We're 65 Blog Malaysia Pilihan InTrend!

Woohooo I accidently found out that Babe in the City - KL was featured by InTrend March 2012 as one of the 65 blogs in Malaysia! What made it sweet was I happened to meet the editor, Rosie, at an event at Bayan Indah the day after  I bought the mag :p Rosie mentioned that they do this on an annual basis and this is the third installment.

We're deeply honoured as InTrend is a Malay magazine. To have our predominantly English blog picked under Santapan (food) category is truly amazing. We also shared the glory with friends Sean (Eat Drink KL), Boo_licious (Masak-masak) and Bee Yinn (Rasa Malaysia). The 6 other food blogs errrr I need to visit all of them, pronto, as I have not heard of them but they must be darn good to be featured. They are ...In A Whiz; Elinluv's Corner; Cupcakes Vs Chocolate; Mad About Cake; Luscious Treats and Periuk Belanga Zarin.

Congrats to all the 65 blogs featured!

Hazelnut & Chocolate Chips Cupcakes

The last recipes featured in BSC's reTALE magazine is this super fragrant, nutty and chocolaty cupcake!  During recipe testing, I wasted ermm some rather expensive Vom Fass hazelnut oil as after baking, the hazelnut aroma simply just evaporated and disappeared. So in order not to waste such precious oil, I've used an extra virgin olive oil instead which you can actually replaced with some neutral vegetable oil like corn or canola oil.

To preserve and enhance a nuttier flavour to this cupcake is to simply brush on some Vom Fass hazelnut oil on top of the cupcakes while they are hot. If you're feeling generous, you can drizzle some of these oil all over which will makes the cakes pretty moist and absolutely taste and smell Heavenly. I was  heavy handed on the amount of chocolate chips and I loved Hershey's as they're bigger and sort of like melted into gooey mess instead of those smaller generic ones you get from baking supply shops.

So, that's all the recipes featured in reTALE and I hope you'll enjoy these recipes as much as we did!plus

Hazelnut & Chocolate Chips Cupcakes
Makes 6 large cupcakes

140g plain flour
1 tsp baking soda
45g sugar
½ tsp salt
1 egg
50ml Vom Fass Don Carlos - Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)
130ml milk
2 tsp Vom Fass Naturally Cloudy Apple Cider Vinegar
100g roasted hazelnut, roughly chopped
140g chocolate chips
Some Vom Fass Hazelnut Oil for brushing

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line paper cups in a 6-holes muffin tray.

2. Stir Vom Fass Naturally Cloudy Apple Cider Vinegar into the milk and leave to thickened. Mix plain flour, baking soda, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl, set aside.

3. In another mixing bowl, mix egg, thickened milk and EVOO together with a whisk until they are combined. Pour this into the flour mixture. Mix well with the whisk.

4. Fold in ¾ of the hazelnuts and all of the chocolate chips into the batter with a spatula. Spoon batter into prepared paper cups to about ¾ full. Sprinkle remainder of the hazelnuts on top.

5. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove from oven and brush some Vom Fass Hazelnut Oil on top while they are hot.

6. Let cupcakes sit in the muffin tray for 5 minutes before removing them onto a cooling rack to cool.

In this series:
Life is Colourful
Chilli Angel Hair Pasta With Prawns, Scallop, Tomatoes & Basil
Black Quinoa with Grilled Vegetables

Black Quinoa with Grilled Vegetables

This is the second recipe featured in BSC's reTALE magazine. I was told this Ceres Organics Black Quinoa (pronounced as "keen-wah") which was new in O Gourmet then would be a good option to try on for a recipe. They would love to have these healthy grains to be introduced as many Malaysians may not know what to do with them.

I've taken the white ones in salads and was quite excited to try the black ones out. These highly nutritious grains are light and nutty in flavour, works well in salads and soups. I've read in one of Martha Stewarts magazines that it could be used in replace of breakfast cereals by just cooking the black quinoa, drain and then let it cool. Pour milk over them together with fresh fruits and nuts!

For this recipe, I've actually tested with vegetables roasted in the oven but theyvegetables turned a bit mushy and doesn't look quite appealing. In the end, I grilled the vegetables on a grill pan and they vegetables looked and tasted far better :D

Since I've used some nuts and seeds, I decided to drizzle some extra Vom Fass pumpkin seed oil to enhance the already nutty flavour and some sweetish sour balsamic vinegar to balance things up.

Black Quinoa with Grilled Vegetables
Serves 4 as side dish

1 cup Ceres Organics Black Quinoa
100g asparagus, remove the woody ends
100g eggplant, sliced lengthwise about 0.5cm thick
100g cherry tomatoes, halved
50g red capsicum, remove the core and sliced into quarters lengthwise
50g yellow capsicum, remove the core and sliced into quarters lengthwise
1 tbsp Vom Fass Madonia - Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt and grounded black pepper to taste
1 tbsp pumpkin seeds
1 tbsp hazelnuts, roasted and crushed

Dressing:
2-3 tbsp Vom Fass Basil Olive Oil
2 tsp Vom Fass Aceto Balsamico di Modena Riserva Quality
Salt and grounded black pepper to taste

Vom Fass Styrian Pumpkin Seed Oil and Aceto Balsamico di Modena Maletti Riserva Speciale for drizzling


1. Cook Ceres Organics black quinoa according to package instructions.

2. Heat up grill pan. Place all vegetables in a large bowl and drizzle in Vom Fass Madonia - Extra Virgin Olive Oil, salt and grounded black pepper. Toss evenly. Arrange the vegetables in the hot grill pan and grill them until cooked before turning over. Do not keep turning the vegetables around as it may not leave nice grill marks on them.

3. Remove cooked vegetables onto a plate and let them cool a little before slicing them into bite-sized pieces.

4. In a small bowl, mix in all the ingredients for the dressing with a small whisk or fork. Taste to adjust the seasonings.

5. In a large bowl, toss the cooked black quinoa, grilled vegetables and dressing together before placing them in a serving bowl.

6. Garnish with crushed hazelnut and pumpkin seeds before drizzle lightly with Vom Fass Styrian Pumpkin Seed Oil and a few drops of Vom fass Aceto Balsamico di Modena Maletti Riserva Speciale.

In this series:
Life is Colourful
Chilli Angel Hair Pasta With Prawns, Scallop, Tomatoes & Basil
Hazelnut & Chocolate Chips Cupcakes

Chilli Angel Hair Pasta With Prawns, Scallop, Tomatoes & Basil

As I've mentioned earlier, we were featured in BSC's reTALE magazine shopping for organic products in O Gourmet.

This recipe was featured in the magazine together with another 2 recipes which I will post separately to ease searching. It's a very simple pasta recipe using Passion Pasta's Chilli Angel Hair. I find this angel hair exudes quite some heat in this dish, so if you're feeding children, I would recommend to use their saffron version. As these are handmade, they cooked very quickly so do look out for doneness within the recommended cooking time.

You'll noticed that Vom Fass oils and vinegars were heavily used in these recipes as Mr Teoh of Vom Fass has generously gave us some samples to work around with. I'm not going to be bias just cos of this but to tell the truth. We were sampling the oils and vinegars even before this and find that they're absolutely delicious! If you have sampled Vom Fass, you would agree that the quality and clarity of the oils and vinegars are simply amazing. A little goes a long way I would say.

Mr Teoh recommended to drizzle this pasta with some basil infused olive oil and a rather limited edition of balsamic vinegar. The basil olive oil gave it an extra fresh scent of basil where else the thick balsamic vinegar is used really sparingly, just droplets of them for a sweetish dense flavour.

Chilli Angel Hair Pasta With Prawns, Scallop, Tomatoes & Basil
Serves 4

250g Passion Pasta – Chilli Angel Hair
3 tbsp Vom Fass Basil Olive Oil
1 red onion, chopped finely
2 cloves garlic, chopped finely
20 medium sized prawns, shelled and leave the tail on
300g scallops
250g cherry tomatoes, halved
1 small red chillies, chopped
1 cup basil, roughly shredded and reserve 4 shoots for garnishing
Salt & freshly grounded black pepper to taste

Extra Vom Fass Basil Olive Oil and Aceto Balsamico di Modena Maletti Riserva Speciale for drizzling


1. Cook the pasta according to package instructions. Drain the cooked Chilli Angel Hair pasta. Reserve some pasta cooking water.

2. In a large pan, heat up the Vom Fass Basil Olive Oil in medium heat and stir in chopped onion and garlic. Saute until onion and garlic are softened, do not brown them.

3. Add in the prawns and scallops. Once the prawns turned pink and curled up, turn the prawns and scallops around.

4. Put in the cherry tomatoes and red chillies and stir well. Season with salt and grounded black pepper to taste.

5. Next, add in the cooked Chilli Angel Hair pasta and mix well. Add some of the reserved pasta cooking water if the pasta looked dry. Lastly, turn off the heat and stir in the basil.

6. To serve, dish pasta into 4 individual pasta bowls, ensure that prawns and scallops are divided almost equally. Topped with reserved basil shoots and drizzle some Vom Fass Basil Olive Oil all over. Drip on droplets of Vom Fass Aceto Balsamico di Modena Maletti Riserva Speciale and serve.

In this series:
Life is Colourful
Black Quinoa with Grilled Vegetables
Hazelnut & Chocolate Chips Cupcakes

Life is Colourful

As I've mentioned earlier, there's a little something installed for us and we're quite happy how it turned out. Both Capt'n Hook and I were asked to be talents, pretending to shop at O'Gourmet, Bangsar Shopping Complex (BSC) whist they snap our photos away. Gosh it was hard work of 2 hours just for this shot to appear in BSC's reTale magazine - the Rainbow issue. Capt'n Hook is seen tapping oil at Vom Fass but in real, you're not allowed to do that :p as the oils and vinegars will be filled up by the retail assistants.



Well, it's not only that, I was asked to contribute 3 recipes using O'Gourmet's organic range of goods. I will post up the recipes here with some of my notes on the recipes and products used together with the photos I had captured. Hope the readers of reTale will like the recipes and attempt to cook up at least one of these recipes :D

Thank you to Malathi, Ling, Tian Xing and the team from La Scheers Co for the opportunity.