Jolly BBQ 2008

This was my first and last BBQ for the year 2008. Gone were the days when I'll wash down charred black sausages and chicken wings with ice-cold coke, struggling to keep awake throughout the night by stuffing myself silly with whatever cold remnants found at the BBQ pit. Those were the days when my system could still deal with all the fat and cholesterol overload.

Although not formerly announced, I believed the BBQ was held for the following jolly reasons:

(1) In loving memories of Sausage Co - may there be no other comparable sausage shop

(2) A get-together for the Sausage Co team - for a job well done

(3) Post-Christmas, Pre-2009 New Year celebration

There's the usual prawn, squid, chicken fillet, otah, satay affair and of course, "Sausage Co" sausages. But it's quite a huge disappointment for me and Roger that chicken wings were missing from the list.

And for health reasons stated earlier, there's wholesome mushrooms topped with lots of garlic wrapped in aluminium foil as well as dragonfruit themed salad to lighten up on the taste bud.

As with almost all BBQ, the first few barbeque loads are sure to churn out charred, over-cooked, dry food. But with practise, it didn't take long for the 'team' to delivered barbeque perfect food. Such was the case for the mushrooms that I was busy sweeping it off the table that it slipped my mind to photograph it.

Mother Almighty also showed off her culinary skills by whipping up a huge pot of vegetable curry to go with a gigantic serving of fried bee hoon - enough to feed an entire village from Rawanda.

I took over the dessert section by making three types of mooncake themed agar-agars.

Mango Yoghurt Agar-Agar Mooncake

(the filling tasted sour which I believe could be due to the lemon juice but definitely not the mangoes)

Green Tea Red Bean Jelly Mooncake

(this was really fragrant and creamy)

Strawberry Jelly Mooncake

(this was the most refreshing from the lot)

So long, Sausage Co....

Sausage Co. is the first reason for starting up this blog space.

On this very day, arrangements were made to gather the entire family at the shop for their last lunch at Sausage Co.


We practically cleaned out the remaining stock of Bockwurst before we proceeded to attack the Bratwurst. :P


Through Sausage Co., I learnt that if one dares to dream and dreams hard enough, the dream would surely materialize. Regardless of the outcome, the learning process and experience is uniquely yours and yours only to keep .

When one customer assumes and asked, "Where is the location of the new shop?"

another complained, "My heart is broken"

and a third jokingly commented, "I feel like crying whenever I eat the hotdog because they are made with love"

You'll know it's all worth it... :)

Sausage Co Countdown: 7 more days to go.......

Sausage Co. will be closing down on 22 November 2008.



It had already served hotdogs for a solid 18 months, braving the thinning crowds and the consecutive closing down of neighbouring shops at Icon Village.

Compared to 18 months ago, the speed of serving up piping hotdogs was greatly improved, skills of toasting the buns and grilling the sausages were honed, rapport built with the regular customers, menu improved, shop front customized and even my mother learned to take orders in English!

On this very fateful day, 7 days before the official closure, I made my way down to the shop. I had to have my two favourite sausages: Bockwurst with salad & Bratwurst in a bun.



So much was learned, the efforts and hard work were all worth it! :)

I'm truly proud of my mother and brother!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

For the past few days, I had been mulling over how to best optimise the large quantities of mini chocolate chips in my fridge. And today, I finally decided to go back to one of the basic baking recipes -chocolate chip cookies. It has been some time since I last baked these cookies.

I found a recipe online and I tweaked it a little. Without realising, it can in fact be considered a vegan cookie if not for the addition of chocolate chips. Is chocolate chips considered vegetarian? I got the following extract from my Google search:

"Vegan baking requires particular attention to reading labels. Many chocolate chip brands contain dairy ingredients. There are several varieties of chocolate chips on the market that do not contain dairy, and natural food stores also stock chocolate chips made from grain-based sweeteners."

Nevertheless, it's easy to replace the chocolate chips by dried raisins or nuts to make vegan cookies.

I managed to 'mass produce' sufficient quantities for giveaways at Sausage Co. :)

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour I added slightly more based on the consistency of the batter

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup canola oil

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar I added slightly less

1/3 cup granulated sugar I added slightly less

1/2 tsp vanilla

chocolate chips

almond nuts, chopped

Method:

(1) Mix flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

(2) Mix canola oil, brown sugar, granulated sugar, 3tbs of water and vanilla essence well.

(3) Stir in flour mixture.

(4) Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.

(5) Drop batter in one tablespoon portions about 2" apart on baking sheet.

(6) Bake in a preheated 180°C oven for 10 - 15 mins or until golden brown.

Verdict:

(+) It is super fast to make the batter.

(-) Cookies can be too hard for some.

(=) If you like the cookies from Famous Amos, then you'll like this cookie too! The 'hardness' of the cookie is comparable.

Sausage Co. Stickers

Through a friend, I got the contact to his dad who runs a sticker company. So I decided to order some stickers with the Sausage Co. logo - as a late gift for the new sausage establishment. Yesterday, my friend's dad is really nice to deliver the stickers to me despite the small quantity. Thanks Mr. Tan! :)

Menu Update from Sausage Co.

After dropping by Sausage Co. a couple of times, I observed many customers asking to look at the sausages, toppings, sauces et cetera. And so, I proposed to create a pictorial menu for the shop.

The idea of taking photographs at the shop came to my mind after I patronised a Hong Kong themed cafe located in the eastern part of Singapore. The photographs shown on the menu looks really fantastic - with it's large serving size and appetising photo shots. However, the disappointment set in when we saw the actual food serving. It was half the size of what was shown on the menu. Food tastes rather so-so too, definitely not worth the price we are paying. So I gathered that by taking photographs of the food items in the shop for the menu, WHAT YOU SEE (WILL BE IN FACT) WHAT YOU GET!

If the boss nods his head, the menu will be on display at Sausage Co. soon. My menu! :)

Visit to Sausage Co.

I brought some friends to the Sausage Co. this evening and realised that there are some changes to the menu.

For a start, the slow-selling sausages will be phrased out while new sausage flavours (after repeated requests from customers) will be launched.

The garden salad bowl was newly launched where the customers have the option to either be totally healthy and eat only vegetables or to add a grilled sausage to the salad bowl - either way, it's a good option for those who prefers a light lunch!

The coleslaw will be replacing the mixed pea salad - HURRAY!!! Coleslaw is my all-time favourite! I'm such a big fan of the KFC coleslaws but it's a pity that for a small cup of coleslaw, they are charging quite a bit.

And of course, the shop will be giving the Horlicks Doggie Cookies as giveaways for the Mid-Autumn festival.

I volunteered to make a poster for the shop.... let's hope it'll be head-stopper, attention-grabber.

This is my dinner: Bockwurst + lettuce + tomato + american beef chilli (my must-have dressing!)

Horlicks Doggie Cookies

I found this recipe on the web recently and was extremely excited to try it out! The cookies look so cute (I actually thought it looks like a bear) and most importantly, it tastes great as well!

The last time, I made hotdog cookies as giveaways at Sausage Co. during the National Day week. And I was rather pleased to have some customers exclaiming at how cute they look, some couldn't bear to eat it, while a few came back to buy more hotdogs so as to get their hands on more hotdog cookies!

So this time round, feeling more encouraged, I decided to give these cookies away with purchases of hotdogs at Sausage Co. again. The theme would be for the Mooncake Festival. Totally unrelated, simply an excuse to give away free samples for my cookies! For those who would like to try the cookies, please kindly patronise Sausage Co. @ Icon Village!

Horlicks Doggie Cookies

Ingredients:

180g butter

80g horlicks i used the instant horlick packet mix

100g chocolate chips

200g top flour

25g cornflour

25g milk powder

koko krunch

15g sugar (optional)

Method:

(1) Sift the top flour, cornflour and milk powder.

(2) Cream the butter and horlicks for 3 mins at low speed. Do not overbeat.

(3) Add the sifted flour and beat for about one min to form a dough.

(4) Divide dough into 10g each. Embed 2 chocolate chips into each piece of dough and roll into a ball.

(5) Insert 2 pieces of koko krunch to form the ears, 3 chocolate chips to form the eyes and mouth.

(6) Bake at 140°C for ~ 25 mins.

(7) Cool before storing.

Verdict:

(+) Recipe is very easy to follow

(+) Doggie cookies are easily moulded

(=) This is one great recipe to make with children! Minimal ingredients, horlick-flavoured, fun to make, nice to look at and good to eat!
(=) This simple recipe produces crusty cookies

(=) The cookie itself is not sweet at all except for the chocolate chip fillings inside. So for those with a sweet-tooth, you might want to add some castor sugar into the butter mixture

Hotdog combo meals @ Sausage Co.

After the visit at the hospital, I decided to meetup with some friends for hotdog dinner @ Sausage Co.

It was raining rather heavily when we reached the shop and found, to our surprise, a small queue already forming outside the shop.


I ordered a Bockwurst with lettuce, tomato and chilli beef toppings. The chilli beef is a teeny bit spicy but nevetheless, nice! I was being very greedy and attempted DIY hotdog where I topped a very large scoop of beef chilli! Yummy!


My friends ordered a Mushroom Frankfurter each but with different toppings. One with chilli beef and honey mustard toppings


while the other chose lettuce, chilli ebi and honey mustard toppings. My friend especially enjoyed the chilli ebi because it is unique to have it served on a hotdog - plus it is also homemade. All three hotdogs were given the thumbs-up!

Each hotdog costs $5 and we ended up paying another $1.50 as top-up to one combo meal where we had a peach tea and a small salad bowl.

It was quite an experience to have a pipping hotdog in hand, standing under a shelter in the cool evening, with the heavy downpour pounding just 4 metres away on the gravel road.

Advertisement: Sausage Co. Hotdog @ Icon Village

This is a small Hotdog shop located at the ground level of yet another new condominium in Singapore. And it's owned by someone of blood relation, so it's only right that I put up a tiny advertisement here.

The business is about 6-7 weeks old and the menu is currently being fine-tuned in response to feedbacks from the customers; which means

- if something tastes dull the first time, there might have already been an improvement meanwhile(!)

- new add-ons to the menu upon popular requests; in another words, the customers have a say in changing the menu (!!)

I shall be posting photos of the hotdogs sold there soon!

Meanwhile, The Travelling Hungryboy and the Eat-Drink-Man-Woman thread from the Hardwarezone form has already blogged about the shop !

How to get there:

Nearest MRT is Tanjong Pagar station. Icon Village located next to Amara Hotel. The shop is just by the roadside.