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{ Recipe } Char Siu Pork Belly (BBQ Pork Belly)



Sorry for the lack of posts... Busy? No, I am not. If you didn't know, I have found a job in late June. This was when I kinda stopped posting.

My work is not hard nor busy, but the travelling time to and from work is just killing me. Everyday I go home, I feel exhausted and have no motivation to do anything except sitting on the couch and watching my favourite TV shows. Yes, I am that procrastinating...

I still cook occasionally when I feel like :D Thank God that I have Mr. Pear who loves to cook, otherwise, I could have been as skinny as a stick. Ha! Exaggeratd! Anyway, I am back!

Lianne from Food Made With Love actually encourages me with her "Be Bold" post. It's like a wake up call. If you don't know, I actually started blogging roughly around 1999. I created my own homepage via Geocities (I am very proud of myself, coz I know I can never do it again).

Somehow, I stopped and started again in 2004 with Blogger. Since then on and off for a couple of times and I have started quite a few blogs all these years. I think in life, if you really want to achieve something you should be really consistent and hold on to it.

Giving up half way is now forbidden! haha! Yes, it's time to be tough to myself! I have been too lenient to myself... If I want to do something I like and I enjoy, I should give it 100% and hold nothing back. hehe... sounds so serious!

If you haven't seen me for a while, please drop me a few lines or words to remind me you are still waiting for my posts! :D I will be really encouraged by your kind words.

Ok, back to the post! If you follow my facebook page (if you haven't, I strongly recommend you to like it, as I upload photos quite often on this page, so you won't miss out too much.), you should know I made this char siu some time ago and said I will post the recipe "soon". So here we go! I finally take the time to start writing again and this char siu post is the best to start the journey.

Who doesn't like char siu? To be honest, I haven't heard anyone said he/she doesn't like char siu. Seriously, if you do have a friend doesn't like it, you should make this one for them to try. Sure they will change their mind.

Char siu is one of the most popular dishes in many families in Hong Kong. I remember when I was young, mum always bought char siu when she did not know what to cook for dinner. I like mum to have a lazy night as I love char siu especially the charred one with the crunchy touch and a little bit of fat...ummm... YUM!

We still can buy char siu here in Brisbane, but it's so much different from those in Hong Kong. Plus here, char siu is luxury good = very expensive, thus I seldom buy for dinner even I don't feel like cooking! haha...

The other day when I was waiting for my flight to Sydney, I found this recipe in Feast by chance. That issue also introduced our famous unofficial Chinatown in Sunnybank. Love to see magazine talking about things around me, feel so familiar and close :)

So when I came back from Sydney, I decided to make this one night and Mr. Pear was so impressed and complained I did not make enough! Guest what I did? I gave him the magazine and told him to cook for himself if he wants more.... hehe, I am just me being me :PP

Anyway, you should give it a go, coz it is not hard to make at all! Have fun! :D

{ Recipe } Sunomono 酢の物 (Japanese Cucumber and Seaweed Salad)


Mr. Pear and I love cucumber very much. The freshness and juiciness feeling make the dish taste extra delicious. This is one of the reasons that we planted the cucumber in our garden. Since we planted the seeds in February till now, we have got more than 15 cucumbers and there are more coming soon.

Now we have supply of cucumbers in our garden, of course, we will make very good use of this fresh produce. While Mr. Pear's signature cucumber salad is my all time favourite, today I made this Japanese cucumber salad from Just One Cookbook and it tasted absolutely fantastic.

Just One Cookbook and Just Hungry are my Japanese cuisine rescuer. There got lots of Japanese cuisine recipes and they are easy to follow. Good for weeknight dinner if you are always busy!

{ Recipe } Spicy Kale Chips


Some time ago I bought a voucher from Living Social for a fruit and veggie store which I can buy things up to A$40 for only A$20. Yesterday was the day I shopped for all the beautiful and fresh fruits and veggies :D

Then I came across a brunch of kale while I was walking down the aisle. I remembered I saw kale many places... Pinterest, blog and website... It is a super food and a hardy food for winter :) Since there are so many people talking about kale, I wanted to know more about this super food, so I took one in my grocery basket. And here we go to explore this special vegetable.

When I got home, I looked at it... I was like, ummm... How should I cook this? Stir fry? Cook in soup? Or what? Then, Lianne's blog came into my mind. I remembered I read about the kale chips post from her blog, so I quickly went there to see if I have the ingredients to make it.

Surprisingly, this kale chips was super easy to make. I did not have the exact ingredients that the recipe called for, but I followed most of the steps from the post :))) and it was a great success, it was crunchy and it was super additive as Lianne warns us in her blog!!! :D

{ Recipe } Green Tea Chess Cookies


I want to make this little cookies for long. Just purely because they look really pretty. Read through the recipe, I was surprised that it is actually easy to make than I thought. It just need to take more steps to make the pattern.

There are quite a few thing I can definitely do better next time when I make it again. First, I should not do it in a rush. I remember on the day Mr. Pear and I had to go to his parents place. So I was like running around the kitchen and tried to make this happen. Second, all because of the first reason, I did not harden the dough enough which made it too soft to cut it straight and nice. Therefore, some of the cookies still had the gap in the middle.

Overall, despite the shape doesn't look what it supposed to look like and a little bit bitter, but it was close enough and the taste not too sweet too.

{ Recipe } Pork and Vegetable Dumplings with Garlic Vinegar


Dumplings, something like pizza. I know it is a bit weird to use pizza as an example, but seriously, you can have many different fillings, just like pizza has different toppings, right?

Another variation you can do with dumplings is how you cook them. You can pan fry, you can steam, you can deep fry or even boil them, depends on your personal preference. This time I chose to boil the dumpling and dipped with garlic vinegar.

This time I chose to use mince pork and Asian green (I used bok choy) as the main ingredients. I also put some dried shitake mushroom.

As for wrapping the dumpling, you can pick a method from my last post. The one I used is a bit complicated to explain but it is not too hard to make once you practise a few time. :D

Now i Know >> How to wrap dumplings



I never know there are so many ways to wrap dumplings. However, the one I usually use is not here, but it is quite close to the last one from above. So, I guess there are at least 8 ways to wrap this little yummy things.

[ source: Pinterest ]

♥  bon appétit  :)

HomeGrown: Cucumber



I always want to grow some veggies and herbs in our garden, as I love to cook with fresh fruits and vegetables. However, one thing stops me from getting started... which I just thought I might not have the patient and consistency to watering the plants.

Early February, Mr. Pear and I bought some seeds from Bunnings. I remembered after we planted the cucumber seeds the next day we got the pouring rain which caused many places in Brissy under water. Our backyard has the history of water overthrowing... Of course, there was no exception for this time. So, both Mr. Pear and I were like... the seeds must have died as they were soaked in the water for such a long time. Amazingly, few weeks later, we started to see the cucumber seeds were blooming everywhere (thanks to the rain and the little flood that washed the seeds everywhere =__=). Since then, I am so excited about it and I started to take more care to help it grow better.

The cucumber plants do have a lot of flowers, but not every flower can bear fruit. So far, I can only see three to four are developing to become cucumbers :D It is very interesting to see it to develop from flower to cucumber. If I have not grown it, I would never know the cucumber actually develop from the end of the flower, unlike tomato which the fruit develop in the flower.

 

Hope we can have more cucumbers soon, as I can't wait to make the cucumber salad with this homegrown little gorgeous! :D

♥  bon appétit  :)

{ Recipe } Apple Tarte Tatin



Do you still remember the Easter dinner that I mentioned before? On that day, I made crème caramels for dessert. Since I was not sure how crème caramels will turn out, I made this dish for my backup plan.  I was so stressed on the day. I was so worried what if crème caramels did not turn how it should look and how it should taste... then I failed my guest... Though I had this backup plan, making two desserts was actually killing me. However, I was so glad that I made two desserts, as they both turn out really good and my guests loved them! I was over the moon! :))))

There was a little hiccup when I made this apple tarte tatin. I burnt the sugar!! Oh, no!!! What an unforgivable mistake! Before the guests came, I was trying to multitask myself... cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, blah blah blah... I kinda overestimated my efficiency! I put the sugar in the pan and left the kitchen and try to do something else which I should not do. I should watch the sugar closely because it is the most important part of the whole dish! And that is how it got burnt...

Again, as I was too busy with cooking for the night, I kinda forget to take pictures :((( And I almost forgot to take this finished product... as you can see, there is only a small on the plate... hopeless!! X_X


   Apple Tarte Tatin   
serves 2 | prep 10 mins | cook 30 mins | French 

[ Ingredients ]

3 golden delicious apple
1 tbs lemon juice
1/2 cup (110 g) caster sugar
20 g unsalted butter, chopped
ready-rolled puff pastry sheet
cream, to serve

[ Method ]

1 Preheat oven to 220°C (200°C  fan-forced).

2 Peel apples, cut into quarters, remove cores (cutting each quarter at the core so it has a "flat" side), and toss the quarters in a large bowl with the lemon juice and 1 tbsp of sugar.

3 Using 20 cm frying pan as a guide, cut pastry into a round slightly larger than the pan, prick with a fork.

4 Melt butter in a 20 cm non-stick frying pan over medium-hight heat. Cover with the remaining sugar. Cook over medium-low heat, shaking pan occasionaly to spread around any dark spots that appear, until a rich caramel forms.

5 Place apple quarters into pan, rounded side down, arranging them around pan. Cut remining apple to fill gaps. Cook the apples over medium heat for about 10 mins until caramel is bubbling up in the pan, shaking pan occasionally to prevent burnt spots

6 Lay the pastry over the apples, tucking any protruding edges around edges of pan

7 Place the pan in the oven, cook for about 25 mins, or until the puff pastry has risen and cooked. The pastry should be dry and flaky. Stand tarte in pan for 10 mins before carefully turning out onto a serving plate. Serve with cream. 

[ Kitchen Notes ]

¶ The main pressure point of this recipe is to caramelise the sugar. Other than that, this is actually not a difficult dish to cook at all :D

♥  bon appétit  :)

Place2Eat: Urbane



This restaurant consists of four different sections (Urbane, Sub Urbane, The Euro and The Laneway) under the umbrella of Urbane Group. These four different sections have their own menu and characteristics. Tonight, we were dining in Sub Urbane for a private function, to be exact a wedding dinner. The ambiance is classy and romantic. Sub Urbane is a tiny little room for a small size function but has a great privacy. The service was excellent and the food was fantastic! Plus sharing the meal with people you love, tonight was absolutely an awesome night!

We were first serve with the complimentary warm homemade bread which was really soft and we ordered more when we had our main... :D


Then we were served with the entree. I personally like the scallops better, not because it is seafood, but did cook really well and taste really fresh.
{ entree } 



After the entree, we were surprised by the newly wed couple by a speech from every guest! Seriously? I think it was not a good plan, especially for a person does not really like public speech, like me... (even though I am a well-known talkative person...) Anyway, all of us were starving by the time everyone finished their speech. So, we just can't wait any longer to start digging into our main :D

{ mains }



{ sides }

  

The portion of the dish did not look very big, together with the sides that we had, it was actually quite filling. We order extra three bowls of chips! Can't you tell we LOVE chips? :P The beef was done perfectly according to Mr Pear (I did try a bit, it was really yum!). One of my friends, Agnes, said it was even better than Moo Moo! Erm... I think they both have their own specialty and it is really hard to say... right? I, myself, quite liked my piece of fish :D Simple, but nice!

Here comes the desserts! To be honest, we were from starving to super full in just one course. I wish I have two stomach so I can accommodate the good things of both world... But the fact is, I only have one stomach and I knew it was super duper full... BUT, how can someone say "NO" to dessert? 

{ desserts }



Oh, no!!! I finished them!!! They were so delicious!! A bit too sweet though... but still good!! hehe... These really made us the happy pear (pair) ;P



   Urbane   
181 Mary Street, Brisbane QLD 4000
07-3229 2271
www.urbanerestaurant.com

++  Rate & Review  ++

♥  bon appétit  :)
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