There’s only just my sister and her husband now that their only child is a full-grown adult and living her best life on the mainland. So not all American tables this thanksgiving are groaning with food.
Friday's galette (?)
Galettes refer to the catch-all term for a pastry base, topped with either sweet or savoury fillings with the edges roughly folded in to create a gorgeous, rustic-looking bake.
But is still a galette if you used store-bought flaky pastry or did a square one instead of the more traditional round one with the roughly folded edges?
Who cares? Again, saw it on TikTok and had this craving for caramelised onions- the pastry base was just incidental. There was a bag of white onions at a reduced price of $2.50 and four sheets of ready-to-cook pastry was $6. Sam hates onions and I remembered that there were two pieces of leftover chicken kransky sausages in the fridge and what came to mind immediately was a version of chicken-cranberry pizza. We had some leftover strawberry jam which I mixed with some ready-made chili-lime and to soften this combo, dollops of leftover sour cream.
Brush with egg-yolk and put into the oven using fan bake for about 20 minutes.
Capsicum sauce
Finally, $1 capsicums, yay!! From a high of $4.50 per piece, summer is the inflation-buster we all need.
I don’t particularly like capsicums- in my mouth, I can feel the soft inner flesh separating from the plasticky outer skin- though I tolerate them in stir-fries and such. I also don’t eat pasta a lot; if I wanted carbs, I’ll just do rice thank you very much.
But I saw someone on TikTok making a red-pepper (aka capsicum) sauce for pasta and then I got a supermarket alert for specials ($1 capsicums!) so I thought that it was meant to be.
The good thing about this sauce is that you don’t need a whole lot of ingredients (and the costs do add up). It’s basically 3 large capsicums and the rest of the ingredients are stuff you may already have at home like garlic, shallots (if you don’t have these it’s fine), butter and chicken cubes. Cheese which is normally horrendously expensive was on special so I got a block of good parmesan.
You simply char the capsicums so that you can peel off the nasty, plasticky outer skin and I realised that I couldn’t really do it as pictured below, using the electric cooktop. So I ended up putting it in the oven using grill. So once you’ve peeled the skin off and taken out the seeds. sauté them in a pan with a bit of olive oil and butter, a chicken cube and diced garlic (shallots if you have them) for about 10 minutes. Blitz the whole thing in a food-processor- it didn’t even need water or a thickening agent; the puree is the perfect consistency. And the flavour- sweet, creamy with a hint of spice and tang. I admit adding two tablespoons of sour cream, but it didn’t really need it, nor the parmesan if I’m being honest.
I’m thinking of buying a whole bag of $1 capsicums now, prepping them ready for blitzing and stored in the freezer.
Friday cravings
Because I don’t have a family of my own, I realised that I didn’t need to enforce some of the rules or traditions that we had growing up. So yes, I can eat a whole bag of expensive shrimp (we had to share because there was only so much to go around). I can eat in bed, or in front of the television (rarely now because I don’t watch ‘normal’ TV anymore). Cake for dinner (why not?). Or a can of mackerel with eggs and rice for dinner when it’s normally for breakfast.
Normally, we would saute diced garlic, onions and tomatoes before adding in the fish, but I skipped that part for less oil. A dash of tamarind powder into the broth made for a good sour contrast with the rich oiliness of the fish.
Happy, nostalgic eating on a rainy Friday.
Bag of bones
When we visited the Pokeno Butcher shop last weekend, I got a pair of split beef marrow bones for $13. At the Asian shop the other day, I picked up a $5 pack of beef bones- so it’s literally a meal from bones.
Other ingredients
Diced garlic and ginger
spring onion for garnish
flavour packet of sinigang and pinapaitan
cabbage and spinach
Method
Saute the garlic and ginger in a pan and put into slow-cooker. Sear the beef bones on the pan where you just browned the garlic and ginger. Slow-cook for about 6 hours. When done, separate from the bones and set-aside. Add two cups of water to the slow-cooker broth, season with the sinigang and pinapaitan to desired flavour (I prefer it to be sharply acidic and bitter), add the beef chunks and let simmer for 30 minutes. Steam the cabbage and spinach separately. Season bone marrow with pepper and garlic salt and grill on high for 15 to minutes. Assemble as below. Garnish with spring onions and garlic chips.
Everything I ate last week
‘Eating well’ can be dangerous. I blame the dip in my immune system to the food I ate in the last week.
Eat like a king
After returning from Ashburton, I had a week-long craving for Filipino food even if I had my fill of it.
After unpacking bottles of bagoong na alamang and packets of instant Papaitan mix (bought in a Filipino store in Ashburton), I set about buying pork belly, and beef offal like tripe and stomach. I also bought a packet of a dozen Vigan-style longganisa made by a local producer- Nanay Nelly- in Auckland
I made something of a cross between binagoongang baboy and pakbet (minus most of the usual vegetables save for an aubergine that cost $6). In lieu of atchara, I had kimchi.
For a week I ate like a king who ruled his kingdom with absolute power; no one dared to point out the obvious.
bake, bake, bake
It’s slightly stressful doing heaps of little things and I had a couple of pastry sheets left over so… the thing with pastry sheets is that you don’t get to use all of them and you chuck the rest into the freezer with the intention of using them, but you never ever do.
So I used up all of them and made more palmiers; this time I made savoury ones stuffed with grated cheddar cheese and sprinkled liberally with paprika. And because they tend to be a bit bland, immediately after bringing them out of the oven, they were doused with a generous sprinkling of chicken salt.
But this is the thing with savoury palmiers; if you don’t brown them, the pale pastry takes in some moisture the next day (even if stored in a container) and would taste like pastry that had been sitting on a table for a day. So lower the temperature when you bake them so the cheese doesn’t burn and allowing the pastry to brown.
I also made chocolate palmiers by mixing cocoa powder and brown sugar- not so successful as the sugar burned too quickly.
And with the one pastry sheet I had left, I made three bacon and egg pies in a muffin tray. Cut to fill the cups and into that goes an egg and as many small strips of (rendered) bacon as you can fill it. Cover with a pastry piece, make vents through it and bake in the oven for like 15 to 20. And don’t forget the egg-wash!
It's because of yoga
I’ve been doing yoga consistently for the last three weeks, so it must be because of it!
I’m been calmer and more contemplative. When I made these Palmiere cookies this morning- something at work pissed me off so I had to step away to bake something yes- I wasn’t rushing it like I normally do.
I took my time assembling the ingredients and fastidiously cleaning up as I went, that I felt I was in one of those Asian ASMR videos. There’s a part in this recipe where you spread the cinnamon sugar all over the pastry with your fingers and the surface glinted like the rose nebula (use caster instead of granular so it would be less sugary) and I thought, life is to short to be pissed off at shit.
If you want the recipe for these cookies, click here
The weirdest thing you ever cooked
Lately, I’ve been on a food funk, craving this and craving that. And the craving is made all the more worse by the fact that the food item in question is hard to find or totally unavailable in New Zealand. Here is a short-list
Hard-to-find
1. caviar
2. fresh shrimp
3. seafood-boil
4. actual lechon
5. Ube ensaymada
Unavailable
1. fresh bangus
2. Lingayen tamales
3. Laduree macarons
4. camote leaves
5. fresh plantain (saba) bananas
On a whim, I went to the supermarket with no clear idea of what I wanted but was wanting something and I ended up buying a tomahawk steak and some watercress. The weather prediction was stormy and cold so I knew I wanted some comfort by way of broth and voila…tomahawk steak (seared first) cooked in a ‘pinapaitan’ broth with Chinese sausage, watercress and sweet corn. It’s a mash-up between a Filipino traditional bulalo and Maori boil-up.
Postcript to that dinner last Friday
We hosted this dinner last Friday for Mary’s friends - women of a certain age - and I started what was turning out to be a really long treatise on friendship when I realised that these women weren’t really my friends, even if we had been sharing what could be one of the better dinners/get-togethers I’ve had with anyone these last couple of years.
But the affection is there, the honesty and the candidness is there, the ease of self is there for which is only possible around people who know and accept you.
And this is the thing with friends, which I have been fortunate enough to have and have had, that the best ones have come into my life by accident; Leila, Chris, Eric..that’s it. And it has been enough, more than enough. God made me self-sufficient, but these people give me happiness and comfort. Remember that scene towards the end in the Netflic movie ‘Don’t Look Up’ when the world starts actually to fall apart?
That’s how I’d like to go if it ever came to that (which is becoming more likely by the day it seems if you read the news) - around a table full of great food with my family and my dearest friends..
Canned goodness
Growing up, the foods that comforted us the most came from a can- Spam, Ma Ling Pork luncheon meat, Philips Sausage and Ligo Sardines. When we had unexpected guests, fruit cocktail (from a can) served with cubed ice was a treat. I had always believed that canned peaches were the most glorious things in the world, and this was further reinforced when I had them, freshly plucked from a tree.
When we were older, there was more variety- Purefoods corned beef (which Matt adores), Turkey Spam, Low-Sodium Spam, canned sisig and my old college standby, Century Spicy Tuna.
When I find myself at an Asian store, I would treat myself to an occasional can; Philips sausage makes for a good omelette and canned sisig saves you the trouble of having to prepare a whole pigs head (or two) to make the real thing.
On New Zealand’s supermarket shelves, there are only a couple of canned meat products that we gravitate to and one specifically, Hellaby’s corned beef, is the best I think; meaty and densely packed, a can is enough to feed four (!!) for breakfast. But for the last couple of years, the price has continually gone up and lately, you almost always never find it at the supermarket.
And then I see this one on the shelves, Countdown’s own corned beef. But at $3.50, why the hell not?
The proof is in the eating, and yes, it’s good.
What did you eat on your birthday?
For me at least, I would have forgotten the heartaches, the regrets, the joy..but I would always remember what I had eaten…
Easter dinner
Ticked off six of my Holy Week tasks, and the Nespresso machine broke. It’s over 6 years old so I guess it’s time to get a new one (which excites me).
But cooked rack of lamb for the first time and I surprised even myself as to how nearly perfect it turned out to be. My only nitpick was that I could’ve pared away more of the fat, but I didn’t really know I had to until we were eating it.
But for supermarket meat (yeah, FUCK YOU FARRO FRESH FOR FUCKING UP MY ORDER), it was superb. You just need to season it aggressively (I used salt, Moroccan spice rub and za’tar) and of course, cooking and resting times are crucial. I had thrown away the packet which indicated how much it weighed, so I just made an educated guess by eyeing the meat. I was guided by the universal advice, that the rarer the lamb the better. And it’s true- the texture is vastly different from beef.
The method is straightforward: sear; put into oven for 10 minutes at 180; take out, ‘paint’ with mustard before covering the surface with the duke; put back into the oven for 20 minutes; take and rest for 5.
Wednesday's salmon head sinigang
Doesn’t look appetising does it?
But it’s getting colder, slowly but surely, and soupy/brothy things both comfort and make you full really quickly.
Got the salmon heads at the Asian store. I was supposed to only get the (salmon) collars, but someone ahead of me on the queue was ordering literally kilos of it and I thought they would run out. The heads bin was just beside me so I got two just in case the greedy motherfucker in front of the line bought everything out (he didn’t).
I just use sinigang mix (with miso) and throw in several strips of ginger. Seasoning is just salt and pepper. Realised that the spinach in the crisper was too far gone to use but I still had a head of broccoli and it actually works with sinigang.
Wednesday's grilled chicken
I was disappointed though- it didn’t turn out to be the ‘chicken nasal’ that I remember..hmmmm
Weekend's Leche Flan
I’ve been craving for leche flan for literally years.
I’ve been mentioning making it for the last three Christmases, for my birthday and for someone else’s birthday. I think my trepidation was my belief that it was challenging to make.
In my mind having grown up with memories of getting other people to make it for any special occasion you can think of, preparing it had taken mythical proportions.
But at the end of the day, it’s basically eggs and milk baked in a bain marie. I separated a dozen yolks, dumped in a can of condensed milk and a cup of normal milk, a tablespoon of vanilla and used a whisk. To make the caramel, simply adjust the temperature of your pan as the sugar melts and its colour changes. Keeping the temperature high all through out will burn it. Keep stirring until there are no visible granules left and you have a silky, golden brown syrup.
I didn't even use those familiar small oval pans because I think they’re not commercially available.
I followed some random recipe online which got one detail wrong- it doesn’t cook in 30 minutes. It takes a little bit over an hour. Other than that, it was one of the easiest sweets I’ve ever made.
And it’s delicious as I’ve always remembered it..
Monday's laing
Ingredients:
pork-belly
silverbeet or kale (I used a combination of both)
one can coconut cream
anchovies
garlic
chili flakes
Friday's grocery
Apparently, 20% of the workforce of Countdown supermarkets has been downed by Covid and Covid related issues. The deli and bakeries were closed- which was good because I was on the lookout for some tiny bit of fresh pastry.
There was a small product kiosk selling brioche (finally!), but there were no buns left; just sausage rolls and sliders. The latter was tempting- I could buy bananas and stuff them with it along with a dollop of that Dolce & Gabbana pistachio cream spread I got for Christmas. But when I got to the meats aisle and checked my list (yes I made a list this time), common sense prevailed and I put the pack of brioce sliders back.
Kept the bananas for oatmeal though. Ugh.
There were some empty shelves for sure, but really- this is not a life and death situation. We’re far from starving.
I got:
1. Starbucks nespresso 30 pack
2. Swiss chard or silverbeet (because spinach is MIA)
3. Proper Crisps
4. Boneless chicken-thighs
5. A can of peaches (with no added sugar) and a can of pineapple
6. Several cans of tuna in olive oil
7. Chimichurri herb sauce by Salsa Brava
8. Natvia natural sweetener
9. a bag of brown sugar
Eating alone is a journey
Sam and Mary have started on the no-eating-anything-except-vegetables-or-air diet so I’ve been on my own as far as meals are concerned.
It was difficult doing my own thing at first which is funny because the whole process of preparing our meals was actually hard work:
1. you had to work with a fortnightly food budget of only $300
2. you need to make sure fresh ingredients are used before they go off
3. you need to use leftovers (which I loathe)
4. you need variety (important to me!)
5. you needed a healthy balance (even if given a choice, I’d have pork 6x a week)
It was easier during lockdown because I worked from home and I could start cooking at 4pm, but if I did go to the office on some days, I had about an hour to cook when I got home at 4:30, not that it mattered really if we ate late. But I wanted to get it done so I could exercise, or read or watch something.
But getting rid of the whole thing altogether (for now at least), was strangely freeing and unfamiliar. It makes you realize how much of meal preparation and meal-times are such rigid set-routines.
It goes all the way back to your childhood when you were called upon to eat and there were no buts around that. And that you couldn’t eat in bed (which I now do), or that if you were eating something expensive such as prawns or lobster, it had to be portioned. Or that you need to eat on time, or have three meals a day.
But ‘eating alone’ has thrown all the rules out the window, and now you can do anything:
1. …but not eat anything you want, like pork belly Tuesdays, fried chicken Wednesdays and Thursday night ribs. You just can’t. And I’m fine with that now.
2. I had pork ribs the other week though (St. Louis brand imported from the US) and the whole rack (about 1.5kgs) lasted me through two meals.
3. There’s such a thing as too many shrimps- especially when they’re frozen. Not as good as fresh.
4. I can’t have just toast for dinner. I tried and it’s stupid because I just get hungry after an hour. I’m working out constantly now that I can feel my energy ebbing when I don’t eat anything substantial.
5. There is something spare but beautiful in a plate of grilled salmon over ramen noodles.
6. Suddenly you have heaps of time to do stuff.
7. You save money