A few weeks ago, I saw some portobello mushrooms which were on sale in NTUC. I love mushrooms and I don’t know anybody who doesn’t like mushrooms. It’s a pity we can’t get any of the Western wild mushrooms like chanterelle and such. Portobello is the closest I can find that could be labelled as ‘field flat mushrooms’ and I used these to make one of Jamie Oliver’s mushroom recipes.
Marinade shrooms in olive oil, garlic, chili flakes, salt, lemon juice and top with a knob of butter
Bake in the oven and serve as a side.
The mushrooms will be juicy and flavourful and of course, best eaten warm. Remember this recipe when you next see a packet of portobello sitting patiently to be picked up. 😀
I love corn. I used to steam corn in one of those microwaveable steamers. That is until I realised putting corn in aluminium foil, marinated with butter, paprika and salt, makes for addictive creamy corn. It’s so fast to make, economical and healthy!
I love tempeh – fermented soya bean cake. I love it love it love it. I also understand that non-Malays may not know this food item (what is it anyway? a vegetable? a bean?) nor like it. I have met some non-Malay friends who told me they do not like it. Did I say how much I love tempeh? I do I do I do.
One tempeh dish that my mother makes is tempeh manis, and it is also one of the first dishes I learnt to cook before I got married. My late father, when I cooked it for the first time, made a face and told me point blank that it wasn’t nice. My mother then asked me what I put inside. I told her, amongst other things, salt and pepper. And there you go, the folly of youth. You do not add pepper and salt to the dish. It is after all, tempeh manis (sweet).
Recipe
4 tempeh pieces, thinly sliced ( I do not like the ones thickly sliced)
1 onion, sliced
1 red chilli, sliced
Enough Indonesian sweet soya sauce to cover the tempehs in the pan
A little bit of tamarind juice (to counter the sweetness)
Method
Fry the tempeh slices till crisp
In a shallow pan, brown the onions.
Add the sweet soya sauce
Add a bit of tamarind juice
Pour in the tempeh slices
Mix to coat well
You can add a bit of sugar, but if too much, it will caramelise and harden your dish.(I’ve done this before 😦 ) For the dish I made a few weeks ago, I added sliced garlic before browning the onion slices because I just felt like chewing on fried garlic. It won’t ruin the taste of the dish (unless you add in like a whole lot of garlic)
OK, I should be marking the Common Test papers right now but in my haste to get out of the school, I forgot to bring back the Answer Scheme. Oh well. More time for me to write one more recipe.
Sambal belacan. Sigh. This ubiquitous side dish (can it even be classified as a dish?) has a lot of die-hard fans. I even know of a colleague who loves sambal belacan so much that for fear of putting on weight, she refuses to make anymore of this sambal. How is that possible, one may ask. She loves eating sambal belacan with hot white rice and she can eat bowls and bowls of rice, just to savour her sambal belacan.
For those of you who are not so accustomed to Malay cooking, sambal belacan is simply a chilli condiment. There are many different ways to prepare this. The main two ingredients are fresh red chillies and the pungent (yet oh so fragrant when toasted) fermented shrimp paste. However, if you add other ingredients to the main two ingredients, the sambal may be called by another name.
My Mother’s version of sambal belacan (and the one I grew up with) simply consists of blending 10 red chillies with toasted belacan. That’s it. Yummy with hot white rice.
When I was working at BSS, I met an experienced Peranakan Home Ec teacher and I asked her how she made her sambal belacan. Her version (as well as another Peranakan teacher’s version) was to blend chillies with toasted belacan and strips of kaffir lime leaves. You’ve got to use only the tender leaves, leaving the hard stalk behind. I usually make this version at home now. I find it more fragrant. And, because I’m addicted to chilli, I add in some pieces of chilli padi (bird’s eye chillies) just to spice things up a bit. ;p
Sambal Belacan (blended with kaffir lime leaves)
Some people – the hardcore traditionalists- would shudder at the idea of blended sambal belacan. True, pounding chillies and belacan with a mortar and pestle may be tastier (the texture is looser and you get coarse bits of chillies) but when you are pressed for time and you still want to eat well, succumbing to the wonders of modern appliances (and ready made products like frozen shortcrust pastry!) is better than not trying to cook at all.
Sambal Assam
Now, if you take this basic sambal belacan recipe (just the 10 or so chillies with toasted belacan) and mix it with tamarand juice, season with sugar, you get sambalassam. Last year, I invited some colleagues over for lunch and I made this, served with steamed lady’s fingers. The ladies loved it. My family eats the sambal assam with thickly cut cucumber pieces. My mother-in-law’s version of sambal assam is to use dried chillies instead of fresh chillies. I shall try that some day. Using dried chillies give the sambal a richer colour.
There are many other types of sambal and when I have more time, I shall post it up. Time to turn in now and worry about the marking. 😦
The Hubby said a half hour ago, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have tea to go with the cake?” And I thought, well, why not? It is a very hot day and drinking hot tea would make it all better. Not. Well anyway, I told him I’d do just that after I do my Zuhr prayers. And what do you know? In the middle of my prayers, I suddenly remembered the potato gratin I had left in the oven like over an hour ago! I couldn’t do my solat perfectly; my mind was consumed with the thought of my burnt potato gratin. I tried very hard to push the thought out and think of God but the minute I ended my solat, I rushed to the kitchen. As feared, my potato gratin top was not a lovely golden brown as I envisioned, but a dark caramelly hard mass of mozzarella cheese that had been sunbathed too long. Sighing, I took the thing out and cut it open. The inside was perfect. In fact, it tasted real good. What inspired me to make this potato gratin at 3 in the afternoon? Laura Calder from the TV show – French Food at Home. Now, her version was very different from mine; in fact, the name of her dish is a very long French title. Her recipe basically was to layer onions that had been previously fried in butter (French butter, I presume) with thinly cut slices of different types of potatoes. In the baking dish, she poured some beef stock before putting the whole thing to be slow roasted in the oven (about 2 to 3 hours). Her seasonings were simply the usual salt and pepper and fresh thyme.
My version was:
1. Saute thickly cut onions in butter (Australian) until soft and caramelly.
2. Place the onions in a shallow baking dish, top it with a layer of thinly cut potatoes (locally grown, or at least Malaysian potatoes).
3. On top of that potato layer (seasoned with salt and black pepper and dried thyme), layer thickly cut tomatoes (seasoned with dried thyme) and then do a second layer of potatoes.
4. Pour a packet of whipped cream and top with mozzarella cheese.
Voila! It really tasted good -earthy and wholesome (because of the tomatoes). The burnt mozzarella top just made the dish crisper. Of course, if you are more conscientious then me, do not go for the crispy top and take care of you gratin. Oh, and it brought me to the conclusion that anything cooked with cream will taste good.
The layers of potatoes - seasoned with salt, black pepper and dried thyme
Seconds before going in the oven
The creamy potatoes. Yummy!
Now, I usually, what with being Malay and all, eat anything ‘potato-ly’ with some hot sauce. My choice for that day was my favourite Habanero sauce, but as it turned out, the dish tasted really earthy and creamy, I didn’t use a single drop of Mr Tabasco. 🙂
Habenero - at $4+ a bottle, it's definitely a must-buy for hot sauce lovers
So what about that tea and cake bit? Well, I finally managed to boil a kettle and infuse a bag of Lipton’s Lemon and Ginger. I used honey to sweeten the tea; this time, inspired by my spa trips at Tanjong Jara.
Lipton's Lemongrass and Ginger Tea. Refreshing.
The cake which I baked yesterday was consumed in like 3 minutes by The Hubby and I was relieved. No more leftovers (what with half of the cake wrapped in foil, ready to be delivered to my Mom).
And, oh, what was the baby doing while Mommy was making tea? The Daddy put him in…
Cake story coming up next.
Learning points for today’s cooking fiasco:
#1 Do not go to sleep after putting something with cheese topping in the oven.
#2 Onions and butter. Do it again!
#3 Cream. Mmmmm… Save up more money to buy more cream.
The Occasional Cook 