assam fish

This recipe is another keeper from Food Safari (google: SBS food safari). I got a chance to do this one because the cleaner at my work just came back from a fishing trip and she gave me two steak chunks of mackerel from the fish that she caught herself. Thanks Flossy, you're tops!

I kinda butchered this recipe, because I couldn't find a mortar and pestle to grind the rempah to a fine paste. So I used a blender which couldn't make the rempah into a fine paste. Added to that, silly me, I tried to stir the rempah with a chopstick while the blender was still on. Can you believe it? So I had to throw away that chewed up chopstick and start over. In the end, I think I did an OK job. Maybe that'll teach me next time to stick to the instructions to a tee.

crème caramel

My older sister and I love virtually all food shows, one particular show is called Food Safari on the SBS network. It's a show on food from different cultures. The recipe for this crème caramel is from the Portuguese episode. I love it for its straightforward-no-messing-about method, just a really-easy-to-make dessert.

A few do's and don'ts:

• Do use medium-large size eggs (500-600g per dozen), I used extra large eggs and ended up with too much custard mixture even after filling up 6 of my decent sized mugs and had to pour them down the drain.
• Don't put too much caramel at the bottom of the ramekin, otherwise it won't melt during the baking process. As long as it thinly covers the bottom of the ramekin, that's all you need.
• Do use an oven-proof cups or mugs if you don't have any ramekins. I used cups & mugs of different sizes and to me that actually makes it more rustic and homelike.
• After I happily finished the crème caramel, I had left-over hardened caramel stuck on the bottom of my cups, I used the microwave to heat it up until it's liquid again, poured it onto aluminium foil and threw it away.