Okay, okay, I know I owe you guys a post on a certain restaurant in Spain. But I wrote my post down somewhere on a piece of paper when I was on a bus back from KL and I can’t find it. So let me talk about something a little more recent which I did and which I’m rather proud of.

There comes a point in a cook’s life where he/she stops copying recipes and starts creating dishes. The transition is actually generally a lot more prolonged than what you might think, as it starts with making slight changes to recipes to suit your taste (or, similarly, to suit different ingredients that might be available in your part of the world/during a particular season), or pulling different components from different recipes to assemble into an entity of its own. For me, I reached a sort of nirvana when I started cooking multi-faceted dishes with different components, most of which I’d come up with on my own.

As I’ve always said, cooking is really about a bunch of simple, basic techniques more than anything else. Whenever I cook/bake/make something for friends, I always find myself surround my hysteria - friends screeching, “HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY MAKE ALL OF THIS? IT’S SO COMPLICATED!” To which I more often than not reply, “But it’s all really simple!” And I’m not being a show-off/overestimating my friends’ skill sets. You see, if you know how to boil water for instant noodles, or do a simple Chinese style vegetable stir-fry, you’ve got all the techniques down pat for making a simple pasta from scratch - you can boil water, you can judge doneness for noodles, you can cut/chop/slice (chances are garlic will be in the mix for both types), you can sauté, and you can check for seasoning. Likewise, if you can make cupcakes (following the most basic of butter cake recipes), and you understand the flavour pairing of strawberries, vanilla, sugar and softly whipped cream, you can assemble a multi-layered berry cake with crème chantilly easily. Even better: if you’ve ever played with playdough, or made a simple dough for messing around with and rolling around as a kid, you can make your own pasta. See? It’s all simple. Just break everything down into its components.

Now, one of the other things I like to do is to re-create dishes based on classic street food. Bunny observed the growth in my skill set by how I went from one modification to another - I started out simply looking for new ways to present the dishes (such as in the case of my Bakkuttini), and slowly I started remodelling one aspect at a time of each dish.

My latest creation is an amuse bouche based on Laksa. It started out with a good friend demanding to taste Laksa Pesto. I was bored of this - I didn’t find it challenging enough anymore, and I’d made it too many times - so I wrangled my way out of it by telling her I’d do a different Laksa dish for her instead. Another friend had been itching to try a self-saucing laksa ravioli, and after tossing ideas around, I came up with a list of ingredients that went into a traditional bowl of Laksa, and came up with this:

It’s - again - really quite simple. (This time, though, I will admit that the entire dish is rather time consuming to make, even though the individual parts aren’t actually very challenging at all.) I made ravioli using egg-yolk-only pasta (roughly 150g of plain flour to 2 large egg yolks, with a little salt), which I opted for because I wanted it to mimic the richness and texture of the springy egg noodles normally served in Laksa, and filled this with a mixture of minced prawns, XO sauce, minced laksa leaves and fresh chilli (i.e. your basic laksa pesto) with a little oil to bind, and served this with two sauces: a fragrant prawn stock which was heavily reduced until almost syrupy, infused with lemongrass, galangal, and some carrots for colour and sweetness, and the second sauce was a ready-out-of-the-packet coconut cream. (I decided that I wanted the coconut cream to actually come off with a very clean flavour on the palate in contrast to the rich shellfish broth, which would - in itself - be quite interesting since coconut’s usually the rich, cloying component in these dishes.) I topped it with a prawn coated in salted-egg-yolk (quite a common dish on many Chinese menus) which embodies both prawns and eggs - i.e. two of the common toppings in laksa, and finally garnished it with a crisp fried laksa leaf to pay homage to the humble beginnings of this dish.

(You can see the entire sheet of paper with my doodlings, scribblings and conceptualising on this scan which I’ve uploaded into my flickrstream.)

The best part of it was that when you sampled a mouthful of each of the components, it actually really tasted like Laksa. Also, it means I now know how to make Laksa, which could prove handy considering I’m now HK and very far away from my local Katong Laksa stall.

Laksa Amuse
(serves 6)

For the prawn stock:
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and bruised
4 shallots, peeled and roughly chopped
1 small white onion, peeled and roughly chopped
1 carrot, peeled and diced into 1cm pieces
Heads and shells of 20 tiger prawns, roughly chopped
Pork bone stock (or chicken stock or water) - I probably used about 1.5 litres
2 1-inch pieces of galangal, bruised
1-inch piece of young ginger, bruised
3 lemongrass stalks, bruised and roughly chopped (white part only)
Vegetable oil

For the pasta dough:
150g unbleached all-purpose flour
2 large egg yolks
a pinch of salt

For the ravioli filling:
Meat from 14 prawns
2 tbsp XO sauce (I used some from the Peninsular hotel in Beijing which I got as a gift, but any brand you like the flavour of will do - e.g. Lee Kum Kee which is easily available in many supermarkets)
1 large red chilli, deseeded and roughly chopped
1 handful of laksa leaves (I used about 3/4 of the packets you get in Cold Storage)
2 tbsp chilli-infused sesame oil (or the oil from your XO sauce)

100ml coconut cream/thick coconut milk
6-10 pretty laksa leaves
1 salted egg
20g unsalted butter
6 prawns, peeled and deveined but with the tails intact
potato starch/flour
oil
sea salt
finely ground white pepper

Peel and devein all 20 prawns, but reserve 6 with the tails intact. Set these 6 aside. Blend the flesh from the other 14 prawns with the rest of the ingredients for the ravioli filling and season with salt and pepper. If necessary, add a little more olive oil or vegetable oil so the mixture binds. Cover tightly with clingfilm and set aside in the fridge. (Can be prepared up to 1 day in advance.)

In a stockpot, gently sweat the onions, carrots, shallots and garlic in a little oil until softened, but not browned, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat. In a sauté pan, fry the prawn heads and shells in a little oil until all the shells turn a deep orange and are very fragrant. Tip the shells into the stockpot. Do this in batches if necessary to prevent the pan from overcrowding. Deglaze the pan with 1 cup of the stock, ensuring the scrape up all the caramelised bits at the bottom of the pan. Pour this liquid into the stockpot, and top it up with enough stock to cover by about an inch. Bring this to a gentle simmer, then add the lemongrass, ginger and galangal, and simmer for 1 hour, skimming off any impurities that rise to the surface. After 1 hour, strain the stock through a china cap, pressing on the solids with the back of a wooden spoon to extract all the liquids, into a smaller pot. Strain this again through a fine-grained sieve without pushing any particles through this time, then simmer gently to reduce until you have about 1 cup of liquid left. Season with salt (it’s important that you only season at the end), and set aside until ready to assemble. If desired, you can prepare this in advance, then cool and refrigerate until needed.

To make the pasta dough, lightly beat the egg yolks with the salt and add the flour - about a cup first, then slowly add in the rest until the dough is no longer sticky and wet. It should feel a LITTLE bit too dry. Knead for about 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and satiny, then wrap well in clingfilm and set aside at a cool room temperature for 30 minutes to relax. Dust your work surface and rolling pin with flour (or set up your pasta roller), and roll the pasta out until it is about 1mm thick (slightly thinner than you would roll it out for noodles like tagliatelle). Cut out 12 circles, each 5cm in diameter, then place a heaped teaspoon of the prawn filling into the centre. You should have enough dough and filling for a few extras in case of breakage. Place the ravioli on a tray lined with a sheet of waxed paper dusted with flour or semolina, dust with more flour, place another sheet of wax paper on top, and wrap well with clingfilm and keep in the fridge until needed. You can prep this a few hours in advance, or even freeze it. (If cooking from frozen, add another minute or two to the cooking time, but do not defrost it first.)

Fry the reserved laksa leaves for garnish in a little oil until crisp and translucent. Be careful not to burn them. Set aside on some kitchen towels to drain. Separate the salted egg, and steam the yolk for about 5 minutes. Allow it to cool, then chop finely.

When ready to serve, bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil. Reheat the prawn stock, keep warm, and bring the coconut cream to room temperature. Dust the reserved 6 prawns in potato starch, then fry until the flesh turns pink and the flour is golden brown and crisp. Drain on some kitchen paper. Wipe out the sauté pan, and melt 20g of butter in it, and when it starts to foam, add in the chopped, steamed salted egg yolk. Stir the yolk in until you get a foamy buttery sauce, then add the prawns to the pan, tossing to coat. Once the prawns are warmed through and well coated, remove from the heat. Cook the ravioli for 2-3 minutes (fresh pasta cooks VERY quickly, so be careful not to overcook it!), then drain onto an oiled pan (to prevent sticking).

To plate, place 2 tablespoons of the prawn stock into the bottom of each small dish. Place the cooked ravioli in the sauce, then spoon over 1-2 teaspoons of coconut cream. Top the ravioli with a prawn crusted in the salted egg yolk, and garnish with a fried laksa leaf. (See the dish/illustration.) Serve immediately, and enjoy. :)

I finally picked up a Le Creuset cast iron pot about a week or two ago, and I’ve been in heaven ever since. The reason why I never owned one before this is really just because they’re so bloody expensive, and also there’s a bit of a space issue going on in my kitchen right now. But free vouchers solved one of the problems so I’m glad to announce that I’m now the proud owner of an awesome deep-frying, stewing, risotto-making machine. Or, well, vessel, rather. And it’s yellow. :)

The first thing I did when I got back with it, apart from taking it out of the box to ooh and ahh a little more, was dig up some stew recipes I’d been wanting to try. I love stews, first because they taste so damn good, and second because they’re generally hassle free: you have about 15-20 minutes of active time prepping your food, then you ignore it for a good 30 minutes (or more) and all of a sudden dinner’s ready! Unfortunately, stews generally happen in larger portions than even bunny and I can finish, so I had to ring up a friend and bribe her into popping by for dinner. With dinner.

The first dish I cooked was a delightful chicken stew, which is sort of a play on Coq au Vin (i.e. Chicken in Red Wine), only I used a hen and cooked it in a white wine (namely, riesling here). I also decided to thicken the gravy a little by enriching it with cream before I reduced it into a luscious sauce, and all that was missing was a crusty loaf of bread to mop up all the sauce with.

Now, although most of us generally use cheap/crappy wines when we’re cooking with it (especially in such copious amounts), I would advise you to not just go out and get the cheapest bottle you can get your hands on. As with all ingredients, your quality of your final dish is always limited by the quality of the ingredients that you put into it, so while I wouldn’t waste a $800 bottle of wine in a dish where I wouldn’t be able to appreciate the subtle nuances of the wine, go pick up a decent bottle - which you should easily be able to within S$35 at your local supermarket.

Poulet au Riesling

2 tbsp olive oil
20g butter
150g streaky bacon, cut into lardons
1 large chicken (about 2kg in weight), chopped into 2-inch pieces
2 carrots, roughly chopped
2 medium white onions, peeled and quartered
6 cloves of garlic, peeled but left whole
1 bottle of Riesling
400ml whipping cream
200g baby button mushrooms
Italian flat-leaf parsley, chopped

In a large, heavy bottomed pan, melt the butter with the olive oil on medium heat. When melted, add in the bacon and cook for a few minutes until lightly browned. Remove the bacon from the pan with a slotted spoon, and set aside in a bowl. Turn the heat up, then brown the chicken (in a few batches, if necessary - to prevent overcrowding). Remove the chicken from the pan, then lower the heat, and slowly cook the carrots, onions and garlic until the onion is softened but not coloured (about 5-8 minutes). Return the chicken and bacon to the pan, turn up the heat, and add all the wine.

Quickly bring the liquid to the boil, then lower the heat and simmer partially covered for 30 minutes. Remove the chicken pieces from the stew, add in all the cream and boil to reduce the liquid until your desired consistency. It should have thickened enough to form a smooth sauce (somewhere around the consistency of whipping cream). While it is reducing, add in the mushrooms, stir through most of the parsley (reserving some for garnishing) and season with salt and black pepper. When ready to serve, add the chicken pieces back in and warm through.

Yield: Serves 4

So a couple of days ago, Chubby Hubby posted about a dessert that kinda flopped for reasons he and S couldn’t figure out.

I’ve mentioned before that my bunny isn’t a fan of anything chocolate at all, which means that I don’t really get the opportunity to play with chocolate very often. And while I’m not the world’s biggest fan of the stuff, I do enjoy it now and then. So the only logical thing for me to do was summon my chocolate fan friends (to consume it) and check out the recipe - and this way I could do something chocolatey without the bunny whining about not having a share of the dessert.

As you’ll have read in CH’s post by now, the dish is really a white chocolate soup topped with chocolate whipped cream. The individual components are pretty easy to assemble, just melting the two types of chocolate separately in a bain marie, and mixing the white with single cream and milk to form a chilled soup (which actually tasted a little like condensed milk to me), and folding the dark (with a little cocoa powder) into lightly whipped cream, which is them loosened slightly with milk to form a mousse-like cream. Now for the assembly.

The first one I tried was a little strange - the chocolate cream definitely floated, but because I kind of carelessly plopped it into the glass, it ended up suspended somewhere in the middle. Much like a very sad, dark brown iceberg. Because of the texture, I decided to try and let it “cling” to the sides of the glass, which seemed to work, until I got from one side to the other (moving across the diameter of the glass), where the white chocolate soup splashed up a little.

Third time’s a charm, evidently, since I finally figured that since it was clinging easily to the sides, I should run a little around all the sides, then fill up the middle, essentially letting the dark cream cling onto the cream that was clinging onto the sides. If you understand my rather convoluted syntax.

At the end of the mild adventure (once I’d gotten it right - everyone else wanted a go at it), I re-read the recipe to run through the steps again in my head. It seems like I may have overwhipped the cream a little in the dark chocolate layer, as I was only supposed to whisk it “until it just starts to thicken”. I went a liiiittle further and got it to in between “just starting to thicken” and “soft peaks”, which is what got me to that texture which was a little thicker than I would have liked if I were meant to drink that shot through a tiny straw, but hey - it worked. And it went through a normal straw just fine.

Related: The upside down chocolate shot on Chubby Hubby (where you can also find the recipe to this dessert).

I have a confession: I love KFC. I know it’s disgusting, I know it’s greasy, I know it doesn’t really taste like chicken and is served with stuff that doesn’t really taste like coleslaw and mashed potatoes either. But it’s KFC - its so bad it’s good.

If I could, I’d probably veer towards Popeye’s for my fried chicken fix every so often. Problem being, the only Popeye’s I know of are both in Changi Airport (in Terminal 1 and 3), and that’s not exactly what you’d call my backyard.

A friend of mine came back from Hong Kong for the long weekend, and I decided to make dinner for her. On the menu, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and coleslaw - that’s right, we were having homemade KFC.

The chicken was really easy to do, I steeped it overnight in buttermilk that I had first infused with some dried rosemary and nutmeg. When ready to eat, I just dredged it thickly in all-purpose flour that was seasoned with a little more nutmeg, crushed dried rosemary, a couple of random other things I might have thrown in, salt and pepper. I then deep fried it at 180C until golden brown on the outside, and finished off the cooking in a 180C preheated oven.

The sides were equally easy. I julienned half a head of purple cabbage and 1 large carrot, chopped some radishes into matchsticks and very finely sliced one scallion. I then tossed this to evenly distribute the vegetables before adding in my premixed dressing of 1 small bottle of store-bought mayonnaise (225ml), 5 tbsp of white wine vinegar (since I didn’t have any cider vinegar), 3-4 tbsp of caster sugar, and salt and pepper to taste. When well mixed, I just covered the nonreactive bowl with clingfilm, and chucked it in the fridge to sit for at least an hour. The potatoes were done in my usual style, i.e. peel them, boil them in salted water until tender, then mash with copious amounts of butter, season to taste with salt, then whip with cream and milk.

The entire dinner was a breeze to make - especially since all I had to assemble at the end was the fried chicken. Once I crack a gravy recipe, I may just have found a KFC replacement; and right in my own kitchen!

For the past year, there’s been one thing in particular that my bunny has been begging me to make. Ever since last Easter, she’s been pleading with me indefatigably to make her hot cross buns.

All of us have one of those dishes - something that transports you back to your childhood; which reminds you of those times you’d spend curled up with your mom (or [insert significant relative here]), sneaking off to buy these treats which the two of you shared in secret, lest your dad find out and scold the both of you again for wasting money. That’s what hot cross buns are to bunny, and since last year I didn’t manage to make them for her, I made up my mind to get it done by hook or by crook this week.

Now, that’s really easier said than done. You see, the last time I ate a hot cross bun was at least 10 years ago. Maybe even 15! I have no idea what they taste like anymore - apart from them being mildly sweet and being filled with dried fruit (which I don’t particularly like). All I really remember of them is that tune, and - even then - I often confuse it with the “Three Blind Mice” tune. Not a good start, I know. And although I’m more comfortable cooking savoury dishes, even when it comes to baking and desserts, I tend to prefer choosing recipes whose flavours and steps I can sort of envision as I read through them. None of the hot cross bun recipes I found really did that for me, so I ended up sorta winging it - taking a little from a Donna Hay book that I got last year, another from an issue of Waitrose Food Illustrated, and filling in the gaps in between with other recipes online, and then taking some creative leaps of faith.

Baking them, too, was not altogether uneventful. Because of the mixture of recipes, I ended up not really having a guide to follow. I realise now that I probably should have tried one recipe in its entirety first before having taken some creative license, but hey, at least it turned out pretty well.


Hot Cross Buns
(based mostly on a recipe from Donna Hay’s Modern Classics Book 2)

1 tbsp active dry yeast
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 1/2 cups milk at about 35C
4 1/2 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tbsp mixed spice
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp fine salt
50g unsalted butter, melted
1 egg
2 cups sultanas, mixed peel, candied cherries, or whatever else you can get your hands on
1/2 cup extra flour
2 tbsp vegetable oil (use something mild tasting)
1 tbsp water

For glaze:
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp water
2 tsp powdered gelatine

Gently stir the yeast into the milk with 2 tbsp of the sugar. Set it aside for about 5-10 minutes until it begins to froth, so you know that the yeast is active. Sift together the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, mixed spice, and salt.

Add the egg and melted butter into the yeast mixture, stir in the remaining sugar, then - using a small spatula - stir in the remaining dry ingredients until a sticky dough forms. Scrape the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, then knead until an elastic, springy dough forms (about 10 minutes). I re-dusted the surface with 2-3 tbsp more flour during this period. Place the dough into an oiled bowl, then cover with a damp dishcloth and set aside in a warm, draught-free place to rise until it has doubled in size (about 1 hour).

Preheat your oven to 190C, and grease a 9″ square cake tin, then line with non-stick greaseproof paper. (I don’t have a 9″ square tin, so I used a couple of smaller ones.) When the dough has risen, scrape it back out of the bowl, and divide it into 12 pieces. Roll each piece into a tight ball, then place into your prepared baking tin. Leave to rise for another 30 minutes, or until the balls of dough have expanded such that they are very snugly sitting next to each other in the tins. Mix the extra flour, oil and water together, then pipe crosses onto the buns. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until well browned and springy but firm to the touch.

While the buns are in the oven, make the glaze. Place the sugar and 1/4 cup water into a small, heavy-based saucepan on high heat until it dissolves. You may need to remove sugar crystals from the sides of the pan using a pastry brush dipped in water. Sprinkle the gelatine over the remaining 1 tbsp water, then add this to the pan once the sugar has dissolved. Boil for 1 minute, then remove from the heat.

When the buns are done, remove them from their pans onto a rack to cool. Drizzle or brush the glaze over, then cool completely on the rack. Eat them toasted with plenty of butter. :)

Yield: Makes 12 buns

Note: Okay wow, I just youtubed the Hot Cross Buns nursery rhyme, and it’s not at all like how I remember. It’s actually rather awful. I know some of you are on your way to youtubing it now, so here you go. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

When I throw dinner parties, people seldom request for particular dishes. I’m virtually incapable of making any decisions, which means that while I can most likely put together any recipe that makes sense, make variations on traditional recipes, or come up with my own, I normally end up with a ridiculously long list of possible dishes, and it’s generally near impossible for me to cut them down and shape them into an N-course dinner.

But that’s most people. Once in a while, someone will make a statement that starts to shape my menu along like, “I don’t like duck confit - it’s always very dry or way too salty.” And I’ll volunteer to change that perception. Or even better, “I WANT PROFITEROLES.”

Those two statements, however, shaped up my menu for Wednesday’s dinner party. Profiteroles are something most people left behind in the 80’s, along with bad hair and strange music videos, but I personally love them. If done well, the fresh choux pastry forms a pillowy hollow into which vanilla bean-infused crème pâtissière is piped. Dust over with icing sugar, and then serve with chocolate sauce running down the sides of of the buns, and you have a nugget of heaven - ready to be consumed, leaving you speechless (or incapable of speech, perhaps, depending on the size of the pastry), as the flavours of the slightly salty choux, sweet and velvety custard, intense chocolate sauce come together in your mouth.

Profiteroles with chocolate sauce

1 quantity choux pastry (recipe follows)
1 quantity crème pâtissière (recipe follows)
100g dark chocolate
20g butter
whipping cream
honey
icing sugar to garnish

Preheat your oven to 200C. Make the choux pastry, then fill a piping bag with a large plain piping tip. Pipe onto a large baking sheet lined with wax paper (or a silpat), forming about 30 mounds, leaving space between each mound for expansion. Bake for 15-18 minutes, until puffed and golden brown. Remove from the oven, cool on a rack and store in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

Make the crème pâtissière, and store in a piping bag with a small plain nozzle in the fridge for up to 3 days. I personally prefer making it fresh, as it becomes a little stiffer and harder to pipe after it’s been sitting in the fridge.

When ready to serve, melt the dark chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water until completely melted. Mix in honey to taste (I used about 1 tbsp?), and when fully incorporated, pour in enough cream so that the consistency of the chocolate is that of pouring cream. Using the nozzle of the piping bag, poke a hole in the base of a profiterole, and pipe in the custard until it starts to spill out of the bottom. Repeat to fill all the profiteroles. Stack them together on individual serving plates or in a huge mound in the middle, dust with icing sugar, then drizzle the chocolate sauce over.

Choux Pastry
(based from Gordon Ramsay’s Just Desserts)
5 tbsp milk
5 tbsp water
2 tbsp sweetened condensed milk
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
70g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
85g unbleached all-purpose flour, sifted
3 large eggs, lightly beaten

Put milk, water, condensed milk, salt and butter into a heavy-based saucepan. Heat gently until the butter melts. Bring the liquid to a boil, then add all the flour in at once. Remove from heat, stir until the mixture starts to come together, then return to low heat, beating vigorously until it becomes a smooth, thick paste that comes away from the side of the pan cleanly.

Tip into the bowl of your standing mixer and leave to cool for about 5 minutes. Secure the bowl to your standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, then gradually work in the eggs a quarter at a time, increasing the speed to high for 10 second bursts between additions to aerate the mixture. Continue until you have a smooth paste which is roughly the texture of a stiff cake mix. You may not need to add all the egg.

Cool until the choux is thick enough to spoon or pipe (5-10 minutes).

Crème Pâtissière
(adapted from Eggs by Michel Roux)

4 egg yolks
85g caster sugar
25g plain flour
3300ml milk
1 vanilla pod, split and scraped
a litle icing sugar or butter

Combine egg yolks and 30g sugar in a bowl and whisk it to a light ribbon consistency. Add the flour and whisk in thoroughly.

In a saucepan, heat the milk with the rest of the sugar and the vanilla pod. Once it comes to the boil, pour it into the egg yolk mixture, stirring as you go. Return the mixture to the saucepan, and bring to the boil over a medium heat, stirring continuously. Allow the mixture to bubble for 2 minutes, stirring all the while, then tip it into a clean bowl. To prevent a skin from forming, dust the surface with a veil of icing sugar or dot all over with flakes of butter. Once cool, the pastry cream , still stirring, for two min, then tip it into a bowl.

To prevent a skin forming, dust the surface w a veil of icing sugar or dot all over w little flakes of butter. Refrigerate once cool if not using immediately.

Yield: 30-35 profiteroles, i.e. serves about 6-7.

Photo credit: Photo at the start of the post was taken and uploaded by jon lin.

Bunny’s friend came over for dinner last night, and since she’s been whining a little (okay a lot) about us leaving for HK, I decided to do a slightly nicer menu that I usually do for occasion-less dinner parties. I was originally intending to do 5 courses - a tasting portion of XO scallop pasta, cream of mushroom soup infused with thyme and truffle oil (which I talked about here), a roast pork belly, duck leg confit, and profiteroles for dessert. I got lazy in the end and scrapped the pasta, but still ended up with a 4 course dinner that managed to impress.

While watching the Asian Food Channel one day, I saw a recipe for Pressed Belly of Pork on Gordon Ramsay’s The F Word. It seemed simple enough, and after a spot of googling, I found the recipe and decided to try it out. It was a great success, and everyone crunching away happily on their crackling loved it. I especially loved how tender the meat was, and the thin layer of soft fat remaining melted beautifully in contrast with the crackling. Also, it’s fairly simple to do, and - like most great recipes to pack away in the Entertaining section of your recipes folder - it’s best prepared the day before. I would probably add a splash of vinegar to the gravy though, as I thought it could have done with a slightly tart angle. Alternatively, spread a little dijon over your pork before digging in.

Pressed Belly of Pork
(Adapted from Gordon Ramsay’s The F Word)

1kg fresh pork belly, skin on
2 heads of garlic
a bunch of fresh thyme (about 7 or 8 sprigs)
white wine
chicken stock (I made stock using a carcass and mirepoix of vegetables)
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
optional: dijon mustard

Preheat the oven to 175C. Lay the pork belly on a clean cutting board, and using a very sharp knife, score the skin of the pork belly evenly in a criss-cross pattern. Season well on all sides with salt and pepper, a couple of glugs of olive oil, and rub the seasoning into the skin. Use the pork to mop up all the seasonings on the cutting board. Cut the garlic heads in half crosswise, then lay them - cut side up - in the bottom of an ovenproof pan or roasting tray. Rest the thyme on top of the garlic, then lay the pork belly over the garlic. This will prop the pork up to allow the fat to render out, and infuse the pork with the garlic and thyme while cooking. Pour about 100ml of white wine into the pan around the pork, cover loosely with foil, and roast for 2 hours.

After 2 hours, take the pork out, let it rest on a cutting board, and make your gravy. Pour/spoon off all but 2 tbsp of oil from the pan, then heat it over a high flame. Deglaze the pan with white wine (I probably used about 200ml), then use a wooden spoon to scrape all the bits off the bottom of the pan, and mash the garlic heads and mix it in. Reduce by half, then add 100ml of chicken stock, lower the heat, and reduce to 1/3 the amount. Strain the gravy, pressing down on the garlic with the back of the wooden spoon. Let it cool, cover with clingfilm, and keep refrigerated.

Transfer the pork, skin side up, to a non-reactive dish, and cover with another dish, pressing down. Weigh the top tray down with some tins, and chill in the fridge for 6 hours or overnight. When chilled, the flattened, compact shape will have set.

When ready to serve, preheat oven to 250C. Cut the pork into cubes, and place on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the crackling is crispy, and the meat is completely warmed through. Scrape off the layer of fat from the gravy, then bring to a boil in a saucepan. Correct seasoning, then serve the pork belly with warm gravy

Yield: Serves 6-8.

I’m not a fan of mushrooms. In fact, I quite dislike them. There’s something about both the taste and texture which just doesn’t appeal to me. When I was a kid (and a fan of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup - which, obviously, tastes nothing like mushrooms….), I never understood why dining in restaurants that served “home made mushroom soup” always meant that the soup would taste foul. A couple of years later, it suddenly dawned on me that it was the mushroomy taste I couldn’t stand. I know, I wasn’t the smartest kid on the block (tastewise anyway)!

6 months ago, when I started considering a career in a professional kitchen, I decided that it would be prudent to expand my tastes to beyond enoki and grilled button mushrooms which both don’t really taste particularly mushroomy. (Probably why I didn’t mind them so much.) I figured that even if I didn’t like them, I needed to know what they were supposed to taste like so that I’d be able to tell if a dish I was cooking was properly seasoned, whether or not I liked the mushrooms in them. This decision was a great joy to bunny, as she’s one of the hugest fans of mushrooms I’ve ever met, and has obviously been quite sore about my constant refusal to ever cook anything with mushrooms in it for her.

Last night, I decided to make a mushroom soup for dinner. Mushroom soup is really easy to make, and if I were to do it at home, I figured I could control the taste such that it would be mild enough for me to enjoy, without completely hiding the mushroom taste. Furthermore, it negates one of the the two reasons I don’t like mushrooms - the texture. Here’s a recipe that’s really easy to do, and can easily be poshed up with a garnish of truffle oil for a dinner party. And lest you don’t believe that someone who hates mushrooms can make a dish filled with them, the other 3 mushroom-lovers at the table loved it, so hopefully that’s testament enough for you. :)

Note: I made my own vegetable stock for this soup (simply boiling up a mirepoix of leek, celery, onion and carrot), but if you don’t have time nor the energy, just buy a tin of vegetable stock/broth. Be careful with the seasoning as some tinned stocks come salted, unlike the home made stock that I used. If you can’t find vegetable stock and aren’t cooking for vegetarians, you can always substitute light chicken stock.

Mushroom Soup

1 large white onion, peeled and finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
6 stalks of thyme, leaves picked
600g assorted mushrooms (I used a mixture of shiitake, swiss mushrooms, and porcini)
olive oil
30g butter
vegetable stock (I used about 1.5 litres)
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
100ml cream, plus extra for garnishing
optional: truffle oil, and a few sprigs of thyme

Sauté the onion and garlic in a little olive oil in a medium-sized, heavy-based pot until translucent and fragrant. Add in the thyme leaves and heat through until the onion just starts to colour. Remove from heat and set aside.

Slice the mushrooms, and sauté them in olive oil and butter in 3-4 batches until all the liquid that comes out has evaporated off. Salt them lightly while sautéing. I would also cook all the same mushrooms together and not mix them as different mushrooms may have different cooking times (i.e. sauté all the shiitake in one batch etc).

As you are done cooking each batch of mushrooms, dump them all into the pot with the onions, garlic and thyme. Once all the mushrooms are done, pour in enough vegetable stock to cover the mushrooms by about 1-2cm (depending on how wide your pot is). Season well with pepper, bring the liquid to a boil, then reduce the heat to low, cover the pot partially and simmer for 45 minutes to 1 hour, stirring occasionally, and checking that the pot doesn’t dry out.

Remove 1/2 cup of the mushrooms, roughly chop them, and return them to a clean pot which will fit all the soup. In batches, blend the mushrooms well and sieve them into the new pot. Add in the cream, and more vegetable stock if necessary to adjust the consistency to your liking, and bring to a simmer again. Taste, season with salt and black pepper, then keep warm until ready to serve. If you’re preparing this in advance, you can let it cool, then keep in a covered container in the fridge for 2-3 days.

I like to serve my soups in a shallow bowl, with a splash of cream and a few drops of truffle oil, garnished with a sprig of thyme.

Yield: Serves 6

I love crab. However, as a fan of crustaceans in general, I usually find myself opting for the easier-to-reach variety like prawns, lobster, and crayfish. Hence, it’s really no surprise that I’m a huge fan of crab cakes - they simply spell out delicious crab without all the hard work of digging through the shells for the gorgeous little nuggets of flesh.

One problem, however, is that the crab cakes one finds in most restaurants, cafes and bars these days are really more fish cakes than crab cakes. Worse, many of them have mountains of fillers in them - ranging from breadcrumbs to mashed potatoes. More often than not, I end up feeling like I’m eating a korroke (a little lump of minced meat which is encased in mashed potato, battered, breaded and deep fried as a popular Japanese snack item) rather than crab cakes. These, to me, should have chunks of crab meat, plenty of fresh flavour, fried to golden brown perfection on the outside and steaming hot on the inside. Also, I personally prefer them served with a fairly simple sauce which will heighten the flavour more than drown out the fishiness which diners hopefully won’t detect.

Having found a tub of claw crab meat, I decided to try out making these things on my own. I would, of course, recommend that you use live crabs which you kill and cook on your own as nothing beats them, but if you don’t have the time (or can’t be bothered like me), you can easily find good quality pasteurised crab meat in tins nowadays. I also added a bit of potato as I felt that it lightened the texture significantly in an amount that would not detract from the taste of the main ingredients.

Crab Cakes with Basil Aioli

For the crab cakes:
400g white fish fillets (I use dory)
1 egg
50g boiled potato
400g crab meat (either a mixture of dark and white meat from a live crab, or claw meat from a tin)
salt & freshly ground pepper to taste
1 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
5 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 small red onion, finely diced
about 1/2 cup Japanese panko for breading
canola oil (or any other mild tasting oil) for deep frying

Cut the fish into small chunks, then blitz with the egg, potato, and garlic in a food processor until sticky and completely pulverised. This helps them to bind together without the use of breadcrumbs and other fillers.

In a medium mixing bowl, fold the fish paste, crab meat, lemon juice, and onion together. Season with salt and pepper, then break off a little piece and fry it to check your seasoning. Divide the mixture into 15 balls, roll them tightly, then press to flatten into a disc that’s 0.5cm thick. Roll in panko to coat, then refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or until ready to cook.

For the aioli:

1 egg yolk
1 large clove of garlic, finely minced
100ml olive oil (not extra virgin)
2 tbsp lemon juice
salt
5 large leaves of basil, cut into chiffonade

Whisk the egg yolk and garlic together until the colour turns pale. Slowly drizzle in the oil, whisking continuously to emulsify, and continue until all the oil is used up. Whisk in the lemon juice and salt to taste, then stir in the basil. Keep refrigerated in a covered container until ready to serve.

To serve:

Heat about 1cm of canola oil in a heavy based saucepan to 170C. Fry for 1-2 minutes on one side until golden brown, then flip over to finish cooking. You know that the cakes are cooked through when a metal skewer pierced into the middle of the cake feels hot on your lower lip.

Serve with basil aioli.

Yield: Makes 15.

While the bunny was working for a couple of years in Tokyo, she drank so much coffee (and got so stressed out) that it gave her a gastric ulcer. As a result, she no longer can drink coffee on a regular basis. That hasn’t stopped her from absolutely loving the taste of it, and whenever she can, she takes a sip of my latte or indulges in coffee-flavoured cakes and desserts.

I haven’t baked in a while - mostly because I’m too tired on my off days, despite having a file brimming with recipes that I want to try. Last night, I decided that I’d bake today, and remembered that bunny had loved this espresso buttercream so much the last time I made it that she’d piped the remainder straight into her mouth, and skipped around the chocolate cupcakes I’d paired them with (being the chocolate-hater that she is). Apparently, her colleagues also miss my housewifery, as they haven’t had their Tuesday Treats (as my baked goodies had been dubbed, since Monday was my usual off day for October and November), so I made enough for all of them to share.

The cupcake recipe was taken off Chockylit’s recipe for Vietnamese Coffee Cupcakes, only I used strongly brewed normal coffee straight out of my espresso machine, as I figured that since she’d paired it with a Sweetened Condensed Milk Pudding and slightly sweetened whipped cream, it couldn’t be one of those insanely sweet cupcake recipes. She’s also got a whole bunch of recipes that I’ve been wanting to try out, so this was as good as any to start with. (Note: Weighing in approx 50g of batter into each cupcake liner - which filled them slightly over the halfway mark - gave me 30, not 24 cupcakes.)

Chocolate coated coffee beans are also so easy to make and delicious (just melt some semi-sweet chocolate in a bain-marie or microwave, then stir in the required number of beans, and let cool in the refrigerator for 15 minutes on a tray lined with silicone paper), so they were a no-brainer to choose for this triple-shot morning-coffee cupcake.

Espresso Buttercream

2 eggs
1/2 cup caster sugar
a pinch of salt
1/4 sheet of gelatine, softened in cold water
250g unsalted butter, cut into 2cm cubes, at room temperature
4 tbsp strong espresso, cooled

Special Equipment:
Instant read thermometer
Stand mixer

1. Crack the eggs into the bowl of your stand mixer with the sugar and salt. Whisk together briefly with a hand-mixer. Bring 2cm of water to the boil in a small saucepan, and rest the bowl of your stand mixer over the saucepan, ensuring that the base does not come into contact with the water. Squeeze the excess water out of the gelatine, then whisk constantly until the temperature reaches 70 deg Celsius. The mixture should be very pale, foamy, and increase by about 4x in volume.

2. Re-attach the mixing bowl to your stand mixer, then beat at high speed for about 5 minutes or until cooled to room temperature. THIS STEP IS IMPORTANT, DO NOT UNDER-BEAT. When the mixture has cooled, reduce the speed to medium and add the butter in one cube at a time. It will probably curdle halfway through, but it should smoothen out into a velvety buttercream by the time you add the last cube.

3. Add the espresso in, scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula, then beat on high speed for 1 minute. Spread/smear/pipe onto cooled cupcakes and consume immediately, or store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days before using. In the event that the buttercream feels too stiff to use, just tip it back into your stand mixer and whip it thoroughly for 30 seconds to soften it.

Yield: Makes enough to top 30 medium-sized cupcakes as shown in the picture above.