Poached Egg: Simple in theory…
Add 2 tablespoons of vinegar (I used white wine vinegar) to a pot of water. Bring the water to boil, then reduce to a simmer. While waiting, crack the egg-to-be-poached into a small container (it has been emphasized that the egg must be fresh, but sometimes you have no choice…).

When the water reaches a suitable temperature, slip the egg into the simmering water. Poach for 3 minutes, and remove with a slotted spoon. Drain before serving.

…but not in practice
Why am I not surprised?

Take 1
Gordon Ramsay’s YouTube video advocated the creation of a whirlpool that would wrap the egg white around the egg yolk. eGullet’s lesson detested the whirlpool. Anyhow, the only way I could find out was to try for myself.

Creating the whirlpool

The egg swimming in the whirlpool.

Shaping the poached egg, about 1 minute into the process

My first try wasn't too bad, was it?

Take 2
Observing from my first attempt, the whirlpool was a good idea, right? W-R-O-N-G.

Same technique, different outcome

My mom saves the day by frying the egg with soy sauce

Admittedly, one of the reasons of my failure could have been that I punctured the egg yolk when cracking the egg. But it is likely that the whirlpool agitated the problem, dispersing the whole egg.

Take 3
Unconvinced, this time I poached the egg without the whirlpool.

The outcome

Doesn't look as bad as I expected

This attempt utterly confused me. So what’s the bigger problem in take 2 – the punctured egg yolk or the whirlpool? But in this take, the problem is low visibility. Seriously. The water got so cloudy I was unable to nudge the egg into shape as in the first attempt.

Not too great a failure, but not satisfactory either. I’ll be back! (maybe with hollandaise, anyone?)

“Where the perfect grilled cheese sandwich is, the successful party is also.” – The Grilled Sandwich: An Elusive Essential to Social Success, by Christine Scanlon

Not that I want to throw a party, but what beats warm melted cheese in crispy bread?

Saveur magazine says that “the secret to making perfect grilled cheese sandwich is cooking it over low heat, which brings out the subtle flavours of cheese, and slathering the bread with butter, which crisps it in the pan.”

Since they published this, I doubt it’s a secret anymore. But keeping this advice in mind, I grilled the cheese sandwich (with First Choice’s New Zealand cheddar cheese, $2.59/100g from Cold Storage) for 20 mins, as adviced. The fire was so periously small that I had to close the windows and doom myself to suffocation to prevent the fire from going out.

But it was worth it. Somewhat. It tasted good but was too rich, probably because I put too much cheese and butter. Anyway, enjoy!

National Day calls for a National Day meal! Continuing my exploration of chicken breasts, I’ve decided to treat chicken breasts “a la anglaise”, which means “breading”. That would account for the white colour of our two national colours. Then I would make spaghetti with tomato sauce, which would be red in colour. Red + white = Singapore!

1. Prepare bread crumbs
This was perhaps the most exciting part of preparing today’s meal. I refuse to use pre-made bread crumbs (and I couldn’t find them at Cold Storage anyway), so I made them from white bread. I first tore the bread into smaller pieces, and placed them in a glass bowl. I intended to use my mom’s “magic wand”, a handheld food mincer from eons ago.

It was working fine, until suddenly I heard a “pop”, after which smoke wafted from the device. Undeterred, I opened it up and checked. Observing a slightly aged electrical component, I was worried, but since the motor could still run, I continued using the device. Then the smoke came again. This time I was getting a little jumpy. So I decided to give it another run in the living room, so as to confirm that it could still be used. So I was sitting on the ground nervously, hoping it would last.

Then *boom*. What the hell. I’m quite sure I’d have no problem with grenades and firearms at National Service after this experience. Although the explosion blew the cover off, I was fine (thankfully). Not only did I have the shock of my life; there remained no device to mince up the bread.

As I have learnt, anything can go wrong. Absolutely anything. But you shouldn’t let your misfortune stop you. So I resorted to using my mother’s mortar and pestle to grind the bread into bread crumbs. In order to do that, I would have to make the bread pieces as crispy as possible. This I achieved using a toaster.


The mortar and pestle I used. Normally it is used to pound dried shrimp. At the left of the mortar are the bread crumbs, and above is the sieve I used to separate the fine bread crumbs from the rest.

Completed bread crumbs (finally). On the right are some coarser pieces, which I would use if the fine crumbs run out

2. Prepare the chicken breasts
The method I used to prepare the chicken breasts is similar to my fourth attempt (recounted in my previous post). But this time, I have some photos to illustrate the process. Before pounding, I halved the breasts, cutting in a manner parallel to the cutting board.

I used a heavy stainless steel ladle to pound the breasts. The cling wrap put over breasts are meant to protect the breasts and allow the pounding force to be distributed more evenly. I think it’s also meant to prevent the pounding device from sticking to the chicken.

After pounding the breasts, I salted them, after which I dried them thorougly. After drying, I covered them in flour to absorb any remaining moisture, then dipped them in one well beaten egg (from the outcome of this meal, I realised that the air bubbles in beaten egg don’t cause difficulty in adhesion). In the preparation of the egg, I added one teaspoon of olive oil to the egg, which was suggested by Escoffier. Lastly, I completely covered each breast in bread crumbs (which was lightly seasoned with salt and pepper), then laid them on a large plate while I made the spaghetti and tomato sauce. This is to allow the breading to dry up and adhere to the meat.

These are the breasts treated a la anglaise.

3. Make tomato sauce
I used canned tomatoes from Waitrose for the sauce. Most of the flavour of this sauce comes from the canned ripe tomatoes, so I need not add other flavourings. This is my mise-en-place:

Firstly, I seared the bacon with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, so as to obtain their drippings. After removing the bacon, I added the minced shallots first, and sweated them until they became translucent. Then I added the minced garlic. After sauteing the garlic and shallots for around 2-3 minutes, I added the canned tomatoes, seasoned the sauce with a little salt and oregano, then left it to simmer. While this was going on, I boiled another pot of water (with one teaspoon of salt), and cooked spaghetti until it was al dente.

4. Pan fry breaded chicken breast
I first preheated my pan, then added 2 teaspoons of clarified butter. When it was hot enough, I added the breaded chicken breasts, and cooked each side for 2-3 minutes. Unfortunately, the breading became a little burnt, but it adhered completely. The third piece of breast, which I fried separately, turned out to be nice and brown.

Final product

The chicken breasts aren’t quite white, but together with the spaghetti in tomato sauce, they still remind me of our national colours. By the way, the breading retained the moisture of the breasts, and the breasts were more tender than they were in the last attempt. I’d never imagined I could make chicken breast more tender than what I achieved previously. Other than the breadings being slightly burnt, and the tomato sauce being a little too sour, everything turned out fine.

Happy National Day!

I’ve hated eating chicken breast since young. For goodness sake, it’s dry compared to chicken thighs, drumsticks or wings, which are easily tender and juicy. So I’m out to prove myself wrong.

Actually, that’s me being dramatic. I do wish to prove that chicken breast can be tender, like what the Westerners boast. But then again, my considerations lie on more the monetary side. Chicken is definitely cheaper than say, beef, veal or mutton, and therefore much less costly to screw up. And for a beginner like me, screwing up is commonplace. In fact screwing up is the only way to learn.

My first attempt at cooking chicken breast: Rolling it in ‘lightly’ salted flour, seasoned with freshly grated black pepper. Outcome: Note the inverted commas. Obviously the flour turned out to be too salty. In this case, it was a blessing that most of the flour didn’t adhere.

My second attempt: Pan frying a whole chicken breast, stuffed with mozzarella. Outcome: Too much mozzarella – it overflowed and burnt. Then it wasn’t salty enough, unlike Parmesan, and didn’t add sufficient flavour to the breast. Also, I thought that maybe the mozzarella, when melted, could make the breast less dry. Wrong. It was dry as crap. As you can tell, this attempt was almost a total flop.

My third attempt: Nestum chicken style (from my sister’s home economics lesson’s recipe). Marinated, then dipped in beaten egg, and finally breaded in Nestum flakes. This time I learnt from my previous attempt, and pounded the pieces of breast to even thickness. The pounding process, performed with the spine of my chef’s knife, was tedious as hell. Outcome: I didn’t expect the flakes so absorb so much oil, so the pan was becoming dry by the second. Then again, the flakes didn’t adhere, and when coupled with the lack of fat, the pan became a mess of burnt flakes. And it was far from being tender.

My fourth attempt, which I conducted today, will be the highlight of this post.

Inspiration for this attempt was drawn from the “Chicken Breasts with Parmesan” of “The Escoffier Cookbook”: Season the supremes (chicken breasts); dip them in beaten egg and roll them in grated Parmesan cheese. Saute them in butter, and place them on croutons of polenta (this part I skipped), shaped somewhat like the supremes and browned in clarified butter. When about to serve, sprinkle the supremes with nut-brown butter (I skipped this part too, because the decision to cook this dish was made in the morning).

Given his vague instructions, I decided one egg was enough, and that freshly grated Parmesan cheese was the way to go. Also, I decided to use a heavy soup ladle, instead of my chef’s knife, to pound the breast. I was done in around 5 minutes, with the pieces of even thickness at around 1/2 inch. This is my mise-en-place:

I first sprinkled some salt on both sides of the chicken breasts, then dipped them in beaten egg, after which I rolled them in the Parmesan, as instructed. Instead of butter, I used clarified butter. I used around 2-3 teaspoons of it just in case the Parmesan absorbed oil. It filled the whole pan to a depth of around 2mm, so I was safe in that aspect. When everything was sufficiently hot, I placed the breasts carefully in the pan, cooking both sides for 3 minutes each.

But not everything was going well. The first thing I noticed was that the chicken stuck to the bottom of the pan. That meant that when I tried to flip the pieces, the Parmesan got stuck at the bottom of the pan. In the end, most of the Parmesan failed to adhere. Instead, I was left with nice and white pieces of tender chicken breasts. In fact, they were more tender than I’d imagine. Very tender. This was the texture I was looking for. But the Parmesan was mostly gone:

So why did the Parmesan all fall off?
1. The chicken breasts were wet before the breading process. Actually, I did make sure they were extremely dry, but that was before salting the breasts. I suspect the salt drew out some moisture, which caused difficulty in adhesion.
2. I didn’t flour the chicken breast before dipping it in beaten egg. I read about some advice (online and from Escoffier himself) that flour helps the breading mixture to adhere better. But in this attempt, I decided against it, so as to be as close to Escoffier’s instructions as possible. Big mistake.
3. I beat the egg too vigorously, which caused it to have many bubbles, which then again hurts the breading mixture’s ability to adhere. I’m not really sure about this, but I’ll try not to beat so hard next time.
4. Maybe the pan was not hot enough? I have doubts about this, as the pan was really quite hot, but then again, I won’t reject this piece of advice.

So that’s all folks! The pan fried chicken breast has achieved the tenderness I was looking for, so I’ll work on my breading technique next time. I may want to try poaching though, but I’m running out of stock D:

This utterance pretty much sums up the topic:

In the toilet.
*Daniel Seetoh stares into mirror and makes hair*
Mervyn: “Why do guys make their hair, when the only ones who actually notice are themselves?”

HAHAHA

Returned home from geco (we weren’t the last!), and there were many stars in the night sky. Doesn’t happen very often and it sure is a great end to the day!

I remember in Taiwan, a few of us braved the <10 degree windy night in the mountains, sitting around stargazing. I was sure we could see absolutely every star It was so insanely breathtaking… I definitely miss those times.

Saw a rainbow at school today! It faded off quite quickly but it made my day (: Bukit Timah must be a rainbow hotspot I think… last Wednesday there was this colossal rainbow (which I unfortunately missed).

I absolutely love scenery! Things like rainbows, sunrises, sunsets, starry night skies and fluffy clouds all make me feel lucky to be an earthling

It’s the little things in life that matter

I heavily question my sanity. Why did I go to geco yesterday? To miss out on my last opportunity to have fun in JC? To skip dinner? To aggravate my exhaustion from dancing? To sit alone at gaohu section, and keep my mouth shut for most of the 2.5 hours? And then to get scolded by Moses and feel shitty? Then be one of the last to leave?

I don’t know.

I absolutely love the discovery channel ad!

AND I CAN SAUTÉ!!!

Thanks to some practice with random things (including new year nuts, sweets and even my pills) I can finally make my food ‘jump’ in my pan without spilling into the fire. You food must thank me okay…

So you’re wondering: what the hell is that beurre clarifié thing? Nothing abstract… just clarified butter, my friend.

Even after a long day in school, I managed to muster some energy to make clarified butter, which turned out to be a 30 minute effort. Long, but nothing compared to making stock.

I used a 225g of unsalted butter (do check out the brand).

As usual, good quality butter important, but it’s not as hard as choosing good wine so just consult your fellow baking enthusiast.

Fresh butter in the pot.

More important is the process of melting the butter. You should be able to melt it without burning the butter. I figured that the beginning is important because you have very little melted butter to absorb the same amount of heat, so it smokes easily. Alternatively one could use a water bath but I don’t find it necessary.

The butter melting. There is little liquid butter so it’s smoking a little. To prevent it from burning I lifted the pot.

Almost totally melted.

Totally melted, before skimming.

After skimming. Note to self: use a wider pot.

A portion of the final product, which I decanted.

After filtering. Actually I had to resort to skimming the clarified butter from the milk solids. Explains the hints of milk solids.

After the butter has fully melted, it would have separated into 3 layers. The foam can be skimmed off, and the rest filtered to separate the clarified butter from the milk solids at the bottom. Preferably, cheesecloth should be used as I had some problems with my fine sieve. I ended up skimming the clarified butter from the milk solids, instead of filtering the milk solids from the clarified butter

Lastly: why clarified butter? It has a much higher smoke point than solid butter, which means it can tolerate higher heat, making it ideal for sautéing. An addititional bonus is the nice caramelized exterior of anything you sauté. Plus it has extended shelf life compared to solid butter.

So why not?