Cooking with Pum

I ended our holiday in Phi Phi with a cooking class at Pum's cooking school. I met with two lovely young American travellers one of which was heading back to the States, the other heading for Borneo after teaching English in South Korea for a few months. Noi was our chef, he was teaching us three Thai favourites: Red Lipstick, Green Lipstick and White Lipstick, respectively Tom Yum, Curry Curry and Tom Kha Gai (chicken in coconut milk soup).

Here's a recipe for you to try (if you can find the ingredients)

Tom Yum Goong
Prawns x a handful (2-3/person)
Water x 340ml
Galangal root sliced x 4-5 pieces
Lemongrass (sliced 3-4cm) x 1/2 stalk
Kaffir Lime Leaves x 2 (you'll know when you find it cos it smells amazing!)
Thai Shallot x 1 (I use normal shallot)
Small green chillies x 2
Fish sauce x 2 tablespoons
Sugar x 1 tablespoon
Lemon Juice x 1 tablespoon (we used a lime pressed it for its juice)
Chilli paste x 1 tea spoon (or two if you like it hot!)

In a pot, bring the water to a boil and add the chilli paste, mix well
Add the fish sauce, sugar, lemon juice and add the herbs, stir well
Bring the soup to a boil and add the prawns
Done. Enjoy!(PS: Libellule, je te donne ma recette du Singapore Fried Mee Hoon des que je suis a jour avec mes updates!)

A Feast Fit for Kings in a week

How I love weeks like this, when everyday is a feast.

I'm one of those people who gets by the day looking forward to the next meal, I get up looking forward to breakfast, then when the morning gets dull, I start looking forward to my lunch and if by any chance it's a planned lunch with a friend or colleague, it becomes a bit like looking forward to Christmas, and the afternoon goes by ever so quickly looking forward to dinner pondering what nice meal I am going to put together. And if people ask me what I'm doing this weekend, I will probably tell them what's on the menu! I must have starved to death in my previous life, so really appreciating it this lifetime. I know cooking is a hobby but can food on its own be a hobby as well?

Anyway, this week takes the cake. It's the food king week.

First of all, it's Chinese New Year, so that's two days of celebrations and it coincides with Alex' birthday, another excuse to throw in a special meal (or two)

Chinese New Year's Day
Special Fried Rice
Oyster Sauce Chicken
Stir Fried mixed veggies with prawns


Chinese New Year's Day 2
Singapore Fried Mee Hoon
I was also supposed to prepare Asam Laksa Fish, but there was plenty of SFMH, and I thought it was over-ambitious.
Alex' Surprise Birthday Party
Regretably, I was going to do a Murder Mystery Night but a couple of friends could not make it and there weren't enough of us to do the game, only postponed for another time.

I had planned a dinner I was comfortable with like Poulet Basquaise and rice - but got stuck at the starter... while wondering what kind of starter to make, I thought Dim Sum would be great, since it's still CNY - hence I am changing my dinner plans and menus:

Dim Sum for Starters, a selection of Steamed Sui Mai (Pork) and Ha Kau (Prawn), and fried Sui Mai with Sweet Chili Sauce and Hoi Sin Sauce (Plum)
Special Fried Rice
Penang Curry Chicken
Sayur Achar (pickled vegetables)
And my friend Julie made a fabulous Orange cake for dessert.
Served dinner with Champagne and a couple of lovely red Bordeaux Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot Bergerac wine.

In order to not arouse too much suspicion for Alex, I pretended to be cooking for a couple of meals ahead - Note to Self - not be a bad idea for the future.

I had a bit of technical difficulties with the Dim Sum as the steam seemed to be escape all around and not actually through the bamboo baskets, but I eventually thouhgt of placing a cloth over the wok to keep the steam within - only worrying about whether the kitchen towel might catch fire!

Dinner turned out perfect and as ever, we all had a good time.

We were supposedly hoping to finish the week with a day out to China Town in London - we made it for another wonderful Dim Sum meal and caught a glimpse of two Lion Dance, but the day got cut short because our little angel was ill. Not sure we'll do it again next year though as it was terribly busy and we don't really have to wait for CNY to have Dim Sum.

Have a very happy New Year of the Rabbit everyone - lots of love, happiness and prosperity.

Baking cookies

Anna, my sister in law, inspired me to bake my own cookies, since hers were so delicious and she made it look so easy to do.

I used to bake chocolate cakes often many years ago; chocolate cake was my favorite and the only dessert I ate. I enjoyed baking because I did not have to cook anything else; in Malaysia it is not more expensive to eat a fantastic exotic meal outside at the stalls. Since I moved back to england, with all its familiar ingredients; I enjoy cooking every day, trying new dishes, cooking family recipes and old favorites from my childhood, so I never took time to bake... until today.

This is my fridge; it was so full of pictures and magnets from our travel, that I started using the side as well.

My kitchen was very soul-less so I moved around some items to decorate a little.

This is the recipe before... I went to the shops this morning, and bought everything from the baking section, baking powder, baking soda, self raising flour, plain flour, butter, chocolate chip, hazelnut, white sugar, brown sugar, vanilla extract, and lemon juice (just in case).

Ta-da! The end result. The cookies were lovely just out of the oven, but they got hard after a couple of hours, I followed the recipe to the gram, so it may be the wrong recipe to my taste, I'll have to ask Anna to give me her recipes, in the meantime, these will be great with a cup of tea.