The Food Canon

I am a fan of Mackerel fish of any type. I love Kembung and Selar, plainly pan-fried or spiced up.

I have blogged the recipe of Chili fish here, which uses the Cencaru or Hard-tail Scad.

Of late, I have learnt to enjoy a good grilled Saba fish. They seem to come cheaper these days. If I have to cook a dish in a hurry, and if I want it to be something I will absolutely enjoy, it has to be this.

There is an interesting write-up on Japanese fish at Ieat where Saba is featured. There Leslie talked about the "Kokumi" in Saba:

I love Bak Kut Teh. And the version I like most is the one I grew up eating - my Mum's.

Eaten with a bowl of steaming and fluffy white rice, the BKT meal is always a special occasion. Occasionally there will be an additional green veg dish but most times, it is a BKT-only dinner. Auntie Ruby would use pork ribs, pork belly, fried tofu pok (bean curd), button mushrooms (canned ones) and occasionally, she may add intestines.

And the first thing you do when the meals starts is to slurp a few spoonfuls of soup. The pork rib meat is tender enough but not falling off the bone. Dip the rib into dark soy sauce with sliced red chilis and enjoy.

I have earlier memories of my Mum's visit to the Chinese medicine shop to gather the herbs ("chup yok"). Just say you need the herbs to make BKT and the medicine seller would know what to do. I doubt the ones today will know how to do so. As commercially packed BKT herbs are widely available these days, few venture into these medicine halls to assemble them "from scratch."

I will detail here the planning, preparations and some of the recipes which the Food Ministry team in my church whipped up for a recent Alpha Introduction dinner. This is our second time and I have documented our first experience in a guest blog here.

This will be helpful as reference as the team continue to plan and cook for future events. Those of you who cook for parties or large gatherings (birthdays, Alpha Course etc) could be inspired by some of our experiences here.  

So, how do you cook for 130+ pax? The meal has to be appropriate and special as we normally serve better food for the first Introductory or Celebration Alpha session. We initially thought of Hakka Yong Tau Foo but changed our minds as the number of guests kept increasing. The logistics involved to keep the YTF pieces crisp and hot will be challenging.

It did not take me very long to agree to take part in this #CookForFamily,  an initiative started by Daniel from Daniel's Food Diary. Food bloggers don't often work together and this is understandable as we indeed live very busy lives here. Some of us could barely keep our blog updated regularly.

Where possible, if I can help promote something good, especially encouraging home-cooking and families eating together, why not.

The tradition of families dining together over home-cooked food is worth pursuing for two important reasons: strengthening of family ties and building family tradition. 

36-hours 55°C Sous Vide Short Rib

I have received a few requests to explain how the Sous Vide Magic (SVM) can be set up for home use.

I will gather all the essential info on SVM in this post.

The picture below illustrates how the set up is done. As you can see, the rice cooker, working as a water bath, is doing the cooking and the SVM is basically functioning as a temperature controller, switching the rice cooker on and off to do so.