my little cyberspot - December 2004

9.45pm, 30 December 2004, Thursday

World changing

The devastation has taken over 110,000 lives. I'm finding it hard to blog about anything as cheery as food & recipes. Just wanted to recommend a really insightful website, World Changing, which has excellent articles & essays on the world we live in, including some very outstanding articles on the tsunami crisis.

Apparently, the Malaysian government has decided to cancel all official New Year celebrations, country-wide. Even though Singapore was fortunately spared the trauma of tsunami, the mood here is equally grim. Phuket and Phi Phi Island are (or rather, were) extremely popular tourist destinations for Singaporeans. It is still unknown how many Singaporeans are accounted for in those regions. Our Foreign Ministry is still working hard at ascertaining the figures.

Well, let's all keep praying. In the meantime, it's going to be a sober start to a brand new year. Cheers.

5.55pm, 27 December 2004, Monday

Indonesian tsunami

Let's all spare a thought & a prayer for those whose lives have been violently disturbed by the Indonesian tsunami in the past 24 hours. Apart from CNN, BBC and Channel News Asia, have been keeping track of the issue by reading iz reloaded's blog. Quite informative (and one of the more interesting non-foodie blogs I've read in recent days, I might add.)

The full extent of the damage will not be known for a while. But I have a nagging sense that it'll be far more devastating that anything we've seen in recent times. If anything, this kind of unexpected natural tour de force serves as a brutal but ultimately healthy reminder that we cannot take our lives and our loved ones for granted. At the end of the day, we are not the dictators of our lives. It is God who can preserve life. And God can take life away. He is sovereign and who am I to explain his ways? All that is for us to do is to live each day acknowledging Him as Lord and living out his purposes for our lives, building and cherishing the relationships that we have and seeking to spread His Love to others around us. Amen.

5.13pm, 26 December 2004, Sunday

Thai fish cakes

Our house was filled with people this Christmas. We had a dinner for friends where we made ribs, burgers and chocolate fondue! (more pics of that later). And then, for something completely different, we had our families over for a Thai dinner on Christmas Day. Since it was Christmas, my brother supplied a yummy turkey & ham and my sister brought a log cake. So, it was quite an eclectic mix of food, but all very nice!

My favourite dish of the meal was the Thai fish cakes. Was very pleased with how easy they were to make & how yummy they turned out! Here's a pic:

For a more glam picture, click here.

Before I pass you the recipe, I must add that it involves red curry paste and it is best to use Thai curry paste, if you can. We used a pretty reputed brand of Thai curry paste called Mae-Ploy. The curry paste smells (and tastes) like the real thing and it comes in packaging that looks like this: (this is the green curry paste container. The red curry paste container is exactly the same, but only with a red label.)

If you are unable to get hold of Thai red curry paste, and are too lazy to make some yourself, I think any mild red curry paste will do. Use curry paste & not curry powder and the moistness of the paste is needed to contribute to forming the fish cake mixture.

Enjoy!

Thai fish cakes adapted from Chef Sompon of Chaingmai Thai Cookery School

Makes 20

350g any white fish/freshwater fish fillet, minced in grinder *

3 tbs red curry paste

3 tbs fish sauce

1 egg, beaten

8 tbs potato starch **

1 ts bicarbonate soda powder

1 tbs palm sugar ***

7 - 8 kaffir lime leaves, without stem, thinly slices (optional)

8 long beans, thinly sliced

For dipping sauce

6 tbs vinegar

6 tbs sugar

1 tbs water

1 ts chilli powder

2 tbs roasted peanuts, chopped

2 tbs cucumber, thinly sliced

chopped coriander to garnish

1. Mix all the ingredients for the fish cakes together until throughly combined. ^ Divide mixture into small, flat patties, about 5cm in diameter.

2. Heat oil in wok. When oil is hot ^^ , slide the cakes in and fry each side for a minute or less each. When the cakes are uniformly golden brown on all sides, about two minutes total, remove. ^^^

3. To make dipping sauce, put vinegar, sugar and water in a pan and dissolve the sugar over low heat. Then, bring the mixture to boil for 3-4 minutes, so as to thicken the mixture.

4. Turn off heat and pour mixture into serving bowl. Add chilli powder, peanuts, cucumber and coriander. Serve together with warm thai fish cakes!

* Examples of fish to use include cod and trout, or even salmon. You can even try this recipe with crab meat, prawns, chicken or pork!

** Potato starch can be replaced with corn starch if you really can't find potato starch. However, potato starch is better!

*** Palm sugar can be replaced with regular white caster sugar.

^ After mixing the ingredients, the mixture should be able to stick to your mixing bowl even if you flip the bowl upside down. I know this sounds like a rather risky thing to try & do, so do it cautiously. If the mixture is still too gooey, add more starch/flour until it is still moist, but able to hold together

^^ To test whether the oil is hot, throw a small pinch of the mixture in. The oil is ready when the it sinks to the bottom and then immediately floats up. If it sinks to the bottom and stays there a while before rising, the oil is not hot enough yet. If it doesn't sink at all, the oil is a bit too hot. Slide in your cakes now!!

^^^ Tis best to fry the cakes in several batches. If there is a lag time in between batches, it might be better to turn off the fire so the oil doesn't overheat!

10.06pm, 23 December 2004, Thursday

Pan-fried cod fillet with tamarind mint sauce

I skim-read this recipe from a recipe book at Bangkok International Airport's book stands. Seemed delicious & decided to make it when I got home. True enough, it was yummy - a lovely balance of sour (tamarind), salty (fish sauce), sweet (sugar) and... er, minty (mint)! Plus, there was also the balance of the crispy pan-fried skin layer and the juicy, tender fillet inside. My husband called it a "winner", the "sort that can do for parents". Ha. Well, here's the recipe. Enjoy!

Pan-fried cod fillet with tamarind mint sauce

2 cod fillets, washed & de-scaled *

cornflour

enough oil to cover the base of your frying pan **

2 tbs of tamarind paste mixed in 3/4 cup of water

1 thumb-size ginger, chopped into several pieces

4 tbs fish sauce

3 tbs sugar

1 ts soya sauce

minced mint leaves

1. Cover the cod fillets with cornflour. Heat oil till smoking and gently slide in fillets, skin side down. Turn down to medium heat. Four minutes on skin side & three minutes on flip side. ^ Remove & set aside.

2. Mix the tamarind paste & water to dissolve the paste. Strain the mixture & keep the liquid, discarding the solids/pulp.

3. Heat some oil in separate pan & stir-fry ginger till aromatic. Add the fish sauce, sugar & soya sauce and keep stirring on low heat, to dissolve the sugar.

4. When fully dissolved, remove the ginger slices and turn off heat. Throw in the mint and pour sauce over fish. Serve immediately.

* Actually, any fish fillets will do, doesn't have to be cod. Fillets are the ones with skin on one side and meat on the other side. You can also use fish steaks, which are oval and have skin around the side, but I prefer fillets.

** Having enough oil is important as fish, especially fish skin, can stick to your pan if you don't have enough oil. So, be generous with your oil, in this case!

^ The timings are meant for fillets that are about 1.5 inches thick. If you have fillets that are thicker, lengthen the time!

9.28pm, 19 December 2004, Sunday

Our trip to Thailand - new site

Just put up a new site on our Thailand trip. Do pay a visit & drop some comments if you can! Kumsiah! Click here for new site.

2.02pm, 19 December 2004, Sunday

Chiangmai Thai Cookery School

Just for kicks, husband & I signed up for a 1-day long cooking class at Chiangmai Thai Cookery School. This turned out to be one of the highlights of our 11-day trip - here's what we learnt how to make: Tom Yam Goong (Tom Yum Soup), Green Curry with Chicken, Thai style fish cakes, Pad Thai (Thai fried noodles), Laap Gai (Minced chicken salad) and Tab Tim Grob (Red ruby dessert)!

The day started off with us being shuttled from the Chiangmai office to a suburban area where the Cookery School was located. Chef Sompon, who founded the school together with his wife, Elizabeth, greeted us and introduced us to all the common ingredients used in Thai cooking. I found his tips quite useful, especially on how to identify the different kinds of basil and how to separate coconut cream from coconut milk. Then, each dish was cooked for us before our eyes, before we were 'let loose' to try cooking the dish ourselves at our very own work station. Finally, we got to try our own cooking!

Husband went all arty-farty with his camera angles when taking the food. Here's some nice shots:

This method of instruction - demonstration, followed by self-experimentation, worked quite well for both of us! I've always been 'afraid' of cooking Thai food because being a non-spicy eater from young, I'm not familiar with how to cook curry at all. Could never figure out the whole coconut milk thing... what's up with that?

But, by the end of the day, we were quite convinced that we could cook Thai food! And, we have decided to have a Thai Christmas dinner for our families. ^__^ Stay tuned, as I'll post some pictures & recipes from that soon!

Chef Sompon was kind enough to recommend a good brand of Thai curry paste - Ma-Ploy. We were happy to find it at MBK (in Bangkok) and also at the Thai Supermarket in Golden Mile Complex back home. He also gave each participant a cookbook which contained 25 popular Thai dish recipes, description & tips for all Thai ingredients AND recipes to make the various Thai curry pastes and dipping sauces, e.g., red curry paste and sweet chilli dipping sauce. It was a very helpful and detailed cookbook, by my standards, and it came with the cost of the course! Thanks Chef Sompon!

Would highly recommend the school if anybody is in Chiangmai for a visit. Chiangmai has a whole lot of cooking schools, but I would recommend this one. One of our course mates said he'd tried another school where there was no cooking demonstration. The participants simply learnt how to cook on the spot. He also said that the student-teacher ratio there was much bigger. In Chiangmai Thai Cookery School, Chef Sompon had a bevy of female assistants to oversee our cooking. The ratio was about 1 teacher to 3 'students', which was nice!

Here's a parting shot with Chef Sompon and his crew of very energetic & wacky assistants!

Don't we look like real professional chefs now? :)

11.08am, 18 December 2004, Saturday

Cabbages & Condoms

What an odd name. But actually, it's a restaurant with a big heart & a social cause behind it - it generates income to support various development activities of the Population and Community Development Assosication of Thailand, including promoting better understanding and acceptance of family planning in Thailand's rural communities.

When we arrived, we were delighted to see cabbage-leafy-type plants lining the doorway. So corny. The restaurant itself was beautifully decorated with a myriad of lights. (Not sure if this was normal, or whether it was because of the King's Birthday, which was on the day we visited.) See pic below - isn't it magical?

I'm happy to report that the food was quite yummy. The Pad Thai came wrapped in an egg - very skilfully done! And we also had roast duck curry, some seafood dish in a coconut & rice crackers with dipping sauce. I was stuffed by the end of it! Thai food is very filling and heartwarming, mainly because of the coconut milk, I think. Here's pics of the food. It was a bit dark (read: romantic lighting), so the pics are not that good.

We also bought some souvenirs from the gift shop. I liked how the place had a sense of humour - there were posters and T-shirts with captions like, "Cabbages & Condoms - our food is guaranteed not to cause pregnancy" or "In Condoms We Trust". Husband bought a mug & I bought a china plate, both with Cabbages & Condoms imprinted on it. We figured they'd be good conversation starters. Ha.

Do visit the place if you're ever in Bangkok! It was a lovely experience! The address is Sukhunvit Soi 12. Cheers!

4.12pm, 16 December 2004, Thursday

Chocolate banana pocky & corn pocky!

We made an amazing discovery while in Thailand - Pocky, the ever-favourite Japanese snack food, comes in chocolate banana and corn! And they're absolutely delish!

You probably feel a bit dubious about the Corn Pocky. Chocolate Banana Pocky - yea sure. That sounds great. Chocolate Banana anything sounds great! But Corn Pocky. It looks funny, sounds funny... surely, it tastes funny too!

Well, the only way to decide is to try it yourself. We've bought loads of it, mainly for people who requested for it, or for weirdo foodies like us. But if you're nice, we may sneak you some of our stash.

By the way, Pocky is only 8 baht and 10 baht for small & large boxes. That works out to be $0.35 and $0.43 respectively! Needless to say, we were in Pocky heaven in Thailand! ^__^

12.29pm, 16 December 2004, Thursday

Valuair travel & food

Believe it or not, I've never been Bangkok. At the ripe old age of *deleted to protect the privacy of writer*, and to the embarrassment of all Singaporean women who rightly crown Bangkok the shopping capital of Southeast Asia, I've never stepped one foot past the Bangkok International Airport, even while in transit to other countries.

Well, husband & I decided it was time to rectify this. There are sooo sooo many travel deals to Bangkok these days. And we managed to nab one 3D/2N package, flying Valuair and staying at Asia Hotel, for $240 SGD per person. Quite a steal.

I was pleasantly surprised at our travel experience with Valuair. It's a budget airline and all, so we were expecting extra narrow seats and no food. But this was not to be the case.

When we boarded, the first thing we noticed was that all the stewardesses were wearing khaki pants and polo shirts! Those with long hair had tied it up into a simple ponytail. How refreshingly informal! There was a certain zingy upbeatness in the air. They were playing bossa nova, (Astrud Gilberto, I think) and the captain actually revealed himself facially (er, what I mean is that, we got to see the captain's face) when he greeted us and introduced his crew, who took turns to pop their heads out, with wide grins & waves.

Also, we were wrong about the lack of food. This is what we were served. Check it out:

Stylish box, eh? And with a touch of humour. The inside revealed.... voila!

Not bad. Pretty decent for a breakfast meal. (We took the morning flight). When we returned from Bangkok to Singapore, we got noodles for dinner.

Well, the fried rice may look yummy, but I have to admit, it was a tad too oily for my taste. In fact, if recollection serves, the bottom of the plastic dish was somewhat swimming in oil. But hey, some people might like that.

In any case, Bangkok was only 2 hours away, with much more interesting food in store, so we didn't really mind! All in all, the Valuair experience was decent. I liked that it was informal - the stewardesses were joking and laughing, so unlike the strange formalities put on by other stewardesses. Will definitely fly Valuair, or the other budget airlines like Tiger & Jetair, again!

12.20pm, 16 December 2004, Thursday

A shadow of its former self

I know, I know. Two weeks have gone by, and no new entries from me. My blog has become a shadow of its former self. But for good reason. I've been away on holiday, to Thailand! And boy, do I have a lot of blog about now! Just stay tuned.

ps: Though Thailand was simply gorgeous, it IS good to be back. :)

11.59pm, 4 December 2004, Saturday

Dinner party - osso buco

When it comes to cooking for friends, I tend to like doing braised meats, because it's practically no-fuss. Just brown & braise! Nice!

The last time round, I served oxtail stew, which was paired with Mel's famous paella & other "spanish"-type dishes. Tonight, I made osso buco, from this recipe. It was paired with a whole series of dishes - bread, pate & dip for starters, followed by butternut pumpkin soup (a bit late for Halloween/Thanksgiving I know! But this is one of my all-time favourite Western soups). For the salad, I decided to make a roast duck salad with rambutans, pineapples & raspberry vinagrette. That was my favourite dish of the night actually - I'm really beginning to enjoy adding fruit to my food. It's so yummy - the gamey roast duck, the fruity pineapple and rambutan and the light crunch of toasted pumpkin seeds & seseme seeds. Very fusion!

And finally, we had the osso buco. Can I just say that this is an amazing recipe - thank you, Mario Batali! It's gorgeous. And really... very easy. Don't you just love that combination? ^__^

Here's some pictures of the grub.

(Above pic of osso buco is half-eaten. The shank part with the lovely suck-able marrow was gone before I could take a pic! Shucks.)

In addition, our lovely guests contributed a gorgeous turkey, apple crumble with ice cream & kuay pie tee. What an amazing feast!

All in all, a lovely post-Thanksgiving celebration. This year, we had a bevy of kids running around in our place - five (though it seemed like more than that somehow!). Kids really liven up an event. They're so cute and blur and small and weird. Ha. Everybody was asking us when we are going to have kids.... ^__^

9.30pm, 2 December 2004, Thursday

Fillet of sea bass with olive crust, braised fennel, sauce vierge & polenta

I don't normally go all gourmet on a weekday night, but since neonangel was coming over, I felt like doing a gourmet dish (cos she's quite the gourmet girl herself! ^__^)

The name of this dish sounds intimidating I know. (All gourmet dishes have intimidating names.) But, it's actually fairly straightforward. Half of the battle is figuring out what the ingredients are. I was completely stumped when I first read about fennel and polenta. Do not compute, said my Singaporean brain. It was only later at a cooking class at Creative Culinaire that I was enlightened.

Fennel - stems (not pun intended) from celery family, looks like an onion, smells like star anise. Ahh... goes Singaporean brain. Compute! Compute! ^__^ Fennel & fish are good companions. They go very well together.

Polenta - my husband's cooking bible, Joy of Cooking, states polenta is another name for cornmeal. Less sweet than real corn, a bit starchier and rich in fibre, polenta is a yummy alternative to mashed potatoes & goes well with lamb & veal. But be sure to add salt & butter, as plain polenta can be quite, well, plain. Ha.

(In case you're wondering what sauce vierge is, it's just some fancy-schmancy name for virgin sauce, or rather, sauce that uses extra virgin olive oil as its base!)

My verdict on today's dinner? Loved the sauce! Adding citrus juice to a sauce keeps it light & tangy! Very ncie. But, definitely need to improve on my pan-frying fish skills - the skin kept sticking to the pan, as I think my fire should have been kept medium, not high. Tips, anyone? But anyways, here's the recipe for the fish sans the polenta, as polenta is fairly straighforward to make: hope you'll try it too!

Fillet of sea bass with olive crust, braised fennel, sauce vierge

4 fillet of sea bass, cleaned ^

50g black olives, minced (by hand or in electric chopper)

50ml extra virgin olive oil

50ml orange juice

1ts ground coriander seed

1 (14 1/2 oz) can of peeled tomatoes, diced

4 fennel bulbs, stems & cores removed, thinly sliced ^^

50ml olive oil

1 - 2 tb zest of orange

1 star anise

1. Preheat oven at 200 degrees celsius.

2. Heat olive oil in pot and add sliced fennel, 1/2 of orange juice, zest of orange and star anise. Bring to boil and then lower heat and cook till fennel is tender, about 25 minutes.

3. Heat extra virgin olive oil in another pot. When hot (but not bubbling), turn off heat and add coriander seed. Allow to infuse for a few minutes.

4. Add basil, tomatoes and remaining orange juice. Season to taste. Put pot back on low fire, stir to combine, heat till warm.

5. Make long slits on skin side of sea bass. * Season with salt and pepper on skin side only. **

6. Heat a pan with olive oil for 30 seconds on medium fire. Pan fry the sea bass skin side down. Press down to prevent curling. After about a minute, turn the fillet over and remove after 5 seconds.

7. Place fillets skin side up on an oven pan. Spread the minced olives on the skin side. Place in oven for 2 minutes max. ***

8. Arrange the fennel at the bottom, with fish on top, with a bit of sauce. Serve immediately!

^ Fillet of sea bass is available at Cold Storage! I was pleasantly surprised that they sold them fresh. The nice Cold Storage man filleted them for me on the spot!

^^ Fennel turns to turn browny-black when kept in the open for too long. To prevent this, either don't slice the fennel till you're about to cook it, or if you must prepare ahead, soak the fennel in water to prevent it from browning.

* The slits on the sea bass are to prevent it from curling when fried.

** The salt helps to create a lovely crunchy crust!

*** If you are the sort to prepare ahead, don't do step 7 until your guests arrive. Then, pop the fish in the oven for 2 minutes and you're ready to serve a piping hot meal! Da-dum!!