Peking Duck

A while back I had my first experience with Peking Duck. When we stepped into the restaurant, the place was packed; and every table was having Peking duck. A sure sign that they serve really good duck. I was really excited to try it. The glistening roast duck sliced personally by the restaurant owner. Sorry for the blurred photo, I was drooling at the duck.

He came by and taught us how to wrap it: 3 o'clock, 9 o'clock, 6 o'clock then stuff it in your mouth.

The crispy duck skin is wrapped with a paper thin pancake, filled with spring onions, cumcumber and a streak of hosin sauce.

SO DELICIOUS! Thus I only took one picture of the duck pancake. Afterwards I was too busy savouring them.

It was served as a banquet, so after the pancakes came hand-made noodles with duck,

stir-fried bean sprouts with duck,

and lastly a clear duck broth.

So much duck right? I guess they had to make use of the whole duck. No wastage there. Man, after that dinner we all had full bellies and groaning that we'll not be going to eat duck again for a very long time. Too much duck for one night! The next day we went vegetarian for all our meals, haha.

Pumpkins~!

It's been pumpkin season for a while now, and in the markets they sell for around $0.70 - $0.98 per kg. What a bargain! Usually we just bake them in the oven and eat them piping hot, but I wanted to try using them in my baking as well. I made pumpkin cake and a pumpkin mochi cake. I was craving something soft and chewy at that time, and a mochi cake sounded delicious.

This is the pumpkin cake, which was surprisingly soft and chewy despite it having no glutinous flour in it. I almost thought this was the mochi cake instead. I think I actually prefer this one over the real mochi cake, haha.

This one is the mochi cake, nice springy texture. Both cakes fulfilled my craving for a chewy yet healthy snack. Healthy because I used no fat or sugar, the moistness comes from the pumpkin puree and sweetness from honey.

The top and bottoms were crispy, while the inside was soft and chewy. I like to reheat it in the microwave and eat it warm with cranberry jam, so yummy~

I was also curious to see how toasted pumpkin seeds would taste like. I baked them with the pumpkins for ~30-40 mins. They were great! Nice, roasted flavour through them. Nothing from the pumpkin is wasted =D

I baked mini white chocolate and mixed fruit cookies for my Uncle's BBQ. I was experimenting with the fillings.

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

My brother really helped me during my exam studying period, so I owe a lot to him. As a thank you I decided to bake him some cookies. He likes his cookies soft and chewy, so I baked them for a little less time in the oven.

And sadly we did not have any more white chocolate left, which is his favourite, so I chopped up a Cadbury's block of dark chocolate toffee crunch instead.

I also added in another unusual ingredient; chopped fresh mint leaves. That was what attracted me to this recipe in the first place, I could use all the mint that grows so abundantly in our garden.

Can you see the green mint leaves? Hehe.

Soft and chewy centres with toffee bits in the chocolate, my brother approves of them.

Kuih Lapis (Kueh Lapis?)

I had a craving for something sweet and chewy, and spotted a can of coconut milk in the pantry. AHA! Let me make kuih lapis! It is a sweet memory from my childhood, in Singapore, every weekend morning we would go down to the markets, and these aunties would have trays on nonyadelicacies: Ang koo kueh, pandan chiffon, fresh soy bean, grass jelly, banana cake, curry puffs, tapioca kueh... ahhhh really miss nonya food now... I remember I would always peel the layers of multicoloured kueh lapis off one by one and eat it... so yummy~

I actually made it twice, the first time I tried to make three coloured layers. But because I only had pandan paste, I could only do green and white. So I tried to make a red layer with beetroot juice. Who knew, the after steaming the red colour would completely disappear?? What I was left with was this:

There was supposed to be red in there somewhere! I'm going to buy food colouring next time...

The second time I just made it green and white.

It came out more evenly toned, with alternating pandan and coconut layers.

It totally solved my craving. I was even able to peel the layers off one by one, haha!

Pie in the Sky

Today my family and I went to Pie in the Sky at Mt Dandenong for lunch. They are famous for their award winning pies, and I haven't been there in about...3 years? So I was really looking forward to going there again. =D

They have a total of 11 flavours, and surprisingly 4 of the flavours were Asian. It's funny though, that when Asians go there they choose the more "aussie" flavours like Beef & Guinness (my mum) or Beef Burgundy in red wine (my dad), while the locals go for the Asian flavours like Thai curry or Tandoori chicken.

And how good do their dessert pies/tarts look? All shiny and glossy looking... But each one is $9, so expensive!

The berry cheesecake looked especially tempting. Really wanted one, but my stomach said no because I was too full from my pie.

I ordered a Tandoori chicken pie with salad. The pastry is perfectly baked; flaky puff pastry on top and melt-in-the-mouth shortcrust on the bottom.

My brother's "Pie Floater", where they placed his Beef & Cheese pie on top of soup with a scoop of mash potato on top. The soup was delicious, and really good when eaten with the pastry of the pie.

A delicious outing with my family~ ^0^

Zong Zi (粽子)

The season to make zong zi has arrived! My mum came back home from Box Hill, arms laden with banana leaves, a sack of glutinous rice, chestnuts, meat, dried shrimp, etc...

I tried to learn the art of making zong zi from my mum. She does it at this superhuman speed; once i blink my eyes, she's already done wrapping.

See how fast she is? My camera can't even follow her even though she slowed down for me. Luckily I took a video as well. My zong zi looked like a crooked square next to her perfect pyramidal-shaped one, so I'm still trying to perfect my wrapping skills...

Zong zi all ready for steaming~! This is only the third batch. We made A LOT, around 40+? So we gave them out to relatives and friends. Anyway, we made two types: savoury and sweet. The savoury ones are filled with chestnuts, dried shrimp and pork. The sweet ones are simply filled with red bean paste. Both are delicious, though I prefer the red bean ones because I have a sweet tooth.

The savoury ones =D

They are sooo good when eaten piping hot. Total comfort food.

And the red bean. I love the chewy rice with the sweet red bean paste, yum!

Exam Food Cravings and a Celebration Cake

Argh! I spot cyber cobwebs! *brushes them off* Oh my gosh, when was my last post? In March?? I haven't blogged in 2+ months... wow. But I've got lots of things to post up! Will do so ALL in one go.

First, let me show you what I've been consuming during swot vac week. I started having these sugar cravings from out of nowhere, causing me to look for two things: nougat and chocolate. I bought the nougat from this really good bakery near Queen Vic Market, where everything in the shop is made and baked fresh daily. Their nougat especially is to die for, soft and pillow-ly, filled with smoked flavour of nuts or fruit and covered with a thin layer of chocolate... Delicious! Not to mention they use orange blossom honey in their nougat, so I can taste the distinct honey flavour. Yum! By the way, I never knew nougat was pronounced "Nuu-gut". I always pronounced it "No-gat". It explained the strange looks every time I asked the shop assistant about their nougat.

Cherry cream torrone (another name for nougat) on top left ($8), blueberry and almonds ($5) on bottom left, and cherries, almonds, pistachios on the right ($12). They are all half eaten, so I'm sorry you can't see them in their full sugary goodness. I usually eat them on the spot when I buy them, haha... I've got no self-control whatsoever.

Pistachio ($12) on top, blueberry again on bottom.

And then there's the chocolate. I wanted either dark chocolate or chocolate coated hazelnuts. I got both in the end. Couldn't help myself! Dark choc blueberries ($9) are an added bonus: I ADORE blueberries, so I just had to try them together with dark chocolate. Two of my favourite things! I got the choc coated caramelised hazelnuts ($5) from Ganache, and grabbed an almond nougat from Haigh's. Along with a mango truffle that got demolished before I remembered to take a picture. But man, was it good. The creamy mango centre melts in your mouth, encased with hard shell of mango chocolate. Totally worth the $1.70!

And by the time I finished all my sweets, I just realised how much I have spent on all these confectionery. Strangely I don't regret it one bit. The nougat and chocolate are amazingly delicious, and gave me the sugar rush I need when studying for exams (or that's the excuse I'm using anyway).

My three-in-a-row science exams are finally over! So I celebrated with my brother in Le Petit Gateau, this awesome cake shop in the CBD. Their cakes are pretty famous, and I've been wanting to try them for ages. We bought a Hazelnut Mille Feuille ($7). I had no idea how to pronounce it, I just pointed to it really eagerly and they gave it to me, haha.

This cake was totally worth studying my butt off for. Absolutely divine. A surprisingly light cake, with layers of creamy mousse, a thin wafer of biscuit somewhere in the middle, praline and whole roasted hazelnuts all combined harmoniously together... It's like a cake form of ferrero rocher! It was sooooo tempting to get another after we polished it off. I'll definitely be back to try more of their cakes.