Recipe: Salmon Fishcakes

Sometimes food doesn't have to be complex. Sometimes it can be really, really simple. Like this recipe for salmon fishcakes, which I got from a South African colleague. He reminisced about growing up in a community where there wasn't a lot of refrigeration, so his mother depended on tinned food to feed him as a young boy.


These are really simple to make, you can use tins of red salmon but you can also add fresh fish to them, or even chunks of scallop or crab and mashed potato, red scallions and capers, if you're feeling fancy. They taste best when they are served piping hot!

Ingredients:
(Serves 6)
1 can or 16 ounces red salmon
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley or cilantro
ground black pepper, to taste
2 large eggs, well beaten
1 cup fine dry bread crumbs
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup of vegetable or flavourless oil
5 tablespoons flour
juice of a lemon

Method:
1. Turn salmon and liquid into a medium mixing bowl. Flake with a fork, removing or mashing any bones (they are edible).
2. Mix in chopped onion, parsley and pepper.
3. Mix beaten eggs with salmon. Add enough bread crumbs, about 1/2 to 3/4 cup, to make thick enough to shape into 12 small patties.
4. Roll patties in flour. I found it easiest to shape them (I prefer mine small and bite-sized), then drizzle and pat dry flour onto the patties, taking care to fry them before they became wet again.
5. In a large heavy skillet over low heat, melt 2 tablespoons of butter with 1/2 cup of oil; add patties.
6. Fry patties slowly on one side; turn patties and fry until brown on the other side. Some people prefer to pan-fry the patties with just the oil, I find this presents a problem with making the patties stick but it's probably healthier.
7. Serve with ketchup, cilantro chiffonade and a squeeze of lemon.

* Thank you to M. for the gorgeous photographs!

Recipe: Roasted Tomato and Red Pepper Soup

I am one of the few people I know who enjoys cold soup as much as hot soups. As a result, I am always on the lookout for soups that can be served both warm and cold, such as vichyssoise, gazpacho and so on. The benefit of these soups, apart from their versatility, is that they improve with age, in a way soups like consommes do not, so you can feel good about leaving leftovers.


This recipe is one of Gordon Ramsay's, and unlike a normal tomato soup, this one makes use of red peppers to sweeten the soup, and in order to really enhance the flavours, the peppers (in fact all the fruits and vegetables) are roasted first.

Ingredients (Serves 4)

Olive oil
6 or 7 ripe plum tomatoes
3 large red peppers
1 onion, thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, peeled
1 tsp caster sugar
Basil
Thyme
500ml tomato juice
500ml vegetable or chicken stock
200-300g (8 to 12) baby cherry tomatoes on the vine (optional)


It's worth paying more for beautiful, plump, juicy tomatoes...they don't necessarily have to be on the stem, but I regard that as a sign of freshness. While the locally-grown beef tomatoes may be much cheaper, they tend to be quite sour and even harsh, so I would not recommend using them. Tomato juice is easily found in cans or tetra-paks in supermarkets.

1. Quarter and de-seed the tomatoes

This is important, as it ensures that your soup will be perfectly smooth and lush. I have had many tomato soups which were gritty, and while you can always sieve your soup, it is extraordinarily difficult to remove tomato seeds once they have been blended.

To de-seed tomatoes, simply quarter them, and using a spoon or the tip of your knife, tease out the wet, mushy cores containing the seeds. Do not discard these, but place them into a sieve with a bowl underneath. The watery cores contain lots of tomato juice that you can squeeze out with the back of a spoon (or your hands), leaving the tomato seed and pulp in the sieve but ensuring that you do not waste too much of the sweet, refreshing juices.

2. Quarter and de-seed the peppers

This is not particularly difficult; you may de-seed the peppers any way you think convenient.

3. Pre-heat the oven to 220C.

4. Tip the tomatoes, peppers, sliced onion and garlic into a roasting tin, and lubricate liberally with olive oil (about 4 Tbsp worth). Sprinkle with a handful of fresh thyme leaves, and toss to coat all the ingredients in the oil. Sprinkle with sugar and season with salt.


5. Roast in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes until the tomatoes and peppers are caramelised (but not browned), adding a handful of fresh basil sprigs towards the end of cooking (so they do not char).


6. Tip the roasted vegetables into a saucepan, and add the reserved juice from the tomato pulp you strained earlier, the 500ml of tomato juice and the vegetable/chicken stock. Bring to the boil, and cook for 5 minutes.


7. (Optional) If possible, leave to marinate overnight, as this will really intensify the flavours. If you don't have the time for that, at least wait for the ingredients to cool down before blending them.

8. Blend the ingredients in a blender (in batches).

9. (Optional) To obtain a really smooth soup, sieve the mixture at least once (twice is better).

10. This is what you should end up with: a bright, carroty-orange soup, that should be adjusted to the consistency you desire by adding more stock or tomato juice. Once you're happy with the consistency, you can serve it either warm or chilled.


11. (Optional) To jazz up the appearance of your soup, and to create an interesting flavour/texture contrast, when you're ready to serve, heat up some olive oil in a frying pan and simply place baby cherry tomatoes on the vine (2 or 3 to each person) into the hot oil. Let them sizzle away for a minute or so, then remove them and place them gently into the soup bowls.


The great thing about this soup is that even if you serve it warm at the height of summer (in Singapore that would be about 1pm any day of the week, I guess), it still seems refreshing and zesty, bursting with great flavours: sweetness from the tomatoes, some piquancy from the peppers, and a general sense of satisfaction as you finish the whole bowl.

Recipe: Chinese New Year Lo Hei

The answer is, Hua Ting at Orchard Hotel makes the best yu sheng. Why? Because they put in parma ham with the cantouloupe, crispy fish skin and candied preserved papaya with smoked salmon and salmon roe. It is yu sheng worth crying for and it retails from the price of $56 onward.

That important question out of the way, there are three very key (personal) principles to remember about yu sheng. The first is, I love it very much and I have eaten a lot of s*** over the years that passed as yu sheng. No more. Proud modern Chinese should not eat greying salmon and over-oiled dry carrots any more than they do newts and monkey brains, so I am resolved to no longer bother wasting those calories.

Second, the best surity of love and heart, is to take charge of situations and put something of yourself in them and maybe even walk away with a deeper appreciation of our traditions and food. Third, with the economy the way it is, we may need all the prosperity we can save, so what better way to save your pocketbook and waistband, then by trying your hand at making this dish for your reunion dinner.

To make it less horrifying a thought, this DIY idea, I thought I would do a little research into what the experts say and to increase the value add of this post, I've even researched what you are meant to say, when you mimic the lady in the cheongsum. This will impress all your relatives and really, we should all learn these phrases so that the practice doesn't die out, like our cultural language heritage, like our good government always says.

I have a good idea- to include this as a chapter of the primary school chinese textbook or hao gong min. In our identity-starved society, we really should tailor our learning more around our nuances, pragmatism and creations, rather than forever idolising historical Chinese iconography, half of which the kids don't remember nor practice anyway.

Before I get shot off the air for being politically incorrect, let me just speed through the one minute history of this very local but seasonal dish. Four chefs in Singapore, Messrs Sin Leong, Hooi Kok Wai, Lau Yoke Pui and Than Mui Kai invented this dish using raw fish slices used in simple fish porridge and combining it with a variety of ingredients like shredded lettuce, carrots, turnips, red and yellow ginger, pickled onions, jellyfish and sun dried plums with a sweet-sour sauce.

Each food would to symbolise particular significant well wishes because each wish had a pronounciation approximating the Chinese name of the food. Fishermen from the cost of Guangzhou province in southern China celebrated the seventh day of the new year by feasting on fish, which symbolised wealth. Yu sheng is traditionally eaten on Ren-ri, which is the common birthday to all mankind.

The elaborate family-sized platter and the attendant ritual of standing around the dinner table has been re-exported back to China, where it can be found in some major cities. I've sized this to feed 20 people, which is surprise, surprise, what the size of my own reunion dinner will likely be.

1. According to tradition, the fish is laid onto the plate first. At the table, you offer New Year greetings. Say Say Gong Xi Fa Cai 恭喜发财 (getting rich) and Wan Shi Ru Yi (to be smooth sailing) when putting down the Yu Sheng on the table. However, according to another text I read, you don't add the fish till later and in fact that text assumes the carrot part is on the plate first. Irritatingly, there are seperate phrases for the fish, the carrot, the daikon and the green radish, which I guess means that to get the full impact of impressing your grandmother, you have to start with the lettuce first.

2. Oh well. Write to me if you have a good idea on which ingredient goes first. I shall just put that the lettuce goes first. The base of the salad is in fact 1/2 a lettuce, thinly sliced. For all the veggies, you want to use a mandolin to slice them up very finely and then keep them in ice cold water, till you are ready to toss the salad. This is important, or your veggies will dry out nastily.

3. Add 500g of sashimi grade salmon, sliced against the grain and marinated with a little sesame oil and even soy-wasabi if you feel like. You can also use trout or sea bass or if you want to be fancy, use abalone or Japanese swordfish, tuna or horse mackeral. You can buy these from the wet market and clean them yourself but I think the more sanitary way would probably be to go to a Japanese supermarket sushi counter and get blocks of sashimi. The salmon is a large 20cm by 5 cm block for about $15 . Say Nian Nian You Yu 年年有余 (to have a surplus every year) and Long Ma Jing Shen (to enjoy great health).

4. Squeeze 3 small limes. Add this, then follow with 6 segments of pomelo (you have to deskin the pomelo and flake out the 6 segments). Say Da Ji Da Li 大吉大利 (to be very auspicious) when adding limejuice/pomelo.

5. Add 2 tsp five spice/cinnamon powder and 2 tsp white pepper. Say Yi Ben Wan Li 一本万利 (business to be flourishing) or 鸿运当头 Hong Yun Dang Tou or 五福临门 Wu Fu Lin Men when putting pepper and five-spice powder to the Yu Sheng

6. You then add oil, to circle the ingredients, increasing all profits 10,000 times and encouraging money to flow in all directions. This sounds like a good thing. What is not good, is to use nasty cooking oil, which when injested, probably makes your heart valves look like the interior of your kitchen sink pipe. What I would recommend using is grapeseed oil or walnut oil or even flaxseed oil. These are largely tasteless oils that are very light and high in omega-3, which improves mental and brain function. Walnut oil in particular, has a slightly nutty flavour, a beautiful oil to use for salads. Say You Shui Duo Duo 油水多多 (business to be flourishing) when adding oil and sauces.

7. This is the second part that confuses me, most texts say you should add oil before the carrots, radish and all the other ingredients but don't we add oil right at the very end, in Singapore? Oh well. Add 2 shredded carrots and say Hong Yun Dang Tou. Again, you want to use a mandolin to slice this up very finely yet neatly (not in shards and pieces) and then keep it cold water, till you are ready to toss the salad. Add 2 shredded green radishes, symbolising eternal youth say Qing Chun Chang Zhu. Wish especially those older aunties who give generous hong bao. Add 1.5 white daikon, shredded and say Feng sheng shui qi and bu bu gao sheng- prosperity in business and promotion at work.

8. Then add the condiments. First, 5 Tbsp sesame seeds- toast these and rattle them around the tray for 10 minutes earlier in the day so that they are roasted and crispy. Say Sheng Yi Xing Long 生意兴隆 (business to be flourishing) when sprinkling the sesame powder.

9. Then add 3/4 cup chopped roasted peanuts Say Jin Yin Man Wu 金银满屋 or 金沙满堂 (hallways of golden sands) when sprinkling the golden peanut powder

10. If you haven't added the oil, drizzle the oil at the end, with the plum sauce. I would recommend a mix of 150 ml walnut oil, 30 ml sesame oil and 150ml plum sauce. Say You Shui Duo Duo 油水多多 (business to be flourishing) when adding oil and sauces to the Yu Sheng. You can also say Rong Hua Fu Gui (May you enjoy prosperity) and Tian Tian Mi Mi 甜甜蜜蜜 (May sweetness enter your life) for the plum sauce.

11. Add the Pok Choy crispy crackers- does anyone know where to buy these? You can also make your own home-alternatives by deep frying sliced up wanton skins. Say Man Di Huang Jin 满地黄金 (Full Floor of Gold) when adding the crackers.

12. When tossing the Yu Sheng, toss 7 times with loud shouts of Lo Hei and say 身体建康 shen ti jian kang (good health)，万事如意 (success in all tasks), 生意兴隆 sheng yi xing long (business prosperity), 捞个风升水起 Lao Ge Feng Shen Shui Qi (Toss higher and higher, till the wind and oceans rise up for a good year ahead)

13. Additional ingredients to add include: a bowl of ikura, a bowl of crispy dried flat fish or crispy Japenese eel, or even jellyfish. You can also add 1/2 cup preserved melon or candied citrus strips (these are the sweet ingredients, so slice finely!), 1/2 cup preserved leek strips or sweetened ginger strips (this is the bright green stuff, which I prefer to skip). You can replace the latter items with 1/2 cup of finely shredded yam.

Recipe: Steamed Beets with Truffle Oil and Feta Cheese

This has become one of my favourite recipes, inspired by a meal from long-ago at Robochon in IFC Hong Kong. They served it as a beet carpaccio.

The thing about beets, is that I find a lot of Singaporeans don't eat them. Are they really such a quintessentially Western thing? My dad just assumed beet carpaccio was beef carpaccio and was quite crestfallen when they turned up, thin, red, yet distinctly un-meat-like.

When I made this version of beet carpaccio, he rather sniffed at it as "not particularly", which equals in Dad-speak that "he won't eat it", although I sold my mother on how it was so very healthy. It is, too. Healthy, full of texture, colour and essential vitamins. It has become one of my favourite things to serve at dinner parties, or bring along to pot lucks, it's easy to prepare and stores beautifully overnight.

First you have to scrape the beets free of their skin- most beets that you buy, especially at the wet market in Singapore, tend to come caked with mud so make sure you give it a through wash and scrub. Then, you want to slice them very thin (the thinner the better) and into rounds. Hehe, the thinner the beeter.

Steam them until they are floppy and soft. This can take quite awhile, especially if your steamer is like ours, huge and inefficient. Then arrange them prettily on the plate, drizzle with truffle oil, cube some feta cheese and dot with kalamata olives.

Finely shred some basil or parsley and halve a few cherry tomatoes and sprikle with broken pistachio nuts, over the beets. The basil and cheese really help to bring out the subtle taste of the beets. Refrigerate until ready to serve. If you allow this to macerate overnight, the taste becomes more concentrated.

Recipe: King Salad

Colin is back in Singapore for a month! He presently is buried in books, so to tempt him to emerge, I thought I'd try some of the new concoctions I'd been working on.

First up, my rendition of parma-wrapped baguette bread with mozerella, herbs and tomato. This crostino is something I keep ordering at Buko Nero and I keep wanting to try it for myself. I must say that I made a very hearty Italian version, with fresh herbs and cherry tomatoes. Next time, I will do it as the restaurant does, with dried herbs and slices of raw tomato. The only thing I discovered is what a pain it is to have to make these one at a time.


The second dish was a coq au vin, that we'd made the night before. My chicken looks rather purple, don't you think? This is an old, tried and tested recipe, which you can find back in the blog archives.


The third was a very clever salad, which I can't claim credit for. I call it Auntie C's King Salad. King because it uses lots of ingredients that you can find only in Japanese supermarkets, so this is a rather up-market salad. But it never goes wrong and I haven't discovered a single person yet who doesn't like it. That, in the food world, says a lot.


The secret to this salad is that other than the sesame sauce dressing, you use cubes of silken tofu which blend into the dressing to give a smooth, yummy coating to the salad. It's delicious but also very healthy, which is a plus!

King Salad
1) Mizuna leaves (imported and available from Meida-Ya or Isetan, in the chilled veg section) washed, dried and cut up. I usually use two packets of these for 8 people, though you can use just 1 packet.
2) 2 ripe avocadoes, peel and chop into the salad
3) A handful of cherry tomatoes, either whole or sliced in half
4) One pack of Silken tofu, drained and cut into cubes. Add this to the vegetables
5) Kenko ginger sesame sauce, available from Meida-Ya supermarket. You can make your own ginger sesame dressing but this one is excellent. Add in 3 large tablespoons of this to the vegetables.
6) Toss all the ingredients together.
7) Add to the salad a packet of tobiko and ikura (you need to use slightly larger eggs that will give body, not the small ebiko, which tends to go limp).


For dessert, we had panna cotta with peach and strawberry. I discovered lately that panna cotta with vanilla bean goes marvellously with sweet peach juices. It's a subtle yet punchy combination of smooth and syrupy.

After dinner entertainment was a lot of Wii playing. I would put up hilarious photos of Colin and cousin C. swerving a hand-held steering wheel in MarioKart but I don't think either of them want to be profiled in that light!

Recipe: Thai Salmon Fish Parcels

Ingredients (for 8 guests):

4 Salmon fillets (cut into fat strips, one for each guest)
Three cloves of garlic, chopped
A large root of ginger, grated
3 limes
Three bunches of spring onions, including the white stems
A fistful of cilantro
350g of raisins/sultanas/cranberries
Thai sweet chilli sauce
Frozen filo pastry, thawed (two sheets for each parcel so in this case, 16 sheets)

This dish is something I've been stuck on for awhile and everyone who's tried it has been struck by the unique flavours and juicy texture. It's the simplest thing in the world to make and an easy dish to prepare fully before-hand when you have large parties.

Buy some salmon fillets, prefably without bones and have it de-scaled, cleaned and seasoned with salt and pepper. Marinate the salmon for awhile with grated ginger, garlic and lime. It's up to you how much you want to use, for me, I prefer that the ginger and especially garlic are not overpowering but I like to have more lime. I had 8 people for dinner, so I used 4 fillets and sliced each into two fat strips.


The amount of spring onions, cilantro and raisins is also variable, I like to use a more generous amount. Chop up a handful of spring onions, cilantro and raisins. Yes, chop the raisins, so that they are raisin pieces, rather then whole raisins. Normal black grape raisins will do, but I've tried this dish with cranberries and sultanas and it only improves.

Seperate two sheets of filo pastry and butter in between them. Place a stripe of salmon on top, just right of the center and heap the spring onions and cilantro on it. Follow with the raisins. Then, wrap the fish like you would a present, folding the short (right) side over and the two edges on the top and bottom, then rolling the package toward the far end of the pastry sheets.

These packages can be neatly laid and stacked in a baking tray for up to two days, refrigerated. When your guests arrive, simply pop the whole tray into the oven and bake for 20 minutes at 140-150C degrees. It is almost impossible to overbake salmon but you want it to be crisp on the outside and slightly undercooked, juicy-bright and soft on the inside.


The pastry will form a crackly crust to the parcels and the vegetables release juice upon cooking, which is then soaked up by the raisins, which will get all fat and slightly sticky. (In case you're wondering, you chopped the raisins to break the tough skin that would otherwise prevent the vegetable juices from being soaked up easily).

Mix a few tablespoons of Thai sweet chilli with a tablespoon of water or lime juice and drizzle it over the fish parcels. The combination of the raisins, cilantro, salmon and sweet chilli gives a good kick which really makes the taste of this dish outstanding and memorable.

Recipe: Fish Soup

As a very Cantonese person, I absolutely love soup. I could and almost do, drink soup everyday and I love making soup. Just a vat of bubbling, boiling, heady-smelling soup on the stove is enough to make me smile and feel like I've come home.

I often don't blog Chinese soup recipes or ideas because it seems a bit strange, like making a liquid. I actually think of it as like, or better than, concocting a cocktail. The secret to good cocktails is the combination of the composite, the balance and imaginativeness of ingredients. Soups are no different.

The general and easy-to-understand rule though, is, heavy meat light vegetables, light meat tasty vegetables. What I mean is this, if you have a fish base, you want to use vegetables that have more depth and taste, like tomatoes, mushrooms, seaweed to help anchor the soup.

If you have say, duck meat soup, then your base note is already sufficiently heavy and rich, you need to balance it with cleaner vegetables, like white napa cabbage, wintermelon or the lighter chinese herbs like red dates or lighter flowers like jasmine. Chicken is a medium meat and therefore works pretty much with everything but works best with medium vegetables like carrots and onions.

There are some heavy soup bases, like pork, which will work with strong vegetables like lotus root or peanuts, though they will give you a very murky, dark soup. Then there are strong-strong combinations that are just too strong- have you ever tried a pork or duck-based soup with a heavy herb like ginseng? It's super duper heavy, like an overpowering drink! Some people may like it that way but it's often just too much, unless you're a post-pregnancy, lactating confinement-ee who's trying to like, replace half her lost red blood cells or something.

This is one soup that I jump at making whenever I'm preparing a fish dish, particularly a miso cod. Use the bones from the fish and buy a bit more bones at the wet market. Avoid very fatty fish like salmon, I prefer swordfish or a chinese white trout fish, something with firmer, meatier flesh. Boil the fish meat and bones till it cooks, then pour away the water from the fish boil.

Fill up the pot again and add in slices of ginger, handfuls of cilantro and spring onions to counteract the fish-iness that would otherwise result. Stir in three spoonfuls of Japanese dashi powder and a spoonful of enoki mushroom paste (you can find both at Japanese supermarkets). You can use fresh or dried kombu (kelp) instead of dashi which is the second derivative of either dried kelp, shitake or sardines. Slice a tomato in half, squish it a little and drop both halves in, along with some wakame.

Let the soup toil and trouble over a strong fire for at least an hour (lid the pot or you will lose all your soup, a rather obvious point!), then serve. Or, if you're OCD like me, chill and remove the risen fat and strain for a clear liquid soup before replacing the ingredients and serving.

Recipe: Tuna Sashimi Salad

This is an elegant and simple afternoon snack to make. What you need to get is fresh, large cubes of raw sashimi-grade tuna and marinade them in a mixture of wasabi, soya sauce, sesame oil (just a drop or two), mirin, sake and ponzu sauce. Don't drown the tuna, just a shallow puddle of marinade will do and then turn them around frequently enough in the fridge.

Cube avocado - yes, still on about them Australian avocadoes - and skinned cucumber to the same size as the tuna. Mix the pieces gently, coating the cucumber and avocado with the marinade. Thinly slice spring onions and throw them on top. Sprinkle fried shallots on top of the salad and serve cold.

Recipe: Momotaro Tomato

It's no secret that I love Japanese food. I love home-cooked Japanese food even more, I'd cook Japanese at home I think half the time, if I could and I'd definitely feed my own family Japanese food out of most other cuisines because its lighter and often healthier.

This is a classic easy dish that I adapted from a similar one at Xi Yan, the private kitchen restaurant in Singapore. You need to get Momotaro tomatoes from the supermarket (most premium Cold Storages will have them and they are also available at Japanese supermarkets like Meida-Ya in Liang Court and the Isetan supermarket in Shaw Center).

In Singapore, there seems to be a monopoly over Momotaro tomatoes by this company called Grace Cup, which also produces a lot of the cherry tomatoes that we consume and grows them in the highlands of Malaysia. Since the product is identical, I might say that Cold Storage tends to have slightly, though not noticeably lower prices per 2 tomato-pack than the Japanese supermarkets.

You want to inspect the whole tomato and choose those that are red all over, not green near the stems. Then you want to sun your tomato in hot direct sunlight for an afternoon, which makes them sweeter because the sugar rises toward the skin.

Then you blanch the tomatoes for 20 seconds in boiling water and pull them out. It's imperative that you don't actually allow them to boil till the skins burst and the tomato flesh gets all mushy and soft. You just want to plunge them in boiling water long enough to cook the 2 mm of skin, to make it easier to peel the tomatoes, you don't actually want to change nor cook the texture of the tomato itself.


After skinning, your tomatoes should look something like this- taut, smooth and intact. Pat them dry, invert them and dig out the nob of the stems. In that cavity, pour a little sake, mirin and this fantastic sesame sauce by Kenko then let your tomatoes sit, cavity side-up, in the fridge for a couple of hours, so that the mixture seeps into the insides of your tomatoes.

Prepare a pouring sauce by finely chopping a teaspoon of Chinese spring onion and Chinese parsley (cilantro) and mixing it into two tablespoons of the Kenko sesame sauce, which is a mixture of sesame, wasabi and soya sauce. Then turn the tomatoes over (stem side-down) and slice them across firmly into 6 wedges. Move them whole onto a serving plate and drizzle the sauce mixture over the tomatoes. If you want you can top them with white or black sesame seeds.

This recipe can be prepared and should be, in the morning, for a dinner party and even the full preparation can be done before hand so it's a cinch to pull from the fridge and serve.

Recipe: Clam Chowder

Although I'm not a huge clam chowder fan, from time to time, one might get a craving for that distinctive mix of flavours- the tanginess of the sea, the ribald savouriness of bacon, the starchiness of the potato and the sweetness of chives.

I decided to make some soup, since the memories of New England and Fisherman's Wharf from my last trip to the US in November were kicking in! Thankfully, it is the simplest recipe to make.

It's not the healthiest recipe so whenever I make it, I try to use fresh herbs and ingredients. I also like to serve it with crispy baguette slices or with warm squares of cornbread. It's a brilliant recipe to make on cold nights or for home-style getogethers precisely because people don't get to eat it often.


Ingredients:
2 slice hickory-smoked bacon, minced
2 Tbsp fresh garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon butter
3 stalks celery
1 cup onion, minced
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 can clams (6-1/2 ounces)
1 cup bottled clam juice
1-1/2 cups full cream
1 teaspoon marjoram
2 teaspoons chopped fresh basil
1/4 teaspoon dill
1/2 teaspoon thyme
2 bay leaves
1/8 cups chopped fresh parsley
1 tbsp sour cream
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
2 medium potatoes, boiled, peeled and diced
Half a baguette, sliced or make a pan of cornbread

Method:

1. Cook bacon until transparent.
2. Add butter, onions, celery and all the seasoning except dill and parsley.
3. Cook until tender.
4. Add flour and cook for another 3 - 4 minutes over low heat.
5. Add all dairy products, clams and clam juice.
6. Heat just under boiling point.
7. Steam potatoes and cool.
8. Add chopped clams and potatoes.
9. Bring to a boil slowly and cook for 2 - 3 minutes.
10. Add dill and parsley.

Recipe: Caesar's Salad and Fig, Apricot and Apple Tarte Tatin

Milk-fed veal ribs ordered from Indoguna, waiting to be grilled after being seared and basted with mustard.


The fish were at least a couple kgs heavier than last year, in fact they were so large, they were hard to roast, which we did, in the oven, with a saffron-infused white wine, lots of herbs like majoram and sage, garlic and served with some wilted cilantro.


Ingredients for Caesar Salad:
1) 3 heads Romaine lettuce, washed and sliced
2) 200g of shaved parmesan reggiano
3) 300g of diced bacon, toasted
4) 300g of garlic croutons, either store bought or toasted from old bread

Salad Dressing:
5) 4 Tbsp mayonnaise
6) 3 Tbsp minced garlic
7) 1 egg
8) 1 tin of anchovies, mashed
9) 2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
10) 6 Tbsp olive oil
11) 3 Tbsp Dijon mustard
12) 3 Tbsp lemon juice
13) Salt and Pepper to taste


Our dinner spread...that beef was good-o! I made a vegetable pasta with artichokes, pumpkin pieces, sun dried tomato, olives, cheese, pesto and heaped with cherry tomatoes to go with all the meat.


Cooking up apples in caramel for the tarte tatin.


Recipe for Fig, Apricot and Apple Tarte Tatin:
1) Heat 80g butter in a flat pan
2) Melt in 100g sugar (the sugar and butter quantities can be increased if making a large tartin)
3) Throw in sliced apples, figs, apricots and candied Viennese almonds
4) Stir until sugar is brown and caramelized
5) Turn fruits out onto a flat or pie pan
6) Cover with flaky pastry dough and bake in the oven till dough rises
7) Turnover the pie onto a serving plate, with the fruit side up
8) Serve warm with ice cream


Dessert table with lots of fruit and Colin's panna cotta.


Just for good measure, lots of personalized Christmas cookies and good cheer!

Recipe: Baked Figs stuffed with Rosemary Goats Cheese and wrapped in Prosciutto

That is an unwieldy name for a small packet of goodness. I felt like I should just post the photos as they would be terribly self-explanatory but perhaps I should just say also that the combination of the sweet juicy figs, infused with prosciutto saltiness and the melting goats cheese and herbs is ridiculously good and complex.


I made this for our Christmas lunch and although they taste best just emerged, out of the oven, as a warm, wobbling, bleeding plump fig (the greedy vultures ate half the pan!), they elicited mmms of approval after an appreciative silence around the table.

I used Turkish figs, since that's the kind readily available in Singapore but if you can get French figs or Australian figs (figs are definitely one of the foods I traffic across borders), it would taste much sweeter. I washed and dried 15 figs, chopped their stems and bottoms off and lightly peeled off the purplish skins.


You don't have to peel off the skin, except sometimes it's a bit dried up or slightly tannic. Then you core the fig, push in a sprig of rosemary (without the stem) and stuff in a small cut piece of goat's cheese. Or mozzerella for friends who don't like the taste of stronger cheeses.

Then holding the stuffed fig gently, you want to wrap it in a slice of prosciutto or parma ham. I like to start wrapping from the side with the exposed cheese, so that you use the ham to kind of wrap it in and prevent the cheese from melting out of the fig into your roasting pan. It usually takes less than one full slice of parma to cover the fig, so you can economize on the parma slices if you're an efficient wrapper!


These are now very pretty little parcels, which you can prepare beforehand. You put them in the oven at 150C for about 10-15 min, it doesn't take long and you want to be sure that the prosciutto doesn't completely crisp up. You still want it soft and salty, not hard and crunchy. Think more ham than bacon.


An interesting combination, if you have the time, is to thinly and lightly drizzle these with cold acacia or manuka honey. Yum.

Recipe: Pomelo Salad and Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Now that the stock for pho was boiling, I'd decided the side dishes should be a Thai pomelo salad and Vietnamese Spring Rolls. First, the pomelo salad. Find yourself some Thai pomelos in the market, or Malaysian pomelos. I must admit, I got these in Phuket and carried them home in my duffel bag.


The difference between Thai pomelos and regular Malaysian pomelos, is that the Thai ones have this jewelled peach colour and are much smaller, juicier and sweeter. The Malaysian ones tend to be a bit more astringent and sometimes have a disappointing dryness or bitterness. The bowl in front are the Thai pomelo and the bowl at the back are the duller Malaysian pomelo.


The recipe for pomelo salad is slightly more complex and I must say, I didn't many take pictures of the interim steps. Basically you need to make a sauce. You take 2 generous tablespoons of tamarind paste (pictured below, yes, I know it looks like turd) and heat it with water and 2 heaped tablespoons of Thai palm sugar. Whisk it into a thickish sauce and then sift away the seeds and flesh of the tamarind, which should leave you with a much more fluid sauce.


Note, there are three different kinds of palm sugar, one is the brown peaty gula melaka that is commonly used in South East Asia. The second is the Indian palm sugar and the third is the Thai palm sugar which is a thick, bright mustard yellow paste. Don't use the wrong one!

This will be the sauce for the pomelo salad. Mix in some chilli- this is done by frying dried chilli, then crushing it in a motar and pestle to form fine chilli flakes. Don't put in too much chilli or no one will be able to eat your salad, those dried chillis are potent!


Crumble up the pomelo and add fried shallots, dried coconut flakes, 2 Tbsp of fish sauce, finely sliced chives and cilantro and fresh red chilli (discard the seeds). You can make the shallots and coconut from scratch by slicing and deep frying shallots and dry-frying fresh coconut and pounding it into fine flakes. Saute a handful of fresh prawns and toss them in, then drizzle the sauce over and serve.


For the Vietnamese spring rolls, mix l pound of ground pork with some cornflour, 2 Tbsp rice wine, oyster sauce and crack an egg into it. The recipe technically says 1 pound, I just go with 50g for each person eating, so this was about 800g worth of pork.


The vegetables you want to put in are
1 small onion (minced)
2 cloves garlic, mashed
1/4 cup finely grated cabbage (optional)
1 green onion, minced
1 cup bean sprouts
3 tablespoons cilantro, chopped


I skip the traditional carrots because I'm really weird, I don't like to see orange inside my spring rolls and also, it has a longer cooking time then the other vegetables. I sometimes double the amount of beansprouts though, for a crunchier spring roll. Then you want to get 1 package or 4 ounces of vermicelli soaked in hot water for 15 minutes, then drained and chopped and add that to the mix. Add the pork mix to the vegetable mix and pack them all together. Yes, you can use your hands.


Get frozen spring roll wrappers (the dry rice wraps are good too, just more difficult to work with) and lay the wrapper diagonally in a diamond shape. Spoon in your mixture. Basically, you notice that the concept of a spring roll is essentially vegetarian, the pork just holds the bits together.


You imagine that spring roll wrapping is one of those things that gets passed down to all Chinese children but let me tell you it is not true! There is definitely some technique involved, firstly, in using the wrapper on a diagonal and secondly, tucking the ends back into the fold and sealing it with warm water.


In fact, maybe we should all be buying Synear (SYNF.SP), China's leading frozen dumpling manufacturer, listed in Singapore because I'm convinced in a generation's time, China will all eating frozen dumplings because all the women are out working rather than rolling wrappers.


This is what you should wind up with though. Then when your guests come, you want to fry these in oil. Deep fry yeah, so the oil must cover the spring rolls, not some sort of pan-fry toasty job. A tip, if you want crunchy, crisp spring rolls, you deep fry your dumplings twice. Once to brown the skin and cook the insides, then let it cool and fry them in the oil again so that the skin crisps through and hardens slightly.


Bon Appetit!