Slithering Spaghetti - A wacky day in the office

Would the kids and godsons be impressed with this?

Just wondering.

My Banana Tree - Part 2

Remember the banana tree I told you about? See my earlier post on this here when it was just a baby. Well, here's an update of it. It looks really good and is growing up to be a fine, organic banana in my backyard. God's creativity is so mind-blowing.  How did He decide that bananas should form this way? I'm really excited to know when I can take it down.

Kitchen Organisation

I yanked everything out of all my kitchen drawers and cabinets and placed everything on open shelves. Say goodbye to expired ingredients and forgotten utensils. Yes, I feel such a great sense of control now... hmm...it smells suspiciously of a midlife crisis!

Nothing pretty like my dear friend's in Germany. Mine is purely functional, but I'm loving it.

Learning to waste time - a new level

I walked the streets of Chinatown for 2 hours before I found these - crockery I grew up with. They give a whole new meaning to "rustic" - read "rusty". Food evokes memories, and so do kitchenware like these. They are of course very different to another type of kitchenware I like - see those I got from Tuscany.

Now I have to ask my mom for her good old recipes to eat childhood food in these. Maybe it's time to try that Thunder Tea Rice recipe from my dear Hakka friend.

Now, don't ask me where this shop is - it took a while to trace back to where my car was. And I'm sure I cannot find this shop again.

Soft, shreddable bread without a bread machine

So I jumped onto the Tangzhong train craze which was big in the baking blogging industry in 2006. Click here to read what Tangzhong is and what the craze is about. I've been trying this for a few months with some occasional success and numerous failures. As a very late adopter, I have the benefit of reading about all the attempts by hundreds of bakers out there but I can't say I'm all the wiser given there's so much conflicting and confusing information out there. Still, for the soft fluffy bread pictures that I see, I'm prepared to go through some pain. (Ironically, paine means bread in some parts of Europe!)

This week, I made another 2 attempts at TZ bread - good texture and great taste but they were not without their flaws and certainly not something you could put on the shelves of a bakery store. But I would eat them any time and I would not hesitate to feed my family and friends with this super soft and shreddable paine that comes with no artificial ingredients. 

A few of my European and Middle Eastern friends think the bread scene here is truly pathetic and Asians and Singaporeans are deprived of rustic, crusty bread with herbs, fibres and complex flavours. So convinced are they of our deprivation that it has compelled some to open up bakeries in town here. The strange phenomenon though is that Asians l..u..r..v..e.. their breads soft - the softer, the better they sell, resulting in usage of preservatives, bread improvers and flavour enhancers and ingredients that professional bakers are not even required to reveal. 

What I like about TZ is that it is essentially a water roux consisting only of flour and water to act as a natural bread improver. See my TZ picture here.

So, for my bread today, I was happy with each of the 3 stages of the dough proofing. 180C in the oven for 30 minutes and out came this gorgeous babe. Colour - lovely golden brown. Aroma - that of a bakery in the 1970s. Texture - shreddable. Taste - a hint of sweet and salty altogether.

My disappointment came when I cut into the bread and discovered a gaping tunnel in there! What the xxx!!

Went back to look at my pictures and I think perhaps I made 2 mistakes here while putting in the cheese and bacon filling: Maybe I rolled it too loosely and maybe I should have baked the bacon first. 

Better to just lay my bread out this way to cover all the flaws. 

Any experienced baker or TZ gurus out there care to teach me a thing or two?

For the full and original recipe, please refer to this TZ guru at Christine's recipes.

A Gift for me

Look what my friends got me at the recent private dinner. I love gifts that come from the heart. This is their way of showing support to this unknown path I have chosen with no sight of where I might land.

I whip up some dishes and think I can become a chef. They copied my blog design and think they can be the next Armani. No wonder we get along so well.

And now, I just remembered my hand-sewn gift from The Experimental Cook, a dear fellow blogger I got to know through the net. Click here to see what she did for me. I have been using it almost every day since she gave it to me. Such a sweet new friend.

My Banana Tree

After nine months of waiting, my banana tree finally flowered last week and today, the flower starts to split into something resembling a bunch of bananas! What a miraculous process from God. He is so creative and imaginative! This is no less miraculous as foetal development, and I am now one more step closer to home organic bananas. 

This is definitely one way to get as close to my food source as possible without becoming a farmer's wife!

See my pictures over the past 9 months at different stages. 

Thanks to my dear friend EK for giving me the sapling last year. 

See how they looked after one year - here. And how they looked when I harvested them - here.

How to cut without getting cut, anyone?

Roasted tomatoes with sea salt, black pepper and sprigs of fresh thyme.
Snapped in the restaurant kitchen with an iPhone.

OK, here's a confession. The more I use the knife, the more fearful I am of it. Too many horror stories seen and heard, and a few near-misses of my own have kept me pretty much on my toes. When I hold a knife in my hands, it has my full attention and I don't allow myself to get distracted. I will also not allow anyone in the commercial kitchen to rush me. The customer can always wait, but I want to leave this place with my ten fingers intact. There is no one I want to impress with my (lack of) knife skills so I'm quite happy to be perceived as the snail in the kitchen. 

This is how much tomatoes I cut today with Chef giving me several tips and guidance for which I am so grateful. An Extra Virgin Chef needs all the help she can get!

Home-cured Pancetta - Part IV. Wait, there's a Part IV?

It's been more than 2 months since I started curing this piece of pork belly. I open it up to peep at this baby whenever my curiosity gets the better of me.

On 14 November, it looked like this at the start of this interesting culinary project that has captivated me since.

After 10 days

After about 25 days

Today, I opened it again after more than 60 days and find that I could possibly use it!

I cut some very small pieces remembering how salty and rubbery they tasted the last time I tried when it was not quite ready. Scattered them over my home-made pizza and the verdict?

Does my pizza look sexy or what. Thanks to my friend Grace for a very simple recipe. 

Extremely salty but no longer as rubbery. The longer time I give it to allow for the curing process, the better the texture but it also means deep salt penetration. If salt is the key ingredient to cure the meat so that I don't die from eating contaminated raw meat, then how does one reduce the saltiness in the taste? Hmm.. need to find someone who has done this.

I can continue to use the pancetta as an ingredient for pasta and pizzas as the Italians do on a daily basis but I will have to rinse off the crazy salty on the next use.

Here's a picture of the pancetta done by the professionals which I bought in a Tuscany morning market. Doesn't it look absolutely gorgeous? I have yet to try it but will do so very very soon and let you know how it tastes.

Beautiful piece of pancetta from Tuscany now sitting in my fridge

My pancetta butcher. We used an iphone app to ask him in Italian how much it costs. We were perfect in our articulation and then were completely stunned at his answer 'cos we couldn't catch a single word he said!

For those very interested and crazy enough to waste time doing this, please read the previous posts before you attempt. And remember to write to me about it!! Adios!

Home-cured Pancetta Part I
Home-cured Pancetta Part II
Home-cured Pancetta Part III
What on earth is a Pancetta??

Italians - gotta love 'em!

A creative basker we met on the street. How does he do it? I love the Italianos!

Please also see my other posts on Italy:
- an authentic Tuscan kitchen
- what I lugged back from Tuscany for my own kitchen
- a working farm in Tuscany
- cooking by the fireplace in a 14th Century stone villa
- what al dente means and why you should cook pasta this way

Europe pig-out 1: lunch & dinner at Tegernsee

Creamy mushroom soup with finely-julienned saffron

After a 13-hour flight into Munich and another 90-minute drive into the countryside, we walked into a chic restaurant near our farm house. Although there was a fireplace to warm us, I needed something to warm me from the inside. I have in fact ordered soup in every restaurant we walked into! But this one was a tad unusual. I love the julienned saffron strips that make the soup stand out from the others. 

Just another pasta but why is it the restaurants always make them look better than what I can do at home?

Wood-oven pizza with local cured ham 

The cranberry pie looked rustic and inviting and we helped ourselves to it. It took a mere 25 seconds to wipe this out!

This is the farmhouse we stayed in Tegernsee, 90-minute drive from Munich city. Tegernsee is better known to local tourists than foreigners but thanks to our dear friends in Munich, we got connected to Jutta who owns this villa. At Euros 330 for 7 nights for our family of 5, this was a definite steal. It comes with a homely kitchen which we used extensively to make dinner every night. Eating out was always nice but we also preferred our own home-made dinners that cost a fraction and suited our own taste.

We stopped to get some pasta and chicken at the local supermarket. Jutta already had the basic cooking ingredients ready for us to use.

It was easy for me - I can bake this chicken confidently now, thanks to Jamie Oliver's recipe for extra virgin chefs! I could not do this 12 months ago! I added some quick stir-fries with minced garlic and we got our first dinner at home in sub-zero Tegernsee.

The kids got into a roster of dishwashing thereafter for the next 18 days. I am beginning to like this holiday!

Please click here to see Europe pig-out 2

I had John Denver with me in the kitchen today

Alone in my thoughts as I cut onions and sauté mushrooms today, I whipped this up in my head. It was good personal entertainment amidst menial tasks and brainless work. 


Sung to the tune of "Leaving on a Jet Plane"


The pace is fast, the tension is high
I'm standin' here doing mise en place
Finger burns and small cuts are daily norm


But the pots and pans, they're heavy for me
Sous chef is yelling', he's blowin' his top
Already I'm so stinky I could die


So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you like my food
Eat it like you've not eaten before
Cause I'm a-cookin' in a restaurant
Don't know what I am doing here
O baby, I love to learn

Home-cured pancetta - Part II

For those who missed my first post on this topic, here's the link - Home-cured pancetta Part I.

For those who are still wondering what the heaven a pancetta is, click here - Word of the Week: Pancetta.

And for the faithful followers who have written to say you want to know the progress and outcome of this culinary experiment, here's an update. In the last post, I showed you a picture of how the cured pork belly looked after Day 4 - that was where we left off.

And now, Day 10 or 11, frankly, I lost count and didn't date it because it doesn't really matter.

Day 10 in the fridge, or was it 11.

After ten days of curing this in the fridge, I remove and rinse thoroughly under running water, then pat dry with kitchen towels.

The underside has also turned dark.

Now, technically speaking, I have a pancetta in my hands. But all that is only Part I.

Having rinsed it off the curing mixture, I now proceed to Part II where I rub a spice mixture and leave it in the fridge for a month or so. Yes, a month. Troublesome but also kinda fun to keep this in suspense. 

Some people have a curing chamber where they can control the temperature and humidity. For enthusiastic amateurs and virgin chefs like me, I will make do with leaving it in the fridge. I've researched many sites and found this to be acceptable too. 

So I prepare my spice rub here.

My spice rub consists of Oregano, thyme, tarragon, chilli flakes, paprika, chilli powder, black pepper -
my own concoction of whatever I have in the cupboard that I want to get rid of, no quantity, just an estimate of what is enough to cover the pork belly fully.

I keep staring rudely at the different herbs and spices and they don't mind, something I couldn't do to my colleagues in the corporate world.

I spread the spice rub on a flat porcelain casserole and rub them all over porky.

I also stuff them into the scores I cut.

Tried to cover them as fully as possible but they keep dropping off.

So this is how it looks just before I cover them and pop them back into the fridge for a whole month. I'll give you a sneak preview around mid-December before I take off on a tour in Tuscany, Italy where I get to see first-hand how the experts there cure their meat. I'll be posting actively then, so do look out for it! (Readers in Europe, write to me!)

Cheers for now, and thanks for the likes and follows!

Home-cured pancetta - Part I

The pork belly I left out to dry for a couple of hours

Ingredients I used to cure the meat (from top left): Brown sugar, black pepper, sea salt flakes, ground nutmeg, dried thyme, pink coarse sea salt, crushed bay leaves, minced garlic

I scored the meat and pushed the curing marinade in. Then I cling-wrapped and kept in the fridge.
It will stay there for 10 days. 

OK, here's how my pancetta looks after 3 days. I drain the excess water every 24 hours.

Meat has turned darker which is expected. Curing meat with salt is about extracting the moisture from the meat so bacteria cannot grow and multiply. 

This is what I need to see - water extraction from meat.

Cling-wrap and back to the chiller

 After 4 days...

Will keep it in there for another week or so. Meanwhile, look out for what exactly is pancetta in this week's Word of the Week.

Click here to follow the progress in Home-cured Pancetta Part II.