Asparagus is green, unless you are French or German

TO most of us asparagus is green, unless you are French or German. Serve green asparagus to a French or German and chances are he/she might not be amused. To these nationalities, the white asparagus is considered ‘Queen of vegetables’.

I am puzzled as all the asparagus I see here (both imported and local) are green in colour. However, I recently saw a strange looking imported white vegetable in a decidedly upmarket supermarket which I was told is the white asparagus.

It was explained to me by none other than a German native and chef at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Kuala Lumpur, Dirk Haltendorf.

A genus of the lily family, asparagus has been cultivated around the Mediterranean and enjoyed as a delicacy for 2,000 years.

It is widely regarded for its medicinal value and diuretic properties.

Asparagus is rich in vitamins A and C and minerals such as potassium and phosphorous.

Epicureans, from Aristotle to Louis XIV of France, adored it.

In Europe, asparagus is normally harvested between April and June.

According to Dirk, the Germans developed the white asparagus more than 200 years ago.

How was this done?

The young shoots were denied sunlight as they grew, by being covered with mounds of soil. They only saw daylight when the soil was removed on the day they were harvested.

Denying them sunlight (UV light in particular) means that they cannot produce chlorophyll and so do not become green.

This also gives the white asparagus a different flavour to the green version (it is less bitter and has a more intense taste, with a hint of artichoke).

Production is labour intensive and asparagus exhausts the soil quickly, so growers in Germany only produce the plant in the same field for a couple of years, then let the land rest (which explains why the price of white asparagus is high).

In the kitchen too, white asparagus requires special treatment. Before cooking, its bitter, fibrous outer skin needs to be peeled.

Asparagus peeling is an art, peel it too little and some fibre and bitterness remain, peel too much and you are wasting tasty and expensive flesh.

Dirk showed me his trusty asparagus peeling tool from Germany, and even gave me a high speed peeling demonstration.

Asparagus peeling is an art to which chefs aspire! Very few chefs are trusted by the chef de cuisine to peel the vegetable. It has to be done correctly and fast.

The peeled asparagus spears are then bundled together in bunches using a special twine tied in a special way.

The basic cooking comes as something of an anti-climax, the asparagus spears are simply steamed or boiled in lightly salted water.

Many asparagus lovers eat it with a little melted butter or Hollandaise sauce.

It can be consumed hot or cold, made into a cream soup, or wrapped in ham, bacon or crepes, and even served as a regular vegetable accompaniment to a main course, though to an asparagus lover it could never be a mere side dish.

If you enjoy green asparagus, I am sure you will appreciate the luxury of white asparagus at least as much.

Look for it in any specialist supermarket, and try it at home but remember to peel it before cooking if it is not already peeled.

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Delicious crabs

Crabs are 10-legged animals that walk sideways. There are almost 5,000 different species of crabs; about 4,500 are true crabs, plus about 500 are hermit crabs (hermit crabs don't have a very hard shell and use other animals' old shells for protection). Most crabs live in the oceans, but many, like the robber crab, live on land.A growing list of king crab recipes including main dishes, appetizers, dips, salads, soups, and other crab recipes.

Butter Crabs

• 2kg crabs

• A little cornflour

• Enough oil for deep-frying

• 5 egg yolks

• 1 tbsp evaporated milk

• 6 tbsp butter

• 10 bird’s eye chillies, crushed

• 2 stalks curry leaves

• 1 tsp sugar

• ¾ tsp salt

Cut crabs into halves. Clean well and crack the claws. Sprinkle a little cornflour over the crabs and deep-fry in hot oil until the crabs turn red. Dish out and drain from oil.

Combine evaporated milk and egg yolks and mix well. Put butter in a wok and melt over medium heat. Pour the egg yolk mixture gradually into the melted butter at a height, allowing it to drip in a steady stream. Stir constantly to fry the egg yolk mixture until it forms fine shreds. Add the curry leaves and bird’s eye chillies. Stir-fry until fragrant.

Return the crabs to the egg mixture. Season with sugar and salt. Stir well to mix. Pour into a metal sieve to drain off excess melted butter or the oil. Transfer to a serving dish and serve immediately.

There are several reasons for this:

(a) Overcreaming of butter, sugar and eggs and too much baking powder.

(b) Too much liquid is used.

(c) The cake is removed from the oven before it is properly set and baked.

(d) The cake is cooked in an oven that is not hot enough.

(e) The oven door is slammed.

Tasty: Try making steamboat stock from the recipe given.

Here’s a simple steamboat stock.

Steamboat Stock

• 2kg chicken bones and carcasses, cleaned and chopped

• 30g dried sole of fish (peen yi

• 500g yam bean(sengkuang), chopped

• 2 thin slices ginger

• 1 tsp chicken stock granules

• 1 tsp white peppercorns

• 3 litres water

• Salt to taste

• ½-1 tsp chicken stock granules

Bring water to a boil, add chicken, dried sole of fish, yam bean, ginger and peppercorns. Simmer over low heat for 2-3 hours. Strain the stock and add salt to taste, and chicken stock granules.

Here’s the recipe.

Sesame Seed Muruku

• 300g rice flour

• 50g black gram flour

• 1 tsp cumin

• 1 tsp salt

• 1 tsp ajowan seeds (oman)

• 10-15g sesame seeds, pan-fried

• 30g butter or margarine, softened at room temperature

• 560ml coconut milk (from 1 grated coconut)

Sift rice flour and black gram flour into a non-stick frying-pan. Fry over a gentle low heat for 4-5 minutes. Stir constantly to prevent flours from burning or getting brown. Remove and leave overnight, preferably, to cool completely.

Put prepared flours into a mixing bowl and add salt, cumin, ajowan seeds and sesame seeds. Mix in butter or margarine and gradually pour in enough coconut milk to mix into a stiff dough.

Put enough dough into a muruku mould fitted with a star nozzle and pipe into spirals, starting from the centre, onto square pieces of greaseproof paper.

Lightly press the tail end of the dough against the side of the coil of dough (this is done to prevent the muruku from uncoiling or getting out of shape during frying.)

Once all the dough is used up, heat enough oil in a wok until just hot but not smoking. Slide in the muruku dough and fry over medium heat until golden brown and crispy.

Remove and drain muruku on several layers of kitchen paper.

Store in an airtight container when cool.

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Soup Guilds

ONCE again, it’s that special day of the year when everyone is thinking of giving mum a special treat. Why not prepare these beautiful soups for her this Mother’s Day?

Mummy’s Sweet Delight is a wonderful sweet soup that can be served either hot or chilled, while the other two soups are hearty and filling. Prepare them on the very day and mum will enjoy such a treat. Make her happy and be praised by your family members for your efforts. It’s worth it.

Mummy’s Sweet Delight

• 1 litre boiling water

• 50g fresh lotus seeds

• 12 gingko nuts

• 3 dried honey dates (mat choe)

• 10g white fungus, soaked and trimmed into florets

• 3 red dates

• 5g dried chrysanthemum flowers (kok fah),rinsed

• 70g rock sugar or to taste

• ½ can sea coconut slices, drain away the syrup

Steamed Yellow Cucumber Soup

• 3 large yellow cucumbers (lo wong kua)

• 75g chicken fillet, diced

• 10g white fungus, soaked and trimmed

• 3 button mushrooms, diced

• 10 gingko nuts

• 50g carrot, diced

• 3 red dates, pitted and sliced

• 1 litre fresh chicken stock

Seasoning

• Salt and sugar to taste

• ½ tsp chicken stock granules

Slice off the top of the yellow cucumber.

Trim and cut the edge decoratively. Scoop out the seeds and soft pulp. Be careful not to damage the firm flesh.

Rinse well and surround the cucumber with tin foil to prevent it from slipping.

Bring the fresh chicken stock, white fungus, mushrooms, gingko nuts, carrot, chicken fillet and red dates to a simmering boil. Adjust with seasoning to taste.

Put the cooked ingredients into the hollowed yellow cucumber. Stand each yellow cucumber in a small bowl; steam for 25-30 minutes or until the cucumber is just soft but still retains its shape. Remove and serve immediately.

Steep chrysanthemum flowers in boiling water for 10-15 minutes. Strain to remove the flowers and add in the rest of the ingredients except the sea coconut. Bring the sweet soup to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Add the sea coconut to mix. Dish out and serve.

Herbal Chicken Soup

• 4 pieces dried baby abalone

• 1kg kampung chicken, skinned and chopped into bite-sized pieces

Herbs

• 20g American cultured ginseng (fa kei sum)

• 10g dried cordyceps (toong choong choe)

• 10g bilberries (kei chi)

• 8 seeded Chinese dried dates

• 10g dried longan

• 2 dried scallops

• 1 litre boiling water

• 1 tsp salt

Soak dried baby abalone in purified water and leave in the refrigerator overnight.

Blanch chicken pieces in hot water. Drain well in a colander. Place boiling water, chicken, baby abalone, all the herbs and dried scallops into a medium-sized crockpot. Cook on low heat for 6 hours.

Add salt to taste and dish out and serve immediately.

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Fishy no more to avoid...............

Avoiding fish because of its smell and taste?

A FRIEND of mine can never eat fish when it is served whole (that is, with its head and tail).

Nothing odd about this since I can never eat meat served whole either.

Also, what turns her off fish dishes are their, uh, fishy taste.

Fish is tricky to prepare. Even when cooked in rich, spicy curries, one can never quite get rid of the fishy taste and smell. Or hanyir, as the Malays would say.

There are two ways to eliminate this fishy problem. First, simply ensure that your fish is fresh. This means its flesh is firm, its smell is not unpleasant and its scales are intact.

Second, washing them properly before cooking is important. You can either rinse it with salt and water, or with tamarind juice.

Next, comes cooking the fish. There are many ingredients you can use to make this nutritious seafood delicious: ginger, garlic, lemon grass, spices, turmeric, limes and the like.

Below is a recipe for baked fish by Izzi Restaurant on Jalan Sultan Ismail in Kuala Lumpur.


BAKED FISH WITH TOMATO COULIS

This recipe is for one person and it makes the most of fish’s juicy and tender textures. The sour and spicy tomato coulis gives it added flavours.

Pronounced as “coo-lee”, coulis is a thick sauce made from pureed and strained vegetables. It is commonly used in meat and vegetable dishes as well as a base for soups and other sauces. (the fruit version is used for desserts).

For this recipe, all you need is:

• 150gm butter fish steak, or boneless white fish such as kurau
• salt and pepper to taste

Season the fish with salt and pepper and bake in the over at 375ºC for around 7 minutes.

Baking fish at high heat will keep it moist. Do not worry about burnt fish as it cooks quickly.

As the fish is being baked, you can start making the coulis. For this you need:

• 40gm fresh tomatoes, peeled, cored and blended
• 10gm tomato paste
• 2gm Italian basil
• 2gm cili padi
• 2gm lemon juice
• salt and pepper to taste

Mix all the ingredients and simmer until the sauce is reduced. Meanwhile, gather together:

• 1 tbsp oilve oil
• 50gm fennel, sliced
• 50gm gobo root, sliced
• some sweet beans
• salt and black pepper to taste

In a pan, heat up the olive oil and saute the vegetables for around 3 minutes. Do not overcook the vegetables so that they remain crispy and sweet.

Then simmer the sauteed vegetables with the coulis until the sauce is further reduced. Serve the coulis on a plate, place the baked fish on top of it and garnish, if you like, with some Thai basil and grated parmesan.

Now tuck in and enjoy this fishy deal!

My recommendation: This is a dish to get non fish-lovers to enjoy fish dishes. You can omit the cili padi and the lemon juice from the coulis and add baked young potatoes to go with the fish. The tomato sauce will disguise the fishy flavours that children often find unappealing.

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