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!

 

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Lobster spaghetti in tomato sauce

Tags

basil, chicken stock, chilli flakes, cooking with white wine, cooking with wine, diced tomatoes, dry white wine, garlic, ginger, italian, lobster, lobster meal, lobster spaghetti, onion, oregano, parsley, Pasta, romantic meal, seafood, shellfish stock, spaghetti, special occasion, tomato lobster spaghetti, tomato puree, western, white wine, white wine tomato sauce

Recently I’ve been having this urge to cook lobster. Lobster… anything! I initially wanted to make a lobster roll, then I went to Signor Sassi in London and had a variety of lobster dishes. I eventually settled for making lobster spaghetti in tomato sauce and a lobster version of the Sang Har Tong Fun (big head prawn with glass noodles in wine soup). I’ve done a little research online on how to make this dish. A lot of chefs tend to boil the lobsters and then remove the meat to cook in the tomato sauce. The carcass of the lobster usually goes into a shellfish stock or a bisque later on. I do it a little differently, and I firmly believe that the lobster flavours are able to come out in all its glory this way. Obviously it would involve cooking the shell and head in the sauce ;D.Ingredients (for 2-3 pax)

• Half a lobster (this is of a larger lobster)
• 10g salted butter
• 2-3 thin slices of ginger about an inch in diameter and about 2-3 mm in width
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh basil
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
• 2 tbsp chopped onion or shallots
• 1 tbsp chopped garlic
• 1/2 cup chicken stock (best if you have shellfish stock but chicken is fine too)
• 1/2 cup tomato puree
• 1/2 cup diced tomatoes preferably with herbs and garlic in them
• 2-3 pinches of chilli flakes
• 1 tsp sugar and another 1tsp in case the pasta needs a little more sweetness
• 200g pasta (or around 1/3 of a 500g package of pasta) – spaghetti is slightly too thick so I used San Remo’s vermiccili pasta. Instant spaghetti by San Remo’s will do as well.
• Dash of dried oregano
• Salt, black pepper

Cooking Instructions

Prepare the lobster (prepare yourself I meant…. cutting that thing into half is no joke! It’s all spiny and painful! Coupled with a very tough shell, you may need a lot of strength to cut the head into two… or a very heavy object to help get that cleaver through). I suggest you use a towel to protect your hands from the lobster’s myriad spikes and a pair of strong kitchen scissors to cut through the tail end of the lobster.After a lot of effort… finally..See all that golden stuff?? That’s where the flavour’s at!Heat up some oil in the pan and fry the onions, ginger and garlic.

Add the lobster, brain side down, and let it fry for a minute (do not let the meat sear! It should be on medium fire), before adding the wine to the mix. I wanted to try to flambe the lobster, but the kitchen is so small and I was worried I might singe something so I just put the alcohol into the pan and let the alcohol cook off. This step is where you draw out the flavours in the lobster into the broth. 

Add the stock. Cook the lobster for about a couple more minutes in the stock before removing from the mixture. 

Add the diced tomato, tomato, chilli flakes, some salt, pepper and oregano to the lobster broth.

Remove the meat from the lobster shell. You can see that it isn’t cooked through and this is what we want as we will add the lobster meat back in to be cooked fully along with the pasta noodles. Otherwise we’ll have dry, overcooked chunks of lobster, which is a waste of such an expensive ingredient.

Place the lobster shell back into the tomato sauce mixture and simmer until the sauce is reduced and thickened like so. Then add the butter and mix in. I stuffed the sauce into the lobster shell to get the most of that lobster goodness!

At the same time, start cooking your pasta in boiling water with some salt. Cook it about 2 minutes less than the instructions stated in the packet because you’ll finish cooking the pasta in the sauce. 

Get the chopped basil and parsley ready. Add the lobster chunks back into the tomato sauce probably a couple of minutes before adding the pasta so that it’s cooked just right by the end of the whole process.

Drain the pasta (but not too much as we need some of that pasta water… about 2-3 tbsps or so) and add it directly into the sauce. I forgot to mention, remove the lobster shell before you add the pasta in, otherwise it’s going to be a struggle to toss the pasta in the sauce. Place the shell in the serving dish, it will serve as an aesthetic component.

Toss the pasta over low-medium fire so that the sauce gets incorporated into the noodles. Add the basil and parsley and toss a little more. Check on the seasoning and add more salt/pepper/sugar as you wish.

Place the pasta on the serving dish, top off with the lobster chunks, more parsley and some cheese.

If you like your spaghetti with more sauce, just add more puree and white wine but make sure you season accordingly. You also don’t want the sauce to be too wet otherwise it won’t stick to the noodle very well.

Will most likely make it again as I have another lobster in the freezer! Happy to say my brother seemed to enjoy it. He ate three quarters of it by himself.

Here’s a video that I think quite closely reflects how I cooked it:

8 1/2 Otto E Mezzo Bombana, Central, Hong Kong

Tags

alexander house restaurants, alexandra house, black truffles, butter, cavatelli, caviar, central, central restaurants, chanterelle mushrooms, fresh bread, Hong kong, Ice Cream, italian, italian cuisine, lobster, lobster bisque, Otto, Otto e Mezzo, otto e mezzo bombana, parmesan, Pasta, pear tart, restaurant review, risotto, scampi, seared tuna, shellfish, tagliolini, truffle, truffle emulsion, truffle ice cream, truffles

 Just got back from Hong Kong and had the opportunity to have a meal at this restaurant. It is apparently the only Italian restaurant outside of Italy to have received 3 Michelin stars, having been awarded 3 stars by the 2012 Michelin Guide Hong Kong and Macau. I was so lucky to get a reservation at the last minute, thanks to a friend of my sister’s!

My goal for the night… EAT ALL THE TRUFFLES! I’ve been so tempted by all the photos of truffles coming out on instagram from this restaurant, as well as my sister who also ate there a week before I went to Hong Kong. So yes… we didn’t go for the degustation menu but what we ordered seemed like a more expensive degustation by itself! Such that the Caucasian women on the tables next to us looked over at us in disgust at the amount of food coming to our table for just 2 of us ;D We are Asian, and we are naturally greedy. Plus the dishes are mostly dainty and in small portions!

We ordered 2 starters, 3 pastas, 1 main and 2 desserts. Even the waiter was aghast. No matter! I looked forward to a great meal and wasn’t disappointed at all. 

 The amuse bouche came first, though I didn’t catch what it was. Could very well be a blend of fruit and cheese? I can’t really tell what it was. Quite refreshing though.

 Yes, the bread basket…. the bread is warm! I loved the foccacia! Its the one on the top right. It had a crispy top with some sun-dried tomato and olive baked onto the surface and warm fluffy insides. It’s been so long since I had good bread at a restaurant! I only ate the focaccia but my friend loved the brown bread beside it. Again it had that crunch to it as you bite into the bread, but yet you don’t have to gnaw it to death to take a bite out of it. The waiter had to top up our bread basket with fresh warm bread. How embarassing… and we kept on eating even the 2nd basket.

 Luckily, our first appetizer arrived in time to stop us. This is seared tuna topped with caviar with some dainty salad. They were so nice to split the portion into two plates for us, so this was my portion. I could have sworn that the tuna is of the akami type, the leaner part of the tuna. It certainly had that ruby red hue to it. But when I bit into it, it had all the full flavour of seared fatty tuna. It was beautiful, along with that gorgeous mountain of caviar in unison with a slightly tart and rich sauce.

 Next, the scampi topped with truffle shavings. The scampi carpaccio is fresh, in some sort of olive oil emulsion if I’m not mistaken. It is similar to the truffle tai carpaccio at Aoki but I prefer the texture of tai compared to the scampi. Plus the flavours didn’t blend as well as the truffle tai carpaccio. So while this was nice, it wasn’t one of the must haves for the night. I hear that there is an octopus version of this that is really nice too.

Next up, the pasta dishes.

Shellfish cavatelli in a delicious seafood bisque with chanterelle mushrooms. Sometimes this is topped with sea urchin, but I think that could be seasonal. This was amazing! And also half a portion as my friend and I shared the cavatelli as well. The seafood bisque was full flavoured and bursting with ocean goodness. It wasn’t heavy at all and left us unabashedly scraping at the bottom of the bowl to get at every last drop. The pasta, while I wouldn’t normally order pasta in this style, is great with the bisque and the perfectly cooked shellfish. Nice bite and texture to it but I’d say the shellfish and bisque were the stars of the dish to me.

More pasta dishes up next, we couldn’t decide between the risotto (which was highly recommended by my sister) and the more traditional tagliolini (which was highly recommended by the waitress), so she suggested we take both in a small size. We happily took her suggestion to heart….

When both dishes came, a waiter meticulously shaved… and shaved… and shaved more… and more black truffle all over the pasta until you can no longer see any pasta! How generous! (Obviously this was going to be expensive but when you’re eating, all good reason flies out the window)

 Truffle… with pasta.

This is the risotto, I’m not sure why its green again but it was well cooked with a nice bite to it. You can’t really tell in the picture but both pastas had a ring of dark sauce around it. I’m assuming this is the truffle emulsion and it tasted like a dense, truffled wild mushroom soup. Together with the risotto it added more depth to an already rich and aromatic dish. It is a really small serving, however, you can probably finish it in a couple of spoonfuls, just enough to savour and appreciate the mix of earthy and nutty flavours in this gorgeous dish.

 This is the homemade tagliolini in a creamy, smooth butter and parmesan sauce with truffle emulsion in a ring around the golden mound of al dante pasta. Classic pairing for truffles. It has that super cheesy and creamy taste that I love, but with the truffle emulsion, it helps to bring a different layer and richness to cut into the cheesiness. Very decadent! Along with the truffles, it was to die for. Too bad I only had a bite ;(

 Our lobster main, cooked perfectly, still had that balance between raw and cooked in the center which I really liked. Texture-wise the lobster had a smooth cut to it so that it is still retained that creamy texture. Again…that sauce/broth that came with it? Amazing. I’m not sure if its the same broth as before with the pasta, but it had that same full flavoured brine to it.

 Finally we were ready for dessert. This is the tiramisu ice cream which was actually not bad! I always scoffed at the idea of truffle ice cream. Lovely gold flakes in its presentation and nestled in fresh whipped cream and surrounded by fresh black truffle shavings. I still prefer my hazelnut ice creams though ;p

 This pear tart came highly recommended by my sister. Its got an almost wafer thin flaky crust topped with very delicately sliced pears. I must try to make this one day!!! Very warm, slightly spiced and crispy dessert which ended the meal perfectly.

 The waiter congratulated us upon finishing our meal. *Shy*

 Obviously it cost a bomb, but in comparison to some other top restaurants, this isn’t too bad after all. I think the a la carte would be better than the degustation. Also, if you go during the white truffle season, or black winter truffle season, the experience will be so much better as nothing beats the aroma of the Italian truffles! Our favourites for the night were the seared tuna, all the pastas, the lobster and the pear tart. ❤

8½ Otto e Mezzo Bombana
Shop 202, 2/F, Alexandra House, 5-17 Des Voeux Road Central, Central, Hong Kong
中環德輔道中5-17號歷山大廈2樓202號舖
Reservation: Tel: +852 2537 8859 Fax: +852 2537 8895, info@ottoemezzobombana.com
Opening Hours: 12:00p – 10:00pm (Mon-Sat, Closed on Sun)

Just for fun, I’ve included a couple of recipes from Otto’s website. I’m sure I’ll never be able to make it as well as they do despite them openly sharing the recipes like this!

Homemade Cavatelli shellfish ragout and sea urchin

For 1 pax

70gr cavatelli

5gr sea Urchin
15gr scampi (no shell)
15gr octopus
20gr snapper
15gr lobster (no shell)
30gr diced cherry tomato
5gr chopped garlic
50gr lobster stock
50gr seafood soup
3gr basil
salt
white pepper
dry chilli

 

Preparation:

– Seafood: cut the scampi, octopus, snapper and Lobster into small dices, marinate with extra virgin olive oil, salt and white pepper
– pan-fry the garlic and dry chilli until golden color, put on side
– cook the diced cherry tomatoes in medium heat, add lobster stock and seafood soup
– separately, pan-fry the seafood and mix with garlic chilli, basil
– add seafood-tomato sauce
– cook the cavatelli in saltwater for 3 minutes
– mix with the sauce and cook for another 3 min
– transfer onto a plate, garnish with sea urchin on top

Tajima Short Rib and Beef Tenderloin, Red Wine and Plum Sauce, Whipped Potato

Red wine and plum sauce, whipped potato

160 gr short rib (big squared)
180 gr beef tenderloin (wagyu)
100 gr carrots
100 gr celery
80 gr onion
80 gr leek
100 gr Italian tomato
5 gr garlic
1 pcs bay leaf
20 gr parma ham
40 gr porto wine
40 gr red wine
160 gr veal stock
30 gr dry plum
8 gr rosemary
60 gr extra virgin olive oil

Preparation of base sauce:
•    Saut all the vegetables in a big bowl until they are soft
•    Put the ham, plum, porto and red wine in the bowl. Cook everything in the bowl until the alcohool is evaporated. After put the veal stock

Preparation:
•    Pan fried the short rib until a golden colour and put in the bowl with the base sauce
•    Put the bowl in oven at 200 degree for 2 hours.
•    Then take out the short rib cut big squared and the base sauce strim it
•    When the serve take out the short rib and heat again in sauce, and pan fried the beef tenderloin in pan.

Coffee Trio of Tiramisu, Warm Coffee Tart and Crunchy Coffee Ice Cream

 

For 4 pax

For the Tiramisù

•    48 gr yolk
•    40 gr sugar
•    120 gr whipped Cream
•    200 gr mascarpone

Mix up egg yolk with Sugar (Sabayon), melt the gelatin and combine all the ingredients together

For the Coffee Gelly

•    160 gr espresso
•    60 gr sugar

Heat the espresso with sugar

For the sponge

•    64 gr ground almond
•    20 gr cake flour
•    80 gr icing sugar
•    40 gr sugar
•    132 gr egg white

Sift all the dried ingredients. Make meringue with sugar and egg white. Fold in the dried ingredients with meringue and spread on the tray. Bake 180 degree for 12 minute.

For the Coffee tart

•    4 pcs egg yolk
•    80 gr sugar
•    128 gr milk
•    20 gr coffee powder
•    56 gr coffee bean
•    320 gr cream

Roast the coffe bean for 10 minutes at 200。and add into the boiling milk. Infuse 30 minutes. Mix sugar and egg yolk and add the cold cream. Mix the coffee powder with warm milk, combine all the mixture and sift. Bake at 110 degree for 35-40 min.

For the Coffee Ice Cream

•    800 gr milk
•    240 gr cream
•    120 gr coffee Bean
•    70 gr milk powder
•    50 gr yolk
•    180 gr sugar
•    20 gr coffee powder
•    30 gr water

Roast the coffee bean and add into boiling milk and cream. Cook like a custard

 

Bolognese Pasta

Tags

basil leaves, bolognese, italian, mains, mince, Pasta, red sauce, sauce, shell pasta, sun-dried tomatoes, tomatoes, vermouth, western

Everyone loves pasta. There’s something comforting about all those carbs slippery in a creamy or a hearty red sauce. Another university favourite, where at the bare minimum we just cook the noodles and throw in ready to eat sauces. Ah the simple life.

I guess as we’ve grown up, our tastebuds will naturally progress so that we’d need something either more healthy/wholesome and more complex. (To be honest I’m still very happy with the noodles and sauce out of a can but that’s just me being lazy).

This is my version of bolognese, I’ve been using this recipe for many years but it could be better. This version is sourish and slightly spicy just because I like it that way! Will update as and when I try out new bolognese recipes 🙂

Ingredients (8 pax)

1kg minced meat (I use pork, but most people would use beef)

1 large green onion roughly chopped

1 can tomato puree (or 1 tube if you can’t find the canned version)

8 cloves of garlic or more if you like it garlicky, minced

1 bottle of dolmio red sauce (sometimes I use a can of tomato chunks instead)

1/2 cup of chopped fresh basil leaves

1/2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

3 tbsps dried oregano

50 gram salted butter

Salt and Pepper for seasoning

Optional: 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese and more for serving

Optional: 3 birds eye chillies, sliced

Optional: 1/2 cup dry Vermouth

Optional: 6-8 sun-dried tomatoes, sliced

Optional: Pureed carrots or sugar to offset the sourness from the tomatoes

Instructions

1. Melt the butter in a large wok. Fry the onions first and just when it turns slightly translucent, throw in the minced garlic and fry until the garlic is golden in color. If you opt to use the pureed carrots, add it now and cook til soft.

2. Season the minced meat with salt and pepper beforehand. Add the mince into the wok, breaking the mince into small pieces as it browns.

3. When the meat is browned, pour in the dolmio sauce/canned tomatoes, the vermouth, sundried tomatoes, oregano and birds eye chillies. Stir to incorporate and let it simmer.

4. Add Worcestershire sauce and stir. Let the sauce simmer until the consistency is chunky and there’s no excess water. The sauce should be thick and chunky but not so dry such that it sticks to the wok.

5. Stir in the parmesan cheese and basil leaves.

I love to eat this with shell pasta. It holds the sauce so well!

Linguine in creamy mushroom sauce

Tags

italian, mains, Noodles, Pasta, western

– Linguine in mushroom cream base topped with earthy parsley 

Pasta is a pretty convenient food. A staple of many a student, you’ll find spaghetti packets in almost every student’s kitchen cabinet. Let’s just say I ate a ton of pasta when I was studying abroad in the UK. It was easy enough to make. At the bare minimum we would get instant Dolmio sauce, the type you can pour directly from the plastic container right onto some freshly cooked pasta. Survival skills at its best =)

And you can never get sick of it, there are so many ways to prepare pasta. A red sauce, cream sauce, pesto, aglio olio, salads and even strange bases you’d never have thought of such as tom yum pasta, which used to be one of my favorites.

I’ve included here one of the recipes that I make when I’m feeling slightly decadent and craving for the comfort of cream and carbs. The swiss mushrooms coupled with butter, cream, cheese and the earthiness of the English parsley just makes an incredibly heady combination in my mouth. There is a some heat coming from the chilli padi in the background to just cut through the richness (or jelakness as Malaysians call it) of the dish.

The ingredients for cream sauce, mushroom pasta: Linguine, Double or thickened cream, Mushrooms, Garlic, Butter, English Parsley, Black pepper and Salt

Ingredients (Serves 1 pax)

1. 100g dried Linguine (adjust according to how hungry you are)
2. 20g – 30g butter (if you’re using the smaller packs of butter for individuals, those are normally 10g each)
3. 3 cloves garlic diced
4. 5 swiss mushrooms sliced or white mushrooms if you can’t find the former.
5. 1 chilli padi
6. 1/2 cup of thickened cream or you can go by gut feel as to how much you need to properly coat the noodles
7. 1 tbsp Parmesan cheese and more to top if you wish
8. 1-2 tbsps of chopped English parsley
9. Black pepper

Cooking Instructions

1. Cook the dried linguine in salted water until your desired level of firmness. Some like it al dente, I prefer it a little more cooked than al dente. Drain and set aside.
2. Melt half of the butter in a sauce pan, add garlic and fry until golden but not brown. By this time the mixture should be fragrant.
3. Add mushrooms and continue frying. Add the rest of the butter and continue frying. The mushrooms may release some liquid, you should continue to fry it until the liquid has dissolved.
4. Add the cream and chilli padi to the pan and season with salt pepper. Add the parmesan cheese. As parmesan cheese is generally salty, check the sauce to ensure the salt level.
5. Add the drained pasta to the pan and toss for about a minute to incorporate the cream sauce and the pasta.
6. Transfer the pasta to a serving plate, scatter more cheese if you desire and the gorgeous parsley on top. Eat in front of the telly =D

Mushrooms cooking in the butter cream base

Pesto and Pine Nut pasta

Tags

basil, olive oil, Pasta, pesto, pine nuts, prawns, spaghetti

This is not so much as a recipe, but just something I made the other day.  Pesto pasta.

You could make your own pesto sauce, you just need to blend basil leaves, olive oil, parmesan cheese and pine nuts with some salt and pepper and you’ll have a delicious pesto sauce but I’m lazy, so I bought a jar of pesto. 🙂

Cooked the pasta until it is al dente and tossed it in the pesto sauce. In a separate pan I lightly toasted the pine nuts and set aside. Then I cleaned some prawns and made a slice down the “spine” to clean it and made another slice down the other side. With this, when the prawn cooks it will take the form of a “butterfly”.

Heat up some oil in a frying pan over medium high heat. Dab off any excess moisture from the prawns before placing them into the frying pan, otherwise you’re going to get lots of violent oil splatters all over you. Cook for a minute on each side, more or less depending on the size of the prawn, then remove from the pan.

Sprinkle the pasta with lots of parmesan cheese and pesto, and top with the prawns.

Yummy!