An Old Dog with New Tricks

Cooking with a twist: as exciting as spotting a  colugo on a ramble.

You know what they say: "you can't teach an old dog new tricks". There's still a lot of truth in that if the old trick the old dog has is in trying out dreamed up techniques. Then this mutt teaches itself new tricks.... Now that's a bag of bones I'll like to think myself to be in: always question the given paradigms.

So yes, everyone does this given: you first heat up the oven to the right temperature before putting in the hot cross buns to heat up. Well, I questioned that the other day. So I put the frozen buns into the oven before setting it to warm up till 180 degrees Celsius. Guess what?: it still took eight minutes to get to 180. But by the time the clock registered the thirteenth minute the buns have been in the oven, the latter was giving out a distinctive aroma of nicely warmed buns: they can be taken out. And they have been heated to the core. If I'd stuck to tradition, it would have taken another ten minutes for a 180-degree oven to do the same trick.

Well, I similarly questioned the rationale of stir-frying cubes of raw salmon first and setting them aside to heat up the fish sauce, kecap manis, lime juice, brown sugar, garlic and onions, before returning the lumps of fish back into the pot. I can understand doing that with chunks of raw beef as you'll be browning it first. But pre-cooking the salmon first serves no similar function. So I decided to cook the garnish and the sauce first and add the salmon in as I'm leaving the sauce to thicken in the pot. And hubby still found that the dish has surpassed every caramelized fish dish he has ever tasted.

So the trick to keeping cooking fun in the kitchen is in adding a new twist or two into tried and tested recipes. Then I'll be discovering something excitingly new each time I put on my trusty apron.

The Accidental Perk

Lemonade: as vital to my strudel as a pool is to a hillside resort.

Hubby and I planned a holiday in Europe a couple of years ago, and it involved driving over the Swiss Alps to Pordnone in Italy in a day. We were pretty confident about succeeding in doing that and so had booked holiday accommodation in the historical centre of Pordnone.

But we didn't as we didn't bargain on me getting bored listless with hours confined to the car's front passenger seat. So when we still had another five hours of driving before we could get to our destination, I mutinied. And successfully demanded that we stay over night in the next town we chanced upon.

It didn't matter that we were driving through the most depressing looking industrial neighbourhood, which as good as fore-warned an even more crummy town centre. I was determined to spend the rest of the evening working out my legs.

So imagine our surprise when we did arrive in the heart of town. Trento's city centre had a beauty that surpassed Verona. It was like chancing upon a rainbow after a blistering thunder storm. It turned out that we've stumbled upon a town known only to vacationing Italians born and bred in Italy. What a divine stroke of luck! And to this day we would advise friends planning an Italian holiday to pay a visit to this exquisite little piece of heaven on earth.

And cooking's like that at times. Like the other day when I was making a well-loved tried-and-tested apple strudel recipe and discovered half-way through the preparations that I'd used every one of my lemons' zest to make a fresh batch of home-made lemonade. And the apple strudel recipe definitely needed that. In exasperation I added two tablespoons of the home-made brew into the sliced apple filling. And kept all my fingers crossed when I shoved the raw strudel into the oven.

Well, the emergency switch up turned into a blessing in disguise. The apple strudel came out of the oven tastier than ever. The lemonade accentuated the flavours of the sherry soaked raisins and enhanced the tartness of the slices of pure granny smiths. Even hubby commented that I was actually on to something here, and he wolfed down his portion before the strudel had time to cool down to room temperature.

From now onward, lemonade's more than just a refreshing drink to wash down the strudel: it's a vital ingredient!