Cheese Burger Pasta

The original recipe was from the Rachel Ray's Show, but I used the twisted pasta (I don't know what's the name) instead of macaroni and those Kraft sandwich cheese instead of Cheddar and Parmesan cheese. Well, basically I just used what I have, and that's the beauty of home cooking isn't it? But more importantly, it's that it really tasted like cheese burger and it's yummy! Definitely will do it again. :)

Let some minced beef and chopped onion brown in a frying pan while you boil some pasta according to the instruction on the packaging.

Hint: I always use a bowl to measure how much pasta to cook. For one serving, it's about one rice bowl of pasta.

When the meat is browned, add one tablespoon of ketchup, one teaspoon of mustard, about half a cup of chicken stock and stir fry it for awhile. When the pasta is cooked, add it onto the meat sauce and stir till incorporated.

Pour it into an oven proof dish, cover it with cheese and pop it into a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 10 mins, or till the cheese has melted and browned.

Serve with a nice crisp salad. Enjoy! :D

Steak Pasta

Cobby (My Hubby) made this dish, he was inspired by Jamie Oliver when he made those delicious looking steak sandwiches. But instead of sandwich, he used pasta, cause it's more filling for our dinner.

We used ribeye steak, added some salt, pepper and oil and pounded it flat. By pounding it, it cooks faster and it also tenderised it. Grill the steak on a VERY HOT grill, or frying pan. There's no need to add oil onto the pan as there's oil on your meat. Let it grill for about 1 and a half minutes on each side (for medium), remove from pan and let it rest.

Meanwhile, the pasta is boiling in the pot, cooking according to the packaging instructions.

While it's boiling, stir fry some anchovies with chopped onion till the onion is soft and brown. THEN you add the garlic, cause if you add too early, the garlic would be overcooked, turns brown and bitter!

Add in the cooked pasta and a little bit of the pasta water into your onion mix and add in a little chicken stock. Stir fry for awhile till there's a little bit of sauce left. (the pasta will continue to absorb in the liquid even after you dish it up)

Slice your rested steak and place it on top of the pasta, serve with a freah green salad on the side. Presto, perfect steak pasta. Enjoy.

Braised Chicken Wings

This is my Mummy's recipe and it's easy and delicious!

1. Marinate the chicken wings with a pinch of salt
2. Slice up some ginger and smack about 2 cloves of garlic
3. Stir fry the ginger and garlic with sesame seed oil and a splash of regular cooking oil
4. When the ginger is slightly brown, add in the chicken wings and stir fry it for a minute.
5. Add water till it almost cover the meat.
6. Pour in about 2-3 tablespoons of dark soya sauce and a tablespoon of sugar
7. Let it simmer in high heat for a few minutes before turning down the heat and let it braise slowly.
8. When the sauce has been reduced to about 1/3, check the flavour and add salt if necessary.

Done!

Variations:
1. Add mushrooms for added flavour
2. Use pork belly if you like!

For Braised Pork Belly...
Ginger - cut into bigger slices instead of sticks
At step 4,
-Add a stick of cinnamon (optional)
-Add hard boil eggs

Enjoy! :)

Hokkaido Fair 2009

We headed to Tampines Mall on Friday (3 July) to check out the Hokkaido Fair organised by Isetan.



We started our lunch with a bowl of Toro Toro Char Siew Ramen (Rich Pork Soup)$15.00. Its supposed to be some 2005 Ramen Winner, so we want to check it out.



Interestingly the ramen is quite thick, like hokkien mee, but it doesn't have the alkaline taste. The soup is very tasty and the char siew is very tender. Yummy!

Next we tried the Mori No Ikameshi(Seasoned squid with glutinous rice) $6.80. I saw this on a TV show so I wanted to try it for myself. The squid is very tender but the flavour is quite strong, so I don't really fancy it.



Next Cobby bought a box of Hotate yaki balls (scallop) $7.50. Honestly I didn't taste the scallop at all, maybe it was too small? Perhaps the octopus would taste better since it's texture is more firm.



By now we were a little full, but I wanted to try some desserts, so queued up to try out another recommended item, the Full Moon. $6.60 per piece!



Well it's expensive but so worth it! The pudding consist of three layers. The top is a layer of mashed Japanese sweet potato, the middle is pudding and the bottom is a thin layer of caramel cream. When I try to scoop the pudding with my spoon, I was surprised to find out that it's hard! I think it's because the staff put it in the fridge, so the layers had become firm, like ice cream! I wonder if it was supposed to be like this? Or was it suppose to be eaten warm? Anyway~ It was delicious! Money well spent!

Lastly was to stop by the Dango Stick stall. There were so many varieties! I love Japanese red bean paste, so I asked the auntie behind the counter to recommend!



Even though both have red bean filling, the auntie said both are very different. And it's true! The one on the left is has a jelly like texture while the one on the right is more chewy. But both are nice!

There were so many more food stalls but by then we were already quite full. I guess next time we can actually go to Hokkaido to try out the food! Hee hee...

Trattoria Lafiandra al Museo

Found a nice Italian restaurant next to the Singapore Arts Museum.

Here's the blog entry.

Trattoria Lafiandra Al Museo
171 Bras Basah Road
Singapore Art Museum
Tel: 68844035