cooking by zen

I had a craving for crispy onions, the garnish you find on top of certain foods, so I decided to fry up a batch yesterday. Mum always said that this is one of the "examination dishes" for any new bride entering the household, because it shows your skill with the knife (all the slices have to be even, although you can cheat with a grater), your skill with the wok (can't let them burn), and patience (from peeling the onions till the end takes at least half an hour, depending on how fast you can peel). Unfortunately, onions make me cry so I did resort to closing my eyes and cutting by feel, hoping that I wasn't going to lose any skin or fingers. It went well, pictures to come, and I was getting the rest of dinner ready when my tap came loose and the water came gushing straight out, soaking everything in the kitchen within a 3m radius, including me. At least I know where my water mains was, so I dashed down, winner of the wet t shirt contest Feb 2008, secretly grateful it wasn't winter, screwed it shut and returned to mop up the mess. My landlord is a really sweet guy and he came over later to fix the tap so everything worked out in the end. Hopefully the weather will be nice and hot in the next few days so the carpet dries out...

Back with biscuits

It is ironic that for my first real food post since summer holidays (and my first post for 2008) I have chosen a fiendishly difficult biscuit to make.

It is called kueh bangkit, a traditional biscuit the nonyas make for Chinese New Year. Biscuit making is normally a family affair, the mother (or in law), daughters, sisters etc. This is because it is a lot (no kidding) of work. If chocolate chip cookies are the equivalent of a stroll in the park, kueh bangkit is juggling firesticks and riding a unicyle, backwards. We made just one type of biscuit and it took 3 of us (mom, my aunt bonnie below and me) from 10am to 730pm, when the last tray came out of the oven.

If we were seriously baking, it may be twice that quantity that plus pineapple tarts, love letters and other goodies. The nonyas are very bitchy people and they are always talking about who made the best biscuits this year and other family gossip.



Before you can get to the final product, which is meant to melt in your mouth by the way, you have to start the day by frying flour (try saying that 5 times, really really fast). Mom says this is the hardest part, if you don't do it right your biscuits turn out like rocks. I would disagree, I think every stage is tricky. I burnt the flour once before I got it right (and got flour everywhere, even in my hair).

Thankfully, my mom doesn't rap knuckles with a wooden spoon, unlike what her mom used to do to her when she got it wrong. My grandmother was not born a nonya (she married in) so she actually didn't know any recipes. And nonyas are very proud people, so they would never share their recipes with you. Apparently, my grandma ran a tontine and a nonya lady owed her a lot of money, so she had no choice but to teach my grandma her closely-guarded secrets. I was chuffed to discover that these biscuits had such a history but my aunt told me that our recipe is a more recent one her friend taught her, and the family has adopted it because it was easier.

Easier??? I can't imagine how much more work my grandmother's recipe would involve.

Then we had to squeeze grated coconut for milk, which is really time consuming but you do get nice smooth hands after, possibly because of the coconut oils. It smells and tastes amazing fresh, much better than the antiseptic stuff you get in cans.

Making the dough is intimidating at first, you have to mix a sticky, almost liquid dough with the flour until you get something you can roll out. Cutting out the biscuits is the easiest part, then you have to decorate them with sesame seeds and it is off to the oven. The last thing you want to do is burn them, after having spent so much effort already. Now repeat 306 times. And then it is time to pack your lovely biscuits in jars. Phew. My dad suggested I make them for sale in Melbourne. I shot him a dirty look and said, shouldn't I be studying?

The kitchen still smells sweet, coconut milk and pandan leaves.

in hiberation

Gone shopping. Will blog after x'mas. Take care folks.

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.