Poached eggs

This week has been very busy and filled with challenges. I think I am outdoing myself. Some days are very dynamic and other very slow. I guess we cannot wish too much and only enjoy the process. I realise that it's not productive to overthink before actioning something because thinking is a waste of energy. Everything always look harder before you actually do it. Most of the time overcoming these barriers can prove to be extremely rewarding and satisfying. 

This week has been all about poached eggs (well, mostly). I can proudly say that I am on the right track on poached eggs. My first attempt at home was quite disastrous, but I reckon it was because the egg was not fresh. 

For perfect poached eggs you need fresh eggs (the egg yolk should form a nice dome) and some acid (vinegar of about 5% of the water) in the water so that the egg whites can coagulate more easily with the yolk. You also need boiling water before putting the egg in. After the water is boiled, stir the water into a whirlpool with a spoon and drop your egg (cracked in a small container). Reduce the heat to a simmer and stir a little bit more. The rest is a question of timing. I am confident enough to make poached eggs now and it is truly a delicacy to have some topped on some fresh toast. Yum.

Here is an array of attempts: 

5 min and 3 min poached eggs

5 min poached egg served with all of my favourite ingredients- avo, figs and sweet potato

3 min poached egg served on toast with some avo, cherry tomato and spinach and cheese

3 minute egg served on bread roll and some quinoa

5 minute egg on toaste and served with avo, cherry tomato and cheese

Fooyang

This is another typical Mauritian dish. It is called fooyang (forgive my spelling- I am writing the way it is pronounced). It is basically an omelette-like dish, with carrots, bamboo shoots, shiitake mushroom and seafood. I think that it is fairly easy to appreciate this plate. To create the dish I used seafood mix (you can find them from the deli). As for bamboo shoots, I use winter ones.

This is my cooked seafood mix

Mushroom, carrot and bamboo shoot cooking

Serve with rice

Ta-da, ready to be served

More picture

Meefoon soup (recipe)

Sometimes after having a copious meal, you would rather like your next meal to be light and healthy, not oily but tasty. Solution is to have a soup. However, I reckon that some soup are time consuming to make and other too rich. The dish I am proposing today is this: meefoon. It's a typical Mauritian dish, easy to prepare and cook. It is basically a combination of bok choy, shiitake mushroom, carrots and chicken, and rice noodle. It's usually accompanied with a fried egg. I can say it's almost oil-free except for the fried chicken and egg. Some people like to add soy sauce to give colour to the dish. Personally I am not fond of soy sauce because it contains lot of sodium and quite salty. So I usually have to avoid or put as little as possible where I can. Simple and delicious.

Recipe
Ingredients:
500g chicken breast, sliced and cooked
Half a pack of rice noodle
2 carrots, chopped (see picture)
10 shiitake mushroom (I used dried ones- tip- put them in hot water about 5 min to soften them and then sliced them)
1 bok choy, washed and chopped roughly
Soy sauce
A small amount of preserved chinese vegetable (see link for more info)
Salt

Method:
Put some water, about 2 litres in a heavy pan. Put your carrots, bok choy in until the water boils. Then add the preserved vegetables, the mushroom, and the chicken. Add soy sauce, and salt per tasting. After which add the rice noodle. Let simmer about 10 minutes until the noodle is tender and smooth.
Here you go, simple as it looks.

Zucchini squash bites

It has been a long time since I wanted to try this dish. I found the recipe on this site. It is a very simple dish and healthy (basically no oil and baked) and trust me also tastes good. They are definitely perfect for snack time or even as a side dish.

Zucchini & Squash (I found the squash at IGA- seems like a rare veggie)

More picss ;)

Mixing stage

Out of the oven

 

I topped my bites with cheddar cheese and accompany them with beef pies

Oh yes, I also put some (ready-made) pie (Mrs Mac's)  in the oven to accompany the bites. Mind me, I have not reached the stage of making pies. This is in my agenda though. I really want to make my own pies. Someday...

Busy day in the kitchen

Yesterday was my brother's birthday. I cooked lot and was so tired after. Did I mentioned that working too much is not good for your health. You should try to rest. Wait, I just questioned myself about brekkie as well. Yeah so because I had to go work early in the day and wake up quite late, and wanted to cook my lunch and this sago dessert. Man I didn't know that sago took that lot of a time to cook. After that I didn't have time to eat my ravishing breakkie and had to make it with milk and weetbix...and I realised that indeed I felt hungry and tired the whole day.

 So I cooked this sago dessert (like I mentioned in an early post, I like doing things on impulse- it works best). It's actually a sort of coconut sago pudding/jelly.

I also cooked my lunch to bring at work. Simple dish: egg omelet with carrots. Try add some thyme leaves, really help to enhance the flavour.

After work I cooked fried noodles for my brother's birthday. A quite easy dish, but quite lengthy in terms of preparation time.

Finally I made a cake, late at night, a hot milk cake. It was my  first time baking a cake, so I wanted to try an easy one. Anyway, the result was quite catastrophic, I don't know what turn bad in the process because the cake was quite compact and thick. It looked decent though:

That bring us to the end of this post. Hope it gives you some idea of what to cook at home.