Archive for November 2010
The Omakase with the Fish Sperm
Posted on: November 30, 2010
- In: Food | Japanese | Reviews
- 9 Comments
The Standing Sushi Bar recently opened a new outlet at Queen Street, now known as their “8Q” outlet. Contrary to its name, this SSB outlet has seats! And a much larger floor space to boot as well.
Their dinner omakase operations have now shifted to 8Q, which allows them to provide a greater variety of dishes due to the larger kitchen. So now this is where I’m at for another omakase!
Something to note: if you ever want to take photos of your food at 8Q, don’t ever sit at the counter. The lighting is super tricky to process out cleanly 
Momofuku Pork Belly Buns
Posted on: November 25, 2010
- In: Chinese | Cooking | Food
- 8 Comments
These pork belly buns here are what my friends love to call “kong bak paos” when I try to describe it to them, only for them to tell me that it’s nothing like kong bak pao when they finally try it.
This time I was making them not just for eating but for my friends at CaKe Photography to try out some food photography on them as well!
The recipe I followed is a slight variation of David Chang’s infamous Momofuku Pork Belly Buns. However I’d say this is just a version 1.0 and I’m still refining the technique each time I make this dish.
I started off by brining a thick slab of pork belly in a 50/50 sugar-salt solution, leaving it overnight in the refrigerator. I wanted to add a bouquet garni to the brine but I didn’t have the herbs on hand so I just threw in some dried shredded herbs which sadly didn’t do anything for the final taste.
Salmon ochazuke
Posted on: November 21, 2010
- In: Cooking | Food | Japanese
- 9 Comments
This is a simple and homely Japanese dish, sometimes made as a quick snack or even to make use of leftover rice. It is extremely versatile in the choice of toppings and here I’m using one of the more common toppings – grilled salmon and furikake, which is a mixture of dried fish and seaweed.
But the combinations are infinite, as you can top it off with ikura or tamago or anything that you choose. Even furikake itself has many different combinations of ingredients – some have seaweed, some have dried prawns, etc. Just mix and match!
1. Rub a generous amount of salt on the surfaces of the salmon and leave it for 10 mins to be absorbed. After that, rinse and dry it, then grill the salmon for about 7 mins on high heat.
2. Make some dashi stock, about 1 teapot’s amount, and then use it to boil the green tea. Steam the Japanese rice as per the instructions.
3. When the salmon is done, take it out and use a chop stick to break it up into flakes. Now scoop the rice into a bowl, sprinkle 2 tbsp of furikake and nori strips over the rice.
4. Scatter the desired amount of salmon flakes over the rice, and then fill up the bowl to about 2/3 with the tea. Finally top it off at the side with a dab of wasabi, which can be mixed in with the ochazuke as wished.
Chicken Curry
Posted on: November 14, 2010
- In: Chinese | Cooking | Food
- 18 Comments
Despite my dislike of chilli, I love to eat curry dishes and my favourite is none other that a hearty bowl of chicken curry! I usually keep it simple with just chicken and potatoes, which you can see here.
Spaghetti alla vongole in bianco
Posted on: November 8, 2010
- In: Cooking | Food | Italian
- 5 Comments
Vongole refers to clams in Italian and cooking them with pasta is part of the traditional Neapolitan cuisine. They are usually prepared in rosso (with tomatoes) or in bianco (white sauce). For this dish I opted for the latter.
First I soaked the clams in salted water so as to get rid of any remaining sand, then I dried them out, discarding those that remained open.
Pandan Chiffon Cake
Posted on: November 3, 2010
- In: Cooking | Food
- 38 Comments
Over the weekend, I went over to learn how to make a pandan chiffon cake from my aunt, something she used to make for me as a kid.
Although I have no interest in making cakes, I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to try my hand at making one.
The first step is mixing 1 tbsp pandan juice (that we squeezed out of pandan leaves) with 5 egg yolks, 100 ml coconut milk, 1/8 tsp apple green food coloring and 50 ml of corn oil.
Who just ate here