A White Truffle Dinner

My feasting seemed to have gotten better and better with each meal. My weekend ended with a White Truffle dinner at my elder sister's place. She voluntarily arranged and prepared for us a White Truffle dinner, fully sponsored by my youngest sister. I'm truly counting my blessings for having many good friends, and a wonderful family! If a huge family like us were to dine out ordering white truffle meal, it could easily cost us half a thousand dollars!

My sister bought a 38g White Truffle from Culina, costing $247 ($6,500/kg). Myself, being pretty ignorant about truffles, was pleasantly pleased to have a feel of the truffle and smell it! It was odd shaped and looked very ugly. My sister took 45mins to clean this precious thing. It had to be wrapped up in papers, and had to keep out of water. The moment it touched water, it will rot. So she wrapped it up, placed it in a container and put it in the chiller before using it.
The dinner started with Salad and Baked Orange Salmon as appetisers. There were two kinds of salad. I missed out the other salad.
Then, she made us clear our palate by giving each of us a scoop of Mixed Fruit Sorbet. The Sorbet was so good, each of us had two scoops instead! Haha...

Then came the highlight of the day - Classic White Truffle Pasta. This was how she prepared the pasta. She cooked the fettuccine in boiling water before mixing with unsalted butter and fresh grounded black pepper. It was then scooped into our plates. Over each plates, she used a truffle shaver to shave the white truffles. After that, we added in freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. For once, we got ourselves a generous shavings of white truffles on our pasta, unlike if we were to dine in restaurants.
Finally, the meal was completed with my Dark Chocolate Truffles. We thought the Chocolate truffles would compliment the white truffles. Come to think of it, the my chocolate truffles do have odd shapes that looked like the white truffles!
Much effort has been put in to conceptualise this meal. Even if I had the white truffles on hand, I won't known how to prepare it. Thanks all to my elder sister for taking the time and effort to let us experience fine dining food. And also thanks to my youngest sister for sponsoring this wonderful meal and her generosity!

Information on Truffles. I was told black truffles can be cultivated while white truffles can only be grown from the wild. You can find out more by reading from here. I also found a write-up by Chef Jocelyn on her blog on White Truffle.

Recipe for Chocolate Truffles, (I can't remember where I got this from).

Ingredients:
227g Guanaja Valrhona Chocolate Feves (70%), finely chopped
1/2 cup Heavy cream
Unsweetened cocoa powder, for rolling

Method:
1. Put chocolate into a large heatproof bowl. Bring cream just to a boil in a small saucepan over medium-high heat.
2. Pour over chocolate in the bowl. Let it stand for 5 mins. Then stir till smooth.
3. Pour chocolate mixture into a shallow dish pan. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until mixture is cold and set but still pilable, about 30mins.
4. Using a teaspoon or a 1/2 inch melon baller, scoop balls of chocolate mixture, transferring them to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper as you work.
5. Refrigerate truffles for about 10mins.
6. Using a sieve, dust each truffle in cocoa powder to coat, then quickly shape truffle into a rough round.
7. Refrigerate truffles in an airtight container until ready to serve, up to 2 weeks. Before serving, reshape into rounds, and roll each truffle in cocoa powder, if desired.
Note:
~ You can add in one tablespoon liquer to your preference. I omitted this as my family don't like liquer.

Special Invitation

I am so blessed, to be having a feast one after another. After our bloggers gathering, I was invited by a very special couple to have dinner at their place. This couple is none other than Kitchen Corner Grace and her spouse. :) I really want to thank them for hosting this gathering for my whole family. The hospitality was truly warm and the food, needless to say, is just great! Not to mention, I get to play with her Cuisinart Waffle Maker! Aren't I lucky? No prize for guessing what was for desserts. This was truly a first class dining!
Just to make you envious, these were what made me put on a few kilos that evening.

Appetisers - Spicy Pumpkin Soup with Homemade Garlic Bread and Salad
 Mains - Assorted Pizzas (My favourite got to be Veg & Mushroom Pizzas!)
Desserts - Taiwanese Jelly Drink and Waffles with tonnes of Homemade Ice Creams!
Once again, thank you so much for your kind hospitality Grace and Eric! And also for all the goodies that you have made for me!

Bloggers Gathering

After our Cook and Feed with Love last month, we discussed about meeting up again since we didn't have much opportunity to interact that day. Through email discussions, it was decided on 27 Nov, and it will be at my place's function room. We thought the venue suited well as we can have our own cozy area to eat and chat. That's what all gatherings is about!
The event started only about 1.30pm when all of the bloggers arrived. Each of us made and brought our food. I'll leave you to drool over the good food that we had...

Potato Salad by Sheryl
 Chicken Drumlets by Josephine
Sambal Prawn Sandwiches by Judy
Hawaiian Pizza Pie and Chocolate Chip Cookies by ZhuoYuan
Macaroni Cheese and Konnyaku Jelly by Doris
Blueberry Muffins and Banana Hazelnut Cake by Edith
Cointreau Chocolate Cupcakes by Eelin
Coffee & Walnut Blondies made by me.
I thought it might be a good idea to play a simple game of Bingo to get to know our fellow bloggers better. So I made them play this silly game, and prepared a small bottle of my homemade vanilla extract as the prize. Lucky Doris won herself this vanilla extract. I hope she likes it. For the rest of the blogger friends, thank you for being sporty and participanted in this silly game! LOL!

Holidaying in Hanoi (Part I)

I've been away in Hanoi, Vietnam for the past few days, which explained my disappearance. It was a completely different experience. I travelled with my parents and three sisters, without our spouse and children. It is always fun to travel with my family members. Thanks to my elder and youngest sister who took the trouble to make all the arrangement and came out with the itinerary. Sharing some interesting photos for the first two days in Hanoi city itself.

Vietnam Airline's Food
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Golden Land Hotel - A bouquet hotel in Hanoi
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Dinner at Green Tangerine (Fine dining, expensive)
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Sights on the street at night
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Breakfast in the room - Chicken Pho and Fried Chicken Noodles with fruits and orange juice shared with my sister.
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View from my hotel room. Buildings are all tall and thin.
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West Lake
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Entrance to Tran Quoc Pagoda
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Tran Quoc Pagoda
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Quan Thanh Temple
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Streets are dominated by motorcycles and horning!
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This should be part of "Istana" or "Palace". Not too sure what it was as it was very near to HCM memorial.
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Ho Chi Minh Memorial
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Left-hand drive in Hanoi.
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Lunch at Quan An Ngon
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Hoan Kiem Lake - Ho Hoan Kiem
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An auspicious date for wedding. Many wedding couples taking photos by Hoan Kiem Lake.
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Ice-cream at Fanny's!
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Twenty flavours of the ice-cream including chilli chocolate, bailey's, cinnamon, ginger and vanilla macadamia.
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Dinner at Kitti Restaurant
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Next stop, Halong Bay. Watch for it!