Ugly Duckling & the Swan - Recipes: Steamed Meat Cake and Salmon with Black Bean Sauce

In the food world, the story of the Ugly Duckling and the Swan is also often played out. There are just some dishes which do not stand up particularly well presentation-wise, but are nonetheless delicious. Take the Chinese steamed meat cake, which is a staple in most Chinese homes. Simple ingredients, clean in taste, it used to be one of the dishes I would ask for as a kid when I was sick. Unfortunately, it also happens to look...well, like a pale, diseased lump of clay. I promise you however that it tastes much better than it looks.

Ingredients:
500 g of minced pork, with a little fat
1 tbsp tung choy (preserved vegetable) or spring onion, minced
2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp dark soy sauce
2 tsps sesame oil
2 tsps Shao Xing wine
Dash pepper
Pinch of salt
1 tbsp corn starch

1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup water

Combine minced pork with the seasoning ingredients and mix well with your hands. Press mixture into glass pie or steaming plate. Add in egg and pour in water to cover. Steam over high heat for about 10-15 minutes. Serve hot

And then you have dishes such as pan-fried salmon, with its lovely pink colour and crsip skin. Garnish it with a couple of springs of coriander and the whole thing looks pretty elegant and dinner-party ready. Seems rather unfair doesn't it, that some dishes are just "born beautiful" (haha), regardless of the chef.

I made a black bean garlic sauce to accompany the fish.

Ingredients:
Sesame oil to glaze
1 tsp minced ginger
1 tsp minced garlic
2 tsps minced spring onions
3 tsps sherry or Shao Xing wine
1 tbsp black bean garlic sauce
1 tsp oyster sauce
2 tsps sugar
1/4 cup water

In the same pan used to fry your fish, drain off excess oil and drizzle sesame oil to glaze the pan. Stir fry ginger, garlic and spring onions until fragrant, add wine, black bean garlic sauce, oyster sauce and sugar. Add water and boil for a couple of minutes until the sauce reaches the consistency you like. Serve over fish or on the side.

A morning out at Jacob Ballas Children's Garden

Doesn't this picture make you want to smile?

I was fortunate enough to tag along a field trip this morning to the Children's Garden at the Botanical Gardens. I have to hand it to Singapore, its management of public facilities is excellent for the most part. Entrance is free I believe, but you need to be a kid to get in. Here are some photos which I managed to take.

Recipe: Steamed Tofu with Assorted Mushrooms and an Unexpected Visitor

I am not one to be overly superstitious, but I have noticed that every year around the Chinese New Year I get a visitor in the form of a moth. The first time I noticed it was the year after my paternal grandfather passed away. The Chinese believe that our ancestors visit the living, taking on forms such as the moth. That year, a beautiful, black and white Atlas moth visited our home. It came again the next year, and the year after that.  As a child, I believed it was my grandfather watching over us, year after year. At that time, Damansara Heights was still a place that was lush and protected. I remember fondly that when we first moved there in the early 1980s we could still find fireflies at night. I woke up to the sound of Myna birds in the morning. Many of those mystical, green spaces have given way to high rise condominiums over the years.

I woke up this morning and noticed this brown moth in my living room. In a place as "biodiversitically-challenged" as Singapore, it left me with a sense of awe and amazement. As I grow more cynical with age and try desperately to rationalise and to find neat and simple answers to everything, incidents like this remind me that some things just cannot be explained. The moth later followed me to the kitchen, above my preparation station where this picture was shot. I guess, it knew my favourite spot in the house.

As a cook, one likes to try new dishes at restaurants and replicate it at home. I have created a simplified version of a dish that is often served in Chinese restaurants, Tofu with Braised Mushrooms. Though the tofu is often deep-fried first, this version which is steamed and thus uses less oil is pretty good.

Ingredients:
1 block of soft tofu
4 dried shitake mushrooms, soaked in about 1/2 cup of hot water for at least 30 minutes to soften
1 pack of enoki mushrooms, cut off roots and separate
150 g button mushrooms, sliced
150 g oyster mushrooms, sliced into halves if they are large. Leave small ones whole.
2 tsps minced ginger
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tbsp Shao Xing wine (Chinese rice wine)
1 1/2 tbsp oil
1/2 tbsp sesame oil

Seasoning:
1 1/2 tbsp vegetarian oyster sauce
1/2 tbsp light soy sauce
1/2 tsp dark soy sauce
1/4 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp sugar

Thickening: (optional)
1 1/2 tsp corn starch
2 tbsp water

1/2 tbsp chopped spring onions (optional)

Method:
Drain black mushrooms, cut off woody stems and slice thinly. In the same bowl used to hydrate the shitake mushrooms, combine seasoning ingredients and mix well.

Over high heat, steam tofu for 10 minutes. (Alternatively, microwave on high for about 2-3 minutes). Drain excess liquid.

Heat oil and sesame oil in skillet on medium-high. Add garlic and ginger and saute' until fragrant. Add in black mushrooms and Chinese wine, and stir fry briskly. Add in button and oyster mushrooms, stir fry for about 2 minutes, and then add seasoning ingredients and cover. Lower heat and simmer for about 5 minutes. Lift cover up and add in enoki mushrooms. Simmer for another 5 minutes.

Finally, add in cornstarch slurry, if desired, (I usually skip this, as I am a saucy gal, haha)  stir, and pour over steamed tofu. Garnish with spring onions and serve hot.

Solve the mystery

Lately my friends have been wondering why I've been showing up in class with books that have all their edges gnawed away. It's quite a mystery, I tell them. Theories abound. Any guesses? :)

Recipe: Chicken Chop with Mushroom Sauce

This is one of those dishes I grew up with. It is sort of standard fare in most pseudo-"Western" restaurants in Southeast Asia, alongside Spring Chicken and steak. Among the many Chinese dialects that settled in Malaya, the Hainanese (men, in particular) are especially known for their superior culinary skills. During the colonial period, the British hired Hainenese chefs to work in the kitchens of their exclusive country clubs and restaurants. You can still find the remnants of these colonial vestiges in Kuala Lumpur, for example, at the Coliseum restaurant, with its wine-stained white table cloths and smoke-filled cigar room, albeit the staff is much more multicultural these days.

I suppose you cannot really go wrong with fried chicken, especially one that is boneless and therefore easy to cut. I've been experimenting with this for several years now and last night, decided to bread it before deep-frying.

Serves two
Ingredients:
2 boneless chicken legs

Marinade:
Dash Worcestershire Sauce
Dash soy sauce
Dash Maggi seasoning
Dash pepper
Pinch of sugar

Marinade chicken for several hours or overnight if possible.

Breading:
Plain flour
1 egg, beaten lightly
1 cup of breadcrumbs, mixed together with 1 tbsp cornflour, 1 tsp baking soda, and a pinch of salt and pepper

Heat oil in deep fryer until hot. Drain chicken, and dust lightly with plain flour. Dip into egg and then breading. Deep-fry until crust is set and golden brown, about 7-10 minutes. To test if cooked, prick the chicken with a fork. The juices should be clear. Drain.

Mushroom sauce:
2 tbsp butter
1 small brown onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
5-7 button mushrooms, sliced
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 cup water or chicken stock

Seasoning
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 tbsp light soy sauce
1/4 tsp dark soy sauce, for colour (optional)
1 tsp chicken granules
1/2 tsp sugar
Freshly cracked black pepper and salt

Cornstarch slurry:
2 tsp corn starch
2 tbsp water

In a skillet, melt butter. Add chopped onion and garlic and fry on low-medium heat until soft. Add in mushrooms, season lightly with salt and pepper and add thyme. When mushrooms have released their liquid, add stock/water, bay leaf and seasoning ingredients. Simmer for 5 minutes. If you like your sauce a little thicker, add cornstarch slurry, stir, and dish up.

Serve chicken chop with sauce.

p.s. You might have gathered by now that my brother has a rather healthy appetite. The dainty portions in the above picture were just to make everything look pretty. I woke up around midnight last night and he remarked sheepishly that it was all gone. :)

The real deal

Recipe: Cabbage Stir-Fry, Indian Style

Despite what I read in history books on Malaysia, I believe that by far and large, the Malaysian society we see today is a reflection of our shared history of immigration. Simply saying, "we were here first, relative to others," overlooks the fact that despite the challenges we face today as a nation, we were once bonded by a common identity. Our forefathers left the shores of India, Indonesia, and China in search of a better life, fell in love with the Malayan culture, life and landscape, and made it their home. It is a thread that we have chosen not to acknowledge, for far too long. As a result of this history, Malaysian food is a wonderful mesh of flavours, textures and colours, adapted from our forefather's land of origin. It is impossible, almost, to define what Chinese cuisine means to Malaysians, for example. We have adapted Hakka, Teochew, Hokien, and Cantonese dishes, among others, to suit the ingredients readily available in Malaysia. Likewise, "Indian cuisine" in Malaysia traces its origins to many parts of India, although predominantly the South. That's why it perplexes me that the Malaysian tourism Minister had the audacity to claim recently that certain dishes such as chilly crab, nasi lemak and laksa were ours, and not to be confused with "Singaporean." Sorry, YB, but we are the same people, and I for one, do not believe in denying our shared history. 

Banana leaf rice is a popular lunchtime treat in Malaysia. It consists of plain white rice and an assortment of three or four vegetable dishes, plus a meat dish and gravy of your choice and topped with pickles and pappadum. A cabbage stir-fry is one of the most popular offerings. I've made this on many occasions and adjusted the recipe along the way. It goes well with most Indian dishes.

Ingredients:

Half a head of medium sized cabbage, shredded

1 carrot, shredded

2 medium sized red onions, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 stalks curry leaves

2 dried chillies, cut into halves

1 tsp urad dhall

1 tsp mustard seeds

3/4 tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp salt or to taste

Grind together (A)

1/4 cup grated coconut

1 tsp cumin seeds

2 green chillies, minced

Heat 2 tsbps oil on medium-high in a wok. Add curry leaves, urad dhall, dried chillies and mustard seeds and fry. Add onions and garlic and fry till wilted. Add the cabbage, stir around till slightly wilted and then add carrots. Pour in 1/2 cup of water, add turmeric and salt to taste. Lower heat and simmer, covered for 5-10 minutes or until cabbage is soft.

Add in A stir well to combine. Simmer on low for 3-5 minutes (there should be very little liquid).

Serve hot.

Sunday Mornings

I love going to the market on weekends. It is my mother's influence. I've always admired how methodological she was in creating her grocery list (and checking it twice) and shopping for the week's food. As a child my job was to help pick potatoes and onions, since I was pretty hopeless at being able to pick out fresh fish. Even after I moved out of my parents' house I continued to go to the same market in KL. It was nice to bump into her in the market on Saturday mornings. Some of the sellers have seen me grow up over the years.  I enjoy looking at the fresh vegetables and fruit on sale, and talking to the people who sell the produce. This morning there was a community event at the Bukit Timah Market in preparation for Chinese New Year. It was a visual feast.