Friday 30 December 2011

Roasted Pork Ribs

This dish is beyond description - yummylicious should sum it up quite nicely! Tender pork ribs with a slightly spicy, salty and sweet marinade - easy to cook, amazing to eat. Another stunning recipe courtesy of Rosalind Hon!



Roasted Pork Ribs
Ingredients
1 kg rack of pork ribs


Marinade
8 Shallots
8 cloves garlic
1 to 2 tblsp. lat tau ban cheong  (chilli bean sauce)
1 to 2 tblsp. oyster sauce

Some Sesame oil
1 teaspoon Salt
2 teaspoon Sugar
1 tblsp. Cornflour
3 teaspoon soya sauce
100 ml apple juice (or juice extracted from 1 apple)

Seasoning
Black pepper
Melted butter.


Coarsely chop the shallots and garlic, then mix the marinade ingredients together to form a chunky paste. Marinade the pork ribs in this for a few hours (best overnight). Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 6 (180 degrees on a fan oven).
Transfer the ribs to a baking tray, and drizzle melted butter and freshly ground black pepper. Roast in the oven for 1 hour. (You may want to turn the ribs over after half an hour, but personally i prefer to allow the top section to char slightly because it looks better and tastes awesomeeeeeeee). Serve hot with rice.

Note: If you are not keen on the smell of pork, blanch the ribs in boiling water before applying the marinade.
Note 2: Any leftover marinade should be pan fried/cooked and stored. You can reuse it on other cuts of meat, or freeze it for later use.

Wednesday 28 December 2011

Smoked Salmon and Pepper Pasta

Sweet, rich, creamy, sharp, and very boozy, this dish is a delight to prepare - it has but few ingredients and requires very little preparation, but is luxurious and velvety on the tongue. Throw in an optional fresh chili for some extra bite. 


If, like me, you inevitably end up with a post-Christmas pack of smoked salmon in your fridge (bought with the good intention of serving, but seldom actually ends up on a plate because everyone else has brought too much food anyway), this is the recipe for you. (If you don't actually have smoked salmon handy and have to go out and buy one, allow me to recommend the cheat method of buying smoked salmon trimmings instead - it is much cheaper and saves you having to slice your smoked salmon.

Smoked Salmon and Pepper Pasta  (Serves 2)

Ingredients
A little bit of olive oil
A little bit of honey (for drizzling)
Salt
2 smallish peppers/capsicum, in bite-sized chunks
100 g pack of smoked salmon/smoked salmon trimmings, sliced into small strips
15-20 g of salted butter
1-2 tbsp good brandy or whiskey (I have not tried any other liquor yet....)
1/2 an echalion shallot (or 1 normal shallot), thinly sliced.
150 ml single cream
150 g spaghetti or linguine (I usually allow 75 g pasta per person, but that's because we eat a lot...)

Drop the pasta into boiling water (remembering to check frequently and drain when the pasta is al dente). In the meantime, drizzle a little bit of olive oil, salt and honey onto the peppers, give it a good mix, and grill until slightly brown and caramelised. Heat butter in a pan. Once butter is foaming, lightly saute the shallots until soft, then stir in the cooked peppers. Add the liquor, allowing the alcohol to evaporate before adding in the cream. Season with black pepper if desired. Mix well, then pour in the pasta, allowing the warm cream to coat the pasta. Plate the pasta, then mix in the smoked salmon (or pile the smoked salmon atop the pasta, which is what I usually do to keep the smoked salmon from cooking).Voila!

You may have noticed that the sauce is unseasoned - that is partly because the butter and the peppers have been salted, but also because smoked salmon is salty anyway and the sweet (but bland) cream sauce will offset that nicely. If you don't have a grill, roast the peppers in an oven at Gas mark 6 for about 15-20 minutes, but if that's the case put the peppers in the oven first before you start boiling the pasta. For an extra spicy kick, add some fresh red chilli slices when sauteing the shallots.

Saturday 24 December 2011

Merry Christmas everyone!

Gosh it's been such a year. I finally got my PhD, Cent Hope is doing okay (will post a feature on it sometime soon, I reckon), Simon passed a few exams and my pretty boy is growing up so quickly... Lots to thank God for.
Maybe it's a post-viva phenomenon, but I'm feeling ridiculously sentimental and mildly sappy. I guess maybe it's finally hit home that I am actually going to be leaving the ORC. Not sure how I feel about leaving so many precious people behind :P
But anyway I thought I'd share some Christmassy pictures I made some time ago. Feel free to re-use them, but PLEASE do not remove the copyright sign or the url to the Cent Hope site!

Merry Christmas, everyone :)


Thursday 15 December 2011

Poetic Injustice

In his room my son lies dreaming
But even in his perfect bliss
He can still hear his mother screaming:
"SOMEONE'S EATEN ALL MY CRISPS!!!!"
- A lament by a hungry mummy

Wednesday 14 December 2011

Pork Leg in Vinegar and Ginger (猪脚醋 / 姜醋)

Not for the fainthearted, this one. The dark broth, with pork meat soft and tender from slow stewing, is fiery with ginger and acidic with vinegar, but the old wives swear by it and so does my husband. Perfect for ladies during their postnatal confinement period or even just for a cold winters' night such as this.



Many thanks to my mum in law who cooked this for my confinement and who willingly shared this recipe with me (stay tuned, my mum in law is an excellent chef and hopefully more of her recipes will star in this blog in future). I've adapted the seasonings slightly to cater to my husband's palate but as always, the guide is always "season to taste".

Since it is virtually impossible to get pork trotters here I've gone for the next best thing which is pork hock/leg on the bone, which came to about 1 kg including the bone. I've also tried this with pork belly, which tenderizes a lot more quickly but is obviously not as meaty and chunky as leg meat

Ingredients

1 whole pork leg – in large chunks
150 ml Chinese Black Rice Vinegar
1 1/2 tsp brown sugar  
2-3 rice bowlsful of old ginger, sliced or shredded
3 tbsp light soya sauce (or 2 tsbp light soy sauce + salt to taste)
2 tsp of dark soya sauce 
1 – 2 tbsp sesame oil
4 cloves of garlic, lightly crushed
Shelled hard boiled eggs (optional) 

Blanch the leg pieces in boiling water for a few minutes to remove the smell and scum. Drain.
Heat the sesame oil in a pot and fry the garlic and old ginger slices until fragrant. Add the leg pieces and fry for a few minutes. Add the vinegar (if not feeling adventurous, use slightly less than the prescribed amount - you can easily add more later on). 

Add boiling water to the pot until it is about 4/5 full, and bring to the boil. Add the dark soya sauce, light soya sauce, sugar (you can actually do this later on, but personally I like the "dump it all in a pot and leave it for X amount of time" approach), and hard boiled eggs. Simmer for 2 hours or more, allowing the soup to thicken (or adding water if necessary) to the desired consistency.

Serve with rice.

Recipe courtesy of Rosalind Hon, minor amendments by Jacq Chan of NkR Productions.

Sunday 11 December 2011

SO embarassing!

So it's winter now, and skin tends to be dry, and in particular today I was afflicted with very dry fingertips. Normally, isn't a problem, but today at choir practice, while trying to sight-read the notes and read the lyrics and sing (no mean feat for a half-man!), I lost my grip on my music folder midway through a song. In the ensuing arm-flailling and finger fumbling trying to regain my hold on it, I managed to propel it even further from myself and it landed  with a thump in the middle of the floor, a good distance away from me. By the time I got it back the alto section was a giggling snorting off-key mess :P. I was sick with embarassment but couldn't stop laughing either >.<

The conductor, bless him, took it all in his stride and calmly said "Right, the next time one of you decides to fling your folders onto the floor *further titters from me, i told you I was struggling to stop laughing* can the rest of you try to keep on singing...."

I am soooo going to moisturize before next rehearsal.

Saturday 10 December 2011

Cent Hope Christmas graphic

So I spent today designing this publicity graphic for our iPhone game Cent Hope.... if you haven't already done so, BUY THE GAME  and support us! :D



So, what do you think? I personally wonder if there's something wrong with my monitor cos it looks fine here but when viewed on other monitors the colours look a lot less saturated....

Tuesday 6 December 2011

Christmas Poster

I originally made this poster for the chaplaincy many, many, many years ago (circa 2004?), and was delighted to find it in use today (here's a photo of it taken with my phone).... how's that for longevity, eh?

Saturday 3 December 2011

Recipe for accompaniments to Hainanese Chicken Rice (the chicken, soy sauce, and chili sauce)

Hainanese Chicken Rice is a well known dish around Asia - many variations exist, and this is one of them. Succulent poached chicken sitting on a bed of cucumbers and dark sauce, accompanied by fragrant rice and a garlicky chili sauce, it is little wonder that the dish is as popular as it is. This ridiculously easy version features deboned chicken legs as a convenient alternative to poaching a whole chicken 



If you're in my situation and have a relatively small family (and dislike having leftovers), you'll agree that poaching/steaming a whole chicken is sometimes an impractical task - You need a pot or steamer big enough, you end up with leftover chicken which is tricky to reheat properly the next day, you need to chop the pieces up after it's been cooked (resulting in some mess and splatter), and odds are only the men will enjoy the chicken breast portion anyway. The solution is obvious - use deboned chicken legs instead - they are cheap, tasty, succulent, and a cinch to debone when raw (and saves you having to debone it for your offspring after it's cooked anyway)

You'll notice that I have been careful to post this as "accompaniments" to Hainanese Chicken rice - I do have a recipe for cooking the rice from scratch, but i have not fully worked out the ratio of the ingredients and have been cheating and using instant paste :P Will add that in the next time after I've had a chance to try it out.

Poached Hainan White Chicken (Pak Cham Kai/Pak Chit Kai)

Ingredients for flavouring the poaching liquid (completely optional)
Thumb-size ginger
2 cloves of garlic
Salt
A few dashes of white pepper
A few drops of sesame oil
1 tsp fish sauce
Deboned fillets of chicken legs (I have a family of 3, so we had 3 chicken legs - 3 thighs & 3 drumsticks)

Fill a shallow pan (that has a lid!) with sufficient water to cover all the fillets. Add all the flavouring ingredients and bring the water to a strong rolling boil. Gently put in chicken pieces. If the water temperature has dropped (i.e. it's stopped boiling) bring it to the boil again - once it is boiling, cover the pan and turn the heat off (yes, that means turn the gas completely off, no fire, etc). Leave it for 25 minutes. In the meantime, prepare the soy sauce and the chili sauce.

After 25 minutes, remove the chicken pieces and immerse in a bowl of very cold water. After 5 minutes, the chicken is ready to be sliced and served on top of a bed of cucumber. Drizzle the soy sauce over it, scatter some coriander and chives/spring onions and enjoy!

Chili Sauce
Ingredients

0.5-1 red capsicum (red pepper - depends on how much you want, usually for 3 people half a pepper is sufficient)
1-2 red chilies (to taste)
1 clove garlic
Thumb-sized ginger (optional, only use this if you don't want to put any chilies in it at all)
Lime juice
Salt and sugar to taste

Blend everything, adding lime juice, salt and sugar to taste. (See, told you it was ridiculously easy)

Soy sauce for chicken
Ingredients
1 tsp dark soy sauce
3 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp sugar (optional - if you are using Malaysian soy sauces which are naturally sweet, you don't need this)
1 clove garlic
1 handful of chives/spring onion
A few coriander leaves
A dash of white pepper
Salt to taste
Half a ladle of remainder poaching liquid

Dissolve the sugar in about 2 tbsp boiling water. Mix all the other sauce ingredients together to taste (the quantities above are given as a guideline, feel free to cater to individual tastes!)

Thursday 1 December 2011

Cent Hope website is finally up!

Finally, after a few weeks messing around with HTML (and watching in horror as w3schools flagged up error after error), the website for Cent Hope is up!
http://www.frugalspark.com/CentHope/
Let me know what you think of the web design, and how it can be improved....

Do check it out!
BTW BTW BTW we're offering the game for 69p over the Christmas holiday season. A real bargain! Don't miss out...

Monday 28 November 2011

Digging out old Physics notes

My viva is in less than a months' time! ARGHHHH....
In preparation for it I dug out some of my old notes and found these sketches (made in class)

Sunday 27 November 2011

More adventures with CSS!

So, I'm trying to put screenshots of the game on the site, and I'm wondering if there's an easier way for viewers to see an enlarged version of the picture without having to use javascript (just to avoid compatibility issues).

Then I stumbled upon this site:
http://www.dynamicdrive.com/style/csslibrary/item/css-popup-image-viewer/#thumb

HALLELUJAAAAAAAH!

Problem solved :D

Friday 25 November 2011

Chicken and Tomato Soup

This aromatic and flavourful soup is a real crowd pleaser for cold days. The chicken, having been marinated overnight, is tender and savoury, and there is a subtle hint of sourness from the tomatoes. The finishing touch of generous amounts of coriander gives the clear broth a very oriental note. Best served with rice or noodles.



I first tasted this soup in my friend Mindy's house - apparently she drinks it every time she feels tired/cold, and I can completely understand why. The soup had a very refreshing and wholesome feel to it and obviously after the first sip or so I demanded that she send me the recipe, which I'm going to post here (with some minor alterations).
This is another one of ultimate brainless simple recipes that busy mums should keep in their arsenal - it's healthy, it's easy and it's fast!

Chicken and Tomato Soup

Marinade:
500 - 800g chicken drumsticks/legs/thighs, deboned and diced into bite sized chunks
2 tbsp Cornflour, 
4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
2 tbsp white wine (1/2 cap of chinese ShaoXing wine), 
2 tbsp oyster sauce, 
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp or more light soy sauce (to taste!),
A few drops of sesame oil, 
3-4 thin slices ginger.

Ingredients:
4-5 tomatoes, quartered or with slits cut into them
12g fresh coriander
1.2 - 1.5 litres of water 

Marinade the chicken, and leave in a fridge overnight.

Bring the water to the boil, then put tomatoes and chicken in. Bring it back to the boil, then simmer over a low heat for no more than 20 minutes.  Serve with generous amounts of coriander. 
TADAAAAA! Finito.

Additional notes:
Using a shallow ladle, scoop up all the foamy scum stuff and oil that float up to the surface while the soup is simmering. This will ensure a really clear and non-greasy soup. I did not quarter my tomatoes because I don't actually like mushy tomato all over my soup - thus I made a cross-slit on the top of the tomato so that it will flavour the soup, but without becoming overly soft and mushy.

Tuesday 22 November 2011

Misadventures with CSS

I've been spending the past week or so designing a new look for the Cent Hope website (watch that space, it's going to be BAZINGA, I tell you!). And since I haven't touched HTML properly for almost a decade, I've had to do a lot of reading on the web and research and some serious trial and error. And yesterday at 0:00 am I learned two important things:

  1. Browser incompatibilities with paddings/borders/width sizes are usually resolved with declaring the right Doctype. Me, I used: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/frameset.dtd">,
     which according to http://www.w3schools.com/TAGS/tag_doctype.asp , contains "all HTML elements and attributes, INCLUDING presentational and deprecated elements (like font). Framesets are not allowed."
  2. This particular doctype does NOT like spaces in between your width digits and the word "px". i.e. if you are declaring
    width: 50%;
    it doesn't bark at you, but as soon as you try
    width: 500 px;
    it just ignores you altogether. The fix is simple. Take the space away.
    width: 500px;
    and the world is a much better space.
I know this may be elementary to some, but I hope this is helpful for people out there who want fixed width DIVs and inadvertently left a space in between the numbers and the px and have spent a whole night trawling the net wondering why and finding out that actually most programmers don't like fixed widths and prefer to use percentages instead. (On that subject, while I completely understand the rationale behind leaving it flexi, I need a fixed width for this particular site. No offense).

And that's my contribution for today.


Sunday 20 November 2011

You've Got a Friend In Me (Cover Version) with William and Jacq


Well, as the description says, my son was watching Toy Story 1 and 2 today (yes, i know, excessive television watching, but he'd already done his homework so what could I say -_-") and I was reminded of this old recording that William and I made a long time ago.... an hour and a lot of laughter after browsing through hilarious old videos and photos later, I uploaded this vid onto Youtube. So. This is my offering for this week - an old MV :) Enjoy!

The most important components for a wantan/wonton noodle dish!

The key to a good wantan/wonton noodle dish, besides the actual wontons, lies in the execution of a good sauce, and a nice sharp condiment in the form of pickled green chilies. 


I find that most people have their own interpretations of what constitutes the perfect wantan/wonton. Some will add prawns, some, water chestnut. Soy sauce, mushrooms, you name it, people will put it in yellow pastry and wrap it. Some people will swear by their wantan/wonton recipes so I am not really going to bother putting in my version here (in case you ARE wondering, I go with chives, pork, mushrooms and carrots and hideous amounts of salt). Neither am I going to put instructions on how to prepare the noodles, because I'd look really silly if I formally wrote "Put noodles in hot, slightly oiled stock and boil until al dente".
But surely there is more to a wantan mee dish than just the contents of the parcels, and here are the recipes for them - the sauce mix for the noodles, and a nice piquant accompaniment in the form of pickled green chillies...

Wantan Noodle /Wonton Noodle Sauce / (possibly also Kon Loh Mein sauce) for ~2 portions

Ingredients:
2 tbsp lard
2-3 tsp light soy sauce (to taste)
A generous dash of white pepper
2 cloves garlic (or 1 big one), finely chopped
2 tsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
400 ml hot chicken stock

Heat the lard and gently saute the garlic until the oil is fragrant and aromatic. Mix in all the other ingredients. Stir into noodles about a teaspoon at a time, to taste (generally i find that about 2 teaspoons per noodle nest works fine), with a small ladleful of chicken stock to wet the noodles a bit. Voila. A proper wantan mee with sauce!

Pickled Green Chilies (to be prepared at LEAST the night before you want to eat the wantan mee)

1 cup vinegar (Chinese rice vinegar, or if you live in the UK, malt vinegar also tastes fine. Not tried Japanese rice vinegar yet, let me know if you have and it turns out good)
3-4 Green chilies
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar

De-seed, de-vein and slice the green chillies, and put them in a bowl. Pour hot boiling water over the chilies and leave them to soak for about a minute (the longer they soak for, the less spicy they will become, and the softer the chilies - ie if you want them really hot and crunchy, blanch them for only about 15 seconds or so). Drain the water, and put the chilies in a suitable jar or container (glass or ceramic). Mix in the other ingredients and stir well. Refrigerate. The chilies should have absorbed the flavour by the next day. Yummy!

Wednesday 16 November 2011

Sambal Sotong (Squid in chili paste)

This sambal sotong (squid in chili paste) dish is a spice sensation - succulent squid with a hot and zingy  sauce of dried chilies, with a subtle sour sharpness coming from the tamarind and tomatoes. In this particular recipe we have used leftover chili paste from another dish, but hopefully i will post one soon with instructions on how to make the paste from scratch.

If, like me, you cooked char kuey teow yesterday according to the proportions recommended by the recipe by Rasa Malaysia, you would be left 2-3 teaspoonsful of leftover chili paste. The question is, what to do with it? It seems a bit wasteful to throw it ALL away. A few options spring to mind - use it up a teaspoon at a time with a dash of lime juice squeezed on top, or make a sambal dish.


Sambal Sotong (Squid in chili paste), serves 2

Ingredients
2 tomatoes, quartered
1 large onion, sliced
1 tbsp leftover chili paste 
200 g squid, cleaned 
1 tbsp tamarind paste, soaked in 200 ml of water
Salt to taste (I'd say slightly less than 1/2 tsp is a good starting point)
Sugar, preferably palm or brown, to taste (1 tsp)

To blend:
2 shallots
2 small cloves of garlic (or one really big one)
4 candlenuts (buah keras), or macadamia nuts as a substitute
1 tbsp oil

Blitz the above ingredients in a blender until it forms a nice yellow paste. (If you are worried about damaging the blade of your blender, I'd recommend putting the nuts in a food freezer bag and bashing it into smaller bits before pouring into the blender).

Heat a small frying pan with about 1 tbsp of oil (or more, if it's not a non-stick pan), and saute the sauce for a few minutes, or until the oil splits from the paste, taking care not to burn it. Add the leftover chili paste. Add about 100 ml of water to prevent the paste from drying out. Squeeze the tamarind paste to extract the juice, and pour the tamarind juice in to taste. Add the quartered tomatoes with about 100 ml more water, and allow it to simmer until the tomatoes turn mushy. (Keep adding water to maintain a nice smooth consistency)

Stir in the onions, and cook until al dente. Lastly, stir in the squid, and leave it in there for a minute or so to cook (do not overcook! In fact best to leave it slightly undercooked). Turn the heat off and allow it to rest for about 5-10 minutes (the residual heat will continue cooking the squid while the squid absorbs the sambal flavour). Serve warm with rice.

Some comments 
Feel free to add more chili paste than 1 tbsp if you feel the sambal looks anaemic, but be warned! I made the mistake of throwing ALL my leftover paste in there (which was about 3 tbsps?) and I ended up having to have a sip of yogurt for every mouthful of rice+sambal.
If you really want to you can flash fry the squid separately to brown it a little before putting it in the sambal, but I'm a mummy in a hurry and thus didn't bother :P
Let me know how you like it!

Tuesday 15 November 2011

Grilled Turmeric Chicken (recipe)

Light crispy skin, salty and slightly sweet with honey, this chicken wing dish goes down a treat with children, and is simple enough for even the most stressed and harried mums to prepare.

As mentioned in the previous post, the two adults of the family had char kuey teow for dinner. Which meant that the fussy little one (what, I am allowed to call a spade a spade, I'm his mum!) had to have separate dinner arrangements. Since char kuey teow involved a lot of preparation and required the use of the wok I opted for a really simple, easy, brainless, and low maintenance recipe - grilled turmeric chicken wings.


Grilled Turmeric Chicken (Wings)

[for 500 g chicken wings]

Marinade:
1 1/2 tsp turmeric 
3/4 tsp salt (maximum! don't put any more than this!)
1 tsp honey
1 tbsp cooking oil 
3 tbsp corn flour

Marinade the chicken wings with the above ingredients for at least 15 minutes while you preheat the grill (unless like me you own a flame grill, in which case no preheating is necessary).
Put the chicken on a foil-lined grill pan and grill for 20-25 minutes, turning once every 7 minutes or so to avoid burning the honey. Skin side up first, then turn, then finish with skin side up again to dry and crisp the skin)
Serve hot.

Some extra tidbits -
Feel free to substitute the chicken wings with chicken fillets (I never use breastmeat, but if you are using thigh and drumstick fillets extend the cooking time to 25-30 minutes).
Do not marinade the chicken in a PLASTIC bowl, not unless you like fluorescent yellow. Likewise do not use your hands to marinade the chicken, and don't do it while wearing your best clothes, as turmeric stains don't come off easily.
Eat while hot for optimum crispiness!
Theoretically this dish can be done in an oven, although I've never tried it. May experiment one day with an oven and let you know how it goes. I hypothesize that in order to get the skin really crispy a baking rack as well higher oven temperatures will be needed, presumably gas mark 7-8. If any of you dear readers do decide to try it let me know how it goes.

Char Kuey Teow for dinner!

Char Kuey Teow is a highly popular Malaysian rice noodle dish - particularly Penang Char Kuey Teow from the northern region. The rice noodles are fried over high heat with aromatic and savoury ingredients, resulting in an irresistable-smelling dish with a mild kick of chili spice in the background.

After my husband came back from London and sighed about the char kuey teow that his friend ordered at the Hare and Tortoise which he didn't dare try because he doesn't like taking food off other peoples' plates, I decided to cook char kuey teow for dinner (which meant that I had to provide something else for my 5 year old, the recipe for which is in the next post here). The char kuey teow recipe I followed (and have always followed, with great success) is this one: http://rasamalaysia.com/char-kuey-teow/2/ , but with some very neccessary changes to the recipe:

  1. Don't bother soaking your prawns in sugar. It may just be me, I don't like the idea of soaking prawns in sugar, but I don't think it adds anything to the sweetness of the prawn anyway. Besides, I would want my prawns to be as dry as possible otherwise the wok will just be wet and the temperature would be reduced. 
  2. The list of sauce ingredients calls for 1 TBSP of sugar. I highly disagree and have reduced this to about 1 TSP or less (what is with the author and sugar?!)
  3. The same list of ingredients ALSO calls for "Scant 1/2 teaspoon salt". No idea what they meant, but from my experience anything more than a pinch or a light shake of salt will make the dish too salty.
  4. (this one is just a personal preference) - The best char kuey teow I have EVER tasted hails not from Penang, but from Pahang, where the kuey teow is nice and dark. As such, I usually increase the amount of dark soy sauce in the sauce to 2 tbsp.
char kuey teow

The final result? Husband said "I'm glad I didn't bother ordering this in Hare and Tortoise - this is very good". AWWWWWW.


PS - If you followed their recipe to the T, you would probably end up with a fair bit of leftover sambal. I used my leftovers to prepare Sambal Sotong, and the recipe can be viewed here.

 

Sunday 13 November 2011

Party Animal


Well! It's been another brilliant weekend, and after all the fun I had I was reminded of an old sketch I did which expressed my, errr, excitement about returning to the glorious realms of research the next day (inevitably a Monday). Decided to put off procrastinating and colour it in... although to be honest I quite like the pen doodle just as much....

Hope your weekend was as good as mine :D

Friday 11 November 2011

The Jacq-of-all-trades dilemma

The problem with being an Asian kid is often this - you may like something, but unless you are a super prodigy of some sort, most people (relatives especially) are deeply convinced (consciously or otherwise) that an arts-related career may not be the best route to wealth. Take my parents - they praised me for my abilities, forced me to learn piano (which I am eternally grateful for), essentially nurtured me and helped me to develop. But when it came to the crunch, when I suggested to them that I would really like to learn graphic design in the One Academy back home (seriously, have you seen their prospectus? It's awesome!), the inevitable answer was - "Do a science degree". Even my sister, thoroughly more gifted than me and apparently infinitely more world-wise, said "Do a science-oriented degree, that way you'll have something to fall back on".

They were, of course, completely right.

Fast forward to the present, and here I am. A BSc in Physics (high five to fellow physicists reading this!!), and, hopefully, in a months' time, a PhD in Optoelectronics.

And my dilemma is ever the same. I want to do arts, but there is no money in it for me. Often, in the shower I have new ideas for, well, music. Videos I would love to upload on Youtube. Occasionally, an idea for phone Apps. Stories for books or animations. But I am held back by the same self-doubt that plagued me all those years ago - am I good enough to compete with other super-talentos out there? Where's the money?

Well, here I am. Here is my beginning. For display, for all the world to see - links to my doodles, my vids, and perhaps occasionally a story or two. If it's good enough, someone will probably advise me how to make money off it :P

Love,
Jacq