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“Best Meal Ever” Says Latino Man
Ok, I paraphrased a little. He did put the words “One of the” in front but the sentiment was that homemade ravioli is one of the best things to come out of my kitchen.
This happened in spite of many mistakes I made that could have been disastrous. Firstly, I switched pasta dough recipes mid-stream. I started with Jamie Oliver and 400 grams of strong flour. Then I realised he expected me to use 9 eggs – 3 full eggs plus 6 egg yolks! As much as I believe in paying for quality food, I just couldn’t risk 9 of my extremely expensive organic free-range eggs on a homemade pasta experiment that may or may not work out.
So I consulted Stephanie Alexander, the Goddess of Australian cooking. When I say Goddess I’m not using the media-snappy title that describes the way she cleans her fingers of cookie dough with her tongue, rather I’m according her the title of a higher being of culinary omnipotence. Stephanie, sensibly, recommended 400 grams of plain flour and 4 eggs. Alas my dough seemed too dry, probably because I used strong flour instead of plain flour, so I added another egg.
Secondly, I let the pasta dough rest in the fridge instead of letting it rest at room temperature. I’m a faithful member of the Stephanie Alexander flock but sometimes I’m a little flexible with how I interpret her teachings. I know she advocates leaving the dough to rest on the bench but I’m sure she meant an Australian kitchen bench on a moderately cool day, not a steamy hot Singaporean kitchen bench.
Fresh from the pasta maker
Despite my sins against Stephanie, things seemed to work out ok. The dough, whilst easy to handle (on account of being quite cool) was too moist for the pasta maker, but this was easily solved with some extra flour and a few run throughs on the thickest dough stretching setting. It all got a bit messy when I added the filling but in the end, everything looked as it should and tasted sensational.
The filling was a simple mix of roasted pumpkin mashed with some ricotta cheese with a bit of salt and pepper. As with my first attempt, I served the ravioli with a sage butter sauce. You really can’t go wrong with butter.
The new pasta maker experience was such a success, I also managed to whip up some linguini yesterday.
Fresh linguini
What shall we have for dinner? Freshly made linguini? No problem!
It’s what Stephanie would do.
Soundtrack: Florence and the Machine – Lungs
Homemade Pasta Rocks!
I’m sorry, dear readers, that I can’t be more insightful or articulate than that. In the aftermath of homemade-pasta passion, it’s all the poetry I can muster.
How did this come to be? Well, today I finally test drove my birthday present from my parents: a pasta maker. It has lived in my cupboard for more than a month but between injuring myself, travelling to Colombia and recovering from jetlag, I hadn’t found the time to pull it out. Today I realised, no matter how difficult it was to stand, no matter where I was and no matter how overwhelmingly sleepy I felt, I should have made time for the pasta maker.
Unlike my last attempt, today was a resounding success, everything worked as it claimed it would and the final product was astoundingly good. I will write a full report including recipes when I post the results of the ravioli I also created in this evening’s pasta making frenzy. In the meantime, enjoy some pictures of the fettucine I made, by hand, which we ate for dinner tonight.
The pasta master
The final product
Hola Frijoles, como estas?
A typical greeting in Bogotá might sound something like this:
“Hey, how are you? What’s to tell? What’s up? How’s it going? What’s happening? How have you been?”
And so on, for another 10 or so lines. It’s not possible to get away with a simple “Hola, como estas?”, it just wouldn’t be Colombian.
Frijoles is like the culinary version of this. If asked to describe it, Colombians will call it “beans” or maybe “bean soup”. But really this description doesn’t cut it. Frijoles begins as a bean soup, but it’s not a complete dish until you add all the delicious accompaniments including rice, minced meat, avocado, fried plantains (patacones), fried pork belly (chicharrón), arepas and this delicious tomato and onion sauce, the name of which I’m yet to learn.
The end result is an incredibly tasty contrast of textures and flavours: beans and rice that yield to the bite, crunchy pork, smooth avocado, sweet plantains, and a touch of tang from the tomato and onion sauce.
Hola, como va? (bean soup)
Bien, como ha estado? (arepas)
Bien, bien, que hubo? (fried plantains)
Bien, bien, que cuenta? (finely minced meat)
Bien, bien, que mas? (chicharrón)
Merely half of the frijoles spread
I can’t fathom how long it must take to prepare this meal (I’m told the chicharrón alone takes two days) but I had the privilege of eating it not once, but twice in Colombia. That’s the benefit of travelling with El Princecito, better known to you, dear readers, as Latino Man. Expect many more stories of my culinary adventures in Colombia as I document the incredible spread put on by Latino Man’s family and friends in honour of our recent visit.
Many many thanks to Laura for this instance of frijoles, served to family and friends of the “Singapore Colombians”.
Where does coffee come from?
I was shocked the other day when I had to stand in a queue for five minutes to get through Immigration at Changi Airport. Normally I wait less than 30 seconds.
It’s easy to lose touch with reality in Singapore, everything is so organised and easy to manage. When I move house I visit the Police Station to change my address and they update every government database in the country. To file my tax return I go to a website, check that the tax department has the same income figure I do, and press “submit”. And the best part: I never schedule more than half an hour to get anywhere because everything is close and there is rarely a traffic jam.
Whilst this makes for a lovely lifestyle, it has its drawbacks. Namely I’m worried I have lost the skills to live anywhere else in the world, but also, that we have lost touch completely with our food. This efficiency and speed means we never see our food until it’s wrapped in plastic and put on the supermarket shelf. Almost nothing we consume is actually produced here, it’s shipped from all over the world ensuring that blueberries are available 12 months of the year (from Australia during the southern hemisphere summer and from Europe and the US during the northern hemisphere summer).
A recent holiday however brought me a little closer to one of my favourite of all beverages: Coffee!!!
Latino Man and I skipped the Singapore National Day Parade and escaped to the Losari Coffee Plantation in Central Java, Indonesia. This gorgeous resort is a functioning coffee plantation, originally established in the 1920s by Dutchman, Gustav Van der Swan. (According to the local legend, Van der Swan managed to avoid losing the plantation to nationalisation after Indonesia’s liberation from the Dutch because of his many wives. Each time someone attempted to take control they were confounded by the extended family and couldn’t determine true ownership.)
I was embarrassed to discover how little I knew about my favourite morning beverage. If you feel the same, let me bring you a little closer to coffee with a step-by-step guide (all photos care of Latino Man, as always):
Losari grows mostly Robusta coffee.
The berries are picked when they're a pinky-purple colour
The berries are split to reveal the coffee beans inside. All of the machinery at Losari is from the original plantation.
The beans are then dried for 3 - 5 days on huge mats that line the paths around the plantation.
The dried coffee is then roasted in this whirling metal tin over hot coals.
Giant bags of happiness, ready for grinding.
If you live in Singapore and would like to know a little more about how your food is produced, check out Food Inc, currently playing at Cinema Europa, Vivo City.
Carb loading and an ode to a great food blog
I ran a 10k race this morning. If you can’t sense the gloating tone on the screen, let me make it clear that I’m enormously proud of myself for managing to cross the finish line before they took it down.
Sadly, even by this very lowly goal, the race was very frustrating. It was organised by the Singapore Armed Forces Reservists Association (SAFRA) and the Army and I’m guessing by the thousands of young Singaporeans males in matching running gear, that every guy undertaking his national service was obliged to run, or walk, as it seemed most of them were doing. And somehow, they seemed to start the same time as the women’s 10k. The throngs of ambling young men meant I was very far from the starting line when the women’s race actually began. Whilst it does my ego great service to discover I’m fitter than many 18 year olds, it was annoying that even at my snail’s pace, I spent the better part of 10k trying to pass groups of strolling teenagers.
However I was blissfully unaware of any of this last night when I decided I needed to carb-load before the race. The difference between carb-loading meal and a regular meal for me is negligible, but it’s nice to indulge whilst waving the “good for you” banner.
I decided on pasta and dutifully created a shopping list which remains attached, unfulfilled, to the fridge door. Both El Chico Latino and I were immersed in good books, so we decided to skip the supermarket and dig around in the freezer instead. Happily, the freezer delivered 2 servings of a macaroni and cheese bake I made a couple of months ago. Hooray for the freezer!
This recipe is from one of my favourite food blogs called Lottie and Doof. Its gorgeous design and mouthwatering food photography make me feel very amateurish with my “Springtime” themed free blog from WordPress, but we all need something to aspire to.
Macaroni and Cheese - The Original
Fortunately for my heart, when originally making this I forgot to add the marscapone cheese, which actually didn’t affect the final product too much. I made up for it by reheating the frozen leftovers in my Staub cocotte with some extra butter, a sprinkling of additional breadcrumbs and a healthy topping of grated parmesan. May I remind you, I ran a 10k race this morning.
In all things there must be balance, so to cut through the delicious richness of the Mac and Cheese, I threw together a quick salad of lettuce, orange segments, red capsicum and coriander served with a dressing of orange juice, olive oil and dijon mustard.
Cut-through salad
I like to think I was like this salad this morning, cutting through the thousands of unfit 18 year olds who couldn’t run the 10k. (A suitably cheesy ending to a spectacularly cheesy recipe post don’t you think?)
Soundtrack (to eating, not cooking): La Roux – La Roux
Cupcake karma
Whilst I absolutely love baking, it’s problematic when there are only two of us in the house; I’m a staunch advocate of enjoying good food without guilt, but nobody needs to eat half a cake. So on the occasions when I do bake, I usually take most of it to the office to share with my workmates.
So few people have ovens in Singapore, that baking is seen as something akin to voodoo: a mysterious power wielded by a select few who’s top secret knowledge is handed down through generations, making it impossible for the uninitiated to ever bake a cake for themselves. Instead they settle for the commercial and highly processed variety which are either so fluffy they’re almost air, or a stomach-churning-density truffle. Hence my blue cake tin is a source of great happiness amongst those near my desk, so much so that I usually feel a little guilty. The immense gratitude my workmates shower on me isn’t quite justified by a relatively short amount of time I spent in the kitchen.
So, for my nearest neighbour’s birthday I decided to invest a little more effort in creating her gift. Presented in a white box with a red ribbon, these cupcakes were definitely worthy of the gratitude.
Choc Brownie Cupcakes
This recipe is from Curtis Stone. As usual I amended it a little to match the ingredients in my cupboard and it worked beautifully however this blog has the original version if you’re a purist.
170 grams of good quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa if possible)
120 grams unsalted butter
1tbs cup of maple syrup
3/4 cup of caster sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup of plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup of chopped macadamia nuts
12 rasberries
Icing
250 grams of cream cheese
1/3 cup of maple syrup
120 grams of good quality dark chocolate (again 70% cocoa is best)
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Combine chocolate and butter in a heat proof bowl over simmering water (making sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water) and stir until smooth. Mix in the maple syrup and a pinch of salt and set aside.
Beat the sugar and eggs for a few minutes then stir in the chocolate mix. Add flour and baking powder and stir until just combined. Add the nuts and stir through.
Spoon the mixture into a cupcake tray lined with cupcake liners. Curtis suggests 8 but I divided the mixture into a more modest 12 cupcakes. Bake for 20 – 25 minutes until the cupcakes puff and crack on top (brownie-style) and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Remove the cupcakes and let them cool completely.
To make the icing, beat the cream cheese until it’s light and fluffy. Add the maple syrup and beat for another 3 – 5 minutes. To melt the chocolate, put it in a heatproof glass bowl over simmering water (again make sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water) and stir until the chocolate melts. Allow to cool slightly, then add to the cream cheese mixture and beat until blended and fluffy.
Spread the icing over the cupcakes and top with a single rasberry.
The moral of this story is that good food and graciousness are poles in a virtuous circle. Make sure the cook in your life knows how much you like their creations, and you will be increasingly rewarded.
DIY Asian
I read an article in the latest issue of Time Out Singapore about the existence of a few organic farms hidden on the island’s north-eastern edge. In the article one of the farmers reminisced about the days when Singapore’s main industry was agriculture and fishing, and when, can you believe it, people cooked at home!
Having lived in Singapore for four years I realise that many of its idiosyncrasies are lost to my notice, like the fact that it is cheaper to eat out than eat at home. A bowl of Mee Siam that might cost $3 at a Hawker Centre cost my friend Cassie almost $60 in ingredients the first time she decided to cook it for herself.
However as a cook, natural curiosity drives me to attempt some of these treats in my own kitchen. Just as my Dad would pull apart a toaster to understand better how it works, I feel I have to prepare a dish myself to truly understand how the flavours are created. Plus by cooking it myself, I know exactly what’s in it, and more importantly when it comes to additives like MSG, what’s not.
So here’s my ridiculously expensive but nonetheless delicious noodle soup. It’s closer to a Vietnamese bowl of Pho Bo than a Singaporean Yong Tau Fu, but no less of an achievement in my opinion.
Comparatively Expensive Noodle Soup
Beef Noodle Soup
This recipe is a cross between the Saigon Noodle Soup from Gourmet Traveller’s “Simple” cookbook, and Ben O’Donoghue’s Cambodian Beef Soup from Delicious Magazine.
About 1.5 litres of stock. Beef is best but I used vegetable and it worked almost as well.
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 lemongrass stem (white part only)
1 large red chilli, de-seeded and sliced thinly plus extra to garnish
4 kaffir lime leaves, sliced thinly
1 large tomato, chopped
2 tbs fish sauce (don’t tell Latino Man and he’ll never know)
About 400g of dried glass noodles
2 handfuls of bean sprouts
A big handful of coriander leaves, roughly chopped
A handful of sugar beans
1 scotch fillet steak
Lime wedges and coriander sprigs to serve
Place lemongrass, chilli, lime leaves and garlic in a mortar and pestle and grind into a paste. Stir through the chopped tomato and set aside. Bring the stock to boil and add the chilli mix. Let it simmer for a few minutes before adding the fish sauce.
Prepare the glass noodles by covering with boiling water for a few minutes. Drain and divide amongst 4 bowls. Top with the bean sprouts and coriander.
Slice the steak into thin strips and add it to the stock along with the sugar beans. Simmer for a couple of minutes or until the beef is cooked to your liking. Using tongs, remove the steak and sugar beans and divide amongst the bowls. Ladel over the soup and top with the extra chilli, coriander. Serve immediately with the lime wedges.
Soundtrack: Asobi Seksu – Hush
Make It Up Salad
A recent see-what’s-in-the-fridge-night happened to coincide with we-need-a-healthy-dinner-night. First thoughts were of a salad or vegetable packed soup, possibly a stir fry. My initial forage in the vegetable draw revealed capsicums, mixed greens, chilli and fresh coriander. Asian flavours, I thought, I can work with that, a noodle soup maybe?
My second expedition into the fridge however, yielded some Danish feta – a precious ingredient that can elevate a side salad to a main meal! Salad it will be!
A recent Make-It-Up-Dinner. Who says I can't be spontaneous?
Feta, orange and pomegranate salad
A few handfuls of mixed greens
A small cos lettuce
1 red capsicum, sliced
1 yellow capsicum, sliced
1 orange
1 handful of coriander, chopped roughly
A few hundred grams of feta cheese chopped roughly (sorry I can’t be more specific, it was leftover feta afterall)
Seeds of a pomegranate
A handful of kalamata olives
Dressing:
1 tsp of grain mustard
1 tbs of olive oil
Juice from the organge
Peel the orange. Slice in between the segments skins towards the core to release the segment. You should be left with skinless orange segments and the core of the orange with segment skins attached. Squeeze the latter into a separate bowl to release the juice and pour into a jar with a screw-top lid. Add the mustard and olive and give it a shake.
Combine all of the salad ingredients together in a bowl and toss with the dressing.
The final result is probably closer to the Mediterranean than Asia, or perhaps it lives somewhere in between. Wherever it hails from, it was tasty, healthy and it cleared some space in my fridge. What more could a girl ask for on such a night?
Soundtrack: Toto La Momposina y Sus Tambores – La Candela Viva (some Colombian music just to add to the geographical confusion).
How to make a Colombian happy
El Hombre Latino would be the first to tell you how happy he is to live with an avid cook, however since moving in with me he’s had to make several dietary adjustments. Firstly, I’m not a big meat eater and therefore, I’m not a big meat cooker. I also admit to lacking confidence with meat as it was not part of my early years of cooking. Secondly I consider a salad a meal and finally, we don’t own a deep fryer.
Every now and then however I indulge the latino in Latino Man, and draw from South America’s culinary traditions. So here’s my 3 step menu to produce tears of joy from a Colombian frequently required to to eat salad for dinner:
1. Red Meat
2. Potatoes
3. Salsa
Steak, Papas Postizas & Guasacaca Salsa. I suspect Latino Man keeps a photo of this meal in his wallet.
Steak
Make it a big piece, grill to his liking (in this case medium).
To make CupcakeQ happy, opt for grass-fed / pastured beef.
Papas Postizas:
This recipe is from the Cundiboyacense edition of El Tiempo’s series of cook books of Colombian regional cuisines. (Gracias a la mamita del Hombre Latino para los libros.) The translation of Papas Postizas is “Fake Potatoes”. Basically you take potatoes, mash them, add some deliciousness, then roll them up to look like potatoes again.
6 medium sized potatoes, peeled and cut into 8 peices
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tbs of butter
2 tbs of parmesan cheese
1/4 of a cup of milk
2 organic or free range eggs, beaten
1 cup of bread crumbs
Boil the potatoes until tender, and mash with the butter, milk, 1 tbs of the parmesan cheese, salt and pepper until you have a smooth mixture. Set aside to cool.
In the meantime put the beaten eggs in one bowl and the breadcrumbs mixed with the remaining parmesan cheese in another.
When the potato mixture is cool enough to handle, create small balls about the size of a table tennis ball. Roll them first in the breadcrumbs and then in the egg mixture. (This may seem to be the wrong order but be calm, it is meant to be). Bake in an 200 degree oven for 15 – 20 minutes or until golden brown.
Salsa Guasacaca
This salsa recipe, from Paul Gayler’s Sauce Book, is actually from a neighbouring South American country, one not usually a friend to Colombia. However since the book was a gift from Latino Man, he didn’t make too much of a fuss.
2 ripe avocados
4 tbs olive oil
1 garlic clove crushed
2 tbs red wine vinegar
1 red chilli finely chopped
salt and pepper
2 ripe tomatoes, de-seeded and cut into 5mm chunks
1 small green and 1 small red capsicum, de-seeded and finely chopped
2 eggs, hard boiled, peeled and chopped
A handful of flat leaf parsley roughly chopped
A handful of coriander roughly chopped
Mash one avocado and dice the other. Combine the oil, garlic, vinegar, chilli, salt and pepper in a bowl. Add the vegetables except the avocado and mix together. Fold in the avocado, add salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with steak and papas postizas to an ecstatically happy Colombian.
Soundtrack: Grizzly Bear – Veckatimist
