Sweet Potato Balls

I absolutely adore the Sweet Potato Balls From Maxwell Hawker Centre in Singapore and I remember queuing up for half an hour or so just to get my hands on some a long time ago. They had 2 kinds, a sweet one with red bean paste stuffing and a savoury one with vegetable stuffing. I much prefer the savoury one as the sweetness of the sweet potato and the saltiness of the vegetable stuffing combines so well together. Mmmmm, I'm salivating just thinking of it!!


Since I'm now in the UK, I've no other choice but to try making them myself and it's good that it's such a simple recipe. They taste especially satisfying when they've just emerged from the hot oil even without any stuffing as they are soft and chewy on the inside with quite a crunchy exterior.


Ingredients

450 g Orange Color Sweet Potato Flesh (from 2 Medium, about 520g)
250 g Glutinous Rice Flour
30 g Corn Flour
120 Sugar
¼ tsp Sea Salt
Oil for deep-frying


Method

Boil the sweet potatoes in a medium pot until tender, 20 to 30 minutes, depending on size of potatoes.

When cool enough to handle, mash the potatoes in a potato riser or masher. (If you are using a masher, you will have to peel the potatoes first)

Place the sweet potatoes in a large bowl and add in the glutinous rice flour, corn flour, sugar and sea salt. Mix with your hand to get soft dough. Knead lightly to form a smooth dough.

Pinch a small piece of dough (about 15 g each) roll them in your palm to form a smooth ball.

Heat the oil in a deep fryer or heavy pan over low to moderate heat. Put in a cube of potato – when potato is nicely coluored, the oil is hot enough to fry the sweet potato balls. Fry until golden, remove and drain on a paper towel. Serve immediately.

Makes about 50 balls.


Recipe taken from Sea salt with food

Coffee Culture - Tapped and Packed

Tapped and Packed, an unpretentious, minimalist designed cafe so much so that we couldn't find it's name T&P anywhere inside or outside the cafe. Pretty cool I must say! 

The flat white was a bit too creamy for my liking but it was a good cuppa all the time. As with Foxcroft and Ginger, quite a good range of pastries, cakes and bread are served. Different blends of Coffee from Square Mile Coffee, Union Hand Roasted and Climpson's and Sons are served so this is a place to go if you want a good choice of coffee. There's also a choice of brewing methods such at the siphon, filter, aeropress etc.

Tapped and Packed

26 Rathbone Place

London, W1T 1JD

London Street Art - Alternative London Tour

Oscar the Grouch by BLAM

We don't venture to London's East End too often so we took the opportunity to do so when we found out about the Alternative London Tour. So one fine and sunny Sat afternoon, we made our way to London, had lunch at Wagamama and waited for Gary the tour guide near Spitalfields Market. And in came this cool looking guy and off we went in search of some street art around the Brick lane(famous for the loads of Indian Eateries), Shoreditch, Old street areas. 

By Roa

Gary was very knowledgeable about the many art pieces we saw as well as the happenings around the area. New pieces pop up every so often so he keeps himself up to date with them and change the tour route often to allow the enjoyment of the best of the lot!

Artist paints the wall white, waits for it to dry before staring to chisel it

This is definitely a tour to check out when in London, in fact it's a tour to go for every 6 months or so since the art is every changing. We highly recommend it!! :)


Here's a few more pieces for a feel of what you'll get to see. Enjoy!!

Invader - We've seen more of these around London

Cityzenkane Czk

James Cochran a.k.a. Jimmy C

Dscreet

STIK

Pablo Delgado - Teeny people that's about 10cm tall

More info on the tour can be found at the following
http://www.alternativeldn.co.uk/

The Birth of Peaches and Donuts!!

Why the name Peaches and Donuts?? Well... I love donuts and donut peaches too!!!:D 

I only discovered donut peaches when I came over to the UK and I am now hooked! I'm always looking forward to June/July when it's in season and am now gorging myself with them before they disappear for the year. Yes... I'm that greedy!

White fleshed Donut peaches are tastier than normal peaches as they are sweeter, less furry and the texture's a little more crunchy which I prefer. Another good thing about them is that the flesh doesn't get stuck to the stone which is a big plus point for me! Being so cute looking doesn't hurt as well! haha So give it a go if you come across it and I certainly hope you'll like them too! :)

If you are feeling little more adventurous, try making some Donut peaches donuts...yes, you read it right...Donut peaches donuts..... I recently came across this recipe so here it is for those who are interested. Am sure it'll be delicious!!Enjoy!!

Deep Fried Donut Peaches

Nitro ice-cream parlour - Chin Chin Laboratorists

Having heard so much about the bacon and egg ice cream made famous by Heston Blumenthal which is frozen with liquid nitrogen, i just had to make a trip to Chin Chin Lab located in Camden, once I found out about it.


Once in the ice cream parlour, i felt like i was transported to a mad scientist lab and was getting all excited! The owner must be a very patient person as he explained how the ice cream was made to every customer!! So here's it is! The process for making nitro ice cream!


1st step: Pour Ice cream base into Kitchen Aid. Valrhona chocolate in this case.

Liquid nitrogen at a temp of -196 is then added

Everything is mixed around for a few seconds

and Voila!!! Ice cream!!!

The result was a cup of the smoothest Valrhona chocolate ice cream with salted caramel and chocolate popping candy!!! Super yums!!

t h e   c h i n   c h i n   l a b o r a t o r i s t s

49-50   c a m d e n   l o c k   p l a c e,  l o n d o n

Coffee Culture - Foxcroft and Ginger

Recently, the Husband and I decided that we wanted to go in search of good coffee in London, one that can be found in an independent cafe instead of a chain store. Of course I'm not implying that chain stores serves bad coffee but since there were so many variety and kinds of coffee around, we should just widen our horizons so onwards with the search!!

First up, it was a toss between Flat White or Foxcroft and Ginger, both located on Berwick St, Soho. We decided on F&G as Flat White was packed! Perhaps, the coffee's very good? We'll find out in the near future but in the meantime, F&G it is and we weren't disappointed. Loved the cosiness of the cafe, with it's tiled walls, concrete counter, brick walls and wooden floorboards. How I wish we had something like this where we live, just across the road or something, somewhere we could go on a sat morning, order a cuppa and a sandwich, and just while the morning away, reading the papers and watching the crowd go by.

The coffee from Climpson's and sons had a well rounded flavour to it so thumbs up for the coffee. The sausage sandwich we had was alright, nothing to shout about but I'll probably choose from the wide array of pastries and cakes they also had available. I must add that everything is made/baked on the premises so that's a huge brownie point!

Another thing I really liked about F&G was the dainty, pretty cups the coffee were served in. Don't you agree??

Flat White

FOXCROFT & GINGER

3 BERWICK STREET, SOHO

LONDON, W1F 0DR

Melts in your mouth, not in your hands!!

 

A 35,000 sq ft M&Ms World Store, apparently the biggest candy store in the world, packed with 4 levels of M&M chocolates, merchandise(and people!) has recently opened its doors in Leicester Square London. Here you can find all sorts of containers filled with M&Ms of every colour imaginable.

We mustn't forget about all the clever merchandise that's available for sale too. There are all kinds of different ones to entice you to part with your cash and it definitely works as loads of people left the store with big bags of goodies...anything from bracelets to figurines to cushions to football to tshirts etc etc etc. Very clever marketing I must say!

It's definitely a must see for M&Ms fanatics and tourists as you can even take photos with life sized M&Ms characters! 

Does this scene look familiar? ;)

Chorizo and Butter Bean Favetta

Every once in a while, the Husband will be inspired to whip up something nice and plate it a little more 'fine dining' style after we've been out for a good meal. This was one of those days and in my opinion anything with chorizo can never be bad!!!


Ingredients:
1 X 400 g tin of butter beans, drained
small handful fresh mint leaves
3 tbsp olive
1/2 lemon, juice only
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
2 cooking chorizo sausages, cut into thick slices 
3 tbsp sherry


To serve
slice of griddled sourdough, bread or other rustic bread
handful peas, blanched
handful mustard cress or any other cress


Method:
1. Tip the butter beans, mint, olive oil and lemon juice into a blender and blend until just combined, but retaining some texture. Stir in the red onions. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. 

2. Heat a frying pan over a medium heat and fry the chorizo slices for 5 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through. Pour in the sherry, swirl the pan and cook for 2 minutes until the sherry has reduced. 

3. To serve, spoon the bean purée on the griddled sourdough, pile the chorizo on top and garnish with the peas and mustard cress. 

Lovely Apple Crumble!!

I simply adore desserts especially those that can be whipped up in a jiffy and apple crumble is one of them!! Hot, crispy, crunchy crumble on the top....gooey, sticky, sweet and sour apples beneath.cold ice cream on the side....Mmmmm, the perfect combination of ultimate yumminess! 


Ingredients:
Crumble mix recipe:
100gms butter - cut in cubes
100gms damerera sugar or caster 
120gms flour
pinch of salt

Apple Filling:
3 Bramley apples or any of your fave apples
Sugar 
Cinnamon


Directions:
Preheat oven to 180 deg.
For the Crumble mix, mix everything together with fingers until it resembles breadcrumbs .
For the filling, just slice the apples, mix it with sugar and cinnamon.
Place apple mixture in 4 ramekins and top them up with the crumble mix.
Bake for about 30 to 40mins until golden brown.
Serve with vanilla ice cream, custard or cream


ENJOY!!!!