A Tiger In The Kitchen

Maple-Bacon Ice-Cream: Cheating Death (For Now)

This is what happens when a girl's doctor discovers what she sort of does for a living (eat) and starts worrying about her cholesterol and blood pressure:

She comes upon a recipe for maple-bacon ice-cream calling for 12 large egg yolks.

And gosh darn it, she makes it.

One might speculate that there are many reasons for this occurrence -- a deep-seated stubbornness, a misguided rebellion, a determination to cling to the belief of invincibility, the attempt to give the specter of death the big, well, you know.

But perhaps the reason is far, far simpler. (This is what she chooses to believe.) This ice-cream has bacon in it. Who wouldn't want to try making it?

Cowgirl: A Dessert Surprise

 

The evening had been good -- entertaining but generally uneventful. Until the question came, "Would you like dessert?"

Having just devoured chicken fried chicken, mashed potatoes, chicken fajitas and a massive bowl of vegetarian chili (plus copious amounts of chips and bean dip), dessert was an unlikely endeavor. But then there it was before us at Cowgirl in New York City: A dessert menu emblazoned with a large tempting picture of the restaurant's signature ice-cream "baked potato."

I was shocked to see the picture -- not because of the calories I saw before me. (The dessert consists of scoops of vanilla ice-cream dusted with cocoa powder to resemble a potato, topped with whipped cream, slabs of lime-sugar "butter" and chopped pecans dyed green.)

The surprise was there because I took the picture last year for a piece on this blog about Cowgirl's seafood outpost, Cowgirl Seahorse. And there it was, massive and beautiful (if I do say so myself) on this restaurant's menu.

Lemongrass Frozen Yogurt: The Joys of Cooking Redux

Years ago, I heard a sports writer complain about how he used to love sports -- until he started writing about it.

Once it became a job, he all but stopped watching games on weekends. The thing that he adored had morphed into stress-inducer.

I remember feeling aghast -- you get paid to write about something you love. Isn't that more than many people dream of?

Recently, however, I've started to understand. After spending weeks with my nose buried deep in my book manuscript -- which is all about a journey home to my native Singapore told through food and cooking -- my time in the kitchen has become, simply, work. Meals have been thrown together out of sheer necessity; easy old faithfuls rather than new creative dishes have been making far too many appearances on the dinner table.

The stress of writing and editing my hundreds of pages on food, sadly, had transformed my love for cooking into a source of anxiety.

But I only realized I'd forgotten how to enjoy the act of making food when my Let's Lunch friends nudged me back into the kitchen -- not to put a meal on the table but to whip up something silly and anything but practical: A decadent chilled dessert.

Pineapple Tarts: The Start Of The Journey

 

In the beginning, there were pineapple tarts.

These buttery, crumbly, bite-sized marvels bewitched me as a child in Singapore. My paternal grandmother made the best ones, of course -- every Chinese new year, she would hit the kitchen to churn out her tarts, pushing me to eat as many as I wanted as we sat in her living room, unhurriedly passing time.

I never learned to make my grandmother's tarts as a child, unfortunately.

When I was 11, she died. And the chance for her to teach me anything suddenly vanished.

After many years of mourning this lost opportunity, I traveled back to Singapore in early 2009 to learn how to make these tarts from my aunts. My grandmother had taught them how to bake the tarts when she was alive and they were now the keepers of her prized recipe, which I've included below.

The experience was enlightening -- but it also generated a spark. I now knew how to make the tarts of my grandmother, a legendary cook in our family and to all she knew.

But still, I wanted more.

Thus began a journey of discovery -- one that would take place in the kitchens of my Singapore family. Over the next lunar calendar year, the women of my family would gather over hot stoves to laugh, tell stories, shake our heads and, above all else, cook.

The story of my journey will be shared very soon. (Hyperion's Voice is publishing "A Tiger In The Kitchen" in January 2011.)

But first, it must be written -- and so I must bow out of this blog for a while. Seven weeks, to be exact. (Special thanks to Yaddo, the artists' colony, for generously offering me a nook in the woods to think and create.)

I hope you'll forgive this absence, but you must admit, it's for a rather good reason. 

When I return in late April, I'll be looking for all of you. My year of cooking in Singapore is over but the journey continues here. And I hope you'll be coming along with me.

Until then, buon appetito and enjoy ...

Prosperity Cakes (Fatt Gou): Ushering In A Rich Tiger Year

You will have to excuse the radio silence on this blog. 

Between stuffing myself with pineapple tarts and cooking up a storm in Singapore, there simply hasn't been a spare moment since the Chinese year of the Tiger began on Sunday to sit down and pen an intelligible sentence.

Amid the bacchanalia, however, some lessons have been learned. The deeper ones -- about family, love and the enduring power of ancestral lore -- I won't go into. (You'll just have to buy the book.) 

But the Chinese new year recipes -- usually designed to conjure success, prosperity or love -- now those, those I'm more than happy to share.

Over the last few days, I've had the good fortune of spending quality time in the kitchen with Auntie Hon Tim, the Colorado-based mother of my dear Auntie Donna in Singapore. Now, Auntie Hon Tim used to own and run a Chinese restaurant in Lakewood, Colo. -- so she's got some serious cooking chops. 

Besides teaching me the quickest way to skim fat off a pot of stew and how to rapidly chop carrots without slicing off my fingernails, Auntie Hon Tim has been showing me how to make some of her favorite lunar new year recipes.

On her must list every year is fatt gou, or prosperity cakes -- cupcake-sized desserts that she makes to send friends wishes of riches and sweetness in the new year. 

Ice Kachang: Savoring The Old

 

This is what inevitably happens when I get together with the Fairways Kids, a bunch of friends I've known since I was 11, back when my family moved into a Singapore condominium building named (naturally) Fairways.

Sure, we'll catch up on jobs, lives, kids, significant others. But somehow the conversation always wends its way back to one thing: ice kachang, a sugary dessert featuring a bowl of sweet corn, red beans, palm seeds and jelly topped with a minor hill of shaved ice that's been doused in syrup so sweet you can practically feel a toothache coming on as you shovel spoonfuls into your mouth.

We were a rambunctious lot -- still are, some might say. Rough soccer games, fearless, kickboxing fights in the swimming pool, endless games of volleyball in the tennis court -- this was how our youths were misspent. But the highlight of those idyllic days often was a trip over the fence (the shortcut before the condo association built a back gate) to the hawker center in the back. 

What lay at the end was an ice-cold mountain, festive and pink. 

Back behind the fence, we had homework, exams and, later, boy or girl problems to consume us. But at Telok Blangah Food Centre, things were simple. All we had to worry about was whether we had enough coins that day for a bowl of ice kachang.

Mooncakes: The Taste of Sweet Rebellion

 

You know you're walking into a hardcore kitchen when the first thing you see is stacks upon stacks of boxes filled with gorgeous home-made mooncakes.

The women on my Dad's side of the family in Singapore -- they're fearless cooks.

Pineapple tarts, bak-zhang (glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves), black vinegar-braised pig's trotters? They could whip those together with their eyes closed.

Recently, however, the task at hand was Chinese mooncakes, eaten to mark the Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls this Saturday.

Now, there are a few old stories that explain the reason for eating these little cakes, which usually are filled with sweet lotus-seed paste and come either with a thin, baked crust or a soft, pliant dough skin that's scented with pandan, a vanilla-like flavoring used in many Southeast Asian desserts. My favorite is the one of Ming revolutionaries planning to overthrow the Mongolian rulers of China during the Yuan dynasty and spreading word via letters baked into mooncakes. (Julia Child would've been so proud!)

During my Singaporean girlhood, I'd known the stories, I'd eaten the cakes. As for making them? That seemed so laughably difficult it never once crossed my mind.

It turns out, however, they're incredibly easy to make -- you just need the right teachers.

Lime-Coconut Cake: Conjuring Summer

Yes, I realize with great sadness that summer is no longer with us.

But having grown up in Singapore, where it's generally about 90 degrees all year round, I've always chosen to regard this little "four seasons" concept as more of a state of mind.

And my state of mind all year round tends to veer toward clear blue skies, suncreen and sand-between-my-toes kind of weather.

Which is how I found myself thinking about tropical lime-coconut cake all morning.

And, just when I thought I was being silly and a little too wistful about bygone pie-filled, scorching-hot days these sage words popped up courtesy of Gwen, a chef who blogs at Pen & Fork: "Ignore the calendar. Proceed full speed ahead with 'put the lime in the coconut' cake and eat it all up."

Sound words indeed.

Pluck: Super Easy Sweets

I'm getting tired of being asked a certain question: Where did you buy that dress?

Recently, I've been asked that a fair bit. And recently, my answer has tended to be the same: Pluck, a little boutique along Singapore's tiny Haji Lane that sells both new and vintage dresses and accessories.

It's an answer I hate to give because most of the people asking have been my American friends. And with Pluck, well, it isn't exactly close enough for them to pop in for a quick browse. (As an immediate gratification kind of person, this kind of thing just will not do for me.)

I recently discovered a bit of good news, however -- Pluck just started selling online and yes, it delivers overseas as well. So I'm writing about this here so that a) people can stop asking me where I buy my dresses and b) well ... a) pretty much covered it.

How does this relate to food? Not as tangentially as you'd think.

Pluck also sells ice-cream and dessert. While I heartily recommend the pear riesling and lychee martini ice-creams, it's been the little crunchy and sweet nibbly bits that co-owner Aisah sends out with tea and coffee that have piqued my interest.

When I bit into one recently, I immediately thought of the little cookies that mums would set out as snacks for visitors or after-school treats when I was a child. 

Chilled Soup: Those Healing Green Beans

The Chinese in Singapore are big believers in the healing properties of soups -- specifically, "heaty" and "cooling" soups, which either add fire to your body or cool it down, getting just the right balance of Yin and Yang. 

I know it's sacrilege to say this -- and I can already hear the clucking of my Mum and aunts who might actually read this -- but I don't give two hoots about heaty or cooling.

The most important question for me always is, "Does it taste good?"

And with green bean soup, the answer is: Yes, oh yes.

Despite my love for this sweet soup, I've never known how to make it. So, when my Let's Lunch friends, a group of intrepid cooks spread across two continents who've been staging virtual lunchdates, suggested that we make a chilled soup for our next meal, I jumped at the excuse to learn my mother's recipe.