make me redespresso

frekles

im allergic to coffee.

people call me crazy, but they havent seen my crazy from when i used to drink coffee.

and then i met redespresso.

its basically the worlds first esperesso, made of tea, but is not a tea. ok well, it is a tea, but not really a tea, made of not tea, but extracts. ok: basically, it has no caffeine, or teaffine.

and its yum!!! it tastes like a bit of espresso/tea (which is what it is). and i get a kick for more than a couple hours.

however my second problem of not being a coffee drinker was- i had no coffee making machine.

so…. i did it the old fashioned way. mountain brew style.

what i had:

redespresso, pan, agave syrup

what i did:

boiled up water, mixed in 4 teaspoons of redespresso (for 2 peeps: me and my guinea pig), and 2 spoonfuls agave syrup

*brew for around 3-5 minutes.

drain.

whip cream it!

drink.

what i did next:

had chocolate fudge, mi goreng and soya milk as side dish.

15 . 04 . 2012
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drinks, home time, sweets

lifco life lessons: 3 recipes

frekles

where do i begin?

first of all, i have to point out, i was never ‘educated’ in food. i was in love, have lots of experience and have been taught well, but in the professional (degree holding, graduating and endless studying) sense, thats not the dish life served me (food analogy 1).

but today, i find myself right in the middle of it: i got a job as a food marketer :)

it hasn’t been long, a mere 2 weeks, but why. did. i. never. do. this. BEFORE?????

its been sheer heaven. writing everyday about amazing ingredients, foods and meeting with the culinary guild in dubai. and the tastings OH MY GOD THE TASTINGS. and right now I’m designing a public website for chef ingredients and products! the first in the UAE! and I’m obsessed, i want to buy everything myself already!!!

here is a sneak peek of the draft:

Click Cuisine ‘Where food lovers Click’: http://cranberrymktg.com/demo/ESF/html/

its funny cause last week one of the inspirators of my blog my little miss super talent , posted an article about doing what you love versus making money.

not sure how she knew i was having this dilemma (doubt she had any fleeting thought of me at all really in her busy food schedule haha), but i took it personally and i finally realised one thing: all i do is talk about food. so what the hell have i been doing my whole life?

making money, doing what you are supposed to, and working for a living. this is what we are taught, and do, and carry on doing- until something really amazing like the job of your life plops on your plate (food analogy 2)- and you realise how silly and lost you have been.

its like LIFCO (food analogy 3- i really am one track minded), a supermarket i went to when i first came to dubai, it was perfect: had amazing fresh fruits, meat and even labaneh for the other half- and then in my greedy hustle and bustle of finding new things, i forgot about it. i even got my first dubai phone there. and then last week i went back, to get a work phone, and the guy even remembered me and told me “madame you were actually one of my first customers when i first opened”. what? seriously its crazy how life pans out (food analogy 3).

so in celebration today, i bring you 3 recipes today (ingredients from lifco)!!!!!!!!! horrayyy!!!

ok, enough waffle (food analogy 4): i am, in a nutshell (last food analogy), seriously incapable of staying serious, and have a vocabulary that relies heavily on food.

ready-steady eggplant duck-curry stir fry

what i had:

curry sauce, eggplants, oil

what i did:

you can easily use ready made curry sauce

but the best curry to use is homemade curry left overnight, that way it is a bit dry and all you need to add is a bit of oil for eggplants, stir together and voila:

lean-and-fatty pork and minced veal

what i had:

fatty pork shins, lean minced veal

what i did:

i never choose lean meat, anywhere, not that i prefer super fat (lie, i do) but i prefer meat that have not been tampered with, sometimes thats where all the taste and juices are. ok enough excuses, i just like fat.

lonesome-lambchops with eggplant

what i had:

home to myself, lots of lamb chops, juicy jordanian tomatoes and an iranian food craving

what i did: 

take a deep oven pan, line with foil and layer bottom with eggplant. place lamp chops on top.

sprinkle on: onions, garlic, chilli, pomegranate molasses, olive oil and honey (salt and sugar)

* put in oven 180 degrees for around 30 mins (flip over at 15 mins), then on low grill for around 10-20 until fat is crispy! (juicy!)

NB: be careful, if your chops are skinny or small they will overcook and burn! better keep an eye on them, its a nice view to watch anyways :)

remember to add butter!

10 . 04 . 2012
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beef, dubai, duck, home time, lamb, pork, rice or noodles?

fighting-malade fattet magdoos

frekles

this is my first guest post.

i’m lying here with a virus i caught on my last trip. lets not get into details of the worse flu ever. all I’m thinking about is the wonderful meal my one-and-only made for me last night.

nothing better than a loving fattet magdoos (stuffed eggplants) to warm me up, and fight the virus. this just goes to show how a little bit of love, talent, and of course hunger, can make a superb chef.

thank you! and from what i saw from the sofa, this is what went down:

fattet magdoos

what he had:

small eggplants, minced meat, chillies, pine nuts, tomatoes, yoghurt, pita, garlic and onions

what he did:

fry up mince meat with chillies, garlic and onions and pine nuts in one pan

boil and sizzle up tomatoes with onions and garlic to make sauce in another

while the sauce and stuffing are cooking hollow out eggplants

take out a deep baking pan and lightly grease the bottom

stuff the eggplants with the cooked minced meat mix, and line them up in the pan

*pour on tomato sauce, sprinkle on some pine nuts and place in oven for around 20 minutes (or until eggplants are cooked and tender)

while waiting fry up cut up pita until crispy

once eggplants are cooked pour on yoghurt and place crispy bread on top

tadaa!

best thing i ever tasted in my life

what he did next:

offered to make me chicken soup to sustain me through the week.

sickness can be such sweet sorrow.

20 . 03 . 2012
2 Comments
beef, guest post, home time, salads and stuff (aka vegetables), the better half

layer it up, pancake cake

frekles

so I’ve wanted to make one of these since i saw them on marta’s kitchen

what better excuse than dear old friend (enad) coming over for dinner to whip it up.

i don’t think mines as pretty, healthy or delicate. but as frank says, i did it my way (and more, much more than this… i think i over did the amount of calories a normal person should take on…)

anyways.

what i had:

1 cup pancake mix with 3/4 cup milk and 1 egg

banana

nutella

maple syrup

what i did:

mix pancake mix.

chop up bananas

make around 8 pancakes, try to thin them out by rolling the pan while they are cooking. it gives them a nice round and golden finish.

between each layer paint on some nutella, place on some bananas and a drip of maple syrup (so it all sticks together.

one finished, place a big chunk of dark chocolate on top and pop it in the oven.

warm/heat it on 50 degrees for 10 mins before serving

what i did next:

of course i had to eat it with whipped cream.

i think i had to give my guest some heart burn tips. shame on me. thesis happening all too often.

8 . 03 . 2012
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home time, sweets

old school, old heritage- bastakiya

frekles

its always the quiet ones that get you.

bastakiya makes no fuss in this town where they make pomp and ceremony about nothing. and yet it stole my heart the first time, and every time i go. taking the little abra across the river, walking in and out of the markets, mosques, temples and riverside cafes, its like walking through india, egypt, italy and turkey all in a couple hours.

our favourite is the hidden arts cafe, with its beautiful decor, cutlery and ginger tea :) its also next to a camel burger restaurant which we have not tried yet (one thing at a time, then we can keep going back).

just in case you miss it:

last week we finally got to heritage village. such a serene little place where locals are taken care of and make delicious traditional snacks and foods of yesterdays-dubai. won’t spoil anything for you, you have to go see it and be amazed. but i did find some old school candy:

and a pony.

8 . 03 . 2012
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around the world, dubai

imperial hotel– high tea buffet, new delhi

frekles

i make it a point to do everything backwards in my life, not by choice, but sometimes by pure chance (aka stupidity).

so here i am, posting about my last trip to india, the last meal we had, which was the high tea at the imperial hotel. the beginning of the trip, and proper indian delights shall follow.

first time i ate cold scones. apparently they are their specialty. perfect clotted cream (took 2 hours to get some, maybe they had cows in the gardens and made it fresh on order), and rosey-red strawberry jam.

little cakes, fancy sandwiches, sugar high. all enjoyed with my usual dose of pre-flying medicine (makes me eat a whole town).

again, incredibled by india.

4 . 03 . 2012
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home time, india

rajdhani, bur dubai

frekles

it makes me sad to think that the written word no longer matters in today’s world.

even my blog gets comments from computer generated fans, leading me to dodgy deals, fake sites and ugg boot sales. whether its writing on ugly notepads, lists behind receipts, or I <3 U on windows when the bathroom steams up: the words we used to write, read and surround ourselves with are not the same to the texts, blog posts and emails replacing them today.

many of you may not know, but my site is only a play on words for rebel-asian– if you look closely you will realise its actually a dedication to one of my favourite writers, Rabelais. wiki calls him: “french renaissance writer, doctor, renaissance humanist, monk, and greek scholar”. everything i’m not, and want to be.

you don’t make money writing like a rebel, writing out your heart or writing for the sake of thought anymore. the world is a different place, and this blog is all i have left to get out what i still hold dear- the importance of being ernest.

helps that i saw this movie last night and stole the phrase.

once in a while, we all have to go back to basics. its like vegetarian food i guess.

but a life of just my own thoughts– like a life of just vegetables– is impossible for me: i need competition, i need inspiration, i need some meat.

although i must say, rajdhani, you got me thinking i was wrong at some point. unlimited food, gorgeous spices and a healthy heart to boot: touché!

remember to ring the bell when you leave as thanks :)

1 . 03 . 2012
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around the world, dubai

old-school toasties

frekles

i’m having a bad week. apparently my chinese horoscope this year suggests that i “don’t lend a helping hand as you may mess things up for yourself and others in the process”.

what does that mean?

i tried cutting down my giving traits. because it was true, i was just making a lot of trouble for myself, in work, in life. and problems arose because i realised people never appreciate what you’ve already given. there is always more FOR them, although there is (as of this moment) none left FROM me.

so… i used to make lots of toasties at home because my mother is a genius engineer and made the toastie machine, and i didn’t appreciate it until i no longer had one (talk about irony). and the greatness of mothers always shines through when you’re lost, she brought one over on her last visit.

my favourite is cheese and tomatoes.

flying toasties

what i had:

toastie maker (fire engine red), tomatoes, maasdam cheese

what i did:

heat up toastie maker

butter toasts, line up cheese first, then tomatoes, then cheese again (so the bread doesn’t get wet from tomato juice and burn in the machine)

once green like clicks on toastie machine, line them up inside

squeeze toastie shut

green light = toastie magic complete

ps. i like to leave it a couple more seconds so the cheese burns a bit

don’t they look like angels wings?

what i did next:

ate them. made more. ate those.

ps. if you are interested- this is my first bread related post

29 . 02 . 2012
2 Comments
bread, home time

googoo-gaagaa ginger chicken

frekles

you blink, and suddenly you are older, with no job and fiddling with your life trying to make sense of it snakes-and-ladders style. learning to talk to new people all over again, learning to walk in the style people around you are flaunting, being just as lost as i was when i as a kid playing leaves and eating them. story of my life.

so what do i do? i go back into the kitchen.

haven’t cooked for a while so went a bit mental. did an old recipe (spaghetti bolognese), copied one (julia childs potato daphnioise) and invented a new one…

ginger chicken

what i had:

chicken breasts, fresh ginger, onion, garlic, pine nuts.

what i did:

marinate chicken in salt, sugar, olive oil and a bit of sherry

heat up pan, sprinkle in salt and sugar

once sizzling throw in onions, garlic, and smashed ginger

place chicken in skin side down, pour in rest of marinade

turn chicken around every couple minutes, browning the skin side more. cover every time, by the end the sauce should have been soaked up by chicken and only oil will be attacking you from all sides (use the pan-cover as shield)

depending on how big your chicken thighs are, its better to cook chicken for more than 15-20 mins. you can check by sticking a toothpick in to test the temperature inside (like cake), if in doubt- cook more

once the chicken is sizzling in just oil, turn down heat and throw in pine nuts.

cover

once pine nuts are brown, serve. ginger should be crispy by then too.

veal spaghetti bolognese

for a change i used veal mince, additional chillies and a mix of tomatoes in my bolognese this time. the colour was a lot brighter, and the beef taste lighter, and tomato sauce sweeter. yum

julia childs potato daphinoise

easiest potatoes i made ever. however, would cut potato slices thinner next time.

basically all you do is soak peeled potatoes in water while you prepare the ingredients: grated cheese (i used boursin), salt, pepper, butter, boil cream/milk, garlic

grease pan with butter and garlic, then slice up potatoes, and line them up nicely in two levels, sprinkle cheese, salt and pepper in between and on top layer. line up remaining butter on top layer then pour on hot milk/cream. bake around 200 degrees for 20-30 mins.

what i did next:

heart burn all night long. i never learn.

28 . 02 . 2012
3 Comments
beef, chicken, home time

sumibiya, radisson blu deira

frekles

i ate my daily allowance of special K diet for breakfast already. what am i supposed to do for the rest of the day? another diet fail. this is why i dont diet.

another reason is because i love buffets. we were trying to count the amount of times i say the world buffet the other day, we lost count.

we also found a new buffet restaurant last week, a korean/japanese serve yourself and – finally!!!- cook yourself buffet. i have to say i miss cooking my own food at japanese/chinese/korean restaurants, there is always someone here trying to do it for you! this princess service in dubai sometimes just does not suit me.

the best is at every restaurant i go through the water pouring fight- where the waiter always tries to be over helpful, but im spasmic when it comes to drinking water: it ranges from fast drinking- little pour, to long pour-slow drinking, ranging within minutes to sometimes half hours.

anyways. sumibaya wins on the sauces, terriyaki & yakiniku is provided next to the selection of marinated and non-marinated meat. i suggest the sesame marinated chicken, and the korean marinated beef. if you cook the fish, try to lather the sauce constantly as you cook the fish, and flip them on minute intervals (start with skin down so its crispy).

best yakiniku creamy halibut and salmon ive had since i’ve arrived…

there is also a salad selection, soup and rice, and of course dessert :)

31 . 01 . 2012
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around the world, dubai