Posts tagged food photography

Breakfast, the most important meal of the day

I love breakfast. It’s a little more difficult to make breakfast for one but I still love breakfast. I always have. I like breakfasts and dinners. Lunches I have less of an affinity for, unless it’s a dim sum lunch with friends.

Starting 2 January, I’ll have less opportunity for breakfast because I’m starting work at Boulangerie Paul which is opening at Ngee Ann City (3rd story). Don’t quote me on when the big opening date is exactly! Even though the work is retail and I’ll be starting from the bottom up, I’ve been given the opportunity to learn pastry and I’m really excited.

To be honest, my mom isn’t exactly thrilled that her daughter is going to be working at a retail shop. Words and more were exchanged last night and I’ve not quite recovered from it yet. I don’t know if I will like it myself but my dad said “you don’t know until you try.” And sure, I’ve failed at a few things in my life already but I feel that I have to try. At the very least, the hard work and operational hours will hopefully take my mind off other things in my life.

My first acquaintance with Paul was in London, at South Kensington meeting a friend years ago if I remember correctly. And then there was Paul in Paris and Lille. Trivia of the day - Paul, as it stands, started off in Lille. I like their lemon and chocolate tarts. Great pâte sucrée, the lemon curd is cooked just enough to ward off the over eggy taste.

The more I think about it, hell yeah. The more excited I am about it.

Bonjour to a new day and a great start to the new year.

Open-faced burgers

I love a good hamburger and my preferred patty is made from minced pork, minced beef, and chopped bacon. The good things about making your own are:

1. You know exactly what’s in it
2. No messing around with unwanted stuff like chutney or onion marmalade (yes, I know there are some of your who actually like the stuff!)
3. You can make em whatever size you want
4. You can keep an emergency stash somewhere for those “I need meat” moments.

Ingredients:

• 250g minced beef
• 250g minced pork
• 150g bacon, chopped into small bits
• 1 medium sized onion, chopped finely
• A couple of cloves of garlic, pressed or chopped finely
• A handful of Panko breadcrumbs
• Couple of teaspoons of milk
• Salt and pepper

Directions:

Pop everything into a large bowl and mix well to distribute the different meats evenly.

Mix the milk with the breadcrumbs and add to the meat mixture.

Season with salt and pepper

You can also add other yummy things like feta cheese to the meat mixture, chives. 

Shape into patties. Coat lightly with flour to help it hold its shape. When ready, pop them into a frying pan and fry till the meat is browned on the outside and cooked on the inside.

I had my burgers with some baguette from Sun Moulin which I buttered lightly and topped with a hint of Naked Baby mayo, and sides of cherry tomatoes tossed in olive oil and grilled cauliflower (which is really easy - cut into florets, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with some salt and pepper and grill till tender)

I also remember having these little burgers with rice and an egg on lazy days.

Meat & mushroom tartlets in a herbed crust

About two weeks, a friend pinged me and asked if I’d be interested in be interviewed for a feature in the Sunday Times. Here’s the article from the 4th of December. The theme was Christmas and the journalist was looking for something savoury coz the other people were making sweet things - mulled wine, cake pops and cupcakes. Another friend of mine suggested making mince pies with a twist - the mince being savoury instead of the Christmas minced pies that are traditionally sweet with spices in them.

It just so happened that the book Kitchen Coquette had reached me the day before and as I was pouring through its pages, our jumped a recipe for meat & mushroom tartlets.

[Adapted from Kitchen Coquette for the filling & Tartelette for the pastry]

Ingredients:

(For the pastry)

• 1.5 cups of all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp dry mustard
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• a pinch of salt
• 3 egg yolks
• 70 g unsalted butter

(For the filling)

• 150g minced pork
• 150g minced chicken
• 100g shitake mushrooms, finely chopped
• Small handful of shitake mushrooms sliced into fingers
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped or pressed
• 1/2 tbsp spoon thyme
• Zest of half a lemon, finely grated
• Half a cup of cooking cream
• Salt and pepper
• Handful of parsley, finely chopped

Directions:

In a mixer, whip together the butter, mustard, herbs, and salt on medium speed until light and airy. Add the egg yolks, one at a time and beating well after each addition. Mix until incorporated. Add the flour and mix briefly.

Gather the dough into a smooth ball. Flatten the dough into a disk, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.

When the dough is nice and cold, roll it out on a lightly floured board or in between two sheets of plastic to fit your tart tins. If the dough tears while you roll or/and transfer into the pan, just patch it with your fingertips.

Refrigerate 30 minutes before baking.  (You can freeze the dough for up to 3 months and prepare it up to 4 days in advance.)

To make the filling, heat some oil in a frying pan and sauté the onions till translucent. Add the mince and fry till golden brown. Add the chopped mushrooms, garlic, thyme and lemon and cook till fragrant and all the meat has cooked through.

Reduce heat and stir the cream through, together with salt and pepper to taste. Just before taking it off the heat, stir the chopped parsley in.

In a clean frying pan, heat up some butter and fry the sliced mushrooms until golden. Set aside.

Spoon the filling into the prepared tart shells. Top with the butter mushroom slices and bake in an oven preheated to 180ºC until the crusts have cooked through and the meat and mushrooms have taken on a golden brown hue.

~~

There are quite a few steps to it but you can make a larger batch of tart shells and freeze them. These are delightful little savoury bites for tea parties or for a buffet style get together. Enjoy!

Japanese tonkatsu on rice

A couple of months ago (yes, this photo is that old), Sue Ern came over for dinner instead of trying to rub elbows with the Orchard Road human traffic and I decided to make tonkatsu because we both are meat eaters. We had a great time catching up over a quick bit of frying, eating and make up. I thought I’d post my tonkatsu recipe because many people don’t know easy it is to make. It’s Japanese but really, it’s just pork chops. What makes it Japanese is the “naked baby” mayo and the tonkatsu sauce (I like the Bull Dog brand).

Ingredients:

• 4 pork chops (you can use loin too)
• 2 tbsp soy
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 tbsp Chinese cooking wine (optional)
• White pepper powder
• Flour for dusting/coating
• 1 egg
• Panko breadcrumbs
• Oil for frying

Directions:

Sandwich the pork chops between two pieces of cling wrap and flatten with a mallet until about 1/3” thick.

Make the marinade by mixing the soy, sesame oil, Chinese cooking wine and pepper together. Add the pork chops to the marinade and until the chops are well coated. Leave for a couple of hours to marinade or overnight.

Heat up about half an inch of oil in a fying pan till medium-high.

While the oil is heating up, line up the following in shallow dishes: flour, egg, Panko bread crumbs. Take each piece of pork and dust with flour. Next dip into the egg mixture quickly and coat both sides. Then transfer to the dish with bread crumbs and coat well with the breadcrumbs. You may have to use your fingers to press the crumbs in.

Fry the pork chops in the oil until the outside is golden and the pork chops are cooked through.

Serve on a bed of warm Japanese rice with “naked baby” mayo and tonkatsu sauce. Here, I added some rocket/arugula leaves dressed with mayo to the dish. And there you have it, Japanese tonkatsu.

~~

The best thing about tonkatsu is that you can make a big batch and store it in the freezer, sandwiched between waxed freezer paper or baking parchment. Just pop them into the fridge compartment a couple of hours before cooking to thaw and you’ll have a really simple easy meal that you can whip up in no time.

Megan, this recipe’s for you :)

Cupcakes New York City style

The cupcake craze began in New York I think and I read about Magnolia Bakery in my IDEO Eyes Open New York book that I bought mainly for the gorgeous photography. I didn’t make it there my first trip so it was on my priority list of to do’s the second trip, and I made it to both the West Village and Rockefeller branches. Of course, four cupcakes in 4 days was really too much for me so I shared.

Firstly, I have to say choosing only four cupcakes from dozens of different flavours is really hard, especially when (a) you’re alone and don’t have a friend to talk about the merits of one over the other, (b) you only have a finite amount of stomach space over 4 days and (c) the cupcakes are perishable and you should realistically only keep ‘em for 2 days and don’t have the luxury of time to keep going back every day for a new cupcake.

Then there’s also merchandise and I so really wanted a Magnoloa I [cupcake] NY tee-shirt. Or something.

The Magnolia cupcakes were good, but not absolutely great.

And then one day, I chanced upon… BabyCakes (248 Broome Street, between Orchard & Ludlow, NY 10002).

Until a tweet from a friend, I hadn’t even heard about BabyCakes. Vegan bakery? I didn’t know the difference between a vegan and a vegetarian. But since she mentioned, and since we were there, I had to go in.

The interior is kitschy, it looks like a home-run bakery. There is so much to take in and there’s so much happening.

I love, in particular, how the signages are hang drawn, even the “we accept these forms of payment” sign. I love that they discount day old goodies.

And I love my red velvet. This has got to be the yummiest red velvet I’ve ever had. Who’d think it’s vegan? It was so good that as soon as I got back to London, all I wanted was the BabyCakes cook book, which I have now, but have not made anything from yet because I haven’t read to understand the way vegan/gluten-free baking works.

The cupcake craze spread to London but I think that London tends to put a little too much icing sugar in the buttercream frosting. (In Singapore, that’d have to be the case too else it would just melt in the heat!) Singaporean bakers are also going cupcake crazy. I’d be really happy to buy a cupcake every once in a while (from BabyCakes) when the craving hit because baking (and eating) a lot of cupcakes would mean eating a lot of calories! :)

Grimaldi’s. Pizza.

Found Grimaldi’s when my friend, Pete, and I were out exploring Brooklyn one Saturday afternoon in September. We walked across the Manhattan Bridget thinking it was the nicer pedestrian bridge (which is of course the Brooklyn Bridge - duh) on the one day the sun decided t shine with all its might. Having only just arrived in New York, both of us had no idea what we were doing! After walking from the subway, and thinking that there was nothing around in Brooklyn, we finally found Dumbo and I remember him saying “I think I finally get Brooklyn now.” He searched his Yelp app and we found rave reviews of Grimaldi’s. They accept only cash, there are no reservations, and if you want a takeaway, you queue with the rest of them waiting in line for a table.

Pete and I didn’t end up actually eating at Grimaldi’s because the line was so long (on hindsight, it moved pretty quickly and we should have) but I vowed to return. And return I did! Twice.

Pizza and root beer, a great combination. On both occasions, I had a meaty pizza and root beer, because root beer is so uncommon in London.

I shall leave you to read others’ reviews of Grimaldi’s but in one word, it was good.

Grimaldi’s. Apparently Grimaldi’s has moved. It’s still in Dumbo but at Front Street and not Old Fulton Street anymore. Google for the background to the dispute. And definitely have some pizza when you’re in Brooklyn.

Fresh Salt

One of the things I love about New York City is how everything is online and how there’s a review of everything I’ve looked for. Can’t remember the name of a shop that I went to in Dumbo, Brooklyn - googled it and found the P.S. Bookstore (I only later noticed that there was a banner at the back with the name printed on it). Can’t remember where I had a meatloaf sandwich but remember getting lost around Pier 17 - googled “meatloaf sandwich Pier 17” and found Fresh Salt. Good thing their meatloaf sandwich is apparently “the best” so there were many hits on Yelp and other food review sites.

Fresh Salt is on 146 Beekman St (NY 10038). Small, pub like. I got lost trying to get their as there are two Beekman Streets or two (un-joined) parts of Beekman Street. I didn’t have GPS (roaming data was hugely expensive) and my tourist map wasn’t much of a help, neither were the multitudes of people I asked when I was on the other Beekman. And to top it off, the reception/speaker on the crappy Nokia disposable I had was so bad I couldn’t really hear the directions my friend Andrew on the other end was giving. I finally made it over to Pier 17 and wandered lost for ages till I was found.

I ordered the meatloaf sandwich coz it’s what they’re famous for. It tasted like a burger but I’ve never had meatloaf before (not after, actually) so I don’t know what to compare it to. And beers. Well, Kelly and I had white wines. Was a fun night before packing it in and me heading back to Andrew’s studio (he lent his apartment to me when I was there - thank you!!) and Kelly & him heading back over to Brooklyn.

Some other places that I (think I) didn’t get lost in around New York.

Serendipity 3

Serendipity has been one of my favourite movies since I first saw it absolute yonks ago. I loved the city. So when my friend said that Serendipity 3, which was where the cafe scene in the film was shot in, was just mere blocks away from his apartment, I knew I’d have to go. He said to go early too coz as soon as it hits lunch time, the queue gets pretty long.

The decor in Serendipity looks like a little girl’s life-sized fairy doll’s house with strings of pearls hanging from the ceiling, flowers and fairy lights everywhere. The waiters were larger than life characters dress in black and sang “happy birthday” to me!

Their signature trademarked drinks - the Frrrozen® Drinks.

They also do breakfasts and a light lunch menu.

And me being the crazy nutter I am about cookbooks, left with a cookbook in tow signed by  Stephen Bruce himself who happened to be at the cafe that day.

I wonder where I’ll be this next birthday in 2012?

More on New York.