Tuna Onigiri

Really easy to make and is a very nice quick snack. Just cook rice, sprinkle with Japanese rice vinegar to taste (and a bit of salt if you like), mix. And then mix with any of your desired seasonings or fillings. In this case, I used flaked tuna from a can, but you can use all sorts of fillings, like furikake or pickled vegetables. I've used xue cai before, and it turned out really well.

To wrap it quickly and efficiently, put a piece of plastic wrap over a bowl, and scoop the desired about into the bowl, then you can shape it and wrap the onigiri up for whenever you want to eat.


Forgive the photo quality as the steam in the plastic wrap makes it really hard to take good photos.

One cup of cooked rice can make around two small onigiris, about the size of my fist.


Onigiri unwrapped!

Chocolate Blackberry Cake

Had some leftover blackberries and wanted to make something out of it. I was debating between a blackberry poundcake or a coffee cake until I realized that I wanted neither. So there's the birth of a chocolate blackberry cake. Found the following recipe and got started.

The picture doesn't look too bad, does it? The fact of the matter is, I have trouble working with springform cake pans, for some strange reason. and the cakes I make out of them always look messed up... =_= So the picture above is actually of a good looking slice. Tastes great though! ^^ The ground almonds made the crusts very crunchy and almost caramelized while the inside chocolatey parts are still soft and moist.


Here's the recipe:

Ingredients
• butter, for greasing
• 150 g chocolate (70%cocoa)
• 100 g butter
• 3 eggs
• 125 g sugar
• 2 tablespoons Grand Marnier or Cointreau liqueur (I used very concentrated instant coffee instead)
• 100 g ground almonds (skin on)
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch or flour
• 100 g blackberries
• icing sugar, for dusting

Directions
1. Line and butter a springform of 20cm.
2. Melt butter and chocolate on low heat. Let cool a little bit while stirring. Add eggs, sugar and gran marnier (or cointreau). Mix cornstarch (or flour) with ground almonds and add. Pour mixture into springform. Stick blackberries into mixture. Bake in the middle of a 200°C oven for 20-25 minutes. THE CAKE SHOULD STILL BE MOIST. Remove cake and let cool.
3. Cool for several hours or best overnight.
4. Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve as it is or with whipped cream, sour cream or ice cream.

Tomato Soup with Cream

Adapted from a recipe book called "Comfort Food".

Tomato soup with cream

For some reason the colour of this soup looks really off from the one in the recipe book... I'm assuming its coz different types of tomatoes are used?

Perfect Chocolate Macarons

Chocolate Macarons SUCCESSSSSS!!!!!!!!!! YESSSSS!!! 

I finally made some (almost) perfect looking macarons!!! after like a million tries. look at the pretty foot in those cookies!

Look how nice and smooth they seem! <3 Should try making other flavours too, haha ^^

Food that I Made in the Last Year

Haven't posted here for a while, so I'm going to spam the blog with the whole lot of food that I made in the last year or so. Of course, I'm neither a food stylist or a photographer by profession, so please excuse the unprofessional presentation and picture taking skills. :)

Challah

Plum Clafoutis, recipe courtesy of Bea at La Tartine Gourmande.

Strawberry Tartelette

Apple Cinnamon Tartlette

Mango Cardamom Tartelette

Creme Renversee, recipe courtesy of Bea again.

Chocolate Macarons, recipe courtesy of David Lebovitz. First try. Terribly ugly and overfolded but the taste is ok. Hopefully one day I can post a picture of a successful try.

Coconut Panna Cotta with Blackberry Stew, recipe courtesy of La Tartine Gourmarnde.

Curry Chicken with rice.

Anniversary Dinner
Bread - Brioche

Anniversary Dinner
Amuse - Avocado and Grapefruit Millefeuille, recipe courtesy of Bea

Anniversary Dinner
Appetizer1 - Seared Scallops and Green Apples, recipe courtesy of Bea

Anniversary Dinner
Appetizer2 - Coconut Milk Mussel Soup, recipe courtesy of Bea again

Anniversary Dinner
Main1-Sauteed Duck Foie Gras

Anniversary Dinner
Main2 - Provençal Rack of Lamb

Anniversary Dinner
Dessert- Poached Pear Tart with Tapioca Pudding and Peach Jam

Sausage Casserole

Double chocolate biscotti with coffee made from french press

Rosemary Focaccia with a poolish

Shrimp, chicken, and sausage Jumbalaya! Long-grained rice probably would have turned out better than Japanese rice, but still good ^^

Curry Beef Samosas, made with phyllo pastry

Creme of Onion soup

Eggs Benedict. English muffin topped with crispy bacon and poached egg with Hollandaise sauce.

Creme of Broccoli Soup with Blue Cheese Fritters, courtesy of Chef John at Foodwishes.com. He claimed it was the best soup he ever made, and I don't disagree! It really is a marvelous soup! I felt a little wasteful as I used my black Roquefort Papillion for it ($6USD per 100grams!!!!), since I had no other blue cheese on hand :(..... But the taste is amazing!

Tonkatsu (deep fried breaded pork tenderloin) with rice and Worcestershire sauce, recipe courtesy of the Shizuoka Gourmet!

Teavana Giveaway by Make Life Delicious blog

I stumbled on this Teavana giveawya on the following blog. Feel free!

Make life delicious.

BBQ Ribs

My mom makes these very well with baked potatoes. So now I've made some the way she does it.

Ribs

Potatoes

Ingredients:

Pork side ribs

BBQ Sauce

Potatoes

Procedures:

Brush both sides of ribs with BBQ sauce, put potatoes underneath, cover potatoes with water.

Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 80 minutes, flip ribs every 20 minutes and brush with BBQ sauce again.

Drained and baked Potatoes alone for another 40 minutes.

YUM!

Ratatouille

First try at making ratatouille. It was amazing.

Ingredients:

Equal amount of tomatoes, orange bell peppers, zuchini, and eggplant

Mixed herbs

Salt

Chicken stock

Topped with cornmeal-marinated goat cheese

Procedures:

Cut veggies into chunks.

Layer them in the pot: eggplant, zuchini, bell peppers, tomatoes.

Add some chicken stock.

Cook on low heat for 90 minutes.

Serve.

Teavana's Peach Tranquility

A fruit tisane. Sadly enough, I'm a sucker for fruiTea things like this that pretend to be tea but isn't. It's just so yummy! :)

Vendor Description:

A delightfully harmonious blend of candied peach pieces, pineapple, lemon myrtle, Roman chamomile, sunflower petals and rosehips create a most peaceful blend. Use 1.5 teaspoons of tea per 8oz of water. Heat water to 208 degrees and steep for 5-6 minutes. 2oz of tea equals 25-30 teaspoons. Apples, candied pineapple, candied peach pieces, sunflower petals, lemon myrtle leaves, roman chamomile, and rosehips.

Fruit bits.

One of my friends gave me this teacup and saucer set as a belated holiday present! It's from Teaopia. So cute!~

Parameters: 1 tsp of dried up fruits and stuff, 6 oz boiling water, steeped forever!

Really yummy, probably a little bit artificially sweetened, but owell, still yum! :) Smells like peaches, taste like peaches! I can't say much about Teaopia's business tactics, as I've notices it's quite lacking in proper administration, but this tea is pretty yum! (A bit overpriced though, as it is only 2oz of dried fruits....)

Teavana's Assam Gold Rain

Vendor description:

Comes from one of the finest estates of the Assam region of India. Famous for its fruity yet malty flavor with a tannic red-wine aftertaste. (FTGFOP-1)(Special)

FTGFOP-1. So imressive.... My first exposure to a higher class assam. Far Too Good For Ordinary People, indeed.

The leaves are full, and in good condition it seems.

The music note tea stainer is cute, no? I got it from DealExtreme.com. :) Either the top or bottom half is a perfect teaspoon!

Teacups were supposed to be part of a set from Teavana, but many items of the set broke, so they gave me a refund, and I managed to salvage these :)

First and second infusions.

Spent leaves.

1tsp tea, 5oz boiling water, 35 seconds, 50 seconds.

The instructions are:

Use 1 teaspoon tea per 8oz of water. Heat water to 195-205 degrees and steep for 2-3 minutes. 2oz of tea equals 25-30 teaspoons.

Maybe I'll try that again next time.....

I really enjoyed this tea. The Maltiness is delish! Quite complex a flavour with mostly heavy fruit and some floral notes. Not sure about the red wine aftertaste though, as I know almost nothing about red wine.... :|

First and second infusions are very consistent, but I can tell that the temperature is too high and leaf/water ratio is too high as well. Great tea! But perhaps even better next time.

Love it!