visions of clarity...do as infinity

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Soba Salad, Pork Ribs and Apple Tart

Hello

Yesterday Jiamin, Vivion and I cooked! =D Beams. And although we only remembered to take photos of the completed apple tarts, there are photos of the urm. Process of cooking for everything else.=D

Salad with Ponzu dressing
Soba Salad with Mint and Scallions
Orange-Soy Braised Pork Ribs
Maple Apple Puff Pastry Tart

No photos of the salad but here's the soba while cooking!

Fascinating to me.. We dressed the soba noodles in a light sauce made from ponzu, sesame oil and some other ingredients. Finally, you add spring onions, mint and cucumber strips before you eat.

The soba was quite light and refreshing! ^_^ The original recipe called for just soy sauce but I used ponzu instead.

The ribs halfway through cooking:

I flipped them halfway through and they caramelized nicely towards the end of the cooking process. Then I flipped them again to let the other side brown.^_^

The ribs were pretty yummy! Haha.=P And not as tender as I expected but not too bad.=) The sauce was made from orange juice, ponzu, soy sauce, ginger, garlic and various other ingredients. I might use more ponzu next time.. I thought that the yuzu juice in it would further enhance the orange flavour. Perhaps I might also add zest next time?

For the dessert, we made Maple Apple Puff Pastry Tarts! ^_^ To get it, I modified 2 recipes I found in Donna Hay magazines.

First you make an apple syrup. I had maple sugar on hand so I used both maple sugar and regular sugar to make a gorgeous brown syrup. Then you steep apple slices in the cooled syrup till they are needed.

I then used frozen puff pastry as the tart base and laid apple slices on them to get tarts. Here they are fresh out of the oven:

^_^v The puff pastry crisped up nicely in about 20-25 minutes. Above in the syrup, I was thickening it and preparing the apples for plating.

The final product!

I plated the tarts with slices of apple and drizzled the maple sugar syrup over the tart.=)

The puff pastry was actually quite yummy! ^_^ I was quite pleased. My mom felt the apples needed a little cinnamon and I agree.. It needed a bit of kick apart from the maple sugar taste.=) Yay. I'm glad I bought the maple sugar in Ann Arbor but I'm horrified at how fast it's running out!

Wee! I'm currently watching House. Ahh! It's great watching it FINALLY..xD At last! I found an American drama that I love!

cheers
*[-witchstone-]*

[music : Eege Malice Mizer + House OST]
[mood : ^_^]
[food : japanese. *dies*]

cch: Urhh. Did you like her that much? But it's quite sad right.. *sigh*

Jiamin: OF COURSE Uruha looks good!!! He looks good in general? xD xD xD O yes. Remind me about the neoprints okay!!! xP I keep forgetting. And sorry alice nine. only had concert pictures in this magazine.=X

Labels: Apple Tart, baking, cooking, edibles, House TV, Pork Ribs, Soba Salad

Welcome

visions of clarity...do as infinity
by witchstone

My Emotible!
starry-eyed: filled with such youthful hope and optimism that one's eyes twinkle even when it's dark

Wish List

ie: motivation to save money!
- clothes
- shoes [heels! boots!]
- the perfect tote
- coats/outerwear! [Soïa & Kyo, Burberry...]
- Gackt - nine*nine
- Gackt Photobooks:
1 The Gift The Sixth Day & Seventh Night Tour Document (2004)
2 Crescent Photobook (out of print)
- Cookbooks!
1 Thomas Keller The French Laundry Cookbook
2 The Nobu Cookbook
3 Emily Luchetti A Passion for Desserts
4 Alice Medrich Pure Dessert
- Anime/Manga
1 Rurouni Kenshin
2 xxxHOLiC
3 Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-
- Proficiency at Japanese!
- Learn French for Food!

Links

My Flickr Page
spoonerisms*inc a food blog (by wendy & I)
my translation blog

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Checklist: EAT!

The Common Grill, Chelsea
The Black Pearl, Ann Arbor
Good Girls Go To Paris Crepes, Detroit
Bella Ciao, Ann Arbor
Craft, NYC
Momofuku, NYC
Alinea, Chicago
The French Laundry, California
Goto, Singapore

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