please excuse my blond moment. So I cut my pasta the way I like it the most.

It was a busy weekend, and I didn't bother making a sauce. I've consumed the pasta two easy ways.
Homemade Pasta with Black Truffle Paste

After it's cooked to al dente, the pasta's tossed with a bit of olive oil and black truffle paste, with a touch of sea salt. I've learnt this combo from a friend and oh my! It may sound so simple, and I know it's only black truffle paste and not freshly shaved black truffle, but it's absolutely delicious! I am sooo totally doing this combo again.

Homemade Pasta with XO Sauce

The other batch of pasta's tossed with XO sauce, a touch of light soy sauce and sesame oil. You know it's gotta be good. Plate-licking fantastic!

If you're up to making your own pasta, here's chef Vinny's recipe.

If not, you can use the above combo with any pasta or noodles.

Enjoy!

Weekend Pasta Lunch at Bene Italian - Sha Tin - Hong Kong

I used to check out openrice for dining venues when I ventured out of my familiar districts in Hong Kong. But these days? I find that much less helpful. We "openriced" Sha Tin, and all we got were froyo, coffee shops, or bakery. Ahem...not what we're looking for.

We walked around a bit and decided to try this place. I love the cute decor, the color scheme, and the open kitchen. As for the food? We just hoped for the best :)

Since I had to take care of baby M, I didn't photograph the foccacia, tomato soup, and the caesar salad from the set lunch. But I remember liking them all.

SC ordered squid ink seafood pasta in white wine sauce. It's simple yet super flavorful! Perfectly cooked seafood and pasta. Light and simple but still tasty broth. It was perfect for the hot and sticky weather. I was very pleasantly surprised.


I ordered creamy mushroom, bacon and egg yolk pasta. A tad heavy for the weather, but I only had myself to blame for not being able to resist ordering something creamy. I love it. Again, perfectly cooked pasta with delicious sauce.

We decided to add a bit more dollars to get a dessert with coffee to share.

The caramel cake's lovely. Soft, moist, with just enough bitterness and tang from the raspberry and blueberry. The coffee's Lavazza and I like it (since it's served with cream on the side, I think I like cream more than coffee? hehehe).
A very lovely lunch, we'd definitely visit again when we're in Sha Tin.

The set lunch including bread, soup/salad, main course, dessert and coffee/tea costs HK128. It costs less without dessert and coffee, but since I am a horrible blogger, I can't remember how much is it ^_^' sorry!

Bene Italian
Shop 103A, 1/F, New Town Plaza Phase 1
Sha Tin
沙田沙田正街18號新城市廣場一期一樓103A舖
Tel: +852 2699 3939


After lunch, where did we go?

Pizza Cone & Coffee Soda from Caffe Pascucci, Langham Place, Mongkok

You've heard of ice cream cone.
You've heard of pizza.

But pizza cone?

I was intrigued!
They've successfully grabbed my attention. Let's give it a try.

I ordered the Italian pizza cone, and it looks...cute.
Was it good?

It promises tomato sauce, cheese, cooked ham, mushrooms, oregano and salami.


But it was mostly tomato sauce and cheese (but at least there was really lots and lots of cheese, down to the bottom of the cone).

See! Lotsa cheese!

It's...interesting.
The pizza cone or crust...was a little too thick and crispy...kind of hard (I guess because it has to hold the filling/pizza topping), to the point that it could inflict some damage to my gum if I were not careful (but I was)...but it's not that bad. It would make quite a good snack, it would be much better if the cone can be a little thinner and not as hard.

SC was being a little unadventurous and ordered the lunch set of penne in spicy tomato sauce with orange juice.

The pasta was nicely cooked, the spicy tomato sauce could be a little spicier, it was a little too subtle for me, but overall, not bad.

Caffe Pascucci offers quite a selection of coffee themed drinks and desserts...which all looked amazing (I made a mental note to go back next time and try them)...but I had a huge weakness for...that's right. Soda.
Coffee soda.

In Indonesia, we have coffee cream soda, which is a tad too sweet, but this one's just perfect!

Not too sweet, and surprisingly refreshing, especially when it's served with a slice of orange (I didn't expect that).

The perfect thirst-quenching summer alternative to the usual creamy and milky cold coffee drinks.

The meal cost us HK$149 for two.

Caffe Pascucci
Shop 1A, 12/F, Langham Place Shopping Mall

8 Argyle Street, Mong Kok

Hong Kong

旺角亞皆老街8號朗豪坊12樓1A舖

Tel: +852 3514 4171

Easy Spicy Mackarel Pasta

Smiling fish canned fried mackarels in chilli sauce.

They remind me of my young college days...when we stayed in a all (hot) girls dorm (cough cough), and we're only allowed very minimum cooking, this was one of our staples along with endless supply of instant noodles.

The fish chunks taste amaaaazing simply heated and eaten with steamed rice...taste especially yummier when we were hungry and budget was extremely limited (one too many trips to the mall, which led to too many cute outfits, no more money for food and it's the end of the month).

My canned food and I, we're good friends.

I wonder if it would work for a quick and easy Asian inspired pasta dinner.

Recipe
(for two)
- pasta of your choice (I like fusili)
- 2 cans of fried mackarels in chilli sauce
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 3 cloves of shallot, sliced thinly
- 1 cm ginger, crushed
- a bit of lemon juice
- freshly chopped corriander
- light soy sauce, fish sauce, olive oil

Cook pasta according to instructions on the packet. Open the cans of mackarels, break down the fish meat into bite sized chunks (I removed the soft larger bones from the middle of the fish), reserve the chilli sauce. Saute garlic, shallot and ginger in a bit of olive oil until fragrant, add fish chunks, add the chilli sauce (please add bit by bit as you taste as it might be too hot) from the can, heat through, add light soy and fish sauce to balance the sweetness of the chilli sauce. Drain pasta and add to the fish, mix well, taste and adjust flavors if necessary, squeeze some lemon juice and garnish with freshly chopped corriander.

Hot, spicy, sweet, sour, savory, satisfying...and reminds me of my young golden days ;p

Sharing this with the folks at Presto Pasta Nights (oh gosh, it's been a while), created by Ruth, hosted this week by Daphne of More Than Words.

Creamy Chicken & Sweet Corn Pasta

Some of you wrote if I could post some recipes which are good for those who are "having a bun in the oven".

Ehm ehm~
I think I am not much of an expert on that. I didn't even know that I was not supposed to eat bitter melon, watermelon, papaya, banana, snake, crab, eel, lamb, and the rest of the 10000000001 things I should not eat according to various beliefs and tradition. Oppps.

Did "being delicate" change my eating habit?
Am I one of those super lucky ones who don't feel a thing throughout "the journey"?

I wish :D

These last few months, my old food-loving-eat-all-I-can self has been replaced my this new picky-hate-everything-love-nothing bitch.

To illustrate....
Old self - word association:
Mushrooms - Yum!
Foie Gras - OMG! Yum!
Sushi - Gimme more!
Fried chicken - Where?

New self - word association:
Mushrooms - Yuck!
Foie Gras - OMG! Yuck!
Sushi - Yuck! Yuck!
Fried Chicken - Yuck? Yuck. Yuck!

I literally hated everything. Including but not limited to things I usually adore. I hate everything from my favorite aromatics such as garlic, onion, scallion, etc, so say goodbye to cooking. I also hate my favorite food such as mushrooms; rich flavored, spicy food; chocolate cake; etc.
Hate. Them. All.

So, no cooking, no dining out, no nothing.
Those were the days when I no longer live to eat.
I just eat to live...or puke (Oppps. Sorry).

When I finally got a wee bit better, I tried cooking something simple & easy. Something that doesn't make me gag when I think of it....I decided to make...

Creamy Chicken & Sweet Corn Pasta

Normally, I'd totally use garlic, onion and cheese...but not this time.

Recipe
(serves two)
- your choice of pasta (fusili is my favorite)
- 1 can of sweet corn kernels, drain the water
- 0.5 lb skinless, boneless chicken breast meat
- a bit of cream (depends how rich you want it to be)
- freshly chopped parsley
- olive oil, salt, pepper, a bit of corn starch

While preparing the sauce, cook pasta according to the direction on the packet. If you are not a multitasker, prepare the sauce first to avoid overcooking the pasta.

Cut chicken breast into bite sized chunks, season with salt and pepper, dust lightly with a bit of corn starch, mix well. Heat up a frying pan, add a bit of olive oil, add chicken pieces, let cook on one side until you get a bit of brownage, flip and cook thoroughly. Add corn kernels, heat thoroughly, add a few dashes of cream and season with salt and pepper.

Once pasta is done, pour pasta over sauce in the pan, mix well, add a bit of liquid used to cook the pasta if necessary. Check if you need to adjust the seasoning. Add freshly chopped parsley and serve.

Finally! The word "yum" came back in my vocabulary.

Baked Pasta with Fish, Bacon and Cheddar - Too Much isn't Always Wonderful

It's been a while since I made pasta.

Why?
Ask me questions!
- Are you too loyal to rice, so that eating pasta makes me feel guilty? Nope, I love almost all food almost equally. HAHA
- Do you just hate pasta? Of course not! (who can possibly hate pasta, btw?)
- Are you on low carb diet? Bah! I am on high everything diet.

You're never gonna get it right.

- Are you too lazy to cook pasta?....

Hmmm...this question is rather difficult to answer...

- Are you crap at cooking pasta?

Errr....can I say "no comment"?

I know that most people find cooking pasta "quick and easy".
I still remember a friend's answer to "what do you cook for your husband every day?". She said "Easy. Pasta."

I don't get it. To me, cooking a good pasta dish is challenging. It involves a lot more steps that how I normally cook. But, knowing me, I was probably making things difficult for myself. It could never be "simply cook the pasta and mix with the sauce" for me. Purely because I don't know how to achieve a good pasta dish that way...yet. I always felt obligated to do too much, and too much isn't always wonderful.

Baked Pasta with Fish, Bacon and Cheddar

This dish photographed like a sweet dream.
Golden, glistening, glorious, gorgeous.
Too bad it doesn't taste as amazing as it looks.

I baked this pasta dish to get a crunchy top with a creamy bottom.

The top was great. The bacon's tasty (as if bacon could ever taste bad), the fish pieces were succulent, the scorched cheese layer with bits of herbs and black pepper flakes was delicious, and the pasta has a touch of wonderful crunchiness to it.

But the bottom was not too great. The bottom part of the pasta turned dry and it didn't get most of the good parts from the top, and it went too hard to mix. I should've added more sauce to keep the pasta creamy at the bottom next time (if there's gonna be a next time).

Although the dish wasn't a success, let me still share what I did for this dish:
- Pasta for two, boiled and drained
- Fish fillet, seasoned with salt and pepper, seared just a little bit, not completely cooked
- Bacon bits, pan fried without oil until shrunk and cripsy
- Sauce: oil from the bacon, finely chopped garlic, dried herbs (rosemary, oregano, thyme, sage), salt, pepper and cream, sauteed and cooked in a fry pan
- grated cheddar cheese, black pepper and dried herbs topping

Preheat oven to 250C, assemble pasta in an oven proof dish, pasta, fish fillet, pour sauce, add grated cheese on top, bake until golden brown, add bacon bits.

It's more like a savoury pasta cake than a creamy pasta dish.
Sigh.

Sharing this failure with Presto Pasta Nights gang (Gosh, it's been a while, and I wonder if sharing failure is allowed. Oppps), hosted this week by Equal Opportunity Kitchen

I promise that I'll share something that isn't a food disaster in my next post, guys. Wish me luck. I need it so.

Spicy Lamb & Shrimp Paste Fusili

Oh my goodness. It's been a while since I've made pasta, I wonder if I could still pull it off. Those who normally read my blog know that I don't do things authentically, nor innovatively. I just do things my lazy way. There were times when I put 2 + 2 = 100, and there were times when I put 2 + 2 = -100, to put it simply, they didn't work. This time, I wanted some Asian flavors on my pasta, so I tried mixing lamb and shrimp paste. Let's see how it goes.

Don't you feel that when you've stopped doing something for too long, when you do it again, it feels kinda weird and you have to start getting a hang of it all over again? (Nooooo I am not talking about THAT. Hehe)

That's how I felt about cooking pasta. Suddenly, I didn't know how to tell if the pasta's cooked just right, I added too much shrimp paste (boy, it's powerful) and had to adjust and adjust. A lot of work, I was glad it ended up great. A tad too tasty, but it worked for me.

Spicy Lamb and Shrimp Paste Fusili

Recipe
(serves 4)
- 1 cup of fusili
- 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 6 cloves of shallot, thinly sliced
- 3 red chillis, chopped
- a bunch of fresh corriander, chopped
- 0.7 lb lamb, sliced thinly, sukiyaki style
- 2 tsp shrimp paste
- 1 tsp sugar
- pepper, olive oil, water, salt

Cook pasta as directed in the packet, drain. Saute garlic, shallot, chilli and a bit of corriander in olive oil, add sliced lamb, add shrimp paste and sugar, cook through, add pasta, mix well, serve with freshly chopped corriander.

There's something else I haven't done for really really long time...submitting a pasta dish to one of my favorite foodblog events, Presto Pasta Nights. I miss it dearly. This one's for you, guys. This week's it's hosted by lovely Pam from Sidewalk Shoes. Hop over to her blog to check out the roundup.

Now...there's still another thing I haven't done for a very long time...I wonder if I'd still be good at it. Let's see. ;)

Valentine's Day Dinner & More

"Love is where the yummility is"
....or whatever.
Could it be the air of festivity? the romantic atmosphere? There must be something that makes me so philosophical (again?)...mumbling phrases of (seriously twisted) love, while tip toeing around the kitchen preparing dinner.

So, what sort of food I find suitable for a night of (cheesy and corny) romance?
Something that screams decadent, succulent and scrumptious.

Salad with Duck Liver Mousse or Brie on Pumpernickle Toast
- Pumpernickle bread
- Duck liver mousse
- Brie
- Bean sprouts
- Olive oil, salt, black pepper, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, lemon zest
Place sprouts in a bowl, drizzle olive oil, balsamic vinegar, grate a bit of lemon zest, season with salt and pepper, squeeze some lemon juice, mix well. Drizzle bread with olive oil and toast. Spread duck liver mousse or brie on top, add some sprouts, drizzle a bit of balsamic vinegar....and bite.

What to do with such succulence?

They were marinated in lemon juice, lemon zest, black pepper, salt and sugar, and sauteed until just pink, then set aside...to rejoin others to complete the pasta dish...

Shrimps and Bacon Squid Ink Tagliatelle in Creamy Sauce

- 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- cream
- squid ink tagliatelle (or replace with any pasta)
- bacon
- shrimps (deshelled, deveined, marinated, sauteed)
- olive oil, butter, salt, pepper, sugar, lemon juice
Cook pasta as directed in the packet. Saute garlic with olive oil and butter, add cream, season. Once pasta is almost done, drain, quickly toss into the pan with creamy sauce, add shrimps, cook until the shrimps are just done, transfer to plate, add crispy bacon, squeeze some lemon juice...

...for maximum cheesiness, serve pasta in just one plate, provide two forks, feed each other, sip something sparkly in a pretty color, and lick....the plate clean.

The Most Perfect Steak I've Ever Done

Heyyy, good loookin'! Come to papa...
- 2 pieces of rib eye steak with nice marbling
- Olive oil, butter, dry herbs (oregano, thyme, rosemary, sage), salt, black pepper
- bean sprouts
- red wine, steak sauce (it comes with the beef, but you can choose to make your own sauce)

Preheat oven to 180C (350F), and on a stove top, heat a frying pan until really really really hot (I saw smoke!) without oil. Drizzle steak with olive oil, season with salt, pepper and dried herbs. Place steaks on the very very hot pan, try not to flip/move it around, let them sear until nicely charred (it was about 1.5 minutes per side, also depends on how thick your steak is and how done you want it to be, I love mine medium to medium well), transfer to oven and let them cook for 5 more minutes, remove from oven and let it rest for 5 minutes.

On the pan where you sear the steak, pour steak sauce (optional), add red wine and bring to boil.

Serve steak on top of a bed of salad, drizzle with sauce. Oh, and a nice glass of nice red wine won't hurt ;)

The steak should be nicely seared on the outside, perfectly blushing inside, juice, tender and luscious, with rich and smokey marmaladey sauce. Mmm...mmm...Mmmm!!!

...and when you thought you could not take any more decadence....
Choco Hoto Pots

(adapted from Nigella Lawson's recipe)
(serves 4)
- 3/4 cup dark chocolate chunks
- 1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter
- 2 large eggs
- 1/3 cup caster sugar (originally 3/4 cup, which I found too sweet)
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup dark chocolate chunks

Preheat oven to 400F (200C). Butter four 2/3-cup ramekins and set aside.Using a double boiler, melt the dark chocolate chunks and butter. Set aside to cool. In a separate bowl, combine eggs, sugar and flour. Add cooled chocolate mixture, and mix until blended. Fold in dark chocolate chunks. Divide mixture evenly among ramekins and place on baking sheet. Bake until tops are shiny and cracked and chocolate beneath is hot and gooey, about 15 minutes. Place each ramekin on a small plate with a teaspoon and serve.

Again, the dessert was served with something sweet, sparkly and pretty...

...blushing pink sparkling sake.

Oh what a wonderful night...everything looked beautiful...*hiccup* or maybe it was just the sake?

What did I wear? What did I get? What did I do? What did other Hong Kongers do? Check 'em out at Living La Vida Rita.

Indomie Goreng - My #1 Guilty Pleasure

What's the first thing I go for when I get tired of cooking? (apart from the obvious choice of confusing myself with an avalanche of choices from Hong Kong's gastronomic smorgasboard).

I always go for....
Indomie Goreng!
Yeah, baby. Yeah! (ala Austin Powers - can you picture me doin' it?)

It's fattening. It doesn't really do good things for my body by providing vitamin A-Z (is there a vitamin Z?). So, naturally, it taste abso-freaking-lutely delicious!!! It's the best dry instant noodles ever, and it earned a top #1 spot at Rita's list of Indonesian products to be proud of, and brag about.

It is well received by the international community (and by "the international community", I meant my foreign schoolmates, friends and coworkers from different countries)....pretty much nobody I know does not LOVE Indomie Goreng.

In Hong Kong, it's called "yan nei min" (Indonesian noodles. It's as if my whole country does not produce any other noodles but Indomie Goreng). There was a restaurant which solely serve Indomie goreng, alongside....nothing less than the highly priced Chinese delicacy, the bird nest desserts. Wow! Ain't that the highest honor? It's like pairing me with Brad Pitt...or whoever it is you consider as super highly coveted and wayyy out of your league.

It didn't stop there. Someone started a message thread in a local online forum, about how many packs of Indomie goreng is the perfect amount for consumption to reach the ultimate satisfaction (as one pack is so obviously never enough). Some said three, another said four. Personally, I think 1.5 is the perfect portion for me.

As I previously mentioned Nigella's "too much of a good thing can be wonderful" principle applies to Indomie Goreng too.
I love my Indomie Goreng...
- still gloriously curly
- with one egg, the white part crisp, the yolk runny, drizzled with kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce)
- mini cheese dogs
- cheap fish meat siu mai
- etcetera, the more the merrier

Holiday snap of the day...

Lil' frosty said hi....from Jusco $10 shop, Mongkok (one of my favorite shops)

If you're curious (or nosy?) like me, you probably wanna see how I live my life in Hong Kong, what outfit I wear every day, my beauty routine, where do I go on weekends, etc. I must warn you though...it ain't pretty, check it out at your own risk.

Now, tell me how do you like your Indomie Goreng or your other guilty pleasures (nono, not THAT one)

Black Pepper Beef & Mushrooms Fusili

I love the humble lil' fusili. Call it common, call it boring, call it unimaginative. Whatever. I still love it. Everything about it. The spiral shape that traps bits and pieces of goodness from the dish, the way it catches the light and look all pretty on a plate, and how I could just gobble a spoonful without having to maneuver them with a fork. I suck at that. I can never manage to roll spaghetti with a fork elegantly, then nonchalantly bring it to my mouth and eat it without losing a huge portion of my lipstick or smearing my face with pasta sauce. I normally savagely grab whatever I could with a fork and loudly slurp the rest, and lick the plate clean hehe (that is not a pretty sight - this is why I don't normally order spaghetti outside the enclosed perimeters of my flat). I am also partial to all kinds of flat pasta, such as lasagna, fettuccini and tagliatelle. Maybe they remind me of my favorite Chinese flat rice noodles (hor fun/kway teow).

Enough pasta bullshite already! Let me continue to bore you with this...
Black Pepper Beef and Mushroom Fusili

Another math lesson, guys (by the way, I suck at math too. Luckily this is a no brainer math)
Beef + mushrooms = good
Good + garlic = fantastic
Fantastic + black pepper = freaking fantastic
Freaking fantastic + pasta = super freaking perfect

Hmm...I don't think I need to write this recipe...but oh, well.
Recipe
(serves 2)
- 4 handfuls of fusili
- 0.7 lb thinly sliced nicely marbled beef (if available, the one for sukiyaki)
- 0.5 lb straw mushrooms, halved (or any other mushrooms)
- 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- olive oil, water, salt (with no iodine, you can use normal sea salt), black pepper

Boil pasta according to directions in the packet. While pasta is boiling, saute garlic in a bit of olive oil (the beef will release some additional fat, so you don't need to use a lot of oil), add beef, add mushrooms, sprinkle black pepper (I like quite a lot of it), season with salt, add pasta, mix well. Done and done.

Sharing this with Presto Pasta Night's Gang, created by Ruth of Once Upon a Feast, hosted this week by lovely Daphne from More Than Words

Other Low Iodine Recipes...

Surprisingly yummy Eggless Milkless Chocolate Cake

Chicken & Mussels Fusili in Spicy Chilli Bean Sauce - Food Blogging Events Fever

Food blogging events. Wow! There are just sooo many of them nowadays...check them out here, you will find sooo many different topics you can choose to participate in. You name it, they got it. Hats off to those food blogging events creators. Despite all the fun, it is a hard work to host an event, unless you are having other people hosting for you, which I think is very clever. Pure genius! ^_^

Do I like food blogging events? To be honest, I LOVEEEEEEEEEEE them! Probably a little too much...that sometimes I kept thinking about what I could come up with before I fall asleep and as soon as I woke up (SC, no worries. You were also there in my thoughts - pranching around amongst all the ingredients in ballet tights hehe).

Why do I love participating in food blogging events so much?
- I am a natural born virtual party animal. I sniffed a party, I got all itchy to join :). I got to know many cool food bloggers from everywhere from these virtual parties!
- I'll never get out of ideas. The events are stimulus for me to build ideas around various themes. Plus, they gave me the necessary nudge to try new things. Without participating in food blogging events, I probably wouldn't have known what leek is ^_^
- I know participating in events boosts hit rate, linky links and stuff like that, but I'd rather not get too focused on that. It could spoil all the fun for me :)

One of my favorite food blogging event in which I try to participate regularly is Presto Pasta Nights, created by Ruth from Once Upon A Feast. This event motivates me to should create a new pasta/noodle dish, at least one day of the week ^_^...and here's my spicy pasta this week:

Chicken and Mussels Fusili in Spicy Chilli Bean Sauce

Recipe
(serves two)
- 5 handfuls of mini fusili pasta (they are smaller than your regular fusili)
- approx 8 medium sized mussels, deshelled, marinate in lime/lemon juice
- half lb of skinless, boneless chicken breast meat, whacked and cut into bite sized chunks
- 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 2 cloves of shallot, thinly sliced
- a sprig of fresh corriander, chopped
- 3 tbsp of chilli bean sauce (dau ban jiang)
- olive oil, salt, pepper, sugar, corn starch

Marinate chicken pieces in a bit of lime/lemon juice, salt, pepper and 1 tsp corn starch. Start cooking pasta as instructed in the packet. Saute garlic, shallot, some of the fresh corriander, add chicken and mussels, add the chilli bean sauce, mix well, cook until the meat is almost done. Drain pasta, use some of the pasta water to thicken sauce, pour the pasta into the sauce mixture, mix well, add seasoning if necessary, garnish with freshly chopped corriander.

Now it is my turn to go pranching around in pink ballet tutu in SC's mind while SC's thinking about video games

Threesome, Anyone? (I meant Three Ways of Wontons)

I love the idea of threesome. In fact, more than threesome! Bring on the gang b*ng of flavors and let's party!

I was talking about food (I always do, right?), specifically wontons. They are the Chinese version of dumplings or ravioli? (I am not gonna discuss and debate who invented what here hehe). They are so versatile and super easy to make! I love making a big batch, freeze them, and have them the way I want them anytime (is it just me or it gets a lil hotter here? Hehe).

Here's how I "do"...
Wontons - Three Ways

Wonton Ingredients
- 1 pack of wonton skin (has anyone tried using ravioli skin instead?)
- 1 lb minced pork
- 0.75 lb smallish shrimps (deshelled, deveined)
- 1 small clove of garlic, finely chopped
- a few sprigs of spring onion, finely chopped
- 2 tbsp oyster sauce
- a few tbsp corn starch (depends how sticky you like them to be, I personally love mine very sticky and starchy)
- chicken stock powder (optional), salt, pepper, sugar
- a bit of sesame oil

Mix all ingredients together well, except for skin.

Here's how I fold wontons, three ways:
Remember not to put too much filling and your they will burst before all the actions even begin (hehe)





and see how adorable they are...


...and here are my three favorite ways to have them:
1. Wonton Soup

I used a simple soup of chicken stock, a dash of oyster sauce, sesame oil, pepper, salt, sugar, with vegetables. Boil your wontons separately (wonton skin has a distinct scent which I don't like), and serve with the soup. Serve with Chinese chilli oil and vinegar for condiments, garnish with fried garlic flakes and chopped spring onion.

You can go crazy with the soup. Think beef with Chinese five spice soup, ginger soy chicken soup, tomyum soup, satay soup, curry soup base, and so on...

2. Deep Fried Wontons

Fry wontons in medium heat until golden brown. Serve with chilli sauce, or mayo, or even dip them into the wonton soup base, drenched in kecap manis, tres Indonesian! Hehe

3. Wontons in Spicy Sauce

This dish is very popular in Hong Kong's Shanghaiese restaurants. My version is absolutely NOT authentic. I pretty much just throw whichever spicy sauce I love :p
Boil wontons, drain. Prepare sauce on a plate, I use bean chilli sauce (dau ban jeong), Chiu Chowese chilli oil, dark soy sauce, sesame oil and a dash of vinegar). Feel free to mix and match or create your own sauce. If you don't like it hot (really?), oyster sauce with dark soy sauce will work too ;) Garnish with fried garlic flakes and or chopped spring onions


Sharing this recipe with Presto Pasta Night's gang, invented by Ruth, hosted this week by Kitchenetta

Sous chef, if you are reading, this is only about food. Don't start getting any ideas from this post, okie?