Doing What I Love

The entire week has been just crazy. Hub's car broke down last Friday morning. I received a "Help! My car broke down!" call from him not 10 mins after he left the house. It was 5.10 am. I made a snap decision to just get ready for work so instead of ferrying him back home, I would send him to work before going to work myself. By 5.15 am, I was out of the house, having brushed my teeth & changed my clothes. He had managed to reverse his car into a parking lot outside someone else's house by putting the car on neutral with the handbrakes off. Off we went. We just passed the town centre when I asked him if he brought his work shoes. Alamak! I had to turn back the 4 km we came. By the time I got to his work place, he was already half an hour late. Even I myself took 50 mins to get to my work place. I chose to go by Frementle over Kwinana becoz of its notorious bad traffic. It was beautiful. I had views of the Swan River & the Indian Ocean. That was the start of a week long of waking up an hour earlier & driving to work from Bibra Lake, then from my work place to pick him up before heading home. For me, it's 2 extra journey but for hubs, it's a 4 hour wait from the time he knocks off to the time I do.

I'm just gonna cram several weeks of cooks into 1 post. Surely by now you can tell I'm really very lazy. Lol. 20th June was 端午节 but I didn't make the "zhangs" until the 21st. Anything that's labour intensive is only worthwhile if you make them in huge amounts. Besides, they require 3 hours boiling time. 10 dumplings is 3 hours. 40 dumplings is also 3 hours. Let's not waste gas. I've made rice dumplings for 3 years consecutively only missing last year's. I've only made bazhang once in the 1st year as I prefer nyonya zhang & they're easier to make. This is the 4th time I'm making them & I'm doing it without my recipe coz my notebook is still in Sg. My 1st batch of nyonya zhang was not sweet enough but as I had a lot of filling left, I topped up the candied melon & made another batch.

The other thing that was labour intensive was the png kueh. I casually mentioned to hubs that I'll make it 1 day & the next thing I know, he had gone out to buy 甜酱 to go with it. See lah! No choice but to make it. We got the mould for it that very week & I made it just this Monday when I didn't have to work. I only have the ang moh steamer that could steam only 6 at 1 go. So it took a few batches before I was finally done. I also had to add 5 mins of steam time as the steam wasn't powerful enough to cook the skin. I followed the recipe but the skin was not ideal as it hardened tremendously once it cooled down. The only remedy was to pan fry it so the skin becomes crispy. Still, the recipe for the rice mixture is good enough on its own as lor mai fan if you don't want the added task of wrapping it up with the skin.

21st June 2015: Ingredients for bazhang. (Not in photo, nyonya zhang.)

27th June 2015: Profiteroles. Choux pastry is actually not difficult to make. But you have no control over how it'll puff up & most of the time you'll end up with only half that looks good. The other half just looks like pacman. 

28th June 2015: I saw it once at my local seafood shop but I didn't buy. I never saw it again. While touring a few cash & carrys along Bannister Road, I finally laid eyes on Monkfish once again. Needless to say, I bought it.

28th June 2015: Spiced monkfish with chives & hot smoked salmon mashed potato. The recipe for the monkfish is from Gordon Ramsay's cookbook. The side was a Mediterranean style potatoes. But my chives were growing so wildly that I decided to harvest it & made a mashed potato which I had craving for instead.

28th June 2015: Kahlua chocolate berry tart. I hate making pie or tart pastry but I know I must master something so basic somehow if I want to be a good cook. I feel that a good home cook must be able to utilise what you have available on hand. When I 1st started cooking/baking when I was 19 (Gosh, now I feel so old.), I used to follow recipes & buy so many ingredients that are used just once & subsequently kept till they expire. I had frozen mixed berries, I had kahlua from a previous tiramisu attempt & I had cocoa powder. So this is the tart I came up with to "clear some stock".

6th July 2015: Png kueh. Looks good but looks can be deceiving.