Little Dragon

I occasionally cook during the weekend, and yesterday was one of it.
This was the first time I bought tarragon herbs. It's for the vegetable broth I meant to cook, but since I forgot to buy other few ingredients for it, the broth was off the menu... :P
The other 2 dishes were both stir-fried stuff - stir-fried spinach and stir-fried chicken strips.

The stir-fried chicken strips surprised me. While I was cooking, I read that tarragon will enhance the taste of chicken, duck etc... well well the few dashes of tarragon really made the dish more fragrant than my normal chicken stir-fry. Yum!

I was too busy eating, so no photos. But here goes the recipe:

Ingredients:
5 strips of chicken meat (about 400g? sorry I'm not sure of the weight)
2 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoons of dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons of light soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon of sugar
1~2 dashes of pepper
1~2 dashes of black pepper
2~3 dashes of tarragon (from the herb bottle)
1/2 tablespoon of ghee (or butter, or 1 1/2 tablespoons of cooking oil)
1/4 cup of water

Preparations:
1. Wash and cut the chicken strips into smaller edible pieces.
2. Mix the dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, sugar, pepper and black pepper into the bowl of chicken meat. Set the chicken aside for 20 minutes to marinate.
3. While waiting, chopped the garlic finely.

Cooking:
1. Heat up the wok, put in the ghee to melt. Add chopped garlic and fry until fragrant.
2. Pour the bowl of marinated chicken in and stir-fry.
3. When the chicken is half cooked, add the 1/4 cup of water (if you think there's not enough gravy)
4. Season with 2 to 3 dashes of tarragon after chicken is cooked, stir-fry for another 20 seconds before dishing up.

Serve with rice.

~ Bee finds recipe writing is not as easy as she thought.

French Escapade

Last Monday, H & I went out for dinner to celebrate our special day, and it's somewhat like our annual date night (the last one was July 2007 :P)

I chose André Wine & Dine, a french restaurant. Reasons being I've been craving for french food since reading about a critic's world and a chef's real life stories...well a lot of those involved fine-dining french cuisines. And discovering this particular expensive mushroom.
Also, André's got good reviews from patrons, and the price would not burn a big hole in my pocket. Guess what?! I wasn't disappointed, the dishes we ordered were yummy and worth every penny! :D

For appetisers, H got the really delicious fried prawn, the sauce and green salad went really well with it! I almost wanted to swap that with my escargots, but too bad H couldn't fathom eating snails, too icky for him. Nonetheless he tried one after much persuasion. The escargots were fresh, a tad salty but still good!

Next up - Soups! My mushroom soup was nice - not too thick nor thin, with just the right amount of cream. And best of all, I get to taste the 3 little slices of truffles at last!! But to be honest, I have to say I'm a wee bit disappointed with the taste of the truffles, it tasted ... erm just like any other mushroom, lack of the strong aroma as I've read. H had the tasty french onion soup, I liked the caramelized onion and cheese in it.

Main course, I was delighted with the Confit de canard (duck confit), the tender meat and the crispy skin offered such contrasts and paired well with the balsamic shallot sauce. H ordered the beef tenderloin - well done, but I suggested he tried it medium well... couldn't believe he agreed. The meat came and H was put off by the bloody meat a wee bit. But to be honest, I tried a mouthful - it didn't have the pungent smell of blood and was actually delicious. Did that make me a vampire? Ha! :P

Done with the mains and we wondered if we're able to finish the dessert. But oh boy! my "Live for Chocolate" cake had the warm and gooey chocolate in the middle of the warm choc cake. Ate it with the strawberry and sorbet... Man! I was almost in heavens! The orange souffle was a tad not as flavourful but it's nonetheless light. At least H enjoyed it.

Here's my rating (out of 10):
Food - 8
Ambience - 6.5 (It's pretty cozy but the lighting was a bit too bright, and they should play jazz :P)
Service - 8 (attentive and non-intrusive)
Value - 8.5

I'd recommend you foodies and/or love birds out there to try it out.

29/6 Updates - Food photos are here


~ Bee has difficulty resisting good food.

Love is...

When you can keep looking for a long time
at someone while he's asleep
And think he's so cute and sweet
You feel fuzzy and warm
Those are contended moments
filled with happiness...

It's a...

Spork!!

Emo

So i wrote this Haiku:

Bitter bitter Bee
Forgive and forget you should
Better things will be

An Update

The little voice in my head has been nagging me to blog for a very long time, and I keep brushing her off giving her all kinds of excuses...like there's enough updating with facebooking, busy with life & kid, no inspirations, tons of photos to edit, and my writing sucks... blah blah blah... the list goes on.
At last she won me over, so here goes some updates & thoughts (ahem... in point forms :P)

1) Currently, my favorite book of all time (more like love at first read) is Ajahn Brahm's Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung. He's such a great teacher sharing his wisdom in life with his good sense of humour.

Before this, I was a buddhist in forms whereas I called myself a free thinker if someone asked about my religion. Because I really do not think one is a buddhist if he/she only goes to pray in the temple without studying and practicing buddhist teachings.

Now, I can finally call myself a buddhist as I've started to practice its teachings in life, and I want to keep learning about buddhism. Taking one step at a time.

2) My baby is now a 16 months toddler, going on 17. I'm amazed at the pace he learns stuff. He observes and mimics you. The other day, I was calling H with a poke on his side and guess what, my boy went to poke his dad too. Man... I have to constantly be aware of the bad habits I do unknowingly sometimes.

Parenting is the most challenging job, ever! It's hard work, sometimes daunting and can really test your patience. However, the returns you get while you mold your child and see him blossoms into another human being with his own individuality is all worth it. Love, happiness and bliss!!

On that note, for the coming 11th May, to all mothers out there, Happy Mother's Day! Especially to my mother, I love you, Mama!

3) While I'm getting fatter & fatter these days, a foodie will always be a foodie. Haven't been to restaurants for a while now (other than at a friend's birthday party & another friend's wedding dinner in April), and still haven't got the opportunity to hunt for the exotic mushroom.
But I've cooked twice this couple of weeks, which is rare because I think it's really not economical (in terms of money and time) cooking for two than buying cooked food from food courts or kopitiams. On the other hand, cooking can be fun and there's satisfaction while gulping down the wholesome food. Yum!

4) After the three points above, lately, I've noticed that the types of books I mostly read are about life, parenting and food-related. Gone were the days of romance, hero and/or heroines, mysteries fictions... I guess my interests and perspectives have changed. :D

~ Bee will now indulge in a strawberry milkshake...

Things I need to bitch about

• Smoking in a lift or when they’re walking. Please go kill yourself discreetly, do not drag others with you.
• Pretending they deserve the seat more than another who is old or disabled or pregnant.
• Crowding in front of the train door and dashing into the train before letting passengers alight first. Then stood rooted near the door. Geez!
• Hogging on the right side of the escalator at train stations. Can you please move it and stand on the left. Thank you very much.
• Banging continuously on the traffic-light button. Helloooo… no matter how many times you press on it, you’ll still have to wait for the timer!
• Putting a packet of tissue paper on the table DOES NOT reserve the table for you, idiot!

Okay, rant over :P

Mushrooms! Mushrooms!

Done reading Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl, she’s the New York Times restaurant critic from 1993-1999 and currently the Gourmet editor. The book filled my train journeys deliciously. I was in the gastronomic world of aromas and tastes. This is where I discovered truffles, and after that it pops everywhere ~ on photos, blogs… man I’m curious as a cat!

So my truffle quest begins, have researched online on these rare and expensive (may be overpriced) seasonal fungi. It’s supposed to be so awesome that one bite will send you floating to high heavens. White truffles (Tuber magnatum) are going to be in season soon, I’m sure it’ll be on its way to fine dining restaurants here.

I do hope it won’t squash my high expectation like foie gras did. Then I was the foolish little girl who thought a luxury dish with beautiful foreign words would be yummy. No idea whatsoever that it’s made of duck or goose’s liver, and was so excited when it’s served…. One bite… Yuck! It’s over to H to force it down his throat, as it’s too expensive to waste. “But it’s good!!” you’d say. I’m sorry… internal organs are not my thing.

Anyhoo, if you’ve had any good truffle dish in Singapore recently, or if you can get your hands on fresh truffles and know how to serve it… Please fill me in!! :D

~ Bee is in discovery mode.