The Fish & I

Remember I blogged about Fish Spa some time ago (well, quite 'some' time ago), I actually did went to it while I was in Penang. Never have the time to blog about my actual encounter with the fishes, so here it is now -- my close encounter with Dr.Fish.

Went to a shop called 'Happy Feet'. They have 2 types of fish available -- sucker fish & licker fish. Sucker fish are bigger in size, so I really feel the 'bites' (doesn't hurt, don't worry). It was said to be able to bite off the dead skins. Licker fish are much smaller, typically can go into smaller area between your toes and nibble the dead skins there (however, it's very ticklish).

Fishes (by that, I mean the Dr.Fishes) have short life span of about 9months so they don't grow over-sized & chew off someone's feet. I made sure the water is being circulated well with proper purifying system. I don't want to catch some unknown skin disease by putting my feet into 'dead water' :p

Pic: close up shot at the sucker fishes

Pic: Close up shot at licker fishes

Any significant skin improvement effect? well, my feet is certainly smoother after soaking in water for 20minutes but I really can't tell the difference afterwards. Then again, I never expect it to be able to show any effect on first try, else it'd be too hard to believe, hehe...

A short 20minutes session for 2 different types of fishes, a unique experience. The best part is: the shop keeper thought I was a student & offered me student price (of course I'm honest to tell her the truth that I'm not) ;)

Ginger Pork

I was away for so long that the ginger I bought way way way long ago is growing 'baby gingers'. Not wanting to waste any food, I figure they'll probably still safe to be consumed so I found a recipe that use up a lot of ginger to deplete my 'ginger inventory' -- ginger pork.

Ingredients:-
3 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp mirin
1tbsp freshly grated ginger (or to taste)
300g thinly sliced pork
oil for stir frying the pork

Methods:-
1. Mix together the soy sauce, mirin, grated ginger and dip the pork into the mix before cooking.
2. Heat some oil in frying pan over medium heat. Remove pork from marinade & add to the pan, make sure it cooks evenly. Done :)

Just how hard can that be right? I chopped some napa cabbage & stir fry them with a sprinkle of salt & lay underneath the pork slices. Well, I try to make my meals a little bit more 'green' ;) The remaining juice from the pork frying pan was pour over the dish, no waste & yum yum...

Fastelavn Festival

Fastelavn - also known as Danish Halloween. Celebrated on the seventh week before Easter Sunday. Traditionally, there'd be an event where people beat on a wooden barrel full of candy that has an image of cat on it, superstitiously considered as a safeguard against evil. Kids will dressed up, knocking on their neighrbour's door and do the similar to Halloween 'trick or treating' stuff.

I do not know how the event evolves...don't see any 'mass celebration' around Denmark (for more info, check on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_in_Denmark) but I definitely enjoy the by-products of the festival -- Fastelavns Boller.

Sweet danish pastry filled with cream, enhanced with custard, fruit jam, chocolate, icing sugar etc, simply delicious. Here's how they look like:-

Absolutely delicious. Unfortunately only available around the festive time (typically a week before & a few days after). Definitely going to miss this one. Why can't they have these available all year round?? :s

Snowwwww

I like snow. Not that I like the cold but if one has to choose between rainy winter or snowy winter, snowing wins hands down. Copenhagen experienced quite a lot of snow since I come back. Despite it's not so fun walking in heavy snow (as nice as it looks, you'll still get wet) but everything turns 'dreamy' & romantic the moment it snows, well, at least for me :)'

If your first thought of looking at the picture is: 'What is that?'... then I've failed my mission on snow angel making. But if you look closely, again & again, that's my snow angel! Okay, don't mind the missing head (I was being careful with my head) and the four feets (I need to stand at some location to start with) :p

I live in an apartment and always feel regret for not being able to make my own snow angel until...I remember that there's an open space on top of my building (suppose to be barbeque spot for residences in summer). Considering the possibility of meeting another person making snow angel up there is approximately zero, I decided it won't be too embarrassing to be a 'freak' to make my own angel if no one finds out.

I don't care if anyone is interested in my snow angel picture but I must post it as a remembrance, poor you who's reading this :p

It was fun but don't think I'll do it again, at least not on my roof top. Feels a little stupid & I always worried that someone might pop up & find an idiot (a.k.a. me) rolling in snow :s

Gyoza with Simmered Pork Ramen

Somehow during cold days, I have the tendency to crave for dumplings. Since my last so-so dumpling attempt, I found a better recipe:
http://userealbutter.com/2007/10/04/chinese-dumplings-and-potstickers-recipe/

I made some minor ingredient changes (from water chesnut to carrot) due to ingredient availability and it doesn't affect the taste :). Small remark: only do dumpling when you have plenty of free time for it really requires a lot of chopping & cutting. Food processor is not so handy in this case.


Just follow the recipe and a plate of golden pan fried gyoza is made. Personally, I think the soy sauce volume used in this recipe is slightly too little. If I were to do this again, I'll add a few more tablespoon of soy sauce. The rest is all nice :)

Now I only have a small problem...as nice as gyoza is, it's not a main course by itself (at least not to me). What do I do then? Again, Hayumi's cook book rescue me by providing the best complement meal with gyoza -- ramen.

Long recipe... start with Simmered Pork:-

Ingredient (serves 4): 500g pork loin, 1 tablespoon oil, the green part of 1 spring onion, 1 tbsp of crushed ginger, 100ml soy sauce, 50ml sake, 1 tbsp caster sugar, 4 hard shelled hard-boiled eggs, and water

Methods:-
1. Heat the oil in saucepan to medium heat, add the prok and seal evenly on all sides.
2. Wipe off excess oil from pan. Add in all ingredient (except the eggs). Pour in enough water to almost cover the pork and increase the heat to bring it to boil.
3. Once boiled, add in eggs and turn the heat down to medium, skim the surface to remove any scum & simmer for 40minutes. Move the pork & eggs around a few times to ensure an even colour.
4. When the water has reduced to about 100ml, turn off the heat & leave to cool.
5. Slice the pork & cut the eggs in half (love the hard eggs). Use the stock to make the ramen and put the meat & eggs on top.

Pic: Pork & egg simmered in saucapan.

Now comes the recipe for Ramen:-

Ingredient (serves 4): 2 litres water, 4 tbsp granulated chicken stock, 100ml pork stock (or buy instant pork stock to save cooking time even though I recommend making your own for best taste), 2 tbsp soy sauce, 2tsp kombu cha powder (I skipped this one), 600g thin Chinese egg noodles - uncooked, chopped spring onion - to taste, coarsely ground black pepper - to taste.

Methods:-
1. Soup making: in a large pot, bring the water to boil & add the chicken stock, pork stock, soy sauce & kombu cha powder. Bring to boil again then turn the heat down to the lowest possible.
2. In a separate pan, bring a the noodles to boil (per noodles cooking instruction), cook until al dente, then drain.
3. Divide the noodles between 4 large bowls & ladle in the soup. Sprinkle some chopped spring onion on top of soem sliced pork. Add pepper to taste and serve.

Pic: Simmered pork ramen (sorry, the pork in 'drown' in the soup)

Pic: Perfect dinner (to me) :D

Chocolates & Wines

As soon as I resume working in Copenhagen, I was sent to Berlin (again) on business trip. It was a short trip of only 2 days. Drove down to Berlin with my manager from Copenhagen.

6 hours trip each way and full days of work (even on Saturday) immediately after my return is no fun at all. However, despite work, there is always something fun about Berlin. Not that I have any time for sight seeing or even eating out at nice places but minimally, I get to buy my favourite chocolates.

My favourite Ferrero Küsschen began to appear in Danish supermarkets since last Christmas but only as part of the Ferrero package. I have to buy another 16 chocolates that I dont like to get 8 of my beloved Küsschen, so... :(

Found some new chocolate products (dark chocolate duplo, ritter sports with rum and cashew nuts, kinder bueno white chocolate etc). I just can't bring myself to skip them without trying. So I bought a little bit of each. Even the cashier laughed at me, he said I will be having a nice sweet weekend when I paid the bill :$

On the way back to Denmark, in the ferry, I found some cute 'out of the norm' packaged wines. 250ml in tetra pack, or in plastic pack, or miniature wine bottles. I'm not an alcoholic & can't really differentiate good wine from lesser quality ones but I still bought one from each variety, for fun :)

Mamak

Mamak food became a trend some years ago due to it's cheap food, friendly environment & 24/7 operating hours. Even though some conditions have change over time: like they're no longer as cheap & some has even upgraded with hanging television with 'mist fan', it is still popular among Malaysian for casual meet up with friends or a mid-night supper for convenient sake.

What is mamak then? In Malaysia, it refers to the Indian Muslims community. Considering that, no pork is sold. In our context, it is like a local version of fast food restaurants (some McDonald & KFC outlets are operating 24hrs in Malaysia as well), famous with wide variety of flatbreads, noodles, rice with different dishes (nasi kandar in Malay), not to forget its signature strong 'pull' tea with condensed milk.

'Pull tea' or 'teh tarik' in Malay is made from black tea & condensed milk. After the normal tea making process, the liquid will be 'pulled' between 2 mugs (pouring from 1 mug to another with the distance between the mugs gradually increased), hence producing foamy milk tea. The ability to pull a stream of tea over the brewer's head is very amusing (not many can do that though).

Pic: teh tarik

Many go to mamak stall for their nasi kandar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasi_kandar) but I typically go for flatbreads / naan or fried noodles. Here's some pictures of typical mamak food: cheese naan with tandoori chicken and fried noodle with tandoori chicken.

Pic: Cheese naan with tandoori chicken

Pic: fried noodle with tandoori chicken

My favourite mamak stall? Kapitan.