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

Wise chefs say the simpler the dishes, the more difficult they are. I can’t agree more when I was making this dish. Sure I’ve cooked pasta with mushroom countless of time but this season’s sample of Porcini, also called Bolet in French or Steinpilzen in German, made me rethink my technique.

On a recent trip to the Italian-speaking Switzerland, we discovered that Porcini, the wild mushroom abundant only at the end of summer and early autumn, was in rage.  We sampled a few but we love the one served in Carona in the compound of its Botanical Garden.  The porcini was brown and nutty. All the earthy flavours shine. Texturally, it was juicy and firm. I realize I’ve always done my mushroom incorrectly.

Mushrooms are friends of butter, onion and parsley. So I use them. The key is in the timing. You’ll be rewarded with sweet, flavourful, and toothsome mushroom sauce. Due to the rather oily nature of the dish, it’s best served with bone-dry, light white wine.

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I’ve spotted this unique vegetables in the farmer’s market for a few summer now. Once I quartered them and roasted them. They tasted OK but the proper way to do it is actually to stuff them. This way, the sweet zucchini juice is pooled in the ‘bowl’ seasoning the stuffing.

I keep things simple with mushroom and butter. It was great served as vegetable side-dish for Alton Brown’s Roasted Butterflied Chicken. Next time, I’ll stuff this beautiful round things with meat and rice, Lebanese style.

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Servings: for two

Nothing gives me more satisfaction that using leftovers for a good meal. Leftovers here is not only the bits and pieces of meals from the other night but it can also be a by-product of another dish. Imaginations fly and creativity flare. It’s fun.

This particular dish was ‘created’ when I had a pot of cooked barley. Asians prize barley for its cooling properties. Water from boiling barley and sweetened winter melon is a popular drink. Barley is also a common dessert, to be added into sweet mung-bean soup.

This time round, I combined the barley with grilled aubergines from the night before and canned corn. The texture really worked as soft aubergine and the crunchy corn was bridged by the chewy barley. I served it with yogurt-marinated, garam-masala flavoured, roasted chicken for a quick dinner.

 

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I  love okra or Lady’s Fingers but cooking it can be a pain. My husband used to hate it because, wrongly cooked (my fault), okra turns any dish into one slimy mess. 

To reduce the oozing, I’ve read numerous techniques: breading, deep-frying, sauteeing, cooking with acids (eg tomatoes) etc. The easiest easiest and most practical way is to sautee the okra pieces with little oil until the pieces turn brown and dry prior to cooking the okra with anything else. It takes a while with lots of tossing but the result is worth it. The okra is tender but not mushy. Most importantly, the dish is not gooey.

My favourite is to cook okra with lots of sambal ala Muslim stalls in Singapore’s hawker centres. This is a rendition of the dish, using whatever leftover I have in the fridge.

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This simple dish is wonderful. The beans are sweet from the butter, the fish’s skin is crisp and flesh tender and the brown butter sauce is lemony. I served them with Canary wrinkly potatoes (Papas Arrugadas) for a delicious summer dinner.

I read somewhere that the Keller’s secret to crisp fish skin is to scrape the skin with the blade of a knife. So I did - the silvery bits came off - and the fish skins were crispy and smoky. Beginner’s luck? I’m not sure.  But I’m adding that technique to my repertoire.  

The recipe is modified from Bouchon’s Trout with Haricot Verts and Almonds. I skipped the almond because I didn’t have them.

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