Potato and Caper Terrine with Tuna Steak

This is a stunning recipe I got from Shannon Bennett's cook book entitled My French Vue. It's the best potato salad I've ever eaten. It has a burst of exciting flavours and texture. The ingredients all match and harmonize perfectly. Do give it a try if you can.

8 medium-sized kipfler potatoes
4 tbsp Mayonnaise
1 shallot, finely diced
4 tbsp fine lilliput capers
2 Ortiz anchovies, crushed
4 tbsp fried bacon or ham lardons
Sea salt and pepper
4 egg yolks
500ml vegetable oil
2 handfuls curly endive
1 tbsp olive oil
(Serves 4)

Put the kipfler potatoes into a pot of cold water, add 1 tbsp of salt and bring to boil. Cook until tender. Once cooked, drain and cool. When they are cool enough to touch, peel.

Place the potatoes in a mixing bowl, add the mayonnaise, shallot, capers, anchovies, bacon and salt and pepper, and mix well to crush the potatoes.

Divide the mixture into 4 portions and spoon the mixture into round rings to shape it. Press the mixture in well with the back of a spoon.

Put the vegetable oil into flat bottomed pot and warm over a low heat to approximately 60 degrees Celsius. Add the egg yolks carefully without breaking them, remove the pan from the heat and allow the yolks to warm through for 4 mins. Carefully remove the yolks with a slotted spoon and drain on absorbent paper.

Remove the rings from the terrines and place an egg yolk on top of each. Put the curly endive into a small bowl with the olive oil and toss together. Place the dressed endive over and around the plate. Season the egg with salt and pepper and serve immediately.

Mixture of ingredientsAfter adding in the potatoesAfter spooning the mixture into a round ringCarefully adding the egg yolk on topWe used rockets instead of endive as the local grocer did not have them. Chose to serve the terrine with tuna steak as our mains. Cut tuna steak to reveal it's pinkness in the centre the way I like them.

Black Glutinous Rice or Pulut Hitam

I decided to put the crockpot or slow cooker to the test as we just bought one. I chose to make a black glutinous rice dessert or also known as pulut hitam in Malay. The ingredients I used are as follows.

1/2 cup of black glutinous rice
1/4 cup of white glutinous rice
2 litres of boiling hot water
2 pandan leaves, knotted
Add rock sugar to taste
Coconut milk

Add the rice together and soak for about an hour. I had run out of black glutinous rice so I added some white glutinous rice to make up for it. After soaking, add the rice to the slow cooker. Pour 2 kettles or 2 litres of boiling hot water to the crockpot and add the pandan leaves in. Put the crockpot on high for 2 hours. Then give it a stir and put it on low for the next 2 hours.

Add in rock sugar or normal sugar towards the end and give it a stir. Put it back on high for 30 minutes. Ready to serve. Dish out into individual bowls and add a tablespoon of coconut milk if you like. I didn't have any on hand so I had it plain.

Black glutinous rice Ready made dessert. You can see it's piping hot.

Chicken Porridge

The weather in Victoria has suddenly changed to cold wintry conditions. Hopefully it's just a temporary situation and will warm up again as it's only just the start of autumn. Daylight saving will end for us on April 6th. It'll be 2 hours time difference between Malaysia and Australia instead of 3.

Woke up to a cold Saturday so I decided to boil some porridge for lunch. Here's my recipe. I take the easy way out by using a non-stick rice cooker.

1/2 a cup of jasmine rice
5 cups of water
1 tsp of shredded ginger
1/4 tsp of chicken stock powder
Shredded chicken
1 salted egg
2 century eggs
2 stalks of spring onions
2 tablespoons of fried shallot

Put the rice and water to boil for about 5 mins. Then add in ginger and chicken stock powder when hot. I don't have to do anything until towards the end of cooking time. After about 25 mins or so, depending on how soft you want your porridge to be, add in all the ingredients and give it a stir. Let the ingredients sit in the porridge for about 3 mins. Dish out the porridge into individual bowls and sprinkle spring onions and fried shallot. I also serve pickled cabbage and white "fu yi" or chilli bean curd that can be bought from Asian grocery stores as side accompaniments.

Shredded chicken, salted egg, century eggs and spring onionReady to serve chicken porridge
Pickled cabbage
Fu Yi or Chilli Bean Curd
After stirring my bowl of porridge

Kun Ming Restaurant and Guitar Hero III

I had the day off on Tuesday as I worked through the weekend. Went to Melbourne and bought the hard to get game, Guitar Hero III for PS3. Believe me, I've been on the look out for the game since January. Each time I went to JB Hi-fi or EB Games they'd be out of stock. The game gained notoriety when an Aussie dad bought his son the $170 game for $10,000 on eBay as a Christmas present. Anyway, I finally got lucky on my most recent trip to JB Hi-fi. Hopefully Keith will be able to tolerate my bad guitar playing skills.

We went to Kun Ming Restaurant on 212 Little Bourke St, Melbourne for dinner as I was yearning for some Chinese food. I haven't had Chinese food for ages, probably 6 weeks or so with the exception of dim sum. As you know, a Chinese will need to have rice some point in time so my body was screaming "rice, rice, rice!".

We each ordered a soup as our starter. It was very tasty and I enjoyed it very much. For our mains, we had claypot beancurd with salted fish and a fried flounder fish with salt, chilli and pepper served with steamed rice of course. They were both delicious.

The flounder was a sensational contrast in texture between the moist fresh fish and crispy golden batter on the outside. The flounder was filleted and carcass was deep fried and used as a presentation bowl. The dish was finished off with fried garlic, chopped chillis, coriander, salt and pepper. It always never fails to attract glances from other tables.

The beancurd or tofu was another genuine dish. The salted fish was soaked for a long time and announced itself with occasional sparks of saltiness. It was as soft as the tofu. The chicken was slightly over tenderised but otherwise nicely balanced without too much liquid as you get in some other restaurants.

We have eaten dinner at Kun Ming 4-5 times and have always enjoyed the Cantonese style dishes. The restaurant was surprisingly busy on a Tuesday night. I would not hesitate to recommend Kun Ming. Not too expensive, tasty and caters to Chinese tastebuds.

Spaghetti Carbonara

This is what we had for dinner tonight.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone! I got lots of chocs from friends and colleagues. Don't know what to do with them as I'm not that big a fan. I do eat them, but not all the time. Give me Pringles potato chips anytime! Here's a pic of the choc bunny that my friend requested me to take. Maybe I'll save it for her when she comes visit :)Back to the fruits that I bought, the custard apples weren't sweet at all and flesh kinda hard. Not anything like what I had back in Malaysia. I guess it must be a different variety as they were imported from Vietnam. The persimmons and longans on the other hand were so sweet and crunchy. I've loved persimmons since young except that they aren't always in season so I don't get to eat them very often. Longans are great when chilled except that if you eat too much and don't drink enough water, you're likely to loose your voice and get a sore throat.

Yay to Kimi and Ferrari for winning the F1 in Sepang yesterday. Massa could have come second but somehow lost control of his car and did not finish the race. I hope they both do well in Bahrain in a fortnight's time.

Last night, Keith made lamb shanks in our new crock pot and served it with mashed potato. His mash is the best! It's very light, smooth and fluffy.

Food Review

I had the day off today so we went to Melbourne. I had Vietnamese beef noodle or better known as pho for lunch in Richmond. The soup was very tasty. I think I've found the best pho shop in Richmond although I've only sampled 3 others so far and there's many more of them in the vicinity. Keith had the chicken noodle soup which was equally good. Reminds me of the "kway teow teng" in PJ State. The drinks however weren't as good. Keith had the jackfruit shake while I had the soursop shake. It was rather watery and flat in taste. For those who want to give this shop a try, it's called Pho Dzung Tan Dinh located on 208 Victoria St, Richmond.

After lunch, we went shopping. I bought some hard to get fruits such as custard apples, longans (or mata kuching) and persimmons. It didn't come cheap. Later in the evening, we went to Lygon St for some Italian food. Keith's Italian friend recommended us Il Gambero although he warned us that he last went there 15 years ago. We ordered a small prosciutto pizza and two entree size pastas ie. the gnocchi with bolognese sauce and spaghetti marinara. The pizza crust was too dry while the prosciutto was overcooked. As for the gnocchi, some were shaped too big and the sauce a bit too sour. The spag marinara was too garlicky and the little prawns felt like they came out of the freezer. Forgetting my camera yet again, I used Keith's motorola phone to capture the food hence the poor pic quality. Anyway I'm glad we ordered small portions as I was saving space for dessert at Brunetti. We headed to Brunetti, a short distance away located on Faraday St, Carlton. My eyes immediately widen with excitement at all the cakes, cookies and chocolates. It's a big cafe occupying 5 shops lots. I had a hard time deciding what to order but we eventually settled for a New York cheesecake, creme caramel with chocolate shavings, an ice choc and a hot choc. The place was pack even on a Tuesday. The cakes and drinks were quite good although a tad sweet. I suspect people with sweet teeth would have a field day at Brunetti's.

F1 Australia 2008

16th March 2008 - The day I watched Formula One live at a circuit for the first time. I've been an ardent fan of F1 since early 2000 with Ferrari being my favourite team and Michael Schumacher my hero. I seldom ever miss a race that's shown on tv. Pity I never got to see Michael racing in real life. Now that Schumi (or "tar-shu-ma-ke" like the way the Chinese say it) has retired, I don't follow the F1 as closely anymore.

There have been rumours of Bernie Ecclestone not wanting to renew the contract with Melbourne when it expires in 2010 unless we hold a night race. So while it's still in Albert Park, Melbourne I thought I'd make the most of it and experience race day. We caught a train from Geelong and took a tram from Spencer St station right to St Kilda Gate 2. We arrived at 1pm fully decked in our Ferrari gear and bought the general admission ticket for $99 per person. It was sweltering hot, 39 degrees C was the forecast. It felt much hotter than that on track. We slathered sunscreen on our exposed skin. The race didn't start till 3:30pm so we wandered around the park. They had air shows, V8 racing and drivers parade before the race started.

Anyway 3:30pm finally came and we got to see a handful of cars crashing out in front of us on the first lap. How interesting! The roaring sounds of the F1 cars were just exhilarating. I bought a pair of ear plugs to drown out some of the sound. Lewis Hamilton, driver for McLaren Mercedes was in a class of his own and won the race. Ferrari with Kimi and Massa had a rather rough time. They both didn't finish the race but Kimi managed to score 1 point by coming in 8th. As you can imagine, only a total of 7 cars finished the entire race.

Surprise, surprise, we didn't stay to the end. We left after about 20 laps as we couldn't stand the heat and dust, plus we knew that Ferrari wasn't going to get a good finish so it was home time for us. We were so dehydrated and flustered that we had to stop at Gloria Jeans to cool down. The mango chiller I had was such a welcome! When I got home, my face, legs and arms were covered in so much dust and soot. I had to shampoo my hair twice and scrub my skin clean. I reckon I won't go to the circuit to watch another race unless the weather is nice and cool. I don't think Sepang and Bahrain would be very welcoming either in the searing heat. I much prefer the nice cool comfort and big screen of our own home. Plus you get to see the whole track on tv and not just one particular section.

My F1 receipt and ticketMe in the sunFerrari trying to catch up to Red Bull The crowd

View of the grandstand and happy snappers/filmers

New beginning

I'm back to being slack in updating my blog again. During the 2 weeks I've been away, Malaysia has had her election and formed government. For the first time in history, the ruling and leading party suffered a major blow by losing 5 out of 13 states i.e. Perlis, Penang, Perak, Selangor and Kelantan to the opposition. Here's hoping the change would be good for the country.

Politics aside, my dad had a cataract operation on his right eye which was a success. He'll have the left one done in a month's time.

We also had a friend from Perth who stayed with us for 4 days. He is Keith's best friend and loves cooking too so I was spoilt with good food every night.

I finally got to eat at La Luna Bistro in Rathdowne St, North Carlton . It's located in a lovely area with nice shady trees around. I had oysters as entree and the spicy sicilian beef ragout gnocchi as the main which I enjoyed very much. Dessert was a tasting plate for 3 so we got to sample 6 different desserts. I'd definitely go back again although the price might be a tad expensive for a bistro. My only regret is not bringing my camera along to snap happy food snaps.

Part 4 - Dinner at Rockpool

Finally, Part 4 of 2nd March '08! We went to Rockpool for dinner at 8:45pm. Having no reservation, they sat us at the bar area. Surprisingly, the bar area was just as comfortable as the main sitting area. The only difference was that we didn't have the Yarra River view but had plenty of wine bottles to ogle at. I was expecting to be put on to high stools and cramped bar tops. Instead, we were seated in nice comfortable chairs as per photo below.
Not feeling too hungry, I ordered a Wagyu Spaghetti Bolognese priced at $28. It was the best Spagbog I've eaten although the serving was a bit small for the price. I don't think I'll have it again because no matter how good the chef is, how exciting and adventurous can one get with a spagbog anyway?The table next to ours had a Wagyu hamburger which looked more tempting to me. Must try that next time.

Keith had a T-bone steak which was done to perfection as a medium rare. You can see how red it still is from the 2nd picture. The meat was tender, juicy and had a wonderful grilled taste to it. The best!
We ordered a side plate of roasted mushrooms which was quite good but the portion simply too large for the 2 of us. For dessert we had a summer strawberry salad with rose granita. I've had it 3 times now and it's one of my firm favourites. Keith ordered a praline mille-feuille which is a pastry with pralines in between. The serving was huge again. We were in a hurry to finish our dessert as we had to rush to the car park before it closed at 10pm. In our hurry, we forgot to take pics. We had 5 minutes to scoff everything down so we didn't enjoy the dessert as much as we could have. And wow, I've finally finished telling my tale!

Part 3 - Melbourne International Motor Show

There was a huge crowd at the motor show. The ticket lines were taking forever. It costed $18 per person. I snapped away happily at the cars and also sat in some to test the leg space and interior. The Fiat 500 was a hit with everyone. It's so cute and stylish. Here's some photos of them. I wonder if they'll be the next big thing after the minis and beetles. Retail price in Australia starts from $23k. Anyway enjoy the shots!

The Fiat 500 in green, white and red. Colours of Italy.

Alonso's new F1 ride for team Renault. (It was the only F1 car on display!!!)

Audi R8
Ferrari
Maserati
Lamborghini
Interior of the Lambo. Lovely seats!!! So plush and luxurious.
Another Lambo.Guess who?? Meeeeee! hehehe.. taking photos of the crowd with my mini Olympus. I haven't downloaded my pics but have conveniently cut and paste from Keith's photopage *grin*.