Winging dinner for one

Its Sunday night and I'm in the mood for cooking. Decided to make Angel Hair Prawn Aglio Olio. Sounds sophisticated huh? Here's what happened: 1st, all went according to plan, defrosted the prawns, peeled, deveined and clean them, then seasoned with a little salt. 

Then I looked at the shells and thought, rather than boil the angel hair in plain water, how about boiling them in the shell stock? nothing goes to waste right? So off i go and boiled the prawn shells.

While that was boiling, I chopped up some garlic, and realised that I had 3 portobello mushrooms that will be spoilt if I don't eat it soon. So I got those out and sliced them up too. 

Got my angel hair ready and strained the stock, put it back to boil, added some salt and olive oil, and stirred the pasta in. While that was boiling, I took another pan and poured some olive oil into it and started frying the garlic.

Didn't want the garlic to brown too quickly, I added the prawns after awhile and lowered the heat. When the prawns were half cooked, added the mushrooms.

Happily frying, frying and then, I realised I'd forgotten to add seasoning. Sprinkled some more salt, chilli flakes, and since there weren't any fresh corriander, I poured in some dried parsley and stirred it around a bit more. Then I remembered the angel hair! quickly took it off the fire and strained it and set it aside. By the time i got back to the frying pan, it looked like this:

Oh well, not much harm done, just slightly overcooked. Tossed that together with the angel hair (thank goodness that was alright) and placed it in a plate and thought," now...that doesn't look very appetising." So sprinkled some more chilli flakes to "add some colour" other than the existing black.

Attempt to  make it look nicer with an artsy pic

Verdict:

- don't use portobello if you are gonna take pics

- chilli flakes are not colouring

- salt should be used sparingly

and of course,

- don't forget what you are doing and the pasta that is boiling in another pot

I made it, so I ate it.

- E

~Better luck next time~

Savoury and sweet

It's my good friend's birthday in a couple of days, so the group of us asked the usual "go where? eat what?" I haven't been out in ages but i heard this place called Old Hong Kong serves really good dimsum, so we decided to give it a try. Unfortunately when we got there, we realised that they didn't serve dimsum for dinner..bummer. Oh well, like that will stop us from eating (fine fine, i speak for myself).

Hokaay...lessee...1st up was the fried carrot cake. Good good. Friend 1 doesn't eat bean sprouts which was fried together with it (not the usual way we are used to). No problem, the remaining 3 of us picked it out and in the stomach it goes. I really like this dish, think i can eat like 10 plates of this.

The next was this homemade tofu dish, fried with scallops and mushrooms. This was yummy too. We each had one (me starting to thinks de portions are a tad too small). We also ordered kailan fried with garlic.

Then the evil fried stuff started coming up. fried chicken wings with prawn paste. Thought the kid (birthday friend's 4yr old girl joined us) would like fried wings, which kid doesnt like fried wings? but she went for something else..

No..not the deep fried prawn balls with salted egg yolk – she went for the deep fried bread coating -_-

There was also the fried wantons. By now, I actually started to feel quite full. Whoever said the portions looked small huh? Actually, they were small portions, just that the food with the exception of the carrot cake and the tofu were on the salty side, so...kinda cant eat too much of it, plus hyper child wanted fried bread coating, friend that doesn't eat bean sprouts was watching what she eats (and i didnt exactly order the healthiest dishes), birthday girl's husband had plans to go for a 2nd round at another Hong Kong cafe and was saving his stomach.

After dinner, we headed to the Hong Kong cafe for coffee and he got this thick sliced french toast, everyone else got drinks and i got the mountain of ice to share with the 4yr old :D

Before we got to the 2nd Hong Kong cafe, i went to get breakfast for tomorrow and saw these muffins. Couldnt resist, so i got 6. They do sell them individually but hey, buy 5 get 1 free!

Can't believe i got hungry blogging and seeing my own pics...i ate a strawberry one -_-"

-E