whine & dine

I love hot chocolate. I don’t really know anyone who doesn’t – save my anti-chocolate girlfriend. Though the one chocolatey thing she has been known to drink is, of course, the abovementioned drink.

Now, I’m flying off in a couple of hours to Hong Kong, and will be heading on to Vietnam after for a total of 12 days. As such, I thought I’d leave you all with a comforting, homely drink to warm your souls and keep you company till I return, ready to bombard with pictures.

This post, really, isn’t about Hot Chocolate though. It’s to talk about a specific type – Mayan Hot Chocolate. It’s the chocolate drink that’s ultra thick to the point of feeling more like molten chocolate than a chocolate drink; sweetened with honey, laced with chillies and various other spices, hailing from the Aztecs. In short, it’s the liquid heaven from which we derive our common warm chocolate milk drink of today.

After having found a chocolate ice cream flavour that I’m really happy with, and having received a request for more ice cream, I decided it was high time to start experimenting. And I really like the flavour that I got with my first try! I highly encourage anyone who likes the spicy kick (but perhaps feels that the drink itself is a tad too thick and rich) to try this.

Further, it’s really not that different from the chocolate thyme ice cream recipe. First, instead of sweetening your hot milk with 50g of sugar, I used 3 tbsp of Manuka honey (‘cos that’s what I’ve got in the fridge – but any mild honey will do), then I steeped 2 tbsp of dried chilli flakes, 1 tsp of ground nutmeg (use freshly ground if you can), 2 cinnamon sticks, and 1 split and scraped vanilla pod in the hot milk for 25 minutes. I also used 250g of chocolate instead of the original 220g – since Mayan chocolate is meant, after all, to be richer, thicker, and chocolatey-er.

You carry on the rest of the recipe in pretty much the same way – make your pâte à bombe, heat your cream and whisk into the chocolate pieces until smooth. Whisk the infused milk into the melted chocolate mixture, then let it cool, and fold into the pâte à bombe, and churn according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Easy peasy! And delicious. And kinda surprising to eat, since the spicy kick really only comes in more as an aftertaste. Which is very cool. In a spicy kind of way. :)

Be good while I’m away, and I’ll see you guys in a few.

Alright, simmer down. I don’t hate straight people. I love them! In fact, I’m part of one of the few gay couples I know that actually mix predominantly with heterosexual friends. As part of a community that clings to each other like flies to a dung heap, it really is quite amazing that bunny and I have all of one other gay couple that we see on a regular basis.

Gay rights are not where they should be today, particularly not in our sunny little nation-state. I, like most of the gay people I know, would very much like for Section 377A to be repealed. I would also like for gay marriage to be legal. I would like that when I fill in forms and have to state my relationship to bunny, I don’t have to put “Friend” or “Flatmate”.

I do, however, recognize that Singapore has come a long way from where we started out. A decade ago, bunny and I wouldn’t be able to live together the way we do now, nor would she be able to introduce me to all her colleagues. Our landlords, for sure, wouldn’t know that I’m her girlfriend, and that we’re living here together as partners, not as flatmates. In fact, let’s boil it down to the simpler things – she and I can walk, holding hands, down Orchard Road in the middle of a Saturday (only it’s normally too crowded), we can sit in a cafe in Holland Village, and if I so wish, I can kiss her in public and we’re not going to get stoned for it. That – to me – is progress. And while I can stand right here and tell you that no, this is not the end of the line for progress, it is something that warrants our attention, something that the GLBT community tends to forget. Keep reading →

Ever since I got my ice cream maker, a few chocoholic friends of mine have been endlessly bugging me to make chocolate ice cream. Originally, I’d only wanted to make a mayan chocolate flavour, since that’s my favourite type of hot chocolate. However, with my Hong Kong and Vietnam trips coming up, and one of the abovementioned chocoholics about to return to the US for school, I caved after realising that I just don’t have enough time to experiment slowly.

Two of them, G and W came over for dinner last night, and Sunday found me frantically flipping through my cookbooks for a chocolate ice cream recipe. The reason why I was so frantic was because the only flavours I’m really comfortable with are vanilla and other similarly infused-milk/infused-custard flavours. Thank goodness for that copy of Gordon Ramsay’s Just Desserts which I picked up from my neighbourhood haunt, Pantry Magic. Keep reading →

Not that this post is meant to be a plug for vick’s blog (ah but what the hell – most of you probably know it already anyway), but I just had the most harrowing week ever. In terms of cupcake-madness that is.

A friend of a friend asked me to do a motherload of cupcakes for her wedding, half pink with her name, and another half sorta like the cupcake pictured, but with the groom’s name. I never want to see another cupcake again.

Much thanks, though, to Jaime and Wei, who very gamely came over to help out with the umm we call them atomic bombs/bloops, and really to keep me company and keep me from going mad with all the icing sugar flying around the house. Then again, their presence meant there were 3 of us fighting for the guitar to play Guitar Hero II on my newly acquired, dirt-cheap, 2nd hand xbox 360. w0000t!

(Sidenote: Shirlyn.. playing guitar hero kept making me think of you ‘cos so many of the songs in the tracklist are songs you guys play on Thursdays!)

Anyhoo, apart from being completely cupcake-ed out, both my hands are in a rather bad way – with the right suffering from piping-induced CPS, and the left from guitar hero-induced RSI. Whoops.

Ah well. At least I had some extras left over that I could decorate for friends, especially since on Friday night I was sure that I could have piped ANYTHING on that little round of fondant, i.e. not just names. To prove my point, I present to you the cupcake piped with vickiho.com/blog. That’s right – an entire URL. That consists of a name too. SCORE.

PS: I wonder if posts about Guitar Hero get to be categorised under Music.

The thing I love about cooking with cheese is the delectable oozy quality that they all take on, once the melting-process starts. However, there are a couple of cheeses don’t behave quite the same way. In Asia, the type we’d be more familiar with is the Indian cheese – paneer – which can be fried and cooked in curries and stews, and maintains an almost chicken-like texture without dissolving into the liquids.

Another type which is quite popular in Europe (it originates in Cyprus, Greece), which we don’t see quite so often in Asian cooking, is Halloumi. Similar to Paneer, Halloumi is curdled by means of acid, instead of rennet (the usual agent employed with melting cheeses), which results in water being expelled from the cheeses upon heating, hence allowing them to become firmer and drier upon heating.

I found a pack of Halloumi in my local supermarket a short while back, and picked it up, wanting to experiment with this cooking method that I must admit I’ve never tried before but have seen on various cooking shows a number of times. Sick of the usual starchy sides that I pair with a simple steak dinner for the bunny and I, I decided to do something a little healthier and pair it with an interesting – texturally and taste-wise – salad.

Squelching a basil leaf into the surface of the Halloumi before frying makes the leaves go wonderfully crisp and crunchy, and it allows the basil to impart that lovely fragrance into the cheese.

Strawberry and Pan-Fried Halloumi Salad

1 small packet of Halloumi (available in supermarkets, about 150g?)
a punnet of fresh strawberries
a large handful of mint, leaves plucked
a small handful of basil, leaves plucked
a small handful of salad leaves (I used rocket, and some baby spinach)
extra virgin olive oil
good quality balsamic vinegar
juice of half a lemon
freshly cracked black pepper

Slice up the halloumi into strips approximately 4-5mm thick, then cut each strip in half so you have a smallish rectangle (like the pieces pictured). Press a basil leaf into one side of a piece cheese, and repeat with remaining pieces of cheese.

Tear up the salad leaves, mint and remaining basil into workable sizes. Whisk together the lemon juice, a good pinch of pepper, and some olive oil to form a light dressing. Toss the leaves in the dressing, and set aside. Cut the strawberries up into halves or quarters (depending on how big they are), and toss them in about 1-2 tbsp of balsamic vinegar, a tbsp of olive oil, and a small pinch of black pepper as well. Have a taste, and adjust seasoning as necessary.

Heat a nonstick frying pan with some olive oil, and fry the halloumi (placing it basil-leaf-side down first) for about 45 seconds on one side, until golden brown and the leaf is crispy. Flip the cheese over, and continue frying for another 45 seconds to 1 minute.

To assemble, stack about 4-6 pieces of fried halloumi on the bottom of a plate, pile some salad leaves and strawberries on top. Drizzle with a few drops of balsamic and a little more olive oil, then serve immediately. (Serves 4-6 as a side)