Potluck

Yippee! Friday is going to be an exciting day. My brother is arriving in the morning from Singapore, and there is going to be a potluck party over at my place in the evening. Happening, happening. happening.

This is my brother! I figured that I should wait for him to come and buy his airbed himself. I am not going to buy it early and carry it all the way home for him. Plus he can help carry all the beers that we're going to buy while he's here. So, the first errand on his list when he land in Sydney: buy his bed. :P

We ate at Strudel Baron at Drummoyne. Pastries there are fantastic. From left: cafe latte, lime creme brulee, fried eggs with bacon and toast, and scrambled eggs with bacon and toast. It cost a bomb too. $30.

Got home after a whole lot of shopping. We started preparing for the party. haha!

Let's get this party started!

They say a picture speaks a thousand words. I must have a dozen thousands of words here right now. Amazing what alcohol can induce.

Yup, and alcohol turn girls into supermodels. They were posing, cam-whoring all the time. I have plenty of "I-am-so-beautiful-so-please-come-take-my-picture" photos of them in my camera.

I don't think Sam is drunk (he didn't drink much anyway) but he went on a kissing binge and kissed almost every male in the room. The only one to return his afection is Soek, who kissed him right back. On my god, they are gay...

Dae Song is drunk. He is so off that he did a rendition of Shakira-Hips don't lie. I just went O_O when I saw his performance.

Portraitures.
From left: Stella (the closet drama queen), my brother (erm.. act cool not cool).

From left: Me (I can't believe I am actually stoning in the middle of a party. Must be the alcohol. My tolerance for alcohol is moot -_-), Hong (our tai lou, an honorary term for big brother since he is the oldest) , Dae Song (a surprisingly good korean cook).

From left: Soek (he brought the most food, haha, and he stayed to clean up with us. Thaank yoouu!) , Sam (came the earliest) and Nicole (my fellow Singaporean), Cynthia (came last, went home last).

Cynthia made cassava, a brazilian dish not unlike potato gratin with beef. Nice..

Lots of alcohol. 6 pack Victoria Bitter, 6 pack Toohey's, 6 pack Bunderberg rum with cola and 2 Smirenoff lime. haha. We also made a cocktail out of leftover rose, pineapple and orange juice with ginger ale.

Food! Okay, let's account for who cooked what. In chronological order: Sam made chicken sate (baked it in my oven), Claire made rice cake in chilli sauce (in my kitchen too), Dae Song made stir-fried pork in chilli sauce (using my pan as well). Soek came next and he brought huuge packets of korean crackers, korean stir fried noodle, chilli paste crab and cinnamon drink. Like woowww. Followed by Kimmy who made fried wonton and Indonesian crackers, Nicole who brought fried rice and Hong who specially made ngoh hiang (my favourite Singaporen food!). After a long long while, Cynthia arrived with her cassava (baked in my oven too). Everything was so so good. Not a single untouched food tonight. But lots of leftovers too. They really can cook.

I was made to wear shades and do a sexy pose with it. O.O I just can't okay. I am not the sexy kind. -_-

Farewell.

End.

Paris Brest

Paris Brest is a pastry that is traditionally made from choux pastry and is filled with praline mousseline and decorated with silvers almonds.

Well, that pretty much describes this round lovely pastry. Some background infomation regarding this pastry. It is created in France to commemorate two independent bicycle tours, randonee and audax, which is a race from Paris to Brest and from Brest back to Paris. Hence the pastry name Paris Brest.

Wednesday lessons are particularly easy. I don't know if it is the chef? Or the fact that it is our third practice day on the same product? Maybe it is both. I always feel better and much more confident on Wednesdays. Needless to say, my Paris Brests turned out fine. :D

Chef Michael's Paris Brest. He piped an additional layer of fresh cream on the top of praline mousseline that made it real delish. I didn't get to eat much of the Paris Brest he made though. (even though there was quite alot!) Not even one whole slice of it. (One Paris Brest was divided into 8 slices.) My classmates are pretty ravenous this morning. It was like 12 super kiasu aunties fighting for the great Singapore sale. So yeah, for revenge, I ate two whole Paris Brests that I made. Nearly vomited the whole thing back out. urghh..
One of the two Paris Brest I swallowed.

Takeaway.

End.

Eclairs

Tuesday was a pleasant day despite my not so successful eclairs. We watched Iron Man! haha! My first movie viewing ever in the land of sun and beaches. And we (Stella and I) had the whole cinema to ourselves. A giant screen (from floor to ceiling) cinema. For $9.50 per ticket. Yes, that is the only drawback. Freaking expensive movie ticket even on a "discounted" day.

Eclairs, eclairs. They will be part of our assessment. :( This little pastry that people don't usually think about is very labour intensive and time-consuming to do by hand. We have to make the choux pastry first, bake, then make the pastry cream, cool, then make the fondant icing and assemble all three of them together. I think eclairs are under-appreciated.

Do you know how hard it is to pipe a perfect eclair finger? Pipe it too thin, you'll get a lady finger. Too thick, you'll get a swollen finger. Not attractive at all. Plus you have to pipe it straight. We definitely do not want worms for eclairs.

Fill in the flavoured pastry cream and glaze the eclair top with flavoured fondant. By Chef Karin.

Plate and decorate it. By Chef Karin.

By Heidi. :D My not so successful eclairs. I had swollen fingers for eclairs, my fondant was too runny and my pastry cream was too warm to be used so I took kimmy's. At least they look alright.

Essentials.

End.

Choux Pastry- Profiteroles

Choux pastry (pronounced as "shoe") is a light pastry dough used to make profiteroles, eclairs, croquembouches, French crullers etc. It contains only water, butter, sugar and eggs. Its raising agent is the high moisture content, which creates steam during cooking, puffing out the pastry. -courtesy of Wikipedia.

Choux pastry is really a versatile thing. Once you know it, you can use it to make a dozen different products. In basic patisserie, we make the 3 most common choux products: profiteroles, eclairs and paris brest. Today, I present you with the profiteroles.

Profiteroles. This little ball-shaped pastry is a wonderball. Make a few hundred of these and you can use it to make this magnificent, super-popular, Italian wedding cake, croquembouche. A good sized croquembouche would need about 300 of these little darlings. Or you can use it to make a St. Honore gateau. Cool or what. haha.

To make a choux pastry, we must first make a panade, which is gelatinised starch containing water, flour, butter, sugar and salt. Then we add the eggs to adjust its consistency before piping them onto the baking trays. While baking, never never! open the oven door. Or at least wait for about 15mins for the structure of the profiteroles to set first before taking a peep to see if it is cooked. Open the door too soon, your profiteroles will just loose its steam and flatten out into god-knows-whats. So, please do take note.

Chef Keith and Chef Angelo went so far as to plate the profiteroles with piped chantilly for us. Profiteroles dusted with icing sugar, profiteroles with spun sugar, profiteroles with melted couverture and profiteroles with raspberry coulis. They were really enthusiastic this morning. Must be the caffeine huh?

I call them little wonderballs. You can use them as croutons for soups and salads as well.

My version of wonderballs. :D And I think I did them right. A little cracking on the top is desirable. Chef says it gives more character.

Me and mini-me. :)

End.

North Sydney

Yesterday, a great many things happened. A great many painful yet delightful things happened.

Stella and I were invited to dinner at Roneel and Naomi's (our very lovely ex-neighbours) new apartment. And as you all know, I can't chew very well. Correction. I can't chew at all. To the end of Friday night, I was more of swallowing than chewing. It was my saddest night ever. The original pot luck plan with the whole class was scraped. I was left to eat broccoli porridge that night. (I caught a cold too. I am pathetic.) Stella was kind enough to make (and eat!) with me porridge so soft that I can easily swallow without chewing. Eew, but thank you.

Therefore, I am determined to at least turn up for dinner the following night. I was practically growing mold at home. I made up my mind to -die die also must- visit the dentist. And, I did it. Saturday morning, I went dentist hunting. The first dentist I found was closed for some seminar meeting. The second dentist I found said they had their last patient already. But I was desperate, see. I begged the receptionist to give squeeze me in. Kind woman. She did and I got my appointment. Hooray!

Not so hooray is the dentist informed me that all 4 of my wisdom tooth are bloody sprouting at the same time. And 1 got infected by some food particles (i didn't brush my teeth?! heehee, yeah, i don't sometimes when i feel too lazy) which caused it to swell like nobody's business. The solution? The dentist gave my 3 options: lance it, slice it or cut it. haha, what a joke.They all mean the same thing don't they.

Dentist: I am going to lance it. Don't worry, you won't feel much pain since you are already in so much pain. And my knife is very sharp. Don't worry.

Is that supposed to sound comforting?

In the end, the dentist did slice into my gum to let the blood and pus bleed out. And I am to keep rinsing my mouth with the not-so-good-tasting listerine every 2-3 hours. Well, at least I get to have a decent dinner now.

After dentist, I traveled down to North Sydney to meet Naomi and Stella. Off to Lavender bay we go! North Sydney is a beautiful place.

See the bridge there? You can walk on top of it for around $150. Good thrill huh? Plus the view you get, priceless.

Ofcourse, we can't leave without pasting our faces with views even if it means completely blocking them. haha.

Naomi and I. There's an small engagement party going on behind us.

Stella and Naomi.

Sight-seeing wrapped up, Naomi brought us to Aldi- the super good value store- to do our household material and grocery shopping. We bought tons! at a mere $40+. I was sooo happy!

Roneel with Naomi in their American style kitchen. A small and cozy little corner. :D

Cabernet merlot.

Roneel was the chef for tonight. He whipped up a 3 course meal which includes: Stir-fried spaghetti!

Veggie soup with little franks.

And a simple eggy green salad to go along.

I am having a hard time to chew past all these food but I managed. :D

My paparazzi moment!

We went for a walk after dinner. The night views they have over there are fantastic. I didn't take any pictures though because of my stupid high iso function which I have no control over. Came back for dessert: Bavarian Gateau and home-made green tea ice-cream. Went home at 11.40pm with two boxes of homeware. (Naomi gave them to us. thank you!) :D

End.