SMOKE IN MY KITCHEN

Sardines Over Polenta

Sardine has always been my favorite food. When I was a kid I didn't get to eat sardines as much as I wanted to because my mother's motto was: Sardines was only for an emergency. "I'm not going to feed my family with sardines three or four times a week. Only lazy women do that."

Mak always made sure she had two or three cans of sardines in food cabinet. By the end of the month if there was no emergency cases in our family, she would prepared the most delicious sardines curry on planet earth.

I came home from school and caught the aroma of bubbling sardines curry in a pot from the kitchen and I was like: "Yeayyyy......we eat sardines curry today." I pictured the silky gravy poured on my white rice with a lot of soft tomatoes and onions. And the ultimate prize was a huge chunk of sardines sat beautifully on top white rice in my plate. Ohhhhhh Mama.......

Last week I was leafing through 2004 Food and Wine magazine in a doctor's office I came across polenta recipe. I don't remember when was the last time I had polenta, but polenta reminds me of Mike. He owned a diner in financial district Downtown Boston where I was one of his sandwich makers/cooks.

Every three months he would add a new item on his menu. He offerred them free to his regular customers (90% of his customers were regulars)for three days before he officially add the new one on the menu.

Unlike others food, polenta didn't catch on. Every time the customers walked in he would ask them: "Would you like to try polenta? They are awesome".

He was lucky if one customer out of 20 customers he asked said yes. After three days not even one polenta was tasted by the customers. The following week he made a new batch. By the end of the day only one customer tried his polenta. Mike was excastic. But that was it. Nobody wanted the polenta the next day and the following day. Mike cancelled his plan of adding polenta in his menu.

After I left Mike's Diner/Cafe, I've always associated polenta with Mike.

For dinner tonight I made sardines over polenta.

Colorful Taste Buds

Friday was a long day. I was drained when I got home. The bare naked trees, the melting snow on the ground and the gray colored sky didn't help much.

When I passed the third building apartment next to the building where I live, an excessively profanity used by a Puerto Rican woman cussing at her baby's father from her third floor bedroom was enough for me to block everything out.

The woman kept spitting out the words, "Nigger this and nigger that...." to her Puerto Rican baby's father who stood on the ground under the woman's bedroom window who in return called her fat ass bitch.

Before I dumped my sling back on the floor, I put on Violin Adagios CD on my pc and then removed my hat, sling bag, scarf, and jacket.

I was hungry, but I wanted some extra color in my food. The music soothed and calmed me down. I put the kettle on for a cup of tea.

I rinsed a cup of sushi rice until the water was clear. I put the rice in a large measurement cup, added three cups of water and five drops of red coloring.

I poured a half cup of orange juice on salmon, a dash of ground cardamom, salt and pepper. I put three slices of tofu, two halves of small eggplant and tossed them together in a bowl. I turned the oven on and washed a handful of spinach.

The tea was almost gone when I slid the tray into the oven. I tossed a knotted screwpine leave in a rice pot and set the heat at #3 got into a shower.

I felt like I had peeled some of bad day layersoff my body when I came out of a shower 20 minutes later, I turned over the salmon, tofu, onion rings and egg plants. The rice was almost done. The red color was vibrant. I whacked a piece of garlic, removed the skin, added a dash of pepper and cooked the spinach with minimal water.

It was simple and jazzy dinner with a soft music on the background.

It Is Akok Because I Said So

I'm a sucker for Malay sweet kuih. The sweeter the better. I wrote about my discovery of Kuih Akok when I went to visit my family in Taiping in October 2006.

I've made a few attempts to try my hands on akok. They failed miserably but I ate them all.Then when I read Zawi's blog in Food of Kelantan Part 2 about akok, I thought I missed the big important piece. He said they use duck egg white only. That was how Akok get the wrinkles. The more wrinkles the better.

Only if we had the same idea about our wrinkles. The more the better, eh?

First picture, 15 seconds out of oven.

I didn't get the duck eggs nor did I used egg white.

I used four large eggs, a half cup of coconut milk, two tablespoon of flour.

After I removed them from the mould I realized I forgot to add sugar. That's when my maples syrup came handy.

I had this fattening scrumptious akok for brunch after my weekend brilliant run. 

Ooohhh My Baby Corns, Baby Zuchinni.

I missed my lunch earlier today. When the meeting was over it was already 4:15 pm. I hopped on the train back to downtown did a quick one hour run on the treadmills.

When I got home I was shaking with hunger.

I quickly marinated salmon, baby corns, baby zuchinni, two sliced of apple, red pepper and few sliced carrot by adding two TB spoon of OJ, pepper, a dash of seasalt and a dash of groundnutmeg.

I put everything on griddle on low heat. Before I jumped into a shower, I washed and rinsed a two cups of basmati rice. I fried the rice the way I learned from Nina van Der Veen, added water, put on the lid and lower the heat.

When I got out of shower, the rice was cooked, and everything on the griddle was ready to be turned over.

It was pretty good healthy meal and I no longer shaking.

Slow Baked Lamb Leg and Dried Fruits

Sometimes I don't have a plan to buy an organic grass fed lamb meat, but when I see on the shelves Harvest Supermarket, I won't hesitate .

Before I went to bed on Monday night, I made a korma paste (a combination of ground coriander, star anise seeds,cumin, white pepper, nutmeg, cardamom, cinnamon and almond paste for thickening agent). I added tamarind juice to the paste as well.

I smothered my a half-lamb leg, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and went to bed.

The next day, on Christmas day, before I went out to run, I set the oven at 100 degree, removed the plastic wrap, arranged four organic carrots, two sweet onions, one cup of mixed dried fruits around the lamb leg. Overnight, the juice from the lamb have formed nicely at the bottom of the pan. I covered the lamb with aluminum foil to form a tent. I filled a half cup of water in a bigger pan and placed the lamb pan in it.

When I got back 2.5 hours later, the lamb was done. All juicy and tender and my tiny kitchen scented up with heavenly aroma. I covered back the tent to trap the heat while I heated up the leftover basmati rice and baked a bottom part of spaghetti squash for fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes later, I dug in....

Note: I seldom follow any cooking or kitchen rules. When I am in the kitchen I do what I feel right for taste buds. My style of cooking is I cook the way I FEEL it.

Stuffed Baked Butternut Squash

I haven't cooked serious dinner lately. Soups have become my regular since October. I made pomegranate/split peas soup twice last month, pumpkin soup in October (no, I didn't use pumpkin from Halloween, I used turban pumpkin instead), tomato soup two weeks ago, barley and lamb shank soup the day I got a mammogram test result.

I left the office two hours early (two hours from working late last week) after I completed a new client intake interview. I missed my lunch. I  had two slices of multigrain oatnut toast with apple/redpepper spread and almond nut for breakfast.

I was hungry when I got home. I had a couple of wheat crackers with Habanero Jack cheese to hold my hunger at bay.

I rinsed and cooked basmati rice, turned on the oven to 400 degree, cut the butternut squash into two sections. Put away the top part back in the refrigerator. I scooped out the seeds, seasoned with lemon juice, sprinkled a dash of salt on top. Filled the pan with  2/3 glass of water, placed the squash in the pan, cover with aluminum foil and baked for about 25 minutes or until it's tender.

I chopped two cups of baby spinach and made cream spinach. When the cream spinach was ready I carefully placed it into a hollow of baked butternut squash.

I was amazed how delicous the combination of creamy spinach and baked squash were. Nutty, creamy and explosive.

What Color Is Your Mother In Law's Tongue?

I think I wrote before that I'm a big sucker for colorful and odd food. Two weeks ago I bought a beautiful stripes pasta called Mother In Law's Tongue. The colorful pasta caught my eyes and when I looked at the label, I knew I had to have it.

I seldom have heavy dinner especially after 6 pm, but today was an exception. This morning I only had an apple slathered with almond butter and a cup of coffee for breakfast.

It was almost 3:30 pm, when I heard funny noise coming from my stomach. I won't be back to work until Monday and I wanted to get all the important paper work ready by Monday.

It was too late for lunch and I didn't want to go out to get something to eat. I munched on a couple of dates and dried figs I stashed away in my desk drawer. It kept my stomach happy until time to go home.

I cooked the pasta, sliced half of anise (Thanks to Dik Nina who introduced me to Anise), cut halves 5 cherry tomatoes, added two table spoons of peppercorn ranch salad dressing, half can of chunk tuna and two handful  baby spinach and a pinch of pepper. When the Mother In Law's Tongue was ready I mixed together the ingredients.

I wondered who named the pasta?

How Do I Say Puteri Mandi? Princess in a Bath?

I enjoy visiting babe_licious foodblog at Masak-masak. I love the way she writes about food that she captures amazingly beautiful with her camera. She visits a lot of Ramadhan Bazaar during fasting month. One of her beautiful pictures during her visit to Ramadhan Bazar Bangsar@Jalan Telawi Satu on September 24th. sent my head spinning with excitment when I saw Puteri Mandi.

Last Friday I bought a packet of glutinous rice flour, food coloring, a can or red bean, and frozen grated coconut. During my weekly chat with Kak N over the phone I told her I was planning to make Puteri Mandi.

She said don't leave the rolled dough ball too long in the boiling water. "What water?"I asked."

Before you cook them in diluted coconut milk you have to cook those little balls in the water first. Scoop them out of boiling water once they float at the surface.

"Aahhhh.....I'm glad I bring this up. I thought I'd just drop them in coconut milk and cook them over low heat."

"They will stick together like a lumpy dough if you cook like that."

Anyway I didn't have the Puteri Mandi on Saturday. I figured I would spend too much time in the kitchen and missed the wonderful sun outside. I prepared the inti (filling:red bean and grated coconut cooked with palm sugar). I made the Puteri Mandi on Monday.

I added a few pieces of dried chempedak my mother sent me in a package in October 2004, a month before she died. I've been keeping them in a tight, sealed sandwich bag in a refrigerator for the past three years.

My kitchen was fragranced with heavenly scented chempedak whole evening.

Red Sweet Bell Pepper Chutney

Three sweet red peppers with three different shapes sat patiently in vegetables section waiting for me to make up my mind about them.

On Saturday evening, in my kitchen after splendid hours dozing under the sun on the bank of Charles River, I had a bright idea. What about chutney???

I cut them crosswise and stacked them like a pyramid for the sake of my creative idea...hah....hah....hah....

It came out pretty good.

And I had the chutney with Malaysian made roti chanai for bersahur on Sunday morning.

Salmon and Mashed Turban Squash

I wanted to have something sweet for dinner  besides grilled salmon over bed of lettuce, but I didn't have the ingredient (glutinous rice flour) in my kitchen to make Puteri Mandi which boo_liciouss captured it so heavenly beautiful. I settled for mashed turban squash instead.