- Rotini with cauliflower, saffron, pine nuts and currants
It was as simple as baking chocolate cookies that got me motivated to prepare more elaborate dinners, or maybe it was the hunger. You can only open the refrigerator so many times only to find nothing good to eat and no one else to blame for it.
Elysia does not really like going grocery shopping but I find that it always an adventure and, of course, Singapore is a bit more interesting than the Walter Reed Commissary.
Having deadlines beyond dinner also helps. We had the military spouse bake sale last week, today was a spouse luncheon and on Friday is a Hail and Farewell.
I started thumbing through two of my cookbooks and set off to the grocery stores and wet market. This time I was tripped up this week by black mustard seed, shrimp paste and basil. I hate cookbooks by authors who seem to intentionally throw in at least one obscure ingredient into an otherwise simple recipe. Who in the world has pomegranate molasses in their pantry?
Citrus and I visited four grocery stores and the clerks graciously helped look through the shelves. They acted genuinely surprised to be out of stock but I think they were just being polite. Four days later and I found the mustard seed at a wet market spice vendor. But almost no one at the wet market speaks English and I tried to request basil in different ways. BAY-sil? BAH-sil? Thai leaves?
None available today so I was just the foreigner who was standing in the way of customers. I further annoyed the vendors by ignoring their gestures toward the potatos or onions since one false move and you are on your way to a purchase. At least it sometimes feels that way. The last time I visited the chicken butcher, I nodded too quickly and she cut everything into small pieces before I could stop her. So much for fillets.
I tried again yesterday and asked for one kilo of chicken wings in addition to what she had already bagged. What little I said was lost in translation and in the middle of my pantomime routine she turned and hacked the foot off a chicken. I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with one chicken foot. You break it, you own it, but thankfully it was for the woman in line behind me. It only took five more minutes of explanation and I got the third kilo after she had already unloaded several more chickens from the freezer.
When we left the house this morning for preschool my daughter wanted to know if we were going to look for the black seeds and shrimp paste again. She is very much into routines but this will not be one of them and, besides, I am done shopping for the week.
The Ng-Baumhackl menu between September 7 and tomorrow:
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Grilled Southeast Asian kabobs with coconut rice
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Rotini with cauliflower, saffron, pine nuts and currants
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Burmese-style curry with pork and green beans
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Chinese beef with broccoli
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Macaroni and cheese
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Asian honey barbecue chicken wings
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200 chocolate chip cookies
And mainly Cheerios for breakfast.
[I already found one spouse who has pomegranate molasses. She acted like it was the most normal thing in the world to have on hand.]
Tagged as:
Singapore wet market,
Southeast Asian cooking
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Shrimp paste is common in Filipino food, as I understand. True story – my in-laws were living in our house before we got here. When they moved out, my mother-in-law left an open jar of shrimp paste in the fridge. I thought it was rancid and tossed it. Even with the lid on, it was stinking up my fridge. Months later she asked about it and I told her its fate. I guess it is supposed to smell rancid and it is quite common that it stinks up your fridge. My bad. Sometime this year another jar magically appeared in my fridge. This time it’s wrapped in a plastic bag and I haven’t touched it. Long story short, if you really need shrimp paste, ask the Filipino workers where they get it. Or maybe they could spare you a tablespoon or two so you don’t have to commit to a whole jar.
My last jar lasted forever and I, too, wondered how you could tell if it had gone bad. I tossed it but apparently there are things made from fish and shrimp that have a longer shelf life than Twinkies.