Good Kimchi Jigae (Kimchi Soup)

Kimchi Jigae is soup made with kimchi and a variety of ingredients like pork, seafood, toufu and so on.

Good Kimchi Jigae, according to the Korean lady at the supermarket where I bought some Korean groceries from, should be made using "older" kimchi.

"After 2 weeks, kimchi turns sour. Then good for making soup."

And the kind lady taught me how to make this soup - Fry some pork slices with sesame oil, then add toufu and seafood. Add chicken or vegetable soup and vegetables. Add some Korean chilli paste and Korean chilli powder and continue boiling for 20 to 30 minutes.

"Only with sour kimchi. Very good taste." She reminded me.

Thanks to this lady, we had a good kimchi jigae for dinner tonight. And I think the kimchi I bought from her must have been really fresh.. because I waited 2 weeks but I felt that the kimchi is actually still very edible, ie. not sour enough for kimchi soup. But the soup was still very good. I still have some of that kimchi.. and will wait til next week to make this soup again.

Today's dinner was Kimchi Jigae and Korean Seafood Pancake (yes, again..).

Buttermilk Scones & Pancakes

The Husband made some Buttermilk scones this weekend.

The scones were some of the best I had so far.. Very crumply, melt-in-your-mouth buttery and very fragrant. They tasted good on their own.. and even better with butter/ cream and jam.

Compare them with how the scones looked like with my old recipe.

Buttermilk scones - very yummy

Buttermilk is something we never had in our fridge before. I've never used it in my cooking or baking.. so I was pretty surprised at how it really made a difference to the scones..

So, since we had some leftover buttermilk in the fridge, I decided to make some Buttermilk pancakes today..

It is a simple recipe - 3/4 cup self-raising flour + 165ml buttermilk +1/2 lightly beaten egg + 1/2 tablespoon sugar + orange zest or blueberries (optional)

Just mix everything together and cook them in the pan with some butter. Yummy!

And if you don't have buttermilk, you can also use 1/4 cup milk plus 3/4 cup yogurt OR 1 cup milk plus 1 tablesoon lemon juice.

Buttermilk pancakes - quite fluffy and nice

Patisserie Chocolaterie

A couple of friends raved about Canele and for a few weeks, I have been meaning to go there for desserts.

For some reason or another, I didn't manage to do so until last Sunday, when a friend from Hong Kong was in town and I wanted to meet her for tea somewhere near her hotel.

So Canele came to mind very quickly.

We ordered a cake and a pot of tea each. I ordered the Le Royale and she order the Barcelona.

Maybe my expectations were too high.. I thought the cakes were pretty good... but halfway through each slice (and it was very small slice), I got a bit tired of it. Both cakes felt a bit too sweet and heavy halfway through.. and I didn't quite enjoy the second half of the cakes as much..

And the teas we ordered Bergamot Blue and Rosy Pink were just so-so. The water wasn't hot enough.. the tea wasn't strong at all.

On the whole, I thought Canele wasn't what I had imagined it to be - the ultimate place for cake and tea. I went away feeling rather disappointed.

Perhaps it was the pots the teas came in.. or maybe it was the service - they took our cakes which we ordered before entering the restaurant and didn't take our orders for tea until quite some time later. Or maybe it was the booming music from Ben and Jerry's next door.

But I thought the savoury crepes the next table ordered looked fabulous. So maybe I'd visit their other store the next time around.. and try their crepes then.

Canelé Pâtisserie Chocolaterie

252 North Bridge Road,

#B1-81/82 Raffles City Shopping Centre,
Singapore 179103
Telephone : (65) 6334-7377