Currently craving for...

1) Cabbage Kimchi

2) Instant noodles

3) Tofu

Chicken pie

Being a Brit, my hubby is incredibly fond of pies. This is the first time he's tried puff pastry though. Normally he makes his own short crust pastry but today he tried using the ready-to-roll puff pastry. The result was way beyond my expectation. Unlike short crust pastry, the puff pastry doesn't taste as buttery and heavy. Combined with chicken, leek and veg, it's a perfect lunch/dinner on a cold day.
I love my hubby's cooking...

Searching for a REAL gingerbread man recipe

Ok, I broke the rule of not baking ever again :sigh: Instead of my 45 minutes yoga session I was burying my head in doing gingerbread man. The recipe I got is from The Great British Kitchen, which, judging by the name, has to be the most original. So I followed the instructions:
Ingredients

"Serves: 16

350 Gram Plain flour (12 oz)
1 Teaspoon Bicarbonate of soda
2 Teaspoon Ground ginger
110 Gram Butter, diced (4 oz)
175 Gram Soft light brown sugar (6 oz)
4 Tablespoon Golden syrup
1 Egg, beaten
Currants, to decorate


Method

Makes 16

Pre-heat oven to 190 °C / 375 °F / Gas 5.

Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ginger into a mixing bowl. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs, then stir in the sugar. Beat the syrup into the egg, then stir into the flour mixture. Mix together to make a smooth dough. Knead the dough until smooth, then divide in half. Roll out, half at a time, on a floured surface until about 5 mm ( 1/4 inch) thick.

Using a gingerbread man cutter, cut out gingerbread men until all the dough has been used up, re-rolling and cutting the trimmings. Repeat with the second half of the dough. Place the gingerbread men on greased baking sheets and decorate with currants to represent eyes and buttons. Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown. Leave on the baking sheets to cool slightly, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Store in an airtight container."

Two things I notice:
1) baking at 190C is far too high, which resulted in half of my men (the ones on the inner part of the oven) being totally black and completely unpalatable.
2) the stated amount of sugar is far too sweet for my likings, so next time I would prefer to cut it down by half.

Except for the small incident of cremating half of my men, this little baking job has shown me that with a little bit of patience and COMMON SENSE, I can get back to learning to bake again...

Banana loaf

The novice cook officially announce that banana loaf is going to be the last baking project for now. Since the novice cook's repeated attempt to make cookies ended disastrously, the novice cook has decided it's now time to call it quits. From now on the novice cook will leave all the baking jobs to the professional chef a.k.a the hubby.
Recipe for banana cake:
10 oz ( 275 g ) self raising flour; 4 oz ( 100 g ) butter or margarine; 6 oz ( 175 g ) soft brown sugar; 3 eggs; 2 large bananas; 1 level teaspoon cinnamon; 3 to 4 tablespoons milk; 4 oz (100 g) chopped apricots or walnuts ( optional )

Cream butter and sugar, add mashed bananas to mixture. Add beaten eggs one by one, add milk. Fold in flour and cinnamon. Bake for one hour at 350F degrees/ 180C degrees/gas mark 4, in a 2 lb loaf tin.
Enjoy.
P.S: I always put tinfoil over the loaf tin after 35-40 mins to prevent the loaf being burnt on top

Korean fusion food - or is it just a crazy idea from the novice cook?

Teczscape's udon stir-fry gave the novice cook an inspiration to try stir-frying udon for the first time. Thing is, the novice cook also wants to play with her food and in the true style of Ready Steady Cook, the novice cook was determined to make a mouth-watering dinner from random ingredients found in the novice cook's fridge, which include:
a packet of udon noodles, shitake mushrooms, pak choi, coriander, asparagus, chillies and prawns
The novice cook came up with the idea of marinating prawns in a soy sauce + oyster sauce + salt + pepper, then stir-fry the prawns for 3 mins, then set aside. All the other ingredients were stir-fried together, in the order of shitake mushroom-asparagus-pak choi- coriander then the cooked udon noodles were mixed in and the whole thing was seasoned liberally with sweet soy sauce + fish sauce + 1tsp oyster sauce.
Another 30 seconds and voila, the end-result actually tasted much better than what the novice cook had expected.
Mission accomplished. Who says playing with your food is not fun...

Food misconception - some people think they do but they don't know anything about Chinese food

We went to a Chinese buffet on Sunday night and I had to say I doubt it very much that I would ever come back there again.
As someone who comes from a Chinese/Asian background, I know how lazy restaurants over here are and how much they have compromised in Chinese/Asian cuisine just to suit Westerners' taste. The buffet dishes include:
1> siu mai
2> scotch egg
3> noodles (3 varieties)
4> fried rice (2 varieties)
5> veg stir-fry (4 varieties)
6> sushi
7> crispy roast duck
8> CHIPS (FRENCH FRIES)
9> ice cream
10> mango pudding
Except for siu mai and mango pudding, nothing else is Chinese food in my opinion. The hubby was utterly disappointed with the supposingly crispy roast duck ,which turned out to be so dry and tough that I'd rather eat newspaper sheets than the so-called roast duck. And why on earth do they have to do CHIPS at a Chinese buffet. And what the hell is scotch egg doing in there anyway.
They're not Chinese food and they shouldn't be there. Grrrrrr :frustrating:
The veg stir-fry was also a flop, with most varieties of stir-fry being doused in a generic sauce which makes each dish tastes exactly the same.
I gave up eating after the 3rd plate (only because I had to pay for it so I had to make the most of it - a way of thinking that has been imprinted in my mind thanks to my mum)
I mean, my dear hubby has been to Asia and he knows how different REAL Chinese food is. He wouldn't even sniff at a Chinese takeaway these days. Meanwhile, my sister-in-law wouldn't know that the stuff she normally got from the takeaways are not REAL food. :sigh: I wonder how many Western people actually think Chinese/Asian cuisine only have roast duck, fried rice and stir fry.
I wonder if there is anything I can do to show people that Asian food is much more better than the Westernised junkversion of Chinese food over here...

BBQ

It is pretty unusual for the weather to reach the high 20s in Manchester. To make the most of the sunshine, what is better than a BBQ.
The chicken is marinated in a honey+soy sauce+ a pinch of 5 spice powder for at least 30mins. The longer the better actually.
I heart BBQ