The 18 hour ciabatta experiment

Before i start waxing lyrical about bread, let me give a warning, proceed only if you are really into/curious about baking and bread baking or just want to see how long Farhan can talk about this subject. (read: Mel this is going to bore you like crazy)

I had a 18 hour ciabatta experiment which I am glad to say was a success. Since it was 18 hours long, sad to say by the time the sandwich was assembled, it was 8 pm and too dark to bother taking any photos. This led to my mother in law commenting that it was took too much effort and time to bake bread.I think this was contributed by me recruiting her help in spritzing water into the oven while I ran an errand in the neighbourhood.

This led me thinking. Is it worthwhile to bake your own bread? Zhullie of ovenhaven had her first bread baking experiment and thoroughly enjoyed it. And I think for every bread baker (calling all bread bakers: please back me up here!) there is never anything more satisfying than making your own bread. In terms of time consumption, I must say this was the most time consuming. But the results were phenomenol if I may say so. It had the perfect crisp crust and those lovely holes that ciabatta has that I could never have achieved previously.

I think the main block when it comes to bread baking is timing and planning. Unlike cookies which mixed in a bowl and baked on the spot, bread takes TIME to rise. It also needs a lot of love, some breads more than others. This ciabatta was like a newborn baby, needing to be caressed every few hours, fed and turned. Pizza dough is fast and takes an hour max from dough to oven. Chapati when made well needs minimal rest, but can be left overnight to relax for better results. Pita bread takes a little more time due to the starter which takes 4-5 hours. And I have discovered this ciabatta takes the icing on the cake! Well now you may ask, What are the advantages of making your own bread?

-you get free baking bread smells around the whole house

-it costs almost nothing to bake your own bread

-you can flavour it however you wish: rosemary, sundried tomatoes, beautiful olives, roast garlic, caremalized onions. You could put anything in a roll to make it sweet or savoury like these cream cheese and walnut rolls

-you can shape it which ever way you want like these small kaiser rolls, perhaps a heart for your love?

-there aren’t any wierd preservatives, leaveners and additives in homemade bread. This also means it doesnt keep well. but I guess we all know it freezes well for up to a month well wrapped in the fridge

-the joy of holding your own handmade rolls, burger buns, pizza, flatbreads is something that can’t rival paying a few dollars at your neighbourhood bakery.

But you probably think I’m a little crazy making my own mayonaise, cutting my own tenderloin for a burger and eating only handcut fries which H is extremely good at, always mixing my own salad dressing and never using bottled. But I still seriously believe that you need to taste how good and wholesome great quality homemade stuff is and you’ll never turn back.

Just like Dorie’s carrot cake which motivated me to buy the book,

This definitely made me add the book shown at the top of the page into my collection. Its superb, Zhullie, another must buy!! The recipe for the ciabatta coming soon, I made a pan bagna: a traditional French ‘submarine’ sandwich. It can be filled with a variety of fillings, but instead of butter or margarine, the bread is ‘bathed’ in olive oil. Pan Bagna should be moist, so it may not the sort of thing you want to eat in polite company!Enjoy the photo from here with recipe.

Welcome to the Leela

Its a Sunday! Just one week ago I was in Kerala having fresh fruit with muesli and a sweet cold glass of lassi.

 Would you like to stay in a place where the view to your room is an open sea and you are greeted with a huge wood oven at the entrance of the restaurant?

You could have a perfectly done wood stone oven fired pizza with the days finest catch.

Welcome to The Leela at Kovalam Beach.

Surf the net and enjoy the view

The roof reminds me of a Swiss chalet..

In the buggy on the way up to the main building, the rooms were fronting the beach while the lobby and restaurant was quite a walk up the cliff. We buggied to and fro.

Sitting by the pool, the views were fabulous all around the resort.

 

 More breakfasts.

I have so many photos so stay tuned for the backwaters..

The cooking demonstrations..

Loads of home cooked South Indian food.

I didn’t know fish were so beautiful. I discovered a new fish called the seer fish which is a Keralan specialty.

 

More soon… I’ll try not to post it so late, can I say that I was jet lagged for a week? I could barely open my eyes when on call yesterday.. But well, Sunday is here again, more work unfortunately since I had 2 sundays off in Kerala. I am going for an interview on Tuesday so please wish me luck!

Of fruit and goats-Kerala Part 1

Mango by the beach with a sprinkling of chilli salt

This is banana country, we had loads of bananas of different varieties after each meal. It was eaten as a dessert dipped in a special homemade jam.

By the streets of Takkalay which is the village where we stayed. The little town is off the borders of Kerala, being part of Tamil Nadu

A type of coconut palm, I’m unsure of its name. I’ve never seen it in Singapore either.

Inside the fruit. Looks like 3 little hearts doesn’t it?

 Scraped into cups and mixed with syrup and ice. It had a neutral taste and sort of a jelly like texture.

Goats crossing a street in the village, don’t they look really smart?

By the beach.. Peas and nuts.

People here just love to have their photo taken. They’re really warm and friendly, full of smiles and really interested to know about you.

I spent long hours on the hammock in our resort. There were dozens and dozens of hammocks among the hundred of coconut trees.

We stayed at the Leela at Kovalam beach, the only 5 star resort in the area. The prices were lower due to the off peak season. It was really worth it. More photos in another post.. H and I don’t have many indulgences (besides good meals) but we love staying in top resorts. I feel lucky to be able to do so and we both see it as a great investment to our marriage and life together.

I’m in my balcony, having just touched down early this morning. I’ve never been up and out here this early and I’m amazed at how there is so much wildlife around from beautiful birds to lots of bees, insects, squirrels and the neighbourhood pets. This is the palm right in front of me.

We stay at H’s family home and it is quaint, with some parts of the roof falling down, i noticed that I have a new friend on the balcony. Don’t you love her little nest? Its nice to be home.

 

More photos in Part 2 and 3..

Hello from a monsoony place

Hello.. I guess this is unexpected, I was supposed to be absent from this blog for a week. But well, a cheap internet rate and some rain after dinner had me wandering around in cyberspace and of course to my comfort zone, this spot.

Let me tell you about this place, Kerala tagged as “God’s own county”. How I ended up here is a pretty long story that goes back about 60 years. H’s mom has 3 half siblings who live in Kerala. And there is a huge family here. We landed on Saturday night and were lodged in a local guest house for the first 3 nights. (We broke away fromt the rest of the group for some R&R at The Leela in Kovalamand we’re missing them terribly) Their hospitality is overwhelming and we’ve been having 3 home cooked meals a day in the family home. Each meal is surrounded by at least 10 family members who take turns and sometimes stimultaneously pile food onto your plate. We’ve had lots of uttupams, apoms, dosas, puttumayam, chapati, paratha, briyanis, rotis. And there’s something about the food that makes you want more. We’ve been having lots of bananas, there is an overwhelming variety here and lots of heady sweet alphonso mangoes.

There is something about this place with its sun and showers (only at night thankfully) where the green looks greener than green and the sky bluer than blue. Ignore the dusty streets and the honking of the trucks, the people are sweet and gentle and the family too wonderful. I don’t think I have been kissed by these many people and so many times in such a short period of time. I’ve taken loads of pics and I can’t wait to share them with you! Till then!

Picnic scones

Let me share my favourite scone recipe with you. My dad loves scones and I first made it for him when I was still a student a couple of years back. Since then, these scones have made their way to various picnic baskets, numerous teas and even as a door gift for one of my mom’s teachers’ events. This recipe belongs to Grandma Johnson and was tested thru 3 generations of kids. I got this recipe from www.allrecipe.com and it is one of their top rated recipes. I love this recipe, Its the combination of sour cream, butter and 3 rising ingredients: baking soda, baking powder AND cream of tartar that makes it so deliciously light, buttery and crumbly. Have you had those horrible dry scones that taste a little bready yet hard and sticks to your throat? Bet you have. And I bet you’ve had those delicious warm melt in your mouth kinds too. This is definitely the latter. And its so versatile. These scones were made one nice afernoon by my kind mummy while I was catching some stolen snooze in her bed in her pyjamas. Mother in law was in the neighbourhood and dropped in with some stinky fruit (read: durian, which by the way mama, my car still smeeelllllsss and its been twoooo loooo000ooonngg days…) and glamourous aunty-in-law, so we had a little tea party with scones and fig jam. I wonder how it would have been with some durian smeared on. I digress. These were lightly scented with grated lemon zest and plump with raisins from Uzbekistan. Here’s the recipe and I’m so sure you’ll love it too!

Grandma Johnson’s Scones

• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter
• 1 egg
• 1 cup raisins (optional)

1. In a small bowl, blend the sour cream and baking soda, and set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a large baking sheet.
3. In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, cream of tartar, and salt. Cut in the butter. Stir the sour cream mixture and egg into the flour mixture until just moistened. Mix in the raisins.
4. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead briefly. Roll or pat dough into a 3/4 inch thick round. Cut into 12 wedges, and place them 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet.
5. Bake 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until golden brown on the bottom.

 

I will be away for a while, I’m tired and I am flying off to Kerala on Saturday night.. I’ll be back in a week, so catch up then.. We are going to stay with H’s family and I have not planned a single thing on the trip save for booking 3 nights at The Leela during the last few days of the trip. We’ll be breaking away from the rest of the family for some couple time.

 

By the way, the price was really low compared to peak rates, they called it their “monsoon special” which made me freaking nervous. “Monsoon”?? And the fact that they were still not fully booked though I booked online only a week from arrival..

Catch up soon..

Random shots of my weekend

This weekend was all about a wedding and chocolate ice cream. I love the East (of Singapore) so much, I grew up here and moved and married and got my own place all in the East. We were walking around Katong, had thin crust salami pizza at our favourite pizza joint, popped by Cold storage in Katong mall to stock up on cheese and cream. Walked back to the car in a lovely drizzle clutching chocolate ice cream in a cute chinese takeout. The weekend is long over but it seems like yesterday. This was probably because I was working the whole time, Saturday AND Sunday and then I was on call on Monday, and I was mortified when it dawned on me that there was a departmental rule that we are not allowed to go post call on Tuesday (ie, not allowed to leave at 1 pm as is the rule when we work through the night). So it turned out that I worked from 8 am on Monday till 5.30pm on Tuesday. H kept on calling me and asking me to just go home but somehow I managed to survive. So its now Wednesday and I’ve been feeling like how I’ve felt for the past month, which is in between tired and completely exhausted.

 

Anyway, this brings me to the tag that I’ve been given by Marysol of Memories in the Baking. Marysol’s blog is entirely new to me and she is a really advanced baker! Go check it out..

And here are the rules

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on the blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

So here are 6 things about me, I had a hard time coming up with something new, I think I’ve done this before in another post which I currently cannot find! But here goes..

1. I love pretty things and am currently housing a collection of Royal Doulton tea cups.. So far my collection hasn’t been big, its currently just 4. Somehow this collection seems a little indulgent especially since I’m trying to save.

 

2.  I am quite a messy person. Considering that H folds and stacks his T shirts such that they’re in super neat columns and irons every single crease out of his shirts, he had a teeny weeny bit of adjustment to do when we first got married.. I think he’s still adjusting. About the details of my messiness.. Do we really need to elaborate..? I think Mel and Quizas can give some supporting evidence.

 

3. I’ve never backpacked in my life and the thought of it somehow doesn’t appeal to me. Having said that I love to travel. My top choice destinations would be China, India, Lebanon (where half of H is from but unrest always occurs as soon as we plan a trip), New Zealand (Husaini we miss u like crazy!), Dubai, Japan and I would love to go to Turkey again.

 

4. I hate all medical dramas, except Nip/Tuck but well thats about as far from medicine as anyone can go. Wednesday night its me, H and the telly.

 

5. I am picking up krav maga from H who is really hooked on it now and attending classes. Its an Isreali form of self defence and its really amazing. No matter how small you are and I am pretty small, there is a technique to defend yourself from any assailant.

 

6. My brother, after eating a cherry topped chocolate cake that I baked for my dad’s birthday, proposed that I start selling some of my bakes, offering to manage orders and deliver. What do you think??

I’m tagging people I’ve not tagged before (since being tagged by marysol was such a surprise) so I’m tagging

 

dessertcandy

homemades

sugarhead

tastegoblet

purpleprincess

scentofgreenbananas

Feroz’s Quiche

I am amazed at men who cook. I think its because my dad never did, but in H’s family it seems that all the men cook. His dad is a great cook, and that kind of explains why MIL (mother in law cannot/does not cook ). His uncle cooks all sorts of meals, most of it British (based on his origin) and so do his cousins. I was completely blown away when his cousin came to the bbq with a QUICHE. How fantastic is that. And it was so delicious, it reminded me of the days growing up when I always had my mom’s special scamble in the morning. It was always eggs with tomato, onion, sausages and mushrooms. When I ate F’s apple crumble a couple of weeks later, I was even more amazed.

So the question that comes next is DOES OR CAN H cook? Well, apparently he did, before I married him he was quite a talented cook, he even wanted to be a chef! But somehow, hmm..,H cooking remains an urban legend to me. He makes a great sous chef though but a lot of times he takes SOOO long to come to the kitchen the meal is already cooked. I’m not complaining though cos if there is one person who appreciates my cooking the most, its him!

Beautiful Uzbek

Does anyone feel like they need a break? Well, here’s a short photo trip you can take with me.

My parents recently returned from a trip to a fabulous country with beautiful food and people. They brought home an abundance of fresh fruit and dried nuts.

The colours are so vivid, it was summer.

My dad taking a walk.

An old and pretty door.

I love how this looks so mediterranean, cheese, salads, fresh fruit and bread.

More old monuments, did you know that the plane trip from Singapore costs $2.2k, thats a lot. Perhaps if Uzbekistan becomes more of a tourist destination for Singaporeans, the price would drop.

Yellow cherries caught in the sun

I enjoyed this, did you?

Another day, another BBQ

I think H is obssessed with barbeques. H just loves red meat, he’s carnivorous. I am a fishetarian, mostly existing on fish and vegetable. H just loves his steak, burgers, roasts and whatever else that has 4 legs and a tail. These images were from our Father’s Day BBQ a few sundays ago.