How many bananas are on the banana tree?
Archive for January, 2008
We love padang, a mixture of dishes eaten with rice originally from a region in Indonesia called Padang. H makes a rice exception here. We love how cheap and good it is. There are many padang stalls all over the island. The ones along Arab Street are possibly among the most famous. We usually eat regularly at Hajah Maimunah either at Arab Street or at their other newer and larger branch in Geylang. What I like about padang in Singapore is that the food is hot, compared to a lot of the stalls in Indonesia where most of the food is at room temperature and already plated in individual portions. The trick to eating a good padang meal is to have lunch early as everything runs out by about 2 pm. The price range can also differ greatly, and I ended up paying twice as much at a padang restaurant because our usual place was closed. Its still cheap and reasonable, the only danger to eating these meals is that we tend to over order and eat too much.. And try to ignore the layer of oil with each dish. After having a cooking lesson from my Indonesian house help, I realize that the key to the spicy curries is the amount of oil in the dish. The most important step is to fry the spice paste or rempah till really crispy before adding the meat and simmering till cooked. Without enough oil, the spice paste never dries out and rather than the thick gravy and the nice colour, you get a tepid porridge like mix. The best way to get rid of the oil would be to skim off the oil when cool or refridgerate then throw away the fat.
Rendang: the all time favourite dish of a dry beef spicy curry fragrant with lots of bay leaves and lime leaves
Ayam lemak: Chicken cooked in a green curry
Lime juice to padang food is like lassi (yogurt drink) to a curry meal
This is a strange looking fruit on a tree next to our car. I’ve never seen it before, know what it is?
The Sultan mosque, an iconic historical monument at Arab Street.
These photos were taken with Husaini’s camera, it’s a Canon, I can’t remember which model though (you’ve got to help me here). The lens was a 50 mm 1.8.. Help, I’m really not good with technical terms. I made a focaccia which was one of my first posts on happygrub. I know, I do seem to be making a lot of the same things again and again. There’re just things that I’m familiar with. There is nothing worse than trying a new recipe to bring along as a gift or to a party. The stress itself is enough to make the recipe fail. This bread is easy and delicious. We had it with marinated feta. Just cube feta and toss with olive oil, chilli flakes and dried tarragon or whichever fresh or dried herbs you have at hand. I tried to achieve holes in the bread like what this post was about but wasn’t very successful as I was too impatient. Fanny writes so well and her blog is so beautiful, its worth clicking on the post.
I need to tell the world that Julie makes the best Irish stew, which I have been thinking of ever since.. Yum yum. I have the recipe (thanks a lot Julie) and I will try it out soon..
Olive and Sesame Foccacia
Ingredients
11g dried yeast (1 satchet Ragi brand) or 1 tablespoon
1 tsp mixed dried herbs
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
300ml cold water
2 tbsp olive oil
Topping
3-4 tablespoons olive oil
10-15 black olives, sliced
4 tablespoons sesame seeds
Method
Attach dough hook to mixer. Mix all the dry ingredients for 1 min at low speed. Add water and mix for 2 mins. Slowly trickle in olive oil. Mix on medium speed for 15 mins. Place dough in an airtight container coated in olive oil. Leave to rise in a warm place for an hour. Divide the dough into 2 portions and pin out into a flat circle about 1 ½ cm thick. Prove for 1 hour. Spread olive oil on dough with fingers, scatter olives and sesame seeds over. Poke holes in dough with fingers. Bake in preheated oven at 220C for 20 mins. Transfer bread on wire rack to cool.
The dish towel is from pantry magic! Not meant to be used as a dish towel.. definitely.
H is for Happy.
I made use of this oppurtunity to bring along the picnic basket WY gave me as a gift and it was so roomy and perfect to carry everything in. Thanks a lot Wen! And guess what, it found a friend there. Does anyone recognize this??
The first rice post on happygrub! This is what I actually eat. Like a true Asian, I faithfully eat my daily bowl of rice. Sometimes three. Rice for breakfast is really very nice, it makes such a great start to the day. H of course eats rice once a week, but that’s a different story altogether. This was lunch before work one day. I think leek is an undereaten and underused vegetable, I’ve only discovered it recently. And it is really delicious. Here is the recipe for an easy meal.
Leek and Fish Stirfry for one
Ingredients
2 tablespoon corn oil
1 piece of fish of your choice, I used a small whole snapper, rubbed in salt and deep fried
1 red chilli, sliced
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1 cm2 ginger, crushed
1 small onion, sliced
1 medium leek, sliced
1 tomato, quartered
Light soy to taste, about 2 tablespoons
Method
Pat fish dry, rub fish with salt and deep fry in oil till golden and crisp. Drain on kitchen paper then put on serving plate. Fry onion for 3 mins, then add garlic, ginger, chilli and leek. Continue stirring for 3 mins. Add quartered tomato. Add light soy and about 3 tablespoons of water. The contents of the pan will start to bubble. Pour over fish and serve with rice.
A quick gift: My madeline recipe baked as a cake with scattered almonds on top.
I’m kinda groggy after a night tour of Seletar camp last night, which started at midnight and ended at 3 am. Juli, THANKS for the DILL! This is a good way to awake and try to hit the books early. This was all the food pictures I had of Cambodia. Some of the rest will slowly be uploaded here.
The first night was spent in Phnom Penh with some Cambodian medical students. Coincidentally, I was reunited with an old friend who was my roommate in an international medical student camp in 2005. She then proved invaluable in our mission as she cam along and acted as translator. Life is full of pleasant surprises isn’t it? Get this, before we said goodbye in 2005, she gave me a Cambodian note and said that if I keep the note, I will go to Cambodia one day and we would meet! Of course, I gave her a Singaporean note before I left. I’m sure we’ll meet again, perhaps here the next time.
I love going to places where the locals actually eat. This meal was delicious. We had a sweet sour fish, some stir fried vegetables and a sour fish broth fragrant with thai basil.
This was their version of satay and came with shredded julienne of cucumber and pineapple. No peanut dipping sauce here!
H has this thing where he drinks “teh tarik” or pulled tea EVERYWHERE. In Singapore at least. And they do have a Cambodian version..
These are cockles fresh from the river, rolled in salt and chilli and left to dry. Its eaten as a snack. I don’t think I’m too keen on hepatitis as yet.
Our first meal in the village. Every meal consisted on whole fish, a meat dish with vegetables, sliced cucumber, dipping fish sauce and tropical fruit. It was all clean and no one fell sick. The only 2 people who got sick were the sisters Alia and Aqila, who ate canned tuna get this, from Singapore on one of the nights. Imagine that..
Hanne wants to know how a chiku tastes likes, anyone can help describe it? Leave a comment..
We’re back and we had a wonderful trip to Cambodia to the village where our team worked very hard in the various projects under the umbrella of hopevillages. It was really interesting and H and I learnt many things and hopefully the little that we did made a difference. There’s still lots of work to be done so it would definitely be the first of many trips. More photos here.
What was really wonderful was that we made so many friends in such a short period of time. On the way home from the airport, we dropped this wonderful couple back to their home in Seletar Camp and I can now understand the beauty and magical sense of openness of the area that they were telling us about. I probably wasn’t much of a guest as I was really fascinated by the house, I just had to look at everything. Sorry Juli and Husaini if I wasn’t talking or listening! Here is a walk down their garden and coincidentally I taken pictures of many of the fruits in Cambodia that they had in their garden. This reminded me of the wonderful fruit party one of the nights in the village and it was great to feast on all the tropical fruit, many from the village trees of our Cambodian friends. Was’t it a wonderful night guys? Can’t wait to see all of you soon..
Limes on the tree at H&J’s garden
Large oranges at a Cambodian roadside stall
Chiku at their place
We had loads of chiku at the village that night and they were incredibly as sweet as sugar. You know its casual when the host gives you a plate of unpeeled fruit with knives and everyone sits on the floor.
Longans at Seletar against a forest of casuarina.
Longans in Cambodia, we had these at every meal.
Juli, WHERE’s MY dill??
happygrub has expanded and I am now co-authoring a new blog with Wenyin called grubliving. Its brand new so more posts will be up and coming and it chronicles all our crafty experiments and anything that may inspire! Come and drop by..
Have I been gone for long? It doesn’t seem like it based on the dates, I last posted slightly more than a week ago. But it does seem that a lot has happened. My poor grandma is in a cast because of a broken foot and now wheelchair bound for the next month. Lucky for me, I had an old friend who is an occupational therapist. Coincidentally, he lives right across the road from her flat. I learnt a lot about wheelchair mobility and making her as independent as possible from him. Poor grandma is terribly motion sick from the wheelchair movement so I’ll have to pop by again with some giddy pills.
As some of you may know, H and I are going to Cambodia next week. We are participating in a voluntary trip to bring some health aid to an improvished village. In order to earn a little extra cash for our trip, I started working in the evenings at a small family practice. This unfortunately meant I came home only close to midnight just to eat some dinner and sleep. I have new found respect for family doctors now. Hey, its not just cough and cold and sore eyes. I saw a few broken bones, dog bites, heart failure, acute asthma and lots and lots of strange rashes. It was a good experience but I vowed to do no more clinic sessions for this entire month, it was really crazy! Muscles I didn’t know existed started to ache at the end of the day. And it was really non stop action from the time the clinic opened, I couldn’t even think of peeing.
My apologies, I may be even more absent the rest of this month as I am taking my MRCP Part 1 and its my second attempt and hopefully last. Visit this free site for practice papers for anyone interested. Anyway, enough about work, let’s talk more about play. I had my lovely friend Wen over for a whole load of cookie baking pre Christmas eve. We had a nice brunch and baklava from Syria. My dad had received it as a gift from a friend. It was beautiful as it contained the smallest baklava I’ve ever seen. It was buttery, full of honey flavour and wonderful fresh nuts. Speaking of Syria, WELCOME back Mel. Mel spent a good 14 days in Syria and has just returned. I MISSED you..
PS.. Shafaa, I will post a recipe of the bread rolls you ate and the little friends who made it soon.. I loved the rolls so much.
Almond filled rolls
…………………going into mouth………………………
The individual rows of baklava were separated with neat pieces of cellophane and they were all carefully measured to fit perfectly into a large square box
Tiny little nests filled with pine nuts
This wonderful picnic basket was a gift from Wen, time for picnics and relaxing times soon!
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