Tarte Tatin and ways to break your ceramic tart tin

We love tarts. So you can imagine us having tart tins of varying sizes. And the white ceramic ones are our favourite. They look nicer and tolerate the blade of the knife better.

Well, we are also old enough to know that they are fragile and break into a thousand pieces if we smash them on the floor. Still, in the last 6 months, we managed to break 3 of them. That's at a rate of one every 2 months!

Here's our three suggested ways to break your ceramic tart tin, without smashing it into a thousand pieces. If you do it correctly, it will just crack and break into 2 or 3 parts:

1. After unmoulding your tart straight from the oven, run the still very hot tin under cold water.

2. Put empty tin in a hot oven until it cracks.

3. Use the tin as a cooking pan and put it in direct contact with heat on the stove.


Despite having just mourned for our last broken tin, we still enjoyed the Tarte Tatin done by Rémi today. It is an upside down apple tart, a truly classic French dessert. Surprisingly, Camille's classic French cookbook doesn't have the recipe, so Rémi got the recipe from this website.

According to him, it's easy. Just don't use the ceramic tart tin to cook the caramel on the fire. And be generous with the amount of apple.

To serve, sprinkle cinnamon powder around the plate and add a scoop of vanilla ice cream. But the truly purist way of eating it is to add nothing to it.

Of Taro and Yam, Sweet Potato and Kumara - Yam cake and Onde Onde

Moving to a new country often means learning not just names of new friends, but also new names for familiar foods.

The best example is the prized and hence pricey abalone in Chinese cuisine, of which New Zealand is a key exporter. But on coming here, we didn't hear any mention of the shellfish until many months later, when we were told abalone is actually known by its Maori name Paua here. Now that makes sense.

Then, I decided to make yam cake when I saw yam on sale at the market (even though the tuber look vastly different from what I know and much smaller). The result wasn't encouraging and we fed the bin more than ourselves with it.

So what is known as Yam in Singapore and Malaysia is known here as Taro (although we use the word "taro" back home too). Back home, Taro is used in sweet desserts like the bubor chacha, as well as savoury dishes such as claypot yam rice.
Now, Yam Cake is not a sweet cake, but a savoury kueh you find in dim sum restaurants. It is also eaten at breakfast by Chinese in Singapore. Taro or yam, its Chinese name 芋头糕 remains the same.

And while I was lamenting about the absence of Sweet Potatoes in Wellington, I was to discover that they are actually everywhere all year round. By a different name that is - Kumara. While Kiwis eat kumara fries here, Singaporeans like Sweet Potato Fritters, Sweet Potato and Ginger Soup (it's a sweet dessert), Sweet Potato Porridge, and yes, Sweet Potato balls in the form of Onde Onde. It's a Malay or Indonesian sweets, with palm sugar wrapped in a dough made from sweet potato and flour.

Yesterday, I finally satisfied my yam and sweet potato cravings at one go by making yam cake and onde onde. Kept me busy but the result was rewarding.

I did the Yam Cake by combining 2 recipes from my high school textbooks. Not chemistry but home economics, and food and nutrition (which I did for my O levels). So, it's simple enough for a 14 year old to make, which I did when I was 14.

Yam (or Taro) Cake 芋头糕
Serves 4-6

About 200g Taro, peeled and diced
125g rice flour
1 tablespoon corn flour
2 cups stock
half cup dried prawns, pound
4 shallots, sliced
Vegetable oil

Seasonings:
1 tablespoon light soya sauce
salt and pepper
1 teaspoon sugar

Classic garnish:
Chopped spring onions or coriander leaves
Fresh red chillies, chopped
Fried shallots

Heat oil in a frying pan. Fry the shallots until light brown. Add the pounded dried prawns and fry until fragrant. Add the yam and seasoning. Fry for a minute and remove from heat.

Put rice flour and corn flour in a saucepan. Gradually add in the stock, stirring well until the mixture thickens slightly. I'm assuming it's done over low or medium heat here. Stir until there's no lumps.

Add in the fried ingredients and mix well.

Grease a cake tin. Pour in the mixture and steam for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until it is firm. Try using a skewer to poke through the middle. If it comes out clean, should be good.

Slice, garnish (with whatever you have) and serve with chili sauce.

To reheat for eating, say the next day, you could either steam again, or pan-fried the sliced pieces. Pan-frying gives it a delightful crispy outer layer.

Onde Onde

My sister has a pretty good recipe here.

Like her, I'm not a big fan of adding food colourings, so the colour of my sweet potato balls reflected the pale yellow variety of kumara I used. The traditional colour of Onde Onde is green. Natural way is to extract the green juice out of pandan leaves.

I also did a few tweaks to her recipe. Replaced glutinous rice flour with a combination of plain flour and tapioca flour (2 tablespoon plain and 1 tablespoon tapioca flour). Add the flour gradually, so that I ended up using only two-thirds of the flour mixture, and the dough was elastic enough to be rolled into balls.

For grated coconut, in New Zealand, it is possible to buy a whole coconut imported from Fiji, find a big chopper or hammer to smash it open without spilling out the juice, and then grate the white flesh inside painstakingly. Well, that's just one possibility.

The less fresh but easier option that I experimented with pretty good results is to use dessicated coconut. Pour a little boiling water, teaspoon by teaspoon until it puffs up and looks almost fresh!

Octopus Stew in Red Wine

I would think our 'portion control' exercise has been quite successful. We definitely have comparatively smaller appetites than the usual Kiwis. We struggle to finish our main course in restaurants (well, the servings at restaurants are huge here), get full by sharing between two of us, a main course and a starter dish.

Back at home, we hardly eat outside mealtimes. We seldom have space for the traditional French course of cheese (that is served before dessert).

For dinner, we have moderate servings. Like sharing a tuna steak or a lamb shank (it's also so that we can enjoy a bigger proportion of vegetable to meat). Last night, dinner was octopus stew. To be more precise, we shared a tentacle of an octopus. Hmmm...this is making us look like Scrooge. Well, a smaller main course serving allows us to have a hearty salad for starter, and space for a sinful dessert.

The stew was done entirely by Rémi, who wanted to reminisce the octopus stew he used to have during his Corsican summer holiday. Recipe comes from our Ultimate Fish cookbook. Original cooking time was supposed to be more than two hours, but we halved it and the meat was just as tender as we could have wished for.

Octopus Stew in Red Wine
Serves two

Prepared octopus (up to you to choose how many tentacles is enough to feed you)
2 onions, sliced
1 bay leaf
2 ripe tomatoes (or use canned whole peeled tomatoes)
olive oil
2-3 garlic cloves
sprinkle of castor sugar
sprinkle of rosemary or oregano
1 tablespoon fresh parsley
70ml red wine
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
chopped fresh herbs, eg basil for garnish

Begin by tenderising the octopus meat, after cleaning and skinning it. Place the meat in a plastic bag, and beat well with the back of a knife or rolling pin.

Put the octopus in a large pan of gently simmering water with one quarter of the sliced onions and bay leaves. Cook gently for 1 hour (we halved the cooking time here).

Peel skin off tomatoes by first putting them into boiling water for 30 seconds and running under cold water. Chopped up the fresh.

Drain the octopus and cut into bitesize pieces.

Heat oil in pan, and fry the octopus, remaining onions, crushed garlic and cook over low heat. Stir occasionally for 3 minutes.

Add tomatoes, sugar, rosemary or oregano, parsley, red wine and vinegar. Stir continuously for about 5 minutes until the mixture is thickened.

Cover and cook over low heat for about 1.5 hours (we did it for about half an hour only), until the sauce is thickened and the octopus is tender.

Garnish with fresh herbs and serve with couscous or rice or warm bread.

St Remy Tuna

After whining for close to two weeks about being sick, I'm finally well enough to do some bit of research and development in the kitchen. Before that, meals are almost about Chinese stirfrys and soup with rice. Very straightforward. And a lot of fish too, cooked mainly by steaming.

The fish department in Wellington supermarkets generally has quite limited variety. So when we saw tuna steaks for sale the night before, we couldn't resist trying something different. I do not like canned tuna, but love tuna sashimi. But we also make it a point not to eat tuna too often, as this is one fish that has suffered from overfishing.

Found this "St Remy Tuna" recipe from my ultimate fish cookbook. It's surprisingly fast and easy to cook. It was the side dishes of fried kumara (sweet potato) sticks and boiled french beans that took us longer to cook. St Rémy is a village in Provence, France, which has nothing to do with Rémi.

And dessert was Apple Yoghurt Cake. No doubt my appetite has come back.

St Rémy Tuna
Serves two

2 tuna steaks
about 1 tablespoon olive oil
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tablespoons white wine
1-2 ripe plum tomatoes, peeled, deseeded and chopped
dried herbs de provence, or Italian mixed herbs. Or just simply a mixture of thyme, rosemary, oregano etc.
salt and ground black pepper

Season the tuna steaks with salt and pepper.

Start cooking just before you are ready to serve, like get your side dishes ready first, as the tuna steak and sauce takes only about 10 minutes to cook.

Set a frying pan over high heat until very hot, add the oil and coat more or less evenly around the pan. Add the tuna steaks and press down gently. Reduce heat to medium and cook for about 6-8 minutes or less. Turn only once, until the centre is just slightly pink. Do not overcook.

Transfer tuna to a warm serving plate and cover to keep warm.

Then quickly add garlic to the pan and cook for a few seconds. Pour in the wine, bring to boil until it is reduced by half.

Add the chopped tomatoes and dried herbs. Cook for 2-3 minutes, season with pepper and pour over the fish steaks.

Serve with potatoes and french beans.

Savoury Crumble of Tomatoes, Provencal style

One of our 拿手好菜 (specialty) is apple crumble. When we saw this cookbook offering over 30 both sweet and savoury crumble recipes in Grenoble, we can't resist not buying. Not even the fact that all recipes are in French (better for me, let Rémi do all the cooking). And it's affordable at 7 euros, unlike those expensive celebrity chef cookbooks (I will blog about how to find good cheap cookbooks another time).

Published by Solar Editions, the book on Crumbles is part of a series of yummy looking small cookbooks. There are also books all about French charlottes, crêpes, gratin, souffles, crèmes brûlées, pâtes, to name a few. I almost wish to buy half the collection.

So on Sunday, we made a whooping three different types of crumbles at one go: tomatoes, courgettes and mixed berries. I conveniently helped with small little tasks, since I can't read the instructions.

Introducing the tomatoes crumble, which we liked most among the three. Not that the other two are bad.

Tomatoes Crumble, Provencal style
8 tomatoes
2 garlic
fresh parsley
olive oil
salt

Crumble:
200g breadcrumbs
3 tablespoons olive oil
pepper

Cut the tomatoes in half. Scoop out the flesh and drain away seeds and mince the remaining flesh.

Set aside olive oil for crumble in freezer until it thickens.

Preheat oven at 180 degree Celsius.

Chopped garlic and parsley. Mix all together with minced tomato flesh. Season with salt and olive. Spoon into the tomato halves.

To make the crumble, mix breadcrumbs with the semi-frozen olive oil. If you're making crumbs from fresh bread, toast first before tearing the bread into small pieces.

Sprinkle the crumbs over the tomatoes and bake for about 20 minutes.

Mountain food, Swedish food, holiday food

Finally back from my long break. The holiday is mainly about spending time with family. But we also get to eat lots of good food, reminisce lost tastes and discover new delights.

In Singapore, it's more about gorging ourselves with as much local delicacies as possible without suffering from indigestion. Managed laksa, nasi lemak, dou hua (sweet beancurd), steamboat at home, xiaolongbao, bak chor mee, to name a few. Also grabbed 2 new cookbooks about local desserts and claypot dishes.

Over in France, Rémi's mom cooked a lot of mountain food in Meribel, an alpine ski village where we spent one week. Like the Tartiflette, a specialty of the Savoie region. To make it, boil potatoes, peel and slice, top with crispy bacon and generous blocks of the Reblochon cheese and bake. It was yummy. Other hearty meals include cassoulet, a casserole containing meat (eg pork sausages, duck and mutton) and white haricot beans, wild boar stew and more.

In Sweden, the Semla (above) is a must-have at Swedish cafes. A wheat bun stuffed with almond paste and whipped cream, it is traditionally eaten before fasting in Lent starts. They are available in bakeries and shops between Christmas and Easter.

Then, there's the lingonberry, that is eaten with almost everything, from toast, syrup to meatballs. I managed to try this Swedish bak-zhang (meat dumpling), like a potato meatball accompanied with lingonberry. Not bad.