Review: Fook Tai Mixed Herbs and Spices

It was Capt'n Hook who stumbled upon this Fook Tai Mixed Herbs and Spices soup mix when he went to a vegetarian supply shop during a period where he observed vegetarian meals. He told me that he just boiled the soup packet and drank it just like that plain. He really liked it saying that it tasted a bit like bak kut teh soup.



I read the packaging and it says that one can add meat into it. There are two packages inside and one is sufficient for a small pot of soup for 2. Use two for stronger flavour and larger portion. So one day I made a chicken herbal soup ala bak kut teh style by adding halved tau fu pok (beancurd puffs), fu chuk (beancurd sticks, the ones for stews and soups), dried shiitake mushrooms (soaked and sliced), a can of button mushrooms I've received during CNY, and fresh enoki mushrooms.

Fairly easy to make, just need to dump in some chicken meat and the soup packages plus the rest of the ingredients except for button and enoki mushrooms which I added towards the end. Since I was using kampung chicken, I boiled it for about 1 hour or so on low heat.



This pot of soup is good as one pot meal to go with rice, easy peasy and less cleaning up for a complete meal. Well, can chuck in some greens at the end to really make it complete :p

I've seen this soup package at vegetarian supply shops and mini markets, not sure if can be found at supermarkets or hypermarkets. Will update if I do.

The US Cranberry Bakery Seminar & Workshop 2010

Since my last attendance of the cheese tasting, I'm glad that Kenneth Wee of Total Agri Marketing still remembers me and put me on the invite list amongst the chefs, bakers, celebrity chefs etc. I'm so honoured actually! Since it was a work day, nobody else could come along except for FBB. This seminar cum workshop was held at Berjaya University College of Hospitality.

Total Agri Marketing is promoting cranberries in Malaysia on behalf of the Cranberry Marketing Committee USA. Thanks to them, it's quite easy to get frozen or dried cranberries and juice on our supermarket shelves these days. All these while I only know the answer for urinary tract infection is to drink lots of cranberries juice but now, I know cranberries hold more than that.



Cranberries contain no fat, no cholesterol, and very little sodium. Whole cranberries are a good source of dietary fiber, and all cranberry products contain flavonoids and polyphenolics, natural compounds that offer a wide range of potential health benefits. Since we can't get fresh cranberries, the closest would be the frozen kind but I'm not sure if they're sweetened like their dried counterparts. We were told fresh cranberries can be very very tart.

Kenneth introduced 2 officials from the committee and they each gave a short speech on cranberries and all.



Next, we were introduced to Chef Tim Healea who is the principal baker and owner of Little T American Baker. His bakery specialises on handcrafted breads, Viennese-style pastries and rustic desserts.



Without wasting time, Chef Tim demonstrated 8 out of the 10 recipes provided to us all within 3 hours plus! To help those who are sitting at the back, there's even a screen zooming into what Chef Tim is doing upfront. How thoughtful!



As he goes along, Chef Tim impart some tips here and there for each of the recipes. I noticed a lot of the participants were so hardworking taking notes! Mid way, there was a short coffee break where we were served pre-made goodies from the recipes of Chef Tim demo. There were the Baked Doughnuts and Almond Rolls which are made from the same dough base. Then there is the Crumb Brioche, Cream Scone, Apple Turnover, Apple Wholewheat Muffin, Gibassier, Sweet Cream Tart (my fave out of the lot) and Financier. All of these have cranberries in them!





Chef Tim continued on after the break and by the end of it, he have all these goodies all done out! Amazing that they all looked good as some demo I've been to produces messy products :p




Apple Turnover


Baked US Cranberry Doughnut


Cream Scones


Crumb Brioche


Sweet Cream Tart


Almond Roll

Hmm the recipes for the above goodies are not available on the website but they do have other recipes. I would love to try some of these recipes but only when I have the time :( First on my list would be the Sweet Cream Tart, it's quite simple and soooo tasty!



Thanks to Kenneth and staff at Total Agri Marketing, Cranberry Marketing Committee, Berjaya University College of Hospitality and most importantly Chef Healea for the great afternoon.

BTW, do check out FBB's creative post!

Another pic of Chef Tim ;-) with the completed Apple Turnover. Just can't get enough of his smiles :p

Stir-Fried Celery With Squid and Prawn

This is a simple stir fried that one can almost always find in Chinese restaurants. The celery slices retains it crunch coupled with squid slices and fresh prawns making this a rather refreshing vegetable dish.

Just need to use a vegetable peeler to peel off the woody bits of about 3 sticks of celery before slicing them diagonally. Some slices of carrots to add some colour, also cut diagonally to match the celery. I've tailed the prawns, about a handful. As for the squid (I've used 2 medium sized ones), cleaned up all the slimy bits inside and remove the outer layer. Then lightly score the inside into diamond patterns before slicing them up.

Prepare about 4-5 tbsps of water (guesstimate ok). Into it add in about 1 tbsp oyster sauce, 1 tsp cornflour, a pinch of salt, sugar and white pepper powder to taste.

Fry some chopped garlic in hot oil till fragrant. Add in the carrots and stir. Then stir in prawns. When prawns all turned pinkish, add in squid and celery. Keep stirring. Pour in the prepared sauce and stir about 3 mins or so, well depends how much crunch you prefer on your celery. Dish up and serve with rice.





I'm submitting this for Muhibbah Malaysian Monday blog event. This event is the brainchild of  Shaz (Test With A Skewer) and Suresh (3 Hungry Tummies). Read more here.

Roast Herb Chicken

This is another version of roast chicken, well quite similar to Jamie Oliver Inspired Rosemary Roasts but this time I've used another type of fresh herbs which is tarragon. You can now find these fresh herbs in most supermarkets in Malaysia and if you wish to plant herbs like rosemary, basil and thyme in our weather, yes you can do it now, provided you get the plants from local flower nurseries. In Kuala Lumpur, the best bet would be Sungai Buloh area. *Groan* I wish I have a balcony that I can plant them :(

Anyway back to the chicken, since I've used thigh, it's easier to stuff the herbs inside and this time I did not use any butter at all. I just did a dry roast like this method but I did use some black pepper though.

At the same time, I chucked in chunks of potatoes, sweet potatoes and pumpkins in as well. Just need to rub them with extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper.



Serve the chicken with the roasted potatoes, sweet potatoes and pumpkins; and a simple salad on the side.



I roasted the seeds from the pumpkin this time round. Nothing goes to waste here :p



Just need to get rid of the pulps from the seeds and give it a rinse. Then spread out on a tray and let it dry up. The drier they are, the crispier they will be! Before roasting, I just rub in some olive oil and salt. Roast till golden brown. Mine doesn't look nicely brown nor crispy this time cos I forgot to turn the oven setting from grill to roast after I was done with my chicken, duhhh! This is a nice snack and you can pop them whole into your mouth :D

My other roast chicken recipes:
Babe's Roast Chicken With Vegetables
One Chook, Five Ways
Grilled Sesame Chicken

Jamie Oliver's Chicken in Milk

If you're adventurous, you can try duck too!

Herbal Roasted Duck

Friedchillies' Love Your Street Food

As I've mentioned before, there were two food award events going round town. We have just attended Time Out KL Food Awards 2010 on Wednesday and the nominations were fiercely contested! Grab December copy of Time Out KL which should be out by now to find out who are the winners :D

The next one is 2010 Annual Foodsters' Award by Friedchillies.com. However, the voting is still on going. Have you cast your votes??? If not, hurry and vote; you might be rewarded with RM50 :D

Yes, yes there's a RM50 reward given out daily for a voter which will be selected on a random basis. Go cast your vote at Love Your Street Food. Good Luck!

There are other ways to win something via Facebook or Twitter, just check out the details at Love Your Street Food.

Hurry ok!!!

Review: A&W's Root Beer Float & Waffles

If not mistaken, A&W Restaurant is the first fast food outlet in Malaysia. The first being at Batu Road (now known as Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman) which is still standing until today. This is the outlet my parents used to bring us for our dose of coney dogs, root beer in frosty glass mug and soft serve ice cream that came in a paper cup. Gosh I still remember the ice cream and the frosty mug! You can read more here.

I guess when you mention A&W, these few items will come to your mind "root beer", "coney dog", "waffle" and "Taman Jaya drive-in"! So much so that the url for Malaysia is http://www.rootbeer.com.my/!!! LOL

We haven't been to an A&W for a long long while, not sure why but it just doesn't appeal to us anymore when there are so many choices around. We so happen to pass by one outlet at Ikano Power Centre and Capt'n Hook said "Come, let's grab a root beer float". That is too after seeing the root beer served in glass mug :p We were aghast that some outlets uses paper cups for their root beer cos it's just not the same drinking from a frosted glass mug! (Before ordering, we usually check with them if they're serving their root beer in glass mug or paper cups.)



On top of the large root beer float with double scoop vanilla ice cream (RM4.90) we have a waffle with double scoop ice cream (RM6.70).



While the root beer float still holds but seriously the waffle we ingested gave us wasted bad calories. The waffle texture is totally different. It's no longer crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. It's a soggy mess and the inside is not well cooked. This is entirely a bad waffle! I remember having one at Taman Jaya sometime last year and it's quite similar as this :( How sad! I think we will just stick with the root beer.



Prices shown above are before tax.


A&W Restaurants
Click here for outlets

Review: Checkers Restaurant

**Non-Halal**

This is a post strictly for Babitarians :p

I was told this Checkers Restaurant was owned by 2 partners, Mr Tan and Sam but Sam has since departed and opened his own porkilicious restaurant called Ad Hog which I will blog about it later on. We were at Checkers with Capt'n Hook's friends and they did the ordering. There were 5 of us that night, sharing all the food away.

Just in case you're not sure which is the restaurant when you reach here, it's this one...

Yeah no signboard and in a secluded spot but yet it can still drive the people here in droves. Since the place is rather small, reservation is must especially on weekends. The interior of this place is nothing at all romantic or suitable for fine dining as the tables and chairs are never in the mix and match theme *chuckle*. There were plastic chairs and tables, some foldable metal chairs thrown in.



Since we waited rather long for someone to arrive, Mr Tan brought us a plate of tomatoes to munch on. Whoa I think Mr Tan is in good mood today! It looked simple right of just sliced tomatoes with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and basil leaves, seasoned with some salt and freshly cracked black peppers but it really packed in a punch especially so when the sweet tomatoes are of the roma kind ;-) Thank you Mr Tan.



When the last of the friend arrived, our dishes start to appear on our table. The first was Grilled Expensive Mushroom (RM10). Hehe the name kinda quirky, actually quite a number of dishes have such names. A small plate of grilled fresh shiitake mushrooms on a bed of purple cabbage and lettuce was served.



Next to arrive was Stinking Rose with Toast (RM8.50)! Just in case you do not know, Stinking Rose is another name for garlic. A whole bulb of garlic with the top cut off a little is roasted in the oven with some olive oil and serve with toasted baguette. I usually does the same at home too when I roast chicken. Roasted garlic is not pungent and it turn sweet due to the caramalisation. We dug out the garlic from the skin and spread them on toast. This is purely for garlic lover and not for the faint hearted. Luckily Capt'n Hook is a fan of garlic, and petai too hahaha...

We have both soup available that night which is not in the menu. If not mistaken one is a lobster bisque or was it seafood?? And the other is a French onion soup. Loved the flavour of the bisque and the consistency too. The onion soup being lighter as it's a clear beef broth with loads of caramalised onions in it topped with grilled cheese.

We have a House Salad (RM15). I normally stay away from house salads from most places cos they usually just give you a plate of lettuce with tomatoes, cucumber, shredded carrots and perhaps some green capsicum with Thousand Island dressing *shudders*. However, the house salad here is my kinda salad! The mix is fantastic as the more expensive greens were used such as rocket (arugula), frisse, radicchio etc with finely shredded jicama (sengkuang) and carrots; cute pink radishes etc! What complimented well was the dressing that has a hint of cumin. We polished this all off!

A portion of Mexican Pork And Sausage was ordered from the black board. I can't remember the price now. On the plate has a small slab of pork marinaded in a Mexican rub and a short but thick pork sausage; some mashed potatoes and a large portion of salad. The salad in here were different from the house salad. It has papaya cubes and kidney beans. The pork was tasty but not like fantastic, it was ok. I like the salad a lot!



Next we have a Porky's Best (RM49) which is a southern style barbeque ribs served with salad, corn on the cob and mash potatoes. The ribs were fork tender with the meat detaching from the bone so easily. They were already good on their own, the dip of brown sauce and a tangy salsa are really not necessary. Again I do really have to highlight their salad. This one has fennel and chick peas! Nice!!!



We also have an extra side order of mash potatoes (RM8.50) that came with brown sauce. We liked the creamy mash as it still have lumps of potato bits. This was polished off too, on top of those served with the meat.



By now, I was already quite full but the boys asked for a Roasted Pork Knuckle upon Mr Tan's recommendation. The knuckle with a very crispy skin was served with 2 dollops of mash potatoes, a bit of greens, sauerkraut, the tangy dip and salsa. Thank goodness we were sharing and the boys managed to scrape this clean. The knuckle is tender and went well with the salsa and dip but it was already good to eat just as it is.



With our stomach packed to the brim but yet we can't resist ordering the desserts of Mississippi Mud Cake (RM15) and Porky's Wild Ice-Cream - Drowned (RM17, RM15 not drowned) of course!

The mud cake is served with vanilla ice-cream and quite forgettable, simply because I can make a better one that has whisky in it *cough cough*



Now the Porky's Wild Ice-Cream is really wild as it has a base of vanilla ice-cream topped with green strands of cendol, cincau (black jelly), canned longan and roasted almonds! Sounds really like a 1Malaysia dessert eh? :p Anyway, the drowned version has rum at the bottom of the ice-cream. This is the dessert not to be missed.



Overall the food is good here but a lot of people have complained about the arrogant and obnoxious Mr Tan *chuckle* and also the steep pricing. Well just in case for the info of those who doesn't shop for pork meat, the price of pork has increased rather many folds and it's still increasing as time goes by *sobs*. No corkage is charged here and we brought along 2 bottles of wine.

While I was googling for info on Checkers, I found a rather interesting read here... seems like Checkers had started off as a pizza place which explained the furnitures in here. Pizza is still available here upon request ;-)


Checkers Restaurant
19, Lorong Setiabistari 2,

Damansara Heights, 

50490 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: +603 2095 3304

Business Hours: 6.00pm - 10.00pm, close on Mondays
Coordinates: 3°8'37"N 101°39'26"E