Mini Scotch Eggs

I think I have food ADD. I love food, but I crave the variety. Maybe it's from growing up in an Asian culture - once you have dinners that involve a smorgasbord of different platters from which you can pick, you'll never truly go back to single plate dining.

But I digress.

Ever since the Beak and Sons launch I attended the other week, I had sausages sitting in my fridge, and really, we all know I don't just eat them straight if I had a choice. =)
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Panino Con Polpette (Meatball Sandwich with Chipotle Mayo)

A basic red sauce is so versatile. Just tweaking aromatics and spices can turn it into a sauce from almost any culture. And it's not only a culinary chameleon, it's also freezer friendly!

So when I had a tub of red sauce defrosting in my fridge, I just knew that I had to do something different with it - I had already made lasagne and spaghetti bolognese, so what about meatballs?

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Fully Loaded Truffle Accented Hasselback Potatoes

Who doesn't love fully loaded potato anything?! Roasted potatoes gives us such a beautiful, comforting, starchy base that it just begs to be loaded up with a myriad of toppings to add to the awesomeness!

Roasted potatoes can take many forms - you can have anything from the classic cut potatoes, the funky smashed chats for maximum crispy surface areas, to the fancy looking but very simple Hasselback potatoes!

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Bloody Mary Granita Canapés

With some days still nearing 30C, I think that cold canapés are still in order! So, in a twist to sweet sorbets, I made this savoury granita, great for an end-of-summer party!

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Pomelo Salad

Happy Lunar New Year y'all!!! May you prosper, enjoy good grades, languish in good health, live a long life and just generally have a good time in the year ahead. If you're not familiar with it already, Chinese New Year happens in the first 15 days of the lunar calendar cycle, and I see it as an excuse for Chinese (and Vietnamese and Thai) all over the world to see their family and friends, and party and feast hedonistically and guilt-free for slightly over two weeks.

Which is why I would like to share the recipe for this pomelo salad - pomelo is meant to signify abundance so it's lucky to eat. And besides, it's darn tasty.

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Beer Brined Chicken Wings

With Australia Day just round the corner, I have been racking my brain trying to create a recipe to serve up to my friends. After all, isn't Australia Day all about kicking back in the sunshine with a cold beer in hand, barbecue sizzling away?

Then it hit me. How do you match the barbecue and the beer? Beer brined chicken wings, of course!

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Party Food Roundup: The Sweets

CHRISTMAS IS ALMOST HERE!!!! And with christmas being just two days away, I'm presenting my last roundup: the sweets. Everyone needs a little bit of sugar to keep them going, and here are my favourite sweet recipes for last minute desserts.

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Party Food Roundup: The Canapes

As we move ever closer to Christmas, the number of parties and social situations seem to just go through the roof. Sometimes it just involves you turning up, and sometimes you might have to bring a little somethin' somethin'. If you're in the mood to bring a whole main, I did a roundup here that you might be interested in. Otherwise, how about canapés for little bite sized treats that can be dead easy, but are sure to impress at your next party.

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What I ate: Prosciutto and Dried Fig Canapes

After making my Peach and Crispy Prosciutto canapés for a party, I learnt a few lessons:

1. Prosciutto is my favourite cured meat for that sweet/salty combo
2. Don't buy so much prosciutto!

I had wayyyyyy too much prosciutto left over because I over estimated how much to buy, and now I've gotta use them up. The answer? This version of Devils on Horseback.

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Party Food Roundup: The Mains

Photo by Richard Hemmer

'Tis the season...to get your eat on! And if you're the cook in the house, you're not just in charge of your own belly, you're also in charge of feeding everyone else. So if you're scratching your head of what to make this year, here's a quick roundup of my favourite recipes to feed a party.

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Pineapple and Guava Sorbet

With the temperatures climbing, it's time to once again dust off the ice cream machine, and get cracking on those frozen treats that make a hot day bearable.
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Peaches, Crispy Prosciutto, Roquefort and Truffle Honey Canapes

The holiday season is drawing near, and so is the season of fantastic produce!!! This year, peaches caught my eye, and I have soft spot for peaches grilled with a touch of butter. And you know what goes well with stone fruit? The salty cured porky goodness called prosciutto.

And how better than to share that with friends than to put it on a canapé for the holidays?

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Pineapple, Lime and Chilli Sorbet

Like any person with a new toy, I'm completely obsessed with different flavours of sorbets/ice creams/frozen treats right now. Anything becomes and inspiration, and everyone knows I love trying new things. Well, a long time ago I came across a recipe for Lime and Chilli Sorbet, and because limes can be expensive all by their lonesome, I thought to finish that tropical theme and use pineapple juice as well.

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SPAM, aka shoulder pork and ham

Okay. I admit it. I really like SPAM. Short for Shoulder Pork and Ham, SPAM was introduced to me as 'luncheon meat'. I fondly remember having fried, sliced luncheon meat on rice, with stir fried vegetables and sambal chilli on the side. It was a typical weekday after-school lunch that was amazingly comforting.

So when my challenge theme for this month was "Guilty Pleasures: Recipes Inspired By Cheez Whiz, Spam, Twinkies and Their Delicious Cousins", I knew that I wanted to make another comforting meal, that's maybe just a tad less guilty than my fond memories of SPAM.

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Lychee and Lemon Sorbet

It's hot. It's really hot. I know, I'm from Singapore and I should be used to heat worse than this right? And I should stop my whinging? Well whether I whinge or not, IT'S STILL HOT. And having been in Sydney for a few years now, I know that the hottest is still to come. So I think that it's a good time to start making fruity frozen treats that will get us through to hot chocolate weather again.

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Sea Urchin Chawanmushi

I'm starting to think that I'm a complete Japanophile. Japanese food is one of my go-to comfort foods, and many of the ideas that come to me in the middle of the night - yes I'm that obsessive about food - seem to revolve around Japanese flavours and ideas.

So when it came to coming up with canapé ideas for my little dinner party, the classic Japanese chawanmushi came to mind, but I was going to serve them in sake cups! Aren't they cute??

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Oysters with Sea Urchin Butter

As much as I love to eat sea urchin straight out of the sea, I also can restrain myself from popping these sweet morsels in my mouth long enough to know that it is also a versatile and delicious ingredient. So how better to top delicate pacific oysters than with a luxurious sea urchin butter?

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Sea Urchin Shooters

I ADORE sea urchin. Well, I adore all seafood, but sea urchin has a delicate creaminess that sends me to the moon and back. There is just something about the way that it melts on my tongue, coating my palate with the sweetness of fresh seafood before fading away, leaving me with a craving for more. But sometimes when you want to serve urchin at a party, you want to dress it up just a little - maybe a simple dressing to enhance the flavour perhaps?

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Kotlet Burger

I have a new found enjoyment of Persian food. The rice, the stews, the liberal use of turmeric...it all culminates in a beautifully delicious end product that speaks of decades of recipe refinement.

There is one particular recipe that ingeniously uses potatoes, mince, onion and spices to make little patties that are delicious over rice, with a fresh tangy side salad. Kotlets - which to me sound like cutlets - seem like a great way to stretch out the meat supply. I can't actually find any history on these delicious morsels, but most Persians that I speak to recall these as their childhood favourite.


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Heston's Mac and Cheese

Heston Blumenthal is one of my idols. His approach to learning is one of a man dying of thirst. Constantly evolving, constantly improving...and he seems to have an ever expanding capacity for processing and storing information.

Which is why I love trying out his home recipes - he always incorporates techniques that I can use on other dishes, and ideas that I can apply to my other experiments in the kitchen.


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