Going With My Gut

Victory Calamari

So Babs and I are standing in line at the Handpicked Shellfish Company stall at Parliament Hill Farmers Market, buying groceries before we head north to an all-day housewarming party. It suddenly dawns on us that it might be good manners to bring a housewarming present.

Shit. The train we want to catch is in an hour, so whatever we get will have to be from the farmer's market. Ok. Manageable, surely.

"How about a chocolate cake?" says Babs.

But by now we've inched forward enough to really eyeball the fish stall's briny wares. And there it is. A housewarming gift for the ages.

"How about a giant squid?" says I.

Most days Babs and I escalate each other's food lunacy. Not today.

Why. Do. You. Always. Have. To. Be. So. Ridiculous? Why. Can't. We. Just. Get. A. Chocolate. Cake. Like. Normal. People?

It's too late of course. I'm transfixed by this squid that's as long as my forearm. Maybe longer.

"Oh come on. Your friends eat squid. One of them even ate cod sperm sushi. I can clean and cook the squid for them. Plus think of the comedy value! Your friends will love it!"

Did I say cod sperm sushi? Yes it's true. But that's another story for another time.

"They're cooking! You're going to hijack their dinner party?"

"There are 8 of us! It'll be a snack! They don't have to cook it if they don't want to. I can clean it for them and they can keep it. If they actually hate it I'll take it home. I won't be offended."

(In fact I'm now starting to hope they'll hate it so I can keep it...)

"What's wrong with chocolate cake? Why can't we just get some nice chocolate cake?"

"Who says we can't get them chocolate cake? You can get them chocolate cake if you want. I'm getting them a giant squid."

I get a massive exhalation and rolling of the eyes.

***

After an afternoon of pub crawling in our friends' new neighbourhood, it's time to unveil the housewarming presents. When it comes to our turn, I usher everyone into the kitchen, hand Babs my camera to document the unveiling, make everyone close their eyes, pull Captain Nemo's nemesis from the fridge, hoist out the sucker(s) out over the sink and go...

TA-DAAAAAAAH!

 

 

Eyes open. Then widen. Shrieks ensue. Laughter. Applause. Hugs, even!

 

 

I relate the story of our mini-argument at the market. Our hostess El says, "The thing is, I can make a chocolate cake, but I can't make a squid."

Girlfriend speaks the truth!

Babs is now laughing along as well. He's very gracious like that.

 

 

I get to work gutting and cleaning and cooking the squid so that it can join the dinner table as an appetiser. I really liked the result (yes the squid as well as sweet vindication) so here's what I did with it.

 

 

Victory Calamari

Ingredients

Serves 8 appetiser portions

1.2kg squid
1 large packet panko crumbs
Fine ground salt
Fine ground black pepper
Chili powder
2 eggs, beaten
Oil for deep frying (rice bran oil is best if you can find it, but sunflower or vegetable or groundnut oil all fine)
1 key lime
A few large slices of red chilli and a few sprigs of spring onion and coriander for garnishing

 

 

Directions

Prepping the squid

If you're a seafood fan it's worth 1) buying squid whole and fresh, instead of the bland watery rubbish rubberbandy supermarket calamari rings. Do a taste test and decide for yourself; 2) Learning how to gut a squid yourself. The one and only time I asked a London fishmonger to clean a squid for me, I damn near had a heart attack. More used to customers who just want calamari rings, he threw away the best crunchy bits like the squid "wings" and a few of the tentacles! GAH! Never again.

Here's how you do it:

• Gently pull off the "wings" and set aside
• Gently pull out the head, with guts attending
• Use a knife and cut down the length of the squid until you get a large arrowhead shaped flap
• Remove any gut or mucus, and the clear-plasticky spine
• Use scissors or a small sharp knife to trim off the squid guts, eyes and beak
• If the head is large enough, separate the tentacles into singles or pairs
• Gently score the flap and the wings
• Cut rectangles of about 3cm by 2cm

Prepping the breadcrumbs

• Pour the panko breadcrumbs into a bowl
• Add salt, pepper and chilli powder to taste. On its own it should taste just a touch over-salty and over-spicy because it's not going to have a lot of time to work itself into the squid, and you're going to lose some of it in the deep frying process
• Place a small bowl with the beaten eggs next to the bowl of Panko. Make sure both are close to the stove to minimise drippage

Cooking the squid

• Fill a small saucepan halfway with oil, and turn stove to the highest flame possible and heat until the oil just starts to smoke
• Dredge a few pieces of squid through the egg, then cover lightly with the Panko
• Drop slowly into the hot oil and let fry for ~30 seconds. Use tongs and an apron to protect yourself from the inevitable hot oil splatter! I learned the hard way that hot oil can burn holes right through your clothes!
• Remove squid from the oil, and let sit on a large plate lined with a wadge of paper napkins to soak up the excess oil
• Repeat until all the squid has been fried
• Garnish with chili, spring onion and coriander, and a good squeeze of lime

Serve with just the faintest infusion of smugness. Not too much though! The sweet smell of victory can quickly turn acrid and bitter if overegged. Much better to balance it out with feggedaboudit and good grace.

And maybe some sweet chilli sauce.

Mum's World's Best Changi Beach Fried Rice

My Mum's fried rice is world's best fried rice.

There. I said it.

You'll protest. You'll campaign for some version by some relative or restaurant. Maybe it'll involve ingredients like crab, or salted egg, or salted-fish slivers. I'll nod and smile. I'll invite you to organise a taste-off. I might even really enjoy your candidate. But just so we're clear, I'm not actually going to concede anything.

Ok, I might concede that I'm a tad biased. But I'll have you know, this fried rice has been known to inspire saint-like patience among its pilgrims.

For about a decade now my Mum's been involved in a bible study organisation. They meet every week, and every year they mix up all the members in all the groups to make sure everyone circulates. Once a year, each small group gathers at their discussion leader's home for a social lunch.

Fried rice is at the top of my Mum's list of reliable party tricks, so she serves it at just about every one of these bible study group social lunches. Except she's been with the organisation so long that this year she had a few women in her group who were also in her group 7 years ago.

She took them aside at lunch to apologise for serving fried rice again.

Their response: "You don't understand. We've waited 7 years to eat your fried rice again!"

So. Even if you don't believe this is the world's best fried rice, you have to admit it's at least a bit... divine, no?

Mum's had a lot of time to perfect this recipe. She's been making it probably since the 1960s, to serve up when her entire family went to Changi Beach for their annual family picnic. Since then both the fried rice and Changi Beach have gotten more colourful, and developed more character (or characters, in the case of some notorious parking lots at Changi Beach). But the foundation stone to this dish remains the same: The rice has to be steamed and totally cooled before the frying process, so that it will stay whole and grainy when fried, rather than break down into a damp starchy goop.

Still not convinced? Ah well. As a certain Good Book said somewhere, maybe you'll just have to "taste and see that it is good".

Note: Photos here show Mum's fried rice being cooked for 16. I've halved the proportions in the text of this post so that it should serve 8. Just in case this all looks like an optical illusion!

Ingredients

6 cups white rice, cooked and cooled down the day before frying

Olive oil
5 eggs, cracked into a bowl and beaten quickly with a fork for 2 minutes until air bubbles form
3 Lap cheong (waxed Chinese sausages), finely diced. Look for these in an Asian specialist grocery. For the really adventurous, Rose's Kitchen even has a recipe to make your own!
500g small prawns, peeled and de-veined (Always save the heads and shells. Freeze them until you need to make a prawn-based soupstock e.g., tomyum soup!)
250g char siew (BBQed roast pork), finely diced. Any decent Cantonese-style Chinese diner selling roast meats will also sell this. Again, for the really adventurous, here are some char siew recipes from My Wok Life, Chubby Hubby and Rasa Malaysia if you want to try making your own
A handful of shallots, finely chopped
Salt and light soya sauce to taste

1-2 cucumbers, sliced
2-3 large tomatoes, sliced
1 small head lettuce, finely shredded
3 stalks of spring onions, finely diced
A small handful of coriander stalks, finely diced

2-3 red chillies, finely sliced
1-2 kalamansi limes, juice squeezed onto the cut red chili

Directions

• Drizzle a little olive oil into a wok on high heat on the stove
• Pour the beaten eggs into the wok
• Spread the eggs around the wok as much as possible to brown the eggs just a tad
• When most of the egg has cooked through, use the spatula to "chop" up the egg
• Remove the eggs from the wok and set aside

• Pour the diced chinese sausage into the wok, and let sit for a minute or 2, to tease the oil out of the chinese sausage
• Remove the chinese sausage from the work and set aside
• Pour the prawns into the wok, and fry them in the chinese sausage oil until about half the prawns are pink (this might be the source of the dish's divinity, me thinks)
• Add the diced char siew to the wok and stirfry with the prawns until the rest of the prawns are pink
• Remove the prawns and char siew and set aside

• Drizzle a generous amount of olive oil into the wok and let it warm up for a minute
• Add the chopped shallots to the wok and fry until the shallots start to brown
• Add the rice to the work and stir until the rice is somewhat evenly covered with the shallots

• Add the eggs to the wok. Stir until roughly even

Above: Cameo appearance by Aunty Kiew Moi, our veteran housekeeper, who's been executing Mum's fried rice recipe with aplomb for the last 30 years or so!

• Add the prawns, char siew and chinese sausages to the wok. Stir until even

• Keep stirring! Use 2 spatulas if needed. Add salt and light soya sauce to taste
• Transfer to rice cooker to keep warm

To Garnish:

• Serve up with shredded lettuce and sliced cucumber and tomato on the side
• Garnish rice with spring onion and cilantro
• Drizzle on a little cut red chili and lime juice

Bonus tip if you've read this far: If you're really serious about your audience for this dish, get this all fried up the day before you're serving it. Let the flavours sit and meld for a day, and reheat the fried rice either by steaming or microwaving (steaming preferred, to keep the prawns tender) just befor serving. It tastes even more heavenly then!

Grandma's Foochow Ang Chow Mee Sua

On the first day of every Chinese New Year my Grandma's household and ours wakes up in a cloud of the sweet warm heady aroma of ginger, garlic and chicken fried then simmered in homemade Ang Chow -- the thick residue of a wine made from glutinous rice and a vivid red yeast.

I'd tumble out of bed, and tuck into a big breakfast bowl of Ang Chow Mee Sua, this Foochow-Chinese style soupy coq au vin with blanched riceflour threads. What a start to the Chinese New Year! At some point later in the day I'd have an afternoon bowl of the same at Grandma's. And then very likely drift into a stupored nap after.

My Mum and I both grew up thinking Ang Chow Mee Sua was a traditional New Year dish. It was only earlier this year when I finally learned how to make the stuff from Mum and Grandma that we both found out that it's really a dish meant for birthdays and weddings. Grandma made it on the first day of every Chinese New Year because that was Grandpa's birthday! (That generation of Chinese usually mark their days by the lunar instead of Roman calendar.)

Above: Grandma shows Babs the ropes about rice threads at his first Chinese New Year lunch at her place earlier this year

Making Ang Chow from scratch is a disappearing art in Singapore. In the last couple of years Mum has had a regular stream of Ang Chow acolytes at home, so there's always a steady supply of Ang Chow residue and wine in her pantry. And an even steadier stream of friends and family eager to dine with my parents anytime during the year to taste the real deal, either for the first time, or to fix a craving.

For those who want to try making their own Ang Chow at home, I've documented the process here. If you already have access to some Ang Chow residue, I hope you enjoy this Ang Chow Mee Sua recipe as much as our family does.

Ingredients

Makes 6-8 servings

2 Tbs cooking oil e.g., olive, sunflower or vegetable
100g ginger, smashed
5 cloves garlic, smashed, keep skin on
10 tablespoons angchow residue
2 teaspoons sugar
1 whole chicken, chopped into segments with the bones left in. We prefer dark meat, so Mum sometimes uses just chicken legs, thighs, wings and feet
1 cup angchow wine
2 teaspoons salt
1.5 litres boiling water
1 skein of mee suah per serving

Directions for Chicken Ang Chow Soup

• Heat up a large wok on high heat and add cooking oil
• Fry the ginger and garlic for ~ 5 minutes
• Add the angchow residue and fry until fragrant but not burnt. Stir fast to prevent burning. Lower the flame if needed
• Add sugar and fry until the angchow is shiny
• Add the chicken and stir till angchow is evenly spread

• Add the salt and angchow wine
• When the mixture comes to a boil, add the boiling water
• Lower the flame and simmer for 20-30 minutes until the chicken is cooked through
• Remove the chicken pieces and keep separately from the soup, so that the meat does not disintegrate

Directions for Mee Sua

• Bring a small saucepan of water to a rolling boil
• Place a skein or 2 of mee sua in the boiling water and cook for a few minutes until soft
• Transfer the mee sua (not the cooking water) into a bowl. Add chicken pieces and angchow soup
• Add salt and extra angchow wine to taste, and serve up

Impromptu Thanksgiving in Abu Dhabi

"Okay. So. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being 'Wen you're being an idiot, just stop this nonsense now', and 10 being 'helllllllll yeeeeeeah', where would you say you are?" I asked Babs and Louise, our fabulous host in Dubai.

"Five..." said Babs, "...not that a 1 has ever stopped you."

" 'On a scale?' You are SUCH a geek. Seriously," said Louise. She would know. We used to work together in Singapore.

We were at the poultry aisle in Spinney's, a supermarket chain in Abu Dhabi. In particular, we were all staring at a trough full of frozen Butterball turkeys. It was mid afternoon on Thanksgiving Thursday, and I was testing the momentum behind my crazy idea to throw together an impromptu Thanksgiving dinner out here in the Gulf. If we went through with it, the plan was to buy a turkey now, thaw it in Louise's car outside while we chatted over cake and coffee, and hope for the best come dinnertime. Given I usually defrost turkeys overnight, there was a serious risk of serving up turkey slices for dinner and turkey popsicles for dessert.

But I couldn't just give up now. Not when we had found any turkey at all out here in the desert. I love turkey. I love its dramatic size, carving it, how its clean firm flesh is such a great canvas for gravy and cranberry. I love picking apart the carcass after dinner, gleefully anticipating a week's worth of snacks. I love turning a turkey's lovely bones into a hearty soup or congee. I loved turkey even way back when my family ate store-cooked ones at Christmas, woefully flavourless and so overcooked you choked on its dryness with every mouthful. Back then it wasn't about eating turkey at Christmas dinners, it was about drowning mostly untouched turkey slices in gravy and mozzerella to make a very messy turkey melt for days afterwards.

Then while at university in the US, I got invited to Thanksgiving dinners with various friends' families, and learnt how to cook turkey myself. Pilgrims pillaging the New World notwithstanding, I like the ritual of sitting down with family and friends with a mountain of food, and being thankful for the year's bounty of provision and affection. So I took the tradition with me back home to Singapore, and later to London, converting (or at least feeding) a few friends along the way for whom I am thankful.

A decade on from my first DIY turkey, was I about to break with my adopted tradition?

"Hey look. These turkeys are defrosted already. And they're halal!" said Herbert, our friend based in Abu Dhabi, coming back from further along the aisle.

I am thankful for Herbert!

After coffee and cake we zipped back to Herbert's flat, and within 4 hours had a gorgeous piping hot turkey (really simple turkey recipe here ) with homemade gravy and cranberry sauce and Babs's ever reliable Rockstar Roast Potatoes. Herbert even invited over a couple of his friends in town to add to the festive atmosphere.

And so, as always, so much to be thankful for as we tuck in. Just a few mentions here:

I am thankful for Louise, who housed us, smelly backpacks and all, drove us all over the gleaming desert, and sous-chefed brilliantly for dinner!

I am thankful for Herbert, who trusted us with his kitchen even though he was flying to Singapore right after dinner. I hope we cleaned up ok!

For Josh and his mother Janet (may she rest in peace), from whom I got the orginal version of the turkey recipe.

Babs's Rockstar Roast Potatoes

The key to nailing this recipe is to move like a rockstar. The key to making this recipe your own is to riff like a jazz cat.

On hitting a high note on full phat flavour: Over the last few years Babs and I have experimented with posh trendy fats such as duck fat, goose fat, and beef fat. I still prefer this olive oil and butter mix. But hey, play it your way!

Clockwise from top left: Different riffs on the basic Rockstar Roast Potato recipe -- With garlic and fried skins; with carrots and paprika; bulked up with butternut squash and courgettes and infushed with fresh rosemary; fired up with sliced red chili and cayenne pepper

Ingredients

1 large potato for each person at the table
Olive oil, preferably virgin and organic
Half stick butter, preferably salted and organic
1-2 large bulbs of garlic, peeled. Slice up ~6 large segments thinly
2-3 bay leaves
Sea salt
Black pepper
Optional: Mixed herbs, fresh rosemary, paprika, cayenne pepper, sliced red chili, other roast-ready veggies e.g. courgettes, butternut squash, sweet potato, carrots etc

Prepping the Potatoes

• Rinse the potatoes; use a soft brush to scrub off dirt as needed
• Peel the potatoes and set half of the skins aside
• Cut up the potatoes into even-sized chunks

Show Me Some Skin! (Thanks to Heston Blumenthal for the tip)

• Add a few generous swigs of olive oil to a large frying pan on medium heat (Babs insists the skins need to be "swimming" in oil)
• Add the bay leaves and sliced garlic and fry for a minute
• Add the potato skins, and fry for ~20 minutes until crispy

Parboiling the Potatoes

• While the potato skins are frying, bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil
• Put a pinch of salt and a swig of olive oil to the boiling water
• Add the potato chunks and parboil for ~15 minutes. Test by sticking a fork into one of the smaller pieces. It should be soft on the outside but hard on the inside

Rockstar Moves

• Drain the water from the potato pot
• Add the contents from the frying pan into the pot with the potatoes
• Put the lid on, secure firmly, and shake the pot like a rockstar! This will distribute the flavour of the fried potato skins, and bruising the potato chunks will help them crisp their edges while roasting in the oven

Roasting the Potatoes

• Preheat oven to maximum heat
• Move potatoes from pot to a roasting tray. Create as thin a layer as you can manage for maximum crispiness
• Grind salt and pepper evenly throughout the tray
• Add any of the following ingredients evenly throughout the tray, depending on how much you want to pimp this up: Small chunks of butter, peeled garlic segments, red chili slices, mixed herbs, cayenne pepper
• If additional guests RSVP late and you need to bulk up the dish, add any selection of raw carrots, butternut squash, or courgettes (cut into evenly sized pieces) to the roasting tray
• Place in oven and roast for ~30 minutes. Check regularly to watch the thin line between a good crisp and a nasty burn
• I've read that Jamie Oliver gives the potatoes a very light mashing and additional butter bastings at each 10 minute mark, to maximise crispness. I leave it to you to decide if the extra effort is worth it.

Easy Homemade Turkey Gravy and Cranberry Sauce

Gravy

If you're roasting your own turkey, you're already sitting on a goldmine of gravy, so don't bother buying the supermarket jar variety filled with MSG etc, and don't overfuss this easy and improvisation-friendly gravy recipe.

All you need is a couple of onions, some unsalted butter (preferably organic) and a couple of tablespoons of either white or wheat flour or cornstarch.

If your turkey came with a bag of giblets, boil 1-2 cups of water in a saucepan, place the giblets in the saucepan, and simmer on low heat for as long as the turkey cooks. You want as concentrated a broth as possible without burning the saucepan. If your turkey didn't come with giblets, so be it. No worries.

• While your turkey is cooking, thinly slice 1-2 onions
• After your turkey is out of the oven and resting on a carving board, heat a dollop of butter in a medium-sized saucepan
• Add the onions and fry for 1-2 minutes
• Add 1-2 tablespoons of flour and mix in with the onions until evenly distributed. You're much less likely to get lumps this way, compared to adding flour after you've added liquid
• Add the drippings from the turkey roasting pan. If you have giblet broth, add this too
• Simmer on low heat and stir, as the gravy thickens
• To add kick, add a splash of red wine, or whiskey (Johnny Walker Green Label worked a treat last week!)
• Add salt and pepper to taste if needed

Fresh Cranberry Sauce

(As dictated to me by Babs, who whipped this up while I was carving the turkey in the dining room)

• Put 250g of fresh cranberries in a small saucepan on medium heat
• Add "a teeny amount" of boiling water, enough to cover the bottom surface of the saucepan
• Add ~3 tablespoons of sugar
• Cook until the cranberries soften (less than 10 minutes) and stir regularly
• Use stirring spoon or potato masher to mash the berries

Simple Thanksgiving / Christmas Turkey Recipe

I've experimented with various recipes over the 10 years I've been cooking my own turkey at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I've done melted butter and red wine injections, wrapped the turkey in bacon, stuck butter and herbs between its skin and its meat, even left it to soak overnight in a Nigella turkey spice bath. For me anyway, the extra faff didn't produce a disproportional improvement in taste, so I keep coming back to this simple recipe.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

3kg turkey, preferably free range organic
1-2 apples, depending on size
1-2 mugs orange juice, preferably 100% juice
Fine-ground sea salt
Fine-ground black pepper
Garlic powder
Paprika

Seasoning and Prepping the Turkey

• Pre-heat oven to 180 deg C
• Remove little bag of giblets in turkey's cavity (if they're there)
• Place turkey in roasting tin. If your turkey has wingtips, wrap these in foil so they don't burn
• Douse 1 mug of orange juice on the turkey and inside its cavity
• Create a mixture of salt, pepper, garlic powder and paprika -- enough to rub a generous amount all over the surface of the turkey as well as inside its cavity
• Cut the apples into chunks and stuff inside the turkey's cavity
• Wrap the roasting tin tightly in foil, so that the moisture in the roasting tin can keep circulating

Cooking the Turkey

• Place turkey in preheated oven and cook for 90 minutes
• Remove foil, baste the turkey with the drippings, add the 2nd mug of orange juice if necessary
• Return turkey to the oven, WITHOUT the foil, so that the breast can brown. Cook for an additional 30-45 minutes
• Note: Cooking time will need to be extended if you're cooking a larger bird, cooking other dishes in the oven at the same time, or have additional stuffing in the turkey
• To check if turkey is cooked through, make a small incision in the breast and/or in the thigh. Juices should run clear and the meat should not be reddish pink. Return to the oven for another 30 minutes after each check if needed

Gobble gobble!

Kenyan Goat Feast -- For Farewell Floyd: Food Blogging Event

Prologue:

• First things first. This is not going to be a pretty blog post. As a meat eater I decided it was important for me to experience something like this at some point, to see if I could face the reality of the process of getting meat to my plate. Vegetarians and animal lovers, proceed with caution.

• Thanks to Julia Parsons (A Slice of Cherry Pie) and James Brewer (Back to the Chopping Board) for coordinating this food blogging event to honour the late Keith Floyd. I was heartbroken when the original deadline passed and I had not yet gotten access to electricity and internet to post this while WWOOFing on Rusinga Island in West Kenya, but was delighted to see the deadline extension. Huzzah!

• This post is dedicated to my Dad, with whom I used to watch Keith Floyd's culinary adventures around the world. We'd always have a good chuckle at his "wing it and swig it" approach to cooking and life. I'd like to think that Dad watches me undertake my many a hare-brained adventure with a similar bemusement.

• Finally, this goat feast was very much a team effort. Thanks to Michael Odula for helping us source the goat, Samuel Odula for showing Babs how to kill it with minimal suffering, our fellow volunteers Dan and Cyrill for first raising the idea, co-financing this whopping 1,500 Kenyan shilling (~£13) enterprise, and being amazing comrades-in-arms throughout our stint. Finally thanks to the kids -- Michael Jr, Tanya, Gloria et al for being fabulous team players on the day.

So. Our fellow WWOOFer Dan walks into our living room on Rusinga Island in West Kenya one day and says "Hey I heard these WWOOFers back in July bought a whole goat and BBQed it. Are you interested in us pitching in to get one too?"

I say "YES", probably about as fast as I said yes when Babs proposed. Just possibly a wee bit faster.

And then Babs ups the ante (as he does): "Yes, but only if we buy a live goat and I get to kill the goat myself."

The week leading up to feast day was surprisingly unhyped. We simply agreed on a budget for a medium-sized goat and our homestay host Michael Odula spent a morning and an afternoon asking around if anyone in the neighbourhood had a goat from their flock for sale. He appointed his youngest son Samuel to help us through the kill.

D-Day. Our goat had arrives before breakfast. We went out to find it chilling out and snacking on a bush. Samuel reckons it weighs about 50kg. I get Babs to pose next to it for perspective.

Samuel takes the goat out to a stone plateau behind the Odula house and trusses it up. Under his guidance, Babs cuts deep into the goat's throat with Dan's camping knife. The key thing here is to cut right through the jugular. It's a steady hand and a sharp blade, and the goat stops moving in less than 3 minutes. There's less of a blood spurt than we expected.

Being behind the camera provides a strange sense of detachment but it's still a fairly intense experience watching my first food-animal kill. I wasn't sure if I would feel nauseous (I didn't) or feel huge pangs of guilt (I didn't either, given the goat had lived outdoors all its life, had a quick death, and we were damn well going to eat it nose to tail.)

It could have been scarier. Had we been with a more traditional tribe, they would have cut a pouch of skin under the goat's neck to catch the blood, then drink it as part of the ritual. I'm not ready to go that native.

A moment of solemn silence, and then Babs unties the goat in preparation for the next task...

...Skinning it. This requires some help from Michael Jr (back) and a neighbour (front) to hold up the legs while gentle but firm slits are made down the middle of the belly and down each leg.

Next, the shoulders are removed at the joints -- surprisingly easily, says Babs.

And now to remove the belly flap. This is to be done with great care so as not to puncture the stomach and contaminate the meat with half-digested stomach contents.

Samuel removes the guts into one neat pile.

Samuel and Babs section the ribs and joint the legs.

A neighbourhood dog gets a treat of spleen, lungs and kidneys. Later I remove the hooves and he comes back for those. He proceeds to follow me around for the rest of the day...hoping.

Samuel and Babs do the initial round of cleaning out half-digested greens from the small intestines. There's a lot of it. The smell, while not knock-you-out overpowering, is distinct and sticks in your head. Now I can always smell a goat (or their poop) that's anywhere in a 10m radius.

And now to empty out and scrape clean(ish) the stomach....all 4 of them.

Samuel and Babs wash and scrape fat from the goatskin, then nail it as high as they can on a nearby tree in the hope that the dogs won't get to it overnight. Idiotically we forgot this when we left -- we've asked Cyrill to wear it home to Frankfurt as a cape or something. Very Heart of Darkness, no?

Mama Odula panfries the liver for lunch on her charcoal cooker. She also stews whatever goat meat bits that won't be used for the nyama choma (Kenyan-style BBQ) dinner. The stomach and guts need a long hard soak and scrub before they'll be ready for cooking.

After lunch I get down to marinading the legs and ribs. Am keeping it simple as Floyd would have done. Wash the meat thoroughly. Place in basin. Pour Coca Cola into basin to tenderise the meat. Swig the rest of the bottle. This cooking with Coke business amuses the kids to no end. Floyd might have used local Tusker beer instead, but there was none available at our neighbourhood trading post.

Anyway, back to it. Divide 4-6 large garlic cloves into thick slices, make deep incisions in the legs, and stuff the garlic into the slits. Rub a generous amount of Royco mchuzi mix, the ubiquitous food seasoning found in these parts... Royco is a Unilever powdered concoction of constarch, salt, sugar, coriander cinnamon, fennel seeds, tumeric, ginger, garlic, cumin, methee seeds, flavour enhancers -- must be MSG I reckon -- and permitted food colouring, whatever that is.

I rope in Tanya to wave away the flies while the meat soaks.

Dan and Babs dig a hole for the fire in our "front yard" and pile up twigs and branches by size. We use dried corn cobs and corn hairs for firestarters. Not that I've ever had one, but I absolutely cannot ever go back to gas BBQ grills after this.

Waiting impatiently for the fire to reach optimum heat...

And away we go! 30 minutes of grilling, turning and basting...

And then, perfection.

Samuel was quite keen about grilling the goat's testicles...unfortunately due to the coarseness of the grill mesh Samuel accidentally dropped both into the flames while cooking them. He was quite despondent.

In the Odula living-cum-dining room, Babs carves up the legs, and Mama Odula brings in the matumbo: chopped up stomach and braided intestines stewed for hours in cooking fat, tomatoes and onions (and Royco I'm sure, judging by the colour). I try a little for my honour's sake, but it holds too strong a taste and smell of grass-half-digested-in-stomach-juices for me. Babs digs it though, having grown up with innards curry.

Gloria's had enough talk! It's time to chow down. Strictly traditional nyama choma doesn't use any wussy stuff like marinade, so our garlic adds a fabulously novel infusion to the meat.

The ribs -- between the Royco and the slow fire -- are deliciously smoky. The bits between the ribs could definitely work as a jerky snack.

Mama Odula is well impressed at how tender we've kept the meat. Mr Odula asks Babs if he's ever worked in a restaurant or a hotel.

We nearly choke on our goat laughing, but we're pleased at the compliment.

More importantly, we hope we've done the goat -- and Floyd -- justice today. A toast (of Coke) to both.

(Soup) Stock Tip: Tom Yum

Above: Tom yumyumyum

Tom yum soup is my panacea for many of life's minor troubles -- blocked sinuses, tummy upsets, and lousy moods. There's something about the combined sweetness, tartness and heat that comforts and stimulates all at the same time. During a 3 month period when I was commuting weekly to the Netherlands for work, Babs would pick me up at Heathrow and we would go home via Khao San on the corner of Chepstow Road and Westbourne Park Road; my favourite Thai restaurant in London run by a lovely woman called Pan, just so I could recharge with a double-portion of her tom yum seafood soup.

I learnt how to make this from scratch so that I could stop using the processed pre-fab soup packets. Don't be intimidated by the list of ingredients, once you get them together they just need chucking together in a pot.

I've tried to stay faithful to the traditional recipe in this post, with indications of what you can get away with leaving out if you don't have a comprehensive Asian grocer nearby. Apologies to the purists in advance!

29 September update: Just discovered Joelen's Culinary Adventures's blogging event with a soup / stock pot theme, and decided I just had to add this one into the mix! My original contribution to the event is my home-made Mushroom Soup recipe.

Above: The fiery red is from prawn shells, not chillies. Some of the spiciest tom yum soups I've had have no colour in the stock at all!

For Sweetness and Richness:

• White fish skeletons (e.g. hake, bream, pollock aka colin), heads removed and set aside. Use 1 if you're making 2-4 portions; 2 if you're making a larger pot
• 2 handfuls of dried shrimp
• 1-2 large onions, quartered
• A small bagful of prawn shells or crab shells or lobster shells (Optional but try this if at all possible for a luxurious kick! Babs and I both grew up in families that had a habit of buying fresh whole shrimp, shelling them in batches, and freezing the meat and the shells separately for later use)

Above: Many thanks to Steve Hall from the Handpicked Shellfish Company for the hake skeletons, the foundation of this tom yum soup recipe

For Tartness and Fragrance:

• 8-12 stalks lemongrass, lightly bashed
• Juice from 2-4 limes (don't add the lime rinds to the stock -- it will make the stock bitter)
• A handful of kefir lime leaves (if available)
• A handful of holy basil leaves (if available)
• Fish sauce, to taste

For Heat (dial this up and down according to your taste):

• 6-10 large red chillies, lightly bashed, seeds kept in
• 4-6 birds eye chillies, lightly bashed, seeds kept in
• A handful of black or white peppercorns
• 1 large stem of ginger, skin peeled, chunked up and lightly bashed
• 1 medium stem of blue ginger aka galangal, if available, chunked up and lightly bashed
• Tip: If you've overdone it on the heat, you can mitigate the effect by adding a little sugar to the stock. Go easy though!

Directions for soup stock:

• Combine all the ingredients above EXCEPT THE LIME JUICE above in a large stockpot of filtered water
• Turn the stove heat to medium-high, boil for at least 1 hour, preferably 2 hours.
• Strain the stock through a sieve or muslin cloth
• If you're feeling adventurous, rub salt on the fish heads and cook in the boiling broth after straining for the last 15-20 minutes. Fish aficionados will fight over the lovely tender meat on the head, in the cheeks and under the collars. The jelly around the eyes is also considered a delicacy
• I have to admit, I don't know how long this stock keeps if you freeze it -- I usually plow through all of it within 1-3 days! Advice, anyone?

If Serving as a Soup Dish, Add Your Desired Amount Of...

• Slices of solid-meat fish (e.g. pollock, salmon, trout)
• Whole shrimp, peeled
• Mussels on the half-shell
• Crab or lobster meat (if you really want to pimp it up)
• Mushrooms. Purists will use straw mushrooms; I really like using sliced up fresh shitake, and enoki aka golden mushrooms, which really absorb the tom yum flavour
• Add all of the above to the stock, and cook on medium-high heat for 5 minutes at most
• Add the fresh lime juice
• Garnish with fresh red chilli sliced on the bias, and a few coriander leaves

Make A Meal of It!

I often make this as a quick one-bowl meal, if I have leftover stock from the previous day. In addition to the ingredients above, I add a couple of handfuls of kang kong aka water morning glory, or baby spinach leaves, and 1 single-serving bundle of tang hoon aka glass noodles per portion. This can all go into the stock pot at the same time as the ingredients above, as the cooking time is equally quick.

Khao San
108 Chepstow Road
London, W2 5QS, United Kingdom
+44 20 7221 9984

Handpicked Shellfish Company
Wimbledon Park and Ealing farmer markets every Saturday, Queens Park every Sunday, and every other Wednesday at Swiss Cottage.

Singapore Hainanese Chicken Rice -- for In the Bag (August)

I'd been sitting on this post, since my Mum and I made Singapore Hainanese Chicken Rice together for the first time in London when she came to visit recently. Then I saw "chicken, red chilli and garlic" as the key ingredients for the August "In The Bag" recipe competition on Julia Parson's A Slice of Cherry Pie blog, and decided to make the most of sitting around in a laundromat in Tallinn, Estonia!

Hainanese chicken rice is a signature local fast food dish in Singapore, available at just about every corner coffee shop and food court. A plate for 1 usually costs between S$2-5, depending on the fanciness of the purveyor (I think the Chatterbox Cafe at Mandarin Meritus still holds the record at S$22). Almost every Singaporean you talk to will have a personal favourite chicken rice stall -- some in very obscure neighbourhoods -- but for mainstream and Main Street diners, the ongoing tussle is between the Boon Tong Kee and Five Star chains, who for a few years stubbornly sprouted branches all over our sunny island, always on the same street, always a few doors down from the other. The great gang of guys behind Hungrygowhere.com will have the most comprehensive listing of branches.

So, when a Singaporean moves abroad, sooner or later they learn how to make this dish...or invest in a friendship with someone who does! It sparks delicious and comforting memories of home. A weekend meal with the family. A quick lunch with mates from work. A vaccination against hangover after a night of clubbing, if eaten at a 24-hour chicken rice joint (yes they exist, and I am thankful!).

What delighted me most about making this dish with Mum so far away from my native Singapore was that I was able to source almost all the ingredients from my fortnightly Riverford Organic veggie box, and Queens Park Farmers Market -- an unexpected local and seasonal treat from the UK summer!

This recipe makes 6-8 servings, so have some family or friends come on over.

The Chicken

Ingredients:

• 2 whole chickens, about 1kg each. Preferably free range and organic. These will have great tasting and muscly meat but might be missing some fat that you will need for the rest of this recipe
• 2 or 3 teaspoons salt per chicken (My Mum says 2 for health, I say 3 for taste)
• 1 medium bulb of garlic per chicken, skin left on, cloves lightly bashed
• 1 piece of ginger about 2 fingers big per chicken, sliced thickly and lightly bashed
• 1 pot half full of boiling water. The chicken needs to fit into the pot and be fully immersed, but you don't want too much water as this will mean diluted chicken stock. So you're looking for a pot that is tall rather than wide

Directions:

• Salvage whatever chicken fat you can from around the thighs, necks and butt. Set the fat aside
• Rub salt on the outside of the chickens and inside the cavities
• Stuff the ginger and garlic in the chickens. Use a toothpick to seal the cavities
• Use string to truss up the chickens (under the wings) so that you can lower them into and raise from the pot more easily
• Bring water in the pot to a rolling boil, then turn the heat on the stove down to low
• Place the 1st chicken in the pot and let it cook for 15 minutes. Raise it, let all the water drip out of the cavity, then dunk again, cook for another 15 minutes. Raise, let drip and dunk a 3rd time (i.e. total cooking time is 45 minutes)
• Repeat with the 2nd chicken
• Let the cooked chickens cool to room temperature on a platter
• Set aside the chicken broth in the pot
• Use a carving knife to remove the wings, the breasts from the breastbone and whatever meat you can from the back. Slice the breast meat thickly.
• If you feel sufficiently confidently about your knife skills, remove the bones from the chicken legs and slice thickly. Otherwise, use a sharp and heavy cleaver and chop the legs into thick slices (hopefully without chipping the bones too much)

Chicken Garnish & Gravy

• 2 cucumbers, halved, then thinly sliced on the bias
• 2 large tomatos, halved, then thinly sliced on the bias
• 1 bunch fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
• 2 stalks spring onion, sliced thinly on the bias
• ~5 tablespoons light soya sauce
• ~2 tablespoons sesame oil
• A splash of chicken broth

Combine all the liquids. Place the vegetable and herbs on the platter of chicken meat, and drizzle on the gravy mix just before serving.

The Rice

Ingredients:

• 6 cups Thai fragrant rice, preferably organic
• Chicken fat, garlic and ginger salvaged from above
• 1 small bundle of screwpine leaves (optional but get it if you can find it at an Asian grocer)
• 18 cups of chicken broth (i.e. 3 cups broth for every 1 cup rice) -- whatever is left over can be served as soup
• 1 wok, or large frying pan
• 1 rice cooker or large saucepan / pot

Directions:

• With the heat under the wok on high, heat up the chicken fat, then toss in the garlic and ginger and fry for ~1 min
• Add the washed uncooked rice, and stir-fry for 2-3 minutes, until the rice is evenly coated in chicken fat
• Fill the rice cooker / pot with the chicken broth from above
• Add the contents of the wok , and the screwpine leaves to the rice cooker / pot
• Cook for ~20 minutes, until the rice is soft and fluffy
  

The Chilli Sauce

Every chicken rice purveyor in Singapore has their house style of chilli sauce (some are known specifically for them) so depending on what floats your boat, you can dial up and down the level of heat, garlicky-ness and gingery-ness. Personally, I like a lot of minced ginger and garlic, which means I ended up with a very pale orange sauce.

• 8-10 large fresh red chillies. If you want extra kick, add 2-4 little birds eye chillies into the mix
• 1 large thumb of ginger, peeled and sliced
• 6-8 cloves of garlic, skinned and sliced
• 2-4 large limes, quartered
• 1/2 tablespoon light soya sauce
• 1/2 tablespoon sesame oil
• A few cilantro leaves for garnishing
• Dark soya sauce, served separately as per diner's taste

Combine the chili, garlic and ginger in a food processor. Thin it out with the lime juice, soya sauce and sesame oil. My Dad and a couple of my friends like to drizzle a lot of dark soya sauce on their rice -- I leave this up to you.

Plating

Garnish and sauce up the chicken and serve on a large platter. Parse out the rice, and place the chilli sauce in a large bowl with a spoon, or else give each diner a little dipping saucer.

Tuck in. Goes great with Tiger Beer!

 

Leftovers

I love to use the cold leftover chicken from the fridge for salad. Goes great with cucumbers, tomato and lettuce (try a mix of romain and butter lettuce or lamb's lettuce)

Be sure to save the chicken bones from the deboning process -- they're great for making chicken stock!

Notes on sourcing (for London / UK readers):

For chicken, I usually go to Sheepdrove Organic Farm , Clare's Organics at Notting Hill Farmers Market on Saturdays, and the Stock Farm stall at Queens Park Farmers Market on Sundays.

For vegetables, I'm a big fan of the Riverford Organic veggie box. You can order extras for your regular box as well. At the farmers markets, I usually end up at the Perry Court Farm stall.

For Asian groceries, I usually nip between Impress Food on Queensway and Tawana on Chepstow Road.

If you try this, let me know how it goes!

Olive Fried Rice, and Summer Veg Griddle & Salad

On a couple of occasions at the finca in Orgiva, Spain, Babs and I had the always-fun opportunity to whip up a meal based on whatever was already in the house and on the land.

The above was a happily successful experiment inspired by the tubs of the unused olive harvest from the winter sitting around in the kitchen and living room, and vague (and delicious) memories of Teochew and Thai olive fried rice.

With 6 cups of rice for 8 diners we thought we might have over-catered as usual -- given there were 2 kids among us -- but the only leftovers was a tiny snack for Zumbar.

Olive Fried Rice

Serves 8

6 cups of brown rice, preferably organic
1 medium bowl of brined olives, pitted (if not already pitted) and finely chopped
1 large onion (about the size of 2 joined fists), finely chopped
1 bulb of garlic, skinned and finely chopped
1/2 cup olive oil, preferably extra virgin and organic
Salt and pepper to season

• A lesson from my mother: The key to frying rice is to fry already-cooked and cooled-down rice, so that the grains don't break up while being tossed about in a wok. So steam your rice at least a few hours ahead of frying or even the night before
• Cook the rice in a rice cooker. If cooking in a pot, use 3 cups water for every cup of rice. Combine the rice and water. Drizzle olive oil and sprinkle salt. Turn the stove heat up to high. When the water boils, turn the heat down to as low as possible, and cover the pot. Depending on how much husk is left on the rice, it can take anything from 15 to 45 minutes to cook. Check by fluffing with a fork and tasting. If it's absorbed all the water but still crunchy, add a little boiling water. If it's cooked but too wet, drain the water and let the stove heat dry the rice for a few minutes
• To fry, add the olive oil to a large wok or pot, turn the stove heat on high and heat for a couple of minutes
• Add the chopped onion and garlic, and fry for a couple of minutes
• Add the olives, and continue frying until the onions goes translucent
• Add the rice, and continue frying until the rice is roughly equally stained by the olives
• Add salt and pepper to taste, and serve up!

To pimp this dish up, consider adding chopped basil. A more traditional Teochew or Thai rendition would likely involve adding minced pork. If going down this route, season the minced pork with light soy sauce and white pepper, and add to the wok after the onions and garlic but before the olives and rice.

Summer Veg Griddle and Salad

For the veggie griddle, I sliced up a few courgettes and red and green peppers (eggplant would work well too) into flat strips, laid them flat on a tray, drizzled olive oil and sprinkled salt, ground black pepper and dried basil and oregano and left it to sit for ~1/2 hour.

Turn the stove heat on medium-high under a griddle pan. Place a layer of the sliced veggies on the pan and leave for 3-5 minutes, then turn over. Continue until you get your desired level of softness and charred-ness.

You can also grill the veggies on an outdoor BBQ, or in a roasting tray in the oven, if you already have one or the other going for a large meal. Both should take about 15-20 minutes, though the roasting option is less likely to produce the smoky and singed-skin effect.

For the salad, dice up some cucumbers and tomatoes (depending on the size of your dining party), add a sprinkle of chopped onion, and drizzle olive oil, a good squeeze of lemon juice or a dash of vinagrette, and a sprinkle of dried basil and oregano, salt and cracked black pepper. Mix, and serve up.

Beef Butchery Class Booty Part 1 - Roast Dinner and Gravy

As promised, the recipes for what I did with the booty from The Ginger Pig Beef Butchery Class. Part 1 was a roast beef dinner as a farewell to friends from work.

Roast Beef Dinner

Slightly controversial for those who are disciples of the simple salt and pepper marinade, but what I like to do for beef roasting joints and steaks, is to do a 2-3 day marinade in a ziploc bag of light soy sauce, a splash of sesame oil, a generous dash of garlic powder and ground black pepper. From time to time I've also added a splash of red wine or port just for kicks.

Make sure the beef starts cooking from room temperature, so take out the joint a few hours before oven time.

Bed a large roasting tray with a layer of thick-sliced onoins and skinned garlic gloves, and a few sprigs of rosemary. Lay in the joint, and wrap the top of the tray tightly in foil. Roast in the oven at 160 deg C / 300 deg F. This particular joint took just under 2 hours, but cooking time varies greatly with the size of the joint, whether or not it has a bone in, the pecularities of your oven, and what else is cooking in the oven at the same time (e.g. roast potatoes). And of course, how rare or cooked you like your meat. Ochef gives a good lowdown on all the permutations and combinations of temperatures and times.

An observation (especially for those who like their meat on the rarer side) is that heat continues to conduct through the meat while the joint rests after cooking. So to be conservative, cook it for a little less time than you think it needs. You can always leave it in a little longer if you decided it needs it, but once it's overdone, you can't bring it back!

Gravy

After roasting the joint, spoon out the onions and garlic from the roasting tray into a saucepan. Sprinkle in 1.5 tablespoons of flour and stir for a minute, then pour in the roast drippings and whatever leftover marinade liquid was in the ziploc bag. Stir until you get a smooth consistency. Season with salt and pepper if needed.

If you like, pimp up the gravy by sauteeing some sliced mushrooms along with the onions and garlic, before adding the drippings.

This time around, we served up with sauteed spring greens and red cabbage, and a vegetable roast of potatoes, courgettes and butternut squash.

Lobster Mobsters

Maybe it's just The Sopranos talking, since I've been watching the series in marathon sessions as a start-of-sabbatical treat, but let's face it, when it comes to lobsters, we the Soh family are known to be quite... mobster-ish. This most recent stint at Cape Cod saw my brother's buddy Chok getting an initiation, and Babs officially getting added to the books.

The Ambush
Our convoy pulls up at Joe's Lobster Mart in Sandwich, MA, and we stride in ala Reservoir Dogs.

I immediately start shooting (with my camera). My parents hang back, letting the other customers clear out with their little 1 or 2 fish-fillet bags.

Then we state our demands (politely). Four 3.5 pounders. Three 2.5 pounders. Please. We decide to give the 16-pounder mascot (below) a free pass.



We bag 'em, throw them in the trunk, drive home, then toss them in the cold room to keep 'em quiet. A spectacle of crustacean terror that would repeat with variations for the rest of the week.




In Hot Water
The first night we kept it simple. Large pot, half full of fast-boiling water. 10 minutes for the first pound, 3 minutes for each pound after. The humane among you can follow Laura Karwisch's step by step guide to killing the lobster just before it goes into the pot. And only just before please, otherwise you might be called a gavone.


Pinchey sleeps with the fishes



Chok goes to work on Pinchey

The dinner deed is done. Their shells are empty, their heads scraped, their legs in tatters. But we ain't finished yet. Back into the pot they go, with water to cover them, and a couple of glasses of white wine. Boil down until the concentration suits your taste (once on the boil I tend to turn the heat down and simmer for at least 2 hours). Stock to die for, for the rest of the week.

The Grilling

Later in the week Babs decides to do a number on 3 of them on the grill.

Boil as above for 3-5 minutes (until they stop moving), then split them wide open from the bottom.

Rub mixed herbs and butter (preferably organic salted butter) onto the wound. Grill them on their backs on the BBQ for another 10-15 minutes until the meat is opaque and the roe (if any) is a bright vermillion.

Hacked Lobster Noodles
It's our last night on the Cape, and we feel like Chinese. This time Mom gets in on the stabbing. Then Babs cleans up by hacking them to pieces on the deck. He comes back into the house a little slimy, a little shaken, but definitely with stripes. It was a spectacular comeback from the Nov '07 faux paux where he asked me at a family dinner in Boston if I wanted to share a 1-pound lobster with him. Honestly, if he weren't already a friend of mine...

Mom fries them up in a giant pot (a wok would be preferable if you prefer the dish to be less wet) with plenty of chopped garlic and ginger, and finger-length cuts of scallions. At the end, toss in pre-boiled noodles of choice, cooked al dente (the noodles will soften a bit further when tossed with the lobsters). Season with pepper. Add salt only if the lobsters don't provide enough brine.



Chok – who apparently had not eaten a whole lobster by himself until this week – thanked Mum and Dad before getting on the bus back to New York.

Fuhgeddaboudit.