Chinese New Year : Pineapple Cookie / Tart Recipe

Happy Chinese New Year 2104! Time really fly when I recall back how I spent my Chinese New Year first time away from my home country. Me and hubby was at Melbourne during last year CNY. Though we are at a western country, but the CNY atmosphere was not lacking compared back to Malaysia or I should say Melbourne had a merrier CNY celebration =)

Well, for CNY, pineapple tart / cookie it's has been a "must have' for me. Been making these cookies since I was in secondary school and revising the recipe to a perfect one. What is perfect pineapple cookie for me? A 'perfect' pineapple cookie for me is, it shall melt once put our mouth. So below is the recipe which would like to share with you during this festive season. I know it's kinda late to make cookies 2 days before the day, apologize for that. Hope you like this recipe!

Pineapple Tarts / Cookies

Ingredients:
(A)
250g magarine / butter
50g icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
2 egg yolks
2 tbsp Ghee / pure cow butter (This is important)

(B)
400g plain flour
20g cornflour

(C) Pineapple Fillings (Boiled to thick)
500g chopped pineapple, strained
250g castor sugar
1/4 tsp pineapple essence
** Alternatively you can use ready made pineapple paste sell at baking shop.

Method
1. Beat (A) till creamy and slowly stir in (B).
2. Put in the dough in mould and press out pattern
3. Spread the pineapple filling (C) and roll up. Brush top with beaten egg.
Bake the cookie at 160 celcius for about 25 minutes.

Melbourne Good Food & Wine Festival

Hi everyone, winter is approaching Melbourne very soon =). Weather here has been really chilling and breezing but it does not stop us from our activities. There will be long weekend for everyone us here due to the Queen's birthday that falls on coming Monday and the same time the long waited Good Food & Wine Festival is finally here in Melbourne! Melbourne is the first stop for the festival and next follow by Sydney (June 28-30), Perth (July 19-21) & Brisbane (November 8-10).

If you guys never been attending to this festival before like me and a food and wine lover, do pay a visit as it really worth it. We had a great time at the festival today while sampling lots of nice food and beers and wines too!

Apart from sampling delicious food, we coincidentally went to the Barrilla booth with a initial intention to join the crowd to see the Italian chef, Chef Andrea preparing some delicious pasta. Learnt a few tips on handling pasta but never we know that after the chef finished cooking session, we are given a 20minutes for a hands on class at the kitchen at the booth prepared by Barilla. I was so excited about it and start getting ourselves ready to prepare exactly the same pasta (minus the taste) :p that chef  Andrea showed us earlier.

All the ingredients already prepared by Barilla staff and we are required to prepare a Casaresse with mussels and clams in Barilla's  Arrabbiata sauce. It was so fun cooking in the kitchen with 60 people with everyone has it's on stove, utensils and ingredients. It started with nervous as everyone was clumsy in the kitchen, sounds really like we are in the My Kitchen Rules. Haha! We really have great time cooking and at the end of the class we got to taste the yummy delicious cooked by ourselves and also received a Barilla's show bag with lots of goodies from them. Thank you Barilla! You made my day so special and meaningful =)

Final Output: Casaresse with mussels and clams in Barilla's Arrabbiata sauce

Barilla Show Bag

For the rest who have not been to the festival, do get to the website (http://www.goodfoodshow.com.au)  for more details. You can purchase the tickets online or you can buy at the site.

Melbourne Aquarium

Although I have been staying in Melbourne for quite some time, but we never pay a visit to the famous Melbourne Aquarium which are located at the CBD. Perhaps I'm abit skeptical on the number of exhibits in the aquarium considering the size of the building. However I was wrong when me and husband finally pay a visit to the aquarium during the Anzac day off.
 

It was a long queue at the ticket counter on that day, luckily us to skip the queue as we already bought the ticket online in advance. We are greeted with friendly staff upon admission to the aquarium which a staff asking us to pose some funny position for photograph session. Little we know that the gimmick was actually for a souvenir album with our photos in it. But we end up did not buying it although it was a nice shot as the album is a little pricey for us (AUD 35 for 3 piece of photo).

The first exhibit to greet us is the famous 2nd world largest penguin, The King Penguin and the Gentoo penguins. OMG, the King Penguin were really really GIGANTIC! I never see that kind of size of penguin before to be honest.

King Penguin

King Penguin

The penguins that we used to see at Philip Island and St Kilda beach was relatively small, perhaps just one tenth of the King Penguin size. The King penguin height is almost same 4-5years old kid or above adult knee level. These guys are from Antarctica and together with them also is the Gentoo penguin which is a little smaller. Gentoo penguin reminds me about the Happy Feet cartoon with it's feet in orange color.

Happy Feet - Gentoo Penguin

Almost as tall as a Kid!

Melbourne Aquarium has large collection of the King Penguins

Apart from the Penguin explore, there are 3 main sections to explore which are the Seahorse Pier, Coral Atoll and Shark Alive. There is a part in the aquarium where visitors could have a nice view on the daily feed by the divers. Melbourne aquarium has a large collection of sea lives including a gigantic stingray which really amazing. 

Do visit the Melbourne Aquarium where you are at Melbourne. The place really worth a visit especially on the gigantic penguins and stingray. We had a wonderful day that day. For more information on the aquarium, do visit their website at www.melbourneaquarium.com.au

Glimpse of Melbourne City

City of Melbourne

Last week a friend of mine came to visit us at Melbourne and I got the chance to bring him for a 2 day tour at the Melbourne CBD. As he was a professional photographer back in Malaysia, I got a chance to learn up some "technique" from him on how to get a good nice shots. Below are some snaps of some famous landmarks in Melbourne.

Royal Arcade - View 1

Royal Arcade - View 2

Flinders Train Station - View from Southbank

Flinders Station

Southbank

City Circle - Free Tourist Tram

Government Offices near Parliament

 p/s: Tokyo Must Eat - Part 2 will come next (delayed for long time ;)  )

Seoul Soul - Nice & Cheap Korean Cuisine

Seoul Soul
Melbourne is always well known as home of various cuisines around the world. Korean cuisines is one of food that can be easily found in Melbourne and often served with authentically by Korean.

We found the Seoul Soul, a Korean tapas in Richmond after church service, hungry for lunch. I personally was impressed by it's slick interior design. Not only that, we also were attracted with their lunch set "Lucky Bucket" which looks interesting. Thus, we decided to give it a try. Let's the photos below do all the talking.

Nicely Interior Deco

Lucky Lunch Bucket - Beef Bulgogi

Bibimbap

We also notice that they serve BBQ meat in their dinner menu and we plan to drop by next visit for a try. =) Food taste at Seoul Soul was not bad and affordable. Definitely worth a try!

Seoul Soul
323 Victoria St
Abbotsford, VIC 3067
Tel: 0478 768 760
http://www.seoulsoul.com.au/

Food rating: 3.5/5 (This is based on my individual taste)

Hong Kong Style Mango Pudding

Yum Yum Mango Pudding

I have been crazy for mango pudding since I ate it at one of the dessert shop during my trip to Hong Kong. The smoothness of the pudding, nice flavor of the mango eaten together with evaporated milk really gives a "kick"and feels like in heaven! Mango lovers must try this!

Hong Kong style mango pudding is not same like other mango pudding in the market. The texture of the pudding is more soft and normally fresh mango flesh will be used in the pudding. It can be easily found in any dessert shop in Hong Kong and is a popular dessert at Dim Sum restaurant.

Since mango is in season during summer Australia, I grab this chance to make my favourite dessert. Below is the recipe for mango pudding, do give it a try as it is really for "yum" dessert especially for mango lovers!

Ingredients:
1)  Aeroplane Mango Jelly x 2 packets or (13.5g of gelatine + 75-90g of sugar)

2) 1 cup (225ml) boiling water & 110ml cold water
3) 175ml of fresh milk
4) 85ml of evaporated milk
5) 2-3 mango pureed + mango cube (if you like more mango flavor)
6) 1 egg (optional) - to make the pudding taste more rich 

Method: 
1) Add jelly powder to 1 cup (225ml) boiling water & mix well
2) Pour 110ml cold water into the mixture and mix again
3) Pour in the fresh milk & evaporated milk (make sure the mixture the cold enough before pouring the milk in)
4) Add in whisked egg & pureed mango
5) Pour into small cup or mould and chill for about 4 hours untill the jelly set
6) Serve pudding with evaporated milk.  

Hope you like this recipe! :) 

CNY 2013 Reunion Dinner

This Chinese New Year 2013 will be my first year celebrating with my lovely husband. It's also the first time for me celebrating CNY at abroad. I really miss the moment when we are celebrating CNY back in Kuala Lumpur with my family and my beloved Shih Tzu, Mickey.

It's been a tradition for every Chinese family that there must be a REUNION dinner on the CNY eve. Though we are Melbourne, we still keep the tradition going on and week before I have been to the Asian wet market to stock up some fresh ingredients for the dinner. We are considered lucky staying in Melbourne, a city filled with lots of Asian. Therefore, it's not a problem for us to get the Chinese cooking stuff. Most pleasing of all is we managed to get some CNY cookies from Malaysia, at least a little relief for our homesickness to hometown CNY snacks and CNY atmosphere.

 

Reunion Dinner Menu (clockwise): Roast duck, braised beef brisket, fresh scallops with broccoli, mushroom with sea cucumber & fish paste.

CNY Cookie from Malaysia

Snake Year 2013

Happy Chinese New Year 2013 to everyone! 

This year will be my first time spending my Chinese New Year at overseas (Melbourne) with my husband. Although the celebration in Melbourne is not as merry as back in Kuala Lumpur, but still it's not that bad. There are still alot of Chinese New Year activities around the city. We still can get some our favourite Chinese New Year cookies in Melbourne and manage to catch a glimpse of Lion Dance at Crown Casino too. What a blessing! :)

During times in Melbourne, we learnt to appreciate what we had. We really miss the family gathering that we used to have during Chinese New Year, collect ang pow, eating Chinese New Year snacks (mandarins, bak kwa, cookies & yee sang) and a little gambling sessions with our cousins. Nevertheless, it always not too late. We start doing something to appreciate people around us. Wish everyone have a blessed New Year ahead. God bless you!

Nespresso U - Capsule Coffee Machine

Looks familiar to you? =)

I suppose everyone would like to maximize their time on their bed before getting up to get prepare for work. A cuppa nicely blend latte or long black definitely will give a "Boost" of the day especially on the Monday blues.

Capsule based coffee machines are getting popular in these days especially for coffee lover that would like to have a cuppa good quality coffee but do not have time for it. There are many coffee machine players in the market that have start looking in this technology. Some of the popular are like Nespresso, DeLonghi, Nescafe and etc.

I was introduced to this coffee machine by a good friend of mine which he bought a Nescafe Dolce Gusto for himself. That time i was wondering how this little capsules after plugging it into the machine and can make a great nice of coffee. I was pretty impressed with that. Later when i came to Melbourne, Nespresso is doing a great job in promoting their new capsule machines. They even have their own classy look boutique setup just to sell the capsules. REMINDER: Each capsule are proprietary to each coffee machine brand. Means that, you can't use a DeLonghi capsule in a Nespresso machine. This is how the coffee make make profit! What a great business!

 During the XMas, we saw a great deal on the Nespresso U coffee machine and we immediately get ourselves one. The coffee machine come with a separate milk frother & FREE 16 coffee capsules with different taste. We love the machine to MAX!

Ford Moonlight Cinema

Summer is finally here after few months of chill weather. Although it is officially in "Summer" now, weather in Melbourne still unpredicted. Sometimes the temperature can goues up to 30C while another day it will drop to 12-15C. Despite the flatuation on the weather, people in the city has been starting to have summer activies such as visiting the beaches, summer parties, night markets and etc.

Moonlight cinema is one of the annual event held by Ford during summer and this time i took the opportunity to experince it in Melbourne. After checking the weather forecast ensuring the weather was good on Friday evening, we get all the stuff ready for the outdoor cinema. The screening was held in Royal Botanical Garden in Melbourne CBD and the weather of the day was just perfect. Nice weather with some cool wind as the night approach.


We bought along our picnic gadgets such as the beach towel, cooler bag filled with chips, beer, cola and gummies. The show will start when the sun sets down but due to summer, the day time will be longer. Thus the movie screening starts around 9pm. We also rent the bean bag at the location which perfect to lie down to view the entire show. It was a great experince lying down on a grass bed with a wide screen ahead surrounded by trees.
Do visit the Ford Moonlight Cinema http://www.moonlight.com.au to check the movie screening titles and other information.

Koala Close Encounter =)

According to weather forecast earlier, Saturday will be a sunny day. Yippie!! We headed for a short roadtrip to Ballarat wildlife park in the morning. Based on some studies from other blogger, in the wildlife park, visitors get to get close to koala and even can pat on them.


This is pretty unusual as each states in Australia has its own rules in protecting this special and cute marsupials. It used to be rule in Victoria state that public is not allowed to pat or to handle koala. Guess the rules has been changing slowly whereby public is allowed to pat the koala with their keeper around and also the koala did not show any sign of stress.

It was a great experince for me today at the wildlife park to get so close, realllyyyy close to the koala, Milton. He was so cute! I have been to Melbourne Zoo and Koala Conservation Park before early this year whereby they do have koalas in the park. However none of them allowed public to get close to it. Thus, anyone that wish to have a gentle feel on this cute animal, you can visit the Ballarat Wildlife Park. Koala show starts at 2pm daily where the keeper will bring the koala for public to pat and explain some of the bio-details.

The park have few sections of the Australian animal exhibits such as the reptiles, wombats, tasmanian devils, koala and open enclosure of kangaroos whereby visitors can puchase some of the kangaroo's food to feed them. Although the park is not too big, but it is definitely worth to visit especially you can get close and pat the animals!

Entrance fee: AUD 24
http://www.wildlifepark.com.au/

Breakfast again...=)

Melbourne is indeed a place with vast choices of nice and sumptous breakfast. Felt really blessed to be here with my loved ones. Thank God. =)


We were to this small little cafe at Seddon, West Melbourne after attending a house auction nearby. The cafe was built with attractive exterior with it's theme Gravy Train. It has both outdoor and indoor space for it's customer and the food was great with reasonable price.


On that day, we ordered a Roma poached eggs and spinach omelette with toast that are listed in their "Special" menu. For drinks, we go for the "fresh" cranberry and raspberry shakes for a healthy boost of the day. Beside, we also ordered their bacon and chicken pasta for sharing basis. Turn out to be very tasty and rich in flavour. Yummy!

Definitely will visit the cafe again!

Gravy Train Cafe
83 Gamon Street
Yarraville Vic 3013
Ph: (03) 9687 9866

Breakfast@ Kanteen, South Yarra, Melbourne

Finally it is weekend after 5 days of tiring working day. It is a sunny Saturday with light shower in the morning. We have made our plan to go for a nice breakfast and a visit to the famous Prahran market day before.

We went to a cafe that is located in South Yarra and the cafe was just beside the Yarra river. The enviroment was just perfect for a nice breakfast with the nice breeze from the surrounding.

The cafe name was "Kanteen" which reminds me the Malay word "Kantin". Hehe. Initially we wanted to try their big breakfast and lastly we opted for other food in the menu after considering the serving size (often served in huge size).


We started the day with a cup of Mocha and then followed by a croissant served with homemade organic jam. After that, we also ordered one of the Spanish dish in the menu which comes in a baked tray with goat cheese, egg and some salami. It was very yummy with the full flavour from the goat cheese. The goat cheese still linger in the mouth after the meal.