Double Chocolate Cake

Nephew #3 gave me some Valrhona chocolate couverture.

Grand Cru Araguani - 72 percent cocoa from a blend of Criollos and Trinitarios beans from Venezuela.





He also gave me some cocoa, the provenance of which is not so certain since it's a collection of dessert leavings.

I would like to think though that the cocoa is Valrhona as well.

I used both the Araguani feves and the cocoa in this cake.

Its texture was crumbly on the fork, like smooth mashed potato in the mouth.

The double chocolate gave the cake a deep, slightly bitter, burnt finish.

The almond slivers added a bit of crunch, resulting in a contrasting mouth feel.

Ingredients

8 oz butter

12 oz self-raising flour

5 oz brown sugar

5 oz castor sugar

4 eggs

2 oz cocoa

4 oz dark chocolate (melted)

4 teaspoons honey

3 fl oz milk

pinch of salt

almond slivers to sprinkle on top of cake

Method

Cream the butter with the sugars and honey. Beat in the eggs. Add the salt and cocoa to the flour and fold this into the butter mixture, alternating with the milk. Mix in the melted chocolate. Transfer to a springform tin that has been buttered and dusted with flour. Sprinkle the almonds on the cake mix. Bake in an 180 degree oven for about an hour.

The next time I make this I will use yoghurt in place of the milk and add some orange rind to give it a slightly sharper citrus note.

Multi-Grain Congee

After a week of eating roast chicken and potatoes, it was time for something a little less taxing on the stomach.

That called for multi-grain congee and some steamed tofu.

I used a multi-grain mix from Taiwan plus whole wheat grains (terigu), barley, green lentils and black glutinous rice.

I cooked it the old-fashioned way - on the stove instead of using a rice cooker or the microwave.

Just put everything in a pot, add water and bring to a boil.

It took about an hour for the congee to reach the consistency I like.

I ate it with tofu, sardines and cabbage.

Simple and healthful; a meal to warm the stomach on a balmy evening.

And it cost no more than about $2.50.

Slimy Soup

My mother called it "san choy" or "slimy vegetable". Now it's just plain "red vegetable", according to the information on the plastic bag in which it is packed. Maybe the change in name is because the vegetable is less slimy now than I remember it to have been in my childhood.

Whatever the name, the vegetable is just as good in a soup like my mother used to make. It's not quite the same yet close enough to recall a taste of what used to be.

Put some water in a pot, add a handful of wolfberries and dried silver fish and a slice of ginger. Let the stock simmer while you clean the vegetables. Add the stalks to the pot; allow them to soften. Then add the leaves. After a minute or so, beat an egg and add to the soup. Swirl the egg around to make clumps. Turn off the heat. Season with salt and pepper and a few drops of sesame oil.

My mother used to cook this with a salted egg instead. If you use that, add the yolk earlier to allow it to cook properly. Lay off the salt or the soup would be too salty.

Fish Cake and Char Siew Noodles with Fish Ball Soup

I bought some juicy fish cake at Chinatown Complex this morning. That inspired me to make my own "konloh mee".

My version has all my favourite ingredients.





No lard. I used pumpkin seed oil instead. Just a dash of it together with ketchup, chili sauce, ground black pepper and the juice of one lime.





Fresh noodles must be eaten the moment they are ready or they will turn into a soggy lump of starch. So cook the soup before you start on the noodles.

Mini spinach is so tender when blanched in a stock made with dried silver fish and a clove of garlic. The fish balls give the soup extra oomph. Ground black pepper helps to balance the flavours.




Cook the noodles, put them in the prepared sauce, mix. Top the noodles with fish cake and char siew that have been warmed in the microwave for a few seconds. Garnish with chopped spring onions.




"Konloh mee" with fish ball and spinach soup. A healthier version with no heart-clogging lard.

Cinnamon Buns

I love cinnamon buns.

But I don't like the mass produced ones sold in the shops.

They smell.

So I made my own.

Cinnamon buns are scrumptious with tea.




They are easy to make too.

First make a dough in a bread machine.

Roll it out and brush it with melted butter.






Next, sprinkle the dough with raisins, brown sugar and cinnamon.

Leave a border along one edge of the dough.





Then, roll the dough up like a Swiss roll.

Make sure you start from a covered edge and roll towards the uncovered border.




Press the edges together to seal the roll before slicing it.





Place the slices in a lightly oiled tin and cover it with cling wrap.

Put the tin in a warm place to allow the dough to rise.




After about 40 minutes, it will look like this.




Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C and bake the buns for about 20 minutes.



Melt some sugar in a bit of water to make a thick syrup.

Brush the buns with the syrup once they are out of the oven.




Let the buns cool on a wire rack.

Eat them while they are warm.




The buns can be kept in the fridge for a week.

Warm them in the microwave oven in the morning for a yummy breakfast.

But they are so delicious they might all be eaten the moment they are done.

One-Egg Scramble

Eggs are perfect scrambled with cheese.

Some may say that's too much of a good thing.

To lessen the guilt, use only one egg in the scramble.

Add tomato to give it a healthful boost.

First fry the tomato with a clove of garlic and one shallot in a bit of olive oil.



Beat one egg with grated parmean and add to the tomato.



Season with freshly ground black pepper. Turn off the heat when the egg forms clumps.

I prefer not to add salt because I like the natural savoury taste of the egg and parmesan.




Spread mayonnaise on two slices of home-made wholemeal bread and pile the egg onto one of them.





Press the other slice on top of the egg, cut the sandwich in half and serve at once.





Oh, and take a picture before you eat the sandwich.

I had some spinach soup to go with it.

Lily's Stuffed Pumpkin

I had a pumpkin sitting on my dining table for two weeks.

Lily saw it and gave me this recipe for steamed stuffed pumpkin.

First cut off the top of the pumpkin and scoop out the seeds.

Fill the pumpkin with sliced boneless chicken breast seasoned with oyster sauce, pepper and a dash of sesame oil.



Steam the pumpkin for about 40 minutes.



When it's cooked, transfer it to a serving dish.

Scoop out the chicken together with the pumpkin flesh and serve warm.

The pumpkin held its shape very well and the chicken was surprisingly tender even though it had been cooking for 40 minutes.

I enjoyed this very much. 

The next time I cook this, I will marinate the chicken in curry.

I am looking forward to pumpkin curry.

Pissaladiere - Almost

I had Provence on my mind.

That led me to pissaladiere.

I tried making some.

It was somewhat difficult to be true to Nicoise tradition when I had only 4 olives and 2 anchovy fillets.

So I chopped up the olives instead of using them whole.

I then mashed the anchovies to a paste.

Voila - pissalat, minus the herbs.

Just so the pissaladiere won't look too dull I added cherry tomatoes, blanched and skinned.

Then, I thought why not some sun-dried tomatoes as well.

To take things a bit further, I spread tomato paste on the dough with the "pissalat" before heaping on the fried onions, tomatoes and olives and some grated parmesan.

Hmmm - maybe I made pizza instead!

In any case, it was a delicious lunch eaten with some carrots left over from dinner.

Sister Number 2 and 5 were the beneficiaries of this pissaladiere experiment.

Leftovers

Some people like to turn leftovers into new dishes.

I like to eat them mostly as is.

All that's needed is a bit of display skill.

My Christmas dinner tasted just as yummy the day after.

Virginia ham with honey and pineapple glaze, apple sauce, cranberry, pineapple and ginger chutney, salad, steamed pumpkin and mashed potato.

All home-made.

Strictly speaking, the pumpkin was not from Christmas.

I had steamed it 2 or 3 days earlier for lunch.

But it did kind of go with the Christmas theme.

So there you go, leftovers that look good and taste even better.

Fresh Pasta

Nothing beats fresh pasta for a quick lunch.

Just about 10 minutes' work in the kitchen is all that's needed.

Cook some prawns in a little water.

Blanch some bean sprouts and vegetables in another pot.

Set vegetables aside and bring the water back to a boil.

While the water is boiling, pour some ketchup and chili sauce on a plate.

Add a few drops of sesame oil, a pinch of pepper and sugar, some cut chili and the juice of one lime.

Put one portion of fresh mee bok into the boiling water, turn off the heat immediately.

Remove the mee bok from the pot and put it under a running tap for a few seconds.

Return the noodles to the pot to warm up for a few seconds in the hot water.

Drain and put noodles onto the plate with the sauce, add bean sprouts and a few spoons of the liquid from the prawns, mix.

Pile on the vegetables and prawns.

Add chopped spring onions, cilantro and chilies.

Serve immediately for a simply scrumptious lunch. 

Microwave Egg

Conventional wisdom has it that eggs in their shell should never be microwaved, unless you want a big splat and some mighty cleaning up.

Sister Number 5 has found a way to do it without the mess.

Take an egg, let it return to room temperature if it has been in the fridge for a while.

Put the egg in a bowl of hot water.

Place the bowl, uncovered, in the microwave at high for 2 minutes.

Remove the bowl from the oven and let it stand, covered, for 10 minutes.

Voila!

Now isn't that better than any you get at those kaya toast places you find everywhere?

Make a sandwich.

Slice some tomatoes.

Steam some maize.

What a lovely lunch!

Jam in My Head

Cooking shows on TV can be most annoying.

They show you luscious pictures of the most delicious food.

Then you just can't get those images out of your head.

So you have no choice but to try to replicate what you saw.

The one shot that stayed in my head all week was that of a pan of apple jam.

All the cook did was to throw apple into the pan, add sugar and cinnamon and five seconds later jam of the deepest amber appeared.

Well, in the real world, making apple jam is not that easy.

It takes a bit more effort but it's well worth it.

I made mine with Granny Smith apples, brown sugar, lemon rind and juice, ginger and cloves.

It was way past midnight by the time I got everything ready.

So instead of staying up all night stirring jam, I put the whole pot in the fridge.

As it turned out, that was probably a good thing.

The sugar melted and juice came out of the apple so that by morning I had a soupy mixture ready for the long road to sticky success.

So while I had breakfast and watched more TV, the pot of apple soup bubbled away on the stove.

If you plan to follow my example, be sure to give the pot a good stir each time there is a commercial break.

This will pre-empt any tendency for the apple to stick to the pan.

After about an hour, the soup started to look more like it was going to turn into a sticky caramel.



It occurred to me that biting into the cloves wouldn't be very nice when all I want is sweet, fragrant jam on toast.

The thing to do then is to pick out all the cloves with a pair of chopsticks.

Once that's done, it's time to stop watching TV and turn all your attention to the pot.

It's now non-stop stirring till all the moisture is gone and the apple is a glorious sticky amber jam.

I had enough to fill three regular jam jars plus a small one.

Here's what you need to make Fen's Apple Jam.

10 Granny Smith apples, pared and cut into thick slices

2 and a half pounds brown sugar

Juice and rind of 2 lemons

A 2-inch knob of ginger, julienned

About 15 cloves

Once the jam is done, let it cool in the pot.

Sterilise some clean jam jars by boiling them for about 5 minutes.

When the jars are dry fill them with the jam.



Spread the jam on home-made wholemeal bread for breakfast.

Or serve it with roast chicken or nasi bryani for dinner.

I don't know how long the jam can be kept.

But I am sure it will all be eaten long before any mould has a chance to grow.

Instant Gratification

When hunger strikes, even the health conscious could succumb to the lure of fast food.

Instant noodles - the new fat-free variety - are just the ticket.

No fat, no cholesterol, no preservatives, no colouring.

They are steamed and air-dried, not fried.

They don't come with seasoning.

So you have to make your own.

Try mushrooms.

Fresh shitake and portobello sauteed with garlic and oyster sauce.

Toss the cooked noodles with some ketchup, chili sauce and sesame oil.

Top that with the mushrooms and some bok choy.

There you have it - an instant gourmet meal.

No Fruit Cake Please

Christmas is a time for fruit cake. The boozy variety, with 12-year-old whiskey grown even older in the bottle.

But the liquor can't mask the sweetness of the fruit cake now deemed too cloying by taste buds accustomed to a low sugar, low fat diet.

The alternative this Christmas - something with much less sugar.

Make a dough in the bread machine, roll it out and fill it with organic dates from Egypt and home-made marzipan.


After allowing the ring to rise for about 20 minutes, bake it in the oven for 35 minutes at 180 degrees.

When it's done, let it cool and decorate it with icing sugar.

Some plastic reindeer and fake holly wouldn't be out of place.

No one missed the fruit cake.

Maybe because there was also carrot cake with cream cheese icing.

And a drunken reindeer in the corner.


Nephew Number 3 says that's Rudolph with his nose all red from one drink too many.

Perhaps it was the whiskey saved from the fruit cake that never was.