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Laksa fisherman’s pie, a post inspired by Adventures of an Italian Food Lover

Food author Faith Heller Willinger has had the great fortune of calling Florence home for the last thirty years. (If only we were all so fortunate!) In her latest release, Adventures of an Italian Food Lover, she has created a gorgeous hybrid food lover’s tome which is part cookbook, part travel guide and part old-school Facebook. She shares her love for Italy and the friends she’s met there (each anecdote is illustrated with a watercolour portrait painted by her sister); offers restaurant, accommodation, and all manner of other gastronomy-related recommendations (replete with addresses, phone numbers, website URLs and email addresses); then slips in a recipe or two from (or inspired by) each friend. Mind you, we’re talking about Arrigo Cipriani’s shrimp sandwiches, the Illy family’s shakerato espresso, and Alessio and Cecilia Tessieri’s (the brother and sister team behind Amadei) Tuscan chocolate sauce here. It’s wonderful getting to know the people behind the great restaurants, hotels, vineyards and brands we’ve already grown to respect. Faith’s elegant prose makes it a joy to read. And we are certainly grateful for her sharing her Rolodex with us. So, when Cathy over at A Blithe Palate and her co-host Ivonne invited us to participate in their blog event inspired by Adventures of an Italian Food Lover, we were happy to oblige

Participants (from what I understand) are given the option of writing about a recipe that has been inspired or given to them by someone or that they would like to share with someone special. I’ve chosen the former. Not too long ago, a chef-friend of mine and S’s made a dish that had me hooked from the first bite. Actually, I was pretty excited from the name alone, “laksa fisherman’s pie”. I love a good laksa lemak (meaning the Johor or Singaporean style of laksa which has been made with coconut milk). I’m also quite a big fan of a good fish pie. Put the two together and call me a happy camper.

S and I had the pleasure of working with Chef “IL” when we helped him design a menu for his new gastrobar. We were especially impressed that this charming, young self-trained chef was extremely versatile, able to cook some really yummy dishes from a variety of cuisines, from Malay to Mexican. We also liked how open he was to both new ideas and criticism. While we co-created several delish dishes, the laksa fisherman’s pie was purely IL’s idea. And it was amazing. It was also a pretty simple dish — not so much in terms of execution but in terms of conceptualization. Essentially, it’s puff pastry over a medley of seafood and other ingredients, served in a rich laksa broth.

Unfortunately, because of a couple of unforeseen events, IL’s not currently serving the laksa fisherman’s pie at the bar whose kitchens he’s running. Unable to get my new favourite pie whenever I want, I’ve been suffering from some pretty serious withdrawal symptoms.

In honour of IL, and because I really, really needed a laksa fisherman’s pie fix, S and I decided to try making our own version. My darling wife insisted that we make the laksa from scratch. She wanted to prove to me just how much better a home-made laksa was than the obviously mass-produced Katong laksas now sold all over the island (which I have to admit I am rather fond of). Neither of us had ever made our own laksa rempah from scratch before. After looking at over a half dozen recipes, we decided to adapt J’s, of Kuidaore fame. While time-consuming, it was highly rewarding. Not only was the process of making the rempah with an old-fashioned mortar and pestle really cool, the eventual laksa tasted better than any I’ve had in a really long time.

Laksa, like many local dishes, is very individual, i.e. everyone has their own personal preferences. When S and I made our rounds around Tekka Market, hunting down ingredients for our pie, we spoke with many of our favourite suppliers. When they asked us what we were buying supplies for and we told them we were attempting to make our own laksa, each one offered their own helpful hints and advice on what ingredients to use. It was interesting that while many of the offered recipes were similar, some had some rather unique additions and ingredients.

As mentioned, making a fisherman’s pie the way we did (using the below recipe) takes quite a bit of time. But it is worth it. This is a rich, hearty, and savory feast that anyone with a penchant for Southeast Asian flavours and seafood should enjoy. We plan on making this for many friends and of course serving it to IL someday soon. Hopefully, he’ll like our version as much as we love his.

Laksa Fisherman’s Pie
makes 8 pies

Prawn Stock
750g large tiger prawns
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1.5 liters water or stock

Rempah
20 shallots, peeled and minced
6 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
10 dried red chillies, deseeded, soaked till soft, drained and minced
10 candlenuts, chopped
3 lemongrass stalks, tender inner stems only, minced
Fresh turmeric, 2 inch piece, peeled and minced
Galangal, 2 inch piece, peeled and minced
1/2 gingerflower, outer petals removed and finely minced
1 tablespoon belachan (shrimp paste)
2 tablespoons coriander seeds

Laksa sauce
6 tablespoons corn oil
4 tablespoons dried shrimp, soaked till soft and drained
800ml coconut milk, preferably fresh
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons gula melaka (palm sugar)

Pie filler
raw prawns, shelled and de-veined (left from making prawn stock)
400g cod, cut into bite-size pieces
8 scallops, halved or quartered
Large handful of beansprouts
2 fried fishcakes, sliced thickly
2 taupok (deep-fried tofu puffs) squares, sliced thickly
4 small eggs
Handful of finely shredded laksa leaves (daun kesom)

Approximately 2 sheets pre-rolled store bought puff pastry
1 egg, beaten

For the prawn stock: Peel and de-vein the prawns. Set aside the peeled prawns. You’ll only use the shells and heads for the stock. Heat the oil over a medium flame in a large pot. Fry the prawn heads and shells until they turn orange. Add the water (we actually used chicken stock that had been used to braise pork belly) and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and simmer gently for 1 hour. Strain the stock and set it aside.

For the rempah: Wrap the shrimp paste in a small square of aluminium foil and toast it over a small flame in a dry pan until aromatic. This should take 2-3 minutes. Unwrap and set aside. Toast the coriander seeds over a small flame in a dry pan until aromatic. This takes about 60 seconds. Grind the seeds into a fine powder. Using your mortar and pestle, start to make your paste. Incorporate the rempah ingredients, starting with the shallots and following the order that they are in above. Ensure that each ingredient is thoroughly assimilated before adding the next. The shrimp paste and coriander powder should be the last two ingredients added to the paste.

For the laksa sauce: Grind the softened dried shrimp to a fine powdery consistency (we found some lovely tiger prawn dried shrimp at Tekka Market). Set aside. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium flame. The oil should ripple slightly. The rempah needs to sizzle upon contact with the hot oil. Add the rempah and fry for 10 minutes, stirring constantly. The paste needs to darken considerably. Add the ground dried shrimp and stir for 1 minute. Add the prawn stock, coconut milk and salt. Crumble the palm sugar into the sauce. Bring to a simmer. Cook uncovered for a few minutes. Add more salt or sugar to taste. Turn off heat, cover, and set aside.

For the pie fillers: If you have the ingredients handy, top the peeled prawns with a few sprigs of fresh coriander, some young ginger juliennes and a splash of Chinese cooking wine (optional). Steam the prawns until they turn pink (just a few minutes).

Cook the cod in browned butter (beurre noisette) and sear the scallops in sesame oil. Blanch the beansprouts, fish cake and taupok in boiling water.

Hard-boil the eggs, peel them and quarter or halve them.

To finish: It would’ve been nice to make our own puff pastry, but we didn’t have the luxury of time. Follow the instructions on the puff pastry packaging. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius.

Fill each heat-proof bowl with equal portions of pie-filler and garnish with laksa leaf. Top with laksa sauce. Top each bowl with enough puff pastry to cover it completely and brush the top with some of the beaten egg. Insert the bowls into the oven and bake until the puff pastry is golden brown (approximately 20 minutes). Serve immediately.

A festive dish for family

One of the meals I look forward to preparing each year is the dinner our family shares on the eve of Chinese New Year. I remember the frenzied research and rounds of rehearsal dinners I went through before I prepared my first reunion dinner four years ago. I must confess that I was crazily ambitious and aspired to incorporate traditional Shanghainese, Hokkien and Teochew dishes into my menu in order to honour my family’s various heritages. Then there was the attempt to cram in every auspicious ingredient I could get my hands on. Eight treasure duck? Done it. Lohan chai (Buddha’s vegetarian feast) with 18 ingredients? Attempted that. Shanghainese lion’s head? Yes, I’ve tried out the whole mix-the-minced-pork-in-only-one-direction technique. Trust me, that’s not the secret to those airy meatballs. Jiaozi (a kind of dumpling which is served at this time of the year because it looks like ancient Chinese money)? Let me know if you ever want a recipe for nouvelle foie gras jiaozi in double-boiled chicken consommé perfumed with Jasmine tea leaves. After all, a girl naturally hopes to impress her in-laws, no?

I guess, with age and some experience, one learns restraint. I’ve whittled what were once seven-course extravaganzas down to four this year (and since the fabulous J made dessert, I only really made three courses). It’s my shortest menu yet. I chose to revisit Thomas Keller’s “Macaroni and Cheese” (Butter-poached lobster with creamy lobster broth and mascarpone-enriched orzo) from The French Laundry Cookbook because I adore the depth of flavour you get from his magnificent lobster broth; and lobster, in any language, continues to be associated with luxury and indulgence. To temper the richness of the mac ‘n’ cheese, I paired Yoshii Ryuichi’s yuzu miso lamb chops with dashi-braised organic Japanese carrots, daikon and mizuna. It’s a bit of a stretch, but I figured that the yuzu would stand in for tangerines which are incredibly popular at this time of year because “jú” (tangerine in Mandarin) sounds very similar to “jí” (meaning auspicious or lucky).

But neither of these dishes were particularly traditional nor Chinese. To retain some element of tradition, I returned to a very simple, light and healthy dish: savoury custard. Made with rich, homemade chicken stock and covered with a reduction made from the same stock, it is a delicately elegant, yet powerfully flavourful canvas against which one may choose to showcase anything from steamed prawns to freshly picked crabmeat. We are very fortunate that a very generous, close family friend gives us pre-prepared shark’s fin and abalone as a gift every Chinese New Year. (Yes, I know some of you are tut-tutting. I don’t actively seek to eat shark’s fin, but I feel that if a living being has had its life taken from it for my dinner, then I should jolly well honour it with a dish worthy of its sacrifice.) I steamed the thick, whole fins in chicken stock with coriander, spring onions, a few slivers of young ginger and a splash of Chinese cooking wine. The abalone was thinly sliced and gently heated through with more hot chicken stock. Both the shark’s fin and abalone were placed on the custard and garnished with blanched bean sprouts. This was served with Chinese vinegar and ground white pepper. However, by changing the kind of stock (a Japanese dashi instead of chicken, for example) and the items you choose to place in or on the custard (mushrooms, minced pork, salted duck egg yolk), you’ll be able to create a host of dishes based upon this master recipe. It’s the culinary equivalent of a crisp white shirt. I hope you’ll find it as handy as I do!

Chinese-style chicken stock
(Makes a little less than 4 litres)

2 kampung (free range) chickens
5 stalks spring onions
5 stalks coriander
3-4 slices young ginger
5-6 medium dried scallops
3-4 slices Chinese ham
Chinese cooking wine to taste

Skin the chickens and chop each one into six pieces. Discard the skin. Slice the spring onions and coriander into 5-centimetre lengths. Place all the ingredients in a large stock pot. Cover with 4 litres of water and bring to a boil over a small fire. Simmer for 2 to 3 hours or until the stock tastes flavourful to you. Strain and discard the solids.

Steamed custard
(Makes 6 small, shallow portions)

400 milliltres Chinese-style chicken stock
3 eggs
Light soy sauce to taste

Beat eggs with a pair of chopsticks taking care not to create too many bubbles. Combine with chicken stock and season with soy sauce. Strain through a fine sieve. I often strain it again as I pour it into individual dishes.

Divide equally between six shallow soup plates. Steam for 25 to 30 minutes. This really varies depending on how you steam them. I like placing them in my Miele steam oven set at 90 degree Celsius. When they are done, the custards should still be a little wobbly.

Chinese-style chicken stock reduction
I usually take the remaining stock and boil it until it reduces to a level of concentration that I find tasty and well-suited for the particular dish it is intended for. So I can’t really indicate how much reduction you will end up with. I like it best when it starts to develop a silky, almost gelatinous texture and deep, savoury flavour. You may wish to season it or add a little more Chinese cooking wine to taste.

To assemble, gently pour some reduction onto the surface of the custard (start from the side of the dish rather than the middle so that you don’t create tears on the surface of the custard) and garnish with ingredients of your choice.

Teen titans

Sean preparing Prarie Oysters

Several weeks ago, S and I attended a pretty extraordinary dinner. It was a private affair, held at the house of a friend of a friend. Our meal was prepared by two chefs. Upon arrival, we were asked to select one of three cocktails, a blood and sand (scotch, orange juice, white vermouth, cherry marnier), a white velveteen (frangelico, white cranberry, vodka) or a Georgia mint julep (mint, cognac, apricot liqueur). After our (very strong but tasty) drinks, we were presented with menus that got our juices flowing. Dinner was going to be a 13 course affair with what looked like some pretty complex dishes. A meal like this would have impressed S and me no matter who was cooking. But given that the two chefs were teen boys, we were pretty much gobsmacked.

Borthers Jonathan and Sean Gwee, aged 18 and 15 respectively, are both articulate, polite, and obviously intelligent. They’re also serious foodies. When we met, Jonathan was half-way through reading Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. Younger bro Sean was working his way through Hervé This’ Molecular Gastronomy. Now, I have both books. I’ve gotten through maybe a chapter of McGee’s and haven’t even opened This’ work yet. And while I do intend to get to them one day, I will admit that both books are a tad intimidating.

The brothers Gwee have been cooking for years. Jonathan is most interested in pastry and dessert while Sean is into preparing meaty main courses. Last year, at the urging of family and friends, the brothers began to offer ridiculously well-priced, private degustation dinners.

Jonathan serving lemon foam

Here’s the menu they served us, as written on their menu: Paté, chicken and duck livers with roasted butternut squash; Reduction of Salad, roast parsnip with thyme sauce, roast shallot with parmesan wafer, tomato jam with garlic crouton; Garlic Velouté, browned garlic soup; Prairie Oyster, raw egg with worcestershire sauce; Deconstructed Pork Belly, roasted salt pork, pork crackling and granny smith with demerera sugar sorbet; Risotto, flavoured with black olive and topped with buffalo mozzarella; Lemon, palate cleansing foam; Lamb, seared loin with pan fried gnocchi and red wine reduction; Beef, roast tenderloin glazed with marmalade accompanied by roots anna; Panna Cotta, with candied flower petals; Cannoli, filled with mascarpone and brandied cherries; Thyme, thyme ice-cream; and Chocolate, Valrhona Araguani chantilly. The food was impressive. It was executed confidently and deftly.

It was also presented with a good dose of humour. S and I were a little curious about the brothers’ “Prarie Oyster”. It’s not that normal to serve your guests a hangover cure composed of raw egg at a dinner party. Younger brother Sean, assisted by a friend, brought out the raw eggs, a dozen glasses and a squeeze bottle of Worcesterchire sauce. He explained the origins of the Prarie Oyster while preparing each one — essentially transferring each egg into a glass and squeezing the sauce over. He also advised us to bite into the yolk; it was the only way to appreciate the dish’s flavours. When I did, I couldn’t help but smile. The brothers had served us a mango-flavored version of Ferran Adria’s very famous skinless ravioli, sauced with caramel. It was a cheeky, amusing, and impressive course. The boys are clearly fans of Adria and his peers. The “Chocolate” course turned out to be Adria’s Frozen Chocolate Air (they found the recipe on the awesome Hungry in Hogtown. It was delicious. I couldn’t believe how tasty, rich yet clean it was on the palate. The “Lemon” course was a yummy lemon foam.

My own personal favourite courses, besides the Chocolate, were the lamb with gnocchi, the panna cotta and the cannoli. I was particular impressed with Jonathan’s cannoli shells. They were among the best I’ve ever eaten. Unfortunately, Jonathan is currently stuck in Basic Military Training, so the boys’ private dining services have been put on hold for a while. When I last spoke with them, they said they might offer some mid-year and again at the end of the year. If you want more information, you can email them at sedentary@gmail.com (for Jonathan) and ultimited@hotmail.com (for Sean).

Coffee and Donuts

This past New Year’s Eve, S and I hosted a small dinner party for 6 other friends. Because neither of us wanted to work too hard that night, we hired a super-talented chef, Jimmy Chok, to prepare our meal. Jimmy had also cooked for us the previous New Year’s Eve. (I’ll write more about the fabulous meal Jimmy made for us in an upcoming post.) Because we did want at least one course to come from us, however, S opted to make the evening’s dessert. We spent several days discussing the kinds of things that she could make before settling on a duo of desserts that we felt would go really well together. She also decided that the duo would be called (her version of) “coffee and donuts”.

The “coffee” in this combination is a vanilla panna cotta covered with a layer of espresso gelée. The “donuts” are bite-sized, sugar-coated, fried choux pastries with liquid chocolate fillings. The dessert was the perfect end to a great meal, served right before the fireworks went off (which we could partially see from our dining room window). Our friends especially loved the donuts. We had told them to eat each with one with just one bite, popping the whole thing into their mouths. The oozing chocolate centre was a delicious, bittersweet and sinfully yummy surprise. I, on the other hand, adored the panna cotta and coffee gelée (no suprise that this fat fella prefers the richer, creamier dessert). The panna cotta itself was lovely; it was smooth, satisfying and sweet. The espresso gelée carried the perfect flavor accent for the dish. Together, the two desserts worked really well. Vanilla, coffee, chocolate and citrus are all classic complimentary flavours. The two very different textures from the two desserts were a delightful contrast. And thirdly, the contrast of the warm donuts and the cold panna cotta and espresso gelée was really nice.

While time-consuming to prepare, this dessert is very much worth the effort to make. S used four different cookbooks for the four main components of this combination. You can make the panna cotta with espresso gelée a day ahead and you’ll need to make the donuts a day or even two ahead. Which means that once you make this dessert, you can rest pretty easy the day you plan to serve this. The only fiddly bit is frying the donuts and dipping them in sugar right before serving. The recipes below include her annotations and comments.

“Coffee & Donuts”
Makes approximately 25 “donuts” and 12 small portions of panna cotta with espresso gelée

GANACHE
(Adapted from Gordon Ramsay’s Secrets)

80g bittersweet chocolate (I used a 66% cacao Valrhona and added 1 tablespoon castor sugar because CH prefers sweeter chocolate)
40g unsalted butter, cubed
3 tablespoons double cream (I used whipping cream)

Chop the chocolate into rough pieces and place in a heatproof bowl with the rest of the ganache ingredients. Place the bowl over a pan of simmering water and stir until evenly combined (the ganache should look smooth). Remove from the heat, cool, then refrigerate until firm.

Use a small melon baller to scoop approximately 25 balls of ganache. Place them on a tray lined with greaseproof paper and freeze until required.

CHOUX PASTE
(Adapted from Oriol Balaguer’s Dessert Cuisine)

200g milk (I used regular whole milk)
100g unsalted butter
100g weak flour, sifted (I used cake flour)
150g eggs (I whisked three large eggs together and used 150g of this)
2 whole pieces of star anise
1 vanilla bean (I used 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla paste instead)
1 cinnamon stick
1 orange zest (I used the zest of 1 orange)
1 lemon zest (I used the zest of 1 lemon)

Note: Balaguer calls for 70% cacao chocolate drops instead of a chocolate ganache in his recipe for chocolate “bunyols”. My “donuts” are really tweaked versions of his “bunyols”. If you prefer, you may opt to use chocolate drops instead of a ganache.

Infuse the milk with the butter, spices and zests (I heated the milk until small bubbles rose to its surface, took it off the heat and let the mixture stand for at least 30 minutes). If you choose to use a vanilla bean, presumably, you should split the vanilla bean, scrape the seeds and add them to the milk along with the other spices and throw the pod in.

Strain the milk. (I added my vanilla paste into the milk at this point.) Bring the milk to a boil, remove it from the heat and add the flour. Stir it with a wooden spoon and return it to a low fire. Continue stirring (using a smearing action) until it starts to pull away from the sides of the pan and begins to look like wet sand (it should also look shiny). Work it slightly in the blender at low speed. (I put it in my KitchenAid and worked it with the paddle attachment. This cooled the paste much faster than when I did it in my food processor.) Add the eggs gradually. Scrape the dough off the sides of the bowl and work it a little more until it is smooth. (If you prefer, follow the techniques in your favourite choux pastry recipe in place of the instructions here.)

Fill a piping bag with the paste. Fill ice cube moulds with the paste. Stop when each mould is only filled to the halfway point. Insert a ball of chocolate ganache (or chocolate drops) into each mould, making sure that it doesn’t push though the dough. Cover with more paste. Smooth down the tops of the dough with the back of a wet spoon. Freeze and unmould. Store in the freezer until they need to be served.

PANNA COTTA
(Adapted from Italian Classics by the editors of Cook’s Illustrated)

1 cup whole milk
2¾ teaspoons flavourless powdered gelatin (reduce to 2 5/8 teaspoons if making a day ahead)
3 cups heavy cream (I used whipping cream)
1 vanilla bean or 2 teaspoons pure extract
6 tablespoons (2½ oz) sugar
Pinch of salt

Pour the milk into a medium saucepan and sprinkle the gelatin evenly on its surface. Let it stand for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, fill a large bowl with 2 trays of ice cubes and 4 cups of cold water. Measure the cream into a large measuring cup or pitcher. Slit the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape the seeds into the cream; place the pod in the cream and set the mixture aside. Place 12 small glasses on a tray small enough to place in your refrigerator.

Heat the milk and gelatin mixture over high heat, stirring constantly until the gelatin is dissolved and the mixture registers 135 degrees Fahrenheit (around 65 degrees Celsius) on an instant read thermometer (about 1½ minutes). Remove the pan from the heat. Add the sugar and salt; stir until dissolved (about 1 minute).

Stirring constantly, slowly pour the cream with vanilla into the saucepan containing the milk, then transfer the mixture into a medium bowl and set the bowl over the ice water bath. Stir frequently until the mixture thickens to the consistency of egg nog and registers 50 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius) on an instant read thermometer, about 10 minutes. Strain the mixture into a large measuring cup or pitcher, then distribute it evenly among the glasses. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until just set (the mixture should wobble when shaken), about 4 hours.

ESPRESSO GELÉE
(Adapted from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course)

1 cup espresso (cold filtered)
1 teaspoon flavourless powdered gelatin
3 tablespoons sugar

Place ¼ cup of the espresso in a small bowl and sprinkle the gelatin evenly over it. Let the mixture rest for 5 minutes, until the gelatin softens. Bring the remaining espresso to a simmer in a small saucepan. Add the sugar. Stir until all the sugar is dissolved. Remove the saucepan from the heat. Add the softened gelatin mixture to the warm sweet espresso. Return the saucepan to low heat, whisking until the gelatin dissolves. Do not let the mixture come to a simmer. Strain through a fine sieve. Let the espresso mixture cool to room temperature. Gently pour it over each portion of panna cotta. Cover with cling wrap and refrigerate until set, about 1 hour.

To serve, fill a small saucepan with sunflower oil (the oil should be approximately 3 cm deep). Heat the oil to 150 degrees Celsius and fry the still frozen “donuts” for 5-6 minutes until they are golden brown and start to float. (You may need to adjust cooking temperature and time.) Drain and coat with castor sugar. Plate alongside glasses of espresso panna cotta and serve.

Catering

Last Friday, my wife and I did something that was entirely new to us. It was rewarding, exciting, educational and challenging. But it’s also something I’m in no rush to do again soon. Last Friday, S and I did our very first professional catering job. While the two of us have thrown countless dinner parties over the years, cooking for friends at home is nothing compared to cooking for paying guests at their place. The latter, especially because of the professional nature of the engagement, is a whole different category of stress. Fortunately, this first gig was relatively small. The dinner, hosted by two close friends, was for just eight people. Two of the guests, however, were not only major VIPs but also very well-known as gourmands. Knowing this added a little more pressure to what was, as I mentioned, an already stressful situation.

The hosts of the dinner wanted a small, but exciting menu. We proposed having four courses, three of which would be composed of trios of dishes.

The first course was a trio of seafood. It consisted of a crabcake with wasabi-mayonnaise, a prawn cocktail with a sauce made with freshly grated horseradish, and a shitake-soy toro (fatty tuna) tartar served with a yuzu vinaigrette. I really like this combination. We had originally thought of serving a raw oyster item instead of the crabcake, but I think the crabcake worked better. Because the toro and prawn dishes are served cold, the contrast with the hot, freshly fried crabcake is really nice.

The second course was a real challenge. We had admired this dish in The French Laundry Cookbook for years. We also liked that Thomas Keller would call something as refined as butter-poached lobster served with a mascarpone and lobster broth enriched orzo “mac & cheese”. This is a gorgeous, sensuous and incredibly rich dish, thanks mostly to Keller’s broth. The broth is made by sautéing the shells of 3 lobsters. You then cover them with water and add some tomatoes, carrots, and tarragon. You simmer this until the stock is aromatic. Then you strain the liquid and reduce this down to just one cup. At this point, it’s deliciously powerful. You then add two cups of cream to the stock and reduce everything until just two cups remain. The result is the loveliest, tastiest, creamiest seafood broth I’ve ever had. In this dish, the lobster is steeped in hot water, then before service, the meat is poached in warm butter. Cooked orzo is mixed with some of the creamy lobster broth and a couple of tablespoons of mascarpone. This is a dish everyone should eat at least once.

The main course was a trio of veal dishes, inspired by a dish served at Boulevard in San Francisco amusingly called “Veal Veal Veal”. The course consisted of veal tenderloin, osso buco and a veal cheek ravioli. The veal tenderloin is wrapped in prosciutto, seared than roasted in the oven. We paired our version with some potato purée and a super-yummy sauce we made with fresh horseradish, white truffle honey and cream. We cooked the osso buco overnight in extremely low heat; it was wonderfully tender. The ravioli is stuffed with a combination of braised veal cheek and creamed spinach. Both the ravioli and the osso buco are sauced with some of the braising liquid that was reduced until syrupy. We also topped the osso buco with a little fresh gremolata.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a good photograph of our dessert course. It was another trio: a blueberry cheesecake tart; an egg soufflé; and a quenelle of chocolate gelato served with some homemade croquant. Post dinner, we served a really special treat with coffee and tea. I convinced the amazing J of Kuidaore to sell me two batches of custom-made macarons. I ordered a batch of peanut butter & jelly and a batch of chocolate & yuzu. These were pretty stunning and everyone was pretty amazed that we could get such high-quality macarons in Singapore.

In addition to taking care of the menu, we also planned the wines. We ordered some excellent wines from a local distributor that we’d gotten to know recently. With the first course, we served a Larmandier-Bernier Terre de Vertus, an excellent single vineyard Champagne. Our second course was paired with an amazing white wine I’ve become quite enamored with of late, a Mark Angeli La Lune 2003. With the veal, we served a yummy, powerful red, a Clos des Fées Domaine du Clos des Fées 2002. With the dessert, we poured a delicious dessert wine made from viognier grapes, the Francois Villard Aprés Tout.

I have to admit that we had help catering this meal. We hired two amazing people, a waiter and kitchen-hand, who assisted us in the dining room and in the kitchen. Without them, there is no way we could have accomplished this meal. Of course, even with their help, by the end of the night S and I were both exhausted. And while I still contend that such gigs are not something I’d be keen to do too often, the experience was very rewarding. Especially when two of the guests told us that the meal was one of the best they had ever eaten.

Dinner for some restaurateurs

This past weekend, S and I hosted a few friends for dinner. We were a tad nervous because these three gentlemen own one of the city’s coolest and most popular restaurants. In other words, the meal had to both innovative and very, very good. And because these three prize good, well-cooked simple food over fussy, fancy fare, the dishes we chose to cook couldn’t be too pretentious. Dessert was an easy choice. We’d been promising them a sampler of S’s superb ice creams for months. For the other courses, we raided our cookbook collection and came up with two interesting starters. As a first course, we tried out a simple dish from Michel Roux’s devilishly cute book, Eggs. Any egg lover needs to buy this book. It’s pages and pages of egg recipes and egg-based (e.g. pastas, pastries, etc) dishes. We chose to make Roux’s baked eggs with chicken livers and shallots in red wine (pictured below).

It’s a relatively easy dish. The only time-consuming thing is creating a reduction of red wine (flavored with bay leaf and thyme), chicken stock and shallots. The chicken livers are cut into small pieces and sautéed quickly and seasoned lightly with salt and pepper. The liver is mixed with the shallots and red wine reduction and then distributed into buttered ramekins. An egg is cracked into each ramekin and baked for 10 minutes. Roux recommends serving this with toasted brioche. The dish was not bad. Not fantastic, but pretty good. It was earthy, rich and tasty and a nice way to begin the meal.

Our next course was something simple but spectacular (and something I will dedicate a whole post to later this week). Despite S having bought Jill Norman’s The Cook’s Book mostly because of Ferran Adria’s chapter on foam, we had yet to try any of Adria’s rather amazing recipes. For this course, we successfully pulled off Adria’s 21st Century Tortilla — a dish composed of caramelised onions, sabayon and potato foam.

For our third and main course, S and I recreated a dish that we’ve only just learnt how to make, khao soi. Instead of making this Northern Thai curry noodle dish with chicken, as is usually the case, we served ours with slices of wonderfully tender braised beef cheek. The beef cheeks were braised over low heat for 2 hours and then very, very slowly in incredibly low heat for 8 more hours. For the braising liquid, I used the one recommended for Osso Buco in Joyce Goldstein’s Italian Slow and Savory. The khao soi’s curry recipe came from the Four Seasons cooking school in Chiang Mai. It was a delicious course and the boys all loved it. P, who is a big fan of khao soi, paid us the ultimate compliment by saying it tasted just like the best ones he had eaten in Chiang Mai. The soft, tender and oh so tasty beef cheek was a wonderful choice of meat and I think what I plan on serving with khao soi from now on.

For dessert, as I mentioned, S had made an ice cream sampler. She served 3 homemade flavours. The first was an abacadabra ice cream, so named because the spice blend she infused the ice cream with is named abacadabra. From what I can tell it has roses, spearmint, cinnamon and cracked black pepper in it. The second ice cream was a gula-melaka coconut ice cream and the third was a chocolate malt. After dessert, S brought out a special little treat she had spent a few days making, chocolate Easter eggs (pictured at the top of this post). She had watched a very amusing video demonstrating how to make this on, of all things, Martha Stewart’s website and was rather inspired. First she drained the insides of 8 farm fresh eggs and then dyed them robin blue. She then filled each egg with milk chocolate and after that was cooled, white chocolate, creating two layers of chocolate within each egg. For an added touch of color, she paired the eggs with some lovely chocolate ribbon. It was a fun, playful and sinful final touch to a lovely meal.

Perfect pies

Having spent 14 years of my life in New York City, I, like most New Yorkers, consider myself a pizza aficionado. In the mid 1970s, my family lived in the East 70s, in an old apartment building that was fortuitously just a few steps away from what I’m told was one of the very first Original Ray’s Pizza parlors in the city. Even now, I can see that corner building, painted the colors of the Italian flag, and smell the amazing aromas of freshly baked pies coming out of the ovens. Those wonderful pies were my first. And since then, I’ve happily and unhappily eaten my way through hundreds of slices, good and bad, all over the planet. Fortunately, my wife S enjoys pizza as much as I do.

While I was away in Hong Kong, S, her friend Baker L, J and my brother W decided to try their hands at making their own pizzas. Because a friend had reported success using a pizza dough recipe from Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook, they gave it a go. They also tried a recipe for Napoletana pizza dough from a pretty amazing book, Peter Reinhart’s American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza. This book, which I’ve since flipped through, chronicles Mr Reinhart’s search across Italy and the United States for the perfect pizza. The first third of the book is pure editorial. The rest of the book contains fantastic recipes culled together by this talented baking instructor and award-winning cookbook author.

With these two pizza bases, a tomato sauce made from a Jamie Oliver recipe, a mushroom medley made from a Chez Panisse recipe, a huge variety of cheeses (taleggio, asiago, parmigiano reggiano, buffalo mozzarella, Danish blue) and toppings, S and her fellow bakers made several pies. The gals, I’m told, enjoyed the pies made with both Reinhart’s and Stewart’s bases, but for very different reasons. S reports that the Martha Stewart recipe “yielded a reasonably thin crust that was forgivingly resilient, making it the perfect base for pizza-lovers who can’t resist overloading their pies. Peter Reinhart’s base was ultra-thin, yet just thick enough to deliver a hint of chewiness rather then a pure, crisp snap. The unbaked dough was also light and airy, and a pleasure to work with.”

This past weekend, S and I hosted a few friends for dinner. One of them is a passionate young food blogger whose posts we’ve enjoyed reading this past year and whom we’ve enjoyed getting to know via email. We were really looking forward to cooking for her. Another of our guests, a really close friend who very sadly will be moving from Singapore to Switzerland later this year, is a fellow pizza lover. Like us, he likes crispy pizzas with a thin crust. Eager to put her newly-acquired Miele baking stone to the test, as a second course of our dinner, S put together a lovely pizza margherita with some piquant Spanish pork sausage that a colleague had generously carried back for me from a recent work trip to Madrid. (S had a little bit of trouble getting the sticky Reinhart base to slide of the peel, but the crust turned out crisp and mouthwateringly browned.) The rest of the dinner was also good. We started the meal with a very retro prawn cocktail. After the pizza we served a deboned milk-fed veal osso buco, made with a recipe from Joyce Goldstein’s Italian Slow and Savory, plated over some risotto a la Milanese. For an avant-dessert, we made Michel Richard’s egg soufflé, followed by an orange cake with some amazing ice cream flavored from a spice mix amusingly called “abracadabra”. I’ll write more about both the ice cream and the cake in a future post.

I’ve decided not to copy the Reinhart pizza dough recipe. While easy to make and using very few ingredients, the recipe itself is lengthy. Because of the number of steps required, it covers almost two and a half pages. I’d also encourage all of you to buy a copy of Reinhart’s book for yourself.

A Truffle Menu

Sometimes it really pays off to have foodie friends who know you like to cook. This past Sunday, we had the most amazing feast, thanks entirely to the gift of a fantastically aromatic (and of course ridiculously expensive) white Alba truffle. The only caveat imposed by the friends who gave us this precious delicacy, of course, was that that they, in addition to ourselves and two others, be present at the ensuing truffle feast.

Inspired by the white truffle, S and I put together a whole truffle menu. Two of the four savory courses would use the white truffle, while the two others would call upon its black cousin. The dessert course would also be truffled, thanks to a wonderful white truffle-honey that S buys in a local gourmet store.

Given the grandeur of the occasion, S and I went all out, laying out a crisp, starched, white table cloth, pulling out plates and crystal we rarely use, and chilling several bottles of good Champagne–which we felt would match most of the dishes better than any other kind of wine. We also dimmed the lights rather dramatically, which while great for entertaining stinks for photography. I was forced to shoot the pictures at 1600 ISO, which exlains the graininess of the shots below. Truth be told, I wasn’t really that interested in shooting this meal. Just in eating it.

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Tweaking tradition

We held another dinner party yesterday evening, hosting two friends from Singapore and two friends visiting from out of town–Washington DC and Bhutan. S and I planned a simple menu of 4 small courses, each a slight tweak of some of our favorite classic dishes.

Duo of Mentaiko Pasta and Prawns with a Salted Egg Crust
Our first course was a plated combination of two of my all-time faves. I’ve written about Mentaiko pasta in the past, so I won’t go into details here. For the prawns, I used a recipe from Jereme Leung’s New Shanghai Cuisine, a book that S helped to write. I love seafood cooked and coated in a salted duck egg yolk sauce. The sauce has a super-rich and utterly delicious umaminess that I can never get enough of. My favorite version of this prawn dish here in Singapore is the one served at Hu Cui, a fantastic Shanghainese restaurant in Ngee Ann City. Every time I have it, I can’t help but lean back in my chair and moan in pleasure. It’s that good. Understandably then, I was thrilled when I discovered a recipe for “crab claws and prawns with a salted egg crust” in Jereme’s book. I was even more excited when I realized how easy it was to make. Essentially, the egg yolks (separated from the whites) are steamed for 5-7 minutes and then allowed to cool. Once cooled, the yolks should be chopped up into tiny bits and set aside. The prawns need to be coated in potato flour and then fried over high heat in some (normal vegetable) oil. Once they’re just cooked, drain the oil and set aside the prawns. Then melt some salted butter in another fry pan. Once the butter begins to foam, toss in the chopped up egg yolk. Stir until it becomes a saucy paste. Then throw the prawns in, stirring everything gently until the egg yolk sauce coats the prawns thoroughly. For our dinner party, we used a long rectangular plate, setting a twirl of Mentaiko pasta, topped with nori, on one end. On the other end, we gave each person 4-5 prawns, topped with a small spoonful of tobiko.

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A love of great plates

My darling wife S and I are both devoted design fans. It’s one of the things that we bonded over very early on in our relationship. The fantastic thing is that we also have amazingly similar tastes; we often find ourselves drooling over the same items in our favorite stores, be they chairs or cake stands. Over the half decade we’ve been together, (and once S successfully got rid of my “bachelor stuff”) we’ve amassed a wonderful array of beautiful things to serve food on and with. And, from what I can tell, we’re still adding to our collection.

So, I was very excited and flattered when contacted recently by Design Public, a very cool online design store that also maintains its own blog, and asked to take part in “Delicious Design”, a week long blogging event it’s hosting during which invited floggers are asked to write on the theme, “the aesthetics of food.” This is a great topic.

I consider myself a highly visual person and great food to me has always been more than just its taste. As any restaurateur or chef will tell you, it’s also about the presentation. This, in turn, can be broken down into two components. The first is the artistry that the chef demonstrates when plating a dish. You know, the swirling lines of sauce, the ingredients that are gingerly stacked in gravity-defying towers, things like that. Some chefs prefer to play with colors. Some chefs like height. Others demonstrate artful restraint, placing small portions of food on large, pristine plates. Others lean towards overabundance, overwhelming the diner with the amount and complexity of their ingredients.

The second component is the plate itself. It’s both the frame and the canvas for the art that the chefs create. A great plate, a beautifully designed plate, can elevate a dish. It can take a good dish and make it great. And it can transform a great one into a culinary masterpiece. But don’t get me wrong. Beautiful design doesn’t mean over-designed. Let’s not forget that the role of a plate is to present and enhance the pleasure of great food. The plate shouldn’t overwhelm the food. It shouldn’t compete for attention. Like the best designed dresses, which enhance the beauty and sex appeal of the women who wear them, great plates make food more appealing. Great plates should, though, always be well made.

As mentioned earlier, S and I have, what I consider to be, a great collection of plates, glasses, and other things which make our food look great and (to me) taste better. Some of these items are entirely frivolous, like our red-metal tiered cake stand. On the other hand, we consider our handmade Bison stoneware cake stands–of which we have three (in different sizes, 2 in white, 1 in black)–entirely necessary. We treasure our set of Thierry Cheyrou-designed Raynaud wide-rimmed porcelain plates. We will always be eternally grateful to family and friends who, through our wedding registry, helped us acquire a stunning selection of Tiffany’s dinnerware, silverware and wine glasses. I’m particularly drawn to square and rectangular plates and S has allowed me to purchase several sets over the years. At the same time, I’ve indulged her obsession with searching antique stores and flea markets for Sheffield steel, bone-handled cutlery. We have specific flatware for specific dishes. We have certain plates we only use with certain friends. We even have some items we rarely use, preferring to admire them unadorned. And we love them all.

One of my favorites is a set of 10 Bernardaud wide-rimmed porcelain plates with the tiniest of serving spaces. We first saw them at Les Amis, one of Singapore’s fanciest French restaurants. We loved them on sight. When we later saw them on display at one of our local restaurant supply stores, we immediately asked if we could purchase a set. Unfortunately, we were told that only bulk orders for restaurants or hotels would be entertained. Then, a few months later, when we were back in the shop, a staffer that recognized us told us that they had just gotten a large order for them and could help us piggy-back 10 extras if we were still interested. Of course, we screamed, “yes!” and all but hugged her. The picture above (which is actually also inset in the collage at the top) is of the plate, being used to present an abalone noodle dish.

The pieces that we’re currently most excited about are a set we bought in Shanghai at an amazing pottery store called Spin. These handmade porcelain plates are beautiful. They’re simple, white with a shallow bowl shape. Around the rim of each plate is a streak of red underglaze–a nod to Ch’ing dynasty pottery. Each plate is also unique, with a slightly different streak. Unfortunately, the plates are being shipped to us and won’t arrive for another 4-8 weeks.

The only downside of being a foodie, design addict and slight compulsive shopper is that every time I enter a cool lifestyle store or great design shop, I have to be careful. There are just so many beautiful, tempting items which S and I would love to own and use. Of course, being unable to actually afford them all means that we better appreciate the ones we do eventually end up splurging on. The reward, though, is not in the act of buying them, but in using them–in finding just the right recipe with which to pair each new plate. And serving the dish, perfectly plated, to friends and loved ones.

A special dinner revisited

S and I got married on 9 September 2001. To celebrate our anniversary this year, we decided to recreate our wedding dinner–for ourselves and for two close friends who weren’t able to attend the wedding. We were married at the Sandalford Winery in Swan Valley, Western Australia. And unlike many other couples that we know, S and I not only got to eat all of our wedding dinner, we also really enjoyed what we ate. As two obsessive foodies, we had insisted on these two things. Firstly, we had set-up a little photo studio in the corner of the room where the dinner was being served. So, instead of moving from table to table to have photographs taken with all of our guests, we invited our guests to pose for photographs whenever they felt like it, throughout the meal. We had left a stack of white boards and markers with the photographer. Our friends were asked to write messages on the boards and pose with them. Secondly, we worked really hard on planning the menu, meeting Sandalford’s incredibly understanding and talented chef several times in the months leading up to the wedding. We planned a menu based on some of our favorite dishes. On the menus placed on each table, we then explained the significance of each dish.

Our first course at the wedding dinner was a squid ink linguini with fresh seafood and snowpeas. The menu description read, “A delightfully light dish Chef Margaret wowed us with on our last visit to Sandalford’s.” For last night’s re-enactment, we tweaked the dish quite a bit, making instead a spaghettini with prawns and petits pois (pictured at the start of the post). The prawns and peas were cooked in a paste made from coriander, curry leaves, garlic, chili, salt, olive oil and prawn oil. The pasta was then tossed with this and served with a bit of freshly grated parmesan.

Our second course at the wedding was confit of Atlantic salmon. Our menu read, “A signature Tetsuya offering that CH sometimes whips up in the kitchen–evidence that he won the girl over with his kitchen prowess.” For last night’s meal, I made a confit of salmon with nameko mushrooms. I marinated the sashimi grade salmon for a day in grapeseed oil infused with coriander, basil, garlic, pepper, and the zest of one orange. The salmon was then cooked for 7 minutes at 100 degrees Celsius. I covered the top of the salmon with a bit of chopped, shiso-flavored hijiki and a small spoonful of ikura. With the salmon, I served wonderfully fresh nameko mushrooms which I had sauteed in French butter.

Next at the wedding was a fillet of beef topped with coriander pesto. S had written on the menu, “The first dish, stolen from Peter Gordon’s Sugar Club, that S cooked for the boy. Thankfully, he survived.” For yesterday’s dinner, we had picked up some gorgeously marbled Australian wagyu striploin. I made the pesto yesterday as well, first crushing the fresh coriander, basil, young garlic, toasted pine nuts, olive oil and parmesan in a ribbed Japanese mortar, and then blending it into a smooth paste. To serve with the wagyu and pesto, I whipped up some yummy mashed potatoes (made with loads of butter).

To finish off the meal, both at the wedding and last night, we had a cheese plate and a cake. The cheese was Pavé d’Affinois served with fresh honeycomb. Our menu read, “CH’s favorite cheese, which quickly became S’s favorite too, after two beautiful meals at a little Thomas Keller-owned bistro in Napa Valley called Bouchon.” The cake was a Strawberry Shortcake, because as S wrote on the menu, “Wedding cake should always be yummy!” With the dinner, we had some Watermelon martinis (I love our juicer), followed by a Curly Flat Chardonnay (1999). While slightly tart, the buttery Chardonnay worked well with the pasta and the salmon. With the beef, we had a bottle of a Valentini Cerasuolo (2002) that I had brought back from my June trip to Venice. I had both read and been told that this wine was Italy’s best Rosé, so I was expecting quite a lot from it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t all that impressed. Nonetheless, it was a great meal, and I was glad to be able to share it with S again and to introduce it to two good friends who missed it the first time around.