Cooking by Hoan Kiem Lake

So we finally went on our trip to Hanoi last week. The trip was full of surprises - good ones as well as not so good ones. I was a little disappointed with the things I expected to be good - the art, food and shopping, in some respects, they turned out to be quite average. The good surprises were the fantastic historical architecture, the old and wonderful trees growing in the streets, and the interesting people we met there, both foreign and local. The trip has given one much food for thought indeed, which I hope to have time to write down in the other blog. But for now, let's talk just about the food.

I mentioned that the food scene was a little disappointing. I should really qualify that to mean the local food scene. We had a sampling of the French cuisine there, thanks to friends living there, which was just absolutely fabulous. It was really the local dining that was less than spectacular. Even though we all like the simplicity and freshness of the herbs and meat there, there was way too much MSG being used. Also, they didn't seem to be too creative with their use of ingredients and culinary ideas.

Still, we went for a cooking class organized by a restaurant there called Highway4 Restaurant, which was right by Hoan Kiem Lake. It was a pleasant enough experience, and we had fun donning chefs' costumes while a light spring rain drizzled outside over the lake. I cannot say all the dishes we learnt were too memorable though. The seafood fried rice dish was totally forgettable - my mom certainly makes a meaner fried rice dish at home.

The most fun part of the trip was visiting the wet market before the class - we each sat in a cyclo which transported us from the restaurant to the market. It was a most exciting experience being cyclo-ed around by a bike, dodging all the crazy scooters coming in all directions!! :)

I will only post one recipe here for now. We were told that this is served at every business and political function in Hanoi....

Ingredients

Catfish fillet 180g
Rice Paper
Fresh Dill
Oyster Sauce
Mayonnaise
Wasabi
Salt
Chilli Powder
Wheat Flour
Tapioca Starch

Cut the catfish into rectangular shaped strips 2-3 cm wide, around 8 cm long. Squeeze out water to prevent splattering in the oil later. Chop dill finely. Place together in a bowl with flour and spices and mix well by hand. Make cylindrical catfish patties by rolling the fillet between the palm of your hands.

Heat up an inch deep cooking oil in a frying pan. Fry catfish until golden brown. Remove from heat and dip into a little mayonnaise before rolling onto rice paper with a sprig of unchopped dill.

Dip: Mix wasabi with oyster sauce and lemon and sugar to taste.

I think the wasabi makes the world of difference. Ok, it's confirmed I am a Japanese food nut.

Japan Hour

In this episode of Japan Hour, we bring to you the following very-easy-to-do and oiishi recipes:

A Spoonful of Happyness

I have never tasted the original spoonful of Happyness, but I think I have come close to the real thing. This spoondish was described to us with much relish from E, who tried it during her trip to San Franscisco last year in a Western Japanese fusion restaurant.

One quail's egg, raw
One slice of uni
Ikura roe (fish roe)
Dashi stock (from a dashi teabag)

Break one quail's egg carefully into a porcelain spoon or tiny bowl. Dribble in a little dashi stock.
Add one slice of heavenly uni and top with a little Ikura roe and/or mentaiko roe if you have some at hand. That's the pink stuff you see in the picture.

Angel Hair Pasta with Mentaiko Cream Sauce

Mentaiko is the marinated roe of the pollock fish. and is one of the common ingredients used in Japanese cuisine. Mentaiko originated in Korea, and as with many things, the Japanese substantially improved the use of it in cooking.

You can buy mentaiko from good Japanese supermarkets like Medi-ya at Liang Court. A little goes a long way, since it has a distinct spicy roe flavour.

We were looking for mentaiko recipes after finding that there was two sac-fuls leftover after wee-bit that we used to create the Spoonfuls of Happyness (see above entry). Cooking Buddy M found a ChubbyHubby recipe, which formed a good base for the following one, which was developed after a couple of attempts.

Ingredients:

20 grams mentaiko roe
150 grams ham or bacon
Angelhair pasta
Half cup light cream
Half cup water
A tablespoon butter

Melt butter in pan fry ham/bacon for 3 minutes. Reduce heat. Slowly stir in light cream and half a cup of water. Cook angelhair pasta for 5 minutes in a saucepan. Drain and pour cream sauce over. Break up mentaiko roe sac and spread lightly over pasta. Sprinkle some nori flakes or brocolli bits on top of it all.

Flying Cows on a Grill

Go up to the beef counter at Medi-ya, which sells Kobe beef by the microgram, and ask unshamedly for only 6 thin slices of Kobe beef, because that's all you can afford for the 5 guests and yourself who are coming to dinner that night.

Start a mini furnace, and when the coals are amber hot, grill the Kobe beef over it. Marinating with a little Sukiyaki sauce an hour beforehand may or may not add to the rather mind blowing experience. Those cows were massaged daily with sake, you know.














Sumi Seaweed Salad

A refreshing salad that was a hit with the folks:

Rocket salad mix
Sumi (crab sticks)
Japanese kelp
Japanese sesame dressing (sesame oil, olive oil, mirin, rice vinegar, lime)
Noritamago sesame flakes (looks like bird feed, but made up of bits of seaweed and sesame, and egg)

Mix all together, and sprinke noritamago sesame flakes .


Shrimp, Crab, Avocado and Wasabi Wrap

4 crab claws
8 fresh shrimp
Chinese rice wine
One Avocado, sliced
Wasabe (tube form is fine)
Japanese mayonnaise
Butter lettuce
Plain wraps

Crack the crab claws and place in a steamer together with the shrimp. Add a dash of Chinese Shaoxing wine and steam for 10 minutes or so. Extract the crab meat and peel off the shell and tails of the shrimp.

Place a wrap flat on a plate. Squirt some mayo and dab a little wasabe on the wrap. Place a lettuce leaf on top. Create filling of crab meat, shrimp and avocado, and roll into a wrap. A great brunch entree!

Cooking in Barcelona!

Nibbler went to the Iberia Peninsula for two weeks and had a very good time indeed. Got back yesterday afternoon, and since Jetlag is Queen, we will start posting food memories here (the fabulous art and other memories go to the other blog).

On the last day in Barcelona, we did what all of us had been looking forward to throughout - a Spanish cooking class! It was conducted by Cookandtaste which we read about in the BT. For 50 Euros each, we learnt to cook a four-course meal and of course had the meal for lunch. It was an excellent experience all round.

This was our chef instructor, Paul, who was quite hilarious in a deadpan way.
















This was the menu:

Chupito de Sopa de Tomate Al Aroma de Idiazabal de Peio Garcia Amiano (Gazpacho with a twist!)

Tortilla de Patatas y pan con Tomate (aka a very thick omelette)

Paella de Marisco (you cook this, you can cook anything, says Paul)

Crema Catalan (like Creme Brulee)

The cooking school has just emailed the recipes, yay, which are now posted for
future reference. :)

Chupito de Sopa de Tomate al Aroma de Idiazábal

(tomato soup flavoured with idiazábal smoked cheese)

Ingredients (4 servings)

4 tomatoes, peeled and seeded

20 gr idiazábal (sheep) cheese, grated (parmesan may be used as substitute)

20 gr of allioli sauce

2 spoons of balsamic vinegar

2 cloves of garlic, peeled

25 gr of walnuts

25 gr of hazelnuts

parsley

olive oil

salt

Method

Peel the tomatoes, seed and blend them together in a blender with the vinegar and a pinch of salt.

In a mortar, pound the garlic cloves, the parsley and all the nuts. Emulsify with a little of olive oil.

Serve in a cup and decorate with a teaspoon of what you’ve got from the mortar, a teaspoon of allioli and some grated cheese.

Paella de Marisco

(seafood paella)

Ingredients (4 serves)

8 prawns

2 squids (or cuttlefish), in rings

500 gr of clams and / or mussels (1.1 pound / 17.5 oz)

2 or 3 cloves of garlic, peeled, crushed

1 tomato, peeled, minced

6 tablespoons of olive oil

400 gr of rice (1 pound / 14 oz)

1,1 l of fish stock (4.4 cups)

8-10 saffron threads or colouring

Method

Heat the oil in the pan and fry the prawns until slightly browned. Transfer to a plate and set aside.

Add the tomato in the same hot oil and fry slightly. After some minutes, add chopped garlic and fry over medium heat.

When the tomato starts to burn, stir in the squid and the clams and mussels.

Stir in the stock and the saffron and bring it to a boil.

Add the rice and distribute it evenly. Rice can’t be touched beyond this point!

After some minutes add the prawns in a decorative pattern.

Increase the heat to medium-high and cook for (+/-) 8 minutes, rotating and swirling the pan to distribute the heat evenly. Reduce heat to minimum and cook (+/-) 10 more minutes.

Let it stand for about 5 minutes before serving.

Tortilla de Patatas y pan con Tomate

Ingredients (4 serves)

Tortilla de patatas

300 gr of potatoes, peeled, chopped (10 oz)

1 onion, peeled, in half rings

3 eggs

olive oil

salt

Pan con tomate

4 slices of farmhouse bread

2 red tomatoes

1 garlic clove (optional)

olive oil

salt

Method

Tortilla de patatas

Peel and rinse the potatoes; dice them thinly.

Peel the onion and cut it in half rings.

Fry the potatoes in plenty of hot olive oil. Add the onion into the frying pan when the potatoes are half done.

Leave over medium heat until both the potatoes and the onion are well done. Set aside over absorbent paper.

Beat the eggs in a separate bowl and season with salt. Pour the drained potatoes and onion in the bowl and mix.

Remove excess of oil from the pan. Pour the mixture over the heated pan and cook until the bottom starts to brown. Add other ingredients like mushrooms, artichokes, fish, meat as desired at this point.

Flip it over, and gently slide the tortilla into the pan again so the uncooked part is face down and finish cooking.

Pan con tomate

Peel a clove of garlic and cut it in halves. Cut the tomatoes also in halves cross wide.

First rub the bread with the garlic with the cut side, and then with the tomato, squeezing gently. Sprinkle it with salt and drizzle it with olive oil.

Crema Catalan

Ingredients (6 serves)

6 egg yolks

200 gr of sugar (0.5 pound / 7 oz)

1 l of milk (4 cups)

40 gr of starch (1.75 oz / 0.11 pounds)

peel of one lemon

1 stick of cinnamon

vanilla (optional)

Method

Blend the egg yolks and the sugar until it becomes a fine cream. Add 750 ml of milk and stir to get a good mixture. Add the lemon peel and the cinnamon.

Heat it over medium-high heat in a saucepan.

Meanwhile, dissolve the starch in the remaining milk and stir the mixture into the saucepan.

Bring to the boil, stirring all the time and set aside at first bubble.

Let it cool for a while, still stirring, and distribute it in little earthenware dishesº before it cools down completely.

Why Fainting Goats

This is not a kambing recipe. It's to put on record why this blog took its name. Professor Gyncat sent me this link years ago about The Tennesee Fainting Goats, which was the most hilarious thing I ever saw. She knew I was quite partial to goats (that's a story for another day), and had these uncontrollable, low-sugar-I-need-some-food-now-or-I will-faint episodes, especially in the mornings when we went on road trips together. One came to be known as the fainting goat in close circles.

Enjoy the video, folks :)

http://www.qarxis.com/Fainting_Goats

The Perfect Roast Chicken

As far as I know, everyone has a Perfect Roast Chicken recipe, as I think everyone should. It's a thing that we can work towards perfection through our lives (amongst other things of course). For me, at the moment the Perfect Roast Chicken comes about like this:

Ingredients:
1-1.5 kg whole chicken.
Half a slab of salted butter
Parma Ham or bacon, chopped
Basil leaves, chopped finely
1 lemon
Rosemary stalks,2 whole
Fresh Ground Pepper

Mix butter, ham/bacon/ and basil leaves. Scrape in the zest of the lemon. Cut the rest of the lemon into slices and set aside.

Very carefully, using two fingers, separately the skin of the chicken from the flesh as much as you can. It will feel weird at first and does look quite strange when you have guests watching, but it's absolutely essential to transforming an ordinary chicken to perfection. Make one or two deep cuts into the thighs (this ensures that the thighs will be "overcooked" which is when they taste best).

Taking small lumps of the herbed butter mixture at a time, stuff them between the skin and the flesh of the chicken, and massage to spread it out as evenly as you can throughout the chicken. Put some of the mixture into the thigh slits too. Stuff the rosemary stalks and the slices of lemon into the crevice of the chicken. If you have a poultry lacer you can use it to close the cavities, but if not, hemp string would do. But then I can never find those when I need them anyway - and the chicken does fine usually

Preheat the oven to 210 C. Put in the chicken and roast for an hour turning it once in between. In the last half hour, you can throw in small new pototates and chopped onions on the baking tray to make a complete meal.

I had an almost magical experience when I indulged in a French Yellow Skin Chicken once in Hong Kong. It really was most succulent and the recipe was a roaring success even though it was my first attempt. I never repeated it again because those foreign chicks were incredibly expensive. I have used U.S. chicken, Brazillian chicken and Danish ones too. They all work really well, but never quite the same way as that French poulet. Back in Singapore, I guess because we are all more paranoid, foreign chicks are seldom found here. The regular ones in our supermarkets work too, but don't use a kampong chicken. It's great for Hainanese chicken rice but too skinny for angmoh recipes, lah.















Next chicken challenge: The Perfect Roast Chicken with Two Lemons

Mommy's Cod

Went home for lunch on Vesak Day and spent a rather nice morning yakking with mom about her new recipes. Told her that I was having the DVD Gang over in the evening and she suggested the following brilliant cod recipe which she thought up.

Black Teriyaki Cod with Sundried Tomatoes and Olives

2 pieces of black cod
3 tbsp of teriyaki sauce
1 clove chopped garlic
1 tbsp red chilli shreds
1 small lime
4 shredded pieces of sun-dried tomatoes
1 tbsp oliveoil from sun-dried tomatoes jar
2 tbsp chopped black olives
1 tbsp chopped cilantro


In a large pan, heat up 2 tbsp of oil. Cook cod under medium heat for 3 minutes each side. Set aside to cool slightly.

To prepare the sauce:

In a small bowl, mix teriyaki sauce, garlic, olive oil and squeeze in lime.
Heat in microwave for 3 minutes.

Place shredded sun-dried tomatoes and chopped olives on cooked cod. Pour hot teriyaki mixture over and serve with pilav and blanched baby asparagus.

Not sure why, but I kept thinking of the following mnemonic when I was trying the recipe yesterday.

My - Mercury
Very - Venus
Educated - Earth
Mother - Mars
Just - Jupiter
Served - Saturn
Us - Uranus
Nine - Neptune
Pies - Pluto

She served us so much more than that. Thanks Mom! Happy Mother's Day. :)

My Kitchens

Since you asked how small exactly was the hobbit kitchen I cooked in for 6 years in Hong Kong.



















It was er...ergonomic.

Now, things are a little better. :)

The Really Fat-Free Potato Salad

It was Yellowstonehusky who made The First Really Fat Free Potato Salad at a New Year's Eve gathering in 2004. We loved it, and were impressed by how good it tasted despite the "fat-free" part. I had always meant to ask him for the recipe but never got round to it. When the occasion came for me to make a potato salad for some friends, it took some mental reverse engineering and research on the internet to come up with this version. I don't think it tastes exactly the same as the very good one Yellowstonehusky made, but it was very interesting to erm...study the potato- salad- making business and realize that (i) potatoes, especially more flavorful ones like red-skinned potatoes, have their own creamy texture which makes it unnecessary to put in much fat-ful stuff like mayonnaise, (ii) other strong flavours like mustards and vinegar and herbs can make the dish interesting; and (iii) German potato salads never contain mayonnaise (ok, random fact).

Ingredients

8 new red potatoes
2 hard boiled eggs chopped (remove and mash the yolk to add creaminess to the dressing)
3 Tbls. dried parsley flakes
2 Tbls. grated onion
2 Tbls. Dijon mustard
2 Tbls. red wine vinegar
1 tsp. granulated sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. dill tips
1/2 tsp. black pepper
paprika - for garnish

-Boil potatoes in water until tender when tested with a fork.
-While potatoes cook, beat together all remaining ingredients; set aside.
-Drain boiled potatoes, place in a large bowl, and allow to cool slightly.
-Slowly pour prepared mixture over cooled potatoes and stir to coat.
-Sprinkle with a little paprika, cover, and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving.

Turkish Pilav

No dairy, no pork, no lamb, no wheat. Those were the instructions for the Sedar (Passover) Supper that the Bookclubbers simulated on Maundy Thursday just past. After looking through some internet recipes for Kosher/Egyptian/Middle Eastern dishes, I decided to try something from the Turkish cookbook that I bought 3 years ago in Istanbul. It turned out to be a great hearty rice dish that I think I will be cooking quite frequently for dinner gatherings.

One thing though, whatever you do, don't use organic brown rice like I did. Even after 1 hour of soaking, 20 minutes of nuking in the microwave, 40 minutes of browning in the skillet, the rice was still a little too al dente (eventually if you simmer it for like 2 hours, it does become soft!)

Ingredients

2 cups of rice (I shall try long grain basmatic next time, or actual pilav)
3 cups of the chicken stock
2 tblsp of olive oil (or margarine if you are not cooking for Passover!)
1 medium size onion
1 can of diced tomatoes
4 pieces of chicken liver (or more! I found out that 20 of them costs only $1.30!)
2 tblsp of pine nuts
2 tblsp of currants
A dash of dill tips
2 tsp of salt
3 tblsp of sugar
1 tsp of cinnamon powder
1 tsp of marjoram
A dash of freshly ground black pepper

- Cover the rice with salted lukewarm water. Leave for 20 minutes. Wash several times and drain.
- Heat the olive oil in a deep large saucepan. Add cleaned and diced liver and saute lightly. Set aside.
- In the same pan, brown chopped onion and pine nuts. Add half cooked rice (I nuked them for a bit first) and brown on high heat fo 10 minutes.
- Add salt, pepper, sugar, currants, diced tomato and chicken stock. Mix well
- Cover and cook first on medium heat, later on low heat for 15 minutes, until water is absorbed.
- Add the various spices and simmer under cover on very low heat for 20 minutes.
- Mix in the liver with a wooden spoon and serve with a main meat dish (e.g. lamb, beef, or turkey)

How to have a Laksa Party when Living Away

My very cool ironman boss in Singapore is sadly leaving us to go back to the London office after a 6 year blast in Asia. He is the most open-minded ang moh I know when it comes to food - knowing exactly how to order his grilled sotong at Pagi Sore and working deftly through fatt-choy-covered-giant abalones at CNY lunches. On Monday, we were talking about how he would sorely miss the food in Singapore after leaving. So I shared with him how, out of deprivation while living abroad, one could create the whole hawker centre menu out of the amazing pre-mixes sold here.

So this entry is for (i) Roger (ii) my erstwhile fellow migrants in HK (carry on the tradition, my countrymen!) and (iii) this accidental chef to remember those happy days by... :)

Now, a "Laksa Party" became a generic term for a food gathering of Singaporeans and their friends from the world over, where the main items on the menu were constituted by local dishes. It didn't need to, but often included laksa. A typical menu would be (i) nasi lemak (ii) laksa, (iii) sayur lodeh (vegetable curry) (iii) rendang (iv) rojak, and if we had the rights tools and executioners, chilli crab!
Laksa

The Prima Taste Laksa premix is still the closest to the real thing that one could get, if a tad more expensive than the other brands. The truly wonderful thing about it is that it has everything you need to make the gravy base, including coconut powder, and even has a pack of sambal chilli and chopped laksa leaves! No problem even if you are living in Central Europe! Instructions are very easy to follow and you can get a great sauce in 15 minutes flat.

The challenge is in finding the right kind of noodles. The short transclucent noodles that we get here cannot really be found anywhere else. I have experimented with vietnamese rice sticks, sichuan dandan noodles, even pasta. It may not in the end be such a big issue anyway, as the gravy sauce really does go down well with most things. The key thing to note is that the noodles should not be cooked too soggy. I have found plain yellow egg noodles to be the most popular with the folks. After that, it's about finding everybody's favorite "liao" to put into the noodles. Shrimp and mussels are a main feature (I have thought of putting "hum" or raw clams, but Hepatatis scares did constrain me).

The "liao":

Hard boiled eggs, halved
Tau Pok (fried beancurd, but if you can't find these, regular tofu cubes, lightly stir fried first, will do)
Fish cake, sliced(or fishballs if you can't find)
Enoki Mushrooms (Philly's favorite!)
Anything else really, to soak up the gravy!


Nasi Lemak
This became my favorite thing to cook in Hong Kong because I could prepare the rice and other ingredients ahead of time and transport them to the party venue more easily than laksa or curries (my hobbit sized apartment became too small to host large parties).

Preparing the rice: you need raw rice, coconut milk and pandan flavoring (I've been lucky enough to always find pandan leaves in the Wanchai market, but one should have a bottle of Pandan essence on standby just in case they are extinct in your location. Or you could grow a Pandan plant in a greenhouse). Wash the rice, and pour half part water, half part coconut milk over it in the rice-cooker. Tie a bunch of pandan leaves in a knot and leave it in the cooker while the rice cooks (for about 20 minutes).

Again, there's an infinite variety of things you can eat nasi lemak with. Egg, white bait fried with peanuts, sardines, or dry rendang curry etc. For an authentic touch, cut up some squares of banana leaves to place on the serving plates (remember to wash them first with hot water, there are often spiders!) - you can get these at Thai or Indonesian provision shops in the Central/Wanchai markets.

Rojak
This was a surprising favourite with our non-Singaporean friends. After getting over the initial skepticism of eating cuts fruits and you tiao with shrimp paste and chilli, I think they had a whole lot of fun with the rojak bowl. The rojak paste can be bought in bottled form for $1.50, and I used to buy them here to give as gifts to my Hong Kong friends. Sometimes just a good selection of cubed fruit (Thai water apples, guava, pineapple) lightly dipped in the rojak sauce can make a good side salad dish with nasi lemak or curries. Pound some peanuts until they are fine for sprinkling over the fruits.

Other great sauce mixes to stock up when away from Laksa-land.













And of course, the most important ingredient of all, good food-loving friends at the party! :)

Pacific Islands Coleslaw (with Lo Hei dressing!)

I found this recipe on the very good Robbie Haf website, and it is really quite an interesting way to make and eat coleslaw, even though I must admit that with all that chopping and shredding of veggies, I am usually happy enough to buy tubs of the KFC version for my own consumption. This version, however, is a great one to make for a lunch or dinner party where the mains are neither too ang-moh or chinese (okay, I am trying to avoid the word "fusion"). People are sure to be guessing why the dressing tastes so so familiar... Gong Hei Fatt Choy! :)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup rice vinegar
1/3 cup peanut butter (non crunchy type)
2 1/2 Tblsp. soy sauce
2 Tblsp. raw sugar
2 Tblsp. minced ginger (bottled kind is fine)
1 Tblsp. fresh minced garlic
Coleslaw mix (ready-packed or from scratch with shredded purple cabbage and carrots)
4 green onions, sliced
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1/2 cup of chopped peanuts

Preparation:

- Whisk the vinegar, peanut butter, soy sauce, sugar, ginger and garlic together in a bowl. Add more or less raw sugar and ginger to taste.
- Toss the coleslaw, onions and chopped peanuts in a large salad bowl.
- Best served with dressing on the side, unchilled.

Serves 10-12. Preparation time: 15-30 minutes