Stale and stuffy

Back at last, breathing that same stuffy, humid air. But hey, I'm not complaining, really.

Waiting, waiting.

It's over. 1 year has passed and all I can do now is to wait for my results. I'm getting a little uptight about it, and to be honest I'm not as confident about this semester, partly because I think I have put in slightly lesser effort during the exam period.

Oh well, I'll have to wait about a month before getting my results, so no point worrying now. All I have to do now is to help clear up the house and pack all my stuff, and prepare to go home. 4 more days to home, and I can barely wait.

Just need to find something to do when I'm back home. Seems like all the banks are busy closing down that they don't want me as an intern. How saddening.

Wine-Infused Orange

Here's a little dessert I managed to assemble from a couple of different stuff I had in the fridge: Wine-infused orange with mango and pistachio, served with ice-cream.

I was inspired by my aunt's brandy-infused orange and I thought I'd test out with white wine since I didn't have anything else in the fridge. The syrup does not taste as good as the brandy version, but the orange does go quite nicely once it absorbs the wine flavour.

Wine-infused Orange:
1. Skin an orange with a knife and slice horizontally, discarding the top most and bottom most slices after squeezing out the juice. Using a vegetable peeler, peel off a thin layer of the orange skin, avoiding the fibre inside.
2. Heat a pan and place the orange peel in to warm, just to release some of the oils on the skin, then add water in and dissolve sugar to create a syrup. Take out the orange peel to avoid over-cooking it.
3.Add in white wine and simmer to boil off some of the alcohol. Leave it aside to cool.
4. Lay orange slices in a bowl or flat-base container and pour wine mixture in, and leave to chill overnight.

Serve:
Dice some mango into small cubes, and add crushed pistachios and mix.
Place orange, add some mango, and top with another slice of orange.
Finally top with a scoop of ice-cream and sprinkle some more pistachio.
Spoon some of the wine mixture over and serve.

Taste:
Confession to make. I cheated and used MacDonald's' McFlurry to top it off. I'd rather have plain vanilla to go with the orange and pistachios, and not let the Oreo get in the way.
I did not chill the orange overnight so it didn't quite absorb all the flavour of the wine.
I quite enjoyed the mango and pistachio mix, and I believe some chopped mint leaves would greatly improve the taste of this.
Maybe adding some aromatic herbs to cook into the wine syrup will add even more depth.

Well, not much of a success, but I'll be back to work on this.

Pan Fried Salmon

I decided to take step further and explore a little more with cooking. Decided to pick up some fresh ingredients from the supermarket and not use pre-made sauces and stuff like that.

I'm pretty pleased with today's experience in the kitchen. My past cooking experiences were more of assembling food than really getting down to cooking, and today I have finally gotten down to cooking almost from scratch.

So here's lunch: Pan Fried Salmon served with Potatoes and Asparagus.





Actually, it's pretty simple to prepare and also easy to present. Well, I didn't have any sauce to go with it so I didn't do the stack-your-food-up-and-draw-a-circle-with-the-sauce style of presentation. I guess this looks pretty alright for a first-time.

Ingredients:
Asparagus (5 sticks)
Potatoes (2 medium sized ones)
Half a Chorizo
Onion (Used half a white, but shallots should taste better)
Off-the-shelf Italian herbs (I cheated because I didn't have fresh herbs at home)
Shredded mozzarella
Salt, pepper, butter, olive oil

Tasting:
I wouldn't say it was exactly a success because my asparagus and chirozo got a little greasy. (Partly because I was lazy to drain it properly.) Also, it got a little salty because I absentmindedly added salt when the choizos are already naturally salted.
Salmon was decent, and I decided to not cook it totally to leave it a little like a tataki-style thing, which was,to me, really nice. I hate it when salmon gets too cooked, leaving it dry and flaky. Just a few drops of lemon juice before serving works wonders.
The potatoes were quite a surprise, because I was pretty worried they would turn out really bland. Luckily the cheese and onion gave it a nice taste when browned, and a nice crisp texture as well.

Satisfying lunch. Ingredients cost roughly 11 dollars, not too bad for the serving portion.

Who said guys can't cook?

Almost there.

Just barely a week to go before the end of my first year.

Can't wait for it all to end.