Mushroom brushetta

What will a quick 10 min mushroom dish be?

Mushroom brushetta may I suggest. This simple dish can be a quick meal or a starter at a dinner party. It can be prepared easily in advance.

Ingredients:
- Mixed mushrooms
- Shallots
- Garlic
- White wine
- Thyme
- Parsley or other herbs
- Baguette sliced
- Lemon

1) Dice mushrooms
2) Chop shallots and garlic finely
3) Pick out thyme leaves
4) Chop parsley
5) Toast the baguette in oven for a few mins
6) Fry shallots and garlic gently in olive oil till translucent.
7) Add mushrooms in with thyme. Season with salt and pepper.
8) Add a splash of white wine. The mushrooms will soak this like a sponge.
9) Once mushrooms soft. Add a tiny bit of lemon in to lift the taste and parsley.
10) Put mushrooms on the baguette

I think this would taste good with goats cheese as well.

My brother suggested aged Pinot Noir (6-7 years) with some acidity to go well with this dish. Pinot Noir has the earthy flavors to match the mushrooms. The acidity will be good to cut through the goats cheese. This means the wine selected cannot be a new world wine as the wines from the new world are generally fruity.

For more wine tips go http://www.wineandonly.info/

Pomegranate, orange and walnut salad

I had 2 friends over for dinner last night.

It was a simple, steak, potatoes and salad dinner. Something quick for a weekday night with a bitte of Shiraz kindly brought over by a friend.

We happen to be an extremely greedy bunch and chomped up all the food before we took any pictures… Again…

I can only promise pictures next time.

But here is a recipe for a delicious and refreshing salad. The troublesome bit is the pomegranate. But it gives a fabulous lift to the dish

This serves 4 for a salad side ( I suspect it would serve 5-6 but we are all extremely greedy)

Ingredients: 
Salad-
Pomegranate (1/2 if big)
Oranges (2). I happened to be able to get pink flesh oranges for these which are so sweet and delicious! I don't think these ones were blood oranges but blood oranges will taste fab for this dish
Green Apple (1)
Walnuts (100g)
Baby Butterhead Lettuce (2)
Marjoram ( Optional, I think thyme, mint will also go well with this dish)
Dressing-
Honey
Red wine vinegar
Olive Oil

1) Roast walnuts for 5 mins in oven. I feel that this gets rid of some of the bitterness of the skin.
2) Cut pomegranate into thick wedges. To get seeds out of pomegranate, I fill a bowl of water and tear the seeds out of the wedges in the water. The seeds generally sink and the cork like part of the pomegranate skin usually floats. This separates the seeds from the rest of the fruit.
3) Cut skin of orange. Segment the orange flesh.
4) Peel green apple skin, then slice green apple in thin long pieces. Put the sliced strips in a bowl of water to prevent it from turning  brown. I like green apples over red ones in this dish as it has a bit more acidity that complements the sweetness of the pink oranges and pomegranate.
4) Roast walnuts for 5 mins in oven. I feel that this gets rid of some of the bitterness of the skin.
5) Chop off bottom stem of butterhead. Wash individual leaves in a bowl of water and then dry it in a salad spinner.
6) Pick off the herbs.
7) Prepare dressing in a screwtop bottle. I mix 1 part red wine vinegar to 3 parts oil and honey to taste. I probably won't do more than 40 ml of dressing otherwise salad will be too soggy.
8) Get a large bowl, put the lettuce leafs in there. Pour half dressing at bottom of bowl and mix leaves with dressing
9) Put rest of ingredients in the bowl. Pour the amount of dressing you want and coat the rest of the ingredients with dressing by mixing. In tossing ingredients, one must be gentle so that the herbs and leaves won't be broken by the tossing motion.

An important rule- only dress the salad before serving!! Otherwise, salad will go soggy.

If you want to make the salad a meal and want to add some meat/seafood and carbs, I suggest adding prawns and couscous.

Try it and tell me what you think.

My brother suggested what will go well with it would be a Tasmania Sauvignon Blanc. It has to be from Tasmania as flavours are not too grassy and not too mineral compared to the ones from New Zealand and France. To see more on his thoughts on wine, go to www.wineandonly.info

Quick tomato pasta (15 mins)

I had to whip up a quick meal tonight with what I had in the fridge and had no time to defrost anything. I was also too lazy to go to the supermarket.

Fortunately I had the following ingredients: (portions I used)
- Baby Tomatoes (1 packet about 200g??)
- Lemons (1)
- Smoked Salmon (150g)
- Spring onions (1 bunch, this all depends on what you like, other herbs like dill, parsley or basil will do well)
- Thyme

I also usually have these staples
- Shallots (one small so that taste is not too strong)
- Garlic (one large or 2 small cloves)
- Balsamic vinegar (to taste)
- Pasta

Some extras:
- Anchovies ( just to add an extra dimension, it may not be necessary. Other things that may taste good with this dish are capers or olives)
- Parmesan ( I personally prefer parmigiano reggiano shaved fresh but I didn't have any in my fridge…, I wonder if pecorino will taste good with this.)

This gave me enough to do a quick tasty pasta. What I love about this dish is that the only thing that needs cooking is the pasta. I have seen many variations of pasta of this sort before, so this recipe has been adapted from what I have seen…

1) Chop up shallots and garlic finely.
2) Put a bit of salt in the garlic and mash it into a paste. I find that this reduces the strong taste of raw garlic slightly
3) Half all the baby tomatoes. Good tomatoes for this dish is essential. I get mine from Tiong Bahru market. Most tomatoes in Singapore are crap.
4) Zest one lemon. Cut a quarter of lemon
5) Chop herbs. Thyme does not need to be chopped, just pick it.
6) Cook Pasta to Al Dente.
7) Mix the tomatoes, shallots, garlic, thyme, lemon zest, anchovies in a bowl.
8) Add olive oil generously.
9) Add Salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar, lemon to taste. Mash all the items in the bowl. The lovely juices of the tomato will mix with the other ingredients.
10) Add herbs in. We add herbs in after mashing so not to crush the herbs.
11) Add the still warm drained pasta to the bowl of ingredients.
12) Add the Parmesan in.
13) EAT!

This healthy dish can be done in 15 mins, trust me! Best of all not much washing up.
Sorry I have no pictures. I was starving and ate it all before thinking of the blog. I'll try to add the pictures next time.

Can someone take the pictures of my cooking for me as I always forget.
Any suggestions on what you would make with what I had?

Rong Xing Yong Tau Foo

Having Elsa in childcare finally frees me with some time to do some things!

And I'm not just talking about cleaning up my house, I'm talking about getting hawker food in the Tanjong Pagar Hawker Market in Blk 5.

Anyone who knows this place well knows that it is ridiculously difficult to maneuver during lunch with a baby. So finally is my chance...

I like good yong tau foo but it's not easy to find this. While many think yong tau foo is a healthy dish, it is only if you don't eat the fried stuff. I love fried food in yong tau foo.

There are 2 popular yong tau foo stores here supposedly run by two different sisters.
I only got this story from here http://ieatishootipost.sg/2011/05/rong-xing-yong-tau-foo-at-first-there.html#more

Anyway, it's not of too much importance to me. I just want to eat.

The one I went to has the above sign so that you guys don't get the two mixed up.

The soup base is not bad. It is sweeter than the average bland yong tau foo stores I go to in many hawker centres and food courts. Also the variety of fried yong tau foo was quite good.
But I like the one in Golden Shoe Hawker centre on level 3 much better despite the fame of this place. The yong tau foo in Golden Shoe has a much richer broth and also they have onion oil and sesame seeds there.

I think this is better than average but I'm not sure what the fuss is about.

I'm not a hawker food specialist admittedly. I only like something as much as my taste buds tell me. In this case, it says value for money and quality as a lot of good hawker food is. But it doesn't draw me back over and over again. I don't dream of it.

Location: Blk 5 #02-04

Rhone wine dinner 14/4/2012

My guests and I were too busy chomping, drinking and laughing to take pics.

But at least memories remain…

Here is my brother's wine review of the night- http://www.wineandonly.info/2012/04/southern-rhone-wine-dinner-140412.html

Cost us much cheaper than in a restaurant.

Pizzeria Mozza (MBS) and Andy Warhol

Pop Art and Pop Culture.
Isn't that what defines Andy Warhol and Pizza.

I think both experiences complement one another.
At least that is what I felt having pizza after seeing the Andy Warhol exhibit at MBS.

I went with Elsa and my brother to see Andy Warhol. Elsa fell asleep in my pouch half way during the exhibit so I doubt she got the full impact of it. I definitely enjoyed it especially with the art pieces he produced in the last decade of his life. It really made me see how the impact of color changes your perception of a piece of art.

If it's anything, the pizza for lunch made the day even better.

Some say Pizzeria Mozza is over priced. Mozza was worth my every cent.

Meat Pizza

First of all, if you observe the above picture, the pizza crust is absolutely beautiful. The base is thin and crisp. This is not like a biscuit which you get in skinny pizza but has a bit of bread texture of which you can see from the risen sides. The tomato sauce is rich and flavorful making one think of summer.

With the meat pizza, the savory saltiness of the meat accentuated the richness of the tomato sauce.

Roasted tomato and burrata

I liked this pizza even more than the meat one. First, the roasted tomato intensified the sweetness of the tomato and also the richness in texture. The creaminess of the burrata melted in my mouth. Words just cannot describe how good this is.

Caramel ice cream with marshmallow sauce and salted peanuts

I know salt on caramel is a much used and loved concept. There was a twist to this as they used salted peanuts instead of having the salt in the ice cream. I loved the marshmallow sauce with its fluffy texture. My only complaint- I want more marshmallow sauce. I love good homemade marshmallows as they taste so much better than the commercial stuff but its almost impossible to get.

Still dreaming about the pizza…

Website: http://www.pizzeriamozza.com/singapore/home.cfm

Location: 2 Bayfront Avenue The Shoppes @MBS, #B1-42/46

Price: $35 per person (3 of us not including Elsa of course)

Contact Number: 6688 8522

Share Tea

It was raining, I had Elsa in my pouch and bags and umbrella in another hand. I have no idea why I even attempted to get a bubble tea but I did.

I managed to fumble for my cash to get an oolong milk pearl tea. I could taste the oolong tea but it was a bit too bitter for the sweetness level I chose (30%). I wish that all bubble tea drinks purpose an ideal level for each of their different teas or at least get their counter staff to recommend.

I still prefer Woobee. The sugar at Woobee just makes the bubble tea there richer in texture that I don't get in the other bubble teas.

Website: http://www.facebook.com/shareteaSin

Location: International Plaza level 1