I’ve been superbly occupied with a lot of events lately which explains the lack of entries including the pre-planned Chinese New Year Reunion Buffet dinner but i guess it is so far back now and Chinese New Year is already on its way to wrapping up, there’s really no point for me to blog about it again so i’ll just tip off a bit here. We didn’t cooked this year which is fairly odd and we went to Midvalley’s The Boulevard Hotel’s restaurtant called Wild Rice and had their International Buffet dinner, the foods aren’t really that impressive and for RM70.00 per pax, it’s not really worth it. Most of the foods are either too oily or just too tasteless to begin with but then again, i didn’t eat much.
This is the dessert plate and on top of it are the desserts, isn’t it obvious? The only edible stuffs on it was the vanilla and mint ice-cream, a cut of the cinnamon apple pie, the fruit tart, 2 slices of apple and a slice of watermelon. The orange pudding and the red jello which looks absolutely stunning in terms of presentation are both as equally as crappy as they smelled like. The cappuccino was good though but too bad because coffee usually comes last and for buffet dinners, that means you’re already freaking full. Wanted to go get another cup but dad wanted to go back already because my sister wants to pay a visit to MPH to get her statutes. Anyway, i’ll blog about this in “Partially Reviewed” so that anyone who is interested can just click on the link at the right!
For valentines, this is actually my first time celebrating because so far for all the girls that i’ve met, they either too bitchy or are just too self-centered. This valentine changed my mind completely about its commercial perception about expensive candlelight dinners and hefty jewelleries. Why? Come, let me tell you. We wanted to do something memorable so both of us planned to do our very own 3 course meal cookout on valentines day itself and although it might sound stupid for most of the people around town but to us, cooking has been our hobby and so we take proud and joy in what we’re doing. Ignoring what others think, we proceeded with our plans. We shopped for ingredients following the recipes that my baby copied from various blogging sites online the night before and i must say, it has got to be the most ambitious shopping i have ever been in my whole entire life. This is like our first time cooking such meals and we can talk about things that not even experienced cook dared to do in so little time, let alone us, the amateur rookies. Nonetheless, we got what we wanted and left. We bought lemons and ice cream soda to which we mixed it with the flavored vodkas that one generous ass gave my baby for her birthday present.
With all lights off except for the dim lights that i turned on and the air conditioner maxed out, we leaned on the bed rest together side by side with one hand embraced the other while another hand holding the glasses by its tip, we cheered our way to valentines at 0000hrs. Nothing can beat the mood of wishing your loved ones “Happy Valentines” face to face and then sealed it with a long kiss followed by a big warm hug at first instance. Not going to trade this experience unless it is a “hand-in-marriage” *hint hint*
We woke up late as usual and skipping breakfast and lunch we wanted to start cooking and only then we realized we missed out the ingredients and so we drove out again to get them and to our surprise, the cold storage at Jusco Bukit Tinggi was down for maintenance and we cannot get our whipping creme for mash potatoes. We were under a temporary stress because time is a luxury we cannot afford to waste and so we resorted to Potato Wedges instead. We walked to the herbs and spices corner and picked up Paprika powder. Headed straight back home because it is already near 1600hrs and everything needs to be done before and desirably at 1900hrs. We have 3 hours. As soon as we reached home we dashed into the kitchen and start slicing what needs to be sliced, boiled what needs to be boiled and mix what needs to be mixed.
We begin by making the desserts, it is called Creme Cheese Chocolate Truffles. My baby mixed both the creme cheese and the icing sugar together while i double-boiled the bittersweet chocolates. Immediately after the chocolates were melted, i poured it into the mixture and the continue mixing until even, the whole mixture turned out looking like choki-choki. I then covered a flat tray with bitter chocolate powder and the mixture was scooped and placed on top of it, having done that we sprinkled more chocolate powder on them and refrigerate them for an at least 30minutes for the truffles to harden up. At the end of the day, the truffles looked like this
It turned out excellent only that it was too sweet because we forgot to half the amount of icing sugar used but to us it was great because the bitter chocolate powder compliments smoothly with the sweetness since both of us love dark chocolates. The fragrance that it emits is almost orgasmic. To most people they can’t take it as they complained that they were too bitter, they gave us a frowning face but we put up a big grin on our face every time we popped one in =) Putting away the desserts, we moved on to preparing the appetizers.
The recipe calls this Deep Fried Tuna Cheese Balls and this is perhaps the hardest recipe for that evening. Firstly, you have to boiled the potatoes and then mashed them until smooth, adds in the tuna, herbs and spices to taste. Where is the cheese, some may asked. Well, the cheese is not added into the mixture but rather it is used as a filling =) we used Mozzarella Cheese. We cut the cheese into cube size and then using our skills that enables us to make Glutinous Rice Balls (otherwise known as “tong yuen”) we gently rubbed the potato mixture into balls with the Mozzarella safely cradled inside them. Completing that task, we put it on a plate filled with flour to prevent the balls from sticking to each other. The original recipe was to cover the balls with flour and then dip in egg and then into bread crumbs but we couldn’t find any that are not sold in bulk and so we discarded it. We deep fried the whole thing right after we covered it with enough flour and prayed hard that the cheese will not leak out because be believed that the bread crumbs are to tighten the surface of the potato balls.
We forgot to take picture of it in bulk because it tasted so good that my family members praised us and kept on asking for more and so, they were basically taken out to serve them first before we even had the chance to snap a picture of it. We hugged each other and jumped for joy knowing that it’s a success and my family members loved them. We kept roughly around 15 to ourself. If you noticed, the top one was actually molded into looking like a heart specially for this occasion. There were 2 in total, each of us took one (^^) Needless to explain how good it taste when my family members asked for more when i gave them 1 each to try. The outside is crispy as like when you deep fried chicken with flour and in between the cheese, there was the potato and tuna that is considerably soft and very tasty due to the amount of spices and herbs we put into and then right smacked in the middle there was the semi-melted Mozzarella cheese that is more than ready for you to sink your teeth into and then pull them out, remember the Pizza Hut’s advertisement? Yeah, something like that but since they were made from potatoes it is not something that you would want to eat a lot because they are extremely filling and my advice to you is to eat it while it is hot, at most, eat it when they are warm.
The moment of truth, the main course. Earlier we had in thought of making Black Pepper & Mushroom Sauce Steak (beef) but figured that it was too high a risk to take and so we changed it again for safety sake. Salmon Steak in Lemon Butter Garlic Sauce was a decision made hours before the cook out. We went to look for Cods but there wasn’t any left when we went shopping so we opted for Salmon steak and they weren’t the freshes of all but i guess beggars can’t be choosers. My baby picked up some asparagus because we needed greens and she knows that’s perhaps the only greens that i would love to eat. The first step is to clean the Salmon steak and to take out any excess unnecessary fats and parts that are not edible, i did the cleaning and the cut out job XD and my baby was there making the paste to marinate the steaks. Having completed the paste both of us rubbed the paste onto the steaks, it was the most easiest to cook because all you need is to apply the paste on it and then throw it into the oven and roast it.
While waiting for the salmon steak to roast, we boiled a generous amount of asparagus with a bit of olive oil to bring out the color and also deep fried some potato dices seasons with salt and paprika to serve as side dishes. The potato dices are recommended to eat when they are still hawt, fresh from the fryer. Like all potatoes, they stiffen up when they are exposed to the air too long. With all the side dishes done, we impatiently waited for the Salmon steak to finish roasting while watching the paste melts onto the steaks and the juices and sauces were in the baking tray. Approximately 20 minutes later, we took the steaks out and then put it on the plates that were gentle dashed with paprika powder on the surface for artistic values. The steaks looks amazing and the colors were tantalizing, having put them on separate plates, we pour some of the sauces that was on the baking tray onto the salmon steak, those were the mixture of both the steak’s juices and the paste that was prepared earlier to marinate.
The salmon was sprinkled with a slice of lemon juice before we consume it. Everything was delicious except that it was a bit too oily, i think we added in too much butter while making the paste because the initial recipe we copied down was for a serving of 4 persons, we never did made any alterations. We also planned to have a romantic candle light dinner at the 3rd floor and i even had the table readied but because recently there was a very heavy haze that hit my area and i don’t know what is the cause, it is still here lingering now. I tried to look it up online but to no avail and so we had to eat at my family’s dinning table, not much of a romantic valentines dinner but i guess it’s not where and how we eat but it’s with who we eat it with. My parents? Oh, they left out for dinner just in time for us to have valentines dinner alone too ^^ what a considerate parents they are. Love them.
Seriously, i’m cheap but i’m not THAT cheap. What’s valentines without gifts, yeah?
These are the combination of valentine gifts that both of us gave each other. Here’s a checklist :-
- Baby Eevee (white bear for me) [CHECK!]
- Love Box (filled with my favorite foods) [CHECK!]
- A Stalk of Red Rose [CHECK!]
- Red Themed Present Box (Cornflakes) [CHECK!]
- A Small Packet of 6 teabags, 6 creamers and 1 Equal [CHECK!]
- One Rattan Gift Box with Teddy Bear (filled with chocolates) [CHECK!]
- 7 Miniature Bottles of Flavored Vodkas [CHECK!] *finished 3*
On a side note, i’m really glad that things worked out between the 2 of us.
P/S : This might be the very last blog entry for the following few months down the road because my final examinations is in about 3 months time and i haven’t done any revisions yet and just for your information, i have 0 knowledge on every subject matter. Let’s crossed our fingers and hoped for the best, shall we?
P/S/S : The ingredients for Valentines dinner (inclusive of everything) is not more than RM70.00.
P/S/S/S : Lonely Night =/
