pass it on

I remembered i "took the vow" here a while ago: which is to share my cooking/food~! haha. i shall do it now! (tho i really should be doing my essay)

Ok here goes: the 3 things you see here is (1) Yellow thing = Ravioli stuffed with Ricotta cheese and spinach (2) red/white/green thing in foreground = fresh mozzarella cheese salad with tomatos and basil (3) brown thing in background = salmon

I cheated for (1) and got the store-bought one. Actually, my mum bought it because she was curious how it'd taste. haha. But I did make the fresh one on a cooking adventure during my 21st birthday :D thanks to the lovely people who were part of it too!

(2) UBER EASY TO MAKE! and looks damn good if u serve it up nicely.

Basically what you need is 2 tomatoes, 1 packet of fresh mozzarella cheese, a few sprigs of basil, EVOO. (that's what I used for the serving size you see there)

What do you do?

Slice tomatoes and cheese.

For the cheese, I havent explored enough (and I havent been recording down what I bought and what they taste like) so I really dont know which brand is good. All I know is that I bought once before and there was a very strong mineral water taste to it (that brand, I dont like. If I remember correctly, the packing is light blueish?)

Today, I bought a mid-priced one from Cold Storage at Tampines 1 (if you need me to be this specific! haha!) and it's a dark blue packaging. :)

Yup once you have all the tomatoes and cheese sliced, you plate! haha. You put down a slice of tomato, then a couple of leaves (or torn up pieces of leaves) of basil, cheese. Then repeat :) Once you're done, sprinkle some salt over. It adds to the flavour, and helps to accentuate the flavour of the tomato REALLY well. Once you are done, drizzle some EVOO over and you're good to impress!

(3) Not difficult! But I basically "taste-imagined" this dish (i.e. anyhow hamtam based on how I imagine the flavours to go, and a prior experience with something similar).

Ingredients: Salmon steak or fillet, up to you. Onions (I used 1, can use more). EVOO. Butter. Cream (for the sauce)

What do you do?

Season fish. I felt like going cajun+butter today, so I did the standard S&P with the salmon, then added cajun powder all over it. Let it sit while I did other stuff. :P

Cooking method

1. You start the butter with some EVOO. This way, you dont burn the butter, and you still get the taste :) once it's hot enough, sauté the onions over high heat.

2. Once onions are starting to turn translucent, make space and put fish in. Put it skin side down, if there is skin.

3. I dont know how long I left it there to cook, but basically looking at the color on the side of the fish, I turned it when it's about 40% not raw-pink on the side. (this doesnt mean the fish is cooked thoroughly inside!). Then I flip the fish.

4. I cook it further and once it looks pretty on the outside, I transfered it to the toaster oven (it's too troublesome for me to use the conventional oven, the toaster oven does the job equally well. If you use a normal oven, I think 170-180 degreesC will be ok) I wrapped the fish up so it doesnt dry up. Why do I put it in the oven? To cook the inside thoroughly. Remembered I said that the fish doesnt cook thoroughly on the pan. It's just to get a good color and caramalization going with the pan action :D

5. I cant remember how long I left it in the oven too!! hahahaha! But it's deffo less than 10min I think. While fish is in the oven, I made the cream sauce.

Cream sauce:

The onions are still in the pan (I overcooked it too much before putting in the fish, that's why the onions ended up a bit burnt by the end of it, making my cream sauce REALLY brown) :P

so, turn your pan to low heat. I added a few drops of lemon juice just to brighten up the taste a little. Then I poured in cream. I eye-balled it la. haha. And taste it. I did not add enough at first and I almost threw it away. Haha luckily I managed to save it :P Add some salt and adjust your ingredients till they taste OK to you. Oh yes, but once your cream is warmed through, I'd advice you to turn the heat off :)

When you are ready to serve, pour the onions and sauce on the plate then sit your salmon on it.

TADA! my dinner explained in a blog post. haha. I shall not even talk about lunch :P

haha. My tasty culinary thursdays will have to take a break while I start teaching alrd :(( haha. no more happy delicious lunches and dinners alrd. till the school holidays then~