I took this picture when I was preparing this dish and never really got down to viewing it till I was about to blog.  When my really 'ancient' 4MP camera, this turned out quite sharp and vivid due to the sunlight.  I'm actually quite mesmerised by the raw-ness of the meat and beans here.  It sounds a bit strange I know but I can see the freshness of the pork ribs really clearly in this photo.  Not one PETA will be happy with but it has satiated my carnivore instincts somewhat. 

Anyway, it was one of those rare occasions when PY and I had time off our busy schedules and my uncle's house to ourselves.  So I decided to whip up something satisfying and simple.  I zoomed down to the NTUC downstairs, got some ribs and some tau cheo or salted fermented beans.  Marinate the meat with the beans, soy sauce and pepper.  You can add some chinese wine like shao xing jiu too.  Careful you do not overdo it with the beans, they are mighty salty.  I put the whole thing into a food plastic bag and refrigerated it for two hours.

Following that, I cooked some good quality calrose rice (found in the supermarkets, its a white paper pack, the most expensive rice you can find in NTUC) together with some wolfberries.  Ah, wolfberries ... my first REAL encounter with wolfberries was in the LSE union shop in London.  They sold various 'exotic' snacks like dried pineapples and organic raisins and what-not.  Plus, they had wolfberries.  The price, though, was the shocker.  If I'm not wrong, it was three pounds for 100g.  I mean, WTF, you could buy a truckload with three pounds in Singapore and it doesn't really cost much to ship.  I seriously considered packing my suitcase full of wolfberries from Singapore and then making a killing selling it in London.  But did you know, the wolfberry, otherwise known as gou ji zi, 枸杞子, it has rich nutrient and anti-oxidant properties? This was realised by the Chinese 5000 years ago and the West 5 years ago.  It contains 11 essential and 22 trace dietary minerals, 18 amino acids, 6 essential vitamins, plants phenols, carotenoids etc etc etc.

So after that, I transferred the rice to a pot, took out the meat and layered it on top.  Then I steamed on high for about 15 mins.  The juices of the pork then ran down to flavour the rice.  Most excellent.   I made the mistake here of using cheaper pork ribs.  I recommend you use prime ribs which are more tender.  you can also use a bit of baking soda or papaya extract to marinate the meat to tenderise it.  Otherwise, you might have to steam the rice and meat for an hour just to cook and meat.  If you decide to do that, I would think steaming the meat separately from the rice would be a good idea otherwise you might overcook the rice.

 In the picture above, I put in a few slices of cooked pig's stomach to give some chewiness.  If you prefer it soft, it would be best to stew it beforehand.  Thus there you have it, a real simple dish, but remember to use good quality ingredients.

So Adrian was really kind to invite us over to his place for a new year dinner at the beginning of this month.  His instruction was "bring dessert" so I simply googled "chinese desserts" and Lo and Behold! it wasn't "aw nee", nor was it "cheng teng", certainly not "mango custard" that popped up but..... P.E.K.I.N.G  D.U.S.T.  For a moment I thought it was an ang moh representation of pork floss or something.  If it was, then it would been a gross mis-representation.  But subsequent clicks later, I discovered to my horror that I had all along been ignorant of an apparently chinese dessert called Peking Dust that made it to Google's no.1 find.

I, still dazed that I've never heard of a thing called Peking Dust, dutifully followed the recipe found here.  How I did the glazed walnuts was simple to melt a quarter cup of sugar in a pan with a few spoons of water.  Keep on medium low heat till the sugar has caramelised to a brown syrup then add in broken walnut pieces.  Once coated, remove the walnuts to dry on non-stick baking paper.  For the chestnuts a.k.a "The Dust", don't follow all that complicated steps involving fresh chestnuts.  All I did was to buy the cooked and ready-to-snack chestnuts from NTUC.

So just blitz them in the food processor and voila.  To serve 8 as stated in the recipe, I suggest about 300g of chestnuts will do.  I ended with way too much leftovers.  But be generous in handing out the 'dust', the cream really does taste better with lots of chestnuts.  When whipping your cream, I suggest using an electric mixer, the cream mixes much better and you don't get an arm cramp.  Use a large bowl also and keep your mixer upright so you don't get creamed walls.   Add in your castor sugar bit by bit.  The final consistency should be something like cake frosting cream.  If desired, you could add in some real vanilla beans.  By the ay, the mixture that you would have created is also known as creme chantilly and there are countless recipes online to spruce up creme chantilly.  If you really cannot get chestnuts, I think some digestive biscuits scrunched up to little bits in a plastic bag would do pretty well too.  Just toast your digestive dust very lightly to hardened it up a bit and add a bit more flavour.

 So here I am preparing bowlfuls of Peking Dust after a great sausage and salad dinner.  Best served extremely cold.  I used a bit of mixed fruit too to give it some colour and extra flavour.  I had mixed in some vanilla flavour into the chestnuts.  I do think vanilla complements the dish really well.  This isn't something people are really prepared to eat though.  I did have a few rejects which was kinda sad cos a lot of effort went into this.  So make sure your culimnary audience is the cream-liking sort.  The final product is something like a ice cream, just not frozen.  Don't be afraid to pile on the 'dust' and mix everything up well before eating.  I was a bit tentative eating it at first too, but it kinda grew on me especially the blending of the cream and the chestnuts which I really liked.  So here's an appropriate one to our chinese heritage based on our Peking Dust, however angmoh-fied it might be: 金银满屋 in this Year of the Ox.

Mussels always bring back special memories for me.  It reminds me of the year (2006) living in London with Justin, GM, CY and PY.  I remember doing mussels mariniere on two occasions and on both times, it was the post-exam/holiday period.  Yes, it brings back the great "WOOHOO! HOLIDAY!" feeling ... and a touch of nostalgia too...

But from London 06, we fly to Vivocity Singapore 09.  It is perhaps somewhat of a coincidence that as I was about to blog about mussels that I visited The Mussel Guys, an eatery located on the second floor of Vivocity.  It was one of those rare occasions where I didn't scrutinise the menu before entering a restaurant.  I usually do so to ensure: 1) I don't get ripped off 2) The signature dishes are worth eating 3) The dessert and wine list is decent.  But I thought I would give The Mussel Guys a chance.  I mean, any restaurant surrounded by big boys such as Sushi Tei, Swensen's and Secret Recipe, probably deserves a shot ... if for nothing just to root for the underdog.  Unfortunately, rooting for the underdog usually doesn't prevent them from being relegated from the premier league.  The Mussel Guys was over-priced, under-quantitied and does a horrible french onion soup.  Even their signature mussels was nothing you couldn't get from NTUC.  And their desserts were pathetic.  Plus, you need to pay a dollar for bottled water.  The only saving grace was the service and their prawn pasta.  So be forewarned: unless you're dying of hunger in Vivocity on the eve of a public holiday, you might do well to avoid The Mussel Guys.

On a happier note, I met up with Paul, Daphne, and GM last month for a pot luck French-themed dinner (It was brilliant guys!).  I did a mussels mouclade which was almost lost among the gastronomic spread of duck leg confit, salmon salad, tomato consomme, roast potatoes and chocolate cake ... not a necessarily a bad thing come to think of it!

Ingredients

1kg de-bearded mussels (about 32)

0.5 cups minced shallots

2 tbsp minced garlic

1.5 cups white wine

1 cup heavy cream

2 tsp curry powder

0.25 cup butter

0.25 cup minced parsley

0.25 cup chopped green onions

Sea salt and pepper

Method

-Cook shallots and garlic in simmering wine until transluscent.

-Stir in cream and curry powder.  When sauce is heated through, add mussels.  Cover and cook for a few mins.

-Remove mussels using a sieved ladle, leaving sauce behind.  Whisk butter into the sauce.  Season with sea salt and pepper

-Turn heat off, stir in parsley and green onions.  Layer your mussels nicely into a dish and pour the sauce over, preferably ensuring each shell is filled.  Serve immediately.

I recommend using sea salt to enhance the taste of this dish plus a dash of white pepper.  You can vary the amount of curry powder if you like a stronger taste.  You may add in a tablespoon or two of cornstarch dissolved in cold water too if you want a thicker gravy.  If you feel tempted to throw in more shallots, parsley garlic, Hold! Too much will mask the subtle mussel flavour.  What I liked about this dish was the pure simplicity.  Total cooking time barely reached 15 min. 

Good accompaniments to this dish? A good bowl of french fries or french baguette.  Plus, of course a good bottle of white and a good company of friends!

 (Thanks to Daphne for the high-res pic!)

I read a few reviews online before I went to Pu Tien Restaurant, Marina Branch.  I was quite amazed that many reviews had said that so-and-so dish was good and so-and-so dish was not that good while readily admitting that they knew little about "Pu Tien cuisine".  Well, I thought before we go on any further, it might be helpful to have a short tutorial on the cuisines of China.  To begin our Chinese Cuisines 101 - the cuisines of China can be classified in two main ways: by region or eating habits.  Classification by regions can be done in nine ways: Beijing, Shandong, Sichuan, Guangdong, Fujian, Huai Yang, Hubei, Hunan, and Jiangsu Zhejiang.  Classification by eating habits is much rarer; palace officials, common people, foreign, mountain/forest.  So what is served at Pu Tien is Fujian cuisine, 福建菜.  Pu Tien is located along the coast of Fujian province, NW of Taiwan and in between Fuzhou and Quanzhou.  The definining characteristics of Fujian cuisine: Fresh seafood, soups, stews, complexity, subtlety.  There are little bold and loud flavours in Fujian cuisine, unlike Zichuan.  Soups and stews are popular hence the popular Fujian saying : －湯十变 (one soup, many forms)   Notable Fujian dishes we are all familiar with? Popiah 薄饼, Buddha jumps over the wall 佛跳墙, Hand-made noodles 拉面, Oyster omelette 蠔煎.

So it was after the Standard Chartered Marathon that Justin, PY and I headed down to the Marina Square branch.  We started with a few simple starters:

This is something that not many people, at least of my age, can appreciate.  Whenever I list bitter gourd as one of my favourite foods (especially thinly sliced and stir fried with egg), I get a :-/ face.  Well, hopefully Pu Tien's bitter gourd here will gain some converts.  Thinly sliced and flash frozen and served with honey, it has a nice unique texture and not that much of bitterness.  It is, in a word, refreshing, and rather 开味 appetising.

Oh yeah! That is one for those kway chap lovers out there, 猪肠 pig intestines.  But this is not your regular intestines you find at the normal kway chap stall, these are small intestines i.e. the more expensive type.  You rarely find these and can be rightly termed a delicacy.  It is multi-layered with soft fats in between, like a well marbled piece of steak.  And not to mentioned, it is braised to perfection.  I figure you can do this yourself at home too, you just need to get the ingredient - possibly tekka market or a special order from your butcher.

Now this is something you don't get everyday, 酒蚶drunken cockles.  Or what we commonly call "See hum", served on the half shell with a sweetish garlic/chilli/spring onion sauce.  Personally, I could have done with about 5 seconds less cooking though.  Furthermore, I think the garlic mixture could be toned down a little with more sauce and less garlic.  I though that the taste of fresh see hum should take more centrestage.

And then came this rather dainty bamboo herbal prawn.  It was a good way to end the starters portion, with a nice hot herbal soup to prepare the stomach and oesophagus for the mains!  But nothing really special in this dish.  Yes, the prawn was fresh and the soup delicate.  But the herbal mixture is nothing you can't get at a typical NTUC.  But I appreciate the fact that the soup was very clear; possibly because the herbs were put in a cheese cloth to be boiled so there is no sedimentation.

We started our main courses slowly, starting first with this cholesterol gauge buster called spinach with salted egg and century egg in supreme stock.  Wow! You can imagine the richness of the sauce here, rather amazing - thick, rich and flavourful.  A big plus, for me at least, was the deep fired whole garlic pieces here.  It was as if to balance off the cholesterol of the eggs.  This is definitely one of the preferred ways to get in your five a day.

And then came the real stuff, thick and fast, like the la mian here.  I had this radar specialist once called Koh, who actually got a Eu Yan Sang scholarship to study traditional chinese medicine in China (holy cow!), who told me that the defining dish of Fujian food is the la mian.  And this one at Pu tien did not disappoint.  The broth was rich and thick and there were generous amounts of ingredients.  But best to eat this steaming hot as, like all thick soup bases, it goes watery once cold.  The clams here are the stars of the dish.

And then came the protein.  On the right - Deep fried pig's trotters with pepper - Not for those with high blood pressure, it has a salty and peppery exterior but the meat was fried to perfection.  Most likely the trotters had been braised or cooked in some way before being deep fried.  And after having been onboard ship for so long where deep fried food is common, I can kind of tell when a deep fried food item is of quality; if it doesn't taste SAF cooked, its of good quality.  No seriously, the oil you use is important.  Fresh oil equals great deep fried food.  Unfortunately, the deep fryer oil onboard ship is never changed, it is just constantly topped up and everything cleaned out only once a ayear during hygiene inspection!  On the left is the fantastic deep fried duck with yam - a thick slab of duck encased in yam and crispy batter.  It tastes great but I wasn't sure that duck meat is such a good complement to yam though.  Both tastes don't really seem to go together but then this is something unique and probably not that easy to re-create at home or to buy from a regular stall.  Worth a try.

And phew, finally we come to dessert.  On the right we have pumpkin cream with ice-cream.  This was a brilliant dessert, excellently textured and creamy.  Plus it came topped with pistachios, yummy!  On the left we have the classic aw ni or yam paste.  This was no good, I recommend for you to avoid.  The paste was dull and the accompanying sweet starchy liquid was a big fat "duh?" For those in the know, yam paste or aw ni, is a Teochew dish i.e. from 潮州 in Guangdong province.  Little to do with Fujian province.  Even more interestingly, pumpkin is known also as 南瓜, and Fujian province is a southern province.  Moral of the story: know your Chinese cuisines and order accordingly!

Ok, a quick note on service - what you would expect at the START of a nice wedding banquet.  Quick changing of plates, quick courteous replies, promptness and efficient pouring of tea.  Nothing to steal the glamour of the food but also nothing to write home about. 

Ambience wise, space was rather limited at the Marina Branch, though I imagine it to be worse at the Tampines Mall branch.  Good for gathering of friends, but avoid if you're trying to impress a date.  Focus on the food!

Value for money? Some dishes are pretty pricey, especially the starters.  Overall, slightly on the high side but the food is quite well worth the money.

Food 7.5 Service 6.5 Atmosphere 6 Overall 7

Pu Tien Group of Restaurants

Ok I'm sure you've heard this debate before - how did roti john get its name? Some say it is because European bread (baguette) is used and that they used to call Europeans by the common name of "John".  Others say that roti john predated the colonial era and when they came, the Europeans, many of them called John, loved it very much because it was like their beloved french toast.  And me? I'm just wondering why the hell the ang mohs called the toilet a "john"?

I digress.

My purpose here today is to reveal the secret step to making authentic roti john.  Roti john is like chinese fried rice - extremely varied in ingredients but involves only a few simple techniques.  But the difference is that many people seem to know the 'secret' behind good fried rice: use left-over rice from the day before so that the grains stay separable and dry.  Essentially, you don't want to end up with a gooey starchy mess (zi char stalls can defy this logic by using fresh rice because they have huge roaring fires not found in the common home).  But what about roti john?  How is it the indian stalls out there can do their johns in distinct layers? bread, followed by meat, then sometimes sauce, and then lastly a solid layer of egg?

To be sure, don't trust the multitude of recipes out there who do their roti johns a la french toast tyle (dipping bread into an egg-meat mixture and then pan frying), its not roti jean.  What I am about to reveal to you is the result of close observation of the indian stalls at Golden Mile Hawker Centre.

The roti john I attempted was extremely simple and downright healthy.  Using tuna flakes, sliced button mushrooms and moz cheese.  Darn, even the eggs were low cholesterol ones!

First step is to slice your baguttes into half-baguettes.  Cut them into half width wise and then slit them length wise (yes, just like how they do it at subway when you order a six-inch).  Then, prepare a hot pan (I used a pancake/crepe pan) with some oil or cooking spray over the highest heat.

Pan toasting your bread is an important step.  This ensures that your liquids do not soak into the bread.  When you pan is hot and smokey, place the bread face down onto the pan and press using a big spatula or two smaller spatulas, in a few tens of seconds, your bread should be toasted brown as shown above.  Turn over and do so for the other side, press hard once again.  Set your bread aside onto an oven tray once they are done.

Next, prep your ingredients and beat one egg into a bowl with one teaspoon of light soy sauce.  Wipe or wash dry your pan and put more grease.  Use a medium-high heat.  Pour your egg onto the pan to cook.  Immediately, top the watery egg mixture with your topping and/or sauce - I used tuna flakes, sliced mushrooms and mozarella cheese.  And then with no time to waste, use one half baguette and press it firsmly down onto your omelette.  Ensure that the bread and egg stick and become one.   Once your egg bottom becomes browned or your egg is cooked to your liking, remove with a spatula and then neatly fold the roti john as you put it down onto the serving plate.  Voila! One down, five to go!

If possible, try to do your roti john as authentic as possible, using minced mutton.  But minced mutton is hard to find in your regular supermarket, not exactly hugely popular I guess.  A solution is to buy frozen halal lamb burgers/patties and then do the mincing yourself at home.  The advantage here is that the meat would have already been seasoned with oddities such as hydrolysed vegetable protein (aka MSG) so you don't have to do the dirty work yourself :p  Otherwise, the best wya to get frehs minced mutton is at the wet market.  Just season with pepper, salt and paprika and stir fry with some onions.

Another key component is the chilli-tomato sauce.  Every self-respecting stall serving roti john will have its own special recipe and the stalls at Golden Mile Hawker Centre at Beach Road have one of the best sauces out there.  But I think for mere mortals like us, buying good quality tomato and chilli sauce and combining them is good enough.

So remember Roti John 101: Egg, topping, Bread and then press, press, press.