Cooking Fun with Mistress of Spices

One of the fun things about being in Bangkok is that you meet people who are as obsessed with food as you are. I've become friends with two food bloggers (the Mistress of Spices and Mango Ginger, host of the Hidden Kitchen) and through Instagram and Facebook posts, the Mistress and I discovered a shared fascination with Ottolenghi's cookbook. I love reading about cooking and talking about food and its great to have friends who feel the same way.

In the past 3 months, I have become obsessed with making Eggs Shakshouka. I made the Ottolenghi recipe and served it for brunch and was happy with it.

Made after following Ottolenghi Recipe

Then my other friend Kaya posted that her new husband, a sweet Israeli jeweler named Assaf, had made it for brunch. I knew that I would have to have some of his to discover what its really supposed to taste like. I invited them over for  Brunch and he prepared it for us. It was divine. So divine, I made it for dinner the next night and had it for breakfast the day after.

Assaf in the Kitchen

Better because sauce is more carmelized and eggs are runnier

So after talking about this and posting photos on Facebook, the Mistress and I decided to have a mid-week dinner party. Originally, the men were supposed to join us but as it was a "Men's  Night" in a local club in Bangkok (really??? I thought every night was a men's night in Bangkok), it became a girl's only dinner party.

My friend Rebecca (who I traveled to Cambodia with - more photos later) honored the party by making a nice pink drink that was an adaptation from the "Bee's Knees"  but colored with Dragon fruit so being a Game of Thrones geek, I renamed it the Daenyrs Stormborn "Mother of Dragons".  It was potent but delicious!

Mother of Dragons!

For the menu, the Mistress of Spices made a creamy yet light Cream of Tomato soup with a tiny crouton with goat cheese floating on top. I miss goat cheese so much in Bangkok!

I made two salads - one a simple cabbage "slaw" dressed with a sesame-ginger vinaigrette and roasted sesame seeds. Its something I make for myself at home a lot when I return from being overseas. The crunchy cabbage fulfills my need for vegetables and chewing and the sesame vinaigrette is so yummy that I want to eat it on everything. I didn't feel like peeling the carrots and spinach was looking too big and rangy so I just went with the simple cabbage. I also substituted mirin for the sugar in the recipe and doubled the ginger.

The other salad, a Quinoa/Broad Bean/ Radish salad was from Ottolenghi's Plenty cookbook. It was my first time making Quinoa. One of the challenges in Bangkok is that its hard to find some of the vegetables that depend on a temperate climate or you have to pay exorbitant prices to get them at the import store. Since I wasn't able to locate broad beans, I used edamame. Instead of fresh radishes, I used Daikon and I found some sweet pea shoots from New Zealand. I was also a bit reluctant to fuss a about de-membraning the lemons so I just squeezed the lemons whole. Next time I'll try it out the other way.

The main course was a very savory and rich Carmelized onion tart from the Mistress and Eggs Shakshuka. Unfortunately, I was a bit too involved in the cocktails and conversation and overcooked the eggs so no photos here... :) But the tart was delicious - deep flavors, a crispy crust, and quickly devoured.

Goat Cheese and Carmelized Onion Tart!

The dinner was fun and exciting on a Wednesday night and we had a great conversation about everything from dating in Bangkok to mathematical modeling of Hepatitis E to eating tarantulas in Cambodia.

Cheers ladies!

Ottolenghi's Plenty Cookbook

My friend Susannah gave me Ottolenghi's Plenty Cookbook for my birthday last year. My other friend Tirana had been raving about his cookbook and so I was aware of him and wanted to try it out. His story, an Israeli born chef who moved to London in 1997, he's about my age. He writes the vegetarian column for the Guardian but is not a vegetarian. He runs 4 little shops in London and I"m dying to go there. I suggested to my fellow foodies Lauren and Robin that we go when I was in town (silly me, I expected it to be raging spring in April but it was freezing cold!). We were unable to get reservations but the seed was planted.

Something about being in London in March inspired me to start cooking when I returned. So I've been cooking like mad since I got back - craving vegetables and mediterranean flavors.

So far I've cooked the following dishes:

Mango and Aubergine (Eggplant) Soba Noodles
I made this the first time as an accompaniment for a dinner with my friends Kaya and Assaf. We ate it with sesame chicken salad. I was unable to find proper large aubergine/eggplants so I substituted zucchini/courgettes. It was just as good!

Okra and Sambal with Coconut Rice

I made this for myself. I was so intrigued as I love all the ingredients separately and wanted something spicy and Asian to make for breakfast. It was divine. I'm making it again for breakfast for this week.

Aubergine (Eggplant) with Buttermilk Sauce
This is so beautiful that i had to make it. I invited Assaf and Kaya over just so I could have an excuse to make it. I was having dreams of originally making the eggplant and tahini sauce recipe that my friend Celine made for Songkran brunch but the photo of this and the fact I was able to find pomegranate seeds in the Arab influenced grocery store sold me on this. I made the za'atar from scratch - roasted sesame seeds, thyme, and salt. I didn't have sumac to add to the za'atar but it was still tasty. I made the buttermilk with lemonjuice and milk. I served it with tahini chicken salad made with red bell peppers and cucumbers and the green couscous and a big green salad with tahini buttermilk dressing.

Watermelon and Feta Salad

Although I love watermelon and I love feta, I never considered putting them together in a salad. I'm not the biggest fan of mint unless its hidden in something and normally these salads have mint in them. Ottolenghi's uses basil instead. It really is like sunshine on a plate!

Eggs Shashuka
Reading the description of this dish made me hungry. I like eggs, I like comfort food, and anything spicy that involves cooking eggs on top of it makes me happy. I think I could be part Japanese since they love a fried egg on everything. I cooked it a bit too long and the eggs were solid in the middle. The next time I make it, I'm going to up the chili, up the cumin, add garlic and cook the eggs soft-boiled so they run into the delicious sauce.

I don't have a photo of this one but I also made: Green Herb Couscous . At first I thought the herb paste was too strong smelling and overwhelming and I forgot the pistachios but it still turned out great. Fresh tasting and delicious.

It's a fantastic cookbook and in general, very easy to follow the recipes. Some of the ingredients are hard to find here in Bangkok.  I had an exhaustive search for Tahini at the Foodland on Soi 5 which I thought would be easy since its right next to "Soi Arab" and couldn't find buttermilk so had to make my own. However, I was able to also make za'atar and I found pomegranate seeds so in general, no problem! You can also buy readily cut up watermelon, mangos, guava, cantalope and other things in Bangkok for next to nothing right no the street so I was also able to substitute somethings.

The dishes I highlighted are excellent for the hot sultry Thai climate. The only big problem I had was making the Eggplants that I had to roast as I live in an old building which is designed to have an un-airconditioned kitchen where the "help" would cook for you. However, I'm the help so I sweated my way through roasting eggplants in the oven during the heat. It was worth it though.

I'd like to get his other cookbooks too and try them out - my friend Celine has them and when I return from Papua New Guinea in a week, I thought of inviting her and her husband over for dinner and ask them to bring the cookbooks so we can browse through them.

In the meantime, I say - jump in there and cook this stuff up. His book is worth buying just for the mouthwatering photos of the dishes and the joy of flipping through it to decide what to make. But I've included the recipes in a link to the photos...

Bon Appetit!

Eating my way across Japan (well through Tokyo and Kyoto): Part 5

Part 5: The Cat Cafe!!!!!  Okay- no actual cats were consumed and I didn't actually eat anything here but its such a Japanese phenomenon that I had to post the photos. You can visit the Calico Cat Cafe in Shinjyuko. 

http://wishyouwerehere.us/article/calico-cat-cafe

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/japan/090406/tokyos-cat-cafes

http://www.catsparella.com/2012/02/inside-tokyos-calico-cat-cafe.html

You pay about $12 for an hour of sitting in a cafe and playing with all these beautiful cats. You can buy them little chicken pieces to lure them to you. Or you can eat. No one I saw was eating although one guy was taking a break in the smoking room. 

Enjoy the kitty magic!