Sri Lankan Christmas Cake

This year, I tried my hand at making Sri Lankan Christmas cake. My mother, the family keeper of all Christmas cake recipes of the past and present, was the obvious person to refer to for this exercise. After years of waiting, the time had come. I was presented with the recipe for rice flour Christmas cake this year. As I noted in my previous post, it was like getting knighted or something.

I tweaked the recipe in some ways. The first tweak came with the fruit and nuts. I let them sit in liqueur for nearly four weeks. Mom would usually let them sit for no more than five days. I added more liqueur as needed, starting with the traditional rum and brandy. As the weeks passed, the fruit would look thirsty from time to time so I moved on to things like calvados and homemade Italian cherry liqueur to keep them soused.

On the first night of December, the night of the Parisien leek soup, I decided it was time to make the cake. The cake, after all, has to age for at least three weeks before you can think of eating it. We industriously whipped butter with sugar, zested oranges and lemons, and mixed the drunken fruit into all of that.

We painstakingly lined cake tins with wax paper, trimming the edges and slitting the corners to ensure the most perfectly lined cake tin. They were popped into an oven with a bowl of water to keep things steamy and hydrated. We retired to the living room to watch a movie and shamelessly eat large amounts of almond roca and peanut brittle.

When the cake was nearly done, it was time to make the glaze for the top of the cake. Too late for regrets that I didn't artistically decorate the tops of my cakes with carefully cut maraschino cherries or slivered almonds like my mother would. I whipped out a jar of peach marmalade I made this summer, dumped its contents into a pot, added a wee bit of water and cornstarch and fired the stove up. Mum would have used apricot or raspberry jam. I was going to use boozed up peach marmalade. It bubbled and became translucent. I added in rum. Lots of it. The glaze was ready.

I used my pastry brush to glaze the cakes as soon as they came out of the oven. I loved the sweet sheen of the molten marmalade and the warm, heady smell of newly baked Christmas cake.

I left the little cakes out to cool overnight. The next morning, I wrapped the cakes as the oatmeal bubbled on the stove. Leaving their wax paper wraps intact, just as my mother has done a hundred times, I sheathed them in saran wrap, and then again in aluminium foil. I put them away on the shelves next to the rhubarb schnapps for a beauty sleep over the next three weeks.

Three weeks later, the cakes were ready. We sampled a bit a few days before Christmas and agreed the cake was worthy of sharing. On Christmas day, the cake had a place on the family plate of Sri Lankan Christmas sweets.

Happy holidays, dear readers. I wish you all a holiday filled with joy and a new year filled with love and good food. :)

Parisien Leek Soup for James

There's a lot of history behind this recipe. At the request of an old acquaintance, James, whose memory of this soup remained intact twenty years after I first made it, I unearthed this recipe from a small box of childhood keepsakes.

The soup was made for an elementary school French class potluck. My classmate,  James, sampled it and dropped a leek soup reference many years later when he saw my food blog. Gary, my first crush, was  also one of the people who sampled it. He ate three bowls of the soup and told me how much he loved it.  I made this soup with my class partner who was also my best friend. Ten years later, my soup-making partner-friend seduced the man (a little reductionist here) I was madly in love with for most of my twenties. But what do you know about these things or the future when you're a kid. You're not wise enough then to see visions of the future and other portents in the making of soup. 

Really, there's a lot to making serious soup. And this recipe, baby, it's got history. Love food with a twist.

When I examined the recipe, scrawled in my childish hand, I marvelled at its simplicity. There is no pureeing of the soup to create an easy to photograph, perfectly groomed soup that one adorns with walnuts or ash-cured chevre or artistic drizzles of olive oil. Inspired by James' request, I went to the market and bought some leeks, lovely with their groomed tips.

The soup is simple enough to make. I say this because the night I made it, all I had to do was chop up the leeks and potatoes, essentially chuck it all into the soup pot, and then get on with the making of the all important Xmas cake. My mother recently parted with some of the family secrets and bestowed upon me the family recipe for rice flour dark Xmas cake. In our family universe, it's like getting knighted or something.

Here's the historically dramatic, but drama free original leek soup recipe:

Parisien Leek Soup

3 - 4 leeks
3 potatoes (I used red because I didn't have russet and they worked fine)
4 cups of water (I used the leavings of some broccoli water from my experiment with Gordon Ramsey's broccoli soup. Paired this with chicken broth)
1/3 cup of uncooked rice
1 tablespoon of butter
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon of salt
2 - 3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Method 

1. Trim the leeks, halve them and then slice thinly. Whichever way you decide to chop, just chop evenly. The original recipe says to throw the green bits away, but I always disobey and include them.

2. Heat your soup pot up and melt the butter over a low heat. Add the olive oil to minimize butter burn.

3. Cube the potatoes thinly. Don't do instant hashbrown thin. Chuck the leeks in the warmed up soup pot and saute them. When I made this twenty years ago, Viviane and I riffed on the original recipe and browned about half a pound of lean ground beef before we began to saute the leeks.

4. After the leeks have softened and look a bit transparent, add the potatoes and let them have a conversation with the leeks for 2 - 3 minutes. 

5. End the leek-potato conversation by adding the water/broth, salt and rice. Bring it up to a boil, then turn the heat down and let it gently bubble on your stove for about 25 - 30 minutes. The key to this is that you shouldn't let your potatoes fall apart. I found the stated requirement for liquid isn't quite enough. I added more liquid as it pleased me - mostly to maintain a state of soup liquidity that worked for me.

6. Near the end of cooking, add the parsley. If you don't have parsley, add tarragon. Just don't go too crazy. Test the soup for salt and doctor as needed. Serve it with French bread and milk. This soup is very simple but very tasty.

Argentinian Blueberry and Chocolate Slab Cake

I know many food bloggers are all about the local, the fresh and the 100 mile diet, but I thumb my nose at the environmentally friendly and sustainable practice of the 100 mile diet. And I mean it. I'm not about to give up my bourgeois tastes in a multiplicity of things that must come across the sea to get into my belly. The lovely Persian dates that Ciaran recently brought me are a scrumptious example of that.

If it came to it, I would be reasonable, buy as many gai lan and Indian eggplant seeds as possible, attempt to grow my own curry leaf tree, and adopt the 100 mile diet. For now, I will indulge in certain naughty excesses like buying Argentinian blueberries at the end of November when I'm actually on a mission to buy leeks for Parisien Leek Soup. Buying blueberries from Argentina is something of a joke on the west coast of Canada. We're massive seasonal producers of blueberries. You can buy them by the crate for practically nothing during the summer.

What does a Canadian Sri Lankan Tamil do with fresh blueberries at the tail end of fall that really feels like winter? She uses it to crown her morning bowl of oatmeal, paired with freshly grated nutmeg.

Or, she could stud a decadent chocolate slab cake with them. I found the cake on a food porn site and was so taken with the image, I felt the need to replicate but modify the cake so that I could eat it. The results were deliciousness on levels that bordered the profane.

I feel the need to include a warning or disclaimer with this cake recipe. Once you finish slathering on the icing and studding the cake with blueberries, you will find it difficult to stop even after eating two pieces of cake. We found it nearly impossible to step away from the cake. I suggest wrapping the cake and putting it in the refrigerator to halt excessive cake consumption. This cake is guaranteed to seduce any man or woman, and might even possibly save marriages.

Here's the modified recipe I adapted from Picnics by Australian Woman's Weekly.

1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup boiling water
2/3 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
3 eggs
1 2/3 cups rice flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
3/4 cup Balkan style yoghurt
2/3 cup fresh blueberries

Chocolate Icing:
2/3 cup dark chocolate, chopped coarsely
1 3/4 tablespoons butter
1 cup icing sugar, sifted
1 1/2 tablespoons hot water

1. Preheat oven to 350 ºF. Grease 19cm x 30cm lamington pan; line with baking paper. Be sure to cut the corners of the paper on a diagonal so that the paper sits flat in the pan. Otherwise, your cake will have rippled corners.

2. Blend cocoa with the water in small bowl. Add the water a bit at a time to prevent lumps. Cool.

3. Beat butter and sugar in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Transfer mixture to a large bowl, stir in sifted flours and soda, and yoghurt in two batches; stir in cocoa mixture.

4. Spread mixture into pan. Bake about 30 minutes. Cool cake in pan 20 minutes before turning, top-side up, onto wire rack to cool. Don't remove the paper just yet.

5. Make chocolate icing: melt chocolate and butter in small saucepan, stirring, over low heat. Remove from heats; stir in sifted icing sugar and water until smooth.

6. Spread cold cake with icing, top with blueberries. Don't forget to take the paper off first. Cut cake into squares.

Serves 20.

The Epic Viewing of Carlos Part II - Luscious Brings Beetroot Poriyal

For the epic viewing of Carlos part two, we decided that we would bring a Tamil dinner over to Sharon and Thom's place. Ciaran and I did most of the cooking at my place before bringing the food over for the final polish. I decided to fry up some Madras style pappadum I brought back from Toronto. Pappadum in its raw form is a dried thin disc made from chickpea flour and spices. When fried, it expands into a crisp cracker. It is incredibly addictive nibbling food. I love breaking it up into my rice.

In favour of the gentle vegetarian, Ciaran, I decided on egg curry and beetroot poriyal. Egg curry? you say. Egg curry, I say. Yes. It doesn't sound like it should work, but in fact it does. It's one of the most marvellous vegetarian inventions in the Tamil culinary lexicon. Sharon took care of her pot of chai and the beets while I performed tricks with hot oil. I loved the luxury of cooking on S & T's fine gas stove.

Sharon's choice of Barefoot's Moscato wine went really well with the spicy beets and egg curry (Sharon and Thom agreed that the curry was "Hong Kong spicy"). Sharon and I share a love of sweet things. Moscato definitely tickles that sweet spot. The men opted for something less sweet. Sharon also helped break down my irrational distaste for brown rice by making some to accompany the curry.

Full of curry and the delicious bread pudding Sharon and Thom whipped up for dessert (I got a persimmon to myself in place of bread pudding), we flipped on the projector to watch the last half of Carlos. I'll confess that I was comfortable enough by the fireplace and philistine enough to doze through part of it. My culinary partners in crime were kind enough not to razz me about it.

When I attempted to come up with the specs for beetroot poriyal, I realized why I was struggling. There's a French term for this - au pif. It the context of cooking, it means cooking by the nose, or by sense. If you cook that way, writing down precise measurements is ... a challenge. Here goes.

Tamil Beetroot Poriyal

3 medium sized beets

3/4 teaspoon black mustard seeds

6 curry leaves

4 - 5 gundu molzuka chilis

1/3 cup dessicated coconut

1/2 teaspoon curry powder

1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder

1 tablespoon coriander powder

salt to taste (about 1/2 teaspoon)

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Method

1. Peel the beets and then grate them coarsely. If you have someone around with big muscled arms, I highly suggest recruiting them for this job. I know I did. Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed frying pan or pot.

2. When the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds, curry leaves, and chilies. Fry until the mustard seeds begin to pop. Add the grated beets immediately.

3. Add the curry powder, turmeric, coriander and a 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Stir well and add a quarter cup of water. Cover the pan and cook until the water is almost evaporated.

4. Add the coconut and some more water. Continue to cook the beets in this manner until they are tender. Taste and adjust for salt and spiciness as required. The beets should have a taste that's balanced between sweet and spicy.

Note: Gundu molzuka is Tamil for "fat chili." They are also known as mundu chilis. They are moderately pungent and much like their shape, impart a rounded heat to food. They are available at Indian grocery shops, but if you can't find them, any dried or fresh chili that's moderately hot will do.

Unreasonably Tasty Tapioca with Gula Melaka

I love tapioca. I love its coy starchy ways, the way it obligingly adopts flavours, and all the happy memories I associate with tapioca. It made bleak, rained out days bearable when sailing up the west coast, it is an unforgettable part of my childhood, and recently, it was the sweet end to hot pot night at Sharon and Thom's.

Tapioca is commercially sold in the form of pearls, just like its counterpart, sago. Sago comes from the pith of the sago palm stems and tapioca comes from the cassava root. They can be interchangeably used in many dishes that include this one.

The secret weapon that makes this dish? That black line art in the bowl is gula melaka. Tamils call it karruppatti. This sugar comes in dark blocks and is from the palm tree. Gula melaka has a dark caramel taste and a distinctive aroma. The threesome of tapioca/sago, coconut milk and gula melaka has its origins in Peranakan (Chinese-Malay) culinary genius. It's a beautiful thing.

The Epic Viewing of Carlos Part I - Sharon and Thom Bring the Hot Pot

We decided some weeks ago that we would watch an epic five hour movie called Carlos. We realized that we'd need to be bolstered by some serious food and wine. As the weather had reached an appropriate level of chilly cold, Sharon and Thom generously offered to serve us hot pot. I was so excited. In Malaysia, we have the same thing except it's called steamboat. Hot pot is a little like fondue except that food is cooked in a broth that's kept on a low simmer. Thom is pictured here in an action shot at the hot pot table.

Central to hot pot is, of course, the pot that keeps your broth good and hot. Sharon and Thom made a delicately flavoured chicken broth that was kept warm on top of the Storm Buster. I want a Storm Buster.

Equally important is the array of sauces to augment the bits you dip into the pot. From the top, moving clockwise: sesame oil, garlic, soy sauce with garlic greens, red miso paste and chili sauce. Thom hadn't brought out the raw eggs for dipping into just yet. If you're wondering, those are meatballs at the bottom right.

Of course, we're not all about the sauce. There were vegetables too. Bean sprouts, sui choy (also known as napa cabbage) and enoki mushrooms huddled together in the colander. They knew what was coming.

Fish balls, shrimp and fish balls, and raw shrimp, all ready for their bath in the hot pot.

Sharon kicked the cooking festivities off by dropping dried shiitake mushrooms that she had been soaking earlier into the hot pot.

We sat round the table and sipped plum wine and a green Portuguese wine Ciaran brought. This particular plum wine came in adorable little jars with a little plum to nibble on when the booze is gone.

Steam rolled up in little clouds, wafting the comforting scent of chicken broth and fogging the windows up.We readied ourselves for the first bits of food. Thom, Sharon and I cracked our eggs into little saucers.

Next, we dropped the fish balls, the shrimp and fish balls, the puffed tofu and some of the vegetables. And then we waited.

We watched with great anticipation as Thom fished out the first bits of food. Bliss. Loved every eggy, soy sauced, chili-ed, and sesame oil'd bite of hot pot.

Fortified thus with warm bellies and plum wine sweet in our mouths, we watched the first half of Carlos. Despite its length, it was undeniably riveting. I recommend it. Sharon and Thom - thank you for hot pot and your projector-friendly white wall.

Food for Cold Movember Nights - Roasted Spaghetti Squash Risotto

Oh those cold, rattly, dark Movember nights. Are you one of those noble men who are growing a moustache for November? I tip my hat to you, sirs.

This post documents the life and times of a spaghetti squash that ended up in my kitchen. The squash arrived in magnificent form. It slept on the floor for several days before I posed it next to a Cambodian krama.

I put it in a 375 degree oven for about an hour and ten minutes. I saved its seeds. They were mixed with some olive oil, garlic powder, chili pepper and thyme. They roasted for about seven minutes. I shook them about and roasted them for another seven minutes. They were tasty. I had plans for the shells too.

Before I took a much needed afternoon nap, I scraped all the flesh out with a fork. The little tendrils of spaghetti squash tumbled into the waiting steel bowl. I recklessly left the bowl uncovered and took a nap.

I woke up several hours later and decided it was time for roasted spaghetti squash risotto. Using Biba Caggiano's recipe for roasted butternut squash risotto, I put six cups of Campbell's low-sodium chicken broth (the one that comes in the tetra box is pure genius) on to heat in a small pot. I minced up one small yellow onion and put that into a pot that was foaming with a tablespoon of butter mixed in with two tablespoons of olive oil. After the onion turned pale and soft, I added two cups of Arborio rice.

I stirred the rice until it was well coated with buttery onion. I didn't have any white wine on hand so I used a half cup of Noilly Prat. After that cooked off, I began adding the hot broth half a cup at a time, stirring until it was almost completely absorbed before adding another half cup for twelve minutes.

I added about two to three cups of the roasted squash in small batches. I continued to add half cups of broth, stirring until the squash was mixed in well. I grated half a teaspoon of nutmeg into the pot and added a one-third cup of chopped up goat cheese (I used up the last of le moutier I brought from Toronto). Biba's recipe called for Parmigiano-Reggiano, but as I can't eat that, I replaced it with goat cheese with great success. I tested for salt and finished the risotto with a small teaspoon of butter.

Ciaran honoured Biba by finding a languishing block of Parmigiano-Reggiano in the cheese box to enthusiastically grate over his bowl. I abandoned my plan to serve the risotto in the hollowed out shell and opted for golden bowls instead. The result? Deliciously velvety risotto; the depth of its flavour suitably darkened by the freshly grated nutmeg. Good cold Movember night food.