Learn How to Make Muffins – Only $520

A Google ad for a two-day course on making muffins has been on my blog now and then:

For those who don't know, muffins are made by the stirring method, which means all the ingredients are stirred together without beating the butter or eggs separately. And muffins are meant to be quick and dirty, so they're not decorated.

At their most basic, muffins take no more than five minutes to put together. If there're nuts or fruits to toast or chop, that may take another five. They're one of the easiest things to bake, so how could anyone possibly spend two days on muffin lessons? Curious, I clicked on the ad, and found this:

10 hours and S$520 to learn how to make muffins?! My jaws just went clunk! But . . . hey, you not only learn how to make the batter and bake but also – this is very important – how to cool the muffins! God forbid you make muffins and then have no idea how they should be cooled! This is an outstanding course that omits no details, I tell ya!

I guess the teacher has a few minutes to spare, out of 10 hours, after teaching muffins. So At-Sunrice's course also teaches you how to make scones. Besides making the dough – which also takes five minutes – you'll learn how to shape it, i.e. pat or roll it into a thick layer, then cut it with a cutter. God forbid you pat a big lump of flour or use a cutter on your own! You need professional guidance, you know? Finally, as with muffins, scones have to be cooled after they're baked. At-Sunrice shows you how and you get to do it hands-on – all-inclusive at $520!

15 people attended At-Sunrice's muffin course last July. There was one and only one reason why they paid $520: they didn't! Instead, they (or their employer) paid only $70 each, leaving taxpayers to foot the balance of $450. The government subsidy given to help train low-wage workers was available to even PRs. (Who were presumably more interested in muffins than curries.) If there was even one person in the class who was not subsidized, I'd eat my hat 100 muffins!

Remember there was a senior government official a few years back, Tan Yong Soon, who spent S$45,000 (of his own money) on a five-week course for three persons at Le Cordon Bleu? The cost of At-Sunrice's muffin course, if prorated to five weeks for three, would be $27,300. But Le Cordon Bleu is Le Cordon Bleu whereas At-Sunrice is a stupid, pretentious name that doesn't mean anything, and nobody has heard of. How much more do workers earn after attending their course?

At-Sunrice's founder is someone called Mrs Kwan Lui. If you speak Singapore or Malaysia style Cantonese, Hokkien or Teochew, you'd understand how apt the name is. I'd laugh but I'm a taxpayer and my heart is bleeding. Taxpayers' money is money too, you know?

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Cashew Nut Cookies	Lemon Curd	Thai Stuffed Chicken Wings	Steamed Garlic Pork Ribs

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How to Make Tau Suan (Split Green Bean Sweet Soup)

If you know what tau suan is, you probably know that 'tau' ('豆') means beans. What about 'suan'? What does 'suan' mean?

No one has ever explained to me the meaning of 'suan'. But I know that when 豆爽 is made with lotus seeds instead of mung/green beans, it's called 蓮子爽. And my mother made a savory sticky soup with chicken and duck 'spare parts' – gizzards, livers, blood and intestines – called 爽腹內. So '爽' probably means sticky soup, which could be savory or sweet. Kind of like '羹', I guess.

Cooking for the President has an alternative explanation that's quite interesting. The Nyonya Hokkien author says 'suan' means diamonds because the little beans in tau suan look like diamonds, and 'diamonds' ('钻') in Hokkien (and Teochew) is pronounced 'suan'.

Diamonds, eh? Make mine lotus seeds size please! Actually . . . mung bean size would do too. Give me a handful, just a small handful 'cause I'm not greedy.

'豆钻' miswritten as '豆爽'? Oh dear, how embarrassing!

Fortunately, Nyonyas aren't exactly a world authority when it comes to the Chinese language. It's '豆爽' on China websites, which presumably have a higher standard of Chinese than a Peranakan Chinese. Shucks, there goes my diamonds!

Check these out:

Lotus Seed Sweet Soup (蓮子爽)	Sesame Balls	Pineapple Tarts	Kueh Bengka Ubi (Baked Tapioca Cake)

My Mother's Kiam Chye Ark (Duck Soup with Salted Mustard Greens)

When I was looking at recipes for Itek Teem, I was surprised at the number of ingredients used for the Nyonya soup. Various Peranakan adaptations of Kiam Chye Ark had pig's trotters, assam skin, brandy, nutmeg, and even sea cucumber. These were on top of the kiam chye (pickled mustard greens), ark (duck), pickled plums, and tomatoes found in every recipe, Nyonya or Chinese. It all seemed a bit over-the-top to me, adding so much stuff.

I also checked out some Chinese recipes, which widened the variety of ingredients used: ginger, garlic, wolfberries (!), dried dates, pork ribs (!), onions, white peppercorns, carrots and, as for Itek Teem, brandy.

After considering the alternatives, I decided to stick to my mother's recipe using only kiam chye, ark, pickled plums, and tomatoes. Yup, just the gang of four which everyone else had; and nothing else, unlike everyone else. I didn't want to dilute the taste of the duck with pork, or mask it with the pungence of ginger, garlic or onions. Nor did I want to tone down the full blast of the salted mustard greens with dried dates, nutmeg, and whatnots. I wanted the soup salty and sour with no hint of sweet or bitter. Sea cucumber was a no-no because it would have absorbed rather than enhanced flavours (which is why it's usually braised with flavourful ingredients, such as dried mushrooms). I didn't need peppercorns since my mother's Kiam Chye Ark was always served with a good dash of ground white pepper. The only candidate left was brandy. Hmm, maybe . . . .

After 90 minutes of patient simmering, my soup (and kitchen) was full of gamey sweetness from the duck. And there was a salty, sourish tang from the pickled mustard greens. The pickled plums and tomatoes were accents in the background, rounding off the robust, bold flavours. It was the hearty soup I grew up with, the Kiam Chye Ark that tasted of kiam chye and ark, unadulterated.

Growing up, it never occurred to me that my mother's Kiam Chye Ark might need any extra ingredient. Now, after pondering over it, I don't think it does. I wouldn't change anything . . . save for maybe a tiny shot of brandy to add a bit of 'oomph'. To me, Mom's Kiam Chye Ark is still the best in the world.

Check these out:

Cream Scones	Crispy French Toast	Carrot Cake	Lemon Curd	Almond Toffee

Sayur Lodeh – Cook a Pot of Vegetable Curry

It was Cook a Pot of Curry Day yesterday because, to cut a long story short, some mainland Chinese with a delicate nose had asked his Singaporean Indian to stop cooking curry. Indignant Singaporeans protested in unison when they heard the story. How dare they tell us not to cook curry! It was a wonderful excuse to tell the mainland Chinese where to shove it, all in the name of protecting the national identity. Before long, Curry Day was organized via Facebook.

There are curries, and there are curries. If it had been a Malay, Nyonya or local Chinese cooking curry next to the mainland Chinese, there probably would have been no dispute. But Indian curries are different when they're not adapted to suit the tastes of the Singaporean Chinese. They have a pungence that's far more powerful than Malay, Nyonya or Chinese-style curries. Chinese Singaporeans call it 'the Indian smell'. For those who don't mince their words, 'smell' may be replaced with 'stink' or 'pong'.

I don't know for sure but I suspect the Indian neighbour in the dispute was cooking the original, unaltered version of Indian curry that smelt really good or bad, depending on the race of the nose.

Singaporeans love their curries. But, for those who aren't Indians, most of them simply do not eat true blue Indian curries which have 'the Indian smell' – the kind of curry that Indians cook at home. How much do the local Chinese hate the smell? So much that they wouldn't rent their properties to Indians for fear that the curry pong would not only linger on sofas and curtains, but even penetrate deep inside concrete walls! Gross exaggeration, you think? Hey, the Indian neighbour in the story cooked with his windows closed, but that didn't stop his curries from being offensive!

Would everyone have jumped to the Indian neighbour's defence if he had been a foreigner? Or if the Chinese involved were from Singapore, not China? I doubt it, at least not in such great numbers.

Singaporeans may proudly declare their love for curries and chide the mainland Chinese for not adapting to Singaporean ways. But the unspoken truth is that the bulk of the population, the Chinese Singaporeans, dislike authentic Indian curries as much as the mainland Chinese. The 'Indian' curry fish head they love is actually not very Indian. They might be busy cooking and sharing curries on Curry Day, but chances are very few cooked the type of curry that had upset the mainland Chinese. Hypocrisy, much?

What was my Sayur Lodeh like? Mild and totally harmless, 'cause I followed my mother's Chinese style recipe. There was absolutely nothing Indian about it.

Check these out:

Beetroot Soup	Claypot Fish Head	Black Silkie Chicken Soup	Cold Spinach with Bonito Flakes

Minced Pork Stir-Fry with Ketchup & Fermented Black Beans

Minced pork stir-fried with fermented black beans is one of the standard items served at places that sell Teochew porridge. It's different from other fbb-based recipes because it's got a good amount of tomato ketchup, a decidedly non-Teochew ingredient which, I suspect, my cousins in China don't use. But ketchup actually goes well with fbb's salty fragrance, adding a distinct dimension not found in fbb dishes that are more traditional.

The stir-fried minced pork sold at Teochew muay places usually has a layer of oil coloured red by tomato ketchup, and meat that has a generous amount of fat. The one I make avoids the excessive oil because I don't think it makes the pork taste better. However, I do use pork belly that's quite fatty. I find that pork that's too lean dries out after it's minced and stir-fried. Ideally, the fatty pork belly is minced very roughly, with a cleaver (or two), into tiny pieces the size of rice grains. You can't really see it but each small little piece of lean meat has a bit of fat attached, so it stays succulent and smooth after it's cooked. And it has bite, unlike mushy machine-ground meat.

You might think if you use a lean cut, stir-frying it with lots of oil would make it moist. But it doesn't work that way because the oil stays on the surface of the little lumps of meat. It doesn't get inside, so the lean meat stays dry.

At this point, you might be thinking, I don't eat fatty meat, period. And this is where I could give you a blurb about fats being an essential nutrient for the body (and brain), how fats don't always make you fat, how dietary cholesterol doesn't clog up your arteries, blah blah blah. *yawn* But I'm not gonna do that. Instead, I'd ask you to imagine what your tombstone will say. (What a cheerful thought!) Will it be 'She Did Not Eat Fatty Pork Belly'?

My guiding principle is, if it's not important enough to be on my tombstone, then it's not terribly important. That's why I eat pork belly, fat and all, without blinking an eye. And I don't wash intimate apparel by hand. But I always give my cats a head rub when they ask for one because their tombstones will say, 'She Had All the Head Rubs She Wanted'.

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Are You Afraid of Lard?	Dumping Andrea Nguyen's Asian Dumplings	Busting the Cholesterol Myth	Vegetarian Cruelty	Food and Customs (Airport, Not Culture)

Kueh Bengka Ubi – 90-Second Baked Tapioca Cake

I was going to say it takes five minutes to put together a Kueh Bengka Ubi (Baked Tapioca Cake). But, thinking about it as I write, I'd say it takes only 90 seconds if, unlike me, you're not reading the instructions at the same time, and chasing cats out of the kitchen.

Yup, one and a half minutes is all Kueh Bengka Ubi takes, or I'll eat my hat. Baking time is not included, btw, so please don't say it takes you an hour, and then tell me to eat my hat with sambal. Neither is shopping time. And I reserve the right to change this agreement any time I like, in whatever way I like. I assume your arms and legs are fully functional and . . . .

Hey, I almost forgot I don't have any hats!

To bake prepare a tapioca cake in 90 seconds, forget about squeezing coconut milk. This is the 21st century. Who on earth squeezes milk from coconuts by hand? If you can find a place that sells grated coconut, that place would also sell fresh coconut milk lovingly squeezed by a machine. If you can't, then you've got nothing to squeeze, right? (I'm assuming you're not going to pluck, husk, and grate a coconut yourself. If you prove me wrong, I will go buy a hat and eat it!)

The same place that sells freshly squeezed coconut milk and grated coconut would also sell freshly grated tapioca. Just grab a pack, along with the coconut milk. Remember to buy the exact amount for the recipe, so you don't have to waste precious seconds measuring after you get home.

When you're ready to bake, pour the coconut milk and grated tapioca into a mixing bowl, crack the eggs, measure the sugar and water, then mix everything up. How long would that take? 45 seconds? You now have 45 seconds to line a cake tin, pour the batter, scrape the bowl, smooth the top, put the tin in the oven, and shut the door - bang! Job done in 90 seconds like I told ya!

If you have a few more minutes, you may want to squash a few pandan leaves in the batter to give it a nice fragrance. (Cakes, like cars and computers, have 'optional accessories'.) Mind you, the cake smells and tastes wonderful even without pandan, because of the coconut milk.

If you don't have freshly squeezed coconut milk, you could use the 'undead' variety that's canned, boxed, or pasteurized. (Long-life coconut milk is dead coconut milk brought back from the nether world, isn't it?) If you don't have fresh and ready-grated tapioca, frozen may be available, like in the US. Or you may have fresh or frozen tapioca but it's not grated, in which case get your grater out, and put the stopwatch away.

Kueh Bengka Ubi is one of the easiest Nyonya kueh-kuehs. Want to give it a go, and you need a good recipe? No problem, I've done the leg work for you. I've compared four recipes, two from Lilywaisekhong, and one each from Mrs Leong Yee Soo (The Best of Singapore Cooking) and Mrs Wee Kim Wee (Cooking for the President):

I've rejected Lily's original recipe because it has a crazy amount of butter, sugar, eggs and coconut milk. Maybe it's an Americanized version since she lives in Denver? I don't know, but I do know even her skinny recipe is decidedly plus-size. And steamed mung beans (!) in Kueh Bengka Ubi? That's news to me! Like, duh? Verdict: out!

Mrs Leong and Mrs Wee use similar ingredients, but Mrs Leong's method is less straight forward. Her recipe has grated tapioca mixed with water, squeezed dry, and then the water is left to settle. After the starch sinks to the bottom, it's drained and mixed with the grated tapioca. Next, the other ingredients for the cake – eggs, sugar, coconut milk, etc – are cooked on the stove, then added to the tapioca mixture. Finally, the cake is baked till golden brown. Mrs Wee's recipe is much easier since the ingredients are just stirred together, more or less, then into the oven they go.

The recipe I've tried is Mrs Wee's. I'm munching a piece of tapioca cake as I write this post, and it's very, very fragrant, especially the caramelized top. It's a bit on the sweet side, but still within my acceptable range. The chewiness is just right, not too soft nor too hard (which Mrs Leong's may be, I think, because it has less liquid).

What's my rating for Mrs Wee's kueh ubi? Uber good! It's another great recipe from Cooking for the President that I'd thoroughly recommend (unless you don't eat ubi).

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go steam some fish, then pick out all the bones. 'Ikan will be ready in a few minutes, Your Feline Highness.'

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湯圓 (Glutinous Rice Balls)	'WHAT is that?'	Pandan Cake	Battlestar Galatica

Diced Chicken in Spicy Fermented Tofu Sauce

One day, whilst shooting the breeze with me somewhere, an ang moh acquaintance said he had a tattoo. Without any encouragement on my part, he rolled up his sleeve to show me the Chinese word on his arm. He seemed quite proud of it, and I was all prepared to 'Oooh!' appropriately (whilst running my fingers gently over his bulging biceps *wink wink*). Instead, when I saw the word he had chosen, the beer I was drinking took a detour into my lungs and up my nose. My face turned red; I thumped my chest; he thumped my back; it was a while before I could stop coughing. By then, Acquaintance probably suspected there was something wrong with his tattoo 'cause I was laughing and gesturing at it even as I choked on my drink. Indeed, there was, for the word on his arm was '腐'.

'腐', for those who don't know, means decay, rot, spoil, or corrupt. Why the hell did he tattoo himself with such a word? Ah . . . . Because Acquaintance had been told the word meant eagle. Or rather, the catalogue that he'd picked the word from said so. But 'eagle' is '鹰', not '腐'! They may look similar, but the two words are worlds apart in meaning. Unfortunately, nobody at the tattoo parlour in London understood Chinese.

Grinning from ear to ear despite my watering eyes, I said, 'You know tofu? This word is the 'fu' part of 'tofu'.'

'I've got 'tofu' tattooed on my arm?!'

'Er, no, it's just 'fu', not 'tofu'.'

'What does 'fu' mean?' It was cruel but I had to tell him. 'It doesn't make sense if 'fu' means rot, because there's nothing rotten about tofu,' he said.

He had a point. Why is tofu called tofu when the 'to' (beans) aren't 'fu' (rotten)?

The question bothered me for years but not anymore. I've just googled and found a plausible explanation, which is this: A long, long time ago, the Chinese called Mongolian cheese furu (腐乳), which meant spoiled milk. And then they started making curd, which resembled cheese, with soya bean milk. Hence, the curd was called tofu (豆腐), meaning spoiled beans. And then they started fermenting tofu, which turned creamy/milky as mould grew on it. So they called the fermented tofu furu, the same name which had been given to Mongolian cheese. This time, the preserved tofu did full justice to the word '腐'.

Were Mongolians really making cheese even before Chinese started making beancurd, which was an awfully long time ago in 200-something BC (Han dynasty)? I don't know, but at least I have an answer next time someone asks me to explain the 'fu' part of 'tofu'.

I never found out whether Mr '腐' removed his tattoo, but I would if I were him. Or maybe put '豆' on the other arm, and tell everyone he loves tofu. If I see him again, I'll invite him to my place and make him some nice tofu dishes, like Spicy Diced Chicken with Fermented Tofu. I'm sure he'd love that. *wink wink*

Check these out:

Soya Sauce Chicken (玫瑰露豉油鸡)	Pandan Chiffon Cake	Dak Kang Jung (Korean Sweet & Crispy Chicken)	Kacang Putih (Frosted Peanuts)	Lemon Chicken