A Tiger In The Kitchen

Lantern: A Tranquil Beacon

Singapore can feel so densely packed and swathed in concrete that it's hard to find a place that's truly tranquil.

The moment we stepped out into Lantern, the rooftop bar at the newish Fullerton Bay Hotel, however, we knew we'd found one. The 360-degree view of the city -- with the Marina Bay waterfront on one side and Singapore's towering skyline on the other -- was breathtaking. The blue glow emanating from the hotel pool was immediately calming. I could almost feel my heartrate slowing as I heard the sound of the live band's strumming guitars drifting over. 

Just minutes before, I was outside the hotel, tiptoeing between cars and nudging my way past financial district pedestrians to get to the hotel. But now, just minutes later, my friend Vino and I found ourselves in idyllic waterfront bliss.

We decided to stay for a moment to check out the scene...

Birthday Noodles: To Sweetness & Longevity

One birthday is good, but two is always better.

Growing up in a Singapore, a country that follows the lunar as well as the Western calendar, celebrating two birthdays each year was always a given. Cake, flowers and presents are lovely for Western birthdays. But for lunar calendar birthdays -- or Chinese birthdays, as my family calls them -- things are several notches simpler. The star of this show is always a bowl of noodles, symbolic of longevity, a pair of hardboiled eggs, representing fertility or life. And all of this comes in a sugary soup -- "so the whole year will be sweet," as my mother says.  

For too many years in America, my Chinese birthday -- which I'm fortunate to be able to remember easily because it falls on Diwali each year -- passed with little fanfare. Sure, my parents would call New York to wish me well. But the noodles, the eggs and the sweet broth -- that always seemed like just a little too much trouble.

This year, however, as Diwali began today, I found myself temporarily stranded in Singapore due to unforeseen circumstances. So for lunch, my mother had a little treat planned: birthday noodles. "You must eat this," she said. "For luck."

Kok Kee WanTon Noodle: Battling a Memory

"It is impossible," my Singaporean chef friend Willin said to me one day, "to please everyone when you make wanton mee."

This Cantonese-style noodle dish, which is ubiquitous in Singapore, is usually served dry, with the broth in a small bowl on a side. The thin yellow noodles come swimming in a salty sauce that's usually some combination of soy sauce, a sweet and dark thick soy sauce, sesame oil and, perhaps, oyster sauce. Slivers of Chinese roast pork, vegetables and wantons (which is how wontons are spelled in Singapore) are scattered on top and a smear of chili sauce is scooped onto the side for added fire.

There is one fundamental problem with wanton mee, according to Willin. It's fairly easy for hawkers to make and there are so many variations on the dish out there -- each hawker center in Singapore usually has at least one, if not two or three, stalls selling just wanton mee. The noodles could be more al dente at one place; the gravy could be thicker and saltier at another. The wantons could be soft, boiled versions or crispy and deep-fried.

"Everyone ends up loving the exact kind of wanton mee they grew up with," Willin says. "So unless you're making that exact kind, they're not going to love it."

It's an interesting perspective, but I still wasn't sold -- until I trekked to a spacious hawker center in Singapore's Lavender neighborhood to sample the dish at Kok Kee Wanton Noodle, a little stall that had come highly recommended by some of the most discerning palates in Singapore...

 

Teochew Mooncakes: A Big Tease

This time last year, I was in Singapore, learning how to make mooncakes, learning about my family.

The lessons in the kitchen were both informative and intense. Along with their braised duck recipes, the women in my family imparted their tales, their advice. I won't go into detail -- you'll just have to buy the book when it comes out in February.

But I found myself thinking about my aunties and their life lessons as the Mid-Autumn Festival (which falls today) approached and mooncakes began appearing in Chinatown stores. The celebration, also known as the Mooncake festival, marks the day that the moon is supposedly the brightest during the year. In Singapore, we also call it the lantern festival because it's the night that children wielding lanterns in the shape of dragons, dogs, even Hello Kitty, take to parks and playgrounds to create a river of bobbing lights. 

In China, the celebration also commemorates the 14th Century rebellion against the reigning Mongols. Members of the resistance spread word about their planned uprising via notes tucked into cakes, which they smuggled to sympathizers.

While I learned to make traditional mooncakes in Singapore -- filled with lotus seed paste and salted egg yolks -- my aunties also taught me a version that's indigenous to my Chinese ethnic group, the Teochews. Filled with sweet mashed yam and wrapped in a decorative rippled fried dough, these "mooncakes" were simpler, less cloying -- and just lovely with a hot cup of Oolong. 

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 ...

Kitchen-Sink Stir-Fry: Spring Cleaning Your Fridge

 

It's hard to think about spring when there's still snow on the ground in New York. But one must be optimistic -- which we are over here in the Let's Lunch crowd.

Fresh off our breathless postings on aphrodisiac-laced dishes in February, our thoughts immediately turned to warmer times as we debated what to make next for our monthly virtual lunch date.

How about "spring cleaning (the fridge?)" Stephanie over at The Cosmic Cowgirl suggested.

And so, kitchen-sink recipes to help you springclean your fridge it was.

Now, since I have several solid grocers (and one neat butcher) within a 2-minute walk of my Brooklyn apartment, I tend to buy as I cook. (I've never really been one to stock up my fridge like there's no tomorrow, anyhow.)

Nonetheless, there are a few basics that I must always have in my fridge: Bacon, tofu and some sort of ground meat, usually pork or beef.

Bacon is a wonder that must be consumed on its own, in my book. (Or, in a bacon explosion. Or a BLT. Or ... I digress.)

But what to do with tofu and ground pork? The possibilities are endless ...

Iggy's: Nailing A Compulsory

There is, I recently told my friend Willin, a gaping hole in my Singapore dining repertoire.

Together, Willin, my eating partner, and I had savored saccharine Japanese tomatoes paired with fiery horseradish granita at Fifty Three, nibbled on parmesan and squid ink breadsticks at Jaan and demolished slabs of foie gras encrusted with crumbled candied almonds at Gunther's Modern French Cuisine. And one afternoon when I dared to cheat on Willin by lunching with another, I'd gotten a clandestine rush from a decadent chocolate dessert at Les Amis that had been inspired by after-dinner mints.

In my bid to become comprehensively schooled in Singapore fine dining, however, one name was still missing from the list: Iggy's, a little place in the Regent hotel that is regarded by some as the best restaurant in the country. (Its regulars include the wife of Singapore's prime minister -- enough said.)

It's time, I said to Willin. 

And soon enough, we found ourselves bellying up to the gleaming bar at Iggy's ...

Nam Seng Noodle House: Old School Wonton Mee

 
It may sound shallow, but the name of a hawker in Singapore can sometimes be an easy way to tell how good its food is.

If the place is known by or bears the name of a locale that's nowhere near its actual location, that's often a sign that you should just drop everything, get in line and order something. Once a hawker stall has made its name somewhere, after all, its faithful will want to follow, wherever it ends up.

The much-beloved Hill Street Char Kway Teow, for example, is currently parked in Singapore's Bedok area, nowhere near Hill Street. And one of the best places in my parents' neighborhood for ta meepok, a dish of spicy tagliatelle-like noodles tossed with fishballs and pork, is named Jalan Tua Kong even though, frankly, I have absolutely no idea where Jalan Tua Kong is.

So when I started hearing about the "Old National Library" wonton mee shop -- now situated near Singapore's financial district, far from the former central library -- I knew it was a must.

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. 

Oyster Omelette (Or Luak): The Food Of Love

 

Food, love, passion. They've always been intertwined for me.

Sure, diamonds and Louboutins are perfectly nice and all that. But a man who knows how to feed you well? Now that's truly priceless.

I've been thinking about why that is the case ever since my Twitter Let's Lunch bunch, a global group of cooks who have a monthly virtual lunchdate, decided to put together aphrodisiac-laced dishes in honor of Valentine's Day. In a story this week in the New York Times, food researchers say that the powers of aphrodisiacs have been rather exaggerated. Very few of the usual suspects -- asparagus, chocolate -- have proven to be able to boost the libido, apparently.

But how else to explain oyster-induced tinglies or the quickening heartbeat that truffles inevitably seem to cause?

Science be damned. I'd rather carry on believing in the potent sexual powers of food, thank you very much.

For my Let's Lunch afternoon delight, oysters immediately came to mind. They've gotten me into trouble more times than I choose to remember. And, they've also long been regarded as aphrodisiacs perhaps they're filled with zinc, which is a key nutrient for testosterone production.

Besides, there's a Singaporean fried oyster omelette dish that never fails to get my heart racing at the mere thought of it. 

Just like it can be with love (or what comes after love), however, this dish proved to be a little tricky to pull off ...