u m a m i

Tortas de Aceite

            

Our food stash is full of exotica these days, as friends and families who visit bring me food presents which they know I will appreciate. C in particular was very excited to share this new treat which she is madly in love with. Torta de Aceite originates from Seville, Spain and is a biscuit made with wheat flour, almonds, olive oil, sesame and anise. Knowing my antipathy towards licorice and anise flavours in general, she warned that I might not like it but to also give it a chance anyway. We therefore approached with much caution, the oily wrapping paper not making it less intimidating but after our first hesitant nibbles we realised that the anise flavous is subtle and gives it a unique finish. 

            

In the beginning it is hardly discernible; the heady scents of sesame, olive oil and almonds are noticed first, followed by gratifyingly crunchy-crisp (somewhere between pizza bianco and palmier) sweetness with the anise providing a not unwelcome jolt at the finish. The anise gives this cookie highly addictive qualities, cleansing the palate just enough to make one reach for yet another morsel, and another, until to one's surprise, the packet is empty.

Tea time in Paris

            

It's been five days since the sisters went home. I am missing them but my credit cards are not, they are taking a well deserved rest until 25 June when the sales start. I am thinking of a studded belt à la SATC, Carrie wore it no less than 4 times in the movie A few more dresses wouldn't hurt too.

May and June seem to be the peak visitor season chez umami. So far, two sets of friends and of course the sisters have dropped by, and we're expecting 4th sister C and her friend this weekend, then more friends the following week followed by Mummy and Aunt Lily. July is quieter, only one person expected. And these are just the people who are staying with us, as some have just enough time to meet us for meals in between traipsing around the continent. We love it because people bring for us lovely stuff like giant bottles of pei pa ko, premium dried goods, Sarawak red rice and murukku, the latter so outstanding I finished a big bag within a day!

Last week, on the one day we didn't deliberately go shopping (but anything fashionable along the way was considered fair game) the sisters wanted to eat fallafel. Exiting the bus we walked past Boulangerie Malineau on rue Vielle du Temple. As usual the fantasy marshmallows and cute animal shaped cookies stopped everyone in their tracks but there was an even more lovely surprise inside. Just next to the cash machine was a basket of freshly fried apple fritters. Light puffy batter coddling sweet sliced apples tasting more of ripe bananas (a very good thing in my book) and gratifyingly free of the usual spices like cloves and cinammon. We made short work of this before we even reached L'as du Fallafel. The fallafels here seem denser and moister compared to the lighter, and my preferred, version from Chez Marianne's but the sisters love them as they were; they were better incorporated into a sandwich, their heft ameliorated somewhat by the crunchy vegetables and some choice pieces of tender and smoky grilled aubergines. Unfortunately L'as du Fallafel didn't have any liver that day, I would have loved to see how their chopped liver compares to Chez Hanna's which I adore.

            

I made another discovery. Hana Food (15 rue Lettelier in the 15th arr) has, besides their weekly consignments of home-made kimchis and banchans, also started selling deok. Delicious with a cup of the excellent tieguanyie given to us by my grandmother. Best to go early on weekends, like the kimchis they sell out fast.

A bowl of rice

               

St Malo was absolutely fabulous. We stayed in one of the many hotels within the old fort town and had a great time walking on the surrounding rampart, playing in the sand and eating superfresh seafood. I have not gotten round to processing the pictures so today I will highlight my current twin staples: plain rice and its perfect condiment.

Everyday we are bombarded by news of rising food prices especially rice. Two weeks ago at Tang Frères many of the shoppers' trolleys contained a big bag of rice, 20kg of the new harvest rice was 32.50 euros, up from the 25+ euros we paid for the same bag just two months ago. Needless to say we are more conscious and appreciative of our daily bowl and make sure not to waste a single grain of it. Instead of cooking dishes to go with rice, I have been simplifying our menus to make the rice the main focus. It can be a bowl of white jasmine rice, sometimes studded with a few precious grains of wild rice (not a rice technically) or mixed with some brown rice or other whole grains or legumes. Then I look for something simple to match the rice.

Around the same time, I came across a nearly forgotten speech by Lim Kit Siang when he talked about his son Lim Guan Eng's prison days:

He relates an incident during a meal on Sunday where each prisoner is given a single hard-boiled egg.  He was unlucky enough to receive a rotten egg. As he could not get a replacement egg, he had to eat plain rice. How he long for some ‘kicap’ to go with his plain rice!  Still, this experience will allow him to have a better story to tell his children than the one his mother told him when he was young. To coax the children to finish their rice when  young, his mother loved to compare her difficult days when she had to eat rice only with kicap.  Now, Guan Eng can say that he is worse off than his mother, kicap also not available - just plain rice!

I was moved by this man's strength and optimism, but more than that I was curious to taste for myself some rice with only kicap, or light soy sauce as we refer to it back home. I remember my paternal grandfather used to do that too but by our generation we were encouraged to eat less rice and fill up with meat, fish, vegetables etc instead. Driven by these ambiguous memories and evocative story, I went into the kitchen to scoop some cooked rice (it happened to be white rice and Korean 5-grain mix that day) and sprinkled it with a few drops of my favourite soy/seasoning sauce. It was a delicious combination, the nutty rice chewing slowly to release its starches and sugars tinged with the umamilicious sauce. I was hooked, and it has been at least three weeks now that I've been eating lunches of just rice and a simple condiment along with some obligatory vegetables and protein matter.

               

What else goes well with rice? Well, Bordier butter flecked with sel fumée (smoked salt) for example. Before she left Paris, Sui Mai told me about melting some of this cult butter on hot rice. And what do you know, last Sunday morning I was in St Malo and there on the little street there was a Bordier signboard. Unfortunately the shutters were drawn though there was a sign saying their butters were sold in the fishmonger across the street. Butter will make any old rice tasty but this golden butter with black flecks of smoked seasalt turns it into another being altogether, mmmm total deliciousness; the smokiness did make me ask where's the ham as it was inexplicably meaty tasting as well. The butter is equally good with bread and home-popped popcorn ( credit to Sui Mai for this too) but I think I'll keep what's left of my tiny stash for rice.

Other well-known condiments would include good quality XO sauce. Like the butter and soy sauce, a little scoop goes a long way and if I have some on hand I usually accompany my XO rice with a boiled egg and some green vegetables. If I don't feel so lavish I would substitute with some Lau Gan Ma chilli sauce, especially the versions boosted with some chicken bones or pork nibs and black olives. Some Indian pickles would be perfect too but this is very hard to find, usually I finish the little pot that they give out with the pappadums at Aarchna my favourite Indian restaurant (19 rue Telegraph, 20th arr, T:+33 (1) 40330657).

But what really gets me and GG going is this jar of gouramy paste we picked up at The Big Store in the Chinatown area of Avenue d'Ivry. For many weeks now, I have been yearning for some cincaluk. It started with lunch at Odori where an order for cold boiled pig trotters came with a little dish of fermented shrimps very much like a less salty cousin of cincaluk. Cold gelatinous pork with cincaluk turned out to be a match made in heaven. However, as husband didn't like neither pig trotters nor cincaluk I had to doggy-back most of it home and the next day GG and I shared it for lunch; the restaurant were so sweet to give us another tiny plastic pot of the dip which we started eating with our just-cooked rice and within minutes we were both rhapsodizing over the pungent baby shrimplets. After that I looked in the Korean stores and all the Asian grocers in Paris and it was impossible to find. Unbelievable! I remembered seeing bottles of it in Paristore and Tang Frères before but had refrained from buying because if left uneaten, the sauce tends to bubble and grow and the bottle has been known to explode in the fridge which will definitely piss my husband off. Just when I want it, the supply dries up, Melaccan, Penang, Korean, all nada, GG even checked the Filipino grocer at Ave Victor Hugo and found only an inferior version. Maybe it's the wrong season, but I hope the stores carry it again.

             

This pickled gouramy sauce has therefore saved me from going a bit mad. I've never tried it before but the description of it sounded closest to cincaluk so we decided to try some. Made of gouramy/gourami fish, ground rice and salt, it is pungent in a very good way, of salted fish and lots of ginger and of course fermentation, some would call it funky and first-timers would probably faint. Sludgy and finely gritty sediments- see top image-would describe the overall texture but the taste is crazy good. Salty, savoury, sweet, gingery and sour all at the same time and then finishing on a decidedly spicy kick. It is our favourite topping for our rice these days though we try to ration ourself as it is very salty and probably loaded with preservatives after all. I am not even sure if this is the most well-liked brand in Thailand but this is the only brand available so we'll take what we can get. Interestingly there is an article on the internet which found that like some fermented foods it contains fibrinolytic enzymes which dissolve clots. There is probably a twisted logic here: eat pickled gouramy, get hypertension, then thrombolytic stroke/ heart attack/ gangrenous legs, then dissolve clots with more pickled gouramy. The humble little fish gets the last laugh haha!

             

It's effing cold here that's what it is

               

We're hovering at around 7 degrees C, and it's not nice at all. If I don't get up and do something every half hour or so my fingers get so cold they feel like they can snap off. Sometimes I clean the apartment with a Swiffer it's taken over the yoga mat as the exercise equipment of choice because all that to and fro movements warms up the muscles in the shoulder nicely. Sometimes I feel guilty about using Swiffer and swiffer-like products, because well, after it electrostatically attracts all that dust and dog hairs we have to throw it away, but then I justify to myself that at least I am not holding a cold wet cloth and faffing around with detergents and chemicals, and if I cut down on kitchen paper and loo paper usage it evens out somewhat. Perhaps so, maybe.

I am supposed to be revising, or at least reading, in this case a Margaret Fraser mediaeval thriller translated into French. A storybook contains thousands of ready made sentences with lots of conjugations and new words, at least that's how I rationalise it, instead of copying verbs. Or otherwise finish the bindings on a set of placemats before CNY, and if possible make some hairbands for C when we visit London next week (that'll have to wait until March, actually). Instead, I play wordgames and read blogs, and gawp at videos of ministers b*nking their 'personal' frieds and salacious pictures of Edison Chen and various starlets having s** - all I could think of was, gee when we first got our digital camera that's what we used to do too, husband and I, but paranoid him always made me delete them afterwards.

               

All this coldness too has been making me more peckish than ever. Up till last week the snack of choice was sugar-glazed nuts which we make ourselves since it's so difficult to find sweet roasted nuts in the supermarkets. Sugar and ground up green tea was a good combination, sugar and curry powder also worked, but sugar and lemon peel was not so great. Then we took a bus to the Chapelle / Montmartre area last Saturday and discovered lots of Indian groceries. Alamak, they have Baba's curry pastes, high grade basmati rice and a smacking selection of vacuum-sealed snacks such as the murukku above. The murukku was great, so much fresher than what I could get back home. Next up, bhel puri flavoured munchies, I can't wait.

In between, we are coping with the weather by eating lots of clementines. Mother nature knows the winters bring sniffles and colds and clementines are just the thing, especially the 'soucculent' ones from a little-bit-faraway Spain.

For dinners we have beefstews made with miso, kimchi soups, and lots of pureed soups of pumpkins, parsnips, topinambours and whatever root vegetables are cheapest and freshest. For the weekends, hotpots. Next week, for the first time in my life, we will have hotpot for CNY reunion dinner. We'll put a whole chicken into the stockpot to make a super soup and then we'll dunk in scallops and whatever yummy seafood and meat we will find in the market.

Cluck cluck come here my poulet

               

I have an uncle who once pronounced that it is a very bad idea to order chicken in Occidental restaurants, because, well, chicken comes with bones which is a pain to dissect with knife and fork. Taking his pronouncement to heart, chicken remained largely ignored when I eat out.

Until last year, sometime in midsummer, at La Table de Joël Robuchon, when I was looking at the options for their lunch menu and chicken suddenly seemed like a good idea. It was delicious, I cleaned my plate, but I can't remember any more details. A few weeks later, in their weekly supplement of 10 October 2007, Le Figaroscope published their table of what they think is the best poulet rôti (roast chicken) in town, from a shortlist of 20. I tore the page out and thumbtacked it to my corkboard but thought nothing of it until last week when I was out of idea of where to go for lunch with Sui Mai.

We met at one of the 3rd best in the list, which is shared between two restaurants. Atelier de Maître Albert was chosen over Relais Plaza because it is cheaper, though at 19.50 euros à la carte or as part of their 24 or 29 euro menu (for 2 and 3 courses respectively) it is not cheap cheap by any means. Located along 1, rue Maître Albert in the 5th arrondissement, the restaurant is housed in an elegant and modern room populated by business and ladies-who-lunch crowd. We ordered the same starter, underseasoned pastilla of pigeon served with oversalted salad and a half-hearted honeyed hazelnut sauce. Did the roast chicken save the day? Fortunately yes. I liked it very much. Very flavourful farm chicken meat, here I mean the breast because these days against all my previous inclinations I am leaning more towards this cut rather than the dark meats for its relatively 'purer' taste. The skin was not that crispy as it could be but the light savoury nappe of gravy smoothed this over nicely. Best of all was the accompanying pureed potato, served in a little cast iron casserole like the famous Joël Robuchon one, but this version is even better in our opinion- less cloying, lighter, more tasty, simply delicious- and we had to refrain ourselves from eating too much.

               

After husband saw the picture of my roast chicken lunch he suggested we try out another on the list. It was to be L'asssiette (Chez Lulu) which was in No 2 position and only serves this dish for Sunday lunch, and they use the famous Landes Label Rouge farm chicken. When I called up to make reservations and asked about the roast chicken, the man on the other side of the line asked me how many? I was stumped, did he mean how many chickens or how many portions, and had to pass the phone to husband to clarify. Even with pre-order, we had to wait quite a while before it was ready and well, it did not come up to any expectations at all. The skin was super crispy but was also very salty which didn't do it for me. The meat was quite dry and the overall result was not much better than what we could produce at home. It is obviously a favourite with the Figaro folks because in a related article on garlicky cuisine last week, this dish was recommended because it came with l'ail en chemise or roasted garlic cloves. Garlic potato mash just seemed so ten years ago honestly, and no amount of garlic can help the dense potatoes which was begging for a lot more gravy. And at 25 euro per portion we are never ever going back.

               

Actually last week I was eating chicken almost all the time. There was, at L'Epigramme (9, rue Eperon in the 6th), poulet au feu as a main dish in their very reasonable 28 euro dinner menu (3 courses), beautifully cooked and delicious to the last bite.

               

Husband too is having a renewed appreciation in this common meat. He suggested, and I am still thinking about it: how to cook a Bresse chicken which incidentally costs 14.95 euro per kg. In the meantime, I bought a more down-to-earth but still of a good size yellow farm chicken from the butcher to cook ginseng chicken. It was easy to do, because the other ingredients- 3 thumblet pieces of Korean ginseng, some red dates, glutinous rice and dried chestnuts- were all bundled in a ready-to-cook plastic bag which I bought for 7.50 euros at a Korean grocery in the 7th arrondissement. We supplemented that with some American ginseng and more chestnuts and stuffed everything in the cavity before sewing the openings up. Then it was put into a pot and covered with water, brought to the boil and left to simmer for a good 1.5 to 2 hours, as directed in the package.

               

The resulting soup was more chicken than ginseng flavoured, next time we'll probably buy the ingredients separately and put extra ginseng in the stock. The ginseng was quite fresh and sweet, the rice tender and well infused with chicken and ginseng flavours while the chicken was not much worse off from its two hour simmer. It was a hit with everybody and with a few more months until warm weather arrives, I can foresee this dish appearing on the dinner table often.

Which galette?

We have been eating rather a lot of galette des rois, and I have even attended a galette des rois party organised by our French conversation instructresses, bringing the total to 6 galettes consumed within 2 weeks! Reminds me of the mooncake madness back home, since we missed all that excitement last year we have been overcompensating like mad once we discovered this quaint French tradition.

Here are the five that we have eaten at home, analyzed, loved/ hated, criticized and in a totally subjective manner, ranked in order of preference. They come from well known patisseries, prize-winning bakeries and neighbourhood shops and within a wide spectrum of prices too. All prices indicated are for a standard 4-person cake.

Two Saturdays ago Le Figaro published an article on how to choose a good galette. The colour should be a burnished brown, it advised, for it indicates that the pie is baked through the fillings inside and ensures a crispy, flaky crumb. It also advises to choose pies which do not have a peaked top which may indicate that the pastry has separated from the filling, i.e. gone a bit stale. There were more tips, but these two tips I carried with me when I went looking for galettes to buy.

The following pictures are not to scale. The fèves are definitely not bigger to the cake, they are usually no bigger than 2 cm in their widest/ longest section!

1. Patisserie Malitourne (12 euros)

The hands down favourite came from our neighbourhood bakery and chocolate maker on 30, Rue Chaillot VIIIth arrondissement. Very flakey and crispy pastry layers matching cohesively in a good ratio with filling which was moist, buttery and almondy. Fève was a "Dynastie Song" vase with surprisingly intricate details. At 12 euros it is definitely a good buy. They have 2 other outlets in the 16th arrondissement.

2. Ronde des Pains (we think)

This was, if you remember, brought by Sui Mai from her neighbourhood. She can't quite remember the name of the bakery but thinks that it is Ronde des Pains along rue Rambuteau, which I discovered is a chain of bakeries. We've placed it second because their galette is yummy, though a little sweet compared to Malitourne's. The fève is a cute, erm, doe-eyed Bambi.

3. Pain et Passion (14 euros)

The same Figaro article came with recommendation for what they think are the best galettes in Paris and a few other French cities. Top of the list is Pain et Passion which is a small bakery on 117 Avenue d'Italie in remote 12th arrondissement. Since I was meeting Sui Mai and we needed to divert ourselves with an activity rather than shopping at the soldes (sales) we decided, why not, to go look for this top galette. It's good to have a friend in Sui Mai, she doesn't find it strange at all to travel across town for a cake; she even half-suggested that we stop by another Figaro-recommended bakery along rue Monge and we really would have done so had we not missed the bus-stop.

Anyway, Pain et Passion looked promising. On their windows is the proud declaration and trophies from their being declared the best galette maker in 2005. Unfortunately after two years the standards must have slipped. It was a very flat eating experience in all senses- the pastry didn't do much except come off in layers, and the filling was too dense and uniform tasting, and very much lacking in creamy almondy pleasures. The fève though is adorable, so much so that my V was moved to giving him many enthusiastic kisses.

4. Maison du Chocolat (22 euros)

Maison du Chocolat sells two versions- a classic round version with frangipane, and a chocolate sandwiched version. The chocolate galette costs a whopping 44 euros, so I settled for the classic one and bought as well a mini chocolate version. A very good decision as it turned out, as their classic galette is the worst of the entire bunch. Flaccid pastry on top, tough on the bottom layer, and a thin nondescript layer of frangipane that absolutely did not taste like it was worth the exorbitant 22 euros, let alone the 10-12 euros that would more be the norm in neighbourhood bakeries. The whimsical fève of micro macarons redeemed things somewhat, and their crown is of a clever design, so some small consolations there.

             

The chocolate galette though, is most excellent, sandwiching a generous layer of very smooth, full bodied bittersweet chocolate. Just the thing to impress the in-laws I would say.

BONUS PRIZE though, goes to Sadaharu Aoki. which has a most unconventional galette des rois.

For one, it is in a square shape.

Two, it has delicate leafy pastries richly flavoured with high-umami matcha flavours, embedded generously with toasty white and black sesames.

Three, the fillings include whole azuki beans, azuki paste and a light frangipane layer that has just that right balance of almond perfume to balance with the red bean sweetness. Totally delicious.

Four, it comes in a very classy packaging, with gold cardboard base and a neat box whereas everyone else just gives you the cake in a flimsy paper bag. Still, the crown is as generic as the rest.

Five, the fève is gorgeous, a coloured glass heart pendant/ decoration that is coddled in its own protective paper wrapping.

Six, all this for 21 euros which does sound competitive against the Maison du Chocolat classic methinks.

         

These 'king cakes', as we call them at home, will continue to be available until month's end, and we intend to go on sampling more. In the meantime, enjoy looking at the beautiful layers of the Sadaharu Aoki masterpiece.

Special Treats

                   

We've been really busy here in KL, what with the eating and marathon Thai massage sessions. V loves it here, she has many cousins to play with and they spend all their waking hours running and games around the house, just as I used to do when I was her age.

For my third sister Wai Fun, who runs the catering business Special Treats, this is also the time of the year when she gets into full Christmas mode, catering for parties and selling her popular mincepies, puddings, hampers and roast turkeys with all the requisite trimmings. This year she came up with her version of confit de canard, and when they fry it up in the kitchen the kitchen smells amazing, I usually end up begging for 'imperfect' pieces of the ducks all crisped up and still tender and juicy. And then there's all that beautiful hams, roasted racks of lambs, bite-sized treats of canapes and all manners of sweet and savoury tarts, as well as hearty paellas and even local dishes like nasi lemak and meesiam.

                   

Every Thursday she also operates a stall at the Fiesta Nite at Plaza Montkiara from 3.30- 7.00 p.m, but for the next two weeks she will take the time off to concentrate on her Christmas caterings and orders. If you live in the Klang Valley, why not pop by to have a look? The Penang food stall two units to her left is pretty good too, especially their joo-her-char (braised julienned radish with mushrooms and dried shrimps), otak and achar.

Special Treats

Call Wai Fun at 012 391 3678 or 012 333 6668

Start your day right.

                        

It is 6 pm and totally dark outside. The weather is more agreeable, i.e. not too cold but rain drizzles continually which is OK as I am mostly indoors. Tomorrow is the first day of November, also All Saints' Day in the Catholic calendar and a public holiday for all. This morning I saw prune-stuffed pork loin in the market, it'll be perfect for lunch tomorrow. The roasting juices will go well with bread and we can then finish with aged Comté and maybe break out the new straw box of Vacherin Mont D'or.

And then I really need to knuckle down and sew. Because the binding for Mummy's giant green quilt needs to be attached by mid month or we'll never finish on time for our trip home next month. Therefore posting will be a bit erratic.

In the meantime, I am pleased to report that I've acquired a good habit. Eating breakfast. It's trivial news but important to me because I now have the time to enjoy breakfast. In the past it was always too hot, or there was simply no time, or nothing suitable to eat. Here, the tummy's adjusted to the French lunch hour of 1.00 pm or later, made possible with a little base of something nutritious and sustaining like fruits, oatmeal, bits of cheese, toast or something sweet. Please enjoy the pictures that appears in this (newly learned) pictobrowser:

The art of Cookie Tins

                        

C likes cookie tins. She uses it for storing dried goods and pantry staples much like we use Tupperware, surely an environmentally sound idea. Here we have some tins gathered from Belgium, Berlin and Aachen. They were bought as souvenirs or came as gifts from friends. My favourite is the Tintin one, don't the Thomson twins just crack you up?

That organic market in Raspail

                       

There is an all-organic market at Raspail that operates every Sunday. I resisted going for a very long time because I don't really like the idea of wasting my Sunday in a market when doing groceries is practically my full-time job. Which is a bit of a shame really. because one good reason to visit is the stall that sells hot-off-the-griddle potato pancakes. With or without lamb, naturally I plumped for the lamb version and it was so darn good I promptly bought another piece for dinner.

                      

It was still September then and tomatoes were going strong. By that time though we were already quite sick of them, but they do make pretty pictures.

                      

What caught my eyes was one particular stall selling "murs sauvages" or wild blackberries. Not the most common fruit around, I quickly bought a small punnet and let V taste some. She loved it, heck, the box didn't leave her hands until she ate them all up and then lapped up the black juices left behind.

There are lots more to see and buy, but my freezer and fridge were already full so we bought some fruits. Muscat-like grapes with thick skin and fruity perfumes and a kilo of Reine Claude plums. By the time we finished, it was nearly lunch time. Perfect, the kid settled into the car and fell into a blackberry storpor, time enough for us to drive all the way to Telegraph Street for some really mean lamb kebabs.