Jiang Nan Chun Chinese Restaurant, Four Seasons Hotel

We have some visitors visiting the office.

Thank God for His blessing that I was included in the welcoming dinner for them.

A six course dinner at Jiang Nan Chun, Chinese Restaurant of Four Seasons Hotel Singapore

Below are the photos of the food we eat that evening.

I have included the menu for you to reference what we had eaten that evening  :)

The food and the company were great!



Appetiser





Soup





Dessert



Ice Cream Cake

For the period from October to December, there will be lots of Birthday celebration in my family.

Birthday cake will show up in the house almost every other week until we all are so "afraid" of eating another cake.  But of course, we enjoy singing the "Happy Birthday" songs , taking photos of the person boy/girl and blowing candlers.

Because of all these reason, I have decided to make a Ice cream birthday cake for my child and not an ordinary cake.  This is my second attempt of making Ice Cream Cake.  You will have to make this cake at least two days before you decorate it and serve it 



The Ice-Cream Birthday Cake!



( ^  -  ^ )



After 30mins in the freezer





Loosening the soften Ice-Cream



  

What you will need

Cookies* 150g

Unsalted butter 35g (room temperature)

A rolling Pin

A  big plastic bag

Detachable base cake tin**

Ice-cream 700g (Any flavour of your choice. I used strawberry cheesecake from walls)

Method

making the base

Put all the cookies in the big plastic bag

Hold on to the opening of the plastic bag and smash the cookies with the rolling pin until the cookies become fine crumbs

Pour the cookies crumbs out and mix well with the soften unsalted butter in a large mixing bowl

Pour the cookies mixture into the tin and press it down firmly and freeze it for 20-30 minutes

(If you immediately pour in the ice-cream, the cookies will absorb the ice-cream and become soft )

Ice cream

When you buy the ice-cream back from the supermarket, place it in the fridge where you usually put your food. We need the ice-cream to be soft

or if you have bought the ice-cream before hand, take it out from the freeze and place it in the fridge at least 1/2 hour before making the ice-cream cake.

Loosen the soften ice-cream with a pair of chopstick

Scoop the ice-cream into the cake tin and fill it up to the bream

Lift the cake tin up to about 10cm above the table, and  gently drop it onto the table

Repeat this step a few times. This is to allow the air bubbles to escape, so the ice-cream would be even

Cover the pan with aluminium foil and freeze the ice cream for at least 2days.

Decorating the cake

Remove the cake from the detachable pan and place it on a nice serving top,

Decorate it with treats you kids like such as candies, marshmallows, chocolate chips.

You can also wrap a nice ribbon around the side of your cake 

Note

*I used chocolate cookies. Use cookies without any cream.

** I used a heart shape tin.

You will need to work very fast when decoration the ice-cream cake if you are doing it in hot weather like Singapore

To cut the ice-cream cake, soak a pair of metal knife in a cup of hot water for about 10mins before you use it to cut the cake. The heat on the knife will do the work for you without having to use strength.

Calamansi Juice

Calamansi is a small green citrus fruit. It is inexpensive and are usually sold by weight as it is too small to charge by per piece :)

Calamansi is also a very versatile fruit. The juice of a calamansi can be added to BBQ or Grilled Seafood, Chicken wings, Fried Glass Noodles, Fried Rice Noodles.  The juice can really do the magic and give the food a different flavour and also could cut out the grease in grill and fried food.

The juice of calamansi can also be made into a nice and refreshing drink

It is very easy to find Calamansi in Singapore.  The weather here has been very hot these few weeks which it shouldn't be the case for the period of the year. So a cup of home made Calamansi Juice will really quench your thirst.

What you will need

Calamansi * 500g
Sugar 200g
Water 150 ml

Ice (To serve)

Method

Wash the skin of the calamansi clean and dry it a with kitchen towel
Cut all the 500g calamansi into half
Squeeze the calamansi juice into a large bowl over a sieve to prevent the seeds from falling into the juice, set the juice aside
In a small pot, bring the 150ml water to simmer, add in the sugar and off the fire
Stir with a wooden spoon until the sugar dissolved, set aside to let the sugar syrup cool down

To serve

Add the sugar syrup, calamansi juice and cold water and adjust the quantity of sugar, juice and water according to individual taste. Best served cold with ice!

Note (*)

When choosing Calamansi, try to pick those that are firm and big. Those that are soft usually are no longer fresh.  Bigger fruit will cut down your time of cutting and squeezing more of the smaller calamansi

You can replace the calamansi with lemon, orange (if you happen to buy orange that are sour), or lime

Bread collection

I have decided to do a post on the bread that I have made that are of different flavour, shapes and sizes

And, One day, when that one day come, I will post the recipe :)

Or if any of you ask for it ok?

Relax and have a cup of milk...

Got this very cool and interesting Tea Spoon while shopping today!


Wanna know how and why it is sooo cool?


The name is "Choco Spoons" It comes in Milk & Dark Chocolate!

So while serving my children their milk.  I warmed the milk for them and serve it with the Choco spoon by the side.

Of course, they were very trilled to see it and used it. Seeing your tea spoon "disappearing" into your milk

They have an interesting tea break today.

炸酱面 - Minced Pork Source for Noodles

As I have mentioned in my profile, I usually cook things that is quick and simple.

So usually when I make Home Made Noodle, I will also prepared this "short cut" version of 炸酱 Minced Pork Source to go along with it. With the help of a can food which most Chinese eat with plain porridge to cut down the preparation time.

What you need

Minced pork 300g - 400g
Pork mince with bean paste (Narcissus Brand) 香菇肉酱 (水仙花牌)
1/2 a carrot
1 Japanese cucumber
3 clove Garlic, peel and cut
2 small Onion, peel and cut
2-3 stalk spring onion, cut in about 3cm

Others
pepper, sesame oil, 1 table spoon of light soy source - to marinate the pork

2 tablespoon of oyster source
1 tablespoon of sweet dark source


Method

Cut carrot and cucumber into thin long strips and set aside
Heat up about 2 tablespoon of oil and fried the small onion, when small onion turn slightly soft, add in the garlic.
Fried until both the garlic and small onion turn fragrance, pour in all the marinated minced pork
Fried the pork for about 4-5mins until the pork turn light pink, add in the Pork mince with bean paste directly from the can.
Do not add in any water, continue to cook the minced pork for another 5 mins
Add in the oyster source and sweet dark source, stire well and let the meat sit in the pot/wok for another 5mins before serving

To serve

Take the amount of cooked Home made noodle you want and place them into a serving bowl.
scoop a generous amount of the 炸酱onto the noodle
Add the carrot and cucumber and spring onion at last.*
Serve it hot

Note

If you like it spicy, you may add some red cut chili while cooking the source
As the 炸酱is the main ingredients, we need to be generous while serving them on the noodle
You may also increase the quantity of the minced pork
You may also like to add in leek as one of the ingredients while cooking the 炸酱