Covet

Quiche was the first food I ever really coveted. In my last two years of primary (grade) school, I went to this nearby boulangerie chain almost every day to get myself a hand-sized tuna, chicken or curry chicken puff pie for lunch. Not because I particularly loved these pastries but because they were the cheapest lunch-able items on the menu.

I’d watch enviously as my friend S would fold back the wax paper from her Quiche Lorraine and allow the rich savoury fumes to waft in my direction. I wanted one badly but my 11-year-old pocketbook couldn’t justify the extravagance of a $5 lunch. Besides, I had to save some cash for a chaser of the pre-teen favourite, the Slurpee, for dessert.

So I waited silently, vowing that I’d one day save up and buy the quiche. But I didn’t. At least, not until I was well into my teens and price differentials of $2 or so weren’t an issue anymore. The chain’s quiche was ok. Rather anticlimactic after the slow build up.

No matter. By then I had also been exposed to better quiches, in France and at fancy restaurants. They were wonderful. Mass produced quiche became something safe one ate at the airport, you know, like bad pizza. There’s a limit to how disgusting it can be.



Still, I always thought it was something complex and difficult to make, requiring skill and finesse I didn’t have. It’s not. It’s really simple and in the last few years it has become one of my favourite recipes. So easy yet so impressive. Here’s how I make it. I hope you’ll like it too.

Quiche Lorraine
Adapted from the quiche recipes in Chocolate & Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen by Clotilde Dusoulier

For the pastry:
1 1/3 cups flour
125g butter
1 egg
Pinch salt

For the filling:
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup greek yogurt, creme fraiche, single or double cream (almost any creamy substance would work here, even non-dairy ones like mayonnaise)
4 eggs
125g cheese (gruyere is good)
200g cubed ham or sautéed bacon

To make the pastry:
Combine the flour, salt, and butter in the processor. Process until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the egg and mix again for a few seconds, until the dough comes together into a ball.

To make the filling:
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the milk, yogurt, and eggs.

Preheat the oven to 350F/180C. Press the dough into either a 10-inch/25cm ceramic tart pan or divide it amongst mini tartlet tins. Prick the bottom all over with a fork. Bake for 7 minutes, until lightly golden. Remove the pan from the oven (leave the heat on). Sprinkle the ham/bacon and cheese over the tart shell. Pour in the milk mixture and bake for 35 minutes (for a big whole quiche) or 15 minutes for mini ones.

Menu language

I pride myself on understanding the language of menus. It’s not hard to learn the lingo if you love to eat, which I do. When you are as greedy as I, every trip and expedition opens up another opportunity to eat. And to be well fed in a foreign country, you study every word on your list of options carefully. Food names become associated with countries.

For me, the most memorable word on a trip to Italy was not buon giorno, arrivederci or even grazie but ceci as in pasta e ceci. I had just set foot into the world of legumes and the soupy pasta dish inspired religious fervour on my part.

Buko pie became the Philippines and Molokhaya Egypt. Daube de boeuf was France while Tafelspitz was Austria.

Despite this very specific cursory knowledge of world languages, however, when it comes to China and Mandarin, my mother tongue, my skills are sadly lacking. I knew I should have tried harder at school. But on trips to China, my communication mostly involves pointing and nodding. Sure I understand well enough. It’s just finding the right words to respond when I need them that is challenging.

I was reminded of this flaw, on a most recent visit to Beijing, travelling with my brother for a Mandarin course at Xing Hua. I had seriously considered joining the program myself (you know, to actually remedy my problem) but decided that there were more immediate gains to be had by finding temporary employment back home.

So while my brother focused on preparing for his lessons, I focused on eating. Teahouses became a favourite haunt. With my family, I wondered into many, the most memorable of which was located in Bei Hai Park. We had stopped for a mid afternoon pick-me-up and it was one of the rare occasions where I’ve thought the ambience made the meal.



Situated by a lake, with the White Dagoba visible in the distance, the eatery served little more than Zha Jiang Mian. We ordered a bowlful to share and sat down. A serving of plain wheat noodles arrived with six little condiment vessels on the side. We tossed in the accompanying dishes of bacon-like pork cubes, fresh soy beans, bean paste, scallions, radish and cucumber as instructed. Steam rose from the bowl as we mixed the hot noodles with sauce to coat. It was so pretty. The steamy noodles, the old-fashioned marble tables, the blue patterned porcelain crockery and the park in the background. Everything.

And we didn’t have to say anything but communicate our desire for the dish.

Someday I hope to speak flawless Mandarin and navigate China like a pro but till then I’ll have to be content fooling myself that the language of food is enough. It is when all else fails (cheesy as this sounds), something we can all understand.

Zha Jiang Mian

1 tbsp oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1-cm piece of ginger, minced
½ tsp chilli paste
250g ground pork
1 tbsp yellow bean paste
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp hoisin sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp sugar
½ cup chicken stock mixed with 1 tsp of cornstarch to form a slurry
180g Beijing noodles, cooked according to the instructions on the packet
Shredded or julienned cucumber, to garnish

Heat oil in a wok or large skillet over high heat. Add garlic, stir-fry 30 seconds, then add ginger and stir-fry another 30 seconds. Add ground pork and cook until lightly browned. Add chilli paste, yellow bean paste, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, sesame oil, sugar and cornstarch slurry and simmer for about 10 minutes. Pour the meat sauce over the noodles. Top with cucumber and serve.

A necessity

I’ve mentioned the time I spent at Trinity College here before. It was a good year, and brought me many things - more likeminded people in a year than in the rest of my life put together, some confidence (if only temporary) and most lastingly, rice pudding.



My pudding making developed out of necessity, which is as I hear, the mother of invention. My student-housing-mates and I were on meal plans where dessert featured only occasionally and the food, despite the best efforts of the kindly lunch ladies (they had a budget to stick to) was not very good.

Out of necessity, that is, if you as I do, consider dessert a necessity, a bunch of us would ferret way some plain steamed rice from the dinner spread and port it over to my friend, A’s little abode across the street. A was especially sensitive to noise and had decided early in the year that a house full of seventeen-year-olds was just not for her. She made a request to move and when a space opened up, carted her stuff across the road.

Most nights, we’d converge upon her kitchen and make dessert. In A’s little kitchenette, I must have stirred up more than a dozen pots of rice pudding. Sometimes I’d caramelise fruit, make Blanc mange or bread pudding but mostly we ate rice pudding.

Our group got creative with flavours. Sometimes we’d add a dollop of jam we’d snuck away at breakfast and occasionally we’d sprinkle over dried fruit and nuts. Once we even mixed in Milo powder, but by far our favourite addition was a gob of sweet salty peanut butter. When the pudding was ready, we’d settle down in front of the TV, plant a big bowlful smack in the middle of the coffee table and dip our spoons in the communal bowl till there was none left. Hygiene be damned, we’d fight to the last bite.

Now, I know that many people have only lukewarm feelings towards rice pudding. In fact, I once suggested adding rice pudding to the buffet at a restaurant I did a very short stint at and got a wrinkled nose and rhetorical “who like rice pudding?” in response. I completely understand. Buffets are all about what has mass appeal and if no one will touch it, it will go to waste.

But at home, you have only yourself, or maybe a few other palates to please. You can afford to be more adventurous and I would really encourage that if only for this pudding. It’s hardly any work and if you have leftover rice handy, (which if you eat a lot of Asian food, is almost a given), it actually helps use up leftovers and prevent waste!

Seriously, it comes together in just a few minutes, which is as I learnt, quickly enough to prevent even a bunch of teens from becoming restless, so there’s really nothing to lose.

Peanut Butter Rice Pudding
Adapted from Tyler Florence’s recipe for Rockin Rice Pudding

An extra sprinkling of crunch-giving peanuts would not be amiss here but if you don’t have any I wouldn’t worry. This is the sort of thing you want to be able to make with whatever is on hand whenever necessary.

3 cups white rice, cooked
3 cups milk or cream or even coconut milk (for a dairy-free version)
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 - 1 cup smooth peanut butter

Combine cooked rice, milk, sugar and butter in a medium saucepan. Add peanut butter. Cook until most of the liquid is absorbed. Spoon pudding into a serving dish and serve.

Serves 4 to 6

Variations: If you want to eat this pudding cold, I would suggest that you fold some whipped cream or even vanilla yogurt through the chilled pudding. Otherwise, it tends to be a little stodgy.

Or if you have leftover pudding, you could make peanut butter rice pudding tartlets. Mix a few eggs into your leftover pudding (about 1 egg per serving of rice pudding). Pour the mixture into pastry lined tartlet tins. Bake about 15 minutes at 180C/350C. Leave tartlets to cool. Whip together some peanut butter, butter and honey (adjust quantities to your own taste). Use to frost the tartlets. Chill and serve.

Italian food

My parents introduced me to Italy in the summer of my fifteenth year. This was shortly after the prune-mascarpone incident and Italy held an abundance of quality foods for my newly intrepid palate.

The trip began with a breakfast of Cornetti (Italian croissants) oozing with apricot jam, eaten starving off the plane (us not the Cornetti) and only got better. Pasta alla Norma, stuffed crespelle blanketed with besciamella and saltimbocca were my favourite discoveries. Beef tenderloin con balsamico charmed my parents. Italy was suffering a heat wave that year and it was scorching but it was nothing a cool creamy serve of vitello tonnato couldn’t solve. So taken was I with the above dishes that they were all attempted at home, with mainly happy results.

So, perhaps you can forgive me for being a little spoiled the day I went for the only (pseudo) date I had in uni (I dragged my friend N along because I was scared. Hilarious, I know. Don’t worry, I told him about it before hand, he looked disappointed but agreed).

We met the guy from the club, W, on Lygon Street. Although I just cannot get excited about the sloppy mess of coagulated noodles and over salty ham pizzas that generally (there are exceptions) masquerade as Italian fare on Melbourne’s Lygon Street, for convenience sake, it was our designated meeting spot.

He ordered a small (most menu items came in both starter and main sizes) chicken breast (white not dark meat! the horror!) risotto and claimed it was delicious but only finished half before declaring himself too full to eat another bite. I scoffed at his insipid obviously pre-cooked clumpy mush of a meal and mentally tsk tsked his poor taste. I, on other hand, powered through with a relatively tastier oversized calzone (only available in large) and finished the entire thing before making room for a dessert to be shared with N. This should have been the first sign.

He talked almost solely about his volunteer work, to which he seemed genuinely devoted. I have huge respect for this, we should all be more charitable, but really all this succeeded in doing was make me realise how morally inferior and incompatible I was. On my part, I bored him with stories of squid ink and where to find the best chocolate dessert calzone. He was bored. I was bored. This was not working out. The feeling was mutual. We made vague plans to see each other again sometime. He never called. I was glad.

What I was not glad for was possibly coming across as an unbearable foodie snob. In some ways I am. I have rolled and sliced my own fettucini by hand (look ma, no machine!). However, I also take immense joy in a sometimes low brow recipe I like to call baked pasta.



While it might find its roots in pasta al forno, my baked pasta is more often a dish to make the authentic Italian cook scream. When I have the luxury of time, it is crafted with homemade ragu and fresh grated parmigiano reggiano. But when time is scarce (far more likely) it is chock full of bottled pasta sauce, sliced frankfurters and a packet of pre-shredded “parmesan”. For sure, my baked pasta can be a compendium of food products that would never cross my lips individually. But together, they become perfectly acceptable. It is a dish that pleases the family and one that I make often.

Baked Pasta
I love cooking the béchamel (or besciamella, in Italian) for this recipe. It is a most reassuring sauce. It always thickens up like magic.

In terms of eating, this dish offers no challenging flavours or textures. It is just smooth soothing eating. I offer two versions of the recipe here, the original and the speedier but trashy (I mean this in the most positive way) alternative. The latter may be more Rachel Ray than bona fide Italian but it is a big bowl of comfort and sometimes that’s all we need.

The classy way

250g penne, a little under cooked (it will continue to cook in the oven)

For the béchamel:
1 ½ cups milk
125g fresh grated parmigiano reggiano, reserve some for sprinkling over later
3 tbsp flour
3 tbsp butter

For the ragu:
500g minced beef or cubed stewing beef
500ml chicken stock
1 tbsp sugar
2 carrots, chopped
1 onion, chopped
5 cloves of garlic, crushed
1/3 bottle of a good red wine
1/3 cup tomato paste
2 tablespoons flour
a pat of butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil

To make the béchamel:
Using a medium-sized saucepan, melt the butter over low to medium heat. Add the flour. Stir for about 3 minutes, or until no lumps remain. Whisk in the milk, a little at a time, to keep the mixture smooth. Bring to a slow simmer. Cook, stirring for about 5 minutes, until the sauce thickens. Season with salt and pepper.

To make the ragu:
Heat the butter and oil in a large casserole pot. Brown the beef over high heat. Set aside. Lower the heat a little and toss in the onion, carrots and garlic. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Mix in the flour. Add the tomato paste. Cook for another minute. Add the wine and cook until the alcohol fumes subside. Stir in the stock and sugar. Put the meat back into the pot. Bring to a simmer and then cover. Stew for 2 to 3 hours.

To assemble:
Toss penne with the ragu. Pour into a greased Pyrex dish. Cover with béchamel. Sprinkle over reserved cheese. Bake at 180C (350F) for 20 minutes. Serve.

The trashy way
250g penne, a little under cooked (it will continue to cook in the oven)
1 packet frankfurter sausages
1 bottle pasta sauce
Bechamel sauce (the recipe above but made with a packet of pre-grated parmesan)

Toss together penne, sausages and pasta sauce. Pour into a greased Pyrex dish. Cover with béchamel. Sprinkle over reserved cheese. Bake at 180C (350F) for 20 minutes. Serve.

Booze

I’m not very exciting. I don’t club, don’t drink and don’t smoke. I probably shouldn’t admit this. Especially since I will be twenty one in less than two weeks. It makes me seem terribly un-fun. And a little sad.

Yes, I get disproportionately excited about certain things and my voice goes all high and squeaky when I talk about them, but they’re not particularly edgy. They are terribly safe things, like food and (more recently) making little pastel oil paintings of cartoonish characters.

Wait…no, no…that’s not completely true. Once, I did go to a club. It is a funny story really. But it hardly counts. It was for a Singapore Day celebration and a friend, N, was on the organizing committee. I went and very un-coolly forgot to bring ID.

Fortunately, I met another friend in the line to get in and she vouched for me. The bouncer guy (is that what he’s called?) took one look at me, smiled and let me in. I probably appeared too harmless to be any trouble. I do look like a frightened mouse. My default expression is “deer in the head lights”.

I hunted N down. She was busy but introduced me to some other members of the organising committee. They got back to work. I made weak attempts to socialise and stood around. A group of girls took pity on me and told me I was cute (not as in pretty, as in you look like a bunny. I get that a lot). I stood around some more. One guy sort of asked me out (I later found out he was even more of a goody-goody than I was but more about that in the next post).

Then I remembered the coupon each of us had been given for a free drink at the bar. I proceeded to the bar in the hope of procuring a, you guessed it, a non-alcoholic drink.

This is not as easy as it seems. Bars are smoky and by this point in the night I had developed a nasty sore throat so speaking at a volume loud enough to be audible above the club’s thunderous base beat proved tricky. The bartender leaned over as I strained to communicate my desire for a non-alcoholic drink.

“Do you have any non-alcoholic drinks? May I have one?” I enquired.

“What?” the bartender asked. I repeated my request at a higher volume.

“What?” he asked again.

I began pointing and gesticulating in a totally unhelpful and probably confusing manner and gave examples of possible drinks. Orange juice, fruit punch, even water…but try as he might, the poor bartender could not process my request.

We continued on like this for a while. A crowd gathered to see what the fuss was about. Then, a look of understanding flashed across the bartender’s face.

“Oh I get it,” he said, “wait here, I’ll be right back” and disappeared behind the counter.

“Goodness,” I thought, “I didn’t know I’d cause him so much trouble by asking for a non-alcoholic drink.”

He returned. With a look of triumph, he presented me with a cigarette lighter (!) and said cheerily “just give it back when you’re done.”

“Do I look like I smoke?” I thought (no offence to the smokers out there). In case you missed the previous three references to my appearance, I look like a fluffy woodland creature people. Fluffy!

I tried to repeatedly to decline but he kept his hand stretched out saying graciously, “it’s fine really, I don’t need it right now.”

I took a deep breath and made one final attempt to secure my G-rated beverage. I worked and I got my orange juice. The crowd dissipated.

Now, after that ordeal, you might be wondering, what could possess this girl to hate alcohol so much?

I don’t. My childish tastes simply haven’t developed a taste for straight hard liquor and I just don’t understand those girly sugary cocktails. Plus, if these things are hereditary I’m probably quite a teetotaller.

I have nothing against drinking per se. This may not sound like much. But when in Germany I once enjoyed a glass of beer with my dinner. On occasion, I do partake in free dinner party wine. Now and then, I appreciate a digestif.

And I positively love boozy desserts. Though apparently not traditional, I like my tiramisu to slide down the throat with a good alcoholic burn and once made a fruit cake so laden with cognac that just a whiff made you woozy.



And about chocolate cake, the first one I ever made was a mere vehicle for Tia Maria. And covered with lemon icing. It possessed a wonderful amalgamation of flavours – bitter from the liquor but also sweetened just enough to counter any overwhelming harshness. The addition of lemon icing offered a surprising but totally complementary layer of tangy flavour. I felt so adult eating it. I was sixteen and it was the first time I remember really enjoying alcohol (well, other than those secret swigs my friend, M and I snuck from her father’s stash at age six. But that too is another story).

I’m thinking of reviving this recipe for my 21st. It seems appropriate, no?

Tia Maria Cake with Lemon Icing
Adapted from this recipe posted over at the blog, i was just very hungry back in 2004

Twenty-first birthday or not, this cake is delicious. It is moist but has a definite crumb. All too often damp cakes fall into the trap of being overly wet and clammy. This cake finds just the right balance.

For the cake:
225g (8 oz) butter
360g (12 oz) brown sugar
4 large eggs
150g (5 oz) pure cocoa powder
400ml (1 2/3 cup) Tia Maria
225g (8 oz) all-purpose flour, sifted
1 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda

For the icing:
225g (8 oz) icing (powdered) sugar
4 Tbs lemon juice
Water

To make the cake:
Preheat the oven to 180C (350F). Grease a 9 by 9 inch (25 cm) square cake pan. Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and the cocoa powder, mixing well. Add the Tia Maria a little at a time (don’t worry if it foams up a bit). Blend well. Add the sifted flour, the baking powder and baking soda. Mix well. Pour into the pan. Bake for about 1 hour.

To make the icing:
Mix the lemon juice into the icing sugar with a small whisk. If necessary, slowly add a bit of water to the icing, a drop at a time, until you have a thick, smooth paste. Spread this on top of the cake, and let set before cutting it up. Slice into squares.