The Cocoanut

I find that when I’m totally jobless, I nurse my sorrows of unemployment by continuously munching on biscuits and cookies. Now before you start calling me dirty names like ‘emotional eater’ or ‘cookie monster’, let me just make it clear that I’m not an emotional eater, OK? I just happen to enjoy eating Oreos because they make me happy. The only beef I have with Oreos is that they get stuck in the crevices of my teeth and leave a long-lasting stain that makes it look like I’ve just eaten soil.

Some people, who have more time than me, have invented myriad ways to consume an Oreo. They twist and separate the two chocolate biscuit disks, and scrape the white crème filling with their front teeth. I prefer my Oreo as a duo of black disks and white crème, and I don’t think I’d enjoy the sugary white paste on its own. That’s a bit like eating mayo without chips. Decadent and indulgent yes, but disgustingly so. Call me a cookie conservative, a ‘Reo Republican if you must, but that’s how I feel these cookies should be eaten.

Since I’m currently in Australia, I like to follow the local customs. As they say, when in Czechoslovakia, do as the Czechoslovakians do. When in Oz, eat Tim Tams. A Tim Tam is a biscuit composed of two layers of chocolate malted biscuit, separated by a light chocolate filling and coated with a thin layer of chocolate. A bit of chocolate overkill if you ask me, but that’s how they like it Down Under. The malted biscuit gives the illusion of lightness in these Tim Tams. This can be a good thing, because you can eat a lot of it without feeling full. This can also be a bad thing, because you can eat a lot of it without feeling full.

Some “creative” types have developed an imaginative (read:devious) way of enjoying a Tim Tam by biting the ends off and sucking a beverage through the biscuits. Called the Tim Tam Slam, it’s like having a drink through a straw, except that the straw is edible. Again, you can call me an old fashioned conservative, but I prefer my Tim Tam as is, by biting it from front to back, the way its Manufacturer intended it to be eaten.

However, my all-time favourite cookie would have to be the Famous Amos. These are a relative new-comer to the Australian cookie landscape, but have been a longstanding junk food icon in Malaysia. Famous Amos is perhaps unique among its cookie compadres in that, at least in both Australia and Malaysia, it is sold through stand-alone cookie boutiques rather than at the supermarket.

Little did I realise I was quite unprepared for the foolish sense of excitement which overcame me upon seeing the bread inflate and double in size during the proving process. It’s like the bread was alive! (Well, it kind of is, since yeast is a living organism). This foolish thrill would later cost the bread its fully-developed flavour, as I, in my haste, started punching the bread, ridding it of air and preparing it for the second proving process, before the first one was even through.

The finished product had the visual appearance of bread, but in taste it was quite deformed. The crust was thick and chewy, while the crumb was a little too salty and had a lingering aftertaste which I suspect is due to excess yeast, a result of rushing the fermentation process during proving.

Far from being disappointed, it spurred me to do some research on perfecting the art of bread-making. If I’m going to take this first bread as an indication of the year that lies ahead, it’s not that it will be marked by over-salted failures, but rather by exciting discoveries into an art that promises unbounded potential and many happy-tummy memories

I nursed my self-imposed consumption deprivation by looking out for discounts at the local supermarket. Less glamorous perhaps, but definitely more affordable. As luck would have it, the traditional Italian Christmas cakes, panettone, were reduced to half-price, and I was more than happy to pick one up. The panettone cakes are packed in cardboard boxes and come in typical dessert flavours such as hazelnut, tiramisu and baci. Panettone, although used as Christmas cakes, are actually a type of rich, sweet bread that is naturally leavened so that it develops a spongy, soft texture. Imagine, if you will, a bread version of chiffon cake, and you get an idea of how panettone tastes like in texture.

I’m a big fan of rich bread (who isn’t?) such as the French brioche and Jewish challah, so I was excited at the prospect of trying out my Tiramisu creme-filled Christmas panettone. The panettone is shaped into a cupola and covered in dark chocolate icing. The bread itself was delicately rich, not overwhelming, just comfortably so. The tiramisu creme filling was superb, its richness deceived by its meager, thin layering. I only wish that the makers would be more generous with the filling, because it left me wanting for more, yet at the same time cautious not to ’steal’ from the other sections of the cake, lest I dismember the entire panettone into unrecognizable, creme-less pieces.

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.

Books are perhaps only second to furniture in terms of weight to carry, and I was forced to reflect if it would’ve been sensible - and less painful for the back -to simply stick with 3 or 4 cookbooks.

The truth is, 3 or 4 would be severely inadequate, even if I’ve only really attempted about a quarter of the recipes in my cookbook collection. Blame it on today’s culture of instant gratification and sense of entitlement for the trend of buying so many cookbooks. The I-want-it-NOW! Philosophy completely validates buying that Spanish cookbook just because you feel like trying out a Paella recipe for dinner.

In the interest of frugality, we could make do with just a couple of books and rein in on conspicuous consumption by assuming the role of the anti-capitalist crusader, but then would we really want to rebel against something as delicious as paella?

A cookbook is not merely a repository of recipes, a manual on nourishment. If it was that utilitarian, I and many others would not be so haplessly addicted that we can’t seem to stop ourselves from buying another one.

No, like their illegal pharmaceutical counterparts, cookbooks are pleasurable. They act as kitchen tomes that preserve and celebrate the hundreds of years of experiments and experience in the mixing and mingling of ingredients and flavours.

The primal sensations of chopping and slicing and cutting, of stirring and banging and kneading and squashing, and the ultimate reward of eating, sucking, licking, tasting, all begin their embryonic development with a flick of a page through a favourite cookbook.

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.

Unsurprisingly, the happiest recollections revolve around the kitchen, which fulfils its dual role as a place of private reflection, when I’m cooking on my own, and a social space when friends come over and cook together the feast to come.

Food nourishes the soul not just by satiating one’s hunger, but also through the opportunity of connecting with friends and family over the meal that we’ve cooked together.

Most of the food featured on this blog was prepared in this kitchen, and although I will miss it dearly, I look forward to happy times in my new home.

During Ramadan, after a whole day of fasting, I like something a bit more substantial. Recently I discovered one of the stalls at Queen Victoria Market stocks challah from Glick’s, a famous Melbourne Jewish bakery renowned for its bagels. I’ve always wanted to try this sweet bread, after a friend went on and on about how good his challah toast went with butter. If plain toast can arouse so much excitement in one person, that toast has got to be good. So I bought one to try myself, as an appetizer to break the fast with.

Challah is a bit like the French brioche, except that it’s not as rich and dairy-free. It’s usually shaped into a braid, although there are also round challahs. Personally, I prefer the braided challahs because they’re easier to cut into toasts. Soft and faintly sweet, it’s good enough to eat on its own, but when lightly toasted and slathered with butter, you have a completely different treat altogether. The slight crunch of the toasted layer gives way to a soft interior that’s stretchy and rich, without being overwhelming. It really is a good way to end a day of resisting temptations.

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.