Baked Cheese Tart

Recently, my cousin Vivian has been involving her son Zheng An in a nearby baking supply shop's baking classes.

The shop is in USJ, called Best Baking Solutions. My cousin is very enthusiastic, and has gotten herself lots of supplies, but she has no oven in her home. So they come over to my place to do the baking.

So far, have been trying this recipe twice now, the Baked Cheese Tart with blueberry.







Mainly, Vivian and I do the work, but Zheng An has been getting more involved. So far the results are very tasty, but the proportions always confuse us. We always end up with more filling than pastry available.

May try apple pie next.

Egg Tart Experiment

So... I itching to use the oven again. And I wanted to use some of the vanilla essence that I had manufactured. I bought a bottle of plain Absolut vodka and soaked some of the leftover vanilla beans I got from my previous Bali trip last year into it. Just leave it in a jar for a few weeks, shaking it about once a week, and here's what I get.

Vanilla + Vodka = Vanilla Essence

I'm thinking that I could probably mix this vanilla into cola and get vanilla coke too. Might try this tomorrow.

Using this off the net recipe as a base, here is my own adjusted recipe:

Makes 20 tarts, Preparation Time 30 mins plus Baking Time 15-20 mins

Ingredients

Tart Shell

• 1 cup sugar
• 3 cups wheat flour
• 250g butter or butter blend
• 1 egg, beaten

Filling

• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cups water
• 5 eggs
• 1 dash vanilla essence
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, mix together the confectioners' sugar and flour. Mix in butter with a fork until it is in small crumbs. Stir in the egg until the mixture forms a dough. The texture should be slightly moist.
   
2. Shape dough into 1 1/2 inch balls, and press the balls into tart molds so that it covers the bottom, and goes up higher than the sides. Use both thumbs, pressing gently while going around the mold.
   
3. Combine the white sugar and water in a medium saucepan, and bring to a boil. Cook until the sugar is dissolved, remove from heat. Alternatively, just use hot water and dissolve sugar. Let this cool to room temperature.
4. Preheat the oven to 230°C.
5. Strain the eggs through a sieve
6. Whisk eggs into the sugar mixture. Stir in the evaporated milk and vanilla. Strain the filling through a sieve, and fill the tart shells.
7. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, until golden brown, and the filling is puffed up a little bit.

Before...

After

I had some left over dough, which i just put into the oven anyway. So that become a cookie. I did fill the shells too much, so I spilt some when putting it into the oven. So kiasu of me... To be frank I think This recipe can make 21 shells, but I only had 20 aluminum tart foils.

I think 20 minutes baking time is pushing it a bit, 15 would have been better, then just let the tarts continue baking in the still-warm oven. I sampled one finished tart with my parents. The bottom is slightly burnt. The custard is nice and firm though.

I still got lots of flour and evaporated milk left. Will probably keep trying this till I finish the flour.

Got some friends coming over for dinner tomorrow. Let's get more guinea pig feedback tomorrow.

Chuan Kie, Gotong Jaya

It was a fact I didn't want to admit. It's so much easier to blog about food than anything else.

So here's another entry from me about food. Went out for a family outing today to Genting. First stop was Lim Goh Tong memorial.


Still amazes me when I think what a huge empire Lim manage to build on our Malaysian mountain side area. First World Hotel is a record holder with > 10,000 rooms.


Above the memorial is a pavillion. Wouldn't this make a nice place for a late night get together?


Next was lunch at Gotong Jaya in Chuan Kie restaurant. There are lots of Chinese eating shops in Gotong Jaya's main street. They all look alike. They all serve roughly the same stuff too. Chuan Kie's distinguishing feature is that inside the restaurant, its walls are plastered full of celebrity photos taken with Chuan Kie staff.


Here's Mr Andy Lau Tak Wah. This picture must be really old, the colour has faded.


Here's Sally Yeh and George Lam. There are a lot more... maybe you can go look for Chuan Kie and have some fun identifying who you can recognise.


Food arrived, and is usual Chinese fare. The dish on the bottom left is "ka fah yok", but it tasted like pieces of fried lard, nothing more. Not for the health conscious. The taste was quite normal too. We had another patin fish dish, but it wasn't too fresh either. And the patin was RM90/kg. Word of advice, always ask for price and freshness before ordering!

Tenji Buffet

Made my way to the spanking new Solaris Mont Kiara. A new business area development comprising of office and shop lots, created with paved roads, pretty landscaping... Done in the vein of PJ's Jaya One. I guess the old trend of having lots of shop lots packed together, with inadequate parking is fading away. Taipan USJ comes to mind as one of those old trends.

I was at Solaris today to sample the Tenji buffet for lunch with a colleague. Comparisons with Jogoya at Starhill are inevitable.


Tenji's built up area is huge and can acommodate well over 100 tables with some private rooms too. There is an indoor air conditioned area and seating outdoors as well.


There are large chef stations throughout the interior, each one doing up a different food or drink. There are plenty of food and drink you can pick up off the counters. There are also food options that require on the spot cooking, so you drop in a little metal marker with your table number printed on it in baskets that correspond to that food choice you want. Once its prepared, someone sends the food to your table.


Undoubtedly, the japanese stuff drew the largest crowds. Do take note that lunch prices are cheaper than dinner, and well... I guess food quality is in proportion to the price. My colleague feels the dinner food is much nicer than today's lunch.


Be careful to read the labels carefully... some are not edible ho ho ho...


I did enjoy this grilled fish that my colleague took for us to share. It is small enough to fit nicely on a skewer and in the belly cavity, there was some egg. Very tasty, the sweet egg was great with the grilled fish meat.


Oysters were fresh too. Dinner oysters are supposedly twice this size.


There are the usual roast lamb, chinese stir fried dishes, sashimi, grilled seafood, tempura etc. The tempura is an order you have to use the metal marker. We made an order for octopus tempura, but it arrived quite cold and was not crispy. Sashimi was quite okay some more interesting choices of scallop, silverfish, abolone, and several types of jelly fish. Dessert are the usual cakes and pastries, with Haagen Dazs ice cream (as opposed to Jogoya's Movenpick).

On the whole, Jogoya's food is more enjoyable I think. But Tenji's restaurant is definitely more comfortable. It is also easier to get to. Tenji's afternoon buffet priced at about RM77++ per person. But I had dinner at Jogoya, maybe it's not a fair comparison... I don't know.

After lunch we peeked at Schokolart chocolate bar's menu. The friendly staff explained that this weekend there would be a pole dancing event in the evenings! Also provided was a free flow of chocolate cocktails. RM75 per head.

Solaris has a lot more to offer than Tenji and Schokolart, and I'll need to explore more of it another day to find other gems and treasures.

Hanazen, Jaya One

So here's a post of a nice dinner I had during New Year's Day. That's 01 Jan 2009, which is many many days ago... I could apologise for the lateness, but what good would that do? Ho ho ho...

Met up with my friend Tim and Algy for a dinner at Hanazen Restaurant at Jaya One. Great location, lots of parking spots, and so many eating choices... Jaya One is one of my favourite eating spots.

By the way, Tim and Algy, you both look fabulous! Better than anything I remember from our study time together in Monash Sunway.

Tim Shim, that's him

Algy Algy, looking good.

So Tim went and ordered the biggest bento on the menu. I expected nothing less from the man. And it was gorgeous. Grilled fish, crispy prawn tempura, fresh sashimi, snails with rice, chawan mushi, pickled vegetables, miso soup, some fruit and tea. He was grinning throughout the meal, so it must be good.

Algy ordered the unagi set. The portion was really generous. She had trouble finishing it.



I ordered the fish and sashimi set. You cannot see the vinegar rice on the sashimi because the topping is too big.



Look at the pretty colours

Pretty much everything was wonderful. Some good conversation catch up, tasty food... restaurant was quite noisy due to high number of customers, and the fact that the interior was all smooth and hard materials like wood and glass. The sound echo was quite high.

The only damper of the night was a less than impressive baby octopus dish which Algy ordered on a whim. It was overly salty, so we didn't enjoy this one much.

we are salty... said the baby octopi

I still loved the food and am planning to go again with another bunch of friends soon. Maybe 2 of us can share the gigantic Hanazen Bento!

Korea Barbecue and IT apathy

THad a first try of the now infamous Korean Barbecue recently with an old friend. We patranoised a joint at SS2 Petaling Jaya called Korea House. I am not much of a food blogger, and therefore forgot to take many pics of the outing. Shame on me, shame on me ^.^


The decor and ambience is ok. Yellow lights, dark wooden furniture. On the night we came, we were served by a senior and junior staff. I don't think they were Korean. Their English wasn't so good, and was heavily accented. When asking for recommendation, the senior rattled off for 2 minutes on 2 items off every page of the menu. I guess the food must be really good then hur hur hur... We settled on pork and beef meat, one kimchi soup and an egg dish.

Sizzle sizzle... BBQ pork with the many condiments surrounding the hot plate

The meat was quite tender and juicy with 4 different dipping sauces. It was quite tasty on its own. The barbecuing was done by the restaurant staff. First, some hot coals are placed under the iron dish. Once it's hot, the meat is cooked. Once the beef is done, they changed the plate for cooking the pork. Guess this keeps the meat flavour pure? There are many accompanying side dishes of vegetables, achovies, patatoes etc. Something out of norm is that we were served cold tea with our food. To cool down from the fires of BBQ maybe?

Kimchi soup, green leaf vege, BBQ Pork, Egg, BBQ Beef

After polishing off the beef... the senior staff came over to explain which dipping sauce goes with what. A little bit sooner would have been better leh big bro! The my friend suddenly recalled that the fresh green leaf vege (the name eludes me at this moment), is supposed to be used as a wrap for the meat and fresh garlic. The kimchi soup was quite delicious. The egg dish was really plain.

All in all, the bill came up to RM100 for 2 pax. The food is decent. We were overstuffed. Could've gone without the extra egg dish.

Over dinner, we moaned about work, clients and all the usual stuff. We did discuss why Malaysia was not an IT frontrunner in the world. We realised that while it is normal to develop pretty looking applications that meet business requirements, Malaysians don't think ahead about making something the best or something that is innovative. Now can work, means good already lor. I wonder what technology R & D departments do in Malaysia. Do they aim to come up with good methodology to solve problems for present and future needs? Or are they doing 'needle in haystack' kind of work, where finding the elusive solution ends the research part of R & D? When the business of IT holds absolute power on time and resourcing, and passion for ideas and risk-taking relegated to lower priority, we can't help it if we are stuck in this rut. We have lots of brilliant and fast thinking young minds, born and bred in our country's soil, that are snatched away, often willingly, to more attractive lures from foreign bodies. I too am increasingly satisfied to 'finish my tasks' and escape from my desk as soon as possible. Are we apathetic about such things?

Such apathy doesn't work well in the food business. If your food ain't tasty, and if you are not on your toes regarding changing trends, you will definitely run into business problems.

Maybe bored and apathetic IT guys should try their hands at the food business for a real challenge in life? Hyuk hyuk hyuk...