Some unconventionally-wrapped food

Some time ago, I went to the Kuta Bali food court in Farlim. Somehow I've delayed posting about it till now... because it really isn't that important. Just some not-so-usual food...

First is the mantou burger. The bun is a mantou-type bun (nice and soft). I took the chicken burger, because the pork burger was using minced meat instead of sliced meat. They also had other types of burger... for example salmon, but that was of course more expensive!

Then we tried fried chee cheong fun. There was the choice of mayonnaise or rojak sauce. The photo will tell you what we took!

The sauce was quite spicy... but pretty good. The chee cheong fun was rolled around a piece of crabstick, making it seafood chee cheong fun. The dish took a while to arrive... I think they rolled it up right after we ordered, and it was served piping hot. You can't see the filling with all the rojak sauce on it, so I took another photo after eating a bit:

There we can see the crabstick filling a little better. It was pretty good as a snack, but a little costly... this small portion cost us RM3+, almost RM4 I think (can't remember any more...). The mantou burger above was around RM5.

A new toy... or servant?

I bought a breadmaker recently. I have wanted to buy one for years. I remember seeing a demonstration at a friend's house in France. (I believe it was in Lyon, at the house of one of the ladies who had married a Frenchman... but I can't remember which one; we've been to a few of their houses!) I don't think we tried the bread though... I believe she was setting it on timer to have freshly-baked bread the next morning.

Then I saw one in my cousin's house. She gave me a hands-on tutorial that day, giving me the steps to make the bread from start to end. After that, I decided that yes, I would buy my own! (the same one, so that I could make full use of her experience)

The breadmaker arrived in just two days after I ordered it, delivered by Lazada.

I was buying an SKG 3920. But what I received was a MOX 3920. It looked exactly the same as my cousin's SKG, except that the three letters in the brand name had been replaced by three other letters. After some online searching, I think it is the same thing... either rebranded or having different brands for different regions.

view of the huge amount of options

view from top

I received the breadmaker on Tuesday, and I didn't try it out until today.

I got a scare when using it... because I think I almost failed my bread (due to some measurements). I was using a measuring cup (my cousin used a digital scale, and I'm buying one too, but it hasn't arrived yet) and I think the quantity of flour was too little. At my cousin's place, after five minutes of kneading, the dough had become a ball. But for me, it had become a thick liquid! I quickly did some online searching, and ended up adding flour and kneading time. Luckily I've seen how it should look like... or else I would probably have tried to bake some sticky goo!

Here's how it looked like when done:

flipped out
(The hole is due to the mixing paddle. I saw a piece of advice to have prettier bread: take out the paddle after the last mixing. Then you would just have a clean round hole. But it sounds like too much trouble to me... :P )

right side up

The loaf looks shorter than the one I made with my cousin. Probably because of the flour that was added later, or the quantity of flour... in the end I have no idea how much I put in. I just guessed a rough amount based on the remaining quantity of flour in the packet (I was using two new packets of bread flour and Japanese bread flour). Anyway I'm really glad it turned out fine... I will probably tweak the amount of ingredients gradually to make the bread to my preference (my cousin did that too), but at least it is proper bread!

The anchovy project

A few months back I posted about a recipe that called for anchovies in oil. It took me a while to find proper anchovies in oil and try it out again. The result was pretty similar to the first time when I used dried anchovies, so I don't think I will use anchovies in oil again (they are expensive!)

Anyway, I bought the anchovies when I was with some friends, and they asked me to take photos for them when I opened the can. So here you go...

the can

the contents

pulling out a fillet

The fillets fall apart really easily! The recipe called for slicing the anchovy fillets, but they simply fell apart (melted, actually) as I cut them, so in the end they were just a blob of anchovy paste.

I actually reserved two fillets for the pasta recipe, and started off with this other recipe of anchovy cake (cake aux anchois). My French teacher had made this appetizer cake for us when we were back in Angoulême (yes, a long, long time ago), and she gave us the recipe. But I had never tried it out because of the anchovies. So now that I had some anchovies, I decided to give it a try.

The recipe called for 100g of anchovies, and it was supposed to be baked in a loaf pan. But my can of anchovies was 46g, 25g drained. After taking out two fillets, I decided that the remaining would be around 15g, and I converted the rest of the recipe accordingly. Since the quantity was so little, I ended up with three cup-cakes. (to give you an idea of the quantity, I only had to use 22.5g of flour)

The original recipe was with anchovies and tomatoes, but my teacher had told us that we could replace the tomatoes with crabsticks, crabmeat or smoked salmon. I went with crabsticks, which are the easiest to find!  It turned out pretty well, I think. :)

Even though it turned out well, I don't think I will be making it again... simply because the anchovies are too costly. That tin of anchovies set me back around RM10! I can still make the pasta recipe with dried anchovies, but I'm not sure how I would put dried anchovies into this cake... I'll have to come up with an idea first.

The hokkien mee that went away

This morning I bought hokkien mee for breakfast, at a roadside stall in Relau. This is the best hokkien mee in Relau so far. While checking whether I had posted about this stall before (which I haven't), I found this older post about a different hokkien mee. That one is for dinner (it is less spicy now though), and this one is for breakfast. This one was actually not spicy enough for me, so I didn't like it that much at first. But after asking them to give me extra chilli, it has won over the night stall.

Now for the photos (I bought it for take-away) :

before pouring the soup (so that you can see the ingredients a little better)

after pouring the soup (without mixing)

This is the same stall I mentioned in another post, where the aunty gave me extra noodles (she is still doing it... this bowl is supposedly a small one but the noodles are a little more than usual). The stall only opens during weekends, and once in a while she will just stop selling without notice. A few months back, she stopped for ages and I thought she had retired for good, but suddenly she came back a few weeks ago. She said that she had moved to Singapore (staying there half or most of the time). This morning she told me that she would be selling for three days this week and next week (both are long weekends), and then she would be leaving to Singapore again... and won't be back till March next year. So this is definitely on my breakfast list for next weekend!

Green lights

Last Friday's theme was green. I got the idea of taking a photo of traffic lights when they were green. But it turned out harder than I thought to get a good photo. Looking at the photos, we do not see that the main subjects are the green lights. Only in night shots, we would have bright blotches of green which overshadow everything else in the photo. However, I did not want green blotches. I wanted green lights that could be seen with the traffic lights they were attached to.

In the end, I selected these two photos from all those I had taken. The first one was taken near Queensbay Mall, just before turning at the junction to enter the parking lot. It was in the evening and drizzling, so the sky is gloomy and there are rain spots on my windshield.

The second one was taken on a part-cloudy, part-sunny morning on the way to work. I like the lighting here better. But the background does not look as majestic as Queensbay Mall and the nice little tower opposite it (in the first pic). Since I am unable to choose one picture, I guess I will post both and let others tell me which one they prefer.

Déjà-vu rant

The latest idiotic response, again triggered by a friend's wedding (should I stop attending friends' weddings?)

So, this person is going to a mutual friend T's wedding. When I asked her what time she planned to go (yeah, I should really stop asking), she said that she would be carpooling, so it would depend on the driver. Okay, so far, so good. I asked an additional question about who she was carpooling with - was there anyone I knew? Her response? "I'm carpooling with T's friends." Well, if you're going to T's wedding I would expect that you are carpooling with T's friends... or else why would they go to the wedding?

But to be fair... this one is better than the previous one (that I linked to above). Probably just a slip of the mind that forgot to respond to my actual queston (which was, "anyone I knew?")

The amazing valley

The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan is a valley of amazement indeed. I think this is the longest I've taken over a book; was it three weeks or more? (unless if you count Les Misérables...and I'm not even sure whether Les Misérables wasn't quicker, because I was free at that time. And Les Misérables is five books...sort of.)

This book isn't like those mystery/adventure stuff I usually like. I wouldn't even say that it is one of my favourites. I didn't even rush to finish it; it's not the unputdownable kind. When I went to KL for almost a week in the middle of reading, I didn't even want to bring it with me. (and that added to the time I took to finish it, or else it would have been two weeks plus, maybe)

With this book, when reading it, I wanted to know what was going to happen next. But when I stopped, I didn't feel the urge to pick it up again, immediately. I didn't want to be interrupted while reading; I didn't want to rush to the next page; I wanted to enjoy a leisurely read. It was like entering into a world of wonder, where you look around you in wonder, in amazement - that's why it's amazing, a valley of amazement. There is beautiful prose, candid in describing ugly truths, yet not done distastefully. Then there are the touching parts, full of feeling. Oh, I am full of praise indeed, for this book. It is not the best for someone like me (since I prefer mystery), but it is amazing.

Nature without clouds, and clouds without nature

I'm merging two Photo Fridays into one this time.

Two Fridays ago, the theme was nature. Instead of the greenery normally associated with nature, I wanted to take a photo of clouds. But then, one day when there was a traffic jam on the way to work, I saw this mini-waterfall/rapids from my car. It was only a short drive out from my place, and I think I must have seen it before, but never really took notice.

The photo is rather blurred because I was taking it from my car, through the window, and with a lot of zoom.

As it turns out, it was a good thing I did not take a photo of clouds as my nature shot. Because the following week's theme was clouds!

I did not want to take the normal photo of clouds either... so I took a shot of some artificial clouds.

And with two cute kitties thrown in... why not?

What's on this evening?

Well, not exactly this evening. This programme dates back to September!

Last Friday's theme was evening. I thought of this idea rather quickly, but unfortunately I don't subscribe to newspapers...and I wasn't going to buy one just for a photo. I had given up on it, seeing that I don't usually go to places where we get newspapers to read either. But today we were doing housekeeping at the office, and someone discarded some old newspapers.

This one is from The Sun. It was a bit strange; only part of the day's programme was printed. But this is enough for my needs!

Small differences that are not so small

There is a difference between
a) asking someone to go to a party, and
b) telling someone that the host invited them to the party.

There is a difference between

a) wishing someone a happy birthday, and

b) telling someone that another person asked you to wish them a happy birthday.

There is a difference between

a) asking someone to do something that is not their job, and
b) telling them that you are unable to find someone else to do it and asking them for a favour.

There is a difference between

a) telling someone that you set an appointment when they are busy, and

b) telling someone that you set an appointment when they are busy because there are no other possible times.

Pokemon, Pokemon everywhere...

I spotted a bunch of Pokemon hanging out at Giant today.

Cute Pikachu, rather nice Squirtle. And after searching for pictures of Diglett and Weedle online, I've decided that the ones sharing a home with Pikachu and Squirtle must be Diglett. With the ground attached... whoever thought of doing that kind of thing?!

Cute Charmander, though it looks like there's no fire tail (I forgot to check for it when I was there). Cute Marill. (Edit: while reviewing this post, I just noticed that this box has Psyduck and even a Clefairy! I probably didn't pay much attention to them earlier because I'm not such a fan of theirs. But they actually look good...the Psyduck here is the correct colour; it's not supposed to be orange like the one in the other box)

Nice Lapras, Poliwhirl and Gengar (and is that pink thing behind Gengar a Pokemon?).

Bulbasaur looks a bit weird, but Jigglypuff looks nice. Jolteon and Snorlax were a bit hard to see, but looked okay...

And they even have Vaporeon (I don't think I've seen a plush Vaporeon before) and Psyduck! (in this box the Pokemon were a bit smaller)

The Pokemon are all are in those claw machines (the ones where you move the claw to catch a toy). Just before the last cube of Pokemon, there was this machine:

On the top racks, there are phone boxes. They precised on the machine that those are empty boxes... to prevent break-ins. The prizes need to be claimed elsewhere (probably the shop opposite the machines). Then at the bottom we have smaller Pokemon squeezed in... but they don't look so nice.

I have never seen this kind of machine before... so I took a look to see how it is played. The game is actually to move the stick left and right, then up... and then release a button or something to make it move forward and hit your prize out. The pink-edged rows are where the stick is supposed to move in and hit your prize.

Squirtle spotted

I saw a Squirtle hanging at the side window (at the back seat) of a car this morning! At first glance I thought it was similar to mine... and then I saw the tail. The tail was flat and pasted onto the shell, unlike mine which is more 3D! And the design was only a circle on the tail, it seemed... Okay, mine is still better :D The most perfect Squirtle!

China-style food

Some time ago I heard of a China-style ramen in a Sg Ara food court. The recommended ramen was a dumpling (sui kow) one, so we went and tried that out.

RM7 (RM8 if you want the sui kow fried)

It was good, and the portion rather big too.

Today we went there again for lunch, and this time we ordered a plate of ten sui kow. (RM7 for normal ones, RM8 for fried ones)

RM8

Since we had already ordered sui kow separately, I ordered pork rib ramen.

RM7

The taste is about the same as the sui kow ramen, but it was rather disappointing because the pork ribs were dry and hard, and they didn't even give one piece of the actual pork rib (you know, the part with one piece of bone going through it...  At the stall, the photo of the dish only had that part!). Maybe I should have taken the pork leg ramen instead (but who knows, they might not give the good part either...)

Kinomé

We had a farewell lunch for a colleague yesterday.

It was intially to be a group of almost ten people, but in the end it was whittled down to just five of us. (insert rant about last-minute cancellations here - but I won't go into that again)

We ended up at Kinomé, a small Japanese restaurant that I had been to before. I think I had been there at least twice before this farewell, and I had never been disappointed. :)

Anyway, this post is not so much about the food... but about the photos.

While waiting for the food to arrive, we were taking photos... Wei Han had a clip-on lens for smartphone, and we tried that out.

A shot without the clip-on lens:

From left: Sevu, Faizal, Wei Han, Azura, and yours truly

(I'm not good at taking photos like this, but somehow my position was the best for taking photos... because of the lighting)

Then a photo with the clip on lens:

There is a fishbowl effect because Azura's phone had a casing, so the lens couldn't be fitted exactly onto the phone camera lens. But it looks quite nice. There's also a ceiling fan in our fishbowl...looks kinda quaint.

And to join in the fun, I brought out my camera and we tried with that.

Wei Han is taking the photo with my camera because I said my arm wasn't long enough to get everyone into the shot. :P You can see the bright light from the entrance of the shop...that is why my position was better for taking photos!

And now for food... I didn't take photos of everyone's food because I didn't want to spoil the dining experience :P But all the dishes were well presented! Mine is a salmon-lover's bento with grilled salmon (or is it battered and fried... the skin was very crispy) and salmon sashimi. The sashimi was nice and thick! (and costly...)

Another pic to see the salmon and salad properly. The salad also came with some potato salad on top of it.

It looks expensive, and yes, it is expensive. RM36 if I'm not mistaken.
(there are cheaper sets)

I finished everything but the rice. Completely... even the lettuce. Very satisfied taste-wise. :D

The journey through leftovers

I've wanted to write about this for a looong time... but somehow something else crops up and I post about that instead. This is about finishing up leftovers.

Several weeks ago (definitely more than a month, maybe two?) some people cancelled on me. (part of what prompted this post) At the beginning of the week, they said they would be coming to my place that weekend. On Friday, they said they couldn't make it. Anyway, I had bought most of the necessary ingredients for our meal... so I had to improvise and find a way to finish it.

What I had bought:
12 chicken wings (+2 left over in the fridge)
2 French loafs (2/3 used for breakfast before the weekend)
12 potatoes

On Saturday I roasted eight of the chicken wings, made garlic bread with two-thirds of a loaf, and coleslaw (needed some veggies...)

The plate is for presentation... We ate five of the chicken wings (the drummet part included quite a huge chunk of meat) that night.

That left me with:
6 uncooked chicken wings
2/3 loaf of French bread
12 potatoes (untouched)
3 leftover roasted chicken wings
coleslaw (leftovers were planned!)

The next day (Sunday) we went out in the morning, and bought back our lunch. WW bought nasi lemak without chicken, and we reheated two drummets for him to eat with his nasi lemak. (I believe my nasi lemak had squid)

For dinner I baked the remaining six chicken wings, using a new recipe I found. The wings were baked on a rack and were supposed to turn out crispy, but they also turned out a bit dry. Hopefully I'll have better luck next time!

We ate this with the leftover coleslaw, and with baked potatoes. I baked all twelve potatoes in their skins, and we ate half of them.

Still keeping up? Now what's left is:
2/3 loaf of French bread
6 potatoes (baked)
one whole and two wingettes of leftover roasted chicken wings

On Monday night, I bought some economy beehoon and we had that with the remaining roasted chicken wings. (Why didn't I keep the wings whole, you might ask? Because I prefer the wingettes and WW prefers the drummets...)

To handle the rest of the French loaf, I prepared two types of bread on Monday night, ready to be baked the next morning.

Using a third of the French loaf, was this cheese and garlic crack bread. I had leftover garlic butter from my garlic bread the other day, so I used that together with cheddar cheese slices.

Besides this, I made two "bowls" with the other third of the loaf. It was inspired by this recipe, but I didn't expect it to come anywhere close! (Spoiler: And it didn't :P ) I microwaved a chicken sausage and chopped it up, then mixed it with cheese and the breadcrumbs from the loaf itself, then stuffed the mixture back into the bread.

I wrapped both types of bread in foil and refrigerated it for the next day (as instructed in the recipes).

Tuesday morning, came the baking. (I am mad at having leftover bread because I don't like to do so much when I roll out of bed in the morning. But because of these leftovers which couldn't be finished leisurely over the weekend, I needed to squeeze out some time to prepare and bake them on weekdays.)

So here's how the crack bread looks after baking:

And after browning with the foil open:

There is only a tiny difference to look at, but I assure you that the crust became crispier after baking it with the foil open.

And the rest of the bread? I felt that they were very dry while making them the previous night (they are stale bread, after all...), so I put a small chunk of butter on each of them before baking them in the morning. Result? Not too dry... but not that good either. Just edible, I would say. But then this is a big adaptation just to finish up the bread... nothing like the original!

Now if you're still keeping track of my ingredients, you will know that only the six baked potatoes are left. But the next weekend I was too busy to cook, so I kept the potatoes in the freezer until the following weekend (which is two weekends after the first one where I got cancelled upon).

Then I made twice-baked potatoes. I didn't put as much butter as the recipe asked for... basically I just took the ingredients but didn't follow the quantities properly. Basically I mashed the potato with microwaved sausage (again) and cheese, then put them back into the potato bowls, topped them with some cheese (they look ugly because the cheese is not grated), and put them into the oven to bake. I put salt and black pepper for seasoning, but I think I didn't use any milk. The looked kinda bland coming out of the oven... but the taste was nice and creamy!

I liked this... but I'm not sure whether it was worth the trouble. It looks more like something to wow guests. :P The crack bread, on the other hand... tastes good and is simple enough to make again!

Too many files

When you feel that you have too many files open in your notepad++...

When you get tired of scrolling left and right to find the file that you want...

When you decide to find out how to enable multi-line tabs so that you can find files more easily...

When you find out that all your files will give you EIGHT lines of tabs...

You know that you DO have too many files open in your notepad++!

Edit at night:
Sorry, miscounted. It was NINE rows of tabs!

What shall I eat in this?

This week's theme is small. So here's a small bowl!

This bowl comes from a packet of incense... the cone type. Someone once gave me (or my mother?) a packet of cone incense, and it came with this bowl to put the incense on before lighting it. After all the cones were gone, the bowl remains... and it is still in my display cupboard (moved from Kuantan to Penang, no less!)

The first photo I took is below, with the rooster pattern clearly seen. But I wanted the photo to clearly show that it was a bowl (instead of just a round disc), so I took the second photo (above) and made it my actual Photo Friday pic.