Yelly Eats

The Owl Cake

Yelly

I bought over 3 kilos of fondant icing because I intended to make beach huts for a bake off fundraising do at work.

But I think I overestimated my capabilities and my fondant confidence.  So instead of wimping out and wasting the fondant that I lugged all the way back to Harwich, I had to think of an alternative way to use the fondant that I purchased. I wasn’t giving up on the cake with fondant dream!  Besides, it was my birthday and bringing cake would be for a good cause.  So I had a think and regrouped.

I had a brainwave and thought, “Oooooh owls!”  I did a bit of googling and found the easiest way to make owl cake toppers.  I knew the cake would be okay (it was a vanilla sponge with a Nutella filling with a vanilla cream frosting), I just had to make it pretty.

The owls weren’t too difficult to make.  I just needed a round cookie cutter and a smarter way of looking at owls.  I must say, what a treasure trove Google can be!  After doing the cutting and a little shaping, the ingenious use of a fondant embosser and artful food colouring dotting, my owls looked cuter than I thought it was possible!

2015-05-12 23.32.09So here it is, my owl cake!  It was, truly, a hoot to make!

My owl cake

Yelly Writes

Mothers Day

Yelly

“A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.”- Washington Irving

She held me when I needed to be held, when I needed to feel safe. She dried my tears when my heart broke and told me everything would be okay in the end. She taught me how to read and write and made sure I treasured books so that I would learn, and never be bored on my own. She taught me how to speak so that I would find the right words to express myself. She told me the harsh realities so that I wouldn’t walk the world with rose-coloured glasses, so that I could be pragmatic too. She also taught me that kindness should always be my guiding principle. She walked with me as I grew in faith…it would take me forever to write down how much my mum has guided me and held my hand as I was growing up so that I could be independent when I grew up. I cannot say thank you enough Mama. I love you.

I am glad that I get to celebrate this amazing woman I call “Mother” twice.  Happy Mothers Day Ma!

Happy Mothers Day

Yelly Writes

It’s a girl!

Yelly

So the UK celebrated the much anticipated birth of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s second child.  The UK has a new princess and she is to be called Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana of Cambridge (queue strings of Stevie Wonder’s Isn’t She Lovely).

Princess Charlotte

Yelly Eats

Hudson New York Bar and Kitchen, Colchester

Yelly

I’m not much of a beef eater so I hardly order steaks.  If I do order anything made from beef, it would probably either a salt beef sandwich or pastrami (the more kosher, the better!).  So imagine my delight when I found out you could get a salt beef bagel from an American-inspired bar in Colchester!

I read through the menu and wondered what the food would be like.  It looked promising with club sandwiches, salt beef bagels and hotdogs on offer.  With a claim that they served fabulous Atlantic cuisine and that they were inspired by downtown Manhattan, I was looking forward to tucking into my salt beef bagel.

Well, I’ve had my salt beef bagel and I was a tiny bit underwhelmed.  The salt beef was a tad on the dry side but I guess I’ve been spoiled by the Bell & Brisket and Monty’s Deli because they made REALLY good salt beef from scratch and each sandwich would be prepared as ordered from a batch that was probably made the same day.  The space was amazing and it was big and airy.  But the concept confused me a little bit because it felt like I was walking into a southern restaurant instead of a Manhattan bar.

Will I be going back to Hudson?  I’m not sure.  Maybe their other offerings are okay, they may even be really good.  But it’s quite hard to get a salt beef sandwich wrong — if you have great salt beef to begin with.  Don’t get me wrong, the food looked okay and the coleslaw and fries that came with it were really nice.  I’m just really picky about my salt beef.  And unfortunately for them, I wasn’t too impressed.

Hudson's salt beef bagel

Yelly Reads

Now reading: The Year of Taking Chances

Yelly

I am so far loving this book!  I think it’s mainly because I can relate to each of the characters.  I am at a crossroads in my life where I want to gain a better perspective on all the aspects of my life: my relationships, my career, my passions and my life plan.  I’ve been constantly sighing and whinging about wanting to change things and yet I am plagued by an immobilising inertia that stops me from going after what I want.

This might just be the book that I need to inspire me!  Well, realistically, if it isn’t, it’s a brilliantly written book that is definitely entertaining! 🙂

The Year of Taking Chances

Yelly Writes

The perfect Sunny Afternoon

Yelly

So I apparently love the music of the Kinks!  Who knew?

Alan has brilliant taste in musicals and he’s always challenged me (in his own quiet way) to watch something different each time.  I didn’t think I was going to love Rock of Ages, but he won tickets, we went and I was standing up and jumping up and down like a mad thing towards the end of the musical.  I thought I was going to hat We Will Rock you, but I was bopping my head to each song.  I didn’t think I knew a lot of Queen song, but apparently I did!  I didn’t know what The Commitments was about.  Alan got the movie, we watched it and I fell in love with the songs.  The theatre version was even better!  I was up there dancing like a woman crazed whilst Mustang Sally was sung!

One musical I was totally unsure about Sunny Afternoon.  I wasn’t entirely sure I liked the Kinks so I wasn’t sure I’d love the musical.  But Alan had already booked tickets so we were going.  But guess what, I apparently knew more songs by The Kinks that I thought I did.  And I loved the musical.  So much so that I agreed to watch it again!

Sunny Afternoon - Stage

I was so pleased that Sunny Afternoon won Best New Musical in the 2015 Laurence Olivier awards.  Because it was well-deserved.  If you get the chance to (I think they’ve added more dates – don’t quote me as I could be very mistaken!), go and see it.  If you don’t, at least buy the CD of the London cast performing.  My favourite of favourites is the a cappella version of Days.  It will tug at your heart strings!

Harold Pinter Theatre - Sunny Afternoon

Yelly Writes

Easter Love

Yelly

Amidst all the posts about Easter egg hunts, chocolate eggs and bunnies, I allow myself to wallow in the real meaning of Easter.  I rarely write about my faith.  But I get through all the difficult situations in my life by clinging to my faith.

I love the commercial celebration of Easter.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love all the Easter themed cakes, chocolates and all the food that people normally serve during Easter.  But to me, first and foremost, Easter is a celebration of God’s love for us.  Because God loved us so much that He allowed his son Jesus Christ to die in our place for our sins.  Easter is God’s gift to us, because through Christ’s death we are saved from eternal death, and through Christ’s resurrection, there is the hope that one day, we will be with God the Father, just as Jesus Christ rose to ascend to heaven to sit at God the Father’s right hand.

One of my favourite Easter quotes is from Basil Hume: “The great gift of Easter is hope – Christian hope which makes us have that confidence in God, in His ultimate triumph, and in His goodness and love, which nothing can shake.” 

So HAPPY EASTER everyone!

Easter is LOVE

Yelly Eats

Saturday night non-takeaway: Chicken Karaage!

Yelly

So tonight I finally made chicken karaage and it was good!

Well, when I say karaage, I use the term very loosely.  Karaage is a Japanese dish of chicken marinated in ginger and garlic, soy and sake, and is fried to lovely crispy pieces.  I don’t have sake in my cupboard on a regular basis (I’ve never had sake in my cupboard, ever!) but I do have shaoxing and sherry (as I cook more Chinese dishes than Japanese).  So I tried substituting the sake with the shaoxing.  I think it works.  I will save up for sake, but for the meantime, shaoxing in the recipe works.  And works well, if I say so myself!

Oh, I didn’t have potato flour (aka potato starch) as well, so I’ve substituted it with cornflour.

Ingredients:

  • 500g chicken thigh fillets, cut into large-ish bite-sized chunks
  • 2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 2 tablespoons Shaoxing rice wine
  • 4 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 3 heaping tablespoons cornflour
  • vegetable oil for deep-frying

Directions:

  1. In a ziplock bag, combine chicken, ginger, garlic and soy. Carefully massage the chicken through the bag and marinade for at least 1 hour (better if you let the chicken marinade overnight though).
  2. In a bowl, fish the chicken out of the bag and mix with the cornflour until all chicken pieces are well-coated with the cornflour
  3. In a frying pan, heat up the vegetable oil.  When the oil is hot enough, carefully drop chicken pieces and fry until golden brown (should take about 3-4 minutes).
  4. Serve with a slice of lemon or a teriyaki sauce, on its own or over a bed of fluffy steamed rice!  Speaking of rice, I wrote a post on how to cook rice perfectly (I’ve been cooking rice since I was 11 so I like to think I know what I’m talking about – way before there were non-stick pans!).

Chicken karaage

Here’s a little recipe on sticky sauce that goes well with the karaage.

Ingredients:

  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 3 tablespoons honey
  • 4 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
  • 200ml water

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a rolling boil, stirring constantly.  Once boiling turn the heat right down and allow to reduce until there is only half of the liquid, making sure that you stir occasionally so that none of the sugar burns.  This is brilliant as a little sauce to be sprinkled (sparingly) on steamed rice if you’re having friend chicken or fish.

Sticky sauce

Yelly Eats

An Ode to Gallus

Yelly

I love chicken.  If you ask me what I miss most from the Philippines, it will probably be Chickenjoy from Jollibee (a fastfood restaurant in the Philippines) and fried chicken from Max’s (am not quite sure this is a fastfood restaurant but it is Filipino and I grew up going to Max’s!).  So it follows that when I moved to the UK, I would look for a chicken place to go to.  And I thought I’d found a great chicken place.

We discovered Gallus, Empire of Chicken on Timeout.  They were offering a £10 voucher for a £25 food spend.  Alan said that as it was £10 for £25 of food, you couldn’t really complain.  So we looked on the website and thought, what the hey, it’s something new.  So on our next trip to London, off we went to Gallus!  And let me tell you, £25 bought you a lot of food!

Gallus offered a lot of chicken choices – you had chicken skewers, chicken burgers, salad with chicken, sides (there were chips, side salads, coleslaw…and a lot more that I can’t remember!), desserts and a good selection of drinks!

Gallus Mexican chicken salad

We went back several times because the chicken was genuinely good.  Because the chicken was marinated in several ways, you never really got bored of the chicken choices.  You could go Mediterranean, Oriental, South Asian or Latin American.  You could go mild, spicy, or umami.  The servings were generous and it was excellent value for money.  The staff were polite but very attentive and they knew their product – we never felt there was a question too silly about the food they served!

But if you notice that I keep talking in the past tense, it is, sadly, because Gallus has closed.  We walked past the Charing Cross Road restaurant to find that all the windows were papered and the sign has been removed.  I know that they didn’t really have a lot of footfall whenever we went (I think we managed about 4 trips – it was conveniently close to the theatres so it was brilliant for pre- and post-theatre meals) but I had hoped they were more popular and that people would cotton on to the fact that they were good.

Gallus chicken burger

It is sad that in the wonderful melting pot of wonderful places to eat that is London, Gallus was eaten up, swallowed and spitted out like, dare I say it, chicken bones.  If you didn’t get to eat at Gallus, you missed a great chicken place that served succulent chicken pieces that offered a better option than KFC for almost the same price.

I have high hopes that Gallus will rise from the ashes like another fowl of myth.  And maybe this time, their marketing will be much better and people will flock to the empire of chicken!

Gallus chicken skewers