Kaamatan/Gawai Dinner on the 31/06/2010

Who says Gawai only happens in Sarawak?? Aussie also can k... :P

So after months and months of anticipation, *cough*ReubenStephSherwynnaBryanshouldknow*cough*, the big day finally arrived. Started of with journeying all the way to Inala (1 hour bus ride from where I live) to go get the ingredients for food with Bryan and Uyen on the Saturday morning before the dinner.

On Monday morning (the big day), before uni started, I got up to marinade the pork. So I marinade it with lemongrass, ginger, garlic, soya sauce and pepper... I was pretty happy with the smell. It smelt perfect like home... :)

After uni that day, Bryan came over and we started marinading the chicken for the pansuh and prepared the belacan paste. Because we didn't have pestle and mortar, we had to improvise with a Smirnoff bottle filled with water and a chopping board...

Aren't we smart? Haha!! I actually had to pound my pork marinade as well, I felt so bad, 'cause I didn't wanna wake my housemates up. But apparently I didn't make a sound.... LOL! When Bryan was pounding the belacan paste, if you close your eyes, you could just imagine that you're being transported back home... plus the smell really enhanced the experience as well!!

By the way, I REALLY did throw the garlic!! Just to set the record straight!

I have to say that the ayam pansuh (chicken) was really good, considering the fact that we couldn't find turmeric leaves, or tapioca leaves, or bamboo. Instead of cooking it in bamboo as it suppose to be, we improvised again with aluminum foil.

Maybe more salt should have been added, but the lemongrass, garlic and ginger was really strong... So it was good. :D

Oooh, did I mentioned we managed to find kangkung? Yup, you guessed it! That's belacan kankung there, cooked to perfection by our chef, Bryan Wee! It was the most popular among our friends, well done!! :D

That's the pork you see cooking there! We tried to make babi bakar, but obviously this is the closest thing you can get to babi bakar without a fire. For a first try, it was really very good. I was surprised I managed to pull it off!

End of product! Of course only the best part of the pork was used... the BELLY!!! :)

Because it was also Kaamatan, it should only be right to have some Sabahan dish... This is guo tie, made by Steph... She says it's appropriate 'cause she's Sino Kadazan... ookayyy Stephhh... Haha! It was sooo good tho!

Dinner set on the table, babi bakar, belacan kangkung, ayam pansuh in aluminum foil, ulam (cucumber and cincalok sauce) and guo tie which was being warmed up at the moment this photo was taken...

And of course, what's a celebration without people eyy? I would say we did a good job considering there were no left overs... Yummmmy!!

Happy Gawai everyone!!

Epic Day with Epic People with Epic Food

Sorry... This post is kinda outdated a bit... I took a couple of days to put the pictures into my computer... and then sorting it and deciding which pictures I wanna put in my blog... To make it up, it's a pretty long post... Anywayyy, enough of the explaining and more on the blogging... :)

So, this was on Sunday (11th of April, 2010)... Bryan has been telling about this super yum breakfast place at Newfarm, and so we've been planning to have breakfast there for quite sometime now, just that we hadn't had the time to actually go.

The night before, Mr Bryan Wee made a brilliant plan to go for 8a.m. mass and then head down to Newfarm to have breakfast, and then not having to worry to rush to church after that. So... I thought, yup, that sounds like a brilliant plan!

I slept at 1.30am that night, and had to dragggg my body out of bed at 7am, so that I could catch the 7.30 bus with Bryan to the city. You have no idea how hard it was to wake up that morning, but since I didn't have credit on my handphone, I had no choice!

I was jaywalking all the way from my house to the bus stop, and just at the intersection to the bus stop, I SAW MY BUS!! But there were cars so I couldn't just jaywalk across the street! As soon as the last car pass the traffic light, heck cares if it was still red, I dashed across the road and made it just in time! And guess what? He wasn't in the bus... I didn't give it much thought, 'coz I thought I might have caught an earlier bus than supposed to...

Reached church, still no show... After mass still no show... Then I got a text... He woke up late... LOL... So I waited in the city for Bryan and Uyen to arrive so that we can tackle the yummy breakfast!

Got a bus, reached Newfarm, walked a bit to the Breakfast place... It was at a French, cafe called Au Cirque... THE QUEUE WAS SO LONG!!! sorry no pics, 'coz it didn't occur to me to take photos then.. haha... Anyway, the wait was so worth it!!

Happy faces when we finally got a table!

Even more happy faces when our food arrived. This was my Chowdown... AUD16 but oh so totally worth it! Lasted me all the way to dinner! It has few slices of bacon, 2 poached eggs, 1 potato cake, stir-fry mushrooms, 2 sausages, 2 slices of toast, and veggies... I told you it was yum!

After breakfast we decided to walk around Newfarm, I haven't been here eventhough I've lived in Brisbane for about 2 and half years now? Haha... Sad... I know... IT WAS SOOO PRETTY!!

Shops at Newfarm Village I think...

And then... Bryan went C.R.A.Z.Y at Coles... After such a heavy breakfast, he was already deciding what to cook for dinner!! Uyen and I were like... -.-" Full Bryan... we're still full....

Anyway, Bryan went on about having roast potatoes... My reaction to that was, "Only roast potatoes? What are you going to eat with that??". And we spent about maybe 30 minutes trying to decide what to go with roast potatoes... Bryan wanted grilled fish... I thought the fish he wanted was gonna be too fishy... Then I said, why not meat? It'll taste better with potatoes... So he spent walking from the beef section, to the lamb section, to the ham section, back to beef, etc. Finally the chef decided on marinated beef roast!

Our tired faces after spending hours at Coles with Bryan... Oh ya! I forgot to mention that I wasn't supposed to have dinner with them, I wanted to go back to do some uni work. Somehow they managed to convince me to bring my uni stuff over to Uyen's and then we could have scones for high tea, and then dinner... Oops, I forgot to mention that, before the whole roast fiasco, Bryan found a recipe for scones, and decided to bake scones... Yup, like 1 second after discovering the recipe, he went straight to the baking aisle and started grabbing ingredients.

Bryan's happy face mixing the dough kampung style... He came out of the kitchen, went to the balcony door, and plonk down, and starting mixing it with his hands... I just had to get a picture!!

A stranger came to visit while the scones were baking... yah, I know... I was distracted while doing work... haha...

Tadahhh!! End produce of Chef Bryan: sweeten soya milk, with a scone and jam... It smelt good, it looked good, and most importantly... it tasted good!! :) WELL DONE BRYAN!

Then he went on preparing his roast... Cutting his veggies of potatoes, zucchinis, carrots and onions. Sprinkling on his newly bought herbs of rosemary, thyme, black pepper and sea salt...

I forgot to take a picture while they were all roasting together.... so bare with me...

The roast veges, sitting in the warm oven while waiting to the roast to rest...

You have to admit that it looks pretty good ey? Make you more jealous... IT WAS GOOD!!! Tender and flavourful... just about the perfect roast I would say...

By the end of the day, I forgot that I hadn't enough sleep, that it was a bloody hot day, that I had an assignment due on Tuesday, that the holidays was ending and that I had to go back to uni the next day....

So... I'll have to shout out...
THANK YOU BRYAN AND UYEN FOR A WONDERFUL DAY OUT AND FOR CONVINCING ME TO STAY FOR DINNER!!!

HAPPY EASTER!!!

Happy Blessed Easter Everyoneee!!! :)

I had fun this Holy Week actually... Worked for 5 hours and then ponteng half a lecture to go to Holy Thursday mass, fasted until Good Friday service and then buka puasa at a BBQ near the Story Bridge which had amazing views of the city!, shopped and found my 2 fave shoes-of-the-moment-and-prolly-the-year and took the citycat to Easter Vigil on Saturday, and finished the day with pizzas to Man Utd vs Chelsea (which was disappointing but whatever, it's Easter :))... and Sunday? As God rested on the 7th day, so did I... to an extend.. Haha!

So... Last minute plan that we wanted to have Easter lunch, but what we forgot was that, all the supermarkets were closed on Easter Sunday... damn those angmohs! But luckily Bryan's Vietnamese friend, Uyen, found out that the shops in Darra (a Vietnamese suburb) were open... So Bryan and I decided to head down to Darra to see what we can get.

We arrived at Darra to really, Vietnam! The signs were both in Vietnamese and English! I was really amused!!
Too bad the station was under construction so you can't really see the shops... It didn't occur to me to take photos of the shops.. lol.. next time la...

Anyway, we bought untypical Easter stuff... Haha... Very ala Malaysia style lunch we had... :) we were instructed by the head chef, Reuben, to get chicken, potatoes, onions and lime for his curry dish... And then we got ladies fingers, cucumber, cincalok (yes, cincalok... :)), pandan soya milk, and some other stuff I can't seem to remember....

This is the pandan soya milk.... Very subtle pandan flavour... it tasted just like normal soya milk... I like it!! And it's not that expensive too.. $2.50 for 2 litres...

The two chefs at work... The red stuff in the containers are curry spices... One was Malaysian curry powder, and the other hot curry powder if I'm not wrong....

Our ulam... Yummyyy!! Dip in cincalok sause... mouth watering now thinking about it...

The end product of the curry... It was so good!! It didn't feel fatty 'coz Reuben didn't cook it with santan.. which tasted actually really good! So long dy haven't eated spicy curry... and the cincalok was spicy too... And to cool it off, watermelon for desert!! so it was all yummm!!! :D

Not your typical Easter meal, but it was good!!!

After everything I suddenly realised, HEY!! We didn't have Easter eggs, or chocolates!! Haha... oopsss.... But at least it was a healthy YUMMY lunch!!

Thanks Bryan and Reuben!! :)

HAPPY EASTER!!

Sarawakian Dinner

It all started on Thursday night while chatting with Bryan... Out of the blue he excitedly asked me to go check out this blog, Sebugey. Wondering what made him so excited I explored the blog... I don't know whether it was a good idea or not, because the blog contained sooooo MUCH food!!!!!!! I was drooling ok looking at the ayam pansuh, lauk terong, kari manok, the asam fish and etc...

He was like, ehhh, what can you cook? I'm like... all also I never cook before!! But I watched my aunty cook ayam pansuh before... We went on and on about ayam pansuh... lol! I was supposed to go ask for recipes, and prepare the chicken, and his task was to chop bamboo.. haha... then I remembered the corn beef HQ and I bought hours before. So, we decided to attempt cooking nasi goreng corn beef... =D

We poor things forced ourselves to sleep despite our growling stomach waiting for Friday night to come faster... oh yaaa... we decided to do it long house style just cause we alcoholics with whiskey... XD at first we wanted Chivas but then it was wayyy above budget so we opt for our good friend JD instead...

meet JD...

But we didn't manage to speak Iban after that... I think we need tuak for that, or stronger whiskey... LOL!!!

nasi goreng

We threw in onions, and the corn beef.... goreng-goreng, then threw in the rice... and later on egg... =D Not bad la in the end... Quite nice... 3 of us finished the whole kuali of rice... crazy la right?

and for desert we watched Sweeney Todd and Harold and Kumar... Nice movies, totally recommended!!! =D Hope you had a great start to the weekend too!

Cooking Attempt

Yup, Sharlene finally attempted to cook... Haha... no la... I do cook k?? Stop looking at me like I don't! =P Soooo... What did I cook? Well, I experimented... Hehe.. oops, shouldn't have wrote it here... Hey!! But HQ and Bryan are still alive okie, so that's the proof that my food was edible! Haha!

Oh, this was on Monday k... So.. I came back super super hungry!! I didn't have breakfast, had salad for lunch, then still hungry.. went to buy watermelon, sushi and then continue to snack the whole day.. I was THAT hungry!! I decided to cook that night.. went online to search for recipes, but then kan... my house don't have all ingredients... soooo... I decided to improvise...


HONEY CHILI CHICKEN! =D


Ingredients:

honey, chili powder, sweet chili, soy sauce, 1 tablespoon olive oil


Instructions:

just mix all of them until you think it tastes nice. haha... basically I mixed 3 tablespoon of honey and 1 table spoon olive oil first... Then I added the sweet chili and chili powder (depends on how spicy you want it). Mix mix mix, then I thought... aiyooo, too sweet how... That's why I added the soy sauce... and mix mix mix...

Then you mix the chicken with the mixture you made... the extra sauce just pour on the chicken... then you put it in the oven at 200 degrees for 20 minutes.


Note: It depends on how much chicken you cook, so you have to throw in how much you think is enough la...

Dinner!!

Chicken in the oven

The end product of my experiment...

plus healthy veggies!!

See... so healthyyy! =D