Monday September 7, 2009
Past perfect
Don't Call Me Chef
Bring out those vintage Pyrex* bowls and start mixing. It’s time for some retro favourites.
IN A wave of sentimentality in the run-up last week to Merdeka Day, we got to thinking about food that we used to eat when we were children.
Proust had his madeleines; for us, tapioca porridge, rock buns, Bombay Toast and Victoria Sandwich are some of the dishes that stir up memories.
Those of us who took Domestic Science in school remember these dishes as some of the first ones we learned to make. Notice how short the ingredients lists are, and how simple the instructions – no doubt in an effort to give young teenagers the confidence to start cooking (even if some of us made rock buns that came out as hard as their name suggests and sponge cakes that could be used in the discus throw!)
These snacks need no re-invention; they’re good just the way they are. Best of all are the happy connections they make.
* We are in no way implying that Pyrex® is old-fashioned and are well aware of the brand’s evolution in terms of patterns and designs. Its nostalgia factor, however, is undeniable and wholly appreciated.
The root of tastiness
MENTION tapioca, and the first thing people my generation think of is how our grandparents and parents had to eat this root vegetable every day during the Japanese occupation before independence. Well, my grandfather migrated to Tanah Melayu from India to earn money so he could send the money back to his wife and children. Needless to say, during the occupation he was stuck here penniless and ate tapioca for nourishment just like everyone else.
Now, years later, his eldest child – my mother – has a great fondness for tapioca. Our front yard is littered with these plants, which are easy to grow and need hardly any care, and you get to harvest the tapioca within a year. Although, this means I have to park my car outside our compound, it also means we have unlimited access to this delicious root and it’s chemical-free.
Okay, I admit, it’s a bit of a hassle when I have to dig and pull the plant out especially when the ground is hard but I am well rewarded. Our breakfast can be boiled tapioca (yummy when eaten with sugar). For teatime, it can be cute little vadai, made from milled tapioca. If light dinners are your thing, then just turn the tapioca into porridge, which is easy to do and absolutely delicious. Tapioca should so be our national food-based tuber. – Chef Donwan
Tapioca Porridge
Makes 5 servings
500g tapioca
3 mugs of water
¾ tsp salt
5-6 tbsp sugar
½ coconut, grated
2 tbsp flour
Cut the tapioca into small pieces. Put them into a pot and add water and salt. Cover the pot and bring to the boil. Simmer until the tapioca is half cooked. Meanwhile, extract the milk from the coconut and stir in the flour. Add sugar and the coconut milk mixture to the tapioca and keep stirring until it comes to the boil. Pierce the tapioca with a knife to test if it is done, then turn off the fire and serve.
Rub up the right way
MY favourite lesson in lower secondary was Domestic Science, but only the practical cooking classes. I loved the school kitchen, the labelled utensils and equipment, and cooking collectively. I actually still have my recipe book from those days, with recipes I’d copied by hand.
One of the first recipes we tried was rock buns, and I still remember sharing them during recess with my friends from the boring Commerce class.
When I tried this recipe again, it was almost like being back in school. I actually followed the recipe to the letter, and rubbed in the flour and butter with my fingertips (that recipe was taught to demonstrate the gaul dan ramas method).
It took me all of 10 minutes before I realised that I could have easily used the food processor, which gets the job done in five swirls.
Still, this is such an easy recipe to get right. The cookies are delicious, and certainly not hard as rocks.
Only thing is that the little one insists on picking out the raisins and leaving crumbs all over ... sigh. – Blessed Glutz
Rock Buns
Makes 2 dozen
200g flour
100g butter
75g sugar
75g raisins
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla essence
Preheat oven at 200°C.
Rub the flour, butter and sugar with your fingertips until they resemble bread crumbs.
Add the raisins.
Beat the egg with the vanilla essence, and add to the flour mixture.
Mix together with a wooden spoon.
Grease a baking tray, and place spoonfuls of the dough on it.
Bake in the oven for about 30 mins.
I egg you not
I AM so retro, there was no McDonald’s – let alone McDonald’s breakfast – when I was growing up. Breakfast fare was pretty standard: bread, bread and sometimes as a treat, cornflakes with milk. Sundays were special as we got to buy our breakfast, usually wan tan mee or kuih kak, from the stalls in front of the Dato’ Keramat market in Penang.
We didn’t complain though – not because the three of us were ideal kids – as mum, formerly a home science teacher, was an innovative cook who could do wonders with a plain loaf of white Sunshine bread (remember the wax-paper wrapping?). Bread pudding, fried bread with potatoes and onions, bread and butter with a sprinkling of sugar, white bread with butter and sweet corn, toasted corn beef and onions on bread ... now, those were some real happy meals. One of my favourites? Bombay Toast a.k.a French Toast a.k.a gypsy toast a.k.a yummy-egg-toast which was just a creative way to make use of stale bread.
Now that I am old enough to cook, I realise how easy it is to make but back then, it seemed radical. There is lots you can do to make the Bombay Toast your own – mum used to chop onions and green chilli to satisfy our spicy palate but many substitute the chilli and spice with sugar, cinnamon, nuts etc. You can even make a Bombay Toast-wich, where you dip a spicy potato-filled sandwich in the egg mixture before frying. – Veggie Chick
Bombay Toast
Makes 4-5 pieces
2 eggs
½ cup full-cream milk
½ onion, minced
1 medium-sized green chilli, minced
Pinch of chilli flakes/powder
Salt and pepper to taste
Slices of bread – slightly stale for extra taste
Butter
Beat eggs with milk and add the green chilli, onions and chilli flakes/powder. Heat butter in a skillet and dip bread in egg mixture. Let it soak for a couple of minutes (both sides, please) and then fry till golden brown. Repeat till all the egg mixture is used up.
Sponge job share pans
MAKING sponge cakes in the 17th century was not a task to be undertaken lightly, writes Helen Simpson in The Ritz London Book of Afternoon Tea. One of the first baked goods to be made without yeast, it required some poor kitchen wench, using only a fork or a bunch of birch twigs, to “beat eggs for three hours” to whip in enough air to leaven the cake.
Hurray for the invention of baking powder.
With the craze for tea parties in 18th century England and Queen Victoria’s fondness for them, a cake was created in honour of her. It wasn’t a traditional sponge since butter was added, but it was richer and as tender.
Today, this cake may be considered the plainer sister of the torte with piped swirls and moulded roses, but at a time when children snacked on syrupy ais kapai, flavoured condensed milk in pyramid-shaped Tetra Pak cartons and 25-cent bottles of Coca-Cola, and obesity was just a big word in the dictionary, the Victoria Sandwich was a teatime treat that enraptured the young’uns. A cake with TWO layers? Jam and cream in the middle? Wow!
The only worry then was how to score the last slice. Good times. – Marty
Classic Victoria Sandwich
Cuts into 6 slices
100g butter, softened
100g castor sugar
2 medium eggs, beaten
100g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp milk
Filling
75g butter, softened
100g icing sugar, sifted
4 heaped tbsp good-quality strawberry jam
Icing sugar, to decorate
Lightly grease and line two 18cm sandwich tins. Preheat oven at 180°C. Beat all the cake ingredients together in a large bowl until you have a smooth, soft batter (an electric mixer does the job in 5 minutes, but a wooden spoon and some muscle are fine too). Divide mixture between tins; smooth the tops. Bake 20 mins until golden and cakes spring back when pressed. Cool in the tins a few minutes, then turn onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.
To make the filling, beat butter until smooth and creamy; gradually beat in icing sugar. Spread the buttercream over the bottom of one of the sponges, top it with jam and sandwich the second sponge on top. Dust with icing sugar before serving. Best eaten the same day.
Chef Donwan is not nostalgic about most things, but when it comes to food she loves a blast from the past.
Blessed Glutz loves cookies, but hates cleaning up the crumbs.
Veggie Chick has gone all weepy thinking about the good ol’ days. Marty visited the dentist a lot before she was nine.
> Don’t Call Me Chef appears on the first Monday of every month. We can’t offer advice but we welcome feedback and suggestions on possible themes. E-mail: startwo@thestar.com.my
Source:
RSS
