Food

Aside

Experimental Kitchen: Broiled Banana Splits

My first question here was, what is ‘broiled’?? Turns out, it’s not so hard!

Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to take pics of this because I made it while we had guests, but I can guarantee that it’ll be yummy! It’s also quick to make and a party pleaser.

Makes 7 servings.

Ingredients

4 bananas (or more, if you have large serving bowls – in this case, 1 banana per person)
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 pinch of salt
1 tbsp melted butter (I don’t have a microwave so I melted the butter in a pan)
Raspberries and/or Strawberries
Frozen Yoghurt/Ice Cream of your choice

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven at about 150 degrees celcius and if using frozen fruits, defrost now.
2. Halve the bananas lengthwise.
3. Mix the sugar and pinch of salt. Optional: you can mix in some cinnamon as well.
4. Brush the bananas with the melted butter and sprinkle with sugar mix.
5. To broil the bananas: Wrap the bananas in foil and put into the oven for about 3 minutes.
6. Serve the bananas with the raspberries/strawberries (I used both!) and top with a scoop of ice cream/frozen yoghurt. Additionally you can add shaved chopped chocolate and nuts, or just make a dessert bar so everyone can customise their banana split!

Enjoy!

Gallery

Get in my belly

Ok so I am only getting around to posting now because we’ve just been enjoying spending time in Australia with the family and meeting up with friends. The weather was amazing for the first 3 days but now it’s raining and hopefully it’ll get better again soon.

Brekky at home

Brekky at home

It’s been a bit of a food adventure because mum’s cooking is the best thing ever. Our first night here we had homemade dumplings, we’ve also had meals with friends, a wedding, a big brunch with chorizo, hash browns, eggs, onions and of course, bacon.

But tonight, we are feasting on homemade pork belly. The meat was bought this afternoon, then scored with a sharp knife and seasoned with pepper, salt, olive oil and vinegar. Then it was up in the oven at 210 degrees for 40 minutes with the skin side down, and then another 40 minutes the other way around.

Pork ready to get in my belly

Pork ready to get in my belly

Slicing the pork belly

Slicing the pork belly

We’ve only got a few more days here (til Saturday) but we have a lot more planned and I will make sure I post about our BA long-haul experience when I return to Germany. Til then, hope you’re keeping dry!

Gallery

Experimental Kitchen: Hasselback Potatoes

No, not Hasselhoff. We’re talking about delicious, mouth-watering treats all the way from Sweden, to you.

And as usual, we’ve made our own variation with seasoned oil instead of butter. Quick and easy to make!

Ingredients

Small – medium-sized potatoes (for a side dish, about 3-4 potatoes per person)

Olive oil and/or butter

Sea salt

Pepper

Paprika seasoning

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celcius.

2. Peel the potatoes and cut them in half longways.

 

3. Using a small knife (use a knife that is not so precise, rather one that is a bit serrated…something between a steak knife and a dinner knife), and cut fine, vertical slits almost all the way through, into the rounded side of the potato. A tip that I read online is to put the potato half into a spoon and then slice. The knife won’t cut all the way through!

4. Rinse the potatoes in cool water to get rid of any starch that may try to keep the potato from fanning out while in the oven.

5. Put the sliced potatoes into a large bowl. Add olive oil/melted butter, paprika seasoning (to taste, about 2 heaped tablespoons – depending on how many guests), sea salt and pepper and stir through, coating each potato.

6. Lay out the potatoes on a baking sheet on an oven tray, sliced side up. The grill function can be used to make sure the potatoes get a crispy surface.

7. Put the potatoes in for about 40 minutes, brushing on any extra oil/butter seasoning when the potatoes start to look dry.

8. Can be served with sour cream mixed with chopped up herbs. We used something called Quark (never heard of it until I came to Germany, but it’s similar to sour cream, only with less flavour) chives and greek seasoning for ours.

We then used the Hasselback potatoes as a side dish to our pork and served it with veggies.

Bon appetit!

Singapore! However…

You may be wondering why the posts haven’t been rolling in these past few days. It is true, all the team are here in Singapore but we’ve all gotten ill! I don’t know if it was the food which has so far been great or the water (that should be fine… it’s Singapore!) but we’ve all had stomach issues of varying degrees. Don’t let that change your mind about visiting Singapore sometime in the future because after a fun packed couple of days we will be blogging about:

– Universal Studios
– Food
– Shopping
– Getting around town

I have just bravely gotten over some bad bits of the bug and am ambulatory so I left the apartment to get some lunch. I decided against the heat of a hawker centre and took refuge in a local shopping mall in Kovan. I wanted something simple and hopefully containing nutrients and good stuff to help me get going again. So I hit up “New York New York” for a sandwich, something un-stuff-up-able. I didn’t think mayo was served in kilos nor did I know that chicken burger patties could look more like spam than anything else. In short just avoid.