The Sugar Bar

After the red velvet, kuromame (black sesame), matcha and kinako, my one other love is sweet potato! Particularly, the elusive and rather expensive purple-fleshed variety. Many regard the sweet potato as a wholesome and vitamin-stuffed carbohydrate, a lovely alternative to the regular spud in bangers and mash or a flexible ingredient used in both savoury and sweet dishes or snacks. For us, me & my family & Singaporeans in particular, sweet potatoes are a very humbling edible root. And they are symbolic of the Japanese Occupation during WWII.

Sweet potatoes were (and for some, still are) a common root vegetable grown in back gardens, etc. A hardy root, sweet potatoes can grow in many types of soil and rarely need pesticides. It is commonly known to us as belonging to that category known as ‘poor man’s food’. But like all poor man’s food, they are not only cheap and easy to grow and cook but delicious as well. They lose very little of its beneficial elements after cooking too. Both the root and its leaves can be eaten. Sweet potato leaves fried in belachan is a common Malaysian, Singaporean nyona dish that’s fragrant and quite gorgeous.

During the Japanese Occupation when rice was scarce and rationing was implemented so as to feed starving families, people were encouraged or forced to use whatever land they had to grow tapiocas, yams and sweet potatoes. However, sweet potatoes were the most commonly grown and the one root that is to today still almost immediately associated with WWII. As my gramma says, it was a sweet potato for breakfast lunch and dinner every day of the week and sometimes there wasn’t even enough to go round. There were even some people whose legs swelled up and became too painful to walk from such an imbalanced diet and malnutrition. Today, although sweet potatoes form the basis of many delicious treats, desserts and savoury dishes, when cooked in the most simple way – washed and scrubbed, then steamed and broken into 2 to share amongst family members – they are symbolic of the pain and suffering our ancestors (living or dead) had to go through during the Japanese Occupation.

On a lighter note, a favourite Chinese dessert of mine is the sweet potato ginger sweet soup. My maternal gramma once cooked it for me after a day at kindergarten but instead of using the local orange-fleshed sweet potato which can be found at all markets and bought for cheap, she’d used a purple-fleshed sweet potato that on cooking had dyed the soup a light pinkish purple. As I remember it today, it was a REAL treat! How different that soup was and although it didn’t exactly taste vastly different, its vibrant colour certainly gave it a special twinkle. Somehow, as the years have passed and I’ve grown up, finding these purple-fleshed potatoes are like searching for a needle in a haystack. My father, who used to have a little farm patch of his own and had started growing vegetables and sweet potatoes as a young boy of 12, reminisced of his days of attempting to grow the perfect purple potatoes.

Unfortunately, these purple potatoes are ridiculously hard to find here in Singapore. Instead, Australian orange-fleshed ones and the yellow-fleshed purple skin Japanese sweet spuds are increasingly popular in local markets. The purple-fleshed spud is nowhere in sight, not even a trace! Nevertheless, these purple spuds which are known as murasaki imo in Japanese are also hard to find even in Japan, being only available at certain times of the year in select supermarkets. Over the weekend, we were lucky to stumble upon these at Isetan which bring these in only once a year. They timed it well I suppose, since it coincided with their Okinawan food fair.

You can imagine my happiness…to have found my purple Queen once again.

Beni Imo Dango (Deep-Fried Sweet Potato Dango)

Sakura Daifuku with Anko Filling from Sun Moulin bakery

And with these treats we took home, I proudly declared it tea time!

Now, to fully and very completely satisfy my purple imo cravings, I need to go find me this! Pocky…oh, it shall take me back to my childhood and high school days – chomping down on stick after stick during a boring lecture. Bliss. Next on my agenda: find a way to plant these beautiful spuds in my own garden. With our ridiculously hot weather, fertile soil and green-fingered parents, we might be able to successfully harvest my purple Queens.

I haven’t eaten a piece of cow meat for a long time. Translated: I haven’t had beef for months. Yes. It’s madness. Think of that as a teaser, ponder upon that ridiculousness for a bit whilst I beat around the bush…and no, I’m hardly the vegetarian.

The past week’s weather has been drop dead gorgeous and hopefully mentioning that hasn’t jinxed it for this week (probably has by now). Sunny and beautiful as it was, however, I got deceived by it all a couple of times thinking a lighter jacket was more than warm enough for me to step out into the sun. Mistake. More often than not, that first step out into the cold, similar to a newborn baby’s noisy entrance into the world, was followed by general shrieking, long strings of cussing and unattractive groans and grrrs from me. Chanting ‘suck it up’ in my head, I spend about 5 mins racing through the cold to warm up and literally walking only in the sunny areas, avoiding all shadowy spots at all costs to get as much warmth as possible. Through the day, I’ll catch myself jerking uncontrollably when a big cold gust of wind comes a-blowing. Travelling between uni, work and home then, I find myself constantly thinking of warm, comfort foods as a way to encourage myself and as incentive to get those icy feet moving quickly to take me home. It certainly is most effective and definitely keeps the strangers from talking to you (I’m that engrossed in my thoughts you see).

I am happy nonetheless with this generous amount of sun we’ve got the past week and it has made the week so much bearable despite the looming deadlines and the awful stack of readings to do. And as the saying goes, good things come in pairs, so did a nice surprise come along with this beautiful sun – some very high (for The Sugar Bar at least) views for 4th March. Because they exceeded my expectations, I rewarded myself with some lovely fresh and tender stewing beef from Waitrose and got set to working on a nice hot stew to keep that bone-chilling cold away as well. In Chinese culture, having meat on the table is representative of how fortunate a family is and is partially reflective of the wealth of that family. In Korea, beef is quite a luxury and eating it becomes an occasion. So I suppose, it wasn’t such a strange thing to reward myself with beef after all! Especially since I hardly ever buy red meats in my weekly shop, finally buying some made it feel all that more special. It’s not that I don’t eat red meat. I actually love a good medium rare steak and other red meats like pork and veal. It’s just that I think cooking red meats require more effort and so never really bother to get them since I can never be sure when I have the time to cook a meal or not and dare not risk having nice meat go bad in the fridge.

I did think at first that a 22 year old like me should probably be buying nail lacquers and pretty notebooks as a reward not packets of bloody red meat from the delicatessen. It just didn’t quite fit the bill but then again, I doubt that ever bothers me; and I’m quite happy to say foodbloggers are a unique species of their own with priorities set right to a tee, fine senses highly tuned and dedicated to the arts of eating, cooking and food-shopping. So why not the beef?! Just chuck it in the shopping basket already now! By the time I’d finished my shopping and was eagerly waiting to pay at the check-outs, so hungry I was all bloodshot eyes and nearly frothing at the mouth, the basket was exploding with root vegetables, baguettes, bitter chocolate, beer and herbs, etc. I didn’t need a sign on my forehead to alert the passersby and fellow Waitrose shoppers that this Diva here was as dangerous as a rabid dog and as ravenous. Minimal chit chat with the lovely lady at the checkout till, quick goodbye and outta there like a flash. Then home, out comes the chopping board. Bang bang chop chop chop and turn on the hob.

Then here comes the biggest joke of my life. Check recipe – stew needs to cook for at least 6 hours. Ok, put lid on and move on to ‘light’ snacking. Had to reprimand myself for not putting the stew on earlier. Panic not though as here’s when I whack out another saying: Good things come to those who wait.

I waited.

And when I was done waiting, it was good. Thoroughly impressed with this recipe which is such a great find from The Parsley Thief blog. Definitely one of those that I’ve saved for future use, especially for meal times with the family. I think Dad will be very happy to find a stew like this at the dinner table. What a meat man. Not really a Guinness man but he’ll appreciate the blokish-ness of this dish. Plus bitter chocolate sure gives it such a cool edginess I think the rest of the girlies in my house will adore it. Mum may find that addition dubious – she’s the only woman I know who doesn’t like chocolate. Real tough to please when it comes to homemade birthday cakes I tell you – but this isn’t a chocolatey stew and it’s not so strong like a Mole Poblano. I don’t think I could really taste the chocolate but I bet I would taste a real difference and have seen a big difference in colour if I hadn’t added it.

Something I discovered when making this, Green & Black’s Cook’s 72% dark chocolate is heaven. It’s even better than the dark chocolate from their regular range, in my opinion. It might be because it’s a lot richer and more bitter for cooking purposes than the eating chocolate which is totally up my alley. It was good. I might just stick to buying Cook’s chocolate from now on to satiate my dark chocolate cravings.

Just sent this in to Daily Spud‘s Paddy’s Day Food Parade event too in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day on March 17th. I can’t wait to see the round-up. Yum yum Irishness.

My mum has ears like a bat. And I, whenever I’m shopping for clothes, cosmetics, or simply groceries, am always found making verbal wishes: Really want some mussels; Fancy some really good warm bread now with just a little bit of butter; I could do with some king prawns for a paella this weekend; Oh wow, the lamb rack is going pretty cheap now!…I think it’s an annoying habit since I sorta do it unconsciously. But sometimes, it’s a good thing since I’ll in some weird spur of the moment remember the things I lusted after, jot them down in a list and stick it up on a 3M sticky note as my new List of Definite ‘To Buys’. Shit. I’m a materialistic, greedy fatty betty. Cursed for life with this horrible disposition.

It so happened that mum remembered my wish for lamb rack and since I coveted it so much, she bought an Australian rack and another from New Zealand. Both were fresh, looked gorgeously red and juicy. The only difference between the two was the colour of the meat. When cooked, both were to die for. Equally succulent and tender. When mum came home with the beautiful cuts of lamb in her grocery bags, I was overcome with a mix of anticipation and absolute fear. I’m just not good with cooking red meat. It simply isn’t my forte. I don’t eat a lot of red meat but when I do, I love it medium to medium-rare if possible. And to others, it may seem like I’m not cooking it for long enough and that may be likely since I am rather clueless as well with red meats. But they always turn out fairly edible and delicious. Thus far, I’ve never given myself food-poisoning either. So I suppose that’s a good thing, huh. Nevertheless, this time’s different. The pressure is on. Cooking for the family is a stressful affair as my parents are quite picky eaters and mum will not be afraid to point out the areas found totally lacking and unsatisfying. Yep, tough love runs in the family. 

I was pretty nervous all day, worrying about how the rack would turn out. I just didn’t want to mess it up and throw about 70 bucks worth of rack into the bin. That would just be awful. I was glad that I had some support from friends on Twitter. Sitting on the stairs (I don’t get no internet connection in the kitchen), nervously documenting the cooking process to friends was simply one of my darker kitchen moments. But thankfully, it all worked out fine. I was little upset that we didn’t have proper carving knives (or at least, the one we had was nowhere to be found) and so most of the crust ended up falling off the lamb as we literally manhandled the rack to split it into individual ribs. Shame. But still delicious. Surprisingly, the honey mustard I used as a marinade and glue to hold the crust gave the lamb a lot of flavour, even if I chose not to marinade it for an hour or so. The meat was extremely tender and succulent. I didn’t think it needed some kind of sauce as I wanted to taste the lamb as it was, thus keeping the dish simple and true to itself.

The crust was seriously, and I really mean like seriously, good. Garlic and cranberry is honestly one of the best combinations of flavours ever. Totally loved the crust. I could eat that shit all day. Munch on it 24/7, giving myself water breaks to wash it down probably. And then carry on. Somehow I’m thinking the crust and sour cream in a jacket potato could be a new heaven for me. 

Dinner wasn’t impressive or restaurant quality, but it felt a little bit like Sunday Roast. Just homely and chilled out. And hey, it’s just me cooking, what do you expect? But I was very happy with my success and I think I got the thumbs-up from almost everyone. Definitely a keeper of a recipe. I have a feeling the dogs felt the same. Every time I opened the oven, the dogs went wild. Dashing about in the garden, barking like the apocalypse was near. Absolute pandemonium. My dogs love lamb, which is supposed to be really good for their bones and fur coat, or something like that. We used to feed them mutton bones (for some strange reason) but it got a little bit of a costly expense so obviously, scrapped that habit pretty quickly. Anyhow, the dogs got all the lamb rib bones and some leftover potato skins. They couldn’t have been happier. I think the rest of the family was pretty happy too. 

Cranberry & Herb-Crusted Rack of Lamb
Ingredients

2 racks of lamb, 8 ribs each
a heaped 1/2 cup full of breadcrumbs
4 tbs dried whole cranberries
a sprig of fresh rosemary, chopped
2 tsp dried thyme
3 tbs honey mustard marinade
3 garlic cloves, skin removed
1 large shallot, skin removed
freshly ground black pepper, for seasoning
crushed sea salt, for seasoning
olive oil
serve with your choice of vegetables

Preheat oven to 220d Celsius.

Combine cranberries, fresh rosemary, thyme, garlic, and shallot in a food processor; Pulse. Remove from processor then add breadcrumbs and season well to taste.

To prepare the rack, wrap the rib bones with aluminium foil to prevent charring. Spread honey mustard over lamb and massage in. When it comes to red meat, be prepared to get down and dirty so make sure hands are clean and nails trimmed. Next, pat breadcrumb mixture into mustard marinade on the lamb. Press on any bits that fall off and it should stay on. Drizzle on some olive oil before placing lamb on a broiler pan, meat side up, in the oven to cook.

This should roast for 35-40 minutes for medium-rare to medium. After removing from the oven, leave lamb covered for 10 minutes. Slice rack into chops to serve.

Baked Potatoes or Student-style Jackets
Ingredients

5 medium-sized baking potatoes or US Russetts, which makes 5 servings
square of salted butter for each potato
dollop of sour cream for each potato (optional)
your choice of filling (optional)

Wash and scrub potatoes, then pat dry with a kitchen towel. WIth a fork, pierce the potatoes all over.

Preheat the oven to 200d Celsius, or you can simply use the already heated oven you’ve got for the lamb rack.

Place in microwave, and on high power, microwave for 4 minutes. Turn the potatoes over and repeat the process for another 4 minutes. You should be able to pierce through the potatoes with a fork with relative ease. If there is a little resistance, microwave for another 2 minutes. Now whack it in the oven for about 20-30 minutes, or till the skin has gone nice and crisp and the insides are soft and fluffy when cut through.

Split open down the middle, throw in some butter, sour cream and whatever garnishes you like. Or if you’re going for a student-style jacket, cheese and beans it is!