Baked Eggplant with Cheese and Tomato Pasta

No picture to go along with this recipe as we were too hungry to bother with dressing it up and taking photos.

This recipe drew inspiration from a particular issue of Cuisine magazine that I was browsing during our cafe lunch the same afternoon. There were certainly many other salivating recipes featured, but this one caught my attention because of the simplicity of ingredients and instruction, and most importantly, the week-old aubergine in my fridge that was crying out for me to use today or throw tomorrow.

So I read the instructions more carefully than others. Easy to remember, and straightforward enough to improvise according to our pantry stock.

When dinner time came, with the recipe still vaguely in my mind, we set about cooking the dish. Below is our improvised version, blissfully unaware that the original recipe is actually available online :)

Baked Eggplant with Cheese and Tomato Pasta
Serves two

1 eggplant
1 can diced tomato, or equivalent of fresh tomatoes
some gruyere cheese (or the likes), quantity according to how cheesy you want your pasta to be, I normally prefer to have less, cut half into 1 cm slices, and half into smaller pieces or shred.
3 large handfuls of pasta (choose smaller shaped ones)
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup chicken stock
some fresh herbs, like basil or thyme (we had to use dried ones as the house painter tragically coated our bed of thyme with paint when he spray painted the house weeks ago)
drizzle of white wine
olive oil
salt and pepper

Quarter the eggplant lengthwise, and cut into 2 cm slices. Heat some olive oil and fry the eggplant until golden. Set aside.

Start cooking the pasta according to packet instructions. Also preheat oven at 180 degrees.

While pasta is cooking, heat some olive oil, fry chopped garlic and onions for about 1-2 minutes. Add tomatoes, chicken stock, herbs and wine and simmer. Allow the sauce to thicken and season to taste. Contrary to the original recipe, we opted for a thicker tomato sauce.

When the pasta is ready, drain and pour the pasta into a gratin dish. Follow by the eggplant, half the cheese, then the tomato sauce. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top.

Bake for 30 minutes until it is bubbling hot.

Basil Pesto

I love having fresh herbs. Unfortunately with apartment living, it is hard to keep my pots of herbs alive for long. They either don't survive the onslaught of wind outside, or the greedy bugs, or their roots outgrow the pot too fast. Especially my favourite basil.

We still like to have fresh basil in our salads every now and then, whenever we feel like it. And we do not like to buy the cut basil leaves from the supermarket and leave them to rot in the fridge (since we never know when we will feel like having basil in our salads). So what we're doing is to buy 1 pot of fresh living basil plant from the supermarket. It can usually last about 1-2 months with some tender loving care instead of just 1 week in the fridge.

And since we know my pot of basil will not survive long enough to provide for 100 servings of salads, we will almost always make some pesto to make full use of plant.


Here's a recipe from our favourite easy Italian cookbook.

Basil Pesto

20 large basil leaves
6 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
handful of pine nuts (well, recipe says 50g but we're very easygoing on this)
125g Parmesan cheese, grated
250ml olive oil (I can't bear to look at this)
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Either chop or puree basil, garlic, pine nuts and cheese in a blender (glad we've got one now). If using the blender, add a little oil so that the mixture can turn well. Pour the olive oil slowly while stirring until the sauce emulsifies. Season to taste.

Goes well with gnocchi.

Onion pasta

I've found a good way to use up cooked onions leftover from making Onions and Olive Tart. It's easy, fast (since it's already cooked) and yummy.

Here's my improvised recipe, if you're making this from scratch without making the onion tart first.

Onion pasta
Serves 2

about 3 onions, thinly sliced
plenty of extra virgin olive oil
1 bay leaf
chopped thyme
chopped rosemary
1 clove garlic
salt and black pepper

2 slices of bacon
some olives, green or black
pasta for 2

Heat oil. Be as generous with olive oil as you think your waistline can tolerate. Combine the onions and bay leaf. Cover and simmer over low heat for about 20 minutes until it is soft but not brown. Stir occasionally. Add garlic and the herbs and season to taste, cook uncovered for another 10 minutes over slightly increased heat. Set aside.

Start cooking pasta.

Meanwhile, cook the bacon until it is slightly crispy. Add onions and olive. Mix everything with cooked pasta and serve.

Sweet Potato Balls

Being not a big fan of sweet potatoes (aka kumara), it took me quite a while before I am again seduced by its abundance at the Sunday market.

I bought two yellow fleshed and one orange fleshed sweet potatoes, having a vague idea of what I am going to do with them.

Although I am not a big fan of sweet potatoes, they deserve credit for being a poor man's marzipan. I used to hear stories from our grandparent generation about how the tubers were their staple during the turbulent second world war years when food was scarcity.

Three simple ways of cooking sweet potatoes are: 1) steamed on its own. having piping hot steam sweet potatoes is perfect on a cold day; 2) cooked with plain rice porridge; 3) boiled in ginger + sugar syrup to make a clear sweet soupy dessert.

So with two of the sweet potatoes I've bought, I've tried (2) and (3). For (3), it is very straightforward. Using two different types of sweet potatoes, diced them into cubes. Boil them together with 2 slices of ginger and enough sugar until soft. Adding a pandan leaf tied into a knot enhances the taste significantly.

My third experiment with sweet potatoes is to make a sweet snack, that I had tried years ago at Maxwell market. The steps for sweet potato balls are like making onde onde, except that the dough is deep fried with a variety of different fillings.

Being lazy to experiment, I had ready-made red bean paste bought from the Asian grocery store, that we had intended to make steamed buns (paos).


Sweet Potato Balls 番薯担

1 sweet potato (both the orange or yellow fleshed variety can be used. In fact, I had mixed both together)
approx. 1 cup glutinous rice flour
white sesame seeds

Filling suggestion:
red bean paste, or roasted crushed peanuts tossed with sugar, or lotus paste or yam paste or black sesame paste etc.


Boil the sweet potato in boiling water until it's soft. Peel and mash the flesh.

When it's cool enough, start to knead the sweet potato into a dough by adding the flour. Add the flour slowly, until you get the consistency you fancy. It may be possible to not use flour at all, if you prefer a full sweet potato texture.

I've seen some recipes adding sugar to the dough, but I find sweet potato sweet enough. Furthermore, the filling is also sweet. So sugar is quite redundant, I feel.

Flour your hands so that the dough doesn't stick to them. Pinch some dough and roll into roughly a ping pong ball size. Flatten and put fillings inside. Roll back into a ball. Repeat until you've finished the dough.

Roll the balls with sesame seeds.

Heat oil for deep frying. Fry them until golden brown. They are very nice when eaten warm, freshly fried. But you can also snack on them when they're cooled.

Tips:
If you're like me and don't like deep frying, make smaller balls. Instead of filling a pan full of oil, use a wok, add about 3mm depth of oil for frying the sweet potato balls, just have to turn them on all sides manually until all sides are cooked and golden brown. Soak up excess oil on kitchen paper.

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!

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.

Rosemary roasted potato cubes with quick beef stir frys

Before I take a month long break from my food blogging, I thought I'll post something quick and simple, good when you're cooking for one.

Unfortunately, my rosemary pot has died, after being eaten by bugs, and suffering from 2 weeks of drought. So I had to use dried ones, which is not so bad though.

The roasted potato recipe comes from Jamie's guide to making me a better cook. It's quite straightforward, so after cooking it once, you can almost remember how to do it without referring back to the recipe.

To complete the meal, I did a quick stir fry of beef and onion, in the same pot used for boiling potatoes. In this way, I minimised my washing.

Rosemary Roasted Potato Cubes with Quick Beef Stirfry
Serves one

2 small washed potatoes, cut into 1 cm cubes. Keep skin if they're washed
Rosemary
olive oil
3 cloves garlic, crushed
a handful of sliced beef
1 onion
salt and black pepper

Preheat oven to 220 degree Celsius.

Cut potatoes into cubes. Put them into a pan of cold water and boil. When potatoes are boiling, drain in colander and leave to steam for a while.

Meanwhile, put olive oil on a roasting tray (or oven proof pyrex dish) and put into the oven to heat up the oil.

When the oil is hot, take out the tray and toss potatoes, rosemary, crushed garlic. It'll sizzle like teppanyaki which is kinda fun. Season with salt and pepper. Return to oven and bake for 20-25 minutes. Stir or shake the potato cubes once in a while to help in achieving a golden crispy texture.

Just before the potatoes are done, heat a little olive oil in pan. Fry onions until they are soften and a little brown. Add beef and fry for about 2 minutes. Season with salt and black pepper. Add a little water if you find it drying too much.

Toss the beef stir fry into the potatoes and serve.

And of course, you could cook something else to go with the potatoes.

Cheesy way of using up leftover rice

I've just found a cheesy way of using up my leftover fried rice, and pleasantly pleased with the result. Now I do not have to always cook Chinese fried rice to use up my leftover grains.

I found this recipe "Peppers with Rice, Feta and Pine Nut Stuffing" in my The World Encyclopedia of Cheese, which I'm going to add to my list of frequently used cookbook. Long neglected, it actually consists of a treasure trove of useful, easy to cook recipes.

I had quite liberally adjusted the recipe to my needs, which worked very well. Other than capsicums (bell peppers), it is possible to use tomatoes, portobello mushrooms or zucchini to stuff the rice in. And for those without an oven, you could possibly forgo the baking stage. The rice tasted good even before baking.

Peppers stuffed with Rice, Feta and Pine Nuts
Serves two

2-3 large bell peppers (mixture of colours would be good)
half to one cup leftover rice (or whatever you have)
1 carrot, grated
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tomato, chopped
2 large button mushrooms, chopped
sprinkle of pine nuts
sprinkle of raisins
feta cheese, crumbled (quantity depending on how cheesy you want your rice to be)
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
sprinkle of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
salt and ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius.

Cut the peppers in half lengthways and remove the cores and seeds. Bring a large saucepan of water to boil. Add the peppers and boil for 5 minutes. Remove and leave to drain upside down. If you're unsure of how many peppers you need to hold your rice stuffing (like me), you could hang on and blanch whatever number of peppers you need only after frying the rice.

Heat olive oil and sauté the onions and garlic until onions are softened. Stir in the mushrooms, carrot and tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Cook for about 5 minutes, then mix in the rice, feta, pine nuts, raisins and parsley.

Spoon the mixture into the blanched peppers, sprinkle over the Parmesan and bake for 20 minutes.

If using tomatoes to stuff the rice, spoon out the flesh of tomatoes. Keep the flesh for frying with the carrots and rice.

Black Pepper Beef and Aubergine Roll

I must have been possessed last night to have tried to create this dish.

It started with some recipes cutouts from a Chinese magazine (probably UW), given to me by PY. I was possessed by this Black Pepper Beef and Enoki Mushroom Roll recipe. But wait, enoki mushrooms (looking like golden needles, thus its alternate name) in New Zealand are classified as "exotic mushrooms", hence six times more expensive than in Singapore.

So, I fancied coming up with my own black pepper beef roll, magically paired with aubergine (eggplant). Except that I forgot it requires much more work. But still, Rémi and I had enjoyed the resulting dish very much.

Black Pepper Beef and Aubergine Roll
Serves 2-3

1 large aubergine (eggplant)
100g beef, thinly sliced (quantity varies, depending on how meaty you want it to be)
half to one red chilli, chopped (I have low tolerance for chilli)
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
few dashes of ground black pepper (recipe in the magazine asks for 3g! Who in his right mind will measure 3g of black pepper?!? First and foremost, you need a very fancy digital kitchen scale.)

Seasoning:
3 teaspoon light soya sauce
1 teaspoon tomato sauce
1 teaspoon dark soya sauce
1 teaspoon Chinese rice wine
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon corn starch
water (start with 2 tablespoon, but you'll find yourself adjusting the consistency of the sauce along the way)


Slice the aubergine lengthwise, about 1/2 cm thick (this is one of the most difficult part for me). Sprinkle salt and leave for half an hour in a colander. Pat dry with paper towel after that.

The aubergine has to be stir fried separately first, and I'm improving on my healthy way of doing this. A recipe has asked for lots of oil, but I find that it resulted in the first slice of aubergine soaking up most of the oil, leaving the rest unevenly coated in oil.

What I've found effective (and healthier) is to add a little oil to heat in the frying pan. Using a brush, brush the oil across the pan. Also, brush all the aubergine slices individually, on both sides with oil. Pan fry about 3-4 slices at a time, turning so both sides are browned and cooked. Set aside on a plate lined with paper towel.

With just a little oil, fry the beef slices quickly until cooked (or medium done). Takes about 2-3 minutes. Set aside to cool too. If you decide on a beef-enoki mushroom combi, you could roll them two up before frying. If using aubergine, the beef gets hidden inside the aubergine and doesn't cook evenly, hence I fry them separately.

The beef would have oozed out meat juices. Add garlic and chopped chilli. Stir fry until fragrant. Add seasoning and black pepper. Add about half cup more water for more sauce and allow sauce to thicken.

Meanwhile, roll up the beef and aubergine slices together. I rolled aubergine slices around the beef, but feel free to be creative here.

Add the beef rolls into the sauce.

You can serve with plain rice or cous cous. This could be a party food. Simply pin up the aubergine and beef roll with toothpick to secure and serve, and with sauce served separately.

My first tart - Tomato and Olive

It's not a joke. Despite having posted so many tart and quiche recipes, I've not made the tart dough myself thus far. What you've seen (I mean the shell) were all done by Rémi.

So, last Friday, I surprised Rémi with my first tart (or rather quiche). I had wanted to cook a simple dinner in advance, so tart/quiche is one of the best option. And preparing the tart dough turned out to be pretty easy. Requires two additional step than crumble, that is, to gather all the crumbs together to knead into a dough (very fast), and to roll out.

The tomato and olive quiche (the recipe calls it a tart) comes from a newly acquired cookbook "Appetizers, Finger Food, Buffets and Parties", but the same publisher as my ultimate fish cookbook. Also same as my chocolate and coffee cookbook (I seem to be collecting the whole series, having another soup cookbook as well). It's recommended for picnics and buffets, and you can also make a rectangular one to make it easier to divide into portions.

And not surprisingly, tomatoes and black olives go well together.

Tomato and Black Olive Quiche
serves two

half pâte brisée tart dough (I froze the other half and uses a small tart tin)
1 egg, beaten
100ml milk
1 tbsp fresh basil (or parsley)
2 plum tomatoes
2 tbsp cheese, into small cubes (I used feta, but would have loved to try with blue cheese or camembert)
olives, pitted
salt and ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius.

Prepare tart dough. Roll onto prepared tin and poke with fork. Bake for 15-20 minutes until cooked.

To make the filling, beat eggs with milk, seasoning and herbs. Slice tomatoes and olives. Add to the cooked tart and pour over the egg mixture.

Bake in oven for about 40 minutes, until the filling is golden and just firm.

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.

Open Ravioli with Parma Ham, Asparagus and Basil Butter

Wellington is known for its cafe culture. We have so far spent many a weekends exploring the diverse selection of cafes, each with its unique and individualistic character. Well, I don't really drink coffee, but always enjoy my brunch at a local cafe, each with a different menu and using the freshest local ingredients in season. Many times, at a place with a view to die for, be it by the wild coastline, in a valley, nested in a quiet suburb or by a busy street.

And some Italian cafes make you linger longer (and spend more) with their gourmet store alongside the cafe. Like this one, that we passed by, and ended up with a salami, mascarpone and Parma ham (all not quite local), after we said we are planning to prepare a nice dinner of ravioli and tiramisu, and looking for dried sausage for a camping trip. They certainly cost more, but the Parma ham is oh so good.

Well, it was supposed to be a fancy dinner, so we ended up with fancy ingredients. Very Italian too with recipe from my "easy Italian in minutes" cookbook, except that we replaced sage with basil. It's quite straightforward to prepare.

Open Ravioli with Parma ham, asparagus and basil butter
serves two

100g asparagus
125ml white wine
65g butter, cut into tiny cubes
half teaspoon white wine vinegar (we used red wine vinegar, I guess the deviation is not significant)
bunch of fresh basil, finely chopped (important to have fresh herbs for this)
Parma ham, cut into thin strips (recipe calls for 60g)
Parmesan, shaved
salt and pepper
125g fresh lasagna sheets (having fresh pasta really makes the difference)

Cook the asparagus gently with the tips out of the water for 3-4 minutes in boiling water until tender.

Heat the wine and reduce the liquid to 1 teaspoon, then slowly add the butter over low heat. Add vinegar and season to taste. Carefully fold in the chopped basil.

Cook the fresh lasagna sheets according to the pack instructions (we're not adventurous enough to make our own pasta yet).

Arrange one lasagna sheet on a plate and spread with a little herb butter, then place some of the cooked asparagus and strips of Parma ham on top. Layer up with more sheets of lasagna and filling. Repeat for the other portion.

Using a vegetable peeler, shave the Parmesan cheese and sprinkle over the pasta.

Parfait.

Quick Sambal Ladies Fingers and Garlic Butter Prawns

My way of cooking the ladies fingers and prawns may not be the best in town, but it's my suggestion of what to do when short of time. Especially when I'm running late and have no time to defreeze meat (I don't believe in microwave oven).

I love ladies fingers. Strange name, isn't it? But the pods do look like it. I wonder if there's any plant name "men's toes". Must be round and very hairy.

Ladies fingers are also know as Okra. They are of African origins and well-loved in Singapore and Malaysian cooking (though I know of friends who would not eat them too). It's common in Yong Tau Foo soup noodles, and can be stuffed with fish paste, or just simply blanched in soup. It's also added into Assam Fish, together with brinjal (egg plant), tomatoes, pineapples...yummmmmy.

And ladies fingers are fantastic when cooked with sambal chilli, just like Kangkong (water spinach, it's another vegetable that deserves a separate entry).

If you go the traditional way of making the sambal chilli, you'll like have to take out the pestle and mortar and start pounding dried shrimps, belacan, shallots, chillies together (I remember using a blender during my school days, much quicker). But I'm suggesting my shortcut method here with ready made sambal chilli. And you can do the same for kangkong too.

Quick Sambal Ladies Fingers
Serves two

150g ladies fingers
1 big teaspoon of ready sambal chilli sauce, easily found in any Asian grocery store
1 shallot
1 garlic
1-2 teaspoons dried shrimps

Soak the dried shrimps in water to soften it. Use warm water if you're short of time.

Chopped shallot, garlic and dried shrimps. Mix with the sambal chilli sauce. You may like to squeeze a little lime juice into the paste if you have some.

Cut the ladies fingers diagonally.

Heat oil in frying pan. Add in the mixed sambal chilli paste and stir fry for a few minutes until fragrant, but without burning.

Add in the ladies fingers and mix well with the chilli paste. Add about half cup to a cup of water to prevent the chilli paste from burning. Fry for about 3-5 minutes and dish out.

Serve with rice.



Garlic Butter Prawns
Serves two, with the ladies fingers and rice

Prawns (number depending on how generous your portion is. I'm stingy, so have 4 small prawns per person, it's fair and equal and no one gets more)
Garlic (also according to taste, I love garlic, so use about 4-5 and still think not enough)
1 teaspoon butter (well, this would be according to your conscience too)
Sugar and salt
corn starch

Remove shells from prawns. If using frozen prawns like me, unfreeze under cold running water to save time. Coat with corn starch.

Chopped garlic.

Melt butter in frying pan, add garlic and fry for 1-2 minutes until lightly brown and fragrant. Add the prawns. Sprinkle sugar and a pinch of salt. Can consider garnishing with lemon slices too.

Serve with the above. Both dishes here are quick to prepare.

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 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.

Asparagus season is in: cooking risotto with it.

I found a book The Country Store that wrote about discovering the pleasure of the changing seasons amidst our busy and hectic modern life, from baking, pickling, preserving to natural remedies, seasonal decorations and food:

The sowing of seeds, even if it is just a pot of parsley on the windowsill, is the beginning of a relationship with the plants that germinate, the picking of apples from the garden follows the beauty of spring blossom and the slow growth of the tiny green fruit to their full-flushed maturity when we can enjoy the satisfaction of our own harvest".

- Stephanie Donaldson

Coming from tropical Singapore, seasonal changes are guided by window displays in shops, screaming SUMMER SALE, NEW WINTER COLOURS, GSS SALE NOW ON; or when my father declares that the durian season is in with the fragrant smell of the fruit filling up the house; or when the rainy season sets in and I can't leave home without my brolly.

Our taste buds nowadays are hardly guided by seasons, as we import fresh produce from both the Southern and Northern hemisphere and we are able to indulge in every culinary whim whole year round.

Kiwiland being so far from everywhere, the sense of changing seasons is more marked now that 1. we shop for our grocery weekly; 2. we see more and more new produce appearing in markets with the arrival of Spring; 3. we feel the price difference between seasonal produce and imported food.

And it brings me great pleasure to welcome the Asparagus season!!! Soon, I'm sure I'll be able to smell strawberries in the air soon.

As asparagus do not keep long in fridge, I've been scouring my recipe books on how to utilise my new bunch to the fullest.

This Asparagus Risotto recipe comes from Jamie again. I'm very convinced by his guide to making me a better cook (and Christele Le Ru rocks in the dessert department), as it contains many useful and easy to cook dishes.

A word on making risotto. It's expensive to buy the real rice, so we've tried making it with Thai rice several times. Though it can't be compared with the real thing, it is more economical when it comes to practice. For this dish, we used medium grain rice. And we used a wok to cook the risotto. Worked well.

Asparagus and Lemon Risotto
serves two

Basic risotto:
1 cup risotto rice
about 250 ml vegetable or chicken stock
olive oil
1 tsp butter
1 medium onion
80 ml white wine

6-8 stocks of asparagus (stems sliced finely, but tips kept intact)
6 prawns (more if you're less stingy than me)
125ml chicken stock
grated Parmesan cheese
zest and juice of half a lemon (yes, our lemony quest continues)
sea salt and ground black pepper
olive oil

Bring stock to a simmer in a saucepan. Put olive oil and butter in separate large pan, add onion and celery (we didn't use celery) and cook gently for 15 minutes until soft. Add rice and turn up heat, stirring continuously.

Quickly pour in wine, stir until wine has evaporated.

Add stock into rice a ladle at a time, stirring and waiting until it has been fully absorbed before adding the next ladle. Cooking with low fire/heat, continue to add ladlefuls of stock until all have been absorbed, and the rice is beginning to soften but still a little bit firm.

Now, according to Jamie, if you're not cooking your risotto immediately, you have to put the part-cooked rice into a waiting oiled tray, spread them out evenly to cool down. And you can keep this risotto base in the fridge for a couple of days in a tupperware container.

But since we're hungry for our dinner, we went straight to the next steps, which involves pouring in the second batch of chicken stock into the risotto base with the asparagus stalks and tips and the prawns. And stirring all the time, bring gently to boil, and turn heat down and simmer until almost all stock has been absorbed.

Add the rest of the stock a ladleful at a time until rice, asparagus and prawns are cooked. You do not need to finish using all the stock.

Turn off heat, beat in Parmasan, and almost all the lemon zest and juice. Add salt and pepper if needed. Original recipe uses mint as well, so add some fresh mint leaves if you like a minty taste.

Serve with a drizzle of olive oil and more cheese if you like it more cheesy.

Sizing down Potato Rösti

With the luxury of time to try out a different recipe almost every time I cook, almost everyday is a good day when it comes to dinner time (and sometimes even lunch time). No more avoiding eating that chicken rice, just because I had it 3 days ago.

But we certainly do not want all the goodness of our diet to go to our waist. So portion control is a concept that we are working on (and what everyone should).

Portion sizes have definitely gone up. And a plate of char kuay teow in kiwiland is worth two in Singapore. That Starbucks grande cafe mocha with whip today contains as much calories as a full meal, and four times bigger than a cup of coffee than 20 years ago.

We reckon the reason why French restaurants use large plates but give small portions, is so that the diners can enjoy a full complete course of food without being 110% full: from appetizer, salad, main course to cheese and their favourite dessert.

So we may have bought two new large plates to enhance the presentation of our food, but doesn't mean we are going to fill it up entirely. The above plate of Baked Salmon, Broccoli with Anchovy Rosemary Sauce and Potato Rösti actually fed both of us. And we still had space for some cheese and a slice of Lemon Cake, recipe courtesy of joyofbaking.com after the dinner.

On the Lemon Cake, it was alright, but somewhat lacking in oomph. It's important to make the lemon frosting even though we made too little and too thinly. To make icing sugar, grind castor sugar on a mortar board, as Rémi insisted and did.
(Afternote: adding freshly squeezed orange juice enhances the taste and texture of the cake)

Preparing Baked Salmon was very straightforward: rub it with salt, sprinkle some lemon juice and drizzle with olive oil. Pop it into the oven at 200C for about 10-15 minutes and it's done.

Broccoli with Anchovy Rosemary Sauce and Potato Rösti comes from Jamie's guide to making us a better cook. But Rémi simplified the steps for making the Rösti. The Rösti was thin and crispy and I wished I could have more. But it's easy to indulge on too much potatoes, especially that upsized pack of French Fries or plate of Wedges from the pub. So be bold in adjusting quantities in recipes to fit your waist.

Potato Rösti
serves two small eaters

2 small potatoes, peeled and cut into matchsticks.
olive oil
knob of butter
salt and pepper to tase
a few sprigs of rosemary leaves
2 cloves of garlic, peeled

On a non-stick frying pan, heat some olive oil. Add butter and toss the potatoes with a pinch of salt and pepper, rosemary leaves and whole garlic cloves. Fry on medium heat until the potatoes are soft and cooked.

Gather the potatoes into shape, and using a suitable size plate, press down on the potatoes to flatten it. When the underside is crispy, flip and press down to flatten on the other side.