Garlic Mushrooms in Cream Sauce - New Year's Tapas

Continuing on with the recipes served for our New Year's Tapas gathering, I now give you my very own Garlic Mushrooms in Cream Sauce.

Once again, the inspiration for this came from something I had enjoyed at La Bodega's in Kuala Lumpur at a friends 40th Birthday Party as recently as November last year. The Lovely Wife wasn't able to go bu I remember coming back and telling her how much I had enjoyed the dish. It was like a tasty mushroom soup but more flavourful and thicker, so much so that you could scoop it up with slices of bread. So, as usual, I made a note to try and replicate it and thought that this would be a good time to try it out.




This is rather an easy dish to prepare while the results are quite outstanding. This is what I did:

Ingredients
6 cloves garlic
2 tsps Oregano
1 tsp Rosemary
400g Button Mushrooms
Black Pepper
200ml Cream
2Tbsp Lemon Juice
Corn Flour
Method
Quarter the mushrooms and set aside. In a large base pan, sautee the oregano, rosemary and black pepper in olive oil. Add in the mushrooms and cook well while stirring frequently. Cook till the mushrooms are tender but still firm. Add in the cream and season with salt then stir in the lemon juice. Allow to simmer and thicken with a little corn flour mixed with water if necessary.

In retrospect, I think that perhaps some chopped chives would have added some colour and more flavour to the dish but quite frankly, it tasted just great as it was. Testament to how good this dish was is how quickly it was finished. The Lovely Wife kept making eyes at me as everyone dug into the Tapas and I thought that she was so enamoured with my dish that she was giving me sultry, seductive looks.

Turned out though that she was just trying to get my attention to fill up the bowl with more of the Mushrooms - and that was polished off just as quickly!




I must make a note that Tapas is really best served with some chilled wine. Perhaps the next time...

Spanish Meatballs - New Year's Tapas

In my previous post, I spoke about how we started off the New Year with a Tapas meal for a few good friends. I promised that recipes would be provided soon and to start it off, this is the recipe for my Spanish Meatballs

The inspiration for this comes from a local Tapas restaurant that serves great meatballs in a tomato based sauce. I like my meatballs meaty and without that floury or artificial bite. For me, the bite from meatballs has to come from pure meat!




I used my tried and tested meatball recipe except that I added in a little chilli. For the sauce, I made a Tomato based sauce flavoured with a lot of Thai Basil. This is what I did.

Ingredients
For the Meatballs
500g Minced Beef
1 green chilli - chopped
1 onion - chopped
2 cloves garlic - chopped
2 Tbsp Tomato Sauce

For the Sauce
2 cloves garlic - chopped
1 Onion - chopped
4 bay leaves
1 Can Stewed Tomatoes
50g Fresh Thai Basil

Method
First, make the meatballs:
Mix all the ingredients together and leave to marinate for about 30 minutes. Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Roll the mixture into small tight balls and place on a baking pan.
Bake for about 20 mins or until the meatballs are able to hold their shape.
While the meatballs are baking, start with the sauce.

Sautee the garlic and onion together with the bay leave till fragrant. Add in the can of stewed tomatoes and season with salt and pepper. Remove the Basil leaves from stalks and chop the large leaves roughly. Add the leaves into the sauce and allow to simmer.

Once meatballs are cooked, add the meatballs togehter with the drippings into the sauce. Allow to simmer and for the sauce to infuse into the meatballs for about 20 minutes.

Serve with bread.

The meatballs were lovely and firm and the sauce tasted just great eaten with bread. The Lovely Wife was quite surprised by how well it turned out as she had her doubts while I was making it. I keep wondering, after all these years together and all these blog posts, why she keeps doubting me. But I guess that is a wife's perogative! The kids enjoyed it too and I have to say that it really made quite a delicious Tapas. It kept well and was a great snack the next day too!

2011 - kickstarting the Foodie New Year

Since we didn't have our usual Christmas celebration, The Lovely Wife and I decided that we would have a few close friends over on the 2nd January 2011 to welcome in the New Year.

One of my best mates, Vanesh, who has been working in Botswana for more than a decade, always comes home over Christmas and always spends it with us on Christmas day at my parents. I've known Vanesh for almost all my life and he is indeed like a brother to me. Lynn is another common fixture at all our gatherings and Tina is another friend who is really close to us. The kids know these friends of ours really well and we hope that they will continue to grow up with these friends of ours a part of their lives. So yes, it was more a family gathering as these three friends are very much like family to us. Family though they may be, it is still difficult to find a common time when everyone is available. Fortunately, tea time on Sunday seemed to work for everyone!

Tea at our house is never just about a cake and a cup of tea or coffee. Initial discussions with The Lovely Wife revolved around fried noodles and then meandered to sausage rolls and even fruit tarts. Eventually, we settled for a bunch of diferent finger food and decided to go the route of Tapas.

One thing that was the common denominator though was my Chocolate Cake. After all, I hadn't made the cake for Christmas so it seemed like a good time to make the cake and keep the tradition alive.

I've always know that Tapas is a variety of appetisers in Spanish cuisine. I've also always known that many Tapas can be ordered to comprise a full meal. What I didnt know was the origins of Tapas.

According to the Tapas entry on Wikipedia The word "tapas" comes from the Spanish verb tapar that means "to cover". According to legend, the tapas tradition began when King Alfonso X of Castile recovered from an illness by drinking wine with small dishes between meals. After regaining his health, the king ordered that taverns could only serve wine to customers if it was accompanied by a small snack or "tapa."

Other explanations say that the word "tapa" in Spanish means lid or cover and that often, a piece of bread would be placed over a glass of wine or juice to protect it from flies - thus providing a cover for the glass. At some point, this piece of bread was 'covered' with a snack.

It is also commonly said that since one would be standing while eating a tapa in traditional Spanish bars, they would need to place their plates on top of their drinks in order to eat, making it a top.

There are many other variants and explanations of how Tapas came to be but I'll stick to what we prepared.


We decided we would buy loads of bread to serve with the Tapas and so we got 3 different kinds from the nearby bakery - Sundried Tomato Loaf, Farmers White Loaf and a Baguette.



The Lovely Wife made some Tuna Cutlets.



I made some Garlic Mushrooms in Cream Sauce



and also my version of Spanish Meatballs.




And of course, my Chocolate Cake.

It was a really fun evening and I think everyone enjoyed the food. More important than the good food though was the good company. It's not easy finding good friends and good friends that become part of your family are even harder to find. We are indeed lucky that we have a lot more 'friends who are family' that are around both here in Malaysia and in other parts of the world, but just like any family, its difficult to get everyone together at the same time. Our hope for the New Year is that we will have many more of our friends over - especially the other 'Friends who are family' that are in Malaysia - and of course all the others when they come home!

Happy New Year 2011 everyone!

Recipes will be provided in due course.

'Tis the Season...and plans get changed - again and again!

This Christmas was going to be a bit different - for all of us. For me, personally, it was the first christmas that my grandmother wasn't around. She passed away early in the year. For The Lovely Wife, it was her first Christmas without her father, who passed away in September. With that, traditions and what we normally do on Christmas would be different.

Usually on Christmas Eve, The Lovely Wife, kids and I go to her parents house where we are joined by the other siblings and sometimes TLW's uncle and family for Christmas Eve dinner. That has been the tradition ever since I got married. My parents on the other hand, usually go to my Grandmothers house.

This year, the original plan was to have Christmas Eve dinner at our place with TLW's family and my parents. However, all plans sometimes go awry and TLW got called back to work for something urgent on the 22nd and she reckoned she could possibly be tied up on the 24th as well. So... we decided to call off Christmas Eve dinner and notified the rest of the family to 'go do their own thing.'

Come Christmas Eve however, The Lovely Wife managed to finish off all that she had to do and my parents suggested that we go out for dinner. I suggested to The Lovely Wife that we get her family over after dinner for dessert as I had already made the dessert. We could all then open up our presents as we would normally do on Christmas Eve. That sounded like a good plan.


Late in the afternoon of the 24th, we were out shopping and so on the way home, we decided to stop at a restaurant nearby to make reservations for dinner. Would you believe that at 4pm, they were already fully booked for Christmas Eve dinner? And here we thought that everyone would be at home on Chrissy Eve!

I decided then that rather than go out somewhere I would cook a simple meal. As I said, dessert had already been made the day before so it was just deciding on the main meal. I decided to keep it really simple and just get some bread and toss up a pasta as well as some fried sausages. That would be enough for my parents and the 4 of us.

It was then that The Lovely Wife asked if since I was already cooking, could I make extra and invite her family over as well, rather than just getting them to come for dessert. No Problem!

So...rather than just make one pasta, I made two. TLW's family bought some Pizza too and brought that over so there was plenty. It was really good having everyone over and the meal was enjoyed by all.


So for Christmas Eve Dinner, this was what we had:


Pasta Salmone - Pasta with Smoked Salmon and Portobello Mushrooms in a creamy sauce lightly flavoured with Salmon stock and tomatoes.




Spicy Vegetarian Pasta - Zuchini, Fresh Thai Basil and Red Capsicum tossed in Chilli Flakes



Sausages fried with Basil




Triple layered Chocolate delight - Oreo base layer, baked mousse layer with nuts and topped with a final layer of Chocolate Mousse.

Not forgetting the garlic bread and the bought pizza :)

Dessert didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it to, but it was still a mighty delicious dessert nonetheless. I had wanted the baked layer of the dessert to be softer but it turned out more like a brownie thanks to me adding in too much flour, forgetting that the cocoa would act as a binder as well. (I redid the layer a few days later and I'll post about that soon - I hope!)

We didn't put up the Christmas tree either this year either so the kids decided that our reading light was going to be the Imaginary Christmas Tree...



...and all the presents were placed under this light in lieu of the tree. After all, the tree is usually place in this spot anyway!



A week earlier, I had ordered a new TV for the family as prior to this we were still in the Stone Age with an old CRT TV - thats Cathode Ray Tube TV for those that have never seen a fat old TV Set before. I took the opportunity to take a picture on Christmas Eve night since all the other presents were being opened and this was by far the biggest present! Note the small ribbon that we put on the TV...



Now we have the latest but probably not the greatest, but still a marked improvement to what we used to have! The kids love it and so does The Lovely Wife! I have to admit that watching football(soccer) on the big screen is so much more fun - especially so when I have hooked up the sound to my audio system!

The best part about this dinner was getting the whole family together. Christmas Eve dinner is rarely about the food and more about just getting together with lots of love and laughter!

Merry Christmas Everyone and a Blessed New Year ahead!

Crème Brûlée infused with ginger

Crème Brûlée is something I've always wanted to make. So a few weeks ago, when we had Lynn and Tina over for a get together, I decided to make Crème Brûlée. I also wanted to use my kitchen blowtorch that I had bought some time ago. I'd used the torch for briefly searing tomatoes and peppers but nothing really fancy. I'd actually bought the torch for desserts like Crème Brûlée so this was a perfect excuse to make the dessert and use the torch!

The Lovely Wife had mentioned that one of her friends had told her about this fabulous Ginger flavoured Crème Brûlée at some restaurant. A couple of weeks earlier, we had tried the Ginger Creme Brulee over lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant. It was a big disappointment as the custard was lumpy and runny at the same time. The flavours though were really quite good.



I adapted a recipe I found in the Readers Digest Your Cooking Questions Answered - one of The Lovely Wife's favourite cookbooks. This is what I did:

Ingredients
600ml Whipping Cream
2 tsp Vanilla Essence
4 large egg yolks (or 5 medium egg yolks)
125g Caster Sugar
3 tsps ground ginger
Method
Preheat oven to 150C. Heat the cream with the vanilla and ginger until just boiling. Remove from heat and allow the ginger to infuse into the cream.
Beat the egg yolks with half the sugar until thick and creamy. Temper the yolks with a little cream and then whisk in the cream ensuring that the yolks dont curdle. Pour the custard into 6 ramekins.
Put the ramekins in a baking pan and pour in enough hot water to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake for at least one hour or until set.
Remove from the pan and allow to cool before refrigerating for several hours, preferably overnight.
Before serving, sprinkle the tops with the remaining sugar and then caramelise the sugar with a cooking torch. Serve immediately.

[If you dont have a torch, place the sugar covered custard under a very hot grill until the sugae caramelises. Chill again for a few hours or the custard creams will be hot]

To say that this was delicious would be somewhat of an understatement. The ginger flavour of the Creme Brulee was lovely. I was in a bit of a rush and the custards didnt set as well as I had hoped, with the centre a little runny. I think that was partially due to the eggs being slightly smaller than usual. Also, I think it would need to be baked for a while longer to set really well.

Nonetheless, the custard turned out rather well and I was most pleased with the caramel layer. It was crisp and full of flavour and it was a lot of fun cracking the crust and digging into the smooth custard underneath.



A lovely dessert, very professional looking and really yummy! Something I will definitely make again and the best part of this dessert is the fun using the torch!!

How I celebrated my Birthday Part Two..

In my previous post, I talked about the earlier part of the day of how I celebrated my Birthday. This is what happened later in the evening....

TLW came home a bit late as it started raining and she was caught in a jam. She got home just a short while before my parents left and the kids had a quick shower before we headed out again.

We decided to just go to one of the shops in the nearby shopping centre as it was still raining and it was getting late. Dinner was at The Meat Experts where we had some ribs and sausages. The kids wanted to get back home quickly and I knew that the kids and The Lovely Wife had something up their sleaves as they kept whispering and making remarks about not having dessert all the way home.

Once we got home, I was barred from the kitchen. The Lovely Wife had bought something on the way back from office but I had no idea what it was. I soon found out though...

Before they came out of the kitchen, Sarah sat at the piano to play me Happy Birthday!



The Lovely Wife then came out of the kitchen with some cake.


She had bought two slices of cake from Harrods in KLCC. One slice was a Victoria Sponge that is apparently a hot favourite at Harrods. The other was a Jaffa Cake. She also bougght two slices of a chocolate cake called Chocalate Devil Cake from Chinoz, KLCC.









It was a lovely gesture from The Lovely Wife but I have to say that the cakes were a HUGE disappointment - especially when the Lovely Wife told me how much the cakes from Harrods cost. Exhorbitant. s.i.m.p.l.y.
e.x.h.o.r.b.i.t.a.n.t. I was surprised that the cakes were so highly priced when they really weren't all that tasty.

The chocolate cakes from Chinoz were just as bad and my son remarked to The Lovely Wife that she should have known better than to buy me cakes that werent nice. He remarked that the cakes from Coffee Bean would have been nicer as "At least we all like those cakes!"

In The Lovely Wife's defence though, she was just trying cakes from different shops and as I said earlier it was such a lovely gesture.
That's why she really IS The LOVELY Wife!

Thanks for the cake slices honey, thanks for the lovely dinner and most of all Thanks for being The Lovely Wife!

So ends another birthday story for me....