Pamelia Chia's Blog

It is always a treat to be invited to someone’s home to cook alongside them. Over the weekend, our Italian friends Fabio and Elisa had us over for dinner. Elisa said, if I wanted to, I could arrive a few hours earlier to watch her make gnocchi. I, of course, said yes.

I was first shown how to make gnocchi during a short stage at the restaurant Etta in Melbourne. That was my first taste of how incomparably light gnocchi could be when made with care. Supermarket gnocchi could never, and I raise my eyebrows whenever I see “springy” or “chewy” as a descriptor for gnocchi. During our recent trip to Italy, we ordered gnocchi on several occasions and were disappointed each time by how stodgy they were. I was ready for some good gnocchi and was curious about how an Italian would approach making it at home.

Elisa is a meticulous cook. Her kitchen shelf is lined with books on Italian gastronomy which expound on the science and art of the craft, and she seems to have just the perfect tool for every task. The ragu recipe she recently sent me is 8 pages long, replete with explanations, just to illustrate the pride she takes in cooking. But as with many experienced home cooks I’ve had the pleasure of joining in their kitchens, she works with remarkable ease and simplicity. Nothing too fussy, and everything relying upon instinct.

We began with the potatoes. Most cooks would advise you to use a floury potato, such as the Russet potato, but Elisa favours the waxier, red-skinned ones which cohere better when cooked and riced. Rather than boiling the potatoes in water, she steamed them in her Instant Pot. This marked another departure from the norm, but made a lot of sense. After all, the goal with gnocchi is to keep the moisture levels of the cooked potato as low as possible, so that you require less flour to bind it into a dough. Less flour = less gluten = more delicate texture.

While the potatoes were still warm, Elisa pressed them through her ricer. Ricing is preferable to mashing because it produces an even texture with no lumps, and you get a light, fluffy mound of potato as opposed to a gummy mass. At Etta, the cooks pushed the cooked potato through a metal sieve, which achieves a similar effect (I do this because I don’t own a ricer).

Once riced, the potato and flour were combined in a stand-mixer — this surprised me. I’d always heard the advice to work the dough as delicately as possible, but Elisa’s insouciance was proof that the amount and type of flour matters more.

The real brilliance of Elisa’s method lies in the shaping. Rather than fussing about with forming ropes of dough and nipping them into individual pillows, she rolled the mass out between pastry strips for an even thickness. The flat rectangle of dough was then cut into cubes, that we rolled into marbles between our floured palms. Finally, we pushed the dumplings along a gnocchi board to give them their characteristic ridged backs. For dusting, Elisa likes finely milled semolina flour for the way they prevent the dough from sticking more effectively than conventional wheat flour, though this is not strictly necessary.

We cooked the gnocchi in barely simmering water, and tossed them in Elisa’s homemade tomato sauce. In the Sorrentina tradition, we layered them with torn mozzarella (drained to remove excess moisture) and grated grana padano, then grilled them in the oven until the top was nice and bubbly.

Elisa initially worried that they may be too light — she is haunted by the leaden lumps that her nonna used to make, and always errs on the side of using less flour. Gnocchi are good only if they are light, but Elisa confessed that sometimes she puts so little flour in hers that she worries they may fall apart. But they were perfect — incredibly light, almost melting in the mouth.

It was clear that the lightest gnocchi involve straddling the line between not enough flour and just enough flour, and a certain residue of doubt in the cook’s mind. Sadly, because this type of gnocchi requires a bit of patience and is a lot more delicate to handle, Elisa says that it is not at all common in restaurants, where speed and efficiency are king.

Yesterday, I cooked the gnocchi for dinner so that I could go over everything before I forget, and to get the quantities down. Instead of doing a tomato sauce like Elisa did (the weather was too hot for that!), I chose to use the gnocchi in krapao. This is a fragrant stir-fry of mince, garlic, chillies with lashings of sweet soy and fish sauce, and a generous handful of basil (traditionally holy basil, which Italian basil is a great substitute for). As krapao is typically a meat dish, I added snow peas to balance the meal out. It turned out fabulous. The starch from the gnocchi actually helped to thicken the meat juices in the pan such that the rubbly mixture clung to it like a second skin.

With just two ingredients in the gnocchi — potatoes and flour — it’s really more about developing a sensitivity and feel for the dough rather than slavishly following a recipe. The lightest gnocchi — made with the smallest amount of flour you can get away with — are great in a tomato sauce, while slightly firmer gnocchi stand up to stir-fries. I might even add a touch of tapioca flour next time for a touch of springiness!

If you make a big batch of gnocchi, you can freeze any extras on a tray (spaced apart) while still raw, then transfer to a ziplock bag or container to keep in your freezer until ready to use. To cook, simmer in water until they float.

Krapao gnocchi
Feeds 2

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Welcome to Singapore Noodles, a newsletter where I share recipes from my kitchen in the Netherlands. Archived recipes and other content can be found via the index. My cookbooks, Wet Market to Table and PlantAsia: Asia’s Vegetable Wisdom in Recipes, Stories, and Techniques, are available for purchase. Thank you for being here, and enjoy this week’s post! ✨ — Pamelia

The trouble with cooking diversely is that you end up with a pantry full of partially used items a lot of the time. For months, I’ve had an opened packet of nori sheets that I’ve been wanting to use, but have been feeling a lot of inertia to. The obvious way to use it up is in the form of a roll, such as kimbap, which I love. Kimbap looks similar to sushi, but the main difference is that its rice is seasoned with sesame oil and salt, rather than sweetened rice vinegar. It also tends to be a complete meal in and of itself, chockful with a variety of proteins and greens. With the nori already turning from glossy black to a dry, reddish, it was now or never.

The easiest way to approach kimbap, I’ve found, is to make the rice in advance and zap it in the microwave until warm and pliable when you’re ready to make the rolls. When considering the fillings, it’s helpful to think of kimbap as a vehicle, just as a sandwich is a vehicle. You can get really playful with them, and make things as simple or fancy as you want.

The vegetables I’ve chosen are accessible ones that I could get from any supermarket and cook quickly. Baby spinach wilts in a pan in no time at all, and julienned carrots (which I buy already prepped) — by virtue of their thinness — cooks in seconds (it’s really to take the rawness out of them than anything else). I keep the seasonings for the vegetables minimal — just salt and sesame oil — and let the protein be the star and carry the main flavour.

Gochujang is a condiment I always have in my fridge — it adds so much flavour without much work. One day this week, I made kimbap with gochujang-marinated pork, a simplified version of a dish I make on weeknights. Another day, I simply mixed some sliced smoked salmon into gochujang mayonnaise — it turned out so well that both Wex and I preferred this to the pork. It’s brilliant on many fronts. Compared to fresh fish, smoked salmon keeps well and is, thus, a staple we often already have in our fridge. Though cured and smoked, it still retains the tender, slightly chewy texture of raw fish, and when mixed into gochujang mayonnaise, it comes very close to the kind of spicy tuna that you might encounter in sushi.

Several things to note for kimbap-wrapping success:

Use warm, but not hot rice: Cold rice is slightly brittle and will not form a thin, even layer over the nori. Hot rice, on the other hand, will cause the nori sheets to tear. Warm rice is ideal, and a generous drizzle of sesame oil helps further to render it pliable and easy to work with.

Limit the moisture in the fillings: Fillings with too much moisture may cause kimbap to fall apart. This means squeezing water out of spinach, frying the marinated pork sufficiently so that the marinade glazes the strips etc. (For the same reason, I also cook my rice with slightly less water than usual.)

Leave a border: When spreading the rice on the nori, I leave a border. Same goes for when I arrange the toppings on the rice. This way, when you roll the kimbap up, the ingredients naturally move into the empty space and everything lines up neatly.

Roll the kimbap up tightly: Some people use a bamboo mat or plastic wrap — I find this cumbersome, but you might find that it helps. After rolling the kimbap up, compress it with your hands. With a firm roll, slicing becomes a breeze. Just as it’s hard to cut a loose string, a taut kimbap will be much easier to cut than a loose, falling-apart one.

Slice the kimbap with a sharp knife: Grab a sharp knife and slice through the roll in a clean, sawing motion. To prevent sticking, you can wet the blade, or grease it with a little sesame oil.

Enjoy kimbap at room temperature. In warm weather, kimbap makes the perfect picnic or snacking food, tightly stacked into lunchboxes and eaten away in layers as the day progresses. Leftover sliced kimbap can be refrigerated and dipped in egg and pan-fried to refresh them.

Rice for kimbap
Makes approximately 750g cooked rice (enough for 4 rolls)

300g short-grain rice (often sold as sushi rice)
500g water
1 tbsp sesame oil
1½ teaspoon salt

Rinse the short-grain rice until the water runs clear. Drain well and add to a rice-cooker with the water. Cook until tender. (Alternatively, combine the rice and water in a saucepan. Set over high heat and stir occasionally until the water comes to a simmer. Cover and cook on low heat until all the rice is absorbed.) Stir the sesame oil and salt into the cooked rice. Cool until warm before using for kimbap, or refrigerate in an airtight container and reheat before use.

Gochujang pork / smoked salmon kimbap
Makes 4 rolls

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Welcome to Singapore Noodles, a newsletter where I share recipes from my kitchen in the Netherlands. Archived recipes and other content can be found via the index. My cookbooks, Wet Market to Table and PlantAsia: Asia’s Vegetable Wisdom in Recipes, Stories, and Techniques, are available for purchase. Thank you for being here, and enjoy this week’s post! ✨ — Pamelia

Italy has long been a destination I’ve wanted to visit. The country has a kind of mythical status for those who love food and is known for all the right things: its reverence for the nonna; the passion the average Italian on the street has when it comes to the “right” way of preparing a dish; the fabulous produce — the cheeses, the cured meats, the hand-rolled pasta.

What surprised me was how rustic and gutsy Italian food culture was, in particular the rich offal tradition, which is still alive and kicking in the parts where we went to — certainly not the case in many other parts around the world. It sprang out of cucina povera, as a way to make use of the entire animal. In that way, it was really more out of necessity than desire, but it turned into something delicious that persisted. We enjoyed lampredotto in Florence — sandwiches stuffed with the braised fourth stomach of the cow, dripping with meat juices, a sharp salsa verde, and what the menu simply described as “spicy sauce”.

Everyday, we had gelato — which not only puts gelato / ice cream we’ve tasted in so many countries to shame not only because gelato in Italy manages to taste so true to its ingredients, and yet is some of the cheapest.

Other delights (unexpected in their simplicity) included courgettes sliced thinly and deep-fried in olive oil — not to the end of being crisp, but for them to lose most of their inherent water and concentrate in flavour and sweetness — before being lightly dressed in vinegar, garlic, and mint.

The whole time I was in Italy, I was keeping notes in my telephone of all the things I was inspired to make when I get home. A particular source of inspiration came from a historic sfogliatelle shop close to our AirBnB in Naples. There was a long line when we arrived but the wait was worth it because our sfogliatelle riccia — a flaky pastry encasing a orange-scented mixture of ricotta and semolina — came warm from the oven, the filling practically quivering. That such a flaky result could be produced in the oven and hold its crunch even after the pastry had cooled got me thinking if curry puffs could be made a similar way. (I love deep-fried foods, but being in my mid-30s has done something to me. I now cook with olive oil instead of vegetable oil and think of deep-frying as a treat rather than a regular occurrence at home. Who am I?!)

Making sfogliatelle relies on a laminated pastry. A stiff dough is made, allowed ample time to rest so it relaxes enough to roll out. These days, this is done with the help of sheeters in professional settings or pasta machines at home, although traditionally it relied entirely on nonna muscle. The success of the sfogiatelle is determined almost entirely by the thinness of the dough at this stage: the thinner, the more delicately crunchy and tender the layers become. (I rolled mine out by hand, but if you have a pasta machine, definitely use it!) The thin sheet of dough is then spread with lard and rolled up to form layers.

Making curry puffs this way is easier and faster than you think. By faster, I don’t mean that you can whip these up in 30 minutes. The dough needs ample rest for it to get sufficiently thin, but the actual hands-on time is but a fraction of what you assume it needs, judging by the result. I filled my curry puffs with spiced mashed potato, studded with chicken thigh, as is the norm when you order a curry puff in Singapore. But if you prefer, diced mushrooms or frozen peas are just as good in place of chicken.

Oven-Baked Flaky Curry Puffs
Makes 8 | Vegetarian option

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Welcome to Singapore Noodles, a newsletter where I share recipes from my kitchen in the Netherlands. Archived recipes and other content can be found via the index. My cookbooks, Wet Market to Table and PlantAsia: Asia’s Vegetable Wisdom in Recipes, Stories, and Techniques, are available for purchase. Thank you for being here, and enjoy this week’s post! ✨ — Pamelia

Lately, I’ve been feeling very grateful for friends who know, appreciate, and cook good food, for they often come bearing wonderful gifts. A couple of months ago, one was on a work trip to Japan and brought us some yuzu kosho upon his return to the Netherlands. This is an ingredient I’m rather familiar with, having worked in a Japanese restaurant when I lived in Melbourne. A condiment made by fermenting yuzu zest and green chillies in salt, it is an ingredient that instantly adds depth to dishes while being completely vegan (useful when going meatless). More recently, another friend brought me her homemade chilli condiment made with lots of Mexican chillies. Smoky and indulgent, it made me want to make tacos.

I’ve always been drawn to Mexican cooking because of its affinity for and many parallels to Asian cooking. There’s the love for lime juice and coriander leaves, and then there’s the technique of wrapping food in fragrant banana leaves and grinding elemental ingredients into condiments and base pastes that are more than the sum of their parts.

Oyster mushrooms make some of the best taco toppings, in my opinion. They don’t weep as much as other types of mushrooms, sponge up marinades terrifically, and have a unique texture between firm, crunchy, and slippery that brings a sort of clam to mind. My favourite marinade for them so far is this one that marries gochujang, paprika, the liquid from canned pineapple, and soy sauce; and the end result reminds me simultaneously of al pastor and char siu — a great marriage if you ask me. You don’t have to make your own flour tortillas but I highly encourage it. You likely have all of the ingredients in your pantry, and it tastes better than anything you can buy from the supermarket. For best texture and flavour, lard can’t be beat, but for meatless days, olive oil is a great alternative. You just have to eat the olive oil tortillas freshly made because they stale quickly.

Gochujang oyster mushroom tacos
Serves 2 | Vegan

For the flour tortillas:
240g plain flour
55g olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
100g water

For the fillings and toppings:
1x 220g can of pineapple rings
1 tablespoon chipotle sauce (I use La Morena)
1 tablespoon gochujang
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon agave syrup, rice syrup, or honey
2 tablespoons olive oil
250g oyster mushrooms
Finely chopped white onion
Finely chopped coriander leaves
Lime wedges
Your favourite hot sauce or chili condiment (optional)

To make the flour tortillas, stir the flour, olive oil, and salt together in a bowl until the olive oil is dispersed evenly throughout the flour as small clumps. Add the water gradually while stirring until most of the flour is absorbed (you might not need all of the water). Knead the mixture together to form a soft but not sticky dough. Divide the dough into 30g portions (about 13 tortillas). Dust each in flour and place them in a bowl. Cover and allow to rest for 30 minutes.

To cook the flour tortillas, set a wide pan (preferably cast-iron) over medium heat. Roll the tortillas out into 5-inch rounds, dusting with flour to avoid sticking. Lay the tortillas on the pan and cook for 30 seconds or until the bottom is just set. Flip the tortillas and cook until light golden spots form on the other side. Flip the tortillas one last time and cook until the tortillas begin to puff up. Remove the tortillas from the pan and cover in a warm towel to prevent them from drying up. Keep the pan hot.

For the pineapple, drain the can of pineapple, reserving the liquid. Add the pineapple rings and allow to sear without disturbing until charred. Remove the pineapple from the pan and cut into chunks. Keep the pan hot for the mushrooms.

For the mushrooms, in a wide mixing bowl, stir together the pineapple liquid, chipotle sauce, gochujang, paprika, dark soy sauce, honey, and olive oil. Taste and adjust the seasoning if desired. Add the oyster mushrooms and toss them so that every nook and cranny is coated in sauce. Add the mushrooms in a single layer, working in batches if necessary, and allow to sear without disturbing until charred. Flip and sear on the other side.

Assemble the tacos by topping the flour tortillas with the charred pineapple chunks, mushrooms, chopped onion, coriander, a squeeze of lime, and your favourite hot sauce or chilli condiment.

With the yuzu kosho, I made a very spring-appropriate spaghetti of smoked salmon and asparagus. It might seem odd to use a such a Japanese ingredient in pasta, but I’m a big fan of Japanese-style pasta dishes. In my teenage years, there was a chain of restaurants in Singapore that specialised in these. You’d be surprised at how a spoonful of miso, yuzu kosho, or soy sauce can transform something like a vongole or cream-based pasta — don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.

Smoked salmon & asparagus spaghetti
Serves 2 as a light lunch

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Since August last year, I’ve been going to a Dutch language school twice a week and after a series of exams over the past week, I’ve finally graduated! Learning the language has been an incredibly rewarding experience. While many Dutchies are bilingual, I find that speaking Dutch instantly builds rapport and helps me understand the culture of the country I currently live in a lot better. To celebrate, my class decided to have breakfast together and, rather than going to a café, I thought it would be nice to cook for them one last time.

I had a few criteria when deciding what to prepare. First, the food has to be make ahead-friendly. Ideally, everything (or most things) should be prepared the day before and taste as good the next day. I didn’t want to have to wake up hours in advance to put breakfast together. Second, everything should be delicious at room temperature. I didn’t want to fuss around with reheating everything in my school’s microwave, or have to balance hot food on my lap in the car ride over.

Given the beautiful sunny weather we’ve been enjoying lately, I decided on a soba salad party theme! Here’s what I made:

Soba, tossed in a wafu dressing.

Soy-marinated eggs.

Beetroot and daikon pickles.

Beansprout and carrot salad with gochugaru and sesame oil.

Zucchini in gochujang dressing.

Miso roasted pumpkin.

Chicken nanban: A crowd-pleaser and one that I cook all the time at home. Chicken is dredged in flour and egg, then deep-fried. The egg instantly turns into a frilly coating that sponges up a sweet, tangy sauce. Before eating, the chicken is topped with a tartar sauce with lots of chopped cucumber folded in.

Everything was vegetarian except for the chicken, and I was so pleased that my classmates enjoyed the vegetables just as much as they did the chicken. Below you’ll find the recipes of the dishes. I wouldn’t recommend scaling down because they can all be prepared in advance and stored for 2-3 days in your refrigerator. Enjoy them cold or at room temperature, though for the chicken, I would recommend frying it on the day of serving for the most tender and juicy result.

Miso roasted pumpkin
200g miso
150g mirin
50g sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pumpkin, without seeds, cut into bite-size chunks

In a saucepan, cook the miso, mirin, and sugar together until the mixture darkens (about 4 minutes). Add the olive oil. Mix the pumpkin pieces with enough of the miso mixture to coat them (about 4 tablespoons). Bake in the oven for 20 minutes at 220°C until soft and slightly charred in some spots.

Zucchini with gochujang dressing
1 zucchini, diced
1 white onion, thinly sliced
4 tablespoons gochujang
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 cloves garlic, finely grated
2 tablespoons honey or agave syrup
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt

Boil the zucchini in boiling water for 30 seconds, or until slightly softened. Add the onion, then immediately drain in a colander. When the vegetables are well-drained, mix the zucchini and onion with the remaining ingredients.

Beetroot and radish pickle
100g sugar
240g white vinegar
240g water
Salt to taste
200g cooked red beetroot, diced
200g peeled daikon, diced

Heat the sugar, white vinegar, water, and salt until the sugar has completely dissolved. Allow to cool, then add the beetroot and daikon. Allow to steep overnight before enjoying.

Beansprout and carrot salad
250g beansprouts
150g julienne carrot
1 spring onion, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 garlic clove, finely grated
1/2 tablespoon honey or agave syrup
2 tablespoons gochugaru (mild chilli flakes)
1 tablespoons sesame oil

Blanch the beansprouts and carrot in boiling water for 10 seconds. Immediately rinse under running water to stop them from overcooking, then drain well. Transfer to a mixing bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and massage in until well-incorporated.

Ramen eggs
240g soy sauce
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
150g sugar
10 ginger slices
700g water
As many eggs as you want, hard-boiled for 6-6.5 minutes

Heat all the ingredients except the eggs until the sugar melts. Allow the marinade to cool. Hard-boil the eggs by boiling them in water for 6-6.5 minutes, depending on their size. Run them in water to stop the cooking, then peel. Add them to the cooled marinade and steep overnight, turning them around from time to time to ensure even colouring on all sides.

Soba with soy sauce dressing

450g dried soba
90g soy sauce
40g rice vinegar
75g olive oil
3 tbsp honey or agave syrup

Boil the dried soba in lightly salted water for 2 minutes, or al dente. Drain and rinse in water to remove excess starch. Allow to sit in the colander while you prepare the dressing. Whisk the other ingredients together. Add the noodles to a large mixing bowl and add enough dressing to coat the noodles, while tossing by hand (you might not need all of the dressing). Serve cold or at room temperature.

Chicken nanban

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March has been a hectic month for me — I was invited by the vegetable breeding company Rijk Zwaan for three PlantAsia events in Germany and the Netherlands. In line with the company’s goal to stimulate vegetable consumption, I gave presentations on how we can shift people’s perceptions of vegetables from being a healthy obligation to a pleasure. These were accompanied with three tasting bites to illustrate the flavour compass from the book. We ended the day with cooking workshops and a completely vegetarian feast! Getting to meet new people, share my ideas, and cook communally with them is definitely one of my favourite parts of being a cookbook writer.

Elsewhere in Washington D.C., the indie bookstore Bold Fork Books selected PlantAsia for their March cookbook club. Participants selected a dish from the book to cook, and everyone gathered at the bookstore with their dish for a large-scale potluck! Over the meal, everyone discussed the process of procuring ingredients, challenges, and pleasures of the cooking process and of reading/ using the book. Even though I couldn’t be there in person, it was incredible seeing the spread that everyone put together. Thank you Bold Fork Books for being such a champion of PlantAsia!

Order my cookbook PlantAsia!

In non-PlantAsia-related news, today marks Eid al-Fitr, the final day of Ramadan, where Muslims worldwide celebrate the breaking of the fast. In that spirit, I thought I’d share a recipe for a special dessert that is intimately associated with Ramadan and is traditionally served to break the fast: atayef.

Atayef is a traditional Middle Eastern dessert which dates back centuries. It begins with a risen pancake — traditionally this is yeasted, though modern recipes use baking powder for ease and speed. Upon hitting a hot pan, hundreds of tiny holes form on the surface of the batter. Because atayef batter is remarkably thin compared to that of an American pancake, gluten development is minimal, so what you get is a very spongy crumb instead of a fluffy, chewy one. Even when cooled, these pancakes stay soft, which makes them perfect for stuffing and folding.

Sweetened cream or ricotta is smeared onto the pancakes. A small handful of crushed pistachio mixed into the filling is Wex’s idea, but makes a world of difference; it adds texture and nuttiness to every bite. The pancakes are half-sealed and the exposed filling is then dipped into crushed pistachio, so that it bears visual resemblance to Sicilian cannoli. The similarities might not be coincidental; after all, the island of Sicily was under Muslim rule from 827-1091 and was exposed to Arab culinary traditions.

What makes the dessert, in my opinion, is the rosewater syrup which the pancakes are dipped into or drizzled with. I skip the orange blossom syrup that is present in some recipes because I just don’t like the way it smells. Whatever you do, don’t skip the rosewater — rosewater and pistachio is one of my favourite combinations, and just a drizzle heightens the sensuality and evocativeness of this dessert.

Atayef
Adapted from Karima-Chloe Hazim’s recipe
Makes approximately 20 pancakes

For the pancakes:
160g flour
55g fine semolina
30g sugar
15g baking powder
400g warm water

For the filling:
60g fine semolina
220g water
180g cream (35% fat)
60g sugar
500g ricotta
2 tsp rosewater, or to taste

For the syrup:
265g sugar
160g water
2 tsp rosewater, or to taste
2 tsp lemon juice

For the assembly:
150g shelled salted pistachio

Make the pancake batter: In a blender, combine all the ingredients and blitz until smooth. The batter should be very thin. Allow the batter to rest for 30 minutes at room temperature.

Make the filling: In a medium saucepan, combine the semolina, water, cream, and sugar. Cook on medium heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture begins to bubble and thickens. Simmer for a further minute, then turn off the heat and whisk in the ricotta and rosewater. Transfer to a bowl and allow to cool down completely.

Make the syrup: In a small saucepan, combine the sugar and water. Bring to a boil and allow to boil for a few further minutes to thicken the syrup. Turn off the heat and stir in the rosewater and lemon juice. Set aside.

Fry the pancakes: Set a non-stick pan over high heat. When hot, pour 2 tablespoons of batter into the pan and cook until bubbles appear and there are no more moist spots. Remove the pancake from the pan with an offset spatula and set on a large plate to cool down. Cover the pancake with a clean tea towel while you fry the rest of the pancakes.

Prepare the pistachio: Grind the pistachios into a coarse rubble using a mortar and pestle (about the size of the ground nuts on a cornetto). Remove 50g of the pistachios and stir this into the filling mixture. Grind the remaining pistachios to a slightly finer powder, still retaining some texture.

Assemble the dessert: Place 3 tablespoons of filling on the hole-covered side of each pancake. Spread the filling roughly, then fold the pancake into a half-moon. Pinch along the seam on the right side to seal, leaving the other half open with the cream exposed. The cream should help the seam stick; if needed, dab a little extra cream along the edge as glue. Dip the cream-exposed side into the ground pistachios. Repeat with the remaining pancakes. Serve chilled or at room temperature, with the syrup on the side for dipping the pancakes into or generously drizzled over the top.

Welcome to Singapore Noodles, a newsletter where I share recipes from my kitchen in the Netherlands. Archived recipes and other content can be found on the index. My cookbooks, Wet Market to Table and Plantasia, are available for purchase here and here respectively. Thank you for being here, and enjoy this week’s post! ✨ — Pamelia

CLAYPOT RICE

Claypot rice is the perfect one-pot dish — jasmine rice is steamed in a claypot with marinated or cured meat, which could be anything from minced beef patties and lap cheong (Chinese sausages), to chicken thigh or spare ribs marinated in fermented black beans. The magic of this method of cooking is that, as the meat steams, it releases juices that are absorbed into the rice, as well as fat that crisps up the grains at the bottom of the pot. This produces faan jiu 饭焦, the smoky, crackling crust that is the trademark of this dish. The sizzling claypot is brought to the table and diners are given thick soy sauce to drizzle over as they wish, before everything is tossed to coat each grain with savoury sweetness.

The trickiest part of making claypot rice is gauging the perfect amount of water to rice in the pot — the rice must absorb the exact amount of water in the time that the bottom dries enough to crisp. The line between underdone and mush is a narrow window to navigate, especially when you consider how much variation there is: wideness, thickness, and heat retention of the claypot; strength of the fire; how much juices the toppings release et cetera. Unless you make claypot rice day in and day out and have fine-tuned it to a science, it’s highly possible that you’ll get mushy, stodgy rice rather than distinct, toothsome grains.

After several failed attempts, I decided to approach my claypot rice much like preparing a biryani. With biryani, rice is soaked, then parboiled before layering in a cooking vessel with meat. With this method, the rice is already mostly hydrated and the moisture from the chicken produces steam that finishes the rice gently. In other words, it takes away most of the guesswork. The other benefit to parboiling the rice is that it removes some of the surface starch, so that the rice is less sticky, making a crisp crust easier when it’s steamed with the meat.

The pot that I use is a wider one because it has a higher surface area to volume ratio, allowing for more rice crust per serving. Contrary to popular opinion, a claypot is not a prerequisite for the crust to form — if one manages the fire well, perfectly cooked rice with a crispy crust is not out of reach with a regular pot or even a rice cooker. That said, using a claypot stacks the deck in your favour. Claypots are made of thick clay that holds heat extremely well and distributes the heat evenly. To replicate this, I place a large cast-iron pan at the bottom of my pot, which retains and distributes heat the way clay does.

The final sauce for drizzling over the claypot rice is usually thick and syrupy so that, when it is added to the claypot rice, it coats each grain of rice like a glaze rather than turning the grains mushy. This is also why the doneness of the rice is so important — each grain should be more or less distinct and separate, neither pillowy soft nor al dente. To thicken the sauce, I start by making a caramel with sugar, then deglaze it with dark soy sauce and water. Here’s an opportunity for flavour: I add spring onion and dried chillies and allow it to infuse while reducing to a syrup. You can customise the additions to your own preference, such as by adding ginger slices or garlic.

The whole process from start to finish takes about an hour or so, making it a perfect dish for weeknights. I hope you’ll give this a go.

Claypot rice
Serves 3-4

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Welcome to Singapore Noodles, a newsletter where I share recipes from my kitchen in the Netherlands. Archived recipes and other content can be found on the index. My cookbooks, Wet Market to Table and Plantasia, are available for purchase here and here respectively. Thank you for being here, and enjoy this week’s post! ✨ — Pamelia

RED BEAN PANCAKE

Happy new year to all celebrating! Given that it’s just two of us celebrating at home, we didn’t have anything extravagant — just a very simple, no-frills pot of steamboat. We’re approaching the tail end of winter and it’s been raining and cold (it even snowed a couple of days ago), so I’ve been craving sweet things, specifically red bean pancake — thick, indulgent bean paste encased in thin, crispy pastry. I’ve never made it before because I could never find a recipe that looks similar to the ones I’ve had at Chinese restaurants, but new year festivities and it being so cold here proved motivation enough. The best part? Red bean pancake can be made with pantry essentials found at any supermarket.

Red bean paste
Any self-respecting Chinese restaurant would make their own red bean paste from dried red beans. I’ve tried it and it is a lot of work and time to soak the beans, simmer them till soft, and fry them up with sugar into a sweet paste. As a shortcut, I once bought red bean paste at the Asian grocer, but was shocked at how bad it tasted.

Canned beans produces a far superior red bean paste to the store-bought version. In the absence of canned red beans (also known as adzuki beans), you’ll be surprised how close you can get to the flavour and texture of red bean paste with canned kidney beans or canned black beans.

I drain and briefly rinse the beans under a tap to get rid of the starchy liquid and any tinny taste, then blitz them with sugar and oil. The oil is crucial for a silky, indulgent mouthfeel. Pour the blended slurry into a small saucepan and cook it gently until the paste holds its shape, and voila you have red bean paste in five minutes and very little elbow grease!

The “pancake”
The red bean paste is the easy part to figure out. What’s hard to decipher is the pancake component. Many tutorials use thin crepes, made from a simple wheat flour and water batter. I saw an especially promising recipe that adds glutinous rice flour and an egg to the batter for a subtle QQ chew and tenderness. While the crepes turned out well, they bloated with air and burst at the top when deep-frying. I was also disappointed that they didn’t develop the richly golden appearance of red bean pancakes, and that they lost their crispness and turned soggy within minutes.

But then I thought: what if the “pancakes” weren’t pancakes per se, but a sort of dough rolled out very thinly. Wex made the suggestion of trying something like the dough used for Taiwanese spring onion pancakes. I chose to go with traditional Chinese puff pastry in the end, which unlike European puff pastry, is neither time-consuming nor challenging to make. You make two doughs — an oil dough and a water dough — wrap one in the other, and then perform a simple lamination by rolling the dough out like a swiss roll, rolling it out, then rolling it up again. No cold climate or large work surfaces required.

Compared to the red bean pancakes made with crepes, these puff pastry ones were a clear step-up. They were distinctly flakier and browned much better. It was clear that I was on the right track. That said, the texture was a lot sandier and softer than I expected. I wanted something with a little more structural integrity and crunch.

The first thing I examined was the overall amount of fat in the pastry. Sandy pastry, whether it is in the case of shortbread or tausarpiah, is a symptom of fat “overpowering” the gluten structure. I adjusted my ratio of oil dough to water dough from 1:2 to 1:3, and decreased the amount of oil in the water dough.

Because the oil in water dough helps the dough roll out thinly without springing back too much, I compensated for the lowered oil content of the water dough by substituting boiling water for room temperature water. The boiling water denatures flour proteins, thus limiting gluten formation. The result made me proud:

The pastry puffed magnificently in the oil, and the layers were audibly crunchy and stayed crunchy long after the pastry left the wok. The fine layers reminded me of thin, bronzed phyllo on the top of spanakopita, and the biggest victory is that it stayed crisp for a long time. While it seems like a different sort of pastry (flakier) than the restaurant-style red bean pancakes that I recall, I’m not complaining.

This is a great dessert to serve at the end of a Lunar New Year gathering — fried à la minute, or right before your friends and family arrive (the pastry will stay crisp).

The following recipe makes 3 red bean pancakes, each a good amount for 2-3 people each. I wouldn’t scale the recipe down further; because it retains its crunch well, extras can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature and enjoyed at a later time.

Red Bean Pancake
Makes 3 pancakes (serves 2-3 people each) | Vegan option

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Welcome to Singapore Noodles, a newsletter where I share recipes from my kitchen in the Netherlands. Archived recipes and other content can be found on the index. My cookbooks, Wet Market to Table and Plantasia, are available for purchase here and here respectively. Thank you for being here, and enjoy this week’s post! ✨ — Pamelia

PANDAN TRES LECHES CAKE

I love my cakes drenched. There’s nothing worse than a dry cake, and the most fool-proof ways to avoid that is to drench it. Lemon or orange syrup cake, for instance, is cake that is soaked with citrus syrup the moment it leaves the oven. This gives it a glaze-like shine, but also injects a remarkable amount of moisture into the crumb. There’s also rum baba, where brioche turns spongy and pudding-like when soaked in warm rum syrup.

Tres leches is a Latin American cake that works on the same principle, except that in place of a sticky syrup, you drench the sponge in a combination of three milks (traditionally condensed milk, evaporated milk, and whole milk), hence the name. Like syrup, the milk soak opens up so many possibilities because you can flavour it however you like, or experiment with different dairies. In my first cookbook, Wet Market to Table, for instance, I give the tres leches a tropical twist with fresh soursop puree.

Over the weekend, we had friends over for a Mexican-themed lunch, so tres leches felt like a fitting dessert. But because I wanted to also share some flavours from home with our guests, I gravitated towards a Singaporean take on the cake.

I used my WMTT tres leches recipe as a base, but drew some inspiration from my pandan chiffon cake recipe and made a fresh pandan extract by blitzing pandan leaves with water; and added coconut cream to the sponge cake batter. Compared to a chiffon cake, I’d say that tres leches is a lot more forgiving. The tres leches sponge contains has more flour, and is thus less sensitive to minor mistakes in folding or baking. It is an ideal cake to bake if you’re dipping your toes into the world of egg foam cakes.

When the cake had baked and cooled, Wex helped me with pricking it all over with a satay stick and pouring over a warm mixture of condensed milk, coconut milk, and evaporated milk. It may seem as though there’s too much liquid for the cake to absorb (Wex certainly got a bit nervous and asked if we could hold back on some), but you must have faith in the sponge! We left it in the fridge to absorb overnight and went to bed.

The next morning, I topped the cake with a soft cap of whipped cream and sprinkled over a grated coconut and palm sugar mixture, just like what you’d find in kueh dadar (filled and rolled pandan crepes). Whipped cream might sound excessive or overly rich, but it actually enhances the luscious, pudding-like mouthfeel of the cake, and tempers the sweetness.

It’s a very easy cake to love and our Italian friends’ four-year-old had seconds. Wex said the cake reminded him of the soaked ladyfingers in tiramisu, and I definitely can see why; the cake is dangerously spoonable, especially well-chilled. When I reached into the fridge this afternoon, half of the leftovers was gone. That counts as a win.

Pandan Tres Leches Cake
Makes a 22.5cm round cake

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A kind of superflu has been sweeping across the Netherlands. I fell ill first, and then Wex. This is our second time ill this winter, and it makes me wonder if our immunity has gotten weak with age, or if this is simply part and parcel of us living in post-Corona times. After a few feverish nights of body aches and nausea, all I wanted to eat was something uncomplicated and comforting. I suppose it is quite a common experience for people to crave foods they had as children when they are in a vulnerable, compromised state, and what I desperately wanted to have was chawanmushi.

Chawanmushi is a steamed egg custard that is traditionally served within a lidded cup. It’s something I had whenever my family went out to a Japanese restaurant. The quivering custard holds an assortment of goodies in suspension — gingko nuts, chicken, shrimp, mushroom — which, when steamed within the egg, releases a kind of clear broth that wells up around the spoon. This has always been my favourite part.

First you’ll need heatproof vessels to steam and present the egg custard. You could, of course, use chawan, or tea cups that chawanmushi is named after. I chose larger cups because I wanted these to be “one-bowl” meals for us (I had little strength to prepare much more).

Fill the bowls with a variety of whatever you have in the fridge, cut into small, bite-sized pieces. For two of us, I used 100g diced chicken thigh, 2 diced shrimp, 100g baby spinach (blanched), 2 sliced mushrooms, 30g sliced French beans, and two pinches of julienned carrot.

Beat 2 eggs — one per person — with 340ml water, 1 teaspoon dashi powder, 1 teaspoon soy sauce, and 1 teaspoon sake, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Pour this through a strainer over the vessels and cover with foil or an upturned saucer. This prevents condensation from getting into the custard and marring the surface. Steam for 30 minutes on low heat, or until set to the touch. Serve on its own, or alongside steamed rice.