Food writing

No recipe today but a food article I re-discovered.

Years ago, I read this article about the Zuni Cafe  and the memory of it has lurked in the shadows of my mind ever since.  At the time I read it, the description of the cafe and the bay area held a special significance. I read it at a time when plans for a trip to the bay area, along with certain other future plans had suddenly and quite abruptly evaporated. I read it and it caught at my heart in a certain way. It seemed to capture the smell and taste of what had been lost. I put it away quickly and tried to forget.

I found it again, this week and it caught at me again. But this time, it was different. I was different and I was better able to appreciate it for what it was.

This is an article about a lunch at the famous Zuni Cafe but unlike other food review articles which go on and on, fatuously and pretentiously, Francis Lam has managed to capture the most elusive thing - the moment. The sunlight slanting in, the family at the next table, the food.... it is all there, you can almost feel the sun on your cheeks.

*

Lately, I've had a few conversations with friends about writing in Singapore - they observed, and I agree with their observation - that a great deal of local writing is overblown, pretentious and just... too try hard.

I was once told by someone, that the way to tell if a piece of Chinese calligraphy is good is to see if the words breathe naturally. That is, to observe if the brushstrokes flow as naturally as breathing. I have found it to be quite sound advice generally and I think, in some ways, it also applies to writing.

As a reader, I wish local writers would relax a little, breathe. There is no need to try to show how clever you are in every line. There is no need to show that you can use difficult polysyllabic words. Sometimes, a bicycle ride in the rain, is simply a bicycle ride in the rain.

Extract from the article:

"I thought about the fact that all over this city, friends were already gathering in happy anticipation and, though I was alone, this family was good company to be in.

The Caesar came, nothing new and utterly perfect, bright lemon and sharp garlic, mellow anchovies, crisp greens, crunchy croutons. The burger was as tender as a you would ever want a hamburger to be, yet it had a sort of magical spring to the bite, an integrity. Its flavor was buttery, almost creamy, round and meaty but not in that bloody, mineral way. It was gentler than that. I ate it quickly, too quickly, but not out of hunger or greed. I ate fast so as not to let the spirit of it escape, vanish with the steam coming off it."


Note: The other thing about local writing of course, is that a great deal of it is abysmal in a different way. What I said above does not apply to people who cannot seem to write grammatically and who seem to have disabled the spell check function on their word processors.

Thai stir fried minced beef with holy basil and chilli

If you follow the liturgical calendar, you'll know this week is Holy Week - the last week of Lent. Do you attend a more traditional church? I don't but I attended Anglican church schools for 8 years of my life and so some consciousness of the liturgical calendar has always been present in my life.

Anyway, this being Holy week, I thought it would be appropriate to post a recipe calling for heaps of holy basil :)

I've been making this dish in various iterations for years now. I used to love ordering it in a Thai restaurant called Ying Thai in Melbourne but after I learned to make it, I stopped ordering it. I've never cooked this from a proper recipe - the one below is a mish mash of various recipes online.

This is one of the most flexible stir fries; I've made it with garlic, without garlic, with oyster sauce and without. Sometimes lime makes an appearance, more often, it does not. I've also made it for a non-chilli eating crowd by subbing in bell peppers for the chilli. It works, sort of, although obviously the chilli version is better. This dish works with minced beef but also with minced pork or chicken as well if you are cooking for someone who does not eat red meat. For vegetarians, apparently it works with tofu but I'll caveat that by saying that I've never tried it with tofu.

The essentials are holy basil, chilli, fish sauce and minced meat of some kind and a fried egg on top.

Stir fried minced beef with holy basil and chilli

200 gm minced beef
Plenty of basil - about 1 handful
1-2 large chillis sliced (adjust according to your spice tolerance)
1 tablespoon of fish sauce
1/2 tablespoon of oyster sauce
a pinch of sugar
lime wedges
1-2 eggs
Oil for stir frying
Cooked rice

Heat the oil in the pan and when hot, stir fry the garlic and the chillis until fragrant.  Add the beef and then the oyster sauce.

Cook the beef for about 2-3 minutes, then add the fish sauce and the sugar. Finally add the basil and some water (if needed) and allow the beef to cook through.

Remove from heat.

In the same pan, heat a little more oil and fry the eggs. The best fried egg for this recipe is the kind with a runny yolk but brown and crisp edges and underside.

The way to achieve this is to heat the oil until it shimmers, add the egg(s) then allow to cook only for about 2-3 minutes then turn off the heat. Allow the egg to cook a little longer in the hot pan to your desired done-ness.

Serve the beef on hot cooked rice with a squeeze of lime (if using), then top with the egg.

Note on using the same pan for the egg: I don't mind doing my dish this way because it saves the washing up and the egg picks up all the leftover beef juices and bits of chilli or basil which makes it more tasty. To my mind, since the egg and the stir fry are going to end up sharing the same bowl anyway, sharing the same pan isn't a problem. But, if you are finicky about it, by all means, use a different skillet for frying the egg.

Matthews' Lentils

There are two Matthews involved in the making of these lentils. One, the Matthew my sister brought over from Newcastle, who very kindly made vegetarian shepherd's pie and also very kindly left behind half a bag of lentils in my kitchen.

The second Matthew is Matthew Fort - whose cookbook "Cooking by Numbers" mysteriously turned up at my house one day. I seized it with both hands and, out of courtesy and guilt, I did ask random family members about its origin and ownership but nobody seemed to know anything.

Well! Finders keepers then.

So, due to the serendipity of having of lentils and a cookbook(!) turn up at my doorstep, I cooked lentils.

Lentils with Poached Egg

I made this with the last container of my home-made stock which I have written about before. They are perfect as a simple and delicious meal for a weekend night when you have some time but don't necessarily want to bother with a big show in the kitchen.

The lentils freeze well and form the perfect base for many other weeknight meals so don't be shy about making an enormous batch. The only drawback I find to making a bigger batch is that I tend to overeat - so perhaps just making a smaller batch is a good idea if you're greedy like me! Also if you've just had a week of particularly indulgent eating, this is a virtuous finish to the week that is still tasty and quite hearty.

Oh and I don't really bother poaching the eggs. I just fry them and leave the yolk runny because that's just how I like eggs or soft boil them.

1 carrot
1 onion
1 stick celery
1 leek
2 rashers of bacon (I know the temptation is to add more but be careful as it can make the dish quite salty)
about 3 tablespoons or so of olive oil
125g of green lentils (red/brown ones will not do)
350 ml chicken or vegetable stock
1 tsp Vietnamese fish sauce (optional)
1 tsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp dijon mustard
salt/pepper to taste
2 eggs

1. Chop all the vegetables finely. Slice the bacon into strips.

2. Heat the olive oil and fry the bacon. When bacon is brown around the edges and crisping, add the chopped vegetables and stir to coat with oil.

3. Cook over medium heat for 5-7 minutes until vegetables are wilted and onion is transparent.

4. Rinse the lentils in cold water then add to the pan, stirring it around.

5. Add the stock and bring to the boil. Simmer for about 25 minutes, until the lentils are tender but have not disintegrated.

(Try the lentils along the way. Matthew Fort recommended 15-25 minutes but I find that mine take a full 25-30 minutes)

6. Cool slightly and add the flavourings of your choice. Serve topped with the egg.

Note on the flavourings: The first time I made this, I didn't have any of the flavourings so I just went with salt and pepper. It was pretty good but not utterly fantastic. The second time I made them, I added Thai fish sauce, some whole grain mustard and some balsamic vinegar and it was delicious so I would recommend that you try it out with whatever flavourings happen to be in your kitchen.

Note on the leek and also the eggs: I almost never have leeks lying around so I usually omit the leek and just add 1 extra stick of celery because I love celery. It doesn't seem to have made a great deal of difference - this recipe is pretty flexible. But I'll update this if I do try it with the leek eventually.

With the eggs, you're supposed to break it up and have the yolk run into the lentils - Fort describes it as "unctuous" and it is - the yolk coats the lentils and gives the whole dish this richness.

Megan's oatmeal

Well it was a pretty ordinary Saturday in my household - ordinary and extraordinary because we've had a non-stop streak of saturday weddings and so we were hopelessly out of the most basic groceries, even my instant oatmeal (!) and muesli. 

Mr Grey promptly decided to eat last night's leftovers for breakfast, I poked around, considered my options and then decided that today would The Day. 

Let me explain. 

Somewhere up in my head there is a vague list of foods that I mean to one day get around to actually making From Scratch. The list changes pretty much all the time and unfortunately, it usually gets added to without my having the time to cross anything off it. Today however, was the Day I managed to finally FINALLY cross off one of the most basic items: real deal oatmeal From Scratch. 

There's nothing special about oatmeal in particular except that I learnt to eat it and like it in Australia.  Only I kept making the instant kind because - who makes oatmeal from scratch anymore? But then I kept reading and hearing that instant oatmeal is nothing like the real deal From Scratch kind. The kind you make with oats, water and milk on a stove instead of instant oats in the microwave. 

Anyway, I don't know if it's because I picked an especially good recipe - the review on Orangette was breathless with enthusiasm - or because oatmeal from scratch really tastes better but the result was incredible. 

People, anybody reading this, if you decide to make it, please please don't skip the step where you toast the oats. It is delicious and adds this faint butter-y fragrance to oatmeal and quite changes its character from the kind of healthy breakfast you try to endure to a luxurious one that you look forward to making (and eating) again and again. 

Megan's Oatmeal via Orangette

The recipe itself is pretty simple. What it takes unfortunately, is that precious resource I don't often have much of - time. Most days, my breakfast needs to get on the table in something like 5 minutes flat and oatmeal takes at least half an hour. 

But I discovered that it's an excellent way to spend your saturday morning because it doesn't actually take a whole lot of work. Only the first five minutes when you're toasting your oats requires your full attention. The rest of the time, you can leave it on the stove over medium low heat simmering and only give it a stir every couple of minutes. 

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon (14 grams) unsalted butter
1 cup (175 grams) steel-cut oats
3 ¼ cups (780 ml) water
1 cup (240 ml) whole milk
1 tablespoon (12 grams) natural cane sugar (I used muscovado)
½ teaspoon kosher salt
Maple syrup, brown sugar, or honey for serving


In a heavy skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the oats, and cook, stirring occasionally, until quite fragrant, about 5 minutes. Set aside.

In a 2 ½- to 3-quart saucepan, bring the water, milk, sugar, and salt to a simmer. (Be careful: I find that this mixture goes quickly from zero to boiling and has a tendency to boil over.) Stir in the toasted oats. Adjust the heat to maintain a slow simmer, and partially cover the saucepan.  Cook, stirring occasionally to prevent clumping and scorching, until the mixture has thickened and the oats are soft, 25 to 30 minutes. The cereal will still be quite loose at this point, but don’t worry; it will continue to thicken. Remove the pan from the heat, allow it to rest for a few minutes (still partially covered), and then serve hot, with maple syrup, brown sugar, or honey.(I had mine with maple syrup but will try it with honey next time)

Serving size note: It says on Orangette that the recipe serves four but um, I think I'm either an enormous eater or it serves four very tiny people. I halved the recipe for myself and expected leftovers but ... to my surprise, it cooked down to just about one serving of oatmeal. Which was fine (see above for Mr Grey's breakfast choices) but next time I'm making the full recipe just so I can have leftovers ... or you know, should Mr Grey decide to eat oatmeal with me.

Cooking and life

I came across a 2001 NYT article on cooking yesterday that managed to really put the finger on the pulse of why and how it is cooking can be such a life affirming, comforting hobby. 

Some passages from the article below:

"Anyone who cooks even casually knows the feeling. Cooking is almost always a mood-altering experience, for good or for bad, and at its best it is do-it-yourself therapy: more calming than yoga, less risky than drugs.

*

The food is not really the thing. It's the making of it that gets you through a bad time.On Thursday, I was motivated to make stew, and not because I had any real craving for meat. I needed to go through the slow process of rendering salt pork, sautéing onions and shallots, browning the beef and simmering it for hours with Cognac and stock and two kinds of mustard. Nothing about the recipe, one I have made every winter since learning it in cooking school 18 years ago, could be rushed, which was exactly what I wanted. Sometimes cooking is its own reward.

*

And the reason you do it is very simple: cooking is the most sensual activity a human being can engage in, in polite company. My stew involved smell (onions softening, Cognac reducing), touch (the chopping, the stirring), sound (that sizzle of beef cubes hitting hot fat), sight (carrot orange against the gold-brown of mustard and beef stock) and especially taste. Making it was a way to feel alive and engaged.

Whoever said cooking should be entered into with abandon or not at all had it wrong. Going into it when you have no hope is sometimes just what you need to get to a better place."

I woke up today with the date of the article nagging at the edges of my consciousness. I looked it up again today - and of course, it was published less than 10 days after 911. For the writer, her kitchen held comfort and life in the midst of grief. 

This article and Banana Yoshimoto's novella - Kitchen - are the only two pieces of writing I've ever read that managed to elucidate the idea of how cooking - and food - can be a return from death. Food - its preparation and consumption - are so intimately linked with life itself. 

It is no secret that I learned to cook during one of the lowest and saddest seasons of my life. Cooking, constantly cooking, was one of the ways that I clung on to life; it was a reason to go on. Grasping a bag of mushrooms at the market was a way to grasp at life. 

I am not sure that it is only the making of the food that is the thing. The food itself means something. I ate well during that time and understood for the first time that good food, healthy, well prepared food, is as revivifying as the process of making it. When eventually, I emerged from the season of sadness, it was as a healthier and more stable person - thanks in no small part to the great produce I had been consuming. 

Looking back at that season of long sad days, I began to glimpse at why people fast during the season of Lent.  Perhaps it is to to remind themselves that a season of drought and weary cold ends with Christ, who is living water and the bread of life. 

Note: If you follow the link, it brings you to the NYT article which also includes a recipe for Maple Shortbread Bars and Dijon and Cognac Beef Stew. 

pasta for two

Last night I cooked pasta. I made the sauce, I boiled the pasta then mixed it. Mr Grey got home shortly thereafter and we ate.

This morning I realised that it was the first time since Mr Grey and I got married that I made pasta all by myself.

See, I cook all manner of other dishes by myself. But for some reason, in our household, pasta has always been two person job. Mr Grey boils the noodles; my job is usually the sauce. I love those moments.

I'm usually over at the stove happily stirring sauce while he's at the other corner of the kitchen boiling up the noodles at his induction cooker. We chat and buzz around each other calling out for utensils, snacking on the cheese and generally just being together. Then there always comes the climactic moment when we drain the pasta together - I hold the sieve - and it finally comes together with the sauce in the pot. Then, in a hurry, the table is set and we eat.

I can make pasta by myself. I used to when I lived alone.

Next week, I'm going to be really Busy. Busy with caps and possibly blinking lights. I won't have a whole lot of time to sit down and mull. So before I get Busy, I just wanted to note down here that one of the things in life I'm hugely, enormously grateful for is Mr Grey. I'm so glad I get to hang out with him, wake up next to him and cook with him.

I can cook pasta alone. But cooking pasta with Mr Grey is just so much better.

The One: Roasted vegetables and Chicken stock

Sometimes, in fumbling around cooking and trying out different things, you stumble across a recipe that turns out - strangely and incomprehensibly - perfect. It is The One. The one that you have subconsciously been looking for. In fact, all the other recipes you tried were but pale shadows of the One.

In the last few months, I bookmarked two separate recipes from two different blogs and only got around to trying them out recently. One was from The Wednesday Chef, titled "The Best Roasted Vegetables Ever". The other was from Smitten Kitchen - "Perfect Uncluttered Chicken Stock".  Really, the blog titles should have given it away; they both turned out to be The One in each of their categories. 

One.

The best roasted vegetables ever.

They were! And so easy too - the prep takes hardly 20 minutes and then you can pop them into the oven and walk away for a full hour. I used to make my roasted veg exactly like how Luisa Weiss described her former roasted veg style - chop the veg into small chunks, mess about with oil and toss it into the oven with the heat turned up high. This one is different. For this one, you take out your baking dish and pile the veg in willy-nilly. In layers. All messy-like. Then it goes into the oven for a long long time on slooow heat. The onions caramelize, the potatoes turn soft and sweet and the eggplant soaks up all the tomato juice and becomes this mess of flavour. 

Roasted Vegetables 
Serves 3-4 (?) as a side dish

1 medium onion
1 eggplant
1 small potato
5 small tomatoes
1 red or yellow pepper

A handful of mushrooms

2 cloves of garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
Dried herbs (sage, thyme, rosemary, wild fennel are all good choices - either individually or combined in some form)
5 to 6 tablespoons of olive oil, plus more to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius. Quarter and slice the onion thinly. Dice all the vegetables into pieces that are approximately the same size (no larger than 1/2 inch). Pile the vegetables into a baking dish so that the vegetables lie a few inches thick. Season with salt, pepper and herbs to taste and then pour the olive oil over the vegetables. Mix thoroughly but gently - you don't want to destroy the tomatoes before the dish goes into the oven. Now check the vegetables to make sure they are well-coated and glistening with oil. If need be, add more oil.

2. Put the dish in the oven and cook for 45 minutes to an hour. Halfway through the cooking process, remove the dish from the oven and very gently stir the vegetables so that the ones at the bottom come to the top. Towards the end of the cooking process, stir a second time. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly. Check for seasoning and serve.

Note: The original recipe had both zucchini and carrots. I omitted them because I don't like zucchini... actually I also don't really like carrots. I subbed in some mushrooms instead. I don't know how many people this recipe would feed - I made it for two and had leftovers so theoretically, it could feed up to 4 as a side dish?

Also, the leftovers are delicious. 

Two.

Deb Perelman calls it "Perfect, uncluttered chicken stock". 

I call it the easiest,  most chicken-y chicken stock - ever. Really really. And I've made my fair share of chicken stock. Including the kind that require you to stand at the stove skimming the scum off for the first hour(I really hate those).  And yet, after all that work, there would be this water-y, slightly bland tasting stock. I dutifully used those but deep inside, I always felt let down. Plus it was so much work! All the faffing about with carrots and celery. 

Until yesterday. Friends, we have a winner. This is The One. The stock I have been looking for, yearning to taste but only achieved last night. 

This is also how I would describe it. 

You know how you eat Maggi chicken flavoured instant noodles and there's this MSG laden stock that comes with it? You know how the flavour is somehow intensely chicken-y - the essence of chicken distilled into a yellow liquid? You know how home-made stock somehow never tastes like that? 

This one does. But without the icky MSG. I tell you, this is the One. 

The Best Chicken Stock Ever (The One You Have Been Looking for)

(Adapted very slightly from Smitten Kitchen)

900 g to 1kg uncooked chicken winglets and drumlets
1onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, smashed
1 teaspoon table salt 

Water - enough to fill the slow cooker. 

Place all ingredients in a slow-cooker. Cook on low for about 8 hours.

Strain out chicken parts, onion and garlic. The stock is now ready to use, or, you could put it in the fridge to chill until any fat solidifies on the top. There was very little fat to strain out though so I might skip this step next time. 

When chilled, the stock becomes this gelatinous mess (I wanted to dance when I saw that - none of my other recipes have yielded this before!). The standard explanation for this is that the bones have released their natural gelatin(?), collagen (?) and so the stock will turn into a jelly like substance when chilled. 

Notes: 

Deb Perelman used only 1 garlic clove - Mr Grey and I love garlic so I upped it to 3 - which was the original recipe anyway. She also has a huge amount of helpful info on storing the chicken stock, freezing it etc so please check out the link above if you have any questions. I try to be helpful, but between me and Ms Perelman, she is obviously the "si fu", I am but an amateur.

She also uses a much larger slow cooker - I sized the recipe down a bit. Yes, I do realise that chicken wings/winglets/drumlets are rather expensive. But so are commercially made chicken stock packets and they all have MSG, so between that and just making this myself, I'll rather make this. Besides, the chicken can be shredded up and used if you stop the cooking at around the 8 hour mark as I did. You can use the chicken in chinese chicken congee or Malay mee soto. If you have a pet, you can also shred it carefully and feed it to your pet but please be careful - chicken bones might choke your dog or cat.

Final note: Children of the '80s, remember that Gardenia bread ad? The one with the chorus "so good you can eat it on its own!". Well, that line applies perfectly to this stock - it was so good, I wanted to drink it all up on its own.