High Fidelity

Steamed asparagus with kaiser fleish and garlic

Steamed asparagus with kaiser fleish and garlic, originally uploaded by yongtze.

I have been ordering organic vegetables and fruits "Box of the Week" ($35) from "Green Line Organic Direct" for a few weeks and have to say that I am quite pleased with it. To give an idea what you can get in a box: Today I received 5 apples, 4 mandarins, 2 navel oranges, 4 bananas, 4 roma tomatoes, 3 potatoes, half a pumpkin, one bunch of celery, a small bag of baby spinach leaves, about 12 mushrooms, 2 carrots, 1 iceberg lettuce, and about 12 asparagus. Not exactly cheap but I would say it is reasonable and comparable to Safeway Homeshop (Not even organic).

With the asparagus, I decided to steam it quickly and then mix with pan-fried kaiser fleish (kind of like smoked bacon) and garlic. I have been eating steamed vegetables recently for its simplicity, speed and obvious health reasons.

Another reason is that as I always cook rice on the stove - when the rice is being boiled and cooked, just wait until most of the water evaporates and little holes appear in the surface on the rice, throw in the cut vegetables onto the rice and put the lid back on. While the rest of the water continues to boil and evaporates as the rice is being cooked, the steam cooks the vegetables in 2-5 minutes. So I get the rice and the vegetables cooked in the same pot and around the same time, extremely simple, fast and less washing-up to do!

I like squeezing my orange juice

Orange juice, originally uploaded by yongtze.

"We demand a level of convenience that is immodest.... We have lost familiarity with how things were made and the association of effort with reward" - Camilla Plum

How you like your omelette?

I'm just wondering how people like their omelettes? Fully cooked and slightly browned on one side? Or like French omelettes - moist, creamy inside?

The end of living in Melbourne CBD

It's been more than a month since I put up any photo or recipe. It's not that I haven't been taking photos or cooking - I've been extremely busy with moving, work and study, and was sick for about 2 weeks - all these happened in the middle of winter. I should say July is the least favourite month in the year for me.

I just moved out of the city a few weeks ago. Belows are some photos that I took near my apartment - surroundings that I used to see everyday.

Banana sticky toffee pudding

Banana sticky toffee pudding, originally uploaded by yongtze.

I saw this recipe from Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Heaven and thought it would be nice for winter - moist, warm dessert with banana.

I did not have soft brown sugar so I substituted it with raw sugar. Also, I did not follow the recipe for the sauce because I did not have double cream at home. Instead I make a simple butter-caramel sauce. Fortunately it still turns out to be quite delicious.

Serves 4-6:

• 170g unsalted butter
• 180g soft brown sugar
• 2 small eggs
• 180g plain flour
• 12g baking powder
• 200g chopped banana

For the sauce:

• 250g soft brown sugar
• 140ml double cream
• 65g unsalted butter

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius. Cream butter and sugar together. Then beat in eggs and fold in flour and baking powder. Mix in chopped bananas to the mixture.

2. Grease 6 moulds and sprinkle caster sugar at the bottom and sides (I did not have so many moulds so I used a small bread tin and increased the baking time a bit). Divide the mixture into the moulds and bake for 10 minutes.

3. Turn down the heat to 150 degree Celsius and continue to bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes.

4. When the pudding is almost done, place sugar, cream and butter in a pan and bring to boil. When all sugar is dissolved, remove from heat and pour it over the baked pudding to serve.

Chinese roasted pork

Chinese roasted pork, originally uploaded by yongtze.

Chinese roasted pork is my favourite pork dish - It is simple but unbelievably tasty, with its crisp skin and juicy tender meat. I seriously don't mind eating it everyday. I can eat this at home and even when I eat out in Chinese restaurants, often twice a day!

I especially love the crisp, crunchy skin. It is not hard to achieve as long as the rind is completely dry before it goes into the hot oven. For this you need patience and time, which is not hard because you are just leaving the pork to dry out in the fridge when you can do whatever you like in the mean time.

Serve three or four with rice:

• A whole piece of pork belly (about 1kg)
• 1.5 teaspoon sugar
• 1.5 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon five-spice powder
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• More salt
• Vegetable oil

1. Mix sugar, salt, five-spice powder and minced garlic. And rub this mixture into the meat side of the pork, the bottom and sides of the meat. Dry the rind with kitchen paper. Place the pork rind side up in a dish.

2. Now use a very sharp knife to score the rind in many small diamond shapes (two sets of parallel lines). Rub salt into the rind evenly, about 1 to 2 teaspoons. Place the dish of pork uncovered for at least 4-5 hours (or overnight) in the fridge to dry out the rind.

3. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Take out the pork from the fridge, bringing it to room temperature. With a pastry brush, brush the rind with some vegetable oil and place the pork on a rack and roast for 25 minutes.

4. After 25 minutes, turn the broiler of your oven on high and place the pork about 20cm below the heat element. Broil for about 20 minutes with the oven door slightly open. Check from time to time to make sure that the skin doesn't burn. Once the crackling has gone bubbly you need to watch carefully for burning.

5. Remove the pork from oven and leave it on its rack to rest for about 10 minutes. Cut the roasted pork into pieces shown in the picture above and serve with steamed rice.

Garlic Naan bread

Naan bread, originally uploaded by yongtze.

I was planning to bake some fresh Turkish bread to accompany the grilled Turkish chicken thighs for dinner. However, there is no more olive oil left in my kitchen. Sigh. Luckily I still have plenty of clarified butter and Greek yogurt left. So I decided to make some Naan bread as an alternative to Turkish bread (I know they are QUITE different) and it turned out that it is actually quite delicious and goes well with the grilled chicken.

I had fun making Naan bread because I wasn't actually 'baking' it. Instead, I was cooking the bread directly on a hot heavy-bottomed skillet, just like making pancakes! This garlic-flavoured Naan bread is best served hot.

- Makes 8 small pieces

• 1/4 cup clarified butter
• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon active dry yeast
• 2 tablespoons yogurt
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 cups flour
• 2/3 cup warm water

1. Whisk the warm water with the yeast and sugar until the yeast is dissolved. Let stand in a warm place for 5 - 10 minutes until the mixture is frothy.

2. Combine flour, salt, the yeast mixture, half of the clarified butter, and yogurt in a large bowl. Mix into a soft dough then knead on floured surface for about 10 minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic. Place the dough in a large greased bowl, cover and let stand in a warm place until the dough's volume has doubled (about 1 1/2 - 2 hours).

3. Meanwhile, peel and mince the garlic. Once the dough has doubled in volume, punch it down. Knead in the minced garlic and continue to knead for 5 minutes. Divide the dough into 8 balls. Let them stand for another 30 minutes.

4. To cook the Naan bread. Heat a heavy-bottomed skillet (I used a cast-iron skillet) over medium heat. Roll out dough until it is thin and brush it (I used a silicone brush) with some melted clarified butter. Then put it directly into the hot skillet. Cover and cook for 1-2 minutes at medium heat. Check to see that it is not burning. Once nicely browned, flip it over and cook the other side. The bread will puff a little and try not to overcook it as to let the centre of the bread remain soft. Once done, flip it out and start with another dough.

5. Serve hot.

First roll through Olympus 35 RC - Canberra Trip

My latest addiction - rangefinder camera. Got this Olympus 35 RC from Ebay for $40. It claimed to be the smallest 35 mm rangefinder with automatic exposure control and manual override. I brought it along on a short trip to Canberra and had a chance to test it.

The camera is actually older than me (it's from the 70's) but is still functioning well and the AE exposure is accurate. Shooting on film is so different from digital camera because you never know how the photos would turn out until they are developed.

Olympus Trip 35 First Roll - Melbourne street photography

I've been playing with my "new" old Olympus Trip 35 camera - first introduced in 1967 and discontinued in 1984 after a lengthy production run (how many cameras these days are in production for more than even 5 year?). Here are some samples from the first roll of a cheap Fujicolour film from Big W.

Crème caramel

Crème caramel, originally uploaded by yongtze.

I have to say I am a crème caramel man. Crème brûlée might be fancier but crème caramel with its sweet smooth caramel and silky soft custard is always irresistible to me. The recipe is from Gerard Depardieu's 'My Cookbook', which he developed together with his head chef, Laurent Audiot.

Serves 4:

• 15g butter
• 500g milk
• 2 vanilla pods (I used 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence)
• 4 eggs plus 1 egg yolk
• 50g sugar

For the caramel

• 2 Tablespoons water
• 10 sugar cubes (I used 10 teaspoons of caster sugar)

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degree Celcius. Grease 4 ramekins with the butter.

2. For the caramel: Boil water with the sugar in a thick-bottomed saucepan until it forms a pale golden caramel. Divide the caramel between the ramekins, tilting them in all directions to coat the base and sides. Leave to cool.

3. Heat the milk gently with the vanilla pods, split in half, in a large saucepan, simmering for 5 minutes. Remove the vanilla pods, scrape out the seeds and add them to the milk.

4. Beat the whole eggs, the extra yolk and the sugar in a large bowl until white and frothy, then pour in the heated milk in a thin stream, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. When the mixture is combined, strain through a fine sieve and pour it into the ramekins.

5. Prepare a bain-marie by filling a deep roasting tin two-thirds full with boiling water and setting ramekins in it. Bake in the hot oven for about 20 minutes.

6. Remove the ramekins from the oven while the custards are still slightly wobbly in the centre and leave them to just warm or completely cold. Serve them in the ramekins or turn them out onto individual serving plates, like this:

Crème caramel, originally uploaded by yongtze.