u m a m i

Marmalade French Toast

                        

Tomorrow we are going to London; husband has work to do and I have a lot of eating to accomplish too. In the meantime, here is a recipe for Marmalade French Toast. It is an ordinary dish, but hard to get right, I know because I've been making this for years and have been disappointed by my own results. The secret, according to me that is, is to use really good bread, white is nicer than the healthful cereal versions but that's just my preference. We also discovered that frying it first then finishing it in the oven makes a crispy crusted toast with soft, bready-eggy insides. The marmalade and orange liqueur adds a fresh yet sophisticated touch.

                        

First, cut bread into 1-1.5 cm thick slices. Bread from a loaf bought at the bakers is best, pre-sliced bread just become mush.

Then in a shallow pan mix lightly large eggs (organic is better), vanilla seeds scraped from the pod, sugar, marmalade and a healthy glug of Cointreau or Grand Marnier. Quantity is not stated because I usually eyeball the mix and add until I think there is enough to soak the bread. I also like to taste the egg mix to make sure it has enough orange flavours and sweetness, yes I know the egg is raw but sometimes we have to live dangerously. If the mixture is a bit thick I'll add a drop or two of milk.

Add the bread to the egg, and allow about 30 minutes for the bread to absorb the mixture. Turn the slices from time to time. The idea is to get as much of the egg into the bread as possible.

To cook: pan fry in a mix of oil and butter until the exterior is brown. Then lay on a greased baking tray and finish in a 180 C oven for about 5 minutes.

                      

Serve warm, dusting with icing sugar to make it pretty if desired. Good on its own or with sausages and bacon to make a hearty dish. We had ours with espresso, juice and fruits, simple but tasty foods for a weekend brunch.

Roast a Crispy Duck

                        

We are in a duck phase right now. Especially roast duck. French ducks are, I must say, rather tasty, very meaty with a pleasing amount of gameyness. It is also quite fatty, which is good, because during roasting the fats protect the meat from burning and imbues the meat with incredible flavours.

Third Sister gave me a recipe about three years ago for a fail-safe roasting method that results in a good looking bird with very crispy skin and succulent meat. It doesn't need to be foil-wrapped, tented, cooked for 4 hours, stuffed with lemons, require the insertion of a meat thermometer, be wrapped in string or any of the many different fiddly steps that cookbooks advises. The only important note is that the skin of the duck must be completely dry before cooking. Pat with paper towels thoroughly and then let it dry some more until all surface moisture has evaporated. I have in the past blown it with the hairdryer set to the 'cool' function but in temperate climates it is okay to leave the bird out for a couple of hours to achieve this effect.

Instead of gravy, we usually make a thick brown sauce from the drippings, a style closer to Cantonese than traditional western, and which goes better with steamed rice that we habitually eat at dinner. But lately we've been inspired- by the rotisserie potatoes that are sold by butcher shops here- to roasting potatoes directly under the roasting bird, without parboiling beforehand, to great success. 

Roasting the duck.

1. Ask the butcher to remove the head and feet, and to pack the giblets separately. The giblets can be used for making gravy but usually I give them to my dogs as treats.

2. Rinse the duck and remove all the bloody bits between the spine bones, pluck out stubbon feathers and trim redundant fatty bits. Dry the duck as suggested above. Prick the skin all over with the tip of a sharp knife.  Season with pepper if you like. Rub coarse sea salt over skin. More salt means more crunch.

3. Lay the bird breast down on a roasting rack. The roasting tin should have a very thin ~ 5mm layer of water in it. The water catches the fats that drips down which may sizzle and splatter (and makes cleanup easier afterwards). Roast at 230 C, about 1 hour 50 minutes for a 1.8 kg duck. Centre shelf. Potatoes can be roasted  at about the same time, see instructions below.

4. Ten minutes before the end of roasting time, take the duck out and apply a glaze of marmalade or jam before returning to the oven to finish.

5. When done, take duck out, let it rest. There will be a ghastly amount of duck fat in the pan, pour most of it away but gently, the stuff at the bottom is for making sauce or gravy.  Scrape the browned bits up, add 1 cup of water or orange juice to deglaze and reduce till it becomes a thick brown sauce. All these can be done in the roasting rack, on top of the stove. To make gravy, add shallots and carrots as well as additional cup of water or stock.

                      

Roasting the potatoes

1. Ask the grocer for roasting potatoes. Peel and cut into medium sized chunks. Pat dry.

2. When the duck's been roasting about 1 hour and there is a bubbling volcano of fats in the tin, take the whole contraption out. Place the duck and roasting rack aside. Put potatoes in and quickly stir to coat. Put the duck and rack back on top of the potatoes and continue the roasting process. The potatoes will be done by the time the duck's finished roasting. In case you are not sure, by all means try a few pieces for yourself.

Quick braised spicy aubergines

                      

Since I had sent my winter coats to the dry cleaners I need to keep warm with some hot foods, this is especially important now that the weather has unexpectedly turned very icy and wet. This dish fills that need perfectly. It has aubergines in a relatively quick braise with a spicy umamilicious sauce. Aubergines, which is one of my all time favourite vegetables, soaks up all the wonderful flavours and blend with all its partner ingredients beautifully and the leftovers are even better so it is a good idea to make extra. It is also tasty eaten cold.

I have been cooking this dish on and off for almost 20 years, and I am still in love with it. This is the basic recipe, I've made countless variations depending on the ingredients available in the pantry. Minced meat is better substituted with deep-fried, then ground-till-fine-powder ikan bilis (small anchovies), ditto for dried shrimps. Leftover roast duck would be nice too. Onions instead of shallots for a more mellow sweetness. Cantonese style- chilli oil if one can find it in the supermarkets, the ones with dried chillis and visibly big seeds floating in vivid red oil. Here a mainland China brand known as Lao Gan Ma or Old Godmother is what I love to use, it has a fabulous smoky, ma-la heat, especially the version with chicken oil, ooh-la-la. Otherwise sambal oelek. The most important part is to have a bowl of steamed white rice to eat it with, everything else is open to interpretation.

There are recipes out there that tells you to salt the aubergines (also known as eggplants or brinjals) to get the bitterness out. That seems crazy to me, I never need to do that especially with fresh specimens. If the aubergine has a lot of big dark seeds I refuse to use it. And there are also plenty of advice about frying so that it absorbs as little grease as possible, again, the easy way out this is to let it cook in water instead. Aubergine has formidable spongy qualities, makes sense then that it should absorb tasty liquids rather than boring old vegetable oils, no? Anyway, allons-y...

                      

2 medium sized aubergines, cut into 3 inch strips.

2 long shallots, or 4 small ones- sliced finely

10-15 dried tiny peppers or 5-6 larger specimens cut into 2 cm lengths (also titrate according to heat tolerance).

1.5 cups minced meat, in this instance pork was used. Season with salt and pepper

Oyster sauce

Dark soya sauce

Fish sauce (optional)

Meat stock or water.

1. Saute the shallots untill it is very soft. Take out 80%, the remainder can be further cooked till it is more crispy and is meant to be used as garnish. Omit the second part of this step if using big onions.

2. In the empty pan/wok, saute the dried peppers in some oil. If using chilli oil, heat the chilli components as well as some of the red oil. The kitchen will be smoky and you will sneeze. This is good.

3. Return the shallots to the pan, stir once. Throw in the aubergines, toss a bit. Now the minced meat, followed by a dash of oyster and dark soy. To cool down the sizzling pour a bowl of stock or water and let it all come to a boil. Adjust seasoning with a few drops of fish sauce if necessary.

4.Turn the heat down to a medium simmer and cover. Let the aubergines soften and the sauce thicken, about 15-20 minutes. Add more liquid if necessary, stir occasionally. Lay the table and wait a bit more. Serve with white rice and a garnish of chopped scallions or parsley.

If you want to 'loh hei' in Paris

you'll have to make the yee sang yourself.

The thing I miss most about not celebrating Chinese New Year with my large extended family in KL, other than the catching up with cousins and friends of course, is the ritual of eating yee sang. I miss all the festive foods of course, but none hold that special place in my tummy like yee sang does, it is probably a family gene, I know my mum loves it as much as I do and we never get bored of eating it every chance we get. The crunchy multicoloured vegetables made more appetising with plummy-sweet and sour dressing, the raucous crying out of good wishes as we add the fish, the seasonings and the scattering of pok chui crackers, and the finale of tossing the whole pile of good things as high as possible, even before the eating everyone's in a happy mood.

                     

The idea of actually making this dish came when husband informed me that he had invited his two colleagues and their families to a CNY dinner at our place. I knew we were not going to be able to find most of the ingredients but decided to go ahead anyway, making plenty of local substitutions along the way. Heck I don't even know half of what goes into the yee sangs back home but it wasn't going to stop me. Two weekends before we went to the 13th arrondisement and bought plum sauce, candied melons and candied ginger; we resisted buying sesame seeds because there was no way we'll finish the bag before it oxidised. From our excellent President Wilson market I sourced some beautiful preserved kumquats, unusual and very good-tasting radishes (two types, both delicious even eaten raw and undressed) and carrots from the Joel Thiebault stand, a substantial chunk of salmon and of course the glorious live scallops with their incredible orange livers. Grapefruits made a nice stand in for pomelo, and some coriandre for a shot of green to accentuate the vibrant citrusy-rouge colours.

                     

Husband was impressed when we brought out the platter. GG had made some 'pok chui'- like crackers by frying up cut up and seasoned dough of flour and eggs and to our surprise it was as crunchy and tasty as the real thing though we did hope it wasn't so thick. Instead of groundnuts which I couldn't really find good specimens of, we added chopped roasted almonds. Everything came together beautifully and put everyone at ease.

                     

We kept the rest of the menu simple with home made dishes for the homesick ones among us. The babi sioh was marinaded for a day, then cooked the day before the dinner to allow the flavours to develop. The sauce was a tad too salty because we used miso instead of taucheo sauce, but it went very well with plain rice and even better with the vegetarian fried beehoon.

                     

Tuna balls for the little ones, and for me to pack for snacks after school the next day- we omitted the green chillies and curry leaves and substituted coriander instead. There was also the obligatory pot of chicken curry made with the pre-fried rempah that Chan-Che cooked up for us on our last trip home last December. And in case people were still hungry, there was also macarons and baklavas for dessert. 

But my favourite was still the yee sang.

Coddled eggs.

                

About 5 years ago, I was surfing the web when I came across this website here, which was dedicated to  egg coddlers. Cute and pretty, these little cups with screwtop lids are produced by a few chinaware manufacturers such as Worcester. People even collect them and sell them on eBay etc.

Intrigued, I bought a few of different sizes and patterns with a mind to making coddled eggs for husband and myself. But being the great procrastinator, these things sat in the china cabinet and gathered dust. In the meantime I moved house twice and they waited patiently. Until one recent morning when I looked in my fridge and was considering what to do with my biologique (? organic) eggs. So expensive, should coddle no?

               

It was pretty easy going forward. Here are the ingredients and tools assembled. Butter for greasing the little pots. One egg for me, one for GG. Some ham for flavour.

               

Break eggs into coddlers. Top with flavouring of choice, in this case, ham, salt and pepper. Then screw on the lid loosely and place in moderately boiling water, the water should not submerge the pots, halfway up is ideal. Press timer for 7 minutes. When time is up, take it out. The website suggests using the lifting ring on the caps but we decided to play it safe by using oven gloves.

               

Unscrew the lids. Inside the egg is cooked like a soft-boiled egg. Next time we will cut the cooking time to 6 minutes, the yolks were a little too well done. But it was a great idea, and neater than poached or boiled eggs. None of that faffing around with eggshells too, and very pretty they were. Made us feel very genteel. Bet husband will think I am such a perfect housewife when I serve it to him at the weekend.

Eating In

               

The first meal we ate here was at the neighbourhood cafe, where I had lentils and boiled ham. For dinner it was steak frites followed by the traditional galette de rois. After that the body could not take anymore, lighter fare such as falafel wraps and phos became more appealing. The takeaway version of pho includes plenty of herbs and a full bottle of piping hot soup.

               

This was the first homecooked meal we made. The chicken was a fresh poulet fermier (farm chicken) which was very tasty whichever way we cook it, here it was simply steamed with some dried mushrooms- contraband from Singapore-and nai bai from a vegetable wholesaler in Tolbiac. The fruits and vegetables from the wholesaler shop was sparkling fresh, and reasonably priced, too bad it is not near where we live.

               

Nearer home there is an outdoor market, at the Avenue President Wilson. slurp! gave me this book Paris in a Basket, which describes the major markets in this city. In the book the President Wilson market is described variously as 'farmers for the haute couture', 'elegant', 'upscale'. True it feels very bourgeois, my fellow shoppers look and smell very expensive  and some of the stalls reminds me more of a food hall in terms of display and prices. But, it'll do until I become more familiar with the other markets. Besides I've made friends with the very friendly Italian delicatessen guy and some products are not as expensive as feared, e.g the vegetables at Joel Thielbaut and they let us pick our own selection too. Last week they had a lot of exotic (to me anyway) root vegetables like the purple-black potatoes and stunted but sugar sweet carrots. All the produce are very fresh too, the spinach leaves even had the wet soil clinging to the roots. I was intrigued enough to buy an good looking bulb of fennel and discovered that fennel is very tasty roasted with a little salt.

Whereas in Singapore I would get almost everything I need on our biweekly blitz at the wet markets, here I seem to be foraging for food all the time. Wednesdays and Saturdays for the markets, the nearby G20 and Monoprix for the other essentials at other times, occasional trips to Tolbiac (we haven't quite made it to the Tang Freres end yet because we invariably stop at the other shops nearer the Tolbiac/ Port de Choissy end) and the most naughty of all, the food halls at Galeries and Bon Marche. The range of products is so tempting that we haven't felt much inclination to eat out much. 

               

Example, this was something quick we whipped up for lunch yesterday. The fresh pasta, parsley and turkey came from the market, nai bai from Tolbiac and country ham from Bon Marche, all combined with some fish sauce and dark soy to make a light and delicious meal for two. The falafels though were a mistake, leaden and dry, I shall not buy any more from the guy in the market but his baklavas were quite alright.

I even organise lunch for husband. Most people at his workplace bring a homepacked lunch as there are not many options around, and though I haven't gone all bento-ish on him, I make sure he has a reasonably tasty meal. Today he had boiled young potatoes with a little scattered cheese (with instructions to microwave 1 minute), some canned tuna with olive oil and an apple. Yesterday it was leftover fried beefballs sandwiched with country ham in a mini ciabatta and a tub of pink rhubarb yoghurt. Tomorrow he is getting rice, boiled greens, roasted chicken leg and an orange. Friday we both get a break because he is accompanying me to register at Sorbonne, we can have lunch around that locale.

So there we are, my life sounds very si-lai (HK-speak for ah-sohs, or boring housewifes) these days but I quite like the change. Tomorrow I shall make bread and butter pudding- it will use up the remaining half carton of cream and cereal bread, I can also scrape out beans from the vanilla bean like I saw Jamie Oliver do on telly. Not as much fun as munching on a crab claw but it'll do...

Clearing the Pantry

               

With only a week or so left at home we found ourselves trying to clear the pantry and fridge. We'll try to finish what we can before I bring the rest home to KL this weekend.

So last Sunday found me staring at a jar of homemade XO sauce that husband had unashamedly extorted from ttc. It would be nice, I thought, with some horfun, but the two packets of dried pasta sent me admonishing glances, reminding me of their neglect.

               

So we cooked up some, and tossed them with the fiery sauce along with a splash of black vinegar.Topped with sliced and rinsed abalones and a scatter of green peppers, the result was not half bad. Now, onto the rest of the canned foods....

KL style Bak Kut Teh

When people find out where we live, they will usually say, "Oh, Balestier Road, that area is full of good eats, especially Bah Kut Teh, isn't it? " Well, not really, I would be hard pressed to find more than 2-3 good things to eat along this busy area. The only stall that would tempt me is Benny's pohpiah stall at the corner coffeeshop near Soo Kee; we don't actually know the name of his stall, but we have his mobile phone number and he knows how to customise the pohpiah to our liking. Occasionally we might brunch on the elderly lady's yong tau foo at the corner coffeeshop across the lane from Boon Tong Kee. We still mourn the closure of Nonya Bong and its reliably decent Nonya dishes. That's about the sum of all the good eats as far as I am concerned.

As for bah kut teh, it is true that there are many stalls selling this popular pork rib soup in my neighbourhood. If pressed, we might go to Founder's because the meats are fresh. But what the taste buds hanker for in bah kut teh is not the peppery and garlicky version that is popular all over this country. The Malaysian version I grew up eating is different. Just like most Malaysians who would never understand how ketchup has a place in wonton noodles, to us bah kut teh is not bah kut teh if it isn't a rich complex brew heady with the scents and distinctive flavours of Chinese herbs and spices like dong guai, tongshen, wolfberries and five spice powder. For some strange reasons, this dish is also very popular with Taiwanese, Korean and Japanese visitors too. My father has a Japanese business associate who is so enamoured he could eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

 

Of course we can always make this soup at home. Unfortunately I don't always keep all the requisite ingredients on hand, and the packaged ready mixes sold in Singapore are mostly disappointing and loaded with MSG as we found out from extensive testing. So last week when I found myself in a Chinese medical shop near Bangsar market because I wanted to buy some 'half-ripe barley' for baby, I checked with the friendly staff who recommended me their house package. A RM5 pack comes with quite a generous amount of ingredients. I bought two packs home to experiment.

                     

At the butcher's stall the following day, my mum mentioned that we were making bah kut teh with the pork ribs the butcher was cutting up. The butcher enthusiastically recommended a package which he apparently sells to select customers, he was especially proud of the cinnamon which he had to source from Penang.

 

Being greedy, impatient and curious, I suggested to my mom that we should do a side by side comparison of the two mixes. We duly cooked in two separate pots, following the instructions at the back of the packages- which is basically to simmer the meat and herbs with whole bulbs of garlic for at least 2.5 hours, adding dark and light soy sauce to taste and colour before serving. Some shitake mushrooms, bean curd sticks and taupok (fried bean curd puffs) also went in to absorb the flavours of the soup.

The butcher's version is on the left, his mix contains a muslin bag of finely grounded ingredients. The final product was quite aromatic with subtle scents of cinnamon, but the soup was quite tasteless. There was hardly any hint of the cordyceps as promised on the front of the package.

The Chinese medical shop's version was more promising, there was subtlety and depth in the final concoction, the herbs flavours evident yet blending harmoniously together. We are used to a higher strength version so next time we will probably throw in more of the herbs especially dong guai, huai san and dong sum. We sleep better knowing there is one more pack in the pantry for whenever we next feel the craving for some.

Ayam Babi Sioh & Egg Drop Soup

                     

One of my favourite and indispensable pantry staple is assam (tamarind). The preserved dried skin we use by the bagfuls for our weekly dose of sinigang. The sweeter flesh within, processed into a pulpy paste, we would usually add to sambals and curries where its soft acidity imparts a welcome and distinct piquancy to the spicy melanges.

Assam is is also versatile enough to be a key ingredient in many dishes, for example the classic Peranakan Itek Sioh, or duck cooked in tamarind sauce. This is a dish I like to order in restaurants but more often than not would end up disappointed with their weak and pathetic renditions. While I was browsing the cookbooks last weekend I came across a recipe in Bety Saw's Asian Retro Food which substituted the duck for chicken; as there wasn't any duck at home we decided to have a go at this version.

It turned out that we didn't have enough chicken to make the dish so we added some pork ribs therefore strictly speaking we ended up with a Ayam Babi Sioh instead. And a most inspired idea it was too. The pork ribs absorbed the marinade more readily and withstood the boiling and frying to emerge in better shape and taste than the chicken. The reduced spiced tamarind sauce slicked sensually to the meats to ensure maximal sauce-meat ratio, the only other accompaniment necessary for a truly gratifying meal was a bowl of steamed white rice and some lightly sauteed greens.

Ayam Sioh

1 chicken cut into 8 large pieces, or an equivalent combination of pork and chicken

360g tamarind pulp,  mixed with 800 ml water and strained.

R1.5 tbsp rice vinegar

150g sugar

2 tsp salt

3 tbsp roasted ground coriander

12 shallots, peeled and ground

3 cloves garlic, peeled and ground.

1. Combine everything except chicken in a large bowl to make the tamarind sauce. Add chicken to the sauce and marinate overnight.

2. Bring sauce to boil first, then add chicken and continue boiling for 20 minutes when you can set aside chicken and reduce the sauce until it is thick.

3. In a wok, heat up some oil and fry the chicken until brown. Take care not to let the meat burn.

4. Drain and arrange chicken on a serving dish and pour the sauce over. Good to eat hot or cold.

                     

Since it was a Sunday lunch I thought two dishes was not enough, afterall it is the most important meal of the week. So there was also a simple egg drop soup to complete the meal, and sweet Spanish melon for desserts after.

Light, flavourful and a real doddle to prepare, egg drop soup is a basic soup ideal for when one is not inclined to simmer in the Cantonese style for hours and hours especially in our current hot and humid season.

Chicken stock and water

Mix of cubed or similarly sized vegetables, here we had young corn, carrots, edamame and potatoes

1-2 eggs, beaten lightly

1. Bring stock and water to a quick boil to make into a light broth.

2. Add vegetables and cook them briefly.

3. Turn off the heat, and pour the eggs from up high in a circular motion over the soup. The residual heat will cook the eggs. 

Ginger fried rice

                     

Whenever I behave badly, as in nag ceaselessly or lose my temper without reason, my sisters will comment that I am going to turn into my mum. And I will ask them defiantly what's wrong with turning into our mother? In turn, they'll keep quiet but the roll of their eyes and the shrug their shoulders only reinforces their convictions. I then tell myself that mummy and I are completely different creatures.

The irony though, is that I have turned out very much like my mother, we have the same built, share similar views and philosophies, the way we speak almost echo each other. We even suffer from similar ailments like the achy rheumy joint pains that is bothering me right now. The shoulders especially are very stiff, no doubt due to my lack of diligence in exercising and yoga-ing the body, but also attributable to the muggy weather that we've been putting up with lately.

When the aches and pains set in, I naturally turn to thoughts of eating Ginger Fried Rice. Chinese people believe that rheumatic conditions could be caused by excess 'wind', and ginger is one of the best expellants of wind according to chinese folk remedies. This afternoon I made some for lunch, using the recipe as that my mother taught to me so many years ago, with heaps of finely chopped onions and old ginger. As much as 1 cup of ginger to one cup of cooked rice, more if one can tolerate the heat. The addition of onions sweeten the rice and takes the edge of the blister of the ginger, while the soft curds of barely scrambled eggs add a dimension of comfort and textural contrast. Best of all, it takes only 20 minutes to cook if one has some cold rice handy.

Ginger Fried Rice

1/3 cup sliced shallots

1.5 cups finely chopped onions

4 cups finely chopped ginger

1 cup diced pork, seasoned with salt, pepper and sesame oil

4 eggs, beaten and seasoned with salt and pepper

4 cups of rice

Cook the rice and leave it to cool. Best done 2 hours beforehand

Fry shallots gently in hot oil until it browns, set aside

In a wok, stir-fry onions and ginger with a mix of cooking oil, shallot oil and sesame oil, tossing until they turn pale gold.

Add the pork and toss for a few minutes before stirring the rice in thoroughly and then turn up the heat to cook the rice to the almost dry stage- at this point the grains should be jumping and popping on the wok surface. Check seasoning, add fish sauce or soy sauce as necessary.

Turn the heat down, make a well in the middle of the rice, add some oil and pour in the beaten eggs. Stir the eggs till it is softly scrambled.

Mix the eggs and rice together quickly, do not overstir. Serve with scatters of fried shallots.