Au Matin Calme

I love freshly baked pastries for morning tea and couldn't be happier when Au Matin had an extensive range of pastries during my visit. The last time I visited, most of the favourites were sold out and I was really disappointed back then but now... I MUST try everything I can stuff my tummy with hehe.

Pretty decor for patrons to admire whilst waiting to be served.

Orange juice~

Sourdough~

Almond croissant, $3.5~ fluffy, sweet and extremely delicious. I could eat this for breakfast, lunch and dinner! A must must have. We couldn't resist taking some back to snack on;)

Lemon tart~ a highly recommended item and it was indeed up to expectations. Not overly sour, fresh and delicious. Would go down well on a cold winter day with a warm cuppa hot chocolate/coffee.

Chocolate caramel tart~ a little bit sticky for me but it was equally delicious:)

Peach tart~ was a bad idea to have to peach tart after sampling the chocolate caramel tart as it wasn't as rich but overall, it was still delicious:)

Chocolate croissant~ was a little disappointed with this one as the chocolate filling was hard. It felt like eating a block of cadbury chocolate. I would prefer it to be gooey on the inside but I guess the cold weather didn't really allowed that to happen:( However, I would be back to try this again someday;)

 

Dumpling King

Throughout my student years in Adelaide, I must have been to this outlet countless number of times. I can still recall sitting near the window during my first visit here whilst sipping my bubble tea drink and observing passer-bys strolling around. In a blink of an eye, those years have evolved and during my recent visit here, I am still warming up my little corner in the shop:)

Having read numerous reviews on urbanspoon regarding their service, yes, I do admit that service here needs much improvements. I was quite rudely served by the waitresses, of whom, were intentionally not serving me (taking into account that I am waiting for them to clear the table for me to sit and that the shop was not busy at all) and I had to wait EXTRA long for them to take my order. This is the Grote Street shop that I am referring to, not too certain about the one in King William Street.

The only reason why I stayed was because I really do like their food (moderate quality at affordable prices) and that it was a convenient location. In the future, I might just head to the one in King William Street and if service there is equally depressing, I do hope that one day, a customer would voice it out to them as I doubt that my advise would be seriously considered-.-

A portion of the menu~ look at those prices:D

My favourite chilli-oil/sauce for dipping my dumplings in. Just delicious but be sure to remove most of the oil (the least one could do to reduce any guilty feelings).

Shanghai fried pork and vegetables noodles~ A delicious favourite. Well seasoned and generous portions. What more could you ask for at just $8.80.

Fried chicken and prawn dumplings~ this one is about $10.80 (if I remembered correctly) but it is really really good. The dumpling skin is thick but it somehow goes down well with the filling and dipping oil/sauce:)

Potato gnocchi

Another potato recipe!! Potatoes are such a versatile ingredient to cook with and from my previous blog posts, one would know that I'm a HUGE potato eater. Be it mashed, fried, roasted or boiled, it's all too good to resist=P

Have tried this recipe here after watching a Masterchef episode on it and it is a must make dish=)

Baked potatoes for slightly less than 1 hour..I didn't have much time to cook so yea...would have been best if it was much longer (I still had raw parts in the middle of the potato). Sieved the potatoes and it just melted through. Best part of all, the potato's skin tastes uber good! I couldn't help eating it whilst peeling them:p

After mixing it with 2 eggs, some salt and flour, I boiled it, drained it and fried it with a bit of rosemary. Was worried that the gnocchi would stick to the pan but surprisingly, it didn't hehe^^

I fried mine until it's golden brown.

A side of potatoes, garlic and tomato salad. All oven roasted with a dash of butter:)

Pan-fried my fish with breadcrumbs and some tarragon. A light way of cooking the fish, ey =D

Cooked the gnocchis with mushrooms and a bit of corn for completion. I love love this recipe. I must re-make it again. It tasted unbelievably good and was easier to make than I had expected *am now drooling just by looking at this picture!*

Baked a marble chocolate cake that day. I can have my cake and eat it too!!xD

Hainanese chicken rice

Another day, another missed eating opportunity in Malaysia but luckily, there's heaps of recipes freely available, allowing one to re-create that much craved, uniquely Malaysian dish. I had accidentally bought more chicken pieces than I needed (probably a whole month's supply of chicken!) so I have decided to make some chicken rice.

Been trying to find the perfect recipe for preparing the chicken but so far, not much luck with finding it. Nevertheless, the accompanying rice and chilli sauce turned out fine:)

Was prepping my chicken legs for next day's dinner!

Hainanese chicken rice recipe was adapted from Rasa Malaysia

Rice:
4 cloves garlic
4 finely chopped shallots
Chicken broth
About 4x4cm piece of ginger
Chicken fats
Salt

* The amount of each ingredient that I have used was approximate (no weighing scales needed) and was adjusted as I was cooking. If you like more shallots in your rice, fry more shallots:)

The chicken, exfoliated (ie scrubbed with salt) and stuffed with ginger, spring onions and pandan leaves (If I had some on hand).

Chicken broth~ still needs improvements!

Randomly cutting up the ingredients

Chilli sauce which was prepped a day in advance (just to make my life simplified when I'm cooking the next day).

One must fry the chicken fats until it has released sufficient oil to evenly coat all the rice grains.

Chicken simmering in its own broth~

Chicken fats almost completely fried!

Fry ginger, shallots and garlic until fragrant before adding rice and frying it a bit. Add enough chicken stock to boil the rice until its cooked

Chilli sauce:
90g red chilies and bird’s eye chili (depending on how spicy you want it to be)
15g garlic
50g ginger
Salt
Sugar
Lime juice
A few spoons of chicken broth to bring everything together



Again, the amount of each ingredients can be varied depending on your tastebuds. As for the sugar, salt and lime juice, just add sufficient amounts (enough to taste).

Rice!:D

Ok..my chicken was probably in a sad state that day..I literally butchered it (hence the shredded mess at the side) but all in, not many bones attached as I had carefully taken all of them out just for ease of eating:)

Chinese New Year melting moments

I can't remember what's this cookie called but it is similar to the traditional melting moments' recipe so let's call it that for now, alright?;) Wasn't overly impressed with this recipe because the final results weren't as pretty as I had wanted it to be:( But overall, it did taste good despite getting a bit oily-er as the days pass by-.-

It seriously looks so promising before I bake it! Nice edges, smooth and crumbly texture. I've added a bit of blueberry jam on top just to add more glamour to it.

Well..sadly, the edges had to "frill" out and it didn't look as round and golden as I would have liked it to be. Hence, no recipes can be provided until I find THE recipe.

p.s: I threw away this recipe, in case anyone's curious about it.

Kuih bakar

For a very very long time, I have been wanting to try out this recipe here but did not as I am quite cautious about using coconut milk and food colouring in just about everything I cook. After much contemplation and maybe a bit of laziness, I've made it and it worked out perfect!!:D

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups of sugar
2 cups of flour
1 cup of pandan juice (6 pandan leaves + 1 cup of water - blended)
2 1/4 cups of coconut milk
4 large eggs
2 tbsp of melted butter
1 tsp of pandan paste (I've used a tiny bit more as I did not have any pandan leaves)
 
Just like any other baking methods, cream butter with sugar and slowly incorporate your eggs, coconut juice and pandan paste. I sieved the mixture just in case there's any lumps (butter wasn't really melted) before folding the flour into it.

This reminds me of an artsy type of canvas xD

Baked it at 160C for about an hour and make sure to test that it's cooked on the inside!!

I don't recall eating many of these green gems in Malaysia but this recipe certainly made it up for all those years. It's soft and slightly gooey (just slightly..a bit jelly like texture), smells fantastic and has a slight crunch exterior. So so very good hehe