Giant cooking

So this past monday morning the superbowl aired on aussie TV. So glad that my favourite team: New York Giants were in it yet again looking to beat the New England Patriots yet again in the superbowl. It was an amazing game and the players really pulled off some amazing catches, intercepts etc. Best part was of course the fact that the Giants won :D

While the game was on though i decided to try out roasting a duck, since the game goes for a longer time than it takes to roast.

Things I think I did right:

used parsley, rosemary, ginger, garlic for the filling (apparently if you stuff the duck it doesnt cook as well) good flavour, good smell
washing the duck
poured boiling water over it to loosen the fat, blanching is the better option as my karate teacher pointed out (he's a pro chef)
cutting the skin/fat layer to make 1 inch by 1inch squares

Things I did wrong:

didn't have a rack to roast the duck so it went in an oven tray and thus i lost some skin cos it got stuck to it
forgot paper towels to pat-dry the skin so it crisps
cooked it too long, i had it in there about 2 hours 10 mins at 180C fan-forced...next time ill try 170C and 2 hours

Im not sure whether red wine goes with the duck...it goes in serving but i put some over the actual duck...so that one needs to be tested more. No point putting up directions or pictures because a) i googled compiled it and b) i didn't do it right :S

Alas without further ado I present my first brownie attempt!

160g butter + 300 grams dark choc (didn't use cooking choc, some reason i never do)



I put all the butter in the saucepan on low heat first then slowly add in the choc since you want the butter to be sufficiently melted before you for choc as it tends to clump and stick on the bottom if you don't.



Should get a rich dark consistent colour



155g caster sugar (i used raw because i don't want to keep the dark colour as much as i can)



Stir that in, notice it won't be smooth because the sugar doesn't dissolve, it might melt a little but it will mostly appear grainy. Once it's stirred through you won't need the stove anymore.



3 Slightly beaten eggs (slightly means so that the yolks are broken but the whole mixture doesnt turn brighter from properly mixing with the white)



Stir that in and then add 190g sifted plain flour slowly



Now it starts to thicken and get fudgy :)



Add ~60g of chunked marshmallows and it starts to look like the world's greatest hot chocolate



Sorry for the bad picture but these are 80g chopped walnuts



I spread it quite thing because i like thin brownies on their own and it gives me more pieces. But if you're looking to make quality pieces that work with cream/ice cream you want thicker pieces.



Fudgy and a little crunchy with some chewy that's some nice rocky road brownie :)



Be nice and share :)

P.s. i used two baking papers so that I could slide a board inbetween the papers to lift them out, if you use one the paper could stick to the tray because the pre-oven mixture is quite moist.

Revival

So I've decided to revive this blog...after a long time. The title (loosely translated to 'from japan') always had two meanings: in the past it referred to me sharing things with people in aus from Japan. Now is when the second meaning comes into play: how things have changed since Japan and life moments stemming from the changes that happened there :)

In the next month or two I'll be writing about the leadup to my entrance exam for graduate med-school, the GAMSAT. So I'll be generally just mentioning things that came up in my studies or other happenings or what I read in the Word recently.

The reason I'm taking the GAMSAT first of all is because in the last couple of months of my stay in Japan through prayer and thought and consulting with parents (who were half-supportive hah!) I decided that becoming a doctor was the profession that I felt most suited me and my passion. Now I've just recently finished a double degree so the relevant test for me is this GAMSAT which leads to a 4 year med course, provided you score well on the test and they like you at interview. To describe the feeling of knowing that I have.... in the western world the majority of people have access to many schools, a variety of jobs, support from family, the governments, that provide us with opportunities. So many opportunities in fact that it makes it hard to choose, before i settled down I was juggling many things: police officer, rescue, paramedic, soldier, doctor, nurse and IT (which is the only thing I'm 'qualified' for). It was on 'doctor' that I landed on, which made all the other options no longer viable. That lack of diverse viability was foreign to me for a while but after a time I realised that is part of becoming focused and passionate about something. Also realised that it could be the root of obsession given enough liberty.

So yeah happy myself to revive this so I can journal somewhere and share at the same time, hoping that it encourages friends and people I have yet to meet to share in return or just enjoy :)

Today's readings
- Psalm 33 (seriously good stuff, read it!)
- Proverbs 1&2 1:7 one of my fav verses, a reference to really unpack a lot of other things
- Matthew 19 (v9-12 is interesting and I'm afraid that we often try to make this verse into a hard and fast rule or just ignore it completely for lack of comprehension, verse 12 is supposed to be the key for verse 11 as far as I can tell but I can't get on track with the analogy)

On a side note, whenever I read 'eunuchs' I can't help but think of Jack Sparrow translating the word into a charade involving the onomatopoeia "snippy snippy".

A good night to all :)