Second day at New Zealand - Lake Tekapo & Mt. cook

We were heading to Mt cook and passed by Lake Tekapo.

Below is the scenery along the way

Our lunch was at Thai Tekapo. It's a bit hard to see this restaurant. When you entered Lake tekapo, pay attention to Four square supermarket and a post office, they are between them. If youvare coming from Christchurch like is, then it's going to be on your right. On your left, you will see a petrol station. 

Our next stop was Aston Cafe. Below is the view from the Aston Cafe. We can see Lake Tekapo. It's amazing! 

Enjoy an ice cream at astro cafe. 

We stopped by Alpine Salmon Farm. We got a 500 g of salmon sashimi. It's definitely a must try. Super fresh

Lake Pukaki

We reached the hermitage hotel around 3 or 4 pm. The condition of the hotel here is acceptable, but not as good compared to the rest of the hotel we stayed for this trip. I didn't even bother to take picture of the hotel. Haha. We stayed at a one bedroom apartment. There are one queen size bed and a queen size sofa bed in the living room, and there are two single beds in the bedroom. 

Third day at New Zealand - Queenstown

It's christmas! Merry Christmas 2014!

We had breakfast at the hotel for that day. It's pretty decent continental buffet breakfast. I managed to snap few pictures of Mt. Cook from the hermitage hotel. 

After the meal, we continued our journey to Queenstown. Below are few pictures that I have taken along the way from Mt. Cook to queenstown. 

It was supposed to be a short journey. We left the hermitage hotel around 9:15am, but we only reached queenstown around 2 pm. Before checking in to the hotel, we had our lunch at a thai restaurant, called "@thai". It's somewhere at the city centre of queenstown. 

After lunch, we walked around the city for a while. You can see Lake wakatipu at the city centre. A lot of people enjoy the sun by the side of the lake. 

There is one stall selling fish and chip, and i saw few people queued for that. 

There is one gelato ice cream stall. We decoded to try it. I tried the caramel creme flavor, but it's too sweet for my taste buds. The chocolate flavor was pretty good though. The cone is huge. 

We are ready to go to our hotel for some rest. I booked Double Tree hotel by Hilton. It was a nice hotel. 

Southern Island New Zealand Trip - Arrival Day

Our itinerary for the nine day trip at New Zealand starts from Christchurch-Lake Tekapo-Mt. Cook-Queenstown-Te Anau-Mildford Sound-Te Anau-Wanaka-Greymouth-Christchurch. 

Arrived at Christchurch on the 23rd dec by SQ early morning. We then got our rental car (toyota highlander). It's very comfortable for five of us with 6 luggages. 

We stayed near the city centre at Centrpoint @ columbus.I have booked 2 studio rooms for five of us, thinking that they may provide an extra bed with extra charge. Too bad, after the terrible earthquake in 2010, they have a regulation that doesn't allow 3 persons in a room. We were forced to get another room. 

After taking a shower, we went to get some food at a thai restaurant. Food is pretty good. Just that, the waiters made a mistake for our vegetarian pad thai. There was chicken served in the dish. So, i told then, and they appologize for that and planned to take it back and change for a vegetarian one. But since, we have tasted some, we told then that we would just keep and have the chicken pad thai. Of course we still want the vegetarian one as well. 

As we walked out, we offered them tips. At first they refused, but we insisted. I guess they probably felt bad due to the mistake. On the way back to hotel, i took out the receipt and take a quick look, and I realized that pad thai chicken wasn't counted.😅

Pumpkin Bread Loaf

Ingredients:

150g mashed pumpkin

280g bread flour

4g yeast(3/4tsp)

3g salt

20g honey

30g milk

30g butter

50g egg(1egg)

Steam pumpkin for 10-15 mins(until soft) then mash with fork. 

Procedures:
1. Mix flour, yeast, salt, honey, egg, mashed pumpkin, and milk using chopstick
2. Add in butter. Knead the dough until the dough is elastic and smooth. You can do it by hand or electric mixer. I usually do it by hand, and it takes me about 10-20 mins to get an elastic dough. To check whether you dough is ready, you can pinch off a small piece of dough, then stretch the dough by approx. 3-5 cm, if the dough forms a thin membrane and stretches without breaking, then your dough is ready.
3. Leave the dough in a container and cover with cling wrap, let it rise up to double size. This depends on the temperature of your kitchen. If it's warm enough, then it will take short time (45-60 mins). It may go up to 2 hours. I learnt a new technique, by placing the dough inside a warm oven that was preheated for 2 mins at 100 celcius. It takes less than an hour for the dough rise. 

4. Punch the dough with your fist to get rid of the air. Then flatten the dough, and roll the dough, like rolling swiss roll cake. 

5. Grease a loaf pan with about 1/2 tablespoon of vegetable oil. Place the rolled dough in the pan and cover with cling wrap. Then let it rise for the second time. You may place it inside the warm oven again. This may take about 40 mins.
6. Set oven temperature to 200 degrees celcius. Bake the bread for 18 mins. 

7. Let it cold before you slice it. You may keep the bread in freezer to keep it fresh. Whenever u want to eat, take out few slices and let it rest to room temperature. Your bread will still remain soft like a fresh one. 

Bao recipe

Bao recipe

1 tablespoon dry yeast

1/2 kg hong kong flour (can substitute with all purpose flour + cake flour, 1 cup flour=3/4 cup all purpose flour and 1/4 cup cake flour) 

10 g sugar

100 cc hot water + 150cc cold water

5 g White butter

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Martabak Manis Bangka (Indonesian Sweet Pancake)

Ingredients:
Skin:
1 egg
70 g white sugar
125 g all purpose flour
100 ml coconut milk
50 ml water
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Fillings:
1 tablespoon of white sugar
1 teaspoon of butter
One slice of cheese
2-3 tablespoons of rice chocolate ceres
1 tablespoon of slice almond (toasted)
1/2 tablespoon of white sesame seed (toasted)
1/2 tablespoon of condensed milk

Procedure:
Mix egg and sugar, beat until sugar is dissolved, add in some flour, then pour in some coconut milk, and water, mix, then add in the rest of the flour and liquid, mix well. You should get a mixture which is not too thick and not too thin. Add in baking powder, and beat hard with fork. Then, cover it with cling wrap, and let it rest for about 30 mins to an hour.

Heat a small pan (I use 8 inch / 20 cm size of ceramic pan). Use low heat, then sprinkle some water on the pan to check whether the pan is hot and ready to be used. When it's hot enough, pour the dough mixture, then use hand to turn the pan slightly to right, left, front, and back. This is done so that, you can create edge for your martabak. After a while (3-4 mins), you will see some bubbles start to create at the surface, then sprinkle sugar on top of the martabak and cover with a lid. Wait until the martabak is cooked (about 5 more mins), and remove it from the pan.

Spread one teaspoon of butter on top, put cheese then sprinkle rice chocolate, almond and sesame seeds. Drizzle the condensed milk evenly on top of the fillings. Cut the martabak into half, and fold it. Spread another teaspoon of butter on the skin.

Macaroons with raspberry dark chocolate fillings

  

Macaroon:

A

40 g almond powder

40 g icing sugar

Mix and sieve

B

30 g egg white (about 1 egg white)

40 g icing sugar

2 drops of strawberry essence

Beat at high speed, until it forms peaks (about 3-4 mins)

Then fold A mixture into B, slowly. The rest of procedure is similar to my previous post.

Filling:

Raspberry jam

4 tablespoons of frozen raspberry

4 tablespoons of sugar

Mix in a wok, and heat it up until it starts to boil, keep on stirring for another 2 more mins, the texture will be like jam, and it's ready to be used. Mix the jam with the chocolate fillings (recipe from previous post). 

The remaining procedures are similar to the one I wrote for chocolate macaroon.