Cheat's Chao Mee Fen

As a sequel to my previous post, here is a recipe for a very easy to do Chao Mee Fen that is pretty yummy. The key ingredient for this CMF is ...

Canned Stewed Pork Leg with Mushroom! This brand of canned Pork Leg with Mushroom is the only one I buy. It is very flavourful and gives your CMF a good kick.


Ingredients
1 pack Bee Hoon
1/2 Carrot
1/4 Cabbage
6 Green Beans
4 Chinese Mushrooms (soaked in water, keep water)
1 Can Pork Leg with Mushroom
1 Tbsp Minced Garlic
1 Tbsp Dark Soy
2 Tbsp Light Soy
Trickle of Sesame Oil
Trickle of ShaoXing Wine


Method
Soak bee hoon in cold water until soft. Cut all vegetables to a uniform size to ensure same cooking time. Remove bones from pork leg and flake the meat.

Heat up wok/frying pan. Add garlic and vegetables. Fry till just soft. Add mushroom and canned pork leg. Fry for a minute.

Add bee hoon and mushroom liquid. Add sauces and season to taste.

Fry till noodles and rest of ingredients are combined well, roughly 5-10 minutes.

Serve with egg omelette and fried shallots on top.

Ba-Wan & Chao Mee Fen

My mum and I visited a little taiwanese place, Cho Dumpling King (affectionately name Choking Dumpling by me) in Chinatown last week.

Although small and squeezy, they offer pretty well made traditional taiwanese snacks for $2 a
plate which you choose from the counter and take to your table to enjoy. They also have set
menus where you can mix and match your dishes and add $1 for bubble tea.

We ordered a bowl of Ba-Wan Soup (or Gong-Wan Tang) and Chao Mee Fen

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My mum started telling about these famous Hsin Chu meatballs which they sell at stalls outside the Cheng Huang Temple.

They beat the hell out of the meat paste to get them deliciously bouncy. Hence the name Gong-Wan. Gong meaning Knock, Wan meaning Ball.

These guys in Taiwan are so serious about their meatballs they have a festival which runs anually.

If you do get a chance to go to Taiwan, dont forget to visit Hsin Chu and try their famous meatballs or perhaps go on one of their Gourmet Guide Tours.

If you do not get a chance to visit Taiwan, why not try
Cho Dumpling King which is located at:
Shop TG6 Prince Centre, 8 Quay St
Sydney Chinatown, NSW 2000

Petit Fours

On the last restaurant service of my semester at Cordon Bleu, we catered for a buffet. Rita and myself made all the Petit Fours.

It was quite a night. At first, the 6 of us (the whole dessert section team) were in a very nice, spacious and properly equipped pastry kitchen. Suddenly, another chef walked in... our kitchen was Double Booked!

We were subsequently moved into a crammed storage space with barely enough space to work.
We ended up using trolley tops as our workspace and had to run in and out of the kitchen to use the ovens next door.

Anyhow, we made the best of what we had and had a blast that night.



From left to right: Caffé Eclairs, Congolais (Rochers), Baklava, Chocolate Macarons, Chocolate dipped Meringue.

My Dog Is Smart

We have discovered Beau has recently been walking into the toilet by himself.
One day, we decided to trail him and this is what we found him doing...




Another day, this is what we found him doing...



He is watching re-runs of his Birthday Party!

Becassé

Last Thursday, J and myself visited Becassé. I've been wanting to try it since the Sydney Morning Herald's Good Food Guide announced them Restaurant of the Year 2007 and awarded 2 chefs hats.

Overall, I had a great evening. The service was excellent, the food was good. Justin North's marry-ing of flavours and simplicity despite being creative made his dishes shine.

However, I thought a few things could have been improved. The food served was, for me, not adequately hot. Considering this is a fine dining establishment, I expected better. I suspect our mains sat there for just a tad too long.

The 'thing' that got to me the most was the atrocity of fingerprints and oily finger marks on the plates. A definite NONO for a restaurant of this caliber.

These two issues aside, I really did enjoy myself. Here was that nights menu: