Joan Cooked Sausages 5

Kelly's Chicken Vienna Gold with Gardenia's Hotdog Buns, one topped with cheddar, the other topped with yellow mustard.

Life's simplest pleasures, tucking into a nice warm hotdog and sitting in front of the telly and just waste time. I seem to have visited almost all notable hotdog joints in Singapore, and I'm thinking if I should go into trying out all the different brands of frozen and chilled sausages that are on sale in the supermarket, then perhaps come to a conclusion which brand of sausages is the best. haha~

Anyway, the highlight today isn't sausages, which is quite a surprise. Today I'd like to introduce my beloved cake knife!

I had a normal knife and my cake knife cut each of my hotdog buns, and look at the vast different in the texture of the cut.

The one with the normal kitchen knife has a very coarse texture at the cut lines, as shown in the top left hand picture, which the cake knife sliced the bread so smoothly seen in the top right hand corner. Yup, that's my cake knife there~

Erm, even though the cake knife does very beautiful cutting, I seldom use it. I seldom have the chance to cut breads and cakes, and most of the times cutting cakes we use the plastice free knifes rather than my more professional cake knife, I don't know why. Perhaps maybe probably is because the plastic knife can be thrown away after using and need not undergo the tedious process of washing. haha~

Oh, and I'll be heading to Sarawak tomorrow so I won't be blogging next week, but I don't think I'll be missed since my blogging pace and slowed down a great deal. If you want to look at more food and/or you miss me too much, here's my food post on my CNY dinners, V Day dinner, meals in Malacca. It's a very long post with lots of pictures. Have fun~

Joan Cooked Sausages 4

Cheese sausage with extra slice of cheddar, asparagus, topped with mustard on a slice of bread.

I love sausages. But eating only sausages is not really that balanced a diet. I'm not really that anal on having a balanced diet, but recently I've been trying to lead a healthier lifestyle, hence I started pondering over what type of greens go well with sausages to make a hotdog a balance meal on its own.

I've tried the most common lettuce, and I thought it didn't go well with each other. Lettuce goes best with bacon, with all the oil and fats. I tried cucumbers, the second most common type of greens, but well, it felt too cool that it was just weird. I think cucumbers go best with cold cuts. I decided to experiment with asparagus because I know of dishes with asparagus and the light taste in asparagus can bring out stronger tastes of its mains, and the result was just marvelous. I've henceforth decided that the best pairing of sausages and greens is the greens of asparagus.

It's nice and crunchy, yet not overpowering even though there's a hint of vegetable taste. And the asparagus goes well with mustard, the choice topping of sausages. Mustard don't go well with the raw greens.

Okay, another thing I'd like to introduce today in this entry is the Fairprice cheese sausages. I don't like them. This sausage is more like cheese Taiwan Sausage rather than cheese sausage. I've had them before and always thought that there's this sweet taste of it that irks me. Yes, I have a strong dislike for Taiwan Sausages because I have strong dislike for sweet stuffs on supposedly savoury stuffs.

After checking the ingredients list, indeed sugar was listed as one of the ingredients, and it was listed before salt. Meaning, there's more sugar in that sausage than salt, which is what I prefer.

1901

Cheese Hotdog from 1901, set comes with mash potatoes (which sucks) and a drink, costs $4something, I can't remember. I bought this at the Suntec branch.

I've tried them once before, and thought it was quite a decent bite, more like a quick snack. It's normal, plain, quick, decent, no complains there. But it's also because there's nothing exceptional about it, or special, or different, there's also nothing to shout about.

I had the cheese hotdog this time round and it's a tad bit better than the plain chicken sausage. The cheese is oozy and abundant as you can see in the lower right corner. One thing interesting about this stall is that it has common condiments for you to squeeze yourself, but the condiments aren't in bottles. There's this udder like structure with tubes (udders) for you to squeeze out the condiment you want, and your preferred amount of it. It's like squeezing udder, or phallus, or erm, erm... ya...

Auntie Anne's

Pretzel Dog at $3.10 from Auntie Anne's Parkway Parade branch. A long string of pretzel, rather than rolled up into a pretzel shape is rolled and wrapped around a chicken hotdog.

I've only eaten Auntie Anne's pretzels a couple of times when I was in secondary school, had the pretzel dog another time, and this is the second time I'm eating the pretzel dog. It's just as how I remembered it. Salty pretzel, with juicy sausage within. It's denser than a normal hotdog bun, but the hotdog taste is stronger due to the high density, lower volume of the dough part.

I'm not a fan of pretzels, or American-styled pretzels. I'm more used to the German style Bretzel, which are fluffier, bigger, and more like bread. In fact, to me a Bretzel is something very Germanic. It's like all German bakeries use the Bretzel shape to indicate that they are a bakery. Werner's Oven and the Swiss Backerei both have the Bretzel as their logo. But even with the standard German bread, and the Germans being most famous for their sausages, couldn't come up with a pretzel dog.

Movies and Hotdogs at Cathay

Jumbo Hotdog Combo with coke from the Cathay cineplexes, $7. A Jumbo Hotdog alone costs $4.80.

Other than hotdogs, I love to watch movies. And one of the best part about going to watch a film, is to eat hotdogs. So much so that I plan my movie trips when I have cravings and where the hotdogs are good. I prefer the hotdogs from Cathay as compared to the other cinemas. Cathay's hotdogs have a smaller piece of bread, or a larger piece of hotdog whichever way you want to look at things. I don't like bread that much and I love my hotdogs, so this is the hotdog for me.

But what I like most is the melted cheese on top of the hotdog. Doesn't it look just so inviting? I was eating it and almost gagging as I watched the comedy Wo ist Fred.

I'll see when I trot down to other cinemas and do a corresponding review on the hotdogs there, but it won't be that soon. Exams are coming, and Joan is stuck at home studying and eating potato chips for breakfast lunch and dinner, so apologies ahead in the coming weeks when posts become rather scarce. Jiayou to all having exams!

Hotbake Again

Remember the Hotbake Machine? I promised to review it again, when there's the Hotdog Melt featured. Presenting, Outback BBQ Hotdog Melt...


Outback BBQ Hotdog Melt, a sandwich consisting of hotdogs, cheese, BBQ sauce and pineapple bits, $2 only. The one at the right bottom is a Pepperoni Melt which also included a bit of hotdog slices, $2.50 if you buy it separately but $4 for both sandwiches.

There's a ton more hotdog slices in this sandwich as compared to the one I featured earlier, but I think there has been a slide in quality of sandwiches since last semester. The sandwiches now have lesser filling, and the fillings are concentrated too much in the centre. The sides are just plain bread, which gets a bit frustrating because I want to eat the sandwiches for the fillings and not for the bread.

On the whole, discounting the fact that there's too much bread, this is one yummy filling for a sandwich. The sauce is tangy enough and the meat is good, I mean, you can't go wrong with sausages, right? There's quite a lot of fillings in the centre of the sandwich, so with each bite, there's a meaty punch in there.

Swenson's

In celebration of my sister's birthday, we went to Swenson's for dinner.

Because of this blog, I decided upon the chicken frank and giving a pass in trying the new stuff Swenson's had in their new menu.

From top left to bottom right,
Appetisers: Fried Mushrooms, Fried Cheese Sticks
Mains: Sister's Salmon and Mushroom Spaghetti, Daddie's BBQ Chicken, Joan's Chicken Frank, Mother's Fish and Chips, Someone's Chicken and Mushroom Spaghetti
Ice Cream: two Topless Fives, flavours include Lime Sorbet, Mint, Sticky Chewy Chocolate, Mango, Cookies and Cream, Chocolate, Coffee

Because this is essentially a Sausage Blog, I shall not talk about the other food except for my huge Chicken Frank.

Chicken Frank, $12.50 + 10% service charge + 7% GST, served with criss cut fries and coleslaw.

Chicken Franks are the most normal foodstuff about in American eateries, so what makes one chicken frank more outstanding than the other? Other than in terms of individual taste, you can't really go wrong about it, Swenson's made use of toppings of the chicken frank to differentiate their chicken franks. This chicken frank came topped with parmesan cheese, honey mustard, shaved ham and tomato bits. The toasted buns were also buttered. It also came with onions, but I requested for mine to come sans onions.

In all, this differentiation in the chicken frank really impressed me. And for its price, it's still quite value for money.

Hotbake Machine

All Day Breakfast Sandwich, a sandwich which included an omelette with hotdogs, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes, from a Hotbake Machine at NUS Central Library. It's $2.50, but if you take the combo of two different sandwiches, it's $4 for both.

Ever since these sandwich vending machines sprouting out, touting to have freshly toasted sandwiches all day, I've been a fan. Well, at least for the few varieties which I like. Sadly, this All Day Breakfast Sandwich is quite a disappointment. The sandwich itself isn't too bad, it's just that the picture show above and the actual sandwich turned out to be way lot different.

The real one looked like this...


I was disappointed with the hotdogs. The picture showed full long hotdogs on top of the omelette, but in reality, the hotdog was in bits and was in the omelette itself. Nonetheless, I still recommend Hotbake for their vending sandwiches, but another variety instead. One of my favourite's Hotdog Melt, I'll put it up if it's being offered.

Barbeque

Over the midterm break, I went for a barbeque, but because I was still nursing the wound, I couldn't eat chicken, and that means effectively all the barbeque stuff. Luckily, dearest Someone prepared some porky stuff for me to barbeque.


Pork Chipolatas, caterpillar cut, looking absolutely glorious.

The first night of the barbeque we had his friends over, but thankfully, the halal friends were a no show in the end, so my porkies were about the share the barbeque grill among with the others. There wasn't a need for the halal friends to be full before I can eat. I was actually getting pretty hungry already.

Barbeque chipolatas taste better than grilled in the toaster oven! Think it's because of all the soot and the grease and the atmosphere of eating with many people. The only grouse was that only one type of sausage was bought, at my fouth chipolata I was feeling the diminishing returns. It would have been better if there were a bit more variety. hmm... Joan's not being indulgent that night. haha~


Cheese Pork Hotdogs, with cheese oozing out, absolutely tantalising.

On the second night, after the friends left, we had a greater leeway do do up our little barbeque. I picked up some cheese pork hotdogs and some hot dog buns.
1: Hotdogs, skewers, buns.
2: Hotdogs skewered.
3: Hotdogs on the barbeque.
4: Blistering hotdogs, slowly being charred.
5: Hotdog with buns, can you see the cheese oozing out?
6: A bite off the hotdog bun, look at the cheese~
7: Spiltted hotdogs with cheese oozing out.
8: A hotdog on its own, look at the charred marks~
9: Bitten by me, look at the cheese~

I had two hotdog with buns, and two without. And I really liked the charred parts on the hotdog, it was cripsy and sooty. The cheese inside a pity wasn't as soft and smooth as I'd have liked it to be. I think it's because I couldn't reach that high a heat for the cheese within the hotdog to be totally molten as the outsides charred. The fire we were using has been started for quite some time as Someone's mother was using it to barbeque before we took it over.

Still it was a wonderful barbeque experience. I've always liked barbequing~ I can't wait to get well soon and barbeque again. This time I want to eat all the things I couldn't eat earlier on.

Joan Cooked Sausages 3

I call this a cheesy bratwurst sandwich.


Just follow the instructions to replicate this delicious cheesy sausage sandwich.

Step 1: Caterpillar cut the sausage.
I wanted to grill it in the little toaster oven so to thoroughly cook it, it's better to caterpillar cut it so that the insides of the sausage can be cooked too.

Step 2: Add more sausages.
Why settle for one when you can have two? Why settle for less when you can have more? haha~ Joan the over indulgent girl speaks out again. Well, actually, no I didn't have both sausages for myself.

Step 3: Add sliced mozzerella on top.
Slice a block of mozzerella and place them on top of the sausages. Ever since I discovered mozzerella came in blocks, I never looked back at the shredded ones anymore. Shredded ones are more air than cheese!

Step 4: Add cheddar.
I mean, who can resist having more cheese? I know I can't...

Step 5: Grill it!
Put them in the toaster oven and grill it for about 10-15min. I can't tell the exact time, but by agaration, can tell when it's cooked one la.

Step 6: Serve with sandwich bread and lettuce.
Just look at the glorious melted cheese... ooh~ But then, confession to be made, sandwich for sausages is not the most delicious thing. A hot dog bun, or better still my favourite kaiser rolls are better. And lettuce doesn't really go well with sausages, I don't know why either. Maybe it just goes better with greasy stuff.

But the sausage with the cheese was really good~ I need to buy more mozzerella blocks now!

Breadtalk

Standard Sausage from Breadtalk which I bought from the AMK Hub branch for $1.30 per piece.

I don't like Breadtalk's stuff because there's this awful stale smell coming from the stall sort of like that puking-inducing smell coming from Pepper Lunch, though Breadtalk isn't as bad. I prefer to buy my bread from Four Leaves. But for the sake of this blog, and since I was on the way, and more importantly because I was hungry, I decided to buy one of those sausage buns to try.

It's edible la, but nothing to wow over about it. There's too much bread to too little sausage content, and for $1.30 it's not really worth its price, but then again, it's about the standard price for all buns everywhere.