Black Pepper Crab

Sorry G. that this took so long to be posted. But here it is now. To tell you the truth, I have never cooked black pepper crab before (but I still have the recipe). My mom and I always cook chilli crab.

Ingredients

• 3 - 4 crabs, washed
• 4 tbs freshly ground black pepper
• 3 - 4 fresh red chilli, seeded, minced
• 4 tbs butter
• 10 cloves garlic, peeled, minced
• 10 slices ginger 
• 2 tbs oyster sauce
• 2 tsp dark soy sauce
• 2 tsp sugar (optional)
• Coriander leaves for garnish

Method

1. Chop off the 2 clippers of the crab, separate the body of crab from its top shell, chop the body part into half.
2. Dry-fry black pepper in frying pan till fragrant.
   
3. Remove and set it aside.
   
4. Heat the wok/ whatever that can hold the crabs & the sauce, add butter.
5. When it melts, add garlic, ginger and chilli, stir-fry until its fragrant, about 3 - 4 minutes.
6. Add oyster sauce, soy sauce and sugar (if using), stir well.
7. Add the crabs and stir to cover the crabs with the sauce, stir-fry for about 5 minutes.
8. Add the dry-fried black pepper and stir-fry on high heat for a few more minutes.
9. Serve with the garnish.

P.S. Each slice of ginger is about 3 mm thick.

P.S. Dry-frying is frying without any oil.

P.S. It depends on how big your crab is, if its big, you need to cook it longer.

Kitchen From Hell

It has been more than a month since I blogged. I have been extremely busy (and a bit lazy too) with school. Its really hell! Let me start with my typical day: I will wake up at 6:00 am, have breakfast and shower and leave my house latest by 6:55 am. We need to be there by 7:50 am for the roll call in full chef uniform. After that we will go into the culinary theatre for a demo & explanation of what we will be doing that day. And immediately after that, we will proceed down to the kitchen to cook. We will be marked on the dishes we produce each and every day (so we have to be on our top every single day). 

After the cookery, we will have a 45 minutes break and start the lecture/ knife skills. All these will end only at 4:00 pm or 5:00 pm (depends on how fast we work). To add on, we still have lessons on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm. After that, when I get home and shower, it will be almost 7:00 pm already. Have dinner till like 7:30 pm and need to print the recipes for the next day and read them well. By the time I am done with that, it will be at least 8:30 pm or 9 pm already. And not forgetting that I will need to iron my chef uniform for the next day. After that, I will need to get ready for bed because of the early next day. And it goes all over again. 

Not forgetting that we still have homework, which is to cut up carrots into different sizes and that will take at least 30 minutes. So, to conclude, I really do not have much time for anything else. Well, thats the life of a chef-in-training. What to do..... except to live through it (hopefully).

Finale

Oh finally!!!! The big big day tomorrow. I am finally getting out of Singapore. Will be leaving home at 7am. The coach is 9am and its at harbour front (I know, its so far). And everything is almost packed now, just need to put in the medicines, toothbrush and thats it I guess. I am so so excited already. I hope I can sleep tonight.

But still have some last minute school stuff to do. Need to pass the injection certificate to my friend because the school needs it by 14 April and I will not be in Singapore. They will have the kitchen orientation on 14 April and I will miss that. So disappointed. I don't want to miss out anything. But no choice, the tickets are already booked. And don't get me wrong, I am equally excited about the trip and the orientation.

So, see you guys when I am back!

P.S. I will be bringing a journal so I can write down everything and will be posting it on here after I am back.

Time

Time flies. I have not ben blogging because I was busy preparing for the music exam, buying my friend's birthday present (gosh, that was long, but worth it), and work.

I just came back from work at the Holiday Inn ParkView Hotel. My feet are absolutely killing me. They need to be soaked in warm water hehe. Last Wednesday was the CCM Dinner and Dance and it was just all right. The food was absolutely divine but the activities they planned were boring and meaningless (as expected though). Well, that was the last day of 1J02 and that was the saddest part of it all. We love our class so much! A bunch of weird people (including me) but still, we love each other :D

离开的快乐？

Yesterday was R.'s Singapore Farewell Party at the Equinox with many of his cute friends. I did enjoy myself very much until the moment I saw Marc across the street when we were walking to Chinatown. Already the farewell party was like sad and happy at the same time and everything just went downhill from the moment I saw "you-know-who".

我会永远爱他的。他可能是我唯一最爱的人。所以当一个你最爱的人离开时，我想你也会很伤心吧。那就是我的感受。

A Grave Dug Up For Myself?

Exams are coming again. And this is the first time I am so worried. I did not do well in the mid-semester exams and that pulled my coursework grades down. So now, I am really studying my butts and brains off. Every night when it hit 10 pm, my brain cells will be totally dry and useless. I want to absorb more and fast!

As long as I can pass this semester and go to year 2, I will be the happiest man boy on earth. This semester is really tough. I just want to get into the kitchen and do what I wanted to in the first place: Cook! Please please please, let me get through this semester!

Food Seduction...

I know, I have not been blogging for quite a while about myself. But who's reading? I doubt anyone will be reading this. Okay, lets get down to the food business. 

We finally went to the Top Table. For those who doesn't know what it is, it is a restaurant run by the students of Culinary and Catering Management. Normally we just go there to look at the facilities and never to sit down and enjoy the food, or hear about how they will torture us next semester but always telling us not to worry.

Okay okay, back to the food. It was a 3 course meal and for the appetizer, I had tomato soup which was just pure pure pure! No msg, no colouring, just plain tomato! The best I have tasted so far I would say.

The main course would be the chicken with ham wrapped around it, with rocket lettuce and salad dressing. That one was a hit also. They used herbs which just go so well with the chicken, just divine! From this angle, it looks like something else, but it sure taste nice! :P

The dessert was really worth dying for! Chocolate pudding. The chocolate was just oozing out from the outer shell, fighting to come out. A flow of dark plight, so dangerous that you don't dare to eat it. Actually, it looked so damn nice that I didn't want to eat it hehe.

Oh those were the many times when the food seduced me so much! I would like to have it over and over again :P