u m a m i

CNY Break

We're off to London for the weekend and to spend CNY with C.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Also, if anyone is visiting the President Wilson Market do try the breads at this stall, instead of wasting stomach space with rubbery crepes or oversalted roasted chickens (only if they use farm chicken would the taste improve & that can be found at the poultry stall at the Avenue Marceau end.

Anyway, this bread stall. I've talked about them before. The set-up is simple, just a trestle table with breads, a weighing machine and a little cash box. The choice is limited but everything is good, they also have a stall at the Vanves market so if you are fleahunting on Sundays get your fix there. I usually buy their pain au levain and a small loaf of raisin bread which V adores. On Saturdays the croissants are very popular. This year I tasted their galette des rois and liked it so much I bought a second one all for myself.

I ate oysters!

As a child, I feared certain foods. Bird's nest, sharks fin & snow fungus. These foods have a common property of getting stuck in my throat, their half-slimy, half scratchy texture switches on my gag reflex and I'd rather eat a plate of raw peppers than attempt to swallow them.

Later I added raw oysters to this list of food that made me retch, the cold bulbous mass sliding down the throat uneasily. The taste, overwhelmingly metallic and briney, didn't agree with me and the only way I would eat them would be in shooters, welcoming the alcohol and other parts of the cocktails as distraction.

These past few weeks though, walking past endless displays of oysters at the markets and outside every other restaurant and cafe, I wondered if I had given this shellfish its due. The only way to settle this question was to go to a good seafood place and order a plate of the freshly shucked specimens. Sipping some chilled white wine for support, I tried one. Then another, and another.

Pretty soon, I finished them all, and ordered another half dozen of my favourite. I cannot remember the name now, but it was lusciously rich and tasted surprisingly of crisp white vegetables, the finish luxuriantly long and lingering. It's texture didn't  bother me, they went down a little too fast, helped along by the sweet liquor in the shell. Ah well, better late than never. We are in the middle of winter, I have plenty of time to catch up. 

Steamed Pork Patty

I like minced pork, it is easy to use and is a very versatile ingredient. I would advise grinding the meat yourself so you can be sure it was hygienically handled but if you trust your source then why not buy it ready-minced? As we know how much I value convenience it is hardly surprising that I get mine from my butcher. He uses the grinding machine normally reserved for churning out 'steak haché' or what we would call a hamburger. As long as I buy some steak haché (which I do anyway, for the dogs) after he grinds the pork he will put the meat through the machine. He uses the part dangling from the end of the ribs, it is soft and juicy without being too fatty.

Here we have a super-quick dish which goes well with steamed rice or plain rice porridge. Minimal handling of meat means actual preparation time is less than 5 minutes. Make sure you use a dish with sloped sides. As it cooks the pork will release its juices, that mingled with the steam that condenses will form a delicious broth. You can vary the seasoning but I usually use miso paste simply because I have a tub that never seem to get used up. The egg is optional but I like to use the whites to give the meat a velvety texture and the yolk is a cheerful finish anyway. Certainly it can be further bulked up with preserved vegetables or chopped fresh vegetables but here I offer the basic recipe. Quantity can also be adjusted, I have doubled and even tripled the amounts depending on the number of people dining.

Minced pork, ~1 cup,

Marinate:

salt & pepper

1.5 tsp soy sauce

few drops sesame oil

1.5 tsp miso paste

a splash of cooking wine (currently I use Stone's ginger wine)

1 raw egg, separate the yolk.

1. Marinate the pork for at least 20 minutes in a heatproof dish. 

2. Stir egg white into meat. Make a well in the middle and plop the eggyolk in. If you feel brave you can break egg directly into meat and manouvre the white around carefully, trying not to break the yolk.

3. Steam at medium heat for 10 minutes.

I usually cook the minced pork the day I buy it, as it is so finely cut up the flavour deteriorates with storage. Sometimes I might portion out small golf-ball sized batches for freezing, making sure I use it up as quickly as possible. They come in handy for adding to instant ramen or for perking up a vegetable side dish.

A tale of two milanese

On our last day in Siracusa, we woke up early again to drive back to Palermo with the intention to stop somewhere like Monreale for lunch. But 30 km before reaching Palermo, I saw endless blue seas. The sun was out, the winds not too blustery, the scenery so beautiful I decided we really didn't need to see another church nor walk along another cobbled street. So we stopped at a tiny residential area called Trabia to see what lunch prospects we would find.

Only one restaurant was opened for business. La Lampara (this would sound really naughty in Hokkien) along the coastal drive Contrada Molara Santa Rosalia was being decorated by their staff for the Christmas season, we were a bit early for lunch so hung around the backyard while they hung tinsels and repainted their doors.

The menu covered seafood and pizza but like many places pizza is only available in the evenings. Husband ordered his favourite squid ink noodles, it was good he said. I went for pasta con sarde, sadly that turned out to taste closer to canned sardines than what we had earlier at Sant'Andrea- the pinenuts were swollen, the fish mushy and the raisins tasteless.

Second courses fared much better. Husband ordered (surprise! ) fried calamari. A big plate arrived. It was the best calamari we've ever eaten, the squid tasted very sweet, it was obviously very fresh, and the texture just perfect, neither soft nor rubbery.

I went out on a limb to order meat. Yeah, in a seafood joint. Cotoletta alla Milanese is like wiener schnitzels, and I wanted to see how the Italians do this classic of veal breaded and deepfried. It was a good gamble. The meat, juicy and flavourful, was enhanced with bits of herbs under the crisp breadcrumbed coating. It was tasty till the last bite.

Back in Palermo, it was nearly 3.30 p.m. The sky would be dark soon, so we set out to walk and shop a little, stopping beforehand at a juice bar for some vitamin C shots. Aargh, the oranges were sour.

It was just the beginning of December but some of the shops were already offering discounts up to 30%. I got V a pink puffer coat which came with a little doudou (stuffed doll) which she promptly named Seven. She gives her dolls conventional names like Angel but also some oddball ones like Bung.

Since we skipped dessert at lunchtime I wanted our last meal in Sicily to feature their pastries. So it was back to Spinnato. We hung out at the bar. They dispense endless plastic cups of mineral water from taps (we can choose still or bubbly versions) and would bring whatever you wanted to the counter, when you're done they will tote up the bill. So here we are again with some baby cannolis, so good.

These pistachio cakes were being devoured by some Italian ladies in front of us. It looked daunting to me because I am not a marzipan person but what the heck? Bring it on.

The green marzipan-like outer layer is not too sweet, so we could taste the pistachios used to flavour it. Inside it was more of the same ricotta with dried fruits. A very rich cake yet surprisingly light tasting. V loved this.

Here we have the nice bartender obligingly posing with a cassata. The cassata was superb. Here again, typical Sicilian pastry ingredients like ricotta, fresh cream and dried fruits are employed, but the result is yet another delicious cake, silky rich with joyful bursts of candied fruits. 

After our pastry dinner, husband needed a coffee but not me, I wanted my last evening here to end on a high and sweet Sicilian note. Plus, do you know how much we paid to eat all that gorgeous pastries and drink about 2 litres of bubbly water? 7 euros and a bit.

On the very last day, we woke up at 5 a.m. to dress, check out and drive to the airport. When the plane was about to land at Linate airport, Milan, the pilot announced that the local temperature was 6C. Oh no, we were dressed for Sicily's 13C. True enough, along Via Montenapoleanata everybody and their mother were wearing thick furcoats, it was like a scene from Siberia. In Paris, the furs only come out when the temperature hovers around 0C, Italians are obviously more fearful of the cold.

It was just a quick layover of 6 hous, enough time to see the Duomo, shop a little and eat a nice lunch. The pastry shops along va Montenapoleanata were displaying their magnificient creations including extravagant pannetones and pandoros but none were serving anything hotter than warmed up soups and salads so we had to look around the back streets for proper restaurants. Finally we settled for a busy modern canteen-like place called Paper Moon (via Bagutta 1 20121 Milano) because it listed Cotoletta alla Milanese on its menu.

In Milan, they do a more refined version. Just a veal cutlet and breading, nothing to detract from the tender meat and light crumb. Served with just some bitter salad leaves, none of that cold potato salads that Germans favour. It was very good, probably not the best in the city, but I liked it very much. Their pasta PaperMoon was also delicious, flat papardelle sheets sliding in a creamy ham-speckled tomato sauce. Here also when we ordered antipasto we could help ourselves from a buffet but unlike Sicily, prices of all the dishes were almost 40% higher. Other dishes, including a daily special of lamb with potatoes and stewed pear with caramel sauce, were quite mediocre.

That brings us to the end of our delicious Sicilian holiday. We will always remember it fondly. Sicily is hard to get to from most places but once there, settled with a cup of espresso and a slice of cassata, all worries will fade. And when you leave, you'll wish to go back all over again.

 

Time for Fondue

I woke up two Sundays ago with a strong desire to eat fondue. This would be the second time in my life that I actually let myself think about eating copious amounts of cheese, bread and processed meat- the first was almost nine years ago. This time around I think it was the weather that turned my head. Paris is cold, on most days we experience highs of up to 5C and lows as bad as -6 or -7C.

So, Sunday morning. In France. Where should we go eat some fondue? Most restaurants are closed, about 90%, and of the 10% left, most are only open in the evenings. Which left the string of restaurants along rue Mouffetard which someone described as using "low-grade cheese". Well if I am going to be ingesting fatty substances the least I could do is to make sure it is the good stuff. Since I preferred to eat badly for lunch rather than dinner, there was no other way but to make it ourselves. 

I have saved in my hard disk a New York Times recipe from a few years back. Looking at it again, the instructions seemed easy enough, so we piled into the car to find some fondue fixings.

Rue Cler was open. Husband likes the cheeses at La Fermetta, their Comté is dreamy, anyway, he bought some gruyere and emmenthal. Then hopped across to Nicolas for a bottle of Chablis and one of Kirsch. I went to Franprix to get some corn starch, along with tortilla chips and festive pack of Ferrero Rocher put out along the cash register line to make people like me buy on impulse.

The proportions are roughly 225g of two types each of cheese to 1.5 tbsp cornstarch to 1 cup dry white wine. The cheese gets grated and mixed with the cornstarch. The quantity shown here is not exact, give or take 10 or 20g.

We also needed some other vehicular food to transport the cheesey sauce. I looked at what we had in the pantry. Pink Lady apples,  sweet clementines, frankfurters, sliced bone-in-ham, colourful vegetables (sprinkled with water and microwaved on high for 1.5 + 1.5 minutes), cubes of 4 day old pain levain. All to be skewered on brand-new fondue forks.

I did not buy a fondue pot because who knows when the next time will be. I used the cast iron sukiyaki pot which turned out to be too wide and deep for the amount we made. Next time I'll probably use my cocotte.

Husband cooked the sauce. He cut a clove of garlic into two and rubbed them all over the halfway up the sides. The wine was added and brought to a simmer before stirring in the cheeses a handful at a time. At the end, he poured a glug of kirsch.

Keep the pot at a low simmer so the cheese stays melty and creamy not bubbling like lava. One cup of wine was too little, I would double that with confidence, in any case the cheese kind of seized up halfway through the meal, so we poured the Chablis we were drinking into the pot and stirred briskly which smoothened it out again. 

The instructions also said to season with salt, pepper and nutmeg but we forgot and it was still fine. The sauce was delicious, boozy and cheesy and made everything taste good. We probably will do this all over again as it is quite uncomplicated and rather fun.

Noto Honey & Ragusa Stars

Happy 2009 everyone. We welcomed the new year with a champagne lunch at nearby Publicis. I haven't been to this place for a while and was very pleased to see that they have put more effort into their gourmet retail section- lots of champagnes, premium foods and best of all, a counter selling Pierre Hermés macarons. 

The stores along Avenue des Champs Elysée have their windows all covered up. Maybe they are preparing for the sales which will start next week, if it's like London the stores will be mobbed to satisfy the pent-up demands of people who has been restraining their spending. Pastry shops have stopped displaying buche des noels (log cakes) and have instead put out galette des rois.

However, we're still not done with 2008 yet, as far as Sicily is concerned the best are yet to come! Rewind back to Ortigia. After a wet night, I woke up very early, in time to catch the sunrise and the beautiful view of the seaside.   

We drove to Noto. First to the ancient ruins of Noto Antica which was totally deserted; since V needed to pee I had a good excuse not to visit this rather creepy place so we pressed onwards to the town of Noto itself. This city was totally destroyed by a devastating earthquake in 1693 and was then rebuilt. Most of their buildings are made of a typical Iblean stone which has a characteristic honey colour, restored now to a beautiful shimmer. Many visitors come to Noto, above is an image of schoolchildren exploring the maze below the town hall.

Mid morning snack attack before going to next destination. By now I have learnt to limit my selection to cannolis. I can never decide between the white cream and the ricotta so ended up with both, the thumbprint cookie was for V who is fixated with strawberry pastries at the moment.

This part of Sicily is agricultural, we passed endless hill slopes cut into terraces and planted with olives, grapes, oranges and lemons. I asked husband to stop at a lemon grove because I have never seen a lemon tree in my life. Vera was just as excited too. The weather was excellent and the views of the lush mountains really magnificient, husband enjoyed the drive very much.

Finally after an hour's drive through endless downhill turns we reached yet another baroque hillside town. Ragusa is beautiful and its Duomo (the Dome or cathedral) is another splendid building, the town itself is very popular with holidaymakers in spring and summer. Our main reason for visiting was the Ristorante Duomo which has two Michelin stars, therefore theoretically speaking the best in Sicily as there is only one other place which has one star. We made the reservations early but were reminded to reconfirm at least a day beforehand. It is low season and we were one of only two parties for lunch that day.

The welcome was very warm, the chef walked with us to the table and even asked his staff to bring out a cushion for V. We decided on the degustation menu of fish and meat with matched wine pairing; one can choose from a la carte, or from the degustation menu of fish, meat or a combination of both. He asked about our food allergies and dislikes, I requested that swordfish be left out and he was obviously disappointed because swordfish is such a beloved Sicilian ingredient;  sorry chef but I don't like the texture of cooked swordfish.

Breads were brought out, all were delicious and different, the cold-pressed local olive oil was gorgeous but quite redundant.

This was the most elegant dining establishment visited during our trip, the space cosy and decorated refined sumptuousness with beautiful views out of its windows. 

Amuse bouche of Cappucino di Funghi e Scampo. Pardon my Italian, I think it means a frothy soup of mushroom and scampi. At the bottom we found pieces of succulent scampi, barely cooked and luscious.

A trio of seafood appetisers followed. Wine: Vintage 2001 Berlucchi. Most of the dishes are made of Sicilian ingredients and the wines were mostly local if not Italian.

Above,Riccio con Ricotta Al Limone. Sea urchin with lemon ricotta cream. I find European uni has a more pronounced iodine and metallic note, here these jarring components are smoothened by the creamy ricotta cream. Lovely.

There was also a tiny serving of Gambero Bianco con Latte di Mandorla e Zenzenro Candito in a bowl. White prawns with almond milk and candied ginger. Highly delicious and unusual. This was similar to a dish we had later.

 

The third item was Cernia Affumicata e Insalata di Arance. Smoked grouper with orange salad which was hidden underneat the fish. The fish didn't taste that smoked, more like fresh and very sweet, this was subtle and the salad added a crunchy texture. 

The main courses arrived. Later we counted that they serve three each of fish and meat courses. First fish dish was Baccalo Alla "Missinisa"con Macco di Fave e Verdure a Sali Minutu, I think it means salted cod with bean puree and salted greens. Very nice and pleasant combination of mellow flavours and rich textures.

Next, Polpo e Totani Cotti Al Carbone con Burrata di Andria. Octopus and squid with a burrata sauce. Husband was delighted obviously with this dish, the seafood charred slightly outside and still tender and sweet inside.

This was not in the menu. I asked the chef to cook something for V with vegetables and a little meat. He took a lot of care, checking a few times if we wanted it with broth and pasta, and this was the result. It was delicious and the flavours clean even though there was a good mix of vegetables. V ate most of it, along with all the grissini in the bread basket.

The third seafood dish was the chef's interpretation of couscous. Being near Tunisia, couscous is very popular in Sicily. This is the first time we ate a seafood version. it has almond milk enlivened with citron zests and sweet creamy white prawns like our appetiser, as well as raw oysters and couscous well-infused with all the briney flavours of the seafoods. Outstanding and innovative, this dish really showcases the chef's creativity and understanding of the best ingredients in the region. 

Wine served was Edelmo 2006 Benanti.

Unfortunately by this stage we were quite full as we had also made substantial inroads into the bread basket, so when the meat courses came out we had difficulty finishing them. The change to red wine of Cerasuolo di Vittoria 2007 Gulfi prepared the palate for more robust dishes.

Quaglia Farcita al Foie Gras, Insalatina di Verdure e Capperi e Fonduta di Formaggio Vaccino. Quails stuffed with foie gras and served with salad and capers with a sauce of melted cheese. Rich and extravagant, like the baroque architecture outside, and matching very well with the wine, a course to be lingered over.

Followed by a Lasagna con Bollito del Quinto Quarto di Fassona e Salsa d Broccoli Arriminati. Almost a semi-vegetarian dish, the broccoli and nutty raisiny fillings made this interesting pasta variation almost light.

The final dish was Coniglia alla "Pattuisa" (Portoghese) e Verdure in Agrodolce. When the chef asked earlier about our dislikes, he was visibly relieved that we eat rabbit. This is the reason, it was another masterpiece. Rabbit is not my favourite meat but here it was delicious, the flavours go on and on like a good wine- meaty and gamey, vegetal and winey.

We didn't think we could manage desserts but we were mistaken. Accompanied with Moscato di Siracusa 2006 Orseoli, the Gelo di Mandorle con Grano Cotto Al Carbone Gocce di Porchetta with almonds, cheese, pistachios and saffron was totally amazing. This was definitely a reason to make a detour and eat here.

The petit fours tray was hardly touched by us but V enjoyed trying them out. It was a superb meal and we really enjoyed it very much. I am pleased it turned out well and demonstrated another aspect of Sicilian cooking. 

By the time we left the restaurant it was nearly dark. We got lost trying to find the car, walking almost 40 minutes which at least  facilitated our digestive process. The drive home was hairy, husband had programmed the GPS to take the shortest route which meant we were directed to use the mountain roads. In the dark. My knees were shaking, there were so many turns, the lighting was minimal and if we had missed it would be a perpendicular drop into a ravine. We then took a longer route which meant we made our way back to Ortigia after 2.5 hours, about twice as long but much safer. After all these adventures, we were relieved to be back in the hotel. Still full from lunch we ended up watching telly and snacking on potato chips.

Disco ball vodka

At publicis drugstore Paris