London Philharmonic Orchestra

One thing that London is particularly famous for is its orchestras, both the Symphony and the Philharmonic Orchestra. Last night I went to see the Philharmonic with my cousin Lilian. To be in touch with out classier side, we'd booked box seats with a wonderful view of the stage.
The orchestra played 3 pieces

Debussy's Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien
Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor
Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 (Pathetique)

Debussy's piece was haunting and depressing in some parts but overall it was a fairly placid piece.

Rachmaninov's concerto is probably one of my favourite pieces of all the classical music that I know. The concerto is a piano solo backed by the orchestra. The soloist that night was a french lady Helene Grimaud. It's a 3 movement piece that has a powerful opening movement with strong piano playing required and though I'd listened to it quite a lot, the difficulty of this piece was staggering. The speed that her hands needed to move and the precision was awe inspiring. The 2nd movement is more thoughtful, and flowing and in general a very relaxing piece. The 3rd movement was a brisk lively piece, joyous and bouncy.

Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto no. 2 in C Minor 1st movement Moderato

This is a recording of Rachmaninoff himself playing his concerto with the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra in 1929

Tchaikovsky's Symphony no. 6 was first performed 9 days before he died. It's a fairly subdued piece punctuated with bursts of incredible vigour before sinking again. It was quite a difficult piece to follow sometimes, but nonetheless still a pleasure to listen to.

It was certainly a fine experience and I'll certainly be going again

Holy meal time batman!

Hokai, it's time for another round of whats in my bowl/plate/chopsticks. For the most part I won't have quantities because unless I am baking a cake, which I haven't done yet, cooking is more about mood. Some days I'm into stronger tasting stuff other days I'm not. Quantity wise if I make too much then I have left overs for lunch the next day. Sweet!

So here goes


First of all is my variant Thai Redd Curry Chicken vermicelli.

What's involved
150-250g piece of skinless chicken breast, diced or sliced
Red Curry paste
Coconut milk
Bamboo shoots, sliced
1 medium sized onion sliced
spring onions or shallots sliced
chilli, chopped fine
vermicelli

How to make it
This is a stupidly simple dish to make. Heat up a pan and fry the curry paste for a bit then toss in the cocount milk. If you're brave, like me, then at the time the curry paste is frying toss in the chilli and fry that for a bit to really get the heat up. Bring the whole concoction to a boil, then add the chicken, if the chilli wasn't added during the fry up add them now. Let the mix come back to a boil then add the onions and bamboo shoots. At this stage prepare the vermicelli by boiling some water and soaking the noodles in them until soft, drain well.
Once the curry is reduced a bit, or the chicken is cooked and tender, it's pretty much ready to serve. Just pile all the stuff into a bowl and voila! Snow peas are a good addition to this dish


Next up, Spaghetti Puttanesca
Whats involved
Tomato mix, either peeled tomatoes or premixed tomatos
Olives, sliced or whole doesn't matter, about a half dozen if you want to slice them, a few more if you want to keep them whole
Capers, rinsed and drained, probably about 1-2 tablespoons full. Too many and the dish becomes too sour
Anchovies, chopped roughly
garlic, for one person probably about 2 cloves, finely chopped
Spaghetti
chilli

How to make it
This is another simple dish to make. Over medium heat, gently fry the garlic and anchovies for a minute or two then add the tomato paste/canned tomatoes/fresh chopped tomatoes. Bring the mix to a boil. I used whole canned peeled tomatoes once, so I had to chop them up as they were cooking. Once bubbling away nicely, add the chilli, olives and capers. Do the usual seasoning. You made need to add some sugar if it tastes too sour.

Prepare some spaghetti in the usual way. Because the sauce cooks fairly quickly, you can start on the spaghetti at about the same time as you start cooking the sauce.
Unlike bolognese where the sauce has huge chunks of meat, this one is more liquid so it's possible to cook the spaghetti to just short of al dente and then drain it out then add it to the sauce and finish cooking it the rest of the way like that.

Variation
For a more carnivorous version, I added in chunks of diced chicken. The chicken should be added before the sauce has reduced otherwise the chicken becomes tough.



Stir fried Chicken Egg Noodle (although the stuff I used looks like Ramen)

Whats involved
Diced chicken breast
Onion
spring onion
Chinese cooking wine and fish sauce.
corn flour
chicken stock
finely sliced ginger

Making it
Before cooking, soak the chicken in the cooking wine and fish sauce. I only did it for 20min or so while I was chopping the veges, but obviously you can do it for longer. There's no major skill involved in cooking this meal. Soften the onions with the ginger and throw in the chicken, stir fry until chicken is cooked on the outside. Add in a cup or so of chicken stock and boil for a bit to reduce it and intensify the flavour. Add in the corn flour mixed with water to thicken. Not too much else it will look like glue.

Boil some water and soak the egg noodles in it till they're soft, then drain. Now if you want to, you can toss the noodles in a hot well oiled pan with some salt for a few minutes to make them toasty or just throw it straight on a plate and pour the chicken sauce on top. I recommend the first option. It tastes better.



Until next meal time, gochizousama!

Aight then

It's been a while, again, since I last updated. For all of you not into the happy news. As of November 1, I am a full time employee of SPI Lasers in Hampshire, which is in the south of England for all you non-geographers. So I'm gonna be settling for a while in this soggy nation.
About the only thing that means is more chances to roam around Europe and wherever else.

So lets see what's been happening lately. Ah yes Lilian and I hit the Natural History Museum in South Kensington this last weekend for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards. Some amazing pictures, particularly by youngsters. There was a category for 11-17 and under 10s. The winner for the under 10 was an amazing shot of a red fox on snow. The contrast was startling. My favourite pictures was one of a macaque (a type of ape) which had these clear brown eyes, but its expression was one of total confusion, imagine a big duh, but on a monkey. We had a good laugh about the monkey and I naturally pulled a few faces, which quickly brought "people don't need to take photos of animals, they can just take one of you!" from Lil... damn I got snapped =P

We also took a wander through the science museum next door, which turned out to be a giant disappointment. It's a big place filled with lots of dated junk from yesteryear. It feels more like an amusement park than a museum. We only took a turn through there to get out of the rain. The highlight of the evening was dinner (of course).We hit a creperie nearby. Behold our meals!

This was my Portuguese crepe. The filling being chicken, potatoes and cheese among a couple of other things I have since forgotten. It was yuuuuum

Here we have Lilian and her salmon and spinach crepe, which also had garlic (piles of it) and a powerful cheese sauce. I ended up having to finish it....it was FILLING!

Here's something else I made lately.


Looks like a pile dunnit. I'd picked up a bottle of Rendang curry sauce from the supermarket, made from all natural ingredients and get this it was imported... from Australia...the place that made this stuff is based in Botany, how random. Anyway this is my Rendang Curry Beef, which wasn't too bad despite the fact I used the wrong sort of beef.

This one is my special Drunken chicken fried rice noodle...it was a total mistake... there was so much of it i nearly swelled up and exploded. Looks good don't it =P

I need to find something new to make soon. I'm getting kinda bored with what I'm making. Thai curries, fried noodles, rice and what not. Sure I could refine them and all, but the ingredients over here are nowhere near as good as back home so....

I might make a fish pie next weekend. This weekend is gonna be rather busy.