Today's tea break

The tiramisu I made the other day tasted fine. : ) Not as horrible as my previous attempt. No more experimental ingredients for me.

Today's Dinner and tomorrow's dessert

Cooked szechuan hot and sour soup for dinner after tasting a horrible version in Taipei. Food in Taipei is generally good but the one I tasted was really a 'what is this again' version. Bad especially because it was my last meal in Taipei before I headed for the airport. Tsk tsk.

Soup and noodles eaten together with cold appetizers I prepared, cold sesame cucumber appetiser and sesame garlic spinach.

and DESSERTS!

Made tiramisu to eat over the next few days. I will find out if this is any good tomorrow. The last version I made has too little alcohol, I hope this version will be yummy. Left it in the fridge for the flavours to develop overnight. There goes my diet. More double classes  at the yoga studio.

Szechuan hot and sour soup

Good dose of Woh Hup concentrated chicken stock, I think it's 4-6 tbsp as I poured from the bottle. Taste the stock to check whether it is salty.
4 cups water, 960ml (includes the water used for soaking the mushrooms)
1 cup of dried black tree ear fungus 黑木耳, soaked and sliced into thin strips
1 cup of fresh bamboo shoots, cut into strips
1 cup of dried shitake mushroom, soaked and sliced into thin strips
1 carrot, sliced into thin strips
1 cup of siken tofu, cut into strips carefully
1 large egg, beaten
3 tbsp white rice vinegar
3 tbsp Zhejiang black vinegar 浙江黑醋
1 tbsp chili oil
1 tsp sesame oil
½ cup cornstarch liquid (water and 2 tablespoon of cornstarch mixes)
salt and white pepper to taste
2 stalks coriander as garnish

Cut shitake mushrooms, bamboo shoots, black fungus, carrots, tofu into strips. They should be cut evenly. Add Woh Hup chicken stock into pot of water together with the soaked mushroom water. Bring stock to boil over high heat. Add carrot, shiitake mushroom, bamboo shoots, black cloud ear fungus. Reduce fire to low heat, and simmer for 20 min.

Add in chili oil, white rice vinegar, black vinegar, sesame oil, salt and pepper. Simmer for 5 min. Add tofu. Bring to boil.

Stir in corn starch until consistency is slightly thickened. Stir carefully since the fragile tofu has been added.

Turn off the heat. Add beaten eggs and slowly stir into the soup. Garnish with coriander.

I shall try a vegetarian version another day.

The look nice but taste not so good tofu tiramisu

Photos are deceiving. Looks nice but taste uh... It was supposed to be a light (skinny!) dessert. Come on, the mascarpone cheese has been replaced with tofu and white chocolate. Alas, the light tofu taste I was looking for did not come through. I have to tweak the recipe again. To bruise my ego further, I was too heavy-handed with the alcohol. I can practically inhale the alcohol as I ate it. Ok, it tasted alright compared to my disastrous foccacia attempt. Next time.

Sicilian Caponata and Roasted Rosemary Bacon Potatoes

Woohoo! My first post.

The other day, I wanted to re-create the lovely roasted rosemary bacon potatoes I ate during the last Tokyo trip. R and I love to guess what goes into the yummy food we ate while dinning out.

At the same time, I cooked Sicilian caponata which is a vegetarian dish usually cooked with an aubergine-tomato combination found in many Mediterranean cuisines. I'm a big fan of eating as much greens and fruits as possible. Am never a big meat eater.

The Caponata's sauce somehow reminds me of the Chinese sweet and sour pork sauce minus the meat but flavoured with western herbs, namely, oregano, basil or parsley. Instead of the fresh tomatoes, I used canned tomatoes for the convenience.

The Sicilian Caponata was a success. The roasted rosemary potatoes could be a lot better. Got to figure out how to infuse as much rosemary flavour into the potatoes. Rosemary oil?