Chinese Mala Hotpot Condiments

Chinese Mala "Spicy" Hotpot is such a fad in Singapore a lot of F&B importers are  importing the Mala Hotpot soup packs to resale to general consumer. Nowadays, you are easily spoil for choice with the variety of Mala Hotpot soup pack and I have consolidate a list of Mala Hotpot soup easily available in Singapore for those who want to DIY your own Mala Hotpot.

New Sauce & Cooking Condiments Discovery

I'm always searching for new cooking condiments and sauces that will aid cooking various meal from different continent. Since it is deepavali long weekend, I decide it is high time I update my personal cooking condiment database. I struck goldmine at Mediya Japanese Supermarket at Liang Court Basement as they import quite a lot of new condiments and sauce

 

 

 

 

 

Next stop on my list is gourmet supermarket 360 Degrees at Orchard ION, I'm surprise to see the famous Tabasco Sauce Company - Mc Ilhenny Co came out their own special sauce fusion ranging from spicy ketchup to spicy teriyaki sauce giving those culinary artist more creation avenue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easy DIY Tzaziki

This is my favorite dip sauce among all the common sauces out there. The reason is Tzaziki is light, non-fattening and compliment finger food well without robbing the finger food original flavour or cause the person to feel greasy. My first encounter with this sauce is during my undergrad studies in Melbourne, Australia in a Greek restaurant Stalactites serving Souvlaki. Tzaziki is applied to grill sliced lamb/chicken wrapped with lettuce, tomato in a pita.

Ready-made Tzaziki is only available in Carrefour and Cold Storage at a premium price for a small tub. You can also use Tzaziki as replacement for ketchup, mustard in your hotdog. If you having a big finger food party, making your own Tzaziki is the way to go.

Tzaziki

1. Fromage Frais AKA Zero Fat Fresh Cheese or Sour Cream (Greek Yogurt for Tzaziki purist)
2. MasterFoods Garlic Powder (Garlic Puree Not Chopped Garlic for Tzaziki purist)
3. Cucumber (preferably japanese kind as they do not have that much seed)
4. Salt & Pepper (Optional)

For Tzaziki purist, Greek Yogurt filtered on a cloth to remove the excess water then it was mixed with grated salted drained cucumber and garlic puree. Little salt & pepper is added to it to adjust the taste. This may be troublesome for busy people like me.

I came out with an easy DIY Tzaziki that does not shy in taste than the authentic Tzaziki. Fromage Frais is a zero fat fresh cheese I bought from Carrefour which I also use for doing blue cheese salad dressing. I had leftover why waste. You can use sour cream as well or Greek yogurt if it is available in the supermart near you.

Using a normal bowl, I scoop 2 tablespoon of Fromage Frais then I sprinkle 2 times MasterFoods Garlic Powder into the Fromage (I don't like to use blender to blend garlic out of blue as cleanup later is a hassle, therefore powder garlic is the way to go). You can go less if you don't really like garlicky taste too strong. For the salted cucumber, you can grate it beforehand and sprinkle some salt on it to extract the water out of it. Before you add it into the Tzaziki mixture squeeze out excess water and mix it well. If you find the Tzaziki too light you can add in pinch of salt and pepper to strengthen the taste. There you have you own DIY Tzaziki dip sauce.

Easy Smoking Without Fuss

It been raining like hell for the whole day and freezing cold in the office, I decided to drop by Ken's Ramen Shop at Orchard Plaza for a bowl of hot kimichi ramen to warm my "cold lifeless body". Ken's kimchi ramen is reinforced with spicy and robust kimchi pork bone soup base that I could argue is the best kimchi ramen I ever ate in Singapore.

Fully recharged, I decided to drop by Centrepoint - Cold Storage to work off the excess heartiness as well as to see if there is any exciting culinary ingredients or sauces that is not commonly find your average NTUC, Shop`N'Save & Giant.

To my surpise, I've strike gold - Wright's Hickory Seasoning Liquid Smoke $4.20 SGD. It allows you to bring smoky flavour to all types of meats, poultry, fish and vegetable without the need of using a smoker or BBQ. Smoker is not commonly available for sale to general consumer in Singapore except for those F&B factory that produce ham, bacon & sausage. Therefore, if you want to make a dish that have a smoky flavour it is "mission impossible". There is an alternative way - Smoking Bag sold in Carrefour but you need a BBQ in order achieve that. I have a few recipes that I would like to try out and will update soon.