Spaghetti alla cabonara

So easy to make and perfect for lazy cooks like me.

Ingredients (serves 4)

1 packet 250g dry spaghetti

4 eggs

1 cup grated cheese

6 rashers of bacon, sliced thinly

½ tsp nutmeg

3 sprigs of rosemary

3 bay leaves

Method

1) Cook the packet of spaghetti according to instructions. Drain but reserve 1 cup of the pasta water.. Set aside.

2) While pasta is cooking, fry the bacon till crispy. Drain on kitchen paper.

3) In a bowl, beat the 4 eggs with nutmeg, then mix in the grated cheese. Put in the rosemary and bay and mix well.

4) Timing is essential. You need the heat of the pasta to 'cook' the pasta, so the minute it's been drained, pour in the eggy cheesy mixture and fold in. Add pasta water bit by bit if it gets too craggy.

5) Serve immediately. It doesn't reheat well so only cook what you need.

Oven baked rosti

I got this idea from Jamie Oliver's Money Saving Meals, but it didn't quite turn out the way I expected. Ah well, I think I did several things wrong to begin with.

First off, I used waaay too much stuff (which didn't turn out to be that much in the end because I got a bigger baking sheet) - 1 sweet potato, 2 potatoes and 3 carrots. Jamie's recipe only called for 2 spuds and 2 carrots. Secondly, I accidentally washed it. I recalled when making kimchi, it's easier to get the osmosis process going if I soak in water. Mistake, I realised I was washing off the starch which is what's needed to make it 'stick' together! His original recipe isn't too far off from other oven-baked rosti recipes on the web, aka the food science is thereabouts.

Anyway, here's my improve of the recipe:

Ingredients
1 sweet potato (peeled)
2 potatoes (peeled)
3 carrots (peeled)
Salt
Olive oil

Method
1) Grate everything. Put it in a large tea towel and sprinkle on some salt. Let it sit in a strainer, then use a tea towel and squeeze the hell out of it. (Here's where I went wrong - I attempted to wash off the salt and realised too late, that I was washing off the starch!) However, since it can't be washed off, be careful how much salt you add, you don't want it to be overly salty!
2) I left the grated stuff sitting in a strainer in a bowl, to catch the juices. After an hour, my, there was about a cup of juice!
3) Pat down into a roasting tray (I used a lined cooking sheet because my roasting tray wasn't big enough!)
4) This part I'm foggy - I can't recall the temperature or time Jamie took, so I thought I'd chance it. I did 45 minutes at 200 deg and the top just started to brown, but inside was cooked but still soggy. Checked the web, apparently I should have done 190 deg C for 1 hr 15 minutes or thereabouts.

Anyway, tada! At least it's cooked with some crispy charred bits. Better than nothing!

 And goes great with teriyaki beef!

Ramyeon taste test

U Inspired by this blog post, I decided to collate my own list based on the ones available in my local Taiwanese supermarket. Not all the brands listed in that blog review can be found in this supermarket, so maybe after this review, it's time to take a walk to the Korean supermarket a bit further away. Here are my tasting notes on 5 types. I found Korean ramyeon is more costly than the usual instant noodles, so decided to buy individual packets which although cost more individually, but I can taste more varieties and not end up stuck with a $6 packet of 5 in some horrible flavour that eventually gets thrown away! All reviews are compared against my usual Nongshim Shim (or Shin?) ramyeon, that #1 best seller of ramyeon with it's super spicy and nicely salty taste.

1. Paldo cheese

Interesting taste. It has it's own cheese powder, on top of the usual seasoning and frozen veg (geondeogi) packets. It certainly is cheesy with a mild spicy taste but I'm not sure I'm really sold. Since I love cheese, it is a pleasant flavour but I have to overcome my mental block on having cheese in Asian food. The cheese tastes like powdered cheese, ie. think Kraft powdered cheese that you get to sprinkle (on in my case, pour) on top of pasta. But because it's in soup, so it's weird slurping a cheesy soup. It probably shouldn't be such a big deal because I have put a cheese slice on my budae jigae, which was delish so it shouldn't be strange but it is.

Rating: 3 bowls (out of 5)

2. Samyang kimchi 

This is less spicy than my usual Shim ramyeon but a but sourish, which is pleasant but not overly sour. It does not come with the the veg packet. But if were to compare with Shim, it does pale in comparison. There seems to be less taste, other than a mild sourness and spiciness.

Rating: 2 bowls

3. Nongshim kimchi

I lost the original post so I'm really just relying on memory. I think this was less sourish than Samyang and the rehydrated kimchi gave a nice umame feel and tasted like the real thing. Can't recall much else. More spicy than Samyang too I think.

Rating: 3 bowls

4. Paldo Jjajangmyeon

My first jjm test. Interesting because the noodles are a lot more al dente than normal ramyeon. But that also means it took 5 minutes of microwaving instead of the usual 3. The noodles had a nice fried taste. This came with a sauce packet (with fake meat bits?) rather than the usual powder, and recommends leaving some water behind from cooking the noodles. Taste wise, tastes like Bovril, perhaps because of the onions which would undoubtedly be preserved. Overall, not bad because very moorish (slightly sweet and salty) but still not close to jjm.

Ratings: 4 bowls

5. Nongshim JJM

Ok this really doesn't look like much but tastes far more authentic than Paldo. Problem is that it came with a soup base, oil and veg packet, and I must admit I was disappointed when I opened it. The noodles are similarly al dente with the fried taste, and also require 5 mins, altho they seem to suck up more water than Paldo. The veg packet also comes with fake dried meat. Still deducting a star for presentation ie no sauce packet and no sticky sauce even though I was also instructed to leave water behind (perhaps that's why the noodles sucked up all that water?) but taste is definitely superior to Paldo.

Rating: 4 bowls

6. Paldo Namja

Touted as the man's ramyeon, it's supposed to be spicer than others, but I would only say that it's in the Paldo range. Frankly, I can't discern the difference between this and my usual Shim, the taste and even the dried veg packets are similar, and neither is the noodle cake bigger or smaller than Shim. It actually tastes exactly the same, except maybe it's less intensely hot and salty. So it can be a milder version of shim, nice for summer when I don't need to be sweating over it as I do with Shim, which means I usually avoid Shim during hot weather.

Rating: 3 bowls

7. Nongshim Neoguri

This is an interesting noodle but I think it's Japanese inspired, and it's called udon, perhaps meant to be tanuki udon. The veg packet includes tenkasu, which are tempura bits. The noodle is also a bit al dante and the soup is more peppery than spicy. Interesting different tasting ramyeon because it's not the standard salty, spicy and/or sour but I'm not sure about the purpose of the tenkasu since it's just soggy in the soup.

Rating: 4 bowls

8. Nongshim Angsungtang myun

Other than the spiciness level, this tastes exactly like the Shim ramyeon but less spicy (and maybe a little less sweet), and no wonder too, they are both by Nongshim. The main difference however is that the dried food packet is noticeably missing. I don't recall whether Shim is more expensive, I guess it should be if one ingredient is missing. I think I will stick to the 'real' thing.

Rating: 2 bowls

Update: Among all my blog posts since I started blogging in 2005, this blog post has taken the most time and effort to write. 2 months! But it's finally done.

Microwave mug brownie Take 2

Since my first attempt here, I've found 2 new recipes and itching to try both. I didn't like using baking powder in lieu of the self-raising flour, so these 2 recipes are an improvement because they use neither.

1) 1 minute only, uses butter: http://www.taste.com.au/kitchen/recipes/1+minute+microwave+chocolate+brownie+in+a+mug,33030

2) 1 to 2 minutes, uses oil: http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/brownie_in_a_mug/

Arguably, butter is going to taste much nicer than oil but there isn't any reason why I can't replace the oil with the butter. Other than that, the 2 recipes are largely similar except #2 adds cinnamon and #1 adds starts with wet and adds dry but #2 starts with dry and adds wet. Apparently, it's always better to mix both separately then add wet to dry to prevent it becoming a claggy, lumpy mess but that's more than 1 mug's work, so I'll settle for mixing dry, then creating a well in the centre and adding wet.

Oh and I need to use milk instead of water this time!

Updated 22 Feb 2015: Tried to combine the recipes by using melted butter and adding an egg to make it more spongy. It turned out strange, like eating kueh after a minute. Will probably not try adding the egg. Not very palatable.

Updated 23 Feb 2015: Tried the first recipe again in its entirety. Turned out so dry, I even had to add another tbsp of water to wet all the dry ingredients! After cooking in the microwave on high for 1 minute, it was ready but felt like eating sweet chocolate flour. Dry. Not trying again.