It’s a jolly time to feel like a king!
To start off my saffron adventures proper, I’ve finally decided to use and adapt one of the simplest recipes found in ‘The Medieval Cookbook‘. The original excerpt in old English for the ‘Cabbage Chowder’ recipe goes like this:
‘Caboches in potage. Take caboches and quarter hem, and seeth hem in gode broth with oynouns ymnced and the whyte of lekes yslyt and ycorue smale. And do therto safroun & salt, and force it with powdour douce.’
(CI.IV.6.)
The awfully sinful treat is here!
The last time I baked this was in the year 2010. I still remember it was meant as a treat for everyone, including those who celebrated my birthday with me at the Goethe Institut. The occasion was memorable; I also earned myself a true blue German birthday song from everyone in the class: ‘Zum Geburtstag viel Glück…’
Baby squids braised in dark soya sauce – this is a Teochew dish that I learnt to cook from my mum when I was young; it’s also what she learnt to cook from my grandmother when she was young.
Ngoh Hiang, or 五香 in Mandarin, is a mixture of minced meat and vegetables seasoned with five-spice powder (hence its name), rolled up in beancurd skin, steamed and then deep-fried. The local Teochews and Hokkiens love this dish equally, especially for its easily identifiable 5-spice fragrance.
This teatime kueh is a snack with both Malay and Peranakan origins. In general, ‘kueh dadar’, or ‘kueh ketayap’, refers to rolled up pandan pancakes filled with sweet coconut fillings. It is a common snack readily available at our local Malay food stores in hawker centers, as well as at the Bengawan Solo stores inside shopping malls. Its unmistakably green identity emits a pandan fragrance which is usually irresistable.
