Quay Po Cooks: Kalrya

Showing posts with label Kalrya. Show all posts

Monday, August 6, 2012

Don't get drunk, but getting a bit high may be unavoidable

One of the fun things I did during my last visit back to the U.S. is touring wineries and tasting their products. As we traveled, we did the tourist thing and took some photos for the album.

My stepdaughter took us to two wineries.

The first one was Kalrya Winery in Santa Ynez

http://www.kalyrawinery.com/

Our second visit was to the Sunstone Winery also in Santa Ynez.

http://www.sunstonewinery.com/

I loved Sunstone. The winery was beautifully built to capture the Spanish classic design of California's history. The place is so COOL!

They sold their wines and other specialties like flavoured olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar.

The flagstone patio with a beautiful view beckoned everyone to sit and enjoy a glass of wine.

After tasting all the wonderful wine and getting a little high it was time to leave the wineries behind and head off to the small tourist town of Solvang for dinner. One advice from Aunty Lucy: Don’t get drunk, but getting a little high is forgiveable (unless you are driving). In fact, it is almost unavoidable, if you visit more than one winerie. They pour as much as you want in the tasting room. Drinking too much is awful and will just spoil your day.

We arrived in Solvang at just the right time for an early dinner before the drive home. We dined at a small restaurant called Mustard Seed.

The restaurant looks very nice but the food there was just so-so, nourishing but lacking flavour. I think we should have gone home and made the chicken roulade shown below for dinner. It would have been much more satisfying.

Chicken Roulade

Ingredients:

4 chicken breasts (boneless, skinless)

1 medium carrot (blanched and thinly sliced)

1 capsium (roasted, skin removed and in 8 slices)

1 cucumber, (seeds removed and thinly sliced)

4 tbs grated cheddar

16 -20 slices pancetta

1/4 cup parmesan cheese (grated)

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Method:

Butterfly the chicken breast and lay them open on the cutting board. Season with salt and ground black pepper. Lay slices of cucumber, capsicum, carrot and 1 tbs of cheddar cheese on the chicken. Roll the chicken breast around the filling and then wrap each roll with pancetta. Secure the pancetta strips with toothpicks or tuck the ends under other wraps to hold in place. Brown the rolls evenly on all sides. Put the chicken roulades on a parchment lined sheet pan and bake in the pre heated oven at 350 degrees F until the chicken reaches an internal temperature of 170°F. Should take about 15 minutes.

I served it on a two layered bed of lightly sauteed fresh spinach and grits flavoured with parmesan.

A LITTLE ABOUT THIS QUAY PO

Before I was married to my "Quay Lo" (Guaylo) husband, I did not know how to bake or cook. Subsequently I learned some baking and cooking Western cuisine from him, and providing his food for him launched an interest in cooking in general. Many of my Chinese friends and family told me that "Quay" is the wrong spelling for devil in Cantonese. The right spelling should be "Kwai" or "Guay". Well, somehow I like the spelling "Quay" better although I have to agree that it does not sound very Cantonese. Try asking a Westerner to pronounce "Kwai" and you will probably hear "Quay" haha. Whether is "Quay" or "Kwai" or "Guay, just know the devil woman is me when you see Quay Po Cooks. My hubby said if people pronounce "Quay" as "Key" is even better because I am the key to his heart. LOL!

Only now, have I started to learn the traditional Cantonese cuisine of my Mum. She cooks fabulously and all her specialties are divine. These two interests, my husband's Western food, and my mother's traditional food, prompted me to document them so they will not be lost.

Here, I wish to share my cooking and baking experience with my readers. I also hope to inspire those who do not know how to cook or bake to do so because, trust me, if I can, you can too.

Something I'd like to mention is that I find that many people are rather unwilling to share their recipes. However, for me, I think differently. I think good recipes should be shared thus allowing as many people to enjoy it as possible. Unless those recipes are for doing business, I don't see why we want to keep them all to ourselves. So if you are generous in sharing your recipes, you are welcome to share on my blog. Send the recipes to me and better still with pictures of the final products and I will be very happy to post them them with credits to you of course.

Our cuisine is a deeply embedded part of our culture. When two cultures come together under the same roof the results in the kitchen can sometimes be comedic, sometimes confrontational, but more often it is a journey full of surprises and discovery. There is joy in our food. If we think upon this, it is intuitively obvious. This blog is a journey of joy and sharing, reflecting what the French like to call "joie de vivre" (joy of living). No one could be more different from one another then my husband and my mother. Yet one thing they share in common is knowing intuitively that food, cooking, and sharing can be avenues of joy in life itself. So herein, help yourself, to a little joy and , if you like it, share it with your own family and friends. Joy is something that should be shared.