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It's been ______________ since my last confession (can't be bothered trying to remember).
I've been hit by......no, not a disco stick.
I've been hit by a lazy stick.
I have not been cooking lately.
When I cooked, it's so simple I couldn't be bothered to take pictures.
When I took pictures, I couldn't be bothered to style it.
I have even been too lazy to try some new and exciting establishments.
This lazy stick, it's gigantic.
This ridiculously simple dish was not a product of my recent sloth.
This was one of the dishes I made when I still had the heart to think of what to cook, cascade the meat beautifully on a little place, took a photograph of it in more than just one "pose", and scattered the ingredients around it as a (desperate) form of "food styling".
Although it's not much, it'd be better than my recent serial local fast food/charchanteng spread.
Please, enjoy.
Ingredients
- 1/2 lb pork neck (rinse, pat dry, leave them whole)
- salt, black pepper, dry mixed herbs (rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano)
- additional lemon zest and a bit of lemon juice would be fantastic
Preheat oven to 250C, rub pork neck large pieces with salt, pepper, herbs and lemon zest generously, place them on baking sheet, grill until golden. Take them out of the oven, slice thinly and serve.
Pork neck is really a forgiving meat due to its high fat content, get them a bit charred to get tasty crispy bits. Never worry about overcooking them (but of course not up to the point where all you got is a couple chunks of charcoal). They'll remain juicy.
Serve 'em over salad with some vinaigrette, as appetizer, or as party food...but the way I see it, it tasted amazing with steamed rice :D
Wanna play with these cuddly cuties but wanna be spared from scooping poop outta kitty litter boxes?
You may wanna go to Choco Cat cafe.
Here kitty kitty kitty kitty...
Who's this bitch and why is she interrupting my sleep? Roarrr~
Look at those chairs....:D
I can assure you, it wasn't me ;)
Scribble down what's on your mind...express your inner cattiness.
Wait, is there food at all in this cafe? Or only cat food?
Ehm...the thing with the food is...you have to get involved in the cooking process.
What????!!!!
I dine out precisely because I despise cooking, why do I have to do that?
What if I screwed up? I'll end up with yucky food!
Relax, you won't be doing all the cooking.
All ingredients have been prepared...
...all you have to do is following Mr. Chef's instructions.
Did you see SC? Never thought that he's a pinkie lifter...so SC poured vinegar, bottled Caesar dressing (yikes?), and seasoning on the salad...
...and assembled it.
Of course he wanted to put cherry tomato pieces on the side of the plate in a circular pattern. It's the only way that made sense! Add some smoked salmon on top...and...
TA DAAAA!!!
The apron made all the difference.
But how was the salad?
Well...imagine salad packs you get from supermarkets, with instant Caesar dressing, smoked salmon and a tad too much vinegar. It is what it is.
Now, the drinks...
We have to be involved in the drinks making too!
Pour ingredients, blend...
Garnish...
...and serve.
Anything made of canned lychee, syrup and ice...
is bound to be good.
What did I help making?
Raspberry some-kind-of-slurpee.
I don't really visit this place for the food, I went mostly for the cats :)
Meow~
Chococat Cafe
Address:
3/F,Parmannand Hse
No. 51-52 Hai Phong Road
Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon
Hong Kong
Te: +852 2721 2129
The ever so sweet and kind Kenny from Chic Eats sent me two packs of heirloom tomato seeds before Christmas. The mail got lost, however, it finally found its way to my apartment (it was like, after new year ^_^). Upon receipt of the seeds, we could not wait to get them planted. We went shopping for a pot and some soil and got them planted. Now, we are seeing little tomato plants! I'm so excited!
I can't take any credit for this though. SC was the one planting and nurturing the seeds and plants every day, showering them with lots and lots of love...
Oh, tomatoes, please don't die on us!
Kenny, thanks so very much again for the seeds~
I generally love burgers, including the ones from McDonald's and Burger King (sorry).
I hardly meet any burgers that I don't like (you know this is NOT the truth, I've bitched about quite a number of burger joints before via twitter).
Why am I contradicting myself in my blog?
Who knows? It's the weather. It's Wednesday. I'm hungry. I'm confused!
OK. Back to burgers. Love them, love them much.
However, I don't love doing burgers at home, no matter how delicious, how much I can customize the burgers to fit my wildest imagination...I just try not to do burgers at home.
Why?
You know how I love one-pot, minimum-effort-maximum-flavors dishes?
Burgers are just so not it.
In Cantonese...they're MA Q FAN!
The patties, the buns, the fillings, the sauces...OMG.
The troubles!
However, when we put our heart into it, we can make it happen, right? (What is this? A motivational talk? I'll pass :D)
Anyway, I was in a rare madness of wanting to do burgers at home, so I did.
The burger patties
I used a simple recipe adapted from here
- 1 egg
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1/2 pound ground beef
- 1/2 cup fine dry bread crumbs
- a couple dashes of worchestershire sauce
- 4 strips of turkey bacon, chopped
Crack the egg in a mixing bowl, add salt and pepper, add beef and turkey bacon, mix well, add a couple dashes of worchestershire sauce, the bread crumbs and mix well. Form the mix into thick patties (1.5 -2 cm thick), flatten the middle part a little.
Preheat oven to 200C and preheat a grill/frying pan and lightly grease it. I preheated mine on medium heat for about 4-5 minutes, place patties on the pan until you get nice brownage, just a couple of minutes on each side. Dump patties into the oven (preferably with the pan) until you reach the desired level of doneness. I ovened mine for about 10 minutes and it ended up with a really nice crisp outside and juicy inside.
The buns
I used store bought English muffins for the buns, buttered both sides and toast them lightly right before assembly.
The fillings 
- 2 cups of sliced shiitake mushrooms
- 1 clove of garlic, minced
- dry mixed herbs (oregano, rosemary, thyme, sage)
- a touch of white wine
- olive oil, butter, salt, black pepper
Saute garlic in a bit of olive oil and butter, add mushrooms, add white wine and cook for a couple of minutes, add herbs, season with salt and black pepper, set aside.
The assembly
Butter toasted English muffin, sauteed mushrooms, grated mozzarella and parmesan, burger patty, and the other half of the butter toasted English muffin.
Now, do the right thing...
Grab this with both hands and enjoy.
It surely gets messy, so eating this without a plate on a white fabric sofa?
Be prepared to buy a new sofa.
Serve them with chips if you wish, but I don't make chips at home.
Serve them with salad if you wish, but I don't make salads at home...I hardly even order them in restaurants.
I am not a purist and I don't get offended if you'd like to enjoy this with ketchup, chilli sauce, soy sauce, mayo, jam, ice cream, toothpaste (OK, it went too far, toothpaste would just be too minty)...whatever curls your toes, goes.
I know exactly what you wanna say...
- I can't believe she grilled a bird again!
- Can she do anything else other than grilled bird?
- If I saw another grilled bird on this blog, I'm gonna...(fill in the blank)
- Another bird? That's it. I'm gonna unfollow, unsubscribe, unfriend, and everything else starting with "un" her.
Hehe.
I know, I know, I know!
But I just can't help it.
I like easy and tasty, and these grilled birds are.
This time, I tried grilling chicken using Jamie's duck grilling method. Obviously, because it is easier than my old method, which involves marinating, covering, uncovering, lowering and cranking up heat etc. All those steps got eliminated and I wonder if it would still end up as good.
Ingredients
- 1 (relatively small) chicken
- 4 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 6 cloves of shallot or half an onion, thinly sliced
- 1 cm ginger, sliced thinly
- turmeric powder, ground corriander seeds, cumin, salt, pepper
Preheat oven to 180C. Rinse chicken, pat dry, I removed neck, feet, tail, tip of wings and excess fat. Stuff some garlic, ginger slices and shallot in the chicken's cavity and or in between skin and flesh. Rub chicken all over with salt, pepper, ground corriander seeds, cumin and turmeric powder. Generously. Remember the cavity and in between the skin and flesh. Place chicken on baking dish and grill (uncovered) for 1 hour, flip and grill for another hour (total two hours).
Crispy, golden delicious skin, tender, juicy and tasty flesh.
I mentioned that the best way to consume this sorta chicken is with Indonesian sambal, right?
This time I made sambal kecap.
Back home, we'd use mortar and pestle to make the paste. Alternatively, we could use a blender or food processor to do it. But since the thought of having to wash a food processor, the vessel, the blade, the cover, etc scared me beyond belief, I decided to chop all of the ingredients. Whew!
Ingredients
- 20 red chilli (I removed most of the core and seeds, leaving only about 5 with seeds and OMG! the sambal stil ended up so bloody hot)
- 2 small cloves of garlic, minced
- 4 cloves of shallot, thinly sliced
- juice of half a lime
- 1 tsp salt, fish sauce, kecap manis, olive oil
Heat up a bit of olive oil, saute chilli, garlic and shallot (you'll need a super strong exhaust fan. If you're making this for a party, it is better to do it before your guests arrived, I've experienced suffocating my guests with chilli fume before) until fragrant, add salt, fish sauce, and kecap manis. Transfer to a bowl and drizzle lime juice over it.
Grilled chicken + sambal + hot steamy rice (eaten with bare hands) = undescribable.
I wish I could promise that this would be the last grilled chicken I post....but you know I can't :p
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