Thursday, April 26, 2012

Ice Cream Pudding

I wanna share a new recipe I tried yesterday. It's been sitting around in my favourite cookbook without me noticing just because puddings aren't in my wheelhouse right now. But the recipe name just caught me, Ice Cream Pudding. Ice cream? Eh, sedap kali ni kan. I gave it a try. It's easy, it's done in minutes (or maybe, it is always easy, I just never knew). And it's yummy. It's not out of this world yummy but it's good. You know I reckon, it's perfect for exchanging juadah sungkai in Ramadhan, you can prepare it way before hand. Naah..punya awal berfikir pasal juadah sungkai, bayar puasa pun belum,...

So, here's the recipe :


Ingredients :
10g agar-agar powder
500 ml water
300 ml evaporated milk
100g palm sugar
4 tablespoon custard powder
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 eggs
100 ml fruit syrup (from canned fruit)
200 ml vanilla ice cream
1/4 teaspoon salt
canned cocktail fruits for garnishing

Directions
Stir agar-agar powder, water and evaporated milk over medium heat till all agar-agar dissolves.
Add in palm sugar and mix till boiling.
In a bowl, combine custard powder, vanilla essence, eggs and fruit syrup.
Strain egg mixture into milk mixture. Stir till mixture thickens. Remove from heat.
Mix in the ice cream and salt. Combine well.
Wet a 1.2 litre pudding mould with water. Pour mixture into mould.
 (So you've got to have that pretty shaped mould to get the same presentation)
Allow mixture to set before refrigerating.
Turn out pudding onto a serving platter. Garnish with fruits.

Monday, April 2, 2012

The guide

We got 3 guides. One from KK, travelling with us , and another 2 in Korea.

The Korean guides. His name is Kim Jong Sin, alias Sam. He is a proud Korean. Very keen about promoting Korean history and singing praise of all its achievements. Top in technology, great in sports, made the final in World Cup, etc. He takes pride in his name too, Kim, which is the most prominent surname in Korea. Their premier is named Kim. He's a diligent guide and knows a great deal. Sometimes, kami nda minat dengar cerita dia yang very detail, tapi kami nda sampai hati. Jadi kami buat-buat kusyuk. Dalam bas, dia suka buat joke. Nda berapa funny. Tapi kami ketawa  ia-ia.

On the final day he saw us to the airport, up to the boarding gate, ensuring we were all safe leaving the country. (ok, he possibly couldn't wait to get rid of us). We were moved. He was a caring man.


He was aided by a young man. A fine looking university student doing part time with the tourism. His name, I can't recall his real name, but he is called Rain, for the resemblance with the actor, Rain. Does he ?
Apa lagi nieces kami, minta puji ni kalau ada si Rain, control.

He did the running around, counting heads in the bus, searching the late ones, helped the restaurant to serve us, buying entrance tickets, etc. He is a hardworker. They have excellent work ethics here.
Kesimpulannya - Top marks for guides.

Ok, guess that's all about our trip. Have a nice week.

K Food

Still on Korea. The food.

For breakfast, except the first day when we got udon mee, most days we got American breakfast at the hotel. We stayed at four different hotels.


First encounter with udon mee.

 Second day at Daemyung Resort Hotel.

 Third day at Windsor Hotel. Here you put away your own dirty dishes. There are 3 bins provided, one for fork&spoon, one for plastic cups and another for leftover food.

 Fourth day at Secret Hotel. Can you see the container infront of me? My sister's kuih makmur, all the way from KK. She brought makmur and tat nenas, apart from sambal udang.


Fifth day at Twobin Hotel. We stayed 2 nights here. Last hotel before leaving Korea.

Lunch and dinner, pretty much the same - seafood steamboat. Day after day.

 First day lunch at Naminara wharf. We were a bit excited to be sitting on the floor. The fish didn't look appetising but you'd be surprised, it was quite tasty. It's like oven-baked to perfection and no fishy smell. The small bowl of rice was actually a lot and we found out that the rice here is very filling, glutinousy like. No steamboat yet this time, we got vegetable soup instead.

They saved the steamboat for dinner.


First day dinner, a huge steamboat of seafood. The crab weren't that fresh. Tasted like it had been frozen for years.


 Our second day lunch. See the siut decorating the walls. This restaurant is totally seafood. Today's menu is pollack soup and grilled sardine fish. Pollack is a popular fish here. Always made into soup. But the soup contained very little fish meat , instead a lot of tauhu added. Ceh..complain..

Exterior of the restaurant. The hanged potraits are owners of the restaurant. The young man is the current owner, I'm guessing this is a family business.


Second day dinner at Sky Bar restaurant. Yeah, steamboat again. Today, there's a strange side dish. Among usual kimchi and blanched sprout, a spoonfull of potato salad. Motif, kombinasi?



Third day, we had lunch at the theme park. Fastfood. But for dinner, we went to a secret passageway.
 Behind this building, Korea Freedom Federation, there's an underground restaurant. Upstairs, there's shops selling souveneirs. Strange location.

 We brought our canned food every meal times now. Sambal ikan bilis, kari ayam, etc. to compensate the repeat menu.

 Fourth day lunch. I'm so ready for a different food. I'm getting sick of K-soup.


 So for dinner, the guide got us bibimbap. A claypot of rice mixed with vege on a hotplate. This is nice. A bit like fried rice. The unavoidable soup was served along too. My nieces can survive here in Korea. They could still enjoy the soup.

 Fifth day lunch, we're having buffet spread. Yeay!
The shabu-shabu (buffet) are just like elsewhere. There's rice, fried noodles, salad, sushi, cakes, icecream , coffee, juice, fruits. The little local cakes were yummy.

 Steamboat still there. We have become expert at heating our canned food at the stove without spilling.

 This was our last dinner, the fifth day. A muslim pakistani restaurant, Evergreen.
Quite a posh restaurant. We had ordered additonal meat dish, chicken masala and mutton curry. Nice.


Last lunch on the 6th day before heading to airport. Same old - steamboat and kimchi.
I couldn't stomach it anymore. I survived on biscuits and chips the whole day.