Watermelon lemonade
6 cups watermelon, cubed and seeded
1 cup raspberries
1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup lemon juice
1. Place watermelon, raspberries and water in a blender and blend until smooth.
2. Push through a fine mesh strainer into a large jug.
3. Stir in the sugar and lemon juice and mix until the sugar dissolves.
4. Refrigerate until chilled. Serves four.
Watermelon sorbet
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
2 tbs honey
2 tbs fresh lemon juice
drop of red food colouring (optional)
8 cups seedless watermelon, diced
1. In a medium saucepan, bring the water, sugar and honey to a boil over high heat, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.
2. Remove from the heat and let cool. Stir in the lemon juice and food colouring.
3. Place half of the watermelon chunks and half of the cooled syrup in a blender and puree until smooth.
4. Pour into a 23cm x 33cm baking dish and repeat the process with the remaining watermelon and syrup, adding all the pureed mixture to the baking dish.
5. Cover and freeze for about four hours, or until 2.5cm of the edge have frozen over.
6. Stir well to mix up the ice crystals.
7. Cover and freeze for six more hours, or until completely frozen.
8. Using an ice cream scoop, scrape the ice into mounds and serve. Mint springs may be used to decorate.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Lessons from the Kitchen
I bake, therefore I am.
Coming to Australia this year has really exposed me to a myriad of new flavours (and people). With so many places to cook like Fenner Hall, B&G and even in Bruce Hall’s South Kitchen (undoubtedly my favourite), it has been a really interesting learning experience – there’s just so much to learn just from the kitchen alone!
People usually marvel at those who can cook, and I mean those that prepare heavenly delicacies that are so good you’d think it is orgasmic. Well, I’d say that you don’t have to be a good cook to be able to do that. All you really need… is a really good recipe. And, of course, a little bit of practice to just correct little errors here and there to bring your dish to perfection. Voila! A masterpiece!
Now, do not think that you are plagiarizing someone else’s creation or masterpiece. We’re just following instructions in the recipe really, and if you are still not unhappy about the whole copying issue, modify the recipe to suite your own taste. Make it uniquely your recipe. Try something totally different, don’t let the phrase ‘usually done this way’ stop you. The kitchen is really a wonderful place to let your creative juices flow!
Timing is everything. Although I bake more than I cook, if there is one culinary lesson that I’d like to impart, it’d definitely be this one. Especially true in baking, that extra few minutes (or lack of) will determine whether your cake is overcooked or just baked to perfection. Planning ahead before starting to prepare your meal allows you to do multiple jobs within a given time frame.
While waiting for your food to be ready, I’d recommend investing those little bits of time into garnishing your food. They say first impressions matter, and I can’t help but agree. Looking good is just as important as tasting good. It’s all part of a package. Even simple things like the name of the dish can make a difference – imagine this: how would you react if I served you ‘crab ice cream’1, as compared to a similar item but named ‘frozen crab bisque’ instead?
inset:
Honeyed-ginger dumplings with honeyed-ginger and almond snack
The quality of the food that you prepare will at times be limited by the choice of ingredients used. For starters, if you are unfamiliar with how different ingredients complement each other, you could even try adjusting the recommended proportions of the ingredients listed in the recipes that you already have. They’re usually just suggestions, not rules.
All things said and done, I think the most important ingredient for any successful recipe… is love. It motivates the aspiring chef to give his best, and I believe that you can really taste the amount of effort a person added to his cooking, and that makes all the difference.
Bon appétit.
1Savoury ices were popular in Victorian times but have long since fallen out of fashion.
Coming to Australia this year has really exposed me to a myriad of new flavours (and people). With so many places to cook like Fenner Hall, B&G and even in Bruce Hall’s South Kitchen (undoubtedly my favourite), it has been a really interesting learning experience – there’s just so much to learn just from the kitchen alone!
People usually marvel at those who can cook, and I mean those that prepare heavenly delicacies that are so good you’d think it is orgasmic. Well, I’d say that you don’t have to be a good cook to be able to do that. All you really need… is a really good recipe. And, of course, a little bit of practice to just correct little errors here and there to bring your dish to perfection. Voila! A masterpiece!
Now, do not think that you are plagiarizing someone else’s creation or masterpiece. We’re just following instructions in the recipe really, and if you are still not unhappy about the whole copying issue, modify the recipe to suite your own taste. Make it uniquely your recipe. Try something totally different, don’t let the phrase ‘usually done this way’ stop you. The kitchen is really a wonderful place to let your creative juices flow!
Timing is everything. Although I bake more than I cook, if there is one culinary lesson that I’d like to impart, it’d definitely be this one. Especially true in baking, that extra few minutes (or lack of) will determine whether your cake is overcooked or just baked to perfection. Planning ahead before starting to prepare your meal allows you to do multiple jobs within a given time frame.
While waiting for your food to be ready, I’d recommend investing those little bits of time into garnishing your food. They say first impressions matter, and I can’t help but agree. Looking good is just as important as tasting good. It’s all part of a package. Even simple things like the name of the dish can make a difference – imagine this: how would you react if I served you ‘crab ice cream’1, as compared to a similar item but named ‘frozen crab bisque’ instead?
inset:
Honeyed-ginger dumplings with honeyed-ginger and almond snack
The quality of the food that you prepare will at times be limited by the choice of ingredients used. For starters, if you are unfamiliar with how different ingredients complement each other, you could even try adjusting the recommended proportions of the ingredients listed in the recipes that you already have. They’re usually just suggestions, not rules.
All things said and done, I think the most important ingredient for any successful recipe… is love. It motivates the aspiring chef to give his best, and I believe that you can really taste the amount of effort a person added to his cooking, and that makes all the difference.
Bon appétit.
1Savoury ices were popular in Victorian times but have long since fallen out of fashion.
Friday, September 29, 2006
ISD Hawker Night
Pakistani-style masala chicken
marinade: yoghurt, paprika spice, mixed herb, finely chopped ginger and garlic
have to try that modify the cooking method for this type of marinade, didn't turn out too well.. especially when the yoghurt gets in the way of frying the chicken most of the time.
anyway, there was an iron chef competition on that night. secret ingredient: cheese. we were to make dessert using the ingredients provided and incorporating cheese into our dish. the cheese that the ISD committee provided were those square slices that you add to your sandwich. other ingredients provided include yoghurt, fruits, biscuits, jellybeans, some nuts, just to name a few. they weren't the best around to make a dessert and to make it look pleasant at the same time.
so, i partnered net and we came up with the idea of making cheesecake. we crushed the biscuits and mixed it with the cheese we had to make the base of the cheesecake. i lined the base with strawberry slices like how i did for eli's cake, and the 'cake' was the yoghurt. i worked mainly on the decor part of the dish... didn't manage to do it properly given the time constraint (only 20 minutes), and the fruits provided were either oddly shaped or too small. i cut the straberries and put a slice of kiwi on it. also, i tried sprinkling some 'cadbury drinking chocolate' powder on the slices of orange, using a spoon to cover some parts to make the pattern.
wasn't too happy with what decoration, but we still tried our best. only after the 20 minutes that we realised that we could've just made cheese sandwich - use the cheese slices as the bread, and the fruits as the filling of the sandwich.
anyway, we called our dish "trinity", because it was cheese-biscuit-yoghurt, cheese-strawberry-kiwi, and cheese-orange-chocolate. judges thought ours actually tasted a lil' like cheesecake!
it was done all in the name of fun, but in the end, surprisingly, we won!
here's 'Trinity', the dish that earned me my 2nd Iron chef success!
marinade: yoghurt, paprika spice, mixed herb, finely chopped ginger and garlic
have to try that modify the cooking method for this type of marinade, didn't turn out too well.. especially when the yoghurt gets in the way of frying the chicken most of the time.
anyway, there was an iron chef competition on that night. secret ingredient: cheese. we were to make dessert using the ingredients provided and incorporating cheese into our dish. the cheese that the ISD committee provided were those square slices that you add to your sandwich. other ingredients provided include yoghurt, fruits, biscuits, jellybeans, some nuts, just to name a few. they weren't the best around to make a dessert and to make it look pleasant at the same time.
so, i partnered net and we came up with the idea of making cheesecake. we crushed the biscuits and mixed it with the cheese we had to make the base of the cheesecake. i lined the base with strawberry slices like how i did for eli's cake, and the 'cake' was the yoghurt. i worked mainly on the decor part of the dish... didn't manage to do it properly given the time constraint (only 20 minutes), and the fruits provided were either oddly shaped or too small. i cut the straberries and put a slice of kiwi on it. also, i tried sprinkling some 'cadbury drinking chocolate' powder on the slices of orange, using a spoon to cover some parts to make the pattern.
wasn't too happy with what decoration, but we still tried our best. only after the 20 minutes that we realised that we could've just made cheese sandwich - use the cheese slices as the bread, and the fruits as the filling of the sandwich.
anyway, we called our dish "trinity", because it was cheese-biscuit-yoghurt, cheese-strawberry-kiwi, and cheese-orange-chocolate. judges thought ours actually tasted a lil' like cheesecake!
it was done all in the name of fun, but in the end, surprisingly, we won!
here's 'Trinity', the dish that earned me my 2nd Iron chef success!
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