Bonjour, Paris - Recipe: Soupe Poireaux Pommes de Terre

The River Seine, forever immortalised

Hello, everyone! After a 13 hour flight and two hours spent sandwiched between grumpy and disgruntled travellers at immigration at Charles de Gaulle airport, Cooper and I arrived in Paris earlier this week and are now settled in to our little flat in a small corner of the city. While I've now lived in Boston, Guangzhou, London, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur and have always considered myself quite the global citizen, I found myself right about yesterday hit suddenly by a sharp bout of homesickness and an intense craving for a hot, fluffy bowl of jasmine rice and tofu. Paris is gorgeous and romantic, but like all global cities, it has the scale, density and diversity that can be as overwhelming as it can be exciting. Worse, I seem to be suffering from a weird case of immobolitis, where I can’t seem to open my mouth to speak any French. But perhaps I'm feeling this way also because I've discovered, that there are only two things that I can eat at a typical French brasserie - frits (french fries) and salade verte (green salad), and that can get old pretty quickly.

So, though I never imagined I would be one of those "typical" Asians, I found myself hopping onto the Metro yesterday headed straight for Chinatown to stock up on rice, tofu, chillies (god, I miss spicy food) and...*gasp* instant noodles. I will admit that it was heart-warming to see the brands of food on the supermarket shelves that I've come to associate with home for some years.

The streets of Paris, teeming with life  (and dogs!)

Despite missing Singapore, I am completely in love with the city’s architecture, and the many outdoor cafes and markets that are scattered throughout my neighbourhood. A gal (and her dog) can get used to this, let me tell you. I picked up a couple of seasonal vegetables yesterday at the local grocer. For my maiden post from Paris, I present below, a classic soup called Soupe Poireaux Pommes de Terre or Leek and Potato Soup, which is rich and full of flavour. Serve this soup with crusty bread and a salad and you’ve got a lovely supper.

Serves 4

About 1 kg slender leeks
2 bay leaves
20 black peppercorns
4 sprigs fresh thyme
2 tablespoons butter
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1 medium brown onion, chopped
1/2 cup dry white wine
3 1/2 cups vegetable stock
450 g new potatoes (Yukon gold or red-skinned, for example) about 4 medium
1/2 to 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
1 cup soy milk
Crème fraîche, for serving (optional)
Chives, chopped for garnishing (optional)

First, prepare a bouquet garni by tying together the bay leaves, peppercorns, and thyme in a package using cheesecloth and kitchen twine. Alternatively, you can use about 1-2 tsps dried Herbs de Provence.
Next, trim the leeks, keeping about two thirds of the green part. If your leeks are on the thick side, remove and discard the fibrous outer layer. Carve a deep slit all along the length of the leeks, driving your knife almost to the other side, but not quite, to expose all the layers. Run each leek in turn under a stream of cold water, green part down, to wash away the sand and grit. Squeeze off the excess water.

Separate the white from the green parts. Discard the toughest green leaves, and set aside the most tender. Slice the leek whites thinly. Peel and dice the potatoes into small cubes.

In a large stock pot over medium heat, melt the butter and add the garlic and onion. Cook for 5 to 6 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the garlic and onion are soft. Add the sliced leeks and cook until wilted, a further 5 minutes or so. Add the wine, and boil until reduced by half. Add the bouquet garni, vegetable stock, potatoes, and bring to a boil. Season to taste. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for about 20 minutes. Add soy milk and simmer soup for another 10-15 minutes, or until the potatoes are falling apart and the flavours have developed.

Purée the soup, in batches, if necessary, using a blender. (I did not have one on hand, so I used a fork and mashed the potatoes, in batches, in a small bowl). Taste, adjust the seasoning, and return over low heat.
Shred the reserved green leaves of the leek into fine ribbons. When the soup returns to a simmer, add the leek ribbons, stir, and remove from the heat. Cover and let rest for 5 minutes. Serve hot, with a spoonful of crème fraîche and some snipped chives, if desired, and a hefty dose of pepper! Viola!

Recipe: Summer Minestrone with Pesto

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

The Pick-Me-Up Package - Recipe: Old-Fashioned Chicken Noodle Soup

The "Package"

You know that you're maybe a little obsessed with cooking when the second thing (the first being the overwhelming desire to "mother" the person) that comes to your mind after you hear that someone is under the weather is, "Hmm...what can I cook to make him feel better?" Now, I'm no doctor, but I've always been a believer in the healing powers of a hot, steaming bowl of home-made soup. A couple of days ago I put together a thermos of chicken noodle soup, a recipe which I picked up from my days in the US, together with fresh fruit for B, who was down with a cold. Life is so fast-paced these days that most home cooks no longer have the time to make chicken stock from scratch, but the results are far superior and much more nutritious. I recommend this soup for tummy upsets, the cold/flu and generally, if you're looking for some old-fashioned goodness.

Simmering over low heat allows the flavours to develop 

Serves 2-3 as a main course

For the stock:
2 l. water
2 chicken carcass or a mix of chicken bones from the breast, drumsticks and thighs (Kampung chicken recommended because of the lower fat content)
About 500 g of chicken parts, skin removed and bones in tact (I used chicken thighs and breast)
1 bay leaf
2 sprigs thyme
1 large carrot, cut into large chunks
2 stalks celery, cut into large chunks
1 small turnip, cut into large chunks
1 large brown onion, quartered
2 cloves garlic, unpeeled
10 black peppercorns
A pinch of sea salt

In a large stock pot, bring cold water, chicken parts and chicken bones to boil over medium heat. Let it boil for about 10 minutes, skimming off the scum and fat that rises to the surface. Lower heat and simmer, covered, for about 1/2 hour. Remove chicken thighs/breast with a pair of thongs, and set aside. Return pot to simmer, add herbs and vegetables as well as the peppercorns and salt for another 1 to 1 1/12 hours, checking occasionally and topping up with additional water if necessary. When cool enough to handle, strip the meat from the bones of the chicken parts and return the bones to the stock pot. Reserve meat and keep covered. Strain soup through a fine mesh sieve, pressing  all the liquid from the vegetables and chicken. Defat the broth if there is a thick layer of fat on the top.

For the soup:
2 tbsps butter
1 medium brown onion, chopped
2 medium sized carrots, cut into half-discs
2 stalks celery, sliced thinly
150 g button mushrooms, sliced
1 bay leaf
1 sprig of thyme
1/4 cup petit pois (optional)
1 cup baby spinach (optional)
2 coils of tagliatelle (or closest substitute to wide egg noodles)
Sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper

To garnish:
2 tbsps chopped Italian flat leaf parsley
Fried shallots (optional)

In a clean, heavy-bottomed sauce pan, heat butter over medium-low heat.  When butter is melted, add onion and sweat gently for about 3-4 minutes until soft. Add carrots and celery and fry for another 5 minutes. Add  mushrooms and herbs and fry gently until mushrooms just release their liquid. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Pour in chicken stock and bring to a gentle boil. Add chicken meat and petit pois and simmer for an additional 5-7 minutes.

On a separate burner, bring a medium sized pot of water to boil. Add a pinch of salt and cook tagliatelle according to package instructions, about 5 minutes. Strain well and refresh with cold, running water from the tap to stop the cooking process. Cut noodles into 2 inch ribbons with a pair of scissors.

When you are about ready to serve, stir in baby spinach and noodles. Garnish with parsley and fried shallots.

A Kiss from the Seas -Recipe: Vegetable Soup with Seaweed and Tofu

This is a simple, home-style clear vegetable soup that capitalizes on the delicate taste of tofu and natural goodness of seaweed.   Numerous versions exist, perhaps the most popular of which is the combination of pork balls and seaweed that is made as an auspicious dish during Chinese New Year.The seaweed used here can be obtained from Chinese medicinal shops or most good supermarkets. (A link to more information can be found here) It has a deep dark colour and is sold in round or square cakes, and is especially suitable for soups like this.

1.5 litres light vegetable/chicken stock (I used mushroom)
3 dried shitake mushrooms, soaked until soft, retain soaking liquid. Cut off woody stems, discard, and slice mushrooms into thin pieces
1 medium carrot, sliced into thin rounds
3 pieces of nappa cabbage, cut into squares
1 bunch of baby bok choy. Rinse leaves under running water. Separate into individual stalks.
1 block soft tofu
1/2 sheet round Chinese seaweed (substitute wakame), torn into large pieces
1 inch unpeeled ginger root, smashed lightly
Sea salt and pepper to taste
Fried shallots to garnish (optional)

Bring stock and mushroom liquid to boil in a medium stock pot. Add a pinch of sea salt. Slide in your ginger, add mushrooms, carrots and nappa cabbage. Cover and simmer over low-medium heat for about 10-15 minutes or until carrots are soft. Lift cover up, add tofu and baby bok choy. Simmer for another 5 minutes. Just before serving, add seaweed, stir around gently to mix. Season with sea salt and pepper.  Remove ginger root before serving.

Serve hot, garnished with fried shallots if desired.

Recipe: Beef and White Carrot Soup and A Story of family feuds & Old School Food

My father reckons he knows the best places in Kuala Lumpur to eat. The criteria for selection goes beyond just tastiness to include the authentic. His curry laksa place, for example, is located under an old tree in the heart of Pudu . He tucks his handkerchief to the front of his shirt, much like you would at a lobster restaurant, and proceeds to tuck in. Funnily enough, he always seems to get some laksa onto his shirt. But he is a happy man. We have tried to introduce him to new places to eat, that we have discovered on our own. But he usually tells us that our restaurants serve "young people's food," thus, they are not authentic. To him, his "best eats" places have sentimental value - he's been going there for years and years, and has seen the business pass from one generation to the next. I guess you can't put a price tag on that.

There is a famous chain of chicken rice shops that are now found in almost every mall in KL. I don't need to reveal the name here, but according to my father, the original was founded many years ago in Petaling Street. The story is that there was a family feud and one of the brothers (or uncles, I can't remember) decided to leave the family business and start his own stall, two or three shops down. The latter's stall eventually became the chain that we see in malls today.

I remember the joint being stuffy, hot with sticky tiled floors. But on most Sundays, we would go there as a family for lunch, where my father would order the same thing - half a chicken, a bowl of choy keok (or chai boey as it is known here) and unlike other chicken rice stalls which give you MSG-laden chicken broth with a couple of spring onions floating in there, this place serves you white carrot soup with beef chunks. I once asked my father why we couldn't just go to the other stall which at least appeared cleaner and had air conditioning. He said simply, "that one not authentic."

I was thinking of that old chicken rice stall the other day and wanted to recreate the soup which we as a family once shared on Sundays. Here is my approximation.

Ingredients:

1 beef shin

300 g beef tendon (optional)

1 white carrot, cut into chunks

1 3 inch slice of ginger

1 small slice of dried squid

A handful of red dates, soaked before hand to soften

1 tiny piece of tangerine peel (optional)

1 litre beef stock

Salt and pepper

Chinese parsley (optional)

Skimming the scum of the soup produces a clearer soup

Blanch the beef shin and tendon in boiling water for 3 minutes. Drain and set aside. In a deep pot, bring the beef stock to boil together with the beef shin and tendon. Boil on high heat for ten minutes, skimming off the scum from the surface. Lower heat, cover and boil for about an hour. Using a pair of thongs, take out the meat and when cool enough to handle, slice into large chunks. Return the meat to the pot and add all your other ingredients, season, and boil over low heat, covered for an additional 45 minutes to an hour.

Garnish with Chinese parsley leaves, if desired, and serve hot.

This one is for you, dad.