tourists are weird, taking pictures of food

Food I ate in china. Breakfast was generally white porridge with lots of pickles, which I love.
And general tip - ask for less oil and salt. The local Chinese palate does favour a heavy hand.

Over an unremarkable dish of xiao long bao (steam dumplings filled with soup - ideally the skin should be translucent and just thick enough to prevent the soup from leaking out), it turns out that the best xiao long bao is in singapore and it is on my list of things to eat...

glutinous rice pudding - finally

This is the very last of the second batch of glutinous rice pudding I made, it almost never made it as a photo. The smiley face of coconut milk is an accident. It is not traditional to put dried longans in it, but my mom and my grandmother have been doing it for ages, so this is the version I like best. As it is a family recipe I am reluctant to put it up here, but email me personally if you want to know what's in it.


Spicy noodle soup. As you can see from the notes on the table, this was exam time. I cheat by using tomyam paste from a jar. Don't tell anyone.

Just returned yesterday from 2 weeks in China, at least half was spent eating vegetarian food (not by choice). I did end up singing the meat song - which has only one word and goes like this meat meat meat meat meat meat (to the tune of any song). Thankfully, Xiamen is a food paradise not for vegetarians and you'll be glad to know that my Mandarin is at least good enough to avoid the stalls selling dog soup.

Will blog once I've organised pictures.

making the most of leftovers

Spent my second last night in melbourne making fried rice and having a few friends over, there was champagne flowing, so all in all it was a good night. However, there are still leftovers so tonight is going to be fried rice night part deux.

Been listening to heaps of bossa nova music... it is good dinner party music, although I much prefer to cook to Al Green. One of my favourite albums is the Antonio Carlos Jobim Songbook, which the very first boy I dated introduced me to, back when I was 19. I lost the boy after a couple of months, but I still have the album.

I have time to cook, just no time to take pictures

I was going to post about making black glutinous rice pudding, or pulot hitam, but it got eaten before I remembered to take pictures. Then today, as post-exam relief, I made chocolate raisin oat cookies and discovered something else I took pictures of a month ago but forgot. Scones with homemade jam and cream. (Don't worry, the scones are not a month old, they've long since been eaten.)

Strawberry jam
1 punnet strawberries - this is a great way to use up overripe strawberries. Cook in a saucepan over a tiny flame with no water as the strawberries will become watery with cooking. Add honey or rice malt to sweeten at the end. Most of the time strawberries are quite sour.

Scottish Scones (from orangette)

½ c milk (I think I used non dairy milk)
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
½ stick (2 ounces) unsalted butter, cubed and chilled
3 Tbs sugar
raisins, orange peel

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.(220C)

Beat together the milk and the egg and then set aside. In a large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt. Rub the butter into the flour mixture, working until you have no lumps bigger than a pea. Add the sugar and whatever additions you choose, and stir or toss to mix. Pour the wet ingredients into the dries, reserving just a tad of the milk-egg mixture to use as a glaze. Bring dough together gently with a wooden spoon.

Turn dough out onto a clean counter and knead it no more than 12 times. [Apparently, twelve is the magic number here; surpass it at your own risk.] Pat dough into a round approximately ½-inch thick, and cut into 8 or 12 wedges. Place on an ungreased baking sheet or a Silpat, if you have one. Using a pastry brush, glaze wedges.

Bake for 10-15 minutes, or until golden. Cool on a rack.

And for the chocolate chip oatmeal raisin cookies, I made them the same way I did with the soy cornflake cookies, but replacing the soy flakes with rolled oats.

Dainty treats

I've always been a fan of middle eastern desserts, no matter how sweet they are, but these are an exception. Ghouraiba is simply a dainty biscuit perfumed with cardamom and rosewater and they were meant to last me through the exam period but it looks like I will be baking again. They are just small enough for you to have two without feeling greedy, the perfect size to serve guests alongside tea or coffee. Additionally, I put crushed walnuts in the mix but if you want to be traditional, use crushed pistachios.

GHOURAIBA

2/3 cup unsalted butter
3 tablespoons sugar
1 cup ground almonds
1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 teaspoon rose water
powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 375 F. Grease cookie sheets and set aside.

Cream butter and sugar.
(Note: I was lazy so I melted the butter and sugar over a low flame and the biscuits still turned out fine.)

Whisk together flour, ground nuts and cardamom. Add flour mixture to butter in thirds, mixing well after each addition. Stir in rose water.

Shape into balls the size of large marbles.

Bake for about 10 minutes. Cool for 2-3 minutes and roll in powdered sugar.

Carrot salad

I was treating mr-embarrassed-about-saying-the-word-tart (osteo rawks) and I'm just used to feeding people who come to the house (standard greeting in Singapore: Hi how are you? Have you eaten?) so I made this carrot salad from Claudia Roden. I really liked it, it's a keeper.

Depending on how many you are cooking for, this serves 2 -3 as a side dish.
half a carrot, cut into matchsticks
1 small apple, matchsticks (her recipe didn't have apple but I just bought a huge bag so am trying to use them. Apple lends a sweetness that is not in the original)
1 teasp ground cumin
2 tiny cloves of garlic minced
mint leaves
salt to taste
a squeeze of lemon juice, like from a quarter or half a lemon (I added this to the apples so they wouldn't change colour)
1 tablespoon of olive oil ( I used sesame cos I already had olive oil in a tabouli type salad)

Fry the garlic in oil till fragrant, then toss in the carrots and cumin. You don't want to cook them fully, sort of half cooked so that they are still crunchy. Turn off the fire and add in the apples, mint leaves, lemon juice and salt. You can serve it warm or cold.

dumpling party

I guess the wisdom of having already turned 30 is that you don't have to get drunk at your own party and you can organise something more sedate, like making dumplings. Getting a good party going is like getting a fire started, you need to give it enough fuel at the start, fan it so that it gets just enough oxygen, so I was too busy getting soup ready and serving snacks (and drinking beer) to take any more photos. Take my word for it, it was a good party, maybe a bit too much work to do it all again (and a big thank you to all the friends who came early to help out, contributed extra stools and chairs, and without which the party would have been impossible).