whine & dine

I was at a friend’s place a couple of weeks ago, two fingers of Bailey’s Irish Cream poured over a few ice cubes in a lowball. Swirling, sipping. Now, Bailey’s – contrary to popular belief – is a difficult drink to drink. You see, there’s that optimum point where it has been gently swirled around ice cubes long enough for it to be chilled perfectly, yet not left too long that it’s gotten diluted. You have to keep sniffing, swirling, and sipping, to figure out when that point is, then stop talking and enjoy it, before it passes and you have to top it up with more ice and Bailey’s before you’ll get back there again. Keep reading →

I’m a huge fan of nuts. I like almost all of them, in some form or other, but I like them best for their contributions as a part of a cooked dish. Whether toasted or left raw, whole nuts add texture to salads and cookies, and the pounded/blitzed versions creaminess to sauces like pesto and richness to cakes.

One type of nut that I love in particular are pistachios. I hate shelling them – it’s like pringles; once you pop you can’t stop, and I rarely do until my fingers are verging on raw. What I found out over the past week is that I hate skinning them even more! When shelled, pistachios still have a thin, papery, purple skin that clings to the emerald morsel where your flavour lies, and if you’re going to use the pistachios in cooking, it’s better to get rid of that so that it doesn’t affect the flavour, colour and texture of the final product. Keep reading →

Most people don’t buy The French Laundry or Bouchon cookbooks to cook from them. Actually, who am I kidding? Most people don’t buy TFL or Bouchon cookbooks full stop. Of those of us who do shell out for it, we’re normally caught up drooling over the pictures, imagining the flavours and textures in your mouth should you one day be so lucky to visit New York or Napa Valley. Those of us who live halfway around the world anyway. Then of course you have the very special few like Carol Blymire who has cooked every single recipe from TFL cookbook. And while I don’t aspire to get there anytime soon – I simply don’t know that I can afford it (suffice to say that this recipe has already set me back about HK$600, not counting the veal stock), nor can I be bothered – it just goes to show that recipes from either of Chef Keller’s tomes are far from impossible for the amateur home cook. Keep reading →

It’s no secret that I love XO sauce. That fragrant combination of dried seafood, chillies, garlic, shallots and oil – heated together until the flavours amalgamate into a bottle of deliciousness which you can cook with, or just use as a condiment. Many are under the misconception that XO sauce takes its name and flavour from XO Cognac, but it doesn’t. Well, the name is borrowed – as XO became a synonym for an item bearing qualities like prestige and luxury in Hong Kong – where the sauce originated too, but the sauce doesn’t actually have any of the cognac in it.

So why did I bother to figure out how to make it, now that I live in the land of XO sauce? Cost, really. Well, that and curiosity. My favourite XO sauce has a rather hefty price tag (HK$240 for under 200g of the stuff) and its recipe is closely guarded by the chef at Lung King Heen in the Four Seasons Hong Kong. And with the way I inhale a bottle of that goodness, I figured it was time I tried to come up with a recipe on my own. Keep reading →

Sorry for the lack of updates, I’m in a bit of a mood lately. Also, I’m working on some recipes, but half the time spent in the kitchen is spent cursing at the lack of space in general and how much I hate Toaster (I named my oven – he’s not actually a toaster oven but he behaves like an oversized one now and then so he deserves it).

Anyway, since there’s nothing on the food front to report on, I figured I’d leave you guys with a photo taken last week in Koh Samui. (When I say “you guys”, I’m really referring to the 5 imaginary people who still read this blog, considering how often I’ve done these disappearing things.) Hope you like it.