My Very Own Beef Stew

It's winter time now and wrapped up like a giant snow(wo)man, I decided its time for some comfort food. Taking a peek in my fridge/food cupboard, I have 500g baby potatoes, chestnut mushrooms, onion, 450g of beef shoulder meat, a can of organic chopped tomatoes. With my spice rack, I think I could just about whip up my first winter stew!

Having some rough idea forming in my head, its always helpful (and advisable) to sense check with my cookbook collection. There were some beef stew suggestion, but non of them I actually have the exact ingredients and patience for them. So, its the usual Grace-style improvisation and doing it my way :)

I normally don't eat beef and have been trying to beef up my consumption of it lately since its so nutritious and contains lots of good-for-you iron and protein, without too much fat. The thing about stews is that although the ingredients list is more extensive than say a chinese stir-fry, but the cooking method requires way less attention to speed/timing. There's always a trade off, but never in flavor, cos you have to have confidence in your awesomeness always (not too much tho).

So I just quartered my mushrooms, sliced the onions into thin long strips, washed the baby potatoes and cut the meat into big chunks. Heat up some olive oil, and fry the onions till brown and soft. Meanwhile, put a tablespoon of flour into a plate, season with some salt and pepper, and lightly dust the meat, and fry them along with the onions for another 5 minutes or so. Lastly, add the mushrooms, potatoes and the tomato puree in. Mix thoroughly and season with salt and pepper to taste. I added a glug of red wine in too :P If you find it too dry/thick, add a cup or two of water and let the mixture boil for a 2 minutes. Don't forget to put in some herbs (basil/oregano/thyme/rosemary, I had these mixed in a bottle) and sprinkled some on for a nice aroma...

Then, in a slow cooker pot, pour your stew into it and leave it for 4-5 hours on medium heat. Your flat will smell pretty lovely by then and its ready to be served, with warm crusty white baguettes or just a simple buttered brown toast, just like below...

Enjoy!

What Scottish Breakfast?

Hoho, I'm on holidays at LAST --- for a week only though, but nevertheless, Grace is going to Greece :) ! Good sun, beautiful beaches and hopefully not too crowded, definitely haven't chilled out properly and the idea of catching up with some story book reading sounds amazing ...

Anyways, I digressed and let's go back to my last day in Edinburgh ... time to check out what the Scottish lads have in the morning ... Yes I've been lousy and couldn't resist a nice cuppa cappucino to start off

And then the full Scottish breakfast comes ... something in between a British and American fry up to put it simply. You have buttered toasts, lorne, grilled tomatoes, fried eggs, tattie scones, sausages, hashbrowns and of course, black puddings. Lorne, black pudding and tattie scones are probably the Scottish influence there.

Tattie scones is easy (bottom left of the picture, near the toast and sausage), if you remember from previous posts, tattie = potatoes basically. It's like a soft potato oatcake in a fan shape, quite thin and chewy. On the other hand, black pudding (black thing in the picture, easy to spot) is a sausage made with animal's blood, typically pig or cattle's. Yea, it sounds a little gruesome I suppose, but it's really flavorful like haggis and I prefer them in small doses, goes well with bread and other fillers.

Lorne (the piece rectangular meat near the tomato and baked beans top of the plate) is something I've totally not heard of, but apparently its some sort of squarish sausage. To me it's a Scottish version of luncheon meat (something like corned beef), too salty to me but P's a great big fan of luncheon meat and simply adores it, LOL

And do you know this whole serving is HALF a portion for breakfast? I can't imagine how anyone could take on the full monty ...

Meanwhile we had an extra does of baked beans on toast, just had the odd realisation I haven't had those for ages, weird ....

So that's most of what I had in my short weekend in Edinburgh, but hoping to make another trip in July soon when the weather is even better!

I will be heading to Greece tomorrow to slack in a beautiful island for a week :P Promise to take a lot of breathtaking views of the place and of course share some delicious photos with you all when I'm back!

Edinburgh Eats II

Ok, I'm super tired now on a Wednesday night and have to be in office early tomorrow. With about 6 hours left of my precious beauty sleep, let me just briefly show you the best bits of Edinburgh that I was raving about previously...

After the quaint market, we head towards town center (Princes Street), with many beautiful architectures around such as this ...

And I'm determined not to be like one of them, doing typical boring touristy stuff sitting on one of these red sightseeing buses *shudders*

and instead headed straight for the beautiful park where the Edinburgh castle is! Definitely have to be there to see it for your own eyes really: fresh air, good sun, shady trees, green grass and most importantly no crowds, it was pure bliss just lying down on the grass facing the bright blue sky and watching the day go by ....

I really liked this picture taken by P in particular, super focused on the park surrounding and the greeneries, pretty soothing and calming, my new wallpaper now, lol. Apparently its good for the eyes too, especially at work when staring at computer screens the whole day, its best to take a break and look at something green and faraway ... yup that was totally random :P

And I knew I had to show you guys this Mister Potato statue, as I call it, not sure what it is, or what it was for, probably some memorial, but it's queer shape definitely caught my eye

and of course I have to take some Scottish-y pictures for you, here with a man in his favorite kilt performing on the street ... Super keen guy I must say :)

Next, time to grab some FOOD (finally)! There was a shopping mall nearby and I was super excited to check out the local McDonald's, hoping to see the globalised giant have some interesting local specialties just like McRib in Germany or Green Bean Pie in China.

I was hoping there was a McHaggis or something which would make my day for sure ... to my dismay, there wasn't anything 'local' and all I saw was this typical menu, what a let down!

Nevertheless, we walked around and spotted this really nice looking place called 'The Garden Cafe', which offers alfresco dining, perfect for the sunny weather. You know you can't say know when you get such a nice atmosphere like this....

P ordered Haggis, Neeps and Tatties with Brandy Sauce ... Come on, how can you not order that when you see that funny name?! I couldn't stop laughing at the word Neeps, its probably a Scottish word for mashed swede. Tatties on the other hand is just mashed potatoes, just an old English way to say potatoes I suppose. More importantly, something very Scottish and probably the traditional dish is Haggis - to put it simply its minced animal intestines with spices, something like Christmas stuffings, but the method of cooking is unique, in the sense that it is boiled in animal (usually sheep's) stomach for a few hours.

Sounds gross? But it actually tastes pretty good. Only thing is that I can take it in small doses as the strong flavor of offal is not really my cup of tea. But P absolutely loved it, especially with the brandy sauce ....

Me ? I ordered a Seafood Pizza with Watercress as there were no other interesting Scottish things I'd like to try and the menu is pretty general (pasta, pizza, sandwiches, steak). Pizza was great with the chewy and cheesy texture, a large portion too, unfortunately diminishing marginal returns sets in as I get less satisfaction out of each extra bite, as the pizza loses its chewiness as it gets cold ...
Yes I'm ashamed of myself not having found a fried mars bars place yet and ate a French breakfast and Italian lunch in Scotland, WoooT is THAT?! But I love Edinburgh all in all for its quaint, peaceful and beautiful town, getting all the balances right with a bit of city and a load of countryside :)

Edinburgh Eats I

So I went to the land of kilts last weekend ... and man, I couldn't resist my laughter when ScotsAir actually had kilt-covered flight seats, it's definitely the first signs of a fun filled weekend :)

Even pronouncing the road names in Edinburgh was a task itself, nevertheless the taxi man definitely had a good laugh at my attempts, but we got there finally before midnight. A good night's rest definitely renewed my appetite, as I was famished the next day and went straight into a bakery that serves this...

Yea yea, I almost can hear you scream "WooOT?!" when you saw the wines and French flags, not to mention the croissants below, but you've to forgive me, I'm hungry in Scotland and the pain au chocolates were tempting, as you can see from the half eaten one below even before I snapped the picture ... The cappuccino helped too, very comforting to get a slight caffeine jilt with the tiring travel the night before (yes, sadly I love my coffee a lot and display some withdrawal symptoms sometimes, P is convinced that its just psychological)

Nice quick breakie and I'm super charged for the new town I'm visiting. Edinburgh is big and spacious, with many nice buildings just like in Cambridge, but more uniformed, which gives a nice tranquil feeling especially when you walk into town. The air is crisp and fresh, roads are wide, traffic is almost non existent with greeneries everywhere - the perfect place to live and retire :)

On the way, we passed by a mini flea market which sells an array of interesting products. Think you all know by now that I'm a hopeless market-y sort of person, having gone to many food markets in London and absolutely love strolling in large supermarkets aisle by aisle, awed by the choice of *insert any food here* (cereals, breads, cheese etc) LOL

This one in Edinburgh is slightly different, there's food as well as local arts and crafts too, even better. There's a chocolate fondue store (yes, in the morning!) selling fruits to go with it, now you know that fried mars bars doesn't sound too absurd after all.

What I really liked was this store selling bags and belts made from some sort of cloth (wool maybe?) which I completely forgotten. They have tiny colorful brooches too

And belts like these look pretty funky I think .... makes good accessories if you have the height I think

My favorites were the bags, especially the one with orange belt around it as below, pretty chic don't you think? Though perhaps cloth materials do get dirty pretty quickly in polluted London. Maybe that's why she doesn't have a store in London but the US, hehe. But it's certainly encouraging and inspirational to see these talented artists gather and pursuing what they love doing and still expanding their business across the continent.

And the hat lady is even better! She has so many cool looking hats made from some sort of cloth as well, which seem to maintain its shape yet bendable.


Not something I can pull off I think, but don't you just love this red hat? Very Sex-And-The-City don't you think?


More Edinburgh sights and tastes to come in the next few posts!

The Easiest Breakfast in the World

I don't know if this is British, or whether even it deserves to be categorized as a recipe, but it's one of my favorite breakfast since I love the versatility of eggs in cooking. Would have had one everyday if I didn't have this amazing 'ability' to produce extra cholesterol in my body :P

Anyways, its dead simple. Egg, bread and good ketchup. Eggs, any way you prefer, poached, fried, boiled (tho not so exciting this one). I like mine poached, and yes its tricky to get it poached right, but if you're in a rush of time or simply can't be arsed, you can microwave the egg in a minute. Just need to beat the eggs a little with a fork (don't overdo it), and place it in a flat plate/bowl in the microwave for about a minute. The flatter your plate/bowl, the better since it takes less time to cook evenly.

This took me 3 minutes to assemble :)

Smiths of Smithfield (SOS)

In terms of lifestyle, transport and dining, London probably fares best with the latter with so much to offer in terms of eating out. You get to taste some of the world's best culinary creation here, but more importantly to me, there is a general higher quality of eateries even for the less pompous/celebrity chefs loaded restaurants. No one could really afford those expensive dinners all the time, and even if you see them and wonder, they're probably on company's expenses for client meetings etc :)

Here's a continuation of my quest to search for non pretentious, interesting and of course delicious food across London. I usually give those big Michelin dudes a miss since they've already enough media attention and cash flow for the moment, time to search for underdogs worth supporting. However, this time I chose to try out John Torode's Smiths of Smithfield (SOS) in trendy Clerkenwell, a place famous for nice pubs, bars and good nightlife. Seems like a perfect place to bring a friend who loves meat or a good steak.

John Torode is a well known food writer and TV presenter, and more recently one of the judges of the chef spotting talent show in BBC Two called "Masterchef Goes Large". Born in Australia, he is acknowledged as one of the player who introduced Australasian food in the UK. I would say he marketed himself as a meat specialist, sourcing fresh quality produces from farmers all of UK.

SOS is located near London's Smithfield market, boasting a 4 floor restaurant with a different theme to each, with formality increasing the higher you go, interesting eh? So the ground floor has loads of comfy couches, a comprehensive bar and some DJ-ing, good for breakfast, lunch or a quick bite anytime of the day. 1st floor focuses on wine/champagne tasting and appreciation, accompanied with exquisite light bites to match the drinks. There is a floor dedicated to private parties too, where you can hire private rooms for those special occasions. 2nd floor is the place to be for a nice ambiance, solid oak tables and chairs with candlelights, with the ability to peep at the chefs doing their work at the semi-opened kitchen. The highest floor is for those who crave a fine dining experience with breathless rooftop view of the city, completed with an extensive wine list and broader fresh seafood/meat selection.

Talk about price discrimination eh? This guy is probably the first I've seen that applies this economic principle to restaurants! Anyways, its good to book in advance and they do online booking which is handy. Up to 2nd floor we went, and for starters we chose something true to the Australasian theme, which is Lucky Squid, Chilli Jam and Chinese Broccoli. With a hint of hot, salty yet sweet spiciness of sambal, fresh squid with lightly blanched crunchy leaves - done to perfection. Apologies for the bad lighting of the photo, ambiance was dark and I don't Photoshop them, its as original as it gets :)

For mains, P decided to forgo the steaks and try something different - Crisp Belly of Pork, Mash Potato and Green Sauce. Presentation wise a bit odd, mash potato was all right, and the belly pork was crispy and nice, but I would say the green sauce didn't really go that well with it. Missing something that plays down the good work done on the pork really. Nothing outstanding.

I had something memorable as well, but that is two-fold. I think it was Roast Cod on a bed of PuyLentils, taste wise unmemorable, bland tasting lentils and cod was safe, lightly salted and pan fried till crisp, nothing exciting. But what was MEMORABLE was the really bad tummy ache that it gave me on the way home on the tube. Imagine having to stifle the pain and persevere till you run (with a bad tummy ache) out of the tube to the nearest loo and pray to the toilet god in many ways.


But yes I shall digress from going into too much details into that, but it is just so disappointing with a place capable of offering so much more ends up failing in hypocrisy. This is why time and time again I feel that all these publicity sometimes has adverse effects on a good chef, breeding complacency and being too business-like, starting to lose the very key passion or role of an excellent chef - to prepare and share a good culinary creations. This is not a generalization however, there are some level headed chefs out there that maintain or even increase the level of their work with pride, upon the recognition for their work.

To end things with a less serious note, I saw the name of this random lane that made the dinner memorable for sure :P

Smiths of Smithfield
67-77 Charterhouse Street
EC1M 6HJ
London

Brit's back!

I don't mean Britney, but British cuisine!

But first of all, before I embark into my foodie talks again, apologies for the long absence, life has been topsy turvy with the work madness, settling in a new place, and flying around the globe ... Yet, I haven't forgot the blog of course, and my love for food (despite New Year resolutions to lose weight, go to gym blah blah), so I'm starting to fire the first of my series of backdated posts!

And the topic of the day is British food. And why, I hear some of you all say, of ALL topics, huh? Seems like British cuisine had acquired some sort of negative connotations over the years, one being not really having an identity of its own, plain flavors, unimaginative, boring, etc? I beg to differ and please give me a chance to suss it out before you all ignore me, because I started out having the same stereotypical views too!

French cuisine is commonly used as an unfair comparison with English food but they are fundamentally different in principle. British dishes are on the whole simpler, in the ingredients and presentation sense, more down to earth and approachable (to recreate) to normal (non chef) people like us, I suppose.

No identity? Bangers and Mash, Fish and Chips, Sunday Roasts seem like foolproof dishes? They may seem plain but extracting their maximum potential is definitely no mean feat. It's probably easy to make average versions of these dishes that no one thought it could taste better, but the type of sausage/potatoes, the fish batter, and the gravy content and methods all matter in making these dishes taste just a notch higher.

Come to think about it, the pub culture in UK is actually unique and not found in any of her European counterpart. With the recent rise of British celebrity chefs and the nation's increased exposure to international cuisine, British food has been redeeming itself well with some good gastropubs mushrooming in the cities and regional towns. Not only that, more attention has been paid to this recent phenomenon with gastropub rankings like these appearing in newspapers and magazines.

I recently went to a good one in West London, near Baron's Court Tube Station, right next to the Queen's Tennis Club. There's nothing like having Sunday brunch in a good ol' fashion pub in England! The quirky oldies music, soccer channels on TV and the warm couch next to the fireplace ... The Curtains Up Pub definitely fits this rustic description where you can soak up all the culture and British atmosphere :) Interestingly, it also has a theatre within its premises, perfect for the pre theatre meals or after show drinks!

These are what we'd tried on a Sunday pilgrimage : a bit of everything :P I had the mixed platter consisting of good British sausages, roast potato wedges, Thai prawns and chicken goujons.

Beer battered fish and chips in various angles ... Fresh haddock and a beer infused crispy batter is all you need! Definitely one of my favorite pubs in London :)



The Curtains Up Pub
28A Comeragh Rd, London, London, W14 9HR

Of Breakfast and Brunch

There's nothing like Wednesdays, when the weekend is almost in sight, and the feeling is best on Friday night when you know you've got 2 alarm-clock-free days coming up, before Monday Blues set in, and the cycle repeats again.

Don't get me wrong though, I do like what I'm doing now at work. It has been enjoyable so far, each day you learn new things, or get better at your tasks. With a nice team of colleagues, working life isn't as bad as some make it out to be. In fact, I much prefer working to the student life. One big advantage is definitely the ability to switch yourself off after work, knowing that you can forget about things until the next day, unlike student life with exams in sight a few months in advance. Pressures you face are definitely different...

Yet I still do look forward to weekends for obvious reasons, as much as I like working :P After my usual Saturday morning routine of cleaning and tidying up the place, it's about brunch time and here's an 'artistic' version of the traditional English breakie ... I got some rolled eyes from Z for repositioning the sausages before taking the photos ;P

Alternatively, another approach to a nice' savoury brunch is a giant salmon and cream cheese pancake, definitely a hearty start to the weekend!

140 Park Lane Restaurant

This is my first proper eating out experience in London after coming back from NYC training. Definitely something worth celebrating for :) Hence we went to this restaurant near Hyde Park Corner tube station, called 140 Park Lane Restaurant. Although a little quiet at this time of the year, the food and ambiance definitely made up for it.

The online menu has recently been changed, so I guess I have to use a bit of my imagination to explain what we had, though not in the most euphemistic of words! Starter was Rabbit Timbales & Sun Dried Tomato in Pesto Dressing with Toasted Brioche. Timbales is something like a mold, generally high-sided, drum-shaped and slightly tapered at the bottom and closed end, used to bake various dishes. This is a cold dish, with lightly seasoned rabbit meat, egg, cucumber and held together in a gelatine/jelly like mixture. Just imagine these ingredients being rolled nicely in a swiss roll shape and cut into an oval cross section :) Accompanied with the warm and lightly buttered brioche, this dish was a brilliant mixture of richness in the pastry and simplicity in the timbales. Lip smacking stuff! But there is more to come...

P had Grilled Cod Fish with Crabmeat Mash and tomatoes, the sauce, which I seem to have forget, how utterly embarrassing. Love how they place the parsley as decoration on top, though I do love parsleys with steam fish Cantonese style. Thumbs up from him for this dish.

Finally, I ordered Chargrilled Seabass with rocket salad in dressing and Deep Fried Quails Egg. I suppose you can say its a cholesterol disaster, but the egg was done beautiful with the yolk half cooked and melts in your mouth. The Seabass had crispy skin and wasn't overly flake-y, perfect cooking timing, complementing the salad well :)


Definitely a dinner to remember ...

Delightful D'Arry's

What better place to bring your family and friends for a meal in Cambridge?

I know, I know, I'm raving about d'Arry's again! Cause it's simply the place to impress, whether it's to show off British cuisine in a non conventional way, or that Cambridge is just not another nerdy town with pub grub and kebab stalls only :P

Graduation lunch here with my family and Yan provided the avenue for us (mainly me) to provide a more objective review of their main courses. All of us went for their main instead of lunch menu which only consist of lighter meals like sandwiches and wraps. My oh my, their menu didn't disappoint.

Ready to feast with your hungry eyes, mind and soul??

I chose Fish Pie (£10.80) which is a combination of salmon, smoked haddock and prawns on a bed of spinach, baked in a fresh and creamy white wine butter sauce with Parmesan herb crusted top, served with beautifully roasted baby new potatoes and seasonal vegetables. Yes, everything about it sounds evil with cream and dairy overdosage, ah well, it's graduation :P I'd have preferred a crustier top though, and given their extensive menu, I'd say that there are better options out there. However, their roast potatoes are to die for ...

K ordered Fish of the Day, which was Grilled Sea Bream on a bed of roasted seasonal greens. Look at the picture. Never have I seen such a beautiful masterpiece. Not only beautiful by sight, it was also grilled to perfection, with it's succulent texture and crispy skin lightly seasoned with salt.

I'd love to be able to do this dish in the future since seafood is my favorite thing. Something simple yet with such powerful impact if done perfectly ...

M had the Bacon and Barbecue Chicken (£ 8.95), which was reviewed in my previous post on d'Arry's. This is a safe bet with chicken breast grilled with a bacon rasher (to prevent dryness), BBQ sauce and melted Cheddar cheese, served with chunky chips and seasonal vegetables. The sauce was still good with a gooey consistency, something like sweet and sour sauce with extra cheesiness :) I absolutely love the chunky chips, their presentation makes big fries trendy again!

G had the 12 oz Scotch Rib-eye Steak (£ 13.95), grilled on demand with chunky chips, roast tomato, onion rings, seasonal vegetables with peppercorn sauce. Needless to comment on how it tasted like as the dish was finished pretty quickly, a big complement coming from a rather picky eater! However, I can't believe he didn't touch the onion rings! I'm not much of a fan as well I must say, but look at those irresistible onion rings and how can you not at least try them?! Boys ... :P

D had the special Dish of the Day, written on the blackboard. I don't exactly remember the name, but all I recalled was that he ordered Pan fried Shark Meat, how cool is that! It was served with some sort of sauce and vegetable dressing, with a purple potato timbales beautifully decorated on the side.

Ok, I might have just said a confusing and incomprehensible sentence. Let me explain ...

The Purple potatoes itself are uniquely of Peruvian origin. They are a smaller oval-shaped potato with a purplish black outer skin and vivid purple, dense inner 'meat'. I so love it when you have 'odd' colored food which add a special dimension to a dish! However, I learn that they are less flavorful as other potato varieties and tend to get mushy if overcooked. On the other hand, timbales is a cylindrical metal drum which are played with 2 sticks, seems to be common in European/Latin American culture, if I'm not mistaken. Hence the purple potato is shaped like a timbales in the picture below. Now you know what it means if you see the word timbales (pronounced teem-bah-les) in the menu of a fancy restaurant :) This dish received a thumbs up from D.

Yan's choice was also from the blackboard, this was her Shepherd's Pie served with lightly roasted asparagus and root vegetables (carrots, parsnips and purple radish). Highly suspect that purple may be a trendy food color or something :P Anyway, I liked the brown colored sauce dressing. The pie was really good and the vegetables nicely balanced out the gamey taste of the pie.

It was a good lunch fare for a special occasion. Definitely a day to remember ...

Lunch was beautiful :)

Granchester Meadows

The pre graduation mania is worth a post.

It's ironic to think that one should be more carefree and less stressed after final exams. Yet, it's simply just a different sort of stress with more administrative stuff to do, e.g. shifting, transport, accommodation search (for myself and parents), packing up etc etc. This was interspersed with more fun stuff like May balls, garden parties and simply catching up with friends, making the post exam 'holiday' of 3 weeks before graduation equally tiring.

I took the opportunity to walk out and about a day before my parents arrived, given that there was not much to do as most people had left, or busy with their parents, and moreover, the weather was more like summer for once. I went to Granchester Meadows to check out the B&B place that I booked for my parents to make sure it was okay. The place was pretty and the lady kindly recommended that I take a stroll to Granchester. Since I have not been there (& absolutely can't leave Cambridge without visiting it), that seemed like a brilliant option to fill up my time. :)

It was a nice, quiet stroll on a sunny yet cooling day... having some 'me' time musing over the past 3 years of Cambridge. Halfway there after 20 minutes or so the weather started to be... let's just say a bit unpredictable. Being neither here nor there, I had no choice but to pray that it doesn't rain and I don't get drenched.

This is what unpredictable British weather really means ...

The day started off like this ...

And when it was this I thought I was doomed to be drenched ...


But it progressed to this, without a single drop of rain after all, phew!

Finally making my way to the Orchard, I was keen to check out their famous tea garden for some tea and scones! They have a huge array of food, ranging from light stuff like scones and cakes to main meals like pasta and sandwiches.

I chose this gigantic fruit scone with jam for only 2 pounds, with a cuppa Earl Grey tea. Must say that I've never really been a big fan of scones, but this was pretty good and super filling! It's best eaten toasted I feel :)

Here are some pics of the beautiful tea garden and it's tranquil surroundings ...

Glad I finally made a visit there to take a long slow stroll by the river Cam before I leave... Gonna miss Cambridge a lot! T_T