Life is Great

I'm back!

(Urghh... *groans* what now? Why's she suddenly so chirpy?) I hear some of you go. To tell you the truth, I just survived an hour long of knuckle press massage yesterday evening. After just two weeks into the book prep, I was rewarded with tight back muscles and restless sleeps. I need to sound like Tweety Bird and write about something yellow for a bit, just so some degree of sanity is restored and you will actually have a book to frown at next year.



Apart from agonizing over recipes, prop curating and photos, I resigned to the fact that I actually need to have an organized kitchen now more than ever, so a good few hours were dedicated to throwing out expired jars of why-did-I-buy-that condiments, dried out spices, apparently a small bottle of rice I've forgotten about after making risotto once and only God knows what else. My precious real estate of counter top space on the trolley had to be reclaimed at the expense of putting away two (yes, two) Chemex coffee cones on the top of the fridge (this is where rarely used things in the kitchen gets sent to slowly rot, I'm sure you'll agree?) and baking trays where they belong - in the you-won't-believe-what-a-mess-it-looks-like baking cupboard.

Did I hear you say "Show us the photos?" Well, soon. Maybe. I promise. While I figure out where to chuck my 2,567 pairs of cutlery all threatening to sag my top drawer and how to organize a still growing set of food props which has by now invaded the bookshelves in the hall. Then there's this corner next to my oven cabinet where a pair of stacked chairs are now drowning under piles of dry groceries, a tabletop fan and two kilos of cocoa powder plus a mortar and pestle underneath. "Photos or it never happened!", you demand. Give me some time. I need to mull over it.




What did our mothers work with in their kitchen? My mother never needed a food processor, 10 coffee makers (we're dangerously getting there), a stand mixer with 50 accessories and 2 bowls, a vegetable peeler, zester... you get the picture. Now I'm a little disturbed my blender doesn't come with a dry grinder (actually I'm more disturbed by the fact that I actually overlooked the fact while purchasing it). Have we, in the process of evolving into modern times cooking techniques, be more and more dependent on technology, not necessarily towards better food?

Those who are in the know will agree sambal taste better when pounded with granite and the nasi lemak it accompanies much better slurped off fingers than cutlery. Fried chicken with a pair of knife and fork? After reading Jane Kramer's A Fork of One's Own (which I highly recommend for anyone who cooks and eats), I began to understand, why, despite it's size and (perhaps ill perceived) shortcomings, I love the kitchen I have.


While I don't have floor to ceiling glass doors, an island, a dishwasher, an oven that cleans itself or an eleven-foot solid wood dining table right next to an open-plan shelving system with rotating pull-out racks and a coffee machine nook, this small space is where the magic happens. My little sanctuary with small windows and overhanging laundry is where my sweat flows along (what I hope to be) creative juices.

As a consolation to myself, I can proudly say till today I don't find a need for any more knives than a good, sharp, chefs knife, a serrated bread knife, a small paring knife and a heavy, bad-ass Chinese cleaver. The latest addition of things-I-don't-need-but-have-to-own is a clay pot. You will see why in a year.

Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

Adapted from Isabella's Lemon Meringue Cupcakes, first seen here.
Yield 12 standard size cupcakes

Note: While the Junior Masterchef's challenge was to finish the dish in 40 minutes, I was in no such hurry, so I passed the lemon curd twice (lumps do form when you cook it over direct heat) and used a more stable and delicious Italian meringue instead.

Cupcakes

• 250 mililiters/1 cup thickened cream
• 220 grams/1 cup caster sugar
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 225 grams/1 1/2 cups self raising flour
• Finely grated rind of 1 lemon

Lemon curd

• 125 mililiters/1/2 cup lemon juice
• 100 grams butter
• 110 grams/1/2 cup caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 3 egg yolks (reserve whites for meringue)

Italian Meringue

• 6.6 ounces/186 grams sugar
• 3 ounces/84 grams water
• 90 grams/3 egg whites
• pinch of cream of tartar, optional

Make the cupcakes: Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F. Place 12 cupcake liners in a 12 hole 1/2-cup capacity muffin pan. Place cream, sugar and eggs in a large mixing bowl and whisk until smooth. Gradually add flour and zest and continue whisking until mixture is thick and smooth. Divide mixture between prepared liners and bake for 15-20 minutes or until cakes spring back to touch. Cool in muffin pan.

Make the lemon curd: Meanwhile, heat lemon juice and butter in a small saucepan and simmer until butter has melted. Add sugar, egg and yolks and cook, whisking continuously until mixture becomes thick and glossy. Pour into a wide bowl to cool. Refrigerate to cool further while preparing the meringue.

Make the meringue: Combine sugar and water in a small pot over medium-high heat. Clip a candy thermometer onto the pot. Without stirring, bring the syrup to a boil and let it cook gently until the temperature reaches 115°C/240°F. Meanwhile, place the egg whites and cream of tartar in a clean bowl of a stand mixer. With the whisk attachment, begin whisking the egg whites when the syrup just begin to bubble on the stove. Start whisking on medium low until the whites begin to foam all over, then increase speed to medium high. Whisk until medium stiff peaks form and stop the mixer.

Once the syrup has reached 115°C/240°F (soft ball stage) and the whites have been whipped to soft peaks, restart the mixer and gradually pour the syrup in a small stream into the egg whites, whisking on medium high continuously. Be careful not to allow the sugar syrup to fall on the beaters. Continue whisking until the bowl of the mixer is at body temperature and not warm to the touch anymore. (This took me a good 15 minutes.) Prepare a piping bag with a swirl nozzle attached and fill the bag with some of the meringue. Meringue keeps well in a sealed piping bag at room temperature for at least a few hours.

Assemble the cupcakes: Cut a small hole off the top of each cupcake (I used a 1-inch diameter round cookie cutter) and fill with 1-2 teaspoons of the lemon curd. Pipe a swirl of meringue on the top of each cupcake. Brown the meringue with a blow torch or and place under a medium-high grill for 60-90 seconds or until golden.

Do ahead: Cupcakes and curd can be made 1 day ahead. Italian meringue is best made the day off, it will hold its shape well till the next day at room temperature.

Continue reading Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

The past weeks have been a lot of learning, re-learning, observing, practicing and digging up those past experiences from the back of my mind. Hours were spent over minute details, trying to improve, attempting to achieve perfect imperfection. And we haven't even really started yet.



Today I learned that Marco Pierre White's favorite mantra for those who aspire to be like him - "Perfection is lots of little things done well." - is not his own, but Fernand Point's, the father of modern French cuisine. I shall be holding on to this for the rest of our journey, hopeful for it to be fruitful at the end.


Continue reading Monday Pick-Me-Up

Pretty often you hear people say "All things happen for a reason...". I'd like to dismiss this as yet another cliché but events in the past few years have put my (premature) scepticism in its rightful place.

It all started in 2010 with a broken leg and a following house arrest right after I spent 3 months running 10km every fortnight and just signed up for a half marathon. Having nothing to eat at home, I went back into the kitchen, remembering as I was growing up how much I enjoyed cooking and baking. A personal blog turned into a food blog, though I'm pretty sure at the time only 5 people were reading my long-winded stories on wanton soup, cocoa brownies and chicken rendang. Food blogging made me try new things - cook a turkey that just barely fit our fridge, bake finicky soufflés, try out sugar work (let me tell you it was madness) and unassuming chiffon cakes.




A year into the blog things picked up and friends who read it regularly (yes, still the same group of 10 people, I think) started to ask if I'm going to open a restaurant. I laughed. They've obviously missed that bit about my broken leg, not that I often let out in public how tiring it now gets for me after being on my feet for a few hours in the kitchen, I literally have to sit down and prop my legs up to reduce the swelling around my ankle.

Then a few asked when will my first cookbook be out. I believe I may have rolled my eyes. "Why not? Everyone writes a cookbook nowadays, have you seen those food bloggers and celebrity chefs?", a friend insisted. I spent the next half an hour educating the poor soul on how the world doesn't need yet another cupcake book no matter how pretty I can make them look on expensive matte paper and how every time another 'simple Asian meal in 20 minutes' book is published, a kitten dies somewhere. Really, I'm no Deb Perelman, Nigel Slater or Nigella Lawson.




But then as I cooked and ate my way backwards, recipes from my mother and Vijay's mother surfaced. My best food friends, with equally sharp and picky palates - Najah and Nazrah - got me on my feet over their heirloom family favorites rich with atypical influences of Javanese, Ceylonese and Nyonya influences. I realized, a year into the blog, that people should know about these recipes. How our mothers used to do things and make every meal special, rarely with any shortcuts or modern conveniences. How these traditions can be easily lost even within the time frame of my generation, where tattered, dogeared recipe books of our matriarchs end up under the bed instead of in our kitchens.



So at the end of 2011, Najah and I brainstormed our cookbook project over very strong coffee. We mapped out our ideas, recipes and concept. We even almost started a complete project plan and even contemplated self-publishing should no one be interested in our offering. But then we got caught up with other things - me with my job, Najah with her post-graduate studies and Nazrah still being miles away in Dubai moving houses more than once in a year. Our project was shelved, though at the back of my mind, I thought this will give me more time for food research and recipe testing.




Ironically, no such breezy time is now available. Sometime back in November 2012, exactly a year after Najah and I scribbled our list of recipes over coffee, Page One came knocking on my door, taken with what they saw here.

I was suddenly a little worried, nervous and yes, again sceptical. The most recent photos are mostly iPhone shots. My writing? I'm not so sure, I think my style has become quite polarized. Will they want to publish the book I want to write? Will we be able to shoot the photos we want to show? I told Najah and she ended up being more excited than I. "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?", she practically screamed into our electronic conversation in block letters. "It's going to be crazy and tiring... and I have no space!" I came up with lame excuses, really. Najah was having none of them. "Use my kitchen! Shoot the photos at my house!" I have nothing to lose, as long as I can write the book we originally set out to, Vijay said. Tell them what you won't do, another writer friend offered.


After 3 months, it was done. The proposal was the easy part - I have more than two years worth of material to pick from. The idea was sold and I signed away the next year of my life on a dotted line. David Lebovitz in this attempt on Nigel Slater's moist chocolate beet cake explained at length why he would buy and read a cookbook in this age of readily abundant Internet recipes.

"... a book that I wanted to spend some time in a comfortable chair with, savoring the recipes, the spontaneous, engaging, casual writing, and the gorgeous photos. I have an iPad, and possibly could have read it on that. But then I would have missed the thick, coarse paper, and the delicate lushness of the photographs would have gotten lost behind the shiny screen."

I hope to write a book with not only recipes with our own touch but more importantly, our stories and how food, among other things; continue to bring us together. The challenge is to produce a different kind of Asian compilation, shot unexpectedly, while staying true to our heritage and not kill another kitten somewhere. The journey will bring us new experiences, both in cooking and food photography. Just like this version of the Sarawak kolo mee, something I whipped up on my own out of desperation and wander lust after our travels to Kuching.

Kolo Mee

Serves 4

Notes: This is my adaptation of Sarawak's famous kolo mee. You can use any bouncy egg or wanton noodles in place of the actual curly noodles which can only be obtained from Sarawak. Traditionally kolo mee is a simple breakfast to brunch noodle dish served as is. Nowadays vendors in Kuching add prawns, chicken slices and some even an additional side of pork offal soup. Halal versions make use of stewed beef, beef meatballs and beef broth, which I find equally delicious.

• 600 grams pork belly or pork neck, minced
• 2 teaspoons peanut oil
• 3 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons dark soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
• 4 cloves garlic, sliced finely
• 5 tablespoons peanut oil for frying
• 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce (add to taste)
• 250 grams Char Siu (Cantonese barbecued pork, sliced)
• 3 tablespoons Char Siu gravy
• 1 stalk spring onion, finely chopped
• 4 portions kolo noodles (or any bouncy egg/wanton noodles)
• additional spring onion for garnish

In a medium bowl, mix the minced pork meat with oil, soy sauces, oyster sauce, Worcestershire sauce, some salt and pepper. Leave to marinate for 30 minutes to 1 hour. Meanwhile, prepare the rest of the ingredients. In a frying pan, heat up 5 tablespoons oil and fry the sliced garlic gently till brown and crispy. Drain the garlic pieces on some kitchen paper; reserve the garlic oil in a bowl.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Meanwhile, return 2 tablespoons of the reserved garlic oil in the same frying pan and cook the marinated minced pork over medium high heat till done, about 5-6 minutes. Prepare 4 serving bowls and in each one divide the remaining garlic oil, vinegar, fish sauce, Char Siu gravy and chopped spring onion. Cook the noodles in the boiling water till just about done, drain, and immediately divide into bowl. Using a pair of chopsticks, mix well each bowl of noodles with the dressing.

Add some minced pork and arrange a few pieces of Char Siu onto each bowl. Garnish with fried garlic and spring onion before serving.

Continue reading Kolo Mee and a Small Cookbook News