Ginger Spring Onion Stir Fried Pork

Usually I try not to buy spring onion (or so called scallion) because I'll usually use only a little & ended up throwing the rest away when they dried out. However, after seeing n-th time of spring onion related dishes, I decided I must 'burn the forest for one tree' & ginger spring onion stir fried pork it will be.

Cook this based on recipe in my brain database. Ingredient:-

250g pork, sliced into thin bite size
1 scallion, cut into 1.5 - 2 inch length
3-4 slices of thinly cut ginger
1 teaspoon oyster sauce
1 small onion, cut into long stripes
1 clove garlic, minced
salt & pepper to taste

1. Season pork with oyster sauce, salt & pepper for about 10 minutes.
2. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a non-stick frying pan & fry ginger until fragrant can be smelled.
3. Add in garlic & onion until onions turn soft & garlics turn golden.
4. Add in pork, stir fried for 2-3 minutes until porks almost cooked.
5. Add in a tablespoon of water & spring onion and continue to cook until pork is well done. Ready to serve.

Pic: Ginger spring onion stir fried pork

However, merely stir fried pork is not enough for a balance dietry so I stir fried some beansprouts and utilize some of the remaining scallion as garnish. Hence, served with jasmine rice, a healthy & balance (well, not really) dinner is 'produced' :)

Pic: Stir fried beansprout

Crème Brûlée

I love Crème Brûlée!

Back home, I'd just go out to eat but since I haven't explore much about crème brûlée in Copenhagen & considering the cost, I decided to make it myself. Lucky for me, I stumble upon a seems to be easy recipe to make crème brûlée. Oh...well, I have to tried twice to get the right crème brûlée so I can't comment that it's 'easy' :)http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/32/Creme-Brulee-Cregraveme-Brucircleacutee

The recipe owner has shallow remkins & I have the ordinary ones. If I only bake it for 1hr, I end up with half cooked egg mixture in the middle & some crème brûlée near the edge of the remkin. Experiment #2, after 1 hr of baking, take it out, cool for 10minutes, put back & bake for another 10minutes (repeat the same process again) and the crème brûlée is ready.

A crème brûlée burner is rather costly & considering I won't be baking daily / frequently, I borrowed the burner from my boss. Little to know that it was actually an industrial use burner which is typically use for welding :s The best part is: it has to be ignited with external 'flames' so I resolved to the biggest match stick available in the supermarket. I dare not use lighter, worry that I might burn my hand :(

Pic: Huge burner & extra long match stick with comparison to a DKK 1 coin

So here's how the complete process (in pictures) is like:-

Try it out, it's so easy & really doesn't cost much unless a burner is needed; but then again, there are other methods to caramelized the sugar without burner (read it as reader's review from the recipe website) so give it a try if you're in the mood, took about 1hr40minutes for me :)

Indian Dinner

Found tandoori chicken recipe online http://winepairings.blogspot.com/2008/08/tandoori-chicken.html and tried it out. The result turns out to be far different from the tandoori chicken that I'm used to. To me, tandoori chicken should be reddish but this one...hmm...I was pretty sceptical when I read the ingredient list but was thinking to just give it a try.

The chicken has been marinated for 24hrs but the funny thing is: the taste doesn't go into the chicken. The skin taste of something but not the meat. Weird symptom for something that has been marinated a day. Don't think I'll try this recipe again. Too much effort & too little 'return', lol...

However, since I've worked hard to prepare it, I must publish the photo that I took ;)

Pic: Tandoori chicken

Pic: Butter Masala (instant :p)

Pic: Complete dinner

Tomatoes

What's new about tomato in Denmark that a lot of people might not know? well, apparently, the name of the farmer who plant & cultivate the tomato will be displayed on the package. Bought a pack tomato which is planted by Maria Isabel Gomez :s So, what do I with tomatoes that was planted by Maria? 2 solutions:-

1. Remkin Egg
Ingredient (serves 2):-
grated cheese (I use mozzarella)
1 tomato, diced
2oz ham
2 eggs
pepper & salt to taste

Preheat oven to 350 (175c). Sautee tomatoes for one more minute then add the ham. Heat everything for an additional minute now. Put the mix in remkin, sprinkle grated cheese on top and crack an egg over them. Add salt & pepper to taste. Pop the remkins in a preheated oven for about 15 minutes. If after 15 minutes the egg white doesn’t look completely firm give it a few more minutes. Simple & easy.

Delicious or not? It's ok...but still feel like something is missing in the taste. Maybe next time I'll add some tomato puree / tomato paste ;)

Pic: Remkin egg

2. Tomato Fried Egg 番茄炒蛋

Ingredients:-
2 eggs
1 tomato, diced
salt & pepper to taste

Beat 2 eggs with salt & pepper. Diced tomato & sautee them with a teaspoon of oil. When the tomatoes turn soft, add in eggs. Heat until eggs are cooked. Ready to be served. Simpler & easier than remkin egg, hehe...

Pic: Tomato fried egg

Miso Salmon

Been longing to try miso glazed salmon but never manage to find miso until I 'discover' them in the Asian shop some time ago.

So, miso paste - checked. I found a 'look to be promising' recipe online which claims to be as nice as cheesecake factory's miso glazed salmon (I've never been there but the webpage owner makes it sound super yummy) so I decided to give it a try.

Serving with white rice, the result...

I'm not sure how the picture the picture looks to you but the taste was just so-so & it calls for too many ingredient, I think. That's why I'm not sharing the recipe here. Wait till I'm successful with the real nice miso salmon. Till then, I'll keep 'experimenting' :)

Square Cheese Cake

Graham Cracker Crust:
2 cups (200 grams) graham wafer crumbs or crushed digestive cookies
2 tablespoons (30 grams) granulated white sugar
1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, melted

Cheesecake Filling:
400 grams cream cheese, softened at room temperature so it won't 'bubble' when baked
*I used Philadelphia cream cheese, more solid texture
1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated white sugar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice / lime juice
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (160 degrees C) and place the rack in the center of the oven. Have ready a 9 x 13 x 2 inch square baking pan that has been lined with aluminum foil across the bottom and up two opposite sides of the pan. Set aside.

Graham Cracker Crust: Combine the graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and melted butter. Press mixture evenly over the bottom of the prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes. Set aside to cool.

**Increase the oven temperature to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C). I forget about this line, so I baked an extra 10minutes at 160 degrees C, turns out just fine, phew...

Cheesecake Filling: With electric mixer, or hand mixer, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar, lemon juice, and vanilla extract and beat until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, as needed. Pour the cheesecake filling over the graham cracker base and bake for about 20 minutes or until the cheesecake batter is just set.

Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Place in the refrigerator for a few hours to make the squares easier to cut (I placed it overnight & cut the next day morning). With a sharp knife, cut into 2 inch squares. Have a damp cloth on hand to wipe the knife between cuts.

Recipe adapted from http://www.joyofbaking.com/printpages/CheesecakeSquaresprint.html

Pic (top): Cheese cake fresh from oven; (bot): after over night chilling

The recipe calls for 24 square pieces but considering I need to 'serve' a lot of people, I have to cut it into 36 pieces. Brought the cakes to work & also to my Danish class. Well, my colleagues & classmates loves it. One of my colleague even complained that such a small piece is not enough...well, too bad for him :p

I like cheese cake and the whole baking process takes just about an hour to bake, so easy. I'll definitely bake it again, perhaps with some variation in taste (maybe with chocolate?), but this time, I will eat a lot myself instead of just distributing it ;)

Pic: Square cheese cake side view, yum yum...

Cooking Failuresss

Well, I understand that cooking is not all about success but having 3 failures in a row within one dinner preparation is devastating.

I started with ambicious plan to have home baked bread with almost instant (well, it's instant but I have to heat it up) tomato soup and grill pork (had some really nice fresh pork slices).

First of all, bread baking. Everything goes well until the moment when the baking time is up but the bread is not 'expanding'. I noticed something wrong when the bread dough doesn't 'expand' but thought it might be okay after I subject it to oven heat. I was wrong. The 'bread' (if I can still call it bread) are so solid that I can use it as self defense weapon. Outer part is crunchy but it's absolutely 'raw' on the inside. Root cause: the yeast is expired!

While I was baking the bread, I grill the pork together as well, thought that I'm capable of multi-tasking, which is not (at all). I pre-marinated the pork with some crushed black peppers, salt & paprika and put it into the oven half way through bread baking time, planning to grill it for 10minutes so it can be ready the same time as the bread.

Unfortunately, I didn't consider of the fact that the bread could be 'problematic' so I added another 10minute to try to bake the bread further when it's not expanding much, forgetting all about the pork. So I end up with 'raw' bread & over-cooked, ultra dry pork.

So what can go wrong with instant tomato soup? Well, simple as: choosing the wrong brand of instant soup!!! It turns out to be on the salty side. At the end of the day, my dinner was crunchy bread 'skin' with salty tomato soup & ultra dry grilled pork. After battling with the super dry pork with my fork & knife, then chew endless time in my mouth but still find it difficult to swallow, I have to give up.

The 'food' (if I can still clasified them as food) were so bad that I'm so glad I didn't take any pictures because I won't have the courage to publish them. Conclusion: I shall never multitask, especially trying to integrate baking + grilling at a single time and never buy that particular brand of tomato soup again!

Security.Police

A friend read some local Danish news complaining about police and brought it up for discussion. The 'triggering' news goes like this: a cook caught a thief red-handed and held him retained while he contacted the police to pick up the thief. Unfortunately, he called twice and nobody from the police force come so he had no choice but to let the thief go.

The worst part is: during his phone call, he was told by the operator that he might be issued a fine ticket because the yelling of the theif in the background was heard and the cook is suspected to be mistreating the thief. I almost fainted when I hear this.

I mean, come on...if I'm the thief & I'm being captured, I would probably been screaming & cursing the cook. What's wrong with the operator? Since when the world change? Instead of protecting citizens & catching thieves, police nowadays refuse to carry out their duties and even worse, fining good citizen for capturing thief? I cannot figure out the logic, not even a single bit!

I was told that the situation wasn't this bad a couple of years back. Due to recent reduce in police station (in the effort to centralize & consolidate police stations) & resources issue, policeman coverage is not as good as before and they're not as responsive as well. But come on, just how big can a place be to be out of coverage? I find it absolutely ridiculous.

If it's only one single complaint, then it is an isolated case but if newspaper can publish at least 10 of these ridiculous police stories at one single time, I think it is seriously problematic.

Here's another one: a guy was sleeping in his car outdoor and was broken into & attacked by thieves. He filed a police report but ended up receiving a police fine ticket because he's not suppose to sleep in the car overnight. OMG, I'm absolutely speechless! I feel like the world has been turn upside down!

All these while, I feel safe walking on streets of Denmark and I've never heard of really severe / disturbing bad social news (compare to back home where female raped, tortured & killed cases are not rare). After hearing this, I seriously feel insecure. What if something happens to me and police is not coming to my rescue when I needed them the most? What am I going to do?

So this friend of mine who used to attend tai-chi class suggested me to learn tai-chi. Tai-chi? With the slow movement of tai-chi, the thief / bad guy probably already knocked me down & achieve his/her/their objective(s). I think I need to learn Taekwando or Karate instead.

Snow

It snowed, it snowed...in Denmark, November. A little out of season snow but I was thrilled with my first snow in Denmark. Started at about 10.50am, it was just hail and I was already happily hopping around in office (I don't care, to me, anything that looks like snow is snow :p). Here's a quick 6 second 'snowing' video from outside of my cubical (yes, I have train station view).

The day continued with real snow, on & off. I walked home in snow...was nice to see roads & roof tops turn white, snows falling & walking in the snow if only it was not so cold & not so slippery :p

I have full glass windows in my living room & bedroom so I can actually sit comfortably in warm living room / lying in bedroom, sipping hot coffee & enjoy the snow scene (even though the 'scene' is just a carpark).

Looking forward to my first snow fight / snow angel / snow anything in Denmark but I'm not sure when it'll snow again. Until then, please bear with the 6 second video clip. I'll definitely snap more when it REALLY snows :)

Adapted Bird of Paradise

Stumbled upon a very nice looking recipe (that is actually relatively easy to prepare) with fancy name - Bird of Paradise http://www.supermarketserenade.com/2008/10/bird-of-paradise.html

I follow the recipe to the fullest, served it with home made mash potato & here's the end result:



To be honest, I don't think the chicken is as nice as the originator descripe. I don't mind eating it again (if) but I won't purposedly cook it. Perhaps I expected too much? Perhaps something went wrong in my cooking process? Anyway, if anyone of you decided to try it out, please let me know what you think :)

Strawberry Sponge Cake with Whipped Cream Frosting

Was invited to a friend's birthday dinner and was told it will be a small and cosy one. Can't figure out what present to bring so I decided to bake a birthday cake.

Since I've baked white butter cream cake last time but I still insist on baking a white cake (to me, birthday cake has to be white, it feels more 'birthday', somehow). After rounds of searching, decided to bake a 2 layer sponge cake with strawberry filling, frost with whipped cream and garnish with fresh strawberries.

Adapt the sponge cake recipe from Boston cream pie: http://www.joyofbaking.com/BostonCreamPie.html

When assemble the cake, apply a layer of strawberry jam on top of the bottom layer. Upon complete, add a layer of whipped cream frosting. Try to be more generous, it tastes good :) For a 2 layer cake, I'd recommend to go for 2 portions of whipped cream frosting. I did my cake with 1 portion & I have to be very careful on the frosting for it to merely cover the cake.

Whipped cream frosting recipe:
http://joyofbaking.com/WhippedCreamFrosting.html

I garnish my cake with fresh strawberries (looks a bit dull but I don't have other fruits & shops are not open on Sunday) and finally zest some chocolate flakes on top of the cake.

And so...that's a story of a birthday cake =)

Wonton Soup

Chilly late autumn days, what is better than a bowl of hot soup to keep me warm? I'm in the mood of dumpling (wonton), so a trip to the asian shop to get the wonton wrapper & bak choy, and I'm all set.

Following the recipe here: http://steamykitchen.com/blog/2008/08/04/wonton-noodle-soup/, using 250g pork, I made 20 'various shapes' of wontons (I cannot seem to produce a uniform shape, unfortunately). The recipe works fine but I'd recommend using 2 teaspoon of cornstarch to smoothen the texture of the meat. The trick on adding in wonton when the water is warm but not boiling is really great. The wonton stay together & didn't open up.


Add in some egg noodles & boiled bak choy, my home made wonton soup is done. Mine looks much less interesting than the recipe website & I skipped scallion (I don't want to use a little & end up with a lot of scallion left overs) but personally I think it taste just fine. If I cook again next time, I'll probably add some pork into the soup & boil it to taste more than just chicken broth :)

Peanut Turmeric Chicken

I am suppose to make satay chicken but apparently it will take so much effort to cook the sauce & I don't have all the ingredients required for a proper satay meal. Being in lazy mode, I decided to modify the recipe based on what I have & came up with peanut turmeric chicken.

Ingredient (for the chicken):-
2 skinless, boneless chicken breast (cut into 3 stripes each)
1 tablespoons soy sauce
1½ tablespoons peanut butter (unsweetened)
1 teaspoons honey (optional)
2 teaspoon turmeric
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tablespoon peanut oil

Instructions:-
1. Combine soy sauce, honey, turmeric, garlic and oil in a bowl. Add chicken stripes. Turn to coat well. Cover. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour. I marinated it overnight.

2. Bring chicken out and allow it to come to room temperature. Heat up 1 tablespoon of oil in a non-stick skillet & slowly pan fried chicken stripes until cooked. Serve with jasmin rice.

Simple isn't it? Except one has to be careful when pan frying the chicken. The oil 'splashes' everywhere (I stay furthest possible from the pan) & with turmeric as one of the ingredient, my kitchen wall is 'painted' with yellow oil marks which required much cleaning afterwards.

Next time, I'll try to grill it at 200degree Celcius for about 6 minutes or until chicken is cooked. I think it should work. We'll see ;)

Sweet Chili Prawn

I like seafood...actually I love them back home (still do).

Unfortunately, even though Denmark is literally surrounded by sea (which translate to lots of seafood to me) but the seafood available here are not what I'm used to. Fishes are different, not much (to be exact, none) squid/crabs spotted so far, not to mentioned they are usually frozen. One really need to sniff their way around to local fish stall to find limited selection of fresh seafood & please don't expect it to be cheap when it's fresh :)

So, lowering my expectation (again) when I crave for something other than meat & poultry, I go for frozen tiger prawns. How to prepare it?? Did the coated with breadcrumb thing before, don't want to repeat. Hmm...got me cracking my head for quite some time until I get inspired by my mom's chili paste (again).

Minced a clove of garlic, stir fried it with a tablespoon of oil & add in a tablespoon of CH's mom's chili paste. Fried until chili fragrant can be smelled, trust me, it's innegligible ;) & add in the prawns. When prawns are almost cooked (slightly orangy/reddish), add in 1 tablespoon of sweet thai chili sauce (the type with garlic) & 1 tablespoon of water. Continue stir fried until prawn cooked & serve with white rice. I'm telling you, it's finger licking good!


I like onion so I usually add in ½ small onion to the recipe. Just sliced the onion & stir fried it together with the garlic. When it turn slightly soft, add in chili paste. Don't want to mention it above because the prawn will still taste nice without the onion. It's an optional but recommended (why? because I like it) :p

Ok...I think I've mentioned more than a couple of times about my mom's chili paste. I will ask her the recipe (when I go home) and publish them for 'public sharing'...how nice of me to share my mom's love :p

For the time being, I hope you can at least enjoy the picture ;)

Depressed

I am depressed...very depressed...extremely depressed!!!

One of my colleague brought his 11-year old son to work. Strange enough, even though he speaks only little English & my Danish is nowhere near 'OK', we 'click' (maybe because I have a child in me? :p)

He was following me up & down at work and we bump into a female colleague from another department. Here's the problem: she asked me if the boy is my son. I almost fainted on the spot. NO WAY! Do I look like I'm old enough to have an 11-year old son??

I sprint back to my colleague (the boy's father) & complained. Unfortunately my complaining voice volume went a little high (because I was extremely 'hurt'), the whole row of colleagues heard that & was laughing at me. They said they'll help to call ethics line for such 'insult' that happens on me :s

I wonder & wonder & wonder what's wrong with my look. After rounds of confirmation with my colleagues that I don't look like a mom for 11-year old boy, I draw the conclusion that the female colleague needs a pair of new spectacle! That must be the reason.

Raspberry Pancake

Ingredients (serves 4)
95g all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon white sugar
150ml cups milk
½ egg (if the egg is big, else, no concern to use full egg)
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Instructions:-
1. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk, egg and melted butter; mix until smooth.
2. Heat a lightly oiled frying pan over medium high heat. Pour the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

Recipe adapt from http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Good-Old-Fashioned-Pancakes/Detail.aspx

The pancake size that I'm used to is small & I prefer it slightly thick (my Danish friends call it 'American size'). I served the pancake to them & they were shocked to see my small thick pancakes. The 'normal' Danish ones are thin & of pan size, really big.

I like to eat my pancake with honey / maple syrup, apparently it's also nice to sprinkle some granulated sugar on the pancake, roll it up & eat it; the Danish way. The extra pancakes can be kept in fridge & just reheat at microwave oven & ta-da...'fresh' warm pancake ready again :)

Pic: my pancake breakfast

Ginger Garlic Chicken & Broccoli 'Flower'

Cooking time...

Broccoli 'flowers' with carrot. This is so easy. Boil the broccoli & carrot and arrange them in a 'floral' manner. Mince a clove of garlic. Heat up a ½ tablespoon of oil and stir fried the garlic. Then add in a mixture of half a teaspoon of oyster sauce, ½tablespoon of soy sauce, 2 tablespoon of water, some sugar to taste (if you like). Bring to boil (actually nothing much to boil, just make sure it's hot) and pour it over the broccoli 'flowers'. Finally drizzle some drops of sesame oil on top & voila :)


The ginger garlic recipe was adapted from http://onceuponaplate.blogspot.com/2008/10/crispy-garlic-ginger-chicken-asian.html. I do not know what I did wrong but the result is absolutely different from the originator's picture. Mine become the 'dried' version of ginger garlic chicken but it still taste good :s

Anyway, here's my single dinner :)

Funny side note is, because the ginger that I'm using was moldy (I recall mom's saying to just cut off the moldy part & the good portion is ok to be used), I was having stomach ache the next day. Poor me.... When I spoke to my mom over Skype, she scolded me saying that if a ginger went moldy, shouldn't consume it :(

Penang Prawn Noodle

Penang prawn noodle, also known as Hokkien Mee or Hae Mee to the local is one of my favourite noodle variety back home. It is a dish of egg noodles and rice noodles in a spicy stock, which is made from both fresh shrimp (maybe also dried prawns) and pork (or chicken). Typically, water spinach (kangkung in Malay), slices of egg, shripms, crisp deep-fried shallots & small cubes of fried pork fat are added to the noodle soup. Would be best if some steamed pork ribs can be added.

Unfortunately, I'm half a globe away from the place where I can get the most authentic Hokkien Mee & I don't have the skill & knowledge to make the soup stock, so I have to come up with a down-graded modified version when I missed it a lot. Luckily, I was well prepared before I come to Denmark. I brought 10packs of Hokkien Mee instant noodles which taste very much like the real ones with me :)

So, a hard boiled egg, some shripms and 3 minutes instant noodle cooking yielded my down-graded version of Penang Hokkien Mee...I know it's 'cheating' in cooking but that, I had a very satisfying lunch, yum yum

Team Building

End of last month, I had a department team building (I can't explain the delinquency of this blog other than blame it to my laziness :p). Part of the program is where our whole team is sent out to Frederickberg Have (Frederickberg garden) with some of the products that we produce & trying to experience them as end user.

When I was in home town, the team building mode that I'm familiar with is where everyone will stay over-night at a hotel & usually a team building training company will be engaged for activities planning. Even though I don't see how going to a park & do some testing will enhanced team spirit but it was really fun being out of the office on a working day ;)

The weather was lovely (we're really lucky) and the park is absolutely gorgeous in autumn time. Pictures say a thousand words. See below.


I've always seen my colleagues in the office but apparently they can 'disguise' as other professions pretty well outside of office with their attire. Potential target occupation to be considered: police, reporters / paparazzis, police man (El Pacino & Robert De Niro type, age wise :p) and also spy o.o


We were walking for about an hour in the park where mild wnd gently blowed and the weather was just beautiful. Well, no group picture before we go off (not like we often have chance to gather everyone) so we took like n-th tries to take a good one. This is by far the best of all I've got & the camera is challengingly placed on a rock ;)

The subsequent activity is -- bowling! I asked my boss if he's good at bowling, he said 'no'; but when it comes to the bowling activity, he scored an average of 143 for 3 games. I wouldn't call that 'no good' so I interrogated him. It was funny to hear him said that he didn't even know he's good at bowling until then, lol...

Another female colleague has a very special way of bowling. She'd walk to the front, put one foot on the fowl line, squart a little bit down & start swinging the ball to the front and back. After 2 cycles of swinging, she then released the ball. I was almost laughing rolling on the floor when I see this. At one point, I thought she'd be furious when I laughed at her but she took it well.

The team 'spy' actually took a video of both me & her bowling but I haven't got hold of the video yet. If I ever get it (he's saying he wants to make it a Christmas present by posting it to YouTube because I was pretty embarrassing too), then I'll upload it to share.

After 3 games, the last activity is dinner :). Due to budget constraint, we can only go for 2 course dinner (starter + main course). When main course was finished, one of the colleague turned to me and tell me: 'You can bring out the dessert now. What type of cake did you bake this time?' I almost fainted on the spot. Of course he's pulling my leg but I think I may have pampered them too much with my cake.

Anyway, it was a nice day out with the whole group. Some colleagues whom we seldom spoke felt closer after the day. The only downside is, due to my childish behaviour in the park & bowling center, they now treat me like a little girl & named me 'the department pet' :s

Numbering

Danes have a funny way with numbering system (as if the language is not difficult enough :p).

The first one:
When mentioning twenty eight, for example, they'll say eight-twenty instead of twenty eight. Always start with digit that has less value (8 is less than 20, so). When I first got to know about 1-10 in Danish, one of my colleague told me he's 54 years old. I thought he was 45 & he's thrilled that I think he's younger. I'm sorry, but it's just a 'numbering' mistake :p

The second one:
A billionaire in Denmark is definitely richer than a billionaire in US. Why? Because in Denmark, a billion = a million millions while in the states, a billion = a thousand of millions. Well, honestly, I couldn't care much. I'm more concern about how to make my first million, billion is too far away, lol...

The third one:
Danish clock system. There are no 'half-past' in the clock system, instead 'to' or 'over' is used. For example, half pass 6 (6.30) is regard as half-seven in Denmark. A Danish friend used to have an appointment with his Irish friend in a pub. Meeting time is fixed to be half-six. The Dane arrived at 5.30 & the Irish arrived at 6.30 >o< The most tricky one is the from the 21st until 34th minutes of an hour because one has to say how many minutes pass or to half of the hour. Confused (maybe also because of my poor explanation)? Here's an example: 5.25 should be expressed as 5minutes to half six (I almost kill myself when I started learning it).

Complicated? Wait till you see this. The fourth & most illogical one:
I love discounts but Danish dicounts confused me. Look at pictures below...original price divide by 50%, isn't that a price increase instead? A lot of advertisement brochures usually only print 'spar DKKxx' (save DKKxx) but there are some advertisement still use the 'divide by percentage' form which is absolutely wrong, if I must say.

Pics: Confusing 'discounts'

So, I've been living in a country with complicated language (with the super ultra difficult 'R' pronunciation) & confusing number / clock system for 5 months and still surviving strong, woo~hoo~

Practicing Danish

My Danish proficiency level hasn't improve much despite I've been in the class for 2 months. I learnt more vocabularies & short sentences but when I put them into actual usage, my colleagues will look at me with a very puzzled face and ask: 'say what?' or 'are you trying to speak Danish?'...absolutely ruins my confident.

However, there are also times when I get it right especially if I only mention a single word. For example, lunch = frokost, I got that absolutely right & when I said that, my colleagues understand me ;)

There are of course failed single word usage too. I learnt about dejligt, which means nice / lovely. So I go to work & tell my colleagues I am dejligt (in Danish: Jeg er dejligt). They understand me but corrected me, saying that dejligt is more of an adjective used to describe weather (at least in Copenhagen).

It is only Jutlander that will use dejligt to describe people. (Note. Jutland is one of the 3 lands of Denmark which remains more dependent on traditional industries and agriculture). One of my colleague strongly advice me to stop describing myself as dejligt. He said: 'Others might think you're a farmer's daughter from Jutland'...how mean is that? :s

Then today, we have new trash recycle system where all non-paper waste is to be consolidated into single metal trash bin. In front of the metal trash bin, there's a remark saying: 'dagligt affald' (which means daily waste). Unfortunately in my very limited Danish dictionary & my lousy memory in spelling, I mistakenly pronounce it as 'dejligt'...yeah, you can sort of guess what comes out of it. Daily trash becomes nice/lovely trash.

My colleauges was laughing uncontrollably. One of my colleague told me: 'You know what? It's fun having you here.'. Yeah yeah..I provide all the free entertainment & daily jokes. Another colleague said I can pick whichever trash I like since I find them dejligt. Isshh...they are not encouraging me to progress in Danish in a constructive way at all!!!

Hearing this & trying to console me, another colleague of mine told me a story about how lousy Danes can be in English. There was a car explosion in Glostrup (near where we work) 2 years ago. One of the police officer on duty was interviewed by BBC (it was a big hoo-haa back then because of all the 'terrorism' heat).

So this police officer, when asked what he thinks is the reason behind the car explosion, he replied: 'Cars in Denmark don't explode by themselves, they usually don't do that.' Oh...I didn't know cars in other countries will explode by themselves, lol... I think he meant to say car explosion is not a usual happening in Denmark but he has a funny (wrong) way of putting it for sure.

So that it, entry 1 on my funny Danish usage. I hope there's no more to come for that will mean I have to embarrassed myself again :-

Have fun reading though, I hope :)

Rasa Malaysia

Suddenly miss Malaysian food. With all the instant paste & mom home made chili paste, I fixed myself a Malaysian culinary day for the whole Saturday. Lunch was a quick & easy seafood tomyam rice vermicelli.

2 tbsp of tomyam paste, 600ml of chicken stock (I like soup), some shrimps & crab filament (I can't find squid, sob sob), 1/2 onion (I like onion) and tada...I'm not writing out the recipe & preparation method because it's too easy. If you buy the paste in a bottle, the instruction will be on the bottle itself. The only trick is to soak vermicelli in water prior to cooking & they are cooked pretty fast. Don't keep it in the soup too long else it doesn't taste so good.


As for dinner, mom's 'love' is bring to good use. She fried me a bottle of home made chili paste (which I love, yum yum) before I travel to Denmark. The paste can sustain very long in proper storage (a.k.a. fridge).

Heat a tablespoon of oil, add in a clove of finely chopped garlic & 1/4 thinly sliced onion. Slightly stir fry, add in a tablespoon full of moms chili paste and fry together till fragrant, then add in pork slices. Stir fry until pork is cooked. Nothing more is needed :)

Pic: (top) chili fried pork; (bot) lettuce with garlic oyster sauce

To balance my meal, vegetable that answer today's calling is lettuce. I simply boil a kettle of hot water, wash them over a few (well, more than a few) leaves of lettuce and it's basically cooked. Over-cooking lettuce will yield lousy taste, lost of vitamins & the vege turn brownish... :(.
Set the lettuce aside, heat up a shallow pan with a tablespoon of oil. Add in a clove of finely chopped garlic, 1/2 tablespoon oyster sauce, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, salt & sugar to taste (actually the sauce can be premixed in a small bowl but I'm too lazy to wash another bowl, so...) As soon as the sauce is well heated, remove from pan & pour on top of lettuce. I added a few drops of sesame oil to make it tasted exactly like mom's ;)

And so, that is my Malaysian culinary day :D

Easy Teriyaki Salmon

Saturday...weather's cold outside, so what better than cooking myself a nice dinner? I already forget about the fact that I gain weight & am on my best effort to continue gain weight :p

Fixed the menu to be teriyaki salmon. After struggling through what to go with the salmon, I decided to have rice. Problem is, I'm never good in cooking rice until I stumble upon this website http://happyburp.blogspot.com/2006/05/cooking-rice-in-microwave-oven.html. It's so easy and requires no attention at all with microwave oven. Only 1 small note: in cold weathered country like Denmark, don't cook the rice too early ahead, else it'll turn hard & cold very quick (learnt my lesson, obviously :$)

Teriyaki salmon is even easier. I still have some teriyaki sauce from the last round I made them. The sauce can basically last forever & taste really good, so in my opinion, it's always good to prepare more for future use (provided you'll be cooking). If you missed my previous blog on teriyaki sauce, here it is again:

Ingredient:-
1 cup or 200ml mirin
1/2 cup or 100ml soy sauce (try to use Japanese soy sauce, gives richer taste)
1-2 tbsp caster sugar

Method:-
Heat mirin over low heat (gas mark 2) for 1-2minutes then add soy sauce & sugar. Simmer for another 1-2 minutes and voila :)

Teriyaki sauce are good with almost everything: pork, beef, chicken, salmon, even burger...a very versatile sauce when you run out of idea what to cook and want less hassle. Whatever it is that you decided to 'teriyaki' with, just slightly marinate the ingredient with a sprinkle of salt & pepper for 2 minutes.

For salmon, I did the same thing, then slightly browned (pan fry until brown) them in a frying pan, not cooked though, else the fish will be over-cooked. Add the teriyaki sauce and continue to cook until it has glazed the salmon. I even roast some sesame (okay, I roasted a little too much than just 'some') to sprinkle on top of the teriyaki salmon, both to enhance the taste & garnish.

Even though I've seen my Danish colleagues eating raw brocoli & cauliflower in canteen, I cannot adapt to that eating habit. So I bring a small pot of water to boil & throw in the brocoli. Brought it out in less than a minute so it's still crunchy but not raw. I then sprinkle some salt on the brocoli & serve it on top of rice together with the teriyaki salmon.