Crowd Pleasers

I used to keep a kitchen diary, a little book where I would take down recipes that I've tried and that worked. I'd start one, then start hunting high and low for it, with only a handful of recipes into the book. I've been through journals of all shapes, sizes and colours before I decided that I'd stop wasting my time with this truly vicious cycle.

If I still kept one of my kitchen diaries, this recipe for tomato tart would definitely be penned into the book. Although it wouldn't be much of a recipe as much as it would be a quick jotting down of 'Slow-roasted tomatoes, Caramelised onions, Char-grilled peppers and Puff Pastry/Table Water crackers/Anything nice and crunchy'.

It started out simply with just a fascination for this recipe that turned juicy, and mildly tart tomatoes into intensely sweet nibbles. So I started adding them to burgers, soups, canapes, and salads. Wherever I thought it wouldn't look out of place, it was always there to lend a hand.

Over time, I developed a similarly strong liking for slowly caramelised onions. Leaving onions to sweat in its own juices, waiting for it to turn a slight shade of brown and melt into utterly sweet tenderness is always a painful test of patience.

And then came char-grilled peppers. The first time I encountered these gems was, and I feel my face flush even as I'm typing this, through one of Jamie Oliver's cooking shows. I'm a not-so-secret fan of his, and am a sob-show when watching his TV series - school dinners. In his usual 'bim-bam-slam' style, he threw a couple of peppers onto an open fire on the stove and watched it turn totally black. He then left them to sweat in brown paper bags, then peeled off their skins, leaving behind soft, juicy, peppery flesh.

I was intrigued by the process, and didn't wait long to try it on my own, only to realise that I had been missing out on something so great for all 20 over years of my life. My love story with peppers started then.

And so the Mother-of-all-tarts was born. For convenience, it was named a tomato tart. It wouldn't have been as much a mouthful as a slow-roasted-tomato-and-caramelised-onions-and-char-grilled-peppers-tart. Even Tomato, Onion and Peppers Tart sounded too complicated for my mind to wrap around.

Something crunchy or flaky, like puff pastry, rolled out and punched out with cookie cutters then baked blind, provides much needed texture to the combination of all three ingredients above. And they never fail to be crowd pleasers. Even my brother who, like me, never fancied onions or peppers, would make exceptions for these bite-sized canapes.

The making of each of these components (tomatoes, onions, peppers) requires a lot of eye-balling. With just a little practice and perhaps some luck for good measure, you'll master it really quickly!

Links for recipes:
Slow-roasted tomatoes
Caramelised onions (I'd sometimes add white wine and/or sugar)
Char-grilled peppers

I Heart Fer... Pho.

We all have various places we HAVE to visit when travelling. While some look for beautiful scenery, others might aim to cover all the museums in that country. My dad happens to be one of those museum buffs who would drag his poor daughter through the Louvre as he literally inches his way through the many, many rooms.

I have had terrible impressions of museums. They either had paintings or sculptures that look more similar the more I stared at them, or (in more contemporary museums) had odd installations that I could not make head or tail of.

I on the other hand, am almost always guided by my stomach when travelling. So while I popped into a couple of museums here and there, they're never on my priority list. I hardly even visited local museums except on school excursions countless years ago.

So I thought it was extremely clever of the National Museum of Singapore to put together a Food & Culture Series last year. I managed to attend just one of the talks on Mortar and Pestle, given by a very engaging Christopher Tan. Not only did I enjoy the session, it included a tour of the very stunningly renovated National Museum, and effectively changed my view of museums.

This year, the National Museum has organised a second Food & Culture Series. I was fortunate enough to snag a seat in the first of the talks on Vietnamese Pho (pronounced as 'fer'). When I arrived at the rotunda, I was welcomed by an awe-inspiring replica of David wrapped in a beautiful brocade textile (see picture above).

'The Story of Pho, The Story of a Nation' was a short talk on the history of this popular Vietnamese Beef Noodle dish, covering everything from the wars in Vietnam to the height of Pho in the 1940s. While a little heavy going, there were certainly illuminating and light-hearted moments. Perhaps the best part, and the part that everyone was probably waiting for, was the Pho tasting we were all served at the end of the talk, washed down with sweet mint tea.

It's great to know that as part of this second series, the course on chocolate is back by popular demand. Most exciting for me though, is the discussion on whether Food is Art where prominent chefs and artists will be brought together to battle it out. What's really unbelieveable is that it is free! The National Museum really knows that the way to many of our hearts (or at least mine) is through our stomach.

Ratatouille and Polpette

I am often thankful for being so blessed in life - with a great family, a roof over my head, lovely friends who enjoy food as much as I do, and just as importantly, a kitchen with almost all the equipment I need (except a mandolin for, you know, those frustrating days of imperfectly julienned carrots and zucchini).

I was also fortunate to find someone who enjoyed cooking and eating as much as I did when I was overseas for three long years. Of course, I wished the kitchen were better equipped, and wished I didn't have to worry about taking up more than my fair share of space in the refrigerator that my 7 other flatmates shared with me. But I was grateful for a kitchen at all.

So when Addy asked if I could lend my kitchen to her 2 colleagues from France and Italy, I was more than happy to offer my home for a night. It was a fun and relaxing night for me since all I had to do was set the table, help crack eggs, point out the dried oregano on the herb rack and offer wine. In the meantime, N the Frenchman, was busy chopping and watching over multiple pots of peppers, onions, zucchinis and aubergines at one time. In a different part of my tiny kitchen (and by different part I mean 3 feet away), A the Italian was mixing the meat with eggs, breadcrumbs and herbs.

At the end of the night, we had a feast of Fusilli Carbonara, Sicillian Polpette (meatballs), Ratatouille, and to top it all off, Strawberry Tiramisu from Val.

As we loosened our belts and indulged in numerous portions of everything, N explained that there's no fixed recipe for ratatouille. While adding potatoes to it (as suggested by Val) is not common, one can add absolutely anything to it. N's version of it was tender, with each chunk of vegetable soft and still recognisable. Some like theirs mushy and a great big indistinguishable mass. Others like theirs resembling something along the lines of big chunks of vegetables in a tomato sauce, which I believe is delicious in itself and deserving more credit than my poor description affords it.

I thought that N's version was excellent, and not to mention tedious. Each vegetable had to be stir-fried separately, presumably to retain the flavour of each vegetable before mixing them altogether in a big pot together with a sauce comprised of chopped, peeled tomatoes, bay leaves and herbs. It was comforting and wholesome, the kind of dish I would gladly eat with rice (speaking like a true Asian) for every day of my life. Okay maybe not EVERY day, but for many days for the rest of my life.

The polpette were just as gratifying, and what I know to be common in Italian homecooking. Unlike our usual round suspects, these meat'balls' were shaped into big patties and pan-fried in oodles of sinful butter. Like most homecooked food, and like the ratatouille, one can wing the recipe and perhaps even make it your own with a signature blend of herbs?

It is arguable which was the star of the night though. While the ratatouille was truly delectable with its slight tang and full-on earthiness, the polpette were very tasty and tantalising with their slight touch of golden brown. If I really had to make a choice though, I think I'd go for the Strawberry Tiramisu which Val made and which blew all our socks off.

Okay, I guess I'm a little biased. I've known this girl since I was still sporting a bob-styled mob on my head. She's great at jumping over horizontally placed poles and irritating people with her tremendously skinny frame. But other than the time she had to cook for herself when she was in Milan for an exchange programme (during which she survived on alot of pasta, soup, and eating out), she hardly lifts a spatula, much less a whisk.

But loving Tiramisu so much, she decided to try to make it on her own one fine day. While not really difficult, it is one of those recipes that can easily go wrong. The mascarpone cheese might overwhelm the whole dish, the sponge fingers might not have been soaked through with the coffee and liquor, being too heavy handed with the cocoa powder and you'll end up with a mouthful of powder. Yet it seems that her first try was such a success that she made it again, and again, and again for a grand total of 6 times.

The strawberries provided much relief from an otherwise boring and texturally unexciting dessert. That was probably what did it for me - the strawberries. Even N, who proclaimed that he was just 'alright' with Tiramisu, ended up scraping the last bits. A, who stressed Val out by well, simply being an Italian, said that what she made was really, really good.

I'm super proud of her, and am now hunting for other recipes that don't require cooking, as it seems thats the only factor keeping her away from the kitchen. For the recipe she used, click here.