The Cooking Ninja

4 months have passed since we moved into our new house and it's beginning to look more and more like home. Off with the old wallpaper (in most of the rooms, the wallpaper have been there for 4 decades!), a fresh coat of paint... voilà: it looks a whole lot prettier and modern. All this is possible due to relentless effort of my parents-in-law, without them, it would have taken us a lot longer to get the house looking like home. THANK YOU Michèle & Patrick for all that you have done for us.

Early this week we hosted a lovely Canadian couple who were here to visit Michèle & Patrick. With so many people around the house, it was la fête (a party) for Little One. Basked in the adoration limelight of everyone, she shines like a true star and charmed the Canadian couple (needless to say, the grandparents are already under her spell). Since this couple had been to Singapore before, I decided to cook curry - something local for them.

Mom's Chicken Curry

Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken (peel off most of the skin and chopped into pieces)
• 350 g shallots or white onions (approx.)
• 4 cloves garlic
• 6 or 7 stalks lemon grass (white part only - sliced)
• 1 or 2 pieces candle nuts
• 3 or 4 slices galangal
• 1 thumb size ginger
• 3 or 4 tbsp meat curry powder or curry powder
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 4 green cardamoms
• 1 star anise (big)
• 3 cloves
• a bunch of curry leaves (fresh or dried)
• 400 ml coconut milk
• 600 ml milk (approx.)
• salt or light soya sauce for seasoning
• oil

Directions

1. Put shallots, garlic, lemon grass, candle nuts, galangal & ginger in the food processor and grind it into a fine paste.
2. Mix the curry powder well into the paste.
3. Heat the wok with some oil till hot. Stir-fry the cinnamon stick, cardamons, star anise and cloves for a minute or so.
4. Stir in the paste and stir-fry it till fragrant.
5. Add in the chicken pieces. Stir and coat the chicken pieces with the curry paste.
6. Pour in the milk, coconut milk and curry leaves. Stir till blend with the chicken pieces and paste. (Add more milk if you feel the gravy is too thick or little.)
7. Season it with salt or light soya sauce to your liking and check the spiciness. If it is not spicy to your taste, add another spoonful of curry powder.
8. Bring it to a boil, then lower the fire to let it simmer for half an hour.
9. Serve it with rice or a loaf of French bread.

Conclusion

Mmm...yummy. It really DOES tastes like the curry I have back home, so I guess this is a success. I had prepared a tiramusi for dessert, but it was a tough sell after everybody had gotten a second (and for some even third) portion of the curry.

This is one of my favourite childhood desserts. In the old days whenever my mom wanted to make this, she would ask us to help her dig out the cassava roots. This was always such a fun field trip even though it is just behind our 'kampong' (village) house. Which child wouldn't want to play with dirt and digging up earth, pulling out the plant roots, chopping up the plant and replanting them after that? I remember that I kept asking my mom frequently about when could we dig up the roots again after replanting it. Then my mom would send us to hunt for a coconut (there used to be lots of coconut trees in front of our kampong house) and start shredding the coconut flesh using the old fashion method (ie. sitting on a long wooden bench with a metal spike at the end). It was such a fun and learning activity that I wish I could do it nowadays with my Little One.

Cassava or tapioca plant or yuca (most people associate it with tapioca flour) is a tall plant that can reach up to 15 feet sometimes. They survive not only very well in dry season (with high humidity) but also in poor soil conditions. Cassava can be easily propagated by cutting the stems into sections and just planting them into the soil before the wet season. Their leaves can be eaten cooked however they are very toxic raw. My mom used to cook these leaves in spicy coconut milk base. As for their tuberous roots, we usually boil them and eat them as they are (without any seasoning) or make them into desserts.

This is my entry for this Weekend Herb Blogging hosted by Lia from Swirling Notions.

Coconut Cassava (Tapioca) Dessert

Ingredients

• 1 cassava root (peeled)
• ½ fresh coconut (shredded)
• sugar
• salt

Directions

1. Cut the peeled cassava or tapioca roots into medium-sized pieces and put them into a non-stick pan or wok filled with some water.
2. Boil them covered until they are cooked. Make sure that the water cooking the cassava do not dry out before they are cooked or else they will be burnt. Fill in a bit of water if needed.
3. Cut them into small triangles or cubes and put them aside in a bowl or salad bowl.
4. Add the shredded coconut, some sugar and salt to the cassava pieces and mix them till combined. Taste to see if the seasoning is to your liking and adjust it accordingly.
5. Serve at room temperature or cold.

Conclusions

I do not know how to really describe this taste but I'll do my best! The combination of flavours is balanced and one doesn't overwhelm the other. With each bite, you have the natural fragrance and taste of cassava and at the same time, fragrant sweet & salty taste of fresh shredded coconut blend together.

Notes

This dessert is best eaten on the day that it is made.

Craving ... a wonderful feeling to have when you can satisfy that but a torture when you can't. I have had this huge craving for Assam fish for quite a long time now which I had been trying to put out of my mind, without much success (like me trying to lose weight - I only ended gaining more instead of losing ). Fish is not my specialty - as you all remember the last time when I tried cooking fish, it didn't turned out quite right. So I try to avoid cooking anything that has scales and swim...but darn it, this Assam Fish soon started to even haunt me in my sleep - yes, I dreamt that I was happily slurping up the sauce and relishing on the fish! So I said to myself "come on, are you going to let a dead fish intimidate you for the rest of your life. A cooking ninja would never cower from a challenge." So I got 3 lovely fish the next day for dinner. First I gave my fishes a royal treatment - frontal and back massage with salt, then I had a little pep talk with them. I looked at them right into their eyes (not easy when they have one on each side) and said "Ok fish, I'm going to give you a nice aromatic spa treatment of lemon grass, galangal & other spices right now and you are going to come out smelling so good and tasting so sweet."

Mom's Assam Fish

Ingredients

• 3 mackerel
• 5 tbsp paste from Mom's Chili Prawns
• 1 rounded tbsp tamarind (asam) pulp
• water
• sugar
• salt or light soya sauce

Directions

1. Clean the fish and season it with salt or light soya sauce.
2. Prepare the tamarind marinade: soak the tamarind pulp in 120 ml of warm water for 5 minutes. Squeeze the seeds and fiber with your fingers to extract as much juice and flavor as possible. Strain and discard fibers.
3. Heat wok with oil till hot, stir-fry the chili paste for a minute medium heat till fragrant.
4. Add water to the paste, stir to mix it well.
5. Stir in the tamarind juice (according to your taste of sourness).
6. Season it with light soya sauce or salt and a little bit of sugar .
7. Put in the fish to cook when you are about ready to serve dinner. This is to avoid overcooking the fish. The fish is cooked once its eyes popped.
8. Serve it with rice and a plate of vegetables by the side.

The Verdict

I was so darn excited that I managed to get my assam fish right and it tastes just like my mom's version (well, I still think mom's cook the best Assam fish). The sauce is very aromatic - the mackerel heightens the flavour of the sauce - great tasting of the spices mix with a spicy tint and a slight sourness - taste just right and it really opens up one's appetite. I love topping my rice with the sauce. My sister-in-law loves it, Pierre was less enthusiastic as he is not a big fan of fish to begin with.

Note

I usually can make a big bowl of the paste, fry them till fragrant and then keep them in the refrigerator for later use. It comes in very handy when I have to do a last minute dinner entertainment. All I need to do is just defrost and the paste is ready.

I recently learned another new trick from my local Asian store lady - you can actually store the unused portion of galangal by slicing them into pieces, freeze them, then put them all in a plastic bag in the freezer. When in need, just take out the number of pieces you need for cooking.