Lei

miniature Rose Wedding Cakes

Cakemaker had the inner guts of the cake premade and sitting in a fridge. It was a two layer cake with chocolate in between. I used a round forming/cutting tool to cut the shape that we wanted. The tool was too short for the two layer cake which is why they came out in different heights. Some were crooked and some were slanted. We even tried peeling off the top layer to cut the shapes out one layer at a time. Such a mess it was. I ate bits and pieces of leftover cake matter which was of no use anymore. There was plenty leftover to feed a small group of hungry cake lovers. In this first photo, I include an example of what the large slab of cake material looks like after I've taken a bite out of it with my mouth.

Here I am using a disc cutter to trim the fondont around the bottom. Such a mess again. Chocolate, icing sugar and other cake matter all over the place.

We eventually went back to using the round forming/cutting tool to trim each one of these cakes which looked like Casper and his friendly ghosts. The thick fondant helped to hide all the surface imperfections underneath.

The final product packed and ready to go. Each one was topped with a small flower and a double layer ribbon.

In the end, all the little caklings found their mother ship before flying off to outer space.

This now concludes this installment of 'In the kitchen with Mr. Lei'. All cake material, facility and sweet sugary mess was provided by razzledazzlecakes.

lemon Merange Pie

One of my friends is leaving for Winnipeg and staying for three weeks. She has no job right now and can't work due to a temporary disability. Having not much to do, her parents suggested that she visit and look after her grandmother. So her, another friend and I went out to the cactus club for a small sendoff meal. We've gone there twice in the last few days. My friend likes the apple pies and I second it. I love the crust as its not wet and soggy. They top it off with caramel, a sprinkling of icing sugar and a dollup of vanilla bean ice cream - mmm mmmm.

I love pies. Blueberry and cherry are my favourite I think. Then there's good old pumpkin pie but the best of all has to be lemon merange. I bought one last week for myself. And every night I had two slices or so. It's all gone and I am already paying for my excessive indulgence. It was a farmer's market pie from superstore. I have some friends who studied at DeBrules cooking school and they said that these pies are not that great. It's all gelatin and artificial flavouring. They recommended a place called Savoury Island that makes the best fresh pies in the lower mainland. I think I'll try to go there sometime today or tomorrow.

Oh and another thing, did you know that gelatin is made from cow bones? Think about that the next time you eat jello.

The Noodle King - Fish Soup

I came up with this one the other day. Starting with a pack of ling cod bellies, I made a soup base. Yes, soup bones would have been better but then I didn't have any.

1 cup of sliced celery
6-8 bulbs/cloves of garlic peeled but not sliced
1 large mild onion diced
1 kg of ling cod bellies
2-3 litres of cold water
1/2 can of chicken soup base
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of pepper
1 tablespoon of light soy sauce

Put water, cod, salt, pepper in large pot and bring to a boil. Simmer for one and a half hours. Then add rest of ingredients, bring to a boil again and simmer for another half hour or so.

What normally happens here is that everything is taken out or strained so that all you are left with is the liquid. I didn't bother. Now what you have should be good enough on its own as a soup or you can go further and use this for noodle soup.

Just boil your favourite noodles in a separate pot with some salt. Put cooked noodles in serving bowl. Add fish soup, whole garlic cloves and all and one whole green onion sliced. Oh yeah. I also added some other goodies. Pork hamhock. mmm mmm mmm...

Enjoy! :)

Instant Pork Noodle Soup

Happy 100th blog entry!! And on this occasion we celebrate with some good food. Or rather, one tasty bowl of pork noodle soup. Make that lean pork noodle soup. This one is easy to make if you happen to already have some good pork soup stock handy.

I bought some thin egg noodles on the way home from work and used a heaping table spoon of a pasta meat sauce which my mother gave to me. It's not the typical pasta sauce but more of a thick asian version which doesn't have tomatoes.

2 cups of pork soup base
1 green onion, finely chopped
2 table spoons of my mom's flavourful meat sauce
1 Egg noodles
1 pinch of freshly ground pepper

Boil noodles for four to five minutes and drain. Heat up pork soup base and meat sauce. Add remaing ingredients. Mix and serve. Mmm mmm.

Sunday Family Dinner - Roast Ham

I got one of my wishes this year. More 'cohesion' in the family. Yesterday I woke a tad late and went to the supermarket to buy a 11 pound smoked pork shank, rind off. Sped back home, threw it in the fridge, dumped the hockey gear in my truck and drove off to Burnaby 8 Rinks. I was invited to take part in my friends female ice hockey practice. The skill level was recreational beginner for the team and during one of passing drills, the woman I was paired up with could barely skate. I found out that today was only the second time that she had tried ice hockey. Instead, I decided to give her some tips of skating. At this point my atitude towards the skate changed. It felt good to just be there and help teach this crew instead of thinking about myself. The practice coach had missed a few sessions himself because of his two kids. His assistant coach was a lost but seemingly accomplished hockey player. He had won at most levels and did not know what part of hockey to be involved in anymore. By the end, I was helping the practice coach run the last set of drills.

I left my friends to go home and start the pork. My sister had given me a recipe which two of her other friends had used and I came up with my own after combining theirs and a few I found on the net. The next five hours was spent tending the stove while feverishly cleaning and vacuuming the house. Around seven, almost everyone had arrived. Mostly just the immediate family and a friend of mine who has no relatives here.

The food turned out great with minimal mess. We had yams, green beans with carrots, gui-lan, stuffing - the stove top kind and sweet tofu for dessert. Afterwards, I took leftover pork bones with some nicely charred meat portions and experimented in a soup stock.

Recipe

1 10-12 lb Smoked pork/ham
4 Litre Ginger Ale
1 Cup Brown Sugar
1/2 Cup Honey

Rinse ham in cold water and put in large pot. Pour in the four litres of Ginger Ale or a different pop or cider of your choice. Add water until covered. Simmer for two hours. Remove from heat and let cool for thirty minutes.

In a small saucepan, melt brown sugar with honey into a thick liquid. Here you can other things as well. Pineapple chunks, ginger, mustard etc. Make sure not to overheat the mixture. Stand ham with the cut face down on an open roasting pan and liberally brush glaze all over. Roast in oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 1/2 hours. Check meat temperature away from bone if not sure. Afterwards, let the meat rest for fifteen minutes. Voila! Carve and serve to some hungry folks!

Basic Poached Eggs

I didn't have all the proper poaching tools so I just improvised and made some poached eggs today. It's a nice change from frying or boiling eggs. The instructions are as follows.

If you don't have one of those poaching racks, use a deep dessert dish or a small shallow bowl which is what I used. Put the dish or bowl in a saucepan with simmering water inside. Crack one or two eggs and put directly into the dessert dish. Cover the saucepan. After a couple of minutes the eggs can be removed and put on a serving dish.

Season with salt, pepper and cumin. Sprinkle lots of finely chopped green onions and shredded cheese of your choice. Fini!

Part II Green Beans with Prawns

Last weekend I went to TnT Supermarket to buy some prawns. I was going to my friends birthday potluck dinner and had told them that I would bring some green beans with prawns. No description of how it was going to be made or what type of sauce would be used was given as it was sort of all up in the air. This will in fact be the very first time in this current life of mine in which I will have brought something which I cooked instead of just bought outside.

The green beans were in one pound bags. I stood there debating whether it would be enough for the amount of people before settling on two. If it was too much then I could just use the rest for myself. Next were the prawns. In the seafood section, there were no large fresh prawns other than the usual fish, crab and some other items which I was not interested in. Instead, there was an assortment of various shrimps and prawns in the previously frozen section. I had in mind prawns like what you would find in a typical chinese dish simply referred to as green peas with prawns. Sometimes they use scallops. This was the idea behind my dish. I was about to ask for some regular prawns when I noticed that the jumbo prawns were on sale for $13.99 as opposed to $20.99 regular. So for only a couple dollars more per pound, I could get something more substantial and believe me, these prawns were really big. I remember one time when a local asian restaurant was serving some freshly prepared jumbo prawns as an appetizer and they were so good. So without hesitation, I asked the person behind the counter to bag a dozen.

After I raced home, I looked at the time and realized that I might be late. I still did not have a recipe for making my dish so I jumped on the foodtv website and began searching. I didn't expect to find one with the title "green beans with Prawns" so I looked for each separately. For the green beans, I used a variation of Sarah Moutons' recipe and for the prawns, I got my idea from Ming Tsai. He had listed some fancy ingredients which I didn't have so I just used whatever I could find inhouse.

I went back to the counter and opened the bag of green beans. My idea was to steam these and use them as a bed in a dish for the prawns to sit on. As I broke the ends off the green beans, I could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall to my left. It has a very distinct sound in that it is louder than normal reinforcing the fact that I didn't have much time. I began thinking that maybe I should have just pulled a bag of the frozen green beans out of the freezer instead of using them fresh. Then I realized that I still had to peel all the prawns. Oh the labour.

After some bit of panicking and on the spur of the moment ingredient matching, I came up with what turned out to be a favourite at the dinner. To the point where some of my friends didn't believe that I made it. The next day, I went back to TnT and bought some more. I didn't have enough the previous day as I gave it all to my friends so this time I got to enjoy it. Now I put here for others to try but be forwarned. I never use measuring spoons and such because I find it cumbersome, limiting and for the plain fact that all those little things just mean that there's more things to wash. All amounts are as per personal preference. Bon chance mes amis!

1. Green Beans

Green beans (steamed or boilded in water and some chicken stock)
1 tbsp Butter
Soy sauce (optional)


2. The Jumbo Prawns

Grapeseed oil
Jumbo or large prawns. (Can't be small, at least that's what I wanted!)
salt, sea salt or kosher salt if you've got it.
freshly ground black pepper
cayenne pepper (optional)
3 tbsp butter
basil, (fresh preferrably)
cooking wine
garlic (lots!)
1 lemon

Peel and clean prawns. Add salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper.
Put thin sliced garlic in heated pan with oil first, then add prawns. After a few minutes on each side, add basil at the end.

Remove prawns once done. Deglaze the stuff on the bottom of the pan with cooking wine. Add two or three tablespoons of butter. Add juice from lemon. Reduce to desired consistency. Pour over prawns.

Arrange steamed green beans in serving dish. Lay prawns on top. I used a large casserole dish.

Part I - The Spinach

It's almost six o'clock and my stomach is starting to produce some hollow gurgling noises. There's some chicken breasts in the freezer but, they're frozen. A container of Haagen Daaz sits waiting to be eaten but not right now. Below the fridge seems desolate as there's just a few containers of juices, soy milk, a half used bottle of olive and black mushroom spaghetti sauce and some balsamic vinagrette salad dressing. On the door are the condiments, some old personal sized bottles of kahlua, and a partly used brick of salted butter. As I lean down further, I see a bag of spinach which was hidden by a large container of apple juice from my view. I grab the spinach and put it on the counter. All it needs is a quick rinse as it has been presorted and cleaned already.

Walking over to the pantry, I open one of the doors and grab the stainless steel frying pan with its lid. The light above the stove is turned on and the large element on the back right starts to heat up while I reach for the grapeseed oil. Apparently its supposed to be better for you so I decided to try it instead of vegetable oil. As I wave my hand just a few centimeters above the pan I can feel the heat already. A couple squirts of oil is added so that the spinach won't stick plus a couple large chunks of butter for flavour. I throw in the spinach and it begins to cook right away. What started out as a big bushel of vibrant green leaves has shrunk down becoming dark, limp and without form in a matter of seconds.

As it sits, the buttered vegetables would still be fine along some sort of meat but I've done this before. As an experiment, I took some of the cranberry grape juice and added it to the pan. Even though I don't have any cooking wine, this should work. They're all made with berries of some variety. Some soy sauce is added to offset whatever sourness from the cranberry juice. A bit more butter and the newly reduced concoction is a slightly fruity but rich sauce. What would have been better is if I had seared some meat in the pan beforehand to use as part of a base for the sauce once deglazed.

I sprinkle some freshly ground black pepper before tasting a portion of the spinach first, then the sauce with it. It gets a thumbs up from me this time. There have been worse. Yet as with most of my adventures in experimental cooking, I don't often make the same thing twice. Maybe I should so that everything isn't such an experiment each time and I won't feel as lost either. Lets see what else is in the fridge...