I moved into a new apartment in May this year, although it has a tiny kitchen, I have a balcony and an awesome view of English Bay and the North Shore mountains. I even have a view of the ocean and the mountains from my kitchen. Being in this environment has inspired me to cook some amazing meals for my friends.
I cooked a very lavish thai dinner for 7 of my friends not too long ago. I bought most of the asian ingredients from T&T and went to Granville Island for the freshest meat and vegetables. In all, I think I spent well over $300 on this meal, which was worth every penny. I love watching my friends enjoy the fruits of my labour, it's a love I share with my mum.
Here's what I prepared:
Appies:
1. Home made spring rolls, wrapped in lettuce, with rice noodles, bean spouts, cucumber, mint and coriander, with a dipping sauce, made with palm sugar/ fish sauce/vinegar and peanuts.
2.Smoked salmon with Namh Jim on Betal Leaves served with Fish Roe. Betal leaves is very hard to come by in vancouver, I fnally found them in in a little store in Chinatown, thanks to google.
3.Almond coated tempura king prawns, served with sweet thai chili sauce.
4.Chickan Satay, served with peanut sauce.
Mains (served with steam rice):
1.Coriander Eye-fillet. This was the most diffiult dish to prepare, and my favourite dish. The sauce is amazingly aromatic because of the galangal.
2.Stir fry chicken with thai basil. I would have preferred to use holy basil, which is far more aromatic than the normal thai basil and has a sweeter flavour, but I have not been able to find them here in vancouver.
3. Seared halibut with yellow curry. When you buy the freshest ingredients, it's amazing what a difference it makes to the meal. The halibut practically melted in your mouth.
I did not prepare dessert, everyone was too full to eat dessert. Besides, I am not very good at cooking desserts, I'm more of a savoury person than a sweets person.
A few weeks later, I cooked another thai meal for a different group of friends, only this time the meal was not as lavish. For appies I only made chicken satay, for mains I made green chicken curry, ling cod with yellow curry and pad thai. It was the very first time I cooked pad thai, and was very surprisingly pleased with the outcome.
On both occassions my kitchen was a mess, but the dinners were a success, everyone went home very merry and very drunk! There is nothing like a good meal shared with good friends :).
t
Saturday, August 7, 2010
welcome to my journey...
I believe there are 2 kinds of people in the world, one who enjoys and appreciate good food, and those who don't. I wonder who ever said "one should eat to live and not live to eat"? I am not entirely sure I agree with this, because I cannot imagine a world without food...it is my passion! Does an artist live to paint, or paint to live?
But what is considered good food? After all, I am not a chef, I have never had any formal training, nore am I a writer.. as you an clearly see (I failed English in my 12th grade).
But as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I believe a meal is only as good as the enjoyment it brings to it's diner.Which is why I have never been a big fan of food critics, half the time I have disagreed with them.
I have decided to create this blog to share with you not just my love of food, but also my love of travel. Someone once said that "the world is a novel, and if you do not travel, then you've only read a page of it".
As much as I enjoy a good meal, I do believe it's all about quality and not quantity. Which I why I rarely eat fast food and the best meals are prepared with the freshest ingredients. Up until I was 30, I hated tomatoes, ...until I went to Italy, I never knew how amazing a real tomatoe could taste. My first trip to europe also introduced me to my favourite cuisine in the world.. spanish tapas, and there is no place that does it better than San Sebastian (tapas are known as pinxtos there). I have been there twice now, and plan to go back there as often as possible.
Having a healthy lifestyle is also important to me. I exercise regularly and I believe I also eat very healthy. But eating healthy should not mean sacrificing flavour. In fact, I don't think I own any diet books, or any 'healthy' cook books for that matter. But I do own an amazing collection of cookbooks!
So I hope to share with you some of my 'healthy' recipes, and also some of my more 'indulgent' recipes. After all, what's life without a little bit of indulgence. I will also be posting my opinions/reviews on the places that I have dined. There are so many places in the world I would like to dine, such as the French Laundry in the Napa Valley, Ell Buli in Spain and Per Se in New York. But ofcourse to do that I would need a lot of money, which I don't have. I have a long list of places I would like to dine, I may or may not make it to all of them, time and finance permitting ofcourse. But I will definitely try, and what an adventure it will be!
t
But what is considered good food? After all, I am not a chef, I have never had any formal training, nore am I a writer.. as you an clearly see (I failed English in my 12th grade).
But as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I believe a meal is only as good as the enjoyment it brings to it's diner.Which is why I have never been a big fan of food critics, half the time I have disagreed with them.
I have decided to create this blog to share with you not just my love of food, but also my love of travel. Someone once said that "the world is a novel, and if you do not travel, then you've only read a page of it".
As much as I enjoy a good meal, I do believe it's all about quality and not quantity. Which I why I rarely eat fast food and the best meals are prepared with the freshest ingredients. Up until I was 30, I hated tomatoes, ...until I went to Italy, I never knew how amazing a real tomatoe could taste. My first trip to europe also introduced me to my favourite cuisine in the world.. spanish tapas, and there is no place that does it better than San Sebastian (tapas are known as pinxtos there). I have been there twice now, and plan to go back there as often as possible.
Having a healthy lifestyle is also important to me. I exercise regularly and I believe I also eat very healthy. But eating healthy should not mean sacrificing flavour. In fact, I don't think I own any diet books, or any 'healthy' cook books for that matter. But I do own an amazing collection of cookbooks!
So I hope to share with you some of my 'healthy' recipes, and also some of my more 'indulgent' recipes. After all, what's life without a little bit of indulgence. I will also be posting my opinions/reviews on the places that I have dined. There are so many places in the world I would like to dine, such as the French Laundry in the Napa Valley, Ell Buli in Spain and Per Se in New York. But ofcourse to do that I would need a lot of money, which I don't have. I have a long list of places I would like to dine, I may or may not make it to all of them, time and finance permitting ofcourse. But I will definitely try, and what an adventure it will be!
t
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)