The Sugar Bar

The clocks have turned back, the temperature’s dropping lower and I’m discreetly reaching out for that next bar of chocolate. Kit Kat’s latest release – Kit Kat Senses is quite the treater. I say go try it if you haven’t. Huddled under the duvet in a giant fleece hoodie with a Kit Kat as I watch Hellboy then Hellboy II, my Sunday is going by quite well actually if you don’t consider the fact that I’m seeing my dissertation tutor tomorrow who is a practicing psychoanalyst — she’s terribly intimidating and I shit marbles from fear when I’m talking to her one on one!

Shitting marbles ain’t exactly the best expression for me to be putting onto the intensely parent-controlled world wide web, or a food blog that has no scatological relations whatsoever, but it’s the appropriate way to describe how freaked out I get when I’m around her. She’s amazingly intelligent and seems nice enough. There are people with big personalities; there are some with very dominating presences and some who just get forgotten by others even when standing right next to that ridiculously coloured punch bowl; some who light up the room; some who are really messed up or eccentric or hilarious. And there are just some who FREAK THE HELL OUTTA YOU – who seem to see right through you, through your eyes and into your brain then right out through the back of your head and then down your spine into your stomach and intestines. That’s right. I feel like she’s even in on what I ate for lunch. As I chatter on away nervously about Jeanette Winterson and Luce Irigaray and these big ideas on phallogocentrism, I gather she’s analyzing everything about me — my black patent Dr. Marten’s, my pseudo curly ‘bed’ hair, my shiny dark-coloured nails and the woolly tights I’m wearing that I saved from my laundry basket that very morning. Her gaze is so piercing and intense, being in the same room as her is near suffocating. Suffocating because the air that I breathe out she breathes in and holds it in and I’m like a skanky hungry rat being held from its tail by its captor, unable to run away or do anything except squeak in fear and twist its body into weird contortions in hopes of loosening its tail from those unforgiving fingers.

Yea. Yea, so…she’s not that scary, huh?

Think it’s definitely a glass of water, a couple of deep breaths before I knock on her door tomorrow. I don’t even know if I’ve got her office hours right, either. Seems I get it wrong every week. As I did last week, which resulted on me waiting patiently outside her office listening in on some sort of odd group seance.

That’s the story of my life this week. A build up of anticipation and nervousness which shall either combust into flames of stutterings or coat itself in a glossy exterior of placidity. Hence, the chocolate, cookies and Jelly Babies. I’m not stress eating! Absolutely not! Well…some might dispute that. But I don’t stress eat. It’s just about the time of the month and sugar makes me properly drugged. Sugar and chocolate get me giggly and funny in the mind. Which also seems to be telling me something – I’m addicted to the drug Sugar!

However, it’s bad that I’m consuming that much sweetie junk for lunch and so I decided to whip out the chopping board and cooking utensils to fix myself a proper lunch, which also decidedly chased away some of my stress devils. I’ve dreamed about the caramelized onions and goats cheese pizza from Pizza Express a couple of times now. Knowing I’m a little skint, I’ve recreated the flavours into a simple and rather cheap pasta dish. Honestly speaking – best bowl of pasta I’ve ever made! The caramelized onions were beautiful and a recipe I’ll definitely be coming back to for as a pizza topping, addition to burgers, etc. The choice of greens were very limited since I didn’t really do a proper shop for this and the addition of runner beans were quite random. Not complaining though since it all tasted great, made the stomach happy and filled up one of the slots for my 5 a day.

Wonder if my tutor will be clairvoyant enough to know what I ate for lunch today, tomorrow?

This recipe is just perfect for 1. Increase the amount for caramelized onions and store in fridge for later use if you like!

Pasta with Caramelized Onions, Goats Cheese, Streaky Bacon, Cashews & Greens
Ingredients

1 serving penne pasta
olive oil, for frying
1 tbs goats cheese, crumbled
2 strips smoked streaky bacon, cut into small strips
small handful of spinach leaves
4-5 runner beans, chopped
4-5 cashew nuts
salt and freshly ground black pepper, for seasoning

For the caramelized onions:
1/2 a medium-sized red onion, thinly sliced
1 1/2 tbs salted butter
1 tbs olive oil
1 tbs HP brown sauce, woodsmoked flavour
2-3 tbs water
a few drops of sesame oil
pinch of cayenne pepper
pinch of paprika
salt and freshly ground black pepper, for seasoning

Prepare caramelized onions about 20 minutes before.
Melt some butter in a saucepan. Add olive oil. When butter is all melted, add onions and let it sauté and then, sweat. Once it starts getting softer and translucent, add spices and sesame oil. Once most of the fats has started to be absorbed into the onions, add water to saucepan to loosen up the sauce that’s starting to solidify at the bottom of the pan. Reduce heat to low and let it simmer, stirring now and again. This should sit on the hob for about 5-10minutes.
Most of the water should have reduced by then. Add HP brown sauce and season a little to taste. Set aside to top the pasta later.

Toast cashew nuts on an un-oiled frying pan or on a baking tray in a preheated oven.
Boil some water and cook the pasta. In a separate saucepan of boiling water, cook the runner beans.

On another frying pan, heat some oil and fry bacon strips. Once pasta is cooked, mix the bacon strips and some of its grease into the pasta, not forgetting the runner beans and spinach leaves. Mix well so all the pasta is covered with the lovely bacon juice.

Pour out into a bowl. Crumble goats cheese over the top, spoon the caramelized onions on the top and finally the toasted cashews. Serve.

I’ve got the munchies!!

All day today, and all day yesterday, I’ve been plagued by this never-ending craving for chips, crisps, biscuits and sweeties. It’s been an awfully long time since I’ve felt this way or felt such a need to snack on something. Don’t get me wrong. Snacking is something I definitely do but this massive force or urge compelling me to trek down to the kitchen every 2 minutes is not only unbearable (I can’t bloody focus on work since I’m on the constant move for food). It’s starting to seem very suspicious. Maybe I’ve been spiked (not with a date rape drug) with the can’t-stop-eating drug!

Actually, there’s probably a more logical reason for this whole shnazzle. I’ve got a cold. I’ve been trying to fight it off for ages. It’s here, happy and healthy in my system as my white blood cells fight off the freaking cold. It’s definitely getting better but I’m told, one needs to feed a cold – thus, my voracious appetite and the bottomless stomach.

And because of Diva’s inherent greediness which is made very much worse, like feeding oil to fire, by her hungry cold, she has now accepted FREE chocolate chip cookies from strangers on the streets.

What? Did someone just call me ‘silly’? Oh…’mental’ is that what you said? No no. I wasn’t lured away to someone’s evil lair by cookies, not to worry. I got free cookies in exchange for giving away some details to Unibutler – a new freebie service for university students. Quite a cool new company that I foresee might be a competitor to the ever-dependable Studentbeans.com. And even though the cookies were worth 59p from Premier, Steph and I were rather pleased with our little freebies. To be honest, a cup of tea and a free cookie and I was sorted! It was the best thing that happened to me that whole boring day.

Do you believe in lucky stars? The human ones, not ones that form constellations. I firmly believe that Steph is my Freebie Lucky Star. When I’m with her, freebies seem to come my way. So far, I’ve had a free Cadbury Freddy and a box of chocolate chip cookies. It doesn’t seem like much and I’m really not one to go hunting after free stuff. But one must understand that Diva NEVER has and ever gets freebies. What a pleasant surprise to finally be noticed by the God of Free Things.

Anyway, the day I had free cookies was also the very day my craving for fish gave me cold turkey. I would’ve used a nice white fish for this dish – something like monkfish or haddock – but having not been able to visit the fishmonger in town and wanting not to be such a self-indulgent Epicurean, Tesco’s Healthy Living salmon fillets were mighty fine. The fillets require little seasoning except for the all-important garlic powder. Good parma ham should be used as this is what will flavour the fish and therefore, minimizes your job of having to prepare the fish really. I have a bad habit of not paper-towelling off any excess moisture off fish and so it usually results in a white liquid discharge. Forgive me for describing it as such, but it isn’t a pretty thing and you can see it very clearly in my pictures. Word of advice: cutting corners has its consequences.

The vegetables were quite messily put together and I went a tiny bit overboard on the white wine vinegar. Hence, resulting in a way too piquant plate of veggies but it seemed to cut through the smokiness and saltiness of the fish and ham. That was a relief. The fish was amazing. I might re-attempt the veggies with less vinegar but the flavours definitely worked.

Here’s a recipe good for 2.

Roasted Parma Ham Wrapped Salmon, Runner Beans & Red Peppers with Dill, Mascarpone & Pesto
Ingredients

For the fish:
2 fresh salmon steaks
2 slices of parma ham
1/2 tbs basil
1/2 tbs thyme
a few shakes of garlic powder/ garlic & herb powder
freshly ground black pepper

For the runner beans & peppers:
2 servings of runner beans
1/2 a red pepper, sliced into strips
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/2 tsp dill
2 tsp sundried tomato pesto
1/2 tbs mascarpone (or use a ready-made mascarpone & pesto combination easily available from the shops)
quick light splash of white wine vinegar
a few drops of Worcestershire sauce, to taste
salt and pepper, for seasoning
olive oil, for cooking

Preheat oven (or you can always use the grill if you prefer) to 170d Celsius.
Season salmon steaks with herbs, garlic powder and pepper. As salmon is an oily fish, I did away with drizzling it with olive oil. Wrap tightly with parma ham. I find placing the fish slightly diagonally on the parma ham a little easier but this depends on the shape and size of your fish really. You might find that you need more than a slice to each steak.
Place in a prepare foil, close over the sides and scrunch it up at the top so it looks like a little wonton. You want to be able to open up the bag towards the end of the cooking process just so that parma ham browns and crisps up at the top.
This should cook for 25-30minutes.

Towards the end of that cooking time, re-open the foil bag and let it brown up.

For the vegetables, heat some olive oil in a pan. Sauté the garlic, then add the vegetables. Add white wine vinegar. Be careful not to add too much – which was exactly the mistake I made. Geez.
Add pesto, mascarpone, Worcestershire sauce and dill. Finally, season to taste.
This should be done just about the time your fish is ready to be removed from the oven.

Plate up – placing vegetables at the bottom and fish on top. I was very tempted to serve this with chips or rice, but I’d already had the indulgence of having chicken & chips this afternoon (and a ridiculous amount of snacks, obviously) so that was not on the cards for me. Shame.

On the other hand, the meal was pretty fantastic other than the ridiculously obvious note of vinegar on our plates.

Three generations of women coming together to make dumplings. It’s almost poetic.

The first generation Chinese-influenced. The second generation Japanese-influenced. The next generation (me) Western-influenced. It was a rather thrilling experience to be in the same kitchen working on the same thing and I’m very pleased to say the results were safe to eat (since I was the one with the responsibility of boiling them) and very yummy indeed, thanks to my maternal Gramma’s guidance.

Boiled dumplings, or shuijiao (水餃), are one of the variations of Chinese dumplings, also known as jiaozi (餃子) or gyoza (with the same characters) which are the Japanese version of dumplings. The difference between the Japanese and Chinese variety is the type of skin used and the flavouring of the fillings. Japanese gyoza are more modestly flavoured with sauces and contain garlic. Chinese dumplings are flavoured with wine, soy sauce, etc. and contain no garlic. The skin is also slightly different. It is like wonton skins, having a yellow tint to it unlike its cousin – the Japanese white gyoza skin is similar to the dough used to make noodles. Nonetheless, it is common to find jiaozi with white skins in restaurants these days. 

These dumplings are rather easy to prepare. As they will form its own shape during the boiling process, no fancy wrapping style is needed or patterning at the edges. Simply seal and place in boiling water and you’ve got the real McCoy. However, as meat is involved, one must be careful and ensure that the meat is fully cooked before removing from the hot water.I love these dumplings with Chinese pulled noodles and roast pork. It’s one of the dishes I love to order when I’m at the hawker centres or food republics or kopitiams, whatever they’re fancy new names are. They’re also fantastic in hot noodle soup as the skins get all soft, silky and so delicate with an almost-melt-in-your-mouth consistency.

But I’m a fickle woman. And I have no qualms about being fickle, especially when it concerns matters of the tastebuds. There’s no trawthe or fidelity in my tale of Roman de la Rose (of my tastebuds! haha). So I’ll tell you about the delights I found in Taiwan’s potstickers…

Boiled dumplings are generally the same as potstickers except the cooking method is slightly different. Potstickers, known as guotie (鍋貼) or jianjiao (煎餃), are steamed then shallow fried and often eaten with special dipping sauces for extra kick. These dumplings are popular in Northern areas, so I’ve learnt, and often appear as a street food or appetizer in Chinese, Japanese (yaki-gyōza 焼き餃子) and Korean cuisines. Now that Gramma’s educated me in the Way of the Dumpling, I believe I won’t be running to Wagamama’s for any last minute mental cravings for dumplings – not if I can whip this up on my own, freeze and pop em out to boil whenever I want them.

These potstickers I tasted in Taiwan were the best pick-me-up of the nightmarkets. Aside from the fact that I ate loads of dorayaki in the week I was there, I had never tasted potstickers as good as these guys. Trudging through RaoHe Night Market, I was famished and knackered from walking all day. I would have fallen over like a spastic wally-brain if not for this tub of dumplings. Perfectly cooked and flavoured with a great balance of the softness of the dumpling skin but golden-brown crispiness at the edges – it was deeeee-lish! My sister insisted it was just the comforting warmth of the first cooked food we had all day that was getting me all teary-eyed about it, but I honestly doubt it. They were good, and that’s that.

The dipping sauce was poured over the dumplings. After a little research on the net, it seems the dipping sauce comprises soy sauce, sesame oil, Chinese red rice vinegar, ginger and fresh chili. It was really good since the dumplings on their own might’ve been slightly lacking.

This recipe here produces about 50 odd regular-sized boiled dumplings. You may reduce the recipe accordingly or freeze prepared dumplings for later use.

Chinese Boiled Dumplings
Ingredients

450g minced pork
350g tiger prawns, peeled and de-veined and split into half
75g water chestnuts (about 4-5), peeled, finely sliced and then chopped to fine bits
1-2 stalks spring onions, only the green lengths chopped
2 tsp potato starch
4 tbs light soy sauce
3 1/2 tbs sesame oil
2 tbs Chinese Shao Hsing wine
pinch of ground white pepper
about 300g dumpling/gyoza skins (depending on size of dumplings, prepare about 60 sheets; gyoza skins are thinner and whiter but also perfect for these)

Prepare all ingredients beforehand as this may take a while.
Place half of prepared chopped water chestnuts in a large bowl. Add rest of ingredients except prawns and mix well, pressing the starch and sauces into the minced pork till it is smooth and soft. It should start to form a rather sticky texture due to the starch.
Cornflour or cornstarch may be used in replacement of potato starch, however, potato starch is smoother and supposedly more effective. It also keeps longer in the refrigerator than cornflour.
Do not leave this to marinate as there is no need for it and instead, the pork will start to produce water.
Add rest of water chestnuts and mix in.
Prepare a small plate or bowl of water.

To make dumplings:
With 1 dumpling skin in the palm of your hand, spoon about 1/2 tbs of meat into the centre, pressing it out into a rectangular-ish shape. Place a prawn strip on top. Wet finger with water and wet the circumference of the dumpling skin. Fold over the bottom half/top half of skin to form a crescent moon and seal the dumpling. Press gently on the outside of the edges so as not to break the skin to seal. Wet any unsealed areas to re-seal dumpling.

Prepare a pot of water and let boil. Only once water starts to bubble and boil, add a little cooking oil to it. Place about 4 dumplings each time (depends really on the size of your pot) to boiling water and let cook.
Once the dumpling floats up to the surface, allow to cook for another 3-4 minutes (depending on size of dumpling) before removing from the water with a sieve or dumpling spoon.

Serve with soy sauce and sliced chili or in a bowl of your favourite noodles and noodle soup stock.