Kay's Kitchen

01/05/2017

More adventure in poké, this time with a better marinade/cure/sauce whatever you want to call it. Click for the new recipe!

01/04/2017

Poké is apparently the IN thing in town right now, according to a Straits Times article. That I did not read. It's actually been around for 12-18 months. And the poké in Hawaii, oh man the poké!

It's pretty pricey here so - make your own! It's easy

Fish (I used salmon because I like it but you could use tuna too. And tonight I made some with octopus) cut into 2cm chunks. The key thing is to use as good a quality fish as you can. I didn't want to go sashimi grade but I didn't want a bog standard supermarket either so I went to a speciality fish retail store - Song Fish. It made for nice poké!

The marinade - I didn't measure, I just eyeballed it and tasted it:
Soy
Sesame oil
White rice vinegar
Lime (I used lemon) juice

Sesame seeds (I used both black and white for looks)
Spring onion (the first time I cut them across but I prefer shredding them lengthwise)

Veggies and others to your fancy, I used:
Japanese cucumber
Salad leaves / lettuce (I detest iceberg)
Quail eggs
Cherry tomatoes
Tobiko
Salad dressing optional

Marinate or "cook" the fish in the marinade for a couple of hours. I did mine for about 4-5 hours. And assemble!

25/03/2017

Sous vide steak

23/11/2016

I love when things match and when things look pretty. And this is my favourite shelf in the kitchen because everything is organised so prettily, and in a way that makes sense to me. Salt? I've got three different kinds here, in see-through containers with the contents handwritten in erasable faux chalk markers.

Bought these Ikea 365+ containers in Feb and 9 months later, one-upped myself today. I need one more medium-sized container for rice (Japanese, and I may repurpose the misc spice container for basmati rice).

17/09/2016

I've always found steaks tricky. How long do you pan fry for? How long do you leave it in the oven for before it becomes too cooked because you want a charred crust. Everyone has their little technique! In Singapore, trial and error is an expensive learning curve - steak is so bloody (pun unintended) expensive so you really don't want ruin it! But steak at a restaurant is so bloody expensive too so and depending on where you go, totally not worth the price! The ribeye at P.S. Cafe was $54 for 200g and hardly as good as my virgin attempt at sous vide steaks! I got the Anova Culinary sous vide machine for my birthday and I'm going to be experimenting with lots more steaks and other sous vide yummies!

01/09/2016

A great cheat is with some minced garlic. Use the Kewpie brand, also known as "naked baby" mayo.

31/08/2016

Ratatouille

"You can't find ratatouille anymore in restaurants in Paris," is probably because ratatouille is a humble vegetable dish, sometimes made from veggies that are leftover from the week's shop, and not that exciting with today's molecular gastronomy and Heston Blumenthal-esque food inventions.

But it's such a good, wholesome and yummy thing one-dish meal to make and takes hardly any time at all. I like to joosh mine up with lardon (or bacon bits, or chopped up bacon) as the fat and flavour of bacon add depth to the veggie medley, and a generous drizzle of cream that makes the tomato base oh-so velvety.

As usual, I cook with my heart and gut even when I have a cookbook so go ahead and tweak the proportions as you see fit.

INGREDIENTS
Courgette (zucchini) x2 - prefer the green over the yellow
Pepper (capsicum) x3- I like mine in tri-colour
Aubergine (eggplant) x2 skinny Asian ones
Tinned tomato x1 400g
Onion
Dried oregano 1/2 tsp
Salt and pepper to season (I used a chicken stock cube)
Bay leaf

The amounts I've listed above are for 2 very hungry peope but could feed 3.

DIRECTIONS

Chop all veggies up. I like mine fairly chunky but cut up in similar sizes so one piece is not much bigger than another.

Fry up the lardon till cooked through and just a tad crisp. Remove and set aside,

In a large deep pan or a stock pot, add the peppers to the remaining bacon fat render. Add more oil if needed. Cook on high and for about 5-7 minutes, stirring. Add the onions and mix well. The peppers will start to ooze sweetness so add some salt or stock cube now to prevent the onions from caramelising. Cover and cook till peppers have softened considerably.

Add courgette and mix well. Cover and cook till courgette is half cooked. Add aubergines. Aubergines contain a lot of water so it would be okay to continue cooking uncovered. Add in the tinned tomato. Throw in your bay leaves (I used 2).

Season to taste with stock cube or salt and pepper, and oregano.

Cooked, either covered or uncovered, based on how liquid your ratatouille is. I like mine stewy and thick so I left mine uncovered. When your aubergines are soft and cooked through, all the other veggies should be done too. Add the bacon back to the pot and stir well to distribute. Drizzle cooking cream till you get your desired consistency and heat to cook.

Serve over rice (I'm told that's how the French eat it) or enjoy it as-is.

20/08/2016

This page is so under- cared for :) But tomatoes - such a great fruit/veggie. Course we don't get such good ones here but....
http://www.thekitchn.com/11-3-ingredient-tomato-salads-234124

Slice up a peak-season tomato, eat it plain, and it will be a glorious thing. But tomatoes play extra well with others. Toss two more ingredients in the ring and you've got the kind of salad that only summer can bring. Take, for example, the caprese: Pair fresh mozzarella and basil with those tomato...

12/08/2016

OMG this is so good I feel like keeping it shrouded in a veil of absolute secrecy! As a hint, I've christened it Lychee Coconut Vodka Splashie. Potent and so drinkable!

24/07/2016

I've made this a handful of times but only till today when I googled did I find out that it's a traditional Italian dish - calamari ripieni al sugo di pomodoro! Stuff squid with pork in a tomato sauce - served with grilled aubergine.

It's really easy to make, too!

As when I cook, I don't usually measure out ingredients gram for gram; I eyeball things a lot but that's the fun of cooking (for me).

Mince pork (sometimes I use a mix of pork and prawn)
Onion, chopped
Garlic, minced
2 tins tomato (400g each)
Cream

Marinate mince (I used oil because the mince was pretty lean, soy, sesame oil, Chinese cooking wine which we could totally taste and was good, and ground white pepper) overnight (why not, right?

Combine mince with chopped onions and minced garlic, enough to stuff your squid.

Salt and pepper your squid, then stuff with the meat mixture. Seal with toothpicks poked through the squid.

In a frying pan, sauté the garlic (I like lots) in a generous amount of olive oil to infuse the flavours. Stir in chopped onions and add a little salt so the onions don't caramelise. (Sometimes you want onions to go caramelly like for French onion soup but not here). Add in tomatoes. Bring to a good summer. Add remaining mince, if any.

Add the sealed squid to the tomato mixture and poach till the mince filling cooks. You'll need to eyeball this.

Serve over grilled aubergines.

06/07/2016

In Singapore, barley as a drink is pretty common; people say it's "cooling" when the weather's so hot. It's a drink I don't really think of. But the vet said that Dog might benefit from drinking barley and it stuck in my head so I bought some pearl barley from Fairprice today and boiled up a batch. So good!

But there was so much (cooked) barley left and it felt like such a waste of perfectly good food so I thought I'd put it towards a salad.

It started out with just barley and olive oil, salt and pepper. O-kay I thought, slightly weird. Added some cherry tomato. Definitely better. Broke out a cucumber and chopped some into it. It's getting there. Finally some lettuce because it was on its way to wilting.

Olive oil seemed too mild for this now, so I added Japanese sesame salad dressing and it was awesome! The pearl barley added texture and substance without making it heavy. I'm a definite convert - leftover pearl barley in cooking for now on!

25/06/2016

Pretty Easy Paella

Main ingredients:
Salmon belly
Prawns
Chorizo
Peppers (3 colours)
Sundried tomatoes
Tomato paste
Bomba* (paella rice)
Onion
Garlic
Stock - seafood, chicken - you choose - infused with some saffron threads, about 2-3 cups.

Season your uncooked ingredients to taste with salt and pepper.

In a paella dish, sauté onions, garlic, cook the peppers till al dente soft. Set aside.

Cook the chorizo. Set aside.

Add a good flight of olive oil to the paella pan and add the rice (I used 1 1/3 cups for 3 people, which was just nice for my 2-3 person paella pan. Stir till the olive oil coats the rice. Add stock liquid till it covers the rice well, stir in tomato paste, cover and cook till the stock is absorbed. That's the first round of stock.

Add your ingredients. Just later and dot them over the rice so that the spread of ingredients is nice and even. This is where I added sun dried tomatoes because I didn't have fresh ones. It turned out pretty good. Some of your ingredients will be absolutely raw. Don't worry, they'll cook.

Add stock till it generously covers the rice and comes up to about half way up the ingredients. This is when you cook the rice uncovered. The rice will absorb the stock and evaporate. Keep adding stock till the rice is tender

Turn larger topping such as prawns over if the bottom is cooked, careful not to disturb the rice - you don't want mushy paella.

The paella is done when your ingredients are cooked, the rice al dente and has a nice crisp, slightly burnt bottom.

*About Bomba rice - I still have no idea where to get it in Singapore; I'm sure it must be available as a colleague bought a box for me. I'm also sure it just not be cheap just because groceries in Singapore generally aren't. I bought 3x 500g packs of Bomba rice in Dublin at a Spanish convenience store, for about €3.50. I hear, if you wash all the starch out of Japanese rice and lay it flat to dry out completely and pretend nothing happened, it's a good substitute.