Midnight Jam Lady, Daytime Food Fiend

Yoghurt snacks - savory or sweet?

One of my fridge staples is Greek yoghurt. It’s handy as a quick breakfast or afternoon snack, or a sauce/dressing. But somehow I’ve hardly explored using them as a full on savory dish, until I recently read You Gotta Eat: Real Life Strategies for Feeding Yourself When Cooking Feels Impossible, by Margaret Eby, and she wrote about sweet or savory toppings for yoghurt. And I gotta agree – with yoghurt, it’s all about textures, and flavor pairs.

So I made this fun little snack, for when I’m not feeling like having more granola and fruit. To make this, you’ll need some mushrooms, chilli oil, and coriander (or some kind of soft green herbs).

This dish is just a bunch of maitake mushrooms, shredded finely and sautéed over high heat till they’re brown, then spread atop cold, Greek yoghurt, over which I drizzled chilli oil, and sprinkled chopped coriander and spring onions. Black pepper, a light dusting of sweet paprika, and a squeeze of lemon juice to finish. That’s all there is to it.

The mushrooms are cooked in nothing more than olive oil and salt – just make sure to maximize surface area. That can mean a big pan, or cooking in batches, so that all the mushroom pieces are in a single layer without overlapping. The idea is to ensure the water content evaporates quickly and the shrooms brown nicely without steaming in their own moisture. There’s no short cut to this.

The chilli oil and umami mushrooms are a great counterpoint to the tart yoghurt, while the cold from the yoghurt gently mutes the fire of the chilli so it’s more of a zing. I think parsley might be a better partner to the coriander but I worked with what I had in my fridge. Chervil and/or dill might be great too if you feel coriander is too aggressive a flavor.

Too easy and too delicious not to make this on repeat.

I used only half a cup of yoghurt so the remainder went into my default sweet version: yoghurt with frozen blueberries (I prefer it for the icy bite), peanut butter.

Better buttered corn

Went to the wet market just as vendors were closing up, so there was fresh corn going at just $1 each. They looked amazing, and it’s my favorite white and yellow ones too. I was thinking elotes and esquites but I’m too lazy to shop for the cheeses too, so I took (very) loose inspiration from that and made Buttered Corn But Better.

You could use frozen corn too I suppose but why, when fresh ones are cheap and widely available. You just need to spend a bit of time cutting the corn kernels off the cob.

I added other veggies like snap peas and baby corn because this was going into my meal prep and I needed more greens for a balanced meal. You could do this as a corn only dish too.

Melt butter in a hot pan, and throw in baby corn, corn kernels, and garlic to sauté. Stir to coat evenly with butter, but leave them standing for a little bit now and then so that the kernels brown. Add the snap peas halfway through – I sliced them small so they’d cook faster. Season with: salt, chilli flakes, a bit of paprika. Keep going until corn kernels, and even the baby corn, are nice and browned/golden, and everything is cooked.

Take them off the heat then mix in: coriander, spring onions, shallots, all finely diced. I didn’t have green chili but I bet they’ll be a great addition - kinda like jalapeño.

And that’s it! It’s surprisingly flavorful yet fresh and summery.

I’m clearly on a roll because I threw together another random salad and it’s a hit too (with me at least). This makes for a good vegan option too.

It’s so simple that it barely warrants a post but I have to write this down before I forget what went into it.

I used canned chickpeas so there’s no wait time at all. Just drained them well, then tossed in some remaining pesto I had - a lovely gift from a friend’s trip to Italy so you know it’s goooood.

Then I heated up a small amount of olive oil, and tossed in 6-7 small Thai garlic cloves, skin on and all. I bought these at a market in Chiang Mai last week, and they’re the tiniest little things but pack a garlicky punch - none of that weak sauce stuff we get locally. Gave them a light smash with the back of my knife then fried them up until cooked. I pulled them off the heat before they’re completely browned because they’ll continue to cook in the residual heat as I set the pan aside to cool.

Take some frozen peas. I love Watties Frozen Baby Peas. I know almost everyone seems averse to frozen peas but I’ve got a feeling it’s because it’s always done wrong. When you chuck completely frozen peas into a hot pan, for example when frying rice, they tend to acquire this sad shriveled look. The key is to defrost them first. Just sit them in some room temp water so that the ice melts. Once defrosted, I added them to the warm oil above to toss and coat. They came out beautifully round and glossy. Please treat your peas right.

For the raw component, it was simply shallots, coriander, spring onions, and 1 bird’s eye chilli de-seeded, all finely diced, and lettuce finely sliced.

Then it’s time to bring everything together. Simply mix the pesto chickpeas, garlicky peas, and the raw veggies together. This could be a lunch of its own. Eaten atop sourdough slices. Or like in this picture, along with my breakfast eggs.

Not your average canned tuna meal

I’ve been experimenting with canned tuna as a means to a quick protein meal. It’s relatively healthy and affordable, and most importantly, quick and easy. So when I popped in to the supermarket yesterday to grab a can, and chanced upon some broccolini at half price, a light bulb moment went off. There’s the classic tuna-celery combination, perfect cold and crunchy, but surely it’ll work as well with a savory nutty profile too?

That was my starting point and by the time I went home and peered into my fridge, I had found a mini kabocha that needed eating, and the dish came together beautifully.

The pumpkin gave it a gentle natural sweetness. The mash texture also held all the tuna flakes and chopped broccolini together so it made it easier to eat. The charred broccolini gave the dish a fabulous satiating quality, something I sometimes can’t get with cold meals.

The hot components go first so that there’s time to cool. In a hot pan, heat up olive oil then place the broccolini in a single layer so that you maximize the surface area for searing. Do this on medium high heat (my stove runs very hot) and soon you’ll smell a nutty aroma and that’s when you can turn the broccolini around. Some bits should have started browning. Salt the veggie. And turn them occasionally until nicely cooked and browned. Remove to cool.

At the same time, cut mini kabocha pumpkin into large chunks, and steam them. You’re done in about 7 minutes but it’s ok if it’s overcooked because it’s going to be a mash.

While the hot stuff are going on the stove, flake the tuna in a bowl. I like them finely flaked so I worked it well with a spoon, breaking large chunks into little threads. To it, I added: finely chopped shallots (just one), parsley, and dill, juice from a slice of lemon, zest of lemon (from the same slice of lemon).

Chop the brocolini up once it’s cool enough to handle. Add to the tuna bowl and stir to mix well. Then scoop out the flesh of the kabocha pumpkin and add to the bowl in small bits until well combined. I suppose you could include the skins too as they’re edible but I wanted a smooth texture so I skipped that.

Season with black pepper, a small pinch of salt, and a tsp of mayo. Stir well then stick it in the fridge to cool.

Hot days cold lunches

Just made the most joyful plate of food and had to write it all down. What’s in here is a whole bunch of things I like: huge, sweet tomato, sliced thin; crunchy veggies to give a bite like cucumbers, celery, all sliced thin; oyster shrooms, cooked separately to perfect browned slices; wakeme seaweed, quickly rehydrated in water; hard boiled eggs. But the magic is in the broth.

Yes, broth, not salad dressing. I really wasn’t in the mood for making a dressing. I wanted something even lighter. So I thought why not a cold, light broth? All it took was a bit of dashi powder, hot water, oyster soy sauce, then I stuck it in the fridge to chill while I prepped the rest of the veggies.

The beautiful part is how the broth took on a brighter dimension when it drew out all the tomato water from the tomato slices. The key is to serve on a wide plate, and place the ingredients that will do well bathed in the broth in the bottom most layer - the tomatoes first, then the celery, cucumbers, wakame, and garnishes like spring onion and coriander leaf. The crunchy veggies took on the salty flavors of the broth while things like tomatoes and wakame in turn added sweetness and umami to the broth. It’s gorgeous.

Then you top it off with stuff you don’t necessarily want bathed in broth. That’s the oyster mushrooms, and egg. Finish off with a light drizzle of sesame seed oil, sprinkle of salt, pepper, and sesame seed (I didn’t have this so I used flaxseeds).

My DIY grain bowls

One of my favorite lunches to make (for myself) are grain bowls. It’s essentially a mishmash of a protein, some veggies and maybe shrooms, and a grain. Or to put it bluntly, it’s ang mo cai png lah. 😂

I finally found some bulgur wheat for cheap on my trip to Sydney and of course I hauled some back. Yes, people travel and do luxury or fashion shopping, I go to Woolies.

I had some leftover supermarket rotisserie chicken today, and that was the perfect excuse to put my new grains to use. This grain bowl contains: shredded roast chicken, Brussels sprouts, celery, oyster mushrooms, and bulgur wheat that I dressed in a faux beurre blanc sauce (more on that below).

For my grain bowls, I cook each ingredient separately, then dress them together at the end. It is actually less work than it sounds, in that I use a single technique and one pan to do the cooking consecutively. For all the veggies and shrooms, it’s just olive oil, salt, pepper - the key is in the correct application of heat to extract maximum flavors. I don’t wash the pan in between as it’s just oil, but I do wipe down with kitchen paper towel to remove any bits of food that’s stuck to avoid burning them in the next round of cooking.

I start with Brussels sprouts. Olive oil in a hot pan, throw in shredded Brussels sprouts and toss to coat thoroughly in oil. Then let it sit on high heat, and stirring occasionally only to prevent burning but you do want the leaves to brown - it’ll smell nutty and you know it’s going alright. Once done, remove all into a large mixing bowl.

Then it’s the celery. This doesn’t need browning but you do want to cook it just enough so it isn’t too raw but also not too done such that it’s soft and soggy. So this is pretty quickly done on high heat - almost like a Chinese stir fry, except to keep this dish dry, I don’t add water as there’s already a bit of moisture from the celery itself that would evaporate and lightly steam/cook the veggie. Dump into mixing bowl once done.

For the shrooms, use whatever you like. I find oyster and maitake mushrooms to be more satiating than button mushrooms. Like the Brussels sprouts, what matters most in cooking delicious mushrooms is high heat, lots of oil, generous salting, and resist mucking about in the pan and just let them sit to brown nicely. Rake them over occasionally to prevent burning. Again, they go into the mixing bowl once cooked.

Because my leftover chicken were refrigerated, I threw them into the pan to heat up gently. As the pan is already oiled and the chicken skin has fats, I don’t add oil at this stage. Remove when warm - be careful to not overcook and dry them out. I generally keep the heat on low for this stage.

While I was doing the shrooms, I also concurrently started cooking the bulgur wheat. I used 1/2 cup for 4 servings as I don’t like a lot of carbs - feel free to use more if you’d like. Follow instructions on the packet - mine said boil in water for 10 mins and drain. You just need to ensure the grain is cooked before you start the sauce.

Now the sauce. I call it a faux beurre blanc because while I used a technique typical of beurre blanc, I thin it significantly so that it’s more of a dressing than a thick creamy sauce, and I keep the shallots for texture. In a true beurre blanc sauce for seafood, the shallots are strained out so you get a smooth velvety cream. Anyway, away from the French kitchen and back here in reality — as there were some bits of chicken skin stuck to the pan from the stage before this, I deglazed it with some sherry vinegar, add a little bit of water, then added finely diced shallots to sauté. When the shallots are near done, turn the heat down super low, then add cubes of cold butter (one cube at a time, not all at once), and whisk gently until you get a thin sauce. If it’s too thick, just add a bit of water to thin it. Once done, throw in the cooked bulgur wheat to soak up the dressing, and add some chopped chives or parsley too (optional). Remember to salt the sauce especially if you butter is unsalted.

After this, it’s just a matter of mixing all the cooked ingredients well in the big bowl, then serve and enjoy. The butter sauce made this just decadent enough to obviously not qualify as a healthy meal, but enough to make this more than a boring, everyday plate of grub. The crunch and freshness of the celery also plays off well against the nutty Brussels sprouts and almost meat-like oyster shrooms. All in all a balanced meal that doesn’t feel mundane.

The health conscious ones among you might ask: can I use a different dressing and skip the butter sauce? Absolutely! My original plan was in fact to do a simple shallot vinaigrette but then I saw the butter in the fridge and that plan flew away. 😅

I made enough for 4 servings. But I’m the only one at home who eats like this, so it’s one for today and 3 more as packed lunches that I can take to work. I froze one and will see how that holds up.

Still got it! Haven’t made jam in ages but when I found 1kg strawberries for $18 at the supermarket, I decided I could try jam-making again.

Mentaiko pasta

I love mentaiko (salted pollock roe), but don’t always like how creamy mentaiko pasta is at most restaurants. I prefer to keep it as light as possible, and play off the briny fishy flavor against bright, floral notes that come from incorporating greens.

The classic mentaiko pasta is just fresh mentaiko combined with melted butter and seasoned with a bit of soy sauce, and with the hot pasta stirred into it. But I like to add shiso leaf, myoga (ginger flower), and mizuna leaf. Use more shiso leaf than you think you need - it really helps to brighten everything up. I like mizuna for the slight mustard-like zing, but some spring onions or negi would also have been a perfect addition.

To add texture, I also separately sautéed some maitake mushrooms. Simply tear them into smaller pieces, and cook them in olive oil on a hot pan. Let some bits brown to get that nice char. And salt it well to really accentuate the mushroomy flavor.

Easy Sunday potato salad

Every Sunday we get a supermarket rotisserie chicken that goes into a lemony chicken pasta dinner that Ezra loves, and some bits of the chicken sometimes make it into my lunch too.

Boil small potatoes for 15 mins, till it’s cooked and soft. Stick a paring knife in and it should go right through with little resistance. I added an egg to the pot to cook at the same time but removed it at 8.5 mins for a hard boiled egg.

While that’s going on, cook the Brussels sprouts. Heat olive oil in pan, throw in garlic (I cut a clove into 3 chunks). As it starts to brown, add the Brussels sprouts. Coat evenly with oil then let it sit, stirring only very occasionally - you let it sit to brown but stir to ensure they don’t burn. It’ll smell nutty, meaning things are going right. Keep the pan hot throughout, do not add any moisture. Season with salt and pepper. It’s done when the leaves are nicely browned.

Cut boiled potatoes into bite sized chunks while it’s still warm. Toss with olive oil, lemon juice, a bit of lemon zest, herbs (best if you have chives or parsley, I only had dill), salt and pepper, a hint of Dijon mustard and mayo for slight creaminess.

Minced pork noodles

Made minced pork noodles with slight variation in technique and ingredients so here’s me writing down my notes so I can make this version again. Give this a go too and let me know what you think! Worth the effort or too fussy?

Essentially, I did all the components separately so that I retain their specific textures and flavours, and then assemble them just before eating. 1) Mushrooms on a searing hot pan with just oil, salt & pepper so you get an intense mushroomy flavour and a nice char. 2) Minced pork gently cooked with veggies over low heat so it stays moist, juicy and sweet. And 3) super thin and wobbly egg omelette rolls as topping.

Prep:

Veggies: thinly sliced yellow onion; julienned carrots; thinly sliced mushrooms (shiitake, abalone oyster), finely diced ginger and garlic. Defrost some frozen chopped spinach. You can use fresh too.

Minced pork - marinate lightly for about 10-15 mins with soy sauce (I used a lovely umami oyster soy), mirin, white pepper. Just a bit will do - will season more while cooking.

Note on knife work: I picked elongated shapes for stuff that gives crunch and texture, so they would entwine nicely with the noodles. Stuff I want to disappear - ie I want to taste it but not bite into it - I pick fine dice.

Cook:

Get your pan as hot as possible and cook the mushrooms in some olive oil/butter, salt and black pepper. Use a large pan to maximize surface area for the shrooms to get a good sear. If you crowd the shrooms on a small pan then they’ll just steam instead of sear. Toss occasionally until golden brown. Remove and set aside.

Cook the veggie and meat mix next in the same pan. Order of stuff entering pan (on medium high heat): onions and ginger > carrots > minced garlic > spinach > minced pork. Once the meat is in, give it a quick stir, and add sauce (dark soy, light soy, dashi powder and water, salt), and bring the heat down to low. How much sauce to make? Just enough so that the pork and veggie mix is sitting in some liquid to gently simmer (like less than 0.5cm deep in the pan). This is to allow for the meat to be fully cooked slowly on low heat. Remove and set aside once the pork is cooked through.

Egg omelette roll is self explanatory. Whisk eggs with a small tsp of dashi. Small pan, well oiled, add whisked egg mix in a thin layer, cook on low heat, then roll up the cooked egg layer. Repeat until you run out of egg mix. Slice to serve.

Add noodle sauce to plate like how you would when preparing Indomee. I used garlic oil, chilli oil, dark soy and a dash of light soy. Cook the noodles (I used somen but this could easily be made with any other kind of thin noodle); drain and toss in sauce. Note to self: should have dipped cooked somen in cold water first to prevent it from clumping (ie the 过冷河 technique in Cantonese wantan mee).

The thing with shopping at Don Don Donki is that you either dive in with a clear mission and pop out of there shortly after having completing your exact shopping list; or like me, you saunter in thinking you’ll just take a peek at some fruits before buying your bento and you walk out with impulse purchases and no clear plan of what to cook - but you just can’t help it because omg look at the beautiful seasonal produce and omg look at that low low price.

That’s how I ended up with some myoga, shiso leaves and maitake mushrooms earlier this week. I poked about online for some inspiration and ended up with this delightfully elegant lunch that I’ll be happy to remake another day.

Myoga is Japanese ginger flower, and reminds me a lot of the local bunga kantan (torch ginger) since they are essentially the flowers of different gingers. Like bunga kantan, myoga enlivens dishes with its floral and gingery notes, though it’s milder in flavour and a lot less fibrous and more crisp in texture. So it’s best enjoyed cold in salads or garnished over dishes, or even pickled. Shiso leaf is its good friend, often seen together.

So lunch was a simple cold somen, dressed in tsuyu (the same dipping sauce used for cold soba) and garnished with grated ginger, finely sliced shiso leaves, myoga and spring onion. I referred to this recipe from Spruce Eats, and added sliced baby pink radishes for a bit of a horseradish-y kick and crunch, as well as sautéed maitake and shiitake mushrooms for some deep earthy flavors - I thought an umami element will help me feel more satiated. I didn’t bother with making my own tsuyu since we usually have a store-bought bottle in our fridge and it is good enough for me.

A note on the mushrooms - don’t screw it up by doubting the simplicity of it. To make delicious mushrooms, all you need to do is get aggressive on the heat and salt. (1) Generous glug of oil (2) in a searing hot pan, and (3) liberal sprinkling of salt. By hot I mean as hot as the pan can get - not some feeble “kinda hot” - so that you can get the mushrooms to brown to a lovely golden hue and get maximum mushroom flavour out of them. The salt is important - it really draws the flavour out. This also means you don’t actually need to futz about much - just meet the above conditions and occasionally move them so you get as much surface of the shrooms seared as possible. That’s all there is to it. For the maitake mushrooms, don’t slice them - use your hands and tear out little florets from top to bottom.

I had also come across a vodka cocktail recipe that incorporates myoga as a twist on the classic Moscow Mule. Think Moscow meet Tokyo. It was a perfect antidote to the afternoon humidity (and why not a spot of day drinking), and went well with the somen. I didn’t have any sudachi lime so I used the regular limes we get here. I also found that the myoga flavour gets overpowered by the oils of the lime, so squeeze the lime juice in but don’t drop the slice in for garnish - then you’ll get to enjoy the myoga more in the drink.

I still have a bit of the myoga and shiso leaves left so I’ll be looking out for more ways to enjoy them next.

Post-script (21 Oct): Made a quick pickle of cucumber and myoga. Took it off this Just One Cookbook recipe, and made 2 substitutions: swapped the konbu with wakame, and the dried chilli with half a chilli padi, deseeded. Very refreshing as an accompaniment to some steamed yam and lapcheong rice today.

Potato & veggie egg pancake

Working from home has thrown my lunch plans out of whacked. And with the pace of work some days, I relish it whenever I find a small pocket of time to whip up a quick, clean lunch for myself. And these solo lunches of mine are usually simple, with vegetables featuring heavily in the list of ingredients, and requiring only gentle cooking so I hardly need to break a sweat to make it. And most of all, the process has a way of letting me take a step back from everything and for those 20 minutes, to just focus on the calming repetition of slicing and dicing and tending to the stove. It may not look it but it’s a zen moment for me.

This pancake is one of my favourite. It’s neat, easy and delicious. All you need is: 1 potato, a handful of kale (I used about 3 small leaves), 6-8 daun kadok, 1 shallot, 2 eggs.

The first time I made this I tried to cut the potatoes into thin julienne but I’m clearly not cut out for it (hurhur) and my inadequate knife skills just gave me irregular batons that didn’t mesh together as much as I had liked. So now I grate the potato using a box grater. Feels a bit dangerous, as I tend to imagine my fingers getting grated whenever I use any box grater, but it delivers the results I wanted, so I do it while pushing away the niggling thoughts of mangled fingers LOL.

So thin, fine ribbons is the shape you should aim for most of the ingredients here. Grate the potatoes, and finely slice the leafy greens (I used kale and daun kadok but you can switch to any dark leafy greens you like), and same for the shallots. Throw them all together and throw in 2 eggs, salt, pepper, and mix well. Add spring onions if you have some too (I forgot to add my fancy chives here). For seasoning I add garlic and onion powder so that I get some of this flavor without having to bite into chunks of garlic. Stir to mix well so that everything is distributed and kind of enmeshed together.

Once the mix is ready, just dump it onto a hot pan with olive oil, and let it cook. Press it down for a good sear and let it brown. I thought I was close to burning it but guess I don’t know my new pans well enough yet. The tough part is flipping it over to cook the other side. If you don’t have the confidence of executing a perfect flip, just have another pan, similarly add a light coat of oil and flip the pancake from one pan to the other. End result is the same.

Because everything is sliced so finely, this doesn’t take long to cook. You can lift the edges to sneak a peek at how brown it’s going, then remove at your liking.

Ezra’s broccoli noodles

Ezra told me that he very much enjoyed a meal of broccoli noodles in school and wanted me to make him the same. He was very proud that he ate broccoli.

I’m not sure what the school one is like, but he told me there’s broccoli and chicken meatball and yellow noodles. I told him I’d make my own version.

So here you go. This was surprisingly enjoyable. The key is to keep the broccoli florets small, char them then cook in the juices released from the cooking of meatballs.

You do need to work on the different components separately but it took me less than 1 hour in all from start to end (including washing of veggies etc).

Make the meatballs. Finely mince 1 stalk of spring onion and 1 large fresh shiitake mushroom, and add to about 200g minced pork. Season with soy sauce, white pepper, sesame oil. Add a tbsp of corn starch and 1 egg yolk to combine the ingredients. Roll out into small meatballs - just take a pinch of the mix and slap it back and forth between your two palms and you’ll get a spherical shape in no time.

Prep the broccoli. Wash, then cut into tiny florets.

Prep the sauce: I put in a good big knob of butter, 3 tsp shiro miso, and a good glug of konbu soy; melt them by adding a bit of the pasta water. I’m not giving exact amounts here as it depends on how salty your miso and soy sauce is, and how much butter you’d like. So feel free to adjust.

The next step is important. You should start all 3 component concurrently: (a) the pasta; (b) broccoli; and (c) meatballs. This means cook time is essentially about 10 mins.

In a pot of boiling water, salt it then add spaghetti. I usually make 80g of pasta per person. Cook to packet instructions. I use De Cecco, arguably the best tasting dry pasta that’s also value for money if you get it at Foodie Marketplace - it takes 10 mins.

In a hot pan, add olive oil, then throw in the broccoli florets. Toss it lightly then let it sit in the hot pan so that it’ll brown. You know that’s happening when you start to get a nutty smell from the pan. So there is no need to keep stirring; suffice to just toss the florets around once in a while. Letting it sit helps it brown better, and you’ll get a nice wonderful nutty flavor.

At the same time, start cooking your meatballs in a different (bigger) pan. Get it proper hot with some olive oil, then slide in the meatballs. Flip the meatballs over when it’s about half way cooked through (you can see the color change). Again, don’t muck about by moving the meatballs - leave them alone. The only time you touch them is when you flip them over once.

Remove the meatballs when they are cooked through. There will be some juices left behind from cooking the meatballs - let it be and add a bit of pasta water to deglaze the brown bits off the pan, then add the broccoli florets to it. Give it a good toss so it’ll soak up the meatiness. Because I had egg whites left from making the meatballs, I throw it in here too but it’s not essential. Add the sauce, and the cooked noodles, and mix well.

Open-face veggie egg omelette

I like breakfasts, as long as I’m not forced into eating it the moment I wake up. I need time to warm up to breakfast but once it’s time, I’m ready for eggs.

I think eggs are truly the best value nutritious food you can get. It’s cheap, it has proteins, and can be made and eaten in so many ways so it never gets boring.

When I’m pressed for time then it’s just a plain egg omelette. But on weekends I’ll put in a few more minutes to make this, a mushroom and kale egg “pancake”, essentially an open-face omelette.

Just sauté some sliced shiitake mushrooms in olive oil, and when it’s almost cooked through, add a handful of chopped kale leaves (I used Toscano kale and sliced them into ribbons). Add salt and pepper the season the mushrooms and kale. Do it at this stage as the salt helps to boost the mushroom-y flavor; you need not salt the egg much, if at all, later on.

When the vegetables are done, add the beaten eggs to the pan and cook on gentle heat. Stir the eggs to give it a more fluffy texture and so that the bottom doesn’t burn. Cook until the eggy bits no longer wobble too much. Add thin shavings of parmagiano cheese over it and serve.

I made this for 2 persons. I used 4 large fresh shiitake mushrooms, 4 large kale leaves, and 4 eggs.

If you’ve got an oven, you can even make this into a frittata and just chuck it in to bake the eggs and you’ll get a nice browned crust if u add some cheese over it. But my oven is broken so this is more like an open face egg omelette.

This takes maybe 10 mins to whip up so it’s something I like to make on a Sunday and slowly enjoy it with coffee. If you want a more substantial breakfast, pair this with buttered toasts, sausages if you want meat, or a tomato avocado salad if you prefer a wholly vegetarian meal (which tends to be my preference these days).

Fell in love with this spicy condiment while in Bali and just had to make it once we got back. I love this because much of the herbs and ingredients are only lightly cooked and still retain a lot of its raw and crisp flavors.

Here’s my version, approximating the best I can from my memory of eating it:

1. Finely cut and dice, then mix together in a bowl:

Tomatoes (green & red)

Chilli (green & red ones)

Shallots

Garlic

Lemongrass

Kaffir lime leaves

Belacan or fish sauce

Salt & pepper

2. Heat up some canola oil in a pot, and once it’s hot, pour it over the chopped herbs and spices in a bowl. There will be quite a bit of sizzling when the oil makes contact with the herb mix. Stir things up. Then add a spoon of coconut oil for an added coconut fragrance. And squeeze some calamansi juice over it.

That’s it!

This goes great with seafood and veggies. You can keep it overnight so it’ll taste even better. The next time I’m gonna make a huge batch and just keep it in a jar and stick it in the fridge for a quick spicy fix anytime I feel like it.

I am so happy with this salad as I managed to work together some of my favourite ingredients and produce. Been wanting to do something with bunga kantan (torch ginger flower) and after ruminating about this for weeks, I decided to make a refreshing salad, modeled on the idea of an ulam, a traditional Malay mix of greens and herbs that is commonly eaten with warm rice.

I rounded up the necessary ingredients from the wet market, where I also scored some cheap Thai fennel that also made it into the salad. The best kale, in my opinion, are these locally grown kale by Sustenir Agriculture, which you can find at all Cold Storage supermarkets, Redmart and Amazon Prime. They grow two varieties - a curly kale mischievously named Kinky Kale, and a very nutty Tuscan kale. They grow it right here in Singapore in a high tech vertical farm and you can really taste how fresh it is. I think they harvest them young too so the kale is always incredibly flavorful, crisp and tender. Good stuff. I no longer buying imported kale these days. It’s that good.

This technically doesn’t need olive oil - the traditional ulam doesn’t include much dressing. But we have this awesome early harvest olive oil by a Greek brand Papa’s Grove, and I couldn’t resist adding a light drizzle.

Other substitutes you can consider:

• If fennel is a bit too strange for you, I think some apples could work too.

• leafy herbs: I used daun kaduk, Thai basil and mint. But I’m sure any of these can also work, so just mix and match to your liking: kemangi (lemon basil), daun kesom (laksa leaf).

• I didn’t want to kill my guests haha, so I used red chili and de-seeded them. If I made this for myself, I would definitely use some chili padi!

• Calamansi can be substituted with the usual lime too but I must say calamansi is best here.

• The grated coconut is optional. I feel it didn’t add all that much to the salad on the whole. Perhaps if it was toasted brown, it might work better.

* * *

Make the salad (feeds 10 as a side dish)

Cut into fine chiffonade: curly and Tuscan kale (about 200g in total), 6-8 pieces of kaduk leaves, about 10 pieces each of Thai basil and mint leaves, 1 fennel bulb

Dice finely: shallots, 2 large chili, 1 torch ginger flower

Mix them up together so you get an even distribution. Easier to do by hand. A little massage also gets the veggies releasing their aroma and oils.

Dress with a light drizzle of good quality olive oil, juice of 4 calamansi limes, salt & pepper. Top off with some fried shallots and freshly grated coconut.

I like serving it in a giant bowl and letting guests help themselves to it.

About kaduk leaves

Cheesy spinach and artichoke dip

We had an excellent version of this at Blue Label Pizza — and it’s still unbeatable, only because it is the most amazing pizza restaurant everrrrrrrr. But while we were shopping for stuff to cook for Ezra’s 3rd birthday, we wondered if we could recreate that at home because he enjoyed it so much when we ate there recently. A quick google search threw up recipes with so much variance between them that we decided to take some of the general ideas and wing it!

Here’s our take on the classic dip. This served a party of 10 along with a lot of other food but it’s pretty much what you see in the picture.

Prep: 3-4 cloves of garlic, finely minced; 450g frozen chopped spinach, defrosted; half a 280g jar of artichoke, chopped into bite-sized pieces (clean weight I used was probably closer to just 90g, estimated).

Dairy needed: cream cheese (250g, 1 small tub), cooking cream (300ml), sour cream, shredded mozzarella (150g).

Cook it:

Heat up some olive oil in a hot pan and sauté the finely minced garlic. Throw in a bag of chopped, frozen spinach (defrosted ahead of time), and cook until all liquid has evaporated. Then add the cut artichoke pieces and sauté for a few more minutes. Add a small pinch of salt to season, keeping in mind the cheeses to be added later contain salt too. Add cracked black pepper, chilli powder and/or red pepper flakes too, if you want a hint of heat.

Add and melt/stir in the following order: cream cheese, cooking cream (2/3 jar), sour cream (about 2-3 tbsp), grated mozzarella cheese. The mozzarella will make it quite sticky so if you need to thin it further, just add more cooking cream. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed. I also added a small dollop of honey (like the size of my finger tip) to balance the flavour a little just so it isn’t all salty - but not enough to actually taste the honey. You can grate some Parmesan on top too if you like.