Today I’m going to share with you guys a recipe to make Dumpling.

Dumplings are a common staple throughout Asia, and have different names depending on the country. In China, they are called Jiaozi in, Gyoza in Japan and Nepali in Korea. They all look very similar and are made with meat and vegetable fillings wrapped inside a thin sheet of dough and crimped together around the edges. In Chinese traditions, dumplings are one of those dishes that must be served at Chinese New Year. Because it’s shape looks similar to the old currency of silver and gold ingots used in historical times, it symbolises wealth for the family. And for a bit of fun, a small coin will be hidden in one of the dumpling and the person who gets the coin is considered as the luckiest member for in the family.

As for myself, I always enjoy my “dumpling parties’ that I have with friends. We can chat and catch up with everyone while gathering around the table preparing the dumplings before cooking them off and eating together. It is a lot of fun when everyone enjoys cooking as well.

Preparing dumplings is not difficult at all. There are only two main elements:

1st element – meat and vegetable filling – as long as you can finely chop vegetables, you will be fine;

2^nd element – dumpling pastry –  preparation can be a challenge for most of us, so I usually just buy pastry from any Asian supermarket, which saves me more than half of my cooking time. However, if you have the time, it is worth the effort to make dumpling pastry from scratch.

Anyway, enough talking. Let’s get cooking!

Ingredient:

Dumpling pastries:

 Marinate sauce:

 Dipping sauce:

*I recommend to marinate the mince before preparing the vegetable for at least 2 hours, or at day before. You can even pan fry a small sample of the marinated mince so you can taste your filling before you start making the dumplings. Don’t worry if mince taste over seasoned, as we need to add vegetable in the mix as well.

** Add salt to the shredded cabbage and let it sit for about 20 minutes – this draws the liquid out of cabbage. Then, gently squeeze the cabbage to remove any additional liquid. At the end, you should be down to about half the original size.

Method:

1. Prepare the dumpling pastries by following simple instruction at Poh’s kitchen
2. Combine marinate mince with all remaining ingredient of dumpling filling, mix
3. Use a teaspoon to spoon the filling to centre of the pastry. When crimping, only fold one side of dumpling and let another side of pastry straight, so dumplings can sit nicely on the plate.
4. If you are using pastries from shops and set aside a small bowl of water, so you wet the edge of pastry before you can fold the pastry.
5. To cook dumplings

• Healthier option – boil them in pot of water with 1 tsp of salt and peanut oil, once water is boiled, add a bowl of cold water to slow down the cooking process (to stop over-cook the dumpling pastry and filling may not ready) until they float again. Take out with slotted spoon into strainer.
• Panfry option – 2 tsp of peanut oil and place dumplings precisely in flat fry pan and add cornflour water (mix 2 tsp cornflour with 100ml water) to the pan and use a lid to cover. Until all liquid evaporates, dumpling should be ready as the bottom is now crisp.

Going up against Max Brenner and all the other successful dessert bars here in BrisVegas, Chocolate Pavillion sure has a lot to live up to.

The menu is full of yummy and addictive options to temp any chocoholics, with things such as chilli-spice hot chocolate to almond flavour white chocolate sushi “rice”, green tea sorbet with kiwi “wasabi”.. We really did not know where to start, so we decided to go for two desserts to share and three hot chocolates to try.

First one – Belgian waffles with maple syrup, caramel nuts, chocolate pearls, fresh fruits & crème Chantilly.

Dark Chocolate truffle – Dark chocolate gelato, dark chocolate sauce, crumbled chocolate cookies, caramel nuts, espresso & chocolate granita.

Aztec Dark – spice it up with this exotic elixir, full & deep flavour with hint of spice, nut & chilli. A spicy & sultry escape to wind down or to wind up! Also, a perfect winter drink warm up your mind and body.

Dark truffle mont d’or – Beloved Belgian hot chocolate dusted with edible gold flakes. Simple and delicate for all chocolate lovers to enjoy!

Milk parfait fleur de sel vanilla – complex taste experience with Belgian milk chocolate paired with French sea salt flavoured with vanilla

Last but not least, I must highlight that Chocolate Pavillin uses quality Mary Chocolate from Brussels. Mary of Brussels received it’s official Royal Warrant from the Belgian Royal Family in 1942. If the dessert bar still doesn’t satisfy your chocolate fix, the shop also stocks a range of  Mary Belgium chocolate that you can take home to enjoy.

http://www.marychoc.com/

I’m not sure if Pappa Roti is the name of the store or the buns they produce but since they only make this one thing, I think it’s both..? Anyway, to briefly describe them, they are buns that are extremely soft and fluffy with a bit of buttery filling inside and topped with a crispy and aromatic coffee-cream coating.

When I say soft and fluffy, I really mean it. These are the softest buns I have ever had. And if you’re lucky (like I was) and get them just as they come out of the oven, the coffee fragrance is just absolutely amazing.

As I sat and enjoyed one of these sweet, warm and toasty buns while sipping a nice latte, I watched as a tray of buns was sold in less than 2 minutes.  Lucky me though, I bought 2 – one for now, one for later. I can’t think of anything better to have at this time of day – they really are that good.

It’s always nice to end a fantastic dinner out at a restaurant with a yummy dessert. This time, a friend brought me to Passione, a dessert bar in New Farm to try some of their awesome desserts.

Gelato is an Italian word meaning frozen dessert and sometimes referred as Italian ice cream. It’s actually slightly different from regular ice cream, as it has lower butterfat content but higher sugar content than normal ice cream. Gelato typically contains milk, cream, various sugars, flavouring including fruit and nut purees.

When we entered the shop, I noticed the display fridges were full beautiful sorbet, gelato and chocolate and I immediately forgot I had just finished a big dinner. We quickly sat down and asked the waiter to give us some recommendations. There were just so many choices and combinations! After pondering through the menu for 10 minutes, we finally made our decisions.

Mint Delight – Vanilla and Chocolate Mint gelato, Tim Tam crush and chocolate sauce. My friend ordered this. He loved it as he is a mint lover.

Tiramisu – Tiramisu, coffee and vanilla gelato. Tiramisu is always my favourite.

Chocolate Obsession – milk, stracciatella and dark chocolate gelato. For Chocolate lovers.

Banana Lovers Waffles – Macadamia gelato with caramelised banana. Fresh made waffles. One of the best waffles I have ever had in my life. Highly recommended.

To all dessert, ice cream and gelato lovers, Passione is the dessert bar to go. I would recommend to go and give them a visit.

Happy sharing,

Salt

Passione Gelateria & Dessert Bar
7/36 Vernon Terrace
Teneriffe, 4005

I went to a Mexican restaurant for the first time last Saturday for a friend’s birthday dinner. This was something very different from the restaurants I normally visit. We arrived at 8 o’clock at El Torito West End. There were less than 15 tables inside and this tiny place was packed.

What is Mexican food? The first thing that comes to mind is Burrito’s and Nachos but on El Torito’s menu, there are more than 30 dishes on offer. Compared with the only two that came to my mind, there is a lot to choose from.

As I flicked through the menu, one of the dishes caught my attention – Mole Poblano, …Grilled Chicken with …Mole sauce (dried chillies… and Chocolate etc, etc). I was only glancing through but the words ‘sauce with chilli and Chocolate’ which completely baffled me got me excited. I read through again carefully; the dish is call Mole Poblano* – Grilled Chicken Breast Batch in a delicious home-made Mole Sauce (Dried Chillies, seeds, nuts, spices, vegetables and chocolate) Served with rice and two tortillas. Being chocoholics ourselves, my friend and I won’t normally miss out on trying chocolate but with chicken and as a main course, we were not very keen.

Hesitantly, we asked the waiter about how much chocolate will go in this sauce, and if we could have it separately with the chicken. But the waiter explained that the chocolate is already premixed in the sauce and unfortunately they couldn’t separate it for us. In the end, my friend and I decided to try it anyway. There’s always a first for anything.

Mole Poblano

The sauce on the Mole Poblano was thick and dark. After tasting it, I thought the sauce was very rich and the chicken breast was moist and tender. It seems that the sweetness of chocolate, spiciness of the chilli and all the other ingredients in the sauce were interacting with each other to create this distinct flavour. This dish has led my taste buds into a new territory that I have never experienced before.

Burrito

Soft flour tortilla filled with beans, rice, lettuce, sour cream, and cheese and salsa fresco with Shredded Chicken – the healthier choice for the night. According to my friend, the salsa fresco was fresh and not too saucy for this dish.

El Torito is fantastic little Mexican quarter with its special colours and taste. I can now tell others that chocolate can actually go with chicken, and taste great too.

Happy Sharing,

Pepper

It was absolutely crazy at the festival. There were stalls all along the riverside selling items from cupcakes to coffee grinders, coffee stands at every turn and even a chocolate fountain to dip strawberries. There were live musical performances, dancers and a pair of funny looking mascots on stilts walking through the crowd.

I had a lot of fun at the festival – and ate a lot too. I hope it happens again next year!

- Salt

However, on a recent short trip back home, I came across this small restaurant that was not there before called Ganbaranba, whose specialty is Japanese tonkotsu ramen.

This place had a very rustic Japanese noodle bar atmosphere – the lighting was dim, furniture seemed old and worn, the kitchen was just behind the bar and completely open, iced barley tea was served to everyone – I loved it.

I took a seat at the bar so I could watch the chefs at work. The menu was simple and mostly based off their tonkotsu broth. When my meal arrived, the first thing I did was to try the broth by itself and straight away, it put a great big smile on my face. This had to be the best tonkotsu place I have ever visited. The broth was full of flavour and I could really taste the long and slow cooking process and unlike other places, this was not at all overpowered by saltiness. The ramen was fantastically cooked, as well as the condiments.

I don’t think I went anywhere else for lunch during my week stay in Cairns. Who would have thought this small seaside town up north would have such a rustic Japanese noodle bar, and a really good one too. Ganbaranba – if you read this, I hope you will open up in Brisbane!

I was invited to a little girl’s birthday party on the weekend and I was asked by her mum to bring something colourful to the party.  I pondered over what I could bring – maybe some colouring pens and picture books for the kids to draw, maybe some balloons for the party or how about some coloured cookies for the kids?

I remembered coming across a simple and easy recipe for baking cookies with coloured chocolate buttons in the baking magazine ‘Better Basics with “fast” Ed’. Maybe coloured chocolate buttons may send the kids a bit wild at the party, but it will most certainly be a popular treat on the day.

Why not try to make this with your kids and have a fun baking day on the weekend.

Enjoy!
Pepper

 

 

I’ve been reading about this restaurant on this blog Hungry-Kittens and JayJayne.com last week. There are a number of good and bad reviews about Glamorous Wok, with over 50% of liking it on Urbanspoon. So, we decided we had to try it out ourselves to decide whether it is any good.

We booked a table for Friday night. The place has been nicely renovated and the decorations certainly brought back our memory about Asia. While we were waiting to be seated, I glanced through the restaurant; the whole place was fully seated and still, a number of people coming in asking if any free tables were available. The manager had to keep apologising for disappointing her customers and turning them away. Considering this place is still ‘the new kid on block’ at Sunnybank, it was bad for their Friday night service with all this traffic in and out of the door. Remember to book if you plan on visiting.

When we finally settled down and went through their shiny menus, we noticed the photos on menu looked wonderful and certainly helps us to decide what we wanted for dinner. We just hope the dishes will turn out as good as the photos.  We ordered four dishes and one soup between five of us.

First to arrive was the Pork intestine soup with Chinese pickles. It may sound a bit nasty because of the pork intestines involved in this dish, but trust me – this soup is one of the best Taiwanese delicacies. The soup is slightly salty with Chinese pickles in it, but like the traditional one, the soup has a fair amount of white pepper that makes it the perfect choice for a cold winter night.

The second dish for the night is The Crystal Chicken with Garlic Soy Sauce and Sesame Paste. This is a cold dish but I have to say, it is the hero dish for the night. The chicken skin was glossy and looked very enticing. The Chicken meat was moist, tender and firm. I couldn’t taste any fat between the skin and chicken meat, just like the ones I had in Asia.

The next one is Gold & Silver Eggs with Loofah. The dish was nicely seasoned and the vegetable was very soft, but not too soggy. Good dish to have with rice.

This is my friend’s choice Sour and Spicy Pork intestine. This dish was okay but I would have to say that we couldn’t taste much of Sour and Spicy flavour in this dish.

Last dish for the night was the BBQ Pork Ribs. I think Maybe it’s not the best choice of cut to use for this dish. The meat was a bit tough, but I did like the marinade sause for this dish.

Just like most of the people that have reviewed this place, I too think there are good and bad at Glamorous Wok. Overall, we were quite impressed with the quality of dishes we had and there was no deceptive differences between the menu photos and our dishes.  This is a nice place to bring your extended family and a bunch of friends for your next gathering. We would love to go back more often and to try their special hot pot next time.