MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I wish I could hitch a ride on Santa's sledge and arrive at your doorstep, there to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and shake you by the hand.

Alas, still covered with paints from the house painting job I have been avoiding for the whole year until last week, I must content myself with writting to you. First of all, I want to say it has been a great pleasure writting this blog over the past year. I fully realise full well how your visits and comments have kept this blog going and want you to know how greatly I appreciate it.

I hope the Christmas holiday will find you happy and safe with your family and that the New Year brings you new success and greater prosperity.

Cheers!

Hot Buboh Cha Cha for a Cold Sydney Summer!

If you are visiting Sydney this summer, you are likely to need your brolly or poncho when the weathermen expect the unseasonably cold and wet weather to continue throughout this season. You think its bothersome, wait until you have to unpack your woollies that you have put away and thinking summer is done. Amid the coldest start to a Sydney summer in almost 50 years, my wife reluctantly unpacked the winter clothes she had just put away for storage. We need the winter clothes again as it was reported that Sydney had its lowest December minimum for 16 years with the morning temperature hovering around 10 degree and Katoomba in the Blue Mountain almost froze at 2.5 degree, experienced its lowest December on record. It is the coldest first week of summer since 1960.
We had hot buboh cha cha for dessert last night. No, that was not a typo mistake. I know, many Singaporeans are used to eat buboh cha cha with ice shavings, but with the temperature dropping outside, there is nothing more appropriate than to enjoy a steaming hot bowl of buboh cha cha. I just have to post this recipe as an appreciation for my missus, who had spent the whole afternoon to prepare this dessert. Firstly, she cut the sweet potatoes and taro before steaming them individually. Instead of adding sago, she also made my favourite tiny tapioca dumpling to go with it. Besides, she added black-eye beans to give another unfamiliar twist to the buhoh cha cha that we know.

Buboh Cha Cha Recipe:

Ingredients:

500g sweet potatoes
500g taro
150g black-eye beans
200g tapioca flour
1 cup sugar
5 Tsp water
¼ cup hot water.
2 can (380ml) coconut milk
2 pandan leaves, if unavailable use ½ tsp pandan essence
2 cup water.
½ green food colouring
Soak black eye beans in water overnight. Place beans in a pot and bring to boil for about 30 minutes or until soft. Peel sweet potatoes and taro, cut into 2 cm cubes. Steam sweet potatoes and yam separately for 15 mins or until cooked.
To make tapioca dumplings:
Mix tapioca flour with cold water and stir well. Pour in ¼ hot water or enough to make a soft dough. Add food colour and knead, add more tapioca if necessary. Roll the soft dough into ½ cm strips and cut into cubes or triangles. Sprinkle with more tapioca flour to keep it separate. Bring 4 cups of water to boil in a pot, put in the tapioca cubes. It floats to the surface once it is cooked. Drain and run under a cold water tap.
Bring 2 cup water with sugar to boil in a saucepan and add coconut milk. Put in the sweet potatoes and taro cubes black eye beans and add the tapioca dumplings. Add the pandan essence and serve hot or cold.

Summer time is Party Time in OZ! Lets agar-agar...

Summer time in Australia is party time. It starts with the endless lunches and cocktail parties in the office for end of the year parties until the start of another and together with the traditional Yuletide festivities highlighted in its midst, there is no excuse not to join in the fun. There is no better way to celebrate its joys than to sit down at a table with family and friends and share all the complements of the season. Of course, for many Overseas Singaporeans, every festive season is also synonymous with fine food. And over the holidays, why not try to cook some of our traditional dishes? Besides bringing a dish of home cooked food makes a wonderful gift to bring along for any get-together or party with friends. What better motivation to spend these hazy lazy days of summer and to share some of our time honoured finger-food recipes– perfect with any party or makan session.

Agar -Agar with Coconut Milk Topping:

Ingredients:

30g agar-agar powder
1 ½ cup sugar
1 can (350ml) coconut milk
4 pandan leaves or 1 Tsp pandan essence
½ tsp green colouring
5 cup water

Stir and dissolve 20g agar-agar powder with 4 ½ cup of water in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil and add sugar and pandan leaves or pandan essence. Keep stirring while boiling for 20 minutes. Add green colouring and pour into a mould to set for about twenty minutes or until it is about to set but still wobbly.
Coconut Topping:
Stir and dissolve 10g agar –agar powder with water in a sauce pan. Bring to boil. Add coconut milk and bring to boil. Remove from heat once it started to boil.
Gently ladle coconut topping over green agar-agar and leave to set. When it is cooled keep in refrigerator to serve agar –agar cold.

What Kimchi got to do with K-pop in Singapore?

During my recent visit to Singapore, I have noticed that Korean food have taken a firm foothold in the local eatery scene. Korean food is available even in the local food courts and moving towards a popularity status, similar to that enjoyed by Japanese food, up until the 1990s. I can’t help but suspect the Korean TV series or K-pop culture is driving a paradigm shift in the exposure and popularity of the Korean food in Singapore. But recent influx of enquires and requests to by blog for kimchi recipes from fellow Singaporeans can only add to my long held suspicion.
Just like sambal belachan which is an integral side dish for Nonya and Malay families, kimchi is typically served at every meal in Korean homes and restaurants. To many Koreans, a meal without kimchi is unthinkable! Kimchi has always being synonymous to Korea long before K-pop and Korean TV soap operas have grown into a popular pastime among young and many not so young followers in Singapore, resulting in widespread interest from food to the fashion and style of Korean idol groups and actors.
Ironically, I have learned kimchi making not from a Korean but a Japanese friend Naoko, who has been making kimchi according to a home recipe she inherited from her grandmother. It has been her family’s pride; there is nothing like homemade kimchi! Each family’s kimchi has its own unique flavour, but the basic process is still the same. According to Naoko, the basic step is to salt the vegetable, firming it up by extracting its liquid in order to give crunchiness to its final product. A mixture of spices is than added and the vegetable is left to ferment, creating its distinctive character of homemade kimchi.

Ingredients:
2 kg Chinese cabbage.
11/2 cup coarse sea salt
500g Chinese radish cut into matchsticks
3 fresh large chillies seeded and cut into strips.
3 large white onions sliced
150g Chinese chive (ku chai)
4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp grated ginger
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup Korean Chilli powder (kochu karu) or coarse chilli powder
2 tsp salted Shrimp (saeu chot) or chinchaluk (Malaysian preserved shrimp)
2 tsp flour.

Wash cabbage and cut lengthwise into quarters. Place the cabbages into a large steel or plastic bowl with the cut sides up and sprinkle salt between the leaves. Dissolve ¼ cup of slat with 1 cup of warm water and pour over the cabbage. Let stand the cabbage for at least 3 hours, shifting the cabbages every hour to evenly salt the pieces. During the last hour, test the cabbage for crunchiness. If you happy with the crunch, rinse the cabbage several time and drain on a colander. Make the stuffing paste while the cabbage is salting. To make the stuffing paste, dissolve the flour in 1 cup of water in a small saucepan. Bring to boil and reduce the heat to medium low. Stirring gently until it becomes a paste. Let it cool before adding the chilli powder and preserved shrimp. Mix well into a deep red paste and add all remaining ingredients and mix well. Place the salted cabbages in a bowl and insert the stuffing paste between the leaves. Place the cabbage into a screw-top jar and press down firmly to pack well and remove trapped air bubbles. Add a little water to mix with the remaining bits and pieces of stuffing and pour over the cabbages. Add more water if needed to immersed kimchi completely in liquid but be sure to leave at least 50mm of space at the top of the jar.

Bully Beef But We Were Not Conned...

As a member of the Commonwealth, modern Singapore is still steep in some past legacies of the old British Empire such as the Internal Security Act (which authorizes detention without trial in certain circumstances) and the Societies Act (which regulates the formation of associations) that were enacted during the colonial days, I am surprised that Singaporeans have not been conned in eating bully beef like many of Britain’s former colonies. Unlike time- honoured Brands Essence of Chicken or Jacobs Cracker Biscuits which hold much high esteem and have the stamp of approval from our grandparents and parents since British colonial days, the bully beef has failed to leave its mark on our Imperial past. But it had definitely played an important role in the British military history as it was the main field rations for their soldiers fighting in the field from the Boer War to World War II.

Bully beef is also known as canned corned beef and is sold in distinctive oblong-shaped cans, or in Australia , it is typically sold in uncooked round or silverside of beef, cured or pickled in a seasoned brine from supermarkets. It is difficult to point out the differences in consumption of corned beef in various countries but it is often associated with culture and taste. I can simply put it this way, bully beef to the British is like luncheon meat to the Singaporean Chinese.

I could not remember eating canned corned beef in my younger days, until I went to work in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea in the 1970s. I was staggered by the popularity and high consumption of canned corned beef in these former British colonies in the Pacific. To this day, it is not unusual to find corned beef being served at communal feast, family gatherings and everyday’s meals. Since then, I have included corned beef in our family cooking as a boiled dinner served with cabbage, and root vegetables such as carrots, turnips, and potatoes.

CORNED BEEF RECIPE:

INGREDIENTS:

• 1.5kg uncooked corned beef (silverside)
• 1 onion, quartered
• 2 stalks celery, coarsely chopped
• 2 medium carrot
• 5 cloves of garlic, smashed
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• ½ cup brown vinegar
• 8 whole cloves
• 1 tsp black peppercorns
• 1 Tbsp vinegar

WHITE MUSTARD SAUCE:

• 1 Tbsp butter/margarine
• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
• 1 Tbsp plain flour
• 3/4 cup (190ml) milk
• 1½ cup stock reserved juices from the pot.


Preparation method

Rinse the meat with cold water and place in a large saucepan and fill with water to cover the corned beef Add in your sugar, vinegar, garlic, carrot celery, cloves, peppercorns and bay leaves.
Bring the pot to the boil and cover and simmer for 2 hours or until meat is tender.
Once cooked, take the meat out and let it rest and cool.
To make the sauce;
1. Melt the margarine or butter in a pan over low-medium heat and then add the flour to make a thick paste. Stir in the mustard and keep adding milk to get the consistency of a smooth paste. Add the stock from the pan, to get a nice thin sauce. Serve cooked corned beef with cabbage and root vegetables such as carrots, turnips and potatoes.

First, catch your hare...

First, catch your hare” is the immortal first line commonly thought to originate in the recipe for hare soup by Hannah Glasse an author of the most influential English cookbook of the eighteenth-century. Although the familiar words, ‘First catch your hare,’ were never to be found in Mrs. Glasse's famous volume, I think in terms of culinary merit it is still being true today. Nothing is closer to the truth for many Overseas Singaporeans who want to cook a familiar dish in a foreign country where the main ingredient is unavailable. Unless the main ingredient can be substituted to accomplish a good end result, it is like cooking beef rendang without coconut or eating chui kueh without the chaipoh(preserved raddish).
I have been delaying my attempt to cook tagine until I have made the preserved lemon which is an essential ingredient in most Middle Eastern cookings. Now, that my homemade preserved lemons are ready in the pantry, I could not wait to cook the long awaited Moroccan Chicken Tagine.

Ingredients

1.5kg Chicken pieces
3 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced
½ cup green peas
1 small carrot, chopped
4 tomatoes, sliced
3 onions, sliced
150g of pitted olives
4 preserved lemons, cut rind only into strips
2 bay leaves.

Chermoula Paste

4 cloves garlic
4cm ginger, sliced
1 large onion, sliced
2 preserved lemons, cut rind only into strips
1tsp chili flakes
1tsp paprika
½ tsp turmeric
1Tsp coriander
3 tsp cumin
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp salt
1 bunch fresh coriander coarsely chopped
½ cup flat leaf parsley coarsely chopped.
½ cup oil

Method

To make chermoula paste, process ingredients in a blender to a paste. Set aside 2 tablespoon of chermouila paste and pour the remaining paste over chicken, mix to coat. Mix potatoes and reserved chermouila paste in a bowl.

Pour 2 tablespoon of oil into tagine, and placed sliced tomatoes and onions on the base of tagine. Add chicken pieces in the centre and pile the potatoes and carrot in order to fit into the tagine. Scatter with olives and preserved lemons and bay leaves. Cook covered on low heat for 45 minutes. Add peas and cook for a further 15 minute. Serve hot with couscous.

Kiwi is of Chinese Origin...

I have always loved Kiwi and even more so now that I have come to know of its origin. With its brown velvety skin on the outside and sweet and juicy flesh inside, honestly who could ever resist it? Yes, I am talking about the kiwifruit which owes its origin to China until a clever marketing strategy in the 1950s changes its nationality ever since. This fruit had a long history in its original motherland before it was commercialized as kiwifruit, and therefore had many other older names such as Chinese gooseberry and Macaque peach or míhóu táo (獼猴桃) in Chinese.

Incidentally, I still think that I have also fallen into the same marketing ploy when I bought a pair of kiwi plants from the nursery. The plants was presented as a boy plant in a blue pot and girl plant in pink pot, packed together in a carry box with a delicious kiwi fruit-tart print. The nurseryman did not try to sell me more than one plant. It is all about the birds and the bees, that you must plant a male and a female plant in order to produce fruits. It is dioecious by nature, which refers to a plant population having separate male and female plants.

I have told myself not to add another plant in my overcrowded backyard but I have prepared the bed next to the pergola to accommodate my newly purchased kiwifruit plants. How can you not find room for a long lost cousin?