Nuffnang Asia-Pacific Blog Awards 2009

Congee simpang (mixed) SG$3.00Welcome to Singapore.We step off our Singapore Airlines jumbo from Sydney to Singapore only to be hit by a wall of tropical 30C heat and 75% humidity.Suze and I waste no time in looking for food once we check into our hotel. We explore the surrounding streets and end up at a corner cafe/eating house which will become our regular haunt over the coming days.Hong Kong

Estonian Milk Soup with Pasta Shapes

This week is school holidays in Estonia, and my 10-year-old nephew stayed with us for a few days. We went for walks, swimming at the local swimming pool, did some homework together, he spent hours entertaining our little daughter. Of course, we also cooked and ate food together (nachos, enchiladas, quesadillas and other food with high kid appeal). Our last meal together was lunch on Wednesday and I offered to cook him something special. His request: makaroni-piimasupp or pasta and milk soup. I was baffled - I hadn't had that humble soup for almost two decades and I didn't think today's kids eat it. I was proven wrong :)

Furthermore, I had no intentions to blog about this particular milk soup and didn't focus too much on getting a good picture. But then somebody saw the picture in Flickr and asked for the recipe, so here you go after all...

Although the soup has some sugar in it, it's more of a "savoury" soup, served as a meal on its own, preferably with some ham sandwiches on the side.

Estonian Milk Soup with Pasta Shapes
(Makaroni-piimasupp)
Serves 4

500 ml water (2 cups)
1 tsp salt
100 g short pasta (1 cup)
750 ml full-fat milk (3 cups)
a generous pinch of sugar
1 Tbsp butter

Bring water to the vigorous boil, add salt and pasta shapes. Reduce heat to simmering, then boil for 5-7 minutes, until pasta is al dente.
Pour in the milk, give it all a stir and boil for another few minutes, until pasta is fully cooked.
Season with a pinch of sugar and some more salt, if you wish. Stir in the butter and serve.

Sugar Hits at The Grace Hotel, Glass and Azuma Kushiyaki

I'm baaaack.Singapore was an absolute blast - a blast of heat and humidity but much fun nonetheless. Food? Photos? Of course there was plenty of both, but because time is of the essence, I'm uploading a backlog of SIFF posts whilst it's still October.Remember this? Last year, Billy hosted a sponsored Stickier and Sweeter Sydney Tour - a quest to consume as many Sugar Hits in one night. We managed

Elderflower curd recipe

Elderflower curd on home-made white bread.

Anyone else 'out there' who likes to smear some lemon curd on toast or spoon some of the yellow goodness over their breakfast yogurt?? I've made more batches of lemon curd over the last few months than I care to remember, all because K. LOVES it. He can eat some straight from the jar (his excuse is that he doesn't want to waste any yogurt or bread!). He also loves elderflower cordial, so I thought to combine these two and make elderflower curd for this weekend. I used my regular lemon curd recipe, just substituting lemon juice with undiluted elderflower cordial, and as the latter is sweetened, I reduced the amount of sugar by one third.

We loved the creamy and floral-scented result. So much so that there's not much left for the weekend. I better whip up another batch soon.

If it's lemon curd you're after, check out Meeta's extensive post about making lemon curd or Ilva's rosemary twist on the classic.

Elderflower Curd
Serves 4 to 6

3 large eggs
100 g caster sugar
100 ml elderflower cordial/syrup
100 g unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Put the bowl in a pan of boiling water or a bain-marie and stir until it has thickened.

You need a small saucepan and a medium-sized bowl that fits over the saucepan.
Pour about 2-3 cm / an inch of water into the saucepan and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer.
Whisk the eggs and sugar in a bowl until combined, then whisk in the elderflower cordial.
Place the bowl over the pan of boiling waterand cook, stirring regularly with a small whisk, until the mixture thickens. (DO NOT BOIL, or the curd, well curdles :)) This may take about 7-10 minutes (you can test for doneness with a wooden spoon - if the curd coats the back of the spoon, it's ready).
Remove from the heat and let it cool a little (to about 62-63 C). Then add the cubed butter and stir, until the butter has blended with the rest of the ingredients.
Pour into a small jar or a bowl, and cool before serving.

Leedrisiirupit müüakse mahepoodides ja pealinnas ka nt NOP-poes.

Interview: Ten Questions with Luke Nguyen (and another Freebie Friday!)

Luke NguyenThe night before Luke Nguyen's Cabramatta Tour, I read Secrets of the Red Lantern, written by Luke's sister, Pauline.As Pauline unravelled the threads of her family story, there was one anecdote that immediately leapt off the pages, making me smile. It was her description of her younger brother Luke as a kid...It came as no surprise to any of us when Luke told of his plans for Red

Canh Chua tamarind broth with silver perch and elephant ear stem

Elephant ear stems must be up there as one of the most exotic-sounding and evocative vegetable names in English.The Fairfield City Council guide to South-East Asian Greens explains that Elephant Ear Stem (Khoai So)"...gets its name from its wide elephant-like ear leaf (not shown). The stem and stalk are used for cooking and yield mild grassy flavoured spongy flesh. Khoai So is a good source of

How to make your own mozzarella and camembert

"I'm just crackers about cheese!"- Wallace, The Curse of the Were-RabbitWe were all crackers about cheese, a group of 18 cheese lovers assembled for the Cheese Making Workshop by McIntosh and Bowman as part of the Sydney International Food Festival.Much like making one's own bread, creating your own cheese can seem a little intimidating for the uninitiated. It all seems so complex and

Lingonberry cheesecake

If you're stuck for lingonberry recipe ideas, then let me suggest you this creamy lingonberry cheesecake. A friend of mine came over for a coffee about a fortnight ago, bringing me a large tub of lingonberries she had picked herself. Although I've got some good stand-by lingonberry cake recipes (some of them here on the blog: lingonberry and chocolate cake, Swedish lingonberry cake), I wanted to try something new and different. Using my regular cheesecake filling, I came up with this lingonberry cheesecake recipe.

As all cheesecakes, this is best made a day before you want to serve it, so it is completely cool and set.

Lingonberry cheesecake
(Pohla-toorjuustukook)
Serves 6 to 8

Pastry:
100 g butter, softened
85 g caster sugar (100 ml)
1 large egg
175 g plain flour (300 ml)
0.5 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt

Filling:
450 g full-fat cream cheese (1 pound)
85 g caster sugar (100 ml)
2 large eggs
0.5 tsp vanilla extract
finely grated zest of half a lime

Topping:
100 g lingonberries (about 1 cup)

First, prepare the pastry. Cream butter and sugar. Mix the dry ingredients, then mix into the butter mixture together with egg. Press the pastry onto the base and sides of a buttered 26 cm springform tin. Put into the fridge to rest for 30 minutes.

Prepare the filling: Mix all ingredients - if you wish, you can use an electric mixer for that (though stirring thoroughly with a wooden spoon does the job as well, as long as the cream cheese and eggs are at room temperature). Pour into the pastry base.

Scatter the lingonberries on top.

Bake in a pre-heated 180 C /350 F oven for 30-35 minutes, until the filling is almost set and the cake is light golden brown on top.

Let cool completely before trasnferring onto the serving plate.

Gorkha Palace Restaurant, North Strathfield

The forks. They are tiny.I've never been known for any semblance of graceful movement, but at Gorkha, the tiny forks that accompany our dishes have tines the width of a pea. It's a struggle to manouevre any more than one cube of food at a time. Perhaps this is a deliberate dietary hint from above I need to take heed.In other ways, the tiny forks match the petite servings. At first glance the

Cooking Modern Mexican at VictorsFood

Victor Pisapia with an ancho chilliMention Mexican food to an Australian, and most of us will immediately think of corn chips, sour cream and cheese.It's no wonder that Mexican cuisine tends to get a bad rap. In fact, much of what is labelled here as "Mexican", is more Tex-Mex - an American interpretation of Mexican cuisine that spread from Texas and other states in the southwest. Nachos and

Recipe: Vietnamese caramelised pork belly (thit kho)

After a fascinating tour of Cabramatta with Sydney chef Luke Nguyen, we stumbled upon an outdoor kichen set-up in the local mall. Only then were we told that we would be shopping and cooking dishes to share with everyone for lunch.I was instantly drawn to the caramelised pork belly, a favourite dish of mine, and one I was keen to learn how to recreate at home.Cooking in public on portable gas

Japanese dinner party

Back in mid-July we had a small Japanese dinner party at our place, attended by some of our Estonian friends and an American couple residing in Tallinn, nine adults in total.



We had a mix of Japanese dishes - no sushi, however - and everybody seemed to like the food. Somehow I never got around to sharing the photos from that night until now. I do not intend to blog about each and every dish on the table that night - I am no expert in Japanese cooking, and there are many bloggers out there who'd have much more authentic recipes to share - but if there's a particular dish that interests you, let me know in the comments.



We tried to have five different colours on the table - black/purple, white, red/orange, yellow and green; as well as five cooking methods (boiling, grilling, deep-frying, steaming and raw); and five flavours (sweet, salty, spicy, sour, bitter). Below is a "photo reportage" of the dishes we served and enjoyed that night.

A selection of Japanese crackers, sent over from Tokyo by my friend Ryoko.





Spanish mackerel sashimi with dried miso from Nobu Matsuhisa & Mark Edwards' book NOBU WEST:


Nasu dengaku or grilled aubergine/eggplant slices with miso paste and sesame seeds. I used a mix of hacho-miso and shiro-miso, and this dish was one of my favourites! It's impossible to get thin Japanese aubergines/eggplants here in Estonia, so I used a regular purple aubergine. (If I can get hold of seeds for the Japanese aubergines, I might try growing them in my new greenhouse next year :))


I couldn't get frozen edamame pods any more, only shelled ones. So instead of serving steamed edamame pods, I boiled some soy beans, drained them and dressed them with some ume plum vinegar, soy sauce and a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds:


Chicken and leek yakitori skewers, a popular and well-known Japanese dish:


Another Japanese classic, tempura. We battered and deep-fried fresh chantarelles, sugarsnap pea pods and calamari rings:


Pieces of salmon marinating in teriyaki sauce. Home-made, of course!


The curiosity dessert :) I wanted to make something with matcha, the green tea powder. Matcha ice cream would have been an obvious choice, but I already had some home-made cherry ice cream sitting in the freezer. Instead I made matcha jelly, served with red azuki bean paste, from Harumi Kurihara's "Harumi's Japanese Cooking". It was definitely, umm, interesting. Not bad, but the taste and texture were really unusual, and best served in very small portions to the Estonian (and American) palate. Massimo, the 11-month old son of our American guests, really enjoyed the bitter-sweet concoction, however.

Time for soup: lentil and coconut soup

Proper autumn has come somewhat suddenly this year. I've got vague memories of enjoying the warm autumn sun and a cup of coffee on our newly installed patio only recently. But that's all history now - the winds are really chilly and strong, there's hardly been a day without rain during the last week or so. We've turned on the heating indoors and I'm wrapping our daughter into several layers whenever we're going outdoors. It's been already snowing in the south of Estonia, and we've had night frosts as well. Winter's soon here...

Which means it's a perfect time for filling and chunky soups that heat both your heart and your body. Here's something I made for dinner just few days ago.

Lentil and Coconut Soup
(Läätsesupp kookospiimaga)
Serves 4

2 cm piece of ginger, peeled and grated
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled and chopped
1 Tbsp oil
1 tsp turmeric
200 g red lentils ("Egyptian lentils"), rinsed and drained
500 ml (half a litre or two cups) hot vegetable stock
400 g can crushed tomatoes
250 ml (one cup) coconut milk
fresh coriander/cilantro for garnish

Heat oil in a heavy saucepan, add ginger, onion and garlic and fry on a medium heat for a few minutes, stirring regularly. Do not burn!
Add turmeric, hot stock, tomatoes and rinsed lentils. Give it a stir, bring into a boil. Then reduce heat, cover the saucepan partially with a lid, and simmer on a low heat for about 20 minutes, until lentils are soft.
Stir in the coconut milk, heat through.
To serve, divide into soup bowl and garnish with a coriander leaf.

Cabramatta Food Tour with Luke Nguyen

Luke Nguyen rips open his coat with a flourish.Beneath his assuming attire is a fitted black t-shirt that proclaims "I love pho". It generates a round of laughter amongst the assembled crowd as he stands there, chest puffed and proud like a Vietnamese superman.Luke's family story is not dissimilar to thousands of other Vietnamese refugees who fled to Australia following the fall of Saigon. It's

World Chef Showcase, Sydney International Food Festival 2009

International acts, tatts and one big nosh pit. The weekend's World Chef Showcase was the gastronomic equivalent of the Big Day Out, with renowned chefs from all over the world descending on Sydney for the headline event of the Sydney International Food Festival. Sebastien Bras, Sergi Arola, David Thompson, Alexandre Bourdas, Peter Gordon, Pichet Ong and more... their arrival has created a

Interview with Poh Ling Yeow - before and after Masterchef

Image from thesecretrecipe.com.auWhen I was very little I used to shred my graph paper and pretend I was a hawker stall vendor selling noodles instead of paying attention in maths class. - Poh Ling YeowWith Celebrity Masterchef currently on our television screens, it's hard not to reminisice about the Masterchef contestants from the original season. Runner-up Poh Ling Yeow was perhaps one of the

Chocolate bacon cupcakes

I blame Matt. I also blame Fergus.In a week involving non-stop salami and the hypnotic display of roasting pigs on a spit, I had pork on the brain.I'm a pig that way.I'd like to think this is why I could not stop thinking about bacon last weekend, and why, when brainstorming a dessert--my favourite pasttime--to bring to Simon's luncheon, I'm thinking cupcakes. With chocolate. And bacon. Mother

Azuma Kushiyaki, Sydney - Sugar Hit 2009

East Meets West Dessert Tasting Plate $20Sydney International Food Festival Sugar Hit - Azuma KushiyakiWe are suitably excited. Our first Sugar Hit for 2009.You would not think that we had just eaten a dinner of dumplings, of pan-fried buns, of crab in salted egg yolk and crisp and golden shallot pancake.And yet a short car-ride from Ashfield to the City followed by a mad dash through the driving

New Shanghai Chinese Restaurant, Ashfield

Dumpling kitchenOn a wet and wild evening, New Shanghai is a welcome shelter of warmth and cosiness. The tables are already mostly full when our group of five arrive, but our focus goes straight to the back of the room featuring a modern glass-walled view into the dumpling-making station.Stuffing the pastry with pork minceDressed in crisp white uniforms and red-and-white checked aprons, the two

Eveleigh Farmers' Market

CeleriacThe best thing about getting up early on a Saturday morning is being rewarded with so much extra time to play with.This is how, after a morning spent at the SIFF Good Living Growers' Market with Fergus Henderson, a pig on a spit and 12 Sydney chefs serving up nose-to-tail inspired dishes, Minh and I still have time to stop by the Eveleigh Farmers' Market on our way home.The huge

Fergus Henderson and a nose-to-tail barbecue - Sydney International Food Festival

Pigs. On. Spits.Three words guaranteed to get me out of bed early on a Saturday morning.The Sydney Morning Herald Growers' Marketcelebrating Barbecue Madness for the Sydney International Food FestivalThe October Good Living Growers' Market was one of the first big events on the calendar for the inaugural Sydney International Food Festival. It promised to be a event like no other, featuring

Roasted Peaches with Basil Butter

I've briefly mentioned this dish before on Nami-Nami, but as I only now have a decent photo of the dish, I'm writing about it again. Hope you don't mind :)

I got the recipe from Shauna's blog back in the summer of 2005, just months into my food blogging. The original recipe is from The New York Times. I made it couple of times back then, and have been making it again and again. Roasting peaches makes them much sweeter and softer - a blessing when you can only buy long-haul fruit that have been picked way too early. The good thing, you see, is that you can successfully make this dish with slightly underripe fruit as well..

Roasted Peaches with Basil Butter
(Küpsetatud virsikud basiilikuvõiga)

peaches
fresh basil leaves
butter
brown sugar
cinnamon

Halve the peaches and remove the stone (you may wish to hollow out the centre to fit the filling better, but I must admit I've never bothered with it). Place the peaches on an oven dish, cut-side up. Tear some basil leaves into smaller pieces and place onto the "holes", alongside with a generous pinch of brown sugar, and a small piece of butter (say, half a tsp per peach half). Dust with cinnamon.

Bake in the middle of a preheated 200 C / 400 F oven for about 20-25 minutes, until the peaches are soft and the topping slightly caramelised.

Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a dollop of softly whipped cream.

Yum Cha at The Dynasty, Belmore

Fung jao phoenix claws (chicken feet)I'm looking forward to the long weekend.More often than not, we find ourselves at yum cha. For some people, the chaos of yum cha sends them into a frazzle from sensory overload. I revel in it.There's something comforting about the ritual of yum cha. The inevitable queue out the front, the hustle towards your table - still being cleared by efficient but surly