Complaints and Choux.

This is me procrastinating.

I'm still not sure how I find myself having to write a critique on an article about oatmeal cookies (criticising the methods of research, not the actual cookie. Sigh.) and also half a million essays in letter format for English class.

I also am to be the head chef of sorts tomorrow for a menu of which the theme has been snatched from my hands.

Let me backtrack a little bit. We, and when I say we, I mean the entire school, have been busy last weekend and Monday and Tuesday for an event which was supposed to help us find our internships. I say supposed because after having slaved and stressed away and lost much precious sleep over it, a grand total of veryfuckinglittle of the student population have confirmed internships. The rest of us - yours truly included - are still unemployed and about as in control of the situation as a herd of lost sheep. Seriously people, I have no idea what to do now. UGH.

Hence, I didn't have time to actually sit the chef down and talk about my menu. I wanted it to be street food themed, which to me seemed like a breath of fresh air. I knew it'd stir some issues since it was a fine dining restaurant, but I figured that since street food was becoming a trend these days, I'd bring it into the school as well. Plus, who doesn't love street food ?

Well, chef didn't. Bah. Humbug.

It might have also been caused by a certain, ahem, colleague of mine who wasn't paying attention to a single word I was saying. So when his dishes clashed with my theme, I took the lashing and had to rewrite my entire menu to orbit his crazed ideas of food.

Needless to say, I was not pleased. Still am not pleased. Will probably not be pleased tomorrow either.

I have swerved sideways slightly and changed from street food to bistro instead. Well now it must be a tad more acceptable since one is no longer dining by the street but in an actual building. Damn, I was so looking forward to making more churros ! But I digress. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I will have to shout orders and tell them what to do. I have no inner Gordon Ramsay so how that will play out, I have no clue. But we'll see. Fingers crossed.

On the bright side, there is fried chicken on the menu. It'll be good. Fried chicken is always good.

It's been getting colder lately. How the hell people dress sexy for Halloween, I don't know. All I can think of dressing up as is a burrito and that is so I won't have to freeze my butt off when I step outside. I'm not even sure if they celebrate Halloween here... There is an underground club of sorts that will probably have a Halloweeny theme though. Being someone who doesn't drink nor dance nor even been to a club before, I don't think I will partake in said celebration. Maybe I'll just dress myself up and walk around the school for an hour or so. Just so people think I am actually going to the club. Then when time comes, I'll be nice and snug in my room, preferably with some chocolate and nobody will know where I am. Oooh, sneaky.

But really, I don't drink. Not because I am being pious, but because my stupid Asian genes have rendered me useless once I ingest any form of alcohol. That includes the fumes. Yes, my friend, I get giddy just from smelling anything with alcohol included (which means perfumes fall under this category as well). I skip the drunk part and go straight to hungover. No fun.

So while I have the great pleasure of being one of the few un-drunk ones on Friday nights (or most nights in some cases), I have noticed that drunk people do odd things. Well, I think that is obvious. I wonder what I'd do if I were drunk.

So what do I do then ? Well, I bake. Not on Friday nights of course, but whenever something needs to be baked, I do it. The most recent thing I made was biscotti of the savoury sort. Oh, it was for tomorrow. Oh no.

Moving on to happier topics, I have also made eclairs. Of which some I stole back to the room and stuck a candle in to celebrate my roommate's birthday. Don't look at me like that, we were broke and the shops didn't sell cake.

This is said roomie. Hello !

For the choux paste:
400g water or milk or a mixture of both
140g butter
20g sugar
280g flour
2g salt
400g eggs

1. Bring the water/milk mixture, the butter, the sugar and the salt to a boil. Immediately dump in all the flour and stir until the mixture comes together in a ball.
2. Lower the heat and stir the dough on low heat for a little while more to dry it out and cook out the taste of the raw flour.
3. Put the dough in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add the eggs one by one, beating all the while until it reaches a sort of dropping (or plopping) consistency.
4. Fill a piping bag fitted with a plain nozzle with half the dough and pipe eclairs/profiteroles/cream puffs onto a lined baking tray. Bake in an oven preheated to 180C until puffed, golden brown and dry on the outside. Remove from the oven and let cool before filling.

For the pastry cream:
500g milk
1/2 vanilla pod
125g egg yolks
100g sugar
40g custard powder

1. Split the vanilla pod down the middle and put in with the milk in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer, cover and let infuse for at least an hour.
2. In a bowl, whisk together the yolks and sugar until lightened. Add the custard powder.
3. Bring the milk to the simmer again, and slowly pour into the yolk mixture, whisking all the while. Pour the mixture back into the pan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened.
4. Pour onto a tray lined with clingflim, then press another sheet of clingflim directly on top. Chill.
5. When cold, beat in the mixer using the paddle attachment to loosen before piping into the eclairs.

*remember to remove the vanilla pod ! You can rinse it and leave to dry, then stick it in a jar of sugar to make some awesome smelling sweet stuff for your coffee/cake/cookies.
**flavour the cream as desired. Add cocoa/chocolate/coffee extract/pistachio paste/nutella (OMG).

Lemon Chicken and.. Holy Hell it's October.

And suddenly, it's October.

Has it been three months since I left home already ? Sure doesn't feel like it.

Not so long ago, if you were to ask me if I liked it here, I would have said no, I didn't. I would have said I loved it better back in Malaysia, that I would rather be working again and sleeping in my own bed at home. I would have said I would rather brave the mad heat of my homeland than have the cold air of Switzerland. I would have told you no, my heart wasn't here. It was back there.

Then, something changed. I met some people. 

I went on vacation with said people. 

I grew to love the kitchen. 

I saw sights and scenery that I really, really never imagined I'd get to see in my life.

I found cookbooks here that I never even dreamed of seeing. I found food that I never thought I'd ever taste. And then I grew to love this place. My heart is still back there. But I think little by little, Switzerland is growing on me. I actually found myself yearning for the calmness of Bouveret during my last day in Venice. But then again, it could have been because I was tired of walking around with luggage that probably weighed half as much as I did.

My holidays are almost over. In two days, I will be beginning the Fall term. After that, it is time for me to go to work - intern for half a year in this place. In fact, I've already begun to do research about places I'd like to work in. It's all rather confusing - and also a little frightening, having to decide everything by myself. Once, I'd ask my parents what they thought of me doing this or that. Now it's me and my laptop - or ipad - and then I decide and off I go. Which means I'm going to be held responsible for whatever I choose. 

It's a lot to take in.

I have lived two decades. I've done stupid things and made silly mistakes. I've gotten into fights and accidents and I've seen things I wish I never saw. I've heard stories of the weird and wonderful and met some amazing people. And yet at the end of the day, when I can't sleep at night (which has happened once here, when I was recovering from a fever), the only person I want to see is my dad. What I'd give to be able to walk downstairs, steal a banana and sit and watch some stupid horror movies with him again.

Speaking of which, here is a picture of me old man. He dyed his eyebrows black prior to the picture being taken. Come on, you know it makes sense.

Sure, I can do that now. The bananas are on my table next to my bed. I can watch movies anytime I want. In fact, I can stay up all night if I chose to. But it's not the same. In fact I even miss his snoring - his snoring only, mind you. When we were five in a hotel room, three girls and two boys, I didn't sleep for two nights being kept up by my friend's snores. It was like trying to hug a train engine to sleep.

Also, if you were to ask me if I missed Malaysian food, I'd said no. Because, well, I don't. Ever since I got here and discovered cheese-pasta-cold meats-salads-European food, I fit in quite happily (and I am slowly getting more rotund as I speak). But if you were to ask me if I miss my mom's cooking... God, yes. Heck she could even cook plain rice and I'd eat it.

Which is my cue to show you this lemon chicken I cooked during Malaysia week last term.

(Oh, real smooth.)

I can't help it. My thoughts aren't being very coherent. I think I've been staring at my computer screen for too long...

Lemon Chicken

3kg chicken thighs, deboned

For the marinade:

20g soy sauce

5g pepper

4 eggs

30g castor sugar

30g cornflour

5g sesame oil

For the sauce:

400ml chicken stock

20g butter

50ml lemon juice

20g sugar

20g cornflour (to thicken)

Extra cornflour, to coat the chicken.

1. Clean the chicken and slice it into strips. 

2. In a large bowl, combine all the marinade ingredients, add the chicken, cover and refrigerate.

3. Prepare the chicken stock.

4. The next day, heat up the chicken stock and reduce it by half. Add the rest of the ingredients (except the cornflour) for the sauce, adjusting the amount of lemon juice or sugar to taste. Make sure it's sour/sweet enough !

5. Mix the cornflour for the sauce with a little bit of water, then add the slurry to the sauce and bring to the boil until thickened.

6. Add the extra cornflour to the chicken in the marinade to form a thick batter of sorts. Deep fry the chicken pieces until golden brown and crispy.

7. To serve, either pour the sauce over the chicken or toss the chicken in the sauce. Garnish with sesame seeds and coriander leaves. Serve with rice.

Fragrant Rice

1kg short grain rice

3 stalks lemon grass

3 pandan leaves

Star anise, cloves

2 cups chicken stock

A big pinch of salt

1. Rinse the rice until the water runs clear. In a pot, add all the ingredients, then add enough water till it comes up to 2cm above the rice. Bring to the boil, stirring, then reduce the heat to a low simmer.

2. Cover the pot and let the rice cook until all the water has bee absorbed, around 15 minutes. Fluff up the rice with a fork and serve warm.

Of Venice, An Explanation and Matcha Ice Cream

This is going to be a post about a green tea ice cream that I made a little while ago. Here is a picture as proof.

Okay, not really. But I'll put the recipe down below anyways because it is some really tasty ice cream.

After a week of running around Italy and France, I am now back in Switzerland and am also at a bit of a loss of what to do. I've been going shopping and eating and also just recovered from a bout of sickness that left me too weak to even stand up. Dear reader, I swear I cannot remember the last time I've ever been that sick. And oddly enough, the last time I was close to being that sick, I had just come back from a holiday. Which is strange because I fell sick right after I got back from Venice. 

It's a sign. A sign that I should just go on holiday permanently.

Anyhoo, once having recovered, I proceeded to dye my entire head of hair red and buy clothes and also another cookbook and tidy up the room and study some French. All this in an effort to (1) make the most of my holidays and (2) fix the hole in my heart. I had my heart broken in Venice, you see.

I was alone in Venice for three days. And I loved every. Single. Second. I swear if I could, I'd just move there and become Italian. The streets are every bit as beautiful as I ever imagined and the canals are ridiculously blue. The gondolas are huge and decked with everything you could think of, from red plush chairs to gold figures on the prow. You get around by boat, not car. I just wandered into the Rialto market by myself and turned corners until I walked into a shop that sold solely chocolates. I must have stood at the door with my mouth hanging open for a solid ten minutes before grabbing the nearest jar of chocolate spread.

And the gelati, oh the gelati. There are stands and stalls and shops everywhere. They open as early as ten in the morning and have a myriad of flavours to choose from. I told myself to stick to vanilla and pistachio - I once heard that pistachio gelati is the test of a good gelateria, if it's yummy, you better believe the rest of the flavours are phenomenal - but then I discovered that there were flavours like tiramisu and chocolate and fiori de latte which I absolutely fell in love with. It's just milk, but it's milky tasting in the best possible way. I spent an entire morning dedicated to stuffing my face with gelati then some Sicilian cannoli (delicious !) and nougat after. And then I spent the rest of the day trying to walk off the sugar.

The people are really nice. The smile at you and wink and help you around and while there are no handsome men in expensive suits - ahemMilanahem - walking around, Venetians feel a little more accessible. While there were models in the streets of Milan and Paris, there were nonnas and jolly Italian men sitting in the cafés by the road, eating and talking and generally enjoying life. It made me want to join them even though I spoke like three words of Italian.

Venice is a romantic city, if not the most romantic in the world. Why did I go alone ? Simple. I didn't have anyone to bring with me. My friends who went with me to the aforementioned places were off gallivanting in London. I do not have a boyfriend. But I was - am - head over heels for a certain someone who knew - knows it. (What ?) 

I talked about loving someone who doesn't love you back. Freaking sucks. Then I said, there was always hope. What the hell did I mean ?

Usually I refrain from typing all this, or even talking about it to anyone other than my closest friends. I don't like putting personal stuff in a place so public. It's too, um, personal. And typing, or writing about it makes it feels so real and solemn - it's been put down in a place where I can actually see the words, rather than me just saying them to a friend. And I didn't say much. The ones who travelled with me were in fact the only beings on earth, other than said offender, who knew about my predicament. Okay I admit, I might be dramatizing a little but I will write as I feel, and I felt it deeply. I've liked him for a long time. I finally got the guts to tell him - and while I wasn't exactly rejected, I wasn't exactly accepted either. It was fine. I just wanted to be acknowledged.

And then came a little glimmer of hope. I think I grasped it too tightly - you know how it is when you have a crush. You think too much, you want too much and when you get even the slightest nod in your direction, you start grabbing at straws that might not even be there. Well, that hope was sort of taken away when I was in Venice - not completely. He just wasn't ready. I completely understood, I might have rushed into telling him and all that.. But then I would have to see him after this. Every day. Could I cope ? I was wondering myself. He said I could stay away from him if I wanted, and we could talk less. If it made things easier for me. 

See my problem is, I cannot move on unless I get rejected. Like a bitchslap in the face, I need a loud, resounding NO and the grief that follows after to be able to give up and get on. But he didn't say no. God, he didn't say no.

Does that mean I have a chance still ? I don't know. He said he wouldn't mind if we talked - he said he liked talking to me in fact - but then I did warn him that he'd have to put up with my silly affections for some time. He said he didn't mind. And this was after the crushing news. I got sad - then very confused. I spent the rest of the night watching youtube videos and eating candied pineapple to make myself feel somewhat normal again.

We've chatted online once since then. I don't know if I should find him again or leave him be. I want to talk to him, of course. But I don't want to seem overly eager - kind of like how a guy is supposed to wait a while after getting a girl's number before calling or something. Does that rule still apply ? Be cause now people text and all.. I digress. I don't know where the line between "don't care" and "pushy" is. I don't know how to be the one who cares less. In fact I don't know any medium - I don't know what gray is, I never did. Which is kind of stupid since most of my shirts are gray.

Phew.

I feel like the high school girl who has a crush on the most popular guy in school. Which is kind of annoying since I really hated those girls with those crushes, all they seemed to do was blink and blush and giggle and do absolutely nothing (which is also why I spent most of the movie yelling "Do something youwidiyot") and now ironically I am put in the same position. Oh, life.

So what did I do after that ? Well, sleep, for one, because I was exhausted then and I needed to catch a plane the next day. Before catching said plane, I also dragged my 12kg luggage through the streets of Venice and shopped my little heart out. I managed to get a souvenir for my sister though.. It'll be a year before she gets it. But that's beside the point. I bought a stupid amount of chocolate for myself - which I normally never do - and then flew back to Bouveret and proceeded to become ill.

And that brings us to today. With me sitting and typing out this really long diary of a post with no mention whatsoever of ice cream (wait, I did mention gelato. Ha.) and all the while thinking shoulditexthim woulditbeannoying ohmygodwoolissocomfy.

Okay. Okay. Thank you for listening. I hope you didn't pass out from boredom. Here is your ice cream.

Matcha Ice Cream

Ingredients (20 servings)

-Milk 1,920 ml

-Heavy cream 960ml

-Sugar 480g

-Green tea powder (Matcha) 30-40g

PREPARATION:

1. In a medium saucepan, whisk all the ingredients together except green tea powder.

2. Start cooking the mixture over medium heat, and add green tea powder. Stir often and cook until the mixture starts to foam and is very hot to the touch but not boiling.

3. Remove from the heat and transfer the mixture to a bowl sitting in an ice bath. When the mixture is cool, cover with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours.

4. Once the mixture is thoroughly chilled, transfer to a pre-chilled ice cream maker and churn according to the manufacture's instructions (20-25 minutes). Transfer the soft ice cream into an airtight container and freeze for at least 3 hours before serving.

Sesame Tuiles

Ingredients(20 servings)

-Egg white 50g

-Brown sugar 60g

-Flour 60g

-Melted butter 40g

-White toasted sesame seeds 160g

-Black toasted sesame seeds 20g

PREPARATION:

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C and line a baking tray with grease proof paper.

2. In a mixing bowl, whisk the whites till frothy. Add the sugar and beat till it dissolves. Stir in the melted butter.

3. Add the flour and mix till lump-free. Add the sesame seeds and fold in until well combined. The mixture should be dry and sticky.

4. Smear 1/2 tbsp of the mixture onto the tray into a circle. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until golden brown and crispy, rotating the trays if you have to. Remove from the oven, leave to cool and store in an airtight container.

Notes

 The layer must be thin and even to make it crispy. Wet the fork lightly to avoid mixture sticking on it and easy spreading. Be careful not to over bake the crisps. If not, the sesame seeds will be burnt If the crisps turn soft, you can reheat them for 2-3 minutes at 160°C in a preheated oven.