The Cocoanut

Not being able to tolerate such disservice to the eating experience any longer, I decided to make my own marinade. It can’t be that hard. And I found out, it isn’t. All I needed was confidence to adjust the seasoning until I found a taste to my liking. I used the recipe below to marinade about 500g of chicken pieces, poked with a fork so the flavors penetrate deeper, and then baked in the oven at 200º C for about 35-40 minutes. It can easily be doubled as you see fit.

Honey Mustard & Herb Marinade (adequately seasons 500g of meat)

1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp honey
1 clove garlic, crushed
a pinch of herbs, such as dried parsley, basil or thyme
salt and pepper to taste
a few drops of oil

Combine the ingredients and rub all over the chicken pieces, leave for a few hours and bake in the oven when you feel hungry.

For some reason, I wanted this bread to evoke memories of Malaysia, to the point where it would serve as a tribute to my mum and grandma, both of whom really enjoy the pleasure of soft, white bread. Southeast Asians have a propensity for soft, fluffy buns, so to replicate this texture I used a recipe for a simple milk loaf and tweaked the instructions to make it even simpler (who can be bothered with hard work these days?). The use of milk instead of water would provide a comforting tenderness to the bread which is the main goal of my second bread-making attempt.

Unlike my first bread, whose crust was thick and leathery, and whose crumb had layers of unmixed flour and tasted of excess yeast, this bread turned out very well. The crumb was dense and spongy, outlined by a perfectly formed, thin crust. The delicate, soft crumb brought back memories of eating pandan chiffon cake, a popular treat in Malaysia that simply consists of pandan flavoured sponge cake, its light airiness uplifted by the fragrant pandan aroma. To replicate this childhood experience of mine, onto a thick slice of the freshly baked milk loaf I smeared a dollop of pandan kaya, a Malaysian custard sweetened with palm sugar, with pandan juice added for aroma.

When toasted, the crumb maintains a good semblance of its fluffiness, but it is the crust that undergoes a most spectacular transformation, from an anonymous outer boundary to this light, crispy, almost fragile, brown layer that simply shatters upon the first bite.

Simple Milk Loaf

500 g plain white flour*
350g milk (I used skim milk)
20 g honey, about a tablespoon-and-a-bit’s worth
25g warm melted butter
1 x 7g sachet instant dried yeast
1¼ tsp salt

In a large bowl, whisk the yeast with the milk and honey. Add the flour and salt, and combine until you get a soft, sticky dough. Pour over the warm melted butter, and mix this into the dough. Knead the dough for 10 minutes, or if you have an electric mixer like me, you can use that instead. Simply attach a dough hook and let it do all the work for you, around 7-10 minutes.

Leave the dough in the bowl for an hour to proof. After an hour has passed, punch down the dough to release all the carbon dioxide. Transfer the dough to a loaf tin, and let it proof for another hour. The dough will rise again to about twice its size, and this time you want all that gas inside to remain. At this stage, I like to brush the top of the dough with water and sprinkle poppy seeds. This is entirely optional, and I only did it because I happen to have a jar of poppy seeds in the pantry.

Set the oven to 210ºC, and when hot enough carefully place the dough into the oven and bake for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 180ºC and bake for another 25-30 minutes, or until the top of the loaf is dark brown. Remove from the tin, and leave to cool on a wire rack.

*I used all purpose flour, because that’s what I had at home. However, you might want to try using strong white flour or bread flour, which are more glutinous and will ‘jump’ over the top of the tin much more than normal flour.

This time around it turned out exactly how I wanted it: fantastic, succulent, savoury roast chicken, and the secret of my success is in the stuffing. The stuffing had some of my favourite ingredients, which I know will pair well with one another, and more importantly, complement the roast chicken with all its juices.

The stuffing consists of:

1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely sliced
2 anchovies, from one of those Italian jars in which the fish is preserved in oil, chopped
a handful of mushrooms, chopped
2 slices of white bread, crust removed and cut into small pieces
dried parsley
salt and pepper to taste

The stuffing starts innocently enough by frying the onion, garlic and anchovies, until the aroma completely permeates the kitchen and the onions start to turn a light golden. The smell of the anchovies melting in the oil is so intoxicating. At this point, add the mushrooms and fry for a couple of minutes, adding the dried parsley, salt and pepper to taste.

Remove everything from the pan and reserve the oil. You can drain some of the anchovy oil from the mushroom mix by pressing them through a sieve. The anchovy oil is like gold. Use this to fry the bread crumb until crunchy. I have to say, I love fried bread. It’s like the ultimate indulgence. Crunchy yet so satisfyingly tender from being soaked in anchovy oil. Once the bread’s fried, add them to the mushroom mix. Have a taste, and let your mind go wild with the promising prospect of having that stuffing together with the roast chicken.

Insert the stuffing into the cavity of the chicken before roasting it in the oven. The aroma and savory flavor of the garlic and onion is perfectly complemented by the saltiness of the anchovy, and the fried bread crumb, together with the mushrooms, just heighten the overall sensation. It’s simply ridiculously fantastic.

I’ve seen similar recipes that call themselves banana bread, but I think that is taking the self-deceit concept a little too far. The ratio of sugar, banana and flour in this, and those recipes, gives the finished product a moist, faintly sweet taste that is not at all bread and closer to being a cake. However, if you, like me, are obsessed with proper classification, then perhaps a more suitable description would be ‘tea bread’.

I personally enjoy this cake, oops, tea bread on its own, although if you feel like a devil you could always intrude on its purity by tainting the cake with honey and butter to spread. You could even create a twisted cake version of the good ol’ banana split and have it with ice cream and choc sundae sauce. That would be profane. But it could be good.

Moist Banana Cake
Makes 1 loaf

200 g plain flour
2 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
75g butter, at room temperature
115g caster sugar
3 ripe bananas, mashed
2 eggs, beaten to mix
poppy seeds (optional)

1. Preheat a 350ºF/180ºC oven. Grease a loaf tin (21 x 11 cm).
2. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon into a bowl.
3. In another bowl, combine the butter with the sugar. Beat until the mixture is light and fluffy.
4. Add the mashed bananas and eggs and mix well. The degree of mashing depends on your personal taste.
5. Add the dry ingredients and blend quickly and evenly. At this point I like to fold in the poppy seeds, a reasonable amount to give a slight crunch to the texture of the cake.
6. Spoon into the prepared loaf tin and bake for 50-60 minutes.
7. Cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, then turn out on to a wire rack to cool completely.

So it was only a matter of time before I dabbled in another famous Turkish dish, patlican karniyarik or eggplant ‘belly’, which is in fact eggplant halves stuffed with mince meat. Eggplant features heavily in Turkish cuisine, which is just as well because I love the thing. These purple veggies are notorious for their sponge-like ability to absorb oil, but really, there’s no better way to treat eggplant other than to deep-fry them. I’ve tried steaming, pan frying and grilling, and even though each method has its own merits, eggplants and deep frying is like a match made in heaven.

There are ways to minimize the absorption of oil into the eggplants, after all, you want an eggplant that is moist, not drowning in oil. Rubbing salt on the flesh and letting it sit in a colander for about half an hour will help prevent the eggplant from soaking oil during cooking, as is using really hot oil.

This dish is best eaten with rice, where the oily sauce mixes with the rice and you get this almost perfect and healthy combo of grains, veggies and meat, if only there wasn’t that oil to begin with.

The recipe below acts only as a rough guide, not a rigid recipe. If you feel that there’s something not quite right, i.e. the measurements seem a bit too much or too little, feel free to alter it. Recipes by nature have to be versatile because there are so many variables in play, such as the equipment, personal taste and the like.

Eggplant karniyarik (serves 3-4)

2 medium eggplant
oil for deep-frying
200 g mincemeat
oil for cooking mincemeat
1 medium onion, chopped finely
2 garlic cloves, chopped or crushed
a handful of parsley (I just used a tiny bit of dried ones)
tomato paste
salt
1 tomato

1. Preheat oven to about 180 degrees Celsius. Cut the eggplants in half, and peel the skin vertically in alternate strips. Rub the flesh with salt and leave in a colander for about half an hour.
2. Wash the salt off the eggplant and pat dry. Deep-fry in oil until soft and lightly browned. Place in a plate lined with kitchen towel to absorb excess oil. I sometimes press the eggplants a little to extract more oil out of it.
3. In a pan, pour a few tablespoons of oil and cook the onion and garlic until lightly golden, then add the mincemeat. Fry until the liquid has boiled off, add the tomato paste to your liking (i.e. enough to flavour the mincemeat), and season with salt and pepper and parsley.
4. Place the eggplants in a baking tray. Cut an incision across the eggplant halves, making sure they stay in shape. Press the flesh with the back of a spoon to create an indentation, and place some mincemeat on the flesh. Top with slices of tomato.
5. Pour some water onto the tray, just enough to make a small puddle surrounding the eggplants, and bake in the oven for about 10-15 minutes, covered with foil.

*In the photo above, I didn’t include the tomato slices because I didn’t have any at the time. Also, there should be less mincemeat on the eggplants, unless of course you like mincemeat, as I do.

Although this vegetable is very popular among Southeast Asians and the Chinese, I have difficulty buying it in Melbourne, and so far I’ve only been able to locate one stall in the whole of Queen Victoria Market that supplies it. It is sold in bunches, and preferably we buy those which are abundant in leaves rather than stems, because it is in the leaves that the luscious flavour is most concentrated, whereas the hollow stems I find are only good for supplying fibre.

Like most vegetable dishes, the tastiest ones are the easiest to prepare. For a plateful of classic kangkung belacan, all you need are a bunch or two of kangkung, shallots, garlic, ginger, red chillies, and the magic ingredient, belacan. Like many Malaysian dishes, the ingredients can be adjusted to taste, so a recipe really merely acts as a guide. Trust your instincts, and adjust according to your preferences.

Kangkung belacan (serves 2-3)

2 bunches kangkung, hard stems removed, washed and squeezed of excess water.
1 shallot, chopped (Most recipes either make do without or use a mere teaspoon, but I love shallots so I use the whole thing)
1 clove of garlic, chopped
an inch of ginger, chopped
2 red chillies, cut at a slant
belacan, about the size of a 2 cm square (dry-fried and pounded)

Saute the shallot, garlic and ginger in a wok until slightly golden.
Add the chillies and ground belacan, and smother the belacan over the aromatics until well-mixed.

Add the kangkung over high heat and mix thoroughly. Initially the wok will seem overwhelmed by the volume of kangkung, but like spinach, it will shrink dramatically once cooked. To speed up the cooking process, you can cover the wok for a few minutes until the kangkung has shrunk in size.

Season with salt to taste, and dish out onto a plate.

Note: If the kangkung is not squeezed of excess water, it will result in a blackish puddle in the cooked dish due to the belacan mixing with water. Of course, there is nothing wrong with this, but I prefer not to have my favourite vegetable meal drowning in black puddle , so I squeeze it thoroughly, just as you would with spinach.