Ireland - Lebanese Pumpkin Cantellini Soup

After 1 month staying in Ireland, I finally figured out where the Saturday market is: almost right in front of our housing.

There were only about 10 shops at the Saturday market. Most of the sell food and fresh fruits and vegetables. I didn't see any shop selling meat.

There was a shop that sells Lebanese pumpkin and cantellini soup with 7 spices, which she doesn't remember all of them when I asked the lady who sold this soup.



I Googled "Lebanese 7 spices" and according to this website they are: nutmeg, ginger, allspice, fenugree, cloves, cinnamon and black pepper. Really, I just love Google. You can get all sorts of useful information you wouldn't be able to get 10 years ago.

I'm not sure if I'm fond of the texture - it's a little to thick of a soup for me.

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Ireland - Wheat Germ

It is probably nothing special for a lot of Westerners, but it is something really new to me.

If you are not familiar with the structure of wheat in English, you'd probably think of "germ" as microorganism, as my friend did when I told her "I got wheat germ today."

The germ is actually part of the kernel of the wheat that is responsible for germination, which is to say that it contains a lot of protein and vitamins necessary for its growth.

My Suppy Chain Management professor was telling us about wheat germs in class the other day, and based on the class's response, wheat germ would be classified as something an overly healthy person or a granny would buy. And that made me curious. Does it taste that bad? And does it really help with bowel regulation? I need to test it on myself, because if this thing is more effective than eating a dozen of prebiotic yogurt and the taste is acceptable, I would definitely buy this instead of some soluble fiber sold in pharmacies whenever I have some bowel problems.

I found wheat germs in the breakfast cereal section in TESCO, next to the oatmeals. According to the instruction, you can add it to soups, breakfast cereals or even beverages. I tried mixing a tablespoon of it into a mug of hot chocolate, and it tastes perfect. However, thanks to my curious question at myself "What happens if I add a lot of these into my hot chocolate?" after drinking half a mug of my wheat-germ fortified hot chocolate, I found myself stuck in a rather uncomfortable situation.

At high dosage, I'd say about 3 tablespoons of wheat germ into half a mug of hot chocolate, I could taste bitter compounds from the beverage. Not to mention the consistency changed a lot. I felt like drinking extremely diluted oatmeal with grainy particles and a hint of chocolate. Terrible. Absolutely terrible.

My Thai housemate, also a curious individual (but much less extreme than me), tried to mix it with warm milk and she said it was delicious.

I think I'll try mixing it in soups next. Or maybe in rice!

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Ireland - Kinder Maxi King & Pinguin Chocolate

I don't know if these are exclusively available in Ireland, but these two babies are SUPER GOOD. Kind of like eating Magnum ice cream, but instead of ice cream inside, they're filled with soft, fluffy, milky, heavenly filling that makes you go "mmmmmhhhhhh...!" when you bite it. In the case of Kinder Maxi King, there's caramel sauce filling inside. 

These needs to be refrigerated, by the way.

I friggin' love these!!!

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Ireland - Heinz Oxtail Soup

I like strolling around the supermarket looking at things that are interesting. They don't have to be a novel product; as long as they seem new to me, I'd take a look at them and even buy them just to know how it tastes like.

 

 

I don't know the exact origin of this style of oxtail soup but from the picture it's clearly different from Indonesian oxtail soup.

(Image courtesy of http://www.sleeplessinkl.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/sop-buntut.jpg)

The ingredients are indeed very different, as the main ingredient of this soup seems to be tomato and not the oxtail itself. So it's more like tomato soup plus some oxtail meat inside. One can of this soup has a rather low calorie (166 kcal), low fat and also low sodium. I'm not particularly interested whether it's healthy or not, but I just want to try tasting it.

 

.....

 

I think it's clearly visible that there is veeeeeery tiny amount of meat in the soup. Well, what do you expect of a 166 kcal soup? There are little chunks of carrots, but not that many either.

 

The taste? Hmm.... there's this taste that is similar to fishy taste that I am not really fond of. Also, this soup doesn't taste beefy. I'm not really sure how to describe the flavour. The texture is okay, although I'm not a big fan of soups thickened by some sort of starch or other thickeners.

 

I don't think I'll buy this again, but I'm glad I tasted it. 

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Instant Noodle around the World 15 - Knorr Quick Lunch Spaghetti Carbonara

Technically, you would call spaghetti "pasta" and not "instant noodle", but considering that pasta is derived from Chinese noodle, you can still call spaghetti "noodle". So, instant spaghetti = instant noodle, no?

I found this Knorr Quick Lunch Spaghetti Carbonara from TESCO in Cork, Ireland.

The cooking instruction is pretty much the similar to that of general instant cup noodles. High in fats, so it definitely suits its name "Quick Lunch". I don't want to eat that much fats for dinner. Not when I'm not in shape.

Everything is premixed inside the cup. The spaghetti is a little thin - I'd call this spaghettini or angel hair pasta instead. But I guess it's hard to cook something as thick as spaghetti just with hot water even with modified stach.

I forgot to take a picture of it after it's cooked, but it looks decent. The sauce is smooth and creamy, with little pieces of bacon in it. The sauce coats the pasta pretty well. I'm not sure if the water I used is not hot enough, or I didn't stir enough, or I didn't wait long enough, but when I ate the top part, the spaghetti is still kind of crunchy. I kind of like it actually, even though if you have high standard for pasta like my Italian friend who also tried this, you will not like it. A person who eats pasta every day (and cook it in the correct way) will find this a turn-off.

I personally like it, considering the price and the convenience. I'd say great job to whoever invented this instant pasta concept. Oh, and the good thing is you don't have to microwave it. It's my first instant pasta that can be cooked with hot water :)

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