The Cameron Highlands, home to some of the most beautiful highlands forests in the world
Whew - it's been a busy summer, and I've spent most of it outside of Singapore. Of the many beautiful places there are in Malaysia, I have a soft spot for the Cameron Highlands. With its rolling hills of tea plantations, waterfalls and highland forests, my family and I have often sought refuge at one of the colonial bungalows owned by a friend of the family. Cameron Highlands is also a green bowl, supplying vegetables, flowers and fruit to the Malaysian and Singaporean markets. I recently volunteered with one of the NGOs that has been fighting overdevelopment and pollution in the area for many years. It was a programme to teach school teachers how to monitor the quality of the water from streams and rivers in the area. I was horrified to discover that the farms, no longer small-scale, family sized operations, but mega commercial enterprises, are still leaching poisonous chemicals such as DDT as well as human and animal excrement directly into the water sources. It saddened me to see how much the Cameron Highlands has been destroyed over the years as a result of unsustainable development and badly planned tourism. To find out how you can help preserve the Camerons, visit the website of R.E.A.C.H.
With the summer almost over, I decided to make a delightfully light and refreshing minestrone using the best seasonal vegetables I could find. It comes together fairly easily and is a lovely alternative to the heavier, tomato-based minestrone soups you get at most restaurants. You want to make sure that the vegetables are crisp tender, so be sure to add the ingredients in the order given. I made a batch of pesto which you can stir into the soup or add a dollop over the top. Fresh basil is the main herb used.
Ingredients:
2 tbsp butter or margarine
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 medium leek, chopped and washed in several changes of water
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium brown onion, cubed
1 medium carrot, cubed
1 stalk celery, sliced thinly
2 slender and vine-ripened plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded and cubed
1 medium Russet potato, cubed
1/2 head small cabbage, cut into small pieces
1 small zucchini, cubed
50g small pasta shapes (such as shells or elbow macaroni)
100 g snow peas, trimmed and stringed
1/4 cup canned kidney or cannellini beans, rinsed
1 1/2 litres clear vegetable stock
1 stalk basil, leaves removed and shredded
1 bay leaf
Sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste
Maintain a gentle simmer to ensure even cooking
In a large stock pot, melt butter over medium heat. Add olive oil. Sweat the leak, onion and garlic gently for about 2 minutes. Add carrot, celery and tomatoes and fry for 2 minutes. Pour in the stock, add the basil and the bay leaf and season to taste. When the soup comes to a boil, add potatoes and cabbage and simmer gently for 10 minutes. Add pasta and simmer for another 8 minutes or until pasta is al dente. Finally stir in zucchini, snow peas and beans. Serve hot with pesto and crusty bread on the side. Garnish with chopped parsley if desired.
Basil Pesto:
4 handfuls of fresh basil leaves (from about 3 large bunches)
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup pine nuts
4 garlic cloves
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (optional)
1/4 cup freshly grated pecorino cheese (optional)
1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
1/2 tsp freshly cracked black pepper
Freshly chopped parsley leaves (optional)
Toast pine nuts in a dry skillet until lightly brown. Remove to a plate to cool. In a blender, combine the basil, olive oil, pine nuts and garlic cloves and blend until you get a smooth paste. Add the cheese if using, salt and pepper and blitz everything together in the blender for another 3 seconds. Transfer to a small bowl
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