Wedding Bells at the Empire Hotel

Last year I went to my first Bruneian wedding, and last month I went to another!  They really are a fascinating experience for those of us used to the traditional British wedding.  Never mind it all being over in one day, the Bruneians make it last for days with lots of special food and outfits.

The beautiful bride at this wedding was the sister of the lovely Maya, aka Foodiva, my Bruneian blogger friend.  Maya has written a little about the wedding in this recent post, but I thought I'd add a few of my own photos too.

The party was held in a large hall, part of the fabulous Empire Hotel.  We went along with another couple that we knew (who are friends of Maya's brother) as we knew that men and women usually sit separately at these events.  Good to have someone to chat with as well as share some enjoyable people-watching at what is always a colourful occasion!

When all the guests were seated the happy couple arrived - here they are entering the Hall (a rather blurry photo in all the excitement).

As you can see, their outfits were simply stunning - I just love that vibrant turquoise blue.  In Western weddings the bride often outshines the groom, but I love that in Bruneian weddings the groom gets the chance to dress up in fabulous clothes too so they both look amazing!

A delicious meal followed, at which I was too busy talking and eating to take photos

I'm not sure how much the poor bride and groom got to eat as they seemed to be constantly having to smile for photos.  A down-side of being the centre of attention for the day I suppose!

I love seeing the Bruneians dressed up in their vibrant baju kurongs (the ladies' outfits), tudongs (ladies' head-dresses) and baju melayus (the men's outfits).  I can no longer fit into my lovely green baju kurong so I wore a more Western outfit for the occasion.  I think this made me a rather more noticeable guest, as several Bruneians asked if they could take my photo alongside them and their families! 

Here's me with Maya:

All best wishes for a long and happy marriage to Fida and Ardian - and special kudos for having the cutest wedding favours I've ever seen!

Ginseng Salad and Stuffed Pumpkin

After our fun afternoon spent picking vegetables at the weekend, we've spent the last couple of days deciding what to do with them all!

Inspired by Maya's Ginseng Leaf Salad I decided to create my own version...  This turned into an exercise in rummaging-around-the-fridge to see what might work in a salad, so the finished dish bore very little resemblance to Maya's salad, apart from the ginseng leaves of course!

It lacks the colour provided by the pomegranate seeds, orange slices and torch ginger in Maya's, but I used fresh pineapple to provide sweetness, cashew nuts for some texture and thinly sliced chives and preserved garlic for some bite.  It was dressed with lime juice and toasted sesame oil, which is one of my favourite Asian flavours.  These leaves are amazing - they don't wilt at all, so I you can leave it for ages before serving.  I enjoyed the unusual flavour and texture of the ginseng leaves - a new experience for me.  A lovely light supper or side dish.

Almost as soon as I had got home from veg picking, Maya had e.mailed me a recipe for pumpkin.  Maya participates in a weekly recipe challenge called French Fridays with Dorie run by chef Dorie Greenspan, where bloggers around the world all cook the same recipe each Friday and post about it on their blogs.  This week the recipe is the temptingly titled 'Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good'.  Maya sent me the link to the recipe (which can be found here, on Epicurious) and wondered if I might be interested in trying it too?

Interested?  How could I not be?!  This recipe looks wonderful, and infinitely adaptable too.  I made it for supper last night.

There's something very satisfying about hollowing out a pumpkin...  took me right back to my Hallowe'ens in Canada.  These pumpkins have lots of flesh, so this one didn't have a huge cavity once I had removed the seeds and stringy stuff (I'm sure that's the technical term for it...).

I used the Epicurious recipe as a basis, but freestyled for much of the way, just choosing what felt right - and what was in the fridge/larder!

Here it is, stuffed and ready to cook.  The filling ended up consisting of the following:

a slice of granary bread torn up into chunks
a handful of chives, chopped
a large red chilli, chopped
2 'bockwurst' sausages, chopped
a handful of grated mature cheddar
a large 'squidge' of creme fraiche (it comes in squishy packets here!)
a splash of milk to loosen the mix
garlic pepper to season

As the recipe states, it's hard to give a cooking time as all pumpkins are different, and I suspect different fillings might cause it to cook at different speeds too.  Anyway, mine was done in under 2 hours, and looked and smelled incredible.

The sausages imparted a wonderful smoky flavour, and the cheese and creme fraiche were deliciously melted and gooey.  I cut the pumpkin into large wedges and the filling oozed out into the baking tray as I did so - satisfyingly messy!

There is no question that I'll be making this dish again (and again and again I suspect).  Minus the sausage it would make an excellent vegetarian meal, and it could be adapted in hundreds of different ways to suit different palates.  I'm looking forward to seeing what the French Fridays with Dorie group do with it - I'm sure it will give me lots more ideas.

Vegetable Picking

I feel very blessed to have met Maya...  not only is she great fun, a fabulous cook and excellent company - but her mum is the most amazing gardener, with an incredible plot full of beautiful organic produce!  This weekend Maya invited Rob and me round to her parents' house with a couple of her other friends to pick some of the vegetables that were ripening.  Her parents were actually away, and I was a little worried that they'd come back to find the garden pillaged of all the veg - but when I saw the fabulous (huge!) plot, I could see why they were happy to let people harvest a little...  Maya's mum clearly loves gardening and delights in growing all the produce that the wonderful Brunei climate allows.

Gorgeous orchids.

Rambutan on the trees and vegetable beds everywhere.

Maya introduced us to lots of exciting new plants - in this picture I'm sniffing some garlicky-scented leaves.  Other plants were more familar, and Maya soon had us snipping away with the secateurs:

Lovely fat ears of sweetcorn.

And my favourite - pumpkins (or squash - we couldn't quite decide on which they were!)

Moving round to the OTHER vegetable garden (I said it was huge!) we then found long beans (still teeny!), Australian spinach and ginseng.  There were also aubergines too, but not yet quite ripe for the picking.

 Oh yes, and chillies - LOTS of chillies!  We picked the red ones (birdseye?) and a few of the fiendishly hot orange Scotch Bonnets.

Not edible, but beautiful - Papyrus from Egypt.  I took a stalk to show my class as we've been studying Ancient Egypt!

After a sweaty hour or so in the garden, we all went inside for tea.  In true Maya form it wasn't just a cup of tea of course, but beautiful purple sweet potato pie and delicious dark chocolate and caramelised orange tarts - drool!

Maya has more photos of the day on her blog here, along with a recipe for a ginseng-leaf salad.  I made something similar last night... but that's for the next blog-post!  We're having such fun using our haul of veg.

 We started simply, stir-frying the spinach with garlic and oyster sauce as a side-dish, but have plenty more excitements on the way this week...

Thanks Maya!

A Weekend of Meeting Important People!

Over 3 weeks after Ramadan ended, and the celebratory month of Hari Raya Aidilfitri continues - these Bruneians sure know how to party!  Last year we had only just arrived in Brunei when Hari Raya was upon us, so we went to relatively few Open Houses, but this year we know lots more people and have therefore had lots more invites to various Open House parties.  It's such a nice tradition.

This weekend we had 2 particularly important ones... 

On Friday night we went to an Open House at the Officers' Mess on Bolkiah Camp.  This was hosted by the female officers who 'live in' at the mess.  It was spectacularly decorated with thousands of fairy lights, and the food was superb - stalls outside serving lamb, satay, kebabs, murtabak, etc, and a selection of curries and sweets inside.  Of course everyone was excited about the special guest, the Sultan himself, who attended with one of his sons.  Here they are, chatting with the hostesses:

After they had done this, the Sultan was invited to sign the guest-book for the evening...  which just happened to be right next to where I was standing!

After this he stood up and started doing the rounds of the room, shaking hands and chatting with the other guests.  He came straight up to the group that I was standing with...  it's amazing how tongue-tied one can suddenly become when the Sultan of Brunei is shaking your hand!!  Thankfully my friends picked up the conversation so I didn't feel too daft.  Now this all happened rather fast, and Rob had wandered off to chat to someone else, so of course he missed the opportunity to take a photo of me and His Majesty.  I was quite cross as I'm always the one who takes photos of other people with the Sultan and no one ever gets a shot of ME (case in point, here's one of Rob on Friday night:)

So just as the Sultan was finishing greeting people, I thrust my camera at Rob and rejoined the hand-shaking line... 

Rob redeemed himself - Success!!  I'm laughing because the Sultan shook my hand then looked at me and said "You again!" - and then did exactly the same to the girl next to me who had also lined up for a second hand-shake!  We told him he had a good memory, and he laughed.  I don't think I've ever had the opportunity to meet one of the British Royal Family face-to-face, but the Royals are much more accessible here in Brunei.  It's a much much smaller country of course, but they are very 'visible', often seen driving around (complete with hoards of motorcycle outriders), and attending public events.

On Saturday we attended another Open House that I was no less excited about - Maya's!  I first met my fellow Brunei food-blogger Maya a couple of weeks ago when she invited me to an Open House at her parents', but this was at her own house.  I was so pleased that Rob could meet Maya, and of course for us both to meet her lovely family (so welcoming!), and of course we were very excited to see her famous new RED kitchen - fabulous, lah?   (NB, 'lah' is the Bruneian equivalent of the Canadian 'eh'!  I'm such a cultural chameleon...!)

Oops, we appear to have adopted our signature 'kawai' pose again!

The food was - need I say it? - fantastic.  Maya's mother-in-law had cooked the savoury dishes which included Soto (a local chicken noodle broth with lots of condiments) and satay.

Rob helping himself to the Soto.

 The desserts were Maya's creations - strawberry-topped chocolate cupcake, mini cheesecakes and tiramisu.  *Yum*

Another sociable and food-filled Brunei weekend!

Meeting Maya

I've mentioned my blog-friend Maya before - she's the one who invented that divine Red  Dragonfruit Ice-Cream.  I can't quite remember how I stumbled upon her blog, but I was immediately captivated by her creativity in the kitchen, her intelligent and witty writing and her luscious photographs... and then I discovered that she actually lives in Brunei!  It's a small place so this was really exciting, and I hoped that one day we might meet.

Well, we just have!

I e.mailed Maya yesterday asking her a couple of foodie questions (where she bought her flower-shaped Polvoron moulds, and where I could purchase Black Sesame Powder in Brunei) and she e.mailed straight back with the answers, and inviting me to a Hari Raya Open House! 

The Open House was actually at her parents' beautiful house on Jalan Muara.  There were hundreds of people there (including a couple that I knew from school - I told you Brunei was a small country!) and there was lots and lots of excellent food. 

Everything was delicious - even the Beef Lung dish...  I'll try most things once, and I'd even eat that again.  There was also Soto, a lovely chicken noodle soup, plus some very tasty homemade biscuits for dessert

Everyone is always so friendly at these events and I chatted to Maya of course, but also some of her lovely friends and family.  One of her relations is the Bruneian Ambassador to Belgium, and he had been to school in Salisbury, my home town.  Small country, small world!

Anyway, Maya was of course a delight, just as fun and friendly as I had known she would be.  We asked her lovely daughter to take a couple of photographs of us together.  "Do a friendly pose!" she said:

And then we just got a bit silly!

Thank you Maya for the invitation - I know we'll meet again soon!

Lemon Curd

It's time to make more lemon curd.  The last jar disappeared within days, mainly eaten by me for breakfast on toast (and a fair bit was transported straight into my mouth on a teaspoon, dispensing with the toast as a vehicle...).

The recipe I use is simply an adaptation of Nigella Lawson's Lime Curd (in How to be a Domestic Goddess), and makes 350ml, or one largish jar.

Lemon Curd

75g unsalted butter - I use salted, I think it tastes nicer, but I'm a big fan of the salty/sweet combo
3 large eggs
75g caster sugar
125ml lemon juice

Melt the butter in a heavy-based saucepan, add all the other ingredients and whisk to a custard over a gentle heat.  Let cool before filling a sterilised jar (or a cake!) with it.  Keep in the fridge.

And that's all there is to it.  Nigella also suggests adding the zest, but personally I don't like my curd to have 'bits' in it.  But if you do, then go ahead.  Just don't expect me to eat it!

I feel like I need to make tons of this stuff as I keep seeing recipes in which to use it.  My lovely friend Anna keeps tantalising me with lemony recipes such as this Lemon Curd Cheesecake, and Little Lemon Puddings.  I'm salivating just thinking about these!

My new Brunei-blog-friend Maya of the fabulous Foodiva's Kitchen mentioned that you could also make curd with other fruits, namely mango...  I have made cranberry curd in the past (Maya would adore it, it's so pink!) but I had never thought of using other fruits.  As mangos are in season right now in Brunei I may have to look into this, in which case I'd guess you just use fruit puree instead of juice.  What a delicious thought!

Do check out Maya's beautiful blog.  Her food always looks like a work of art, not to mention tasting incredible I'm sure.  This post is on my mind at the moment...  you'll see what I mean about her love of pink!  I'm definitely thinking of dusting off my ice-cream maker and taking the plunge.