The Big Move!

Hey all,

Thanks for dropping by! :) As of today, Eat and Be Happy has moved here.

See you there :)

With much love,
Laureen

Spreading the Chicken Soup Love.

I have to admit, as you can probably tell from the assam laksa and noodles with dumplings, i'm partial to meals that consist of only a single dish. Despite coming from an Asian family where our meals are typically made out of a serving of soup, vegetables and at least two different meat or seafood dishes with rice, there's just something so damned alluring about piping hot bowls of soup, ladened over noodles, complete with servings of vegetables and meat, all in one bowl. Tucked in with a pair of wooden and chopsticks, you could almost fool yourself into believing that you're sitting at one of the many wooden tables of an authentic, open air stall in a South East Asian country, indulging in the local fare. I don't think you can get quite the same effect from an almost lavish meal with a bowl of rice and a choice of several dishes set in front of you.

Soto ayam, simply put, is just Javanese-style chicken soup. Although the dish originates from Java, there are many variations of it throughout Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore; people from West Java often include soybeans in their broth while Malaysians often thickens theirs with candlenuts. This particular version relies heavily on coriander and cumin seeds for its flavour and kuyit (young yellow ginger) to give it that distinctive shade of yellow.


This dish is too easy to put together- it requires such a little effort for an amazing, full-bodied spiced dish. This is the meal to tuck into if you want a light, flavourful meal after a day of indulgent eating. It certainly won't be the last time i'll be making this one.

At this point, can i just say how much i love the book, Cradle of Flavour by James Oseland, this recipe comes from. I picked it up at the library the other day, after the incredible looking plate of satay (an South East Asian satay similar to kebabs) on the cover caught my eye. Little did i know what a brilliant choice i had. The author, James Oseland, first discovered South Asian cuisine when he took up a friend's invitation to spend the summer holiday in her country, Indonesia. It was there that he lived with her family, sampled the local cuisine and fell in love with it. In fact, so hard he fell that his initial plan to stay three months extended to almost a year.

The book is set up somewhat like a travel journal; James starts off by familiarizing the reader with the South East Asian countries (namely Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia) and their cultures, before vividly detailing how about he came to visit Indonesia and his exploration of its cuisine as well as that of Singapore's and Malaysia's. In spite of his lengthy writing, which really is quite riveting, there are no lack of recipes. In fact, James takes great pain to explain everything, from the types of ingredients used in the recipes to what you should look what for when choosing them at the markets and when cooking the various dishes.

All in all, it's just really refreshing to see South East Asian cuisine through the eyes of a foreigner, especially written in such a delightful manner. So taken am i by this book that i am planning to hop down to Borders to get a copy of it.

But till then, i'm just gonna sit back, continue reading the chronicles of James' journey through South East Asia and fight the urge to run into the kitchen to whip every dish up :)

Soto Ayam [adapted from James Oseland's Cradle of Flavour]


Ingredients
1 whole chicken (1.4-1.6 kg), quartered
2 litres water
2 stalks lemongrass, each tied into a knot
6 whole kaffir lime leaves
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 1/2 tbsp corriander seeds
2 tsp cumin seeds
5 shallots, coarsely chopped
4 candlenuts
a bulb of garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped
a 5cm piece turmeric, peeled and coarsely chopped
a 5cm piece galangal, peeled and thinly sliced against the grain
a 5cm piece ginger, peeled and thinly sliced against the grain
2 tbsp peanut oil
1 small package of glass noodles
5 limes
2 tbsp finely chopped Chinese celery greens
Crispy fried shallots

1. Place chicken, the 2 litres of water, lemongrass, lime leaves and salt in a large pot. Bring to boil over medium-high heat. Using a large spoon, skim foam off the surface. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low and let liquid cook at a lively simmer till chicken is tender, about 45 minutes. Continue to skim any foam every 10 minutes. Discard lime leaves and lemongrass from stock, setting the stock aside. Remove chicken and shred into thin pieces.
2. Meanwhile, place peppercorns, coriander and cumin in a mortar. Pound till spices are ground to a dusty powder. Add shallots, garlic, candlenuts, tumeric, galangal and ginger and pound till a smooth paste forms. Add a tablespoon or two of water if needed.
3. Heat oil in a small saucepan. Fry paste, stirring constantly, till the aroma of the coriander and cumin take over. Add paste and shredded chicken to stock. Bring stock to a gentle boil, then reduce heat, allowing stock to simmer till the essence of the flavouring begins to bind with the stock, about 10 minutes. Add juices of 2 limes and salt, to taste.
4. Cover glass noodles with boiling water till they begin to soften. Divide noodles amongst 4 bowls. Ladle soup over noodles and sprinkle with fried shallots and celery greens.

A Coffee Fix.

Ah, coffee. Where do i begin describing my love affair with this beverage. There's quite nothing in my world a cup of strong, aromatic liquid gold can't fix; it jump starts a sluggish morning, make long hard days seem to go by a little quicker and even makes an excellent day even better.

My long standing affair with this caffeine-loaded beans has certainly taken its fair share of turns. It first started, like every young teen i suppose, with cups of coffee, topped with copious amount of milk and sugar, generously flavoured and blended with ice. While they sure were delicious and always quickly slurped up, my tastebuds soon started screaming for a taste of the coffee itself, unadulterated by artificial flavourings and whipped cream. Hence begun my obsession with our local kopis (the malay term of coffee; strongly brewed coffee topped with condensed milk), lattes, cappuccinos and Vietnamese coffee (really thick strong coffee that's usually brewed through a drip and topped with condensed milk). It was about then that i had started my academic journey in Melbourne. And really, where better than Melbourne to embrace the coffee culture. Endless rows of cafes lining quaint lanes in the nooks and cranky of the city fuelled my obsession for coffee. More recently though, i've acquired a taste for black coffee. Yup, nothing like a cup (or two) pure liquid gold to get the day going.


As strong as my obsession with coffee might be, this batch of coffee ice cream actually had nothing to do with it. I made it, to very belatedly thank one of my best friends who had sent me this incredible ice cream book i (and practically everyone in the food blogosphere) have been raving about. She's just as bad a coffee junkie as i am, so what better way to thank her than with a tub of freshly churned coffee ice cream.

I really enjoyed making this batch of ice cream. I really felt the ingredients come to live in my kitchen- the coffee beans steeped in a mixture of fresh milk and cream, gradually infusing its flavour, the coffee-flavoured custard, coaxed by gentle heat and constant nudging of a wooden spoon, really coming together and of course, watching my ice cream work its magic on the custard, slowly introducing air into the mixture and firming it up to form the glorious ice cream.

Of course, making the ice cream with the sole purpose of being given away doesn't mean i had to deprive myself of tasting it right? After all, someone had to be the taste tester :)


To be perfectly honest, irresistible and aromatic as the coffee ice cream was, i didn't know how well i would take to the ice cream mainly because i'm not a fan of milky coffee. Well, it turns out, i needn't worry. One spoonful was all it took to get me swooning, declaring it more than worthy to be given away. Of course, whether i could bear to part with this gorgeous, subtly flavoured coffee ice cream was a totally different issue :)

Well, in case you're wondering, yeah it did reach its intended destination. In fact, barely less than fifteen minutes after it arrived into safe hands, i got a call from said best friend, saying her brother had already polished off a quarter of it :)

Now, i've definitely got to try that Vietnamese coffee ice cream recipe.

Coffee Ice Cream [adapted from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop]


Ingredients
1 1/2 cup milk
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup whole coffee beans
1 1/2 cup heavy cream
5 large egg yolks
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp finely ground coffee
Pinch of salt
Kahlua

1. In a medium saucepan, warm milk, sugar, coffe beans, salt and 1/2 cup of cream over medium heat. When mixture is warm, remove from heat, cover and let steep for an hour at room temperature.
2. Pour remaining cream into a large bowl and sit bowl in an ice bath. Whisk egg yolks together in a medium bowl till pale and well combined. Reheat milk mixture, making sure it doesn't boil. Gradually pour milk mixture into the egg yolk, whisking quickly and well. Then pour mixture back into saucepan.
3. Over medium heat and stirring custard constantly with a wooden spoon, let custard thicken till it coats the back of the wooden spoon. Remove custard from heat and pour it through a strainer into the cream. Discard beans. Add vanilla and ground coffee into custard, stirring well.
4. Transfer custard when cooled into an airtight container and let sit in the fridge for at least six hours. When ready, churn in ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Serve drizzled with Kahlua. Makes 1 sensational litre
   

Walking the Nonya Walk.

The first time i had Penang Assam Laksa, i was in love. It was in a crammed little Asian shop in Melbourne that had barely ten tables. Business there is incredibly good so there's always a queue regardless of the time. It was rowdy with people talking on top of the noise, kids screaming to be heard and really warm for lack of air circulation but when i tasted my first spoonful of assam laksa, it was like everything just stood still, everyone fell silent . It was just me and my bowl of assam laksa- i was in heaven.

So when i flipped through a Nonya cookbook and saw a recipe for it, i knew what was gonna be on the menu for dinner the following day.

Sourcing ingredients for this dish was no easy feat. The supermarket didn't have any bungan kantan or mint leaves this morning so i had to make my way to the wet market.


Wet markets in Singapore are made up of stalls selling fish, meat and vegetables, usually divided into sections. The stalls are usually neatly lined up along narrow walkways and crammed with produce. Most of the stall holders, being middle aged, speak Mandarin and Hokkien fluently and few can speak really good English. So there i was, trying to explain in my very limited Mandarin what bunga kantan was in vain. It wasn't till i associated it with rojak (a local favourite that's made up of bite sized deep fried bread dough along with cucumbers, turnips, pineapples and sometimes cuttlefish tossed in a thick, black peanut sauce) that they finally got what i was trying to say. Can i at this point just say how much i love the wet markets in Singapore- the stall holders are so warm and friendly! They not only taught me what the Mandarin names of bunga kantan and mint leaves were but also, when out of mint leaves, directed me to various stalls they taught were likely to have the mint leaves. I walked out of the wet market this morning, just blown away by how warm the stall holders were and the variety of vegetables and fruits they have.

Top down, Left Right: Bunga Kantan, Laksa Leaves, Kunyit, Mint Leaves.

Bunga kantan, more commonly known as torch ginger bud, is used in Nyonya dishes for its flavour. It's incredibly pretty in a beautiful shade of pink and has a lovely frangrance similar to that of Vietnamese mint. It is this ingredient that gives Rojak and Assam Laksas their distinctive and oh so inviting aroma. Kunyit, otherwise known as turmeric, is part of the ginger family. When used as a spice in curries, the turmeric is usually ground into powder form after being boiled for many hours then dried in a hot oven.

The thing i really love about asian cooking is how involved it makes you feel. I know it doesn't quite make sense as all cuisine require you to get down and dirty with the ingredients but there's just something about asian cooking that feels different. Maybe it's working with herbs and spices that are familiar to the tastebuds and senses, the pounding of the ingredients to form pastes, the mouth watering aroma that conjures special memories that go along with each dish as the curries simmer on the stove. There's just something about it i can't quite put my finger on.

Clockwise: Pineapple, Mint leaves, Fresh chilies, Red onions and Cucumber

As with most Nyonya dishes, most of the effort for this dish comes from preparing the various ingredients and pounding them to form pastes. This dish calls for two separate pastes; a strong aromatic paste involving belachan (shrimp paste) and kunyit, amongst other ingredients and a much lighter one consisting of just a couple of laksa leaves, assam (tamarind) and bunga kantan. The paste, and the preparation of the garnish, is really all there is to this dish. Once they're all prepared and ready to go, the dish comes together fairly quickly.

The selar, more commonly known as horse mackerel, is boiled till cooked before being flaked. The fish stock is then added to the belachan paste. Following that goes the assam paste, the flaked fish and some water into the pot. You will know the gravy is ready when the incredible aroma fills your entire house.

Served with rice vermiceli and topped with the garnish, this dish was exactly how i remembered it to be- a mind boggling combination of sour, salty and sweet flavours. I especially love how unusual the combination of garnish; pineapples, chili, mint leaves, onions and cucumber; is but they complement the gravy so damned well. Assam laksa wouldn't be assam laksa with any one of the garnish lacking.

It's not exactly easy work i know but trust me, you'll be rewarded tenfold for all that effort :)

Assam Laksa [adapted from Cecila Tan's Penang Nyonya Cooking]


Ingredients
800g horse mackerel or chubb mackerel, cleaned
600g fresh coarse rice vermicelli
7 dried chilies, soaked in warm water for 15 minutes*
2 fresh red chilies, sliced thinly*
5 cm piece of shrimp paste (belachan)
2 stalks of lemon grass, thinly sliced (serai)
Thumb-sized piece of fresh young turmeric (kunyit)
2 pieces of tamarind (assam keping)
1 torch ginger bud (bunga kantan)
5-6 stalks of laksa leaves (daun kesum)
5 rice bowls water
1 cucumber, sliced thinly into matchsticks
1 bundle of mint leaves (daun padina)
1 big red onions, cut into rings
2 fresh red chilies, sliced thinly
1 small pineapple, sliced thinly into matchsticks
Black prawn paste, dissolved in a litter water (heh koh)

1. Rinse rice vermicelli under cold water before soaking in hot water for a few minutes. Drain and divide into 4 bowls.
2. Pound shallots, lemon grass, turmeric, fresh and dried chilies and shrimp paste to form a paste and set aside. Pound tamarind, torch ginger bud and laksa leaves into a paste and set aside.
   
3. Add enough water into a pot to cover fish and boil till cooked. Remove, reserving fish stock, and flake fish.
4. Put 3 rice bowls of fish stock into a medium pot. Add another 2 rice bowls of water and turmeric paste. Boil till gravy is fragrant. Add the tamarind paste, flaked fish and season with salt and sugar to taste. Boil for another 10-15 minutes at low heat, adding more water if necessary.
5. Divide gravy into prepared bowls. Top with pineapple, cucumber, chilies, mint leaves, onions and prawn paste. Serves 4
   

*remove seeds before pounding to reduce spiciness

The Best Laid Plans.

So i'm finally back on our sunny little shores, my side of the world where you can get a whole bag of lemongrass for forty five cents, as opposed to the two bucks i pay per stalk in Melbourne, food and we're talking about some of the best dishes in the world is available twenty four hours a day, every meal is an agonizing decision between the whole spectrum of choices from Indian, Chinese, Malay, Western and occasionally Japanese cuisines available at every food court and hawker centres (which is essentially just an open-air food court), a journey from one side of the island to the other takes about half an hour tops in good traffic conditions and the air is perpetually always heavy, warm and humid.

I had my first meal yesterday at the new food court in the Botanic Gardens and i was just overwhelmed by the food choices available. Did i want Indian, Chinese, Malay or Western food? If Indian, did i want Thosai (a paper-thin South Indian crepe), prata (a fried pancake), briyani or naan (a round fried flatbread that usually comes plan or flavoured with garlic)? And did i want chicken, lamb, mutton or fish curry with that? The choices were just endless! How on earth i ever used to make my mind up about such things every single day just boggles my mind. After hemming and hawing for the longest time, i finally decided on mee siam (a dish consisting of thin rice noodles served with a spicy and slightly sour gravy, dried bean curd cubes and an hard boiled egg) from the Malay stall. It wasn't half bad but with the amount of thought that went into deciding on that one single dish, i decided to just stay home the following day and whip up something.

It so happened that one of my best friends, who i hadn't seen in a year and a half before yesterday and in the sweetest gesture, came down to the airport with a hand bouquet to surprise me and drop me home, had the day off from work. I had decided on pizzas to test out the pizza oven we've had for the past nine years since we moved into this home and had somehow never touched. Well, it technically can do more than bake pizzas but it does come with a handy pizza stone and all. A quick message was sent to her, in the midst of compiling a shopping list, asking if she wanted anything in particular or the default was hawaiian and mushroom pizzas.

Lucky for me, she is one of the easiest-going eaters i know, other than GT that is. So hawaiian and mushroom it was.

Well, you know what they say about even the best laid plans going awry? Yup, they were spot on. I awoke to a message from the said best friend, saying her boss wanted her to come in for work and take another day off instead. As it turns out, that was hardly the only thing that went wrong this afternoon. Disappointed as i was, i decided to just go ahead with the pizza making, seeing how i already had all the ingredients on hand.


So there i was, happily measuring out the yeast, kneading the dough, proofing it. Everything was going terrifically well. So i placed the pizza stone in the pizza oven, adjusting the settings and temperature with my heart beating a little quicker than usual at the prospects of using a pizza oven- how terribly snobbish it sounds; making pizza in a pizza oven but yes i was excited. The oven went about its merry way fine for about two minutes before it just stopped working. The display screen just went blank and nothing i did would revive it. Lucky for me, we have a conventional oven as well so not all was lost.

The dough itself was such a dream to work with. It was a little sticky after forming but a lightly floured work surface, floured hands and a couple minutes of kneading should do the trick. Roll it however thin or thick you prefer your pizza base. I rolled mine out to as thin as it would go and it was just perfect- crisp and paper thin. This recipe is definitely a keeper. Now all i need is a couple of friends and to get that oven working just to appease the snob in me.

By the way, i am aware that there are no mushrooms in sight on the pizza featured in this post. As it happens, GT was unable to tear me away from the deli section of the supermarket and i found myself getting some feta cheese and sundried tomatoes instead. Yeah, fickle's my middle name.

Pizza Base [adapted from Donna Hay Issue 25]


Ingredients
1 tsp active dry yeast
1/4 tsp caster sugar
3/4 cup lukewarm water
1 1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup tomato paste
1 garlic bulb, peeled and crushed

1. In a small bowl, combine yeast, sugar and water. Stir well and place in a warm place for 5 minutes. The yeast mixture should be bubbling.
2. Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl. Add yeast mixture and stir with a butter knife to form a dough. Knead on a lightly floured surface for 4 to 5 minutes, till dough is smooth and elastic.
3. Place dough in a large bowl, covered with a damp cloth. Set aside in a warm place for 45 minutes or till dough has doubled in size.
4. Preheat oven to 220C. Place a baking sheet in the oven. Divide the dough into 2 portions and roll each portion out to form a disc.
   
5. To make pizza sauce Combine tomato paste and garlic in a small bowl. Season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
6. Top pizza bases with pizza sauce and toppings of your choice. Transfer to preheated baking sheets. Brush the edges with olive oil and bake for 10 to 15 minutes till golden and crispy. Makes 2 pizzas
   

Colour Me Yellow.

A couple of weeks ago, my little sister attended a 'Durian Party', hosted at one of the universities. It wasn't really much of a party like the name suggests, but more of a marketing strategy smartly implemented by a company that imports and sells fresh prepacked durian. And no, it wasn't free flow like i had initially and wishfully thought, they charged by the half kilograms.


So she came back with her hands full of durian, a kilogram and a half of durian to be exact. We were beyond excited. Durians, fresh durians. In Melbourne. For all the excitement and anticipation these yellow fleshy seeds created, one bite was all it took to burst our bubbles. They were good but just not great. To be fair, they were probably as good as one can get outside South East Asia and our tastebuds have long been spoilt from the years of having endless variety of durians to choose from.

Well, in any case, our disappointment didn't last long when we decided to not let the durians go to waste and churn up some durian ice cream instead.

An acquired taste for some, a blissful indulgence for others. There's just simply quite nothing like the durian in the world. It's really one of those things where you could do as much research as you want about it, get your adventurous friends, who have tried it on their trips to South East Sian and lived and tell the tale, to tell you all about what it's like, and still nothing will prepare you for your first taste of it. And trust me on this, you have to try it. Don't you at least want to know what the whole obsession people of the South East Asian region have with it's all about and why it's hailed as the King of Fruits?


Anyway. The durian ice cream was just out of this world. Rich, creamy, smooth, it was almost as orgasmic as consuming the durians themselves, only so much better.

By the way, i found that six hours of sitting in the freezer after churning was when the ice cream was most scoopable right out of the freezer. The texture was just perfect. So as strong as the urge might hit you to have the ice cream straight out of the machine after churning, be patient. Six is your magic number. Wait for it and you'll be duly rewarded, i promise.


Oh before i forget, it's gonna be awhile before my next post, seeing as how i'm heading back to Singapore this Saturday. So from now till then and possibly the week after, it's gonna be busy busy busy. I'll try and post when i can. Meanwhile, have a great week ahead. I know i will :)

Durian Ice Cream


Ingredients
6 medium sized durian pieces, seeds removed
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
1 1/4 cup single cream

1. Pour 1/2 cup of cream into a large bowl and sit the bowl in an ice bath.
2. Beat the eggs with sugar in a medium bowl till light and well combined.
3. In a medium saucepan, heat milk with remaining cream till just before boiling point. Gradually pour milk mixture into the egg mixture, whisking quickly. Then pour the combined mixture back into the saucepan.
4. Over medium heat, stir custard constantly with a wooden spoon till custard becomes thick enough to coat the back of the spoon. Turn heat off and pour custard into a sieve, over the bowl sitting in the ice bath.
5. Blend the flesh of durian with salt in a food processor, in batches. If puree becomes too thick, add a couple spoonsful of custard to puree. Add durian puree into custard and stir well. Let the durian custard sit in the fridge, in an airtight container for at least six hours, before churning with an ice cream maker. Makes one glorious litre
   

The Delights of Spring.

You know summer is close at hand, just waiting for its moment to descend when the second you step out of the comforts of your apartment, you get mobbed by flies that persistently fly into your face. Well, in addition to the sweltering heat that has you wishing, barely two seconds out the door, that you had chosen to stay indoors instead or that you were an Ice Queen, literally of course if just for the day.

But all the reasons i groan and moan about how quickly summer and the heat that comes along with it is arriving, i wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. For it's only in late spring and summer that the finest produce are in abundance. Walk in Victoria Market any given day and you'll see exactly what i mean- every stall will have endless punnets of the sweetest strawberries, trays of ripe, juicy mango that will see its juices running down your chin and hands in all its sweet glory, vegetables of all sorts that look like they've been freshly harvested, I could go on forever. Summer is always when, in my humble opinion, food magazines are at their best- the summer issues are not only thicker than usual but filled with some of the most enticing mains and desserts that make you want to eat them right off the pages. And of course, ice cream is so much better eaten in the summer, if you're anything like me and insist you desperately need that ounce of heavenly icy flavoured sugar rush to make the journey back home.


There's something about the intense heat that makes me crave lighter meals, meals that are packed with some of the season's best ingredients, light and healthy yet leave you feeling really good and satisfied.

This plate of garlicky mushroom pasta was all that, and more. The mushrooms, fragrantly sauteed in lots of garlic and a mix of olive oil and butter, tossed with wholemeal spirals, a twang of lemon juice, chili flakes and lightly toasted almonds. It made for a meal packed full of flavour and goodness.

What a wonderful way to kiss the last weeks of spring goodbye and say hello to summer.

Garlicky Mushroom Pasta


Ingredients
1 garlic bulb, peeled and chopped into fairly large chunks
2 tbsp olive oil
A knob of butter
3 huge handfuls of pasta
250g buttom mushrooms, wiped clean and sliced
A small handful of whole almonds, toasted and smashed with a mortar and pestle into chunks
1/2 a small lemon
Chili flakes
Tasty cheese, grated

1. Cook pasta according to packet directions, drain then set aside.
2. Over medium heat, fry garlic with olive oil and butter till garlic is fragrant and lightly browned. Add mushrooms, stirring frequently till mushrooms are browned, tender and really fragrant. Add a bit more olive oil if needed. Turn heat off then toss pasta in.
3. To serve, spoon pasta and mushrooms onto serving plates. Squeeze a couple drops of lemon juice onto pasta, then top with almond bits, chili flakes, grated cheese and season with freshly ground black pepper. Serves 4