The Sugar Bar

Ever since I was able to begin helping my mother in the kitchen, rather than simply prancing around in a frilly apron and getting to lick the spoon, I was taught that the preparation of a dish was more about what it did for the person eating it than the effort and thought that went into preparing it. Of course dishes have their own significance, whether it is for festive reasons or for chasing away bad luck for the new year. But, with my Chinese background, it has come to my understanding that every dish is created for the person eating it for a particular reason – to bring happiness, to clear excess air, to cleanse the system after festive eating, to improve blood circulation, to bring radiance to the skin and brightness to the eye, etc. Eating isn’t great because it’s necessary for survival. It isn’t amazing because it’s just scrumptious. It’s marvellous because it’s so clever.

Nothing goes into a dish for no reason. And so, with this mentality in mind, I whipped this up for lunch. After weeks of poor nutrition and sloppy eating, I wanted to make something that would fill me up, be healthy enough, have sufficient amount of protein and vitamins in it, cleanse and cut through all that grease in my system and have a comforting warm broth to chase away the wintry cold. Ochazuke is usually made with leftover rice, just like chahan or egg fried rice. Nothing goes to waste in winter! Get a bowl of rice, top it with whatever you fancy and pour hot green tea over it. Delicious and ready in a flash. Not to forget, it’s good for you. Genius, isn’t it?

Although this dish is very simple, I hear what makes it so good is using good quality ingredients for toppings. I think my efforts came to a B+, good enough for me really! What would make it so much better would be a couple more exciting toppings like umeboshi and some furikake. Despite that, my ochazuke was still utterly comforting and healing. Delicately flavoured and very visually appealing in my opinion. When I make this again, I hope to use grilled eel for the topping as I bet that would make the broth taste insanely good! If you’re wondering what sort of green tea I’ve used, it’s a 旨み濃いめ緑茶: a blend of sencha (煎茶), karigane (かりがね) and matcha (抹茶).

This recipe is good for 1. I highly recommend not being lazy and warming your bowl in the oven before serving, as this makes eating it twice as good!

Ochazuke (お茶漬け)
Ingredients

75g Japanese rice
about 150ml water, for cooking
1/2 tbs black sesame seeds
1/2 tbs white sesame seeds
4-5 sheets of nori seaweed
pinch of salt/ajinomoto (optional)
1 cup prepared green tea

Wash rice. Soak the rice in water for 20 minutes. Wash and drain. Rinse well. Add rice to the prepared water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Then cover and let simmer for 10 minutes or until all the water has been absorbed. Remove from heat and let sit covered for 25 minutes.

Once ready to serve, prepare the green tea of choice. Remember not to use boiling water. Follow the instructions on the packet. Transfer rice to a deep bowl. Top the rice with sesame seeds and seaweed. You can vary your toppings. I’ve kept it simple, clean and easy. Place prepared meat on top and sprinkle with salt. Pour the hot tea over the meat, until it just covers the rice. Serve.

Yakitori (焼き鳥 やきとり)
Ingredients

1 chicken thigh/breast
1-3 spring onions
2 tbs sake
3 tbs dark soy sauce (I’ve used normal soy)
1 tbs mirin
1/2 tbs sugar
about 3-4 short wooden skewers

Some recipes have you mix the ingredients together to form a sauce and then boil it so it thickens. You can get yakitori sauce in a bottle as well. But I’ve decided to go for just basting the chicken as it is with a thin sauce since this will go with the ochazuke rather than plain white rice. I didn’t want it to get really saucy and messy since the whole point of the dish is something tasty but clean. I didn’t want the sauce to affect the broth of the ochazuke.

Chop up the spring onions into 1.5 inches long, keeping the white bit from above the roots to about halfway up the green leaves. I find this bit to be the most flavourful. Chop up the chicken into nice bite sizes. Alternating chicken meat with spring onion, skewer them.

Set the grill to about 190d Celsius. Brush and drizzle the prepared yakitori sauce over the skewers and place under the grill. Brush on the sauce every 3 minutes or so. Once the top side is nicely brown, flip over the skewers and baste with the sauce. Repeat the basting process until the skewered meat is cooked through and the chicken is nicely brown. This should take about 20-25 minutes to cook. If you prefer not to cook them under a grill, cooking them over a bbq should be pretty good too.

My mother is a fan of the popular book ‘Japanese Women Don’t Get Old — Or Fat Either’. Although I have yet to read it, I would think it’s quite an interesting read mostly because I consume quite a lot of Japanese food and I absolutely adore the cuisine. As most of you already know, I hardly have time to cook or bake of late due to an office job (which seems to be sapping more and more of my life energy and murdering my precious brain cells second by second) which I am highly unaccustomed to. Sitting around all day at a desk is really soul-sapping and too inactive a lifestyle!

Today, sitting at a desk without a LAN point (meaning zero internet connection and therefore zero access to research), without any assignments — I was at my lowest point. Not to mention, my tummy wasn’t feeling too well and I felt awfully lethargic and confined. In other words, I was in a lot of pain. Thankfully, I was able to leave 2 hours earlier than usual to come back to the comforts of home and to the smell of mum’s cooking. Despite not having anything to do all day, I was still strangely knackered when I stepped through the front door so it was a great joy to be able to have homecooked food prepared by none other than my own mother.

I’ve been in Singapore for about 3 weeks now and have been plagued by discomfort in the tummy quite a bit. After discussing this with Mum and Abby, it seems it boiled down to my inability to adapt to the type of milk found here. And since I take quite a lot of diary products daily, my body can’t seem to adjust as quick as it should or recover quick enough. I am currently now off diary for about a week. It seems quite a difficult task — no cereal with milk in the mornings, no milk in tea or coffee, no cheese on crackers, no yoghurts. It’s going to be very tough!

It is now a mind over matter type of situation. I am gutted; but I desperately want to get well soon so I can get back on track with my yoghurts and cheeses and milk with cereal! I can’t do without them for long. I suspect withdrawal symptoms will start to show if I stay away from them for too long.

Anyway, Mum’s solution to my upset tummy was the Japanese Power Breakfast from the book I mentioned above. Ironic I know. But it was quite the dinner. I could hardly finish everything in my bowl and it did ease the bubbly tummy a little. The meal was followed by my sister Abby’s Amazing Ginger Tea which also did make everything so much better. I feel so much more relaxed and albeit, in a lot less pain.

I don’t know exactly the recipe for the 2 dishes in this post but they’re pretty simple to get the hang of I reckon. Abby’s Ginger Tea requires a handful of fresh pandan leaves, weaved and secured together; some maple syrup; about 5 strips of fresh ginger, thinly sliced; a teaspoon of vanilla essence and about 700ml of water. Place everything in a heavy-based saucepan and bring it to a boil, then simmer and adjust ingredients to taste. This will delight the senses with its wonderful aroma. The ginger is beautiful in clearing the system of excess gas and detoxing in general.

Mum’s version of the Power Breakfast is tofu, beans, boiled egg, cherry tomatoes and spring onions on rice with Japanese sweet potatoes in miso soup. It is quite like a watery Teochew porridge which I really love because I prefer having a bite to the rice in my porridge rather than the creamy thick congee you usually find in Cantonese restaurants and eateries. Prepare all the ingredients in a large rice bowl and ladle hot soup over it till all the rice is covered.

It’s a simple, beautiful dish. The egg and miso come together quite well and the vegetables make the whole dish taste so crisp and clean, non-greasy and easy on the stomach. Full of the ‘good stuff’ and in no way lacking in taste, this bowl of awesome deliciousness has left me craving for more and hoping to replicate this some time soon by myself — for myself!

Yet again, despite my awful pictures (taken in the evening when I’m absolutely shattered with hands shakey from hunger and tiredness), Mum has beaten me in her culinary creations. I am determined to make something mind-blowing this weekend. We’ll see how that goes. Hopefully, my stomach’s settled down for good by then too.

I know it’s not cool to post about mundane things or unremarkable dishes. And this isn’t just an excuse to post but after surfing the net and bouncing through foodblogs, I realized that there are a number of people who’ve created fantastic fried rice dishes and yet a number who are quite troubled when it comes to finding the perfect fried rice recipe.

As boring as fried rice may sound, it is quintessential ‘fast food’ and also therefore, sometimes lacking in flavour if not cooked right. Born in Singapore – the land of fried rice – I suppose you can say I was exposed to some of the best plates of rice ever. But equipped with a rather dead tongue, I have no idea how to recreate those flavours and it is also unfortunate that I haven’t got a wonder cook somewhere in the family (ok I do, but you know what I mean by wonder cook when I say wonder cook) to pass down a secret recipe. I bring good tidings, however, and that is that I’ve come close to the ultimate plate of fried rice I used to have in school.

I must have spoken about this briefly once in my Chahan with Shiitake Mushrooms, Greens & Chives post; mainly, about the use of preserved salted fish to flavour the rice, often cooked with a range of vegetables and a combination of cha siew or Chinese roast pork and crispy roasted pork belly. This plate of meaty wonder is then served with loads of fresh, crisp lettuce slices and a fried egg, with the yoke just cooked so its still molten and melty in the middle.

Using the same concept of a flavour booster (the salted fish) and a main meat (pork) and a topping of lettuce, I’ve come close in areas of taste to the hawker fried rice of my childhood. It may not compare in terms of authenticity or ratings but it’s pretty damn good if I can say so myself. What I’ve done, however, is switch around the booster and the main meat, using seafood as the main meat and pork as the flavour booster.

Intrigued?

Smoked pancetta or smoked bacon bits can be used but I find pancetta, cooked alongside chopped garlic in a pan of mild-flavoured oil, such as sunflower oil, infuses more un-overpowering flavour into it than bacon. You may think otherwise, and choose to stick with bacon, that’s fine really. I can never be made to choose which is better anyway because I love pancetta with equal fervour as I do bacon. The prawns act as great absorbers of grease as well if you find pork too oily a meat. Prawns add a great sweetness to the dish and I would highly recommend it over other seafood like squid and fish.

Although the key ingredient here is pancetta, the fish sauce I believe was the second star of the day. Having a beautiful flavour and completely different taste to Chinese soy sauce or Japanese shoyu, it melts wonderfully into the rice, marries the king prawns and gives this fried rice a backbone!

King Prawn Pancetta Fried Rice
Ingredients

1/4 cup long grain white rice/basmati rice
1/2 cup water, for cooking the rice
1/3 cup lettuce, sliced
1/3 cup king prawns, shelled and deveined
2 slices smoked pancetta
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 tsp fish sauce
sprinkling of dried oregano
pepper, for seasoning
mild tasting vegetable oil, for frying

In a saucepan, cook the rice in measured amount of water.

In a large frying pan, heat the oil. Add chopped garlic and pancetta and fry together to flavour the oil. Next add the king prawns and fry till it gets a lovely golden brown near crisp outer layer.
Once the rice is cooked, add to the frying pan with the lettuce. Fry till the rice loses most of its moistness. Toss rice with fish sauce, seasoning and oregano as you fry.

Once done, serve on its own or with your favourite vegetable dishes.