Asian-style peanut noodle salad

After my workout this morning, I was feeling quite hungry and wanted to make something filling. We had a little bit of peanut butter left in the jar and I decided it'd be good to use it all up!

To make these noodles, I used Japanese konnyaku/shirataki noodles. They are made from the natural plant fibres of konjac yam plant and have close to zero calories and carbs! That's right, you heard me, ALMOST ZERO! So fantastic for those of you who want to diet yet still want meals that will fill you up. Check out the nutritional information below!

What you will notice about these noodles when you open them up is the pungent fishy smell of the solution they use to soak the noodles in (otherwise the noodles will disintegrate as they are made from natural plant fibres) so I would really recommend really rinsing these noodles out for a few minutes at least until that smell is gone or else you WILL taste it in your dish! I also let it sit in boiling water after I rinsed it to warm up the noodles and also to ensure that smell is no longer there. These noodles on their own however don't have much of a taste so it's great for using to soak up the flavours of the sauce that you will use. I really enjoy the chewy texture of these noodles as well! Personally, I absolutely love these noodles!

This recipe really is quite flexible and you can add any vegetables or meat that you like! I love the wonderful colours that sit so prettily in the bowl and makes it quite reminiscent of the Korean rice dish bibimbap. It is also really quick to prepare so who's hungry?

Asian-style peanut noodle salad
An original recipe by Crystal Noir

Dressing sauce for the vegetables
2 teaspoons Asian fish sauce
1 teaspoon brown sugar
2 teaspoons rice vinegar
Chilli oil to taste (depending on how spicy you want it!)

Peanut sauce for the noodles
1 teaspoons Asian fish sauce
1 teaspoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon peanut butter
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
Chilli oil to taste

Tuna and noodle salad
1 can tuna (I used springwater and can easily be subbed for mushrooms or edamame beans for you vegetarians/vegans out there! Personally though, I think some pieces of marinated chicken would taste better than tuna.)
100 grams noodles of choice
Cucumber, cut into a thin julienne
Carrots, cut into a thin julienne
Spring onion/scallions, chopped
Roasted peanuts, chopped
A GOOGY EGG WOULD ALSO BE FANTASTIC WITH THIS!

Make the dipping sauce
Whisk ingredients in a small serving bowl, making sure to dissolve the sugar. Pour equal amounts into the carrots and cucumber and let it pickle slightly for at least 15 minutes.

Make the peanut dressing
In a blender or small food processor, puree all ingredients to a smooth sauce, about the thickness of heavy cream. Pour into a serving bowl. OR you could just do what I did which was mix it all in the jar that the peanut butter came in until all incorporated!

For the noodles
Rinse under a running tap for a few minutes in a colander and then drain. Move the noodles into a separate bowl and cover with boiling water, letting it sit for about 5 minutes or so.

To serve
If you make this in larger amounts, you could just put all the vegetables in separate bowls and let everyone choose and decorate their own portion. If you're making it yourself, toss the noodles with the peanut sauce until well incorporated (don't be shy about adding a bit of extra water to help it mix better).

Add the vegetables and tuna on top of each bowl and scatter with chopped peanuts and spring onion. Serve!

Coconut cherry swirl loaf

For the rest of the year, I have really made it my goal to exercise at least 3 times a week despite all the work load that the university semester will bring. This is really a short term goal as I plan on exercising regularly from now on - it WILL be incorporated into my lifestyle! I do not really like exercising first thing in the morning on an empty stomach as I always feel queasy afterwards and if I eat breakfast first, I will feel the oncomings of a runner's nightmare - a stitch. So I normally go for a run mid-afternoon or at night!

My grandparents had bought an excess of cherries and once again, my dad was fretting about them going bad. As well as that 2kg tub of yogurt he bought. So once again, I was stuck with the duty to finish off all these things. I picked out the good ones to bring to uni as a snack (yay!) and this seemed like a wonderful way to use up the cherries! I decided to use this jam in a yogurt cake after the success of the lemon version.

The swirl within the cake is quite simple to do. Pour in half the cake batter, spoon on some cherry jam, pour on remaining batter, spoon on remaining jam, use a skewer and swirl!

I put this in the oven as I went for my run.

I don't know if it was because I knew that this was waiting for me when I got home, but I swear I ran extra fast today!

And what greeted me after that long and strenuous run was this.

This loaf was moist and not too sweet - definitely the perfect post workout snack. Especially when fresh from the oven!

Mmm, look at that wonderful crumb from the yogurt. The top browned quite quickly despite the middle of the cake not being cooked yet. I would probably lower the temperature to 160C next time and cook it for longer, maybe 75 minutes?


Coconut cherry swirl loaf
an original recipe by Crystal Noir

Coconut cake
1 cup dessicated coconut
1 cup whole milk plain unsweetened natural yogurt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt

Cherry jam
2 cups pitted cherries, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon corn flour
1 tablespoon caster  sugar

Method
1. You can either prepare the cherry jam or just use about 3/4-1 cup jam of choice. Add pitted cherries, sugar and corn flour into a food processor. Process until it is chunky or to a texture of your liking.

2. Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease the sides of a 23x12cm loaf pan with oil and line the bottom and sides with baking paper.

3. Spread coconut on a separate tray and toast until golden brown. Remove from oven.

4. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the yogurt, oil and sugar. Beat the 3 eggs in a separate bowl and pour into the large mixing bowl, whisking until combined. Stir in toasted coconut until combined.

5. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together, right over the yogurt mix and stir with a spoon until just combined (make sure not to overmix!)

6. Pour half the batter into the prepared cake pan and spoon on cherry jam. Pour on the remaining batter and top with the remaining cherry jam. Swirl the jam with a skewer - be careful not to overswirl! Bake for 60 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Cover loaf with foil if it browns before it is completely cooked.

7. Transfer the pan to a cooling rack and let it stand for 10 minutes. Transfer the cake onto a plate. When cool, cut and serve. Yum!

Yogurt love

I spent the day with the boy today which was definitely nice and relaxing as I don't have the chance to hang with him as much as I'd like to. He drove over to my place and I made him sunbake with me outside as the weather was so nice! I was craving baked eggs so that was what I made for lunch and it went beautifully with bread.

After lunch, we hit up Westfield Burwood where I had to buy a few things, namely oats and some sugar-free drinking chocolate. I managed to score a box of Lindt's Swiss Gold Dark Chocolate Pralines for $5, saving $10!! I was ecstatic. I don't understand why it was so cheap though... Is it because people aren't into dark chocolate as much as milk or white? Well, I definitely am not complaining because they taste amazing.

And what day is complete without frozen yogurt? Noggi is like my second home.

I love their blood orange flavour! I know you guys have probably heard me rave about Noggi's blood orange frozen yogurt many times but it tastes sooo good. And I was super happy they still had to flavour there from last week so it was a definite order along with our usual biscotti. And no frozen yogurt is complete without toppings! You can only see pineapple there but there was mochi and almonds underneath the mound of pineapple. A combination of chewy, crunchy, and juicy. Bliss.

Baked Eggs
an original recipe by Crystal Noir

Serves 2

This is the type of recipe that you need to keep safe for a cold Winter's day. It really is so simple to make, and it will warm you right up. Just serve with some buttered toast or you can even make some garlic bread to mop up the flavoursome sauce.

Ingredients

1 large tomato, cut into chunks
4-6 tablespoons tomato paste or your choice of sauce (I used Leggo's tomato and mozzarella oven bake)
50g frozen corn, defrosted
50g mozzarella cheese or your choice of cheese
2 eggs
salt and pepper
Spring onion to garnish
Bread to serve

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200C. Divide the tomato paste between the two ramekins. Top with tomato chunks, corn, and any other vegetables of your preference (you can add in as many vegetables as you want or as much as your ramekin can fit! You could add mushroom, peas, etc. The possibilities are endless. I even added a tablespoon of leftover fried rice here! And I'm sure you meatlovers out there might want to add in some bacon, ham or even some chorizo). Add shredded cheese and break an egg on top. Season liberally with salt and pepper and sprinkle spring onion on top. Bake in the oven for 10-20 minutes or until egg is cooked through. Serve with char grilled bread.

Happy birthday daddy!

My father dearest turns 49 today! One year away from being half a century old ;) Despite my plans to serve courses, my dad had a craving for soy braised fish and was adamant on cooking some Chinese vegetable stirfries. He also thought that I should take it slow and not be too ambitious when cooking for a large number of people for the first time. Well, he did have a point there... We had invited my grandparents and uncle over as well because they have been cooking dinner for us very often lately! And it was about time they got to relax. Out of the dishes that I did cook, I'm definitely the proudest of my ratatouille and my spaghetti with a ragout of oriental mushrooms.

I did particular love this Pixar film. What's not to love about an adorable rat who can cook? Though in real life, I don't think any rat could be adorable. Even if it could cook. Ah how cartoons can make even the most ugliest of animals cute in some way. Anyway, I digress.

This dish is actually quite easy to make and the vegetables become so soft from the long braising process in the oven. For a dish so simple, I found it extremely delicious and satisfying. The hardest part was probably the layering but once I got going, I got into the rhythm of things and found myself in a state of nirvana almost ;)

Thomas Keller's original recipe for the movie is more complicated than mine and you can find it here. But I thought I'd go with something more simple before attempting his version. Instead, I adapted a recipe I found on Smitten Kitchen.

Ratatouille
an original recipe by Crystal Noir

Ingredients

2 VERY small onions (probably half a normal sized onion), sliced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup tomato puree (I used a mix of tomato puree and tomato sauce)
1 zucchini
2 roma tomatos
2 baby eggplants
1 yellow bell pepper
Lemon juice
Balsamic vinegar (I used about 2-3 tablespoons)
Salt and pepper

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius. While oven is heating, pour tomato puree into the bottom of an oval baking dish (or whatever shape you want really) and scatter the minced garlic and sliced onion on top of the sauce. Season sauce generously with salt and pepper.

2. I'd recommend that all us non-Iron chefs use a mandoline slicer for the process of cutting the vegetables to make our lives easier - unless of course you are a ninja slicer and have mad samurai sword skills. Trim off the edges of the vegetables and slice the zucchini and tomatoes on the mandoline to about 2mm in thickness. I found that cutting the bell pepper by hand was easier.
TIP: Slice the eggplants last as they oxidise quickly! Squeeze some lemon juice on them to prevent this from happening.

3. Arrange the sliced vegetables on top of the tomato sauce so that they are overlapping each other and about 1/2 centimetre is exposed, alternating between dark and light colours for the most contrast. For example, zucchini (dark), tomato (light), eggplant (dark), pepper (light). Season generously with salt and pepper, and add a splash of balsamic vinegar. You can also sprinkle over some fresh herbs (oregano, parsley, thyme, etc) if you like.

4. Wrap baking dish in foil and bake in the oven for about 45 minutes - 1 hour. You want the vegetables to retain their shape and not be completely limp but clearly cooked through.

5. Serve with bread, couscous, or anything that takes your fancy really!

Hello Mr Ducky

Well don't you look tasty?

Cooked an egg inside bread on our toastie machine! I love this toastie, it's so useful.

I have to go to work later for a couple of hours. Don't get me wrong, I love my current job but it's just that I should be looking for a proper architectural job as I graduate next year already (eep!)... But no one wants an undergraduate :(

Planning

Am currently planning the dinner that I am cooking for my daddy dearest's birthday next Saturday! It'll happen either on the Saturday or Sunday depending - probably on the Sunday as he normally spends the day at his takeaway shop preparing for a week of cooking and feeding people who come into his shop. At the moment, I'm thinking of the following:

Entree #1: Szechuan broth with pork dumplings
A recipe from "Heston Blumenthal at home". It was originally duck dumplings, but I'm serving a duck main so I thought that eating duck twice in one sitting would be too much haha.

Entree #2: Ratatouille
Fell in love with the beauty of this dish from the Pixar film.

Main #1: Salmon sashimi with Rice, Honey and Soy
Tweaked Tetsuya's pan-fried duck foie gras and replaced it with salmon (:

Main #2: Linguine with a Ragout of Oriental Mushrooms
I really liked the sound of this recipe from "Tetsuya" as the flavours are Asian, but it's a pasta dish which is Italian. I really want my grandparents to try other cuisines, but their tastebuds have been wired a certain way from eating Asian food all their lives. Since I didn't want to overwhelm them, I thought that this was a subtle way to introduce them to another cuisine, fusion style.

Main #3: Five-spiced duck breast
Once again, an Asian-style Heston Blumenthal recipe. Contemplating whether I should add rice to this recipe..? But I probably won't as I'm using rice in the first main - though it is a small amount... Ah well.

Dessert
I was really enamoured by Jowett Yu's deconstructed lemon tart that can be found on Ms G's menu. Taking inspiration from this dessert, I decided to do a pina colada version because of my love for both coconut and pineapple yum! So probably a pineapple curd topped with streusel, then pipe on some coconut mousse with some hidden coconut gel pieces and some lychee lime granita to finish.

I have quite a few things to buy and prepare for... Especially cleaning the house...

On another note, my mother came home with puff pastry remains from my parent's takeaway shop. They used to it make pies, so essentially, they cut out circles from the pastry for the pie casing and were left with the edges. Seriously, what did she expect me to do with those crappy remains?! So I waited for the pastry to thaw out and I pieced them all together to form a square and rolled it out until it was flat once again. We have quite a lot of cinnamon sugar remaining in the house that no one ever uses so I decided to make some cinnamon scrolls and since I was at it, also some ham and cheese ones.

Before baking (you can still see all the cracks from a gazillion little pieces that were essentially smushed together to form a whole pieces of puff pastry...)

TIP - cut the pieces with thread as knives would squash the rolls.

After baking - so good fresh from the oven!

OH YES CHECK OUT ALL THAT BLISTERED MOZZARELLA CHEESE!! AND THAT OOZY CARAMELISED SUGAR. The cinnamon scrolls were very good with vanilla icecream. It would've been better if I had made a sugared glaze like they do at the bakeries but I couldn't be bothered - rolling out the pastry was a lot of hard work!

Off to clean up house which will be very hard work since I have all my model materials just lying around everywhere... Fun times.

Happy weekend everyone!

xx

saturday lunchies

 

Salad of cucumber, mushroom, carrots, red onion and avocado, with sweet chilli sauce and lemon juice!

 In the process of making an omelette for my sister for lunch (:

breakfast frittata in toast

This morning, I was craving a delicious breakfast. I had a lot of leftover vegetable fillings from my dad's sandwich shop that I definitely wanted to use so I somehow wanted to combine them together and what better way to bind things together than making an omelette? But I didn't have an egg ring so I made do with the crust of some wholemeal bread!

I suppose it doesn't really count as an omelette anymore... More like a frittata haha. I beat an egg with a dash of milk and parmesan cheese, poured it into my crust ring, and added in red onion, carrots, cucumber, mushrooms, and some chicken. This was cooked on low heat until the base was brown the flipped over to cook the other side. The end result? Delicious ;) Didn't even need to add salt because all the vegetables had their own flavours!

And nothing is better than some hot lemon honey tea on a cold winter's morning!

pizza toast

Wholemeal toast with spaghetti bolognese (my dad makes this sauce so tasty! I might post up recipe soon haha) and topped with Devondale mozzarella cheese. Healthy makeshift pizza! I toasted the bread in a pan with no oil to create a crunchy base (:

delicious feast

Food, food, and more food! Our grand aunt is almost leaving to go back to China so it was only natural for my parents to cook a grand Asian feast for dinner! So much food for a mere 9 people... There were all sorts of delectable things including the massive $200 lobster they bought! Yummy food indeed. There is also a sponge cake which I made in the oven right now, which I ought to go check on. I will talk to you guys soon!