My DIY plastic bags holder

While it is absolutely inedible, this candied felt bag or box (however you see it) is an integral part of my aim to keep my kitchen tidier.

I draw my inspiration from those plastic plastic bag holders by Ikea, which has many holes for you to draw out plastic bags. But first, there's not a single Ikea in the entire New Zealand (whose presence would otherwise drive the local furniture industry out of business). Second, my kitchen cabinet is not big enough for its tall holder anyway.

Stiff felt is the chosen material as I like it. Also, it holds the shape, yet is more resistant to water than paper. The shocking pink colour was chosen by Spotlight, as that's the only colour available. I combined it with my leftover black and fuchsia pink felt from an earlier project to make cup coasters, so that the final colour combination is less shocking.

On the same trip to Spotlight, I have bought a cheap wine red 6 ply cotton thread, intending to use it to sew the felt pieces together. And a piece of off-white thick textile from the clearance bin, wanting to use it as a table cloth for food photography. As I was drawing the threads out of the textile to create a fray effect on both ends, I collected enough thread to sew my felt box together! Even more cheapo (whole project costing less than S$5, with leftover materials for next project).

So, a good part of Sunday afternoon was spent sewing the felt pieces together using box stitches. The size of the box is partly determined by the size of the felt, which I had halved to form each face. A strip connects the top face of the box to better hold the shape of the box together. Plastic bags are loaded from the top. A hole is cut through one of the face of the box, so you could draw plastic bags out, like tissue paper. This is the part where you can be creative. Rémi rejected my suggestion of cutting a heart shape out of the hole. So the next easiest design I could think of is making a sweetie pie looking flower.

I even contemplated hanging the box from the ceiling. But well...

Mushroom and Blue Cheese Pasta

When I was a kid, I knew only two types of cheese: Kraft and Cheesedale Cheese. Both are cheddar cheese, but it doesn't matter. I had enjoyed a slice on my toast, with tuna, in burgers, on the Jacobs cream crackers, or just on its own. As I grew older, I learned that Mozzarella and Parmesan are good for pasta and pizzas. And there's this Philadelphia cheese that I made my cheesecake with.

French food culture is as much about cheese, as it is about wine. So you can imagine that there's a very steep learning curve for me in terms of cheese, and I may be able to rattle off only a dozen more names of cheese at most. My lame attempt in understanding cheese led me to buying this book titled "The World Encyclopedia of Cheese" a few years back.

While I have barely read its informative explanation of different varieties of cheeses, I have found this blue cheese pasta sauce that Rémi tried and we enjoyed last night. We did not use Gorgonzola as suggested by the recipe, but with another type of blue cheese produced locally. New Zealand is afterall a cow and sheep country.

Bon apetit!

Mushroom and Blue Cheese Pasta

Pasta

Sauce:
Olive oil
Fresh mushrooms (about 150g)
1 garlic clove, crushed
100ml cream
100g blue cheese (eg Gorgonzola), crumbled
salt and ground black pepper
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
chopped walnuts

Cook pasta according to packet instructions.

Heat oil in pan and sauté the mushrooms for 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook for 1-2 more minutes.

Stir in the cream, bring to boil and cook for 1 minute. Stir in the cheese but do not boil. Adjust consistency of sauce with water, according to your own preference. Season and toss with cooked pasta.

To serve, toss in the walnuts and parsley.

Those who can't stand the strong smell of blue cheese can happily omit it from this recipe, as mushroom and cream still go well together. It's just like having wanton noodles without wantons.

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.

Strawberry Conserves

I imagine that the commercial jam market in France is very small. Even though it has a population of 61 million, and most of these 61 million Frenchies probably have jam on toast for their breakfast everyday.

Why do I imagine so? Because French grany and maman (French for grandmother and mother) make their own jams, jars and jars of them. And they do jam exchange within the family, grany to maman, and maman with aunts for variety of flavours. And the mamans will in turn distribute these lovingly made jams to their city dwelling children. So who needs to buy jam in this country? Especially when homemade jams come with deliciously chunky pieces of real fruits!

(Well, there is still a commercial jam market in France, and one popular brand is called "Bonne Maman", translated into Good Mother. This brand of jam contains chunky fruit pieces almost like mom's. It's sold in Singapore supermarkets too, and no surprise that we've tried almost all the flavours.)

When making jam, French mamans buy big quantities of fruits. You can trust them on knowing where to buy seasonal fruits cheaply in bulk. And they are usually too ripe to be eaten on its own but perfect for jam-making, which is why they are cheaper too.

Being well into the fruity season in New Zealand, we reckon it is time to try our hands in jam making. Especially after finding 1kg of strawberries selling cheap at the Sunday market.

Our jam recipe comes from, who else, but Rémi's maman. While we reproduce the trusty recipe she has been using here, we still have to check with her on how to improve. Our jam looks more like strawberry preserves -- very liquid, with whole strawberries floating in the thickened liquid. But it's perfect with plain yoghurt. To spread on toast, just smash the extremely soft strawberries over it.

A few words on sterilising the jam jars. Put clean jars into boiling water for 10 minutes. Let them drip dry. Then pour the hot jam into the jars, cover tightly immediately and invert right away. The steam from the hot jam is supposed to kill bacteria in the remaining pocket of air. And the expanding heated air will make the jar air tight. If you suspect that air has sneaked in, then store in fridge and use immediately. Otherwise, the preserved jam can keep for a long time in your store cupboard.

Strawberry Conserve/Jam

2 kg strawberry
1.5kg sugar
250ml water

Wash strawberries and carefully remove the stalk.

Put them in a large pan with water. Cook over low heat for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the sugar and stir to mix evenly and cook 25 minutes. When it's done, store into jam jars.

Some after thoughts:
1. Traditional recipes used by mamans are always amazingly brief in details. We may have missed out the obvious step, which is to cut the strawberries into chunky pieces first (can't really blame us, we had very small strawberries, and Rémi still insists that keeping strawberries whole are better).
2. Strawberries are known to not set well. So some recipes call for adding a spoon of pectin-rich fruit (raspberry, apple, black currant, gooseberry) jam into the conserve mixture to help the gelling)

Making Sago Gula Melaka without recipe

Gula Melaka is essentially palm sugar. It is golden brown and usually comes in tube form. And it's a commonly used ingredient in Malay desserts.

I don't know who named the sugar after the famous historic town in Malaysia or why, as palm sugar has a different name in Indonesia. And in our foodie hunt through Malacca's old town area a couple of years ago, we found and tasted more chendol than Sago Gula Melaka. Nevertheless, the best sago gula melaka we've tasted so far in our memory was found in Malacca too.

While we have yet to re-create the best Sago Gula Melaka, it is still a simple to make dessert that will satisfy anyone craving for it.

Our problem is, we never stick to any recipe when we make this dessert. It's easy to find so many different versions on the internet, and we always end up with our own improvised version each time. Easier too, no need to remember proportion as there's none.

Sago Gula Melaka

about 100g sago - good for 4-6 ramekins. a few recipe say 200g, it's too much. just decide how many 'cups' you want to make, and remember that the sago expands during cooking.

coconut milk - unless you're using santan squeezed from fresh grated coconut, it is impossible to specify how much water to go with the coconut milk, as different brands of canned/packed coconut milk/cream have different consistencies. As a rough guide, mix about 1 cup coconut milk to 1 cup water, or rather, mix in the water slowly. The resulting milk shouldn't be too diluted or overly thick.

Gula Melaka or palm sugar - they are almost impossible to cut to the exact weight you want. Perhaps half a block for 4 persons? I know I'm not being helpful here.

2 pandan leaves - Asian grocery stores in Western countries amazingly sell frozen pandan leaves. I bought a pack, and been using it for so many dishes, most notably nasi lemak and chicken rice.

Sago:
Starting with sago, soak in water for 5 minutes. Cover entirely with lots of water in saucepan (you'll rather have more water than not enough, excess water will be drained away later anyway).

Cook until the sago have almost all turn translucent. Stir continuously to prevent sago from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Using a metal sieve, run sago until cold water to remove excess starch. This will keep the sago pearls separate from each other.

Pour the cooked sago into individual moulds or ramekins and refrigerate.

Gula Melaka syrup:
Tie 1-2 pandan leaves into a knot. Cut the gula into small pieces and place with pandan leaves in small saucepan. Add about 2-3 tablespoons of hot water. Over low heat, melt the sugar mixture. Srain and remove the leaves. Refrigerate.

Coconut milk:
Boil briefly the coconut milk with 1-2 pandan leaves. Strain and remove the leaves. Refrigerate.

To serve, unmould the sago. Pour the Gula Melaka syrup and coconut milk over. Rémi and I still couldn't agree on the most beautiful way to serve the dessert. Having a dessert glass certainly helps.

Experimenting with Chinese duck

I reckon my stir-fry bitter gourd (or bitter melon or 苦瓜), cooked with sliced pork and black bean sauce, looks nicer, but I'll talk about my experiments with cooking duck the Chinese style.

New Zealand may be too duck friendly. We see ducks everywhere, by the city waterfront, in botanical garden ponds, by the sea, in the lakes and wetlands. After all, it had been a country of birds with no land mammals for millions of years. Until the European settlers came and flooded the isolated island with sheep and cows.

The Kiwis love admiring their ducks, I supposed (well, I too can't stop taking pictures of them). But so much so that it doesn't seem to feature on their platter. I search high and low for duck meat in their supermarkets, but only found chicken and turkey. It's a big crisis, as how am I able to hone my Chinese and French culinary skills without knowing how to cook their famous duck stews or comfits.

Thankfully, the Asians came to the rescue, and I finally bought a big fat and oily Chinese duck home. Made 2 Chinese duck dishes out of it over 2 dinners with leftovers for next meal. Yum yum. Also learned in the process that duck meat is best stewed as long as possible.

First recipe, Duck Soup with Salted Vegetables, is a Teochew dish, from "Reviving Local Dialect Cuisines" by Pang Nyuk Yoon. I felt that I could have simmer longer than an hour for a tenderer meat. I didn't take any photo, was busy savouring the soup.

Duck Soup with Salted Vegetables
1/2 duck
salted vegetables (kiam chye, which is preserved mustard)
2-3 tomatoes
3 dried tamarind slices (assam)
Water
3 slices galangal
2 salted plums
salt and pepper

Rinse duck and chop into large chunks. Remove as much fats as you can -- trust me, the duck is verrrrry OILY. Cook in boiling water for about 10 minutes. Remove to drain (I omitted this step, hmmm...maybe it helps to remove oil).

If using dried assam slices, soak in water until soft. I used assam paste, so not necessary. Cut salted vegetables and tomatoes in large chunky pieces.

Pour water or stock into pot. Add duck and everything else except tomatoes and seasoning. Bring to boil and simmer over low heat for about an hour or more, until the duck meat is tender. Add tomatoes. Depending on the saltiness of the salted vegetables, season duck soup accordingly.



The above Duck Stew with Black Sauce was inspired by Enda's delicious duck stews. She used to cook this duck dish with very thick, dark, sweet and spicy sauce. So I got her to tell me how she did it before coming to New Zealand. But it didn't turn out as I had imagined, as I wasn't sure what kind of dark sauce she used. I ended up using a mixture of dark sweet sauce (kecap manis) and dark soy sauce.

The stew is done, first by stir-frying about 2 large onions and a few slices of galangal. Add the duck pieces, followed by whatever dark sauce. Followed by water to cover and simmer for hours until tender. I used my newly bought slow cooker and stewed the duck for some 6 hours. Very nice. Remove surface oil with a lader if it doesn't appeal to you.

And as we had some leftover egg noodles from lunch, we mixed them with the duck stew. Side dish was the bitter gourd stir fry.

Mission when I go back to Singapore: get the right duck stew recipe from Enda.
Another mission: Improve my photography skills of Chinese dishes.

Discovering Dukkah

We discovered this delicious Egyptian dry mixture of chopped nuts, seeds and Middle Eastern spices and flavors at a Christmas market in Wellington.

We love festive markets like this, as it's a chance to experience new flavours and tastes, especially local produce, home-made jams, dips and honey. It's like going to a Japanese supermarket, where you get to sample different food products, all for free. And it's no surprise that we ended up buying a lot of stuffs.

This Dukkah mix of sesame, almonds, sunflowers, garlic, oreganum and basil has lasted us quite some time. To enjoy, dip your bread into extra virgin olive oil (or avocado oil), then onto the nuts. Yum yum.

When to enjoy? Do like the French do, with their endless courses for dinner. Start with Dukkah as "apperatif". This is before the formal dinner, when everyone relaxes in the living room or garden with finger food or snacks. It's common to invite friends for just chitchat over "apperatif" without the dinner option. Less work to do in the kitchen.

After which the dinner begins with starter, main course, cheese, desert and ends with coffee or tea (and small slice of chocolate).

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.

Fuss-free cooking for one with noodles

I often have to cook for myself alone. And you won't see me boiling instant noodles most of the time. Neither am I expert in making enough variations of salads. Plus I love hot lunches. So noodles and rice feature frequently in my lone meals.

It's definitely boring to cook and eat alone, and worst part is the washing after. So rule number 1: minimal utensils, just one pan/pot will do. So I tend to avoid pasta (which requires one pan for boiling pasta and one pan for cooking the sauce/ingredients).

Saving grace is that Asian noodles come in a variety of shapes, styles and tastes. And many noodles, like fresh egg yellow noodles, fresh white flat kuay teow, and dry ones like tang hoon, bee hoon just require soaking for a few minutes at most.

The ingredients that go into the noodle dish are just as versatile as the dish itself. I usually mix and match 3-4 items from my fridge and pantry. Meat wise, I go for frozen prawns (fast to defrost), minced pork (to make tasty pork balls for soup) or frozen fish balls. For vegetables, carrots and cabbage are favourites, as they are usually the longest lasting vegetable in my fridge, being able to keep for 2 weeks and never seem to be able to finish them. Bok choy, bean sprouts and other greens are used as well. Then, there's onions, garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms that I always have stock for. Just rotate the permutations and I have something different each day.

I also rotate the use of different gravies, sauces and soups -- oyster sauce, black bean sauce, dark soya sauce, chicken stock soup, black pepper style, sambal chilli, sweet sauce....

Picture above is my maiden attempt at Mee Goreng (fried noodles). May not look the best, but still quite tasty. Had bought a 500g pack of fresh yellow noodles, cooked over 3 times, from Chicken Stock Soup Noodles with vegetables and egg, to Black Hokkien Fried Noodles with Gravy, to Mee Goreng style with sambal chilli.

Here's my variation of Mee Goreng, with recipe adapted from Nancy Seng's "Indonesian Kitchen", tweaked also according to the ingredients I had at the time of cooking it.

Mee Goreng
Serves one

About 100g yellow noodles (as a rough guide, one and half handful serves one person)
1 cabbage leaves, thick shreds
2-3 prawns, halved lengthwise
3-4 pieces of surimi slices (seafood sticks)
1 small cup of chicken stock
sweet soy sauce (kecap manis)
salt
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 shallot, chopped
1 teaspoon sambal chilli

Rinse and drain the noodles with hot water. Rinse again with cold water. This helps to prevent the noodles from becoming gluey when you cook them.

Heat cooking oil and sauté garlic, shallots and sambal chilli until fragrant. Add half the chicken stock, allowing to boil. Add the cabbage and cook until soften. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir fry until well-mixed.

Toss the noodles and fry evenly. Add the rest of the chicken stock, sweet soy sauce and salt, quantity according to taste. Mix well.

Dish out and garnish with fried shallots.

Fast and easy Cherry Clafoutis

Just back from a fulfilling, beautiful trip to the South Island of New Zealand. One of the highlights of this two-week trip is to indulge ourselves with berries and cherries.

On our road trip around Golden Bay, Nelson and Marlborough region, we were lucky to pass by many fruit farms. Interestingly, most of these farms operate by honesty box. Their produce are kept in a fridge in a little kind of "outpost". You just help yourself and is expected to pay honestly. We had to empty out our coin purse to get our hand on the berries.

While we didn't manage to try all the berries, I really enjoyed the blackberries and boysenberries. Best of all were the chilled cherries, which were huge and very sweet. We had more than 2 kilos of cherries, including the kilo that we brought back to Wellington.

Originally, we thought of making cherry jam, but since we have also bought lots of homemade jam and honey during this trip, we opted to make a Cherry Clafoutis, from a recipe from Camille.

Clafoutis is a custard-like French dessert, made out of a pancake-like batter, and baked with cherries. It's so fast to make that Rémi's mother usually prepares it within 10 minutes. But instead of cherries, she uses this small red berry called griotte. It's sour, so the sweet custard is supposed to neutralise the sour taste.

Cherry Clafoutis
Serves 2-3

300g black cherries (or more, to fill up the tin)
100g flour
50g sugar
250ml milk
50g butter
pinch of salt

Preheat oven at 180 degrees Celsius.

Melt butter with milk over low heat.

In a bowl, mix sugar, flour and salt and pour the hot milk gradually to prevent lumps from forming. The dough should have a creamy consistency.

Butter a tin generously (we use our approximately 20cm diameter ceramics tart tin). Spread the cherries around the tin (be as generous as you can). Some people prefer to remove the pits of the cherries, while some would argue that the pits release a wonderful flavour when cooked. Whatever it is, we leave the pits as they are and just spit them out as we eat the cake.

Pour the batter mixture into the tin and bake for 40 minutes.

Note that fruits like apricot, berries, plums can be used in place of cherries.

French Crepe Party Ideas

The happy problem with French crêpe party is that there is no limitations in terms of the type of fillings you can enjoy, and you end up eating more than everything.

The northwest region of France in Brittany is famous for their crêpes, but nowadays, you see French crêperies everywhere, even in Wellington. And they serve yummy crêpes!

The biggest difference between a French crêpe and an American pancake is their thickness. A French crêpe is so much thinner that you get to enjoy more, with different types of fillings, from savoury to sweet ones.

So, you can imagine that when we hold crêpe parties, there's more fillings than your stomach can hold. It's not a lot of work or pre-cooking, as we use basic ingredients like butter, sugar, nutella, bananas, strawberries, bacon, mushrooms, shredded cheese, walnuts, blue cheese, lemon juice, eggs, almonds, liquor, orange, cinnamon...

One problem with making crêpes is that, they are best enjoyed when they are hot. So if you're making crêpe on your frying pan, it makes serving everyone at the same time difficult. The French (or rather Tefal) have found a happy solution to this problem with the Multi Crêpe Party device. You basically plug it and put on your dining table, and everyone surrounds it like a steamboat and makes their own crêpe together. It makes 6 much smaller crêpes at the same time. It's fun, and useful even for parties of more than 10. Everyone just end up standing around the table, cooking and eating. However, this electronic device may be hard to find outside France, but they are widely available in stores like Carrefour or Darty in France (we actually went to the trouble of carrying one back from France).

Crêpe batter
Serves about six

250g flour
3 eggs
500ml milk
pinch of salt
about 1 teaspoon of melted butter
water

Mix flour and egg. The mixture gets very thick and dry. Add milk slowly until you get a smooth batter. Add butter and salt.

We find that the batter could be thinner, and usually add about half a cup of water and more milk, so that the crêpe spreads thinner.

Chill in fridge for about half an hour.

To cook, spread a thin layer, one at a time, on frying pan or use a multi crêpe party device.

To serve, add fillings, fold into half or quarter, or just simply roll up.



Simple Crêpe Fillings suggestions

Savoury
Bacon: This is always a winner. Fry them until they are crispy. Top with shredded cheese or mix with mushrooms.

Mushrooms: You can stir fry mixed button mushrooms (diced into small cubes) with olive oil, garlic and chopped fresh parsley (seasoned with salt and black pepper). Another alternative is to fry with bacon (and chopped onions), add some fresh cream, season with herbs, salt and black pepper).

Eggs: Beat an egg into the multi crêpe party, you get a perfect round sunny side up. Put it on top of the crêpe and add bacon and cheese if desired.

Blue cheese and Walnut: For the slightly more exotic taste buds. Popular with our crêpe party guests so far.

Sweet
Butter, sugar and cinnamon: My all time favourite! Melt them altogether on the crêpe and eat it while it's hot. Sinfully good.

Sugar with lemon juice: For some tangy punch, squeeze some lemon juice onto sugar.

Banana or strawberries with melted chocolate: Always pair well together.

Banana with milo: A great pair here too

Banana with orange: We tried cooking banana with orange juice/pulp. Something new for a change.

Banana and honey: Classic

Strawberries with sugar: Tried it yesterday and it's good.

Ice-cream: If you're fast to eat before it melts on the hot crêpe.

Liqueur: You can make a Crêpe Suzette by putting sugar and liqueur such as rum on it (with fruits like bananas), and setting it on fire. Sure to capture everyone's attention.

Jam: Or basically, just scour through your pantry for anything that you find suitable. It will ensure a successful crêpe party with a big spread of fillings to satisfy every palate.


note: Crêpes in pictures shown are made this morning with leftover batter from our crêpe party last night, using a normal frying pan.

Fresh Pasta with Prawns and Scallops

So what do you think I would do with the leftover fancy ingredients from the fancy Pre-Christmas dinner. Well, cook up another fancy meal the next day.

With leftover scallops and fresh lasagna sheets, we made another buttery seafood pasta. We had reckoned that a tomato or cream base would be too overpowering and mask the taste of the fresh scallops. It's very simple and fast, and can be done with dried pasta. Recipe has been adapted from my ultimate fish cookbook.

The dish also gives us the pleasure of using our fresh parsley from the pot, which is growing very well. Growing our own herbs doesn't actually save us any money, as we end up spending on soil, fertiliser, pots, even organic pesticide...but it gives us much pleasure to pluck them whenever we need them.

Fresh Pasta with Prawns and Scallops
Serves two

Pasta (quantity left out, as I find that different people have different portion size)
handful of prawns
handful of scallops
50g unsalted butter
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
salt and ground black pepper

As we were using our lasagna sheets, we trim them into thin strips. Lasagna sheets give much flexibility, can try cutting heart shapes out of them for a valentine's dinner perhaps. :)

Cook pasta in large pan of lightly salted boiling water.

Melt butter in a large heavy pan with the garlic and parsley. Toss in the prawns and scallops and cook over medium heat for about 8 minutes, until the seafood are cooked.

Drain pasta thoroughly and rinse with boiling water to remove any starch.

Stir pasta into the prawn mixture. Season with salt and pepper and serve immediately.

Tiramisu in Chocolate Cups

The last fancy dish of the pre-Christmas dinner is Tiramisu.

We've made Tiramisu several times to pretty great success. Our friend Aure has a particularly good recipe which we liked.

This time, we tried a new recipe, partially from a newly acquired cookbook "The Chocolate and Coffee Bible". It's from the same publisher (Hermes House) as my ultimate fish book and contains a wealth of information about chocolate and coffee, from history, types, quality, brands to recipes and decoration tips.

Tiramisu always present a challenge when it comes to serving, as it's difficult to cut without collapsing. Such that it may be easier to make individual servings in glass.

Well, chocolate cups make even fancier serving dish than glass.

Tiramisu in Chocolate Cups
about 4 servings, depending on how generous you are with each portion

1 egg yolk
2 tablespoon brown sugar
a little vanilla essence
1 generous cup of mascarpone
1/2 cup strong black coffee
2 tablespoon coffee liqueur (or almond essence) - we forgot to add. still good.
sponge biscuits
cocoa powder for dusting

For the chocolate cups
150g dark chocolate
2 tablespoon unsalted butter

For the cups, cut out 4 rounds of baking paper. Melt chocolate with butter in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Stir until the mixture is smooth, then spread a spoonful over each circle to within 2 cm of the edge. Try to not spread too thin (about 1mm thick), otherwise it would be difficult to remove the paper without breaking the cups.

Lift each paper round and drape over an upturned teacup so that the edges curve into frills. Put into the fridge to set (it's faster this way). Then lift off and peel off the paper to reveal the chocolate cups.

It's the same for making chocolate leaves. Spread the melted chocolate onto, say a mint leaf and leave to set before peeling off the leaf.

Make the Tiramisu filling. Using an electric mixer, beat the egg yolk and sugar in a bowl until smooth, then stir in the vanilla essence.

Soften the mascarpone if necessary, then stir it into the egg yolk mixture. Beat until smooth. Set aside.

Mix coffee, liqueur. Break up the sponge biscuits roughly (1 inch length).

Place the chocolate cup on individual plates. Dip each piece of sponge biscuit very briefly into the coffee and place in the cup. Soaking the biscuits too long in the coffee will result in the Tiramisu becoming wet and soggy and losing its shape.

Put a layer of biscuits, then spoon over the mascarpone mixture, top with another layer of biscuits, followed by more mascarpone. Repeat for the other cups until you run out of either mascarpone mixture or sponge biscuits.

Chill for at least 30 minutes. Dust with cocoa powder 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.

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.

Our Pre-Christmas dinner

Since we may be stuck in some remote small town, or even in a tent in the South Island on Christmas, cooking instant noodles over a small camping stove, we thought we might as well have a nice dinner one week earlier.

Being in recession mode, and also for the pleasure of cooking something fancy, we decided against going to a fancy restaurant. Afterall, we've been dining out quite a lot recently.

Yet, being in festive mode, we spent some effort in gathering nice ingredients, and more time and energy in preparing it. After three intensive hours, the result was quite rewarding.

Starter came in the form of Scallop Ceviche, a Latin American dish. Main course was Open Ravioli with Parma Ham, Asparagus and Basil Butter. Dessert was Tiramisu presented in a delicately 'crafted' choclate cup. No extra space for aperitif, cheese or bread.

Will share recipes in upcoming posts.

Strawberry Tart with Crème Pâtissière

Strawberry season certainly rocks. With this deliciously seductive fruit in season in New Zealand now, we can't resist buying one pack after another, especially when they look so lusciously sweet and affordable. And of course, we have no more excuse not to make some strawberry dessert.

In Singapore, strawberries are not only pricey, they are also seldom sweet, being all imported and probably harvested before they are ready to be eaten to endure the long journey.

Originally torn between making a Strawberry Tart or a Strawberry Charlotte, Rémi couldn't wait to sink his mouth into his dessert and opted to make a tart (you need to chill a charlotte for at least a few hours).

French Pastry Cream (Crème Pâtissière) is used to line the sweet tart. To Rémi, the difference between a good pastry and a lousy pastry can be judged by the amount of cream used in the tart. Stingy pastry makers who are out to cut cost tend to use more cream than fruits.

Our cream recipe comes from Camille's classic French cookbook again. In her dessert section, she carries several types of dessert cream and sauces, including Crème Chantilly, Crème Anglaise, Coulis de Fruits Rouges, Sauce au Chocolat and Sauce au Caramel au Beurre Salé. Well, we shall see if we will try each and everyone of them.

French Pastry Cream (Crème Pâtissière)
makes slightly more than one tart

1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
15g flour
15g corn flour
65g sugar
25ml milk
vanilla essence

Bring milk with vanilla essence to boil, and let it stand for 10 minutes.

Whip the egg and yolk with the sugar until it has double in size and paled in colour. Then add the flour and corn flour, and add the warm milk gradually while continuing to whisk.

Put back onto fire and let the mixture thickened while beating continuously and strongly so that the cream does not stick to the bottom of the pot. Remove from heat and continue to whisk for 1 minute.


Strawberry Tart
Serves 4

1 sweet pastry dough (pâte sucrée)
enough strawberries to pack the size of your tart
strawberry jam

Make the sweet tart dough. Bake at preheated oven at 200C for about 10 minutes. Allow to cool.

Make one portion of crème pâtissière. Spread on the cooked tart. Halved the strawberries and line them on top of the cream.

Dilute the jam lightly with some water and use it as a glaze over the strawberries. Chill before serving.

Camille's Cheese Soufflé, just like mom did it

Rémi has the credit to this beautifully puffed up Cheese Soufflé. I've seen soufflé many times but not really tried it. So, no basis for comparison whether it tastes as good as real, but according to him, it is just as his mom did it. Pretty good. And the big ramekin was just bought yesterday specifically to satisfy his soufflé craving.

Recipe comes from the ever trusty Camille's classic French cookbook.

What I learned is that every soufflé is made from 2 basic components:
1. a French Creme patissiere base/flavored cream sauce or purée
2. Egg whites beaten to a soft peak meringue.

And other than cheese, soufflés can have chocolate, banana, lemon, jam and berries in its base.

Cheese Soufflé (Soufflé au Fromage)
Serves 2

20g butter
20g flour
200ml milk
2 eggs
70g gruyère cheese, cut into small pieces
ground nutmeg
salt, pepper

Preheat oven at 220C.

Melt butter on low fire. Add the flour and stir until evenly mixed.

Remove from fire, and add milk, a little at a time. Stir until the mixture thickens and becomes creamy.

Add the cut cheese and egg yolks. Separately, beat the egg whites until hard, and gently add the egg white into the first mixture.

Pour into soufflé mould, or big ramekin and bake at 220C for 20-25 minutes. Do not open the oven door during the cooking process, and serve immediately. Soufflé doesn't wait and will collapse very quickly. Luckily, we managed to grab a few snapshots.

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.