1st attempt at mentaiko pasta

As you might have observed, there wasn't much mentaiko on the pasta. That was because I have grossly underestimate the amount of roe needed. Not to mention, I didn't think that I'll be cooking for 4. Scrapping the eggs out of the sac for the first time turned out to be a messier than I had imagined. The result did turn out to be pretty tasty but I wouldn't call it a success since the main ingredient for the sauce which is the spicy roe could barely be tasted. The ingredients used were modified from a relatively well known blog. The main reason for the deviation was because I couldn't get my hands on some of the items on time and other recipes did suggest other viable alternatives which was obtainable at the said time of cooking. The steps for making the sauce stayed pretty much like the original recipe which I had derived from. Basically, it's a frying of the onions in butter, addition of soy sauce and sake for the reduction before adding the cream and the mentaiko.


The ingredients if anyone is interested are

• 250g angelhair pasta
• a chunk of butter (I used SCS)
• one whole yellow onion, diced
• 10 soup spoonful of sake
• 5 soup spoonful of cream (mine was President)
• 1 sac of mentaiko (I think 3 would have been better)
• shredded nori

There wasn't any chicken stock readily available so I had substituted that with Japanese soy sauce. It was the closest thing to chicken stock that I could find at home. If anyone has a good method of removing the roe from the sac, please let me know how. Comments and suggestions are welcomed as well.

Hakka Yong Tau Foo, Tampines Round Market

I don't remember the last time I've had yong tau foo for $2.50 but then again, it's not something that I specifically look out for. I thought that this stall (#01-01, Tampines Round Market and Food Centre) tasted pretty good with the regular combination of both sweet and chilli sauce. There was a queue forming at the front of the store and the reason for that apart from the fact the yong tau foo was tasty was that the owners didn't seem to make it a priority to work extra fast. For their price, it was noticeably cheaper than having them at food courts which usually doesn't taste as good.

From the Hokkaido & Michinoku Fair

Here're a bunch of stuff I picked up from the Hokkaido & Mochinoku fair. Expectedly like the norm of such events, the crowd thickens from the early afternoon and doesn't really subside till the end of the day. This time round there was also a counter that was vending camembert cheese which I did not notice before in the previous fairs. I hear that there is more to come later in the week.

ramen

cheese cake sticks

a sac of mentaiko

chocolate cheese cake

creamy cheese cake in a box

fuji apple juice

rice condiments

assorted preserved seafood

not forgetting the candied scallops

A huge sushi roll...

This was not a perspective shot. That roll was as big as you think it is. I was watching the chef at the fair make rolls of them when the stacked sushis were rolled into that one huge roll that you see. I took out the camera to take a shot, the chef took the huge roll out from behind his glass enclosure to pose for this. If I did not remember wrongly, there's uni, shake, tamago, ikura, hotate, those slim Japanese cucumbers, more unidentified bars of fish roe in there. Certainly made me wonder how much it cost and how is one suppose to eat them.

Pit stop at the Hokkaido & Michinoku Fair

Elbow jousting in the rough seas of middle aged ladies (sometimes using kids as their shields) can be a tiring affair, so inevitably, one has to stop to refuel on some energy sources to keep on going. Here're some sushis (salmon with assorted roes and otoro) that we managed to grab at Isetan in the duration there (lunch/snack break) and I'm not sure if it's because of the ongoing fair, the offerings seemed a tad better than the usual. For one, there's otoro to be had. I would recommend to get them early in the day when they're closer to freshly made. The otoro sushis here are surprisingly pretty good and relatively inexpensive for fatty tuna belly. The strawberry and cream sandwich doesn't come from the fair, but I thought it was pretty good so you get to see them too. They're actually available almost all of the time I pass by at Sun Moulin and curiosity finally got to me. It's essentially a simple strawberry halves with cream between two slices of bread which I found quite tasty.

Stay tuned for my loots from the fair.

Hey la, hey la.....Hokkaido Fair's back!

Here's one of the bento box which I picked up from the fair at Isetan Scotts in the afternoon. It comes accompanied with a kawaii chick in singlet and short pink skirt that feeds you with attentive care. Nah...just kidding about the part on the kawaii chick. So it's back and the fair started on Staturday 19/1/08. I was told it ends at the end of the month, so go go go!! Stay tuned for the picturesque tales of my loot after I jostle the endless tides of insane aunties. Lol!