Chewy Oatmeal Cranberries Cookies

Cereal - one of my many obsessions. I am like a cereal junkie, I can eat cereal for the whole day, for the whole week. Sometimes I like to eat cereal out of the box, other times I like to mix cereal with nuts and dried fruits. I like to use just enough milk to mix with cereal, making sure the cereal is well soaked with liquid without any trace of milk in the bottom of the bowl.

I love all cereal related stuff - oatmeal, granola, muesli.. basically I can always substitue lunch and dinner with breakfast food... probably it is the chewy and crunchy texture that I get addicted to. It may sound bland to most people, but I just love kids' food.

Out of all the cookies breed, chewy oatmeal cookies can be the easiest thing to make on earth. I don't think you really need the exact measurement for all the ingredients, you can always mix and match different elements to customize the flavor.. the failure rate can be as low as 5%, unless you really suck at using the oven or too bad of eye sight to read the scale. There's no reason the homemade cookies are not edible or even doesn't taste good.

This is a classic oatmeal cookies with cranberries recipe. I always convince myself that this is healthy food with lots of fiber and vitamins so that I wouldn't feel guilty of eating the whole batch. I can't stop myself tearing up the irregular shapes or ugly ones hence ended up devouring most of the batch..


what you need:

1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 oz unsalted butter at room temperature
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 2/3 cups oatmeal
1/2 cup dried cranberries

How to proceed:
Preheat the oven to 190c.
In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
In a mixer, beat the butter and granulated sugar until smooth. Mix in the brown sugar, then the egg, and vanilla.
Stir in the dry ingredients, then the oats and cranberries.
Drop the batter by rounded teaspoons 2-inches apart on the baking sheets and use a fork to gently flatten the dough.
Bake the cookies for 12 minutes.

Chocolate hazelnut bites

Everyone knows I am a big sweet tooth, I can't survive a day without digging into my candy jar four times a day, eating dessert after lunch and dinner, and a midnight dose of sugar. Sugar is therapeutic, kicking up one's energy while consoling one's emotion, unfortunately it comes with a side effect of extra fat.... the amount of sugar intake.. totally depends on self control (which I have none) and how you evaluate the pros and cons (I rather work out fanatically to offset the cons).

I love cookies, bite size snacks, something one can nibble on while getting bored or enjoying a moment at ease. They come in simple ingredients of sugar, butter, and flour for a classic sables; or spice things up with chocolate, nuts, herbs, citrus, for more indulgence. Yesterday I made a batch of chocolate hazelnut cookies based on David Lebovitz's recipe.

what you need:
8oz or 225g bittersweet chocolate (I used half 72% Valrhona Araguani)
1.5oz or 45g butter
2 eggs
1/3 cup granulate sugar
1 cup toasted hazelnut
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
a pinch of fleur de sel
more granulate sugar and powdered sugar for coating the cookies

how to proceed:
Preheat the oven to 190c.
Chop the chocolates into small pieces. Melt the chocolate and butter together in a bain-marie.
Whip the eggs and sugar together until they turn pale and form a ribbon. Stir in the melted chocolate.
In a food processor, pulverize the nuts with the flour, then add the baking powder. Add a pinch of fleur de sel. Stir the ground nut mixture into the chocolate batter.
Chill the batter in the fridge for 1-2 hours.
Roll the chocolate cookie batter into 1 inch balls. Roll each ball first in the granulate sugar, then the powdered sugar.
Bake in oven for 15 minutes, swapping the top and bottom baking sheets about half way through the baking.

The recipe was amazing, crisp on the outside and soft and moist inside, full of intense flavor of chocolate and hazelnut. What else does a chocolate lover ask for if every bite is chocolate. Note that not to take short cut of using hazelnut powder because it is the tiny pieces of hazelnut that gives the essential texture. A little bit of flour and butter just to lighten things up.

Next time I probably would add some coffee powder to accentuate the flavor.. making it mocha hazelnut cookies.. I think it would be awesome!!

Breakfast at J Residence

First question - what is your normal routine for the weekends? sleeping marathon? hardcore workout? midnight karaoke/ mahjong? reading rampage? or bun bun (maid) reincarnated = cleaning nonstop???

The worst possible answer is ... which I learn from many people... "I don't r
eally have anything to do in the weekends.." This is such a waste of time!!

Second question - what is your weekend morning routine? most people sleep through the morning to regain their strength. Some like an early dose of weekend paper with a cup of joe. I like to run the horses and jog in lush green surroundings.

One early morning, I woke up at 7am still laying in bed, batting my eyelids, dreaming about how great it would be to have a hot english scone to start off the day. I quickly got up and fetched for a scone recipe from my pastry books, and decided to replicate one that's originated from Oak Wood, a pastry shop located in one small town of Saitama, Japan.

What you need:
300g all purpose flour
15g baking powder
65g unsalted batter
2 eggs
50g granulated sugar
115g milk
35g dried cranberries
1 egg yolk (for glazing)

How to proceed:
Sieve the flour and baking powder together, cut chilled butter into small cubes, beating the flour and butter in a standing mixer under low speed for 15 min.
In a separate bowl, beat up the eggs with sugar, add milk and chill thoroughly in the fridge.
Chop up the dried cranberries and add to the flour mixture, and then add liquid (milk & egg) to the dough, stir until blended.
Gently knead the dough for a bit and chill for 1 hour.
Roll out the dough to 2cm thick, chill for another 1 hour..
Using a 5cm diameter cookie cutter, cut out the scones and transfer to baking sheet. Brush the surface with egg yolk.
Bake for 15-20min at 200c or until golden brown.

It is a japanese recipe so I wouldn't expect it to be dense and rich. I like the english style which you can taste the intense butter flavor and bread like texture. The texture here is pretty light and cakey. I would need to modify it to make it more english and substantial.. and more satisfying..

Unlimited variation exists for scones.. chocolate chips, raisins, lemon zest, blueberries, coffee, cornmeal, pumpkin, gingerbread.. you name it! just need a little bit of your spare time and creativity.. no need to go to four seasons for a nice hot scone. making one at home is as easy as making a trip to central.

It can't be a perfect morning breakfast without a nice cup of espresso. Ristretto it is, full bodied espresso with a strong lingering aftertaste.

So what is your weekend routine?

Pierre 2x

Have you ever imagine yourself going to a michelin star restaurant twice a day?

Food critics would need to dine at a restaurant more than twice in order to write a proper review...that's how they test the quality and consistency. well.. obviously I am no food critic, I am not gifted with complex palette and profound writing skills... i am just a crazy foodie who is always in search of good food and devoted to places which serve food with their hearts.

It's been months since my last visit at Pierre HK. So when a friend called for a catch-up lunch, I intuitively asked for Pierre. HK restaurants usually have very high turnover rate in terms of staff... much of it because the locals tend not to stay in the business as a career and they easily jump boat for slightly higher salary. I walked into the restaurant wondering whether the old gang is still there, and YES there I saw Herve the manager, Pierre the sommelier, and the rest of the staff was there as usual... I was given the warm welcome and being seated preparing for a great meal.

First came the amuse buche.

I chose 63degree egg as my appetizer. Slow cooked egg with running egg yolk resting on a bed of mushroom cream sauce. I absolutely loved the treatment of egg and earthy flavor from the mushroom. oh forget about the calories.. i just mopped the entire plate with the baguette.

My friend chose the tuna for starter which fused with the asian cuisine, a lighter dish as compared to my egg.

In between, we were given a little treat of polenta with crab meat with frisee green and meringue flavored with garlic and olive oil. I have to note that the foam based creature was absolutely wonderful.. it's exemplified something basic and simple could be so delicate and tasty. It left me wanting more than just a scope...

For main, I chose for the shredded lamb with eggplant. The lamb was really tender and flavorful, it almost tasted like beef. The sauce was rich and intensive.

My friend went for a steak, and it came with a salad and sweet potato mousse. Looked american but with a french twist.

For dessert I had the chocolate ganache. It was the best ganache I have ever had, what an oxymoron of so light but so chocolate rich. The trick was to use both cream and milk to lighten the chocolate sauce... along with the pistachio ice cream... yummy..

My friend had the apricote compote with wafers.

Nicholas was so nice to send us his signature vanilla souffle. Not that I have an unfathomable stomach, just that the souffle was light and fluffy, I actually finished the whole thing.

Petite four: I love raspberry and I love meringue.

I went into the kitchen to compliment Nicholas for his artful skills, wanting to meet the new chef but he wasn't there at that moment. We then paid the bill and left the restaurant... just when we were waiting for the elevator, Herve together with the new Chef Olivier came out to introduce himself.. what a nice gesture, making you feel important. 

After a lavish lunch I returned back to the office to work off the calories by exercising my brain. After work I met up with two other foodies for dinner.. actually I couldn't really eat much as I was still working on digesting my lunch, I had a couple of glasses of wine and decided to call it a day... up until...

My 2 foodie buddies wanted a place for good dessert.. First came to our mind was Caprice as one of BCH's favorite restaurant, unfortunately the restaurant was full house and couldn't seat us for dessert... Our spirit for sweet hasn't just died yet so next we pranced our way to Pierre, and here I was again.. being treated with a parade of sweets in the wonderland.

As a starter for dessert - passionfruit sauce and sorbet, passionfruit jelly, chocolate ganache, pistachio marzipan, cinnamon biscuit with vanilla icing.

I wanted to try something new so I asked for the grand dessert which comprised of orange compote and caramelized apricot tart, tuiles with vanilla cream and fruit candies, pistachio marzipan, macaron and ice cream with olives shaving. Everything was really good.. although I am generally not too fond of marzipan as the combination of sweetness and grainy texture makes it unfinished and unrefined. Love the ice cream with olive shaving.. the tanginess of olive makes an brilliant match.

We came here for a great dessert.. and we ended up having two rounds.

The second round included millefeuilles of strawberry and pistachio ice cream, I believe that's the kirsch sauce alongside the millefeuilles, nougat thins with pistachio and chocolate sauce, chocolate ganache with peach compote, and my favorite pistachio mousse with mixed green in melon soup.

We had a great time at Pierre. We chatted with every single one of the staff and amazed by the diversity of background and knowledge of food and wine. For the amazing people and food I will definitely come back for a degustation dinner.. It seems like I will never get tired of this restaurant.

Cooking for Dad

I need to learn how to blog faster.

Many unfinished entries are sitting in the draft folder and I need to get these out before I send my computer for repair.

In order to celebrate for my 65 yrs old dad's bday, since we had done the up-scale dining with friends and relatives already, the kids decided to keep dad away from the kitchen for once and slaved themselves to make a home cooked meal.

Apparently we were not that good with planning and collaboration... we proposed what we wanted to make, and later on figured we had too much protein on the menu. Oh well... with my limited knowledge of savory items I put aside the nutritious aspect and try to replicate the recipes as much as I could.

The menu includes: herb crusted rack of lamb, clams with aioli, steak with caramelized onions, grilled pacific saury, sautee mushroom and brocolli, and warm chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream.

We got our rack of lamb from woo hing (和興行) which is frozen meat vendor in causeway bay... can you imagine the same item can sell at double the price at citysuper or other upscale grocery stores? what a ripoff to shop there...

Our two massive steaks - one rib eye and one sirloin.

OK, I didn't handle the steaks myself... AM stepped in and used salt and pepper and dried herbs to cook the meat the chef way.. you got to use butter to glaze the surface...

I copied gordon ramsay's recipe of clams with aioli.. this was very good the first time I cooked it.. and it's still good for the second time. As you can see I used a lot of thyme and garlic for seasoning. The mistake for this time around was I was a bit heavyhanded on salt.

A little drama at first with the herb crust... at first I forgot to buy the packaged bread crumbs from grocery store and decided to make my old with stale bread.. that didn't work out well, and then rushed to the grocery store to get the exact product... and figured I used too much bread crumbs and wasted my other seasonings... I need to remind myself next time - Read the recipe and find out the exact measurement for ingredients...

The herb crusted consisted of rosemary, thyme, parsley, and pamarsan cheese. The method is to sear the rack of lamb first to seal in the juice first, and then put into the oven to cook for 10-15 minutes, brush on dijon mustard and then pad on bread crumbs mixed with herbs, and then put back into the oven and cook until done.

Steak made by AM - how beautiful they looked.

Veggie dish made by sis.

Okay.. by now you would think why only 5 of us were eating so much... and that's not all of it...

We had 6 pacific saury to share to finish off our meal. This is super easy to make.... since one would use only salt for seasoning and oven to cook... most important thing was to get the fresh saury from the market.

I made the molten chocolate cake to finish our meal - the quickest warm dessert to make on earth. The most exciting part is to see the melted chocolate flooding out once you break the shell. Combing with vanilla ice cream, it's the most whole-hearted comfort dessert that everyone should make their own at home.

We had our all time favorite Lynch Bages 2001 to go with our meal.

Admittedly we made way too much food and meat that night... and surprisingly we were managed to finish everything! just that we didn't want to have any left over sitting in our fridge. Next time I need to better manage the balance of nutrition, make smaller portion, and have more variety of food on the menu.

What I missed about Paris

Paris is being loved by everybody.. I hardly know anybody who don't fancy about visiting the city let along living there for at least once in a lifetime.

Although it's cliche but I am not shameful of claiming Paris being my favorite city of all time. Among many things, what I miss the most about the city is style, fashion, food, wine, art, gorgeous looking men, stylishly dressed women, class, fashionable dessert, basically the way of living...

I missed Angelina's Mount Blanc, the chestnut cream is too die for,  the smoothest creme de marron that I have ever put into my mouth.

I missed good croissant and morning pastry. I can't find good croissant in HK...

I missed Angelina's hot chocolate, you are technically drinking a melted chocolate bar.

I missed a nice cup of espresso, maybe I am biased, I just find the espresso in Paris a lot easier to drink and less acidic than anywhere else..

I missed a full breakfast at Laudree. I just love bread...

I missed Laudree's macaroons... dainty classic French sweets that I have no problem consuming on a daily basis.

I missed everything that's made by Pierre Herme. He is my hero, so creative I see him as an artist rather than pastissier.

I missed the indulgence. I wonder how much does this whole basket of truffle costs...

I missed the glaces at Berthillon. I had four scoops within 20mins... that's how good it is.

I missed a big feast of oysters... too bad I didn't try a lot last time. I need to find a specialty oyster place and spare an empty stomach for my next visit..