Beef stocks are funny things: why is it that Maggi or Knorr stock cubes have lots of flavous except beef?  Or why is it that instant noodles usually have chicken seasoning rather than beef?  Well, according to Cook's Illustrated, weight for weight, chicken releases more flavour from its meat, bones and skin into liquid than beef does.  Hence, to obtain some serious beef stock, a whole lot of meat is required.  And precisely lots of meat is what is required for the rich beef stock recipe found in the Best Recipes book.

Here's the recipe:

1-2 tablespoons vegetable oil

6 pounds beef shank, meat cut from bones in large chunks or 4 pounds chuck and 2 pounds small marrow bones

1 large onion, halved

0.5 cup dry red wine

1 litre boiling water

0.5 teaspoons salt

-Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large stockpot over medium-high heat.  Brow meat and oniion on all sides.  Don't overcrowd and add more oil if necessary.

-Remove contents and add the wine and reduce till a brown syrup.  Return the meat and bones.  Reduce heat and sweat the meat and onions until a thick brown intensely flavoured liquid is formed, about 20mins.

-Increase the heat to medium high, add water and salt and let simmer, partially ocvered for 1.5 to 2 hours.  Then strain the contents and tada! 2 litres of ones of the best beef stock ever.  The patient people at America's Test Kitchen found that the traditional method of roasting vegetables for stocks did not really add much flavour; a simple onion did the trick.

 And for the soup:

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

5 medium red onions (3 pounds).  Sliced thin.

2 litres beef stock from above

0.25 cup dry red wine

2 sprigs fresh parsley

1 bay leaf

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Ground black pepper

Salt

-Melt butter in a large tockpot over medium-high heat.  Add the onions and a sprinkle of salt and stir the onions until thoroughly caramelised to a brown syrup.  30 to 35 mins

-Stir in the beef stock, red wine, parsley, thyme and bay leaf.  Loosen the bits at the bottom.

-Simmer to blend the flavours.  About 20mins.  Then discard the herbs (except onions). Stir in the vinegar and adjust the taste with salt and pepper.

For the top crusts

1 baguette, cut into 1cm slices

4.5 ounces swiss cheese, sliced.

3 ounces Asiago cheese, freshly grated (about 1.5 cups)

-Adjust an oven rack to the upper-middle position; heat the broiler.  Set heat-safe bowls or crocks on a baking sheet.  fill each with about 1.5 cups soup.  Top each bowl with 2 bread slices and then the Swiss and Asiago cheeses.  

-Broil till browned and bubbly, about 10mins.

The book also states that you can replace the beef stock (if you have no time to tediously make some
) with off-the-shelf 6 cups of low-sodium chix broth and 1.75 cups of low sodium beef broth.  No doubt about it, the combination of cheeses was found to be the best by the test kitchen.  And red onions gave the best flavour too.

What I did below was to put the bread and the cheese in to a soup pot and just baked the whole thing as I didn't have oven safe bowls.  I used a single layer of country bread, Swiss Emmental (not the same as Swiss cheese!) and mozarella as Asiago was impossible to find.  One mistake I had made was to let too much water evaporate (too focused on getting a nice, rich stock) that I ended up with a cross between a soup and a stew.  Don't be afraid to add water to your beef stock or onion soup.

So with the leftover meat from making the beef stock, I made some sandwiches from the leftover bread.  I shredded the meat, topped it with some gherkins and dijonnaise and, of course, any leftover cheese and voila! there you have it, a full course meal fro ma few simple ingredients.  But all of these took quite a lot of time though, two plus hours, if you're not an experienced cook.  But then good food, good fun, nothing really more I can ask for!

My FAVOURITE recipe site is allrecipes.com .  Not only is it easy to remember but it is a review-based site so at least you can be assured someone tried it out before you (unless of course you're brave enough to attempt an unrated recipe for a flourless choclate cake with caramelised raspberries or something like that).  One tip is to always read the review comments because the really experienced home-cooks will give very good advice and tips on improving the recipe.  So from allrecipes, I got the following red potato salad submitted by Susan Martin.  I liked this recipe because of its simplicity, the rest of the submitted recipes had too much distractions like boiled egg, mustard and fancy cheeses. 

4 servings

-7 medium red potatoes, cooked and cubed 

-60ml sour cream

-60ml mayonnaise

-30g shredded cheddar

-20g chopped red onion

-3 X bacon strips, cooked and crumbled

-2g chopped chives

-Salt and pepper to taste

Red potatoes can be found at Cold Storage and The Marketplace and they're not cheap  but since this is the core of the dish, you probably might not want to stint on quality.  I prefer to leave the skins on for my salad.  One thing ot note when cooking the bacon, pan fry with oil till dark brown and remove quickly, this will prevent it from turning charred.  The bacon will continue to cook once out of the pan and will harden enough for it to crumble.

Well, this being a salad, I obviously didn't stick rigidly to the recipe.  One tip from reviewers was to use twice the amount of bacon (which I did).  I also used a bit more sour cream to give it a creamier taste without it being too muar.  And of course, you can be as generous with the cheese as you want.  Some reviews suggested using parika and garlic powder to spice up the dish.  But I thought using good ground black pepper and good sea salt (adding a nice bit of salty crunch) was much sufficient.  

This potato salad will go great with all kinds of meats especially at BBQs.  Try it and tell me!

I haven't blogged for some time due to a variety of reasons, not one of the least being that I haven't really gone out to eat much interesting stuff lately.  It has been a lot of same old same old recently due to work and financial constraints.  So I thought I might as well save the writing for something truly amazing.  And yes, something pretty interesting did turn up eventually - a nice navigational deployment to Qingdao, China to attend the PLA-Navy's 60th Anniversary Fleet Review.  And yes, that meant five of us including three of my courses-mates depicted above - Josephine, Neville and Pravin (trying to shake the salt water out of his ears) - plus MAJ Sylvan our course instructor, we piled into 1 X frigate and sailed up and up and up and up which got colder and wetter and foggier.  But finally, after enduring not so few hours of bad sea state (something like in the mural in the above picture) ... 

We suddenly found ourselves in Qingdao, No。55 Nanjing lu (南京路), drenched, stinky-socked, in this place called De Heng Roasted Duck Shop, 德恒烤鸭店.  Ok, it wasn't really a 'shop', more like a traditional Beijing kind of restaurant set in a building that had the facade of a Shaolin temple, complete with a couple of the usual stone lions guarding the entrance.  So you enter and you're instantly greeted by rows and rows upon counters of plastic food (yes, the kind you usually find outside a japanese restaurant) and tanks of fresh seafood.  And just to put things into context, we were ravenous.  We arrived in Qingdao, the supposed Marseille of the East, famed for its fine weather, seafood beaches and European architecture, in dense fog and slow, never-ending, rain.  Plus we had only six night hours to squeeze whatever touristy stuff out of the city before jetting back home the next day.  So we just hopped into a cab, rattled off a few street names recommended to us, and somehow found ourselves at Nanjing lu, which ironically, wasn't really our final destination at all.

But anyhow, let's proceed on to the food and i'll fill in the details as we go along:

The first dish was actually a rather pleasant surprise.  We had chosen a few prawns from the tanks and asked for some recommendations.  So the waitresses rattled off something incomprehensible and we just nodded in agreement.  So tada, we have here stir-fried gingko nut, papaya and prawn.  It was a nice combination I felt.  The prawns especially, was unlike any prawn I've eaten, they were pale-white when cooked and tasted somewhat exquisite, almost like crystal prawns.  And the prawns went well with the gingko and papaya for some strange reason.  Sliced onions added the familiar taste to this dish.  I think this dish is a very typical north-east China dish, or what some might know as Shandong cuisine or 鲁菜 lu cai.  It is usually characterised by light flavours and soups.  So in this dish and a few others below, you don't find the typical ginger, oyster sauce and dark soy sauce (Our Singaporean cuisine ... derived largely from Cantonese and Teochew influences) 

Next came another specimen from the tanks - octopus or what the Chinese call 八带.  Once again, very nicely stir-fried Shandong-style, with leeks, spring onions and black fungus.  Because these are live-caught, the meat was just awesome.  It had the crunch and bite you would never find in the typical Japanese restaurant in London or Singapore.  Also, I'm quite intrigued that they used orchids as garnishes which are pretty expensive and something you might expect at a more posh restaurant than this.

And then came the bomb, the Buddha Jumps Over the Wall aka 佛跳墙, fo tiao qiang.  I've never tried this dish, although so famous, before Qingdao.  I've always been regaled by accounts of the culinary treasures thrown into this veritable stew and I was about to find out!  So in it are quail eggs, white fungus, shark's fin, abalone, scallops, turtle and lots of other seafood cartilege I couldn't identify!  To be eaten with vinegar.  Beside the fo tiao qiang, is the famous Sichuan 麻辣 mala hotpot of tofu and pork slices - made from lots of oil, fried chillies and Sichuan peppercorns.

On the left was my personal special dish because the rest weren't too keen on poking around in a spiky bowl - sea urchin steamed with egg.  It was quite tasty and the texture was slightly rougher than your average steamed egg or 水蛋 you find at the chap chye peng stall.  But I enjoyed the addition of a slight bit of soya sauce and sesame oil.  On the right is the fo tiao qiang stew.

Here is something quite commendable: 翡翠虾饺 or crystal skin prawn dumplings.  It had a good bit of chinese chives inside which I quite enjoyed.  Although the skin was a little thick, there were good amounts of well-seasoned pork and prawn meat inside.  But truth be told, after all the china food scares, I was a little apprehensive about ordering stuff with blended unseen ingredients.

One of the freshest fish you can find, from the temperate waters of Qingdao, to the fish tanks, to the chopping board, guts pulled out, scales scrapped and into the steamer.  This 海铺黄鱼 came steamed in what we might know as Hong Kong style, with soya sauce, a bit of sesame oil, springs onions and ginger.  I think it is a species of grouper. By golly, once you taste the fish here, you might even turn your nose up at Ah Yat's live seafood.  This is a classic example of extremely fresh food cooked simply.

The second fish we ordered is what they called 斑加吉鱼.  I've never come across anything like this and I think its a type of flounder.  The cooking style here is what they called 清蒸 or plain steaming.  The sauce is actually thickish and has a mild flavour of fish stock.  The fish meat texture takes some getting use to though, a little bit tough but not as tough as shark's meat.  There was plenty of meat on this bugger.  But I think I enjoyed the first fish more though.

And then finally came The Duck.  We had to order this the very moment we stepped into the restaurant as the waitresses told us that it would take about an hour to prepare the duck.  So we have all heard of the famous Peking Duck.  And I was about to try it first-hand as close proximity to Beijing as I will ever be.  So this dude carves the duck most expertly - first he carves five little slivers of skin from the rear of the duck, near the bishop's nose.  You can see the five pieces of skin in the picture above.  Then from the same area, he cuts out five pieces of the tenderest meat.  So each of us was served with one piece of skin and one piece of meat each.  As explained by our waiter, you eat the skin dipped in salt and the meat dipped in plum sauce.  Certainly made for interested dining.

And then the rest of the duck is carved up and eaten with gusto with the traditional flour pancakes, spring onions, cucumbers and peking duck sauce.  I also liked picking at the duck head (I have this Anthony Bourdain-esque tendency to eat the strangest and most perky flavoured things), going especially for the tongue and eyes.

After serving us the duck proper, the waiter asked us how we wanted the bones cooked.  For those not familiar, this is the usual practice for Peking Duck.  The meat and skin are carved out and served while the remnants are taken back into the kitchen and prepared into another dish.  Once again, in vain attempt to introduce the style we wanted our duck remants prepared, the waiter rattled off some machine gun mandarin which we couldn't catch so we nodded our heads obediently and smiled in agreement.  And tada! out came this quirky mess.  It was kind of dubious at first, compounded by the fact that you could see the odd wingtip and neck sticking out here and there.  But I just took a bite and ooh! heaven - waht they did was to cook the remnant duck pieces in spiced salt and flour and deep-fried the whole batch.  It was truly amazing and ended the meal with quite a bang. 

I studied the Qing dynasty, its fall and the resulting "one hundred years of colonialism" while I was nerding around in LSE.  Reports of how the Empress Dowager Cixi and all the confucian gentry corrupted and squandered country and riches were pretty well-documented.  In culinary terms, this can be embodied in the famous 满汉全席 or the Manch-Han (Han Chinese were and still is the dominant ethnic group in China) Imperial Feast.  This gastronimic orgy usually consists of over three hundred dishes, held in six banquets over three days.  So after our Qingdao dinner, I thought I had unconsciously gone through a mini imperial banquet ... maybe incomplete due only to the absence of roasted bear paw with tiger penis tartare or braised monkey brains in superior whale semen broth.

And the best thing, you wouldn't believe the price we paid per person for all of of the above, a measly, beggarly, thievely, S$35 per person.  That wouldn't even get you a half-decent buffet at the Ritz.

Finally as an encore, as if all of that gorging was not enough, we headed to Beer Street, Pi Jiu Jie, for a drink.  Just to mximise the last hour of our remaining time.  You CANNOT go to Qingdao without having some Tsingtao beer.  On the way in to the port, we were talking to the harbour pilot who told us, at all costs, to try Tsingtao beer from No. 1 Factory.  Why? Because it is only at that factory that the beer is brewed with spring waters from Laoshan, 崂山, the Taoist-revered mountain, the birthplace of Taoism.  And then of course, for the liver-killers, there is the little business of Gaoliang, 高梁, the famous Chinese and Korean liquor, a clear distilled liquid made from Sorghum, responsible for many a drunken stupor.  This Red Star Kaoliang featured here is, quite fortunately, only 53% proof so that Pravin and Sylvan's cigarettes did not result in a catastrophic explosion.  But STILL, the 53% was burning, you could feel the warmth sliding down your oesophagus and killing your stomach cells on the way down and then the permeating stuff entering your head.  Jo, very wisely here, carries her handphone.

So that about ends our short night in China.  What a pity.  We got to see a lot more on the way to airport and on the flight though.  But probably I'll tell you guys more in due time.  Suffice to say, I was surprised that we were treated very cordially and friendly by all the locals, even with our Chinese-looking faces but screwed up Chinese vocabulary and weird Singapiorean accent.  And the streets and toilets were clean, they were almost spotless I must say.  And their buildings were neat and tidy and modern.  All of these ,no doubt, legacies of the 2008 Olympics which Qingdao hosted together with Beijing.  Oh and did I mention the *almost* SIA-like service and food on China Eastern airlines?  Make no mistake about it, Old Lee was right when he indignantly insisted we learn more mandarin - The Chinese are building up one big-ass empire of their own. 

The drive, determination and ambition are unmistakable.

For us commonfolk, BLU Restaurant is not something that instantly pops into mind when one mentions European/French fine-dining. But it may ring a bell in certain circles given that the fact that it has received top awards from Wine and Dine and Singapore Tatler. Rather surprising was the fact that BLU has garnered a pretty impressive at www.hungrygowhere.com where one reviewer gushed that "Be prepared to be wowed by the weird and the wonderful, to have your palates tickled and teased, but at the end of the day still walk out of the restaurant and feel like you’ve had a pretty good damn meal.". 

More impressive still is the resume of its chef de cuisine, a one Kevin Cherkas, who has worked in three-michellin starred restaurants such as El Bulli and Arzak.   Thus, he comes from the school of 'progressive cooking' with strong influences of molecular gastronomy - think carrot foam, bacon ice cream and sous vide cooking. The highly-acclaimed Cherkas came over from Shangri-La Kuala Lumpur (well done!) to Singapore a few months ago to helm the kitchen at BLU.  A pretty long way to come given his Canadian roots.  In the world of fine dining, a restaurant is defined by the stature of its chef as much as it is by its owner and location.

The service at BLU was excellent, even by fine dining standards.  Waiters make small talk, crack (funny) jokes and are generally attentive.  Decor and atmosphere wise, above average.  There were numerous tables with good view from the 26th storey of the Western part of Singapore.  Cutlery and crockery were of good quality and creatively designed.  I liked that they used tiny stone tiles as a bread plate.  The furniture and panelling though could do with some revamp I felt - a little too tacky and they did not convey a sense of class.  With respect to value for money, well, I paid $400 (ouch!) for everything below plus two glasses of wines (a quarter of the cost!).  Consiering that the food could be customised, I thought it was of decent value.

Without much ado, with a 2006 New Zealand pinot noir on hand, we move on to the food.  There is no menu at this restaurant.  People get to choose what they want to eat.  They can opt for an appetiser, a main and then dessert or they just want mains or they want a starter and five desserts.  But normal people usually do the $139++ six course experience menu.  Cherkas comes to your table and asks what you like or don't like - mainly general items such as beef, fish or foie gras.  No, I doubt you can tell him you want white flour and cai por and expect some haute cuisine chwee kway.  So PY's favourites like escargot, beef and foie gras seemed pretty appropriate for the occasion.  

We start with dessert today for a change.  Our last dish for the night was a plant.  Serious man.  Here it is:

I think they had this plastic 'love' tree custom made.  You might be forgiven in thinking that the brown branches and trunks were chocolate but unfortunately they aren't.  The edible parts are the soil (crushed choc covered coffee beans), the two little green leaves (white choc with green colouring) and the pink blossoms (candy floss).  It was a nice surprise and I was just hooked on popping the coffee beans into my mouth.  Sure beats Super 3-in-1 coffee mix.

One of the highlights for the night was this dessert called "Breakfast" which was recommended by Cherkas:

This is definitely not your typical dessert.  It is served on two pieces of acrylic tiles with a piece of paper in between.  Printed on this sheet of paper is the bacon, beans, sausages and toast you see.  The piece de resistance then is the egg in the centre.  It is a pretty big piece, about twice the size of your regular chicken egg.  So the yolk is made of mango puree encased in an algin-membrane globule.  The whites are made from light coconut cream and the shell of hardened coconut fat.  In the egg and underneath it (to prop it up) is passion fruit sorbet.  It was a refreshing dish, and good given that we had some heavy dishes beforehand.  The amazing thing was the yolk, it gives you the "Wow, how did they do this" feeling and is a very classic technique of El Bulli called spherification where the mango puree is dropped into an algin-water mix to allow a membrane to form.  Even the mango puree's texture was perfect to resemble the physical characteristics of egg yolk.

Before this was what was my favourite dish and one of the most delicious things man must have ever created:

This was a nameless wagyu beef tenderloin Mexican style.  The brown sauce is spicy chocolate and the accompaniment is crispy potatoes in Japanese mayonnaise.  The powdery stuff you see is dehydrated coconut and the lump of red stuff at the top is a very yummy jalapeno chilli sauce.  The yellow thingies are corn polenta.  The potatoes were really amazing - crisp and heavenly with the mayonnaise.  The jalapenos were delectable too.  Yet, what definitely steals the show is the rare cooked wagyu beef.  The meat is nothing like what I've ever tasted and to describe the taste would be a challenge.  Imagine tasting countryside, meadows and farm - beef in its pure essence without the basic beefy smell.  The meat was nicely charred on the outside which gave it some crisp, probably done with a cooking torch.  One drawback of this dish was that it was slightly over complicated and the myriad of flavours did not really meld together.

Before this, was a very yummy sorbet to cleanse the palate:

This was a simple yet delightful amuse bouche (literally means to delight the mouth) between the courses.  It is simply yoghurt with a grape sorbet.  The grape you see there tastes 'spicy' because it has been carbonated.  How? Beats me.  A quick google search reveals this.  Some nifty equipment needed most definitely.

And yet another course, we have:

After all that post modern dishes, we have here a relatively unexciting pan fried foie gras entier.  But no less delicious, the trick is to cook to perfect the little morsel of fat.  A slight twist was the topping of Sichuan peppercorns.  Accompanying this were a cherry reduction and poached cherries together with crushed pistachios.  The last time I had foie gras was eons ago in France, probably in 2007.

Keeping to the creative theme, another wow dish was this parsnip puree with escargot:

Each escargot comes accompanied with a soft coconut meringue and the leaves you see are swiss chards (I think).  The branches are made of parsnip puree and topped with crushed almonds and bread crumbs.  Eating this was almost magical.  I was quite intrigued with the choice of parsnip, it complemented the taste of the cooked snails pretty well.

And finally, our appetiser:

A brie de meaux with a pieces of black truffle in the middle - the kind of thing Abramovich and the Sultan of Brunei eat as snacks.  This dish didn't exactly blow us off our feet and probably the chef wanted to build the dinner into a crescendo starting from a low base.  I felt the pattern thing to be a little unncessary and would have preferred a bit of toast or fruit instead.  The little black blobs and the pattern are balsamic vinegar jus and jelly together with dehydrated coconut.  I mopped everything up with bread and it was yum yum yummy.  Luckily brie is one of PY's favourite cheeses (she doesn't fancy blue cheese) - I couldn't afford to screw up the evening because before this was PY's 'main course':

And to make sure she couldn't say anything but "yes" I got a pair of diamond earrings from Soo Kee's solitaire collection.  So I popped the question, hopefully for the first and last time in my life, using diamonds, a piece of mango cut into an "M" and a piece of watermelon cut into an "E".  In case you were wondering, these were the same two acrylic plates used in the "breakfast" dessert.  So the "Will you marry ?" was drawn onto a piece of paper and placed in between.  I had contacted Cherkas a few days beforehand and he had very willingly obliged to make this evening extra special.  (Incidently, Cherkas told us that he himself had proposed to his beau in Langkawi and was getting married in June!)  For good measure, I told him it was best I get the whole thing over with right from the start otherwise I'd have nothing but butterflies in my stomach the entire night.

In case you're wondering, PY said yes :)

In case you're wondering, what I was served with while the above was served to PY:

 Food 8, Service 9, Atmosphere 7, Value for money 7

BLU Restaurant

Ahoy! And welcome to a day in the life of a PV chef onboard RSS RESILIENCE.  You might have remembered my long ago entry on the LST (aka big big ship) chef.  But the life of a PV chef is somewhat different.  First of all, he works in space no bigger than your average toilet.  Secondly, he needs to cook for more than 30 people onboard.  Thirdly, there is only ONE chef.  And lastly, once in a while, he gets smartass officers like me who try to sneak in on his territory.  But Kang Wei, the featured chef below is the jolly sort who doesn't really mind.  No, he's not trying to say he needs a pair of kitchen scissors.  What he means is that two in the kitchen equals c.r.a.m.p.e.d.

But anyhow, I joined him for one of the days during one of our sailings to whip up some dinner for the crew.  The best thing was that I got to plan the menu (and didn't need to wash the dishes :)))) So below, we roasted some pork marinated with salt and pepper and sliced them.  Then we made some apple sauce using sliced apples and some honey and dried rosemary.  And combined the two.  Tada, one dish done.

Following that,  we got out some frozen prawns, peeled them and roasted them.  Then I mixed some raw chopped garlic with a generous serving of melted hot butter, threw in some chopped chinese parsley and then made our very own prawn salad.  Oh yes, don't forget to squeeze in a generous amounts of lime or lemon juice.  We used calamansi below.

And before we knew it, we had a bit of bad sea state.  No doubt chasing away some pirates.  So our photo for Kang Wei's wonderful roasted chicken got a bit screwed.  But I can tell you that his secret marinate included worcester sauce and honey.  All sold out!

And finally we ended with some staple.  Cooked some rice with a few tablespoons of turmeric powder.  Then cooked tomato puree over low heat till nice and thick.  Spooned in the sauce together with fried cashes and fried shallots.  Voila! Tomato rice on the high seas.

So typing this blog entry was the easy part.  We actually toiled for three hours in a 1m by 3m little space to produce all that food.  A nice little workout no doubt.  After that, it was back to bridge to keep watch with my box of yummy dinner.  But what I find most liberating about cooking onboard? You are not constrained by cost only by availability.  Usually the twin evils of cost and availability wreaks havoc on the aspiring gourmet chef but here you can use the food liberally.  Of course, until you load more rations, some particular types of rations will run out.  Chief among these are eggs which are highly prized commodities.  So let's say you want to cook chicken soup with vegetables, you open the fridge, see a few chickens, well, you can use all of them if you like.  So the soups are usually delicious onboard - in a big roaring pot with two whole chickens flavouring the broth. 

So there, another taste of navy life for you, the land lubbers out there.

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.

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.

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!)

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

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.