Carven's Table

It was Mid Autumn Festival/ Mooncake Festival/ Lantern Festival for every Chinese out there. It is also a day to reunite with your family; to chat, eat, drink tea and play lantern under the perfectly round moon. I have lost count on how many Mid Autumn Festival I've missed celebrating with my family. This year was one exception, I got to eat mooncake, drink tea, play lanterns and candles with my family. You'll never feel too old playing lanterns. When we were a lot younger back then, we used to play with candles, making it into a fire stove and started cooking with dried leaves where we picked up at the garden. Well, now that we have all grown up, we don't play with fire anymore, but focus more on decorating the garden with colourful paper lanterns. Mooncake - Pandan with double egg yolk Eating mooncake is a must-do in this festival, you wouldn't feel completed if you didn't have one. We used to fight with each other for the biggest portion with biggest ...

It's way out of the truffle season now, but I managed to f reeze it, flew it out of the country, infused it, then only cooked every last bit of it the other day. Not one single bit wasted eh! Dish no.1 Omelette with brown beech mushroom, creme fraiche, rocket and truffle This was done 2 days after infusing the eggs with my little piece of black gold/shit. I shaved a tiny amount of truffle on the omelette, because we wanted to try if we could taste the truffle from the infused egg. The aroma and flavour was quite light, extra shaving of truffle didn't really help neither do the rocket leafs. Once again, my parents can't really engage into the whole truffle frenzy. In order to taste the subtle truffle flavour, one need a squeaky clean palate.   Dish no. 2 Risotto in the making It was such a great effort to look for Arborio Rice in Kuala Lumpur, I went to a few "supposedly" gourmet supermarket and traveled to numerous suburbs to look for arborio rice, ...

Piggy's tail with red ornament for good luck It was my cousin's 21st on the second day I got home back in Malaysia, and all I could think of was the whole roasted pig at the party! hmmm...roast pork... Uncle T ordered a whole roasted pork for his son's birthday, I didn't ask how much it weigh but judging from its size, it could be a young pig, just nice for roasting; not too lean nor too fat. Celebrating 21st in our family is slightly different from the usual Aussie kid's, not so much on music blasting, neither could you see costume party. We call it a party, but more like a family & friends gathering with lots of food of course and booze. Grandpa doing the honour Our honourable guest aka grandpa gotta do the deed by chopping and portioning the pork, I must say he did a great job and he does love his meat. I was snapping picture as quick as a ninja to keep up with him, but I whole intention was to get the first bite once it's been cut into delic...

Last Friday, marked the end of Ramadan (the Islamic holy end of fasting month), to the whole nation of Malaysia, that means yet another festive holiday - Hari Raya Aidilfitri (Celebration Day). Although I'm not a Muslim, but we do join in the fun of celebration, and food is the best way to learn and celebrate about the other culture. However, before celebrating Hari Raya Aidilfitri , Muslims have to fast for a month from dawn til sunset(that included refrain from eating, drinking and having any form of intercourse. So, if you happen to travel to Malaysia during fasting month, the chances of dining at a Malays' restaurant/shop/stall/kiosk during daytime are quite slim. However, Ramadan Bazaar is one of the most anticipated place to go every evening. What's there? One might ask. FOOD, STREET FOOD! As a Malaysian myself, I've never been to a Ramadan Bazaar in my entire life, heck I've never even heard of it! Only until recently that I discovered about its existe...

The unassuming black fungus It's been two months when Perth Foodie had fun drinking and eating at Perth Good Food & Wine Show , and of course some of us bought ourselves a piece of truffle, trying to experiment with this aromatic fungus at home. Most of them cooked with it straight away once they got it, but for me I tried to freeze it and bring it back to Malaysia, where my family members could try it.   This piece of truffle that I bought weigh 15grms and it cost me $30, it's so tiny that you don't really want to use it. Anyway, I tried freezing it in hope that it will taste the same after 2 months of harvesting. After 5.5hours of flying plus a few hours extra for airport check-in and check-out, the first thing I did when I got home was to check it out. To my horror, it was completely thawed, wet and soft, I wasn't sure if it's ok but let's just hope. (Notice the white line through the truffle are not there anymore, now it looks like a piece of black ...