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Bruschetta

7/5/2013

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I must be slightly over-enthusiastic to blog three times this week but since I'm waiting for a block of butter to soften, and that I've made something simple earlier on, why not? My schoolmates J and C came over for lunch today. Yes, schoolmates. But like what C had said, we were just schoolmates not so long ago. As the girls came from the office, they brought some savoury pastries - chicken and tuna puffs - shared over mushroom soup and lemon cake. 

When friends come over, I always worry about not having enough food. So for supplementaries - purely optional - I got some baguette slices lightly toasted to either go along with the soup, or for some tomatoes as topping. The Italians (and now nearly the rest of the world) call it bruschetta. 

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15-Minute Meal: Beef and Greens on Tofu

7/2/2013

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Some days you just want to rebel against carbohydrates. After all, it's a never-ending unrequited love affair. Rice, pastas, potatoes - you love them but what do they do to you in return? What kind of love is that? 

Whenever I feel this way, I just run back to the open arms of proteins. You see, proteins give good love. They devote themselves fully to you, and shower you with little treats like crunch, fat, tenderness, not to mention the vitamins and nutrients to make you feel on top of the world. Most of all, they keep you lean.

So here's a 15-minute meal tribute to proteins. With all my love.

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15-Minute Meal: Sardines and Rice

7/1/2013

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I was looking through some of the recent posts here when I realized the amounts of cream and cheese that must have gone through our bodies in the past few weeks. And these were just the ones consumed at home. How about the ones we have on our Friday dinner treats at the same old place!

Downward dogs or not, we ought to lighten up our meals. As in, no cream, no cheese, less oil, less fat.

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10-Minute Meal: Capellini Aglio e Olio

5/10/2013

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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. 

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Fluffy Pancakes

4/23/2013

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Ever since we settled down in the current home, I've started revisiting my cookbooks and food-related magazines. I miss the days when I could subscribe the usual home and living magazines for what a cup of coffee would cost. And spending an afternoon checking through every issue I had, tearing out pages of recipes for that one binder I left the U.S. with. As for the magazines I had kept from our days in Singapore, I still have a few with me, looking as good as new cover-to-cover. 

Late last week I read the May 2010 issue of Food & Travel, and was very pleased to come across a recipe for fluffy pancakes. If you bake often, it helps to associate the word "fluffy" with "buttermilk". Also, there is no reason to panic if you can't find buttermilk at the supermarket. Whenever I needed buttermilk, there would be barely three or four cartons on the milk/dairy section. However, problem solved: to substitute one cup of buttermilk, you just need to stir half a cup of plain natural yogurt in half a cup of whole milk.

So on Saturday morning, I thought I'd make some pancakes for breakfast, especially since the husband had gone through an entire week without his usual cake. I've also learned that a stack of warm pancakes is good incentive to get someone out of bed. This is really easy as you only need a mixing bowl and a whisk. Leave the stand mixer alone.

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Not in Love with Vegetables? Drink them!

4/11/2013

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Today's post hopes to address a common household problem: overly enthusiastic meat-eaters who see vegetables as garnishes meant to be swept aside. We are not just talking about the kids, but the adults whom the former monkey after. It is amusing to hear adults instructing their little darlings to "eat your vegetables" because if the older generation does not have the habit of consuming their greens, that same phrase will then be seen as a form of punishment. Children might even begin to resent vegetables since they are the only ones eating those. Grudgingly, if I may add.

On a personal note, now that I am taking a break from French lessons, it's been weeks since I last hung out in Bangsar Village. JL and I had been spending Saturday mornings in Bangsar Shopping Centre: get the weekend paper, have early lunch followed by some piccolo latte over a book or two, leaving groceries to the last. I think the husband really deserves whatever he fancies during weekends. He works too hard. 

Once of the books I read last weekend was Antonio Carluccio's Simple Cooking. Now if I ever, ever, have the chance to have my own cookbook published - and have a say in its design and layout - it will be about the same size as Antonio's book. Home kitchens in big cities are getting smaller, so if that's my target audience, why the need for a large coffee-table-book size? While at it, I will also insist on full-page full-colour pictures of every dish facing its recipe. 

It's no crime to dream.

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Cauliflower & Broccoli Gratin

4/30/2011

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Since my last post was on making a basic Béchamel sauce, I might as well share a simple recipe which you can use your "practice sauce" on. As you get more used to it, you can also make variations to the recipe by changing the vegetables, like carrots or thin-sliced potatoes (and you're getting closer to Gratin Dauphinois).

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Croque Monsieur

2/4/2011

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Some days, I want to be back in Singapore sitting at the corner table for four atop Palais Renaissance, overlooking the wet, rather-unkept garden that belongs to the Thai Embassy. It doesn't matter how humid the weather can be, that little spot is always cool and relaxing. And it doesn't matter how the atmosphere at P.S.Cafe can be a tad too lively for one's comfort. Chances are, the sight of their croque monsieur brings about temporary deafness. It was one of the husband's favourite ways to start the weekend, after which we'd stroll along Orchard Road to buy papers from the lady in front of International Building, and cut through Claymore Road to get home. Or if we're feeling lazy, hop on bus 132 or 106. Those were the days.

Just this week, when the husband wanted a ham and cheese sandwich, I thought why not have croque monsieur instead? It's not that difficult to make - the only extra bit being the béchamel sauce. I don't have a foolproof recipe for it, but hand on my heart, it's butter, flour, milk and a whole lot of "look and feel". It all boils down to what one is using the sauce for, and hence the kind of consistency that's required: runny, creamy, or just "Very. Thick.".

So shown above is basically two slices of rye bread, lightly buttered and toasted; dijon mustard spread on one inner side; two slices of 1/8-inch thick ham with grated cheese; assembled on parchment-lined baking tray; smothered with béchamel sauce (of the third category); and finally broiled on high for about 5 minutes. Check out the browned edges of the parchment paper. Had it been left any longer in the oven, it would have caught fire!

Lesson of the day: use aluminium foil for broiling.

P.S.: (Pun intended!) I would also like to put on record that the caesar salad with rosemary & honey dijon chicken from P.S.Cafe is the best in town. Looking at the menu is just my being courteous. It's always this for me, and when I'm greedy, I'll have it with an iced mocha and the orange flourless cake. Now I'm hungry.
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East Meets West En Papillote

1/30/2011

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Coming from two very different cultures, there are days when one struggles to put together a meal which satisfies both myself and the Boss. Some examples of our contrasting tastebuds: yogurt versus tofu, dijon mustard versus pickled mustards (咸菜).

I was in a dilemma today: the Boss wanted to have fish, as simple as it can be. Salmon doesn't do it for him. But I like salmon. In fact, I love salmon, especially when it is pan-fried in teriyaki sauce, topped with golden brown garlic bits. That explained the scrunched up face this morning, darling.

Anyway, it turned out to be a good problem after all. Almost parallel to that of couples who have grown much older, wishing for nothing more than just "companionship" so to speak. What do they do? They sleep together, but in separate beds. Only in our context, "beds" are two large portions of parchment paper folded in halves.

East Meets West En Papillote
Serves 2 as a meal
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Ingredients
0.8lb haddock fillet, rinsed and pat dry
0.8lb salmon fillet, rinsed and pat dry
Knob of ginger (thumb-size), peeled and julienned
2 large Shitake mushrooms, sliced
10 cherry tomatoes, sliced
2 stalks scallions, cut to 2-inch lengths, julienned
Bunch of cilantro, cut to 1-inch lengths
6 tablespoon low-sodium soy sauce
2 tablespoon sesame oil


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Pork & Shrimp Pot-Stickers

1/20/2011

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As promised, this is a follow-up from an earlier entry on the little bundles of joy, which also happened to be my lunch half an hour ago. Fun, isn't it? - Out from the freezer onto the pan, into the tummy then up on the web! If only "pan" rhymes with "web".

Here they are - potstickers, also known as 锅贴, which literally means potstickers! Oh man, pardon my being cheesy, I think it's a result of too much coffee too soon. It's truly a simple meal that satisfies just enough. 

Assuming you already have a batch of these in the freezer, all you have to do is:

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    briefly

    JL and S grew up in France and Malaysia respectively. They met while living in Singapore, stayed a year in the USA (Cambridge, MA) then the south of France, Malaysia, and are back again in the USA (New York, NY). 

    frenchinos at home is where we share some of our stories with friends, much like the living room, dine-in kitchen, or the timber-deck balcony which we've always wanted to have, which sounds most impossible where we live now. 

    Welcome and we're happy to have you here :)

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