Recipe: Churros

There were two things I had a sudden inspiration for this weekend, churros and spam fries with lime aioli. The latter didn't quite happen but thanks to D's help, the first one did. We were all done with dinner where I'd brought some chocolate cake as a back-up dessert. This was to be the piece de resistance.

I had googled Churros recipes the week before and chosen the one that seemed the most legit. From what I could tell, they were mostly choux pastry recipes which involved the pastry being piped through a star tip into a wok of oil and then deep fried to a semi-hollow puffiness. We tossed the ingredients together and took turns whacking the dough around in the saucepan till it became shiny and pliable.

Just two words of warning, one is not to pipe too close to the hot oil, you may inadvertantly scald yourself with the hot moisture and two, you have to use a closed star tip and not an open (cupcake) star tip like we did, which results in bulgier, less crinkled churros. Other than that, the churros turned out pretty good! I wished we had halved the recipe as we had way too much leftover and I also think we could have done with some hot chocolate accompaniment.

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

1 cup white flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 cup water
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1/8 tsp salt
2 tsp granulated sugar
Oil for frying
4 Tbsp granulated sugar to sprinkle
Cinnamon to sprinkle

Preparation:

1. This churros recipe said it made 2-3 servings for breakfast but actually it makes way too much for even 10-12 people. I would definitely advise cutting it in half unless you are having a party.

2. Pour vegetable oil, such as canola or corn oil into a large heavy bottomed frying pan. Make sure there is about 2 inches of oil in the pan to cover the churros. There should be enough oil so that they float freely while frying. Set pan aside.

3. In a medium sauce pan, pour 1 cup water. Add oil, salt, sugar and stir. Bring water to a boil. While waiting for water to boil, measure the flour and add baking powder and stir.

4. Once water boils, slowly pour boiling water from saucepan into flour mixture - stirring constantly with a fork until it is a smooth dough without lumps. Note: Dough should not be runny like a batter, but rather a sticky smooth dough. Turn on the flame under the frying pan of oil and while the oil is heating, you want to aerate the dough by stirring it vigourously in the saucepan. This takes the better part of 10 minutes and involves stirring and mixing the dough hard with a wooden spoon, don't be afraid to handle the dough fairly violently. The dough will get drier and shinier.

5. Spoon dough into a churrera (a large cookie press) or pastry bag with a closed star tip. Carefully squeeze dough into hot oil, cut the pieces off the tip and fry until golden brown. Remove with a slotted spatula or long-handled fork. Place on a paper towel to drain.

6. Once drained, cut into manageable lengths. Sprinkle with sugar and cinammon and serve hot.

Review: Trattoria L'Ancora

From one successor of Borgo to another, I finally decided to try L'Ancora, the five-month old Italian restaurant which now occupies Borgo's spot.

As an aside, I think there are too many Italian restaurants in Singapore. Think of ten restaurants off the top of your head, and at least half of them will probably be Italian. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and is probably just a reflection of the fact that most Italian food takes less time to prepare than most French or Moroccan food. However, it does mean that eating out in Singapore becomes slightly boring after a while, with more misses than hits.

Once in a while, however, you find a gem - a place that serves truly good food, paired with service so immaculate it makes you feel like royalty, and at prices that probably wouldn't even get you a bowl of soup at other restaurants.


L'Ancora is one such venue. The layout and look of the restaurant has been rejigged somewhat since the days of Borgo: a fresh coat of paint, the grill area of the kitchen is now a cheese room, and a chalkboard with daily specials. The most noticeable difference, however, is the change in management. While service at Borgo was never bad, Roy and Umberto from L'Ancora are genial, courteous and effusively enthusiastic about seeing to your every need. Service in this country is often compared unfavourably to that of Hong Kong, so it is all the more refreshing and rewarding to enjoy such an excellent experience.

Of course, service is only one part of the meal, but L'Ancora has astutely taken care of the other aspects as well. In terms of price, there is the two-course set lunch at $20, and a four-course set dinner (with free flow of wine) available from Monday to Thursday for $68, which are some of the best prices I've seen for a while.

As for the food, appetisers take the form of Italian classics such as bruschetta ($12), calamari ($16) and vitello tonatto ($18). Interestingly, the prosciutto in the prosciutto e melon ($18) is San Daniele ham, which is rarely seen, even in Italy, and is prized over the more famous Parma ham for its delicate sweetness.


My carpaccio ($18) however, was slightly disappointing. Despite a surfeit of ingredients (rocket, parmesan, black truffle), somehow nothing differentiated it from any other thinly sliced raw beef, and there was no noticeable truffle aroma.


Where L'Ancora stands out is in its fresh, handmade pastas. The tagliolini with shrimps ($20) is served in a thick shrimp bisque, and comes in a generous helping, so you might want to avoid having too much complimentary bread. Other intriguing offers are the wholewheat stracci with braised duck in red wine sauce ($20) and the braised wild boar pappardelle ($26).


The fettucine with braised rabbit ($24), however, was one of the best pasta dishes I've had in a long time. It's rare to get rabbit meat in this country, and I don't believe I've ever seen it take the form of rabbit pasta (in Singapore, anyway). Perhaps it was the novelty of it, but the resultant dish was fantastic. The rabbit meat had been braised to tenderness and teased apart with a fork, cooked into a luscious broth that draped the ribbons of fettucine, coating them with a sweet, unctuous sauce. The addition of Tagatosche olives was brilliant, as the saltiness of the little fruits provided a lovely contrast.

When (not if) I go back, I'll try one of the pizzas, as L'Ancora offers a selection of very affordable (under $20) pizzas that all look delectable, and I'm sure my father will be unable to resist having some pizza.


Desserts are not particularly surprising, there is the "unholy trinity" of tiramisu, warm chocolate cake and panna cotta. Happily, the warm chocolate crostata ($12) is more of a tart than a cake, filled with rich, thick melted chocolate.


Giving in to my compulsion to find out how good a restaurant's panna cotta is, I was impressed by L'Ancora's panna cotta. Glossy-smooth and wobbly, the panna cotta had pretty much a perfect consistency, without being overly rich and creamy. If all restaurants served panna cotta like that, there'd be no reason for me to make my own.

I've probably praised L'Ancora enough, but I really am extremely impressed by the high standards (with regard to both food and service) paired with low prices. I've often thought this is exactly what new restaurants need to do in order to survive the treacherous first year, and if L'Ancora can manage to keep its quality and prices consistent, I'm sure it will soon become extremely difficult to get a reservation.

Trattoria L'Ancora
789 Bukit Timah Road
Tel: +65 6467 3778
Email
Website

Review: Borgata Trattoria Osteria

It's common knowledge that the restaurant industry is a merciless business, especially in Singapore, where consumers are fickle (remember the bubble tea and pork floss bun fads) and demanding when it comes to food. Italian food, in particular, seems to witness a phenomenal turnover, with at least two or three new restaurants opening every week.


Borgo, the popular restaurant along Sixth Avenue, has closed, but its chef and maitre d' have moved to a new restaurant, Borgata Trattoria Osteria, in Clarke Quay.


The restaurant certainly lives up to the "osteria" label: a flat-screen TV is provided for patrons to follow their favourite soccer teams, which creates a convivial, casual, taverna feel. Unsurprisingly, there was a match featuring Juventus FC.

Food is relatively cheap and abundant - like any authentic osteria/trattoria, Borgata is a place to share, spreading the warmth of kinship and love of eating generously around the table.


The antipasti mixto is not groundbreaking, but the collection of grilled vegetables (eggplant, zucchini and pumpkin), fresh tomatoes, cheese (parmigiano-reggiano and pecorino), and cold meats (prosciutto, mortadella, salami) is irresistible, especially when eaten with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.


Who doesn't like bruschetta? Zesty and refreshing, it's like being reunited with an old friend over drinks. More tomato concasse would have been better, though.


The pasta carbonara, interestingly, took the form of fusili, rather than the more common spaghetti. Not too creamy, so that you won't feel completely bloated after having a portion. If you're feeling more adventurous, Borgata has a dazzling array of more exotic pastas such as orechiette, combined with interesting sauces.


Alternatively, stick to something safer like the spaghetti alle vongole, which had a lovely flavour from the white wine and clam juice, but did not have very meaty clams. After the trouble of prying open clam shells, teasing out a few scraggly strands of clam meat is something of an anti-climax.


My father is a great fan of pizzas, and when he heard that I was going to Borgata, he gave me instructions to try the pizzas and see how they compared to Borgo's. I decided to order one with everything: mushrooms, mozzarella, parmigiano-reggiano, arugula, and prosciutto. The pizza was sizeable, with a nice thin crust and a generous helping of ingredients. Although the kitchen had run out of arugula (what kind of Italian restaurant runs out of arugula leaves?), it was replaced with spinach leaves. The spinach had wilted due to the heat of the pizza, which created a slightly limp texture that would not have been present had arugula leaves been used, but I suppose beggars can't be choosers.

Borgata needs to brush up their dessert offerings, though. Currently, they only offer tiramisu, molten chocolate cake and panna cotta, which is a combination that is scarcely original and hardly inspiring. Consequently, we chose not to have dessert, but went to a patisserie a few doors down.

Borgata may still be finding its feet, but with a little time, it should soon be drawing hungry diners through its doors with the promise of good food at affordable prices, in a friendly, unprepossessing environment, and perhaps a rerun of a Juventus game.

Borgata Trattoria Osteria
Block 3C River Valley Road
#01-02 The Cannery, Clarke Quay
Tel: +65 6305 6723
Email
Website

Tech Help

Some changes have been made to the blog's layout, not out of choice, but because Haloscan decided to force its users to "upgrade" to a paid version or face comment oblivion, and in order to remove it I had to "upgrade" my blog template, which has done something odd to its layout, as you can see.

I've been thinking for some time now of changing the layout of this blog to make it more user-friendly and to prevent photos appearing where they're not supposed to, but I lack the necessary HTML expertise, so if any tech-savvy readers would like to volunteer advice on how to go about this, I'm all ears.

Otherwise, apologies for the somewhat ungainly layout!

Review: Desire

Everybody loves a gimmick. The people behind Desire, the restaurant of the boutique Scarlet Hotel, clearly do, because that's the theme of the restaurant: from menu, to decor, to the names of courses, everything revolves around the idea of temptation, sin, lust, and other carnal pleasures, as you can see below.


The S&M bordello theme is not exactly very subtle, but whatever works, right?


The "Stimulus Package" is Desire's extremely seductive and alluring set lunch menu: at $24 for two courses and $30 for three courses, it is priced at a very substantial discount to the restaurant's a la carte menu (the "Book of Desire"), where main courses can cost in excess of $40.


For starters, I had the baked portobello mushroom, which was topped with an egg cooked sous vide and finished with some melted cheese. Having cooked something similar myself, this is a good combination of ingredients: the neutral-tasting, meaty mushroom is enriched by the poached egg and complemented by the salty, tangy cheese, though I felt that given the richness of the egg yolk and cheese, the dish would have benefitted from a drizzle of balsamic vinegar to lift it with some viscous sweetness and cut through all that fat with some acidity.


The tomato soup was a bright, cheerful orange, carrying an intense flavour of ripened, sweet tomatoes, despite the fact that the pulverised seeds had not been completely strained out. A bit on the thick side, the soup is best enjoyed together with the warm, crusty somewhat hollow bread the restaurant serves.


My duck leg confit cooked sous vide evidently did not survive the cooking process unscathed, as it looked rather battered on the plate, with the skin broken in several places. Nonetheless, it was quite tasty (although the skin could have been further crisped), and served with a zesty sauce that contained some orange juice, which helped to cut through some of the oiliness. The duck leg wasn't too large, which was just right for a lunch portion, and had been slow-cooked to tenderness.


The char-grilled beef fillet was another winner: the scorch marks lending a smokey flavour to the meat, which was nicely rounded off by the rich red wine sauce. The potatoes had been initially roasted, then gently cooked in red wine, which removed some of the crunchy exterior on the potatoes, but left them with a hint of tannins.


Dessert for me was a white chocolate cheesecake which was served with a scoop of what might have been green tea ice cream. I'm not overly fond of cheesecakes, so this petite portion was enough for me. I imagine this would have satisfied serious cheesecake afficionados.


The other dessert option was a fresh berry crepe served with lemon sorbet (which my father requested be substituted with vanilla ice cream). Confit (incidentally, how does one use a French word that is already in the past tense in an English sentence to express a past tense? Confit-ed?) strawberries and blueberries were wrapped in a soft crepe and doused in a syrupy orange sauce. A little too sweet, but otherwise enjoyable for those who like berries.

If you work in town, set lunch at Desire may be a good idea - service is friendly and efficient, portions aren't huge, the price is right, and the ambience, even if a little over the top, will ensure that you have something to talk about over lunch. No surprise that the restaurant has enjoyed a favourable word of mouth reputation as well as formal recognition as one of Wine and Dine's top restaurants of 2008.

Desire
33 Erskine Road
The Scarlet Hotel
Tel: +65 6511 3323
Website