A healthy homecooked lunch

I decided to cook my lunch today and matched plain rice with two dishes for a balanced meal. I attempted to cook Chicken in Soy Sauce in order to reproduce my mum's dish. She used to make it for me when I was young. I used drumlets for convenience but had to experiment with ingredients to get the gravy correct. I marinated the chicken in oyster sauce and teriyaki sauce. Then I boiled the chicken in a gravy made from sugar, dark soy sauce, dried thyme and oyster sauce. I thickened the gravy with cornflour. It was not too bad but of course, it was not the exact replica.

I then made Asparagus Soup. I added bay leaves, ginger, dried scallops and fresh squid to get the flavour, before adding asparagus and wolf berries to it. It was not too bad but I think I had to simmer it for a longer time in order to make it 'perkat' or thick.

Upon eating the meal, I felt as if I was brought back in time. I finished every drop of the gravy and ate every edible bit of the chicken. The soup was good too. The only thing is that the thyme and bay leaves were intense in flavour and covered up the rest of the flavours.

Unusual food

Pig's brains is one of the foods offered in Singapore. I remember that I used to eat it when I was a child, as my mum had told me that it would make me cleverer. It tastes rather fine actually, somewhat like chicken liver.

Pan Pacific Hotel is offering durian puree as a topping for scones. It probably wants to imbue this traditional English biscuit with an Asian flavour. This new combination does not sound too bad, actually. Lemon curd is another of the toppings offered. I tried it for the first time, with wholemeal bread. It is not too sweet and absolutely delicious. It is a luxury to me though, because it is so expensive and exclusive.

A chocolate buffet is nothing people have not heard of, and the most famous one is at Fullerton Hotel. I had gone for a chocolate buffet a long time back, and it hugely contributed to my present minimal liking for chocolate. Now, Carlton Hotel has come up with a durian buffet. Wow, that takes the cake man! My mum would have loved this. She is the most passionate durian-lover in the family :) What will the epicurean industry come up with next, I wonder? :D

Durian is being experimented with in dishes like Peking Duck and Baked Rice. Perhaps the durian puree replaces the plum sauce in the crepe. Though it seems to be suitable for the dish, using it is rather ill-fitting, from my point of view. Durian in the rice, as a substitute for cheese, is also bizarre to contemplate. It is no wonder that it could not complement the rice.

Spice Peranakan has a new dish on its menu: Chinchalok Omelette. This sounds rather interesting actually. Instead of normal fillings like Onion, Mushroom, Ham and Chai Poh, this is an innovative filling. It gives an Asian twist to a typically Western dish. If more could have been used though, it would have been good. It is only discernible when the omelette is eaten on its own, according to Wong Ah Yoke. Then again, chinchalok is an ingredient that few people are used to eating due to its strong taste.

Some more unusual food are: Bacon Ice-cream, Garlic Ice-cream, French toast Ice- cream, Chocolate Mayonnaise, Chocolate Beer and Beer Ice-cream.

House of Soto as featured in the current issue of 8 Days magazine

It has a signature dish of Soto Mee Ayam which is topped with pieces of Fried Spring Roll filled with bee hoon. It sure does sound bizarre. I initially thought they were Fried Dough Fritters, which do not look as bizarre.

It also offers another dish: Beef in Buah Keluak Soup. As a true-blue Nonya, I am deeply offended by this, actually. Buah Keluak is usually cooked with chicken and to make it as a soup dish is to undermine its true usage, I feel. It is a plagiarism-gone-wrong of the original dish of Ayam Buah Kelauk.