The Food Canon

Good morning.

It is Ipoh time again as my brother drove down south this week.

And he brought along some fresh "Kampung" eggs.

I suppose you can call them free range eggs as this "village" chicken roams about and eats off the ground.

Chinese New Year is coming.

I know the year has not ended yet and there is Christmas before we get there.

But let me alert you again,  CNY is round the corner.

Very soon after you put down the carolling sheets, clean up the mess which your children will make at their Christmas party or finish the NY countdown, it will be ang pow time soon.

For 2012 CNY is happening on the 23rd of January. The same day where Man U will play Arsenal (and beat them of course). That is barely three weeks after the year has started.

If you are responsible for the CNY reunion dinner, as I have largely been since my Mum passed away, you better plan early.

This is a simple cheap grain-fed sirloin steak bought from a nearby supermart

Should you try Sous Vide cooking at home?

If you, like me, cook regularly, my answer is most definitely yes.

For those who are new to this rather mysterious-sounding cooking technique, I will give an overview here.

Sous Vide is basically about placing food in a vacuumed pack and then cooking it in a water bath at a precisely controlled constant and gentle temperature. 

This way of cooking is not new. For centuries, Chinese cooks have wrapped glutinous dumplings (rice with mushroom and meat) in lotus leafs to retain moisture, add and mix flavours, and steam it. Malays have long known that one of the best ways to eat fish is to "pangang" it: wrap the fish in a banana leaf and cook it slowly on charcoal fire.

Some think that SV is boiling food. On the contrary, it is about controlling the temperature; this technique hardly needs heat near the boiling point. It is more akin to poaching and slow cooking at low temperatures. Cooks have have long known that slow-cooking produces great results.

This post continues my diary on my experiments with Sous Vide (SV) cooking at home.

A piece of chicken breast does seem easy to cook. It is easy to debone and it looks like it is made for the pan due to the neat shape of the fillet. It cooks faster than thigh meat.

However, many prefer thigh as breast meat can be 'dry'. It can be difficult to get it "just right": tender, moist, flavorful and not over-cooking it. If a piece of chicken can retain its juice, the flavour is better.

Vacuum-packed boneless chicken breast

This is where Sous Vide can help. Vacuum-pack it and put it in a water bath for 25 minutes at 63°C. And like some of my family members will say, it is the best chicken breast they have ever eaten.

Let me get down to the recipe. I will first describe the methods and then lay out a summarised verison of the recipe in table form.

Purchase a good quality chicken boneless breast meat, skin-on. Some at supermarkets or specialty stores like Hubers will vacuum pack for you. Some will even add a few sprigs of fresh thyme if you ask.

Now, you can also vacuum pack it at home with the meat you purchased from the wet market. One advantage of vacuum packing it yourself is that you can add stuffing and other flavours to the meat.   

With Cantonese style soy sauce based sauce

Sis, this is for you

My sister called me up from KL and asked me to post up something on steamed fish.

She was quite excited with my food blog, especially the way Mum's recipes are now easily accessible.

Steaming is probably the easiest way to cook fish and the best way to eat it, especially if it is eaten whole.

This way of doing fish is something normally associated with Chinese cooking. It is a great way of showcasing a good piece of fish in all its glory - head, body, colour and texture. It is a regular dinner feature in many Chinese homes.

In Chinese restaurants, live fish will go from the tank to the steamer and then, the table. Some of them can be very expensive. You may have heard of the rather controversially priced Sultan fish. I have eaten it once before. It is fantastic eaten steamed (and this is the best way to cook this boney and succulent fish) but I wouldn't pay a thousand dollars for it.    

Warning: This article is groaner's territory

This post has been on draft for many months. So, here it is finally.

Reliable sauces are so important. In this day and age, when there are so many competing claims, you need to make good choices. I trust this post is a reliable source for reliable sauces. (I warned you...)

Here is my list: