My take on...

Masterchef

This year's Masterchef has certainly shown itself to be a game show far more than a cooking show, and it pains me to say that it's started losing me. When you have contestants that are heads and shoulders above the rest in technique, innovation, and flair, and somehow they don't make it into the final week, then yes, you have a problem with the format. Whilst Season 1 had the shock elimination of Justine at top four and Poh losing to Julie in the final sprint to the finish, they were at least final week contestants. This season we see Jimmy and Aaron making it over Marion and Jonathan. It just demonstrates that the show isn't about looking for the best cook, it's more like Russian roulette.

My rather harsh take on the top 7 -
1) Aaron "satay-sauce" miracle boy who got into the final week off his "always cook the second-worst dish" strategy finally failed to make it. Celebrations ensue.
2) I've actually grown to like "there's no holding back now" Alvin a bit more, because he really is one of those people who are consistently positive, if bitchy at times, and fun to watch.
3) "I'm a bartender" Courtney struggled to push beyond salads. She has some of the best basic skills out of everyone but the few weeks where she was eliminated and couldn't continue to develop really hurt her chances.
4) One-hit-wonder Jimmy "curry king" really showed how creative you need to be to get through the competition - not at all.
5) I had originally thought Claire "let me make soup out of my tears" lawyer-girl to be very calm and collected but once it started raining it was pouring.
6) "I'm a schoolboy" Callum has this rather cute smile which is actually a facade for a man with a hell of a lot of ambition, he gets edited like a rather simple kid but I wonder if he would probably be one of the best third-year apprentices in Australia had he gone that route instead of a Bachelor degree.
7) My favourite once Marion and Jono were eliminated, Adam "not your typical Asian" is pretty creative and he seems to learn things fairly quickly. Probably won't have as much post-show potential as Callum, but I'd still buy his cookbook.

Prediction for the finals? Adam will come up with more innovative but with put the judges off with his Asian flavours, and Callum will get top marks for the desserts, but the final pressure test will be a main and Adam will just get there.

Ma Po Tofu - my style!

I have this cookbook called "the Food of China" - which has some awesome recipes, most of which are fairly simple and traditional. One which caught my eye yesterday was Ma Po Tofu, basically tofu cooked with mince.



Whilst I love the dish, I don't eat pork so I had to modify it a bit by replacing the minced pork with minced prawns, luckily it turned out great!

Cooking blog hmmm...

So the blog's kinda been dead for about a month and a half, what with me starting to play WoW again and then with the Christmas and New Year's break. I'm making this post as a kind of New Year's resolution - to commit to writing posts this year. But I think I need to take the blog in a certain direction as it's kind of meaningless at the moment.

On the way from Australia back to New Zealand I watched "Julie and Julia" on the airplane. It's not a movie I'd normally go to see but it was surprisingly relevant - it's about a cooking blog! The idea is great, Julie, a younger woman decides to write a blog about cooking every single recipe in a famous cookbook by Julia, within the space of a year. It's not all happy times - there are some spectacular failures as well as successes, but she blogs them all anyway. Now I'm not going to do that, no way, but certainly I might borrow the idea a bit. (And I'm sure every second blogger in the world is probably doing this right now, haha.)

As for the movie itself - I thought it was very good. The story is rich, very Hollywood, but in a good way. The pacing is perhaps a tad slow but nonetheless well-measured. Perhaps I'm biased, but I thought Meryl Streep nailed it. I think it's definitely DVD-purchase-worthy if you're even remotely interested in watching decent movies.

Of course I'm terrible at writing anything including reviews, so I'm going to stop here. Til next time :)

Cooking Diary: Wonton Noodle Soup

As mentioned in the miscellaneous post earlier this week, here are some pics from the wonton noodle soup:

Wrapping wontons.

Finished wrapping!

A mix of pork wontons and prawn wontons.

I've made these a fair few times, and they've been quite favourably received by everyone, but this time I was surprised by how delicious the pork wontons were. Here's the filling that I used:

200g pork mince
1 tbsp spring onion, finely sliced
1 tsp ginger, crushed

2 tbsp shaoxing wine
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp five-spice powder

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl, then cover and marinate for at least half an hour before wrapping in wonton skins.

Cooking Diary: Sweet and Sour Prawns

I cooked this dish two weeks ago, but haven't managed to find the time to post it up.

I've been trying a number of different combinations of ingredients to make the sweet and sour sauce. I don't particularly like sour food, and so this following recipe is my favourite as it produces a sauce that's sweet, mellow, but still tangy:

1/2 cup rice vinegar
1/3 cup white sugar

1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
1 tbsp ginger, thinly sliced

2 tbsp shaoxing wine
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 yellow capsicum, diced
1 medium onion, diced

1/2 cup pineapple chunks in syrup
1 tbsp cornflour
1 tbsp water

1) Place vinegar and sugar into a saucepan and stir over low heat until sugar dissolves and the mixture starts to simmer. Add garlic and ginger and simmer for 2 minutes. Meanwhile, dissolve cornflour in water and set aside.

2) Turn up the heat to medium. Add wine, soy sauce, tomato paste, capsicum and onion and cook until onions start turning transparent but before they soften.

3) Stir in pineapple chunks with syrup, and cornflour mixture. Cook until the sauce thickens then remove from heat.

The sauce is now ready to be served with the choice of meat. Usually the meat is deep-fried, but I find it's often fine to have it pan-fried instead.

I'll note that there are many, many different versions of sweet and sour sauce on the internet, and this is just another one to add to the list. It's definitely worth trying though if you're like me and prefer something sweeter and with more depth.

Cooking Diary: Big Breakfast!

This is as unhealthy as it gets folks! Vege sausages, eggs and pineapples fried in oil. Mmmmm. What a great way to start the morning before flying to Melbourne!

I've scheduled a few posts to come up over the weekend so at least there'll be a few updates whilst I'm playing.

Cooking Diary: Red Bean Soup

This is probably one of my favourite desserts to cook, and I've cooked it many times in the past few months. Possibly not as easy as it should be, because I find it's very likely to either boil over, or dry up and burn if you're not careful.


In any case the finished product is fantastic, a heavy sweet soup with just enough texture to finish off a meal!

Cooking Diary: Garlic Prawns

I cooked this today, for a quick meal! Here's my version of the recipe:

150g prawns, peeled and deveined
50g beans
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tbsp shaoxing wine
1 tbsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp water
1 tsp cornflour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp sugar

(1) Heat oil over medium heat. Add garlic and fry until it starts to brown. In the meantime, combine the water, cornflour, salt, and sugar.

(2) Turn up the heat and add prawns and beans. Cook for 2 mins or until prawns are just cooked through.

(3) Add the wine, soy sauce, and cornflour mixture, and stir-fry until sauce thickens.

Done!

Cooking Diary: Split Pea and Coconut Cream Pudding

I've been looking around the internet for some recipes for Chinese desserts. Unfortunately it seems that desserts aren't traditionally a course on the Chinese menu, and most of my memories of Chinese desserts come from my Hong Kong background. The concept of dessert was likely imported by foreigners, since Hong Kong has always been an important international trading port.

Anyway, I've been following a food blog, Christine's Recipes, which have some wonderful and easy Chinese dessert recipes, including this one:



Mmmmm yummy!

Cooking Diary: Simple Chinese Cooking

As usually happens on Tuesdays, a couple of my mates came round after work and I cooked dinner for us. I was missing a lot of sleep from the night before, so decided to go for something simple. Apparently simple is sometimes best, as they thought it was the best Tuesday meal so far!



The dish at the top left is steamed fish finished with soy sauce, spring onion, and ginger.
Bottom left is crispy fried egg topped with oyster sauce, spring onion, and chilli.
On the right is steamed tofu with garlic, sichuan pepper, and chilli oil.

Cooking Diary: Simple Mushroom Curry

Today I had one of those days where I didn't feel like cooking anything too complicated, so I went for something simple:



Here's my recipe:

2 tbsp olive oil
2 finely chopped onions
3 crushed garlic cloves
1 tsp salt

about 15 medium-sized button mushrooms, quartered
1 cup vegetable stock
3 tbsp tomato paste

ground spices-
2 tsp coriander seeds
2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
1 tsp chilli (or to taste)

1) Heat oil on medium heat, add onions and garlic, then cook until onions are soft but not brown.

2) Add salt and coriander seeds and cook until the mixture thickens.

3) Add mushrooms and the remaining spices except chilli, and fry until spices are fragrant.

4) Stir in stock, tomato paste, and chilli, and cook until mushrooms soften and liquid has reduced and thickened.

Easy!

Cooking Diary: More Chinese food

I went shopping today for more new ingredients to try out - and found a "shrimp paste". Time to experiment!

I added it to a dish with silken tofu, dried mushrooms, dried tofu, ginger, spring onions, and.... oyster sauce. Sounds like a recipe for disaster? Well it turned out quite tasty but I'm not sure that I'd use the same combination again.

In the meantime, here's a better pic of my version of Sichuan chicken. I know, it's not the traditional way of cooking it, but it sure is tasty (even I ate a lot of it!)

Cooking Diary: Sichuan Chicken and Lemon Fish

The food was surprisingly good, :D
but these photos are out of focus :(

Cooking Diary: Sweet Potato Dessert Soup

I decided to try something weird and wonderful today, a dessert soup with a sweet potato base. "Dessert soup" in Chinese uses the words "sugar" and "water", and that is precisely what I used - sweet potato, ginger, sugar (brown and sliced, Chinese-style), and water. Easy!

It's quite filling though, I would share it around if possible.

Cooking Diary: Steamed Prawns, Fried Eggs with Chilli

Had a couple of mates over for dinner last night. I made three dishes, the first is a chilled tofu with a Chinese-style vinaigrette, the second is fried eggs with oyster sauce and chilli, and finally we have steamed prawns with ginger and spring onions.

Cooking Diary: Vegetarian Dishes

My first go at this. The idea was to make three vegetarian dishes with different flavours and textures. It ended up ok, but the flavour balance could be better...

Cooking Diary: Sweet and Sour Fish

I tried making my own version of the sweet and sour a few weeks ago, which didn't turn out well. This time I followed a recipe and changed it (as I like to) and it came out really yummy!

Cooking Diary: Prawn Wontons and Steamed Fish Fillets

Wow... my blog's turned into just a cooking diary! Will promise to return to posting more relevant stuff soon!

Cooking Diary: Seafood Paella

Here's my second attempt at a paella.



It wasn't too bad actually!

Cooking Diary: Tong Yuen

I'm gonna start taking some pictures of my food! Today I tried making tong yuen (glutinous rice balls in sweet soup) - it was alright but making them into nice round balls that don't burst is actually quite tough. Could definitely be improved! Nevertheless, here's a pic :)