¡Viva México!

Hello blog-world, it's been a while. I apologize for my prolonged absence, it's been somewhat of a hectic year so far... but I'm ready now, I think, after having somewhat settled myself. BUT I have so much to tell you all.

First up, Mexico. In early March, a few friends of mine were heading off to Mexico for a conference and had decided to take the opportunity to travel around the country beforehand for three weeks. I was understandably jealous.. so to send them off before they went, we went to Taco Bill the night before they flew out for dinner. Now, I realize that of all the Mexican/Latin American restaurants we could have chosen in Melbourne, anything, ANYTHING at all would have been more authentic than Taco Bill. Think Los Amates, Mi Corazon, whatever. But we love(d) how tacky it is, and we just wanted a big ass margarita and some nachos, so Taco Bill it was. It was, of course, your typical pseudo-Mexican affair - nachos with salsa, melted cheese and sour cream; burritos, tacos and quesadillas wrapped with chicken or beef, lettuce, cheese and tomato on rice and beans. Being no food snobs, we loved it, and loved also the huge huge margaritas they serve. Made us all very happy, I should say, though I'm not sure if the staff really felt the same about us.

However, Taco Bill is not the end of my Mexico story. Because by 2am the following morning, I had hopped online, found a space on the same flight as my friends and was packing frantically so I could fly out with them in 10 hours time. The adrenaline was pumping and I was too busy packing and making sure I had everything sorted before we got on the plane, but once I was served my complimentary drink 20 minutes after takeoff, I started to freak out majorly. C did a wonderful job of calming me down though and got my adrenaline pumping again when we got to LAX.. and after that, I was just ecstatic, it was the most spontaneous thing I've ever done and probably the best thing I've ever done as well.
In my 10 days there, we spent a few days in Mexico City, then down to Acapulco, then Huatulco before I boarded a bus to head back to Mexico City to the airport and the girls went onwards. We saw amazing sights, was completely immersed in the whole culture, tried every food we possibly could, saw as much as we possibly could. And good lord, we ate. Things are ridiculously cheap, to the stage where if we paid more than 50 pesos for a meal (around $5), it was expensive. The food is good, the tequila amazing and the beaches almost as beautiful as back home.

So, the food... Mexico City saw us eating at roadside taco stands where I'd love to tell you what was in them, but unfortunately I don't speak or read spanish, so ordering mostly consisted of pointing and thus I don't actually know what I ate. Only that it was good. One of our group was a bit worried about food contamination, but pffth I'm asian, I'll eat most things roadside or not, and frankly, in my opinion, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. Other memorable meals included eating at cantinas, which, according to Wiki, traditionally refers to a kind of bar normally frequented only by males for the purpose of imbibing alcohol and partaking of appetizers (bontanas). Apparently, according to Lonely Planet, they often traditionally had signs that expressly prohibited entry to women and children and although some of these restrictions are beginning to fade, it is still viewed as.. not inappropriate, but more, unusual, for ladies to be seen visiting a cantina. However, as I previously mentioned.... no hablo espanol. So in we went, and for 25 pesos ($2.5), the price you pay for a Corona, we got a fish stew, deep-fried whole fish, bread rolls, stewed pork and some rice. Plus a picture with mariachi's. Awesome. If you ever get the chance, take advantage of the tourist thing and do it, it's the real authentic experience and you'll be glad you did it.

Other meals included the more typically known enchiladas and quesadillas (maize tortillas wrapped around chicken, beef or pork, with cheese sometimes, covered with salsas and moles, or sauces); the best tortilla soup i've ever eaten; lots of rice; even more mole and beans. By the end of the trip, I was quite sick of the maize tortillas, but it's true what they say, nothing beats authentic food. No more Taco Bill for me anymore.

Another amazing find was our introduction to cajeta, a sweet caramel made from goats milk, giving it a rich flavour. Traditionally, it's eaten as a spread or filling, but is also wonderful on its own. We were given a little dish of this candy heated up so it was gooey and delicious, and a few spoonfuls each was more than enough to satisfy our sweet teeth.

If you take anything away from this post, let it be this: go to Mexico. Delicious and wonderful things, people and weather await you. Despite what some may say about safety and pollution and otherwise... personally, I don't think these things should stop anyone from exploring the world. The world will be what it is and if you don't take chances, you're not going to live life as fully as you can. So be spontaneous, live and eat. Even if the stuff you eat does come from the side of the road.

After coming back from Mexico, I was left with massive wanderlust without the ability to actually do anything about it. I had planned on heading to Europe with C (again) this July, but finances and other factors meant that I'm now in Hong Kong visiting family instead. Capitalizing on the Mexican thing, however, I really wanted to do something with Mexican food at some point. Today is J's birthday, so 2 weeks ago when we were all still back in Melbourne, I invited B & J and a few others around for a Mexican fiesta involving fun and food. We had 10 in total, and since J LOVES tacos (he is American), I decided to make tacos with a little bit more of an original twist. Dinner thus involved a menu of 40 burrito wraps, 20 taco shells, lots of lettuce, tomato and cheese, guacamole with extra avocado, chorizo con queso (chorizo and cheese), a simplified version of chicken mole and kangaroo fajitas. Lots of food, but delicious it was.

I took a look on the internet to see if I could get some easy versions of these recipes. The chorizo dish I got from here, and it turned out quite wonderfully despite me using just normal chilli flakes (albeit quite a lot of it), instead of the more authentic poblano chile. The kangaroo fajitas was basically just kangaroo steak sliced into strips, then sizzled with onions, garlic, capsicum and my own spice mix of cumin, coriander, chilli powder, chilli flakes and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember, but I'm pretty sure I just improvised and it turned out woderfully.

My favourite, however, was the chicken mole, which had a bit of an interesting twist to it. Mole, a Mexican sauce commonly used in many Mexican dishes was first developed in Puebla City in the 1680's, in a convent, no less. Since then, the neighbouring state of Oaxaca has become famous for a particular type of black mole which includes the special ingredients of special spices and chocolate. Mexican chocolate in itself is unique in that it contains large amounts of spices within them, namely cinnamon, nutmeg, etc. In searching for a simpler, but similarly unusual recipe, I found the following recipe. It is very very easy to make, and since it was a sauce, I sort of just went by a chuck-everything-in-in-rough-amounts kind of approach. It turned out beautifully, but I suspect this is a kind of recipe that is hard to mess up.

Easy Chicken Mole
2 tbsp olive oil
6-8 boneless chicken breasts (though I just bought chicken thighs and cut them up into smaller pieces)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, chopped
3 cups salsa (I used hot)
1 cup chicken broth
3 tbsp chilli powder
2 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp peanut butter

1. Heat oil in a skillet. Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper and brown the pieces in the hot oil in a single layer until golden brown on both sides. Remove from pan and set aside.
2. Pour out all but one tablespoon of fat from the pan and add the onion. Cook until softened. Add garlic and continue cooking.
3. Add salsa, chicken broth, chilli powder, cocoa powder and peanut butter. Stir till blended.
3. Bring sauce to a boil, then return chicken pieces to the pan, covering them in the sauce. Lower heat and cook uncovered, basting the chicken pieces occasionally with the sauce until cooked through and the sauce has thickened.

N.B. The original recipe, found here, says to let the sauce thicken for 30-40 minutes, but I found a mere 20 minutes was quite good with the pan covered. But it was always going to taste good, really.

Yet more to come (really!) - Tjanabi, Sydney and Hong Kong.

Chicken Congee

So Chicken Congee seems to be the new thing in the foodie world at the moment. After seeing mellie's post about making chicken congee and then reading the original recipe here, I figured if I could shell out $6 for a bowl, I may as well try and make my own.

Growing up, I was not the biggest fan of congee at all. Whenever I was sick in bed, the smell of steaming plain congee would come wafting up the stairs and I would inevitably be brought a large bowl. Eaten plain, it is nothing more than literally boiled rice porridge and doesn't have much flavour at all. My grandma's favourite garnish was flossed pork, which added to it a nice sweet meaty flavour. My mum, on the other hand, loved congee with a passion and whenever we went out for a traditional breakfast at our local wet market hawker stalls, she would inevitably work on a bowl of congee with sliced pork and century egg whilst my dad and I chowed down on plates of steamed rice rolls with soy sauce and sesame seeds. Thus when my mum heard of my newest cooking endevour, she started laughing down the phone, then proceeded to call my grandma, who commented that I was "finally becoming a real Chinese person" and perhaps given that I had started to cook Chinese food, maybe I could find a nice Chinese boy instead of the gwai lo that I am currently dating. Ha. (My grandma is, however, slightly mollified by the fact that A is studying medicine, which is apparently something that works very well in his favour. The Chinese are crazy (actually - just my grandma is).

My newfound love for congee was triggered by the cold winter that has thankfully been chased away by the warm shining sun, and was also spurred on by the wonderful sliced duck and lettuce congee I had a few weeks ago at Supper Inn. Yongtze's recipe was easy enough to follow, but I substituted with whatever I had, meaning I used chicken thigh fillets and minced ginger instead of chicken breast and the traditional sliced garlic. Also, I had unfortunately run out of soy sauce. However, I can tell you all that it still tasted delicious. Congee is one of those recipes, like pasta, where you can pretty much chuck anything into it and it will generally turn out OK. It's easy and warming and comforting and easy to store in the fridge to be heated up in the microwave when you get home after a long day. Plus, it can traditionally be eaten at any time of the day. I think I'll have some for brekky tomorrow morning!

Chicken Congee
(modified from Yongtze's recipe)

1 cup Jasmine rice
Salt
1 tbsp vegetable oil
10 cups water and/or chicken stock (I used a mixture of both)
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 chicken thigh fillet
Sesame oil

1. Wash and drain the rice in a pot. Add 1 tsp salt and 1 tbsp vegetable oil, mix well and allow to sit for 10 minutes.
2. Add water/stock to the rice. Bring it to a boil. Turn down the heat to medium low, stirring occasionally. Simmer for 20 minutes.
3. Marinate the chicken with sesame oil and minced garlic.
4. Add the chicken to the congee. Cook for 5 - 10 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked. Take the chicken out and set aside to cool.
5. Season the congee with salt and cook for another 30 minutes or so.
6. Shred the cooked chicken and throw into the pot. Cook for another 5 - 10 minutes until the congee reaches your preferred consistency.

Cooking up a Thai storm

Last Monday was A's birthday, and since he wanted something low key and chill, I decided to cook him up a feast and invite a few friends around instead of taking him out. He has a penchant for both Thai and Indian foods, so given our Indian adventures last week, I thought Thai would be a highly welcomed choice.

I spent a day or so digging up old recipes that I thought would fit the theme. It was actually more difficult than I thought to figure out an appetiser-main-desserts menu -- mostly because I wanted to spend more time on the desserts than anything else! After some deliberation, I decided on a fairly simple, but still fun and casual menu. Appetisers would be rice paper rolls with dipping sauce, while mains would be a simple green curry with coconut rice and a pad thai.
The rice paper rolls were easy - shredded chicken, grated cucumber and carrot, some lettuce and beansprouts all went onto the paper and were rolled up. I served them with a simple plum sauce and hoisin sauce. The curry was simply a matter of chucking any leftover veggies I had, some tofu, green curry paste and some coconut milk into a pot and letting it simmer. Pad thai, similarly, was just about stirfrying rice noodles with chicken pieces and beansprouts. All done (with the help of the 2 other girls; the 3 men just sat there chatting while we did all the cooking. Don't worry, we made them wash up) in a matter of half an hour.


Desserts was the main concern for me. I really wanted to make cupcakes, because a year ago, back when we'd only been going out for a week, I made - or rather, attempted to make - him cupcakes for his birthday. As these stories usually go, I ended up forgetting to put in baking powder (this WAS in my pre-baking/cooking days). I'm not sure if he ate them, but clearly was touched enough to stick around for a while. I had yet to attempt cupcakes again since that incident, but for the sake of continuity and tradition, I decided to give it another go.

After poring over the multitude of cupcake blogs out there, I decided to stick with something simple, not too fancy, yet rich and decadent. I was initially considering these Thai Tea Cupcakes, but ended up going with these cupcakes for the simplicity and apparent "never fail"ingness of the chocolate cupcake. Sounds good enough to me. I decided to forgo the mint buttercream and ganache, since some people don't necessarily like mint. I don't understand it, but hey, they're the ones missing out. No matter. I'll just substitute. I examined the fridge for something to flavour my frosting, and eventually found some lime juice that would go wonderfully with my cream cheese. I following the recipe to a T, the only chance being I made half a batch, 12 cupcakes, instead of the full 24. Chockylit was right when she called them "rich chocolate cupcakes", because they were definitely rich. A whole cupcake with icing was almost more than I could take. Nonetheless, they received rave reviews - definitely something to repeat again sometime.


Rich Chocolate Cupcakes with Lime Cream Cheese Frosting
(makes 24 regular cupcakes)
courtesy of Chockylit of Cupcake Bakeshop

200g bar chocolate (I used pretty average quality safeway cooking chocolate, worked wonderfully for me.)
3 sticks butter
2 1/4 cups sugar
8 eggs
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder, unsweetened
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
1 package cream cheese (mine had about 250mL)
1/2 stick butter
3 cups sifted powdered sugar
3-4 tbsp lime juice (or as much as you like)

1. Chop chocolate and transfer into bowl. Add butter, and melt, stirring until both are combined.
2. Remove from heat and stir in sugar. Let mixture cool for 10 minutes.
3. Beat with electric mixer for 3 minutes, or as much as you can by hand.
4. Add egg one at a time, mixing for 30 seconds between each.
5. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and pinch salt into the mixture. Mix until blended.
6. Scoop into cupcake cups and bake at 180C for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

7. Beat cream cheese and butter till creamy.
8. Sift in half the sugar, and beat until combined.
9. Stir in lime juice, then continue to beat in remaining sugar.

Because I only made half the cupcakes and the whole batch of frosting, I still have a little tub sitting in my fridge. I also could have done well to add more lime juice, as the three tablespoonfuls of lime juice wasn't necessarily enough to completely outdo the cheesiness of the cream cheese. Nonetheless, the cupcakes were given rave reviews. Everybody could only manage one after our meal, which was fine; more leftovers for me! I also served up a tropical fruit salad to cleanse our palates somewhat. Lychees, watermelon cubes, pineapple chunks, mango slices and passionfruit pulp was just what we needed to finish off a night of Thai goodness.

Soothing my baking itch - Apple Muffins

After a long week at uni, I arrived home in the early evening, thankful to be home. However, half an hour later, I was suffering from a bad case of nothing-to-do's, which quickly turned into a large case of "baking itch". This is unfortunately (for my waistline - not so much for my housemates) a constant occurence, whereby I'm suddenly seized with a great urge to improve my baking prowess and whip up something fantastic that will have the house smelling wonderful and adoring people showering compliments upon my humble self (ha). I must admit that 'improvement' of my baking skills is not quite equivalent, in my case, to broadening my horizons and trying new things. Thus, my baking tends to be quite limited to the generic muffin and occasionally, fruit crumble or pie.

Another partial reason for the need to bake was because T, one of the housies, had brought from home a bag full of apples that weren't much good for eating, but fantastic for baking, stewing or cooking. After having stewed and frozen some, I thought it might be a good idea to use some of them up. After vetoing the idea of making a pie, I googled "apple muffins" and came up with quite an easy version.

The recipe itself was easy to follow, and were made from ingredients one usually has lying around the house. The recipe itself is labelled "Apple Muffins", omitting the cinnamon - and in terms of taste, it's probably the more accurate label for it. The cinnamon can't really be tasted, even though I added quite a few more shakes than called for in the recipe in an attempt to get a more spicy muffin. Next time, I might try adding cloves and perhaps some more nutmeg.

(N.B. I just noticed that under the recipe itself, the reviews aren't very supportive of the recipe, calling it "bland" and "heavy". I wouldn't call them heavy exactly, and those who called the muffin bland blamed the lack of sugar. I personally don't like my muffins overly sweet, so the low amount of sugar was preferable for me. The fact that I had one straight out of the oven was a plus for me, as warm anything muffin, especially with apple chunks, taste great. More spices is definitely needed to add more Zing to it.)


Apple Muffins
(courtesy of AllRecipes.com
submitted by Maria Evertsen)

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (I used Mixed Spice)
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup apple, chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Lightly grease 12 muffin cups.
2. Stir together flour, baking powder, sugar, spices and salt.
3. In a separate bowl, stir together milk, egg, and butter.
   
4. Combine the dry and wet ingredients. Fold in apple chunks.
5. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.
6. Bake for 15 minutes, then sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top of muffins. Bake for another 5 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.

(photo courtesy of AllRecipes.com)

A Light Detox

After weeks of balls, 21sts, housewarmings and good times, I feel as though I've been steadily adding onto my winter bulk with my overindulgence of delicious, yet not figure flattering foods. What I need now whilst feeling bloated and overindulgent is a light soup broth that is easy to make, yet nutritional enough to make a meal out of it. I yearn for the days of living at home, where my detox diet would be substituting my dinner meal every day with a large platter of steamed vegetables, steamed tofu topped with soy sauce, a piece of fish and to finish off, a plate of assorted fruits. More often than not, there was also a large steaming bowl of soup broth left to boil on the stove for hours, slaved over lovingly by my grandma as she added corn on the cob, pieces of tender pork, pork bones that gave the soup such rich flavours and many other ingredients with high medicinal and nutritional value. I never quite knew what were in those soups, but I did know that they were light, yet filling and definitely good for me.

These days, I wouldn't dream of going to such lengths to produce a good bowl of soup. An easy alternative I've come up with is miso soup. I never used to be a big fan of miso soup, especially the complimentary soup that comes with bento boxes at Japanese restaurants. However, after buying a packet of miso, I figured I should probably do something with it. Because I often find miso soup too salty, I've remedied this by adding more water to the soup broth as I make it. I then add whatever I can find into the soup, depending on what I feel like - instant buckwheat ramen, vegetarian dumplings from Chinatown, wakame (Japanese seaweed), other veggies, slices of silken tofu. It makes for a warm, light, yet filling winter meal.


Miso Soup
2 tbs miso
2 1/2 cups boiling water
frozen vegetarian dumplings
silken tofu, cubed
wakame

1) Pour boiling water into a saucepan.
2) Add spoonfuls of miso into the water and allow to dissolve slowly. Add or omit water depending on personal preference for saltiness levels (typically, the packet advises 1 tbs of miso to 1 cup boiling water).
3) Once the soup is prepared, add other ingredients and let boil for several minutes.
4) Serve hot.