Quick and easy lentil soup

Finished this in about 90 mins from first chop to last wash. Pretty easy and decent taste.

I sliced 1 lap cheong and fried it till browned. Removed the lap cheong.

Then I fried about 2 cups of diced onion, carrot and celery with a generous shake of cumin powder and some chili flakes.

After 5-10 mins, add in tomato paste (enough to coat veg) and one garlic clove sliced. Fry some more to caramelize. 

Added back the lap cheong and the blended result of one small can of my tomato sauce and 750ml chicken stock (vary according to thickness desired).

Bring to boil, add about one cup of previously boiled dried lentils, and add one bay leave and a small bunch of thyme sprigs.

Simmer for abt 30 mins.

Made enough for dinner and 2 lunches (with bread).

Good value gourmet meal at the Pollen.

mw's birthday lunch was at the Pollen at the Flower Dome in Gardens by the Bay. I must say that the $55 set lunch (wine and tax not included) is a pretty good value for money. The wine is pricy and I assume that constitutes the main profit for their lunch.

Its good value for money also because after lunch, you can exit directly into the flower dome and take a post-lunch walk without paying the admittance.

The flower dome walk was nice, though crowded due to the tulipmania exhibition (I think).

We polished off this before I took this photo. The pot in my hand is hummous - its a fairly standard dish but very well executed (the blend of spice, oil, tart, saltiness and nuttiness was very nicely done). The butter is a garlic butter with seaweed - also nicely blended flavor. Lastly the bread is decent, though not spectacularly so.

Starter dish - which both of us had. Its a chicken liver parfait (mousse) and a thin slice of slightly tart apple on top. Dots of balsamico and liquor jelly and crushed pistachios. The green thing at the side is some kind of cucumber.

The wine is from Sicily and is a grape varietal called Isolina which is new to me. Slightly nutty and not too acidic.

Pan fried barramundi (which is ordinary) but it rests on a bed of turnips/onions/nuts and a very nice stock which was added at the table. The fish flesh absorbed the stock.

Apricot encrusted chicken, which mw had.

For dessert, they let us sit at the dessert bar where they assembled the desserts. This one had corn custard, dessicated milk, strawberries, a corn cake and some fruity soft jellies.

This one was notable for the fairly intense coffee flavoured meringue (apparently constructed from dessicated egg white combined with coffee providing the fluid).

Quick and easy (and cheap) Tomato sauce

Documenting my long time cooking "hack".

If you have decent knife skills, this can be very fast to prepare. It is also cheap. For this lot, I used about $5 of ingredients. Well... western herbs can be expensive in Singapore, so I tend to use Thai Basil and Rosemary, both of which are growing in pots on my balcony.

Basically, just chop up the ingredients, insert into canning jars and then cook them in a water bath in the oven for about 2.5 to 3 hours set at 100-120 C. Do not pack too full (freezing will expand it and crack the glass). If you don't take out the pulpy tomato flesh (which I don't as I don't like to waste), you'll get quite a bit of watery looking fluid, which makes the tomato sauce not as thick as store bought - but I like it lighter. Also if I want it richer, when I use the sauce, I can add stuff like tomato paste (frying it before to caramelize it).

When done cooking in the oven, take out, wipe the outside and let cool a bit. Then pop them in the freezer.

Don't worry about exact quantities, because when you do use it, you can adjust to taste.

When ready to use, defrost from freezer, take out harder herbs (like Bay leaves) and then blend in blender.

Typical ingredients for me:

• 3/4 volume of chopped tomato.
• chopped white onions and celery (equal volume).
• a small amount of sugar, pinch of salt.
• less than half teaspoon of vinegar.
• a little olive oil.
• half or one garlic clove (depending on taste and size of garlic).
• Herbs. Possibles: rosemary, basil, bay leaves, thyme.

I recently used this for my Lasagna and the tortellini. For the Lasagna meat sauce, I fried mirepoix and then added canned tomato paste and fried it to caramelize it before adding the blended tomato sauce. For the tortellini, I added a big dollop of greek yogurt. This sauce is versatile.

Third attempt at pasta (Tortellini)

mw says I should have been less ambitious. She's right.

I spent a few hours turning out a batch of ricotta filled tortellini.

Lesson 1. My geometry is very poor. I think I need some kind of cutter to cut equal sized squares. I ended up with many different sizes of tortellini.

Lesson 2. I didn't manage a very thin skin. It tended to break. I ended up with the last but one thickness.

Lesson 3. You really should have very little filling. Don't be tempted to put more.

Lesson 4. Even if your pasta is not a perfect square, never fear, just fold as usual and then fold the excess in.

Lesson 5. Very fiddly. Flour your fingers well. Also use the entire length of your fingers to press down and seal the sides. Anyway, I got faster later on - it takes practice.

Lesson 6. It would go faster if I had more space as I would be able to produce more sheet area at one go and lay it out.

The final dinner was not bad, principally due to the sauce, which was my regular tomato sauce + dollop of yogurt + 3 slices of pan fried bacon.

My pasta roller on the left.

My initial efforts. Very odd shapes.

Laying ricotta on the squares.

One of the later batches. I am doing this a lot faster, but still irregularly shaped.

The finished pasta dish.

Second attempt at pasta (Lasagna)

Tasted pretty good actually, alas not because of the pasta. Bought a pasta machine (not pictured).

I used about 500g of meat (with some leftover) mixed beef and pork belly. Enough for dinner + a hefty lunch during the week. The pasta was a bit too firm (possibly because I still insisted on using a half and half mix of bread flour and AP flour with some semolina. Next time I just do pure AP flour.

For the inside, (which tastes nice), I tried for a lighter version of lasagna. For the bechamel (white sauce), I used a mix of 2/3 greek yogurt and 1/3 djion mustard. I also layered a bit less meat sauce and less cheese (mozarella and parmesean). For the herbs, I had wan sui, rosemary, cinnamon and fresh fennel.

Anyway, overall very fragrant and tasty and not as heavy as lasagna eaten outside. I might try for a less firm pasta sheet and slightly more meat sauce (to make it more wet) next time.

The ball of dough. Only very slightly stick and smooth. About 10 mins kneading. The trick is to just decide how many eggs to use and then add flour until we get this texture. Overall roughly 3 eggs per 2 cups of flour (but it will depend on your flour and your eggs).

Browning the meat. Contains about 1/2 beef and 1/2 pork. The pork is pork belly (no skin) plus some bacon.

After browning the meat, take it out. Then stir fry carrots, fennel, and onions under moderate meat. When translucent, add garlic and rosemary. Fry a little more then add the tomato paste and carmelize it a little.

My home made tomato sauce (made last week). Its a easy to make tomato sauce that involves use of canning technique. Today, I just took it out from freezer, defrosted and then blended it. I don't think i've documented it in this blog. Maybe later...

Finished sheets of pasta (I did until last but one thickness).

One layer (total 3 food layers and 4 pasta layers). This layer has dots of the bechamel substitute. Later I just brushed the sauce first on the sheets before putting the tomato sauce.

Layer with cheese added (mozzarella and Parmesan).

Just before cooking.

Finished product with steamed broccoli (with dots of butter and pepper mixed into veg immediately after steaming).

A cross section. I think I probably under did the meat sauce a little (but just a little!)

First attempt at home made pasta

And it could be my last. I'm not sure it's worth the effort. It's hard work.

To be fair, I tried to do it purely by hand.... no machine of any sort. So maybe if I had a machine, the effort to taste ratio could go down.

A bit too thick (later I put the strips on the countertop and flattened them more) and irregular.

Taste was ok. Texture was pretty firm and chewy.

Variations on a theme of Baguette

I felt confident enough for a variation on this bread. This time, I placed the dough flat. Then laid a thin layer of prosciutto across, a thin layer of mustard mixed with balsamico, plus a dusting of shredded Parmesan. I then wrapped the lot up and put rosemary sprigs on the bottom.

In hindsight, laying the ham the other way around would have made for a nicer picture when you rolled it up. Nevertheless, the result was very good. MW complimented me on this effort.