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

When I showed my husband the Kraft’s Mac & Cheese picture and explained to him how this was the American version of comfort food, he said it was the American equivalent to packaged noodles: instant comfort from a box. It’s the dish that children love and adults crave for despite knowing its dangerous side effects. The lack of MSG in mac & cheese is sufficiently replaced by fat. It’s as if the whole content of a cow’s udder was in there: milk, butter, and cheese. A lot of recipes call for bacon to be thrown into this dish but I think let’s not get the pig involved here.

I guess it’s understandable that Cauliflower Mac is in the rage.  It is a good way to sneak in vegetables without sacrificing the creamy quality.  I found the recipe in Jamie Oliver’s 30 Minute Meals as well as Bittman’s column (from Food Matters).  Anyway, I like the idea so I gave it a try.  I’ve been wanting to utilize more cauliflowers because they’re cheap and nutritious but they can be boring.  This recipe is perfect.  The cauliflower is reduced to tasty, creamy mush bound by pasta and cheese.

I combined the two recipes in terms of ingredients but firmly used Jamie Oliver’s method which is much more convenient.  I also added some celery leaves which I always have in the fridge because I can never bear to throw those leaves away.  Anyway, celery leaves give that astringent flavour to break the monotonous richness of the dish. 

Disclaimer: I’ve never made Mac&Cheese the Kraft version and will stop making it the traditional way after this.

Ingredients: 

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I was reading The Financial Times and came across this Elizabeth David’s recipe recited by Rowley Leigh, the in-house cook.  It was so delicious in its simplicity that I had to make it.  Despite the short list of ingredients, this dish was nothing like I’d tasted before.  The onion cooked down to something sweet.  The olives were salty shrapnels which went very well with the rather neutral chicken.   

Maybe it was the chicken, maybe Leigh hid some steps but his recipe yielded a flood of juice.  The chicken also didn’t turn out browned like the one in the picture.  The recipe is therefore modified from the one in FT.  I increased the cooking time to 1.5 hours.  I suppose, the heat from the sides of the pot bounced back to the chicken, browning it.  But that’s purely my unscientific guess.  I also added some mushroom for fun. 

I served it with polenta to soak up the wonderful juice but it’s also excellent with crumbly carbo such as bread or couscous.  I guess I could also reduce the sauce and serve it with some pasta. 

Ingredients (for four): (continue…)

Okra…. I can eat it everyday and I don’t think I’ll ever be bored.  Too bad it’s not cheap here.  The Swiss is not great with vegetables.  I mean, there are countless of delicious bitter Italian greens but the normal grocery stores stock up on bland stuffs such as zucchini, broccoli and salad leaves.  A popular ‘ethic’ vegetable is nappa cabbage.  Yup!  A bland category.

Sorry for the rant.  Yes, Okra.   I’m not big on fish curry because I like my fish flaky and moist but, in order to up our fish intake (and reduce our meat consumption), I tried it.  It was good!  There’s this clean, lime fragrant from the curry and the sweet-sour flavour from the tamarind really goes well with the fish.

I tried once with white fish fillet and another time with whole fish.  I think the whole fish works better just because it’s harder to overcook it.   The recipe calls for mackerel.

BTW, I never understand why the sauce picture of Indonesian and Malaysian curries always looks prettily red and oily which is my preferred kind, actually.  At first, I blamed my inexperience but I think the stylists jack the sauce up with a squeeze of tomato paste in the spice paste and then fry the paste in A LOT of oil so during the simmering, the oil floats to the surface.  Or is it the use of fresh tumeric? Which is more orange-red than the yellow powder?

Ingredients (for four):

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