Lapis Legit Pandan from Holland Bakery, Jakarta, Indonesia

A gadzillion thanks to Lia of Bloglicious for bringing me this delicious cake all the way from Indonesia! I am so touched beyond belief.

Have you ever met your fellow bloggers before?
At first, I was a bit weary about meeting anyone, since I am an antisocial bitch. I am an online person who always try my very best to avoid any human interaction (scary, right?). I thought bloggers are supposed to stay behind the yellow line? Whatever happened to that? I guess it's changed. Now bloggers meet people too. And not all of us are antisocial, only me. ^_^'

After meeting a few Hong Kong tweeps, I started to enjoy meeting people that I normally interact with online, and I am very happy that now I can even call some of them my close friends! Yippie!

Sometimes, you've been stalking them online so much, you felt as if you've already known the person inside out. From her tweets and her online persona, I knew that Lia is absolutely lovely. We had a blast hanging out.

Now the cake.

This is something that I can't get in Hong Kong.
OK, there are some packaged ones available in Indo shops, but they comparing them to this? It's like comparing flavorful, moist, rich, fragrant and buttery cake to...a piece of cardboard (I am sorry!). A few slices of this cake, cups of hot jasmine tea, and a good book. That'd make a perfect lazy weekend afternoon tea.

Happy almost weekend, y'all!

PS. Lia, I can never thank you enough! ^_^

Black Truffle Pate, Mixed Mushrooms & Prosciutto Pizza from Our Weekend Pizza Party

My two girlfriends and I tried to make our own pizza last weekend. Actually they made the pizza, I was just busy trying to calm super cranky baby M down.. ^_^'

We (i.e. actually it was mostly Ieie, she did all the kneading!) made the dough following this recipe. The recipe is pretty easy to follow (easy for me to say as I was not the one who kneaded the dough heheheh) and we're pretty pleased with the result.

We made two kinds of pizza...the one which impressed me the most was the one with this black truffle pate.


The dough was simply rolled thinly, placed on a well oiled baking tray.

Spread quite a bit of the black truffle pate, add chunks of mixed mushrooms, season with salt and black pepper, topped generously with grated cheese (we used a mix of mozzarella, parmesan and cheddar), and bake for about 15-20 minutes in a 250C preheated oven.


Once it's out of the oven, we added more black truffle pate and placed a few pieces of prosciutto. Let them fold casually like cute little rosebuds.


Absolutely fragrant and delicious!

As for the other pizza...

We just slathered the dough with a bit of ketchup (oppps, but it's yummy, trust me), added some grated cheeses, salami and bacon, topped with more cheeses, added halved cherry tomatoes, and some baby asparagus. After baking, we added some fresh basil leaves from my tiny herb garden. Yummy!

Baby M was super cranky and clingy the whole time, I had to carry him around with me, even when I tried to  take some pictures. Thanks to Ieie for documenting this crazy-bad-mama moment ^_^


We ended the meal with Ieie's homemade tiramisu topped with fresh berries and some bad Sunday TV (it's TVB Jade's latest variety show where we had to guess the girl among drag queens).

Good food, good company, bad TV.
What could be better than that?

I'll post more pictures from the night on my Facebook page.

Grilled Chicken with Nandos Peri Peri Sauce

It's no Nandos...but still, it's great to cure my serious cravings.

It probably didn't need garlic, shallot, ginger, etc...

I was just looking for an excuse to use my mortar and pestle.

Spice paste blended in food processor or blender is just NOT the same! ^_^

Recipe
(for 4 fillet of chicken thigh with skin)
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 2 shallot
- 0.5 cm ginger
- Nandos peri peri sauce
- salt, sugar, pepper, cooking oil
Cut garlic, shallot and ginger roughly, and turn them into paste with mortar and pestle. If you can't be bothered, that's ok, just mince them rather finely. Season the paste with generous amount of Peri Peri hot sauce, salt, pepper, and a touch of sugar. Rub the paste onto the chicken. Really give them a good massage, and let marinate for a few hours or overnight in fridge.

Grill in 250C oven until the skin is golden brown and the meat's cooked through.

Serve with more peri peri sauce if you fancy more heat.
For me, I surely like it hot ;)

Rose Shaped Chocolate Cake from Patisserie Tony Wong, Kowloon City, Hong Kong

This has got to be one of the most gorgeous cakes I've ever seen! Look at those chocolate rose petals!

We were having this cake at Athena's birthday party last weekend. When it was unboxed, there was a collective "ahhhhh" and we gawked at the cake for a good 15 minutes at least...and we surely photographed the cake like there's no tomorrow.

We proceeded to debating on how we should "divide" the cake, as it is obviously too pretty to slice.
We screamed in unison when the birthday girl did this.


What's under those beautiful petals?

More chocolatey yumminess!


My favorite part of the cake's definitely those chocolate petals. As for the cake itself, it would be nice if there were some non chocolate elements in there to prevent us from getting chocolate overdose. There's a pink version of this cake which is as pretty if not prettier. I am soo gonna try it next time ;)

Check out Patisserie Tony Wong's website here.

Mushrooms & Napa Cabbage Miso Soup

I love my veggie tasty, so I made this side dish for a last weekend's meaty lunch. The weather was indeed a bit too warm for a hot soup, but still...miso made things so tasty we would've consumed this in our underwear dripping with sweat if we had to ^_*

Quite a seksi idea? Ahem! No, I didn't think so.

What's seksi though...is this bowl I got from Franc Franc, from a quick shopping trip with Lia of Bentolicious. We both went crazy and I am so glad I did. I love my purchases!

Recipe
- 1 small napa cabbage, sliced
- 1 cup mushrooms of your choice
- hot water
- miso paste
- a touch of sugar
- crunchy seaweed paper/strands for garnish (optional)
Bring a pot of water to boil, add napa cabbage, cook until they reach the desired level of crunchiness/softness, add mushrooms, add miso paste bit by bit until you reach the desired level of flavor, balance it with a bit of sugar. Garnish if you wish.

In 30something C weather like this, turn on your fan/aircon (or take off clothes?) and start slurping.