Father's Day 2012

Today is Father's Day in New Zealand, probably in most of the Western countries, the first Sunday of September. Tessie contacted me a few days before by texting message asking how would I like my day be celebrated? Would I like to have a lunch in the restaurant?

It seems to have been a fixed customary to our family that when there is something worthwhile to celebrate, the one who proposed will organize for the whole family to have a lunch together in a nearby restaurant, and of course pays for the bill too. But this customary has been changing gradually in the past two years when I am the main character to be offered a free lunch celebrating either my birthday or Father's Day, I opted having the celebration at home with the meal purchased from a nearby takeaway. So when Tessie asked me what would I like to choose, I said to her "thank you very much, just bring a couple of dishes from the takeaways near you."

Because she will be available on Saturday, and Chenny will have his music classes on Sunday, so we decided to change it to Saturday.

Since the date and time were decided last week, I have been looking forward to its arrival. After all, having the whole family together for a meal is such a precious occasion.

The lunch was a very pleasant one. Everyone enjoyed the food from takeaway restaurant, everyone laughed. Tessie told us that she went to watch 10 movies during the film festival, and the two of them impressed her the most were "the last ocean" and "the climate change". Tessie has been a happy and talkative girl since she was very small. So she talked a lot about the two movies. I know she is very enthusiastic about the environmental issues. Chenny talked about his plan to organize a performance concert for his student, and Lily gave him her ideas and suggestions about how should the concert be presented.

When the celebration was coming to an end, I asked Jean for that pack of sticky rice she bought the other day from T-mark, and moved to the kitchen to demonstrate how to cook sticky rice in only one pot for Tessie. The demonstration was a success, and I packed the whole lot of the stir fried sticky rice in a recycled lunchbox for her to take home.

And this concludes my Father's Day celebration of 2012.

My adventure in making sourdough bread

It is hard to believe that somehow I could become fascinated by the craft of making sourdough bread starting from July 2010.

About three months of time has past since the day I started the adventure in the exploration of this ancient art. From the quality of the breakfast rolls that I made yesterday with my own formulated sourdough starter, I think I can now announce my success in taming the sourdough starter with which I make my breakfast buns.

The reason I refer to sourdough bread making as an "art" is because of the unpredictable nature of its most important ingredient, the sourdough starter, which the baker uses to rise the dough. There are so many factors to think about, to stick to, and to experiment with in order to cultivate the healthy yeast for making the best bread that can win your sincere praise and your highest satisfaction. It cannot be just jotted down on paper as a step-by-step instruction for you to follow through, instead, it can only tell you the principles, the ideas, the hypothesis that you must know when you work through the process of making bread using your homemade sourdough starter. And this is how the sourdough bread making captivated my heart.

My first step in the adventure was googling this topic in the website. I'm grateful to the contributors who share their experience and knowledge about the sourdough bread making on the Internet, that just by a flick of the fingers, I got all the relevant information. I learned that some sourdough enthusiasts cultivating yeast by soaking raisins in water, some from boiled potato water, some from apple or other fruits, and various other ideas of all sorts of stuff. I adopted the method of raising my yeast in flour batter after I had tried one with raisins.

My wife advocates healthy food, so I use wholemeal flour in the whole process of making bread, although I personally like using white flour because it can make the bread texture more fluffy and softer. But we should not pursue the pleasure for our taste buds only, Health issue should be taken into account seriously too, so I satisfied her by using hundred percent wholemeal flour plus approximately 5% of gluten flour, which one of the posts in the web says will compensate the fluffiness and the softness of the bread when you use only wholemeal flour.

We had been using the commercially formulated dry yeast available in super market for five dollars per bottle of 150 g. This kind of yeast is recommended to be used up within six months otherwise you will see a sharp decrease or even zero of its leavening strength. But since I started experimenting on sourdough starter from mid July of 2010, we have completely stopped using the commercial dry yeast.

Every 2 to 3 days I will make breakfast bread once for the family. During the first few weeks, the bread I made was too tense in texture because it only raised the dough slightly even though I left it in a warm space to rise for as long as 10 hours or more. I pondered on the cause of this problem and I came up with the following conclusions:

• The ratio of sourdough starter and the flour is too far off the right one.
• The concentration of the yeast raised in the flour batter is far less than the required level.

Gradually I adjusted here and there in the process of growing the sourdough starter and it is now settled at this protocol:

1. The birth of first sourdough starter:
1. make a flour batter by mixing 1/2 cup wholemeal flour, 1 tsp commercial dry yeast and 100ml water. Keep in a transparent container and mark where the mixture is up to on the container. Leave it with lid loosely closed on the top of the container enabling the preferment process to go on in room temperature for about two hours, or when you see a layer of foam forming on the surface of the batter. This is the first generation of sourdough starter.
2. Thereafter, you need to feed the starter with 1/2 cup wholemeal flour and 100ml water. Stir the whole lot till the flour is wet, then leave it with lid slightly open in room temperature for a maximum of 4 hours or before you feel the yeast is beginning to become hungry again. It is time to put the lid tightly on and keep it in the fridge to sleep. If you don’t put the sourdough starter to sleep at this point of time, the yeast will begin to turn sourer and sourer and end up with a pail of rotten stuff and no longer edible, I believe.
2. Preparing to make a dough:
1. Take the sourdough starter in sleeping out of the fridge. I call this “wake up” and leave it in room temperature. You can imagine the yeasts are yearning and begining to work again.
2. Add 1 cup wholemeal flour and 200ml of water, stir the mixture till the flour is thoroughly wet. Then leave it on the working bench with lid lightly closed for about 2 hours depending on the temperature of that day, or when you see a layer of foam emerged on the surface.
3. Pour the batter into the mixing bowl till the remaining in the container falls down to the mark. This is the start point of another new cycle of the whole process. Refer to point 1.a.
4. Now the ingredients of the batter in the mixing bowl are 300ml water and 1.5 cups flour if you trace back the records. For making the softest buns of 16 pieces of the size of 5cm in diameter and 4cm in height, I add 3 cups flour, one tsp salt, 150ml water and 2 tbsp olive oil. Mix and knead till it becomes a dough and leave it in a proper space to rise. This takes about two hours depending on the temperature.
3. Shape the bread:
1. It is your turn now to exercise your inventive and creative capability in the art of bread making.

Mother's cooking

This is a zoomed in cropped photo of my mother (on the right) and my aunt from a very old and faded family photograph. Mother was about 19 at the time when this picture was taken in 1934. She was dressed in a female adult suite for important occasions in that era.

Once, we were reviewing our albums, this was the one she stayed her attention on the longest as if her memories about that scene emerged right before her. Then, she usually left it with a comment, "Your aunt and I were widely praised by people in the community as the most beautiful and dutiful daughter-in-laws of Chen's family", and then away to the next photo.

Indeed, mother was very beautiful when she was young. Apart from her good looks was her excellent cooking skill. It is especially true when I retrospect the images of her working in our very old kitchen of 50's in Taiwan when burning coal or wood was the only way to cook. The chopping board was about 50 cm in diameter. There were no sink and bench for preparing the cooking ingredients. Chopping board served as working bench and a pail of water fetched from a facet some ten meters away were what you got to cook two to four dishes and the staple, rice, every day.

Not only that, mother had to slaughter chicken or duck from a lively one to a naked lifeless one and lastly a delicious roasted or stewed meat dish that the whole family fought to grab to their own bowl. I wondered if any of us ever thought about how mother worked in the ill equipped kitchen to get those tasty dishes served on table.

Once I noticed mother only picked the least demanded dish into her rice bowl while all of us landed our chopsticks on the meaty dishes, I asked her why? "A cook is delighted the most seeing the dishes are emptied rapidly. I am fine with this less wanted one....", she said.

I remembered once I watched how mother slaughtered a duck of black feather. That was an unforgettable experience.

In a small town like Ching Shui of 1950's, most of the households got to kill poultry by themselves. There were just no such thing as supermarket where they could simply pick a tray of chicken thighs to their cart. They went to the poultry section of the market; point to the most lively one to the vendor; the vendor tied up the legs of the fowl with a few straws; hooked the poor creature on the balance scale to get the weight of the fowl to figure out a fair price for both parties. Then the mother carried that fowl all the way back home with the fowl's head dangling down along the way.

This was what I witnessed when mother processed that very duck.

Mother fetched the duck to a cleared area in the kitchen. Pulled both of its wings and stepped over the wings with her left foot. She had made some preparations prior to the slaughtering. A deep wok of slow boiling water was ready for removing duck's hair by dipping it for a right length of time. A tray of about two cups of glutenous rice was placed aside for absorbing the duck's blood for making a side dish called duck blood cake.

Back to the slaughtering. Mother asked me to go away as the killing was disturbing to view. I begged to stay to watch. No time to waste on arguing, so she carried on. She read out a short speech while her fingers nipping off hairs clear around the spot of the duck's neck where she aimed to set the blade on. I still remember that mantra mother read to the duck. It went "duck, duck, it's suffering being a duck, not worthwhile trapping in the form of a duck forever. Be born to become a member in a rich family."

As soon as the mantra finished, the blade swished, the blood streamed down, mother quickly moved the plate of gluten rice to the blood. The duck jerked a couple of struggles before it went complete motionless. Then mother kept on moving the rice plate about to make all the rice dampened by the blood evenly till no more was to flow out. The head was then put in between the wings waiting for dehairing.

Phew! That's enough for me. I am not going to tell what I had seen after that. It is disgusting to watch the whole process, but we seem to be forgetful particularly when the duck become a dish on the table. However, that memory during my childhood germinated and grew fruition that about 25 years later I claimed myself as vegetarian.

As to mother, she stopped slaughtering by herself for cooking after a dreadful experience occurred. She told me she once killed a big duck without any family member around. She laid the duck on the ground after its blood was drained. Suddenly when she was doing something else, she heard some rustling noise at her back. She turned around and saw that dead duck stood on its legs with head still wrapped in between the wings clumsily walking about. Mother gasped and ran away from the kitchen horrified.

I think slaughtering might be mother's most disliked task of her everyday cooking chores. Otherwise cooking of other non-life related dishes is simply piece of cake to her.

Since she was assigned to cooking chore for Chen's family by my grandmother at the age of ten, she had quickly acquired all the kitchen skills such as setting up fire, control of the heat strength of the fire, food preparation and storage, steaming, grilling, stir frying, boiling, flavor seasoning and etc.

There is not any signature dish of hers as all her dishes are just equally good. But what impressed me the most was the rapidness of her cooking.

Once a group of our relatives came to visit us unexpectedly around lunch time. It was a customary that the host was supposed to offer the visitors meal be they not yet had one. Immediately my mother retreated to the kitchen, and within one hour she presented a big plate of lovely fried noodle, a grilled whole fish with soy sauce and drizzled with spring onion, a plate of sliced boiled pork with sauce, and a stir fried green leafy vegetable on the table. Sometimes I came home from school hungry. This was never a problem to mother that within 10 minutes, she could turn the leftover into yummy hot meal for me.

While fast food business is damaging the health of young consumers worldwide nowadays, cooking from a mother is becoming more urgent and important. It is not only the deliciousness that counts, it is the love and education that generate from cooking activity make us unforgettable in a later day.

Tear Noodle

During the new year holiday, we noticed there was a new restaurant opened nearby the Northcote Library where I and my wife usually spend our Saturday mornings. The three Chinese characters "手扯麵" on the menu posted on the window outside of Xi'an Food Bar drew our attention. From the meaning of these three characters, we imagined the noodle was made by tearing the dough into finer strips to be ready for cooking. That must be it, but how the tearing technique is like? Curiosity pulled us into this restaurant and ordered two bowls of Tear Noodle with Fried Bean Sauce.

I selected a table with the best position for me to observe how the chef tore the dough into the right size of strips of noodle. The kitchen is not hidden in another quarter, instead, the customers can watch how their dishes are done by the chefs. The owner is smart that he adopts this tactic to attract more curious customers to come in.

I had watched several times on TV how Pull Noodle was made. It was spectacular, I would say, watching the whole process of making Pull Noodle. Here is one in Youtube. The making of Tear Noodle was not as high skill demanding as Pull Noodle.

I saw the chef began to stretch on a piece of dough the shape of rectangular. When it was stretched to about 30 cm he began to shake the band shape of dough up and down and smack it against the bench while at the same time to pull it further apart to make the dough strap even thinner. When the right thickness of the dough strap was reached, he then tore from the middle of the strap into finer threads of noodle and throw them straight into the pot of boiling water.

When the bowl of noodle was served to my table, each piece of the noodle looked very lively fresh. I pick up a few threads of it and put them into mouth. Beside the tasty sauce that made my taste bud cry, the special elasticity of the noodle made the chewing a delighted experience. So the whole bowl of noodle was finished in no time.

I think I can make it myself. It is not as skill demanding as Pull Noodle which might require years of on-job practice. But with this Tear Noodle, I think a couple of tries should make me there. So one day I asked my wife to make me a small dough for test.

First I rolled the dough into a shape of a rod of about 4 cm in diameter. Then divided it into pieces of 10 cm each.
Then flattened each of these 10 cm long dough pieces by palm into rectangular shape of about 10x15x1 cm. Then applied a thin coat of oil all over the dough piece, stacked them in a box with lid on and kept it in the fridge to wait for the tearing process to begin at the desired cooking time.Tearing is the part most challenging and fascinating in the whole process. It requires some practice before you can tear a strip of the right width all the way along the stretched piece of band dough from one end to another. At the beginning stage, when you are able to tear a fine strip off the band dough for a reasonable length by chance, you will become so excited that you might scream your head off. At least I and my wife were like that at our second practice which we made our Tear Noodle look quite like that in the restaurant.
Recently I Googled "手扯麵". Tear Noodle, I found a lot of blog posts talking about this handcraft. One said that he was addicted to it and had made Tear Noodle for meal everyday since he learned it from somewhere.

As to me, I am so fascinated by this way of making noodle for the following reasons:

• It sort of entitles you to be a Noodle Master and thus increases your self-esteem.
• Not any other tool such as knife, rolling stick or big working bench is needed than your hands.
• You don't need to sprinkle a lot of dry flour in the noodle making process in order to prevent the noodles from sticking to each other and make the working area dusty and messy.

Are you ready? Let's make a Tear Noodle meal for dinner tonight.