Sanctuary from The Mad World
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch. - Orson Welles

Another one from the recipe book that keeps on giving: Sichuan Cookery. I was recovering from a bad case of cold and was sick and tired of yet another soupy dish when I saw this dish on my weekly menu list. It was the right choice. The stew was warming to the tummy due to the generous use of ginger, Sichuan pepper, and star anise. The Sichuanese chili bean paste provides another kick to clear the stuffy head. Great stuff for cold winter days, I imagine, and unseasonably cool, cold-inducing summer nights like now.

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When I was studying in Canada, I never failed to buy a few (well…. more than a few perhaps) of Mrs. Field’s chewy cookies whenever I did my grocery shopping.  When I went home for the summer, my mother, the worrier, made me go through some tests and my blood sugar level was approaching the limit.  Needless to say, she freaked out and I got an earful.  

Scary medical tale aside, I love chewy cookies more than the other versions.  I indulge in Famous Amos’ crispy little delights when I’m in the mood but I normally can’t resist the chewy ones.   This one from Alton Brown is great!  Be warned though that this particular cookie is best consumed right after baking.  Left overnight, they tend to be cake-like rather than crispy. 

I reduce the sugar and add some sea salt following J. Torres’ advice.  For fillings, I chop some Lindt chocolate bars and walnuts.  The cookie monster (aka. my husband) polished the whole thing off.  Now I have to bake some more.

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Indonesia is besieged by penyet which means pressed. Everything, from chicken to tofu to ribs (yes, I don’t know how) are cooked, slathered in sambal and pressed to submission. I’ve not had the chance to try it but the longer I postpone this adventure, the more variations there seem to be.

Anyway, I love a good fried chicken with sambal. It is lovely with heaps of steamed rice and crudites. The Alton Brown’s method of butterflying and stuffing the chicken is so good for this purpose. I have crispy skin with flavoured meat which is difficult to achieve without frying. Instead of having sambal ruining my golden, crisp chicken skin, I stuff it inside.

Another time, I use this method to make an "Indian-themed" roast chicken, stuffing the space between the skin and the chicken with finely chopped onion, garlic, and flat parsley - with a pinch of salt - so it turns to mush. Before stuffing, I added garam masala, salt and pepper to taste. My husband thinks it is similar to ayam goreng kuning.

The point is, variations are as finite as your imagination. So drool away.


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Say what you want about this dish but I firmly believe it is a proper Chinese cuisine. Egg Foo Young or Fu Yung Hai in Indonesian range from deliciously fluffy with perfect sweet and sour sauce to dry and tasteless with sharp sauce. The Fu Yung Hai from my childhood resembled more of the first version and it was heaven on a plate of warm steamed rice.

After repeated trials, I think this is the way to do it. The recipe below brings fluffy, soft, but fragrant omelette with sweet and sour sauce punctuated with bursts of sweet green peas. Some comments:

a. taste the sauce and adjust to your preference. The governing principles are salt for saltiness (obviously), sugar and carrot (if using) for sweetness, stock for richness, and tomato sauce for sourness. Add vinegar only when necessary. There’s no need to use thickening for the sauce as tomato ketchup already has some. I don’t like using tomato paste or chopped tomatoes as they’re too sharp.

b. aromatics, in this case onion, are very important to bring depth into both the omelette and sauce.

c. the classic filling is crab but it can be substituted with virtually everything else. A mixture of leftover items in the fridge works well, too. It is important to ensure that the fillings are cooked before adding them to the eggs. The eggs have a hard time cooking themselves without thinking of cooking the fillings also.

d. lastly, the frying oil. There is no other way to create fluffy and soft eggs without this pool of oil. So make this a rare treat and be generous with the oil.

This recipe is tweaked from various sources in the internet, mostly this and this

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When we saw the line at Seve, we were determined to buy some of whatever they were selling. These people must know something we don’t. After tearing a tab from the ticket machine (no. 73 and the queue was at 35), we looked around. Like all girls who can’t resist sparkly, jewel-like anything, I was drawn to their Pâtes de Fruits and some gold parcels with unidentified contents. My husband noticed that people carted away their macarons and made me get some although I swore my allegiance to the Swiss Luxemburgerli. In the end, we packed four of the gold parcels, which turn out to be candied chestnuts, three boxes of fruit squares, one box of assorted chocolate truffles, and a box of macarons.