Rojak

We love Asian food - quite fortunate really as we now find ourselves living in Asia...  and we've been really enjoying sampling various dishes since we arrived (over 3 weeks ago now - how time flies).  Eating out is cheap and easy, and Brunei is a real melting-pot of culinary cultures -  Malay, Chinese, Indian and Thai food are all easily available. 

We do occasionally hit somewhat of a food-wall...  most meals consist of noodles or rice, usually with chicken, and soy sauce.  It's lovely, but it does make you crave chips after a while!  (Which lead to the almost shameful sight of us gorging ourselves at the Yacht Club earlier this week with Rob ordering burger and chips, and me having steak 'n' kidney pie and chips!!)

However, inspired both by a dish that Paula had at a local restaurant and a cooking programme we caught on TV recently, we have discovered a Malaysian dish that contains neither noodles nor rice, but does contain loads of amazing fruit and vegetables, combined with a fantastically flavourful peanutty sauce - it's called Rojak.

Searching for Rojak recipes online I soon realised that everyone has their own recipe for it, and they're all slightly different, varying from country to country and doubtless from family to family too.  The basis of the dish though is the same - a sort of savoury fruit and vegetable salad.  It might not sounds appetising, but believe me it is, and it's also infinitely adaptable according to what fruit and veg you have.

We enjoyed a happy half hour together in the kitchen creating our own version of Rojak, which I attempted to document photographically...

We started by making the sauce.  This basically contains shrimp paste, tamarind paste (gorgeous!), chili paste (which we didn't have - we used a chopped birdseye chili instead), oyster sauce, palm sugar and lime juice - a tablespoon of each.  Blend together with about half a cup of water, and add a handful of crushed peanuts (or peanut butter apparently!)  Next time I'll add a splash of soy sauce too.

It all looks a bit brown and sinister at this point...

We'd never used palm sugar before - it comes in hard blocks which you grate.  It's delicious, with a real toffee-like sweetness.

Next came the heap of fruit and veg to chop...

We used green beans, baby corn, cucumber, apple and guava - but I found recipes that included pineapple and green (unripe) mango - which I'd like to try - too.   We also bought some beancurd to add, as we had seen this on the cooking programme and fancied trying it.

If you've never seen a guava cut open (which I hadn't!) here's one.  I peeled it and scooped out the seeds in the middle, then chopped it along with the rest of the fruit and veg.

Depending on the veg used you might blanch or cook it before adding to the Rojak, but we chose to keep it all raw as we love baby corn and beans as they are.  It gave the dish a great crunch.

Rob chopped and deep-fried the beancurd.  It went lovely and crispy - although when we do it again we'll coat it in seasoned flour before frying as it's rather bland.

Phew!  All that mixing, chopping and frying calls for a G&T...

The final step is simply to mix the fruit and veg into the sauce, stirring well to coat eat piece.  We topped it with the beancurd and some more chopped peanuts.

OK, it wouldn't win any beauty contests, but it really was delicious - healthy, fresh, crunchy, zingy and fiery (those chillies are HOT!)  Definitely a success, and one we'll certainly be making again.

I'm back - and in Brunei

It's been 8 weeks since my last blog post.  8 weeks... and about 7000 miles. 

We're now living in Brunei - and it still feels a little strange to be writing that!   Until we heard we might be moving here, I'm not sure I had heard of Brunei, and I certainly didn't know where it was.  But now we find ourselves living and working in the Far East, on the north coast of the island of Borneo, looking out over the South China Sea.

So how is it? 'Overwhelming' has been the word that I've used most.  But overwhelming in (usually) the nicest way.  It's just that everything is new and different, it's pretty hard to take in all at once. 

New house...

New critters...

New school...

New wildlife...  (I was going to say 'new neighbours' there but thought that might be misconstrued!)

New climate...  (Hot and humid with epic rainstorms).

New sights to see...

New food to try...  (This is ambuyat, a Bruneian speciality, which due to its close similarity to wallpaper paste,  I will not be sampling again!)

A beach within 5 minutes' walk of the house...

And walks in the jungle...

All that, along with some fabulous new friends and neighbours.  I think we're going to be very happy here for the next 2 years.

Elderflower Cordial

I made a batch of Elderflower Cordial last year and we still have a tub of it in the freezer so I didn't think I'd bother making another batch this Summer, seeing as we're trying to empty the freezer before we go to Brunei.  But then I noticed that there were several elder trees growing in the vicinity of the school...  I decided to indoctrinate my class into the delights of foraging!!

To reassure, we did have a long chat about the possible dangers of eating things 'from the wild' - berries, etc - and how we should always check with an adult before picking and eating anything from the hedgerows, but talk over, we set out to pick the requisite 40 heads of elderflowers needed for the cordial. 

Armed with scissors the task was soon accomplished...

And back in school we soon had ourselves a batch of cordial infusing, and a delightfully fragrant classroom!

We did shake the elderflower heads to remove as many bugs as possible, but you're not meant to rinse the flowers as you then wash all the pollen away.  As you can see, there were still plenty of teeny bugs floating around in the bowl.  You can only imagine the excitement this caused!!

The cordial has now been strained (no more bugs!) and sampled enthusiastically by the whole class.  I'd guess there was a 75% approval rating, which I didn't think was bad, considering how fussy 6-8 year-olds can be.  We still have nearly 2 litres of undiluted cordial left though...  I'm pondering making up jugs of it and selling it at the school gate after school one day this week.

Elderflower Cordial

40 heads of elderflowers
2 lemons, sliced
3 1/4 lb granulated sugar
3oz citric acid (from a chemist)
3 pints boiling water


Mix all the ingredients in a clean container, cover and leave for up to 5 days.  Strain, dilute with water and drink.

Custard Cookies

I love anything with custard.  In fact, I consider custard to be a pudding in itself!  During my first year at university when I was in catered accommodation I remember that there always used to be a large 'cauldron' of custard to accompany the hot pudding (often something utterly bizarre such as pineapple and coconut crumble).  Forget the wacky crumbles, I'd usually just have custard, greedily ladled into a bowl (thank heavens for self-service). 

And yes, I do eat the skin!

So when I saw a magazine article which included a recipe for 'Soft Custard Cookies' I felt that I had to give them a try.  The recipe is from the January 2010 edition of Good Housekeeping, and comes from TV chef Phil Vickery. The custard takes the place of egg in the recipe and the result is a soft, almost cakey cookie with a pronounced flavour of vanilla from both the custard and the white chocolate (I also used vanilla sugar and added 1/2 a tsp of vanilla extract - I love vanilla).

The recipe calls for 100g of Bird's Custard, made-up and cooled.  This obviously means that if you had custard leftover from a meal you could use that, but I made up a batch specially, putting the rest into ramekins to set solid for our pudding last night.  Hot custard is lovely, but cold set custard is gorgeous!

The recipe is as follows:

125g (4oz) unsalted butter, softened
125 (4oz) caster sugar (or vanilla sugar)
100g (3 1/2oz) white chocolate, finely chopped (and do chop it finely otherwise the dough will be hard to slice)
200g self-raising flour (I ended up using 250g)
100g (3 1/2oz) cold Bird's custard, made to packet instructions

Cream the butter and sugar until pale and creamy.

Add the custard, chocolate and flour and mix well.

Form the dough into a sausage shape, 5cm diameter, wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for at least an hour.  (***Note - the dough was way too sticky for me to do this so I added an extra 50g of flour.  It was still very soft, but manageable***)

Preheat oven to 180C/350F.

Unwrap the dough and slice into 1.5cm thick cookies, and place onto a greased or lined baking tray.  Leave room between them as they will spread.  (***I got 20 cookies from this mix and used 2 baking trays***)

Bake for about 15 minutes until the cookies are beginning to turn a light golden brown around the edges.
Leave on the tray for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool fully.

I had never heard of using custard in a biscuit recipe before, and an online search showed that it is somewhat of a speciality of Phil Vickery.  I couldn't find this particular recipe online, but did find a similar one of his: White Chocolate and Cardamom Soft Custard Cookies.  I can imagine that this would be a great flavour combination and one I'm now keen to try.

Rhubarb Kuchen

Breakfast Baking.  Something I can rarely be bothered to do - I'd always rather plump for an extra half-hour in bed, and settle for a bowl of cereal.  But last weekend was different.  The weather was hot, really hot, and somehow as soon as I woke up and saw the sun shining outside, I couldn't stay in bed.  On Saturday morning we ate breakfast in the garden, enjoying the sunshine before it got too warm (yes, I know it's hard to believe, but I am still in England!), and this set me thinking that breakfast in the sun is a great occasion and should be celebrated.

Finding some slightly out-of-date packets of dried yeast, plus feeling guilty about the rhubarb that was languishing in the bottom of the fridge spurred me on to search through How to Be a Domestic Goddess, my favourite Nigella book...  I had a recollection of some kind of yeasted cake, or sweet bread, that used rhubarb - and there it was.

Kuchen is German for 'cake' but this is really a hybrid cake/bread recipe.  I did as Nigella suggested and made up the rich dough recipe the night before, leaving it in the fridge to rise slowly overnight.  I was a bit sceptical that this would work actually, but sure enough in the morning it had doubled in size.  I brought it out of the fridge, pressed it into the tin and left it to come up to room temperature while I made the topping.  The dough becomes easier to stretch as it warms up, so I didn't force it while it was fridge-cold.

I didn't have quite the required weight of rhubarb, so added some strawberries to make it up - rhubarb and strawberry are a great combination of flavours.

I also didn't want to make the crumble topping (just one step too far on a Sunday morning!) so sprinkled over some flaked almonds instead.

A mere hour or so after getting out of bed, this was baked and ready to eat.  The dough was browned and puffy, and the fruits had oozed their sugary juices over the kuchen and into the pan. 

 And perfect with a cup of coffee in the garden (pyjamas obligatory!).

The recipe, if you don't have the book, is as follows:

Rhubarb Crumble Kuchen (serves 8)

Dough:
350-400g strong white flour
½ teaspoon salt
50g caster sugar
3 ½g easy blend yeast (half a sachet), or 7g fresh yeast
2 large eggs
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
grated zest of ½ a lemon (I omitted this, with no ill effects)
good grating of fresh nutmeg
125ml milk, warmed
50g unsalted butter, softened


Topping:
1 large egg
1 tablespoon cream
grating of fresh nutmeg
350g trimmed rhubarb, finely chopped (I had just less than 300g rhubarb and made up the weight with strawberries, also finely chopped)
75g caster sugar (I used vanilla sugar)
¼ teaspoon allspice (I omitted this)


Crumble topping:
30g unsalted butter, cold and diced
50g self raising flour
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1 tablespoon demerara sugar

Put 350g of the flour in a bowl with the salt, sugar and yeast. beat the eggs and add them, with the vanilla, lemon zest and nutmeg, to the lukewarm milk. Stir the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients to make a medium soft dough, being prepared to add more flour as necessary. Nigella says she generally uses 400g but advises you start off with the smaller amount and just add extra as needed. Work in the soft butter and knead by hand for about 10 minutes (or using the dough-hook in the KitchenAid for about 5 minutes as I did).

When the dough is ready it will appear smoother and springier – it suddenly seems to 'plump up to glossy life' as Nigella puts it so eloquently.


Cover with a tea towel and leave until it doubles (1-1¼ hours) or leave to rise slowly in a cold place (the fridge is fine) overnight if you want to have this for breakfast (let the dough come back to room temperature before using it).

Punch down and stretch to line a swiss-roll tin (c30cm x 20cm) which you have lined with greaseproof paper. if you are struggling to get it stretch to fill the tin, leave it to rest for 10 minutes mid-stretch.  Leave to prove for 15-20 minutes while you preheat the oven to 200c.

When the dough is ready, beat the egg and cream together, grate in some nutmeg and brush the mixture over the dough. This gives a gloriously glossy topping to the Kuchen.

Stir the rhubarb together with the sugar and allspice but don’t do this until the last minute as the sugar makes the rhubarb release its water.  Sprinkle the rhubarb-sugar mix over the egg-washed dough.
To make the crumble topping (although flaked almonds are just fine!), rub the cold diced butter into the flour until becomes like sand and then stir in the sugars with a fork.  Top the fruit with the crumble.

Put in the oven for 15 minutes then turn down to 180c and cook for a further 15-20 minutes, until the dough is swelling and golden at the edges and cooked within.

Remove from the oven and leave in the tin for 15 minutes.  Slice and eat, still warm. In your pyjamas.

I can't wait to try this with other fruits!  I think it could work well with many other toppings.  I have a bag of foraged blackberries in the freezer, so I think that will be my next Kuchen, perhaps also with apple as Nigella suggests in this alternative Kuchen recipe.

Rhubarb

A New Adventure...

It's been 'on the cards' as they say for a while, but it's now finally confirmed.  We're off to Brunei this August, for two years, on Rob's next posting.

Before you rush to find an atlas, here's a map:

Plenty of travel opportunities, as you can see!  We'll be living near the capital city, Bandar Seri Begawan, and I will be teaching in one of the International Schools there.

(This of course is the largest mosque in BSB, not the aforementioned school!)

I have visited Thailand, but nowhere else in Asia, so can't wait to explore more and am excited to be able to experience living in a country so different to the UK.

I know that there are many things about England that I will miss, but I also know that we will go into this experience with an open mind... and an open mouth!  I can't wait to enjoy shopping for, cooking and eating Asian food on a regular basis.

I also can't wait to have visitors such as this in our garden:

With thanks to Paula, our neighbour-to-be, for the photo.

We're not off for a few months, but I am aware that the time will fly by.   I'm unsure as to how much foraging for food I'll be doing in Brunei, but I'm looking forward to posting about our experiences, foodie and otherwise.

Lardy Cake

I'm not sure that this is the most appetising name for a foodstuff.  But, it is what it claims - a 'cake' (or perhaps more properly a bread) made with lard.  And I'll not lie, it's made with lots of lard.  But strange as it may sound, the Lardy Cake is possibly the most wonderfully delicious baked treat EVER.  I urge you to seek one out.

Lardy Cakes originated in the pig-farming counties of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire.  I guess they had to use all that lard for something.  When we lived in Wiltshire, on the edge of the New Forest, our local village bakery sold the most amazing Lardy Cakes - so amazing that they were locally rather famous and you had no chance of getting your hands on one if you turned up much after 9.30 on a Saturday morning.  However, it's a long time since we have sampled such a treat; indeed I had almost forgotten about their very existence... until we stopped in the small town of Burford on our way to a week's holiday in Shropshire after Easter.

I couldn't resist popping my head round the door of a lovely looking bakery on the High Street, and when I spotted a tray of spiralled, sticky, 'individual' Lardy Cakes, I couldn't resist going further and buying one.  And - oh my! - this was good.  I had never seen Lardy Cakes in this smaller size, or spiralled in such a way, but both of these things managed to increase the ratio of sticky-surface-area to soft doughy inner.  Which is a very good thing.

On my return home from Shropshire, I was inspired to try making a Lardy Cake myself.  I found many recipes online, but settled for this one, mainly because it used dried yeast as opposed to fresh, and I had some that needed using up.

The method is simple.  Make a basic bread dough, and let it prove before rolling it out and dotting it with butter, lard (of course), sugar and dried fruit (minus the mixed peel for me - yuk!).

A few folds, more dotting, more folds, more dotting, etc, etc, builds up a lovely loaf layered with sweet fruit and fat ready to melt into the bread.

Here's the finished loaf.  When I said that I had yeast that needed using up...  I think I was a little too late!  It had lost much of its raising-powers, so the Lardy Cake ended up quite flat.  It was also not quite sweet enough for my taste so we ended up sprinkling warmed slices of it with cinnamon sugar - a delicious plan.  The outer edges were however amazing.  It was almost as if they had been fried (which I suppose they had in a way) - a crispy contrast to the sweet bread inside.

I'm keen to try this again because, nice as it was, I think it could be better.  I'd love to experiment with a slightly different recipe, or perhaps adapt this one a little (better yeast, more sugar).  Watch this space!