A financier has French origin, a cake baked with ground almond, eggs and icing sugar and that takes the shape of a rectangular gold bar. I love how this cake comes with fruit toppings, because it makes them really palatable, attractive and irresistible for both the young and old.
The Classic Shakshuka
I love how busy this dish looks! There are red, green, white and brown; bright and dull all coming together in one pan. My favourites – avocado, egg, red chilli. And the best part of it is that I can eat as much as I can and stop whenever I am full.
Semmelknödel (German Breadcrumb Dumplings)
Back when the guy was working in Frankfurt and when I flew over to visit him, I don’t really recall eating a lot of Semmelknödel there because they always serve this dish as a side along a main dish such as roast meat, schnitzel etc, which is a lot for my small appetite (it’s their version of carbs after all). For me, I’ll always give this a miss and then order something else, like, erm, some cold Brezeln (pretzels) or sausage or Weisswürste (veal sausages) if there are.
Classic Guacamole With Chips
I love guacamole. Why? You might ask? Because it’s made with avocadoes – lovely, creamy, rich avocadoes. To make a good bowl of guacamole, make sure to add in enough acidic juice and fruits such as lemon and diced tomatoes as well as enough fresh herbs like fresh parsley or coriander. This will make whatever you eat it with taste as great as heaven.
家常便饭 – 鸡丝通心粉 (Chicken Macaroni Soup)
This recipe of chicken macaroni soup reminds me of the soup noodles that my mum used to cook for us when we were young. She likes to cook the broth with ikan bilis first, and then use the broth to cook thick yellow noodles, some vegetables, and then maybe some fishballs or fish cake slices. The soup would be bland and so would the ingredients, and I recall I really didn’t like it at all. But it’s still cooked with hardship and love, with the limited amount of time and money she has. So, every Saturday, after I get back home from my art lessons at Jin Tai Primary School, I would sit down in front of the television in the living room and I would I always try my best to finish the whole bowl of soup noodle while I watch the programmes on television. I also remember those Chinese medium kiddish shows shown on the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) with the 3D clay figurines that move around stiffly and are animated to tell us stories from the past – ‘阿公讲古’。It’s kind of boring but back then, with no Netflix and no internet, so I would take comfort from whatever’s showing on tv and try my best to finish the noodles because it’s a big bowl filled with broth. That usually takes me an hour or so.