Paella

Ingredients:
Seafood of your choice - prawns, squids, clams, scallops are my choices!
Chicken thigh x 2pc - diced
Chorizo - sliced or diced
Onion x 1 - minced
Spanish rice x 2 cups
Chicken stock x 4 to 4.5 cups
Saffron x 1-2tsp
Paprika x 1-2 tsp
salt & pepper
parsley - minced

How to Make:
1. Wash and drain your seafood. For shellfish like clams, must soak in salt water for a few hours first.

2. Keep the chicken stock simmer in a pot.

3. Use 1 frying pan to prepare all ingredients first. I will start will pan frying the prawns, then the scallops, then the squids.  Remove each ingredients to a separate plate once cooked around medium well. No need to fully cooked them at this stage.

4. Continue with pan frying the chicken thighs and the chorizo, then remove them into a separate plate with all the oil released from the chorizo.

5. In a shallow frying pan which you will cook and serve the paella, heat up some olive oil, then pan fry the minced onion until soft, add the rice and mix well with onion until all rice are coated with the onion and oil. Add the saffron and paprika. Spoon over a few ladles of the hot chicken stock to the rice, add the chicken and chorizo, mix well, stir fry a bit, then add the rest of the chicken stock to the rice. Check taste and adjust your seasoning with salt and pepper. When the chicken stock in the rice comes to a boil, turn heat to medium, place the seafood on top of the rice (like the prawns, scallops, squids and clams) until the stock are all absorbed, rice is cooked and clams all opened! The whole process takes around 20-30min. Keep an eye and make a stir from time to time.


Garnish with minced parsley before serving.

This is one of the best dishes to be served in winter! 

Enjoy with a glass of your favourite white wine!

Baked Whole Sea Bass in Salt Crust

Ingredients:
Whole Sea Bass
Lemon - 2 slices for cavity, wedges for lemon juice
thymes
kosher sea salt x 1 cup
egg whites x 3


How to Make:
1. Pre-heat oven to 200'C.

2. Clean fish and remove guts from cavities, etc. Wipe dry and stuff cavity with thymes and lemon slices.

3. Whisk white whites until soft peak forms. Fold in the sea salt.

4. Line the oven tray with foil. Then spoon 1/3 of the egg white mixture on the tray. Place the fish on top of tray and spoon the rest of the egg white mixture on top.

5. Bake for approx 30 min or until the egg white mixture becomes a golden brown crust. 

6. Remove  the crust gently until fish is exposed. Place the fish on a warm plate, squeeze lemon juice on top and sprinkle with olive oil.

Best to serve with aged balsamic vinegar.

Enjoy!

Rocky Road Chocolate Dessert

Ingredients:
55g butter - cut into small pieces, plus extra for greasing
400g dark chocolate (around 60% cocoa solids) - break into pieces
2 tbsp golden syrup
a pinch of salt
125g mixed nuts (eg. pistachio, hazelnuts)
175g crunchy biscuits (eg. digestives)
100g marshmallows (if they come in big size, cut it into smaller pieces)
85g raisins (optional)
1tbsp icing sugar 

How to Make:
1. Grease a 23cm shallow square tin or brownie pan with butter. Then line it up with baking paper.

2.To melt the chocolate - bring a pot of water to simmer. Sit a bowl on top of the pot with simmering water, but the base of the bowl shall not be touching the water. Place the chocolate pieces, butter and the salt on the bowl and keep stirring until chocolate is melted and silky smooth.

3. Add the syrup to the chocolate mixture, stir well and remove from heat.

4. Reserve approx 1/3 of the chocolate in the bowl. Mix the other 2/3 chocolate with the biscuits, nuts, raisins and marshmallow.

5. Pour the chocolate mixture to the tin, then pour the reserved chocolate on top. Just use a spatula to smooth out the top. Once cool down, chill in fridge.

6. Before serving, take out from tin, cut into small squares and dust it with icing sugar (over a sieve).

enjoy!

P.S. what you mix in the chocolate is all personal choice and it is always ok to use more chocolate than the qty as stated!

Assorted Mushrooms Pasta with Black Truffle

Ingredients:
Portobello Mushrooms
White Button Mushrooms
Brown Button Mushrooms
Ceps (can buy frozen ones and defrost before use)
Forest mushrooms (can buy frozen ones and defrost before use)
Garlic x 3pc - pressed or sliced
Onion x 1 - diced
Pasta of your choice
Italian Parlsey - minced for garnish
Black Truffle (those from Perigod from France is the best!)
Black Truffle Paste
*optional: black truffle sauce of your choicce
Black Truffle Olive Oil

How to Make:
1. Wipe clean all fresh mushrooms using a wet cloth - diced.

2. For the defrost mushrooms, rinse clean with water and wipe dry - diced.

3. In a big pan enough to hold all mushrooms, heat it up with olive oil, then stir-fried the garlic and onion until soft and fragrant. Then add fresh mushrooms. You might need to add more olive oil while cooking as the mushrooms absorbed oil quite fast. Once they are quite soft and fragrant, add the defrosted mushrooms, mix well until all fragrant. Then add 3-4 tbsp of black truffle paste, check taste and add salt, sugar and black pepper to your liking. If you choose to add black truffle sauce of your choice, adjust tasting after you have added the sauce. Leave them at the frying pan but switch off heat.

4.Cook pasta according to instructions of the pasta box. Once cooked, drain all water and add pasta to the mushroom sauce still in frying pan. Mix well.

5. Place them on a serving plate. Drizzle black truffle olive oil all over, then garnish with minced parsley. Lastly, shave black truffle on top and serve immediately!

Enjoy!

Baked Iberico Pork chop Rice

Ingredients:
Iberico pork loin x 4 (Iberico pork has a more tender meat quality)
Fresh Plum Tomatoes x 6
Garlic x 2pc - pressed
Onion x 1pc - diced
Green Peas - blanched for 2 minutes
Mozarella cheese - grated
Tomato based pasta sauce x 1 bot of your choice
Breadcrumbs
Flour
Eggs
Plain White Rice or Fried Rice

How to Make:

1. Wash and wipe dry pork. Then use either back of knife or pork hammer to stumble over the pork to make it more tender and flat.

2. Cut a cross on tomatoes, cook them in boiling water for 1 minute, remove immediately to a bowl of iced water. Remove skin and all the seeds inside. Put the remaining tomato flesh into a small food processor and pulse a few times until it becomes like minced tomatoes. Don't over-do it. Afterwards, place all the pulsed tomatoes into a sieve for a while so that extra juice from the tomatoes will be dripped out.

3. Heat up a pan with olive oil, then add garlic and pan fried until fragrant. Then add the onion and pan fried until soft. Add the tomato pasta sauce and the sieved pulsed tomatoes, mix well and season to your liking. Put this tomato sauce aside.

4. Prepare a wok with corn oil for deep frying the pork chop. Season the hammered pork with salt and pepper. Prepare 1 plate of flour, 1 plate of breadcrumbs and 1 plate of beaten eggs. First dip the pork into flour, shake off excess flour, then dip into beaten eggs and lastly dip into breadcrumbs and deep fry it in the wok until golden brown. Drain oil.

5. Pre-heat oven to 200'C. Place white rice or fried rice on the bottom of a casserole pot. Sliced the deep fried pork chop and line them up on top of the rice. Spoon the tomato sauce on top. Sprinkle the peas on top and lastly the grated cheese. Baked for around 20 minutes and Serve!

Enjoy!