English Onion Soup with Cheddar (and Bacon)

I've got a new recipe to share! Presenting my adaptation of Jamie Oliver's English Onion Soup. I can't say I am a great judge of onion soup or whatsoever since I hardly ever have onion soup but this is the best onion soup I have tasted. And the best thing is, I don't have to be French or English to make really good onion soup. (which means you probably can make it this good too) :D

Well, I can't exactly call it an onion soup now since I also added bacon to it, a great addition by the way. It should be onion bacon soup huh. Whatever. I have realised that bacon gives instant stock. Which is why I didn't make the stock base which the recipe required. It turned out really satisfactory. There is no dilution in flavour, the bacon made up for it. And texture wise, it is as thick as an onion soup can get without getting too sludgy. In a nutshell, Stella and I cleaned the whole pot. :)
English onion soup with bacon and cheddar- adapted from Jamie at home, cook your way to the good life.

Serves 2
You will need:

a good knob of butter
olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
4 large onions of various variety or equivalent, peeled and sliced
1/2 leek, trimmed, washed and sliced
2 middle rashers bacon, chopped to lardons
salt and pepper
0.9 litre water
4 slices of good quality stale bread, 2cm thick
A handful of grated cheddar cheese and herbs

Method:

Put the butter, 2 glugs of olive oil and the garlic into a thick-bottom, non-stick pan. Stir everything round and add the onions and leeks. Season with salt and pepper. Be stingy with the salt since bacon will add to the salt as well. Place the lid on the pan, leaving it slightly ajar; and cook slowly for 50 minutes, without colouring the vegetables too much. Remove the lid for the last 20 minutes- your onions should become soft and golden. Stir occasionally so that nothing catches on the bottom. Having the patience to cook the onions slowly, slowly, gives you an incredible sweetness and an awesome flavour, so don't be tempted to speed this bit up.

At the last 5 minutes, add the bacon bits to the onions. When your onions and leeks and lovely and silky, bacons cooked, add the water. Bring to boil, turn the heat down and simmer for 10-15 minutes. You can skim off any fat off the surface it you like, but I prefer to leave mine on for good flavour.

Preheat oven or grill to maximum. Toast your bread on both sides. Correct the seasoning for soup. When it is perfect, add cheddar cheese to the bread and put it under grill or into the oven again to melt it. When it is half melted, take it out, sprinkle some dried herbs on it, then put it back until bubbling and golden. Keep an eye on it, make sure it doesn't burn! When cheese is bubbly, lift it out and put it onto soup. Feel free to push and dunk the bread into the soup a little. Beware: bread sponges alot of soup. Enjoy.

Thank you Jamie Oliver for inspiring the chef in me!

End.

Vienna almonds, chocolate nut clusters, pralines, coffee logs, truffles

I have a never-ending supply of chocolates in my pantry right now. I have chocolates way back from the last term when we are still basic students and chocolates from this week. It will take time to eat so much chocolates and some effort on my part too. You see, I have this love-hate thing with chocolates. I love to eat them but I hate to suffer the after effects. Chocolates give me sore-throats. Chocolates give me pimples. Chocolates give me extra insulation, which is fats basically. So now you know, chocolates love me and I absolutely love chocolates for loving me. -_- I really have to make the effort to eat the chocolate truffles I have at home now. Because unlike the previous chocolates where I can keep in a container, there is a truffle croquembouche sitting on the kitchen table right this moment. And there is a two week deadline to demolish it. Owells, life is good.

This week on chocolates. We had a three-day continual process of making the truffle croquembouche and some other side chocolates. Day 1: make 3 variety of ganache. Day 2: hand mould the ganache into 10g balls. Day 3: dipped the ganache in chocolates and assemble them into a croquembouche. The side chocolates that we made. Dipped pralines, chocolate almond clusters and coffee logs.

My first attempt at dipping chocolates and I think I did pretty okay though I did have a little accident with the chocolate which resulted in a seriously chocolate coated apron. It is my third time washing it now and I can still see chocolate on it.

I made lunch!

There. That is a truffle croquembouche. My proud accomplishment!

Looks good from all angles. heehee.

End.

Blue Mountains

I am really sleepy now, at 11:26pm. Zzzz...

Nevertheless, I will at least complete this post before going off to bed. haha. I am typing nonsensically now just to keep awake. So here goes.

Friday early morning, Stella and I were at the front of our house with 2 large bags. At 8.45am, we hoped into Roneel and Naomi's car, and off we go to the Blue Mountains. :D Below is the famous three sisters. Stella re-christened them the three fingers. Very aptly named I say.

After a 2 hour drive, we arrived at Katoomba for lunch.

The cafe have our favourite sparkling apple juice! yay. Stella and I each had a large lunch while R and N shared one huge lunch.

Sight-seeing at the three sisters and the river dam for the afternoon. Blue mountains is a really beautiful place despite its freezing temperatures. Day is about 8 degree Celcius while night usually goes below zero. brrrrr... But if you can stand the cold, do pop outside and view the starry starry night sky. Absolutely stunning.

We cooked our own dinner at the homestay. R prepared prawn curry for us which was positively lovely. We also had a variety of salad, lebanese bread and shredded chicken to complete the menu.

Bedtime. I got the upper bunk bed! My second experience in 4 years. N and R have got to be the smallest couple in Australia. They actually shared the single bed. Amazing. Stella looks cute in the picture. So so cute!

Breakfast. We ate the quiches and pissaladiere that we brought from home. And some scramble eggs by the side.

No. 14, the homestay we stayed in. $25 per person per night. It is not luxurious but with that kind of rate, especially with the fully equipped kitchen, you got to give and take. At least it was comfortable.

Best shot so far.

So the three sisters used to run about naked.

Following day for lunch, we dined at N's favourite Blue mountain cafe: Post, cafe and bar. Everything was perfect except for the weird paintings of hybrid women legs and ice-cream that were found hanging everywhere,

I had linguini with prawn and bacon, Stella had steak and N and R shared sandwiches and soup. Scrumptious.

Home sweet home. Thank you N and R for the lovely trip!

Quiche, mini pizza, pissaladiere, parmasen twist, mille feuille

At last, some quiet time to blog about my recent activities since returning to Sydney. From the moment I have entered the land of Aussies till now, I have been pretty kept up and about with a few things. First was unpacking. Took me two days to fully unpack all the extras I brought over from Singapore and to stow away my luggage. I now have two luggages (of 10kg and 20 kg capacity) nicely tucked away in a small corner of my room. Then I had to fix the term deposits and to claim the money that Qantas owes me for volunteering to delay my flight for one day. (I was reimbursed for 400USD! Hooray!) And finally Blue Mountains, the most recent event, which will be up on my next post.

First thing first, I missed my first day of Intermediate Patisserie where my classmates learn to make the reverse puff pastry. Normal puff pastry involves enveloping butter the dough. For reverse puff, we wrap the dough in butter. Sounds complicated uh? Yeah, I know. And now that I have missed the lesson, damn! Anyway, using the reverse puff pastry and pate brissee that my benchmates helped me prepare (thank you peeps!), we made a variety of petit fours the following day. From left to right, quiches, Parmesan twists, hazelnut pretzels, pissaladiere, mini pizzas and almond cresents, by Chef Karen. My new Tuesday chef. She's a pretty nice lady with a heavy English accent. ohh, I like.

Wednesday, my new Wednesday chef, Chef Andre demonstrated mille feuille using the reverse puff pastry again. Below is my version of it. It looks as good as his. :D

Thursday took Stella and I to this German restaurant at The Rocks. I forgot its name though, haha. They serve some amazing pork knuckle and a wide variety of beer. I had a beer cola cocktail. Between Stella and I, we shared half a pork knuckle, German sausages on mash and Goulash soup.

Last but not least, dessert. We went for the sister patisserie of the famous patiserrie in France. Stella's mango mousse.

My creme brulee. Taste just like the one our school makes.

Sydney has been fun.

End.