nakji

If it's a place with waitstaff, I always ask for their best dish. The one they're most confident in. Then if that's not delicious, I know there's not much point in eating around the menu. If it's a counter service sort of place, I eat what's on the sign. If that's not good, nothing else is going to be either.

Ah, that explains that! Yes, I asked for my baozi da bao and they gave it to me in a cunning little drawstring bag. I felt quite stylish carrying it around. The da pao kopi ais I ordered also had its own little plastic carrying holster. Very advanced takeout technology, Singapore. Ok, I couldn't resist - lunch time in Chinatown, or as the sign says in the MRT - "Water Cow Street". Took me a while to figure that one out. Wow, it's a good thing I left my durian back in my room. I had a look around the area for available eats, and settled on the People's Park complex at exit C from the station. I wandered around inside the shopping complex looking for the food section - got completely distracted by Mr. Lee's Geomancy service Rabbit Zodiac - not a good year for fellow snakes, I'm afraid - and decided that the outside vendors were the better bet. The inside vendors were ok, but mostly doing hot pots, which I was less interested in after hitting 30-degree heat for the first time in 3 months. Outside, I had a drink from the iced-drink in boxes array - lychee this time - and went to a cold dish vendor. It looks like they were offering Shandong dishes? Can anyone more literate help me out? They had a whole table of cold rice noodles, tofu noodles, vegetables - you name it - tossed in chili- Sichuan peppercorn - vinegar-oil-and sugar dressing. I got rice noodles, potatoes, and cucumbers. Three choices for $3 SGD. Next to that stall, someone was making thin pancakes like we have in Suzhou - but instead of stuffed with egg, they were stuffing them with a thin layer of pork or cabbage. I got pork. Sexy cut-away: I wish we had these in Suzhou!

I picked up this book recently and had my first chance to cook with it this evening. I was drawn to it because many of the recipes within can be made with simple, fresh ingredients that I can easily locate. And couscous, which I can get at the Carrefour. The first thing I did was set some preserved lemons going: This is the simple, four-day method that calls for lemons boiled in brine for about a half hour; then covered in oil. Then, the chicken roasted with honey, cinnamon, and ginger - Roast Chicken with Couscous, Raisin, and Almond Stuffing, p. 92. The top got too close to my element, but it tasted exceptional. The honey sauce that drips off the chicken is just the thing for drenching the couscous with to serve. The only ingredient I couldn't get was the orange-flower water, which I simply left out. On the side, I made the Mashed Eggplant and Tomato Salad, p. 42 because I'll eat eggplant served up pretty much any way I can. Really good. I plan on making this throughout the summer - with bread and cheese it would be enough for dinner on a hot night. I only wish I had better quality olives. There was plenty for leftovers for lunch, too. Once the lemons are done, I've got the chicken, olive, and preserved lemon tagine bookmarked to try. If anyone else has got this book, I'd be interested in seeing what you've tried or hearing what's good.

I was having a beer with some friends the other night when our waitress left the bottles on the table without leaving us a bottle opener. (Bottle caps still need those where I live) No worries; in five minutes, we all revealed our emergency de-capping methods. One of us did it with the edge of her lighter; I confessed in a pinch I could get it off with chopsticks. Before our other friend could show us how to use the table edge, the waitress came back with the opener. I don't know how many times I've moved and bought a bottle of wine for the first night in the flat without knowing where the bottle opener is, and used a screwdriver set instead. And then there was the time I couldn't get my Christmas turkey to fully fit into my small oven, and tented the door with tin foil... Care to share any emergency cooking methods?

I've seen dishes of vanilla ice cream topped with good olive oil and sea salt - never had it, but people rave about. Thanks for the pav proportions; it's the sort of dish my husband loves! Thanks again for showing us a slice of Wellington.

That looks so good, I think I may have to go out for breakfast.... What kind of chilies were you using, Chris?

I like yellow bean paste and chili bean pastes, which I usually put into mapo dofu. What about pickled mustard greens? Stir-fried with pork, or I used them with some yellow bean paste, fried napa cabbage, and shiitake mushrooms as a baozi stuffing. These ingredients expand savoriness without relying on meat.

Cold cucumber dishes are my favourite - I probably make them at home three or four times a week. Are the cucumbers in the dish you're seeking to replicate in irregular chunks, sticks, or thin slices? Salting the cucumbers first is definitely the way to go - about a tablespoon of salt tossed around one long English cucumber or three smallish Kirbys; then drained. I squeeze extra water off of them after about a half hour, then dress them with sesame oil, Chinkiang, crushed garlic, and a bit of sugar to balance. Do you think the chili-peanut version you're trying to create has any vinegar? If not, I would just proceed by tossing roasted, crushed peanuts to the drained cucumbers, and dressing it with chili oil. Letting that sit for a little while more will probably meld the flavours. Either way, let us know if you're successful in recreating this dish. I've never had it, but it sounds great.

Thanks, Leslie! Your infused oils look spectacular. Aside from drizzling over bay ice cream, what else can it be used for? Right off the top, I'm thinking pasta dressing and salad dressing...any other creative uses? And what's a MyCook? Is that like a Thermomix? I had many a pav wile travelling NZ and Oz, but none as fine looking as yours. Can you post proportions/ a recipe for your pav?

I have a Chinese version of the same jar. I also like the Maggi version. I don't know if it's flavoured the same, but I used it in the mole I made from Diana Kennedy recently. I felt vaguely guilty I wasn't using real chicken stock, but now I know I'm being authentic!

Well, spicy is a spectrum here. It is still a Sichuan dish. It's not so spicy if it doesn't feel like your face is going to fall off while you're eating it. Whenever I've had the lazi ji, the chilies have been cut into pieces, and have thus had a lot of their seeds knocked out of them before being cooked. This may make a less spicy dish. What kind of chilies did you use? I've made the twice cooked pork a couple of times and quite liked it. This dish has so few ingredients, though, that you need good quality black bean sauce and rich, fatty pork belly. Also, these dishes aren't meant to stand alone; they should be balanced by other dishes at the table. I find providing a pickled vegetable along with the rice and a fried green helps balance the flavours/spice.

[Raises hand] English teacher over here.[/raises hand] How many times have I taught semi-colons? How many times will I screw them up? Please. Like KA said, someone will come along and fix them. You may even, if they're the right kind of person, bring them a small amount of joy for having made the mistake. I know a bit about tea, too. But I'd have to get it squared in my mind first. I only really know Chinese tea, which I feel would almost have to be a sub-article.

I used to do this with Starbucks. I take my coffee black, which is always quite hot at SB, I guess for people who add a lot of milk/cream. Drinking it through a straw kept me from burning my tongue many times.

This would be a serious problem for me. I have a dedicated wok-tipping space on my stove. But at least you have usable cupboards. Maybe kitchen counters are like trouser legs? Off the rack they don't fit anyone right? Someone should invent an adjustable platform to go over top of counters that can be raised and lowered.

Beautiful pictures, Leslie! You were working in difficult conditions, but we can all easily see the wit that went into those dishes. The marshmallow reminded me of a very posh lamington. Bar tab $79, eh? We'll say no more. I love how you still have the slip, spatters and all. I've never though of pairing basil and ginger for a sweet dessert - how did that work out?

I feel Singapore could hold its own in a "Best Eating in Asia" contest. Hands-down - especially for choices. I flew in last night and have already had two of my best meals of Rabbit year. First up - ION. I took the MRT to Orchard to gear up on the massive amount of book-buying I'm planning to do here. Is ION new? I don't remember it from when I was here in 2007, and I couldn't find any info on their website. I was peckish after a day of crap food - first in Pudong terminal one (bad ramen) and then on the 5 hour flight - the highlight being the pickled radish and the mandarin orange. I knew I wanted to go right to the food court, especially as I was dining solo. It did not disappoint. I will disappoint you, however - I'd forgotten my camera, so no pictures. I might go back, though. There was a juice station right off the escalator. I regretted not going immediately, because it seems the thing to do is get a juice to drink while cruising your options. I saw a big case of cranky-looking crabs, tied up and waiting for black-pepper saucing. There was a toast shop with kuih and kaya (noted), a gorgeous rack of yellow chickens for chicken rice, but I stopped in front of Padang Padang, an Indonesian/Malaysian place with Nasi Ayam, Nasi Lemak, and a whole rack of fresh vegetable dishes. I got set C - one meat and two vegetables plus rice on a banana leaf. It was almost impossible to choose, but I hung around at the back of the queue to see what other people were ordering. In the end, I got fried chicken, chili fried eggplants, stewed greens with carrot and garlic, white rice with chicken curry sauce over. There was a sambal station at the cash and I will admit to taking a spoon of each. $6.50 SGD. This morning, I avoided the breakfast set of toast and cornflakes at the hostel, and instead went to Lavender st. hawker centre, just down the road. I had taken a cruise through the night before on my way back from ION, and had flagged "Eminent Frog Porridge" for breakfast, but alas - it was not open. This time, I cleverly got a lime juice to sip while assessing the remaining options. There was a Hong Kong dim sum place with intriguing towers of dumplings, but the dumplings were all suspiciously even-looking to me, which suggested frozen dumplings. But, as I wandered down the line, I found the stall with a man in whites twisting a giant ball of dough and pulling knobs of pork mince off of another log. Sure enough, those dumplings were all his. The sign said: "Please order from stall 9", so back I went. "Pei Yun Tim Sum". It's breaking a cardinal rule of mine not to order a non-local specialty when I'm visiting a place, but after seeing xiaolong bao man do his work, I had to try Singapore's take on it. Putting them in little tins seems cheating a bit, but I've seen that in Shanghai, too. The soup was nothing compared to Shanghai, but the meatball was lighter and fresher tasting than the ones I've tried there. Green onion definitely played a part. Char siu bao - because I had to: (I took one wrapped to go for elevenses) The highlight of the meal: "Chicken and mushroom" Tenderized chunks of chicken ribs, probably velvet with lots of black pepper, then cooked with rich stock, dried mushrooms, and sausage. Please, please weigh in if you know what this is called - there was no sign for this dish, I just picked it out of a tower of steamer baskets. 10.50 SGD, plus chased with a Kopi Ais for another $1.30 Tonight: Little India. Lunch...No idea. There's a Bak kuh teh place across the road.

My kitchen has two features that I love: It has counters perfectly at my height - I'm about 160 cm, so counter tops can sometimes be slightly too high for me - and is has a giant, Southern-exposure window that casts lots of light onto my prep space. It has other problems, but the working design is ok. I would like to figure out how to replace the bulbs under my range hood, though. I can't stand not having a light there.

Ah, the ice creams! My husband and I took the long-distance bus round both the South and North Islands, and many a time the driver would come over the speaker to announce that the dairy in the town we were about to drive through had "exceptionally large" ice creams, and if anyone would like, they would pull over to let us get one. How can you resist offers like that? And if it wasn't ice creams, it would be raspberry pies or slices, or similar. The gin sounds fascinating - I'm a gin enthusiast myself, drinking G&Ts straight through the Jiangsu summer. I suppose I'd find Lighthouse distributed in Auckland? A bottle of that going home as a souvenir would last longer than a bottle of wine in my house. Marginally.

Some knives, once they taste blood, never lose the taste for it. My microplane has a similar predilection.

One of my students from last year just came back from his first semester abroad at Bowdoin. He said they have an organic garden that serves the cafeteria.

Turkish Delight is almost like a soft jelly candy, isn't it? I like rose flavour. My husband's a big fan, and gets it for Christmas from Marks & Spencer.

Biggie from Lunch in a Box has an excellent tamago-yaki pictorial. You needs some eggs mixed with your seasoning - soy, sugar, dashi; as you like. The trick is, you want to start out by pouring about a 1/3 of the egg mix into the hot oiled pan, making a thin layer of scrambled eggs. Then you sort of pile them up at one end while they're still quite moist, and add another 1/3 as a thin layer of egg to the pan. When the bottom of that is set, but the top is still moist, you use the big lump at the end of the pan as a centre to roll the wet layer around - like a katamari or a snowman. You can use chopsticks or a silicone spatula to help. When you have a complete log, you pour the rest of the egg in and repeat. Ideally, you should end up with a fused log, which you can cool and slice. I think Biggie recommends firming it up in a sushi mat.

I was reading the food service page for the uni I'll be attending this year. Gluten-free and vegan options are available from the fine people at Sodexho. Different from my undergrad when Marriot was proud of offering soy and HP sauces on the condiment table.

Oil be waiting! (Neither have I.)

"Much Depends on Dinner" by Margaret Visser. I read it in when I was in university - a real page turner, and an inspiration, I suspect, for "The Omnivore's Dilemma". She takes a dinner with chicken, corn, rice, salad, and ice cream, and writes the history of each ingredient. The pieces on corn are particularly terrifying. I noticed it was cited in the Saveur 100 recently.