Where in the world is Calla?

Probably above Russia and heading south to a small pacific island.

Weddings, in plural.

Friends, in multiple.

And finally my side of the family, together at last.

If you happen to stop by, I wish you a worry-free and prosperous 2013.

I look forward to talking to you in this space next year.

That's a promise.

Here are a few more of my favorite things

Domenico Zipoli Adagio per oboe, cello, organo e orchestra

Tommaso Albinoni Oboe Concerto No. 2, Second Movement in Andante

Serenade For Winds; K 361; 3rd Movement 

(You know I like everything by Mozart, right?)

I like - John Field

John Field was born in the late Eighteen century and active throughout the almost first half of the century after. Already famous at his life time, he was influential to other bigger familiar names such as Chopin, Brahms and Schumann. His music is not as embellished or technically demanding as Chopin's or others, but that's part of his charm. His music is great at relaxing my mind and allows me to enjoy the sheer beauty of one's creation.

Nocturne No. 1

Nocturne No. 12

Nocturne No. 2

Nocturne No.5 

I make - Grilled sausage and puy lentils with porcini

I don't seem to get enough of the earthy flavor of porcini these days. It has become an indispensable ingredient to my current favorite tomato sauce. Tonight I tried it with lentils. What can I say? It has not let me down. The dish pairs perfectly with green beans braised in tomatoes.

Grilled sausage and puy lentils with porcini 

Serves for two and with leftover

- 1 cup of puy lentils, washed and drained
- 1 scant cup of loosely packed dried porcini, about 30 g
- 1 tbsp of butter
- 1 tbsp of olive oil
- 2-3 small carrots
- 3-4 ribs of celery
- 1 bunch of parsley, about a cupful (optional)
- 2 tbsp of tomato paste
- freshly boiled water
- salt and pepper to taste
- 4 links of sausages

Soak porcini in a cup of hot water for 30 minutes.

Chop carrots, celery, parsley finely with a sharp kitchen knife or in a food processor.

Heat butter and olive oil in a sauce pan. Fry gently the chopped vegetables for 10 minutes. Stir in tomato paste and fry for another two minutes.

Strain the porcini mushroom and reserve the liquid. Add the porcini into the vegetable mix and cook for two minutes. Add in puy lentils, porcini soaking liquid (minus any bottom debris) and sufficient hot water to the pan. The lentils should submerge in water completely (the water level should be at least 1 cm above the lentils). Bring the pot to a lively boil. Then reduce the heat to a lowest setting to simmer the lentils for 40 minutes with a lid on.

Only salt the lentils until they are fully cooked.

Five minutes before lentils are ready, slice each sausage in the middle and flatten it on a separate hot grill pan. Grill the sausages until they are nicely golden. Put the sausages into the lentils and cook the whole mixture for another 10 minutes. Season as required.

Green beans braised in tomato garlic sauce 

Serves two

- 200-250g green beans, topped and tailed
- 2 new potatoes, quartered
- 1 tbsp of olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 tin of crushed tomatoes (400g)
- 1/4 tsp dried basil leaves or 4 fresh ones
- salt and pepper to taste

Microwave green beans and potatoes each for four minutes. Alternatively, you could cook the vegetables in boiling water or by steaming. Leave the cooked vegetables aside while you prepare the tomato sauce.

Heat one tablespoon of olive oil in a sauce pan. Fry the garlic for a few minutes until they turn golden on the edges. Tip in tomatoes and basil. Bring the pot to boil and reduce the heat to low to simmer the sauce uncovered for 10 minutes.

Add into the tomato sauce the green beans and potatoes. Cook for another 5 to 10 minutes. Season with black pepper and salt.

I like - Muse

They created and sang the London Olympic 2012 Game official song, remember?

Survival

I am a classical musical buff but their music has cast a magical spell on me. I don't seem to be able to stop listening to them. It shows (again) that good music (or art) is beyond genres. 

Here are a few more which capture my heart.

Neutron Star Collision

I Belong To You (A genius stroke starting at 2:18)

Resistance

Can't Take My Eyes Off You

I love Muse.

2012 Christmas day

Brunch:

Buttery croissants, black currant jam, homemade plum vanilla jam and black coffee

Afternoon:

A long relaxing and mind cleansing walk

Russian earl grey at home

Dinner:

Basil tomato salad with balsamic glaze

Pancetta wrapped cod loin stuffed with garlic lemon parsley stuffing

Saffron risotto (risotto alla Milanese)

Garlic shallot green beans

Buche de Noel

2012 Christmas eve for two

Are you having a busy day ahead like me? We have our biggest meal on the Christmas eve, unlike the Brits on the Christmas day. We've gone back to the turkey this year. We tried turkey once many years ago, first in brine and then roast. I didn't like it at all. Although juicy, I felt that the meat lost its sweetness and original flavor with the brining process. The only taste I had was, well, brine. This year I will try another way to roast turkey, with a buttered muslin.  What? I can hear you scream. Yes, draping my turkey all over with buttered muslin and then roast. I will let you know the outcome later. Promised.

Below is the menu I drafted for a household of two. As Mae West once said, "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful". Who am I to argue?
Have a great holiday, everyone.

Starter: 

Scallops with white wine, butter and shallot reduction sauce (beurre blanc)

Main: 

Roast turkey with thyme, garlic and black pepper

with

Chestnut stuffing

Fine green beans with caramelised shallots

Butter braised carrots

Cheese platter:

Charouse

Saint Agur

Dessert:

Homemade buche de noel with coffee chestnut filling

Updated: I really like the turkey roasted with buttered muslin cloth. The turky turned out to be picture perfect, golden crust with crispy skin. Yes, the meat is not as juicy as the brined turkey but certainly not dry. More importantly, it retains a nicely meaty and sweet flavor of a bird. Besides, with a really nice overall turkey flavor and a bowl of lightly sherried gravy, we were happy to have a big piece of each.

I like - Au fond du temple saint

Au fond du temple saint performed by Andrea Bocelli and Bryn Terfel

Also known as the "friendship duet" from "Les Pêcheurs De Perles/The Pearl Fishers" by Georges Bizet.

I think the tone suits the spirit of Christmas quite well, don't you?

Happy holidays, my friend.

Holiday chemistry session I

Cranberry caramel almond tarts

Spinach and feta pie

To flip or not to flip

That's the question when it comes to steak cooking.

There are two schools of thoughts, leaving the meat alone (turning once or twice) or flipping the steak at regular intervals (in seconds).

The method works for me reliably is the latter, flipping at a controlled speed.

The key is to get a pan smoking hot before cooking the meat. Because if your pan is hot enough, nice crust is formed almost immediately when the meat comes in contact with the pan surface. The chemical reaction behind this nice crust which contributes to its rich flavor is called Maillard reaction. Maillard reaction takes place at 154 centigrade while water boils at 100 degrees. That gives you an idea as how hot the pan should get. It's not enough just to boil the water. Literally you have to see smoke come up from the pan (see the video demonstration below). Therefore, it makes sense to use oil with a high smoking point in the beginning and add butter towards the end for flavor.

Frequent flipping has an advantage especially for thin steaks, if you don't want it well done. My steaks usually come in half-inch thick. For this level of thickness, flipping it every 20 second in a very hot pan for no more than 90 seconds gives a nice rare to medium-rare level which I prefer.

See how one expert does it. It really works!

Dîner chez moi - 8-14 December

Saturday - Flash grilled flat iron steak, prawn mac and cheese, blanched green beans

Sunday - Spinach and feta filo tart, grilled chicken legs

Monday - Pan-fried salmon, braised puy lentils

Tuesday - Chicken in soy and chestnut sauce, steamed rice

Wednesday - Tuna, caper and chili taglioni

Thursday - Spinach and feta filo tart, grilled prawns in rosemary and garlic.

Friday - Wildcard

I make - Tomato porcini sauce

I discovered the combination of tomato and porcini with Anna Del Conte. Her recipe calls for no more than five ingredients but the end result packs loads of flavor. Indeed, porcini, a famous power house of umami, lends a deep savory and earthy note into the final sauce without using any meat.

Over time, I've seen other variations of tomato porcini sauce. One caught my eyes which uses parsley and tomato puree/paste, not the canned tomatoes. Tomatoes are also known to be full of umami. I wanted to find out how the flavor could be further deepened by using its concentrated form, like in the paste. I adapted the recipe to add a little bit body to the sauce by using a small amount of chopped carrot and celery. The end result, wow, is a flavor bomb. This is not the usual tomato sauce as you know it. It's a veggie sauce which will make any carnivore happy.

Tomato porcini sauce (adapted from here)

- 1 cup of loosely packed dried porcini mushrooms
- a bunch of Italian flat parsley, stalks and leaves (about 2 cups loosely packed)
- 5 to 6 large garlic cloves
- 1 small yellow onion, cut into large chunks

- 1 small carrot

- 1 rib of celery
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 150 g tomato puree/paste (I use double concentrate strength)

- 1 can of peeled tomato (~400 g)

- salt and pepper to season

Quickly rinse the porcini mushrooms with cold water, swirling them in the water once or twice. Remove the mushroom and place into a heat resistant container. Pour freshly boiled water in, enough to submerge the mushroom, about 1 1/2 cups. Leave the mushroom to plump up for at least 20 minutes while you prepare the rest.

Place parsley, garlic, onion, carrot and celery in a food processor and pulse into a coarse chop, about 10 pulses. Set aside. Alternatively you could use a knife to chop them finely.

Strain the porcini from its soaking liquor. Reserve the liquor and carefully separate most liquid from the sediments sitting at the bottom of the container. Chopping the mushroom is optional. You could if you like fine texture in the end.

Heat a pan over medium heat. Add oil and butter. When butter melts, add in the vegetable mixture. Cook until onions are translucent and the juice from vegetables disappears. Stir in the porcini and tomato puree. Mix until thoroughly incorporated. You want to cook the tomato puree a little bit so that the flavor comes out (also healthy components such as lycopene and vitamin A get released from tomatoes). Tip in one can of tomatoes. Cover and simmer over the lowest possible heat for 60 minutes, adding water if the sauce becomes too thick and stirring from time to time.

Season with sea salt and black pepper. I like to put some sugar (say 1 teaspoon) into my tomato dishes to have the right balance of acidity and sweetness. It's up to you.

Great on pasta, steamed rice, or as a dressing sauce for vegetables or grilled fish/meat. It's a wonderful stuff!

The Light of the World

One of the memorable paintings from the Pre-Raphaelite exhibit in Tate Britain.

painted by William Holman Hunt (1853–54)

Revelation 3:20: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me". 

I thought of this song, In The Bleak Midwinter, when I saw The Light of the World. Then I just discovered that the words are from Christina Rossetti's poetry, another pre-Raphaelite movement contributor beautifully set by Gustav Holst. Perhaps its more than just a coincidence.

A life worth remembering

An extraordinarily courageous young woman, held on her belief until the last.

Rest in peace, Doctor Maria Santos Gorrostieta. 

The world will be better because of you.

I make - tuna chilli pasta

A very gentle introduction of canned fish into pasta. Lovely.

Tuna chilli pasta (adapted from Foodwishes)

- one jar of tuna packed in oil
- 4 strips of anchovies
- 1/4 tsp dried oregano
- 4 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1/4 tsp dried chilli flakes
- 2 cups of Marcella Hazan's tomato butter sauce (absolutely wonderful, my favorite pasta sauce and I always have some in the fridge. You can use instead store-bought pasta sauce, canned tomato soup or just canned tomatoes)
- pasta of your preference (I prefer egg pasta, tagliatelle or Taglioni/Taglierini), cooked and drained
- freshly grated parmesan
- salt and pepper to taste

Pour the tuna oil into a frying pan. Heat gently along with anchovies, garlic, oregano and chilli flakes. When anchovies are almost dissolved in the pan, tip in the tuna chunks. Do not stir too much. You want tuna to remain in chunks.

Pour in tomato sauce. Simmer the tuna mixture for 10 minutes under moderate heat. Season with salt and pepper. Mix in the cooked pasta. Gently toss to mix thoroughly. Cook the pasta in the sauce for 2 minutes. Scatter parmesan on top. Turn the heat off and put the lid on for a minute or two.

Serve with blanched vegetables.

I make - Beef tagliata and Hasselback potatoes

Wow, I did not expect this. A meal with such joy to eat. Perhaps because it's the cold weather outside contrasting the warmth inside. Maybe it's the ease of preparation, the sensory therapy by working with the ingredients, or just because I was cooking on my favorite cooking day of a week. I am not sure but the result is mind blowing. Simplicity and fresh ingredients are just hard to beat.

Beef tagliata with Hasselback potatoes

The method is mostly what Nigella Lawson demonstrated in her recent cookery program, Nigellissima. The accompanying Hasselback potatoes are from here.

For beef tagliata:

- 1 sirloin steak
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1/4-1/2 tsp red wine vinegar
- sprinkle of dried chilli flakes
- 1/4 tsp dried thyme
- sea salt to taste
- 100g of rocket (or mixed leaf salad)
- cherry tomatoes, halved
- Parmasen shaves

In a dinner plate or a shallow container, mix together olive oil, vinegar, chilli flakes, thyme and salt. This is the mixture which you will need to rest in the grilled steak.

Preheat a griddle pan to very hot. Sear the unseasoned steak at all sides, about 20 seconds per side. Keep flipping the steak so that you get nice color outside but tender inside. I like my steak rare to medium rare. So I grill my steak no more than 90 seconds in total. If you prefer steak more cooked, feel free to leave it longer.

Remove the steak from the pan and rest in the olive oil marinade. After one minute on one side, flip over to marinade the other side. If you have a lid with slits, you could use it to cover steak to keep it warm. I find a microwave plate cover very handy for this task. Otherwise, a large piece of crinkled tin foil could do the job.

Remove the rested steak from the marinade to a slicing board. Arrange cherry tomato halves in the marinade (time for them to get happy). Thinly slice the steak with a knife angled in. In a big bowl, toss cherry tomatoes, marinade along with rocket leaves together and plate out in a nice dinnerware. Stew the steak slices around the salad. Scatter parmasen shaves on top.

Hasselback potatoes

- 4 medium size potatoes, well scrubbed
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced
- 2 tbsp of melted butter
- dried thyme
- salt and pepper to taste
- grated parmasen cheese

Slice each potato from top to bottom but not through. You want to create a fan look. Arrange all potatoes in a microwavable plate. Cover with a lid which allows steam coming through. Microwave at high for 5 minutes. Turn each potato over. Microwave for another five minutes.

At this stage, you can leave the dish as it is and move on to something else. When dinner is about to serve, mix the melted butter, minced garlic and thyme together and brush it all over potatoes. Try to get some butter into the potato cuts. Season with salt and pepper. Microwave the whole dish for another 7 minutes.

Remove the dish from the microwave and scatter the parmasen on top. Bake the potatoes in the oven at 200C for 20 minutes.

Trust me, any potato lover will adore you for this.

Dîner chez moi - 17-23 November

After being looked after for several months, it's time to cook more routinely again. Hence the return of weekly menu.

Saturday - Beef tagliata with roasted potatoes

Sunday - Courgette quiche

Monday - Indian spiced salmon with steamed rice

Tuesday - Garlic prawns, tagliatelle in tomato butter sauce

Wednesday - Win-win combo: Tonkastu with champ (If you are an Asian who understands English, you may realize why this is a win-win combination)*

Thursday - Courgette quiche

Friday - wild card

*Just like champ is sometimes short for "champion", katsu happens to mean "win" in Japanese as well. That's my win-win combo. :-)

Cassandre's minute pie crust

Who would have thought that one day I would be shown how to make pie crust by a 16 year-old girl? Cassandre, my adorable and talented niece, knows that I like cooking and offered to show me her Pâte Minute one day. How could I resist? I immediately said YES!

She demonstrated first with a portion of dough and I followed immediately with another. In a warm and sunny afternoon with azure sky, we created two pie crusts, shaken and laid out, amid a French-English intertwined conversation, smiles and flour puffing up at all directions, and all these girly giggles we couldn't help ourselves. And we ate them all as Tarte à la tomate that evening. What a wonderful way to finish a lovely day.

Merci mille fois, Cassandre.

Cassandre's minute pie crust

- 250 g all-purpose flour
- 1 pinch of salt
- 100 mL vegetable oil (or melted butter or a mixture of both)
- 100 mL warm water

Find a round sealable container. You need a container of depth (a taller one is better than a shallow one) because the dough needs to be shaken up and down to form. If you only have a shallow round one, I guess you could shake horizontally. :-)

Put all ingredients in a container. Lid on. Hold the lid along with the container tightly and shake until a dough is form. If the dough seems a bit dry, add a teaspoon of water each time to help it come together.

As soon as the dough is formed, tip it out onto a pie dish. Use your fingers and side of your palm to pat the dough out to cover completely the pie dish. Use as desired.

This recipe is sufficient to cover a 25-cm round pie dish with a 4-cm depth. This is how it looks like after blind baking for 20 minutes.

Hang on, Malala

I have been engrossed by the news of Malala since it first came out. Malala Yousafzai, a young girl from northern Pakistan, started to write about her daily life for BBC at a tender age of 9 and later became a fearless campaigner for girls' education. She was shot in the head by Talibans on 9th of October this year for her continuing support and voicing for the right to education.

She's now made her way to UK to receive specialists' care. I am so pleased and proud that Britain offers the help to treat her instantly when the news came out. The overwhelming international responses and helps offered to her just make me admire her even more. A 14-year old girl! Her courage and bravery just pale my life into insignificance.

I want to hug you, Malala, when you come out of the hospital well and fine and walk out with your head held up high. That's the best finger you could show to Talibans.

Best wishes and find you later all smiling in the newspaper.

A relief

Over the past few months, I have been living in cancer scare. Yes, that C word.

It was mentioned to me during a routine examination. "This does not look right", she said. "I will put you on an urgent list so that you can be assessed by a specialist asap". Just like that, one day I went to my GP for a regular test and came back with a disturbing news. I went through all the expected emotions and actions, disbelief, blaming myself for so careless with my health (signs were spotted 6 years ago), googling for symptoms, solutions and prognosis (yes I know it's not right but needed to divert my mind somewhere else), trying to make myself think positively (didn't work) and yet with realistic expectations, and waiting anxiously for the appointment with a specialist clinic. I contemplated on possible outcomes, ranging from bad to worse, until the day in specialist clinic with an outpatient surgery. After that, I could only wait patiently, for the biopsy results to come back.

Today, a letter came from the hospital. I am given a clean bill of health. We embraced each other happily and tightly while reading the letter together. After a short moment of silence, we both blurted out: "what a relief".

A relief indeed and I chided myself again for ignoring my body's signals for so long. I want to promise myself to be more diligent with my own health issues. I pride myself to be proactive on several fronts but health so far is not one of them. This is silly. Without a good foundation (i.e. health), all my future prospects are like built on loose sand. If this is not a wake-up call, then I don't want to know a potentially even bigger one.

Yes, my friend, if you read this, heed your body's needs and complaints, no matter how insignificant they may be. Let medical professionals do their jobs properly instead of you doing theirs.

I wish you good health to live a fulfilling life.

First of October

Holy Macaroni, in three more months I have to say goodbye to 2012.

Autumn and winter have been my favorite time of a year. Yes, I like that mother nature changes to a warmer color tone, and I get to be wrapped up in my cashmere and enjoy hearty food needing no excuses. Above all, I am most productive at my work around this time.

We've planned a nice little holiday just before Christmas. Let me keep a secret on the location until then because I want to work extra hard to get the paper out of the way. I would feel terrible during the trip if I couldn't finish what I promise myself.

Where did the time go?

Apprentice bread baker's experiments

I have been learning and practising about bread baking the whole September. Dough handling is such a stress releaser, I tell you. I hope to update you with more details about what I learn, but before then, please enjoy some of my photo diary of learning to bake bread.

British summer, London Olympic and Confiture d'Abricot

British summer is a funny thing. It can be sunny all right but when you step into the open, you realize that you've been fooled. The temperature simply does not meet its sunny expectation. That's when it chooses to show up at all. It seems to always arrive when least expected. Popping up one day, with heat lasting for as long (or short) as it pleases and vanishes the next day without a sign. This year it came rather late, coinciding with the Olympics. I would love to say that the London Olympic organization committee even had that covered but hey who doesn't like some lucky coincidence?

I have the same feeling about apricots. It's a photogenic fruit and let's just leave it like that. I can't tell you how many times I have been disappointed by its bland and acidic taste hidden underneath its reassuringly sun-kissed skin. However, this year I had my first wow moment with apricots. About one week before the Olympic due to start, I spotted some plump and delightfully looking apricots in my local farmers' market. I hesitated, wondering whether I wanted to be fooled again. I bought just under 500 grams of it, thinking that the amount would ease my disappointment quicker. When I bit into my first apricot of the year, I knew I would go back for more. They are sweet, juicy and even fragrant this year. Totally outside and exceeding my expectation of apricots. With that being said, it is still a funny fruit, because it's one of the few fruits which tastes better and smells many times more wonderful when cooked. I love making tart and jam out of it. Especially jam, its color can go from cheerful yellow to luscious amber, depending on the batch of the fruit. Either way, the taste is divine. I have made several batches this year and you can see how the color changes from batch to batch. I think that's part of the fun and they are all equally delicious.

Two pounds of apricot make about three jars like you see in the above picture. That's the way I like to make jam now, a small scale production. Not only is it faster, but also I feel no pressure to finish them completely before making another batch in the kitchen. Below is my favorite recipe.

Confiture d'abricot

- 900 g washed, stoned and quartered apricots
- 630 g white sugar (70% of the fruit weight)
- juice from half of a plump lemon
- 1 tbsp of apricot liquor (optional)

Combine apricot and sugar in a non-reactive bowl. Macerate the fruit for at least a couple of hours. Overnight is fine. I noticed that the apricot flavor was drawn out greatly by this maceration process. Just smell the pot at the beginning and at the end of maceration. You will see what I mean. Also, it is said that sugar maceration firms up the fruit which will remain intact in the final jam.

You can see water coming out during the maceration process. All the flavor and pectin are there. Take a deep breath. Arhh. This picture produced the leftmost jar in the first picture.

Bring the pot to a lively boil for 10 minutes until apricots are softened. Stir occasionally and gently. You can use microwave to speed up the process. Make sure all sugar has dissolved at this stage. This is how it looks like after 10 minutes. Don't be alarmed by the foam. The foam will dissipate further during cooking. Skimming too early or too diligently leads to less jam in the end.


Then turn the heat to medium or low. This is to have a clear jam in the end. Keep cooking the apricot for another 20 to 30 minutes. Stir from time to time. This is how it looks like after 20 minutes (since cooking started). You can see how foam has disappeared from the surface.


At this stage, the apricot jam should be near setting point. Add in lemon juice and apricot liquor (if using). Stir to mix and cook for another 5 minutes. Use a candy thermometer to see whether the jam internal temperature has reached 105C. Pour into sterilised jars. Screw the caps tight while the jam is hot. This picture and the above made the jam which is in the middle jar of the first photo.

I like to have it on lightly buttered toasted bread or on plain yogurt. Or if you are like my hubby, on its own with a spoonful. I hope you like it.

I make - Carrot Apple Salad

The abundant sun has put a smile on everyone's face today. The air just smells so relaxing and cheerful. We had our first dinner out in the garden this year. We started with rabbit pate and carrot apple salad. The main course was sardine pasta. The dessert was coconut ice cream and/or cold blueberries or flat peaches. Even some usual garden guests appeared and sang for us, Mr blackbird and Mr Frog.

I can't think of a better way to enjoy British summer.

Carrot apple salad

- 3 medium-sized carrots, finely grated
- 3 Pink Lady apples, cut into match-stick size
- zest and juice from 1 lemon
- 1/4 cup raisin
- 1/4 cup toasted walnut, roughly chopped
- 1 pinch of salt and black pepper
- 1 tbsp olive oil (optional)

Mix carrots and apples with lemon zest and juice. Lemon juice provides flavor, acidity and also prevents apples from being oxidized. Add in raisins. Season with salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly with oil, if using. The salad can be kept in the fridge before serving. Scatter walnuts right before eating.

Till we find our place

Circle of Life

Music by Elton John

Lyrics by Tim Rice

From the day we arrive on the planet

And blinking, step into the sun

There's more to be seen than can ever be seen

More to do than can ever be done

Some say eat or be eaten

Some say live and let live

But all are agreed as they join the stampede

You should never take more than you give

In the circle of life

Its the wheel of fortune

Its the leap of faith

Its the band of hope

Till we find our place

On the path unwinding

In the circle, the circle of life

Some of us fall by the wayside

And some of us soar to the stars

And some of us sail through our troubles

And some have to live with the scars

There's far too much to take in here

More to find than can ever be found

But the sun rolling high through the sapphire sky

Keeps great and small on the endless round

I make - Salmon en croute

Also known as Coulibiac or Salmon Wellington. Traditional fillings include seasoned cooked rice or creamy mixture with dark leafy greens. I prefer my Mediterranean twist, simpler, lighter, equally tasty and looking pretty when sliced.

Salmon en croute

- 500 g all-butter puff pastry
- salmon fillets, skinned
- 1 large onion, diced
- 1-2 red bell peppers, diced
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 tbsp of capers
- 1/2 tsp lemon-thyme seasoning (optional)
- salt and pepper to taste

First make the red pepper filling. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a non-stick frying pan. Sauté onion and pepper on slow-medium heat for 20 minutes or until tender and just lightly browned. At this stage, add in garlic and caper. Cook until the flavor develops. Sprinkle on some thyme or any Mediterranean herb you like. Season with salt and pepper. Leave the mixture to cool completely.

Cut the puff pastry block into halves (~250g each). Dust the wooden board with flour and roll the first half of the pastry into a rectangular shape. The exact surface area will depend on your pan, fish size and amount of ingredients. The rule of thumb is large enough to hold the fish and the filling completely with extra dough coming up half way from all sides. The thickness of the final rolled-out pastry should be roughly like that of your dough scraper (or 0.2-0.3 cm).

Season liberally salmon pieces with salt and pepper. Place the salmon pieces onto the puff pastry, leaving about half of an inch border on the pastry. Scatter the pepper-caper mixture onto the salmon.

Now roll out the second half of the puff pastry. This is to create the top cover for the salmon. You won't need the whole 250g of it. You could cut out 50g and freeze it for a later use or just make a slightly thicker top crust with the whole remaining amount. Once the second pastry is rolled, drape it onto the salmon with the help of your rolling pin. Tuck the top pastry underneath at all sides. Slit or score the top pretty. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle on poppy or sesame seeds.

Bake the salmon at 220C for 30 minutes. Reduce the heat down if the top becomes too brown.

Enjoy with a plate of salad.

Expostulate

Ex.pos.tu.late

vb

: to reason earnestly with a person for purposes of dissuasion or remonstrance

Come on, don't you want to show how good you are in front of everybody? Enough summer slacking, more powerpoint making!

Time to whip myself.

Ciao.

So it's true

It’s you 

Who smile at me when I look up unconsciously 

Who offers a smile when I need one 

Who helps without hesitation and loves without conditions 

Who is my best intellectual ping-pong player

Who chose to be with me, in this life 

So it’s you

I feel immensely proud

Four more days, world athletes will get together to share and to compete. No politics, just a healthy dose of sportsmanship, for a few days, when I feel we are truly a family.

London 2012 and Great Britain, I feel so proud to be here and witness it all.

Survival by Muse

London Olympic 2012 Official Song

I am a convert

to Dan Lepard.

Since I made my transatlantic move 11 years ago, life has adapted rather smoothly. Don't get me wrong, even with a common language, there are considerable differences between two countries, culturally to everyday life routines. Nevertheless, overall I felt I've had a suave transition.

However, baking is not one of them.

American recipes do not seem to work well here, at least in my kitchen. It could be the different measurement system (super convenient cups vs more precise weight by scale), the quality of flour (for instance, wheat varieties, the inherent moisture and gluten content) or different ovens. There could be other reasons but my experience tells me that I simply can't pluck a recipe from an American source, no matter how reliable the source is, and expect it to work in my British kitchen. Also for reasons unknown to me, I refused to convert to the weight by scale system widely used in Europe. I am not sure why. Perhaps I was trying to hang on to the last faint connection I thought I had with America. For the past decade, my baking success is not great (50-70%) when I try a new recipe (still stubbornly chosen  from North America). As a result, I tend to stick to a few recipes which I know to reproduce.

But all changed when I got a new cooker/oven. I decided to ditch my old habit of baking and start to embrace it more scientifically, with a kitchen scale. And I switched to Dan Lepard's recipes.

Gosh, what a revelation. They turn out just like what he showed on his newspaper column. E.V.E.R.Y.T.I.M.E.

I will share with you two of his recipes. They not only make great baking goods but also are also a great fun in baking education. Both recipes call for 300 grams of flour but the amount of eggs and butter differ. The recipe which makes muffins uses only half of the eggs/butter required by the recipe making cakes. By trying both recipes, it clearly shows me the crumb texture difference between muffins and (cup) cakes. I am also amazed to see (again) how adaptable flour is. In addition, both recipes appear to be quite amendable for substitutions. I have replaced the milk/cream with plain yogurt, swapping corn flour with ground almond, adding nuts or different berries to the batter. All turned out great so far. 

Hallelujah. Thank you, Dan.

Sweet muffins with yogurt and cream 

Here are the variations I made.

Lemon muffins. Used milk instead of the milk/cream combo. Used ground almond instead of corn flour and added zest of one lemon.

Coconut muffins. Used coconut cream instead of double cream. I sprinkled dessicated coconut on top of muffins. Yummy.






I also made the blueberry version. Use plain yogurt instead of the milk/cream combo. Used ground almond instead of corn flour. Decorated the top with blueberries. They were fab.

All-purpose easy butter cake

I made them into cupcakes form. Decorate the top with one pecan each. These were wonderful!!

Three pretty good things: 7 July

1. My blackcurrant harvest

I planted a little blackcurrant bush about 30cm high last year during spring time. Ben Lomond is the variety I went for, which is wildly available here. Last summer I got about six precious blackcurrants. This year I got more than 800 grams of these babies. Wow, I am very impressed and hugely excited. As the canning bug is still with me, I turned them into five jars of jam. I relied on Dan Lepard's recipe, except for the addition of lemon. Blackcurrants are tart enough and have enough naturally occurring pectin to be jelled on its own. We are all thrilled by the end products. Yes they taste differently from the superb French blackcurrants my father-in-law grows but they are next best things, my English blackcurrants, which are adored just as much.

2. My new cooker

I inherited a camel colored cooker when I moved into this house. The oven and the grill were never working but the gas stove was. It lasted 10 years under my reign and we decided that this year it shall retire. We've got a new one with dual oven. What can I say? I've never appreciated fully a gas cooker until this week. My muffins turned out picture perfect, with cute looking dome shape top and seductively browned. The roast lamb shoulder is perfectly crisp on the skin and ever so tender inside. And the roasted cauliflowers, oh my, hubby said it's a winner in a roast lamb dinner!

3. Olympic torch relay in my town

The Olympic torch relay passed my street today. It was very moving to see the army soldiers being part of the parade. And the torch bearers are chosen not because they are TV starts but because they mean something to our local community. I like that very much. 

Pastabilities!

The idea has been on my mind for a while, to come up a list of my favorite pasta sauce/dishes. Initially I could only draw up three recipes, all cream based. It certainly showed my personal bias in pasta and that I needed to explore more before settling on a final list. So I did. I have been trying various tomato based pasta dishes this year. And how much fun I have had. Exploring new flavor combination is not only fun technically but also a learning process for the taste bud. I really had a great time working my way through the pasta world. The final list will be of course forever changing but here are our favorites so far.

My personal top 10:

Glam Mac and Cheese: the magic ingredient in this recipe is dolcelatte, a milder creation in the blue cheese department for the British market. It perks up your regular mac and cheese like no others. Try it!

Chorizo and Cream: If you like chorizo, you will like this. Quick and tasty. What can you ask for more? When I make it, I omit the herbs as I find them masking the natural flavors of the ingredients unnecessarily. Single cream works for me too. And I sometimes add two bell peppers to the sauce and call it Three-Pepper Pasta.

Pasta Carbonara: I like this Italian classic with caramelized onion, garlic and some cream. And of course, lots of freshly ground black pepper!

Tagliatelle with Gorgonzola and walnut. Walnuts are optional but provide a nice crunch. The Gorgonzola cream sauce is just heavenly.

Sardine, tomato, capers, black olives and chilli pasta. This is my favorite way to eat canned sardines. The ingredient list is very Puttanesca but I prefer sardine to anchovies. You could try with canned tuna too!

Anna del Conte's Tomato and dried porcini sauce

Giada De Laurentiis's Vegetable bolognese

Jamie Oliver's Sausage and fennel seeds pasta

My favorite pasta sauce is Marcella Hazan's Tomato, onion and butter sauce. Hands down. Best sauce ever. Three ingredients, perfectly matched and proportioned. I've tried it on pasta, rice and pizza. It just makes everything taste better. Success every time!

Self-administered sunshine

I finally saw a sign of British summer. This weekend is dry and has patches of sun. My roses are all coming out now. The garden is just a lovely place to be, the color, the smell and the life.

With external sunshine, that brings out the internal sunshine in me as well. Here is what I had for breakfast recently, coconut bread with pineapple jam, a self-administered tropical sun on the table.

This coconut bread has no added grease (don't you feel better already?)  and it tastes heavenly straight out of a toaster oven. Great for breakfast or afternoon tea.

Coconut bread (adapted from Lucinda Scala Quinn)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup unsweetened dessicated coconut flakes

Preheat the oven to 175C. 

In a bowl, sift in flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. 

In another bowl, beat the egg and vanilla together. Add in the milk, coconut and flour mixture. Stir lightly until well combined. Put in a small greased loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour, or until the bread is springy to touch. Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Turn the bread out onto a wire rack to cool before slicing.

Best eating when just toasted. Lovely just on its own, or smear with butter, cream cheese and/ or pineapple jam (as in the photo).

It's green!

The idea came from a lovely friend and she knows a lot about making beautiful things in the kitchen and around the house. So I made my first glass of avocado smoothie today. Boy, did it look green and did it taste good!

Avocado adds a touch of creaminess to the smoothie, feeling very velvety and luxurious. Although a glass of the green smoothie might scare a few faint-hearted ones, I am not one of them. Even the hubby liked it despite taking it cautiously with some question marks all over the face.

Here is the combination I used:

- 1 ripe avocado
- mango and passion fruit yogurt
- plain yogurt
- 1 tbsp lime and pineapple jam
- soya milk
- water

Blend everything up. Adjust the thickness with water/soya milk and sweetness with jam (or honey).

ps. When hubby asked the content of my green smoothie, I simply said that it's a mixture of fruits and yogurt. Strictly, it's not deviating from the truth, right?

I make - Lime and pineapple jam

Yes, I know, another jam recipe. Canning is such a fun way to experiment flavor combination, don't you think? I seem to get a kick out of it. Please bear with me for a while. I got the idea of lime and pineapple combo from visiting Chatsworth House shop which mentions Lime and Pineapple Jam as Duchess's favorite. Hmm, you can't get more tropical than lime and pineapple. Plus, pineapples are currently half price here. How can I resist?

By the way, Chatsworth House is a wonderful place to spend a day. Its elegant architectural and landscape design is one of the best examples saying Less Is More. In addition, the staff and and the management team are some of the best I've seen, in friendliness, estate knowledge, interactions with visitors and efficiency. If you happen to be in England, you will not regret visiting the estate.

Ok, back to my lime pineapple jam. There are many pineapple recipes floating on the internet. They are more or less the same. The main ingredient is, of course, pineapple. The sour ingredient usually comes from lemon or lime. Some choose to flavor it with spice, like cardamoms or cloves. I prefer making my own plain, especially for the first time, to truly appreciate the original flavor of a recipe before adapting it further. One common thing from all the internet posts is many commenting on the extended time for pineapple jam to jell. One solution is to add commercial pectin which is as good and convenient. I opt to making my own pectin rich water. Just for fun.

Lime and Pineapple Jam

- One large pineapple, cored and grated, roughly 5-6 cups (juice and flesh)
- Juice from one lemon
- Juice from one orange and zest from half of the orange
- Zest and juice from two limes
- 2.5 cups of white sugar
- 2 cup of pectin rich water obtained with the method below (could be replaced with 1 cup of plain water)

Pectin rich water
- 2 Bramley apples (or other cooking types), roughly chopped including skins, pits and all
- Shells of juiced and zested lemons and limes
- 3 cups of water (or enough water to cover the fruits)

First, macerate grated pineapples with 1 cup of sugar for at least one hour. Longer if desired.

Now, prepare the pectin water. Put apples, shells of juiced lemons and limes, and water in a non-reactive pot. Bring it to boil and turn the heat down to simmer for at least 30 minutes. Filter the water out and discard all the fruity bits.

In a large pot, put the macerated pineapples in, juice and all. Cook the pineapples for 45 minutes. Then add in citrus juice and zest, the pectin water and remaining 1.5 cup of sugar. Bring the pot back to boil and cook the mixture until your candy thermometer registers 105C. You may need to taste the jam a few times to adjust the sugar or acidity level to your liking. Be careful when you do so, because the jam is hot and remember that hot jam tastes sweeter than room-temperature one. Be sure to take that into account when you adjust the sugar/acidity.

Pour the finished jam into sterilised jars.

What's been serving on this side of the Atlantics

Yogurt dill potato salad, garlic tomatoes with balsamic vinegar glaze, cucumber slices in dill vinaigrette

Best potato salad I've had. What a revelation to use yogurt instead of mayo in the salad. Not only does it add the tang and the flavor to the salad, but also it is much healthier. No more mayo in my potato salad!

Brown butter and raspberry muffin cake (adapted from Baking Bites). 

To tell you a secret, I am muffin shy. It just never works for me. Not sure where the problem stems from, but a muffin recipe baked in individual muffin moulds always turn out to be flat (dome-less) and dry for me. That's why I always bake it whole in a cake tin. I replaced 1/2 cup of flour with ground almond and topped the muffin cake with raspberries. The cake is tender, moist, not overly sweet, just the right balance for me as    a breakfast cake.

 Raspberry tiramisu (adapted from Nigel Slater).

I soaked the lady fingers with Earl Grey tea, instead of booze. The citrusy note of Earl Grey goes pretty well with raspberries and lifts up the good old tiramisu. My kind of summery tiramisu!

Afternoon tea at Connaught

My birthday tea, with Picasso exhibit to finish. Both marvellous. My ideal day!

I make - Strawberry Rhubarb Confiture

I have been busy canning this year. The successful batches include quince jelly, strawberry jam (detailed in this post) and sriracha. The much less satisfying experiments are forest fruit jam (great taste but turned out to be coulis) and three-fruit marmalade (bitter and refused to jell). You can see that my main problem of making jam was to set it correctly. All changed after I got myself a candy thermometer. You've got to respect the good old chemistry.

When it comes to bottle flavors in a jar, it's hard to beat Christine Ferber. Her unique way of making jam usually consists of three stages: maceration, repeated boiling and resting, and a final boil. The whole process can take up to three days, even though the active time is much less than that. This is not about being frugal and using up the excess in the kitchen. This woman has thought long and hard about flavor conservation. Her unique (3-stage) method yields jams with the most vibrant and intense fruit flavor I have ever tasted. This is, without a doubt, an artisan way of conserve making.

Over the years, I have distilled the essence of her method and simplified into just one afternoon exercise. I don't claim that the simplified method produces jam comparable to hers. However, if you only have time and patience for an afternoon, my adaptation works out pretty well too.

Strawberry Rhubarb Confiture (adapted from Christine Ferber)

- 400 g strawberries, washed, hulled and roughly chopped into big chunks
- 400 g rhubarb, washed and cut into 1-cm dices
- 400 g granulated sugar (adjust the sugar to the sweetness of your fruit and taste)
- juice from one big lemon

In a large cooking ware (I used a Pyrex round casserole. Any nonreactive bowl would do), layer in the strawberries, rhubarb and sugar. I started with sugar on the bottom, then a layer of strawberries, another layer of sugar and so on, until you finish all the fruit and sugar. Use a large spoon to mix everything gently but thoroughly . Let the fruit macerate in the sugar for at least one hour. Longer or overnight (as Christine Ferber suggested) even better.

After one hour, the fruit should almost submerge in the water coming out during the maceration process. Scoop out the fruit and leave them aside. Add the lemon juice to the pot and place the pot over high heat and bring it to a lively boil. When bubbling hot, tip in the fruit and cook the fruit along with the juice for three minutes. At this stage, scoop out of the fruit again. Continue to boil the pot of fruity syrup until a candy thermometer reads 105C (~220F). Just let you know that a setting temperature of 105C yields jams tasted a bit too soft for me, so I always boil the syrup to 110C to produce a slightly firmer texture I prefer. If this is your first time, start with 105C this batch and decide what to do next.

When the internal temperature of syrup reaches a desirable setting temperature, put the fruit back to the pot and bring the pot back to a boil again. Here is what Christine Ferber said: "Watch the bubbles in the boil as you stir. Foam will form because the water in the fruit is drawn out, to be replaced with the syrup. In about 10 minutes, when the confiture is almost ready, the foam will begin to dissipate, the bubbles breaking more slowly and exposing a clear syrup below. Turn off the heat. Let the bubbling stop. The fruit should have absorbed the syrup and be suspended through the jam. If the fruit is floating, return it to the heat for another 2 minutes of boiling." Who am I to argue with the conserve queen? I followed her recommendations to the T.

Spoon the finished jam into sterilized jars. Fill a jar all the way just under the cap rim. Screw the caps tightly while the jam is hot.