Mushroom Cuppa

When Justin Quek's Passion and Inspiration was launched at Kinokuniya (Takashimaya) a while back, I was fortunately working just a few floors away. During my hour-long break, I scampered up to see Justin Quek in person. When I entered Kinokuniya, I just had to follow a deep, earthy aroma of mushrooms to find the stocky chef busy whizzing and adjusting a batch of mushroom soup, and a pretty helper pouring it into tasting portions for bystanders to try.

It is humiliating, but not too long before that, my preference for mushroom soup lay in Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup. I grew up on that stuff, and abhorred thick, murky brown versions of Mushroom Soup. To me, the best mushroom soup was creamy, off-white, smooth, with tiny bits of mushrooms to chew on. I had tried many other types but swore by good ol' Campbell.

That day at Kinokuniya, however, that little tasting portion of mushroom soup was the start of something new. In fact, ever since then, I've not missed my Campbell Cream of Mushroom.

It's not surprising then, that I flagged the recipe Fresh Mushroom Cappuccino with Summer Truffles in his cookbook. Replacing the summer truffles with white truffle oil, it may not have been as good, but was still phenomenal. It helps that this was one of the easiest recipes in the book. My brother could have handled the entire recipe on his own, without any supervision on my part. But I'm still going to stick to keeping an eye on him because we almost had a major disaster with the blender.

Fresh Mushroom Cappuccino

Adapted From Justin Quek's Passion and Inspiration

Serves 4 Yuen Family Members and 6-8 average joes

Ingredients

500 gm button mushrooms

1.5 litres chicken stock

a pinch of salt

200 ml milk

100 ml fresh cream

50 gms unsalted butter

truffle oil

Method

Clean mushrooms and cut into quarters.

Place in saucepan, covered with chicken stock, adding a pinch of salt.

Cover and cook over moderate heat for 1 hour.

Add milk, cream and butter, and bring the liquid to a boil.

Remove from heat and blend the drained mushrooms in a food processor or blender, adding a little of the reserved liquid at a time until the right consistency is achieved.

Just before serving, reheat and pour into a deep metal jug, frothing with a hand blender.

Pour into individual cups (scooping some of the foam onto the surface) and drizzle with a little truffle oil each.

Happiness is...

... this.

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And being incredibly contented. To me, contentment is ranked way up there, together with confidence as an attractive.... trait? Characteristic? Knowing my own greedy desires, I never thought there would come a day when I would actually be wholly contented with my life. There's usually always something I'm hankering after, or lusting for. There's usually always something I feel would make me a lot happier if I had or could achieve.

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But I found that ever since I started work in Feb, I've been slowly engulfed by this warm feeling of joyousness... and contentment. There's nothing more I could ask for in life, nothing more I would need in order to be happy because I was already happy. Work is great (the dynamics in the office is fantastic and tremendously welcoming), my extra-curricular activities are thriving, my family is doing better than before. And very importantly, I felt like my friendships were all thriving. I may not have been able to stay as connected to every single friend I've made, but I have definitely been trying for the ones that matter a lot to me.

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In case I get misconstrued, I must clarify that it is not in my intention to brag, but merely to share. I feel like happiness is bursting at my seams. Emanating from my pores. Once in a while, I would actually catch my colleagues' attention with a cheerful 'Sarah' or 'Parvee', and give them a huge grin just to let some of my happiness out and to spread the joy. Just like the children in the photo, I am loving my life and I hope that whoever you are, reading this, can always feel this way too (if not more).

My mum rightly said that my family will only get to enjoy my cooking when I get inspired. The weekend was a great time to get inspired, especially after flipping through the gorgeous food photography in Donna Hay's March issue, because I had plenty of time to act on it. While I may not have used any recipe from the magazine for the dinner I planned for my family, it did effectively lure me into the kitchen. I was happy, and wanted to make sure my family was too, by making sure they had happy bellies first. So I got my brother into the kitchen with me and set to work on the various interesting (or easy) recipes I picked out.

From Gordon Ramsey's Secrets, I found two dishes that I decided to combine - Herbed Cauliflower Puree and Caramelised Baby Onions. When I chose the recipes, I already pictured how it would be plated. And to add some crunch as well as colour to the dish, I threw in some french beans. They all went well together, the creamy and smooth cauliflower puree with the tender, sweet and slightly tangy pink baby onions, and the crunchy buttered beans.

The best sounds I heard that night were the murmurs of pleasure especially with the first mouthful of onion and cauliflower. Perhaps not a common pairing, but definitely one that works. And actually way too easy to put together than it might look!

Puree of Cauliflower Scented with Herbs

Taken from Gordon Ramsay's Secrets (serves 4)

Ingredients

1 medium cauliflower, 300 ml milk, 1 small bay leaf, 1 sprig of thyme, sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Method

Trim cauliflower, discarding leaves, and cut into florets.

Place in saucepan with milk, herbs and 1/2 tsp salt.

Bring to boil, cover and simmer gently for about 12-15 mins until cauliflower is very tender.

Drain the cauliflower, discard the herbs and reserve the milk.

Whiz florets in a blender until very smooth, adding enough of the reserved milk to give a very creamy consistency (you'll have to scrape down the sides a couple of times to get it moving).

You may need to blend the mixture for up to 5 minutes to achieve a really smooth, silky texture.

Taste and adjust the seasoning, adding a little pepper if required. Serve piping hot!

Caramelised Pink Baby Onions

Adapted from Gordon Ramsay's Secrets (serves 4-6)

Ingredients

100 g butter, 250 g baby onions or small shallots (peeled), few sprigs of thyme, 1/2 tsp sugar,

3 tbspns of juice from bottled beetroot, 100 ml chicken stock, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Heat butter in large saute pan, adding baby onions/shallots with thyme and sugar when it starts to foam.

Cook for 5 mins until lightly caramelised (should turn translucent and slightly brown), seasoning with salt and pepper as they cook.

Add beetroot juice and stock, bring to boil then cook uncovered for a further 5 mins, stirring occasionally until onions are just tender but still retain a bite.

Transfer onions to a dish and bubble up the pan juices until reduced to a syrupy glaze.

Return onions to the pan to heat through and coat in glaze.

Discard thyme and serve.

Lentil Soup

I have had a stock of lobster oil sitting pretty in my fridge for a while now. It was something I bought on a whim when I was browsing around Arcangel's in Great World City. At the time I bought it, I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but I knew I had to get it. I was sure I would find a great nesting place for it, in a risotto or a soup.

Today, I decided it had enough rest in my increasingly overcrowded fridge, and took it out for some fun. As I browsed through some of my cookbooks, a particular Chickpea and Langoustine soup tempted me, while another's Sweet Garlic, Bread and Almond Soup looked amazing garnished with some chopped spring onions and drizzled with a few drops of oil. Anyone who knows me well, knows that it's not enough for me to make something that tastes good, it has to look good too. But one thing I would never do, is to compromise the quality of the dish to take a great photo.

In the end, I chose to make a Lentil Soup with small amounts of roasted sweet garlic and caramelised onions. Lobster oil and lumpfish caviar then finished off the bowl of soup. To make the soup, I used some seafood stock I had made many moons ago and kept in my freezer for a special day. I did everything within my means to make the soup as flavourful as it could be, without coming up with something that would be too strong to handle the lobster oil. Towards the end, I thought the salt would finally bring all the flavours together, as it usually does. But when it didn't, I was dumbfounded.

What else could I possibly have missed out? Good seafood stock - check. Yummy sweet, oozy roasted garlic - check. Freshly made onion relish - check. Salt and pepper - check. A splash of wine, a dash of vinegar - check, check. But no matter how much of the soup I tasted, something was missing. I couldn't believe I could fail in making something as simple as Lentil Soup.

Then I thought of what my grandmother would do. As a Cantonese, her dishes are rather extreme in tastes. Subtlety is not an existing word in her vocabulary. The flavours leap right at you rather than dance around on your tongue with every mouthful. To achieve that, she never stinges on salt, and sugar. So that's exactly what I did, I added sugar.

It's not uncommon for sugar to be added in savoury dishes. I've seen plenty of recipes, especially those featuring tomatoes, with a touch of sugar to tame tartness and enhance the sweetness of the tomatoes. I have no idea what forces combined in the lentil soup I was making, but the sugar did it. Just half a tablespoon of precious white crystals brought all the flavours together, giving me an extremely joyous feeling.

I did a little victory dance around the kitchen (it was very little, considering how little standing space there was available) then scooped out a little bowl for myself. It was velvety and hearty, yet sophisticated with a few drops of bright red lobster oil and the almost luminiscent pearls of caviar.

The only tool one would need to make a soup as simple as this, is a sturdy heavy duty blender, preferably made with glass that can take the high heat. I used to have a plastic one and would constantly fret that the plastic would crack or worse, that it would impart some incredibly off-putting plastic taste to the soup. So now that I have my glass one, there's no way I'm looking back!

Lentil Soup

Serves 6-8 as a starter

Ingredients

half a bulb of garlic

2 cups red lentils

5 cups homemade vegetable/seafood stock

1 tbspn olive oil

1 big white onion, sliced

2 tbspns good white wine

1 tbspn white wine vinegar

salt, pepper and sugar to taste

Lobster oil, caviar, or dried sakura ebi (optional)

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius.

Place garlic in oven and roast for half an hour or until flesh is soft.

Boil lentils in stock until soft.

Meanwhile, heat olive oil in pan at medium heat and add onions then turn down heat to low.

When onions turn translucent, add white wine and vinegar.

Continue cooking and stirring until onions are caramelised and brown

Remove flesh from garlic skin, and add to boiling lentil soup with the onions.

Puree in a blender until smooth, then strain if preferred (I chose not to) back into pot.

Add salt, pepper and sugar to taste.

Spoon into bowls and drizzle lobster oil and garnish with caviar or dried sakura ebi if available.

Digression: The bunny imposter

Baby Moka is really the pride of the family, although there probably isn't much to be proud of. You could wave a stalk of spinach right in front of him and he might just miss it. You could holler his name for five whole minutes but remain ignored. My family thinks he is a little deaf and a little blind. But we still talk about him fondly very often.

Just last night, Yixian and I were exchanging bunny stories. I thought my stock of leopard crawling antics (because his favourite hideout pictured above is a little short for him to hop into, he has to leopard crawl in) would take the cake, until I heard her bunny imposter story.

She had bought a snow-white, lop-eared bunny a while ago. Just a few weeks later, one ear started standing up more often than it should. And now, her lop-eared bunny has morphed into your average white, red-eyed bunny with two upright ears. I have NEVER ever heard of such a case before and couldn't help laughing as she ranted on about being cheated by the petshop.

This makes me wish I was a bunny too. Ah, the life.

Post-CNY

Chinese New Year is long over, but my CNY decorations are still up. I've had little time to do any proper cleaning up and tidying. The past week was tough to get through as I was down with a mean bug but still had to trudge to work. It wasn't even because I had downright evil bosses. On the contrary, they were extremely sympathetic. But I had a report to submit and a responsibility that I should not shirk from.

Thankfully though, I have a grandma who is merely a S$2.80 cab ride away from work, who would wrap me up in her many quilts and blankets, and have a bowl of warm unsweetened oats ready for me after my short nap. Ah, bliss. Bliss is also being able to rest through the entire weekend to rest and fully recuperate.

To celebrate my recovery, and break my weeklong diet of soft foods, I decided to pull out a precious stash of potstickers from the freezer. This was something that I made during one of the CNY dinners for a couple of my dad's longtime friends, alongside a couple of other Chinese dishes. As I had planned to make a ton of these, just making the potstickers alone took up a good couple of hours even using my pasta maker to trim some preparation time off.

You could say I've come very far when it comes to potstickers. The first time I tried making potstickers, I was in UK and sorely missing chinese food. I then made it again for 'Operation Stella', but with little (or no) improvement because when in UK, any kind of dumpling is better than none at all. Plus, I knew that my dear friends PJ, Fel and Stella weren't going to regurgitate the potstickers and denounce our friendship even if I had really made some really inedible ones.

But when back home, and when satiating a potsticker craving is as easy as taking a trip into Chinatown, it isn't enough to make them from scratch and have them look 'a little like' potstickers and taste 'something like' potstickers. They damn well better please the eye and the palate as the real thing. And who else to seek advice from than from one of the masters of perfection herself, J. She doesn't always post up recipes, but when she does, one can rest assured that every single step is accounted for. My experience when following her advice for making macarons is surely proof in itself.

While putting my absolute trust in her recipes and advice, I still had to put the first few potstickers I folded to the test. Most importantly, for my parents to give the go ahead. Thankfully I did so as the potstickers benefitted from a finer, more delicate skin as they would thicken slightly upon cooking.

And I just couldn't resist creating a variation of a potsticker using some crinkle cookie-cutters. Placing a mound of filling in the middle of the cut-out dough, I folded the skin into half, encasing the filling and pressed the edges together, making sure that the crinkles matched. I then pulled the two tips of the semi-circle together and pressed them together to make a dumpling that resembles a baby's bonnet. Cooking method and timing do not differ.

Nouvelle Lo Hei

Lo Hei has evolved over the years since the first time I was allowed to hold a pair of chopsticks and join in the vertical aerobics over a big dish of raw vegetables and fish. Now, the fish used may be raw salmon, or even smoked salmon. Lo Hei condiments are now also sold in a variety of packaging, even bringing in Thai influences that smelt heavily of fish sauce. And the icing on the cake for me this year was how we did our Lo Hei on the marble table top instead.

My father suggested it, then proceeded to scrub, rinse and wipe the table top so that it'd be impeccably clean to eat from. While initial responses included shock, horror and disgust, everyone started to embrace the idea and have fun arranging the ingredients on the table once it was declared sane to eat from.

And for prosperity, happiness, and pure superstition, we shaped it all into a figure of eight.

Then the aerobic exercise commenced alongside random, well-wishes for the new year ahead.

Don't hang up your cheongsams just yet!

The Seventh Day of the Chinese New Year is today, and that means Lo Hei Day! That is, plenty of chopsticks doing vertical aerobics over a huge plate of shredded raw vegetables, raw fish, plum sauce, and my favourite crispy deep-fried er... Damn, I don't even know what they're called.


We're supposed to shout out auspicious wishes for the new year like 'Shen Ti Jian Kang' (Good Health), but sometimes when I can't think of any great cheng yus (four word phrases), I just resort to going down the list in the cheng yu book that I used to have to memorise in secondary school. Of course, they are used out of context so I say it really softly - 'Ai Bu Shi Shou' (Loving something so much that you're reluctant to part with it), 'Ai Wu Ji Wu' (Loving a crow so much that you even love the house that it is perched on). My mandarin truly fails me everytime I need it the most, but I can handle a couple of cheng yus every now and then.


And although I don't usually admit to this, every time I have Lo Hei, I try to scoop up only the crispy bits and the raw fish. They're really The Best. Just for laughs, maybe one day I'll have a Lo Hei of only raw fish and crispy bits. That way, every scoop is pure bliss.

Go to trusty wikipedia for more information on Lo Hei.

Why it is better to have a daughter and not a son.

The day before the Chinese Lunar New Year, my family usually has a gathering for all the sons (and their families) of the Yuen family to reunite for a simple dinner. This year, it was decided that it would be at our home, and that it would be a potluck (phew!). Everyone was really obedient and brought at least a dish each. Of course, it was still my grandma who prepared the most to bring over.

However, even though work was considerably lessened for my family since it was a potluck, there was still a ton of work to be done. My mother was the first to wake up to begin the day's preparation, followed by me. So while we cut, chopped, marinated, washed, heated, sliced, roasted, stir-fried, cleaned up, organised, re-arranged, soaped, rinsed, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera (seriously, there has to be alot of etceteras here to justify the work)......, The Son and The Father slept.

And at 1pm, the son finally opened his golden eyelids. After waffling around the home for a little, walking past things that were lying around and waiting to be put back into its rightful place, he decided to direct his golden eyes on the computer monitor and lay his jade fingers onto the keyboard.

Soon after, he used his majestic voicebox to ask the imperial question, 'Is there anything to eat?'

Within a matter of minutes, The Banquet was set up and His Majesty aka The Father, was gently nudged awake. He then moved to the table, sloth-like, and ceremoniously plonked himself down at the head of the table, waiting for his humble servants to bring his bowl of grub. The Crown Prince aka The Son again used his golden voice box to ask 'No meat ah?' Of course, his humble servants pointed out that there was some ham in the omelette and that he may help himself to all of it if he so wishes.


I guess His Majesty must have felt a little guilty, because later on he decided to help his servants clean up the palace for the rest of the day. But of course, The Son resumed fighting armies of demons and monsters on his computer until the guests arrived.


What happened during the Reunion Dinner shouldn't be too hard to guess, but that shall be a story for another day.

The Day About Love

In the last few hours of the day leading up to Valentine's Day, Fel and I got a little delirious, leaning over a bridge across the Singapore River. Right after cursing and swearing at a few teenagers hawking roses, and balking at heart shaped balloons floating around, we started inventing crazy stories about clouds, laughing at ridiculous things and dumping things into the river (it was accidental, I swear!).
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So Valentine's Day is here again. The day when guys are pressured and obliged to surprise/impress their girlfriends (new or old) with gifts, flowers and magnanimous gestures. Poor men.
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The restaurants will be packed, florists will be busy all day long, teddy bears will fly off the shelves, and chocolates will be consumed in obscene amounts.
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While it is all fine and dandy to embrace this day, just as we embrace Father's Day or Mother's Day, I can't help but think how people like my Grandmother feel. I don't know much about her love for my grandfather, and I'm not sure if she even knows that Valentine's Day falls on the 14th February, or what it means. But if Valentine's Day is a day of love, it should be a special day for my grandmother too. Why not, especially since she has 20+ grandchildren and 10+ children whom she loves, and who loves her too? Why not, especially since she has built up a healthy repertoire of dishes that she cooks for us all at family gatherings to show us how much she loves us?
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She probably has enough recipes stored in her head to fill up a cookbook. Her recipes have evolved over the years and have been tuned to suit our Yuen family's tastebuds, making those recipes all the more precious. However, there is one dish rooted in our family's history that she still has no clue how to make - Steamed Egg Custard. My great-grandmother's Steamed Egg Custard in particular.
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I had blogged about it before, when my uncle made it quite a while back. Somehow, he was the only person in my family who had picked up the recipe from my great-grandmother. He knew the exact proportion of water to egg and the timing, which involved burning a joss-stick. Once he told me about the joss-stick, I was sold to the recipe. I imagined my great-grandmother keeping an eye on the lit joss-stick, willing it to burn up faster so that her preying grandchildren would finally be able to feast on her ultra smooth and silky egg custard.
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I had been waiting for a good opportunity to recreate it, and after a visit to a famous shop in Chinatown along Temple Street that sells great steamed egg custard, I wanted to see if the recipe my uncle shared with me could beat it.
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But a minor problem was that I could not remember the amount of rock sugar to add, and how to add it to the steamed egg custard. If I didn't remember wrongly, even he couldn't tell me and told me to estimate (agar agar) it.
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I set out on this exciting little experiment of mine, recording on the white board in my kitchen the exact proportions used in the recipe, while winging the sugar syrup to add to the custard. To make it even more precise, leaving little room for error, I used my kitchen scale instead of the emptied egg shells to measure the amount of water to add to the beaten eggs. I even made it a little more exciting by trying out the steamed egg custard in three flavours.
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Steamed egg custard is usually available plain, or with 'ginger juice'. To add to that, I made one infused with pandan leaves and, in light of the upcoming Chinese New Year, one with mandarin orange juice (though on hindsight, I should have used mandarin orange zest to flavour it instead). Since it was an experiment after all, I also steamed the egg custard in three different receptacles to find out which receptacle would result in the best texture.
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As it turned out, the mandarin orange did not come through, and the best texture came from the one steamed in my small ceramic cup. The worst was the one steamed in the short-shotglass. Also, both my parents commented that the one steamed in the small ceramic cup is exactly like the one that my great-grandmother made, smooth and silky, and precariously wobbly on the spoon.
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Some people may prefer the type sold in Chinatown, firmer and paler in colour, though still soft and creamy. Yet I can't help but feel inclined towards and proud of the Yuen Family version.

I've decided what I'm going to contribute to this year's Chinese New Year potluck - Steamed Egg Custard, the Yuen way! I hope my grandmother will love it too. Although it was only my first try at the recipe, because it worked well, I'll put up the recipe anyway.
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So here's my gift to everyone out there. Happy Valentine's Day!
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My Great-Grandmother's Steamed Egg Custard

Serves 1

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Ingredients

1 egg

3 egg shells worth of sugar syrup* (or just use a kitchen scale to measure the weight of the egg and multiply this times three to get the weight of sugar syrup required)

*sugar syrup = 1 part rock sugar to 4 parts water

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Method

Create sugar syrup by combining water and rock sugar, and bring to boil over medium heat.

Remove from heat when sugar has almost dissolved and leave to cool. (**see below for variations)

Beat egg well, but not until too foamy, then beat in cooled sugar syrup.

Strain into a ceramic bowl and steam for an hour.

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**For Steamed Egg Custard with Ginger: Add 1 tbspn of roughly chopped ginger to hot sugar syrup at this point.

For Steamed Egg Custard with Pandan: Add 1 pandan leaf, chopped into small bits/shreds, to hot sugar syrup at this point.

Tres Simple Chicken

Ever since my graduation from Warwick, I've been in and out of jobs, that is until last Monday. It was the first day of the rest of my life (or at least the next 6 years), and while a little nerve-wrecking, it turns out that I had absolutely nothing to worry about. I haven't done much so far, but I can just sense that it is going to be really fulfilling. There's so much I want to be involved in and so much I want to help change, that I'm actually really excited to get down to work proper.

Anyway, the great thing about this job, compared to all the previous jobs, is that I have normal fixed working hours. While working in the service industry, my working hours had been totally social life unfriendly, and had screwed up my body clock. Now, back to the 9-to-5 (or rather 830-to-6) work-day, I've had plenty of work-life balance and time to meet up with friends after work.

Determined to do even better than that, I planned a small little teeny weeny gathering for my Warwick friends, that I planned to host at my place together with Fel. The menu was simple. Just four courses, of which the dessert was to be prepared the day before.

But who would have known that I would forget to bring my key that day, have to wait for my brother to reach home after work, leaving us only an hour to prepare the other three courses?

What really saved the day was the fact that I had chosen one of Jamie Oliver's recipes for the main course. Anyone who has cooked from Jamie's Cookbook would know that his recipes are mostly fuss-free. Just toss together and bake. Or just saute all ingredients in a pan and serve.

His Roasted Chicken Breast with Cherry Tomatoes and Asparagus was precisely one of these recipes that was just toss-and-bake. I switched the breasts for thighs and drumsticks and added some thyme to the dish as well. And while Jamie's proportions or timings might be a little off at times, I'm proud to announce that his timing for the dish worked. As the chicken was roasted on top of the bed of tomatoes and asparagus, the flavours of the vegetables were able to permeate the juicy chicken. It had an understated simplicity that everyone cleaned off their plates.

Jamie saved my day by leaving Fel and I plenty of time to cook the other two courses, so keep this recipe in case you find yourself in a similarly sticky situation one day. Meanwhile, I'm going to keep an extra housekey in my wallet from now on!

Roasted Chicken with Cherry Tomatoes and Asparagus

Serves 6 as a main course.

Adapted from Jamie Oliver's Cook with Jamie

Ingredients

12 pieces of chicken drumsticks and thighs

24 trimmed sticks (cut into any length you desire) of asparagus

36 halved cherry tomatoes

Leaves from 3 sprigs of thyme

2 tsps dried rosemary

2 tsps sea salt

2 tsps freshly ground black pepper

Drizzle of olive oil

Balsamic vinegar (optional)

Method

Preheat oven to 200 degrees celcius.

Toss everything together in a bowl.

Put the vegetables onto a tray lined with aluminium foil and place the chicken on top.

Season well and cook in the middle of the oven for 25-35 minutes.

Serve drizzled with balsamic vinegar.

My Irritatingly Skinny Friend (ISF)

Addy, Val (my ISF) and I, at the airport.

Everyone definitely has a skinny friend. That would be the girl who has a neverending appetite and a metabolic rate to match. The one who complains about hunger just a few hours after a really big meal, yet always has to find for the smallest sizes in the boutique. The one who only works out occasionally, and has the porcelain fair skin.

Having an Irritatingly Skinny Friend is actually not a bad thing, since she eats virtually anything except peas and pineapples. She is willing to eat absolutely anything else I experiment with, from the overly exotic to the downright plain.

But she'll tell me if I've gone overboard with the flavours and tell me if she hates it. I LOVE her for that, but now she's gone off to Milan and won't be back for many moons.

How I hate her for that.

Three Courses from Cocina Nueva (Part 3) - The Nutty Professor

Rabbit food. At some point in my life, I adored eating muesli, nuts, cereals and could have them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. At that time, I felt that it was quick to prepare (what preparation??), filling, and was available in a huge array of flavours (right.). That's when friends used to tease me about surviving on 'rabbit food'. Thank goodness I'm over all that now. But while I'm pretty much sick of muesli and cereals for perhaps the rest of my life, I've never quite lost my adoration for nuts.

Macadamia nuts, Hazelnuts, Cashew nuts, Brazil nuts, Almonds and Peanuts are my top five favourites in decreasing order of preference. The bottom line really is, that I love nuts in all its form, even naked - unroasted, unsalted.

So when flipping through the dessert section in Jane Lawson's Cocina Nueva, in light of my profession of love for nuts, it should be no surprise that I flagged the Almond Cake recipe. I decided to attempt this cake for the Sunday lunch with Val and Addy because the recipe sounded quick enough to complete in the limited time I had left. And I'm mighty glad I did, as everyone who tried it, loved it.

It was incredibly soft, moist and fluffy, with slightly crunchy caramelised mahogany exteriors. Since I had a whole bag of roasted ground peanuts lying around, I decided to substitute half of the almond powder with peanut powder, resulting in something perhaps a little more aromatic and strong flavoured than otherwise. It was truly proof that the most simplest of dishes can still be out of this world.

In fact, I was so satisfied with the outcome that I made it again today to share with some friends from my previous work place. This time, adding mandarin orange zest instead of zest of a Sunkist orange, and using only peanut powder rather than a combination of both. The texture remained but it took on a slightly tanner shade while the flavour was decidedly more oriental, for lack of a better word. Truth be told, it reminded me a little of one of my favourite snacks, Min Chiang Kuey (Peanut Pancake). The mandarin orange zest was really haunting, there but not quite there - a flavour that is so familiar yet exceedingly difficult to pinpoint for the untrained palate.

This won't be the last I attempt anything from this cookbook, as I've fallen head over heels in love with it. Three attempts and already a perfect record of three successes. Simply prepared, delicious and still gorgeous food - that just about sums up the recipes from this cookbook.

Almond and Peanut Cake

Adapted from Jane Lawson's Cocina Nueva

Ingredients

250g cold butter, cut into cubes

1 tsp vanilla extract

Zest of 1 lemon

Zest of 1 mandarin orange

310g icing sugar, sifted

4 egg yolks

125ml milk

200g almond powder

200g peanut powder

4 egg whites

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius.

Cream butter, vanilla, lemon zest, orange zest and 250g icing sugar with an electric mixer until creamy and pale.

Gradually add in 4 egg yolks and beat until well combined.

Add in milk and almond/peanut powder and beat until well combined.

In another clean, dry bowl, whisk egg whites with remaining 60g icing sugar until firm peaks (I was not sure what firm peaks constituted, but I whisked until the peaks held when I lifted my beaters from the egg whites, but the tips of the peaks flopped over a little).

Fold 1/3 of the egg whites into the batter then fold in the rest of the egg whites.

Pour into a 9 inch round cake tin that has been greased and lined with baking paper.

Bake for 30 minutes in the oven then cover with a piece of aluminium foil and bake for another 20-25 minutes.

Leave to cool then invert the cake onto a tray and dust a layer of icing sugar over the top then serve.

Second Course From Cocina Nueva - Steaks and Butter

With just 2 hours to spare before my guests arrived and no groceries at home, I decided to do the simplest sounding , but not unsubstantial, main course in the cookbook - grilled steaks. It took just about half an hour of prep work and 10 minutes of cooking ala minute, which was quite fun to do with friends around chatting and contemplating the doneness of the rib-eye steaks. The little preparation required left me plenty of time to spend on making a great dessert.

The grilled steaks were to be moistened with a very simple reduction of veal stock, water leftover from soaking a handful of porcini mushrooms, and garlic; then served with a pat of pre-made flavour packed butter. It was meant to be a manchego, ceps (porcini) and olive butter, but since I didn't like manchego nor olives, I made a simplified ceps and caper butter instead. This really understated steak was served with steamed veggies, and while asparagus was recommended, I went with snow peas and baby corn instead because asparagus was sold out where I shopped.

Steak is great enjoyed neat - in its barest form with just a simple seasoning of salt and pepper. But with a light, earthy sauce and some flavoured butter softened by the heat of the steak, it is brought to a much higher (and sinful) level. Cafe de Paris butter, a similar home-made butter flavoured with mustard, parsley, shallots, garlic, herbs and spices, to be served with steak is perhaps the inspiration for Jane Lawson's rendition of grilled steaks with butter. It is really delicious and the possibilities for other versions are infinite. But I have a whole roll of ceps and caper butter left to use and that makes me glad that I decided to double the recipe.

Cep and Caper Butter

Adapted from Jane Lawson's Cocina Nueva

For 8 steaks

Ingredients

1 handful of dried porcini mushrooms, soaked in hot water for 15 minutes, drained and chopped

15 small capers, drained and chopped

1 clove of garlic, minced

100g softened butter

salt and pepper to taste

Method

Mash butter with mushrooms and capers until well incorporated then season with salt and pepper.

Scoop onto a piece of cling film and roll it into a log, ensuring that it is fully wrapped then twist the ends to enclose the butter.

Chill it in the fridge (or freezer, if you're rushing for time) until firm.

Three Courses from Cocina Nueva (Part 1) - The Palate Teaser

Due to some bad organisation, I managed to put myself in a position where I had to cook for two whole days in a row. The morning after a multi-course, multi-dish, multi-hands dinner for seven, I was to get up to wash the leftover dishes, napkins, tablemats, wine glasses and still decide what to cook for a lunch with Val and Addy+Derrick, and then prepare dinner for my family. 9am came and went, and I was still stuck in lala-land where dishwashers surrounded me, automatic chicken wing deboners existed and I had my very own Kitchen-Aid Electric Mixer (I'm still saving, slowly but surely).

I did however manage to drag myself away from my dream and quickly give the home a wipe-up by 1015. However, I was still looking through the cookbooks for an idea of what to make. Obviously I was finding for those fuss-free ones with few ingredients and even fewer steps. I decided to use recipes from Cocina Nueva: The New Spanish Kitchen by Jane Lawson, and try my hand at something new - Spanish food. The vibe I got from the cookbook was something laid-back, fun, yet gorgeous and extremely satisfying for the tummy and especially the palate. And the food photography is something that makes me aspire to greater heights, that is if write ups like this isn't inspiring (or embarassing) enough.

So by 1130am, I reached home with my groceries and set to work. I had planned a small appetiser, a simple DIY/watch-while-I-cook main-course, followed by a slice of cake. By the time I had prepped the ingredients for the main-course and put the cake into the oven, my first guests had arrived and the appetiser was shelved. But a main-course and a dessert for four, in under 1.5 hours was still no mean feat. I did however, get down to making the shelved appetiser at night for my family. No point letting some defrosted tentacled friends go to waste, right?

One of the first dishes that caught my eye in that book was for Galician Octopus. It promised tender baby octopi simmered for at least half an hour then flavoured with a tangy and smoky olive oil dressing. What's not to love? I truly adore (eating) our tentacled friends, but have always hated it when not done right and turn into ridiculously chewy and indigestible monsters. I have been advised by friends, cookbooks and the 'fishmonger' behind the counter at Greenwood Fish Market and Bistro, to cook the baby octopi either very quickly or for a very long time. True enough, these beautiful purple babies softened after half an hour of simmering.

As the baby octopi that I bought came cleaned and gutted, that cut the preparation time in half. Other than leaving the octopi to simmer for half an hour or more, the dressing took just a few scoops, pinches and bashes (of garlic) to put together.

Adjustments:

-Though I tripled the amount of baby octopi in the recipe, I only doubled the amount of olive oil used since a little actually goes quite a long way.

-I also substituted some of the lemon juice and zest with mandarin orange juice and zest, and that mellowed the dressing a little.

-The local supermarket stocked none of that Italian parsley, so a handful of cilantro did the job for me. Just as well since I really prefer cilantro.

My parents were quite taken aback by how deceptively tasty the dish was and how tender the octopi were. I guess they've had their fair share of horrible experiences with rubbery octopi. I simply love the dressing as well and can imagine it being used with salad or to drizzle over pan-fried salmon. Leftovers can be stored in the fridge and added cold (together with the leftover sauce) to a leafy green salad as a refreshing wake-me-up dish. They are still tender but has more of a spring and a bite to it. Still, no ridiculous amount of chewing will be needed, really.

Coming up next: What I served at lunch...

Galician Octopus

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

500g baby octopus or 350g cleaned baby octopus

2 tbspn sherry vinegar

80ml extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp smoked sweet paprika

2 garlic cloves, crushed

2 tsp grated lemon zest (I substituted half with mandarin orange zest)

1 tbspn lemon juice (I substituted half with mandarin orange juice)

3 tbspns sherry vinegar

1/2 red (or white) onion, cut into thin wedges (these were quickly blanched in with the octopi for a while just before serving)

1 large handful flat-leaf (Italian) parsley, roughly chopped

Method

Put baby octopi in a saucepan of cold water with sherry vinegar and bring to boil.

Immediately reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 30 mins or under octopi are very tender.

Drain well.

Mix the oil, paprika, garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice and extra sherry vinegar then toss through the warm octopi along with the onion.

Leave to cool for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Toss through the parsley, season to taste and serve.

Dinner for seven

I still amaze my mum with what else I can lug home from the Takashimaya (I should really get a Taka Loyalty Card soon) Department Store, and declare absolutely necessary for the dining table/kitchen. My most recent purchase, among many others, is a blow torch. I can FINALLY make Creme Brulees, and erm... well, I'm sure there are many more uses for it. Look here for one excellent example that I'm definitely going to try one day. Moka will just have to share some of his food with the rest of us.

But the reason I took so long to get a blow torch of my own, other than the fact that these things cost quite a bit, is that I could not think of another use for it besides Creme Brulee. But when I spotted a recipe in 'Asian Tapas: Small Bites, Big Flavours' for some Spicy Tuna Tataki Rolls, that clinched it and off to Takashimaya I went.

These rolls are so simple to make, as long as you can get someone to help you cut a 1x3x5 inch slab of tuna and slice into 1/8 inch thick pieces. Thank heavens for the kind staff at the Takashimaya Cold Storage sashimi section, or I would really have to put my slicers and skills to the test in an already stressful situation. The rest just takes some blending, spreading, rolling and for the most fun part, torching. Unfortunately I didn't manage to do the torching myself, and left it to a cousin to do while I busied myself with some other stuff. This was for a dinner for five of my relatives and my parents, which my brother and I initiated, and for which we 'recruited' our two hunky cousins who both have some interest in cooking as well.

Apart from the dessert, everything was taken from that cookbook. I took a leap of faith (after my previous bad experience) and bought the cookbook with the intention of cooking the entire dinner from it because of its Asian inspired theme. My aunts and grandma are relatively conservative Chinese with a rather reserved palate, and I realised that I had almost no 'new age' Asian cookbook that would be able to help me create the meal that I envisioned. Thankfully, my faith was not misplaced as the recipes did work.

We had prepared a few nibblers for them before the actual meal started. Arranged on a few long ceramic chopstick holders were Quails Eggs dipped in Nori Flakes, Purple Seaweed or Sancho pepper, and Garlic Macadamias and Cashews. Then to start the meal on a sweet note, we did Honey Glazed Baby Squid on Deep-fried Mantous, Honey Glazed Stuffed Chicken Wings and Honey Glazed Pumpkin Wedges. These were served with a Fresh Pomelo Salad that had bits of dried shrimp, fish sauce and lime juice as a refreshing contrast to the sweet bites.

If you think tiny baby squid are small, wait till you deep fry them and see them almost shrink into nothingness. I'll definitely try these with baby octopus instead in future. Those chubby tentacles might hold better to deep frying. One thing I appreciate about the cookbook is the step-by-step photos given for some of the more challenging recipes, like the Stuffed Chicken (Mid)Wings. Deboning those little things takes quite a fair bit of work and was really challenging for people who have never done it before. Thankfully my brother and cousin were on hand to do all the work for me. All the deboning, stuffing, wrapping, blanching and stir-frying resulted in deliciously shiny, plump morsels of heaven. If I could only purchase deboned chicken wings somewhere, I would make this all the time.

Next up, we served two rolls. A Beef Salad Roll with black sesame sauce, and the Spicy Tuna Tataki Rolls that I wrote about above. Julienned carrots and zucchinis, beansprouts and alfafa sprouts were wrapped up in slices of blanched sukiyaki beef and served with a side of tangy and nutty black sesame sauce spiked with rice wine. While I was afraid that one or two of my relatives might be put off by the raw tuna only very briefly torched on the outside, they all cleaned their plates. I would only tone down the heat in the coriander spice paste that was used in the tuna rolls in future.

The last savoury dish of Umami, Umami, Umami, brought to the table Baked Miso Threadfin, flanked by Seared Scallop and X.O. Sauce, as well as Steamed Scallop with Black Bean and Garlic Dressing. Being the easiest course to prepare, it was also the best crowd pleaser. Good quality, fresh, fat scallops did all the work for us.

Finally, I served a scoop of Mango Gelato with Coconut Macaroons to end off the meal. The Ultimate Frozen Dessert Book that I borrowed from a friend has been supplying me with many reliable ice-cream recipes (this Mango Gelato being one of them), that I keep referring to it despite the lack of food porn. Food porn is usually what keeps me looking through a cookbook, making me think 'Wao, if I could just follow this recipe, I can create something so beautiful!'. Of course, cookbook writers, food stylists and food photographers know that and exploit this nugget of knowledge to no end while people like me get constantly sucked into illusions of hope. Anyway, I do intend to get the Ultimate Frozen Dessert Book for myself soon.

After the whole dinner, my cousins and brother were utterly spent. They spent the whole afternoon and evening, right through the dinner, frying, mixing, chopping, blending, peeling, simmering, slicing, torching and serving. But they were all extremely good sports and complaining only a little. Fortunately I had prepared more food than was necessary, in order to feed the three hungry chefs in the kitchen to keep them alive till the next course they had to serve. That saved me the trouble of making a quick pasta dish just for them.

Perhaps the most eventful part of the whole experience was when I left them to their own devices after I told them to deep fry the baby squid. Check out the manly oven gloves as well.

A Colourful Life

I can't remember when I first chanced upon a recipe that called for ribbons of zucchini and carrot to be added to noodles to add colour and crunch to an otherwise ordinary dish. Ever since, if I felt the need to bring a little colour to a meal, I'd grab my vegetable peeler and get working.

The great thing about making carrot ribbons is that it is twice (or even thrice) as quick as trying to julienne carrots into little matchsticks, and takes only a few seconds to cook through. This brings back fond memories of how Stella and I used to agonise over those idiotic chunks of carrots that would take ages to even start to soften, torturing us ravenous souls. Over time of course, we got smarter and our carrots were sliced thinner. Sometimes I even resorted to microwaving (oh the sin!) them before dumping them into our wok/frying pan to stir-fry.

Of course, other than creating strips of faux noodles, I could also buy those tricolor dried pasta readily available in supermarkets. Or even some jet-black dried squid-ink pasta to toss around in some olive oil and capers for an almost-instant-noodle-dish.

But if you, like me, have recently purchased a pasta machine from your friendly local kitchenware store, then you should probably try creating your own coloured fresh pasta. It is uber-satisfying and almost like working with clay, except that in the end, you can eat your work of art. How cool is that!

Though not at all a fan of beetroot, I ventured into making beetroot pasta because of the beautiful pink it would impart to the pasta. Perhaps an alternative would be to use red dragonfruit, which always manage to stain my fingers a dark pink. A lesson to be learnt for future pasta-making sessions would be to always stain the pasta just a shade darker than is expected since the colour fades a little after being cooked.

Now if only I could find some pesticide-free flowers that can help me attain some deep purple pasta. Wouldn't that be interesting?

A Wok Through Time

An extremely thoughtful, generous aunt of mine recently gave me an autographed copy of Sam Leong's new cookbook, A Wok Through Time. It held plenty of food porn and little odd quotes from the chef himself. In return, I intended to prepare a whole dinner using only recipes from the cookbook for her and a few other relatives. However, as I browsed through the cookbook and saw very slipshod recipe outlines, I grew a little worried. Similar to Anderson Ho's Menu Degustation: Tasting Menus of New Asia Cuisine, it took only 3 - 4 steps to create almost every dish and lacked sufficient detail for a novice chef to follow accurately.

As I soon found out though, Anderson Ho's recipes are still alright as long as you know the skills because the recipes that I've tried out resulted in great tasting dishes. But Sam Leong's recipes just don't seem to work at all. I tried out two of his recipes that required the least fuss to prepare and the flavours were just all wrong. The Bean Curd Topped with Baby Anchovies and Spring Onion was way over salted even after following the exact ingredient combination (minus the deep-friend baby anchovies). The very interesting sounding Wok-Fried and Stewed Assorted Mushrooms with Soy Bean Milk (with only a one liner under its 'Method') sounded a little exotic and exciting but was unpalatable if using the exact amount of herbs called for in the recipe. The rosemary overpowered any other flavours in the dish.

So I ended up throwing away my entire lunch and buying some comforting red bean buns to sooth my disappointment. I could be entirely wrong of course. Maybe I'm just doing something fundamentally wrong in the kitchen, or maybe my kitchen scale had decided to sabotage me. And I could tweak the recipes a little, but I'm probably not going to have enough time to try out every single recipe I intended to use for the dinner for my family. So it's back to the cookbook shelf to plan out a new menu. 'A Wok Through Time' is still going to stay on the shelf of course, as a source of inspiration and drool-worthy food porn. But I'm probably not going to try cooking from it again anytime soon. Not until I get all that rosemary out of my mouth.

The Ultimate Meat Platter

I remember a time not so very long ago, when I abstained from meat in my obsession to lose a little weight. Sure, I might not be in ideal shape now, but I'm never going back to avoiding meat ever again. How could I resist something as divine as a simple piece of grilled steak?

Last night, after dinner plans with a friend were cancelled at the eleventh hour, I decided to head home straight from town and cook a proper meal for my family. Somehow, we seldom dine together because of their irregular working hours and much less dine together at home unless I make the effort to get everyone together. By some stroke of luck, every single one of them (I make it sound like I have an army of a family when there are actually only four of us) was at home.

I needed something quick since I was expecting to arrive home a little tardy, but it had to be greatly satisfying. And I badly wanted to break in my cast-iron grillpan with a foldable handle (poke me and I can even give you the reference number of the item). I knew that if I created a dinner of meat, meat and more meat, I would not only make my father and brother happy (not to say that my mum doesn't have her carnivorous side as well), I would also be able to get my brother in on the action without a problem. I saw how his face lit up when I showed him the grillpan and remember how he talked endlessly about creating the perfect piece of grilled steak.

So a huge Meat Platter it was. Four pieces of Pork Loin (marinated in homemade barbeque sauce and grilled), 2 pieces of Beef Striploin (grilled neat, just salt and pepper), 4 Chicken Drumsticks (marinated with island spice, honey and olive oil, seared and roasted) and 2 thick 'Chorizo Sausages' (just sizzled on a pan and sliced up into chunks). Our dinner was huge, especially if you count the cold egg tofu with red lumpfish caviar, and baked mini portobello mushrooms with black truffles, that my brother and I prepared as appetisers. Plus, the slices of multi-grain bread with tomato chilli jam, and my mum's yearly (leftover) Turkey Vegetable Soup.

But the night's gorging was all worth it. The barbeque sauce with cocoa, made using a recipe that I had gotten from one of my long forgotten cookbooks, was well received. As a marinade or as a dip, it is intense and assaults every single one of your tastebuds mercilessly, and is (yet again) amazingly easy to put together. The whole chunks of garlic that were crushed and added to the sauce were delicious straight out of the sauce, and even more so after a little caramelising on a pan until it has attained an almost crispy exterior that gives way to tender flesh.

My brother was in charge of the grilling of the beef and pork loins, naturally. And he treated his meats with utmost gravity. The striploins were dutifully rotated forty five degrees at a quarter of the cooking time, flipped at half-time and rotated again just over 1 minute before they were done (total cooking time was 5 minutes for medium rare, the way my entire family likes it). The pork loins required a slightly longer cooking time and were done to perfection, even though it was his first time. With just a slight blush of pink on the inside, the loins were still moist - better than what I've tried at some restaurants.

Needless to say, my brother was a picture of pride at the dinner table as he sliced into the beef and revealed the textbook example of what medium rare beef should look like. And to my horror, we finished every last piece of meat there was to have on the platters. But to hear my father, the picky eater of the family, sing nothing but praises of the meal, now that was rare. Alas, the way to a man's heart is actually through the Ultimate Meat Platter.

Barbeque Sauce with Cocoa

Enough for 2 kg of meat

Ingredients

4 tbsp cocoa powder, 200ml red wine vinegar, 200 g tomato puree, 8 tbspn honey, 2 tbspn olive oil, 10 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed, chilli powder to taste, 1 tbspn dried oregano, 2 tbspn soy sauce, salt and sugar to taste

Method

Dissolve the cocoa in the vinegar and place in a pan with the rest of the ingredients. Bring to boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, stirring, for 20 minutes.

Use it to marinate (marinating time = 2- 24 hours), as a baste for barbecueing or simply as a dipping sauce for barbecued meat or vegetables.

Practice makes perfect

In my previous post, I spoke of how my brother requested me to teach him how to make eggs benedict from scratch. I was only more than happy to, despite not having poached eggs before myself. It couldn't be all that difficult, could it?

The verdict is - it really isn't all that difficult at all. Sure, our first poached egg came out a little rough on the edges and perhaps a little overcooked. But our second poached egg, after adjusting the fire a little and being a little more gentle with our slotted spoon, emerged with perfect curves. Did I also mention that we also had to abandon our first failed attempt at hollandaise sauce because we had overcooked the whisked egg mixture? So I bought another block of butter and we started all over again. The sense of satisfaction seeing your egg yolks turn creamier and thicker as you drizzle in your melted butter while whisking at the same time, is indescribable.

Sure, we did take a couple of hours making an eggs benedict for each of us, and it wasn't even the authentic eggs ben since we conveniently substituted ham with sliced cheese sausage. But the moment you pierce your fork through your poached egg and witness all that glorious deep yellow liquid mix with the creamy and rich hollandaise sauce all over the sliced cheese sausage and your freshly baked bun, it all becomes worth it, and sausage or ham does not really matter anymore. Not a single second spent on creating that one dish would have been a waste.

Now, my brother will just have to find a lady who is content on having eggs benedict every morning for breakfast, for the rest of her life.

Dip it in

I've been incredibly busy this past week (what's new?) with dinner parties and gatherings in our newly redecorated home. Though I should really qualify that statement by saying that only the living and dining room has been massively changed while the rooms have remained exactly the way they were.

Of course it goes without saying that I would never let a bout of redecoration pass without having it sweep its magic through the kitchen as well. Little demolition was done, the kitchen has been well equipped with more shelves, a foldable table giving me the much needed extra working space for plating during service, and most notably among others, a reasonably priced oven that works like a dream. Actually it is possible that compared to my two-in-1 microwave cum convection oven, anything would be a dream to work with.

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For the group of girlfriends who have stuck with me since the days I donned my blue uniform and white bolero, I had planned my most elaborate dinner party to date. I sent out e-invites, named the party a 'NewMas' (go figure) Celebration Dinner and gave it a Kim Gek theme that only SCGS girls would appreciate. Thankfully, Addy volunteered her help and the party went smoothly - it had better be considering that we spent three days prepping for it. I hardly even broke out in a sweat, except when having to crank the pasta machine, and we had a couple of hours before guests were due to arrive for us to freshen up, pour ourselves a glass of sparkling white wine with strawberry puree each and indulge in some chin-wag.

Thinking back to the same gathering the previous year, I still marvel at how I survived. An incredibly ambitious menu with no help at all and little preparation before the day itself was a sure-fire route to failure. My girlfriends were being overly kind when they talked about how the Chestnut Ravioli was great. Yeah sure, if you happen to love extremely chewy, thick and irregularly shaped ravioli skins. They are really such dears.

In any case, Addy was such a blessing to have with me in the kitchen and absolutely conscientious in every task she carried out. Without her, I would probably have grown a whole tuft of white hair as a result of the dinner. The only pity is that I lost the SD card that I used to take photos of some of the food. I really hope they are not at the mercy of Moka's digestive juices at this very moment. Perhaps then it is fate that I am not meant to have a pictorial log of what we managed to serve our 5 beautiful girlfriends that night.

The Menu

Roasted Tomato Soup with Basil Foam and Slow Roasted Tomatoes (a tried and tested recipe that I knew would not fail me)

Beetroot Pasta with Beef Stew

Truffle Risotto

Red-Wine Poached Pears with Homemade Cream Cheese Ice Cream, Pink Meringue finger and Chocolate Canele

Fleisher Family Hornchen Cookies and Pink Meringue Kisses (to doggie bag home)

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A more recent dinner was a countdown dinner that my family decided to throw for my extended family. A couple of families were missing, making the crowd very manageable. It was also turned into a potluck just to make administration and preparation a little less hellish for us.

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A few days before THE night, my brother and I mulled over the few cookbooks that I have, to choose an appetiser and a main to prepare. He seemed extremely excitable while talking to me about what we could or should do, creating a mild lovely tingly sensation in my heart as I adore talking to people about food and even more so my very own brother. (A short digression - he has requested that I teach him how to bake buns, poach eggs and make a hollandaise sauce tomorrow just so that he can prepare his very own eggs benedict!)

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On THE morning, we went to Tekka Market together to purchase fresh herbs, vegetables (from Chia's veg supply, where else?) and meat then went home immediately to begin the preparation. While I had expected his help in the kitchen, remembering how thrilled he seemed while talking to me about possible dishes to prepare, I had NONE on the day itself. Granted, he had his room to tidy, but so did I! Anyway, I somehow managed everything alone and fell even more deeply in love with my new simple oven that I would never have been able to survive the day without.

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I had made the Oolong Tea Steeped Pork Belly, that is yet another tried and tested crowd pleaser, along with a variety of dips for bread and table water crackers, and more Fleisher Family Hornchen Cookies to doggie bag home. I am a little (understatement!) embarassed to admit that I cheated a little by buying a bottle of cheese dip instead of melting my own cheese.

From top: Pomodoro, Pesto and Tomato Chilli Jam

That aside, the dips were each well received and no clear favourite stood out. I presented a rather effortless Rosemary and Thyme Pomodoro Sauce (that got my dad's vote), a strong Pesto Sauce (my mum loved this) and a Tomato Chilli Jam (my brother and I enjoyed this the most)alongside the Roasted Garlic Cheese Sauce. Breads were purchased from Simply Bread, and Corduroy and Finch at 6th Avenue along Bukit Timah Road and everyone loved them.

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The Tomato Chilli Jam was almost as effortless as the Pomodoro to create. All you need is a good blender, the few simple ingredients and a pot, and you're good to go. I'm really glad I made quite a fair bit of each such that we had some leftover to enjoy the next day. This recipe was taken from The Cook's Book under the 'Flavourings' section contributed by Peter Gordon from New Zealand. I only suggest being a little less generous with the sugar if it is used as a dip, and perhaps even as a jam for your morning breakfast. Peter Gordon also recommends this as an accompaniment to 'roast lamb or pork, used to glaze a filet of fish under the grill, or in a sandwich of goat's cheese, rocket and avocado'.

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The night was fun, clowning around with my cousins and doing the customary exchange of well-wishes with all my relatives at midnight after the loud counting down. But due to my perpetual activity through the night, I had little time to reflect on the year that had just past. It is only now in my quiet room (other than the incessant whirring coming from my laptop), at 536am on the second day of the year, that I have begun thinking albeit in my half-conscious state.

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THE PAST YEAR saw me finally attain the paper that I had been working towards for the past 15 years of my life. It was a little anti-climatic though, since I did not attend the ceremony that would give me my five seconds of fame, but that does not discount the significance of the slip.

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In my personal state of affairs, I had gone through major upheavals. Departing from close friends I had lived with so closely in UK for the past three years while being finally reunited with those back in Singapore. Getting to know an amazingly talented, personable and overly generous couple.

The couple of work experiences that I had gone through taught me much, made life a more interesting and allowed me to meet people I would otherwise probably have never been able to get to know personally.

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On the homefront, I now have an additional member of the family called Moka, who has also adopted some very amusing nicknames such as Fei Zai (fat boy), but the winner has got to be 'Chief Shitting Bull' courtesy of my dad. The home is now a joy to come home to, and the kitchen very welcoming to cook in unlike before. My family has definitely come together a little closer as a result of the concerted effort, though that is not to say we made it through without some healthy argument. My cousins have also all bonded through a Big 81st Birthday Bash that we threw for our dear grandmother, slideshow, red and gold decorations and the whole works.

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The year has definitely been thoroughly eventful, and I can only hope that this spanking new year will be just as fulfilling. Already, the first day of the year started out on the right foot when I spotted a pair of rainbows in Clementi while I was walking towards the MRT station. I marvelled at it for the little while that I could afford without being late for my appointment, felt the ends of my lips curl upwards and a sense of peace settle over me.

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And here is the first recipe of the year:

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Tomato Chilli Jam

Makes about 500g

Ingredients

500g very ripe tomatoes

2 thumbs of fresh ginger, roughly chopped

3 tbsp nampla (fish sauce)

4 fresh serrano or other red chillies, finely sliced

4 garlic cloves, finely sliced

300g caster sugar (I used 250g)

100ml red wine or cider vinegar

Method

Blend half the tomatoes, the ginger, and fish sauce until smooth.

Chop the remaining tomatoes into 1cm dice.

Put all ingredients in a deep pan and bring to boil, stirring frequently.

Once mixture boils, reduce heat to a simmer for 30-40 mins, skimming off any foam during this time and stirring every few minutes.

Jam is ready when it thickens and becomes glossy.

If left to cook and poured into sterilized glass jars, they can keep in the refrigerator for 2 months.