These are questions I have wanted to ask for a long time:
- Why is Cheddar called Tasty here?
- Why is Emmental called Swiss here?
- Why is Mozzarella yellow and tough?
But then,
- Why is Gouda still Gouda?
- Why is Jarlsberg still Jarlsberg?
- Why is Edam still Edam?
Lastly,
- Where can I get Swedish cheese!??!?!?
When I cracked ONE smiley egg to my muffin batter…
And we will see if this makes any difference to the muffin 10 minutes later!
We met each other completely out of the blue – I forgot to go to lunch one day until it was half past one, (My lunch hour at work is from one to two) and then I realised I had no cash in my purse. I therefore had to think immediately somewhere to get a quick bite and would take credit card. When I walked down to Lugard Road, I was thinking maybe I could draw some money from the ATM if there were not too many people waiting. Unfortunately, I had to drop that idea when I saw four lines of people waiting for four machines back to back in the rather large HSBC branch.
I then took a turn into Jaffe Road and thought I could finally try Cafe O. Initially, I did not find the sandwich combination very appealing. I was craving Mozzarella and sun-dried tomato, but the only sandwich that goes with Mozzarella was the one with bacon, which is always my least favourite stuffing in a sandwich. I finally settled for a ‘pesto’ which has pumpkin, rocket, parmiggiano, pesto and sun-dried tomato. I did think parmiggiano in sandwich is somewhat weird… but the idea of having pesto since I left Europe was quite irresistible. After I have got the staff to have it toasted for me to go, my eyes kept wandering at the counter and saw bowls of pretty salad. One particular salad with cous cous and pumpkin caught my eye. I love cous cous and I haven’t had it since the last time I made it in Sweden… I tried to make it again in HK, but the cous cous here is ridiculously expensive… (Seriously, it’s just pasta. How could it cost more than $30 a box?!) I am definitely coming back again for cous cous pumpkin salad.
I bit into the sandwich when I was back in my office and a familiar sensation was in contact with my tongue – the bread is very very nice. By nice, I mean European-nice. (Yat, I wish I knew about this place when you were here!) Ever since I am back I have never come across any bread that is any close to those found in Europe. Maybe it’s not French Baguette-standard, but I don’t think I can ask for more in HK. As for price and value, it may not be cheap by HK standard, but it’s typical for a sandwich in Europe or Australia. You just have to get over the fact that sandwich is NOT merely two pieces of bread with uncooked-food sandwiched between them.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I passed the Swedish oral exam today – only the written exam to go from now on! A special dedication goes to Victor for helping me with Swedish oral last night – I really owe you a big one :-D Special thanks also goes to my tentakompisar Benjamin and Quang, I hope you enjoyed the time we talked to each other in Swedish ;-)
I went to the not-to-be-missed Deutshe Abendeßen this evening regardless that I have a Swedish written exam at 8 next morning and that I still haven’t done any serious study. Yvonne made Klöße und Rotkraut which is basically the counterpart of dumplings but it uses mash potato instead of glutinous rice flour. And bread pieces are wrapped inside die Klöße instead of sweet fillings like peanut butter/red bean paste/chocolate. I didn’t know what was with me, but I had three Klöße while almost everyone claimed that they are very filling. Anyway, I think I had two and a half, John had three and Kaho of course had become the champion again with the record of eating 5 Klöße. Das Rotkraut was also quite tasty – they are sweeter than das Sauerkraut. I am never a big fan of pickled food, but I think so far I like Rotkraut the best. (Please find a vid of Yvonne explaining das RotKraut behind the cut.)
After dinner, we started talking about random topics like life as a uni student in Hong Kong/Australia/Sweden, how 18 cities will be flooded in 30 years, and how human will be splited into two species in 100,000 years. Obviously I was again procrastinating for my Swedish revision, but hey, we had some really interesting discussions ;-)
Klöße machen
Evidence of me working hard :-P
I barely had a chance to breath after I came back from Amsterdam and BHAM! two days later, I already have to help in a Post Mid-Autumn Fest dinner at Greg’s corridor! (Well, technically I already began my mission in Amsterdam where I got the glutinous rice flour. Amsterdam is soooo much more well equipped in terms of eastern groceries!) Of course all the Hong Kongers in our mentor group showed up, and so did Yvonne, a member of the ‘Delphi sub-mentor group’ and Victor! We also had a few special guests: Yen-ju, Leo and KC!
We had baked chicken wings, barbeque pork, stir-fried zucchini, stir-fried egg whites and home-made sweet dumplings with peanut butter fillings! Although half of the sweet dumplings bursted while being cooked, we had fun preparing the sweet dumplings ourselves. It also made me missed Delphine’s divine sweet dumplings so much! And regarding the food, to be honest, they all tasted pretty weird to me (at least they all tasted different from the ones I made in Melbourne regardless I cooked them the same way!) – I think I am starting to be convinced by Yat who claimed that it might be something to do with the ingredient itself that food in Sweden is so bland!
And the fun started after dinner! We played the SWEDISH pictionary! We played it in four languages (Of course they were English, Swedish, Chinese and German!) and it was so hilarious that we kept making stupid mistakes because of Victor’s special hand-writing (as we needed translations and sometimes explanations) and that the vocabularies are too localised! But it was so fun that we didn’t leave until three in the morning ;-)
Preparing sweet dumplings!
And cooking them…
And of course, no Mid-Autumn festival can be completed without a Lantern (which I bought from Amsterdam and I believe it is the most expensive paper lantern I have ever bought in my life).
THE DINNER!
Another super fun night organised by our dear mentors and this time we went to Victor’s place where it is very closed to Botulfsplatsen.
Victor was supposed to make muffins. I was assigned to be responsible for butter cookies but I have no clue what Victor actually meant so I proposed that we made scones (regardless that it was an evening event)! And Peter was responsible for kladdkaka.
And I am pretty sure Victor understood how we were all pretty full from my baking party last Wednesday and therefore he screwed up his ‘muffin’ on purpose ;-P (which by the way, how could no one have taken a picture of those non-muffins?) I do feel a little bit bad making fun of him and his muffin, but it was just too hard to resist and Candy came up with the best one without any intentions of making Victor feel bad “(Pointing at the readied ‘muffins’ and asked innocently)Are these baked already?”
I think the scones I baked this time were actually the best I have ever made. Instead of just following one recipe, I pulled the tips from several scones recipe and thankfully it turned out great! And Ka Ho was so hungry that he volunteered to make a second batch under my supervision! (I couldn’t help it, rubbing flour into butter until it is consistent to bread crumbs is soooo tiring!)
Afterwards, we played Texas Holdem but I was soo tired that I could not be bother to think. So I think I was almost every time one of the first ones to lose all their chips.
My scones in unconventional shapes!
Making of kladdkaka, a Swedish chocolate treat… basically a plate of fat and sugar!!!
I organised a baking/movie party at my corridor’s kitchen tonight! Despite the cheese cake, it was a huge success! Altogether I think we (that included Janna, Moe, Huimin, Shiping, Adealine, Zesamine, John, Ka Ho, Victor, Yat, Dalia and I) baked 2 dozens of choc chip cookies, 2 dozens of oatmeal raisin cookies, 2 apple crumbles and 2 cheese cake to feed almost 30 people.
I suppose there isn’t much to say when it comes to food, so here are the pictures:
The Singaporeans were responsible for the Oatmeal raisin cookies
Dalia and Yat serving their yumo apple crumble! (And the apples were picked from LTH!)
The Sustainable urban design trio ;-)
Janna and Moe were responsible for the chocolate chip cookies
Victor was posing and not helping… except for the math
And finally the crowd waiting for food…
Oh yea, I actually left out something – I forgot to separate the egg york and egg white for the 1st egg while I was preparing the cheese cake :-( Plus you’ll never be able to find real cream cheese at supermarket in Lund, so the texture is completely off… And due to the large crowd, the original plan of showing The Days of Being Wild by Kar-wai Wong was completely infeasible. So, basically it was just a night of baking and eating… ;-)
Bombarded by endless assignments and chores, this is just another day. The only special thing is that I actually re-scheduled to work today. Seems like something unconventional but that’s because my friend Ellen is landing in Melbourne today and I was hoping to spend more time with her with Friday-off.
We went to Tiff and my usual eatery on Lygon Street to have my birthday dinner. (Risotto Nero rocks!) Then went back home to enjoy the birthday Crème brûlée that Tiff prepared :-) Ellen also prepared a “continental cheesecake” from cake-mix.
Thanks everyone for the text messages, facebook wall posts, calls, emails and actually saying “happy birthday” to me. They made my day :-) I am also sorry I wasn’t able to reply any of the text messages!
I created my first batch of failing cookies today! Well, they were not all that bad – at least the timing was gradually better for the second and third batches! And they actually all tasted fine, although you will smell burnt from the crust of the first batch (but they are extra crunchy)!
The recipe was adapted from Neiman Marcus Online. The only variations were… less sugar as usual and that I messed up with the 1/2 tablespoon measuring spoon while I was only suppose to add 1 teaspoon of baking powder. I managed to realise that right after I poured down that 1/2 tbsp of baking powder to the mount of flour, so I just scooped it right back. However the damage was already done as some of the baking powder has already sank into the flour so I could only estimate the right amount to add after then.
By the way, the recipe says you can add an extra few minutes if you want crunchier cookies – that’s completely misleading, the recipe is 20 minute TOPS – unless you want your cookies like my first batch!
So overall I was very thankful that these cookies didn’t come out as mini-cakes or completely burnt. They all have a crunchy crust and a chewy texture :) YUMO!
Cllick on to see the photolog :)
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