FOODlog #249: Chicken Piccata with Roasted Potatoes & Spinach Our cafe recently hired a new guy as a barrista. He's the youngest coworker we have now at only 20 years old. After a couple of weeks working together he complimented that our staff meal is by far the best staff meal he has had at any place he's ever worked at. Since its his first few weeks with us, I decided to cook some of my signature meals that I haven't cooked for some time as well. I made chicken Piccata for…
FOODlog #250: Beef Curry Stew with Tripe So at the cafe I work at, we get to took whatever we feel like eating which means we get to experiment as well as savor various cuisines from western to eastern food. This time I wanted some curry and rice so I cooked some beef curry and Sautéed French Beans with fried tofu which I took inspiration from a dish my Mum makes. For the curry I toasted some star anise and cloves in some oil then used a premix curry paste as well as some…
FOODlog #251: Smoked Salmon Egg Fried Rice At the cafe, we have a 2 dishes that we use smoked salmon for. We often have leftovers from it as sometimes the sizes aren't the preferred size for the dish. So with the leftovers my colleague had a plan for one of our lunches to cook it as our staff meal. He made egg fried rice with smoked salmon. For the rice, we used leftover rice from the previous day that was kept in the chiller. Leftover cold rice is preferred for fried rice…
FOODlog #252: 16 Hour Beef Brisket Haven't been to Stiq for years now. The last I went there was pre-covid years so I decided to head there with some friends. I've been having in mind to order their signature 'Beef Stiq' which is exactly what I ordered. Nothing has changed in terms of their plating which is the beef brisket that's slow cooked for 16 hours. I ordered the 2-3 person portion size which is about 600-700g as I was sharing with a friend. The portion was not…
FOODlog #253: Burger 'Kaw Kaw' Since we were at Stiq which is just opposite of their other food outlet Burger 'Kaw Kaw', my friend ordered a lamb burger to share. The meal comes with a side of chicken hotdogs together with the burger itself. The burger had lettuce and onions. I think the onions were grilled but it could have done a little longer on the grill in my opinion. The burger also had a slice of beef bacon in it which was nice. The buns were alright but a little on…
FOODlog #254: Peri-Peri Chicken with Tomato Rice & Leek Mushroom Cream Sauce Last week for work, I cooked the staff some delicious roasted Peri-Peri Chicken. I accompanied the dish with some tomato rice, roasted leeks, and a leek and cream sauce. I used chicken thighs for this dish but you would use any part you like. I started off by marinating the chicken with lemon zest, harbanero hot sauce, paprika, salt, black pepper, butter, garlic oil and thyme. I let it marinade for…
FOODlog #255: Filipino Bicol Express The other day my Filipino colleague was gonna cooking the day's staff meal and didn't know what to cook. I suggested him to cook 'Bicol Express' again. It was the first dish that I ate of his cooking and really enjoyed it. So he made 'Bicol Express' again with pork shoulder cuts and chicken breast chunks. The dish starts with ginger that is roughly chopped up and added into a pan with oil to saute. Once the ginger is fragrant, add in the…
FOODlog #256: Malaysian Ayam Percik from 'Ayamas' Every 15th & 30th of the month this chain restaurant called 'Ayamas' here in Malaysia has a special discount for their roasted chicken. They are popularly known for their roasted chicken with 3 different flavors - honey, black pepper, and 'percik' which is a marinate that has various spices and curry powder. I love their 'Percik' flavored one so that's what I ordered for dinner the other day on the way home from work. It used…
FOODlog #257: Black Pepper Yaki Udon It was my turn to cook and after eating rice for many days in a row, I decided to have a change and cooked some noodles instead. I bought some udon noodles and cooked black pepper yaki udon. I seasoned up some chicken tenders that I sliced up with black pepper and salt. For the vegetables, I used napa cabbage that I simple sliced up, carrots that I cut into julienne strips, and some onions roughly sliced up as well. For the sauce, I used…
FOODlog #258: Thai Tomyam It was a Saturday that my Filipino colleague was not around so it was my turn to cook the staff meal. He doesn't like tomyam so I decided what better time to cook tomyam as the other staff love tomyam. I start off my sautéing some tomyam paste with fresh lemongrass, garlic, and roughly chopped onions. Next, about 1+ liter water goes in then on high heat, bring the stock to a boil. Once it starts boiling, I reduced the heat and begin to add in the…
FOODlog #259: Dry Rub Curry Chicken & Stir Fried Mushrooms My colleague cooked the staff meal the other day and made some dry rubbed curry chicken tenders. He doesn't have much culinary sense or skills and does a lot of food I particularly wouldn't do however because he makes cooking decisions like dry rub chicken tenders which are already a very lean cut of meat making everything extra dry, I get to learn that it really doesn't work. Haha ~~ Anyway, the food was still…
FOODlog #260: Creamy Thai Tomyam Spaghetti Another day my Filipino colleague wasn't around so I cooked tomyam again. However this time I cooked a fusion dish of a creamy tomyam with spaghetti. It's a dish I used to serve when I was operating my own restaurant. One of my colleague was watching a tiktok video of someone making this dish and I told her I'd make it for lunch one day. So the dish starts with pan frying some chicken tenders that I seasoned with salt, pepper, and…
FOODlog #261: Brioche French Toast The Brioche French Toast is one of the signature items at the cafe I work at. It's one of the prettier looking dishes that we serve. It takes at least 10 minutes to make this dish as the plating takes quite a bit of time to prepare and in restaurant standards, 10 minutes is considered borderline long. Here's how we make it: Firstly we use a shokupan milk loaf slice that we soak in an egg wash mixture of eggs, milk, sugar, cinnamon, and…
FOODlog #262: Baked Beans Omelet I've been missing my Mum's cooking so I decided to make a dish that she used to make for me growing up. Even when we were still staying together, she didn't cook this dish much so I was thinking it's a good time to cook this dish since its been a really long time since I've had it. Its an inexpensive dish and fairly easy to make. It's a large omelet that has baked beans from a can topped on it. Simple enough right? First I sauté some onions…
FOODlog #263: French Omelet with Portobello & Shokupan Toasties Often for breakfast at the cafe, we the kitchen staff make something simple with the ingredients in the kitchen. It varies a lot as we use leftovers or items that we have too much of and are expiring. We had some leftover egg wash that we use to coat the Portobello mushrooms to deep fry. The eggs had the Portobello seasoning flavor which is a garlic infused oil with Korean chili flakes. I used this and made a…
FOODlog #264: Homemade Chicken Pie Planning for meals isn't always easy but part of the fun is the planning of it, at least for me it is. The other day I made a chicken pie for the staff meal. The supermarket doesn't have any puff pastry so I needed to improvise. I bought some frozen 'paratha' which I used to substitute the puff pastry. I figured it's made with butter and flour as well so it'll be flaky and replicate that of a puff pastry. For the filling, I cleaned and…
FOODlog #265: Spicy Dumplings & Rice Vermicelli Noodles After having rice for lunch fit do many days, my Filipino colleague cooked some noodles. He made a stir fried rice vermicelli (mihun) dish that was super delicious. It had chicken slices, cabbage, and carrots. I'm not too sure what else he added but it tasted like the seasonings had soy sauce and oyster sauce in it. There was also fresh coriander in it which I don't really like but overall the dish was so good that I…
FOODlog #266: Onion Fried Chicken & Curry Went to my favorite 'mamak' restaurant again a couple of Sunday's ago after church. I love their rice and curry dishes especially my go to 'Ayam Bawang' which is onions and chicken. The 'Ayam bawang' is fried chicken that's cooked in a thick sauce of onions that have been cooked and caramelised with loads of spices like star anise, cloves, and fennel seeds. Those are some that I can notice when eating this dish but I'm sure there are…
FOODlog #267: Filipino Adobo Pork Trotter My Filipino colleague cooked some adobo the other day. He used pork trotters to make it and it was my 1st time having it. Since then he has cooked another adobo another time which I really enjoy. Its an extremely popular Filipino dish with Spanish influence. It has dried chilies soy sauce, sugar, some vinegar if I'm not mistaken and the spices are black peppercorns and dried bay leaf. He also added potatoes to the dish and stewed it…
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