Showing posts with label Other fancies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Other fancies. Show all posts
30 Jan 2014
Crystal Jade Jiang Nan - A Rainbow!
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| Visited Crystal Jade Jiang Nan at Vivocity with my friend and we shared these colourful xiao long bao! Due to the broth contained inside which make it impossible to share, I only tried 4 flavors while my friend tried the other 4. I started off with the vegetables (green), cheese (yellow), spicy beef (pink) and lastly the foie gras (brown). It happened to be the order of my favourite too! The vegetable tasted clear and refreshing, the cheese was savoury and salty while both the minced spicy beef and foie gras were tasteless and disgusting. My friend had the original (white), spicy chicken (orange), prawn (pale orange) and truffle (black). The ball in the middle was filled with custard. (Just to fill up the centre as the blankness would feel awkward.) Of course we had ordered other dishes too but I decided to post only this since the rainbow colours gave a lasting impression. |
15 Jan 2014
Bear Paw Cafe (Johor Bahru City Square) - Cute and yummy bear paws!
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| I was enjoying my 2 weeks long holiday break and that was when I decided to explore Johor Bahru for more as well as cheaper food options. It was during my virgin trip to Johor Bahru City Square when I came across this Bear Paw Cafe that sounds rather familiar. It didn't take too long for me to recall that I actually tried it before from Taiwan's Night Market (the original source)! Singapore has already opened an outlet not quite long ago at Scape, known as Bear Bites. Despite having more bun flavors, less choice of patties and different variation of sauces, I did not try the set meal because it did not seems substantial to me. |
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| Unlike Singapore, the set meal here at Bear Paw Cafe have a huge range of bubble tea to pick from! All drinks were in (L) size so you either have to finish it or complain about being too full after drinking halfway. I had the slightly sourish Assam Milk Tea while my friend choose the Brown Rice Milk Tea. |
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| It felt like a DIY burger where you can customise your own bun, patty and sauce. Just pray hard that your combination turns out delicious. (Not to worry as everything would be yummy.) My friend went for Milk bun + Fish patty + Tartar sauce while I opted for the Brown Sugar bun + Squid patty + Teriyaki sauce. |
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| The mildly sweetened brown sugar bun was so soft and fluffy that I fell in love eating it! Was it Hong Kong flour that gave the bun its texture? A bit like the Chinese version's kong bak bao but much fluffier! I went to ask if they sell the bun itself but too bad they don't. The cashier even told me that I was not the first to make such a request. Since the squid patty was slightly hard and dry, skip that and try the fish instead. |
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| The 3rd time I went to Johor Bahru City Square the following week (yes, yet another round for me), with another friend. We ate at Nandos for our late lunch and in less than 3 hours, we were already seated at Bear Paw Cafe waiting for our cute paws to be served! This time I went for Brown Rice Milk Tea which I felt it tasted a bit like hojicha (roasted Japanese green tea) while my friend had the Mango Yakult. He was too bloated and could only finish half a cup! What a waste... |
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| This time I had the Milk bun + Fish patty +Tartar sauce while my friend had the Whole Wheat bun + Fish patty + Tartar sauce. It seems like the choices were pretty default and people tend to go for the same few standard choices. Upon my first bite, I was simply impressed with the generous portion, crispy exterior and moist interior of the fish patty! My friend strongly agreed as well as he continued munching on his paw. I would definitely be back again!!! |
4 Jan 2014
Homemade meat jerky! Bak Kwa experiment for Chinese New Year!
My very 1st post for the year 2014 and I will be blogging about my homemade meat jerky process! I still
have a couple of 2013 posts which I have yet to update but this post was the priority since Chinese New
Year is approaching! My 3rd time experimenting with the seasoning quantity before finally settling with the
one below. (Note: Adjusted based on my personal preference!)
have a couple of 2013 posts which I have yet to update but this post was the priority since Chinese New
Year is approaching! My 3rd time experimenting with the seasoning quantity before finally settling with the
one below. (Note: Adjusted based on my personal preference!)
The recipe I modified into:
Pork 300g (A bit fattier would be better)
Sugar 3 tbs
Honey 3 tbs (I think malt syrup would be better, more caramelised flavor.)
Fish Sauce 1.5 tbs
Sweet Wine 2 tbs (I used a dessert wine)
Dark Soy Sauce 1/2 tbs
Char Siew Sauce 1 tbs (Removed after 3rd batch)
Five Spice 1/2 tbs
Sesame Oil 1/2 tbs (Removed after 3rd batch)
If anyone knows of any better tried-and-tested-before recipe, care to share with me so I could try?
I knew it would not be so easy to get close to the exact taste of Bak Kwa, if not everyone would be making
their own already.
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| The recipe would be for 300g of meat and I did X2 the recipe for 600g of marinated minced pork, beef and chicken. Best if you could add more fats into your minced meat as mine were all too lean! After marinating the meat overnight in the chiller, the minced chicken was a bit watery while minced beef was still rather firm. Pork was always in-between. |
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| I started off by portioning the meat into 100g - 110g so that all the jerky would be about the same size. (Too large piece would be difficult to flip over and would easily break apart.) I spread the minced meat onto an aluminium sheet, place a cling wrap over and using a rolling pin, flatten the meat evenly. About 2mm thickness for mine. |
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| After spreading evenly on the aluminium, either you could directly bbq the meat or place it into the oven to bake fully. I did half-half. About 200 degrees in the oven for 10-15 mins to firm up the meat before transferring to the BBQ pit to barbecue! I guessed that it was normal for the marination to leak out of the marinated meat during the baking process? Any ideas? |
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| Picture of myself barbecuing the meat jerky! |
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| Another selfie shot with my friend's barbecue pit! Thanks Glenn for letting me use his house to barbecue! |
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| The texture was way too smooth to be Bak Kwa and it looked more like ham instead. |
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| My friend did the baking to firm up the minced meat before I barbecued them. Kept flipping and barbecuing piece by piece as his oven could only bake a piece at a time. |
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| Glazed with honey when the meat was about to be done with a bit of charred parts appearing. Make sure the honey dries slightly or it would end up sticky. |
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| Done! Pork or beef ?? |
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| Another shot with only 2 pieces... |
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| Some of the minced chicken ended up like this, all broken apart because it was too soft to flip with tongs. |
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| Done with all the 1.2kg of beef and pork which took about 5 hours...? |
Final conclusion:
Beef - Jerky have quite a strong beefy taste and smell which could be quite unpleasant.
The meat was rather firm but soft and tender.
Easy to handle while baking and barbecuing.
Easiest to dry up and discolour after a few days in the fridge
Chicken - Became watery/mushy after marination and broke apart easily.
Tasted a bit like satay / chicken steak.
Pork - Texture a bit rubbery after a few days in the fridge.
More suitable due to having more fats (although mine still not enough)
All - Unusual smell and taste, something like hoisin sauce detected.
The texture too smooth to be Bak Kwa.
Overall taste still negative to me.