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.

Milan and Burger Buns.

Greetings from Milan !

I am amazed to say I have survived one semester of studying abroad. And right after finals, my friends and I jetted away to Milan. In which two nights have passed and as I write this, I am in the airport waiting for my flight to Paris.

Yes, Paris.

How was Milan ? Well, it is as beautiful as I imagined it to be. The Duomo is beautiful, the people are beautiful (the men are ridiculously handsome. I swear, especially those selling handbags in those suits. Why do people even bother looking at the bags ?) and the food is delicious. I mean, it's pasta and pizza, what could go wrong ?

I haven't actually been here long enough to give a full account of the city, seeing as I only visited the area of Duomo but having spent the day there, I say that you have to go to Duomo. Seriously, jet off there at least once before you kick the bucket. I highly recommend it.

Anyhoo I haven't been posting much because I've been busy with life and such, but I shall now post some pictures of me making some burger buns for some chicken burgers that I sent out of which my friend came back for twice in the same day. I like to think it was these buns that made the burger.

Me (pretending) to be very hard at work.

My friends dropped by to lend a hand.

I didn't alter the recipe and so I shall just direct you to this site. Her pictures are nicer than mine anyway. Heh.

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In relation to the previous post, I think I'm feeling a little better. Well, there isn't any shame in hoping for love.

In the meantime, let me go stuff myself with too many Mars Bars. Who knew one could find them in Milan ?

Tres Leches, Birthdays and a Heartache

Hello hello. Another day, another class, another banana. That's how it's been.

It's nice here actually. I've been making loads of new friends who have taken to coming over to our room after classes and chatting till late night. Normally I wouldn't mind, but I start to shut down circa 10pm (I know - I'm an old lady inside) so I start to yawn and my eyes start closing and then they have to retire to their own rooms. I feel horrible and kinda old but, well, I need to sleep. It's the best sleep I've had in nearly a year, what with my past of being a notorious insomniac.

And exams, oh the exams ! Time has flown and it is now my mom's birthday. September has half passed and I am here procrastinating and writing poetry in the margin of my notebook. I have one more paper tomorrow and all I can think of is

the heartache

of loving someone

who doesn't love you back.

The exam stress is making my brains - and hair - fall out of my ears - and head - but then the ache inside just won't go away. I feel it down to my bones and it kind of makes me want to eat everything and not eat anything at the same time. Sitting feels weird and studying feels fine. My mind is blank and full at the same time. Probably of cotton wool and wine notes. Gah.

Whatever. While I study and attempt to cover up the hole in my stomach, I'll fill up the other hole in my stomach with some cake and churros. How is that a pairing ? I have no idea. It just happened. But it was a damn good pairing as demonstrated by my classmates - and myself - having eaten every single bite of leftover cake off the tray, then munching on so many churros that I didn't have enough to serve to the customers. What did my chef say ? Nothing. Because his mouth was also full of churros.

Crab Cakes and a New Beginning

Greetings from Bouveret !

Yes, I have arrived in Switzerland. I've been here for more than two weeks now, and classes have been ongoing and life has not stopped. Baking, however, has. Momentarily. Because although I have enrolled in a culinary arts program (of the higher diploma sort), I have yet to attend a pastry class. That will probably be during the next semester.

What have I been up to then ? Well I have been going for classes and eating my weight in cheese and potatoes. Hopefully I don't go home as a more rotund version of myself but the the cheese here is cheap and readily available and wonderful and... Oh who am I kidding, I miss my bananas.

I've been trying really, really hard to save up some cash for winter clothing of which I have none. I have recently acquired a pair of Ugg boots which burned a hole in my pocket but are absolutely necessary otherwise I am going to have ice blocks attached to my legs during winter. The rest of my cash has been squirreled out little by little, for my weekly supply of bananas and some chocolate spread for my morning eats. Oh, and figs. Dried figs. And of course soap and softener for my clothes, since I'm being independent and washing my own clothes and all.

People keep taking my bananas. Even after I put them in my room, on my table. They are MY bananas, goddammit.

Anyhoo, I miss home. I miss my mum and my dad and my sister so badly that I'm just walking around with a big hole in my heart. I miss my bed and my dog and my oven. I'm aching to bake some brownies or chocolate cake or cheesecake - which, oddly enough, is missing around these parts given the abundance of cheese around. 

I even miss Taylor's, my old university. I miss the crappy parking and the lecturers and the system they have there. The pace of life here is slow. While it is a good thing - I've never slept so well in my life before - I guess I'm just a city girl at heart. I long for the business of the roads and the malls and the myriad of things to do in the metropolis that is Kuala Lumpur. Bouveret is a wonderful place for a holiday, but I cannot for the life of me fathom wanting to stay here for the rest of my city-loving life. 

Or maybe I'm just pining. Or being homesick, whatever. Life, and classes, must go on. In the meantime, I shall enjoy the cheese and make some good food and astound everyone with my culinary prowess, or more like the lack thereof. 

Classes here would be very Harry Potter-esque, what with having to walk to other buildings for lessons and going to halls for meals and having dorm rooms and all except for the fact that I spend most of the time wrapped up like a burrito in my room and times in between running my legs off at the gym. It's the only way that I can push out all the homesickness, because no matter where in the world I go, I can still run. And hell, I will run. The bed is a good thing because it's nice and comfy and my dorm room is sadly lacking of a couch. There is a stiffish chair that is meant for desk work but I have manipulated the furniture so my desk work becomes bedwork. Takes skill, I tell you.

We are to make a portfolio - a magazine of sorts of the dishes we cooked this term. We have to find our own recipes and plan the menu according to the theme given each week. Last week, I was put in charge of crab cakes with red pepper butter sauce. I needed to make a sketch for the portfolio to prove that I could plan for a fine dining dish and then serve the dish according to my sketch. 

Here is the aforementioned sketch:

Please ignore the cartoony vibe. My laptop charger is kaput and I am left with an ipad, albeit a free one, to figure out how it is that people make masterpieces on this touch screen thingy. 

Here, just so you can admire my handiwork, is the real deal:

It's simple really.

For the crab cakes:

750g crab meat

750g mashed potatoes

100g chopped red bell peppers

A big handful of coriander leaves, chopped

Salt and pepper, to taste

2 eggs

Juice of one lemon

Just mix everything together in a really big bowl. It should be moist enough to hold together when you press it into a patty. This entire recipe should make 16 patties of 100g each. Unless of course, you make them really small. Place them on a tray, wrap with clingfilm and chill it overnight.

To coat the crab cakes:

Panko breadcrumbs

3 eggs

Flour

Place the flour in a shallow plate, beat the eggs and place in another shallow plate. Pour the breadcrumbs into a third shallow plate. Dip a crab cake into the flour, then into the egg, then the breadcrumbs. Gently, gently press the crumbs into the cakes so they stick. Chill the coated cakes for half an hour, or till ready to fry. 

Shallow fry in a an inch of oil until crisp and cooked through.

For the mango salsa:

Two large, ripe mangoes, diced

One large shallot, diced

A handful of coriander leaves, chopped

Juice of one lime

Salt and sugar to taste

Just mix everything together. Add sugar only if your mangoes are really tart. You want it to be slightly tart though, to balance the sauce out later. 

For the red pepper butter sauce:

3 red bell peppers

1 cup of white wine

2 shallots, diced

3/4 cup heavy cream

1 cup cold butter, diced

Salt and pepper to taste

Rub the peppers with a little oil and place on a baking sheet. Bake at 200C for half an hour, or until black and blistered. Remove from the oven and place in a heatproof bowl and cover tightly with clingfilm so they steam. Leave for fifteen minutes, then peel of the skins and remove the seeds. You might want to do this is a bowl of water - it's okay if they're submerged and soaked. Drain the skinned and seeded peppers, then blend them to a smooth purée in a food processor.

In a medium saucepan, sauté the shallots in a little oil until translucent. Pour in the white wine and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer until reduced to nearly a teaspoon is left in the pan - you want it really concentrated. Pour in the cream and bring to the boil yet again. Simmer for a couple of minutes, then take the pan off the heat. Off the heat, whisk in the butter, one cube at a time, until the sauce becomes thick and silky, like a mayonnaise, almost. Whisk hard and off the heat, otherwise it'll split. If the butter refuses to melt into the sauce, put the pan back on the smallest heat possible, just till it amalgamated. When all the butter has been mixed in, strain out the shallots. Put the pan back on the heat (SMALL) and whisk in the puréed bell peppers. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve the crab cakes with the sauce and the salsa, and probably a salad. You'll want to feel virtuous after all that butter and cream. But it is good, I tell you. I should know - I practically ate the sauce by the spoonful. You know, a cook has to taste.

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We (we being my classmates - they seem nice !) made some other dishes as well.

 

There was chicken and waffles (!) with some sweet potato purée:

And a trio of sliders of pulled pork, pastrami, mini burgers:

Caribbean prawns in a coconut rum sauce:

Ribs with baked beans and loaded potato:

A deconstructed Waldorf salad:

And the holiest of holies, cheesecake. Oh. I found the cheesecake.

And the theme was North American cuisine, just for the record.