The Sugar Bar

Although it’s technically our summer holiday, I’ve been busy. And no, it isn’t just socializing. It’s about packing, buying presents, shopping for themed party costumes, sorting out next year’s rent and planning moving logistics. It’s slightly crazy and ‘eating’ away at my time for cooking and baking. But then again, I did spend the whole of last week FEASTING. And by feasting I really mean gorging myself on bbq after bbq, pizza express, Strada at The Mailbox, loads of gelati from Morelli’s, that kinda thing. Unfortunately, all that fantastic indulgence has resulted in a pot belly and a lack of posts on my blog.

Due to the parties and other preoccupations such as learning to deejay from Alex (as if I really did learn), nearly crashing his Ferrari laptop, sunbathing, playing pseudo volleyball,etc. I have not been catching up enough with the food blogosphere. Lots of catching up to do indeed.

I have received a couple of emails about the Beauty and the Feast. Again, thank you all who participated. I’ll think about whether I’ll continue the challenge. I’m not too sure about it as it was pretty much a once-off thing. Let me know what you think and I’ll see how it goes, depending on the response.

Trying to do quickcook meals is the new cool and highly essential when you can hardly find time to sleep and housekeep because of a busy schedule. So here’s a post dedicated to Japan’s fast food! At least I think it is since I used to see boxes of yakisoba loads at train stations for quick takeaways and in my mind, that’s definitely ‘fast’ food.
I love yakisoba. Tasty and really quick to make. The sauce is really the essential bit that marries everything together. If I’m not wrong, yakisoba sauce is quite easy to find pre-made in bottles. I looked through some recipes online for yakisoba sauce and they required oyster sauce which gives fantastic flavour. I’m sure you can find vegetarian oyster sauces made with, what was it, mushrooms? But I’m not too sure if it’ll taste exactly the same as the real thing. Doubt it. I’ve chose to go for a vegetarian yakisoba sauce, not because I’m iffy with oyster sauce. I love it! But I don’t have any in my pantry. I haven’t really tried to make traditional yakisoba by using all the right ingredients but have instead thrown it all together with what I have lying around and that’s bordering on rotten.

Don’t be put off by the name ebi sakamushi either. It is so simple and flavourful and hardly requires any thinking. It is basically sake-steamed prawns. You can use drinking or cooking sake. Either way it gives off a lovely smell and infuses the prawns in a sweetness, enhancing its naturally sweet flesh with tinges of malty rice flavour as well. I really like this and makes a great appetizer too. I placed the prawns in paper nut cups and popped them into a bamboo steamer which made them easy to serve out onto individual plates. This also helped the prawns to cook in their own juice without the sake flowing away.

Here’s a recipe that yields 2-3 servings.

Vegetarian Yakisoba with Ebi Sakamushi
Ingredients

2 tied portions of soba noodles
1/2 cup sliced cabbage
1/2 cup thinly sliced green peppers
1/4 cup thinly sliced carrots
2 small onions, sliced

For the vegetarian yakisoba sauce:
1/4 cup shoyu
80ml rice vinegar
3 tbs mirin
1 tbs Worcestershire sauce
3 heaped tsp sugar

For ebi sakamushi:
1/2 cup large king prawns
2 tbs sake

To prepare the sauce first, whisk all ingredients together in a bowl and set aside.

Now cook the noodles in hot water. Once cooked, run under cold water and set aside. You can leave them soaked in cold water to prevent them from sticking.

Heat some oil in a large frying pan. Golden brown the onions, then add all the vegetables and stirfry. Next, add the soba noodles and the yakisoba sauce. Fry until all the sauce has been absorbed into the noodles. It might get a little sticky due to the sugar caramelizing but that’s fine. If you prefer not to have your noodles uber sauced-up, you can use about 2/3 of the prepared sauce and fry on high heat.

For the ebi sakamushi, simply place prawns in nut cups and pour the sake over the prawns into the cup. Steam until prawns are cooked through and bright pink.

Serve noodles with sesame seeds, gari pickles (optional) and the prawns on the side.

Ah, the ‘green fairy’. Our legendary drink. A double-edged sword that triggers both gaiety and melancholy.

There’s always been so much talk about this once elusive and yet not difficult to procure spirit, especially if you think along the lines of its debatable hallucinogenic properties. Now that it has become popular once again (and relatively easier to source) in Europe and throughout the rest of the world, it’s not difficult to trace its history and connections with many past intellectuals and writers – among them one of the writers I’d like to think I’d get along pretty well with, Oscar Wilde.

At the beginning of the 19th century, absinthe was labelled a working class drink and was easily one of the cheapest spirits available to the despairing and the poor. Edgar Degas’s Absinthe depicts the drunkard and the prostitute as key exploiters of modern consumption and places them aptly within the modern space for consumption — the bar, where an easy outlet of release lies in the tempting green arms of the absinthe drink. Apart from its association with such underground figures and its worrying harmful side effects, absinthe became less the powerful drink that represented escapism and despondency and more the symbol of a degenerate society spawned from modernity itself.

‘the perfect example of Second Empire capitalism, a mass-produced, commercial, and rather fraudulent concoction taken over from le peuple, creating money for its suppliers and for café proprietors’ – Herbert, 1988

From the mid-19th century onwards, absinthe became the fashionable aperitif and the drink of choice amongst the bourgeoisie. A whole hour, known as the Green Hour, was even dedicated to it. Furthermore, absinthe was appearing often in the paintings of Manet and Van Gogh. Artists and poets were consuming it in large quantities as well. No surprise why the age of decadence was later criticized, paid tribute to and immortalized by many decadent poets.

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If you have yet to hear of the B55 shot, you might be familiar still with its cousin the B52 shot.

B55
Ingredients

1/3 Sebor Absinthe (one of the most affordable ones out there)
1/3 Baileys Irish Cream
1/3 Kahlua

If you’re not too skilled in preparing layered shots, pour the spirit onto a slanted spoon into the shotglass slowly so as to keep the layers neat.
Begin with kahlua at the bottom, followed by the Baileys and lastly the lovely green absinthe.

B52
Ingredients

1/3 Grand Marnier
1/3 Baileys Irish Cream
1/3 Kahlua

Similar preparation: Kahlua at bottom, Baileys in the middle and topped off with Grand Marnier.

Personally I prefer the B55. It has a nicer finish. Contrary to popular belief, good absinthe isn’t bitter at all. This shot, combined with the milky richness of the Baileys, with its flavours deepened with kahlua, will leave you with a delightful tasty trail of absinthe at the end, tantalizing you with its distinctive refreshing, almost herby taste. And although common absinthe is bottled at about 55% alcohol, a B55 shot will not leave you hallucinating or off your face at any one point (unless you have a crazy boat of 9 shots or more).

Absinthe connoisseurs can stick to the traditional way of enjoying absinthe neat or louched with water, with a sugar cube or no. The radicals can set it alight and the modern creative souls out there can enjoy them in layered shots, ice cream sundaes and cupcakes, etc.

However, with freedom comes restraint (as so we learn from Julius Caesar). Therefore, remember moderation is the keyword here.