whine & dine

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

Ever since Chef Gary Kwang disappeared from Universal, my good friend and food buddy, Uncle P, who hunted him down and tracked him to Capella has been urging me to visit the restaurant with him. Yesterday, 5 of us finally managed to get it together and made it down to the restaurant for lunch. Capella is located in Chijmes, and sports a sleek dining area and one of the few open kitchens which isn’t A) a pretend open kitchen (i.e. only featuring the patisserie or garde manger stations), and B) incredibly neat and pretty! In fact, it looks pretty much like what my dream kitchen would be like. Thanks to this design concept, diners have front row seats to watch Chef Kwang in action while he prepares your meal.

Chef Kwang came out to ask if he could prepare a special menu for us, and boy am I glad that I went for it! To start, we had an Egg Cocotte with Avruga Caviar, and Salmon Tartare with Dill [right]. Both were crazy delicious, and while I am not generally a fan of runny eggs (and especially not runny egg yolks), the cocotte – which had a raw egg yolk buried at the bottom of the eggshell it was served in – was a very promising start to the meal.

Next, we were served a velvety velouté of leek and potato, with grilled scallop, mushrooms and truffle oil [left]. Again, the flavours were very well controlled in this dish and had us scraping the bottoms of our bowls in minutes. For the main course, all of us chose the grilled tenderloin, which was served with breaded sweetbreads, morel sauce, cherry tomato confit and beetroot purée [pictured at start of post]. While I felt that the plate was a little cluttered – which is something I’ve noticed that Chef Kwang has a tendency to do with his main courses – every single item on the dish was faultless, taste-wise. I especially enjoyed the sweetbreads, which really aren’t that common in our local dining scene. These were done to perfection, with a crisp, flavourful crust and an almost-creamy interior. I could have eaten far more than the 3 pieces I was served. In fact, I’m even a little inspired now to try cooking them on my own at home.

To close the mind-blowing meal, Chef Kwang served us his home-made cannelloni with chocolate mousse and brandied cherries [below]. The silky texture of the mousse paired beautifully with the crunch of the cannelloni. While I love this Italian dessert, I’ve also found that too often it ends up ridiculously heavy and overpoweringly rich, which – thankfully – was not a problem with this dish.

I had an excellent meal at Capella, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just because I was there with a friend of the very talented chef. I’m definitely going to go back again really soon – in fact, I’ve already booked several friends for lunch there when I’m back from Beijing. Reservations are encouraged for dinner, but on weekdays it seems pretty safe to just pop in for lunch.

Capella
30 Victoria Street
#01-29 CHIJMES
Singapore 187996
T: +65 6334 9928
F: +65 6334 9927
E: capella@starworth.com.sg

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.

I’ve pretty much decided that when I’m done with this stage, I’m going to write a book. (Check back with me when I’m actually done with said stage to see if I really get down to writing it or not.) Not about my experiences with this kitchen/restaurant in particular, just some things I’ve found out, been taught, and in general want to scream at the world at large.

The first chapter is going to be titled after this post. Salad leaves are the single greatest bane of my existence in a professional kitchen. Salad leaves get wet, bruised, START TO SMELL FUNKY, and always – ALWAYS – need to be treated with the utmost care. In my first week, I really did little more than sort out buckets and buckets of salad leaves – for which I’m glad. Because now I respect them, now I know how they need to be treated, and – frankly speaking – if I didn’t, I wouldn’t trust myself with a knife.

Yesterday was my first day into the second half of my stage. It’s growing to be the sort of experience where you wake up each morning with half of you excited about going to work, and the other half has to be dragged kicking and screaming out of bed. I love that I’ve become more comfortable with my surroundings; that I now know (more or less) exactly what I need to do, that a grey tub slightly over half full of salad dressing X will likely last me at most 3 more days before it’s time to make a new batch, that I need to defrost the chicken first thing in the morning so that I can get it grilled before dinner service starts. I just wish there was something that would make it easier to yank myself out of bed when it’s a Sunday morning and my girlfriend’s fast asleep next to me.

As much as I hate having 3/4 of my non-sleeping hours locked up every single day of the week, I know I’m going to miss this terribly when it’s over. I guess I might be having one of those existentialist moments where I wonder if I’ve found something I could do for the rest of my life.