Asian Home Gourmet - Peanut Sauce Mix

Straightaway I'd say this is a big miss. While it gives a good aroma when cooking, but the taste is lacking something. I think it missed the hotness. Yes, it comes from someone who doesn't like to eat spicy stuff. Inside is the peanut powder, and you need to add a half cup water and a tablespoon of sugar (a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine goes dowwwn.... ok side tracked here LOL).

So what did you get with a reduced half cup of water? Even less than a half cup. Not only the taste is minimal, but the quantity as well. It's a serving for half person LOL. So you can see that the sauce is hardly 1 spoon deep. huhuhuuhu

I ate this sauce with mini spring rolls. Yes I love to dip spring rolls into peanut sauce. It wasn't enough for me huhuhu... I even licked the bowl hahahaha....

So if you want to try peanut sauce for the first time, you can use this packet. It's a safe bet. Nothing can go wrong. But if you are thinking to have more than enough, then maybe go for 2 packets. I've yet to try the dutch/indonesian instant peanut mix. Perhaps I'll try them and compare with this one.

Coulis de Prunes/Prunes coulis

I've got some prunes left from the tart, so I've decided to make a coulis (jam?). It's really great to use this coulis on top of anything that has not much taste, like natural yoghurt :D

Just add sugar and reduce the juice...





Finally I can use one of the many empty jam jars in the house :D

Asian Home Gourmet - Mee Goreng

Last time I used Go-Tan Bami Goreng paste. This time I thought I give Asian Home Gourmet a try. I did it with the same ingredient as Go-Tan's, with chicken liver (By now you know that I like chicken liver hehehe).

The taste? I can't remember exactly how Go-Tan's mee goreng, but I would say it's the same as Asian Home Gourmet's. There is no distinct difference that I can pinpoint easily. So basically both are safe bet, and can be used. It's your choice :-) Only that with half bottle of Go-Tan, I cooked the same amount of noodle (150g) as 1 packet of Asian Home Gourmet's. So I think if you want to cook for only 150g noodles, then go for the packet, but if you are going to cook for 300g noodles, than you need 1 bottle of Go-Tan's Bami goreng :D

Tarte aux prunes/Prunes tart

Easiest and yummy dessert in the whole world :D
I bought a ready-made tart base, and cut the prunes, arrange them, throw in some sugar... into the oven.
Some fruits like prunes may contain a lot of water, when bake it oozes out a lot of juice. So the best is to pre-cook your tart base (Cuire à blanc, in french). Like this you can preserve the crispy base.



Bon appetit!

Daifuku - Part 2

Last time I posted ice cream daifuku. This time I got myself a treat... :D
The traditional daifuku with fillings. Most popular fillings are read bean paste, strawberry, taro and peanut.
I went for a mix pack.... Hehehehe :D



So we have sesame coated, starch coated and peanut coated.


Both sesame coated and starch coated are with red bean filling.


The peanut coated are with peanut paste filling.


Don't be fooled with these cuties... I can only eat them 2 at a time (Yeah I thought I could wallop those 6 in one go LOL). However, they are divine. I'm sure there are other version which are great, like it's not come in a pack and freshly made.. Anyway, I'm settling for this, and not going anywhere.. these are mine! :D

Daifuku Ice cream ^^

I love my trip to Nagomi's shop, because I can always find cute things to buy (and eat). Remember the Edamame snack? *^^*

These pictures have been taken some time ago. Even on rainy windy Brussels weather I love the japanese ice cream. This one in particular is daifuku ice cream.

What is daifuku? Well, just ask the googly lord or saint wiki, and you'll see what I'm referrring to.
But if you want to stick to my description, here it goes.
Daifuku is a japanese dessert made of glutinous rice flour with fillings. It has a chewy texture and the fillings can varies. For example, this one has milk ice cream as fillings. Usually each daifuku is covered with thin layer of starch (corn flour) to avoid sticking (to fingers or spoon or fork).

Have you had daifuku ice cream before? Or normal daifuku? What is your favorite fillings?

2-pack Daifuku ice-cream for only 1,50€
It has so many things written on the cover, and I don't know what it means LOL I went to the website address written on the cover.
Go there for some crazy yummy Japanese ice cream and some funny comercials.


Inside you have 2 daifuku and a plastic fork


Pick the daifuku using the plastic fork given. The daifuku must be frozen (more like the ice cream inside must be frozen). Otherwise it's too soft then you need to eat using the spoon.


Yummers!

Pastry, Patisserie, Cake, Gateau - What's your fav?

I'm not a sweet tooth person. I think that's why I can still keep myself calm whenever I stepped into a bakery or patisserie in Europe. My significant other is a sweet tooth person and sweet as sugar too *^^* I think it is safe for him that he doesn't have someone else hogging over his desserts.

However, after few years living in the well-known patisserie country, I have acquired some sweetness in my mouth. I enjoyed the tart taste of rhubarb pie, the refine chocolate taste. I can easily distinguish a good chocolate (less sugar, more chocolate) compared to chocolate (with lotsa sugar, less chocolate). Not to mention that now I love to bake! But I still have problem to eat creams, like buttercream, and crème patissière.

As much as we have abundant desserts here in France and Belgium, I still prefer the non-Europan cake. I like the birthday cake that we have in Malaysia. You know the one with 2 layer sponge cake, and frosted with buttercream (not too much). The most important for me is the ratio between the cake and the cream. The problem I have with most french gateaux is that they have thin layer(s) of cake (which is called genoise or biscuit), and loads of creams. It's just too sweet and mushy. Can't they make a thicker genoise?

I have been putting off to try making choux pastry, e.g.eclairs and paris brest. This is because of the amount of cream that i have to prepare, and I am not a fan for that. But I must try making it as it's someone's fav huhu
On this topic, did you know that by default, eclair au chocolat in Belgian has vanilla crème inside it, instead of chocolate? It drove us nuts when we saw that the eclair has chocolat on the top, but vanilla fillings. It's just wrong! I asked my Belgian friend and he said that it's just too much to have the chocolate filling... Tsk tsk tsk... Whereas in France, by default, eclair au chocolat has chocolat filling.

My favorite dessert is crème brulée. It's lucky that I do not have a kitchen torch. Otherwise, I'll be making crème brulée all day! (that rhymes). What's yours?

Baile Átha Cliath Weekend Getaway

Last weekend I went to Dublin. I don't know what is the real reason I'm going there hahahaha But I think the little travel bug in me asked me to bring it somewhere. I've ended up doing shopping and eating.. a lot hahahaha



Some of the places I've been to and highly recommend if you happen to be in Dublin (not in any particular order:
Elephant & Castle
Koh
Nyonya Malaysian Restaurant
Penang Malaysian Restaurant
Any nice coffee place