Dessert By Candy

Soy Sauce Marinated Assortment 鹵水拼盆

Last week I introduced you to an array of spices for making soy sauce marinade 鹵水. I would be a tease if I don’t follow up with a recipe for making the marinating broth and how to use it. I always wanted my own heirloom broth. After a bit of work last weekend, I am off to a great start with a fledging broth which gave me plenty of delicious marinated goodness.

A platter of assorted marinated meat is a great appetizer for parties or casual family dinner. Everything is conveniently made ahead of time and can be served hot or cold depending on personal preference. Having a stash of cold meat and eggs in the fridge also means busy weeknight dinners are taken care of. Just add noodles or rice and I have a complete meal!

Chinese Spices For Soy Sauce Marinade 鹵水包

In French cuisine there is bouquet garni, a bundle of dried herbs and spices to flavour stocks and broths. Today I’ll show you its Chinese counterpart, a complex potpourri which is the backbone of soy sauce marinade 鹵水. Calling it a marinade is a bit misleading. It is closer in spirit to an extremely flavourful poaching liquid. In Chinese restaurants, you often find cold appetizer assortment of various protein cooked and marinated in this broth. It is said that the broth gets better with age since the essence of everything you previously made is released into the liquid. It is not unheard of that restaurants build its name on an heirloom broth dating back decades.

Lunar New Year is soon upon us and I set out to start my own heirloom before the year wraps up. Under the guidance of famed Taiwan cookbook authors 程安琪 (Angela Cheng) and 林慧懿 (Theresa Lin), I assembled my bouquet garni. My Western cooking background means even though I am fluent in Chinese, much of the Chinese ingredients read like foreign language to me. A few days of sleuthing and a visit to traditional herbs & dried goods store later, I think I have the mystery figured out. Here is a pictorial to save you some legwork.

Grateful

I invited Dad to my home last Friday for classic roast beef dinner. It had been a few months since I last saw him and I secretly felt guilty about putting off any get-together every time we chatted on the phone. First it was my trip Down Under. Next I went under the knife. Then it was an emotional rough patch that I rather not make him worry. Although things are still in flux at my end, I decided a casual family dinner was long overdue.

Coming up with a menu was tricky. I wanted something not fussy, requiring minimal last minute cooking. At the same time, I took great consideration of healthy dietary requirement for Dad’s sake. Thanks to scheduling limitation, I had one chance to do all my shopping and it was a trip to Costco. This is what I served:

Classic Roast Beef Dinner

Slow Roasted Eye of Round

Mushroom Gravy

Horseradish Sour Cream

Pan Seared Brussels Sprouts

Chives Duck Fat Yorkshire Pudding

Mulled Wine Poached Pear with Palmier

Welcome 2014

I am running on autopilot today. I so desperately want to begin a new year on a new page . My wish has been granted even though the circumstances leave much to be desired. The time has come for me to move on.

A natural born busy body, I rarely find myself short on things to do. Yet today, I fear the hours, minutes, seconds that seem to stretch to eternity. I do not want to be left alone with my own thoughts. Cooking may not be the top of my priority list today but the calm of cutting, boiling, kneading, and washing help me get through the day.

As per the last few years, Little Brother and I welcome the new year with our loose interpretation of traditional Japanese feast. Despite my effort to shop for specialty ingredients last week, most of the key items could not be found (all sold out!). No big deal, I bought enough to make a simple savoury ozoni soup and sweet azuki bean soup, both served with grilled mochi rice cakes.

Revisiting Bouillabaisse

2013 is coming to an end and I did a mental tally of a year filled with highs and lows. I am glad to close the books on this one and look forward to better times ahead. Have you made dinner plans for New Year’s Eve yet? It feels right to be a little festive, a little celebratory. But I would be nuts to drag myself out to a restaurant and pay for overpriced set menus. Here is my lazy take on bouillabaisse, conveniently scaled down to serve just two people. It is easy to make with just the right amount of extravagance. If you still haven’t made dinner plans for tonight, why not stop by the grocery store to pick up some seafood? I love that it tastes vibrant and is loaded with healthy ingredients at the same time. Kicking off the new year resolution one day early can’t possibly be a bad thing.

Get the recipe after the jump…

Comfort Me With Curry

I am going through another emotional rough patch (again?!) and it is taking all my strength to stay mum. It’s been over three weeks, coincidentally overlapping with my post-surgery recovery. One doesn’t have anything to do with the other. For the sake of my own health, I put in my best effort to stay positive, take good care of myself, and put on a happy face. My social calendar is packed. But the usual tricks of cooking, dining, and shopping all taste a little flat, like a glass of champagne left out overnight.

Going through the motion does not inspire creativity in the kitchen. While most of my friends are busy with holiday baking, I can’t even summon enough motivation to make myself a batch of ginger molasses cookies to go with the eggnog. I’ve taken to cook a big batch of something on weekends and reheat small portions for dinner every night. In this cold spell, big batch of something automatically means slow cooker recipe at my house. Week one was chicken stew. Last week was lentil soup. This week’s selection was Chicken Curry In A Hurry.

When Laziness Calls, Ploughman's Lunch Answers

Holiday season is a busy time for most and it is easy to let regular meal planning slide when you’re occupied by a million other things on the to-do list. Personally, I am taking a laid back attitude about holiday planning and let myself off the hook this year for tree trimming, gift shopping, and even holiday baking. But that doesn’t mean I am devoting time to regular meal planning either. Sitting with my foot elevated continues to be a big part of my post-surgery recovery plan. The stitches were gone since Friday and my doctor was very pleased with the healing progress. Although I can now walk for short period of time at a normal pace without signs of limping, standing for hours in the kitchen is still not a good idea yet. I too need quick and easy meal ideas.

One of my favourite dinner requiring minimal preparation is a Ploughman’s Lunch. With a pantry full of preserves I made in warmer months, this is a great option to incorporate chutneys and pickles into my meal too. Last weekend, I visited Wychwood Farmer’s Market and brought home enough goodies to create this beautiful platter.

One At The Table

As much as I value efficiency, sometimes the satisfaction of using up last bits of ingredients outweighs everything else. My fridge looks mostly empty now save for a lot of condiments thanks partly to a single comforting bowl of French onion soup. Soup is often made-ahead and in large batches. No wonder. You’re doing the same amount of work, it takes the same amount of time, so why not make many bowls instead of just one?

I had my reasons. Three reasons, in fact.

1. A bowl of diluted beef broth I used previously to cook couscous
2. A half-emptied pastry bag filled with garlic and herb Boursin
3. An opened bottle of white wine

I don’t know how I came to the conclusion of French onion soup but it just seemed so obvious and inevitable. It was chilly and wet on Saturday. The kind of weather that made me want soup…with a cheesy carb-y lid. So I rolled up my sleeves, shushed my desire for efficiency, and started cooking.

From Fridge And Pantry To Dinner

With an upcoming trip to Sydney, Australia, I am on a quest to clear my house of perishables once more. That seems to be a recurring theme here, isn’t it? I cannot emphasize enough the importance of having well-stocked essentials. Spices, grains, and condiments helped me transform a bunch of odds and ends into nourishing dinner.

Even without the motivation of being away from my kitchen, I like the idea of clearing the fridge on a regular basis. The practice encourages me to waste less food and ensuring my fridge is clean. It bothers me to even think about having rotting produce lurking in some dark corners of the fridge. If you need any more convincing, the fridge runs more efficiently too if cold air can circulate freely.

Enough with the preaching! What did I find in the fridge last night?

Turkey Cobbler with Parsley Sage Biscuits

There is satisfaction in repurposing leftover to something amazing. Not necessarily more amazing than its first incarnation, but amazing nonetheless. The celebration of abundance naturally comes with plenty of leftovers. Obviously the classic turkey stuffing gravy sandwich is hard to beat. When all else fails, there is always the dependable turkey tetrazzini too. But I wanted something different.

To me, leftover isn’t just the extra food we did not finish from the feast. There is also that odd cup of turkey stock, the few stalks of celery hanging around, the handful of baby carrots that could not fit onto the crudité platter, the last sips of white wine, and bunches of herbs with only a few leaves plucked for the meal. I made this Turkey Cobbler with Parsley Sage Biscuits for the very specific purpose of clearing my fridge.

Once the cobbler came out of the oven, I guarantee you would not even think about the word leftover. The smooth white sauce draped and hugged every chunky bite of turkey and vegetable. The buttery herb biscuits were delicious on their own but absolutely irresistible when soaked with the turkey filling. It was comfort food appropriate for the colder days.