SAZL Sweats: Pork Medallions with Apple and Cider Sauce

I haven't really "sweated" for a while since I've been back. The most recent cookbook I bought is from Serge Dansreau called French Kitchen. There are so many good recipes to try out from this book. One of which is the Chicken Confit with Fennel and Olives, which I think will take 2 days to do but I'm sure will be sooo worth it. Ok. Back to my story.

I've been crazy over Bulmer's Pear Cider ever since I saw it from Donna Hay's magazine. Now that I think it's out of season, and now, I got hooked with Bulmer's apple cider.

The recipe is pretty straight forward to do and ingredients are direct to the point. Not a lot of chopping required, too. Yea, you can make this pretty much every week, if your waistline can handle the cream :)

I almost followed the recipe to the letter, except that I estimated my ingredients since I just wanted to make 2 serves out of it. First, 2 apples, peeled, deseeded and quartered. Heat a pan with olive oil and butter, slightly fry the apples. When slightly browned, sprinkle some white sugar to caramelize the apples. Remove to a plate.

Pour apple cider into the pan, maybe 150mls, and reduce by half. Set aside. Wipe the pan clean and heat butter. Dust seasoned (with salt and pepper) pork medallions (I used lean pork cutlets)with flour and fry in the heated pan with butter, 4 minutes on each side. Set aside.

Wipe the pan clean. Pour the reduced cider, cream and chopped sage (about a handful), season with salt and pepper and simmer. Add the pork back to the pan and simmer for 5minutes in the sauce. Lastly, add the apples back in, simmer before serving.

Here's a picture of the final stage of simmering...

And before I enjoy the dish...

Overall, it's yummy. I have to say that I never really had a dish where the main herb is just sage. So pork, apples and sage = good. I'll make it again but I'll caramelize the apples more. Maybe use brown sugar the next time.

Familiar Tastes @ Bourke and Collins Streets, Melbourne CBD

A friend bailed for brunch so I ended up waking early with nothing to do. I could have gone to brunch by myself anyway but couldn't be bothered. I didn't want to waste a fine day for sure. It's 30 degrees out and I've been itching for summer all year long.

So, my day started with a trip to the South Melbourne Market. What the hell? I needed food anyway. I got Philippa's sourdough bread, some shaved ham, ground coffee beans from Padré (which is just amazing, by the way) and some fruits. I realized that I wanted to make that French dish with pork and apples so I also got me some of that and sage. Ok. All set. I'm not leaving the market without eating something. It's peach season, everybody! Peaches, nectarines, more peaches and apricots. I haven't had fresh apricots before so I tried some today. I simply loved these babies! They're plump and not sickeningly sweet. Well, I think most people preferred them dried to enhance the fruit's sweetness more but I just like them as they are. Another new thing that caught my eye is Organic Donuts from Fritz Gelato. The other good thing about it, probably besides being organic that they make it right on the spot! I ordered one Cinnamon flavored organic donut and, how can I say this? It made my day....Ok, ok, it's not the best and perfect donut but....! I never had a fresh one before so this was really some treat. I kept licking the cinnamon sugar-y goodness off my fingertips! Yum oh yum! Apologies, no pictures from my South Melbourne market trip. Next time, I promise....
Ok, so back to the topic at hand. Everyone knows that Chinese new year is just around the corner. Understand that most of the people I work with in the office are either: A. Indians or B. Asians. So yea, it's kind of a big deal :) I decided to spread some good cheer and give red pockets out this year. Well, of course, it will be restriced to friends who have kids, which is just two people. LOL. Walking around Chinatown is not really a huge chore, I quickly got some red pockets (with adorable My Melody cartoons). Aside from some picture taking and some more walking, my tummy started rumbling. I really didn't want to sit down and eat somewhere in Chinatown. I finally thought of heading over to Pacific BBQ and getting my usual Roast Duck with Dry Noodles. I can't begin to tell you how much I missed this dish. I've been around town eating roast duck but still, I liked this one just because...well...just because.
Another craving I had today is for something sweet, and when I say something, I mean, anything! The Greek Precinct sits comfortably beside Pacific BBQ so I went to International Cakes to get myself a sweet Walnut Tart. I had this one with my freshly brewed Padré coffee. I was in heaven....

And now, here I am...idling away at the park...blogging...the day is not yet over...enjoy the rest of your day :)

Coffee, Milk and Tea @ St Ali, South Melbourne

Original plan: BBQ @ DG's place. Lazy plan: Brunch @ St Ali with WL. Given that we get a one day break from the hectic work week, how would you like to spend it? I'm torn. But in the end, the one with the best coffee wins. I've heard so much about St Ali that sometimes I think, is it too overrated? I checked Google and it has over 200 reviews!

There was a fairly long wait when WL and I got to St Ali -- around 30-35 minutes. Ok, cool. We walked across the street and saw this quaint independent gallery. It currently displays old works from a photographer. He took pictures of artists such as U2, Red Hot Chilli Pepper, Faye Dunaway, all in black and white. Pretty neat stuff. In the end, we decided to wait outside the cafe, so that we won't miss it when we finally get a table.

Inside wasn't as cozy as I expected. True that it has high ceilings but there's something missing. It was too....raw. Not sure if that's the right way to put it but it seems to me that the place was half finished and the bad spots covered by coffee bean bags. Interiors aside, the service was immaculate. Kudos to the ladies who catered to our every whim and were sensitive to our uh...needs =D

Coffee. St Ali's has a distinct taste. Don't get me wrong, it's absolutely not bad at all and it easily slips into my top 3 coffees I've had in all my brunch experiences. I was actually tempted to get another one but they ran out of skinny milk and I didn't want to push the soy in my latte.

Food. Definitely, coming back for more. WL had the secret recipe corn fritters, a.k.a. My Mexican Cousin, I had a bite and it was good. Though today, I was after something lighter and more muted. I had the grilled asparagus with poached eggs, serrano ham and truffle dressing. I compared it to the version of grilled asparagus I had at Outpost and I can't decide which one I liked more. True, both versions are different but equally good. Though I think the grilled asparagus over here were greasier (but tastier). The serrano ham worked well with the richness of the poached eggs and the earthiness of the grilled asparagus. It was just.too.good.

Milk. Ok. Another addition that we had after the meal was their Hot cardamom infused almond milk. Asians out there, you know what I'm talking about. You can't really say you're truly Asian, well more of Chinese really, if you haven't had almond milk at some point in your life. It's a nutty flavored milk processed from almonds and St Ali has this hands down. It's not as thick as I would have liked but the cardamom added just the right touch into it. Cinnamon would have worked well too. You could get a powdered version of almond milk that will be too sweet from Asian groceries.
Tea. Now, the tea wasn't completely necessary but WL and I were getting into the talk. It seemed rude to not order anything while talking so we ordered lemongrass and ginger tea which was quite ok. I normally go for peppermint but hey, I can break away from my normal routine.

Overall, St Ali gets my thumbs up. Will definitely be back for more.

And oh, Happy Australia Day! =)

Salted Caramel Chocolate Truffles By Mazet

Whenever I go for my haircut, I always take a sidetrip to Simon Johnson. Now, I clearly don't have the intention of buying anything, or so I thought. I'm not really a lover of chocolate, or any food in particular, but I do enjoy the finer things -- artisan cheese, hand-made bread, truffles.

As I took up this box of Mazet's chocolates (which was the last one, by the way), I thought I didn't have any idea of what it is...it's all in French. The store clerk approached me, knowing that I'm puzzled. I could however, easily guess that it's chocolate. Chocolate with caramel, perhaps? Yes, it is. But, there's something more. It's salted caramel, he added. Ha! Now, I got exceptionally curious. Some months back, I've read so much from other sources that salted caramel is just divine, with or without chocolate. There's something about the sweetness of the caramel, sprinkled with that salty taste that almost everyone loves. You see, I've never really tried salted caramel before, well, maybe some version of it in some dessert but it's always been with chocolate. The store clerk also assured me that Mazet's creates one of the finest chocolates, and I will be happy with my purchase. Ok. I'm sold.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I open the box, but it's too nicely packaged that I'm afraid I might break it. Anyway, I still did. Looks to me there's a mixture of dark and milk chocolates in the box. As I bit into one, first impression is that there were rice crisps inside the truffle. So it's actually pieces of salted caramel in a soft chocolate centre (a ganaché), covered with chocolate. To say that it's fine quality is true enough, the chocolate was not too sweet and very smooth. It melted on my fingers in as little as 20 seconds. As for the salted caramel part of it all, it is actually hard, salted caramel bits, which was nice in contrast with the chocolate.

Will I buy it again? Well...I will try another one of Mazet's creations but maybe a bar of dark chocolate and without fruits or nuts...or caramel.

SAZL Scenes: Puka Beach, Boracay Islang, Philippines

Just thought I'd share some pictures of the places I've been to while I'm away. It's a known fact that I'm a beach girl, coming from a tropical country. These are remnants of my vacation.

New Year's Day Dinner @ Tao Yuan Restaurant, Manila, Philippines

After a day trip to Tagaytay (this is a city that's an hour's drive from Manila but that day's traffic was exceptionally crazy, it took us 4hrs to drive back home), we were all starving from the drive and wanted some dinner. In Manila's Chinatown, it is not unusual for people not to book, unless you're expecting 100 guests. Most of the time, you have to wait for 10-15mins and they'll have a table ready for you. Yes, it just takes us less than an hour to order, to be served, eat and then leave. No kidding.

So what did we have for our first dinner of the year? At Tao Yuan's. A few night's ago, Mom took us to this same place, except that we had their hot pot (yup, you cook your own food but it was good). This time around, we ordered from their a la carte menu. To my surprise, they actually specialize in Malaysian-Singaporean dishes so this is actually NOT a Chinese restaurant but South-East Asian. Hmm....

Below is their version of Tong Po Pork, that is, Braised Pork Belly with Man Tao (steamed white buns). For me, this is the best braised pork I've eaten outside. The soy sauce was just right and it's not too salty or too sweet like the other Filipino altered Chinese tong-po dishes I've had almost my entire life. Eaten with the man tao is just a touch of sheer genius. You can also eat this with rice but the experience will be different.


This is their version of Fried Fish with Sweet and Sour Sauce. Instead of pineapples, they used ripe and green mangoes to contrast archieve the sweet and sour tastes of the sauce. All in all, it's not bad.

Fried Ho Fan with Chinese Sweet Sausage. Just average and not too salty.

Apart from the braised pork, this is my next favorite dish of the night: Hainanese Chicken. There is this great debate about whether Hainanese Chicken was invented in Malaysia or Singapore but I have to say that here in Chinatown, come to Tao Yuan for the best Hainanese Chicken. The chicken pieces are flavorsome and juicy with a very silky texture. You can eat this without the sauces.