#whatsfood2u, a hashtag to think again

No doubt we are living in a technology driven era: getting and stay connected is never been easier. Sharing and viewing via social media platforms like Facebook / Instagram / Twitter is becoming norm. When i wrote how bad food affects health (click here for full article) and how to eat healthier (click here for full article), i was actually thinking what is the meaning of food for us? For me, food serves a very complicated role in our daily life. For some people, basic bread is too luxurious while others has option of caviar or white truffle as ingredient. I know everyone of us will have different answer, so please give an answer(s) follow by hashtag #whatsfood2u whenever you posting and i will update this page for our answers to be listed here regularly. I hope this will then be a reference point for what is the meaning of food to you.

Before you do, would you please spend 5 minutes to search and read the facts and figures from "World Food Programme". 

So, #whatsfood2u, the list goes on:

Last Update:26/4/2014

• Taste, @maxmax5ig
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How to reduce weight? My personal experience

From 2000 until 2014, my body weight gone thru severe changes starting from 70kg, (im 180cm tall), to record high 96kg (2011) and now stable at 80kg (since 2012). I think my transformation is a direct result of mind's perception of weight. Below is my journey:

I left my secondary school in 2000 with 70kg. I since studied abroad, worry free and no fix time to eat, the weight increased and i thought it was ok to gain some weight and it will go down when i work after grad. And when i graduated at 2004, i think i got min 75kg already. What killing the most is when i started to work, higher income means i can eat more (in terms of qty) and the figure roared until 96kg (2008). It was a regular blood test that woke me up. The figure of HBA1C (average sugar content in blood cells for the past 3 months) was over the max limit and the cholesterol level over the max limit. 

I was struck and immediately realised that having fast food 3 times a week is no longer possible. My lifestyle and diet needed to be changed IF i want to live a quality life later on. I changed and all i told myself was i just need to be persistence once my target is set. 

I joined gym and started to workout without a personal trainer. My initial figures were speed 6.0, incline 0.0% for 15min max on cardio machine, 0 weight in barbell bench press. And i changed my diet with 3 enemies identified: FAT, SUGAR, CARBOHYDRATE. It did sound scary from the beginning but im no doing absolute zero like the gym freaks when they go 'cutting'. What i did and maintain until now was just making special order when ordering, i.e. No sugar in my drink, 30% rice compare to what i normally had. That was an intense reduction but it is just for the dropping requirement which i soon found out from below ultimate weight management formula:

Total in - Total out = Changes in your weight/belly 

Example: 

(1) If you eat more food then your burn/exercise, result = increase in weight

(2) If you burn/exercise more than you eat, result = decrease in weight

(3) If you eat and burn the same, result = body weight maintain

Using the above formula i can then make adjustment and the result is overall good. These days, i jog on cardio machine for speed 6.0, incline 8.0% for 30min twice per week (jogging/sweating = burn fat), i want to further down my fat% or weight to around 78kg.  

You can actually read my earlier posts on what is bad food here and how to eat healthier here. Lastly with this post with my ultimate weight management formula, it concludes my thoughts about food that, not only is aesthetically pleasing and taste bud fulfilling (general Instagram culture), but also how it is related to our body and health. If you need more clarifications about above formula, please do not hesitate to contact me. I will be more than happy to help you (no fee required, just pure sharing purposes). Lastly, attached 2 picture of mine for comparison... Pai seh... 

None stop eating is easy and pleasing especially foods you love

Perseverance is determined by how strong is your mind and how clear
 is your objective.

Homemade Roast Chicken

Was thinking to roast a chicken for ages, in fact as long as anything using oven, because it suits my style: slow cook and also can cook in larger batch at once. So decided to borrow mom's kitchen for this brand new dish. Im going to cook for 5 professional housewife this time so i decided to add a small trick to surprise them :) Im looking for crisp skins and succulent meat even the chicken breast. For seasoning it will just be simple black pepper and salt as the dominant flavour. Lets back to the basic. 

Thermometer as precaution measure. Watching the transformation is fun.

Ingredient:

• Whole chicken, skin on, neck/foot chopped, pref around 1.2kg 
• 1 Lemon/Orange 
• Salt and pepper 
• 8 Shallots
• 2 large carrot
• 2 large leek 
• 6 cloves of garlic 
• knob of unsalted butter
• sunflower seed oil (drizzle)
• 1tbsp each dried thyme
• Baking tray
• Butcher's twine

Method:

1. Optional: Brine the bird for 12-18 hours (depending on size). Click here for my previous post about brining. 
2. Sprinkle generously salt and pepper into the chicken's cavity and then stuff in the half cut lemon
3. Truss the bird to ensure uniform heating, click here for how to truss. Set a side to leave it air dry to room temperature (90min-120min). Optional: Hang and fan if you need to speed up the process
4. Preheat the oven to 240 degree Celsius with the fan on to evenly circulate the hot air
5. Roughly chop the shallots, carrot, leeks and garlic and put it on the tray. Add in a knob of butter and season with salt and pepper (these will be a delicious side later on)
6. Bird on the veg bed, breast side up, sprinkle salt and pepper from high to ensure uniform contact. Sprinkle too the thyme and drizzle with oil. Rub evenly.
7. Into the oven. Reduce the heat to 200 degree Celsius as soon as you close the lid. The initial high heat will yield a brown crisp skin. 
8. A 1.2kg whole chicken will take about 60 min - 75min. Check doneness with a poke in thermometer. When the reading reach 75 degree celsius (inner tight), the bird is cooked. Or pierce the same location and if clear juice flows out, done. 
9. Take out and let rest for 10-15min with aluminium foil cover. This is for even distribution of the juice within the meat. 
10. The baked veg can be a great side. And while resting, squeeze the lemon/orange juice to mix with the bake juice and can reduce the juice to about half. The acidity will improvement the flavour to next height ! 

So in 1 cooking you will end of with 3 components: the meat, the veg and the sauce. So try today at home with this simple to make roast chicken :) Bon Appetite


Useful Tips:

1. Around 1.2kg is the idea weight, do not buy if got a lot of fat underneath the skin. 
2. Always cut the bird's joint in stead of bone.
3. Breast on top when place on the veg bed. 
4. A good cutting will yields 2 tights, 2 wings and 2 breasts. (see below pic)

Hang and Fan on for 2 hours. Air dry is important for a crisp skin

Seasoned veg bed: Leak, Shallot, Carrot

Trussed and seasoned bird. Ready to be roasted

I forget to turn on the fan so the browning was not really even :(

Reassemble the cuts and the veg with reduced juice and sprinkle
with chopped coriander. 

How Food Affects Our Health

Lets look at some figures about my beloved country Malaysia before we proceed further:

• 'Fattest' country in SEA, 1 in 6 Malaysian is either overweight or obese
• Death Rate related to cardiovascular system (heart related) = 25.64% (No.1 Killer in Malaysia)
• 22% adults affected by diabetes in 2012 compare to 8.6% in 2006

Just simply google with relevant key words and you will get above figures. Anyway because this is food blog so i am to further elaborate more from food points of view. 

Physically and of the basic, we need energy from foods to generate energy to fuel our daily activity. Without foods, we simply cant move and we will eventually die. But as we become 'richer', in terms of monetary, time and technology, we tend to go beyond the basic needs and that begins the bad cycles. Lets look at below pictures:

Fat, sugar, carbohydrate and unhealthy lifestyle is the main reason for
many NCD and Heart Attack is the No. 1 Killer in Malaysia. 

Above are ordinary foods/drinks that we ate almost everyday: Fried chicken, Air Bandung (Rose Syrup in condense milk), Rice. These evils are high in FAT, SUGAR and CARBOHYDRATE (unused will be turned to sugar). And if with the high intake of these evil foods without proper lifestyle, i.e. without exercise to burn off, all the evil essences will be just stored in your body, day after day, year after year. And subsequently it is not hard to imagine, one will become overweight (Body Mass Index more than 25, click here for the BMI calculator to check your figure)

When one became overweight, health issues follow. Non-Communicable-Disease (NCD) such as stroke, heart attack, diabetic starts from unbalance diet (such as above example) and unhealthy life style (no exercise regularly) and that explained a phrase which you might long heard of "You are what you eat". I'm strong believer of this statement because your digestive system will just absorb anything you eat in and eventually reflected in your health. 

So what do we do? Execute a balanced diet and exercise regularly seems to be the only answer. Read from my another post "5 ways to eat Healthy" for some more tips. 

Spaghetti Stir Fried with Hotate Scallop and Bacon

I miss the bacon and scallop combo (texture and flavour) !!!

When it comes to spaghetti, it is always a simple an versatile dish which can be done in less than 30 min from prep to table. For this post, im going to show you a simple spaghetti in stir fried style which i think most of us are very familiar with.

For 2 pax ingredients:

• Frozen Hotate Scallop ................. half pack
• Pork Bacon Chunks..................... half pack
• Spaghetti ..................................... 200 g
• Sweet Onion.................................1 halfed and sliced
• Oil (pref plant base) ..................... 2 tbsp
• Garlic .......................................... 3 cloves
• Bay Leaf ..................................... 1
• Dried Thyme................................ 1 tea spoon
• Salt .............................................. Liking Amount
• Brown Sugar ............ .................. Liking Amount
• Freshly Ground Black Pepper...... Liking Amount
• Water ........................................... 200 ml
• Parsley .......................................... garnish 
• Chili Flakes .................................. Liking amount (optional)
• Butter ........................................... 1 knob (optional)

Direction:

1. Half and Slide the sweet onion and rough chop the garlic
2. Lit up the fire and pre heat frying pan with oil 
3. On another burner, boil 1 liter of water with 1 tea spoon of salt
4. Sautee the onion until brown (5-10 min)
5. Add in garlic, hotate scallop and bacon chunks
6. At this point, spaghetti into the boiling water (10 - 12 min)
7. Continue to stir fry the ingredients until brown (5 min)
8. Add in bay leaf, thyme, seasonings and water and bring to boil (5-7 min)
9. The gravy mixture should be thickened up and you can drain the spaghetti and pour them into the mixture and let it further cook for 1-2 min
10. The spaghetti will suck up the gravy so pay attention to step #9. 
11. Lastly garnish with chopped parley and black pepper. 

It is a super fast, easy to prep, cook and clean dish which everyone can try at home especially during weekend when you are lazy to go out. This stir fried spaghetti dish combines the sweetness from the scallop and onion vs. the savoury and smoke flavour from bacon, and yet all bind together with the herbs to create a deep aromatic gravy for the spaghetti that is cooked to perfection. A must try if you are spaghetti-crazed :P

Useful Tips:

1. Experiment the doneness of spaghetti, i find it 10 min in boiling water and another 2 min soak in the gravy is just right for me. (Because 1 min different in water will change the texture, pay attention to this)
2. Unsalted butter helps to bind all flavour further
3. The gravy is just for flavour purpose, so if you think the water added is too much, continue to boil to reduce the liquid
4. Or if you think the water is too litter after step #9, add some spaghetti water (DO NOT add fresh water)

Healthy and Hearty Vegetable Soup

I first know about the ABC Soup was in the 'Cooking Competition' during my secondary school time. It was a really easy and tasty soup, my first impression. One need only not more than 5 ingredients to cook it, so it is always the choice for the competition :P So when im cooking these days, i wanted to enrich its flavour and texture but maintain the main idea: stay healthy and hearty, so i tried to create my own version. 

Vegetable Soup garnished with cream, black pepper and parsley

Traditionally, the ABC Soup is cooked from water, carrot, onion, tomato, some salt and white pepper. On top of these, i added potato, celery, leek and garlic for flavour and 1 handful of rice for texture. The complete ingredients per below:

1. Carrot .......................... 4
2. Onion .......................... 4
3. Potato .......................... 2 Large
4. Tomato ........................ 4
5. Celery ........................   8 sticks
6. Leek ............................ 2 Large sticks
7. Bay leaf ....................... 1
8. Rice ............................. a handful 
9. Water ........................... 2cm above the ingredients in the pot
10. Fresh Cream ................ optional amount to liking 

20-30min of boiling will soften the vegs for easy blending. 

Direction:

Cubed Ingredient #1 - #6 and add them into the pot then add in the water. We do not want to over add the water nor under so, i figured out adding the water to about 2cm above all ingredients are just good. Lit on and add in the bay leaf and rice. The boiling should take about 20-30 minutes depending on the cube size. Take away the bay leaf and start blending with an immersive blender. Until everything have 'disappear', you should end up with a thick soup (because of the rice and potato). At this point, season with salt and freshly grounded black pepper. Add in some fresh cream and it will become another promising flavour. 

Basically you can add in anything into this veggie soup and blend them. If you are on diet, especially for dinner on, you can instead drink this soup because of the starch (potato and some rice), it is actually a good filler. 

Useful Tips:

1. This soup is equally good if serve chilled
2. For silky smooth texture, you can sift the soup before serving
3. Food processor can replace the immersive blender, the idea is just to blend everything together
4. A knob or 2 of unsalted butter will further enhance the flavour

Restaurant Review: Ingolf 's Kneipe

A Real Hidden Gem on Penang Island

The fasade of the Ingolf's Kneipe

Located in Jalan Sungai Kelian, off Jalan Tanjung Bunga (in front of Flamingo Hotel and Paradise Hotel), this Germany themed restaurant has stood in business for as long as i can remember. Perhaps paying a visit will answer why: 

I think it has been at least 5 years since my last visit and in my memory , this Germany establishment serves very tasty food in big portion. So to be frank, i was a bit worry if things turn out sour. This restaurant comprises of seating area in ground floor, mezzanine floor and 1st floor. Upon entering, i felt there is nothing change in the layout. The ground floor is still semi open with a bar always full of guests drinking the fresh draught beer and also chit chatting with friendly bar tender. 

As normal, if you dont have reservation, you will most likely be seated in 1st floor (which does not sell any other beer but only Paulaner (strange reason but they said it is a deal between the 2 entities). So if you want to sit in either mezzanine or ground floor, it is good to ring them for reservation. 

As for the menu, it is consists of 2 parts for food: the standard menu and the special menu. For those adventurous, you can try their special menu. For us, our standards are Chef Julian House Salad, Butcher Platter (for 2 pax). Occasionally we will tried something from the special menu like the Chicken and Pork Duo Chop Special. 

Chef Julian House Salad. Served with assorted breads and salad dressing

From special menu: Duo Chop of Pork and Chicken.

Butcher Platter (meat meat meat): served with crosscut fries, sauerkraut,
brown sauce and assorted breads

Ive been to Germany few times for business trip and i cannot 100% say that it is authentic German food but it still well keep the essences of German Cuisine: meat, sausage, fresh crisps salad, bread and the most important of all, BEER !!!! At least this is from what i experienced. 

So how is rating?  (-1 = no good; 1 = good)

Food Presentation = 0

Taste/Texture = 1

Service = 0

Price/Value = 1

Overal Atmosphere = 0

TOTAL SCORE = 2, WILL GO THERE IF HAPPEN TO BE AROUND THE AREA

THE VERDICT: Forget about the 'real' authentic German cuisine but be indulged and be spoiled in the fresh beer, super awesome salad and of cause the great array of meat dishes that Ingolf offers. I particularly like they actually put attention to the salad as most of the main side. It really is packed with a lot of veggie which not many eatery offers. A small detail makes a long way :P

Useful Info:

1) Make Reservation if you want to seat in ground floor / mezzanine floor

2) Chef Julian House Salad is a MUST try

3) Draught beers are fresh at reasonable price.  

Other pictures:

First floor seating area

Ground floor seating area

Juicy and Tender Chicken Breast - 100% Guaranteed !!!

Large chicken breasts in brine solution ready to go into fridge.

Breasts on hot grill pan, turn 90 degree to get the beautiful char mark

Probably the most protein packed pcs of meat in chicken, the breast is often found chewy and dry especially after grilled. Naturally this is a lean meat full of protein fiber and the moisture is lost during the cooking time thus many do not like it but prefer the drumstick. There is a method to solve this problem scientifically in the kitchen and the result is 100% guaranteed juicy and tender chicken breast like you never eat before !!!!  The answer is brining. 

Overview

The basic brine solution is add 10% salt into water enough to cover the breast and leave it covered in the fridge overnight (8hr minimum). And then take it out rest to room temperature before start grilling. The science behind is simple: OSMOSIS, particle of higher concentration will move through a membrane to lower concentration. That says the salted water (higher concentration in salt) will 'move' into the cell of the meat making them full of water. So when you grill, there will be sufficient water inside the meat to compensate the lost. So you will end up with juicy, succulent and tender pcs of chicken breast.    

How to brine?

1. First determine the amount of meat you want cook.
2. Prep a container (prefer with lid) which can store a water that is enough to complete submerge the meat
3. Add in salt (5-10% of water by weight) and wait until fully disolve
4. While waiting, clean and cut a way any fat/skin/membrane on the chicken breast
5. Meat into the salt brine (make sure the brine is at room temperature, you dont want to cook the chicken at this point) and put into fridge with lid on (prevent odour escape)
6. After 8-12 hrs,  drain water and let the meat warm up back to room temperature. 

Variations

Because the principle is to add in the brine solution into the meat so actually we can perform 'add in' more than water but FLAVOUR too !!!   Infuse the brine solution with herbs like thymes, pepper corn, coriander seeds or veg with strong aroma like garlic onion or even honey, maple syrup which will add a distinctive character to the meat you are creating. The combinations are endless but maybe you can try out my Sweet and Savoury Chicken Breast Brine below next time when you wanna eat some protein pack meat:

For 4pcs of large size chicken Breast (1" thick)

• 1/2 tea spoon of nutmeg powder
• 1/2 tea spoon of mustard powder
• 6 cloves of peeled garlic
• 2 roughly chopped sweet onion
• 3 table spoon of salt
• 3 table spoon of brown sugar
• 1 table spoon of grounded black pepper
• 1 table spoon of dried thymes
• 1 bay leaf
• half cup of honey (optional)
• 1 liter of water

Direction: Roughly chop the onion and garlic then add everything into a small pot bring to boil for 5 minutes to infuse all flavours into the water and then soak in the chicken breast after the water came to room temperature. Leave in the fridge for 8-12hrs and then take out the meat and let them warm up to room temperature. Grill 3-4 min each side (breast thickness 1"). I find it is good when the internal temperature reach 65 degree Celsius. And DONE the super duper easy grill chicken breast.  

Useful Tips

1) Boil all ingredients ONLY with just enough water and then add in the remaining to shorten the cool down period. 

2) Close lid while put in the fridge: prevent odour to spread all over 

3) Discard the brine solution, all flavours have been 'brined' into the meats.