Nurul’s Pandan Chiffon Cake

Posted on by cheryl

Nurul's pandan chiffon cake, one of Singapore's favourite chiffon cakes.

Pandan chiffon cake, by Nurul.
Photo © Cheryl M. Cordeiro-Nilsson for CMC 2010

The Pandan Chiffon Cake is a staple on the Singapore culinary scene, hitting right at the heart of the kampong and its people, so to speak. I grew up eating it at breakfast, tea-time and possibly any other time of the day in between full meals. Because it’s so lightly textured, it’s not unusual for fans of these chiffon cakes to finish about half of a cake before noticing what has happened, guilty that they hadn’t shared more of it with other guests at the table.

This gorgeous looking, moist, light and spongey pandan chiffon cake featured here, is not mine. It was baked and given to us by a family friend of ours named, Nurul.
Continue reading “Nurul’s Pandan Chiffon Cake” →

Pickled herring – A Swedish midsummer tradition

Posted on by cheryl

Boiled potatoes, ideally from this years harvest cooked and decorated with dill is a must.

Boiled potatoes, ideally from this year’s harvest
cooked and decorated with dill is a must.
Photo © JE Nilsson for CMC 2010

In mid June, Sweden arrives to an outdoor temperature and general climate we have more or less permanent in Singapore – warm, though less humid. To Swedes this but a short pleasure that lasts for a few summer months.

At this time of the year, the remarkably short nights slowly transform the warm evening sunlight to a warm dusk that after midnight eventually changes back into a Nordic lavender coloured morning. You can sit there and just look at it outdoors in your garden, cuddled up into a blanket, cupping your favourite hot beverage.

In the pot, boiled potatoes and dill for a Swedish Midsummer meal.

In the pot.

The long dusk-dawn period with its purple hues, apart from turning the entire Nordic region romantic, also begs for garden parties. It is the perfect time to chit-chat with friends about everything and nothing and eventually, you realize that you have stayed up all night and that the morning has broken into a new day.

Continue reading “Pickled herring – A Swedish midsummer tradition” →

Muthu’s Curry along Race Course Road, Singapore

Posted on by cheryl

Curried cabbage, Muthu's Curry in Singapore.

Cabbage and other dishes, served in individual dishes depending on your order.
Photo © JE Nilsson and Cheryl M. Cordeiro-Nilsson for CMC 2010

In this highly competitive culinary atmosphere that is Singapore and worse still, if the dishes in question belong to one of the country’s core ethnic groups of Chinese, Malay (even Nonya food), Indian or Eurasian, it isn’t easy to make it to the top recommendations list of places to eat of Singaporeans.

Muthu’s Curry along Race Course Road with its approximate 40 year long history came highly recommended as a place for good Indian food. What today is a restaurant chain, began in 1968 as a one-man hawker stall serving staple south Indian food on banana leaves. It was already famous during the 1970s for its full flavoured and generous servings of fish-head curry, and its signature dish has grown in popularity and reputation in its 40 years of development.

Just a quick tangent on Singapore eating…To get a feel for the local culinary scene, I would personally recommend that anyone visiting Singapore first hit a hawker center for their meals to try any, if not all authentic local food. Places such as the East Coast Hawker Center or the hawker center that is completely out of the city center that lies in the corner of Bedok in the East of Singapore (Bedok corner hawker center as I know it) serve pretty good inexpensive local fare. Other more familiar places that most visitors to Singapore might learn of from brochures obtained from their respective hotels or tour guides would be the East Coast beach (skip the seafood outlets, go for the hawker center), Chinatown for Chinese cuisine, Little India of Indian cuisine and Geylang for Malay cuisine that all have ethnic specific local cuisine.

Hawker centers are also known to charge a little less per dish / meal for no less tasty meals compared to their indoor air-conditioned counterparts of food courts and restaurants that you find along Orchard Road or in the heart of the city for example.

A naan basket, with a variety of naan types, Muthu's Curry, Singapore.

A basket filled with naan in a variety of flavours.

But alright, if you want out of the tropical heat after a long walkabout in Little India and you’ve heard about Indian food served on banana leaves, then Muthu’s Curry is a recommended experience for well-cooked authentic (mainly) south Indian food. The prices are mid-ranged, though definitely pricier than the coffeeshop and market stalls that you can find all around the area itself.
Continue reading “Muthu’s Curry along Race Course Road, Singapore” →

Custard Egg Tarts with Puff Pastry

Posted on by cheryl

Custard egg tarts, made with puff pastry.

Custard egg tarts, dusted with icing sugar on top.
Photo © Jan-Erik Nilsson and Cheryl M. Cordeiro Nilsson for Cheryl Marie Cordeiro 2010

A quick browse through my most recent posts will show that my latest baking projects have all revolved around puff pastry creations. And I still have a few more items of puff pastry that I’d like to try before putting aside this light but decadently butter filled pâte feuilletée to genuinely say that I’m sick of it.
Continue reading “Custard Egg Tarts with Puff Pastry” →

Western Swedish Academy of Gastronomy annual awards ceremony and gala dinner, 2010.

Posted on by cheryl

An hors d'oeuvre of seafood served in a small can, Western Swedish Academy of Gastronomy awards ceremony, 2010.

Seafood in a fish canning tins.
Photo © Jan-Erik Nilsson and Cheryl M. Cordeiro-Nilsson for Cheryl Marie Cordeiro 2010

The 6th of May saw the Western Swedish Academy of Gastronomy give out its annual awards to outstanding individuals in the culinary field. And I couldn’t be more enthusiastic to have been part of this event, as the last time I was at the academy’s awards ceremony was in 2008.

The food this year was prepared by the Swedish Olympic culinary team and as with previous Chefs of previous years, the team had us guessing on what was served throughout the event, only to reveal towards the end, the true menu from hors d’oeuvres to wines that accompanied the main course and dessert.
Continue reading “Western Swedish Academy of Gastronomy annual awards ceremony and gala dinner, 2010.” →

Variations of Curry Puff with puff pastry

Posted on by cheryl

Curry puffs made with puff pastry 2, Singapore style.

Curry puff made with puff pastry, Singapore style.
Photo © Jan-Erik Nilsson and Cheryl M. Cordeiro Nilsson for Cheryl Marie Cordeiro 2010

It was the large, triangular, multi-layered flaky pastried curry puff that I had in mind when putting this together. The kind that was stacked warm and neat on a newspaper lined cardboard box that was carried for door to door sales, usually by an Indian man or his son, when I lived in the high-rised government built blocks in Bedok North, Singapore.

I was about five or six years old when the large curry puffs, too large for me to finish on my own actually, became one of my favourite things to eat, beating the smaller, more reasonably kid-sized, fried rounded and pinched tipped version of curry puffs.
Continue reading “Variations of Curry Puff with puff pastry” →

Breakfast danishes with puff pastry

Posted on by cheryl

Raspberry danish pastry, dusted with icing sugar on top.

Raspberry danish pastry, dusted with icing sugar on top.
Photo © Jan-Erik Nilsson and Cheryl M. Cordeiro Nilsson for Cheryl Marie Cordeiro 2010

Some danish pastry adventures with the puff pastry that we made earlier.

Danish pastry with fresh raspberry filling.

I think the whole idea is to simply have the pastry become a container of sorts for whatever filling you wish you have in it. And making a little pastry box from the pastry is what we did, the first, adding fresh raspberries over a bed of sweetened vanilla cream. This was baked at 220C in the oven till the puff pastry was done. Once cooled, the raspberry danish was dusted with icing sugar before serving.
Continue reading “Breakfast danishes with puff pastry” →

Crème caramel, made with the most basic of ingredients

Posted on by cheryl

Crème caramel recept, French baked custard recipe

Crème caramel, with extra caramel on top.

Photo © Jan-Erik Nilsson and Cheryl M. Cordeiro Nilsson for Cheryl Marie Cordeiro 2010

I don’t remember when it was that I first tasted crème caramel, all I knew was that I loved it, and at the time thought I would also never be able to enjoy this dessert if I were not at a posh restaurant in Singapore ordering it off the menu.

The first time I made this dessert, I thought that there was no way at all that it would turn out right. The Swedish weather was cold, the caramel came out too sticky and too thick, it froze almost immediately upon touching the soufflé dish and I couldn’t wash the dish clean of the solidified caramel even with boiling water! Since the caramel was stuck to the dish, I went ahead with the custard on top of it and thought not to expect too much, writing it off as a failed project.
Continue reading “Crème caramel, made with the most basic of ingredients” →

Puff Pastry

Posted on by cheryl

Video from Otago Polytechnic on how to make puff pastry.

How to make puff pastry was a complete mystery to me whilst growing up, even though it is one of the few things I’ve always enjoyed in a myriad of foods from the savoury to the sweet. Puff pastry beef pie and chicken pie popped into the microwave oven was something I quite often had for lunch after school in Singapore. In Sweden smördeg as it is called with fruit and custard, drizzled with icing sugar is a relish to have at breakfast or at tea time.

Puff pastry dough with a cross on top.

The base dough for puff pastry, marked with a cross on top, ready for rolling out.

Photo © Jan-Erik Nilsson and Cheryl M. Cordeiro Nilsson for Cheryl Marie Cordeiro 2010

As I’ve discovered what many others who make puff pastry have known, it takes more patience and time to make puff pastry than skill. Puff pastry has a much higher fat content than other types of pastries, using an alternating folding and rolling technique to create the layers of dough with air trapped between them. The pastry puffs up during the baking process and generally makes anything you serve on it / with it look fantastic!
Continue reading “Puff Pastry” →

Coloured eggs for the Easter basket

Posted on by cheryl

Coloured Easter eggs, Easter Lilies, Sweden.

Easter lilies and coloured Easter eggs.

Photo © Cheryl M. Cordeiro Nilsson for Cheryl Marie Cordeiro 2010

One of the exciting events to look forward to in school when I was young during Easter week was the Easter Egg Hunt. The teachers would hide colourfully painted hard boiled eggs in one of our school gardens – the smaller gardens of the school – and the girls simply had to roam the gardens in search for them. Each girl who found an egg had a present to look forward to.
Continue reading “Coloured eggs for the Easter basket” →