Majulah Singapura!

Yes, I was there during the Presidential Elections. Yes, I was happy to see a wave of change sweep through our neighbouring nation. Yes, it was a wonderful holiday filled with food and family. Yes, I had some lovely food i.e. homemade stringhoppers with curried chicken; homemade roti jala with kheema; perfectly marinated lamb cutlets; gorgeous roast chicken with bacon; melt-in-the-mouth curry puffs; a luscious lemon meringue tart; the largest profiterole I've ever seen; a sublime mixed berry and apple crumble; and last but not least the most outstanding ice-cream I've ever had - Waitrose's Carribean Rum & Raisin - which was boozy, moreish and simply magical.

Here are some photos of food from my holiday (only the ones I bothered to take photos of... hehehehehehe) and a recipe to try.

Profiterole from Food for Thought

Mixed Berry and Apple Crumble from Food for Thought



Coffee Cake and Rock Buns, which I baked



Curry Puff from a shop in the basement of Takashimaya

Coffee Cake

4 ounces self-raising flour

4 ounces castor sugar

4 ounces salted butter, room temperature

2 large eggs, room temperature

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

2 tablespoons of your favourite instant coffee dissolved in 2 tablespoons of hot full cream milk

2 tablespoons full cream milk

1. Preheat oven at 120 degrees Celsius.Grease and line a smallish baking tin of your preference.
2. Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
3. Add in eggs one by one mixing well after each addition.
4. Add in vanilla and coffee/milk mixture and beat until just combined.
5. Gently fold in the flour by hand.
6. Gently fold in the additional milk by hand until well combined into the cake batter.
7. Pour into baking tin.
8. Bake for about 25 - 30 minutes at 160 degrees Celsius or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
9. Remove cake from the oven and let it stand in the tin for about 10 minutes.
10. Turn cake out onto a wire rack and let it cool completely.

Deeper, darker...

So I have itchy fingers sometimes. This means I can't quite leave a recipe alone, even if it is a good one. What did I do? I took the Crunchy Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe and tweaked it. All in the name of using my newly purchased organic muscovado sugar of course. (wink, wink)

I'm happy to say that this cookie tasted like I thought it would. While the original recipe has a straightforward vanilla-sugar-chocolate-chip taste, this one has deeper caramel-toffee undertones. I'd like to think as one being perfect for a cup of tea and the other for coffee.

In case you're wondering - yes - I'm reading 1000 Years of Annoying the French by Stephen Clarke courtesy of the Toad. It's a thick book, so I've taken to reading a chapter every night before going to bed... hence the shadows in my photo of the cookies. 

Deeper, Darker Chocolate Chip Cookies

160g plain flour

35g corn flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Pinch of sea salt

130g salted butter, at room temperature

60g castor sugar

20g  light brown sugar

10g dark muscovado sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 egg

100g semi-sweet mini chocolate chips

30g toasted walnuts, chopped

1. Preheat oven at 120 Celsius.
2. Sieve plain flour, corn flour, baking powder and sea salt together. Set aside. 
3. Cream butter and three sugars until pale.
4. Add in egg and vanilla essence. Cream for 1 minute, until well combined. 
5. Gently fold in the sieved flour mixture by hand.
6. Add in chocolate chips and walnuts. Fold this in gently by hand as well. 
7. Cover mixing bowl with clingfilm and chill dough in the refrigerator for 30 - 45 minutes.
8. Remove dough from refrigerator.
9. Make small round balls and place about 2 inches apart on a baking paper lined tray.
10. Bake at 150 Celsius for about 15 - 20  minutes until the edges turn a light golden brown.  
11. Cool cookies on the tray for about 10 minutes before moving them to a wire rack to cool completely. 
12. Once cooled, pack cookies away into an airtight jar.  

Aglio Olio my way

This has become one of my favourite meals for dinner. It's simple, quick and delicious. I suppose you could call it an 'instant' homemade meal. It takes just a wee bit longer than two minutes - the time needed to cook a packet of Maggi mee - but the results are far better. Won't you try it?

Aglio Oglio with Bacon

Angel Hair pasta

Bacon

Chilli Flakes

Garlic

Olive Oil

Parmesan

1. Bring a saucepan of water to boil. Once boiling, put in the pasta. Cook until al dente (about 2 minutes). Remove from stove and drain the water, reserving some.
2. While waiting for the water to boil and the pasta to cook - chop the garlic and cut up the bacon.
3. Pour a little olive oil into the now empty saucepan and put it back on the stove. 
4. Once the oil has heated through, add in the bacon. 
5. Cook bacon for about 1 - 2 minutes, then add in the garlic and chilli flakes.
6. Continue cooking for about 5 minutes until the bacon becomes a little deeper in colour.
7. Add in the drained pasta and splash in some of the reserved water. Mix thoroughly until everything is well combined. (add a little more water if the pasta becomes very dry)
8. Once the water has just about evaporated, remove from the stove immediately and transfer to a bowl.
9. Sprinkle on some parmesan and it is ready to eat. 

Contemplations

I love this pretty plate. Eight of which I lugged back home from Cambodia.

Work has been difficult. A long month in and out of the office and a nagging migraine that got worse with an unappreciated email from a colleague made me send a note off to the Toad  in desperation last weekend. I received a reply saying to 'contemplate the world universe and all that' and to 'rest'. So I did. I'm proud to say that two loaves of bread got made, as well as these lovely cookies. 

Yes, I should confess. I belong to the minority that loves crunchy chocolate chip cookies. My favourite store-bought chocolate chip cookies are Famous Amos. I love them so much that I have been looking high and low for a recipe that will hit the spot like Amos' cookies do. Some years ago, when the franchise brought in a no-chip version that was chock-full of macadamia nuts, I went wild. I visited a Famous Amos outlet almost every day to get my fill of them. Alas, it was not to last as that particular version suddenly ceased to exist after a few months. Perhaps I was the only person who liked them without the chocolate chips?! Who knows? 

Anyway, after many experiments I'm sad to say that I haven't quite found a recipe that even comes close to Famous Amos. 

Nonetheless, when I did bake these for the first time, I thought to myself - now here's a chocolate chip cookie I'll be baking again and again. Bake them again and again I did. While they are not quite Amos' they still taste great to me. Especially on the day after. Most importantly, they are crunchy cookies... and can be quite addictive if you're not careful. Be warned! 

The recipe is from Bakertan of Baking Library, who in turn got it from Bakingmum. I've re-written the recipe here for ease of reference and also because I changed it a little to suit my taste, however you should check these two blogs out as they have some lovely recipes.

My little lovelies.

Crunchy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from Baking Library 

150g plain flour

45g corn flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Pinch of sea salt

125g salted butter, at room temperature

65g castor sugar

40g light brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 egg

150g semi-sweet mini chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven at 120 Celsius.
2. Sieve plain flour, corn flour, baking powder and sea salt together. Set aside. 
3. Cream butter and both sugars until pale.
4. Add in egg and vanilla essence. Cream for 1 minute, until well combined. 
5. Gently fold in by hand the sieved flour mixture.
6. Add in chocolate chips and fold this in gently by hand as well. 
7. Cover mixing bowl with clingfilm and chill dough in the refrigerator for 30 - 45 minutes.
8. Remove dough from refrigerator.
9. Make small round balls and place about 2 inches apart on a baking paper lined tray.
10. Bake at 150 Celsius for about 15 - 20  minutes until the edges turn a light golden brown.  
11. Cool cookies on the tray for about 10 minutes before moving them to a wire rack to cool completely. 
12. Once cooled, pack cookies away into an airtight jar.  

Please note that the oven I have at home is a hot piece of equipment, which means I always have to keep the temperature lower than usual or everything that goes into it just burns to a crisp. 

I hope you enjoy this as much as I do!

Sunday biscotti...

Over the recent weekend mornings, I've been rudely awakened by a very enthusiastic bird that sits close to my bedroom window and whistles at top volume right about 6.45am. I found him very annoying at first, because the weekend is when I catch-up on sleep after a busy week of running around like a headless chicken.

Today, I decided to wake-up with Mr. Annoying and thanks to the early morning, have biscotti sitting in the oven at 8.30am! It's a pseudo-candied fruit biscotti. I've been feeling like home-made biscotti for some time now, but since I haven't tried to make it before and with me running around like said headless chicken most days, I'm just too tired to experiment very much anymore over the weekends.

Today, I caved-in. I got an idea of the recipe from here. No, I do not have the array of candied fruits like that in the beautiful  pictures accompanying the blog post, so I made do with red and green glace cherries as well as some mixed peel. To make up for not having REAL candied fruit, I let the fruit soak overnight in some sweet sherry. I also halved the original recipe, tweaked it a bit and converted the measurements to grammes for my ease. It still makes quite a lot of biscotti.

How did it turn out? Absolutely lovely... and very addictive, with or without tea or coffee in attendance!


Lovely jewel-studded dough

Fruit Biscotti with Sherry

90g castor sugar

380g plain flour + 1 teaspoon  baking powder + a couple of dashes ground nutmeg and mixed spice (sieved thrice)

350g glace red cherries, green cherries and mixed peel soaked overnight with 2 tablespoons of sweet sherry

Grated zest of 1 lemon and 1 lime

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

125g salted butter

1. Cream eggs and sugar about 1 minute.
2. Add in butter and vanilla essence. Cream. Mixture will look a little curdled.
3. Gently fold in flour mixture by hand.
4. Then gently fold in fruit.
5. Leave dough in the fridge for about an hour to rest.
6. Remove dough from fridge. Shape into logs and place on a tray lined with baking paper.
7. Bake at 160 Celsius for about 30 - 40 minuutes.
8. Remove from oven and let it cool.
9. Once cool, cut logs into slices with a very sharp knife.
10. Place slices on baking tray on their sides.
11. Bake 10-15 minutes on each side until they are crisp and dry. 

Ready to be baked

Jamming blackberries

The Toad had a bad day, and I had a bad day because the Toad had a bad day. All in a day's work. Such is life? I went off to spend some money hoping it would make me feel better. I got myself a new Wilton icing colours kit, some pretty pastel sugar flowers, some lovely croissants and a packet of blackberries. Well, the blackberries weren't really for me, but as a pick-me-up for Toad in form of jam.

Now, I've never had blackberry jam myself until today. It was good! It tastes purple and plummy and curranty if you know what I mean.

Blackberries are expensive. So I tried this recipe out with only a little bit of fruit. Here's what I did.

Blackberry Jam

180g blackberries, at room temperature

40g castor sugar

Juice from half a lemon

1. Place the fruit in a large bowl together with sugar.
2. Mash fruit and sugar together gently with a fork. Do not break fruit down completely.
3. Place fruit and sugar mixture into a heavy-based saucepan.
4. Place saucepan on medium heat.
5. As soon as the mixture comes to a boil, turn the heat down low.
6. Add lemon juice and mix it through.
7. Skim the foam that will form on the surface every few minutes. Keep doing this until no more foam appears.
8. The liquid will slowly but surely evaporate. When you see that the mixture is still a little moist, take it off the heat. The jam will thicken as it cools.
9. Put a clean glass bottle and cap into the oven at 160 Celsius for about 20 minutes. Remove from oven and let it cool awhile.
10. Pour jam into the bottle and seal immediately.

Now all I have to do is wait for Toad to eat it before I can really tell you how good it is!

A working girl's dinner

Work has been ridiculous lately. I hardly have time to bake anymore, which is a pity as baking is my ultimate cure-all for stress. These days I barely even have time to make dinner. Here's a simple, healthy thing that I like to throw together on the nights when I am really exhausted after a long day at work.

Baby Spinach, Feta Cheese & Tomato Salad

Baby spinach

Feta cheese in olive oil (ready-mixed with spices/olives/sundried tomatoes)

Tomatoes

1. Arrange baby spinach in a bowl.
2. Add cubed tomatoes.
3. Top with feta cheese and drizzle with the olive oil.
4. EAT!

Orange Weekend Cake

Yes, well... almost 2 months have passed in the new year and this is my first proper blog. What have I been up to you ask? I've been working 12-hour days, stopped in at Bangkok for work and hurt my back early February. Chinese New Year came and went with me lying flat in bed. Sigh. I had big plans for the festive season. Oh well.

I've been thinking a lot about perfection lately. Why do we strive to be perfect anyway? Is there anyone in this world who is really born perfect; is it an obsession; does it stem from an uncontrollable part of our lives which makes us strive for perfection elsewhere? I still don't have any answers, despite the time I've spent thinking about it.

What I DO know is that, this year I'm going to enjoy imperfection. In little ways. I've started purposely not making the bed in the mornings on Saturday, embracing the fact that sometimes the icing on the cakes I make are just-not-right, leaving my work table in a mess, etc. Little things. So what if the clean clothes don't get folded the day they're taken in, so what if the recipe didn't work out... so what? Life's not perfect and I am perfectly imperfect. How wonderful! 

I've just gone back to baking, my favourite thing in the whole world. I decided that this is the year of imperfect-looking, homely cakes. To start off, I decided to make Fanny's weekend cake again. Though this time I tweaked the recipe a little and ate it with cream and marmalade. Divine.

Orange Weekend Cake

4 eggs
250g caster sugar
2 teaspoons orange essence

180g plain flour
40g cornflour
2 pinches baking powder
150g thickened cream
50g salted butter, melted
softened butter, extra for piping

1. Preheat the oven to 150°C. Butter and flour a loaf tin.
2. Mix the flours and baking powder. Sieve this thrice.
3. Place the eggs and sugar in a bowl and whip until thick and doubled in size.
4. Fold the dry ingredients very gently into the egg mixture.
5. Then pour a little of this onto the cream and melted butter, mix well, and transfer back to the main batter mix. Fold in gently.
6. Pour into the prepared tin, pipe a line of butter across the cake; and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted in the cake comes out clean.

Christmas: Part 3

As you can probably tell, I have had no time to update the blog in between the last entry and now. I apologise. It's just that the broadband connection sucks at home and I have moved to a new department at work. I've been pretty busy... busy enough to make my head spin. My new job requires me to wear a protective reflector jacket and safety boots... but that's another post all together.

Christmas 2010 is over and all I have here to share with you is this. A lovely recipe for roast chicken which I got from my darling Jamie. It's a simple roast that tastes delicious time and time again. This was Christmas dinner.

Christmas Dinner 2010

Click on the link for the recipe and give it a go. It's been my go-to recipe for roast chicken for some time now. It never fails to please... and don't leave out the bacon on the top... my brothers are convinced it's the best part!

Cheers and a very Happy & Blessed New Year to all!

Christmas: Part 2

Remember the fish cutlets I was talking about from Christmas: Part 1? Well, here's the recipe. It's a lot of work, but really worth the effort. These don't appear very often on our family dinner menus, but when it does it is a prized commodity.





Patti's Fish Cutlets

Preparation A

2 large slices of tenggiri fish

1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder

Salt

Water

Rub fish with salt and turmeric.

Place in a shallow pan with water coming up to half the height of the fish slices. Cook covered for about 10 minutes on medium heat until cooked through.

If yes, remove from stove and let it cool.

Once completely cooled, remove the bones and skin. Mash flesh with fork till fine.

Check salt.

Preparation B

2 medium potatoes

Boil till very soft.

Peel, cool and mash.

Preparation C

1 medium red onion

1 fresh red chilli

2 sprigs curry leaves

1 small clove garlic

Chop and sauté till fragrant.

Preparation D

1/4 teaspoon cumin (jeera) seeds

1 teaspoon anise (saunf) seeds

Dry roast in pan till fragrant.

Crush with mortar & pestle till fine powder.

1 egg

Lightly beaten.

Assembly

Mix fish with potatoes until thoroughly incorporated.

Add in ingredients from B and D. Mix well.

Add in egg bit by bit until you get a firmish mixture. Stop adding the egg once the mixture can be rolled into balls without breaking or sticking to the palms of your hands.

Check salt.

Roll into balls and fry until golden in batches.

Drain on paper towels and serve.

  

For MEAT cutlets:

Use minced beef or pork. No need to pre-cook the meat.

Omit the turmeric.

Add in 1/4 teaspoon finely chopped ginger in B.

Add in some finely chopped cashewnuts in Assembly.

Christmas: Part 1

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... even here in the tropics. Despite the lack of snow, warm clothes and raging fires, the departmental stores are in full-swing with plastic trees, fake snow and bling baubles.

Christmas is a very nostalgic time for our family, so I'd like to take this time to tell you a little about my Christmases past and present. I'm writing this in installments, as there are a lot of memories to put down. Look out for recipes at the end of some of the installments. Happy reading!

There is something very comforting about gathering once a year with family near and far. It reminds me of a long-gone era. A time when life was simpler and money was tight. When luxury was a word that came and went with Christmas every year leaving a long period of frugality from January to November until December next.

Christmas meant a long trek to my grandparents home in Taiping, a damp, sleepy hollow of a town where time seems to stand still even now. There was no such thing as the NKVE (North Klang Valley Expressway) then. Everyone travelled up north via the snaking 'trunk' road built by the colonial rajahs during the time Malaya was a British colony. (On good days, no one got sick from the winding journey. On bad days... oh oh.)

All my maternal cousins would gather in Taiping. It was our 'balik kampung' and annual get-together. We would run round the new village house playing Police & Thieves, 'masak-masak' with an old iron cooking set and played board games like Snakes & Ladders, Ludo, etc. We ate rambutans from the red-ant infested trees in the compound, drove the maids up the wall (but they loved  us anyway, hehehehe) and ate all the delicious morsels of food our patti (grandmother) used to cook.

Some of the dishes included fish cutlets, black pepper beef, crab curry, prawns and potato fry, sura meen puttu, dosas, idlis, dhall curry, fish curry with ladies' fingers and many other delights.

Christmas presents were wrapped late at night by the adults, long after the children had gone to bed. Okay, okay... so I wasn't an angel then. I remember sneaking out of bed, listening at the closed door of the bedroom to the murmur of adult voices catching up with each other... and finally when curiosity just couldn't keep me away anymore, exposing myself to the adults and getting a scolding for being out of bed so late. I would pester them to let me see my presents. (I did say I wasn't angel didn't I?) My youngest Aunt always gave in. 

The night of Christmas eve was spent in church. I remember being very scared every time I was told to sit at the end of the pew closest to the doors on the side of the church. Why? This church is OLD. It is also surrounded by a graveyard. There was no air-conditioning then, so during the Christmas church service at midnight the doors along the sides would stand open. Wide open. Looking out of them meant looking out on nothing, because everything was pitch black... except that you KNEW there was a graveyard outside. Yikes! 

To be continued.

Girls Night In

And so we had our second Girls Night In last Saturday. It was fun! We talked about a lot of things and ATE a lot of things as well.

The menu consisted of Chicken Curry, Tandoori Chicken, Fish Cutlets, Carrots, Rice, some Vegetable Crackers plus Indian Sweets and Watalappan for dessert. The drink of the night was Lychee liquer and tinned lychees mixed together with ice.  

Here are some pictures of the dishes... none of the dessert though as I completely forgot about picture taking after all that food!

Tandoori Chicken

Fish Cutlets

Cari Belanda/Dutch Chicken Curry

Carrots

Cuzinhia Cristang: Kuih Tat

Delicious beauties

Yes, I made them. After some prompting from SIL. How did they taste? I think I just made my best tarts ever! My friend Mrs. P who was the beneficiary of these beauties said she loved the pastry best, while daughter Miss P liked the jam. All in all I'm a happy tart-maker!

P.S. Of course, some of these beauties went into my stomach, and that way it was kept happy while they lasted.

Cuzinhia Cristang: Ambiler Kachang & Bendi Pas'agu

So... then I tried out what I taught were the simplest recipes in the book Cuzinhia Cristang: The Malacca-Portuguese Cookbook by Celine J. Marbeck, which I've mentioned in an earlier post. Were they really simple you may ask... well... I thought so. It took me just over an hour to prepare and cook the dishes, along with rice.

Ambiler Kachang

Bendi Pas'agu

This is the first time I've made and eaten a sambal belachan anything, and that's exactly what you see in the picture of the Bendi Pas'agu - a sambal belachan variation with dried prawns. It was lovely, lovely, lovely and SO spicy. I had a tummy ache later from eating too much and not being used to so much chilli. Still, I was a happy girl. This is best eaten on the same day it is made.

The Ambiler Kachang however, was totally scrumptious after a night's rest. Really. I enjoyed just that and rice for a simple week day dinner on the day after.

Cuzinhia Cristang: Soldadu Chocolat

I finally got my copy of Cuzinhia Cristang: A Malacca-Portuguese Cookbook by Celine J. Marbeck after hunting it down for almost 6 months. I bought the second-last copy from MPH in Mid Valley just a couple of days ago.

It’s a beautiful book. What I most cherish about it is that you get a history lesson about the Cristang people before going on to the recipes. A lot of thought and effort has been made to help you understand the reason behind the cuisine and its evolution over time. I personally, have come to appreciate the Cristang people, their unique culture and wonderful cuisine even more now.

I will be cooking my way through this book, slowly but surely. So do lend me your support (Mark… do you hear me?) in hope that I will eventually become an adept Cristang-wannabe cook. J

What did I try from the book so far? The Soldadu Chocolat. I didn’t follow the recipe to a ‘t’. I didn’t have rum, couldn’t be bothered to measure out the ingredients and thought I was very clever by not making a cup of coffee before pouring it into the chocolate. I simply put a spoonful of instant coffee granules into the chocolate. I also didn’t have almonds, so I had mine with some salted cashews on the side.

The result? A knock-your-socks-off dessert in a cup. Totally yum and perfect after a spicy, heavy dinner. (Yes, it would have been doubly-excellent with some rum!)

Milk chocolate

Chocolate and milk

Coffee, coffee, coffee

Coming to a boil

Soldadu Chocolat
Adapted from Cuzinhia Cristang: A Malacca-Portuguese Cookbook by Celine J. Marbeck

Milk chocolate
Full-cream milk
Instant coffee granules
A pinch or two of light brown sugar

1. Put the chocolate into a small heavy-based saucepan.
2. Pour in just enough milk.
3. Put the saucepan on the stove over low heat.
4. Let the chocolate melt and stir to mix it together with the milk.
5. Once you get chocolate milk, stir in the coffee and sugar.
6. Stir to dissolve.
7. When the mixture just comes to a boil, remove from the stove.
8. Pour into a tea cup and serve immediately with some salted cashews.

Note: It is a good idea to make a cup of hot, strong coffee first to pour into the chocolate milk in Step 5. I didn't and what I got was a really 'kow' drink that made my eyes pop open in surprise from the rich flavour. 

Rob & Laith's Terry's Chocolate Orange Chip Cookies

Dearest darlings, 

How are you? I'm fine and I'd like to tell you something.

If I didn't meet you for dindins in London, I would have never been introduced to Terry's Chocolate Orange... ever. I would have been in London and gone home without ever knowing about them.



Lovely, lovely chocolate

If I didn't buy them I wouldn't have made these lovelies. They, in turn would have never delighted the hearts of some friends (big and small) in Phnom Penh whom I visited recently. They were well-received by said friends and polished-off pretty quickly.

Butter, sugar and orange rind

The lucky M who was visiting me while these lovelies were being baked also enjoyed them. She said they were just what she was dreaming off. A soft, chewy cookie that hits the spot. 



Cookie dough waiting to be baked



Here's the recipe my darlings. For you to try at home. In hope that it will hit 'that spot' whenever you're needing some comforting and tender-loving-care.

I have dedicated them to you from my heart.

Rob & Laith's Terry's Chocolate Orange Chip Cookies

Rob & Laith's Terry's Chocolate Orange Chip Cookies

360g plain flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sea salt
120g cold butter, cubed
150g castor sugar
150g light brown sugar
Grated zest of 1 extra-large orange
75g Terry's Milk Chocolate Orange, chopped
80g small chocolate chips

• Preheat oven at 160C.
• Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

1. Put both sugars and orange zest into a large bowl. Rub zest into the sugar with your fingers until the mixture gives off a strong citrus fragrance. (Put the bowl over a smaller pot of boiling water without touching the water and then rub the sugar/zest if it's a cold day.)
2. Add the cold, cubed butter into the sugar mixture and cream for about 5 minutes with an electric beater.
3. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
4. Gently fold in the flour.
5. Gently fold in the chocolate orange bits and chocolate chips into the mixture.
6. Scoop 2-tsp sized balls onto the prepared baking sheets.
7. Bake at 180C in the lower-top half of the oven for 8 minutes.
8. Remove from the oven and cool on sheet for 2 minutes. Then transfer all the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Note:

• You may need less flour than I did because of the climate. Start with 270g flour and measure in any additional you may need from there. You should get a cookie dough that just leaves the sides of the bowl cleanly when trying to make a ball of dough.
• This recipe makes a soft, chewy cookie.
• Do not bake or leave them on the baking sheet to cool any more than the given time or they will dry out and be hard, chewy instead.
• The rubbing of the sugar and zest is a trick I learnt from Dorie Greenspan. She uses the large-bowl-over-boiling-water method, but in the tropics I find that we don't necessary have to do that. The warmth of my fingers is enough.
• Try it with cranberries. I'm going to. I think it would be really luscious!

Much love,

Ann

Gateau au citron verte

I've been wanting to try this recipe out for the longest time. I bookmarked it almost a year ago, and I've just got around to making it. You can find the recipe at Fanny's. She has done a lovely clementine confit to go with it, but I was baking on a week night after a full day at work and didn't have the energy to confit anything! She's an amazing baker and I do love the whimsical way she writes her posts. 

The only thing I did different from her recipe was to use the grated rind of 2 limes instead of lemons (as I didn't have any lemons on hand, but would encourage you to use the grated rind of 4 limes instead for a more intense aroma). Plus, my cake needed to be baked a little longer, for about an hour before the skewer inserted in the middle came out clean. 

This isn't a traditional soft, spongy 'angel-like' cake. This is a rustic, robust, carry-anywhere-without-worrying kind off cake. I discovered that slicing it thin, toasting it and slathering it with marmalade or raspberry jam (as you can see in the photo) for breakfast with a hot, hot cup of coffee is an absolutely indulgent  way of treating oneself in the mornings. (Okay okay, so I had some before going to bed last night too.) As Fanny says 'Be kind, rewind.'

Toasting cake may not sound very appealing to you, but you'll appreciate it with this cake. The texture changes and suddenly this dense, moist loaf is slightly crusty around the edges and oh-so-soft in the middle.

It does need getting used to though. If you're used to the tradition of tea cakes and coffee cakes, this will be something you'll like. If - like my boss - you can't get over the 'It's not cake, but it's not bread. It's dense, and moist not soft, spongy and moist', then you'd best stay away from this recipe... but you won't know what you're missing!

Ispahans on a budget

It's Independence Day here in Malaysia, otherwise known as Hari Merdeka. Did I feel patriotic today? Not exactly. Today, the first in a long time, I didn't even manage to catch the Merdeka Day parade on television, but that's another story.

Instead, I took a journey to the beautiful city of Isfahan, via some macarons of course.

Fly me away to Isfahan...

Ever since I discovered Pierre Herme and macarons, I've always wondered what the buzz was about his Ispahans. The name itself was suitably exotic and inspiring. Rose-flavoured macaron shells, with lychee buttercream and a raspberry gelee centre. The heady perfume and flavours of the east in a macaron.

All the amateur photography prep made me hungry

I assume here that Pierre got his inspiration for the Ispahan from the grand old city of Isfahan. So, I did a little research on the city itself. I found this source a good and easy read sprinkled with some beautiful photos. I'm  inspired to visit Isfahan some day. In the meantime, I'll just have to settle for a taste... or two. 

There is a recipe for Pierre Herme's Ispahan macarons here. This is the closest recipe I could find on the Internet for what they are reputed to be. I never had a chance to try them while in Paris earlier this year, so I can't vouch for its authenticity. Plus, I'm a home-cook and the recipe looks like it's meant to be made in a professional kitchen and feed an army of macaron-lovers. Scale it down? Can't be bothered. 

So, what did I do? I made rose-flavoured shells in a baby pink. Mixed some lychee-flavoured buttercream and used my favourite raspberry jam in the centre.

How did they turn out? Mmmmmmm... pretty good for Ispahans on a budget!

Lychee buttercream on rose macaron shells

Raspberry surprise

Pretty, pretty berries...

This is a very late post. Some time in April, before I left for a holiday in the UK, our office had a party and some of us (the lucky ones, yea) got fresh strawberries in our goodie bags. I turned mine into a strawberry frangipane tart. Please don't ask me what recipe I used, because I simply cannot remember! It was a while ago, and a lot has happened since then.

In retrospect, I'm not sure strawberries work very well in a frangipane tart. It tasted lovely, but I'll probably use them in a fresh fruit tart the next time.

However, I do love the pictures I took of the berries and the tart. So, here it is for your viewing pleasure.

Pretty, pretty berries

Lovely contrast of red and green

Strawberry Frangipane Tart fresh out of the oven

Yummy, yummy slice... mmmmm...

The woman I needed to call my mother...

The woman 

I needed to call my mother

Was silenced before I was born. 

Adrienne Rich

Ever since my mother's passing, I have wondered about her. Did I really, truly know her? 

Who was she before her name became mother? Who was the young lady who did Form Six but never got to go to university because my grandfather couldn't afford it? Who was this person who applied for teacher's training and never got it? Who was the girl who married my father? What were her dreams, wishes, ambitions, loves, hates and sorrows? Did any of her desires come true? Did they never come true? 

Who is this woman in the picture? What was she thinking on that day of her 21st birthday? Who was she laughing with? What was she laughing at? 

I wonder.

She didn't have it easy. That much I know. She grew up, got married, had her eldest child three years after marriage, helped out with the family's finances, raised three children, supported her husband, opened her house to loved ones needing food and comfort... the list goes on. 

Money was tight. My father didn't earn much as a government servant in those days, but my mother still managed. Education was a song she drummed into us her children... you must have an education to be someone someday. She strongly believed that that was the stepping stone to success and standing on our own two feet. She cajoled, pleaded, pushed, bullied and forced each of us to study hard during the exam years. 

I hated those years. (I can't speak for my brothers, as I don't know what they felt when it was their turn and I expect their experiences of my mother are different from mine.) 

Now, I think back to those years with tears in my heart and eyes. As Sarah Ban Breathnach once said of her mother and I echo here, 'From my mother I first learned how a woman unconsciously performs practical magic, turning lack into abundance with courage and gratitude. She taught me how to spin straw into gold, what to do with a few loaves and fishes, and how rising to any occasion was a feminine art form.'

The mother I knew was amazing. She cooked, baked, sewed, cleaned,  mopped, gardened, took care of all her family's needs and still had time to spare for others. Yet, I'd like to have known my 'Mystery Mother'. She is the one I miss, mourn and long for most of all at this stage in my life. 

In honour of her memory, for my dinner tonight I recreated a simple dish she used to make whenever my father brought home a piece of shark from the market. It's been many many moons since I've eaten this, and I tried to remember how my mother made it. There's no recipe for this. My mother never referred to an accurately measured recipe for this, and I will not here either. 

In our home, mummy would make this to accompany a fish curry or resam meal. Tonight, I just enjoyed it on its own wrapped inside little parcels of baby spinach. 

Feel your way through this. Pretend you are a home-cook who doesn't rely on accurately measured recipes, but rather on taste and 'feel'. Throw in a spoonful or a handful of this and that. Add in chopped fresh chillies if you want more heat, fresh coconut or anything else you 'feel' you like. The sky's the limit. Enjoy!

Sura Meen Puttu

Shark fish fillet

Turmeric powder

Chilli  powder

Fenugreek seeds

Mustard seeds

Onions, finely chopped

Curry leaves, finely chopped

Salt to taste

Boil the shark fillet in a little water with turmeric, chilli powder and salt. Once the fish is cooked through, remove from stove, put the fish on a plate, flake the fish as finely as possible with a fork and check the salt. In a wok, heat a little oil. Add mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds, onions and curry leaves. Fry until aromatic, and add in the fish. Fry the fish until all the moisture has evaporated and the fish resembles little coconut flakes. Check for salt once again and add some if you need it.