Yellow Bean Salad

I'm going to argue that this is a summer salad better overdressed than under. And, it's all about getting your hands on the best beans you can find. No joke, if all you can find are crap beans, make it with something better - great broccoli or even cauliflower. I go the extra mile here and slice yellow beans into bite-sized segments, but you can certainly stop at topping and tailing. The dressing is green chile-spiked, cilantro-flecked, and coconut milk-based. It's creamy yet vibrant, and the sort of dressing that works with the recipe at hand, as well as just about anything else you have coming out of the garden or off the grill (the recipe will leave you with a good amount of extra). When you're tired of simple summer vinaigrettes, give this dressing a go instead.

It's a personal preference, but I think this sort of creamy dressing goes best with ingredients that have a lot of structure and crunch - part of the reason I paired it with green beans here. Crunchy romaine or little gem lettuce might be another option. Celery would be tasty, or like I mention up above, broccoli or cauliflower. I'm sure you all could come up with other ideas I'd never think of. Anyway, its a favorite dressing. I even thin it out on occasion with a couple cups of simple broth, seasoning it to the point that it tastes good on its own. I bri! ng it to a simmer, then make a quick one-pot soup with egg noodles and crunchy vegetables or tiny tofu cubes and crunchy vegetable. Easy for weeknights or those nights when I want something easy and good in no time at all.

Continue reading Yellow Bean Salad...

Izakaya Den @ Melbourne CBD

8 months into our Melbourne adventure and we are still on the hunt for a convenient place where we can eat good Japanese cuisine without busting our wallets. While Izakaya Den does not exactly fall under that category, we couldn't resist detouring from our plan and giving this place a go when we learnt of their secretive entrance and underground venue.

Some have struggled with finding the entrance but the easiest way to find this place is find the number "114" sign along Russell Street and walk down half a flight of wide stairs. The glass door on the left will lead you into a narrow open kitchen restaurant / bar. If you walk straight down to the boutique, you have walked down a little too far.

The menu is not huge, couple of entrees, couple of sashimi, couple of char grill and non char grill dishes and couple of desserts. Matter of fact, their drinks menu has way more options compared to what you can eat.

If you think that Asahi is the only Japanese beer, you haven't seen what is out there in terms of Japanese beers. One of the nicer ones I have had is Yebisu but I was kind of upset when my friend told me that the beer sells for a hundred yen (approx AUD1.50) because I paid 10 bucks for this.

With any Japanese restaurant, izakaya style or not, ordering sashimi is a must (unless you sense that the quality is questionable). However for $16, the portion was rather miserable, with really thin slices of salmon done more like a cerviche with a yuzu dressing. Tasted good but definitely not value for money.

The corn kaki-age are legendary and it deserves the applause even though it is $8 for 3 fritters (thinking about it, I should be able to get 5 stalks of corn with spare change). However, to get them in the form of a delicious piece of deep fried corn batter, that's priceless. Made perfect with some green tea salt.

Deep frying seems to be their speciality as their chicken karaage was just as good too. While the Wife noted the colour of the meat being a little darker than usual when she bit into one piece, I am giving them the benefit of the doubt and say it was due to marination and the use of thigh meat.

Go to the meat section and you will see a lot of premium breeds on offer. For pork, it is non other than the kurobuta, aka the berkshire or meat from the black pig. It is meant to be as marbled as the beef equivalent of wagyu. This was slow braised and grilled, eaten simply as it is with some spring onion and salt. For almost 20 dollars, it again seemed to be a little on the pricey side.

I have always loved ox tongue, especially during a good session of Korean barbeque. This was again grilled and topped with a spring onion dressing that matched it beautifully.

At this point, we realised that we had probably breached the 50 dollar mark per person and was nowhere full, after all it was all delicate items with no carbs to fill. Instead of ordering some carbs, we might as well go down the path of a meat eater and ordered another meat dish.

Another premium meat on offer, the wagyu and specifically the Sher Wagyu, a breed that is reared in Victoria. Graded at 7, the Porterhouse was melt in your mouth and just simply beautiful with a little pickled cauliflower. Worthy of a price tag of $33.

Overall, some people might say the place is more of a drinking hole, some might say the prepara! tion of food is too simple to warrant the hefty price tag but we say simple cooking is part of Japanese cuisine and we appreciated every single dish we had.

However at just under 70 dollars per pax, it is a nice to have meal opposed to a place that we can visit frequently.

Address and contact details:

Verdict: 4 stars out of 5 stars. While value for money is not exactly their forte, this place is worth a visit for its secretive entrance and underground location, the beautiful grilled meats and of course, the corn fritters.

Baking Classes

Banana cake with cream cheese peanut butter frosting.

After years of procrastination and excuses, I will finally do what I've been asked by people many times: conduct baking and cooking classes. I've had offers to supply cakes to restaurants, develop new breads for a bakery and teach cake making in a baking school but after much thought, I've decided that I prefer to work for myself at my own pace.

In recent years, big baking schools have mushroomed in Kota Kinabalu. These schools are efficient and business-oriented, teaching large classes in minimal hours. The cakes are commercialized, with many recipes based on ready mixes and additives promoted by baking ingredients companies. I am in no way able to compete with big baking schools nor do I want to compete with them anyway. I believe in the old-fashioned butter, eggs, vanilla and flour kind of cakes,homey and tasty, with as little or no additives as possible.I took my first baking class 23 years ago because I wanted to feed my family delicious cakes made with quality ingredients (that and the fact that I was having a difficult pregnancy and unable to play badminton), and I believethat there are many people like me who stubbornly refuse to feed their family anything less than the finest.

Classes will be small and will be held in a cosy place, not in a shoplot in some busy area of the city. The kitchen will be ready in September but I am planning two tea parties in August where you are welcome to a high tea and a demo class. Just leave a comment on this post with your contact, and you will be invited if you are within the first 30 people to write in. If you feel uncomfortable leaving your contact in the comment, do email me. However, to be fair to everybod! y, you s till have to leave a comment with your name.

I am nervous about posting this but this is it. It's high time I get off my butt and do something I enjoy.

Dim Sum Jalan Jinjang Indah, Jinjang Utara / Kepong

Its the Raya LONGGGGG weekend!

I must say Im loving it, for it meant a weekend of smooth traffic (it cant beat the double celebrations of CNY and Raya though thats when the town is almost deserted!), long runs, food-hunts and backlog clearance of blog updates!

Other than burgers and cakes, I have recently embarked on a dim sum gorging spree. Over this long break, I have a place in Kepong in mind. And just last week I was in Jinjang Utara, popping morsels of absolute delicious homemade dim sum into my mouth.

This outlet, with neither a signboard or a name, seems to be a family run business. 2 elderly folks and 2 young uns moved about taking and delivering orders, efficient and quiet. Located on the busy street where a nearby morning market is, its non-descriptive shop only added to its mystery.

There isnt a menu, and just like the olden days, you take your pick from the steamers they bought around to every table.

< img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7271/7762854106_5d1a71982b_z.jpg" alt="dim sum - jalan jinjang indah - near market-008" />

The piece de resistance here is the Tai Pau translated to BIG PAU. Its big alright, and delightfully bursting out of its dough with meat, meat and more meat!

My good friend Chan, who very kindly woke up at 6.00am on a Sunday to bring me here said the Tai Pau is usually sold out by 10am so its best to come early if you want to grab one. The other items would still be available so for late risers, no fret as you can still get your dim sum fix!

Tai Pau: Pork, chicken, egg, mushroom and turnips!

It was worth every calorie! It was that delicious!

Another fair gauge of good dim sum for me is the Char Siew Pau (BBQ Pork Bun). This one had a good ratio of meat to fat and wasnt overly drowned in gravy.

Then its the siew mai, har kow (meat dumplings, prawn dumplings), chook (congee) and chee cheong fun (rice rolls).

I would highly recommend the congee here. Lovely and smooth, I suspect there was dried cuttlefish added as I detected subtlenuancesof its flavour in the gruel. Well, whatever it was, it certainly made the congee much more flavourful and fragrant!

The siew mai (meat dumpling) was plump and meaty. Though old-school tend to be fatty, the dim sum here was surprisingly balanced and acceptable even to my fussy standards. Im officially a fan!

Steamed Rice rolls (Chee Cheong Fun) made in-house.

See the unfurled rolls? Its smooth and slides down the throat, unlike the starchy ones that breaks into pieces easily. Even the soy sauce used was of quality, just nicely sweet and salty. The accompanying chili paste is freshwith a nice spicy kick.

I know I have said this place is old-school aka traditional. However, that doesnt mean boring. Thereare surprises such as this dumpling with prawn + meat paste encasing BBQ pork.

The outer part of the ball is a special mix of prawn and meat paste, very tasty on its own and made even better with the char siew filling.

As usual I avoided the fried items but I couldnt resist this Deep Fried Ham Yue Pork!

Crisp and fragrant, do remember to grab a plate when youre here!

Seriously, this rather obscure and unknown outlet, without a name even; serves one of the most delightful dim sum I have ever had. I dont proclaim to be a dim sum expert, but for the category of old-school, nostalgic, house-made dim sum (NON-HOTELS dim sum), this is one I would highly recommend, another being the one in Pudu area Tuck Cheong.

The Jinjang Market is right opposite. After my dim sum session, I took a stroll in the market and packed home freshly boiled soya bean (my favourite!) and a box of glorious siew yok (roast pork belly). More on that in another post.

All in all, it was a good Sunday morning!

Dim Sum Jalan Jinjang Indah (on the main road where the turning into Jalan Jinjang Utara 5, 6,7,8 are), Jinjang Utara.
Opposite market.

GPS: N03 12 ! 47.1 E10 1 39 32.4

I cooked: Scottish mince and tatties

When my parents-in-law came to visit and stay with us last year, we cooked them many meals at home, including Asian (mostly Chinese) and some Western food. I asked my father-in-law if there was something from home that he missed eating and he said "mince and tatties".

Mince and tatties is a popular Scottish dish of minced beef and mash potatoes. My mother-in-law tells me that she likes using lamb mince to prepare this dish. The "mince" part of the dish essentially has the basic ingredients of mince meat, diced carrots, diced onions and stock.

Tatties is the Scottish term for potatoes. To make smooth mash potatoes, use a potato press instead of a masher. You can get a potato press from IKEA. I like using US Russet potatoes for their fluffy texture.

The best compliment I received was when my father-in-law said this tasted as good as the ones from home. :)

Scottish mince and tatties
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 25-30 minutes
Serves 4

Ingredients
500g of mince meat (beef or lamb, I prefer lamb)
500ml of beef stock (to save time, you can use 1-2 OXO cube diluted in water)
2 carrots, cut into small cubes
1 onions, chopped finely
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tbsp olive oil

For the mash potatoes
4 large Russet potatoes
3-4 tbsp of butter
1 tbsp milk
Freshly ground salt and pepper


1.In a large skillet or wok, heat the olive oil and add the onions and carrots and cook over a medium heat for 5 minutes until soft.

2. Add the mince meat and cook till browned.

4. Add the beef stock and simmer uncovered for 20 - 25minutes over medium lo! w heat . If it becomes too dry, then add more stock/water. Season with salt and pepper.

5. Meanwhile, in a separate pot, boil the potatoes in salted water for 15-20 minutes or until soft. Drain and mash (using a potato press) with some butter and milk. Season with salt and pepper.

6. Serve the mince with tatties (mash potatoes) and a steamed vegetable of your choosing (brocolli would work fine).

Sunlight on Italian Vines

Sunlight on Italian Vines

With the American Wine Bloggers Conference in full swing over in Portland tweets from friends there brought to mind the excellent time spent last year in the European version. Trips out to the vineyards are my favourite part of the EWBC. This photo was taken on one such outing to the Bastianich Estate in Fruili. The lowering sun cast a lovely glow over the vines who, in turn, were just dipping into their autumnal colours.

Sunlight on Italian Vines, Bastianich Estate, Fruili, Italy the latest in the Sunday Snapshots series of photographs with a wine related theme, whether bottles, glasses, vineyards or the back scenes of wineries.

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