Poetry Thursday #4 and Spicy Thai Red-Brown Rice with Grilled Eggplant and Apples

Poetry Thursday #4:

It grew in the black mud.
It grew under the tiger's orange paws.
Its stems thinner than candles, and as straight.
Its leaves like the feathers of egrets, but green.
The grains cresting, wanting to burst.
Oh, blood of the tiger.

I don't want you just to sit down at the table.
I don't want you just to eat, and be content.
I want you to walk out into the fields
where the water is shining, and the rice has risen.
I want you to stand there, far from the white tablecloth.
I want you to fill your hands with the mud, like a blessing.

Rice by Mary Oliver

It's time for Poetry Thursday again, except it's already Friday. Okay, so I had missed my deadline for posting this, but I didn't want to miss the opportunity of sharing this poem and recipe with you. Better late than never, as they say!

Mary Oliver's poem sums up my feelings about rice, what a blessing it is to be able to have it. Whenever I eat rice, it's normally the white or polished variety, because that's what I was brought up on and for a long time, that was the only kind of rice I thought existed. Well, that was all before I went off to study and live abroad. Then on, I discovered there are actually a mind-boggling variety and categories of rice such as wholegrain, black, brown, red, long/medium/short-grained and fragrant, with names such as Wehani, Forbidden, Basmati, Jasmine, even Risotto Rice. Rice is not just a cereal, it seems; it's also the powerful seed of civilization.

Indonesia Eats Cook-Up: Dadar Jagung (Corn Fritters)

In my household, fritters reign supreme. No one would think twice about eating something that's been coated in batter and fried up to puffy perfection, be it bananas, shrimp, potatoes, chicken, even ice-cream! Oh, I know it's not enormously healthy, all that deep fried stuff. But if drained properly of excess oil and eaten in moderation, homemade fritters containing all the goodness of fresh, raw produce and herbs are healthier than say, repeatedly undergoing colonic irrigation while 'detoxing' at a rather expensive yoga retreat. Figuratively speaking, of course.

This post is therefore my ode to fritters - corn fritters, to be exact. Ever since Pepy of  The Art and Science of Food gifted us with her recent Indonesian Corn Fritters or Dadar Jagung post, my hands have been itching to replicate these tasty little babies. And my mind has been dreaming constantly of eating them, while my stomach has been waiting forever for them to arrive. Yes, I was that obsessed.

Good thing that Pepy is organising an Indonesian Eats Cook-Up Contest throughout the whole month of September, when she invites her readers to use any of the recipes featured on her blog from January 2009 to August 2010. Not that I needed much encouragement, of course, to make any one of her wonderfully authentic Indonesian dishes. But it was the Corn Fritters that kept whispering my name.

Before I go on further, let me clarify that I actually do not qualify to be in the running to win the prize for this Cook-Up. Not because Pepy dislikes my propensity to gatecrash, but simply because I do not reside in the US or Canada (something to do with shipping restrictions or the like). I'd really wanted to make those corn fritters, though...*wistful*... so I asked Pepy if I could send in my post for her round-up anyway, and she kindly said yes!

So here it is, my representation of Indonesian Corn Fritters. Although, they might not be strictly accurate replicas of Pepy's fritters since I've adapted the recipe slightly to suit the ingredients I currently have available. In addition, I've made a snazzy, sweet-sour-spicy tomato dip to go with the fritters. Hey, I'm allowed a bit of creative freedom as I'm not going for the prize anyway, right?

All these fresh produce, for under US$3 :-)

Some beautiful red and purple chillies I'd nicked from my friend's garden. They were irresistable!

Yeay, I get to play with my corn cutter gadget thingy. So much fun.

 

Spicy Tomato Dip sprinkled with those mysterious purple chillies

 

  

Dadar Jagung/ 'Indonesian' Corn Fritters with Spicy Tomato Dip

Ingredients:
4 fresh sweet corns, shaved off the cob with a knife
1 eggplant, diced
1/2 cup dried shrimps (can use fresh shrimps)
2 shallots, sliced
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1/4 cup basil leaves, chopped
1/4 cup coriander leaves, chopped
1 1/2 cup self-raising flour
1 cup water
1 egg, lightly beaten
sea salt and pepper, to taste
oil, for frying

Spicy Tomato Dip
4 medium tomatoes, steamed until the skin splits
1 tablespoon chilli paste (or use about 3 fresh chillies, sliced)
2 shallots, sliced
3 cloves garlic, sliced
Juice of 1 lime
1 tablespoon honey
sea salt and pepper, to taste

Method:

1. Soak the dried shrimps in water for a few minutes, drain, then pound with a pestle and mortar to grind them (or just chop them finely). If using fresh shrimps, just clean, de-shell and slice into smaller pieces.

2. Place the sweetcorn, eggplant, shrimps, shallots, garlic, basil and coriander in a large bowl. Add flour, water and egg slowly, stir gently until batter becomes smooth. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Heat oil in a frying pan and drop a tablespoonful of batter into the hot oil and fry on medium high heat for a few minutes on both sides. When the fritters turn golden brown, scoop them up with a spatula and place on paper towels on a plate to drain excess oil. Serve together with the spicy tomato dip while still warm.

4. To make the dip, peel the skin off the steamed tomatoes and slice them. Place tomatoes, chillies (or paste), shallots, garlic, lime juice, and honey in a blender and puree until smooth. Pour into a bowl and season with salt and pepper.

From Crumbs to Chocolate Heaven

Bite into one of these, and you will be transported straight to chocolate heaven while at the same time, connect with the softest, creamiest cake mass. Well, leftover cake. Hmmm... what do you mean by "Whaddya mean, leftover cake?"? Welllllll..... that means cake crumbs from cupcakes that I'd baked these past few days. I had so many uneaten cupcakes stored in containers in the fridge that there was no more room in there for stuff that really needed to be in there, like milk and butter. And loads of cream cheese frosting that I had to use up. Very soon.

Looks like the kids at home have caught on to the fact that my cake batters have been plied with numerous kinds of (very yummy) vegetables and now they have refused to touch them! Hmmphh... one minute they were happily chomping on a cupcake - "Really delish, what's in it? Whaaa....?? Pffffttt (spitting sound)" - the next, they've left me with a lot of uneaten cake. Deliciously sweet desserts, sitting in the fridge like dressed-up wallflowers at a party. Tell me, no, tell the sprogs, what's there not to love about eggplant cupcakes? I mean, really.

No problemo, I'm cool. When I'm done reinventing these, those kids won't know any better. I'll just tell them it's chocolate wrapped around cake, and they will eat them! Fortunately, it's no great science to make these Chocolate Cake Balls, thanks to Bakerella and her innovative recipe.

That's a lot of cake crumbs to just be thrown away, isn't it?

I'm not sure why I'd never made these before, now they've become a big hit with the sprogs. They're finally eating my vegetable-filled cupcakes, reincarnated into their next life as heavenly chocolate balls!

All the goodness of vegetables and chocolate tucked into one little, cute ball!

Spanakopita Wannabes

While I was running with my friend, LAZsie the other day, she mentioned this Greek savoury pastry called Spanakopita and how ultra-delicious it was, and that yeah, I should try to make it. Jogging along steadily, she went on to describe the ingredients which consists mainly of spinach and feta cheese, all lovingly wrapped up in layered phyllo pastry. I swear, just listening to her made me gain a few calories… even while we were trying to lose some at the time.

So today, I was lying in bed and contemplating if I should try to make Spanakopita. Went downstairs, searched around and alas, there were no spinach and no feta in sight. But wait.. there was still some phyllo in the freezer! In the end, you could say that I made something inspired by Spanakopita, and it was equally as delicious. For the purposes of this post, let’s just call it the “Spanakopita Wannabes”.

The great thing about this healthy dish is that I made them using a standard muffin tray so that they didn’t fall apart and retained some sort of pyramidal shape. The phyllo-wrapped Wannabes contained these: egg-plant, baby corn, chives and shredded parmesan cheese. A winning combination, even my veggie-picky home-dwellers liked it!

Spanakopita Wannabes

Ingredients:

Makes: 8 muffin-sized portions

2 eggplants, peeled and sliced

3 baby corn, sliced

Bunch of chives, cut into 2-inch lengths

3 cloves garlic, chopped

½ onion, sliced thinly

2 tablespoons shredded Parmesan cheese

8 Phyllo pastry sheets

Olive oil

Method:

1. Cook the filling first by heating 2 tablespoons of olive oil and frying the garlic, onion and chives until fragrant. Add the eggplant and baby corn and stirfry until the vegetables are slightly cooked, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, set aside to cool. Once cooled, add the shredded Parmesan and mix well.

2. Thaw the phyllo sheets and make sure you place a damp cloth over the sheets while you are working with them as they tend to dry out very quickly. Rub some olive oil on both sides of a sheet, fold it into a wide cone and place the pointed end of the cone inside a muffin cup.

Fold over phyllo to seal the cone, then flip over and tuck into the muffin cup.

3. Spoon in the vegetable and cheese filling, fold the phyllo over the open side of the cone, turn it over and tuck the folded part into the base of the muffin cup.

4. Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for 10 minutes until brown and crispy. Serve while still warm.

The advantage of using these vegetables as fillings is that I didn’t have to worry about them being “wet” after they are cooked. I think with spinach, you still have to squeeze some amount of liquid out to ensure that the phyllo won’t get soggy once they are filled. Using Parmesan over Feta gives good flavour too, it’s just not as moist as the real Spanakopita. I'm confident the Greeks won’t mind me copying being inspired by their dish – graciousness must after all be one of the hallmarks of a great civilization.

Freshly Baked Multigrain Bread with Grilled Vegetables & Feta Cheese

A few weeks ago I bought this multigrain flour from the German Shop and although I've used it to make some muffins, I hadn't up to this point made any actual bread with it. Well, that has now changed and if I knew earlier how easy it was to bake this crusty, bursting-with-health-and-goodness bread, I would've done it earlier!

To accompany the bread, I grilled an eggplant (aubergine) and a capsicum (bell pepper) with fresh rosemary and seasoned all that with ground pepper and naturally pink river salt flakes (yes, you read that right, pink). Then I sliced some strawberries, crumbled some feta cheese over the top and unashamedly ate it all myself, plus seconds... it was that delicious!

A slight digression here: I never realised how many different types of salt there are out there! Here are some pretty ones that I like.

L to R: Naturally pink river water salt flakes, Anglesey sea salt, Himalayan crystal salt

Pretty in pink

Back to the bread. Here's the recipe:

Wholemeal, multigrain bread

Ingredients:

500g multigrain flour

320ml lukewarm water

1 teaspoon dried yeast

Method:

1. Add yeast to the flour in a mixing bowl and gradually pour in the lukewarm water. Knead with hands or use the mixer's kneading hook until the mixture becomes a pliable dough and shape into a ball.

2. Leave dough in the bowl to rise to double its size for about 45 minutes, and cover bowl with a clean, damp cloth.

3. When risen, transfer to a baking tray lined with silpat and leave the dough to rise for another 15 minutes.

4. Make a criss-cross cut on top of the dough with a moistened knife and bake in a preheated oven at 230°C for 20-25 minutes. If you want a very crusty top, brush the top of the ball with a little water before baking. 

Easybake multigrain wholemeal bread - from dough to finish

 

The fillings for the sandwich - capsicum, eggplant, strawberries, sheep's milk Feta cheese, fresh rosemary

Dressed to Grill.

Just pour some virgin olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and you're all set!

Don't forget the side salad...

 

Daymnn... that sandwich is good.

This simple meal went well with some iced lychee lemonade!

 

I held my friend's (Izar) newborn baby niece in my arms today and then went home to bake some bread. It's been a good day.