mercredi, avril 28, 2010

Falafel and Humus - O Liban

O Liban is a lebanese restaurant situated in front of my appartment at Chaussee de Vleurgat. It offers variety of lebanese food. I had this craving for falafel. I don't know why but damm I must get my hand on falafels LOL

So I went to O Liban and bought a couple of Falafel, a couple of the thing with meat which I didn't catch the name and a portion of Humus. See, I am not a fan of Humus, but at O Liban the humus looks really nice. And as the guy scoop it into the plastic container, you can see that the humus is thick.

I went home and at them off the plate. Everything is yummy and I licked the humus like it is an ice cream LOL

dimanche, avril 18, 2010

Sambal Tempe Ikan Bilis

This is something really exotic, even for me. I don't do this often as it uses 2 ingredients which are not easy to get here in Europe.

First item is Tempe. I don't know if there is english word for this (LOL). It's basically soya beans fermented in some magical ways, and they because a white block. This item is mostly popular in Indonesian cuisine and Southern part of Malaysia. If in Western Europe, you can find tempe at the asian stores in the Netherlands due to the high population of Indonesian decendant there. But last Thursday I went to the Brussels asian supermarket, lo and behold, they have the tempe at the cold section. Yay!!!

Second item is Ikan Bilis. In english it is 'dried anchovies'. These are small dried anchovies. I said small because anchovies in Europe are big. One time I saw dried anchovies sold in the supermarket in Nancy at the pet food section. Food for cats! huhuhu I bought bunch of these small dried anchovies from Malaysia last December. Like any dried fish, this thing is very smelly when cooked (LOL).

I didn't take the picture of dried anchovies. But I have the pic somewhere...

Anyway, here are the Tempe...

Traditionally the beans are wrapped with green leaves. But I think for industrial purposes and that the leaves are scarce, so plastic is a good way.

Tempe cut into 2. You can see the fermented soya bean.

I cut them into small bits. Then I added in some salt, pepper, curry powder.

Deep fried them.

This crunchy bits can be eaten just like that, a yummy snack.

But instead, in a pan I coated them with some chili paste, dried anchovies. Yummy spicy snacks. Can be eaten just like that or with rice.

Tarte aux pommes

It's Apple tart/pie in english... This is the french apple tart. It is not the one of americans pie where you have the top pastry. I made this for a lunch date, and it's best eat warm with some ice creams. Delicious :D
This tart is easy to use and I like the idea that I made everything from scratch. The combination of apple and cinnamon, is just heaven. It is very close to those McDonald's apple pie filling.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:
- For bottom pastry:
125g flour
50g icing sugar
60g butter
15g almond powder
Half an egg
2g salt

- For filling (Apple compote):
4 Golden apples (peeled)
50g sugar
dash of cinnamon powder

- For topping:
3 Golden apples (peeled)
Some sugar

Method:
1. Do the bottom pastry first. Let the dough rest in the fridge for about 45 minutes.
2. Dice the apples, put them in a casserole, add in sugar and cinnamon powder. Start with 1 minute of medium heat, cover the casserole. The 2-3 minutes until it becomes compote on low heat.
Let it cool a bit, then blend it until shiny and no apple pieces.
3. Slice the 3 apples, make sure the slices are at the same thickness.
4. Take out the pastry from the fridge and roll it out. Dress the rolled thin pastry into the pie mould, slightly buttered and floured.
5. Pour in the compote first. Then arrange the apple slices. Make sure that the round part of the apple facing the border of the pie.
Add a bit of sugar all over the topping.
6. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 200 degrees Celcius for about 30-40 minutes, until the top is slightly golden brown.

And it's done!!!


(I don't know what happened, the upload rotated my picture)




mercredi, avril 14, 2010

Easter eggs



My favorite is "e". It is 'Lait Sucre Pop'.
It is made of chocolate milk, and inside it, there are some crackle pops sugar. You know the one that you eat and they kinda "explode" in your mouth. It's so great and fun to eat :D
Btw, if you can't spell right, the eggs spell 'leonidas'. One of famous chocolate houses in Belgium.

samedi, avril 10, 2010

Homemade Pizza - Melanzana

Melanzana is eggplant in Italian (aubergine in French - I like this word). Anyway, I know I don't like vegies, but in some dishes in which the taste and smell of vegetables are not too strong, I can eat them. One of my fav pizza nowadays is Pizza with Eggplant and Mushrooms.

Pizza is a type of home-cooked food, so if an italian grandma can do it why can't I? Right?
So here goes.. first I made the dough and let it rest in the fridge overnight. You don't need to put it overnight. Just 1-2 hours would be sufficient.

Then, when you need it, just roll out the dough and put your favorite toppings :D

For recipe and better instruction video, go here.

I made these videos for fun... I always had fun cooking, so I wanna share my funtime with people :D

Part 1:


Part 2:

ABCooking - Omelette with Mushrooms


Simple and yummy... did you know that mushrooms are substitute of meat for vegetarian? I didn't know that, I just heard this some time ago on TV.

lundi, avril 05, 2010

Salon de Thé - Fauchon Paris



I love tea.. But what I like in France is their salon de thé. Although the name is tea saloon, but the attraction is more like drinking tea with different kind of pattisseries. Anyway, I am not going to talk about this just yet.

I just bought this nicely stored tea bags from Fauchon Paris. There are 5 bags in each golden slim metal box. It's so slim that you could put this in your bag, in your pocket or stored nicely in the drawer of your office desk, which I'm gonna do :-) These are boxes of Ceylan, Darjeeling, Fauchon Mix (Citrus, Lavender, Vanilla), Apple and Camomile Infusion.