Back to my roots challenge #1

Bistek (Filipino Style Beef Steak)

For my first challenge, I chose to cook Bistek. This is a staple in my mum's home. She cooks it often and it's one of the dishes that hubby really likes to eat. Tonight the little one tasted it for the first time too :)

The recipe is very simple and easy to follow. I usually do this one by eye so the amounts of the ingredients below are approximates.

for 2 ppl

• 400grams of beef fillet, thinly sliced


• 75ml light soy sauce


• 75ml dark soy sauce


• 250ml water


• Juice of 1 lemon


• 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil


• 1 large onion, sliced in rings

1. In a pan add the beef, along with the soy sauces, water and lemon juice. Bring to the boil and let it simmer for about 10-15 mins until the beef is tender. Taste the sauce. If it's too sour, add more soy sauce or if too salty, add more lemon juice. It should be a balance of sourness and saltiness.


2. Once tender, remove the liquid to a bowl and leave aside. Let any remaining liquid in the pan evaporate off then add the oil. Gently fry the beef for a couple of minutes then add the onions. Cook till the onions are translucent and still have a little crunch. Add back the liquid and let simmer for another 2 minutes.


3. Serve with steam rice.

Bistek Filipino Style Beef Steak @ Group Recipes


Bon Appetite
Cherrie

Back to my roots challenge

Since the day I learnt how to cook, I have learnt to love cooking pasta, stir fries, casseroles, roasts and bake cakes. However, I have noticed that I haven't really cooked a lot Filipino dishes. Even though they are dishes I love to eat, I rarely cook them at home for Hubby and my little one. I guess the main reason is that if I crave it, I ask my mum to cook it for me. After all, mums are the best cooks right?

So, I have decided to set myself a challenge. I am going back to my roots and I will endeavour to cook/bake a Filipino dish every week. I will post my dishes on my blog no matter the outcome. I'm excited by this as this will definitely bring back the taste and smells of Philippines into my home.

Dundee Cake

This week Hubby requested I bake a fruit cake for him. I decided to bake a Dundee Cake. Dundee cakes were created in the city of Dundee in Scotland sometime in the late 19th century. This is a rich fruit cake but stands out from the others as it includes citrus fruits to the cake like lemons and oranges. I got my recipe from Gary Rhodes "At the table". I like his version as he tries to keep as close as possible to the very earliest version. As you can imagine this recipe has been copied and changed over and over again.


I have to say that this one is another winner for Hubby. As you can see from the photo below, he got to the cake before I got to take a picture of it...




Bon Appetite
Cherrie

Grand Opening

It's officially open! After three long years of waiting, my parents finally opened their Nando's Store in Watergardens Shopping Centre, Taylors Lakes.

You can read about our last week of activity here, here and here.


Congratulations Mum and Dad!!!

See the week leading up to the Nando's opening here.

Bon Appetite

Cherrie

Taro Gateaux

I was walking along Swanston Walk when from the corner of my eye, I spotted a vision of great delight.. aaahhh... Taro Gateaux.





The reason why I got so excited is that we have a Filipino version of this called Ube Macapuno Cake (Ube is pronounced oobeh). Ube (or purple yam, to some) is a root vegetable and is similar to a sweet potato and can be made into desserts.


The only place I know I can get Ube Cake is at Filipino parties (which I don't go a lot to). Now I know I can purchase it from Crown Cafe Bakery located at 215 Swanston Walk CBD.


When I saw this Purple layer of sponge and butter cream, I had to have it. However before I can commit to a whole cake, I wanted to try a slice first. It tastes like the Ube Cake but without the Macapuno(sweet coconut) on top. It'll do for me.... :)

Bon Appetite
Cherrie

Chocolate Malteaser Cake

Every week I try to bake a cake. This week I made a Chocolate Malteaser Cake. I got the recipe from Nigella Lawson's Feast but I didn't follow it exactly. I actually didn't have malteasers so I didn't decorate the top and the recipe called for horlicks but i didn't have any so I used Ovaltine instead. Hubby said that it really did taste like a big malteaser :D

Lunch Box Revisited

Yay to the Red Lunch Box! Thanks to Cafe Vue, I was able to enjoy my second Lunch box experience. I really loved last month's menu which I posted about it here. This month the menu included :

Savoury
Scotch egg - It was a quail egg enclosed in herby sausage meat. Yum. At first I thought the quail egg may be too small but it was just the right size.
-
Salad
Pumpkin and fetta with yuzu dressing - The pumpkin was sweet and the dressing was tangy. I quite liked this salad. The different flavours and textures worked really well. A yuzu, if you didn't know (and I didn't either, till I looked it up) is an Asian citrus fruit.
-
Sandwich
Coronation chicken on a sesame Zopf roll - This sandwich was really tasty. The coronation chicken was invented in 1953 for the Queen of England's coronation. The chicken was lightly coated in the dressing that had a hint of curry. You can find a recipe here.
-
Sweet
Pistachio cup cake - this was a sweet dense cup cake. I liked the flavour and the colour of it but it was a little too sweet for my taste.





A couple of my colleauges, wanted to join me for a lunch at Cafe vue but they both opted for the Hamburger. The meat patty was really thick, not like the ones you get at fast food outlets. The burger included crispy bacon, tomoato, rocket leaves, cheese and pickles. What else could you want in a burger?

The Fries were to die for. They was crunchy yet soft and creamy on the inside. I had to steal fries from their lunch as it was sooo good. It came with a hand made tomato sauce and Oh... My... God.. this sauce was amazing! It was sweet but tangy at the same time. I could see flecks of herbs and capers in it. The only problem was that it wasn't enough!

Bon Appetite

Cherrie

Good Ol' English Fry Up

Today, Hubby, the little one and I had a Good ol' English fry up for breakfast. As you can see it's not for the faint hearted. Our breakfast included Fried eggs, English pork sausages, black pudding, streaky bacon, toast, baked beans and hash brown ( I know the hash brown isn't english but I didn't want chips for breakfast). To accompany our fry up, we also had yoghurt and a donut to finish off. It was a huge breakfast and since it's not something we don't do very often, we decided to go all the way.




We got our stash of great meat products from Rob's British Butchery. You can read about our visit there here. They're located at 177 Lonsdale Street, Dandenong. The owner, Rob Boyle opened his store about 10 years ago and says they are now a permanent fixture in Dandenong. For hubby's sake, let's hope they will still be opened many, many years from now.



Bon Appetite
Cherrie

Breakfast at Blahnik

My friend and I wanted to go out for breakfast before he went on leave from work for a 2 week trip to Italy with his girlfriend... Lucky them! We went to Blahnik which is a cafe inside the Galleria in Melbourne.

He had the English breakfast. This included eggs, crispy bacon, hash brown, fried tomato, sausages and toast. It was a typical english breakfast. Nothing too special about it.

On the other, the French Toast with Maple syrup and strawberries that I had was REALLY good. They used ciabbata bread for the toast and dusted it with icing sugar. I was actually looking for pancakes this morning but can't complain about ordering this.

My friend, being American, couldn't help but steal some of my maple syrup and pour it all over his fried eggs. I'm glad Aussies haven't caught on to that!

Bon Appetite

Cherrie

Kickapoo

I finally got a Kickapoo! As mentioned in my previous post, I tried to order this can of joy juice at Hawker's Cafe but they were out of stock. Luckily for me, Mellie from Tummy Rumbles, pointed me in the direction of where I could get one.

Hawker's Cafe

Today, a friend and I went to hawker's Cafe for lunch. It's at 213 Russell street in the city. It's quite a hike from where I work but I love this place.

My friend had Dry chicken Curry Noodles. which was chicken curry with egg noodles served with egg, cucumber and lettuce. He said he enjoyed it but it wasn't spicy enough for him.


I had Bak Kut Teh : a traditional Malaysian dish. It's a claypot of pork broth infused with herbs and spices, served with Chinese donuts and a bowl of steamed rice. After tasting this dish, I wanted to make this at home. A friend bought me the spice mix and it turned out almost the same. I'm going to try to find a traditional recipe on the net and make it from scratch. It's so tasty. The broth was sweet and I can taste the strong pork flavour in it. The meat was tender and very succulent. I will definitely order this again (after trying everything else on the menu)



I tried to order a Kickapoo joy drink but they were out of stock :( This drink is said to taste like a cross between mountain dew and lemonade. I just wanted to say "I'll have a kickpoo"

Bon Appetite
Cherrie

Hungry?

Click here and you will be :)

Bon appetite

Cherrie

Not Happy Jan!

I usually only like to post about my good food experiences but I have to get something off my chest.

On the way home from Warrnambool, hubby and I wanted to take a detour to Timboon to visit the Timboon Farmhouse Cheese Store called The MouseTrap. The day we wanted to go was Easter Monday so I called them to confirm that they would be open. The advised that they would be and the opening time is 10am.

Hubby and I timed it so we arrived exactly at 10am. As we arrived, the employees were arriving as well. We then noticed a sign saying the trading hours from 10:30. We proceeded to the glass door and had a peep inside and saw two ladies preparing for the day. We could hear them asking each other whether or not to open the door for us. Even though we were told the opening time was at 10am, we decided to wait a while along with another couple who arrived the same time as we did.

At this stage, I was a little annoyed that we were given the wrong opening time when I called and to make things worse, they didn't even pop their heads out of the door to confirm that they will not be opening their doors for another 30 mins. For parents of a young baby and with still a long drive home back to Melbourne, 30 mins is a long time to wait.

What really got me upset and made me make the decision to finally leave was the two ladies inside the store. They obviously did not know that the glass sliding door was not sound proof! I heard them talking and laughing about us and how we were trying to get them to notice us standing outside. Needless to say they were not saying nice things.

What is ironic is that there was a poster hung up on the wall beside the door saying that "We, as the customer are important to them and not vice versa. They need us more than we need them, and that they are grateful that we are giving them the opportunity to serve us". I was so upset that it ruined the whole morning for me.

I think these two ladies need to attend a course on how to be polite and to learn customer service.

I have decided to write them a letter. I'll see if I get a response.

Locally made

While in Warrnambool, I wanted to get locally made products.

Figsellers Warrnambool

Today in between our sightseeing and playing mini golf with Hubby and Little One in Warrnambool, we managed to eat.

We found Figsellers Cafe on Liebig street. I did my homework before leaving for our holiday on good places to eat and I found this cafe. What got me interested was their all day breakfast menu. However, when we got there, I decided to order something from their specials board instead. I had a Tandoori chicken roll served with chips, salad and tzatziki. To be honest, I thought it was going to be Tandoori in a bread roll but this turned out better. It's like an indian version of a sausage roll.

Hubby just felt like a sandwich so he ordered a Turkey and bacon Focaccia. The sandwich had thick slices of roast turkey, crispy bacon, cheese, cranberry mayonaise, lettuce and tomato.

Bon appetite

Cherrie

Cheese World Allansford

Today we drove about 15 mins east of Warrnambool to get to Cheese World. It's located on the Great Ocean Road in Allansford.



They had wide range of different cheeses not just from their own factory but of other regions around Australia. They had interesting ones like Chilli cheddar, Bacon and tomato cheddar and herbs and spices cheddar....



They also sold different products like mustards, chutneys and sauces.


Bon appetite
Cherrie

Room Service Country Comfort Inn Warrnambool

On the Easter Long weekend, I, along with hubby and Little One went on a holiday to Warrnambool. We stayed in a little motel named Country Comfort Inn. You can read about our adventures here.

After a long drive from Melbourne and spending the afternoon doing a little exploring of what Warrnambool has to offer, hubby and I opted for ordering room service for dinner. Besides, the little one had an exhausting day so we put her to bed early.

For entree, we had Oysters Kilpatrick. I say "we" but hubby is not a big fan of oysters so I had most of it :)



For main I had char grilled Kangaroo tossed in celery salt, served with baked yams, topped with a tree tomato and macadamia nut salsa. The kangaroo had a nice charcoal flavour and was tender inside. It was cooked just right. The macadamia nut salsa was interesting. It was a little bland but it added great texture to the dish. I don't know what tree tomato is but to me, it tasted like normal tomatoes.

Hubby had a Lamb madras curry. Hot! Served with rice, a pappadum and green papaya chutney. Hubby likes curries a lot, being 1/4 Indian. He likes the sweet and sourness of the chutney but still prefers the mango variety.

For dessert we shared a Baked Peanut Butter Cheese Cake with chocolate ganache. I'm not a fan of peanut butter in desserts but this wasn't too bad however the cheesecake was a little too sour for hubby's taste.

Overall, I think the meal was pretty decent for room service in a motel.

Bon appetite
Cherrie

Lemon Curd and Pancake Layered Cake

Hubby saw this being made on Great Food Live on Foxtel and "requested" that I make it for him. It's layers of thin pancakes, lemon curd and vanilla cream. We found the recipe here

It was quite simple to make but a little time consuming as you have to make the pancakes one by one. I urge you to make this cake because it's delcious. The lemon curd matches really well with the vanilla cream and the texture of the pancakes.

First I made the pancakes. This was easy enough but as I mentioned earlier it did take some time. The lenon curd is probably the trickiest part. When stiring this over the stove remember to keep the flame on low so as not to curdle the eggs. The recipe is a bit confusing in this step because it doesn't use the 300ml of double cream but instead uses the cream which it meant for the vanilla cream layer. I adlibbed and used the 300ml of cream here instead. You'll understand what I mean when you read the recipe.



To get this looking like a cake, I used my spring form tin and placed the pancakes in it after cutting them down to size. I then layered the lemon curd, cream and pancakes finishing off with the vanilla cream on top. I refrigerated this for about a few hours but should have left it longer (or should I say, Hubby should have left it longer... but couldn't wait) as the cream and lemon curd were not quite set yet.




It turned out really well, if I say so myself :) And I'm VERY glad that Hubby agrees too!



Bon appetite
Cherrie