Test Kitchen

As you all know, not all recipes bring you the success that's evident in cookbook photos. I tested a recipe for Beef Rendang (an Indonesian/Malaysian beef curry), but while prepping the ingredients, I already had an inkling that the quantities and spices were wrong. I won't even bother posting the photo here, because it turned out to be one big yellow-green stew, and still gloppy after 3 hours of slow cooking. If you have a tried and tested recipe for Beef Rendang, I'd love to hear from you!

Thankfully, this next recipe for Char Kway Teow (Singaporean Fried Flat Rice Noodles), adapted from Food & Travel magazine, was a success! Make sure you have all the ingredients close at hand, as cooking is swift. If the noodles come compressed in a pack, loosen them up by hand for easier stir-frying. Char Kway Teow is best eaten immediately, to keep the noodles saucy but still springy (if you wait too long, rice noodles are like sponges, absorbing the sauce quickly, making the noodles limp). Serve with sambal chili paste and calamansi limes.

Char Kway Teow

Fried Flat Rice Noodles

500g kway teow (fresh flat rice noodles),

loosened and separated by hand for easier stir-frying

5 large garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons oil

250g fresh medium prawns, shelled and deveined

2 chinese sausages, sliced thinly on the diagonal

3 eggs, beaten

150g bean sprouts, tops and tails removed

100g baby bok choy greens, leaves cut into 2cm lengths,

stems sliced into strips

about 1/4 cup seafood stock or water

Seasoning:

3 tablespoons fish sauce

4 tablespoons kecap manis or sweet dark soya sauce

2 tablespoons oyster sauce

Combine the seasoning ingredients in a bowl, and set aside.

Heat the oil in a wok or large pan over medium-high heat. Fry garlic until fragrant, then add prawns and cook until just pink, stirring continuously. Move prawns to the side of your wok, adding some oil if necessary, then pour in the beaten eggs and stir vigorously for a minute.

Lower the heat to medium. Add the kway teow noodles and seasoning. Mix thoroughly. Add the chinese sausages, bean sprouts and bok choy. Stir fry for another minute. You can add a bit of stock at this point if the noodles are still slightly hard, or if you want a saucier dish. Toss well and serve immediately.

Carry On

And so the diet continues. The boys are craving red meat after a week of nothing but chicken breasts and fish fillets, so I thought I would make something tasty while still keeping our carb intake down (a thin sheet of pie pastry doesn't count, right?).

I've been making Quiche Lorraine from the New York Times Cookbook for many years now, and it has become one of our family favorites. This rich and creamy cheese, bacon and onion tart should distract the boys from their carnivorous cravings. Then again, Burger Shack's just down the road....

Quiche Lorraine

adapted from the New York Times Cookbook

Frozen Shortcrust Pastry

6 strips streaky bacon, diced

1 onion, thinly sliced

1 cup shredded Gruyere cheese

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

3 eggs, lightly beaten

2 cups heavy cream

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon white pepper

Preheat oven to 225 deg C. Following manufacturer's instructions, defrost shortcrust pastry and line a nine-inch pie plate. Bake for five minutes, remove from oven and set aside.

Cook the bacon until crisp and remove from skillet. Pour off all but one tablespoon of the fat and cook the onions until transparent. Set aside.

Sprinkle bacon, onions and two cheeses over the partially baked pie pastry.

Combine eggs, cream, nutmeg, salt and pepper and pour over the bacon mixture.

Bake the quiche for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 175 deg C and bake for a further 10 - 15 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Slice quiche into 6-8 wedges and serve immediately.

Salad Days

Now that the holidays have come and gone, the food bounty savored, the wine and spirits sipped and swigged, it's about time for that dreaded Diet. It's the crash after a 20-day high. Denial sets in at first ("I'm just bloated"), then Withdrawal ("Should have packed that Marzipan Log..."), and then Reality ("three kilos in three weeks??").

So it's now, dangit, NOW!

I thought I would start to our diet with the Pesto Marinated Chicken Fillets recipe from Expat Kitchen. Skewered and grilled, it's lean and low-fat, but full of flavor from the pesto, garlic and lemon marinade. You can used store-bought pesto, but homemade always tastes better, of course.

Pesto Marinated Chicken Fillets

serves 6

4 chicken breasts, skinned and boned, or

15-18 chicken fillets

1 medium lemon, juiced

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

3 tablespoons pesto sauce (recipe below)

salt and pepper

pre-soaked bamboo skewers

Cut chicken breasts into cubed, bite sized pieces, or, if using fillets, pound into even thickness.

In a shallow dish or zip lock bag, add lemon, olive oil, garlic, pesto sauce, salt and pepper. Combine well.

Toss in the chicken pieces ensuring all are covered with the marinade. Leave to marinate for a minimum 2 hours, or overnight in the refrigerator.

Ribbon the fillets onto presoaked skewers. Cook on the grill or grill pan until chicken is cooked through.

Serve immediately with a green salad, and some pesto or marinara sauce on the side.

To make pesto - in a food processor or blender add 2 cups packed fresh basic leaves, 2 cloves garlic, 1/4 cup pine nuts, 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1/2 cup freshly grated pecorino or parmesan cheese, kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. Blend until smooth.

Winter Wonderland

We've just gotten back from our family holiday in Denmark. Before leaving Singapore we monitored the weather and kept our fingers crossed for snow, and as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for...

Yet there was something beautiful about all that. The vast, white, powdery fields and the tree branches outlined in snow were Christmas card perfect.

We spent much of our time indoors, warming up by the fireplace. Our meals were a highlight: breakfast of poppy seed bread with strawberry jam and danish cheese, scrambled eggs and chives on paper-thin slices of ham;

pickled herring in curry dressing on rye bread for lunch (chased down with schnapps and beer);

a savoury crepe filled with creamed spinach, smoked salmon and asparagus; foie gras on toasted walnut bread and arugula with grapes and sweet wine ;

a pork aspic with creamed cabbage and pickled red beets; and for dessert, ris a l'amande, a creamy rice pudding speckled with vanilla pod seeds and slivered almonds, topped with a sweet and tart cherry sauce. Delicious!

I wish I took pictures of all the other wonderful meals we had, but I guess I was just too busy eating!

Good food, good company, good memories!

Cold

As the snowstorm rages outside our cottage, we're all huddled around the fireplace, watching the landscape turn powdery white, the trees' dark branches becoming thickly outlined with snow. I won't be posting recipes while on our winter break, but I hope to see you back again in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, have a wonderful holiday everyone!

Cool

I finally did it! I bought a self-freezing ice cream machine, an upgrade from my ten year old machine that required a pre-frozen canister. A few weeks ago, I checked out the new kitchen supplies superstore close to my neighborhood. The place was so huge, well-stocked with absolutely everything, and displayed so tastefully that I just had to buy something for my already jam-packed kitchen. Did I really need one more appliance, one more gadget? (Do I really need that gorgeous bag, those beautiful pumps?) So when the store clerk said that there was only one Cuisinart machine left on stock, I knew that was a sign. Here's one nostalgic flavor recently churned from my appliance du jour, adapted from David Lebovitz's fanastic ice cream cookbook, The Perfect Scoop.

Orange Popsicle Ice Cream

1 cup sugar

grated zest of 2 oranges

1 1/2 cups freshly squeezed orange juice (from about 5 oranges)

1 cup sour cream

1/4 cup full cream milk

1/4 cup thick cream

2 teaspoons Cointreau

Blend orange zest and sugar in a blender until very fine. Add orange juice, sour cream, milk, cream and Cointreau and blend until sugar is dissolved.

Chill the mixture in the freezer for about 2 hours, then freeze it in the ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions.

Makes about 1 liter.

Stir Fry

I think I've found my go-to stir fry sauce, which combines the sweet-salty-spicy triumvirate of tastes. I've used prawns and broccoli in this recipe, but the sauce is versatile enough for any combination of meat and vegetables or tofu.

As in western cooking, use a good quality of Chinese wine. I initially asked my grocer for the cheapest rice wine, and he looked at me with a frown. He gave me a bottle of wine called Hua Tiao Chiew, a 5 year vintage shao hsing from China. Splash it on steamed fish, he says, and you'll taste the difference. His grandmother kept herself able-bodied by drinking a shot of warm hua tiao chiew with sour plum. My grandfather preferred his daily bottle of beer (or two), happily singing Cielito Lindo every afternoon as we came home from school.

There isn't enough wine in the recipe to make you swoon, but the flavors certainly will.

Prawns and Broccoli in Black Bean Garlic Sauce

adapted from Chinese Cooking by Willie Mark

1 kilo fresh medium prawns, shelled and deveined

2 egg whites, whisked lightly

2 tablespoons cornstarch

3 tablespoons Chinese wine

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon white pepper

1 onion, largely diced

4 spring onions, diced

2-3 fresh green long chilies, minced

2 inch knob fresh ginger, peeled and minced

6 cloves garlic, minced

2 heads of broccoli, cut into florets and blanched

2 tablespoons black bean paste

3 tablespoons soy sauce

2 teaspoons sugar

3/4 cup chicken stock

sesame oil

Marinate the prawns in a bowl of egg whites, cornstarch, wine, salt and pepper, making sure all the prawns are coated evenly. Set aside to marinate for 30 minutes.

Pour about 1/2 cup of peanut or canola oil in a wok on high heat. Flash fry the prawns and remove from wok immediately when they just turn pink. Set aside.

Remove the excess oil from the wok and leave about 2 tablespoons to saute the onions, chilies, ginger and garlic on medium heat. When fragrant, pour in the bean paste, soy sauce and sugar. Mix well, increase the heat and add the prawns and the broccoli, stirring continuously. Add the stock and bring to a boil. Thicken the sauce with a cornstarch slurry. Sprinkle a few drops of sesame oil and serve.

Serves 6.