Category Archives: recipe

Chai Latte: As Good As It Gets for a Consolation Prize

11 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Chai Latte, recipe

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Chai Latte at Brunetti
Having to give up coffee some years back meant I could no longer enjoy my daily fix of Kopi-C Ka Dai and Cafe Latte. It meant I had to join children, old folk and invalids in sipping Milo while everyone else had their kopi. And while I could sit at a coffee joint and smell the coffee, I’d have to content myself with hot chocolate or a pot of tea.  Sigh. “Catching up over coffee” has never been the same.
 
So the discovery of Chai Latte was of much comfort to me.  With its heady, spicy, aroma so uplifting, and milky sweetness so pleasant to the tastebuds, it wasn’t a bad consolation prize at all!  However, it soon became apparent that this drink was not catching on here the way I’d hoped it would.  A cup of Chai Latte is still not easy to come by in Singapore, let alone a good one.
 
Recently, Brunetti opened its doors here for the first time, and brought along with it, its Chai Latte!  Same way it’s served in Melbourne, in that little latte glass, and just as good!  It was a nice change to have the server nonchalantly note my order, since it’s more usual for my request for the drink to be met with a quizzical look.
And then over the New Year, while having breakfast at The House of Robert Timms (at Wheelock Place), I was excited to find that they too had it on the menu.  And it wasn’t half bad either.
So there is hope for me yet.  Perhaps it will finally catch on. Perhaps I will no longer have to go up to the counter and quietly order hot chocolate, feeling like the word “loser” is emblazened across my forehead.
Home-made Chai Latte

Today I tinkered about a little, trying to make some Chai Latte.  And it worked out pretty well! It felt indulgent to be sitting at home, sipping a cup of the milky, sweet stuff on a Tuesday afternoon.

For all you coffee-drinkers, this is probably completely irrelevant, but for the sad bunch like me who have to stay off coffee, you may like to give this a shot.

Ingredients

2 cups water
2 tea bags (English Breakfast, Earl Grey, Darjeeling, Orange Pekoe, whatever)
A piece of fresh ginger, about the size of a thumb, peeled and cracked
5-6 cardomom pods, cracked open
6 sticks of clove
1 cinnamon stick
4-5 tbs sugar (depending on how sweet you like it)
2 cups milk

Method

In a saucepan, boil teabags with ginger and spices in water for 8-10 minutes.
Add sugar, then add milk and bring to a boil.
Strain into cup and enjoy.

Makes 2  small coffee mugs’ worth.

Tau Yew Bak with An Identity Crisis

09 Monday Jan 2012

Posted by in Chinese home-style cooking, pork, recipe, Tau Yew Bak

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This is a dish I have always taken for granted. My maternal grandmother and aunts used to cook it, and  my mom cooks it too.  It’s always been just another one of our home-style dishes.

In my family, we refer to it as Si Yew Bak. In Teochew, which is the dialect of my maternal grandparents, dark soya sauce is referred to as si yew, whereas in Hokkien, it is tau yew. Bak means “meat” in both Teochew and Hokkien.  As this is actually more of a Hokkien dish, it is more commonly known as Tau Yew Bak.

It now occurs to me that this Si Yew/Tau Yew conflict speaks of my own identity crisis over my dialect group.  I am officially Hokkien, because my Dad’s father was Hokkien.  However, my late Mama (my Dad’s mother) was Teochew. She spoke Teochew to us. My Dad’s father had passed on by the time I was born.  As a result, I never had to learn to speak Hokkien properly.  And any Hokkien I try to speak usually comes across sounding more like Teochew.

Anyway, my version of Tau Yew Bak is actually sweeter than my mom’s. It’s really easy to do, and it’s always been a hit with friends with whom I’ve shared either the dish itself or its recipe.  Very kid-friendly too – my kids never complain about eating steamed white rice when its doused in the gravy.

Ingredients

500g pork belly, cut into 1 inch x 1/2 inch pieces
1.5 whole garlic, last layer of skin left on, and tops sliced off
2 tbs sugar
4 tbs good quality dark soya sauce
1.5 cups water
1 cinnamon stick (optional)
2 star anise (optional)
2 boiled eggs, shelled (optional)
1 tau kwa (optional)
Salt

Method

Rub salt over pork and rinse off.
In a small wok or saucepan, melt sugar on low heat until caramelised then add dark soya sauce and water (be careful not to let the sugar burn and turn bitter).
Add pork, garlic, cinnamon and star anise, bring to a boil and simmer 30 minutes.
You may add the boiled eggs and tau kwa at this stage, and continue to simmer until pork has softened, turning eggs and tau kwa midway if they are not completely submerged in the gravy.
Add salt if necessary.
Serve with steamed white rice.

Serves 4.

Note: This dish actually tastes better when it’s cooked the day before.  To spice it up a little, you may add a dried chilli or 2 into the pot together with the pork and other ingredients.

Chicken Rice: For the Culinarily-Homesick Singaporean

09 Monday Jan 2012

Posted by in chicken, Chicken Rice, hawker fare, recipe

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We were originally intending to have dinner this evening at some cze char place nearby, but after lunch I decided I would cook instead.  So I ended up making Chicken Rice, Spinach Soup, Sambal Eggplant, and Tau Yew Bak, which helped beat the Sunday Evening Blues.  (Look out for my post on Tau Yew Bak!)

Chicken Rice is probably our national dish.  And it’s often one of the first dishes which a Singaporean living abroad will miss. So this post is dedicated to all my culinarily-homesick Singaporean friends abroad.

The Chicken Rice we cook at home is based on a fairly simple recipe.  The chicken is boiled, and there’s none of the hassle of frying uncooked rice in sesame oil before cooking it. As a consequence, the rice is actually less oily, and feels a lot healthier.  I don’t think much is lost from omitting the frying, and in fact, I prefer this less-oily version of the rice.  Even without that step, you end up with very fragrant steamed rice, thanks to lots of garlic and pandan leaves.  Try it and let us know what you think!Ingredients1 whole chicken (about 1.6-1.8kg)
2 cups uncooked white rice
1 whole garlic, with last layer of skin left on and top sliced off
25 cloves garlic (segments), cracked, last layer of skin left on
2 pcs of fresh ginger, each approx 2 x 2 inches in size, peeled and cracked
7 pandan leaves, tied together into 2 knots

8 cups water
4 tbs sesame oil
3 tbs soya sauce
SaltMethodClean chicken, pat dry and rub with 1 tbs salt.
Boil water in a pot big enough to fit the chicken.
Put ginger, pandan leaves and 1 whole garlic inside cavity and place chicken into the pot, add 1 tsp salt, and cook chicken for 45 minutes.  Remove chicken from pot and set aside on a platter. Remove pandan leaves and set aside.  Remove ginger and garlic and discard. (If using a smaller chicken, reduce the cooking time, as overcooking will cause it to lose flavour).
Put rice into rice-cooker. Add 3 cups of the chicken stock into the rice-cooker.  Also add into the rice-cooker the pandan leaves, and 25 cloves garlic.  Turn on rice-cooker to cook.
Mix 2 tbs sesame oil with 3 tbs soya sauce into a bowl, and then drizzle mixture over the chicken, and inside cavity. Turn chicken over after 10 minutes and again after another 5 minutes to allow the mixture to coat the chicken thoroughly.
Once rice-cooker indicates rice is cooked, open the lid. The liquid would have dried up by now.  Toss rice with a spoon, sprinkle 1-2 tbs sesame oil and 1-2 tsp salt over it, and toss it again. (Add sesame oil and salt 1 tbs/tsp at a time, toss, then taste rice and add more if necessary, and toss again).  Ensure pandan leaves are buried in the rice and garlic segments are evenly distributed under the rice as well. If rice looks too dry, add a little more stock.  Replace lid of rice-cooker and set to cook again.  Once it is done, toss rice to fluff it, and cover rice-cooker for 15 minutes or until ready to serve.
Chop chicken into pieces, arrange over a bed of sliced cucumber on a platter, then garnish with fresh Chinese parsley (cilantro).
Serve chicken and rice with garlic chilli, or minced ginger and spring onion seasoned with salt and sesame oil.
The rest of the chicken stock can be used as a base for a wanton dumpling soup or vegetable soup. We usually add Chinese Spinach (round leaves) to make a healthy and delicious soup.

Serves 5.

Pepper-Grilled Steak with Chopped Summer Salad

23 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by in beef, Pepper Grilled-Steak with Chopped Summer Salad, recipe, salad, steak

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A refreshing Steak and Salad dish which can be served as either a starter or a main

Three of my friends from my Catholic all-girl school were coming over with their kids one afternoon for lunch.  The weather was typically hot, and I thought I should prepare something relatively light. So I decided on a simple Spaghettini with Garlic, Baby Roma Tomatoes, and Celery, and the Pepper-Grilled Steak with Chopped Summer Salad from epicurious.com.

The Steak and Salad turned out wonderfully.  We had the steak medium-rare, and it was good even when eaten cold. But the  real star of this dish was the salad.  The Feta, Red Onions, tomatoes, and Kalamata Olives gave it a tantalizing Mediterranean flavour. Very refreshing. My friend J couldn’t stop raving about how good it was.  She has asked me for the recipe.  Again. So babe,  here it is.  This is specially for you.

Note:  In place of Jalapeno, I used Thai Red Chilli. This is the long, thin, curled red chilli which is hotter than the fat, straight variety.