Favourite Drinks: Moscato w/ Ruby Grapefruit

One of my favourite alcoholic drink is Moscato. and i love it with Grapefruit.

So good. Very fruity and refreshing.

Try it sometime!

My Beef Stew this time!

A while back, i ordered chuck steak from butcher2u.com.au

that was meant for making my beef stew.

It was a free day and i went out to buy veggies and more meat because i decided that the amount of chuck steak might not be enough + hui had melissa over for dinner.

Out i went. (remember to bring my trolley next time)

I bought ox-tail. some carrots, onions etc.

Here goes, my version (still subjected to changes though)

It is actually, really difficult to take a good picture of beef stew.

Ingredients

1330gm beef – 680g chuck steak 650g oxtail
175g bacon – leave it whole
2 medium sized onions
2 carrots (hui requested for more)
6 large white button mushrooms
3 potatoes (fish didn’t like them)
4 cloves of garlic, smashed
1 dried bay leaf
Dark Soy Sauce
for starters: (more will be added later, as per your discretion)
500ml red wine
500ml water

Directions

While chopping the ingredients, boil a pot of water.

  
When it comes to a boil, add in the diced chuck steak and oxtail (or whatever meat you’re using) and cook for 10-15 mins to get rid of any gamey-ness and excess fats.

Drain and leave aside.

In a cast iron pan, or a Le Creuset in my case (Fish bought one when i wasn’t around last year!) fry the bacon. I said to leave them whole because after the cooking process, it can be discarded, there was absolutely no flavour to them after all the stewing.

After the bacon, add in the onions, garlic and mushrooms.

 
Let them slowly cook and reduce in size.

Layer the beef on top of the mixture and add in half of the wine and water.

Add the chopped carrots on top then add the rest of the liquid. (Potatoes were not such a good idea. they almost disintegrated by the time the stewing was done)

 
Cover and simmer for 30 mins, then give it a stir to combine the veggies and stew till it’s time to eat. A good 2-3 hours would be great.

Within the 2-3 hours, we added more red wine and more water when it was needed, whenever it looked like it was drying out. so just add according to how your stew looks and tastes like.

When it’s done. it will be quite sweet because of all the red wine and carrots. so add a tablespoon or two of dark soy sauce to give it color and saltiness.

It really is very difficult to take a good picture.

We bought a bag of instant mash potatoes from our trip to Ikea, so we cooked it all and fish added a good amount of spring onions in it. And thus, formed our dinner!

 
yummy!

pork chops coming up soon! with a delicious but really simple sauce!

Brown Brothers Cienna & Moscato

Brown Brothers is a famous Australian brand of wine.

We first tried their Moscato. which we all love.

*Keeping in mind that i do not like alcohol that much. the wine that i might like are usually those that are sweeter, smooth (i don’t really like dry) and more spring-like.

The Moscato which is a favourite is best served well chilled. As much as i love it, i’m not a huge fan of drinking it on its own, as others might be.

I prefer to mix it. and one of my favourite combinations is freshly squeezed grapefruit with moscato. Served very chilled. Very refreshing.

From the website for the 2009 Moscato:

This current release is a light straw colour with some youthful green tinges, while the nose is lifted with aromas of musk, citrus and freshly crushed grapes.  In the mouth the wine is alive with a vibrant and mouth filling sherbet flavour.  A wine of universal appeal, the retained carbon dioxide gives a mild frizzante effect resulting in a lively and fresh wine.  Serve well chilled and enjoy while young and vibrant.

So..

i was reading a magazine that day when i was eating my favourite avocado rolls @ Pinocchio. and i saw an advertisement for Brown Brother’s Cienna. 

I just had a taste of this. and i think it will be one of our loves as well. It is as Moscato is, best serve well chilled. It is also light and fruity. though not as much compared to Moscato, since Moscato does belong in the category of white wine and Cienna of red wine.

It has a beautiful rich purple red colour – kinda reminded me of ribena. It is sweet, has a slightly syrupy texture to it and you can taste the berries and fruitiness of it all. 

From the website for the 2009 Cienna:

Cienna is a light wine with a vibrant ruby red colour and aromas of fresh raspberries and strawberries. With fruit sweetness on the palate it is soft and juicy with a refreshing spritzig finish. A sip of this wine is like tasting summer berries in a glass, while the mixture of good natural acidity  and fruit sweetness leaves a refreshing sensation in the mouth.  This wine is best enjoyed young and well chilled.

Sounds good eh.

The next wine that i am very interested in trying is their Lexia which also belongs to the same fruity white wine category as Moscato is.

and the other one which is interesting is their Tarrango. which is a variety of grape unique to Australia.

 
Look at how beautiful the colour of the Tarrango is. The thing is, in its description, it is described as having a delicate dry finish (which i’m not really keen on), but the next sentence says that it has a ‘juicy mouth-feel’… hmm…. contradicting eh.

Any wines to recommend?

Rum Butter Balls

Credits for this go to: Angie

So.. on my sidebar, i wrote that i wanted to use Rum in my cooking. I had just bought a bottle of rum with the intention of making rum & raisin ice cream – that hasn’t been done yet.

So, i was watching youtube.. when i saw this. Rum Butter Balls. I love the flavour of Rum and i love butter.

I’m quite sure mine didn’t turn out exactly like hers. I think it’s because i didn’t add icing sugar to the mixture.. but it still tasted really good.. haha.. so … whatever!

Somehow, this grows on you. You eat the first one and think. It’s ok. but you find yourself keep wanting another one. haha.. so it grows on ppl. Rum is very very fragrant.

 
Looks kinda christmas-y though.. hehe..

Those were pecans which i roasted in the oven and coated them with icing sugar when they’re still hot. Fish loves them! hehe..

Ingredients (These are different from the original)

1. 125g Butter – i thought i used more – supposed to be 170g.
2. 2 tbsp Rum
3. 1 3/4 cups Plain Flour – supposed to be cake flour, but i dun have (wrong pic)
4. 3/4 cup roughly chopped Pecans – i think i chopped them a little too finely
5. 3/4 cup chocolate flakes – 3/4 cup if chocolate chips, i didn’t have chocolate chips, so i just sliced dark chocolate bars into little flakes and bits, i also used 3/4 cup but realised that if using this, can use way more chocolate. (Next time!)
6. Pure Icing Sugar for coating

*There’s supposed to be 1/2 cup of icing sugar into the mixture. But i forgot. and after eating, felt like it didn’t need the icing sugar if you gave it a good coating of icing sugar. But if you like it sweeter, by all means. I think this might be why my batter came out different.

Directions (Also different cause i just do from the top of my head)

1. All you need is 1 big bowl (Now that i come to think about it). Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

2. Make sure that your butter is soft and your chocolate bar is room temperature.

3. Cream the butter in the bowl. Cream by hand, but mixing it all about and getting it into a kinda paste looking.

4. I chopped the pecans and chocolate by hand since i had the time watching tv. I think you could do the pecans using a processor but i think you would still have to slice the chocolate by hand unless using chocolate chips.

5. Roast the chopped pecans till aromatic. Careful not to burn. You can use both the oven or the frying pan. I used the frying pan. Keep stirring.

6. Sift the flour into the bowl. Add the roasted pecans and chocolate. Try to let the pecans come back to room temperature before adding everything especially if you’re using chocolate flakes since they melt very easily.

7. Mix everything together with 2 tbsp of Rum! – It was supposed to be 1 but i added 2. =)

8. Mix Mix Mix. and here’s where mine differs. Hers was a creamy batter. Mine was a breadcrumb mixture. What a difference!

 
9. Anyways, since there was butter in the mixture, what you need to do is. I had fingernails, so i used a spoon, spoon an amount onto your palm and squeezed the mixture together to form a ball. Some will drop off but don’t worry it is possible. I thought it wasn’t possible until i tried it and ! a ball !

10. Although i used my big oven, i was lazy to get the big pan out since the kitchen island can’t be used i had to use my dining table, so instead, i used the tray of the small oven toaster.

 
11. I made bite sized balls. I didn’t count how many it yielded. but it took 2 trays to finish all. The second tray wasn’t full. Place them into the oven at 180 degrees for 20 minutes. They should not colour much.

12. Get a bowl of icing sugar ready. Don’t be like me and try to scrimp and add as little icing sugar into the bowl as possible. Trust me.. the balls need to roll around in ample sugar. So get a good amount in.

13. When 20 minutes is up, take it out. Wait for 3-5 minutes till it slightly cools so that you can handle them with your fingers. You don’t want them to get cool for the icing sugar won’t melt around the balls then.

14. Taking each bowl, roll the balls around in the icing sugar until it is well coated. The icing sugar will form a sort of glaze over the balls as they melt. It will get on your fingers, so just have a tissue on the table so you can peel the icing sugar sticking to your fingertips.

 
You can eat it when it’s slightly warm, but i actually like it more after placing it in the fridge overnight and taking it out a few minutes before eating.

If you have left over icing sugar and throwing away is such a waste. I’m sure you have left over whole pecans. I had washed everything already by then so i wasn’t going to use the frying pan again. Just place the pecans on the baking tray you used to bake the balls. at 180 degrees for around 10 minutes. Make sure that they don’t burn. or until you can smell that delicious roasted pecans smell.

Also wait for them to get slightly cooler. Roll the pecans in the icing sugar and set aside. Don’t worry if there seems to be alot of icing sugar between the indents in the pecans. Their skin is slightly bitter and icing sugar isn’t very very sweet anyways. But this coating of icing sugar makes pecans irresistible. even to Fish who didn’t really like pecans.

I will definitely make these again as snacks.

and i think the roasted pecans will be good for Chinese New Year.

Have you guys bought your Christmas presents yet?