Practical - Lunch

Woke up today feeling groggy to a very misty morning. Hardly had enough sleep for the last 3 nights and i am exhausted. The temperature up here was somewhere between 17 - 19C. It was damn cold.......It will be nice if i can sleep for another couple of hours.

Why is it that cold ? Well, its drizzling for the last 6 hours. What do you expect ? Even without the wind factor , it chill you to the bone. Take a look at the pic. This was taken somewhere near Awana.










Time to go for class. When over to Ratha, an Indian Restaurant that serves Mamak food, for my breakfast. Since I was feeling groggy, the hell with my diet for the time being. I whacked a whole plate of Nasi Lemak and slurp my Nescafe Ice.


Went to the class after that and looks like my classmates had some good food planned for lunch. That got me going....feeling perky.

Here's what they cooked....






















To start with, Stuffed Portobello Mushroom. This delicate mushroom was also mentioned in Boo_licious blog when she made her Portobello Pizza. Delish looking pizza. She also mentioned about it when she first made Stilton Souffle Stuffed Portobello from a recipe she found when she participated in IMBB20.

For these starter, they uses butter rice, flavoured with curry powder and tumeric. It lends a spicy flavour to the fragrant butter rice and they chucked in some mix vegetable for extra crunch. I advised them to use 2 types of cheese - shredded mozarella and Parmesan but they opt to use only Parmesan. Well, it not as good in flavour and colour after au gratin as Parmesan doesnt really gives out a good colour as compared to Mozarella. We even have Emmenthal that is even better.


For the soup, just vegetable soup with tomato paste - didnt want to take the picture as it was nothing interesting.

The main, Stuffed Crab - yeah yeah yeah! stuffed again. Chuckle! They use flower crab - a bright blue shell mottled with white markings. Anyone knows what t hey called in English ? We have to use this type of crab due to HALAL reason. The Malay in Malaysia being MUSLIM does not really eat what the Chinese would call MEAT CRAB which is actually MUD CRAB. The muslims dont eat MUD CRAB not because it is non HALAL or HARAM but more to what they called Makruh as the mud crab lives in 2 dimension - the sea and the land.











Flower Crab Image


The crab was steamed first and flesh remove even frm the legs and claws. Mixed in with cream, white pepper, egg , dill, chopped chilli, chopped shallot, minced garlic and a lil bread crumb ( to hold ). Then the mixture is used to stuff the crab shell. Topped with a bread crumb and baked till cook. Oops! I have forgotten the cheese that they had melted in the cream itself. You can also use Bechamel sauce to substitute the cream.





















Top - Crab Meat Mixture
Bottom - Clean Crab Shell



Served with Creamy Paprika Sauce - sauteed chopped shallot, garlic and chopped rosemary till fragrant. Add in flour to make Roux. Pour in white wine and bring to a boil. Add vegetable stock and reduced to half. Stir in heavy cream and season.



















Top - Yet To Bake Stuff Crab
Bottom - Ready To serve Baked Stuffed Crab



Oops! I forgotten they had steamed brocolli topped with cheese! That's why they omit the cheese from the crab meat mixture. Sorry ! chuckle!






































Top - Baked Stuffed Crab
Top Middle - Yet To Bake Brocolli
Bottom Middle - Top View of the Brocolli with Cheese on a baking tray
Bottom - Getting the crab into the oven





For the dessert, they wanted to do the ICELANDIC XMAS CAKE - its still Xmas, so kewl.

Usual basic cake with raisins, cinnamon and cardamon. Baked at 180C for about 35 - 45 minutes. Remove , leave them on a rack to cool. Topped with Meringue and gratin for colour.

Served with some chocolate sauce.








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1 - The ingredient
2 - Creaming the butter and sugar
3 - Add in raisin, cinnamon and cardomon
4 - Ready to serve
5 - From another angle
6 - Whole tray of cakes after gratin

Till then cheers !