It’s no secret by now how much I love cake. Cupcakes, muffins, teacakes, cakey breads, coffeecakes; iced, frosted, buttercreamed, or any which way, cakes are all good. They’re delicious and never fail to hit the spot (when done well anyway).

One of my favourite teacakes, though, is the financier. There’s a little bit of debate going around as to the origins of their names – some say it’s due to the traditional rectangular mold used to bake them in which makes them resemble gold ingots, others say it’s because the cakes became popular around the financial district of Paris, as finance-types found it easy to grab one of these very portable cakes on the way back to the office after lunch or meetings.

Whatever the etymology of its name, I personally remember wheedling my mum into a pit stop whenever we would pass by a Delifrance when I was a kid. Now, I know as well as you do that Delifrance really isn’t the gold standard one measures Parisian pastries against, but those financiers were (and still are) irresistable to me. I’d take a box of 6 home, and toast them one by one until piping hot and slightly crispy around the edges, and enjoy them in my room, as I took a break from homework or studying, with a glass of cold milk.

And the best part? The batter really couldn’t be easier to assemble. The basic financier comprises powdered sugar, egg whites, browned butter and almond flour (held together with a little extra cake flour), but there’s no beating to stiff peaks, creaming, or any elbow grease involved. This is, in fact, a perfect recipe for those without stand mixers in your kitchen. I did tweak my go-to recipe a little to incorporate my favourite nut, and it does add in an extra dimension of fiddliness since you need to grind the pistachios quite finely or the texture of the teacakes won’t be right. (The key to this is to do it in small batches so your grinder doesn’t overheat and the nuts don’t turn to a nut butter.)

The one thing you do have to pay attention during though, is the browning of your butter. There’s about 10-20 seconds tops that separates browned butter from burnt butter. And having learnt the hard way that there are some times when one shouldn’t multitask in the kitchen, keep an eye on your butter once it starts to bubble and foam. The moment you start smelling hazelnuts and the milk solids in the bottom of the pan have turned a deep brown, remove the pan from the heat and scrape the butter out into a cool bowl. (The residual heat from the pan – especially if you’re using a thick-based one – could easily bring your butter past the point of no return.)

Pistachio Financiers
(adapted from Sherry Yard’s The Secrets of Baking)

230g unsalted butter
55g almond meal
55g shelled pistachios, plus more to garnish
90g cake flour
280g powdered sugar
8 large egg whites, at room temperature

Melt the butter in a heavy-based saucepan over medium heat. Cook until the solids separate and brown to a dark golden colour, 7-10 minutes. Immediately pour off into a clean bowl, scraping out all of the browned bits at the bottom of the pan, and let cool at room temperature until it reaches around 20ºC. Be sure not to chill it, as it needs to remain in liquid form (but it also can’t be hot when you add it to the rest of the ingredients or the cake will turn out gooey and clumpy).

Preheat your oven to 180ºC. Adjust the rack to the centre of the oven. Spray or grease your moulds, and dust lightly with flour, tapping out any excess flour.

Finely grind the pistachios in a food processor, in batches if necessary. Toast the extra pistachios for garnish in the oven for 5-10 minutes, then pulse in the food processor to roughly chop, or crush with the base of a heavy skillet.

Sift together the almond meal, ground pistachios, cake flour and powdered sugar into the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Turn the machine on low and mix the dry ingredients for 30 seconds. Add the egg whites all at once and mix on medium speed for 3 minutes.

Add the cooled browned butter all at once, including all of the browned bits. Mix for 3 minutes on medium speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl well (the butter tends to sink to the bottom). Financier batter will keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. When using refrigerated batter, be sure to bring it back to room temperature, then stir the entire mixture from the bottom up to the top to reincorporate any separated butter.

Fill each mold about two-thirds full, top with a little of the roughly chopped pistachios, and bake, rotating once halfway through for even browning, for 12-15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Let cool in the pan on a rack for 5 minutes, then invert the financiers onto the rack and cool completely before serving. Financiers taste best on the day they’ve been baked, but, wrapped airtight, will keep at room temperature for up to 2 days, or in the freezer for up to 2 weeks.

Yield: around 30 financiers

Whilst sifting through my blog for inspiration one afternoon this week (I had drunkenly invited a friend and his girlfriend over for dinner and had no idea what to cook but wanted to impress), it came to my attention that there’s a huge discrepancy in the number of Asian vs Western recipes I post. Some of this is due to my not being a huge fan of Asian desserts, so all dessert recipes I post automatically add to the Western category, and also thanks to how most of the Chinese food I cook at home (stir-frys, fried rice, Chinese soups, steamed fish) doesn’t tend to be very photogenic.

Another big contributing reason is that when I cook Asian or Chinese food, I very rarely measure anything. It’s a splash of this and a pinch of that, tasting and adding more of whatever is lacking. I’m bad enough when I make a simple pasta at home, but at least it’s easy enough for me to write a recipe starting out with x grams of pasta and y rashers of bacon.

Sometime last year, I was poking around in my pantry, having spotted a packet of Beijing style noodles (they just sort of looked like dried udon sticks, to be honest), and pulled together a dish that was a big hit with one of my especially noodle-loving friends. For some strange reason, we started referring to it as “the sort of dan dan mian” even though the only way it resembled dan dan mian was that it was a dry-ish noodle dish. I did a little bit of research and apparently what I made was very similar to Taiwanese braised pork (which is then served on rice, or all manner of noodles), and it’s also, in fact, quite similar to Japanese soboro. It’s a rich, savoury-yet-tinged-with-sweet meat sauce, and it actually could pass off for a plate of spag bol in these pictures, sans hard-boiled egg and cinnamon stick. For ease of reference, I decided to note down estimated amounts of the seasonings so I don’t end up having to search high and low when I next decide to make this and can’t find a single dan dan mian recipe that even closely resembles the dish I’m thinking of. And now you guys get to benefit too. :)

This dish is quite aggressively seasoned with Chinese five spice powder (generally a blend of cinnamon, star anise, fennel, clove and ginger, and easily available at any grocery store with an Asian section) which I pumped up with whole star anise and cinnamon. The spices marry very well with the fatty pork, but if you prefer to make this dish a little healthier, just swap out the pork belly for an equal weight of lean minced pork, and halve the amount of Chinese five spice powder (you can always add more in later if you find it not fragrant enough). As for the rest of the sauces, don’t be intimidated by the seemingly long list of ingredients – most Asian kitchens should have some if not all of them. If you’re missing anything, I wouldn’t bother to buy an entire bottle just for this dish, so just substitute with whatever you have. You should be able to taste the sweet, salty and spices each in their own right.

And on that (Asian) note, I’d also like to wish all of you a Happy Chinese New Year, and may you have a healthy and prosperous Year of the Dragon! ROAR.

Taiwanese Braised Pork Noodles

2 tbsp canola oil
5 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 2-inch piece of ginger, peeled and bruised with the flat of your knife
2 pieces of whole star anise
1 3-inch stick of cinnamon
200g minced pork
200g pork belly, minced or chopped into fine dice
1/4 cup Shaoxing cooking wine
3 tsp Chinese five spice powder
2 tbsp oyster sauce
3 tbsp dark soy sauce
3 tbsp thick dark sweet sauce (the type served with Hainanese chicken rice)
3 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp fish sauce (or light soy sauce)
salt & ground white pepper
*optional: 4 dried Chinese mushrooms, rehydrated and finely chopped
4 hard boiled eggs (I generally try to undercook them when pre-boiling them since they’re gonna be sitting in the sauce simmering for a while more after)

600g dried Chinese flour noodles (the white sort, not the yellow/eggy sort), or whatever you prefer, or steamed rice!
fresh coriander

Heat the oil in a medium sized saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and ginger and slowly cook until lightly browned and very fragrant. Add in the star anise and cinnamon, and toast the whole spices for an additional minute.

Raise the heat to high, tip all of the pork in and cook, stirring constantly, to brown the meat. Break up any large clumps of minced pork. Once the meat is browned (about 6-8 minutes), add in the shaoxing wine and Chinese five spice powder. Mix well, and allow the wine to cook off, about 3 minutes. Add the rest of the sauces, sugar, and mushrooms if using, and season with a few shakes of white pepper. (There’s no need to add salt for now, as the sauces all add a lot of saltiness already.) Add about a cup of water, bring it to the boil, then reduce the heat to low. Add the peeled hard-boiled eggs in and gently simmer for 30-45 minutes. Check the water level and give it a stir every 5-10 minutes, turning the eggs in the sauce, and topping up with additional liquid if necessary. Taste, and adjust the seasoning as necessary.

In a separate pot, bring 3-inches of water to the boil. Cook your noodles according to the instructions on the packet, then drain and divide equally between four bowls. Top each bowl with 3-4 spoonfuls of the braised meat sauce, and an egg. Garnish with some freshly chopped coriander, and serve immediately.

Yield: Serves 4

Note: This sauce also freezes well, so by all means double or triple the recipe and freeze it for next time, but without the eggs. (Freshly boil the eggs and add them to the sauce when reheating to serve. They won’t be as strongly flavoured but they’re also much less likely to be overcooked!)

Recipes are a divisive thing. Everyone’s got an opinion on which is the most authentic or the best. And if there’s a type of recipe that gets everyone’s panties in a twist, it’s how you make a cocktail. This is probably since you don’t need to know how to cook to be able to make a cocktail, and that opens the floor to just about anybody’s opinionatedness. And as much as I often appreciate digging into the history of a dish and researching the original way of making it, there’s often room for improvement and for tweaking something to suit one’s tastes, while still respecting what it’s meant to taste like.

The old fashioned – known for being (one of?) the first cocktail(s), before cocktails were even known as cocktails – was originally made with a small lump of sugar, saturated with a couple dashes of butters and a short splash of water, muddled to dissolve, then topped up with rye and ice, and garnished with a strip of lemon zest. (Yes, rye was the original spirit of choice – bourbon only gained traction post-prohibition when rye became less common and the sweeter spirit gained popularity.) No cherries, no smushed fruit, no extra soda, none of that simple syrup nonsense. The thing is, since you’re not making a mojito or another cocktail that has fresh herbs or leaves that you need to bruise against the granules of sugar, using simple syrup won’t detract from your cocktail-making or drinking experience. Also, when you muddle the sugar with bitters and water, you might end up with some undissolved sugar at the bottom of your glass which makes the last (and already most diluted) sip of your drink super sweet. If you don’t mind this, go ahead and start with half a cube of sugar, but if you do, don’t let anyone make you feel bad about going the simple syrup route.

I recently discovered a brand of rye whiskey, (ri)1 (pronounced rye one), which is made by Jim Beam. Now, I should probably come out and say right here that the packaging was what caught my eye. I mean, jeez, look at that bottle! It’s so pretty. So, so pretty. As far as rye goes, I have to admit that I don’t know much about the stuff. I don’t really know very much about many types of alcohol – whether it’s wine, beer, sake or whisky – I just tend to adopt the same approach of asking one simple question: “is it yummy?” If so, take note of the name and continue to order. If not, take note of the name and avoid like the plague. This rye is a fairly smooth and sweet rye – it’s not as dry as some other brands I’ve tasted, but it still has that familiar spicy and peppery nose to it.

Okay, and this is where things are going to get a little hairy. So here’s your warning – if you’re one of those purists, you should stop reading now. I’ve tried a number of old fashioneds, and there are a couple of things that I’ve decided that I look for in mine. Most importantly, it shouldn’t be diluted with any extra soda – the melting ice will do a perfectly decent job of gently watering my drink down. I also really don’t like when it’s too sweet, especially to the point of it not really tasting like whisky anymore. Not being a fan of bourbon, I also get quite unhappy if an old fashioned is made with bourbon seeing as it’s pretty much all you’ll be tasting. Some extras which are nice but not necessary including my preference for orange over lemon peel as garnish, and I’ll only accept a garnishing brandied (or maraschino) cherry if it’s homemade, in which case it can actually be quite nice to have it muddled into the drink.

So there you go, this is most definitely not an old fashioned old fashioned. But I think it’s quite delicious, and it also gives you something to do with all those brandied cherries that you may have just made. :)

New Fangled Old Fashioned

1 brandied cherry (see this post for recipe)
1/2 a thin slice fresh orange
2 drops Angostura bitters
60ml rye whiskey – I use (ri)1
5ml simple syrup

1 strip orange zest, to garnish
1 brandied cherry, to garnish

Combine the cherry, orange slice, and bitters in a mixing glass, and muddle gently with the back of a spoon. Add 4-6 ice cubes, rye and simple syrup, briskly stir to combine. Strain into a lowball glass over a couple of fresh ice cubes (to taste). When I remember to make them in advance, I like to use one huge ice cube, instead of a few small ones, since these big cubes melt and dilute your drink slower.

Fold the orange peel over on itself and twist it about a little to express the citrus oil, and rub the rim of the glass with the zest before dropping it in, and garnish with another brandied cherry.

Drink immediately.

Yield: Makes 1.

I hate brandied cherries. Well, to be fair, I’m not the biggest fan of fruit that comes in any form apart from fresh or as juice. (I particularly dislike dried fruit and that annoying knack they seem to have for appearing in my cake or cookie which just destroys the entire eating experience for me.) But brandied cherries, as far as I was concerned, deserve a special place in hell all for their sickly sweet, horror-face-and-gag-reflex-inducing qualities. Why anyone would voluntarily include them in desserts or cocktails was far beyond my comprehension.

So why then am I writing an entire post about them? Those of you who spend any time with me at all know that I’ve spent the last few months more or less obsessed with this little bar tucked away down a market street in Central, Hong Kong. It’s a really comfortable and well decorated place, with low muted lighting, soft jazz in the background (and live music once a week!), delicious food (I particularly love their lobster rolls and Cobb salads), and a delightful range of whisky. They’re also pretty famous for their well-crafted cocktails, and it was in one such cocktail that I tried their house-made brandied cherries.

And what a breath of fresh air they were! These tiny nuggets, skewered on a gorgeous metal cocktail stick, they actually tasted like cherries. Hints of spice and refreshingly scented with brandy, instead of reeking of it. On my fourth visit there in one week, I tried and tried my darnedest to sweet talk the bartender into telling me how they made them, but it turns out even they don’t know. Their concept manager makes them, guarding his recipe very closely, and delivers the already marinated cherries by the tub to the bar.

It was then that I figured I had no choice but to try and recreate them on my own if I ever wanted to figure it out. After a couple of days of crazy googling and recipe-note-scribbling, I still haven’t quite cracked their recipe – those cherries are a lot smaller, so I suspect they must use dried cherries that are rehydrated in the syrup, which I suppose I’ll try next time round. But I’m quite delighted with what I’ve managed to come up with at home. These are quite delicious, spooned straight from the bottle, and I imagine they’ll go as nicely over a scoop or two of vanilla ice cream as they do with these Old Fashioneds I’ve just figured out how to make (I’ll write about that in the next post!) :)

Brandied Cherries

600g sweet red cherries
100g sugar
50g water
25g lemon juice (zest + juice of 1/2 lemon)
2 cloves
1 vanilla pod
1 3-inch cinnamon stick
150g brandy

Wash and pit the cherries, saving the pits. Tie the pits together in a clean square of cheesecloth. Wash and sterilize an appropriately sized mason jar, and leave it in an oven set at 100ºC (for at least 10 minutes).

Combine the sugar, water, lemon zest and juice, cloves, vanilla pod and cinnamon stick in a medium-sized, heavy-based saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil, swirling to make sure all of the sugar dissolves. Reduce the heat to medium-low and add in the cherries and pits, stirring gently to make sure that you don’t turn the cherries to mush. Simmer for 4 minutes, then remove from heat and add the brandy, gently mixing to combine.

Transfer the cherries and any syrup into your sterilized mason jar, seal, and refrigerate. They taste best after about 3 days, and should last for at least 3 months in your fridge, assuming you don’t finish them before the time is up.

I don’t know about you lot, but I’m still recovering from the last month of mayhem. And I think I will be for another month or so. When I begin to think about the buckets of booze, piles of food, and general excess we partook of in the name of festive fun, I still feel a bit sick.

But! January’s here – which means it’s time for everyone to hit the gym, cut back on the unhealthy food (until the Chinese New Year anyway), and get on with life. For me, one of my weekday morning rituals that I’ve missed is having a quiet breakfast and cup of coffee (thanks, Vick, I still use the V60 almost every day!) on the balcony after I send the bunny to work. This morning, having stockpiled a nice stash of the awesomest brioche in HK in my freezer, I decided to go with Egg in the Basket.

This dish is probably best described as the bastard child of a fried egg sandwich and oeufs en cocotte, where you replace the cocotte with bread and cook it all in a frying pan instead! (GENIUS, I say!) The trick to doing this dish well is to toast one side of the bread first and then to crack an egg into the middle after you’ve flipped it, and then to moderate the heat carefully so your bread doesn’t burn before the egg is cooked. I generally also cover the pan to let the top of the egg steam a little (or pop the entire pan under the broiler for a minute). The resulting 2-D sandwich is the picture of perfection, especially with the tendrils of egg-white that spread out under the bread and go crispy and delicious! This way, you also avoid having to flip the entire thing over which could result in a broken or over-cooked egg yolk (read: CATASTROPHE).

Egg in a Basket

1 2cm-thick slice of brioche (or your bread of choice)
softened butter
1 large egg
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Using a cookie cutter, cut the middle of your slice of bread out. I generally just go with round, but please feel free to use whatever shape tickles your fancy – as long as the hole is large enough to mostly contain your egg. Spread a thin but even layer of butter over both sides of the bread, and on the cut-out portion as well.

Crack your egg into a small bowl or ramekin; set aside.

Heat a frying pan with a well-fitting lid over medium heat, and drop the slice of bread in. Cook for about 2-3 minutes or until golden brown. Flip the slice of bread over, drop about half a teaspoon of extra butter into the hole, and carefully tip the egg into the hole.

Lower the heat slightly, and cook for 2 minutes. The egg should be mostly cooked by now, but you will probably still have a layer of uncooked white on the top. Pour about 10-15ml of water into the pan (near the side, not directly onto the bread), then immediately cover with the lid for 45 seconds to 1 minute. Uncover, nudge the egg gently to see if it is cooked to your liking, then remove to a plate, sprinkle with salt and a few twists of the pepper mill, and serve immediately.

Yield: Serves 1

WOW – I’ve been gone for a while, huh. I’m not entirely sure what happened – but an entire summer came and went and I seem to have completely forgotten about this space. Yeesh, I’m still trying to wrap my head around how that happened. But I’m sorry! And I’m back! And the weather is cool again! And I’ve gotten the blown lightbulbs in my kitchen replaced! Which means I’m back in the kitchen, pottering around with jamming and breading and various cookery, including getting cracking on my Christmas 2011 menu (I’ve earmarked a few roast goose recipes) so I’ve got my fingers crossed that I won’t get too distracted by the festive season and forget to take pictures and post the button-popping, pants-splitting feast I’m intending to inflict upon my guests.

In the meantime, I thought I’d post a recipe which we could all use on those hungover mornings amidst the festive (read: alcohol-drenched party) season. It’s a post that I’ve had saved in my drafts for over a year now, and that’s not even because I managed to forget about my blog. Scrambled eggs are a slightly controversial topic – in the kitchen, at least. It’s probably got to do with how there are so many different incarnations of scrambled eggs – do you like large or small curds, runny or fully set eggs? How creamy do you like it? And do you want them plain or flavoured with simple herbs like chives, or have you been fortunate enough to come into possession of truffles whose fragrance you can imbue your raw eggs with, before topping the hot mess with a few (or many!) thin shavings?

Since I figure we who scramble eggs at home don’t tend to have fresh truffles on hand, I figured I’d talk about how I like to do my basic scramble. If I feel like poshing it up a little I’ll fold in some fresh chives, or drizzle with truffle oil (for the fragrance without the cost!). I also don’t normally bother with cooking my eggs in a bain marie – it’s too much of a hassle without a proportionate pay-off, especially if I’m hungover and just want to cobble together a hot meal to settle my stomach.

For the record, I’m a fan of medium-soft set large curds, and in order to scramble eggs to my liking, I find the best tool to move your eggs around a non-stick pan is a silicone spatula. It’s flexible enough to scrape up every last bit of egg from the sides of your pan, whilst allowing for the least disruption of your eggs, which leaves you with large ribbons of eggs weaved around each other as the proteins coagulate. And one point to note which I find most important, regardless of how you like your eggs done, is to ensure that you pull your eggs off the heat (and onto a warmed plate or slice of toasted bread) before they are cooked to your liking, so the residual heat doesn’t overcook your gently scrambled eggs by the time they move from the kitchen to your mouth!

My Favourite Scrambled Eggs

3 large eggs
fine sea salt
50g whipping cream
10g cold unsalted butter
10g unsalted butter, softened
fleur de sel
freshly cracked black pepper
freshly toasted bread
optional: truffle oil and chives, to garnish

Crack the eggs into a bowl, a season very lightly with a tiny pinch of fine sea salt. Add the cream, and beat gently with a fork until the whites and yolks are amalgamated, but try not to incorporate too much air into it. Cut the first 10g of (cold) butter into small cubes, and add it, along with the cream, to the eggs, and stir briefly.

Heat a medium-sized nonstick pan over medium-low heat. Add the next 10g of butter to the pan, and move it about to coat the entire surface, until it melts and starts to foam. Be careful that the butter doesn’t burn – you don’t even really want it to brown at all.

Tip the eggs into the pan, and let it sit for about 15-20 seconds: just long enough to form a thin skin on the base, then gather the solidified layer from the outside to the inside, or in a large, circular movement. You don’t want to beat the eggs or whisk them up to form tiny bits, you want to smoothly crumple up large curds and allow the uncooked egg to settle back to the bottom of the pan before repeating this process. Depending on the size of your pan, it should take about 2-3 minutes to cook altogether. If the egg seems to be setting too quickly, remove the pan from the heat and to let the pan cool slightly.

About 1 minute before the eggs are done, remove the pan from the heat. Fold the eggs gently, one last time, then tip them out onto your toasted slices of bread. If using, drizzle the truffle oil over the eggs, and snip a couple of lengths of chives over to garnish. Otherwise, just sprinkle with a little extra fleur de sel, and top with a few more twists of the pepper mill. Serve immediately.

Yield: Serves 1

A couple of months ago, D – a good friend of mine – suddenly turned to me whilst we were having drinks, and declared that she wanted to make blueberry jam. Naturally, I was delighted to hear this, having assumed she meant she was going to make some and gift me with a bottle or two. :P Sadly, what she really meant was that she wanted to learn how to make jam (specifically, blueberry), and was hoping for a lesson. Naturally, I obliged.

Blueberries are a soft, sweet, and not especially acidic fruit that generally contains about 0.4% concentration of pectin at most. This means that when making jam, you will most likely need to add additional acid and pectin to the fruit in order to get a firm set, as you generally need about 1% pectin in your jam, and a pH level of around 2.8-3.6 for the jam to set.

I had a sniff around a couple of supermarkets here in Hong Kong, and for some reason, couldn’t find any plain pectin, but I did find a bag of jam sugar – which is sugar that has pectin already added to it. (Jam sugar normally also contains some added citric acid in order to allow the jam to set.) As you can see in the picture above, the appearance of jam sugar is kinda clumpy – this is to be expected, thanks to the additives.

Now, one benefit of using jam sugar over extracting your own pectin (or cooking a jam without any added pectin), is that you only need to bring the mixture to a rolling boil for between 1-4 minutes (depending on your brand of pectin – just follow the manufacturer’s instructions for timing), and you’ll be able to achieve your firm set. This translates to a jam that generally will retain brighter colours and flavours, as the amount of time you need to cook the jam for is greatly reduced. (Some say it also retains more nutrients in the fruit since it’s not cooked to hell and back – anybody know if it’s true?)

Nutritional content aside though, when making jam, it’s always important to taste some of the fruit you’re preserving before you start. Like all cooking, the flavour of your final product is very much contingent on the raw ingredients you start with. For example, the blueberries we used were fairly sweet, but not very acidic, so I decided to add in the juice of two lemons, and used a ratio of about 3:5 for sugar to fruit (by weight).

Anyway, she’s probably going to kill me for putting up this picture, but I really couldn’t resist. :) Hopefully, this post (this picture?) will inspire you to get jamming too – it probably took about 15 minutes of weighing, measuring, juicing, and stirring before D was delightedly peering into that steaming pot of jam. And in case you needed a little more convincing with regards to commercial pectin, all I can say is this: the faster the jam sets, the faster you’ll be on your way to making out with a sticky ladle too. ;P

Blueberry Jam

1kg fresh blueberries
600g jam sugar (I used this one)
juice of 1-3 lemons
20g unsalted butter

Wash and drain the blueberries. Tip them all into a large, heavy-based pot set over medium heat. Add in the sugar and lemon juice.

Stir the mixture, crushing the blueberries as you go, with a wooden spoon, and as it heats up, until the sugar has dissolved in the blueberries and its juice. Moderate the heat and do not allow the mixture to come to a boil until the sugar is completely dissolved. Have a taste, and adjust the sweetness and/or acidity, if necessary.

Once the sugar has dissolved, add in the butter, stir it in, and turn the heat up. Let the pot come to a rolling boil (that doesn’t go away with stirring). When it boils, let it cook, stirring occasionally, for 4 minutes (or as long as the manufacturer of your jam sugar instructs). Ladle or pour the jam into warm, sterilized jars, screw on the lids and place in a deep pot of boiling water. The jars should be submerged by at least an inch. Boil rapidly for 10 minutes, then remove from the heat, dry off the bottles and allow to cool to room temperature in a cool, draught-free place. With their seals intact, bottles of jam will keep in a cool, dark place for about a year. (Once open, keep refrigerated and consume within 4 weeks.)

Alternatively, store the jam in clean containers in the fridge for up to 4 weeks.

Yield: About 1.5L of jam

A couple of my friends know that I’ve been trying to live a smidge healthier of late – a little exercise, aiming for my 8 glasses of water per day, and adding some vegetables into the dietary mix. Nothing too drastic – I’m not giving up meat or fat or beer, and I think I wouldn’t survive the exercise bit if not for my post-gym, pre-shower cigarette. Haha. But anyway, I’m getting a little side tracked.

When bunny and I eat at home (or bento lunches), it’s easy enough to include a fruit & vegetable component into the meal, but the problem is that we do eat out quite a bit, and most of those meals tend to run a little dry on the vegetable side. To combat this, I’ve started keeping a sort of salad bar in my fridge: every weekend I chop, wash and spin a gallon-ziploc bag of salad vegetables, some toppings (fruits, nuts, carrot sticks, maybe a little crumbled/shaved cheese), and when I get hungry for a snack, or when bunny’s got a work function so I’m dinnering alone, I now (sometimes) have a salad instead of instant noodles or chips.

It’s actually been great – nowhere near as tough as I thought it might be to incorporate all these vegetables in. I’m not the hugest fan of salads, but making them at home with 100% stuff that I like means I don’t need to pick out raisins or feel sick when I see a rotting leaf that didn’t get picked out and flash back to my restaurant slave days. And it’s pretty satisfying too – half a ball of fresh mozzarella, torn up, or a few fish fingers (I’m not even going to apologise for how much I love fish fingers) reheated and gently tossed in with the leaves, or even just a poached egg sitting pretty on the top for protein and you’ve got yourself a surprisingly tasty meal.

The best part for me though, is probably the dressing. Additives and mystery-ingredients aside, I’ve never met a store-bought salad dressing that I actually liked. Thousand Island? Bleh. Blue Cheese? Yech. Weird Vinaigrette With Unidentifiable Particles Floating Around? UGH. Which isn’t a huge problem, since vinaigrettes are such easy things to sort out anyway at home.

Armed with the basic ratio of 3:1 (fat to acid), you’re limited only by your imagination. And while I favour slightly more interesting combinations like mandarin orange and bacon fat (probably 2:1 here though, since orange juice isn’t as acidic) when entertaining, the staple in my fridge is a simple sherry vinegar and sesame oil vinaigrette. I love that toasted nuttiness that sesame oil brings; it’s so much more interesting than using a neutral flavoured oil, and olive oil would probably have had me bored by bowl #2. Flavoured with some minced shallot, whose sharpness gets mellowed by a quick prelimary soak in the vinegar, I make up a bottle, shake it like a polaroid picture, and am good to go for a couple of weeks. All the convenience of store-bought, only a gazillion times tastier.

Sesame Sherry Vinaigrette

1 shallot
1/2 tsp flaky sea salt
50g (about 3-4 tbsp) sherry vinegar (see note*)
1 tbsp good Dijon mustard (I recommend Maille)
50g grapeseed (or another neutral flavoured) oil
100g sesame oil

black pepper
freshly chopped soft herbs (eg parsley, taragon)

Finely mince the shallot, then add it, with the salt and vinegar, to a small mixing bowl. Let it sit for about 5-10 minutes. Stir in the mustard. Pour all of this into a bottle that has a tight-fitting lid, and add both oils. Cap the bottle, then give it a good shake.

If using the salad dressing immediately, you can whisk the oils into the vinegar-mustard mixture, in the same bowl.

Taste, adjusting the seasoning as necessary (more oil if it’s too tart, more vinegar or salt if it’s too bland), and you’re good to go.

Use a couple of tablespoons, along with 3-4 turns of the pepper mill, and a sprinkling of freshly chopped herbs, to coat a few handfuls of washed and spun salad leaves. It will keep in the fridge for a week or two, but give the bottle a good shake before using each time.

Yield: 200-250 ml (i.e. about 4-6 generous servings)

Note: If you haven’t got any sherry vinegar in the house, please don’t go out and buy some just for this recipe (though, it is quite lovely in vinaigrettes). Feel free to substitute with red wine or white wine vinegar – or any other fragrant vinegar you like, except probably balsamic, since that’s generally a bit too sweet to make salad dressings with.

I’ve been in a little bit of a cooking-rut. I’m not entirely sure how it started or when exactly this happened, but for the last couple of weeks, I’ve been starting to feel like I lost my kitchen-mojo. The first instance I remember was when I left a rib of beef in the SVS for a few hours too long (borne out of my paranoia of oversleeping and not plonking the meat into the water oven early enough for dinner), and, although it remained very much edible, the texture was just a little bit off. Kind of like a cross between pastrami and roast beef (and I don’t mean that in a good way).

Then I had a few bread-baking mishaps – No-Knead Bread not turning out at all how I would have liked (and no idea if the fault lay with me or the recipe), and my first few attempts at making this milkbread went strangely awry, thanks to an overzealous addition of random ingredients on my part, and very uncooperative yeast. (It expired, apparently. Then I bought some new yeast, and it failed to proof in warm water, the bowl of yeasty water staring balefully at me and stubbornly refusing to froth. But I tried anyway – the dry ingredients were all weighted out and mixed together already – and when it rose, I may or may not have left it to rise for too long, in too warm a spot.) Finally, I tried to make some peanutella to cheer myself up, in spite of not having any home-baked bread to spread it on, but for some reason it turned out rather clumpy and dry. It tasted pretty good, but it wasn’t the delicious, glistening, oozy spread I’d envisioned either.

But! That’s all over now – knock on wood. Before throwing in the (kitchen) towel and declaring myself officially kitchen-mojo-less, I decided to give it one last shot. I took Michael Ruhlman’s 5:3 bread ratio, swapped out about a third of the water for milk, and threw in a couple of teaspoons of sugar for a hint of sweetness. And – behold! – it felt like the kitchen gods were all smiling down upon me once again! My dough kneaded to a delightfully supple elasticity; it rose; it smelled wonderful! When I punched it down, it deflated happily, and was most amenable to being kneaded again briefly before its second rise, and subsequent baking, in a cast iron cocotte.

For those of you interested in bread-baking, baking the loaf in an enameled (or well-seasoned) cast iron Dutch oven is a great way to improve the texture of your bread, without having to invest in some high-tech steam-injection oven, or risk damaging your oven by spritzing the inside of your oven with cold water. The thick, heavy walls of the cocotte do a great job of retaining heat, and – covered for the first half of your baking time – steam in the cooking vessel, which in turn softens the outer layer of the loaf, allowing for a greater initial growth (also known as oven spring, which is the effect of the yeast’s last activity before it’s killed off by the heat of the oven), before the crust dries out and hardens.

There are two ways to go about doing this – one is to preheat your cocotte along with the oven (for about 20-30 minutes), and drop the proofed dough straight into the pan. The other is to let the dough proof directly in the Dutch oven on the second rise, and chuck the entire pot – dough and all – into your preheated oven. The upside of the first (potentially messy and slightly dangerous) method is an even greater oven spring, but I personally prefer the second method, as you don’t disrupt the structure you’ve just developed in your second rise. (Also, I’m a little prone to burning myself, and why play with fire, right?)

As you can see, this loaf gave me a delightfully airy (and fairly even) crumb, with a thin crust. It was fantastic fresh with a little salted butter – rather delicately straddling that bridge between tender and chewy, and it toasted up great – rendering the crust crisp and shattery once reheated – for breakfast the next morning, smeared with a spoonful of homemade blueberry jam. (Post on the blueberry jam to follow soon!) I really can’t think of a better way to have been welcomed back into my kitchen’s good favour, than with this beautiful boule. :)

Dutch Oven Milk Boule
(based on Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio – you can also find this book in my store!)

300g unbleached bread flour, plus more for dusting
5g salt
20g caster sugar
120g warm water (preferably at around 35-40ºC)
2g active dry yeast
60g whole milk

Combine the flour, salt, and sugar in a large mixing bowl.

Proof the yeast in the water, and let stand for 5-10 minutes, before combining with the milk.

Add this to the dry ingredients, and mix with your fingers or a wooden spoon till you’ve got a shaggy-ish dough. Dump the contents of the bowl onto a floured surface, roll your sleeves up, and start kneading. I like to press forward using the heel of my hand, fold the dough over and turn it 90°, then repeat. You should be going at this – dusting your hands and the surface lightly with more flour as necessary – for about 10 minutes. The dough will become smooth and elastic, and slightly tacky. Try not to add any more flour than the barest minimum to keep it from sticking, as too much flour will give you a dry dough and dense loaf.

Cut off a small bit of dough, and roll it into a ball. Gently stretch this piece between your fingers – if it can be stretched thin enough to be translucent (you should be able to just about make out the print of a newspaper through it) before tearing, congrats! Your dough has passed the windowpane test: this means long – and strong – enough gluten strands have been formed during the kneading, which will give your loaf structure, and hold up the air bubbles that the yeast creates. If it doesn’t, smush the little ball back into the rest of your dough, and knead until it passes this test.

Transfer the dough into a lightly oiled bowl, cover with clingfilm, and leave to rise in a warm spot – preferably around 20-25°C. Once it has doubled in size, tip the dough back onto a floured surface, punch it down to deflate it, and knead it gently to redistribute the yeast.

To shape the dough into a boule, gather the ends of the dough and pull them together, smoothing, tucking, and pinching the crease to form a smooth, taut surface on the opposite side. As far as my experience goes, it’s pretty much impossible to have the smooth side tight enough, so keep going at it till you’ve got a nicely formed ball. This will help the dough to rise upwards instead of spreading out during the second rise.

Dust the entire ball lightly with flour, then sit it, seam-side down, on a circle of parchment that will fit in your baking vessel. You can then either drape the loosely with a floured kitchen towel (the linen, not terry-cloth, sort), or transfer the entire thing into the Dutch oven to proof, depending on whether or not you intend to preheat the pot. Leave it to rise for about 1 hour, or until doubled.

About 20-30 minutes before the second rise is done, preheat your oven to 220°C. (If you’re preheating the Dutch oven, go ahead and pop it – lid and all – into the oven too, at this point.) Once the dough is ready, slash it a couple of times with a lame (I just use a Stanley knife, lightly oiled to prevent dragging, that I keep specifically for bread-slashing.) and pop it into the oven. Cook for about 20 minutes, covered, then uncover, turn the oven down to about 175°C, and bake for an extra 20-30 minutes, rotating the pot halfway through for even browning.

To check that your bread is done, you can either tip it out of the pan and tap the bottom – you should hear a hollow thump. Alternatively, insert an instant-read thermometer into the middle of the loaf (from the side, so you don’t mar the appearance of your gorgeous boule!) and it’s done once the thermometer reads 91°C.

Remove the bread from the pan and allow to cool completely on a wire rack before slicing. This bread should keep fresh for about two days, well-wrapped, at room temperature, or you can freeze it for about 3-6 months, well-wrapped in foil. If freezing bread, I prefer to pre-slice it and freeze it (fresh) in pairs, then you can chuck the whole foil package into a low oven (about 125°C) for 15-20 minutes and you’ll have steaming bread that tastes like it’s been freshly baked. :)

Yield: Makes one small boule (about 8 inches in diameter, 5 inches high) – good for about 8 good slices of bread, plus the two crusty ends (baker’s treat!)

Note: Active dry yeast is the same as instant yeast, only it needs to be dissolved in warm water first for the spores to be activated. If you use instant/bread-machine yeast, you can substitute it with the same amount. There will be no need for you to proof the yeast, so you can just mix all the ingredients together all at once. To proof active dry yeast, stir the yeast into a small amount of warm water (the water should be around 35-40ºC, or just warm to the touch), and leave it to stand for 5-10 minutes. Once bubbles form on the surface of the water, indicating microbial activity (if none form, there’s a pretty strong chance your yeast has expired), continue with the recipe.

It’s a bit of a joke, how much I adore gai yuen gwat, or chicken cartilage. I was first introduced to it as a dish in its own right at a little yakitori joint here in Hong Kong, almost three years ago. Tasty, crunchy, salty, crispy delicious nuggets, lined up on a pretty little stick, roasted to perfection over a charcoal fire.

Since then, I’ve encountered it in a couple of different forms – dusted in seasoned flour and deep fried (like KFC’s popcorn chicken, on crack), used in place of cubes of chicken in dishes like Kung Pao chicken. And no matter what form it appears on my plate it, I love it oh so very much.

Before bunny flew off to Singapore for the Chinese New Year break, she hauled me into a supermarket to stock up on some supplies, worried that I would starve while she was away. (I have a really bad habit of eating rubbish – if I eat at all – when I’m on my own for more than a day or two.) As we passed the freezer section (I was looking for fish fingers!), a bag of frozen gai yuen gwat caught my eye.

And so it was, that on this eve of the Lunar New Year, I’ve just had probably the most delicious meal I’ve ever, ever, made for myself, for my solitary tuan yuan fan. (Is it still a “reunion dinner” if I’m only reunited with deliciousness? I think so, yes.)

Kung Hei Fatt Choy, everyone! Here’s wishing you a happy, healthy, prosperous, and absofrickenlutely delicious Year of the Rabbit. :)

Gai Yuen Gwat Donburi

250g pack of frozen gai yuen gwat, thawed
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp white wine vinegar or lemon juice
1 tsp oyster sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
powdered white pepper
sea salt
canola oil

200g cooked Japanese white rice
1 onsen tamago (see note below)
freshly ground black pepper
Shichimi togarashi (optional)

Place all of the gai yuen gwat into a medium, non-reactive mixing bowl. Add in the soy sauce, vinegar/lemon juice, oyster sauce, sesame oil, and season with a generous shake of white pepper and a pinch of salt. Mix thoroughly, and allow to marinate for at least 15 minutes.

Heat a non-stick sauté pan over medium-low heat. Add all the gai yuen gwat in, and cook gently, allowing the fat to render out (which will help to lubricate the pan) as the pieces slowly crisp up. Cook thoroughly, and until all the pieces are a deep golden brown, then transfer to a small plate or tray lined with paper towels. Sprinkle a pinch of salt over the cooked pieces, and toss.

To assemble, fill a large donburi bowl with rice in an even layer. Scatter the gai yuen gwat over the rice, leaving a small gap in the middle of your bowl. Carefully crack the onsen tamago into the middle of the bowl, season the egg with salt and black pepper, and dust the entire donburi with the Japanese chilli flakes. Serve immediately.

Yield: Serves one.

Note: Onsen tamago is a slow-cooked egg, where the egg is poached in its shell for about an hour at a low temperature. Cooking it this way allows the whites to become creamy and gel-like, without completely solidifying. I do this by bringing the eggs to room temperature, then immersing them in my sous vide supreme for 60 minutes at 62.5ºC.