Mangosteens, then and now

Eleven years ago I had my first mangosteen, and then many more over the course of the few months I spent in Malaysia. Despite some misgivings about the texture, I thought that it might be my perfect fruit – sweet, almost rich but with a great juicy, tangy, refreshing quality. I do realize that this is a ridiculous description of a fruit’s taste – sweet, tangy, rich, juicy, refreshing – all words that can be used to describe so many kinds of fruit. I think maybe I mean that it was all these things, but so much more intensely than any other fruit I’d had. Then I left Malaysia and there were no more mangosteens, and as far as I could tell, there wouldn’t be for a very long time, if ever.

When I tried to explain them to people who had never seen or tasted a mangosteen, I was a little bit at a loss. The outside was easy enough – very dark purple, the colour and also roughly the size of a ripe granadilla, but perfectly round and smooth with a stalk. When it came to describing the inside, though, I couldn’t think how. My best shot was to say that the fruit is segmented, like a citrus fruit, but with only one big seed in the biggest segment; and the segments are white. I suppose that does describe what they look like, but somehow not clearly enough.

Now, eleven years later, we are in Singapore and I have been reunited with mangosteens. We bought a net bag full last week and as soon as we were back in our hotel room, I peeled one and gave Andrew one of the segments before eating one myself; I was so excited for him to try this near-perfect fruit. Delicious, was his verdict, and “when it’s peeled it looks like a head of garlic”, he said.

Yes. Yes, it does, a much more concise description.

They are still very good, but the fruit inside the thick peel is so small, the texture still strange, and I’ve decided I don’t like the segment with the one big seed at all. I feel a little disappointed in myself that I am no longer so easily moved to rapturous declarations about fruit, but I suppose it’s natural to be more given to extremes at seventeen than at twenty-eight.

So in the end, having upheld them as my perfect fruit for eleven years, mangosteens are making me feel old and a little alienated from my former self. I must remember in the future not to have quite such high expectations for fruit.

Eating (but not yet cooking) in Singapore

So! We are in Singapore, and it is hot and wonderful. We are also in a hotel for the time being, meaning we have to eat out for most meals (how we suffer!). I am very much looking forward to moving into our flat at the start of September, and being able to cook again (albeit very basic things, since out shipment with implements only arrives in October). Once I can cook again, I suspect I will bombard this blog in delight with all my creations using new-to-me ingredients.

But until then, here are some of the most delicious things I have eaten after one week in Singapore, listed in no particular order:

1. Lor mee - thick, flat egg noodles in a dark broth with lots of goodies - pork, prawns (I think), hard-boiled egg, and more. The chilli sauce on the side was smoky and slightly sweet. I am getting better with the slippery-noodles-and-chopsticks-and-spoon technique (if anyone knows a less cumbersome term for the technique, do let me know), but still ended up with dark brown sauce splatters all over me after this meal. Worth it, though.



2. Omu yakisoba - this is actually a Japanese dish. I feel guilty eating things that are not actually very Singaporean, and yet it hasn't stopped me from eating Japanese, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese food, as you will see. Clearly I am able to push my guilt aside. Anyway, again noodles, this time cooked on a hotplate with bacon and a mysterious sauce, topped with egg, "special white sauce", delicious mysterious brown sauce and dancing fish flakes.

3. I can't remember this salad's actual Thai name. I could google it, but so can you - it's a green mango salad, with tom yum soup on the side. My stomach lining was burning for hours afterwards due to the large chunks of chilli you can see in the salad, and yet I couldn't stop myself from eating them all.

4. Chewy Juniors - custard-filled cream puffs, sometimes with toppings added as above, seem to be a Thing in Singapore, and one of the chain brands is called Chewy Juniors. Eating puffs from a chain brand is probably a very rookie-ish thing to do, but I might never be able to eat another kind, due to these having one of the best brand names ever.

5. Pad thai - again with the non-local food, and extremely well-known-in-the-West non-local food, too. Sorry. It was good.

6. And a blurry picture of a plate from a vegetarian buffet-style stall; brown rice and vegetables, so healthy! (If you choose to ignore all the delicious oil, sodium and coconut milk also contained in this meal.)

And thus concludes my Top 6, so far.

Chocolate orange cake, and a bit of nostalgia

We are in Singapore. I have eaten many notable things, despite only being here for just over 24 hours, and I have many thoughts. But first, some nostalgic pictures from our last week in South Africa, spent both in Cape Town and in Pretoria.



Mountains!



One of the views on one of our favourite
running routes in Cape Town



We ate lots of delicious food in the last week, including this
springbok ravioli dish at Bizerca Bistro



And we drank lots of wine,
like this pinot noir flight at French Toast



Cake and wine at the end of a family braai



That last photo is of a chocolate-orange cake I made for dessert at a family braai; chocolate with orange is one of my mom's favourite flavour combinations. I winged it, being at my mom’s house without recipes and my usual implements, but it turned out well enough that I think it should be made again.

Chocolate orange cake

Makes one large, high cake, or two layers for a layer cake

I had only one cake pan, so I baked the cake as a single layer, sliced it in half and filled it with marmalade. Two thinner layers would probably be easier, although you’d have to reduce the baking time.

When the cake was baked, I decided against covering it with frosting or icing of any kind. But I was afraid it would be dry without a topping, so I both soaked it in a flavoured sugar syrup and filled it with marmalade. It was delicious and I wouldn’t make it without the syrup, although you could add a chocolate frosting or ganache topping to make it richer and fancier if you like.

Batter:

½ c butter

1 c golden sugar

Zest and juice of 1 large orange

3 eggs

1 ¼ c flour

½ c cocoa powder

1 tsp salt

1 ½ tsp baking soda

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

¼ c milk, plus more if needed

Syrup:

Juice of 1 large orange, plus a few strips of orange peel

¾ c water

½ c sugar

Preheat the oven to 165 C. Butter a large cake pan and line with baking paper, then butter again and dust with cocoa powder. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream the butter, sugar and orange zest until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one by one, beating well after each addition; the mixture might start to split just a little, which is fine.

Sift the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda into the butter mixture and add the orange juice, balsamic vinegar and milk. Stir until just combined. If the batter drops off the mixing spoon easily at this point, you’re done; if it seems thicker, add a bit more milk and mix again.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for  approximately 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.

While the cake bakes, place all of the syrup ingredients in a small pot and bring to the boil. Boil for about five minutes and then remove from the heat. Remove the orange peel.

When the cake is baked and has cooled for five minutes, poke it all over with a sharp knife or a fork. Make sure you get to most of the cake’s surface. Pour the syrup over the cake, distributing it as evenly as you can.

Cool the cake further to room temperature, then invert onto a plate and fill and decorate as desired. Like I said, I just cut it in half, spread a lot of marmalade in between the two layers, and topped the cake with sliced kumquats and strawberries.

Interruption for pecan-cinnamon coffee cake

Coffee cake seems to be an American thing, for me another relic from my childhood spent amongst Americans. Because by coffee cake I don’t mean coffee-flavoured cake, I mean a general group of cakes originally meant to be eaten along with a cup of coffee. Of course, any cake can be eaten along with a cup of coffee, so I’m not sure why there is a specific kind of cake that’s given this definition. Regardless, as far as my experience goes, coffee cakes are sometimes but not always yeasted, often contain nuts and are often topped with a buttery, crumbly streusel topping – no frosting or icing. They tend to be sturdy, moist cakes, flavoured with vanilla and maybe some spices, but nothing too overpowering. They are, in fact, very good to have with a cup of coffee, and so I decided to bake one for afternoon coffee with a friend (fine, we had tea. Hopefully there are no coffee cake police).

I had a bag of good fresh pecan nuts that I had to use before we left, so I did some searching for pecan nut coffee cakes on the interwebs. There were many, but here’s something that bothered me: this kind of cake is not supposed to be very sweet, yet most of the recipes had many, many cups of sugar, and some even had glazes topping the streusel. Just reading the recipes made my teeth ache. So I used a few different recipes as pointers and cut and pasted and edited until I ended up with my own coffee cake. Sweet and buttery, but not so much so that you wouldn’t be able to have a piece for breakfast. Of course along with the obligatory coffee.

Pecan-cinnamon coffee cake

Makes one large sheet-pan cake

You can easily play with this recipe, using different nuts or spices, adding raisins, or citrus juice and zest.

Streusel:

1 ¾ c flour

½ c treacle sugar

½ tsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

½ c butter, cold and cubed

½ toasted, chopped pecan nuts

Middle layer:

¼ c treacle sugar

¼ tsp cinnamon

1 c toasted, chopped pecan nuts

Batter:

½ c butter

2 c flour

1 ¼ tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

¾ c sugar

2 eggs

1 ½ tsp vanilla

¾ c sour cream or full fat yoghurt

½ c milk

Preheat the oven to 170 C. Butter a large casserole dish or sheet pan and dust with flour, shaking out excess flour. Set aside.

For the streusel, combine all the streusel ingredients in a bowls and rub together with your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Set aside.

For the middle layer, combine all middle layer ingredients in a small bowl and toss together. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the remaining butter and sugar until light. Add the eggs one by one, beating well after each addition. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into the bowl, add the sour cream (or yoghurt), milk and vanilla extract, and beat until well combined with no lumps.

Spoon half of the batter into the prepared pan and smooth with the back of a spoon. Sprinkle the middle layer mixture over the batter evenly, then top with the remaining batter and smooth over to cover completely. Finally top evenly with the streusel mixture.

Slide into the hot oven and bake for 40 – 50 minutes, until the topping is golden and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Cool at least ten minutes before cutting into squares.

Dinner party number ten

This dinner party, in fact another Sunday lunch, was the very last meal with friends in our flat before we moved out to stay in a friend’s house for our last few days in Cape Town. I had thought ahead and frozen the leftover roast chicken from the previous weekend’s dinner party, as well as the leftover pastry from the pumpkin pie. (I have a complex about not having enough food to feed people, whether they’re guests or just my husband and I. The result is that I inevitably make far too much food. I take out four potatoes knowing that they’ll be enough, but then the doubt starts and I take out another one. And halfway through peeling, I’ll whip out a final sixth potato, just to be sure. Result: leftovers!)

But I digress. Leftover roast chicken and leftover pastry, combined with a quick creamy white wine sauce and some roasted root vegetables, leaves you with a creamy roast chicken and root vegetable pie. Add a salad and it’s a comforting, filling lunch.

So, the menu:

Creamy roast chicken and root vegetable pie

Spinach salad with avocado

Cappuccino bars

I was going to make another batch of brownies for dessert – they’re quick and easy and I know they’re good. But then I happened upon a recipe and accompanying pretty picture for glazed, chocolate-y cappuccino bars. I am a slave to pretty pictures of baked goods, so I decided: lack of baking implements be damned, I’m going to make these things. I had to become a little creative in the process given my single giant catering-size mixing bowl, one wonky wooden spoon and bent, charred baking slide, but the bars turned out anyway. They’re good, but they are incredibly rich; do cut them into small squares.

Cappuccino bars

Makes about 30 small squares

Dough:

1 c softened butter

1 c packed treacle sugar

1 tbsp instant espresso powder

¼ tsp finely ground espresso powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 ¼ c flour

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

2 c dark chocolate, chopped (I used Cadbury’s Bourneville)

Glaze:

2 tbsp milk

1 tbsp butter

¾ c icing sugar

¼ tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 190 C. Line a rimmed cookie sheet/baking slide with baking parchment.

Cream the butter, sugar, coffee powder and grounds, and vanilla. Add the flour, baking powder and salt, and mix – the dough will be crumbly, which is all as it should be. Add the chopped chocolate and mix.

Dump the dough onto the lined baking slide and press it down into a smooth, solid sheet, using a rolling pin to smooth the top. If your baking slide is too big for the dough (you want it to be at least 1cm thick), the dough doesn’t have to go all the way to the edges; just be sure then to square off and trim the edges.

Bake for 10 to 15 minutes; watch them carefully as they burn easily. You don’t want them to get too dark.

Remove from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes. While they cool, melt all the ingredients for the glaze together in a small pot, and spread over the bars.

Cool to room temperature, until the glaze has set, and cut into small bars or squares.