Kautsar Abd Rahman

I was right down in the gym’s shower, when the phone rang. It was Miss Hafiza, the lady who takes care of scholars from Securities Commission, she said she is already at Holloway Road station, waiting for me.

WHAT?! She was supposed to be here in another half an hour!

I rushed to my room and literally grabbed the first things I saw and threw it on me. And rushed out to meet Ms. Hafiza. I ended up wearing my jegging, black busker’s shoes, grey top, H&M leather jacket which I had not gathered enough gut to wear before and BOWLER STRAW HAT!

It was rather street and very casual, but my consolation was that I will only accompany Ms Hafiza to the area around my house – to Clarks, James Selby and Arsenal shop. I would be safe within the parameter of my house, and will not be caught off guard with this outfit.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Miss Hafiza first insisted I join her for lunch at Bayswater with Zee How and Afi – two UKEC kids at Noodle Oodle.

“But I am not wearing my tudung!! Just this straw bowler!”

It took her awhile to convince me to come along and I reluctantly agreed. After all, I wanted to help her with her shopping bags, so I thought why not. A quick nip and then march straight to the nearest tube station and dash home.

Not a bad idea.

“We would only be meeting UKEC people, right? I will not see Datin with this outfit. No way.”

She assured me we won’t.

Except our conversation turned to a search for a belt, which meant I enthusiastically agreed to show her the butter-soft leather belt from Uniqlo and then her Black Berry made a sound and it so happened that Datin invites her and anyone she’s with to an afternoon tea at the Hyatt Regency, Marble Arch.

*Eyes pop out in horror*

I am too casual to step into a hotel to have tea!! The bellboy would look posher than me! I didn’t dab on any perfume before I left and my bright pink socks are peeking from my shoes!! Plus, I wore no make up. Oh no.

The Montagu at Hyatt

My roommate advised me to get a scarf from Tie-Rack to save my situation. I decided to de-tour into House of Fraser and get a make-over!

Hehe, and a spritz of Ange Au Demon by Givenchy to complete it all.

It went alright after that

Beautiful setting of an English Afternoon Tea

The afternoon tea was fabulous, dahling!~ Finger sandwiches (prawn mayo, cucumber and watercress, smoked salmon, roasted beef and egg mayo), which to be honest I cannot taste any difference with what Pret A Manger has except that it is 3 times smaller, and pastries which taste so good I think I was the one who polished them all. They’ve got little fruit tarts (passionfruit, raspberries, blueberries and peach on creamy custard tart), opera cakes, chocolate macaroons, chocolate muffins and excellent eclairs. And then, the highlight of the tea – scones with clotted cream and jam. It was good but I don’t think it’s something I would rave about. I guess you pay for the calm atmosphere with superb service and great finger foods (which were not good value for money) but most importantly, you must have good company. Oh yes, they also have a wide selection of tea. I had this flowering lily and jasmine tea. Yum!

It was a good experience, I must say, this English afternoon tea.  I think this is my first proper one. I did enjoy it and having Datin, Laura and Miss Hafiza along with Zee How was a good combination for great conversations.

Definitely something I would do again with girlfriends in the future It’s like high class mamak. You kind of just chill, talk and eat slowly, just to have luxurious leisure time with your company.

To Anis Munira, with Love and fond memory.

So here’s an interesting substitute for those who fancy escargot. Wow, you just go right up to those rocks in your garden for a feast fit for king!!!

First purge the slugs by feeding them for five days on a single-item diet of lettuce, cabbage or carrot peelings. Then starve the slugs for two days more to remove any remaining digested matter in their systems (this step is optional, but if you don’t do it, you will have to gut them).

Put the slugs in the freezer to kill them. Make up a solution of equal quantities of vinegar and water and soak the frozen slugs in it for a few minutes to begin drawing out their slime.

Put them in a pan of cold water with a dash of vinegar and bring up to a simmer. More slime will come out. Drain the slugs and rinse them under the tap, removing the slime with your fingers. Repeat the simmering and rinsing, with fresh water and vinegar each time, at least three more times, until no more slime comes out.

Put the slugs in a pan of fresh water with some sliced carrot and onion and a bay leaf. Bring to a simmer and cook until the slugs are tender – probably just 5-8 minutes. If you need to gut the slugs, make a slit one-third of the way down the back of the body and remove the intestines.

Yum.

Credit to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

I went on Proudduck’s blog today to discover she’s dishing out the recipe for her mum’s amazing looking roast beef, and how it’s so awesome they race for it and put on pictures that makes you swoon.

I was fasting that time. Last day of my ‘puasa enam’.  I love homemade recipe – and this looks good.  I was supposed to cook cous-cous for ‘berbuka’, instead I found myself on a bike, cycling fast  towards the butcher.

I got the butcher to give me a roast beef joint. Complete with straps of fat tied to the meat. Perfect.

So, I read her blog to understand the recipe. And re-read it. And again. Hmm,it seems simple enough. Too simple, in fact.

Alright, so marinate the beef with salt and pepper. I added a bit of thyme so it has some pretty green bits and some aroma.

Fry the onions to add to the marinating beef.

I was supposed to add the onions later, but I thought maybe it’ll make the beef sweeter if I marinate them together.

Then, I fried the beef. I was not sure how long I was supposed to fry it, so I waited until the fat melted a little bit. I figured out after that that maybe I was supposed to wait for it to go slightly crispy. Got some hot oil on my arm too, its quite tricky to turn around big chunk of meat in the pan when it’s fat is sizzling like mad!

There, my fried beef looked like chicken, for some reason.

Meat was then thrown together in a metal pot along with fried onions and the olive oil used to fry the meat and onion. Oven was pre-heated to 180 degree celcius, and I cooked the beef for about one hour. I have no idea how long it was supposed to take – so I took a wild guess at it. I stabbed the meat every 10 minutes or so to check the color of the juice running out of the beef – it helps when you want to know just how cooked it is. Pinkish if raw, clear when medium, no juice when well-done.

Okay, there you go.My beef looking nice and brown in the picture (too brown??) . I put the onions aside along with the juices, and put the meat back inside the metal pot to cook for a further one hour and a half. And because we didn’t have any aluminium foil at home just now, I covered the metal pot with a metal tray . It should technically be the same – to retain the moisture inside the meat, yes.

After I blended the onion stuff, and put it on fire and add bits of mushroom (being creative here), and salt and pepper, I asked Sam to taste it. He gave a funny look and said it’s bitter. WHAT? Beda tried it too, and said :” Erm…well, maybe I am not used to it..it taste..it doesn’t taste like gravy..” The gravy looked white and bland. And since I was fasting, I can’t taste it to check what’s missing! Plus, PD’s gravy looked brown.

So, I added ‘Knorr’s demi-glace gravy granules‘! There, look at the nice, brown, textured gravy I got after that.I found out later it was because I added wet, white mushroom into the onion gravy. The raw taste of mushroom made it bitter But the brown sauce I made was good. Not authentic, but still, not bad. Pre-made manufactured gravy – tsk. I was already quite disappointed.

Then the timer went off, the beef came out looking well over ‘well-done’! Uhmm..why isn’t it white and pink like in the picture? Should I put it in for another two hours so it’ll be tender? Or would it be ‘rentung‘ (burnt beyond edible)? I was about to do so when the Azan sounded, and I can break my fast.

Too hungry to wait for another minute, I carved to meat. And it was nicely well done, if not slightly on the dry side. No matter, I made enough gravy to flood the whole joint.

Despite the little blunders here and there, it was fabulous I had it with butter and parsley rice instead of mash and toast. It would also go well with a soup starter like clam chowder soup. Or some boiled broccoli.

Note to self : Next time, if the person making the recipe neglects the baking time and temperature of oven – refer to  Jamie Oliver’s 

Thank you for the recipe, PD