When I was a lot younger, decades ago during the durian season in Kuching, mother will have rest days. We, 5 siblings and parents will be eating durians a few days a week.

In the evening my father would drive us to the central market, I forgot the name of this market. There lorries loaded with durians would unload by tilting the durians onto the ground. The customers picked out a pile themselves and pay. The small ones were 50 sen, bigger ones RM1.00, next RM1.50 and so on.

My father taught me how to pick the ‘best’ durians. I favoured those a bit ‘wet’ with taste like alcohol. Second choice will be the dry and creamy ones but they are rather a bit ‘rich’ in taste. I was very spoilt. Any single seeded durian pulp would be claimed by me! Is there a secret knack to picking the best durian? YES there is! Ah…those were the days.

Yesterday I had visitors and decided to churn durian ice cream to serve as dessert. This is also because I bought as much of the Musang King durian my freezer could hold last week. I happened into my local Asian shop and saw them on offer for £14 a box. The usual price was £20 for a box of 400g. I have bought this brand for my daughter before so I knew it tasted all right. As for myself I seldom eat durian in UK frozen or otherwise as the taste is just not the same. However durian ice cream I do eat. Anything else with ‘processed’ durian I do not like. Fussy huh? kekekekeke

Anyway I have bought enough Musang King durian and tried a few combo but this is my favourite recipe thus far.

TIP – It is every important that you temper your egg yolks nicely. You do not want scramble eggs! Remember to add some just boiling creamy milk to your eggs. Mix well before tipping all back into the creamy milk pot and cook till your custard coat the back of your spoon.

TIP – It is also very important to add that pinch of salt. It helps turn your ice cream into soft scope and not icy.

TIP – If it were just me eating I would not be bothered to blend and sieve the durian custard before churning but hubby prefers a smooth soft scope.

It had been a long time since I made Pea & Ham soup so I was very happy to see some freshly roasted ham hogs for sale from the supermarket. I quickly grabbed 2 last week but I was not able to make use of them until today. There were just too much food in the house curtesy of daughter from work.

The daughter has been bringing home, sandwiches, breads, jackets potatoes and beef slices. So I have not the need to do much cooking this week. On top of it I have an eye stye that annoys me a lot. I have never had it in my life for half a century and I have to experience one now. I have planned to go to the garden centre this coming weekend but now not sure. I am still vain enough not to want to be seen with a swollen eyelid.

We did have a lot of fun and laugh, me wearing a hot eye-patch compressor and singing ‘Like a Virgin’ and explaining to hubby all the old wives’ tales of pantang-larang (superstitions) aka, tying red string on middle finger, using 7 husks to poke the eye stye and chuck them behind you etc. If you heard of any more please do not hesitate to comment. kekekekeke

Surprisingly when I told my MIL she told me the English people have superstitious in this area too!!! It’s to rub your eye stye with a gold ring! She mentioned this morning there was a ‘gold ointment’ too in the old days! Amazing!

Anyway back to this soup. When I was making it I shed a few tears (not into the soup) mind you but this soup reminded me of my FIL. I really missed him but I knew he would be so proud of me. He would laugh at my plating but he would be beaming with pride. He had taught me well.

This soup also reminded me of the time when I bought a new stick blender for him and when we were rinsing and washing it my mother-in-law suddenly shouted at him “It’s electric” She was having a blonde moment and thought of the old adage ‘never mix electric with water’ However in this case we all looked at her and laugh till tears in our eyes.

Happy memories. Treasured memories.

p/s 1 – When frying the onions, garlic and potatoes make sure they do not colour or else your soup will look meh with brown or black bits.

p/s 2 – Turn the heat off as soon as it’s boiling after you add peas. Boil any longer and you will not have a beautiful green colour.

In the UK we too are under quarantine and have since moved to quite stringent quarantine, just short of a total lockdown due to this virus Covid 19.

I have not left my house since Friday the 13th. As I am of the high risk group I decided to quarantine myself early on. In the last 2 weeks my husband and son have been doing the groceries shopping but of course they come back with nothing matching my list and we just have to laugh. It’s eat what we can.

As of Tuesday my daughter work decided to shut down and she brought back a lot of milk, chips and eggs. My son managed to finally purchased for me 2 whole chickens (after 3 weeks) so we are good for a while.

We have now decided not to go out at all and only things that needed to be topped up would be done by my son who is front line staff and is working right though.

Mummy is very proud of her boy and of course have to cook what he loves and he loves Carbonara , his mum’s Carbonara to be exact. (Also because my double cream is on it’s due date today) kekekekekeke

As I looked in my blog I found that I have not post this recipe in this new blog. It was on the old blog that was lost sadly so today I typed in this 30 minute recipe.

I am not even going to argue about whether Carbonara is only made with olive oil, no cream or vice versa. I believed that in different parts of Italy is is made differently as some parts will have dairy and some not BUT this is how I was taught and this is how my son love his! PEACE

This is a very easy leeks side dish. When I cook this I do not make a sauce for the steak as the leeks will be saucy enough.

This makes for a quick satisfying dish and all can be ready in under an hour as the beef steak is just pan seared in a griddle pan.

Just be a bit more careful with washing the leeks as they tends to trap and hide a lot of dirt when growing. Many a times I find myself having to wash again and again as I slice them.

p/s You should have about half of bottle of white wine left to drink after.

SousVide rack of lamb, puree and cube butternut squash, broccoli spears, sundries tomatoes, crispy bacon,  all served with a mustard white wine sauce. 

I love using the SousVide and my favourite is rack of lamb followed very closely by the Ribeye of beef. Today’s SousVide rack of lamb is served with a mustard white wine sauce.  There is a very low carbohydrates count on the menu in the butternut squash. Otherwise it is carbohydrates free. Yeah!

DECEMBER 1, 2017 BY ADMIN

Daughter came home form work the other day with 2 huge loaves of brioches and I was wondering what to do with them. Today I decided to make bread and butter pudding AGAIN! 

However I have decided it is going to be a bread and butter pudding with a different – a Bailey bread and butter pudding. Adult version of bread and butter pudding. Served with real vanilla bean custard. Happy bellies.

DECEMBER 18, 2017 BY ADMIN

This creamy leeks vegetable side dish is a good accompaniment to any dishes and for cheese lovers you can of course add in more cheese. It goes very well with simple pan seared salmon, gammon ham, anything really.

I know I moan about the British and their forever boiled vegetables but this is one of them boiled vegetables that is nice to eat. The purist will tell you that there is nothing more deeply comforting than a dish of boiled vegetables covered in a savoury white sauce. My family is very partial to this creamy leeks dish.

Please feel free to add crispy bacon on top.

Creamy Full Fat Mushroom Soup. Not with chicken stock and not with crème fraîche. My Creamy Full Fat Mushroom Soup is made from double cream and full fat milk. I make this maybe twice a year and when I do I like to make it full fat. No diet stuff and the family always laughingly fight for leftovers booking it for dinner. 

Just a bowl of soup and some garlic baguette is more than enough for a meal.  It is a simple recipe and very easy to make. Once you have tasted home made the tin stuff just do not cut the mustard anymore. Once you tried home made you will also be able to tell the difference between home made of out of a tin when you order at a restaurant.

Today I made it extra special by adding some truffle and truffle oil.

JULY 10, 2018 BY ADMIN