The last time I made mee siam was over a year ago in Kuala Lumpur. Cooking local is the easiest wherever one lives because ingredients are usually in their best conditions in every aspect: availability, form and cost. I can imagine our American friends in Malaysia putting together their Thanksgiving meal - they'd probably gather all their essential ingredients only after numerous trips to different grocery stores. When something means that much to you, all the more you must be determined while maintaining that zen-like calmness so that nothing really gets to you. 

I found myself in a similar situation weeks ago when winter officially set in with low single-digit temperature (Celsius) everyday. There are at least three restaurants in Manhattan that serve Malaysian dishes, but every trip leaves me yearning for more as they never quite scratch that itch spot-on. I still drop by one of them now and then for some prawn fritters (aka cucur udang) which I lack the motivation to make at home, and also to say hello to my Indonesian friend who works there. We barely remember each other's names but can always pick up from our previous conversation. That is, me getting there in the first half hour of opening.

A firm belief of mine when it comes to Malaysian home-cooking, particularly true for one-pot meals that contain carbohydrate, protein(s) and greens, is that you either go big or go home. There is no such thing as cooking for just two portions. Anything less than eight portions is not worth the trouble, especially factoring in the fact that ingredients here in America are packed by default in larger quantities. Gone are the days when you go to the market and ask the makcik for fifty cents' worth of taugeh. 

I don't trade shares. In fact I did very badly in Financial Mathematics back in uni when my classmates were already dabbling in the stock market, which was why they took up that module. That said, I think I have some very desirable qualities to be a good trader: intuition, discipline, patience, and decisiveness. 

Some of you would have seen photos of the cherry tree at JL's parents' house. When it is in full harvesting season, paying for cherries becomes a joke. I would anytime prefer pulling out a long chair under the tree and just keep popping those cherries like crazy. As if to satisfy a year's worth of craving. 

So the first time I came across a one-kilo tray of cherries going for RM 120, I had to ask the husband to witness the price-tag. And the first thing I will do when we go back to France again is to hug that tree in the garden. Yet at the same time, I think about cherry clafoutis constantly here in Kuala Lumpur. No amount of blueberry, mango or even pineapple clafoutis could sooth that yearning. 

This is one of our all-time favourites at home. If you haven't been cooking for a while, you may want to get yourself warmed up with this because it is a very forgiving dish. It cannot go wrong and easily feeds four starving adults as a single-dish meal. All you need is bow-tie pasta, a thick slice of ham, one or two zucchinis depending on the size, a small tub of cream and some mozzarella.

As with most of my French (home-)cooking repertoire, I learned it from JL's mother. The only difference is the choice of pasta. She uses mini ravioli stuffed with cheese that would be so cute for kids, but unfortunately, I have yet to see it here in Kuala Lumpur. Thus the next best thing: bow-tie pasta, or farfalle (butterflies in Italian) as it is also called. 

Made chicken pot pie two Sundays ago. In our last two or three visits to Ben's, I noticed JL had been ordering chicken pot pie. When asked if it was really that good, he simply said that he wanted some pastry crust. 

I think I understand what he meant. It's nice to have warm pastry crust covering a bowl of savoury, creamy chicken with chunky vegetables. As long as the vegetables are not cooked to death, I can see myself enjoying it too, despite feeling barely lukewarm for chicken pot pie.

My assignment: read up chicken pot pie recipes by the usual suspects, then see if I could come up with my own version. Not too fatty and more importantly not time-consuming. Flipping back and forth between cookbooks and websites, I compared, in particular, the roux, combination of ingredients, sequence, choice of pastry and the oven settings. 

My mother-in-law sent me a cookbook by postal mail when we were living in the States. All because her son expressed his love for savoury cakes that he could only have back in his parents' home. The book, small and slim, has no less than seventy recipes for cakes both savoury and sweet. Not that I am supposed to make every single one of them but rather, for me to look through and compare variations of savoury cakes, so that I could come up with one I could claim ownership of.

In general, to compare making a savoury cake to that of a sweet one, there is only one phrase to sum it all up: same-same but different. Obviously there is no sugar in the former, while butter makes way for olive oil, sunflower oil or even white wine. Instead of chocolate chips, nuts, dried fruits, ingredients such as ham, sausage, shrimp, cheese, olives, capsicum, zucchini are used. There is even one recipe in the book with chicken gizzard. 

But thank God my husband prefers simple combinations of ham, cheese, olives for the cakes, just so he could pair it with something else on the side. Just a few suggestions here: lightly tossed greens, chopped salad like tabbouleh, coleslaw, warm tender carrots for a light dinner, or rock melon with prosciutto on a super-hot day. 

I will be lying if I tell you it is easy to make these. (I will share with you my mistakes at the end of this post.) But they are nonetheless edible as long as you pop a nice homogenous batter into the oven. It can be done with a balloon whisk or wooden spoon - you just need to work your arm muscles crazily for some ten seconds when incorporating the oil. Remember to hug the mixing bowl with your left arm to keep the bowl still while stirring with your right hand, and then repeat the process changing arms. Crazy, I know, but it costs nothing.

First things first: kla-foo-tee. That's how the word is pronounced. 

Clafoutis is one of the classic French desserts which you will never find in most cafés or dessert shops. Probably because it is so easily homemade that one is embarrassed to charge money for it. Okay, I was only half joking. Unless it is served in pretty single-portion baking dishes, charged at the same price point as crème brûlée, I really doubt it'd be feasible to put clafoutis on one's menu. And that's my half-assed amateurish deduction as to why it is rarely found when eating out. 

Clafoutis is essentially a baked, firm batter with some fruit in it, the classic choice being fresh whole cherries. Talk to the French about cherry clafoutis and you will see the opposing sides of pitting or not pitting the cherries. The latter, some say, will add a subtle nutty flavour to the dessert. Ask my mother-in-law and she will shrug her shoulders and say that's how she does it because she doesn't have time to remove the stones, and besides, why spoil something that's not broken?

"Bienvenue à ma maison!" 

Those were the first words my father-in-law said to me the moment I stepped out of his car after an hour and a half of soaking in the sights along the French autoroute starting from Lyon-Saint Exupéry airport. The air was fresh and cool, you would agree too had your feet felt the terracotta tiles on the ground. Not that I was barefoot. A pair of house slippers were waiting for me in the bedroom. Still, I could feel the coldness of the ground wearing them.

That was June six years ago, when I couldn't understand 95% of what I heard around me. Most of what I learned back then I did with my eyes. I remembered faces and places, really, short of sounding like the Beatles' song: JL's immediate family, close family friends who are family too, his best friend, wife and children, one of whom JL is godfather to. 

I watched the simplicity of having family and friends around, spending the day talking about everything under the sun, even taking naps at the corner if one wishes so. I followed everywhere JL went as he followed everywhere his father went: the bakery, the deli, the florist, the tabac shop for newspapers. Everywhere. The French really kiss a lot, I thought to myself. Even men greeted each other with a touching of cheeks and pats on their backs with varying strengths, as if a sum of how long since you last saw each other and how much you love the other person. But all done naturally, quietly, and absolutely without exaggeration.

My friend K is a full-time junior college teacher in Singapore. She has a cute toddler who is turning three this year. And he is expecting a baby sister in the coming weeks. So when I saw the photo K sent me of her 15-minute creamy mushroom spaghettini two weeks ago, she really made my day. First, someone actually tries my recipe. Second, that particular someone could have easily justified not wanting to cook.   

Feeling encouraged, I told her I'll work harder on the 15-minute theme. So it got me thinking: how can I reduce cooking time? Can I possibly put a meal on the table faster than 15 minutes? And I have not forgotten my promise to my schoolmate D who asked for a simple aglio olio pasta a while ago. 

The word "easy" has different meanings. It largely depends on the person saying it. If Heston Blumenthal says it's easy, you might still need a blow torch, candy thermometer, syringe or some dry ice. When Anthony Bourdain says it's easy, you should read his recipe carefully and then read some more on the key techniques that he has mentioned. When Jamie Oliver says it's easy, it is likely that you are able to improvise his recipe. After all, that's his style.

When I say it's easy, it is easy. And I'll try to share as much details with you so that you are confident of pulling it off, even if your stove had not been lit for months, or in some extraordinary cases, since the day you moved in.

Short of planting my own xiao bai cai and kneading my own dough for fresh noodles, it gives me great pleasure to say that I made my own plate of wantan mee. All within 15 minutes.

You'd probably remember my previous post on the effortless 4-3-2-1 homemade char siew, and another on what I'd affectionately call "my little soldiers on standby in the freezer". If you foresee a few solo meals ahead for whatever reason (especially if you're a SAHM, or when the spouse goes on a business trip), I'd strongly recommend that you upgrade your meals by staying away from MSG-laden instant noodles. All because eating without your loved one is miserable enough, let alone eating crap without your loved one. Instead, make the dumplings and char siew in large batches, preferably on different days, zero-pressure, and you'll have many 15-minute meals to enjoy.