The Best Way to Cook Cauliflower

I first tasted this revelation at Artichoke, a Middle Eastern cafe and bar which serves hearty and comforting food. It was at a wedding celebration of two of our closest, smartest, grounded, unfussy and kindest friends. 

Approaching the buffet spread, my eyes actually glazed over the Roasted Cauliflower. They looked like knobbly brown and white bits. Without any garnishing, they certainly looked pretty plain. It wasn't until Ed told me how fantastic the Roasted Cauliflower was that I discovered how delicious those little knobs were. They tasted almost meaty! 

Being a very hardy vegetable which keeps up to a week in the refrigerator, I often reach out for it while grocery shopping. Having something that can be pulled from the refrigerator and placed on the table in half an hour is incredibly handy for nights when we're up late and feeling peckish.

The preparation is so simple that it feels almost silly having a recipe at all... so I shall have none. I simply tossed the raw, chopped up cauliflower in a generous amount of olive oil, and seasoned it with salt and pepper. I serve it warm after roasting it in the oven at 200 degrees celcius for 20 - 30 minutes, or until it has nice brown edges. 

Cilantro flatbread

I love the idea of making bread, I really do. The image of a smooth ball of dough slowly rising in the oven, and eventually splitting apart to unearth more doughy goodness... is very alluring. 

But almost all bread recipes require a fair amount of forward planning. By that I mean you have to start hours in advance so that the dough has enough time to relax and grow. Skipping this step would be disastrous as the yeast needs time to work its magic, creating many tiny little pockets of air. 

Then comes flatbread to the rescue. A work of art that delivers all the starchy deliciousness you are looking for, but which can be done in under half an hour.

And since I often have all the ingredients necessary, these can be made even for a quick supper - delicious with tzatziki or hummus. This is so easy I actually look forward to making it. And I give this many bonus points because Ed always asks for seconds when I make this. 

Cilantro Flatbread

Recipe adapted from Epicurious

Makes 8 flatbreads

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups (or more) unbleached all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro

3/4 cup (or more) plain whole-milk yogurt

Olive oil (for frying)

Method

Sift first 4 ingredients into medium bowl. Stir in cilantro. Add yogurt and stir with fork until small clumps form. Knead mixture in bowl just until dough holds together, adding more flour or yogurt by tablespoonfuls for soft and slightly sticky dough. Turn dough out onto floured surface. Knead just until smooth, adding flour along the way if the dough is too sticky, about 1 minute. Divide dough into 8 equal pieces.

Roll each piece into ball, then roll each dough piece out on floured surface to 4 1/2-inch round. Brush large nonstick skillet generously with olive oil; heat over medium heat. Working in batches, add 3 dough rounds to skillet; cook until golden brown and puffed, adjusting heat to medium-high as needed to brown evenly, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer flatbreads to platter; serve warm.

Rempah Udang

Since getting home from our two month escapade, I've been cooking far more often than when I had a regular job - double the joy there. It is truly blissful to feel inspired to cook fish head curry simply after seeing a really handsome piece of fish head, AND have the luxury of time to do it that very day. Or to be able to take all afternoon making prawn mee even though a good bowl is just a few minutes away. 

Since I left my job, many have asked me how I have been occupying myself. I suppose this curiosity is natural, since I used to spend a good 50 - 60 hours a week at work. The best part of having all that time is that I now have the time and energy to reconnect with old friends, and deepen relationships with people who matter. How better to start than with my own family. 

One of the items on my to-do list, crafted when I was still in Australia, was to finally attempt Rempah Udang. Spending an entire afternoon doing that with my mother was exactly how I envisioned my first foray into Rempah Udang to go. 

Using my trusty go-to Peranakan cookbook by Philip Chia, we mixed, chopped, pounded, steamed, fried, and rolled our way to many irregularly shaped and sized banana leaf parcels of glutinous rice and dried shrimp deliciousness. It was also a great learning process for my mum and I as we got better with each new parcel we created. We found it a real challenge to ensure there was just the right amount of glutinous rice (read: not too much)  and dried shrimp (read: as much as possible), while still ensuring the shrimp was fully encased in the glutinous rice. We might need a few more rounds to nail this, but it was certainly good enough to give away to friends and family. But the best part of it all really, was spending all afternoon in the kitchen with my mum, the way we used to do when I was just a wee girl helping her prepare the Saturday dinner. 

Rempah Udang

Makes about 30 parcels

(Recipe from Peranakan Heritage Cooking, comments in italics mine)

Ingredients

Banana leaves as needed 

(I bought $1 worth and it was more than enough)

Dried bunga telang

(These are flowers to dye the glutinous rice blue, but they are more for its aesthetic value. I omitted them since they are quite difficult, but not impossible, to find.)

Water as needed

600g white glutinous rice, soaked for 4 hours

250ml coconut milk 

1/2 teaspoon salt

60 bamboo cocktail sticks

200g dried shrimp, rinsed and drained

4cm bulbous end of lemongrass

3 cloves of garlic, peeled

200g shallots, peeled

2cm knob of tumeric, peeled (or 1 tsp ground tumeric)

2 tablespoon cooking oil

2-3 tablespoons dried chilli paste (see recipe below)

100g grated skinned coconut

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoon sugar

Method

Wipe banana leaves clean, scald in hot water or over an open flame to soften the leaves and prevent them from tearing when folded. Cut to obtain about 30 square sheets, each at least 9cm x 9cm. (You may want to cut them only when you are rolling them, so that you can adjust the size of each sheet to your preference.)

Place dried bunga telang in a bowl with 100ml of water. Leave to soak for about 15 minutes or longer if you want a deeper blue. Strain to obtain water for colouring. 

Rinse and strain the glutinous rice. Place on a steaming tray. Mix coconut milk with 50ml of water and salt. (The recipe called for 100ml of water, but the glutinous rice was more stodgy than I would have liked it.) Pour over glutinous rice. Using a teaspoon, drop spoonfuls of blue colouring randomly on rice to colour it in patches.

Steam rice for about 45 minutes or until rice is tender and cooked. Set aside to cool. While rice is cooling, prepare filling.

Heat a wok and dry-fry dried shrimp until fragrant. Leave to cool, then grind until fine using a mortar and pestle or blender. 

Using a mortar and pestle or blender, grind lemongrass, garlic, shallots and tumeric into a paste. (For all my pounding needs, the Ultrapride does a fine job.)

Heat oil in a wok and add ground mixture and dried chilli paste. Stir-fry until fragrant. Add ground dried shrimp and grated coconut. Stir-fry until golden brown. Add salt and sugar.

To make parcels, spoon 2 tablespoons of cooked glutinous rice on a banana leaf square and press it down lightly. Spoon enough filling in a line along the middle of the rice, then roll banana leaf up neatly to get a cylindrical parcel. Secure open ends with cocktail sticks. Repeat until ingredients are used up. 

Grill parcels for 1-2 minutes or until leaves are lightly browned just before serving.

(For chilli paste: soak dried chillies in hot water for 30-45 minutes, drain well and grind finely into a paste.)

Peas In A Pod

For late night snacks when hunger creeps up and when I know it'll be a while before I can snuggle into my sheets, there are a couple of things I resort to. Yogurt with muesli; milk with cereal; fruit; almond biscuits; trail mix of assorted nuts and dried fruits; spoonfuls of P&J (when I get supremely desperate); unsuspecting packets of chips lying around; weetabix, dry; instant noodles; baked beans straight from the can (I know, I know) etc......

Believe me, it gets worse.

A couple of weeks ago (or more, time passes too quickly when there's plenty of work to do), I had an amazing lunch at Tampopo, a great ramen place within Liang Court, with my colleagues. We then trooped around Meidi-ya for a spot of shopping. We didn't end up with much except for a packet of yummy chocolate wafer snack. However, I had a eureka-moment when we passed by the frozen goods section. D mentioned that she loved Edamame especially as a snack at night.

I don't know why, but I never looked at Edamame that way before. I had packet stashed in my freezer from a Japanese dinner long ago, and we all know that the freezer is this miracle box that's cold and immortalises food, which means that they were/are still perfect for consumption. Edamame had always been a prelude to something better - a cheap sushi feast at Sushi Tei/Sakae Sushi or a luxurious multi-course Japanese dinner that would span a few hours with some great company.

So when I put the kettle on, and a pot over fire, taking my packet of frozen edamame out at 1130pm last night, I was worried that my body, by conditioned reflex, would feel even hungrier and expect something more after that. In my worry, I guess I might have grabbed an additional handful (or two) of edamame to pop into the boiling water.

3 minutes passed, I strained the beans and dunked them into some ice cold water to speed up the chilling period as well as to regain their grass-green beauty. Evidently, they didn't require much time from start to finish. I crumbled a pinch of Maldon Sea Salt all over, being certain that the beans would get a much needed boost from their oceanic friends.

Eventually, I realised my fears were unfounded. The beans were perfect on their own. They popped out easily from their pods and made for a guilt-free yet fulfilling snack. I lounged on my carpet with one of my favourite magazines, with holiday plans flooding my mine with beautiful imagery, enjoying my edamame with Moka running amok around me. For a brief moment, life was really perfect the way it was.

After my hunger was satiated, I rinsed my fingers in the bowl of lime-water and wiped them on my tea-towel, thinking to myself that there really wasn't anything more I could wish for.

Dinner Munching (Part II) - Fish and Spinach

Sorry for the bad photograph, I'm still learning how to take photos in low-lighting with my camera without it appearing grainy or blur. It certainly doesn't help that no matter how I try, spinach puree cannot be made to look appetising.

However, it was the spinach puree recipe that I spotted first in Damien Pignolet's French. Instead of being enriched with cream and plenty of butter, transforming spinach into something absolutely heavenly but unbelievably unhealthy, it simply required pear puree.

Damien Pignolet recommended eating this with steamed or pan-friend fish, a piece of advice I took up but looked to Jane Lawson's Cocina Nueva for. Her Almond Crusted Hake piqued my interest, but was tweaked to include ground hazelnut instead of ground almond. It was breaded in the afternoon and chilled until just before serving where it needed 3 minutes (and then some) on each side, depending on the thickness of the fish. Even the spinach puree could be made in the afternoon and reheated just before serving.

This was especially useful because it left me plenty of time to prepare dessert, which required much more time, patience and effort.

I quite like the spinach puree and agree that it goes well with fish. Being a little fruity, it was definitely different and possibly a great way to get children to eat their greens by actually making spinach tasty, without negating its health benefits with cream or butter. The fish had the most wonderful aroma while being fried, and a delightfully earthy hazelnut taste.

Unfortunately I have learnt to be a little smarter and informed about my choice of fish for future use. As all the fish were labelled in Chinese, I had no idea what kind of fish I was purchasing and relied only on price to differentiate quality. I would have preferred a more tender, flaky fish to go with the puree. Embarassingly, I still don't know what I had served my girlfriends!

Spinach and Pear Puree

From Damien Pignolet's French

Serves 2-4

Ingredients

100g pear, such as Beurre Bosc or Packham, peeled and cored

400g spinach, well-washed and coarse stalks discarded

salt and freshly ground pepper

a few gratings of nutmeg

2-3 teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil

a few drops of lemon juice

Method

Boil pear until soft (10-20 minutes) then drain.

Boil spinach in plenty of quite salty water for 5 minutes until very soft.

Drain well and press out most of the moisture with the back of a spoon- the spinach should not be too dry.

For the smoothest result, puree the pear and spinach in a blender rather than a food processor.

Add the oil and season to taste, adding the lemon juice to freshen (do this only just before serving if you're preparing this in advance).

This very special recipe is adapted from Michel Guerard's Cuisine Minceur, a book dedicated to 'lean cuisine', as we would call it today. I like to serve it with steamed or pan-fried fish, and it is also excellent with roast partridge or guinea fowl.

My Super Fast Food

Yet another quick, fuss-free, little dish for worn-out, can't-be-bothered-to-cook moments. Something that can be made in 5 minutes flat definitely deserves an entry on its own and a space in your cupboard.

Have it with some reheated chicken stew for a hearty meal.
Toss it with some greens for a healthy perk-up.
Eat it by itself if you're just feeling a little greedy but feel guilty for overeating.

I simply followed the instructions on the back of the packet, prescribing the amount of boiling water to add, and the appropriate time to wait. Using boiling chicken stock might make it slightly tastier, but it might then strip away too much of its original flavour (though this might be a good thing for some). Added the toasted pinenuts, raisins, mandarin olive oil (see previous entry), some lemon juice, and salt, and tossed till it was light and fluffy. Just make sure you use instant cous cous, or be prepared to steam it (the traditional way) or simmer it in a pot for up to an hour!

I think it says much that my meals are getting shoddier and quicker to prepare, ever since my work started proper. Though I think I should qualify that it's not that I stay at work till late, but that all those yoga classes after work simply leave me little time to spend time in the kitchen. Even my weekends are burnt spending entire days with Fel (which actually isn't bad)! It sure feels rather 'dodgy' meeting up with her almost everyday of the week though.