Burmese Golden Egg Curry and Part-Time Happenings

Last September I started working part-time. I quit full-time work. I wanted more time to do things that I enjoyed rather than working for the man all the time. I was lucky that a part-time job opportunity came up when my colleague returned from maternity leave and only wanted to work two days a week, so now I job-share working 3 days a week as a policy analyst in government. I had no game plan for what I would do when I started working part-time, but many interesting projects and opportunities have come up. Even though I work part-time, I am busier than ever!

I thought I would share what I get up to in my life outside of blogging :)

I have been a part of the TEDxPerth committee since October 2012 and we organised our first large scale full day event last December. Plans currently are underway for our second full day event this year which will be on 26 October 2013.  We recently did a live stream of TEDGlobal at Spacecubed.

 

(photo taken by Kira Rikkers)

 Here I am with my TEDxPerth crew at the entry of The Vault at Spacecubed at TEDXPerthLive 13.6.2013.

In December last year, an expression of interest to host Eat Drink Blog 4 was placed on the Eat Drink Blog website. Eat Drink Blog is the Australian Food and Drink Bloggers Conference. The inaugural Eat Drink Blog conference was held in Melbourne in 2010, Sydney hosted in 2011 and last year the conference was in Adelaide. I discussed the possibility of hosting the fourth Eat Drink Blog conference in Perth with other WA food bloggers, and there was wide support and interest in bringing the conference west. I put together our submission and on 22 January 2013 it was announced on the website that Perth would host Eat Drink Blog 4! 

I am chair of the Eat Drink Blog 4 organising committee. It’s very exciting to be bringing the national Australian food and drinks bloggers conference to Perth. It has been more work than I thought it would be, the committee has faced challenges but we are working our way through them. Slowly but surely the conference is starting to come together and we hope to make some announcements in a few weeks. 

Thanks to the Eat Drink Blog 3 Adelaide committee for giving Perth the opportunity to host Eat Drink Blog this year. Special thanks to Christina (co-chair of Eat Drink Blog 3) who has provided helpful advice to me during the submission process and handover of Eat Drink Blog.

 (www.eatdrinkblog.org)

I am currently doing the RTRFM  radio training course. Fulfilling a dream of mine to one day be on the radio playing my favourite tunes, stuff that you wouldn’t hear on any other radio station but RTRFM as it’s the sound alternative. At the moment I am listening to a lot of post-metal \m/ Everything might sound natural and spontaneous on the radio, but I’ve learnt that it’s everything but! I’ve gained a lot more respect for anyone who does radio because behind the scenes there is a lot of hard work and planning. I’m still working on my radio voice. 

I have also just become a food curator for Urban Locavore along with Grace. Grace and I worked on the Beaufort Street Festival cookbook last year and it’s great to be working together again. Urban Locavore is a small Western Australian business that aims to discover, promote and share food made and grown by Western Australian producers who source most or all of their ingredients locally. Each month Urban Locavore curates a Tasting Box featuring seven to nine of Western Australia’s best products and delivers them to people in the Perth metropolitan area or boxes can be picked up at our store in Osborne Park.

So I am pretty busy these days but happy to be doing the things I am involved in, and also the poorest I have been in a long time. TEDxPerth, Eat Drink Blog and radio are all things that I am volunteering my time to and for Urban Locavore at the moment, I work for food. Urban Locavore is still a relatively new small business operating on a shoe string and are not in a position pay for staff now but I get to consume lots of amazing local produce every week. Grace and I are on board to help the business grow, we have lots of exciting plans for events and a bigger store. Grace and I often talk about how one day we’ll be able to give up our day jobs!
 
Right now I’m trying to absorb as much as I can. I'm doing whatever interests me, building up skills and knowledge along the way, and then I’ll see what I can do with myself. 

As can you imagine, I am on a budget these days. I have been eating out less and cooking a home a lot more. Making more use of my pantry, produce that my parents give me from their restaurant and also items from the Urban Locavore Tasting Boxes.

(Urban Locavore goodies come in a box of hay - Margaret River Free Range Eggs)

In the May Urban Locavore Tasting Box there were beautiful eggs from Margaret River and a recent edition of SBS Feast magazine featured a Burmese Golden Egg Curry. It looked amazing and I asked my Burmese friend MM from high school if she had cooked this dish before and she told me that it tastes better with the addition of ground dried shrimp, and also advised to cook the shallots for longer until it was soft and caramelized. She also recommended putting some ground paprika in at the same time as the turmeric in the oil that the eggs got fried in to give more colour.
 
So I have used the recipe from SBS Feast magazine as a base and adapted it, incorporating MM’s suggestions.
 
Burmese Golden Egg Curry

Ingredients

•    6-7 small dried shrimp (or enough to make 2 teaspoons of ground dried shrimp)
•    peanut oil
•    ½ teaspoon ground turmeric
•    ¼ teaspoon ground paprika
•    3 large shallots, finely chopped
•    4 garlic cloves, crushed
•    5 tomatoes, finely chopped
•    ½ teaspoon ground chilli
•    ¼ cup water or chicken stock
•    1 tablespoon fish sauce
•    salt to taste
•    3 green bird’s eye chillies, deseeded and sliced
•    4 large eggs, hard-boiled and peeled
•    chopped coriander for garnish

Method

Prepare the dried shrimp – soak in hot water for 30 minutes until softened, then finely chop and roast in oven for 10 minutes at 150C.

 

(finely chopping dried shrimp)

 

(roasted ground dried shrimp)

In a small saucepan that can fit in 4 eggs, fill with 3-4cm of peanut oil and heat over medium heat to 180C. 

Add ground turmeric and paprika, and cook for 30 seconds or until fragrant. Lower the hard boiled eggs into the oil and fry them, using chopsticks to turn them around until they are golden all over and blistered. Remove and drain on paper towel. Slice eggs in half.

Heat up a wok and spoon in 3-4 tablespoons of the oil the eggs were fried in. Add the shallots and cook for 5-6 minutes until soft and caramelized, then add garlic and cook for another 1-2 minutes. Then add the tomatoes, ground chilli and ¼ cup of water or chicken stock, and cook, stirring continuously, for 10 minutes until the tomatoes have softened. Stir in the fish sauce, green chillies and 1 teaspoon of ground dried shrimp. Season to taste with salt. 

Place eggs, cut-side down, in the sauce and cook for 3 minutes or until heated through.

Spoon the sauce and eggs onto a plate, scatter with chopped coriander, ground dried shrimp and serve with steamed rice.

Note: It’s also great with toasted bread!

Claypot Pork Belly

If you ask me what my favourite meat is, my answer is pork.

This is kind of predictable because I’m Asian and for some reason or another all Asians like eating pork. It's like in our blood or something.
 
There is a Cantonese saying that goes “giving birth to a slab of char siu would have been better”. Parents say this to their children when expressing their disappointment in them. It roughly translates to and means – “if I had char siu at least I could eat it, but you, your useless.” 

But why char siu? 

Char siu is one of many famous Chinese BBQ meats that you’ll see hanging out the front of Hong Kong style BBQ restaurant windows. There is also roast duck aka siu ngaap or soy sauce chicken aka see yu gai. So why would people say that they would rather give birth to char siu and not siu ngaap or see yu gai? 

I asked my parents if they knew where this saying originated from and they didn’t know. I had grown up hearing this saying, I’d often hear it on Cantonese TV shows and movies in family dramas. I then asked my parents why pork and not duck or chicken. It didn’t take us long to figure out why you would want to say “giving birth to a slab of char siu would have been better” and not siu ngaap or see see yu gai because duck is slang for a male prostitute in Cantonese and chicken is what you call a female prostitute… why? I don’t know, but don’t ever say out loud you are calling chicken or duck in Cantonese, it could get awkward.

This makes me think of the time when I was in Japan with my friends Karen and Crispin in 2010 and we were at an izakaya with some of Karen’s Japanese friends. We let the locals order and they asked us what we felt like eating which was met with “I’m easy, order whatever you like”. Karen’s Japanese friends asked what we meant by “I’m easy” and we explained to them that it means we will accept anything that they order. So they started repeating out loud “I’m easy” like it was some cool new English saying they had just learnt and then we realized that they should be careful with saying I’m easy because as with calling chicken or duck in Cantonese, it could get misconstrued and get awkward!

“giving birth to a slab of char siu would have been better”

Well this isn’t char siu, I already have a recipe for char siu on my blog which happens to be my most popular blog post but this is one of my other favourite pork dishes – claypot pork belly. 

This is the kind of dish I love eating in winter. Pork. Fat. What else do I need to keep me warm?

Enjoy :)

Claypot Pork Belly

(An original recipe by the Blue Apocalypse)
 
Ingredients

•    peanut oil
•    1 kg pork belly, thinly sliced
•    4-5 slices of ginger
•    2 shallots, sliced
•    3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
•    3 stalks spring onion, cut into 2 inch lengths (I only use the bottom third)
•    10-12 dried red chillies (soaked in hot water until soft and deseeded)
•    3 tablespoons oyster sauce
•    4 teaspoons dark soy sauce
•    2 teaspoons light soy sauce
•    1 ½ cup chicken stock
•    2-3 tablespoons Shaoxing wine
•    1-2 teaspoons sesame oil
•    salt and sugar
 
Method

Heat 2-3 tablespoons of peanut oil in a wok and fry the dried red chillies until the oil is coloured red and the chillies are crispy. Then add in the ginger slices and fry together until fragrant.
 
Add in the shallots, garlic and fry until the shallots have softened
 
Add in the sliced pork belly and fry until it starts to brown. Then add in oyster sauce, dark soy sauce, light soy sauce and fry everything together so that the pork is coated with the sauce. Deglaze with Shaoxing wine and then add in the chicken stock.
 
Heat up a claypot and transfer the pork from the wok to the claypot. Bring to boil, cover with lid and simmer for 1-1 ½ hours until the pork is tender and the sauce has thickened. 

Stir occasionally and add more water or stock if the sauce dries up.
 
Add the spring onions, cook for a further 5 minutes and season to taste with a little salt and sugar. Add in the sesame oil last and mix together just before serving.
Serve with steamed rice.

Here are some of my other pork belly recipes:

• Braised pork spare ribs with pumpkin
• Vietnamese braised pork belly with eggs in coconut juice (Thit Heo Kho Trung)
• Twice cooked pork (Sichuan style)
• Roasted pork belly - sui yuk
• Kakuni (Japanese Braised Pork)
• Braised pork belly with daikon
• Chinese BBQ Pork 
• Communist Pork (Red Cooked Pork)
• Baki Kecap (Indonesian braised pork in sweet soy sauce)

Panna Cotta Lamingtons – The Best Lamingtons You’ll Ever Make!

There are very few desserts that Australia can claim as its own. We talk up pavlovas but it is fraught with arguments over if it was invented in Australia or New Zealand. New Zealand appears to win on this front but it doesn’t stop Australia from treating it like its own. 

Lamingtons are something that Australia can definitely claim as its own. It was invented around the 20th century in the kitchen of Baron Lamington, the governor of Queensland. Legend has it that it came about when stale sponge cake was covered with chocolate and coconut as something to offer to visiting dignitaries or another story is that a maid accidentally dropped cake in chocolate and was ordered to cover it in coconut to make it less sticky.

I made lamingtons with a modern twist for the Secret Cake Club Perth in May where the theme was classics. Lamingtons are a classic Aussie icon. 

The setting for Secret Cake Club Perth in May

Someone at cake club told me that it was the first time he had eaten a lamington and my response was “What is wrong with you?!” but that statement was retracted when I later found out that he was from Ireland and had only been in Australia for 1.5 years.
 
If you grew up in Australia, lamingtons would be a part of your psyche. Mass produced commercial supermarket lamingtons were a lunchbox staple and schools always had Lamington Drives as a fundraiser.  

The lamingtons I made for Secret Cake Club were panna cotta lamingtons – sponge cakes soaked overnight in a panna cotta mixture and then covered with chocolate ganache and moist coconut flakes. These were not the kind of lamingtons I grew up eating. The lamingtons I’m used to had a sponge which would be a bit dry (possibly stale), and was covered in some chocolate icing mix (ie: not real chocolate) and dessicated coconut.
 
I was first introduced to panna cotta lamingtons on Instagram where many people that I followed in Sydney kept posting photos of this amazing lamington that they ate at Flour and Stone. When I was over in Sydney last November to see Radiohead, I made a point of visiting Flour and Stone to see for myself what all the fuss over this lamington was about. After all, it’s just a lamington. I had not eaten a lamington in ages, it was not something that got me excited or interested me when there are always so many other great sweet treats on offer. 

When I ate the panna cotta lamington from Flour and Stone for the first time, I got it. I totally understood why people were raving about it – the sponge had a soft and creamy texture from being soaked with panna cotta, it was filled with a raspberry compote, and covered in real chocolate and flakes of coconut. The classic lamington had been turned into a decadent dessert and it was real pleasure to eat.

So when the theme for Secret Cake Club was classics I wanted to try making panna cotta lamingtons. I figured that I would just have to find a lamington recipe and a panna cotta recipe, and combine them together somehow but this did not have to happen as the recipe for the panna cotta lamingtons at Flour and Stone is available online. The owner and baker of Flour and Stone, Nadine Ingram has shared it! 

I decided to follow the recipe and see how I would go but I didn't have two 8x12 inch cake pans as specified in the recipe so I just used one large 20x30cm baking pan. The original version at Flour and Stone sandwiches two squares of sponge cake with raspberry compote but as I was baking it in one larger pan, the resulting sponge was a bit taller than what it should be so I decided to skip the raspberry filling. I made the quantity of panna cotta specified which contained 4 ¼ cups of cream but it looked too much and I only added in half of it, and poured the rest into little cups to set as individual panna cottas. Rather than making the chocolate icing in the recipe I made a simple chocolate ganache to coat. So much for following a recipe…I just adapted it to my liking along the way!

I was happy with the panna cotta lamingtons I made for Secret Cake Club Perth and received a lot of compliments with many saying they were the best lamingtons they had ever eaten. But having eaten the panna cotta lamingtons at Flour and Stone I knew that mine were lacking in panna cotta because I had chosen not to follow the recipe exactly and only added in half of the panna cotta mixture I had made. It seemed like a lot of panna cotta to add at the time and I was worried about drowning my sponge and it ending up too soggy.  But why didn’t I just trust the recipe? Why did I think that I knew better than the recipe author? I’m sure that much testing was done to obtain the perfect amount of panna cotta for the sponge. So I have made the panna cotta lamingtons again, tweaking the original recipe a bit and I used ¾ of the panna cotta mixture this time and poked lots of holes in the sponge to help it seep through and now I am happy with how they are :)

So this is my take on the panna cotta lamingtons from Flour and Stone.

 Panna Cotta soaked sponge cake. Love the soft and creamy texture!

Panna Cotta Lamingtons
 
(lamington recipe adapted from Nadine Ingram of Flour and Stone and chocolate ganache recipe adapted from Gourmet Traveller)
 
Ingredients
Sponge Cake
300g butter, softened at room temperature
300g caster sugar
5 eggs, beaten
300g cake flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
150ml milk
 
Note: Cake flour is not available in Australia but I found some in an Asian supermarket. 

Cake flour delivers a more delicate and tender crumb for cakes. If you can’t find cake flour, an appropriate substitute is to mix together flour with some cornflour. For every cup of flour, take out two tablespoons of flour and replace with two tablespoons of cornflour. Sift the flour and cornflour together a few times to incorporate well.
 
Panna Cotta Mixture
3 leaves of gelatin
3 ¼ cups pouring cream
150g caster sugar
½ vanilla bean pod or use 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Chocolate Ganache Coating
500g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
250ml pouring cream

Plus about 400-500g of shredded coconut (I used moist coconut flakes)

Method

Sponge Cake

Preheat oven to 175C. Line a 20x30cm baking pan with greaseproof paper.

Mix the cake flour and baking powder together and sift three times.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 10 minutes. Then gradually add the eggs in and beat until fully blended. 

Use a spatula to gently fold in the flour and milk alternately until the batter is smooth. (This can also be done with a mixer on low speed. I have a hand held electric beater which doesn’t have a low speed so at the end of folding in the flour and milk, I beat the mixture for ~10 seconds to fully incorporate everything and smooth any lumps).

Pour the batter into the lined pan and bake for about 30 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean and the middle of the cake bounces back when pressed with finger.

Remove from the oven and cool. 

Panna Cotta Mixture

Soak the gelatin leaves in cold water to soften.

Place the cream and sugar in a saucepan. Use a knife to split the vanilla bean in half and scrape the seeds out, add the seeds and the beans into the saucepan (alternatively, just add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract). Stir and warm over low heat until sugar has dissolved, then just bring to the boil before removing from the heat.

Remove the gelatin leaves from the water and squeeze any excess water from them with your hands.

Remove the cream mixture from the heat and add the gelatin leaves. Whisk well until all the gelatin leaves have melted. 

Strain through a fine sieve and leave at room temperature for an hour.

Assembling the lamingtons

Once the sponge cake has cooled, use a skewer to poke holes all over it and use a small knife to slice the cake into square portions (4-5cms) but only cut halfway down into the cake (I find that this will allow more of the panna cotta to soak through evenly). Pour the panna cotta mixture all over the sponge.

Refrigerate overnight. 

The next day, remove the sponge from the pan and slice into 4-5cm squares. 

Prepare the chocolate ganache coating - combine chocolate and cream in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water. When chocolate begins to melt, stir gently until combined and smooth. Set aside.

Scatter the coconut flakes over a tray. Using 2 forks, dip each square into the chocolate ganache and shake to remove the excess. (If the ganache starts to thicken, place the bowl over gently simmering water to thin). Cover the chocolate square in coconut, shake off the excess and place on a wire rack (sitting over a tray). Repeat with other sponge squares. Stand for at least 1 hour or until the chocolate sets. 

Keep refrigerated until ready to eat.

Chicken Ragu – Braised Chicken with Rosemary

Social media has influenced the way I dine out. I like reading restaurant reviews in the paper and blogs to find out good places to eat but I also make a note of things that come up on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Sometimes a short simple 140 character tweet or a photo I’ve seen on Instagram can spark my interest in a place. This kind of information can be more clear and precise, without repetition or waffle, and just enough for me to know whether or not I will like a particular place. 

But like traditional restaurant reviews or blogs I follow, any recommendation that I accept via social media will be based on trust, where I have judged that person to be a reliable source of information. 

Last year I favourited this tweet from Pat Nourse who is the editor of Gourmet Traveller.

On my trip to Sydney last November to see Radiohead, I made a visit to La Rosa. I wanted to try this dish based on a tweet that I saw because a) it’s hard to find good pasta, Italian food is more bastardised than Chinese food in Australia and b) a chicken ragu? I’ve always associated ragu with red meats (pork or beef) so I was intrigued and I wanted to taste a chicken version. 

I am wary of ordering chicken pasta dishes when I eat out. I’ve never eaten one that I have really liked. So many chicken pasta dishes don’t seem to work, where it feels like the chicken is there for the sake of being there but it doesn’t really blend into the dish well or contribute in a valuable manner.  

I was not disappointed by the chicken ragu offered by La Rosa. The dish contained braised chicken thigh with rosemary and was generously topped with parmesan and parsley. The use of chicken meant that the dish was lighter, it didn’t have the heavy depth of flavour that you would find with pork or beef, but it still had a rich flavour where you could tell that the basis of it would have been a good chicken stock, accented with the flavours of tomatoes and rosemary throughout. What I liked about this dish was that there was a purity and simplicity to the flavour which was really satisfying and felt homey, where you can tell that it was one of those family recipes that had been passed down from generation to generation. On the menu the dish was called Spaghettini della Mamma aka Mum’s Spaghettini! It was one of my favourite dishes of the trip. 

Have you ever eaten somewhere based on a tweet?

When I eat a dish that I enjoy, I like to try replicating it at home.

But first of all I had to figure out what a ragu was.

From my research, my understanding of it is that it's a meat based sauce, slowly cooked with sautéed vegetables in a liquid. The distinguishing aspect of a ragu is that the tomatoes added are limited in quantity to the meat and there is only a small amount of sauce. The sauce should cover the pasta a bit but there shouldn’t be much more. Not to be confused with the bolognese sauce variety where you drown your pasta with sauce. Also not to be confused with the French ragout which is a meat or vegetable stew.
 
Using my new found knowledge of how to cook a ragu where you basically sear meat, cook a soffritto and braise the meat with some liquid (wine/broth), tomatoes and herbs, I have been cooking a lot of ragu over the past few months. I started with cooking a pork ragu and then tried cooking chicken ragu, continually refining my method.

This is the third time I have cooked chicken ragu, learning from earlier attempts and tweaking the recipe overtime to a result that I am pretty happy with now. 

The chicken has been cooked until it is tender, 

falls off the bone and is pull-apart goodness
 

I use leftover chicken ragu to stuff some jacket potatoes :)

Chicken Ragu with Rosemary
 
(An original recipe by the Blue Apocalypse)
 
Ingredients
 
•    Olive oil
•    4 chicken Marylands (butcher's cut of meat consisting of the entire leg of thigh and drumstick)
•    1 cup of finely diced shallots
•    1-2 minced garlic cloves
•    2 grated celery sticks
•    ½ grated medium sized carrot
•    1 cup dry white wine
•    1 bay leaf
•    2 sprigs rosemary
•    2 (400g) cans of whole peeled tomatoes
•    1 cup chicken stock
•    salt and pepper
•    Garnish – parsley and parmesan

Plus packet of dried pasta, I used linguine

Method

Preheat oven to 150C.
 
Wash, pat dry with paper towel and season the chicken Marylands with salt and pepper.
 
Heat some olive oil in dutch oven/overproof pot over medium high heat, add the chicken Marylands skin side down first for a few minutes and sear all over until browned (do this in two batches). Remove the chicken and set aside on a plate.
 
Add the shallots and cook for a few minutes until softened, then add the garlic, celery, carrots and cook for 7-8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Deglaze with white wine and simmer for a few minutes until it reduces by half.
 
Add bay leaf, rosemary, cans of tomatoes, chicken stock and return the chicken Marylands back to the pot. Bring to boil, cover and place in the oven.
 
Cook for 2 hours until the meat pulls away from the bone easily. Remove the bones and shred the chicken with forks.

Put the pot on the stove and bring to boil, season to taste with salt and pepper.
 
Cook pasta until al dente and drain, reserving some of the pasta water.
 
To serve - put 1 cup of the chicken ragu in a frying pan and heat gently over medium heat with 2-3 tablespoons of the pasta water. Add one serve of pasta to the frying pan with the chicken ragu and toss until it is combined. Transfer the chicken ragu pasta onto a plate and garnish with parsley, parmesan and freshly ground black pepper.

Preparing a serve of pasta

To make jacket potatoes stuffed with chicken ragu

Preheat oven to 200C. Wash a potato, wipe dry with a paper towel and then use a fork to poke some holes in it. Rub some olive oil onto the skin and some salt. Place the potato on a tray and bake for 50-60 minutes or until tender when a skewer is inserted into the centre. Cut a deep cross on top of each potato, fill with chicken ragu and garnish with some parmesan and parsley. 

Soul Music = Soul Food

Have you ever been somewhere or maybe you are just driving along listening to the radio, and a song comes on that you instantly find yourself swinging your head and tapping your feet to? There is a distinctive energy and rhythm to the song, the emotion is raw and heartfelt, the vocals are smooth and sassy. It’s hard not to smile and sing along to the “feel good” nature of it. 

Soul Music

There is something about soul music that touches your soul. It’s like soul food, you get a comforting feeling from it all. 

********

This year I want to examine connections between music and food.

One of the first ideas that came up when I was brainstorming links between music and food was soul music. When thinking about soul music and food, it’s easy to think of what kind of food would go with soul music … soul food!

I did some research on soul music and soul food, and I found out how connected the two were in terms of the time of their emergence and significance to the black experience in America during the civil rights movement in the 1960s. It’s fascinating to learn how much music and food can mean to a group of people.

Soul music originated in the United States around the 1950s and early 1960s, combining elements of African American gospel music, and rhythm and blues. It became popular in the charts in the 1960s, elevated in part by the civil rights struggles of the time and enabled by the creation of channels and infrastructures run by black entrepreneurs for black artists, most notably Motown Records. This lead to a major shift in American popular music as black music achieved mainstream success and topped the charts, which played a significant role in furthering the civil rights movement by inspiring, mobilising and building the identity of black Americans, and highlighting the social issues they faced.

A song that exemplified the civil rights movement and became an anthem was “A Change is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke. In the song Cooke expresses the hardships faced as a black man in 1960’s American society. Although it highlights discrimination and racism, it also inspires hope that a change is going to come.

The use of the term "soul food" emerged in the 1960s, with the rise of the civil rights movement during this time. As African Americans identified with each other, calling each other “soul brothers” and “soul sisters”, and listened to “soul music”, they started to refer to their food as “soul food”. Soul food originated in the home cooking of African American slaves, where using locally raised, gathered foods, discarded meat and other inexpensive ingredients, a distinctive cuisine was formed with limited means. As segregation laws prohibited African Americans from eating out at restaurants, coming together over home-cooked meals was an important part of community and belonging, as well as political organising. Some staple soul food items include cornbread, black eyed peas, Hoppin’ John, hushpuppies, collard greens, okra, ham hocks, cured and smoked hog jowl, chitterlings, candied yam and sweet potato pie. 

Nowadays soul food is synonymous with dishes like macaroni and cheese, deep fried chicken, chicken and waffles, and barbecued ribs which are widely considered as comfort foods – foods with significant amounts of sugars, carbohydrates and fats! All the things that might be a little bit bad for you but hit all the right nerves in your taste buds. This food is good. When you eat this food it makes you feel better.

Music and food brings people together, and it’s better with a little soul.

I researched how to cook soul food and came up with this.

A plate of soul satisfying comfort food.

Clockwise from the top - kale, cornbread, candied sweet potato, black eye peas with bacon and fried chicken!

RECIPES

Black eyed peas with bacon

Black eyed peas? I thought they were just a hip hop group!

I have seen and eaten these peas before but didn’t know their name until I learnt about and cooked this soul food dish which is traditionally eaten on New Years for good luck and commonly served as a side dish. Recipes generally require simmering the peas with bacon or smoked ham hock/smoked turkey for flavouring until cooked.

Here’s my take on black eyed peas.

Place 1 cup of dried black eye peas in a colander and rinse several times, then put the in a large bowl or pot with 2 inches of water to cover. Soak overnight. Drain and rinse.
Heat a little olive oil in a pot, add 3-4 slices of diced bacon and fry until crisp. Then add in ½ diced onion, 1 clove of crushed garlic, 1 teaspoon of chilli powder and fry until the onion has softened. Add the drained black eyed peas into the pot and enough chicken stock to cover the peas by 1 inch. Simmer the black eyed pea until tender (about 30 minutes), adding more stock as necessary so that it doesn’t dry out. Season with salt and pepper to taste before serving.

Candied Sweet Potato (or Yams)

A popular soul food side dish – sweet buttery potatoes with a little spice kick. It’s very simple to cook, all you need to do is make a syrup to cover the sweet potatoes and cook (boil or roast) until they are soft.

Here’s the recipe that I put together from reading a few recipes. I cooked the sweet potatoes as I would if I was using normal potatoes and made up the syrup, tasting until I got a desired flavour.

This is for quantity of 500g of sweet potato (one large one).

Peel and chop the sweet potato roughly into 2-3cm pieces. Place the sweet potato pieces in a pot, cover with cold water and bring to boil. Simmer on low heat for 7 minutes until they have softened. Drain the sweet potatoes and put in a baking dish.

In a small saucepan, melt 25g of light brown sugar, 40g of butter and 2 tablespoons of water together and simmer until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat and stir in ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon ginger, ¼ teaspoon allspice, 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice.

Pour the syrup over the sweet potatoes in the baking dish and roast in an oven preheated to 200C for 30-40 minutes.

At 10 minute intervals I would take the dish out of the oven and mix the sweet potatoes around, spoon the syrup over to make sure the sweet potatoes were covered and continue cooking. 

Mash some candied sweet potato on your cornbread

Collard Greens (Kale used as substitute)

A typical soul food meal would not be complete without “mess o’ greens” aka collard greens.

Collard greens was a dish that evolved from African slaves getting leftover greens from plantations and unwanted parts of meat like ham hocks, pig’s feet etc. Slowly simmering the leftovers together in a large pot, a simple but delicious vegetable dish was created and formed a part of every meal.

I wanted to cook collard greens but couldn’t find any so kale was the next best thing. Any kind of bitter greens like beets or mustard is also suitable. This dish usually involves simmering the greens for 30-60 minutes over low heat but I only cooked my kale for a few minutes to maintain a freshness but it was still very flavoursome. You can also use bacon instead of a ham hock.

Wash and tear the kale into large pieces.

In a large pot, sauté ½ diced onion and 3 cloves of crushed garlic until tender. Add 3 cups of water and smoked ham hock, bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes for the water to take on the smokey hammy flavour of the hock. Then add the kale and cook for a few minutes until tender, seasoning with a little salt to taste.

Deep Fried Chicken

(Adapted from Fried Chicken recipe from About.com American Food and Soul Food and Southern Cooking)

•    1 whole chicken, cut up into 10 pieces (2 legs, 2 thighs, 4 breast quarters, and 2 wings)
•    peanut of canola oil for frying
Chicken Marinade•    2-3 cups buttermilk
•    1 tablespoon salt
•    2 teaspoons ground black pepper
•    1 tablespoon chilli/cayene powder
•    1 tablespoon sweet paprika powder
Chicken coating•    2 cups milk
•    3 cups flour
•    ½ - 1 tablespoon garlic powder
•    ½ - 1 tablespoon onion powder
•    ½ tablespoon salt
•    ½ tablespoon ground black pepper
•    ½ - 1 tablespoon chilli/cayene powder (optional, add if desire a bit of heat)
  
Method


In a bowl or rectangular pan large enough to fit all the chicken pieces in add the buttermilk, salt, pepper, chilli and paprika powder. Use a fork to mix and combine the spices with the buttermilk.

Add the chicken pieces into the buttermilk mixture, making sure that most of the chicken is covered with the buttermilk (add more buttermilk if necessary).
Cover and refrigerate for 12-24 hours. The longer the chicken marinates, the juicier it will be.

Take the marinated chicken from the refrigerator about 30 minutes before frying and leave to come to room temperature a bit.

In a large bowl, add milk. In a shallow pan or plate, add flour, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper and chilli/cayenne powder. Line a second baking sheet with greaseproof paper.

Remove a piece of chicken from the buttermilk and dip into the milk, shaking off the excess milk. Then dip chicken into the flour mixture and shake off the excess flour. Transfer to baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper and repeat with other pieces of chicken.

Fill a pot or pan with 1.5-2 inches of oil. Heat up the oil until it reaches ~160-170C.

Carefully lower the chicken pieces into the hot oil (work in batches to prevent overcrowding). Fry the chicken for a few minutes until the bottom side is golden, turn the chicken pieces over and continue to fry for a few more minutes until it is golden. Keep turning the chicken pieces every now and then, until the chicken is a deep golden brown, cooked through and crisp. This should take around 10-12 minutes (note that the chicken breast and wings will have shorter cooking time). Adjust the heat as necessary to return the oil to the proper temperature.

Remove pieces of chicken and drain on paper towels. If desired, sprinkle over the chicken pieces a little salt.

Cornbread muffin recipe by Victor Kimble from SBS Food.

Stir Fried Pickled Mustard Greens with Chicken and Pork Balls

We all try to be well-meaning with our pantries as it’s a means of survival and makes economic sense, but it always ends up with a clutter of foods.

Everyone has a pantry packed with…

Food so you don’t need to make trips to the shops all the time.

Food that you buy during a sale on the premise that you will use it but it ends up hidden in the back of your cupboard and you forget about it.

Food that you bought to cook one dish and never needed for anything else.

Food that is handy to have around for quickly whipping up a meal at anytime.

Food that is non-perishable in preparation for an emergency….an apocalypse…

The usual suspects are dried pasta, rice, lentils, nuts, spices, a range of condiments and various canned goods like chickpeas, tomatoes and tuna.

No matter how much I eat, the amount of food in my pantry is always increasing rather than decreasing. I think this is due to the fact that I like trying to cook new things and experimenting so I accumulate a lot of food items overtime. It’s easy to do a spring clean of your wardrobe and donate your clothes to the Salvos but I hate throwing out food and you can’t give away half empty packets and jars. I am working on minimalising my pantry and thinking about what I can use up when I plan my meals but there will always be items that will remain a staple and I know I will use on a regular basis.

What do you always have in your pantry that you regularly use?

I have pickles.

One of my pantry staples is pickled mustard greens. It’s cabbage like with a distinct horseradish-mustard flavour. Good for stir fries and in soups.

While pickling food was invented as a means of survival to preserve foods through the seasons, and even though it results in food with a pungent, salty or sour taste which can be an acquired taste, it’s becoming widely enjoyed. All sorts of pickles are appearing more and more on restaurant menus as appetizers, sides and condiments, adding another dimension of flavour to dishes.

Pickles are the new “it” food.

You basically know when something is an ‘it’ food when Portlandia have done a skit on it ;)

Check out the video on Youtube We Can Pickle That or pickle your website http://www.wecanpicklethat.com/.

People may make a fuss over pickled foods these days but I’ve grown up on them. It’s a key component of many Asian cuisines – Korean food would be nothing without kimchi, a Vietnamese banh mi would not be complete without pickled carrot, the pickled vegetables that accompany Japanese meal sets are mandatory and I love the mixed vegetable and fruit pickles you get as sides with Indian meals that you can mix into the rice along with the curries or slap onto some naan bread.

Pickles are essentially a cheap pantry staple, an easy way to feed a family on a budget. My mum always has a stash of pickled vegetables in the pantry to add as a side to complement meals or use in cooking a dish. It adds another layer of flavour and texture to a dish, and the acidicness enlivens the palate. A bowl of plain congee with some pickled vegetables on top is a simple treat in the morning. 

This is one of those economical simple home cooked dishes that my mum cooked frequently for the family. The dish is prepared by stir frying pickled mustard greens with chicken and sliced pork balls. 

Stir Fried Pickled Mustard Greens and Chicken and Pork Balls

(An original recipe Blue Apocalypse learnt from her mum)

Serves 4-5 with steamed rice. 

Ingredients

Notes: Quantities below are approximate. My mum would always add a bit more meat to feed a family but you can add smaller quantities of meat. Taste as you go while seasoning with the fish sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, salt and pepper until you get desired balance of flavour. 

•    300g pickled mustards greens (buy packaged pickled mustard greens in vacuum packs at Asian supermarkets)
•    200-300g chicken breast, chopped into bite sized pieces
•    150-200g pork balls, sliced
•    2-3 garlic cloves, sliced
•    5 red bird’s eye chillies, deseeded
•    1-2 tablespoons fish sauce
•    2-3 tablespoons oyster saue
•    1 teaspoon sugar (to taste)
•    salt and white pepper to taste
•     ½ - 1 cup chicken stock
•    ½ teaspoon cornflour mixed with a little water to thicken sauce
•    vegetable oil

 

Pork balls which can be found in refrigerator/freezer section of Asian supermarkets

Method

Prepare pickled mustard greens. Soak the pickled mustard greens for 6-8 hours or overnight in a pot of cold water (this reduces some of the saltiness/sourness). Remove and drain. Then slice the mustard greens. 

 

Soaking pickled mustard greens

Heat a little oil in a wok and stir fry the garlic and chillies until aromatic. Add in the chicken pieces and fry until nearly cooked. Then add in the sliced pork balls and fry for a bit. 

Add in the sliced mustard greens and season with fish sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, salt and white pepper to taste. 

Then add in some stock, bring to boil and thicken the sauce with cornflour mixed with water.

Serve with steamed rice.