Free the Robot (Singapore CBD)

Tags

CBD, healthy, quick meals, restaurant review, singapore

Ah the perennial go-to for lunch, for the working crowd in CBD. It serves up many  hearty meals, from morning breakfasts to satisfying lunches, even managing a decent cuppa. After all that, it transforms into a cocktail bar come nighttime. Free the Robot manages a pleasant, cozy ambience should you arrive before the lunch hour rush.

Said decent cuppa.

Salmon bowl with onsen egg, avocado and acar, it is wholesome, healthy and filling. The salmon is smoked, so beware if you’re not a smoked salmon fan. Otherwise this is a perfectly acceptable, even delicious, lunchtime meal.

Chicken and avocado sandwich. Tender slices of chicken, sandwiched with cheese and creamy slabs of avocado and slathered with pesto sauce. Griddled to perfection. Great combination of flavours.

I regret not taking a proper photo of their burgers, but this might be the only way to showcase the juiciness of their patties. Very good execution, sufficient sauce and topped with a fried egg. It is difficult to find decent burgers in Singapore, and thankfully this ticks the right boxes.

My absolute favourite however, is the crab pasta. Generous chunks of crab cooked in a fragrant tomato base sauce, topped with pine nuts and chives. I could eat this every week (every day would be a stretch for anyone!). It is also a tad spicy, which ties all the flavours together in a neat little bow. Lovely.

This is comfort eating; foods that we are all familiar with, with a dash of inspiration. Affordable eats to soothe the stress of the work day.

Free the Robot
118 Telok Ayer Street Singapore 068587 (Telok Ayer MRT)
Opening Hours: 8.30am – 4.30pm (Tues-Sat, closed Mon and Sun)

Ryunabe, Niseko, Hokkaido

Tags

Chinese, dinner, healthy, Hokkaido, hot pot, japan, japanese, niseko, Niseko restaurants, restaurant review

I’m not the biggest fan of hot pot. One has to brave steam, heat, slippery floors and distasteful arrays of unappetizing raw meat with platters of bland looking vegetables upon entering a typical hot pot restaurant. If that wasn’t enough, you’re served with broth that tastes exactly like boiled water and you’re expected to cook the said raw meats and vegetables in this sorry excuse of a broth.

I’ve been to Hai Di Lao, and thankfully had a better experience, what with the waitresses cooking the food for you and you’re given the option of much tastier soups. The meats and Co, however, still have much room for improvement.

I was therefore pleasantly surprised when we stumbled upon this place (ok fine, in all transparency, I stalked friends who were also in Niseko).

The broths offered looked and sounded extraordinary; thick fish soup with Hokkaido milk, fish maw and chicken broth and lastly a seafood and tomato soup base. A far cry from the feeble broths offered elsewhere at other hot pot restaurants that pale to near invisibility when compared to this. Ryunabe is unfortunately also very expensive, so we chose to only focus on the hot pot and ignored the sashimi/alcohol.

The dips and condiments were satisfactory as well, spicy chopped chili, sesame sauce, chopped raw garlic and spring onions. After dithering for a bit between the fish soup and chicken soup we settled on the latter.

Behold!

Just look at that soup! It certainly tastes like proper rich Cantonese soup that is topped up again and again whenever required. I would have been content with just the soup alone.

But then the meats arrived, beautifully marbled and precisely fanned out on pretty plates, each with a little piece of paper containing cooking instructions down to the very second of cooking.

Meats of the highest quality I’ve ever seen in a hot pot place. With the exception of some top notch shabu restaurants of course but I think I would prefer Ryunabe still for its delicious soup bases. Shabu broths tends to consist of either water or a thin subtle broth of dashi, so clearly Ryunabe scores higher in the soup base department.

The non beef items included pork slices, fresh, rosy pink fish, some dumplings and a bowl of beautifully arranged vegetables.

Almost forgot the udon, by which time we were stuffed and could not quite finish it. Even in food comatose mode we could tell the the udon is better than most. Everything on the table was top notch, perhaps the dumplings were average but that’s the only exception.

The waitress topped up our soup at least 5 times, not because it all evaporated and dried out, but because we kept drinking it by the bowlfuls. It was that good.

We sobered up as we got the bill though, but absolutely no regrets, it was a terrific meal. Garlic and all.

They also deliver and set up a hot pot meal for you to enjoy in the comfort of your apartment if you wish. After a long day on the slopes it does sound tempting indeed.

191-22 AZA YAMADA, KUTCHAN-CHO, ABUTA-GUN, HOKKAIDO.

Restaurant Phone : (+81)0136-555-304

Reservation Tel: (+81)0136-555-304 & (+81)090-5953-5168

Sogong Jukjip, a porridge place in Seoul

Tags

korea, Korean, korean restaurants, porridge, sea urchin, sea urchin porridge, seoul, seoul restaurants, uni

This is a rather hole-in-the wall porridge place in Seoul. Nevertheless the food is soulful and good. The banchan is also simple, but they would be foods that you probably won’t be able to find in Malaysia. Even if you do it wouldn’t be this fresh.

We got our hotel concierge to help us make a reservation. The place isn’t very big and is like a family style restaurant. We walked to the restaurant to find the proprietor pacing up and down the road, looking out for us, which was very nice of him as we would have missed it otherwise, being unable to read Korean hangul. My Korean is limited to the common phrases bandied about in dramas. My interest in a drama peaks when someone starts eating onscreen. Delicious food they have in Korea, and Korean style porridge is satisfyingly savoury, unlike the bland Teochew style porridge that people seem to enjoy back in South East Asia.

The colourful storefront.

They’ve got a variety of porridges, ranging from vegetable to beef to abalone and even uni porridge. The sea urchin lover that I am immediately picked this out and I excitedly pointed to the photo in the menu (thank god for picture menus).

I was served a warm bowl of thick rice congee, with tongues of lightly cooked golden sea urchin peeping out like treasure. Seaweed is scattered over as garnish and a single egg yolk graces the very centre of the bowl.

As you can see, the banchan includes some spicy fermented squid, blanched vegetables, seaweed and fresh kimchi. There is nothing else to want for. The porridge manages to be tasty, yet gentle and subtle in layers of flavour that stand out the more you eat it. It isn’t cheap but I thoroughly enjoyed the meal and would definitely come back again.

Address: 86-1 Bukchang-dong, Jung-gu, Seoul 100-080, South Korea

Phone: +82 2-752-6400

Myhumblefood cookbooks are finally out!!!

Tags

myhumblefood; myhumblefoodcookbook

After two long years my books are finally done and dusted. I’ve compiled two books, the first Myhumblefood book concentrates on Asian home cooking. The second book is a little more fun; along with some Western home cooking, I’ve also added a section on Food Art which is something I really enjoy. They’re both priced at RM 300 a set for people residing in Malaysia, or SGD 120 a set for those in Singapore.

Free delivery for those in Bangsar and Damansara Heights only.

Please PM me for details!

Special note: 50% of gross profit from the sale of the books will be donated to the National Kidney Foundation as well as the Great Heart Charity Foundation. Should you decide to also donate in addition to buying the book(s), 100% of your donation will go directly to these causes.

Thank you all very much for your love and support!

 

Korean Chicken Soup

Tags

chicken broth, chicken soup, cleaneating, cleaneats, easy recipes, garlic, healthy, Home Cooking, homecooked, Korean, korean chicken soup, Soup

I’ve previously mentioned in an earlier post on how to make clear chicken soup. This recipe is similar except that there’s a lot more garlic and scallions in it. It’s a healthy dish and an easy one to make too. All you need is a little time to draw out the chicken essence into the soup.

Ingredients:

• 1 whole chicken (3 – 4 pounds) – some say that cornish hen works best but as I couldn’t find one, I used an antibiotic free adult chicken
• 10 – 12 garlic cloves
• 1 small piece ginger, sliced
• 1 medium onion, cut into halves
• 3 scallion stalks – white parts
• 1/2 teaspoon whole black peppercorns (optional)
• Codonopsis roots (very much optional!!! I only added this because I had it in hand but the traditional Korean chicken soup does not include any herbs – this excludes the famous Korean Ginseng Chicken soup which has young ginseng and red dates in it)
• 3 Red dates, pitted (again, very much optional)
• Extra chicken bones (optional)
• 10 cups of water
• 3 scallions – green parts, finely chopped to garnish
  salt and pepper to taste

Cooking Instruction:

1. The chicken has to be at room temperature before working with it. If you’ve kept it in the fridge, allow it to sit, covered of course, for half an hour at room temperature.
2. Cut off the wing tips and the tail end. If the chicken came with its head and feet intact, cut those off too. I’m unfortunately squeamish in this area.
3. Remove any excess skin, otherwise the soup will end up overly loaded with oil
4. Remove giblets from the chicken cavity.
5. Wash the chicken under running water and pat dry.
6. On high fire, prepare a pot of boiling water (pot has to be large enough to fit all the ingredients with room to spare so that the water doesn’t come splashing out as it boils)
7. Lower the chicken (and extra bones if you have any) into the boiling water and boil for 3-5 minutes before draining the water from the pot. This step helps to ensure further removal of impurities (blood, gunk, etc)
8. Add the garlic, onion, white parts of the scallions, ginger and peppercorns (and only if you have it, the roots and the dates) to the pot. Lastly add the water. The water level should be at least 2-3 inches above the chicken as it will reduce during the cooking process.
9. Bring everything to a boil over high heat and then reduce the heat to medium-low to simmer, covered for about 40 -50 minutes. During the cooking, skim off any foam that starts floating about on top. Otherwise you’ll have yourself some really murky looking soup!
10. Remove the chicken from the broth and place into serving bowl. If you’ve used extra bones, continue simmering for another 30 minutes. If I were just making regular chicken soup, I’d be simmering the lot for 1.5-2 hours. Doing that would compromise the chicken meat but it makes for extremely flavourful soup. As this recipe goes, the chicken should not be overcooked, yet we need the soup to be flavourful. This is where the extra bones come in handy – you can boil those without caring if they become tasteless in the end!
11. Add salt to the soup to taste.

To serve, you can serve the chicken and the soup in a large decorative soup bowl, garnished with the green scallions.

OR you can ladle some rice into a bowl, top with bite sized chicken bits and pour the soup in, topping everything off with the scallions.

I chose to eat mine with plain rice porridge and some kimchi. Seaweed would have been amazing too!

Maguro Tuna Avocado rice bowl (Maguro Avocado don)

Tags

avocado, clean, cleaneats, cleanfoods, easy, easy meals, easy recipes, healthy, homecooked, ikura, leeks, maguro, maguro avocado don, maguro avocado rice bowl, mayonnaise, one person meal, onebowlmeal, quick meals, rice, rice bowl, solitary eating, soy sauce, tuna, tuna avocado

This is one super easy and delicious don! (don = rice bowl dish in Japanese). All you need to actually cook is the rice. The rest is all about slicing up the sashimi and avocado and assembling the rice bowl. Since the current trend now is all about clean eats, clean foods and healthy eating, I suppose this makes the cut (if you ignore the ubiquitous mayonnaise blobs popping up among the luscious chunks of creamy avocado and fresh maguro).
Ingredients (for 1 person)  

• 100 grams sashimi grade maguro tuna
• 1/2 ripe avocado, pitted and skinned
• Mayonnaise – amount at your discretion, I used Japanese mayonnaise
• Cooked short-grain white rice
• 2-3 tsp soy sauce depending how seasoned you like your tuna
• Optional (for garnish) – chopped chives, seaweed flakes and thinly sliced leeks (only the white parts). I would highly recommend you add these as they add texture, lots of flavour and freshness to the dish
• Optional – 2 tbsp ikura (sashimi grade salmon roe)
• Optional – furikake (a type of Japanese rice topping/seasoning)

Method

• Slice up the maguro sashimi into thick chunks, I cut mine into 3/4 inch cubes but do it however you like.
• Season the maguro with soy sauce and set aside.
• Cut up the avocado into cubes/chunks roughly the same size as the maguro.
• Place the rice in a bowl (if you’ve opted for the furikake, mix it into the rice before arranging the rice in the bowl) and pile the maguro and avocado on top.
• Squeeze mayonnaise over the dish in zig-zag lashings or you can add them in blobs like I did.
• Add the ikura and garnish with chives, seaweed flakes and sliced leeks.
• Serve

I enjoyed it so much I had it again for the next meal… only in the sloppiest, most disgusting way one eats when alone:-  Still tasted amazing nonetheless!

Roast vegetables

Tags

broccolini, butter, corn, oven roast, roast vegetables, sweet corn, truffle oil, young corn

 

I suppose this isn’t so much a recipe, more of what works for me when it comes to sweet corn, young carrots and broccolini. An oven temperature of 200-205 degrees celsius is recommended for these vegetables, and a short cook time of 15 minutes in the oven (sweet corn has to be steamed 5 minutes beforehand).

A lot of recipes that I read require the vegetables to be in the oven for 45 minutes, but these vegetables would overcook and turn mushy. 15 minutes is perfect for them to retain some of their original crunch.

Carrots, trim the leaves off and use a small knife to scrape the surface of the carrot to clean. Rinse and pat dry. They’ll look like this after you’re done!
Cut up the corn into three sections and place into a steamer for 5 minutes. Pat dry.
Wash and pat dry the broccolini.

As I’ve repeatedly mentioned throughout this post, always make sure the vegetables are dry before seasoning and roasting. No one likes mushy vegetables!

To season:-

• Sweet corn:- 2 tsp truffle oil per ear of corn and dash of salt rubbed into the corn
• Young carrots:- enough olive oil to evenly coat a very thin layer of oil onto the carrots. Season with salt and sprinkle on some sugar (I tried honey, it didn’t work out too well)
• Broccolini:- again, very thinly dressed with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper.

Lay out the vegetables on an aluminium foiled sheet tray and roast for 15 minutes at 200-205 degrees celsius.

Place the vegetables on a serving plate and brush the corn with some butter before serving.

This is a tray of roast vegetables which were cooked differently, also at 200 degrees celsiuse but for 45 minutes. Seasoned with olive oil (I suspect I didn’t add enough oil), salt, pepper and garlic powder. Not bad actually. I tried to keep the vegetables the same size as much as possible so they’d cook at the same pace. Will try this again with more oil!

Shaoxing Wine Ginger chicken

Tags

chicken, Chinese, easy, easy meals, easy recipe, ginger, ginger wine chicken, healthy, Home Cooking, scallions, sesame oil, shaoxing wine, shaoxing wine ginger chicken, South East Asian, spring onions, white pepper, wine, wine chicken

This dish brings back a lot of memories from my Warwick days. For some reason I remember that the preparation process was long and tedious back then! It involves deboning chicken thighs/drumsticks and skinning and julienning ginger. At the present though, I no longer find it as long and dreary a process. Perhaps I could attribute it to… better knife skills? Or maybe just better knives, I don’t think my knife skills have improved at all since then!

This is a very warming, hearty dish and the sauce is lovely with freshly cooked white rice. It’s currently a favourite with the family and guests who happen to try it! It doesn’t take very long nor need many ingredients and makes a perfect addition to the dining table. I include pictures from two attempts at cooking this dish and I realized that I naturally throw the same ingredients into the pan, despite starting off with perhaps a couple less ingredients in one of the photos. That goes to show that agaration (the South East Asian technique of cooking by guesstimating) isn’t very far off from precision after all!Ingredients from trial number 1Ingredients from trial number 2.

But don’t worry, I’ve consolidated the ingredient list and summarized it as below:-

Ingredients (Serves 4)

• 2-3 stalks of Spring onions including the white bits with roots removed
• 3 inches of ginger, peeled and roughly julienned
• 4 Chicken thighs with skin on, deboned
• 3 tbsp Shaoxing wine
• 3 tbsp clear chicken stock/broth
• 1 tsp kicap manis
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tbsp sesame oil

Chicken marinade

• 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 2-3 tbsp soy sauce
• white pepper
• 2 tsp dark soy sauce
• 2 tsp corn flour

Cooking Instructions

Upon deboning the chicken, remove the skin from two of the chicken thighs and discard. Keep the skin on for the remaining two chicken thighs. We want some chicken fat rendering in the gravy but not too much!

Trim off the excess fat and remove the tendons from the chicken. Tendons are tough to cut through and unpleasant to eat so be thorough in removing them whenever preparing chicken! Once that is done, cut the chicken meat into bite-sized, uniform pieces so they cook at the same speed. 

Place the chicken in a bowl and lightly mix in the chicken marinade with your hands. Let it sit for 10-15 minutes at room temperature.

In preparing the scallions/spring onions, cut them into thirds or 2 inch sections. You can take some of the green sections to slice thinly for garnishing as well.

Heat up some oil in a pan/wok on medium fire. When the oil is hot enough (i.e. if you drop a piece of ginger into the oil it starts to sizzle right away), slide the ginger into the oil gingerly (I’m so funny I know) and fry for a minute until the ginger starts to turn a little golden and the gingery aroma seeps out. The point of this step is to flavour the oil with ginger as well as prep the ginger so it’s at its best to mingle with the chicken.Add the chicken pieces and fry until half-cooked.

Then, flip the pieces over and add the chicken stock, sesame oil plus Shaoxing wine and cover to cook for a minute. We’re quick-braising/stewing the chicken with some moisture, not searing it to death. Remember, the chicken has to be swimming in a luscious pool of delicious gravy!Upon uncovering, add the spring onion sections into the pan/wok and stir fry for a little while more. Taste to check if it needs more white pepper or salt.

And it’s done!Not the fanciest of dishes but highly satisfying and easy on the stomach. Healthy too!

Check out the before and after picture of trial number 1. I used 10 thighs for that round of cooking!

Wiped clean. ❤

Lobster glass noodle soup with shaoxing wine.

Tags

big head prawn, big head prawn noodle soup, Chinese, chinese lettuce, chinese soup, chinese soup noodles, coriander, dinner, easy meals, glass noodles, healthy, Home Cooking, huatiao, large prawns, lobster, lobster glass noodle, lobster glass noodle soup, lobster noodle, lobster noodle soup, lunch, Noodles, One bowl meal, prawns, seafood, sesame oil, shaoxing wine, Soup, South East Asian, stew, wine broth, wine soup

Here is the second half of the lobster (first half of which went to making the lobster pasta) and the easier recipe of the two. The original version called for fresh river prawns/big head prawns but since I had the lobster, I figured I could use that instead and add in some large prawns as a bonus. Since there is no recipe that I could refer to online I tried to recreate the taste the best I could remember. Turns out I’m actually quite satisfied with the results! Now without further ado, the recipe:-

Ingredients (4 pax)

• 1/2 lobster
• 6 large prawns (in my first attempt I used 3, but the attempt with 6 prawns tasted better)
• 1 inch ginger, sliced
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 tbsp minced onion
• 1/2 cup Shaoxing wine (maybe a dash more if you like)
• 5 cups chicken stock
• Chinese lettuce (I used a quarter of a head), cut into bite sized pieces
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 150g Glass noodles
• Spring onions chopped into large three inch sections.
• Coriander for garnish
• Finely chopped spring onions for garnish
• salt

The array of ingredientsGlass noodlesLarge lobster.

So we shall start with the prawns. De-shell all the prawns and set the shells/heads aside. Do NOT throw them away! Then devein them and cut each prawn into three sections.Size of the prawn heads and my hand, just for comparison. Lots of flavour in those prawn heads! 

Cut the lobster into half. If the lobster is as spiny as this one, do use a towel and be very careful when handling it. A pair of strong kitchen scissors would be a great help here.

More pictures of the lobster… as you can probably tell, I’ve added pictures from a second lobster noodle attempt into the mix. The second lobster looked way fresher and more succulent with its firmer white flesh and golden globules.

When you’ve managed to cut the lobster into half lengthwise, chop the tail into three parts and dig out some of the flesh from the head (I forgot to do that here) and set that aside with the prawns. Leave the orange/golden stuff behind.

Heat up some oil in a large pot and fry the ginger, garlic and onions until the onions are translucent and the aroma of the ginger comes out. It helps to crush the ginger before or during this step.Add the prawn shells and fry until half cooked (almost that coral colour they become when they’re fully cooked) before adding the lobster head to the pot.Continue frying for a minute or so, adding a little oil if it gets too dry. Then add the shaoxing wine to soak up all that flavour that’s coming from the prawn shells and lobster head. I actually would have liked to add another half cup of shaoxing wine but I was worried my family may not like the taste so I stuck with half a cup, but go ahead and use that extra half a cup if you like. 

Add the stock and simmer for around 15 minutes before turning off the heat. Cover the pot with its respective lid and leave it for perhaps an hour.

Then, remove the prawn shells from the stock (if you had a strainer bag in the first place, use it to hold the prawn shells because it can be a chore to pick them out from the soup).

Toss in the lobster and prawn meat that was set aside earlier, along with the spring onion sections, lettuce and glass noodles. The reason why we cook the shells and the meat separately is so that we can extract the most flavour out of the seafood from the shells without overcooking the meat, which is only added at the end. If you were to cook the meat right at the start, you’re going to end up with some very hard, overcooked and dry chunks of prawn/lobster which is such a waste of good seafood.

Place the lid back on and bring the soup to a boil.

Add the sesame oil at the end and season with salt. Top with chopped spring onions and coriander. Easy peasy!

Yoghurt and fruits

Tags

edible flowers, fruits, healthy, healthy living, plate decoration, yoghurt