Fresh Oysters with Vinaigrette of tomatoes and shallots

Yes, we have a lot of fresh food over the weekend.

Besides the duck liver (which is still sitting in the fridge and no longer fresh by now) and freshly grated coconut, I finally satisfied my craving for fresh oysters without the exorbitant price tag that comes with eating them at restaurants.

For people like Rémi who are less tolerant of the taste of raw oysters with just lemon juice (strange, since raw oysters feature very much in the French traditional Christmas feast, much to my delight), I made a vinaigrette to kind of mask the rawness of the oyster taste. At least, there's something to crunch on besides the jelly soft oyster meat.

The vinaigrette draws inspiration from what we recently had at a restaurant (it cost $4 per oyster, so we had only 1 each), as well as a quick browse of some google results.

Fresh Oysters with Vinaigrette
1 dozen fresh oysters

2-3 cherry tomatoes, chopped
1 shallot, chopped
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
pinch of salt and pepper
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
juice of half a lemon

Mixed ingredients for vinaigrette altogether. Serve with the fresh oysters.

Simply Garlic Mushrooms

There are days when you just want an easy quick dinner, and last night was one of them.

I love garlic and mushrooms, and garlic mushrooms is a happy marriage between two of my several dozen favourite ingredients.

Then, my potted parsley is growing so well it's time I should give it a little trim. I highly recommend the growing of parsley. A friend told me it's almost like a weed, which makes growing easy. And it gives you parsley anytime you like, rather than buying a big bag in the supermarket and not being able to finish using it.

This dish is normally served as an appetiser, so to make it substantial and fitting for main course, I added carrots and serve it with cous cous (easier and faster to cook than rice). Makes a perfect vegetarian meal, though I think adding crispy bacon bits would also taste great. Children will like it too.

Recipe inspired by my Olive Oil cookbook.

Simply Garlic Mushrooms
serves two

about 300g (rough estimation) fresh mushrooms (I used white button here, but brown, portobello or mixed would be delightful too)
1 carrot
4 cloves garlic, or as much as you like
3 tablespoons olive oil (it's good to be generous here for this dish)
a little lemon juice (optional)
crispy bacon bits (optional)
salt and black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Slice mushrooms thickly. Cut carrot into thin strips. Chopped garlic.

If you're using bacon, fry them first until crispy. Set aside.

Heat oil and sauté garlic until lightly browned but not burnt. Add carrots and allow the carrots to soften slightly. Add mushrooms and stir until well mixed and mushrooms cooked. Add a little water (maybe 1-2 tablespoon) to get some juicy mushroomy gravy to go with cous cous.

Season with salt, pepper and chopped fresh parsley. Add bacon bits if using. Drizzle with some lemon juice if you like a more tangy taste.

To cook cous cous (for the beginner), add 1 cup boiling water to 1 cup cous cous. Season with a little butter and salt and cover for about 10 minutes. Stir well before serving.

Scallop Ceviche

The Ceviche is a popular appetiser in Latin American countries. Each country from Mexico down to Chile have their own touch of individuality.

The dish basically involves marinating and cooking fish or seafood in citrus such as lime or lemon. Traditionally, you have to marinate for about 4 hours for the seafood to be 'cooked', but we cheated a bit by blanching our scallops with boiling water to save us some time.

Our resulting ceviche is 'created' after looking at several recipes and adapting them to what we have and like.

Scallop Ceviche
Serves two

100g scallops
1 yellow peppers
1 clove garlic
1 thumb size red chili
2 lemons (limes work better, being more acidic, but they were sold out in the supermarket)
half a grapefruit
Olive oil
Coriander leaves


Slice scallops horizontally.

Squeeze enough lemon or lime juice to submerge the scallops entirely in the juice and leave in fridge for 4 hours. If you're short of time, like us, blanch the scallops with boiling water first before marinating them in the citrus juice.

Chopped garlic and chili. Slice the yellow pepper thinly and cut the grapefruit flesh. Mix everything and add a little olive oil.

When the seafood is ready, add into the mixed fruit/vegetables. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve within 2-3 hours.

Getting to the heart of an Artichoke

I was introduced to the Artichoke by Rémi. Just like a Westerner may be baffled by a durian, I was stumped by how to eat this edible bud of a thistle that originates in the southern Europe around the Mediterranean.

I kind of consider this blog in part, a project to learn more about what goes through my mouth into my body (think our generation's obsession with highly processed food which greatly distorts the original look, taste and feel of many ingredient).

From what I find out, the main producers of artichokes are France, Italy and Spain, which is why it is a common starter to a French meal. In Chinese, it is 朝鲜蓟(ji)，or菊蓟、菜蓟、法国百合、荷花百合...but I do not recall this being commonly used in Chinese cuisine.

To eat it, you have to peel each leaf petal, one by one, dip in whatever dressing, and sip or chew the bottom (the side enjoining the stem) flesh off. I find this process truly unsatisfying, because the flesh is tender and tasty and leaves you craving for more. Yet, there's so little to suck off the leaves.

The joy comes when you reaches the heart. But before eating your heart out, you have to remove the "choke", which is the fine prickly hairy growth covering the heart of the artichoke. The heart of the artichoke is usually the most prized part that is used in restaurants (such that I may have tasted the artichoke many times without knowing how it looks like). Discard the leaves. The stem is said to be edible if well-cooked, but oops, I didn't know and threw it away.

To cook an artichoke, Rémi found that the fastest and easiest way is to steam for about 15 minutes. One can also boil it uncovered for about half an hour. Camille's French classic cookbook has also three artichoke recipes, all of which require more than an hour of baking or simmering. The tips of the leaves is quite sharp, which is why it is not uncommon to cut them off before cooking.

To make the dip, one suggestion is to combine olive oil, Dijon mustard and balsamic vinegar. Yummy.

The five fragrances of Ngoh Hiang

The Hokkien Five Spice Meat Roll is more commonly known as Ngoh Hiang in Hokkien or Wu Xiang in Mandarin, literally meaning "five fragrances". Well, the famous Five Spice Powder (Wu Xiang Fen) used in Chinese cuisine is also literally translated as "five fragrances" from Chinese.

Five spice powder is so named as it contains all the five flavours (or should we say fragrance) - sour, bitter, sweet, pungent, and salty. Although the specific combination of spices varies nowadays, two standard combination are: 1) Chinese Tung Hing cinnamon (a type of cassia), powdered cassia buds, powdered star anise and anise seed, ginger root, and ground cloves. 2) huajiao (Sichuan pepper), bajiao (star anise), rougui (cassia), cloves, and fennel seeds.

The powder is the key spice in making the Ngoh Hiang. As the meat roll is quite tedious to make, it is a festive dish in Hokkien households (from my observation of my extended family and friends). Besides death anniversaries of ancestors (this may sound strange to foreigners, but anniversaries are celebrated with rich offerings of food in traditional prayers, and the extended family gather together to offer their respect. I see it more as an occasion for family gathering), Chinese New Year is the main period when grandmothers, mothers, aunts etc make this meat roll, along with a big feast of other traditional goodies.

Of course, you can easily find Ngoh Hiang in hawker centres nowadays, but nothing beats the homemade one. Especially when those commercially-made-in-factory ones taste more flour than meat (just like chicken nuggets from MacDonald).

I got the below recipe from my friend PY's mom, who make one of the best Ngoh Hiang. As with most Chinese home cooks, the proportion of ingredients is more by instinct than precision, so use your discretion, as I do when I reduce the quantity in making it. The quantity is huge, as this is a festive dish and so, cooked to feed many many mouths and to last over several meals during the Chinese New Year period.

Yesterday was my first try. There's room for improvement.

Ngoh Hiang (Hokkien five spice meat roll)
makes perhaps 12 rolls

1 large sheet of bean skin
1kg minced pork
300g prawns
20 water chestnuts
2 large onions
2 carrots
10-15 dried shitake mushrooms, soaked
5 stalks coriander leaves
2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp salt
pepper
corn flour
1 packet of five spice powder (I'm not sure how much is this, but use generously, possibly 1 tbsp)
2 eggs

Grate carrots and chopped all ingredients finely. Marinate and set aside for one hour.

Cut the bean skin into smaller squares (or rectangular). Clean them with a damp cloth. It's very fragile, so be careful not to tear it.

Divide up the minced mixture accordingly and roll as tightly as possible like a sausage.

Deep fry in hot oil until cooked (I prefer to use less oil and turn the meat rolls until all sides are cooked). Cut diagonally into 1 inch slices.

Serve as a side dish with rice.

The never right way to make Guacamole

A perennial favourite among our friends whenever we have lunch or dinner parties in Singapore, the guacamole is super easy to make and easy to please.

A problem with buying avocados in supermarkets is that they are always not ripe enough. So be certain to buy a few days in advance, if you are planning to use it for entertaining guests. We have resorted to burying our avocados in our rice bucket, in the hope that it would ripen in time, but nope, it didn't work.

And I found out that there are as many ways of making guacamole as there are the number of people making them. Everyone have their concept of what they think are the essential ingredients to making the best guacamole. There's even a big debate out there as to whether tomatoes should be included. Many people use garlic, but I've never added it.

Well, here's my way of making what I like, and it's up to you to decide if you like it or not.

Guacamole
should be enough for 4 if used as a dip

2 ripe avocados
1 onion
Juice of 1 lemon
cumin powder
salt
1 tomato (optional, I've omitted this lately)
chili (the authentic Mexican way is to use jalapeno pepper, I use chili flakes or a thumb size of red chili, chopped)

Half the avocado and spoon out the flesh. Mash with a fork.

Chopped onions and tomato and chili (if using) finely. Mix into the avocado and sprinkle lemon juice, cumin powder and salt. I am generally quite generous with cumin powder, adding it until I feel it is strong enough.

Cover and chill for about half an hour before serving. Not recommended for keeping overnight, as the avocado tends to discolour quickly when exposed to air.

Serve with tortilla or tortilla chips. It's hard to stop dipping chips with it once you start.