Shirokuma Japanese Curry, Tsing Yi - Super Yummy! Must Try!

Too yummy not to mention! This is a beef burger curry (two huge burger patties), served on top of rice, with dark curry sauce and melted creamy cheese sauce. HEAVEN!


A huge pork ball served on top of moist, perfectly cooked omelette, on a bed of rice, drenched in pork curry sauce with creamy melted cheese. OMG! Too yummy to be true! Very satisfying!


Their desserts are lovely too! This is Hokkaido milk ice cream served with strawberries, blueberries, chocolate corn balls, and mango. There are green tea ones too. Absolutely heavenly!

The place is kids friendly too, they provide baby seats and kids utensils, and the servers would tell the kids to finish their food first before they can enjoy the desserts. They have an ice cream counter too if you don't feel like curry. WE ADORE THIS PLACE!

The only small thing is.. you have to wait to get seats. My solution would be... be the early birds. Or while one parent wait, the other can bring the kid to play the toy cars near Log-On. For couples, well you can either do some extreme public display of affection, or play with your own phone until you get your table.

Shirokuma Curry
Shop 218A, 2/F Maritime Square, Tsing Yi, Hong Kong.
Tel: +852 2432 9988 (too bad you can't book)
The other branch is in Tuen Mun.
About HK$100 per person for curry + dessert to share

Tuen Ng Family Dinner 端午節晚餐

Just sharing what we had for Tuen Ng festival family dinner. SC's mama made almost everything, yummy yummy yummy. I made the bakuteh (pork ribs stewed in Chinese herbs and spices) and the curry fish, using packets of spices I bought from my recent trip to Kuala Lumpur.
是日端午節, 晚餐去左SC企食, SC媽媽整左好多正野食! 而我就整左肉骨茶同咖哩魚, 今次個調味包係馬拉買的!

Tastifying A Bland Takeaway Fried Rice - 人生無take 2, 炒飯就有...XDDD

"When can I eat stuff like this, papa?"
"爸爸, 我叫時食得炒飯呀?:("

Remember the bland fried rice we had the other day?
大家仲記唔記得琴日Blog個齋鋪黃金炒飯?

It was so bland, we decided that there's no point wasting calories eating it, so we took it home.
因為個味太淡, 我地個日都冇乜點食, 打包返左屋企

And we tastified it.
炒飯有take 2開始

I added minced garlic, thinly sliced shallot, lots of minced pork (uh huh!), fish sauce, salt, and pepper, topped with crispy shallot...and...
我加左D蒜頭碎, 乾紅蔥, 好多好多豬肉碎(要同個廚講返對唔住, 我咁攪佢個飯XDD), 魚露, 鹽, 胡椒....


Hello, TASTY!
個take 2 左既炒飯即刻立體晒..

Curry Chicken & Frozen Roti Pratha "Pot Pie"

Look at this...

...is it one of those tasty soup with buttery flaky puff pastry?
Is it a pot pie?
I'd think so too, but this isn't.

The flaky buttery top is made of frozen roti pratha and under it...curry chicken!
If you want to make something that looks impressively pretty, tastes absolutely delicious and extremely easy to make. This one's for you.

Recipe
- 1 frozen roti pratha (per serving/per pot) and a bit of butter
- 2 chicken leg fillet, remove skin, cut into bite size chunks
- 2 clove garlic, crushed
- 1 cm ginger, crushed
- 2 shallot, thinly sliced
- 1 lemongrass, sliced into 5cm long pieces
- a few kaffir lime leaves
- a cup coconut milk
- flour (optional), hot water, cooking oil, salt, pepper, sugar, ground corriander, cumin
or you can skip all of these spices and just cook the chicken chunks with your favorite curry paste, red, green, or yellow, and coconut milk.

Preheat oven to 200C. Saute aromatics in some hot oil, add chicken chunks until they're a bit browned, add spices and seasoning, add coconut milk, thicken with some flour to give your "pie filling" some volume if you wish, or skip it and let coconut milk do all the thickening. Pour curry chicken into an oven proof pot, place frozen roti pratha on top, brush with butter, bake until roti pratha is golden brown.

Grab a spoon, push the buttery and flaky frozen pratha into your thick and rich curry for maximum enjoyment.
Licking lips optional.
:)

Easy Vegetable Curry

Cook anything in coconut milk...and it'd probably taste fantastic.
That's what I think...or instead of coconut milk...heavy cream :D
Too bad SC doesn't always allow me to use coconut milk and heavy cream all the time. In fact, I have been banned to use coconut milk/cream for at least 6 months.

Last nite I violated the rule, and thank God for SC's super bad short term memory :D
He didn't remember the ban, or he pretended to forget, as he seemed to be enjoying this dish so much ;)

Recipe
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 2 cloves of shallot, sliced thinly
- 1 cm ginger, crushed
- 1 stalk of lemongrass, bruised
- curry paste of your choice
(you can skip all of the above spices and just use more curry paste of your choice ^_^)
- 2 tomatoes, cut into sections
- 1 head of cauliflower, cut into bite size chunks
- 1 cup of tofu puffs, cut into 2 sections
- 200ml box coconut milk
- olive oil, salt, pepper, fish sauce, a bit of hot water, crispy shallot, chopped coriander (I didn't have any, so I stuck some mint leaves)

Saute garlic, shallot, ginger and lemongrass in hot oil, add tomatoes and cauliflower chunks, add a bit of water, mix in curry paste, pour coconut milk, add tofu puffs, bring to boil, add seasonings, simmer until the cauliflower chunks are tender. Garnish with crispy shallot and serve with steamed rice.

After reading this, SC will remember and I will not be allowed to use coconut milk again...maybe for another six months T_T

Japanese Golden Curry - Beef & Veggie

I've made Japanese curry before, using House instant curry seasoning, and it was a little too sweet for me. A friend of mine highly recommended S&B. In fact, she swears by it.

One fine day, I wanted to give it a try.
Actually, it was my day off but I was too lazy to whip up anything more complicated that throwing instant curry and ingredients into a pot :D

I blame Hong Kong's humidity and summer heat, as always.

You don't need a recipe for this...but let me share how did I do mine.

Recipe
(serves 4)
- 1 lb beef cubes (I used cubes from brisket)
- half an onion, chop into chunks
- 1 carrot, peeled and chopped into bite sized pieces
- 1 pack of straw mushrooms, sliced
- 1 zucchini, peeled and chopped into 5mm thick chunks
- 1 pack of S&B Golden Curry (Hot)
- olive oil, hot water, paprika (optional), black pepper (optional)

Since I used brisket, I used my pressure cooker.
Sautee onion in a bit of olive oil, add mushrooms, add beef, mix about, add carrots, add hot water, a sprinkle of black pepper, and pressure cook for 25 minutes. If you are using other kinds of meat (chicken, beef tenderloin, pork, etc, simply let the meat cook through and you're done). Once the pressure cooking was done, oh my! The beef stock you get...delicious even without any seasoning. Add zucchini chunks at this stage as we don't want to overcook them. Add curry seasoning a few blocks at a time and mix well, add more water if necessary, sprinkle a bit more black pepper and paprika (optional)...and pour curry over a bed of steamed rice.

I love S&B's savory curry flavor. Perfect!

Golden curry eaten overlooking a gloriously golden sunset...
One bowl was definitely not enough ^_^

Grilled Chicken Red Curry with Lychee

I fell in love with Thai red curry roast duck with lychee the first time I tried it in Sydney.
I thought, it would be so easy for me to kind of recreate in Hong Kong, since I could get roast duck for as little as HK$18 downstairs, stir in a pack of Thai red curry paste, throw in a box of coconut milk and a can of lychee...and I'd get an easy, yet super impressive dish.

...at least that was the plan.

Naturally, since life is so kind, and luck is my middle name...when I needed a roast duck, it was too late and the siu mei shop just below my flat's closed.
This is totally predictable.
If I could get duck when I needed duck, that would be surprising :D

Anyway, no duck (or lack thereof) shall deprive me of curry lychee, so I went for chicken instead.
A little bit more troublesome, a little less flavorful, but, it should work.

Recipe
(for two)
- 2 pieces of boneless chicken thigh fillet, with skin on
- 1 stalk of lemongrass, crushed
- 1 galangal, crushed
- 2 shallots, sliced thinly
- 1 pack of Thai red curry paste
- 200 ml box of coconut milk
- 1 can of lychee in syrup
- salt, pepper, olive oil
- freshly chopped corriander

Preheat oven to 200C. Season chicken fillet with salt and pepper, brown the skin and grill in the oven until it's almost cooked. Meanwhile, saute lemongrass, galangal and shallot until fragrant, throw in thai curry paste, stir in coconut milk and some syrup from the canned lychee. Keep tasting the mixture until you reach the perfect balance between sweet, sour, spicy, creamy and savoury. Add lychee pieces at the end. Take chicken out of the oven, slice and arrange chicken pieces in the curry sauce, try not to submerge the chicken skin to keep it crispy (unless you don't mind the chicken skin not being crispy anymore. Alternatively, you can also lay the sauce on a shallow plate and add the chicken pieces on the plate, but I wanted to get the chicken meat cooked in the curry sauce a bit). Garnish with freshly chopped corriander and serve with steamed rice or roti prata (I served mine with frozen roti prata, simply heated up in the oven until golden brown. Yum!)

You can also add okra/Thai eggplant/cherry tomatoes and sweet Thai basil into the curry or even make a vegetarian version of it.

PS. A cooking disaster happened when I was cooking this dish. I accidentally used the ladle I'd been using to stir the curry to stir the other dish, which was stir fried zucchini, tomatoes and beancurd sheets in oyster sauce. It was literally just a few secs of stirring, and the damage was done. The second dish was totally infused with a tinge of coconut milk and lychee flavor, it turned it inedible. I tried adding a bit of this and that, but there was no way to recover it. I had wasted a whole lot of ingredients and it broke my heart T_T

PS II. Moral of the story, look before you dip.

Japanese Beef and Vegetable Curry - Being A Copycat

Sous chef is quite a copycat.

Really?

I bet you guys must have cute nicknames for each other. When I created one, it will be copied immediately, and SC will instantly forget that the name was my idea. He'd soon think that he'd created it. But, these days, his creativity has gone through the roof. He gives me different nicknames almost every day, I am confused which names refer to me...one thing is for sure, though...all of them pretty much means "fatty" (Sigh. I guess I deserve this)

Being a normal guy, contrary to most people's belief that he is a metrosexual and shopaholic, he absolutely loathes shopping and is hardly interested in fashion. I could have been persuading him to buy certain things for the longest time, the answer is always NO. However, if some cute guys at work wore something that looks good, he will rush to the store and try to find a cheap copy of it (how annoying?).

These days, it gets even worse. SC likes to copy a friend of mine, cute couple Athena and Joe.
When Joe showed up wearing a hat, SC wants a hat too. He is rather obsessed with this, although he probably wouldn't want to admit it....and when he saw Athena made a gorgeous looking Japanese curry, as expected, he asked me to make the same too!

To make me feel better, I'll call it being inspired rather than copying. ^_*

Japanese and Vegetable Beef Curry

Recipe
(serves 4 with rice)
- 1 box of Japanese curry seasoning (Athena recommended S&B brand, I bought mine at Jusco $10 shop)
- 2 carrots (I skipped potatoes as I already have rice as carb)
- 1 large onion, chopped into large chunks
- 1 green pepper (I want the color)
- 4 chicken franks, chopped (I need to make this dish enough for 4 meals)
- 0.5 lbs beef cubes (you can replace with other protein, such as chicken, pork, fish, etc)
- olive oil, water
- optional: fish sauce, ground paprika, black pepper


First, saute beef cubes and chicken franks in hot olive oil until the beef changed color but not exactly cooked through, set aside. I did this because I didn't want to overcook the beef cubes and I want some color on the chicken franks.


Saute onion and peppers until fragrant, add carrots, add water (the amount of water should be written on the curry seasoning box, but naturally, I didn't follow, I just added enough to cover the vegetables). Bring to boil and cook until the carrot starts to soften.


Meanwhile, prepare curry seasoning blocks...


There were 6 blocks in the box, add four and keep two to add at the last step. This prevents the curry for being too thick too soon.


Mix well, make sure the curry blocks are dissolved, the curry will soon thicken.


Once the curry is thickened, add beef cubes and chicken franks...


...then add the last two blocks of curry seasoning. Mix well.


The curry is pretty much done, taste to check if any flavor's missing. Japanese curry isn't exactly my favorite, because of its sweetness and the way it is thickened using starch. Thus, I added some fish sauce for a bit of saltiness and tang, as well as ground paprika and black pepper for the extra kick of spiciness.

I served mine with a mix of red, brown and white rice.

How come my curry doesn't look as pretty as Athena's? T_T

I bet it's because I need to get the same cute little pink Le Creusset pot...YEAH! (It's my turn to be a copycat)
*SC is yelling...NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!*

Athena's Bday Party - How to Host A Bitching Party?

You're not having a dejavu, there was really another party at my place, and the title of my post doesn't mean that I am good at hosting party (this was only my second time), it's a question, not a statement. Please share your party tips, pretty please?...

I remember my first time attending a "casual" dinner at my friend's place, in Singapore. I typed casual between quotation marks, as to me, it was really a stunning dinner. She was serving simple and delicious home cooked meal of tomato soup and lasagna, but the table was beautifully set, decorated with gorgeous flowers and candles.

Did I learn from that experience? Ehm, judging from how my party spread looked like (disposable plates and cups? Really?)...gosh, I still have a lot to learn.

What did I do prior to the party?
Is my place normally that pristine and immaculate? Do I always have fresh flowers at home? Of course NOT!
Not really, so here are the things that I do when preparing for a party:
- A week before: thought about the menu (Order in? Take away? Home cooking? What style? Western? Asian? Indonesian? Chinese? Who doesn't eat what? Are the guests big eaters/dieters?) Any other activities to be done after dinner? Xbox? DVD? Games?
- A couple of days before: menu should be pretty much decided, create a list of ingredients to purchase)
- The day before: purchase ingredients and prep or cook dishes which can be prepared in advance, tidy up my mountain-high piles of dirty laundry, collect and throw SC's game weekly magazines from every room, stash any messy tidbits into empty drawers
- The morning and afternoon before: roughly dust visible places, clean floor, and prohibit SC to throw more dirty laundry everywhere, arrange flowers into various vases and station them several rooms
- One hour before the party: start cooking rice, and prepare all ingredients for dishes, ready to fire up, and prepare to heat up dishes which had been cook the day before

What did I serve this time? Just simple dishes I knew I could handle.

Italian Herbs and Lemon Zest Grilled Chicken Wings

- I prepared about 2-3 pieces of wings per person
- Italian mixed herbs (rosemary, oregano, thyme, sage)
- Zest of 1 lemon, juice of 1 lemon
- Salt, black pepper, olive oil

The day before the party, I defrosted the wings by quick boiling it (dip them into boiling water until the skin changed color, but not necessarily cooked through), drain and pat dry, coat wings with all ingredients, store in fridge. You can opt to skip the quick boiling.
On the day of the party, preheat oven to 220C, grill wings until the skin turned golden brown.

Corn Kernels with Bacon and Sausages

- 1 large can of corn kernels
- 3 slices of bacon, cut into small chunks
- 3 chicken franks, cut into 2-3 mm thick chunks (or any other sausages of your choice)
- 2 pork and herb sausages, cut into bite sized chunks
- black pepper

Defrost sausages and bacon since the night before, if necessary. About one - 2 hours before the party (or the day before, if you didn't need to defrost anything), slice bacon and sausages, then keep in the fridge before cooking. When ready to cook, heat up frying pan, add bacon and sausages (with no oil), cook until golden. Meanwhile, open the can of corn kernels and drain. Once the bacon and sausages are nicely browned, add corn kernels, cook until a bit charred, add black pepper. No other seasoning necessary, all the ingredients are already very flavorful.

Initially, I planned to add raisins to this dish, which will add another dimension of flavor, but I...forgot. Opps, maybe next time.

Grilled Chicken, Pineapple and Red Pepper in Coconut Milk

- 3 pieces of chicken upper thigh fillet
- 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 1 onion, thinly sliced
- 1 can (around 200ml coconut milk)
- 1 small fresh pineapple, or 1 can of pineapple chunks
- salt, black pepper, fish sauce, sugar

In the afternoon, or 1 hour before dinner starts, start preparing the ingredients, all the slicing and dicing. When it is time to serve, heat up frying pan (with no oil), season chicken fillet with salt, black pepper and olive oil, and grill skin down until you get some color. Flip once, cook until you get some colorage, set aside and slice into bite sized chunks. Saute garlic and onion, add chicken pieces, add pineapple (without the syrup if you are using canned pineapple), add coconut milk, and use some of the syrup of the canned pineapple (if using), season with salt, pepper, sugar, fish sauce and serve.

Beef Brisket Stewed in Red Wine

The birthday girl wanted to try this dish, so I did another encore of Beef and Red Wine combo. This time using brisket. I cooked this dish the night before, to get the beef to be more flavorful the day I served it.

Sauteed Black Pepper Mushrooms

- Mixed mushrooms
- Butter and olive oil
- salt and black pepper
- 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

Saute garlic in olive oil and butter, add mushrooms until they turn golden and slightly charred, season with salt and lots of black pepper. It was really that simple.

Poison of the Day:
Mandarin Orange, White Wine and 7Up Drink

I should've named the drink with something catchy like sex on the beach or screaming orgasm, but my creativity veins are blocked today (this is Monday!)...so I just called it what it is.
Suggestions please....^_^

- 1 small can of mandarin orange sections in syrup
- white wine
- sprite/7up/soda water

Fill a jug with the mandarin orange sections, including the syrup, add ice, fill up to 2/3 with chilled white wine, top it off with sprite/7up/soda water, stir and serve.

The birthday cake's from a bakery called Zoe, it's very chocolatey, rich, and satiny smooth delicious! Served with cups hot of earl grey tea.


Capturing Joe's cute gestures and expressions such as this one? Priceless!


The perfect party souvenir: Polaroid pictures!
Useful tips:
- If we're anything other than svelte, hide behind those who are ^_^
- If you wanna appear more fair skinned, move to the front
- If you wanna appear ridiculous, do my pose

A birthday isn't a birthday without some gift giving action. The gift which shocked Joe to the core...original soundtrack of Boys over Flowers and SS501 album (birthday girl's current favorites).

Guess what he was thinking when he saw the CDs?

Check out birthday girl's blog post to find out what her husband said about her outfit, at Athena's Little C9 (in Chinese).

A Party Gone Awry

In life, things don't always go according to our plans. This includes a party at my place yesterday.
What happened, or more importantly, what did not happen?

Let's get back to that later. At least the food did happen. Thank God.

I've done just three simple dishes, which were planned, mainly based on which appliances will be used to cook them, so that they could be executed simultaneously. Since one of my guests doesn't eat beef and sous chef is not into chicken, I mainly used pork. You can replace the piggy with something else.

In My Oven
Grilled Pork Neck with Satay Sauce

Marinate
- 7 pieces of pork neck fillet (they shrink a lot, so it's better to buy more)
- 4 shallot, sliced thinly
- dark soy sauce
- fish sauce
- kecap manis (the dominant flavor)
- lemon zest
- 1 tsp ground corriander seed
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- ground nutmeg (quite a lot of it)
- olive oil

Poke pork neck fillet all over with fork, marinate pork neck fillet for a few hours, or overnight.
To grill, preheat oven to 200C/400F, lightly grease baking sheet lined with aluminium foil (I wasn't planning to scrub anything after the party), lay marinated pork neck fillet in 1 layer, grill until golden brown, baste with marinate when necessary.

Satay Sauce
- Store bought satay sauce
- Freshly chopped corriander leaves
- Fish sauce
- Freshly chopped chilli
- lemon juice, lemon zest

Mix everything together and serve.
This dish can be prepared ahead of time as it reheats well. Simply nuke it before serving.

In My Pressure Cooker
Bakuteh (Pork Stewed in Chinese Spices)

- 1 kg pork shin mixed with pork bone, cut into large chunks
- 4 cloves of garlic
- dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, salt, sugar, white pepper, olive oil, hot water
- bakuteh spice pack (I used Klang Bakuteh spice pack)
- 1 cup fried tofu puffs
- 3 heads of wawa veggie

In the pressure cooker, saute garlic with olive oil, add pork, add dark soy, light soy, add hot water according to spice pack instruction, add salt, sugar, pepper, cook in pressure cooker for 25 minutes. Release pressure, add tofu puffs and vegetable, taste and adjust seasonings when necessary. If you don't have a pressure cooker, bring to boil and simmer for at least 1 hour or until the meat turned falling-off-the-bone tender.

On My Saute Pan
Pineapple and Minced Pork White Curry

- 1 lb of minced meat
- 1 fresh pineapple, cut into chunks
- 200 ml coconut milk
- 4 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 4 cloves of shallot, thinly sliced
- 1 stalk of lemongrass, bruised and chopped into 5 cm pieces
- 1 tsp ground corriander seed
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- salt, sugar, white pepper
- chicken stock (optional)
- freshly chopped corriander and crispy fried shallot for garnish (optional)

Saute garlic, shallot and corriander, add minced meat, cook until the color changed, add pineapple, add spices and seasonings, add coconut milk, bring to boil, garnish, serve.

In My Rice Cooker
Shallot and Garlic Chicken Mixed Rice
- 3 cups of white and brown rice (50-50 mix)
- 200 ml chicken stock
- water, olive oil
- white pepper
- crispy shallot and fried garlic
Throw everything into rice cooker, mix well, add water up to the level indicated on the rice cooker, cook until done.

The dinner didn't look so much like a failure, eh? So, what happened?

The Plan
1. Touring my flat
2. Make Up & Hair Party (Athena to practice her excellent make up skills on us girls, ehm and maybe boys, Carrie to demonstrate her hair styling technique)
3. A gossiping session brief discussion on our current favorite show and stars
4. XBox 360 Party (for the boys)
5. Food and portrait photo taking session
6. Dinner
Sounds like a productive yet fun party, right?

Obviously, the whole plan didn't get executed (or I wouldn't have mentioned it). So what went down in the end?
The Reality
1. The flat tour happened
2. Sous chef showed everyone a gossip magazine stating that a certain pretty celebrity who allegedly had plastic surgeries (as if it is something so surprising), triggering a debate between him and Athena
3. Soon after the girls' arrival in the afternoon, I showed them a couple of video clips and a show of a Korean Idol, Kim Hyun Joong (Dunno who the heck he is? Check his hotness out on Athena's blog), which led to....

...hours after hours of gawking at the said idol, while gossiping making meaningful comments on the celebrity gossip magazine articles. Mind you, we are all very well trained at multitasking.
4. Due to unforeseen circumstances (the large TV being occupied by idol's show), the video games could not possibly happen
5. Food and portrait photo taking...

...luckily, we really did a bit of those. Check out the portrait I did for Joe & Athena in her blog. They're so cute and chic, good enough to eat!
6. Dinner went as planned, although I felt so sorry for not making any dessert for my guests...so...

What's for dessert? Thank goodness Athena brought these very delicious...
Macarons from Sift

Chocolate, caramel, rose, vanilla, coffee, raspberry, lemon, pistachio....take your pick! We munched on these babies while sipping cups of earl grey and peppermint tea...and believe it or not...it was close to midnight, we had to work the next day and we were still gawking at the idol's show like a bunch of teenage girls.

Screw the plan. We (girls) enjoyed the party very much, although...
Sorry about the video games, guys...better luck next time!

Lemon Curry Grilled Pork Neck & Spicy Pineapple Zucchini Stir Fry

Maybe I am crazy, but I hate taking naps. When I took afternoon/evening naps, especially on weekends, it felt like I had wasted a good few hours sleeping when I could be doing something else (like updating this freakin' blog?). When I woke up from naps, I felt feverish, weak, tired, and not at all refreshed. Does anyone else feel the same? What's wrong with me?

I like to be out and about on Fridays. I need to shake the weekday feel off and unwind. Dining out, having a drink or two, out shopping with my girls, catching a show, or whatever. Just like how I planned today. We were supposed to have dinner, then go out cruisin' the hood. It didn't happen, and I'd like to blame it on my dinner.

Tasty dishes generally make us consume more rice...and put us to sleep. Sigh.

Lemon Curry Grilled Pork Neck & Spicy Pineapple Zucchini Stir Fry

Recipe
Lemon Curry Grilled Pork Neck
- 1 lb pork neck, poked all over with fork
- marinate with juice of half lemon, zest of 1 lemon, curry powder, ground cumin, ground corriander seed, salt, pepper, sugar for at least 30 minutes
Preheat oven to 250C. Grill pork neck until golden brown, slice and serve

Spicy Pineapple Zucchini Stir Fry
- 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 3 red chilli, chopped
- half onion, finely chopped
- 1 small pineapple, remove core, cut into bite sized chunks
- 1 zucchini, cut into 3 mm thick chunks
- olive oil, salt, pepper, sugar
Saute garlic, chilli, onion in hot oil until fragrant, add pineapple and zucchini, cook until zucchini pieces are softened, season, serve

The spicy, savoury, tangy, and sweet flavors of these dishes pretty much ruined my Friday. Hmm, but at least I got high.........on carb.

Chicken & White Peach Curry – Food Bloopers

Have you ever had any embarrassing moments related to food?

Although I am generally pretty obnoxious…and won’t get embarrassed so easily…(ya ha!)…but there was a moment which caught me off guard. It was a beautiful day, but I was probably feeling down, that's why I fancied a couple of (one is never enough ^_^) good sandwiches for lunch (what a splurrrrge! They are super pricey), with a hearty soup and a cup of nice coffee to polish everything off. So I dragged my lazy ass off my work chair and marched to Pret-A-Manger to get my fancy treats. I had no idea how to pronounce Pret-A-Manger correctly, I used to pronounce it as “prey-a-man-jer”…until my sis, who learnt a bit of French in high school, told me that it should be “pre-a-mong-cher” (with French curly tongue). These days, I simply call it “Pretend-A-Manager”, to which my corporate pals could relate better (I get “HUH?” a lot when I tried to say “pre-a-mong-cher”. So...don't bother!)

Anyway...when it was my turn to order…

Staff: (checking out my Double Cheddar and Super Club sandwiches)…anything else?
Me: Ehm, a cup of mocha (for mochachocolata-rita) and a cup of minestrone (I pronounced it as “mind-stroun”) soup, please….
Staff: (straight faced, without blinking an eye, barked my order to the kitchen staff) ONE MINESTRONE! (it was thunderously shouted out as… mi-nə-ˈstrō-nē). One
MINESTRONE (again, mi-nə-ˈstrō-nē), right, mam? (PS. don’t you just hate being called “mam”?)
Me: Errr...yah! (Suddenly feeling very conscious of my surroundings and noticed that all the corporate slaves were shooting me Oh-how-could-you-not-know-how-to-pronounce-the-name- of-such-a-humble-common-little-soup? looks)

The heck with them! The sandwiches, the MINESTRONE soup and the mocha were delicious and I’d be damned if I let some Hong Kong corporate once over ruin my pricey lunch. Hehe…

At home, I had some left-over peaches and wondered what to do with them…(not another sweet treat!) so I made some…
Chicken & White Peach Curry

Recipe
- ½ lb boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into bite sized chunks (or you can use thigh fillet)
- 2 white peaches, remove pit, peel off skin, cut into bite sized chunks
- 1 zucchini, peel off skin, cut into 1 cm thick slices
- 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 5 cloves of shallot, thinly sliced
- 1 cm ginger, crushed
- 2 tbsp curry paste (or more)- 1 cup coconut milk
- salt, pepper, sugar, corn starch, olive oil
- chopped fresh coriander and fried shallot to garnish
Marinate chicken pieces in a bit of corn starch, salt, pepper and sugar (salt should be the dominant element). Saute garlic, ginger, and shallot in hot oil until fragrant, add chicken until a bit browned, add zucchini pieces until a bit softened, add coconut milk, bring to boil, add peaches, heat everything through and quickly remove from heat (not to overcook the peaches and turn them into mush), serve with freshly chopped coriander and fried shallot. Perrrrfect with rice!

Let me entertain Hong Kong’s miserable lunch crowd one more time by ordering minestrone again tomorrow…I’ll pronounce it as “meeenn- struuun” this time. HAH!