New Year, old habits

What a year it has been for me and my blog, which turns 1 today!

When I exclaim "Times flies!" I usually mean it with a healthy dose of incredulity, but in looking through some of my older posts yesterday, I was compelled to reflect upon the milestones (and millstones) that have dotted the past year of my life, and for once, it seemed to me realistic that a whole year had gone by, and indeed, for so much to have taken place, unreal that only a year had gone by!

Many a lesson I have learnt in such a short time, for which I am thankful, and short of being brainwashed, my mindset has undergone several transformations, for the better, at least to me. I have emerged from the chrysalis that was my youthful lack of confidence, I have strove to denounce negativity, I have learned that no matter how cheesy or clichéd the adage, there is much truth and wisdom to be milked from it. Most of all, I have resolved to live life on my terms. Of course, few things happen overnight and there are still teething problems, but as this new year unfurls, I am filled with an inexorable sense of hope and optimism, and I hope the same goes for you, too.

I'm tempted to expand on my inner growth and all but it's hard to do so without mentioning names, so I'll save it.. in a nutshell, a new "me" is in the making, but at the same time, my comfort foods remain constant:

Match the word to the ingredient:
Sale, pepe, aglio, olio

Where's the salt? you may wonder. OK, that was a tricky one, but it was the green mound of powder, matcha salt to be exact, by Mariage Frères. I'd bought it some time back for its snob appeal but never quite knew what to do with it until I'd equated green tea with a herb.


How to: Coarsely crush or mill mixed peppercorns, crush several cloves of garlic, stir in a few generous pinches of matcha salt and cover with good quality olive oil. Let steep for about an hour. Good as a variation of the typical aglio-olio pasta dressing, or simply mopped up with fresh soft warm bread, the only way I know how to enjoy it.

Just look at that gorgeous deep green!

One in the oven

Thank you all for your enthusiasm in my previous post, and I hate to be discouraging, but nobody got it right. :)

However, the closest answers I got were from Kajal, who guessed that I was preparing Gujarati dhokla, and Poonam who guessed it was polenta.. :) Not bad!

This was, in fact, my third attempt, and first successful one, at making panelle al forno, which like dhokla, is made mainly of chickpea flour, and where method of preparation is concerned, is just like polenta.

Believe it or not, people do get paid to write crummy recipes in bad faith with the intention of throwing off eager learners like me, which explains my 2 earlier failed attempts. For one, chickpea flour CAN and WILL get lumpy when you toss it into boiling water, no matter how thin the "stream" of flour, and I had to learn that the hard way the first time.

On the second attempt, I learned to stir part of the required amount of water (at room temperature) into the chickpea flour and to boil the rest, but guess what? The quantity of water stated in the recipe was so excessive, it was impossible to cut out pretty shapes from the ensuing quivering glob, lumpless though it may have been!

I could easily have given up, but I do enjoy my besan and have been fascinated with its use in non-Desi, non-Middle Eastern recipes, thus the perseverence.

Nonetheless, success tends to place a cap on that perseverence, so, satisfied with the successful panelle I had in hand, I thought I'd might as well make the best of it and pair it with several different flavours!

With parmesan and dried tomatoes:




with slices of sausage:


or simply with garlic, butter and parsley -


I'm not particularly good at recommending wines for particular dishes, but ever since Arles, I have been drinking more wine than I really should, with or without my meals. For this meal, I feel the need to let you in on my latest discovery, haha:


The choice was not mine, but my husband's, not only because of the funny label, but because one of the names on the label happens to be his. I'll let you draw your own conclusions! :)

WFF 10 - On a bittersweet note...

It's finally here, my long-awaited trip home!! I'll have a brand-new nephew to spoil rotten (and pinch), several bloggers to meet, lots of food to stuff my face with and lots of pictures to take! It goes without saying that I'm bursting with excitement, but life being as unfair as it is, something always has to mar my quest for happiness... Thus I have no choice but to start off this post with another mega-rant unrelated to food (well, there will be food at the end! :) ).

Ever since I booked my plane tickets, I had been counting down the days to the 29th - the date of my flight (but of course I only arrive in Singapore on the 30th). Last Sunday, I thought I'd check out Sistic's website (Singapore's entertainment ticketing booth) to see if any interesting concerts were in store... Hoping against hope, I typed "Sonu" (for Sonu Nigam) in the search field. My heart raced when there actually was a result!! I started shrieking when I saw the date and was gushing to myself in excitement that I'm going to rush from the airport, dump my bags, freshen up, and dart off to the concert in a yet-to-be-acquired hot pink sari. I was already looking at seating arrangements and trying to decide where I wanted to sit when I looked at the search result again and it sank in - 29th April, 7.30pm. Wait a minute, that would be 1.30pm in France, Sunday, when I'd still be languishing in the boarding area at CDG instead of touching down! I briefly failed to realise that I'd only arrive the day AFTER the concert! Aaaaarggghhh!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

My hubby was suitably puzzled when the excited shrieking segued into head-banging (and not in a classy heavy metal way), and took a look at the screen. Long uneasy silence. He promptly reminded me that I'd already seen Sonu 6 months earlier and even managed to grab his hand when I crept up to the stage. I was even seated close enough to the stage to take such pictures:








So what? Even though I can watch snatches of his concerts on Youtube, and even if he sang exactly the same songs (which I'm sure he will), something like that is frustrating enough to justify a hunger strike!! To say that I'm really and truly pissed is tantamount to saying I only "like" Sonu Nigam. Sigh. All I'm hoping for now is that he will do some sight-seeing and that I'll bump into him in the streets of Singapore, haha... (3 years ago, on another trip home, the IIFA Awards happened to be held there, and I saw Sanjay Dutt in the flesh, entering his hotel! I was lucky that the year after, it was held in Amsterdam, just 3 hours away from where I am, so got my fill of all my favourite stars!)

Other consolation - Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy will also be in S'pore in May, and their performance will be a week later. I might just make it if I can find someone to go with me to drum up the hooting decibels, heh heh. Somehow hooting at a concert when you go alone seems slightly mental to me. :)

It has been unseasonally sunny here, so I could not stay mad for long. Besides, I'd gone to the market last Sunday and found some beautiful sun-gorged fruit, so ended up doing this to them:


I've always been in awe of people with hands so deft mere fruit become masterpieces, and I suppose if I won the lottery and didn't have to work, I'd flood this blog with nothing but pictures of my attempts at carving, heh heh..

As for this week, hmmm, funny how comments from some of you on my last post dug into my conscience.. ;-) apparently, most of you assumed that I was clearing my freezer to make way for new dishes I would whip up and freeze to nourish that hubby while I'm away for a month. The original plan was for him to go out and buy microwavable meals, which I was in fact making space for, but after all the undeserved praises heaped on me about what a good wife I was perceived to be, I felt like pure scum accepting all that credit on credit, and had to do up a few can't-go-wrong favourites of his that were simple and pretty much made from other processed food, so please, don't make me go back to feeling like scum. I didn't really cook this weekend, I merely assembled various ingredients to arrive at a more elaborate end, heh heh. :)


The pies - tuna
and ham & tomato


Gnocchi - chorizo and 2-cheese & ham


What I did not make from scratch: pie crust, tomato sauce and gnocchi.
What I did do: cut ham, tomatoes and chorizo; cook gnocchi; half-fill 1 ice-cream tub with bottled tomato sauce and another with cream, blue cheese and grana padano. As for the tarts, I followed Michael Jackson's advice to "Just Beat It", haha.

There's not much "how to" for me to share with you here that doesn't sound like previous posts with tarts, but the tuna tart is one of my hubby's favourites, so apart from the crust, the rest of the ingredients are : mustard (to coat the base of the pie crust), tuna+lemon juice+plain yoghurt and/or cream+grated gruyère or emmental+eggs.

I might not blog much during my vacation, but keep writing! :) Thanks for your encouragement, everyone!

One and the same salmon

You'd think that someone about to go on holiday would be in a peppy mood.. heh heh, well, you're half right, except for a couple of things I'll save for a minor rant right at the end of this post. :)

For the past week or so, I have been trying to make space in the freezer for the frozen dinners that will sustain my hubby while I'm away, so that means I didn't (and won't) have to cook much since I DO have a magic freezer containing the fruit of my past immoderate labour. I don't mean to brag, but I won't even be able to finish all that I froze before taking that plane! :)

Anyhow, I still had dill left over from last week's sai bhaji, and a couple of eggs that were ageing, so instead of an easy-way-out omelette, I had to do something I had never done before pasta-wise! :) The idea came from a cookbook I'd bought with my very first paycheck on French soil, so seeing mine turn out exactly like those in the cookbook was pure joy:


This is what a sheet looks like against the light.


Am I twisted, or does this make anyone else think of Braveheart? I don't know, seeing the sprigs of dill broken up by the force of the rollers in the pasta machine somehow reminded me of Mel Gibson as William Wallace being stretched 4 ways... oh, never mind!

Since the big thaw was taking place, heck, I also thawed the 1-kg bag of leek I had as well as some salmon filets, to get this extremely simple No-Bake Lasagna:


How to: Pasta - Sift 200g of flour in a bowl, make a well in the centre, add 2 small eggs, 1 tbsp of olive oil and 1 tsp of salt. Break yolks and stir, incorporating the flour. Knead the dough until smooth, cover and set aside for at least 30 minutes. When ready, make very thin pasta sheets, place dill sprigs on one sheet and cover with another sheet. Press lightly to remove air bubbles, then pass double sheets though the rollers again to get a sheet as thin as the original sheets. Leave them to dry for at least 2 hours, then cook in salted boiling water.

Salmon - Fry about 500g of salmon in hot sizzling butter and flake with a fork. Add salt and white pepper to taste and 100g of cream. Blend to get a smooth paste.
Leek - Cook 500g of leek in melted butter until leek is soft. Add about 2 tbsp of flour and stir until flour absorbs leek juices. Blend.

Place a sheet of pasta on serving plate. Alternate layers of salmon, pasta, and leek according to your liking. Can be served hot or cold.

Variations: Salmon & spinach-ricotta, salmon & broccoli, beef & spinach-ricotta, or really any meat and vegetable pairing!

Body Count: Salmon filets

I got impatient with the triangles after a while, so took to making these Double-barrel Cannellonis as well:


Another picture of the lasagna, at an angle that the hubby preferred:


And now, for the rant... :)

I am infinitely grateful to the management in my company for being so wonderful in having let me take most of my leave at one go the way I'll be doing shortly... before Friday, only the people who needed to know I'll be away, knew. From experience, I've learned to stop telling people who don't need to know for one very petty reason - the lame "jokes" or attempts at jokes that follow!!! What am I talking about? You know, "threats" to send me work while I'm away so that I won't be able to enjoy my holiday? I always tell those I A) directly work with or B) report to that I'll be willing to do bits here and there while on vacation, but when this comes from someone who's neither A nor B, I don't know, for some reason, it grates. Besides, that's OLD!!!

That's not all.. tell me who still encounters this - on my way back to my desk from the coffee vending machine, someone would extend his/her arms and "thank" me for the coffee. Am I wrong in wanting to give up the coffee, but without the cup?

Last but not least, when the administrator does something to my computer, thus sitting at my desk, invariably, someone passing by would say "Hey, D (my real name), you sure look different today!". If I'm in a good mood, I'll be charitable enough to pretend I didn't hear it. And even in a bad mood, I'm relatively charitable by ostensibly rolling my eyes. But I desperately want to do more for society besides just rolling my eyes! It is now the year 2007. Is such lameness still acceptable? How can I do my part for the betterment of human evolution?

UPDATE: A few of you have asked me about the cookbook that I have to thank for this pasta idea. Strangely, information on it is rather elusive, there isn't even a name of an author, so I'll just stick its photo here for all to see:


I don't even know if it exists in other languages, but it has 2 whole pages dedicated to sheets of pasta with different squashed herbs like the above example, as well as many other nifty ideas! Now you see why I had to buy it with my first paycheck? :) This one's a keeper!

Unwitting WFF 8 - Cooking like clockwork

Hmm, I just realised that I never did specify what constitutes a WFF (for latecomers, that means "Weekend Feeding Frenzy", where I attempt to cook so much on one day of the weekend to avoid cooking on a weekday in a foul mood :) )... Now I will! I'll set the minimum number of dishes to 3, not counting desserts and accompaniments (e.g. plain rice). It's actually quite easy to accomplish!

The weekend started out stressful enough for me (ahem, it had to do with proving I could be trusted with a car), so food wasn't really my priority, but as it progressed, I found myself at the supermarket buying nothing, really, with dishes materialising under my nose! Am I turning into a - gasp! - machine?!?! I didn't even make a decent list of what to cook, or what to buy, but somehow I managed to make at least 3 things! I'm losing control!

Bread is a big part of life here, so when I was at the baker's buying a baguette, (a.k.a. ficelle, a.k.a. flûte, depending on where you buy it), I chanced upon this cute "crown" of bread and ordered one without missing a beat. ;-) Naturally, without having a concrete idea what to do with it! I was simply swayed by the alternating poppyseed and sesame buns.

Fortunately, I always have a few cans of tuna in my pantry to fall back on, and made a tuna salad from a recipe that was passed on from an aunt's friend, to my aunt, to my mom and then to me. Originally, it consisted of tuna in brine, mayonnaise, hardboiled eggs, chopped gherkins, 1 chopped onion and 1 chopped apple. For this time, I skipped the onion and replaced the gherkins with capers. As for the apple, I only eat green apples since they're always guaranteed crunchy. I hollowed out each individual bun and filled it with the tuna salad, saving the crumbs for something indeterminate at the time.

Variations: There aren't many things I wouldn't eat with tuna! Well, except strawberries, I guess.

Body count: 1 can of tuna

Then I remembered I had 6 green apples that had been lying around for more than a week, initially purchased for a potato, apple and camembert terrine. I only needed one for the tuna, but went on to skin the other 5, cut them into sixths and sauté them in a liberal amount of butter. I had cheddar-potato mash and a ready-made pizza crust languishing in my fridge, too, and put them to good use - together. There and then, the idea of a terrine became a pizza!

I spread the mash on the pizza crust, arranged the buttery apple slices on the mash and thinly sliced a whole camembert, which went towards adorning the apples. Baking time - 15 mins at 210°C. It may sound like a strange combination, but I didn't make it up - the recipe for the terrine came from one of the oldest cookbooks in my possession. I merely transferred everything onto a crust.

Body count: 0.

With all the apples used up, there was still a lot of butter left in the pan, which I sponged up with the crumbs from the hollowed-out bread crown. I really didn't want to, but the buttery breadcrumbs ended up as a crab stuffing for raviolis! Last week, when I made Maultaschen, it was the very first time I'd used my pasta machine even though it's been two years that I've had it. Making pasta turned out to be more fun than work, so I was itching to use it again and watch the pasta sheets getting churned out. The Maultaschen experiment was also the first time I'd heard of using bread to make stuffing, so there you have it - Crab & saffron raviolis.

Dough: 350g flour, 3 eggs, 2 capsules of powdered saffron, 2 tbsp of olive oil, salt. The Kitchen Aid did it all for me this time. Ordinarily, I'd knead it myself given the insignificant quantity.

Stuffing: 350g crabmeat, 150g of breadcrumbs, 30g butter (I think), 1/2 a bulb of garlic, crushed, salt and Martini for moisture. I'm unable to specify how much Martini went into it, but I just poured until I got the right consistency. I think I forgot to add salt, though!

I don't suppose I need to explain how to make raviolis, but I boiled these for about 7 minutes or more, and served them with a garlicky tomato & basil sauce.


Body count: 3 cans of crabmeat.

During the grocery shopping trip, I decided to treat myself to a bottle of Amaretto. When pouring myself a shot on the rocks Saturday evening, it suddenly occurred to me that all my favourite drinks came in squarish bottles! Just take a look for yourself to see what I mean:


Coincidence? Clever marketing? I'm not ashamed to proclaim that I get zero help from my hubby in drinking any of these, but I am sure the low levels in each bottle have more to do with evaporation than consumption! Oh, definitely!

WFF 7 - Muzzle up!

Many moons ago, I had a love affair with German - the language. Unfortunately, I was swiftly snared by the rules of grammar and those dreaded distractions called gender and boredom. This was way before I knew how to cook anything, so the attraction was strictly intellectual. If I'd never set foot in Germany, I most certainly would never have had the opportunity of discovering Maultaschen (literally, "muzzle bags"), a speciality of the Southern region of Baden-Württemberg. I'm unwilling to say anything disparaging about German cooking, but let's just say that "dainty" is not my favourite adjective when describing German food. Nonetheless, Maultaschen is for me, as dainty as it gets! :) Some call it German ravioli but I demur. There are more folds in Maultaschen, making them bulkier but with more reliable seams. Absolutely necessary when they take about 20 minutes to cook!

In 2005, when I made a trip to Tübingen, a quaint university town where the current Pope hails from, I got out of the car ankle-deep in snow and was not pleased about it. I was starving but not to the extent of yearning blood sausages, and deliberately learned how to say I didn't want any in German! :) Seeing the word " Spezialität" beside "Maultaschen" on the menu in my hotel's restaurant, I decided it sounded safe enough to order, so the fact that I made them yesterday means I thoroughly enjoyed them! These are just the uncooked ones. I will be doing a separate post during the week showing how I folded them and the different ways of consuming them.

How to: I basically got my recipe from here, but tweaked it a bit here and there. The amount of flour I used for the dough was closer to 400g than 500, and I used 350g of pork instead of a mixture of beef and pork. I was very very contented with the result, and it helps to have a Kitchen Aid!

Variations: Exists in salmon and vegetarian versions.

Body Count: 350g of minced pork

If you remember my dear friend from this post, I had a long chat with her last Sunday and I asked her for a few Sindhi recipes. The sweetie that she is, she dictated 4 to me, and to be cautious, I started with the easiest - Besan dal, or better known as Sindhi curry. She practically had me from the moment she mentioned "besan"!

How to: Dissolve 3 tbsp of besan (chickpea flour) in 2 cups (500ml) of water, adding water in small quantities to ensure there are no lumps. Soak some tamarind to get a paste. Chop 3 green chillis, 2 large tomatoes, 2 carrots and about 150g of okra (in North America) aka ladies' fingers (in Asia) aka gombos (here and in West Africa). Heat some oil, and fry 1/4 tsp of haldi (turmeric), 1/4 tsp of methi (fenugreek) seeds, 1/2 tsp of jeera (cumin), a pinch of hing (asafoetida) and a few slices of ginger. Add the besan suspension and keep stirring until mixture thickens. Add vegetables, about 4 tbsp of tamarind paste and let vegetables simmer according to how firm you prefer them. Add salt and curry leaves to taste and serve with a methi pulao (which I was too lazy to make, because as you can see, I have quite a lot to eat! :) )

Variations: My friend says potatoes can be added, and the quantities of the tamarind and vegetables can be adjusted to taste. I didn't have any hing on me, and I believe the curry would have been even better with it.

Body Count: 0 (vegan)

It has been 3 weeks and I still have not gotten over the potato-in-microwave phenomenon, so I had to find more excuses to use the 2.5kg sack of potatoes I bought to that effect. Last week, I mashed hot potatoes with a crumbly cheddar and couldn't get enough of it with my stuffed jalapenos, so I had to make the same mash again this week, but this time, to make cups containing chilli con carne, as in these Chilli pots:

How to: My chilli has always come from this recipe, but I added one diced capsicum. I spied a few cans of corn in my pantry, too, and decided to empty one of them in into my chilli. For the pots, I crumbled 200g of cheddar with 3 microwaved potatoes and shaped them into crusts according to the muffin tins I used. Then I filled the pots with chilli and baked them at 180°C for half an hour.

Variations: You know, I think I should have added some flour to the pots to make them firmer, crispier and easier to handle. Just a thought for the next time I attempt this!

Body Count: 500g of beef.

I'll be darned if I still have to cook during the week after having made this much, but to hammer another nail into that imaginary sealed coffin, I made one more dish - Lor Mai Kai। Literally, it means "glutinous rice chicken" in Cantonese, and it's really just that, with of course, the usual sauce-pects (sorry, couldn't resist it!). Lor Mai Kai is something I occasionally had for breakfast in Singapore, which is significant in that A) I seldom wake up in time for breakfast and B) if I do, I usually skip it anyway. Strangely, though, I prepare it for dinner over here on a fairly regular basis.

How to: Soak about 400g of glutinous rice in water overnight or for at least 2 hours, then drain. Marinate about 500g of chicken meat with a few slices of ginger, equal quantities of sesame oil, dark & light soya sauces and oyster sauce (I'd recommend 2 tsps, but I didn't measure). Add white pepper and corn starch, and mix well. In a wok, heat a few tablespoonsful of oil and fry some shallots (I had pre-fried shallots) until they're crisp. Add rice and a tablespoonful each of Chinese rice wine, oyster sauce, light soya sauce and sesame oil. Add a few drops of dark soya sauce if you'd like some colour, then add about 300ml of water, 100ml at a time, stirring constantly. When all the water has been absorbed, remove rice from heat.

In individual bowls, line the base with chicken meat and top off with glutinous rice. Steam for about half an hour or until rice is fully coked. Serve with chilli sauce.

Variations: Black mushrooms or raw groundnuts can be added to the rice. For a vegetarian version, mock meat can be used, with a vegetarian oyster-flavoured stiry-fry sauce.

Body Count: 500g of chicken

WFF 5 - Edition régionale

I wouldn't deserve to hold on to my titre de séjour if after more than 2 months of blogging, I did not write up a post featuring products typical of the region which has so kindly hosted me for the past few years - the endearingly singular Nord-Pas-de-Calais!

Following my successful experiment microwaving potatoes for mash last week, I had to repeat the stunt to make sure it worked on all potatoes in general, and not only those I had last week. This discovery gave me lots of hope, because for years, I had failed time and again to make gnocchi soft enough to not hurt pelted passersby. Well, guess what? One more point for this express cooking method! Not only was I able to knead the gnocchi dough today without having to keep adding flour, when shaping them into little dumplings, they did not morph back into smooth cocoons! I am impressed beyond words, and for that, it will be classified as another case of "pat my back or sock my eye?".

I don't understand why my recipe books unanimously tell readers to boil or steam the potatoes for gnocchi, because all that moisture is just going to bring out the starch, which is a nightmare for kneading, not to mention a total waste of time!

How to: To serve 6, heat 650g of potatoes in the microwave until they're cooked through (clue, when they stop "whistling" and when pressed with a knuckle, they dent). Sift about 250g of flour (expect to use more for rolling), make a well in the centre, break 2 eggs into the well and add salt and white pepper. Grate the potatoes (or mash them through a sieve) over the flour while they are still warm, then mix and knead to obtain a slightly sticky dough. Let it rest for 10 minutes, then cut into fat strips and then into cubes (add flour whenever necessary). Make dumplings by rolling dough cubes and pressing a fork onto a surface (this helps to "trap" sauce). Cook in salted boiling water until they float.

Variations: Sweet potato. I've also had gnocchi with chopped spinach mixed in with the dough which was good enough to eat without sauce!

Body Count: 0

Gnocchis aren't typically used in kitchens in this region, but I associated them with a regional beer and cheese, a cheese of malodorousness so formidable it is synonymous with a rotting sock - Maroilles! It is more often seen on a tarte au maroilles, and I'm not sure how easily it is found outside France. I live 20 minutes away from the Belgian border, and I don't see them systematically stocked in supermarkets there.

Tip: Having cut up a maroilles a zillion times with my bare hands, I have learned that soap is futile. Wash your hands while rubbing your fingers against anything made of stainless steel, and it will miraculously get rid of any lingering smells! Take this from someone who often handles garlic but hates smelling of it!

As for Ch'ti, it is a word in local patois to signify inhabitants of the region. I'm not much of a beer drinker, but this bottle came from a couple of colleagues who were at my place on Thursday for a gaming session and left this behind! :) It goes very well with maroilles and so I added it to my gratin de gnocchi.

How to: Mix 300ml of cream with 150ml of pale ale, and add salt and pepper to taste. Heat it without boiling, then add cooked gnocchi, diced ham or bacon (300g or so) and onions if desired. Divide into 6 individual portions, then cut up 400g of maroilles and garnish each portion. Bake at 180°C until the gnocchi absorbs the liquid and cheese browns.

Variations: Dark ale is good, too. Cheddar instead of maroilles, endives instead of onions (very regional!!), and cooked potatoes instead of gnocchi.

Body Count: Ham, and possibly rennet in the maroilles.

That's not the end of the regional edition! There's still dessert!

In the meantime, The Painted Chef reminded me this week of another of those dishes I'd been trying for years to "perfect", if it can even be called that. In Singapore, I knew them as Hong Kong Noodles, but apparently, in Chinese restaurants the world over (and in one of my cookbooks), they're sometimes known as Singapore Noodles. Hmmm...

My model of HK noodles is the one I used to eat in my school canteen towards the end of my schooling years. I have made these innumerable times with a mindboggling combination of additions and omissions, and yet it still doesn't measure up! My last resort will be to cook this with half a litre of oil, but I'll save it for the next time. I question a school canteen operator's motivation for adding any secret ingredient too exotic, but I still haven't quite put my finger on whatever it is, so whoever has a recipe that doesn't look like mine, please contact me!

Before I proceed with the underachiever's recipe, I cannot overstate the necessity of char siu (red roasted meat) for these noodles. Unless otherwise stated, pork is used for char siu. I had pork last week, and was loath to have it again, so imagine my glee when I came across whole turkey breasts (I know where to get them, they're just not sold all the time). Mind you, in the picture on the right, all 5 pieces of meat actually came from a single monster turkey breast! I cheated by making these with a powdered spice mix, but Melting Wok will teach you how to do this from scratch!

How to: Soften 400g of bee hoon (rice vermicelli) or dried yellow noodles, or a combination of both, in warm water. Thinly slice an onion and shred a carrot and beat 5 eggs with some water. Chop char siu into cubes or strips. On high flame, heat some oil (preferably peanut) and make several omelettes, cut them into strips and set aside. Add more oil, about 1 tsp of five-spice powder and white pepper, then add vegetables and saute until they go slightly limp. Add 1tbsp each of Chinese rice wine, oyster sauce, dark and light soya sauces (just an estimate - the more the merrier), then throw in noodles and toss until they are coated with sauce. Add omelette strips and char siu and heat through. Serve with vinegar-preserved green chillis.

Variations: Despite hating them, I've added beansprouts in the past out of sheer desperation. Love garlic, but not sure how much of a difference its presence makes. Have replaced 5-spice powder with curry powder before, to no avail. Sesame oil and sugar made an appearance once, but nah.

Body Count: 1/5 of a turkey breast

Without forgetting my masala quota, I also have beans thoran for you. I actually made this on Wednesday but didn't have time to post it earlier. Credits to The Painted Chef again for planting this idea in my head! :)

How to: Finely chop 300g of long/string/French beans. Grind one chopped onion with 100g of shredded coconut and green chilli (I used 2). Crush several cloves of garlic. Heat some oil and pop 1 tsp of mustard seeds. Add ground coconut paste and fry until the raw onion smell dissipates, then add beans, garlic, 1/2 tsp of turmeric and salt.

Variations: Curry leaves can be added.

Body Count: 0

Enfin, le dessert!

If you like coffee for its taste and not just the caffeine, you would like chicory as well. It so happens it's produced in abundance here, as a natural by-product of the endive industry.

On the right are just a few of the good things to be found here. Gingerbread is dissolved in and used for thickening the sauce for carbonnade flamande, one of my favourite beef stews, but I'm not sure I'm willing to make it anytime soon. Bols' Crème de Cacao (chocolate liqueur) is made in Holland, but will be used in the recipe that follows. I confess, I haven't tried Les Chuques du Nord, but they're supposed to be coffee candies with a caramel centre.

I had another tub of mascarpone to spare, so am back with a Tiramisù du Ch'Nord.

How to: Place a layer of ginger bread at the bottom of each serving glass and drench it with crème de cacao, or whatever liqueur you fancy. Whip 2 egg yolks with 100g of sugar until frothy, then add 2 tbsp of chicory, 50g of whipped cream, 3 tbsp of crème de cacao and 250g of mascarpone. When mixture is smooth, spoon a layer onto gingerbread and repeat layers. Garnish with a mini waffle.

Variations: Way too many! :)

Body Count: 0

A Very Humble Offering

Oh dear, it's one of those weeks again... no idea what to cook, and not hungry anyway*. But in desperate times like these, I always have someone to turn to.. Sophia (and eggs).

Gosh, how many women continue to smoulder like that at her age? Although I've had this book for years and have thumbed through it countless times, I haven't made many of its recipes. The anecdotes inside provide for a good read, which I suppose distracted me from the cooking part. In it are snippets from different milestones of her life, photos and occasionally, the history of certain Italian favourites. One of mine is Carbonara, which varies from kitchen to kitchen.

This isn't Sophia Loren's recipe, but she pretty much taught me how to make a good one!

How to: For 4 - separate 4 eggs, cook 400g of fresh or 300g of dried pasta, chop one medium onion, crush 5 cloves of garlic and hack away at 200g or so of fatty bacon. Standby 300ml of cream, some oregano and grated parmesan.

Heat bacon in an empty casserole until the fat sizzles and the bacon starts to brown. If you're not health-conscious, add 1 tbsp each of butter and olive oil, then add the onions and cook until they brown, too. Add garlic and a few pinches of dried oregano, as well as a few tablespoons of water from cooking the pasta (if you remembered to keep it - I seldom do!). Throw in the pasta and heat through.

In a bowl, microwave about 300ml of light cream, and beat the egg yolks into it. Add salt and pepper if desired and pour onto warm pasta. Divide into 4 portions and sprinkle parmesan generously over each portion before serving.

Variations: Pancetta or coppa instead of bacon. Parsley instead of oregano. In this recipe, I also added the juice of one lemon to the cream. Not everybody adds onions. Alternatively, if you don't like your yolks to set, don't add them to the cream, but make a shallow well in each individual portion of pasta and place a yolk in it.

Body Count: 200g of bacon.

*I'd been losing myself in bags after bags of Doritos lately, even shortly before dinnertime. Now I know why my mom used to get mad at me for all that snacking! :)