Egg Rolls Part 3: Recipe for Handmade Sweet Flaky Egg Rolls (手工蛋卷)

As you may have gathered from my previous posts, I have a slight obsession with eggs.  I am also into snacks from Hong Kong. Given that I have already tried making egg tarts (蛋撻 daan taat), and you need a special waffle iron which I do not have to make eggettes (雞蛋仔 gai daan zai), it was only natural that I give egg rolls (蛋卷 daan gyun) a go. [Added 31May 2014: I have now purchased an eggette mould and you can read about it in my latest post.]

My first attempt at making egg rolls at home.

Finding a recipe to use was a real mission, as the ones that appeared in search results were generally for American Chinese egg rolls, or what I would call spring rolls (春捲 ceon gyun).  When I eventually did come across some, it turned out they were very similar to ice cream cone recipes, even though in my mind, the two are nothing alike.  Aside from the obvious shape difference, egg rolls are always pale yellow rather than golden brown, and their texture is more delicate than that of ice cream cones, which I consider harder and chewier.  Good egg rolls fall apart at the slightest little jolt.

My next problem was working out how to make them a uniform thinness, without a waffle iron, sandwich press, egg roll machine, or anything of the sort.  I found a blog where the egg rolls were simply cooked in a frying pan, after being spread with the back of a spoon, but the final product had an uneven colouring which I did not want to repeat.  In the end, I took inspiration from Monica's blog [added 9 Feb 2014: broken link to http://www.wretch.cc/blog/monicaca0531/15451180 removed], and made do with a frying pan and a saucepan to flatten my dough between.

Dough in frying pan, after I flattened it with the base of a saucepan.

While professionals use metal rods to wrap the egg rolls around, you can apparently simply use a chopstick. I chose to use the handle of a wooden spoon, which made for a thicker and rounder shape.  I also hoped the wood would draw the heat less quickly from my creations, thereby giving me more time to mould them before they set.

Wrapping an egg roll around the handle of a wooden spoon.  This one was a bit undercooked, as you can see the edges are still moist.

I had plenty of failures, of course.  Some rolls were too thick, did not cook through, and turned out more like crepes.  Some were too thin, and became brittle before I could bend them.  Some were simply cooked too long, and became a deep golden brown.  In fact, the majority of my egg rolls were failures, though they still tasted good.  Part of the problem, I think, was that I had to lift the circles out of the frying pan and put them onto my chopping board for rolling.  What you want is to roll them on the hot surface, so that they don't solidify so quickly.

Pile of rejects.  The sheets at the top set before I could roll them.  The rolls at the bottom were undercooked and did not set.  Hiding underneath all of these are the golden brown, "burnt" ones.

Once made, you have to keep your egg rolls in an airtight container.  Even the very thin, very crispy ones I created became soft after only a couple of hours when left out.  The thicker ones were easier to roll, because they did not cool down so quickly, but it was also difficult to draw all the moisture out of them to turn them crunchy.  Next time I might cheat, and put those ones in the oven afterwards to dry out.  I might even add a little baking powder, to see if that would help with the texture.

The thicker egg rolls were easier to roll.

Although far from perfect, I was pretty happy with how my egg rolls turned out, considering it was my first attempt and I only had makeshift equipment.  Here is how you can have a go too.

Handmade Egg Rolls (手工蛋卷)
Adapted from NTD Culinary, December 2009

Makes more or less 40 egg rolls, depending on size.

100g butter
100g icing sugar
4 eggs
1/8 tsp vanilla essence
100g plain flour

Extra Equipment

• Egg roll press, or substitute (in my case, two pans from the kitchen)
• Shaping rod, or substitute (such as a chopstick or handle of a wooden spoon)
• Cooling rack, or substitute (such as chopsticks arranged over a plate)
• Cotton gloves (optional, so you don't burn your fingers when rolling)

Method

1. Cream butter and sugar until nearly white (use your electric egg beater if you have one).
2. Beat in whole eggs, one at a time.
3. Add vanilla essence and mix.
4. Sift flour and stir through gently.
5. Let mixture rest for 15 minutes.
6. Heat egg roll maker or pans on low, and wipe/spray cooking surfaces with a thin layer of oil (you only need this so the first batch does not stick).
7. Place a tablespoon of mixture into the centre and press (if using a larger rectangular machine, you can put two dollops about 10cm apart, as per the videos in my previous post).  If using a cast-iron mould over a gas burner, cook for 30 seconds on each side.  It'll take some experimentation to work out the optimal thickness and cooking time.
8. Roll the disc up around your shaping rod, wait a couple of seconds for your egg roll to cool down and set, then transfer it to your cooling rack.
9. Repeat with the rest of the batter.
10. Once cool, store egg rolls in an airtight container.

Posts in this series

• Egg Rolls Part 1: Variations Around the World
• Egg Rolls Part 2: Sweet Flaky Egg Rolls (蛋卷, or Biscuit/Cookie/Wafer Rolls) 
• Egg Rolls Part 3: Recipe for Handmade Sweet Flaky Egg Rolls (手工蛋卷)

This post is part of Our Growing Edge, a monthly blogging event aimed at inspiring us to try new things.

Review: Auckland Art Gallery Cafe, or Auckland is Finally Growing Up

[Added 16 October 2014: This blog post was about the Auckland Art Gallery Cafe run by Dawsons. The current cafe in the Art Gallery is now operated by Mojo.]

I love Auckland more each day.  The city is alive now in a way it has never been before, even as little as five or even two years ago.  I guess the Rugby World Cup brought about the biggest changes.  Even though I mocked the tram on its tiny loop in Wynyard Quarter, I have total respect for the work that has been done on North Wharf.  Go on a Friday night, when the Silo Market is on, along with a free open-air cinema session, and you will know what I mean.

Friday night Silo Park Market.

Then there are the changes in Federal Street, including the ever-popular Depot eatery, and the exciting little shops in Ponsonby Central.  The Auckland Night Market is expanding beyond the Pakuranga Saturday market and Glenfield Sunday market to include Friday nights at Hunter's Plaza in Papatoetoe and Thursday nights in Onehunga now too!  The Britomart area, which had once been "those dilapidated buildings opposite Showgirls with graffiti and broken windows", is now a pleasant place to be, both for the ambiance and the food options available.  Even the cheap Chinese eateries on Dominion Road have stepped up, with brand new signage highlighting their names in illuminated, colour-changing glory.

And there are promises of even more good things to come.  The City Works Depot has been revamped, and by the end of the year we will see a new Al Brown restaurant there, as well as Michael van de Elzen's Foodtruck Garage (I saw his Food Truck parked there already).  There is a beautiful complex being built in Osborne Lane, Newmarket, with brickwork buildings and paved walkways, where I hope to see more great eateries.

One of the brightest jewels in our city's crown, of which all Aucklanders should be proud, is the new(-ish) Auckland Art Gallery on Lorne Street.  And in this magnificent building, I will have you know, is one of the best cafes in Auckland, which, for some unknown reason, seems to have garnered some poor reviews, including in the Herald (never mind that the writers complain about the temperature of the coffee or the length of the queue rather than having anything concrete to say about the quality of the dishes offered).

The cafe is on the next floor up, behind the floating flowers.

The cafe is officially on the first floor of the art gallery, but you actually have to walk up two flights of steps from the main entrance, because there is an intervening floor called the Mezzanine.  That's the one where you have a superb view of the floating flowers that open and close, which you can even see from outside the museum.

Run by Dawsons Catering, the cafe changes its menu regularly, and also offers a special menu which is themed along the lines of the special exhibit which is running at the gallery.  For instance, for the Home AKL exhibit on Polynesian art last year, the special menu included a Samoan banquet fold over, ota ika raw fish salad, Fijian chicken curry, coconut rice pudding, and an "island passion" dessert with pineapple mousse, passionfruit gel, coconut dacquoise, and mango salsa.

The main menu gets updated too.  We were impressed to find the old-fashioned dish of lamb's fry (liver) on the menu last year, served with a potato rosti that looked like a glorious, deep-fried slice of cake.  That is no longer available, but other tempting menu items have taken its place.

Lambs fry, bacon, shallots, jus, potato rosti & watercress pesto.

A highlight of the current menu is the soufflé, which had a strong smokey note, and went well with the bitterness of the radicchio and the sweetness of the roast pear pieces.  The toasted hazelnuts boosted the flavour of the dish too, and it was more filling than it looked.

Soufflé twice baked, Mt Kyeburn smoked cheddar with radicchio, roast pear & hazelnut salad (partially eaten).

Although we have an aversion to sweet breakfasts, the banana walnut eggy bread (which we would have called "French toast") was also enjoyable, if somewhat less exciting.

Banana walnut eggy bread with maple syrup, strawberry compote, cinnamon mascarpone and free range bacon.

We have not yet tried the other items on the menu, but we liked the mix of traditional cafe breakfast dishes and a range of other choices. There are also counter options available, with the usual sandwiches, muffins and sweet treats, as well as salads.

Counter food.

With their great selection of delicious and beautifully presented dishes, and a modern airy environment, including seating on the deck overlooking the front entrance, what's not to like about the Auckland Art Gallery Cafe?  Oh, and did I mention that they only use free range eggs and bacon?

Seating on the balcony.

Notes

The cafe does not take reservations.

Panda Recommends

We prefer the more lunchy items to the more breakfasty items here.

Mains: Soufflé Twice Baked with Mt Kyeburn Smoked Cheddar ($16.50), Linguine Pasta with peppered pancetta, leeks, summer greens, parmesan shavings and pistachio pesto ($18.50), Banana Walnut Eggy Bread ($14.50)

Vegie Pandas
You can have the soufflé too, though no doubt the other dishes are also tasty.  The Green Vegetable Soup ($13.50) was under-seasoned though, when I tried it. Vegetarian, gluten free and dairy free items are clearly marked on the menu.

Menu - Feb 2013

Restaurant Details

Auckland Art Gallery Café
Corner of Kitchener and Wellesley Streets, Auckland Central
(09) 379 1349

Opening hours:
Mondays to Fridays 7:30am - 4:30pm (espresso bar 10am - 3:30pm)
Saturdays to Sundays 10am - 4:30pm (espresso bar 10am - 3:30pm)

Auckland Art Gallery from the outside.

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Egg Rolls Part 2: Sweet Flaky Egg Rolls (蛋卷, or Biscuit/Cookie/Wafer Rolls)

Funny, you google "egg roll" and all you get are pages about American Chinese spring rolls.  But enter "hollow egg roll" and most of the search results are for egg roll machines, of the straw-shaped dessert variety, usually jazzed up with a chocolate swirl (here's an example).  Look up "phoenix egg rolls" or "鳳凰卷" and you get folded, pillow-shaped products from Macau, for instance from the Koi Kei bakery (and it's impressive to watch someone folding the rolls by hand).

For the record, what I wanted was to find a good recipe for making basic Chinese egg rolls, of the moderately sweet, flaky, tubular persuasion (as eaten in Hong Kong, Macau, and the southern parts of mainland China), by hand without the use of a machine, hot iron plates, or other specialist equipment.

Egg rolls from Duck Shing Ho factory, picture from buriki blog.  Look at those web-like layers!

It's interesting to see a machine in action of course:

and it's amazing to watch the skill of people making egg rolls in the street:

but it would be nice to know they can easily be made at home as well, even though nobody does.  (By the way, did you notice that in both of the videos above, they squirt two blobs of dough for each roll?  All the recipes I found just call for making one flattened circle.)

In the course of my research, I discovered that there are some very similar snacks outside of China. The ones in Malaysia and Singapore include coconut milk in the batter, and are also known as love letters, or kueh belanda. Made by the Peranakan Chinese for Chinese New Year, they often use moulds with intricate designs. Kuih kapit is much the same, but generally thinner and folded into quarters rather than rolled into a tube. Both versions may be made with rice flour, wheat flour, or a mixture of both. [Added 27 April 2014: I have just come across the Thai equivalent of egg rolls, tong muan (ทองม้วน), which also uses coconut milk, but are smaller, almost bite-sized.]

Love letters and mould from an online trader.

The Norwegians have a Christmas cookie called krumkake, which has similar patterning, but is rolled into a cone rather than a cylinder.  The batter may be spiced with cardamom or nutmeg, and they are sometimes eaten filled with whipped cream and fruit, like a brandy snap.

Norwegian krumkake with decorative iron and shaping cone, from Lefse Time.

Much more surprising to me is that the Spanish, and by extension the Filipinos, have a dessert called barquillos, or neules in the Catalan language, which is basically identical to the Chinese egg roll. Some make them with whole egg, some just with the whites, some just with the yolks, and some add lemon rind, but apart from minor differences, they seem to be the same thing.  The Filipinos have also branched out into other flavours, for instance ube (purple yam) and pandan.

Spanish neules, from Gastronomía y Cía website.

Coloured barquillos in the Philippines, photo from bucaio blog.  Flavours shown are strawberry, ube, pandan, coconut, chocolate and goat's milk.

While all the Chinese recipes contain eggs, butter/lard, flour and sugar, there is some variation between them. The version on Cooking of China makes use of "sweet potato mud", which I assume is kumara purée, as well as milk. In Kitty Choi's Foundation Dim Sum Making cookbook, she adds milk, coconut milk, dessicated coconut, custard powder and baking powder. Other recipes throw in a sprinkling of salt and sesame.

What I am most intrigued by is how the best egg rolls have that rough, lace-like surface.  Is it a result of the ingredients, or the cooking technique?  This forum post proved to me that no fancy machine is required to obtain a beautiful texture, but the photo accompanying every recipe I found presents egg rolls with a smooth surface.  I guess I just have to give it a try myself, and see.


Posts in this series

• Egg Rolls Part 1: Variations Around the World
• Egg Rolls Part 2: Sweet Flaky Egg Rolls (蛋卷, or Biscuit/Cookie/Wafer Rolls) 
• Egg Rolls Part 3: Recipe for Handmade Sweet Flaky Egg Rolls (手工蛋卷)

Review: Selera Malaysian Cafe

A popular food for Chinese New Year is the turnip cake (蘿蔔糕/萝卜糕), known in Malaysia and Singapore as "carrot cake".  Just as egg rolls can mean different things to different people, this delicacy is quite different from Western carrot cake, in that it is savoury (well, okay, so are fish cakes), and its primary ingredient is actually neither carrot nor turnip, but the daikon radish.

紅蘿蔔 hóng ​luó​ bo = "red radish" = carrot

白蘿蔔 bái ​luó ​bo = "white radish" = daikon radish

蘿蔔糕 luó bo​ gāo = "radish cake" = turnip cake, a.k.a. carrot cake

I am used to eating turnip cake simply sliced and fried, maybe dipped into chilli and soy sauce.  But I enjoy it in other ways too, like in the Malaysian version at Selera, an eatery in Newmarket we have been frequenting on and off for years. There, it is fried with egg, soy sauce, mung bean sprouts, and spring onions in a delightfully spicy mixture.

Soft cubes of fried turnip cake, egg and vegetables in a salty, spicy sauce.

"Carrot cake" is not the only item on the menu worth eating at Selera though.  Their mee goreng is beautifully hot and juicy, if a little sweet, and the giant bowls of laksa served here are not just tasty, but great value for money.

Vegetable laksa and mee goreng.

You will find your usual hawker favourites here, from char kway teow, to nasi lemak, to Hokkien mee, to Hainanese chicken rice. Those with a smaller appetite can nibble on snack items such as satay chicken, lobak roll and roti canai.

The eatery feels more pleasant now that the footpath outside has been upgraded, and the redesigned menu which came out last month is easier on the eye too. Our only complaint would be that the chopsticks left in a holder on the table are prone to feeling sticky.  This can be off-putting, but rest assured that Selera has an "A" food grade rating, and nothing untoward has happened to us yet.  We're not letting this minor detail get between us and good food anyway.

Panda Recommends

Mains: Mee Goreng ($13.00), Carrot Cake ($13.00), Curry Laksa Noodle ($14.00).  We have yet to try everything, so there are no doubt other great choices.
Avoid the Selera tofu ($7.00) or the Spring Rolls ($5.50), unless you like generic sweet and sour sauce.

Vegie Pandas
Oh, this is a tough one.  Malaysians love to use shrimps in their cooking, and you will find it in the lemak sayur (vegies in coconut milk, $19.00) as well as sambal anything.  Mix Vegetables with Garlic ($19.00) would be safe, but boring.  The Vegetable Laksa Noodle ($14) is great, but I haven't checked the ingredients.

Menu - page 1

Menu - page 2

Restaurant Details

Selera Malaysian Cafe
487 Khyber Pass Road, Newmarket, Auckland
(09) 520 7977

Opening hours:
Mondays to Sundays 11:30am - 10pm

Selera is on the corner of Khyber Pass Road and Osbourne Street.

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Egg Rolls Part 1: Variations Around the World

Americans might as well be speaking a different language. I learnt this the hard way (as Genie of Bunny. Eats. Design. reminded me) when I blindly followed a recipe for chilli sin carne, and dutifully emptied two cups of tomato sauce into what, up until that point, was a delicious pot of beans and vegetables. In case you were wondering, what we call tomato sauce is similar to what Americans would call "ketchup".  My promising meal became a disgusting, sweet and sickly mess.

NZ English	American English	Description
tomato sauce	ketchup	Seasoned tomato purée - sweet and tangy, frequently eaten with hot chips and burgers.
pasta sauce	tomato sauce	Seasoned tomato purée - savoury, frequently eaten with meatballs and pasta.

It's not so bad when they use a completely different term altogether, like "zucchini" instead of "courgette", or "rutabaga" instead of "swede" (actually, I thought "aubergine" for "eggplant" and "mangetout" for "snow pea" were also American expressions, but apparently they are from British English). What really gets things confusing is when a word you are familiar with gets used to mean something else.  Here are some more examples:

NZ English	American English	Description
scone	biscuit	Soft quickbread made of flour and baking powder or soda, frequently eaten with butter and jam.
biscuit	cookie	Sweet, hard and dry baked product, with many variations, such as chocolate biscuits and gingernuts.
jam	jelly	Sweet spread or preserve made from fruit and sugar boiled to a thick consistency.
jelly	jello	Translucent fruit-flavoured dessert made to set using gelatine.

So What's an Egg Roll?

It wasn't until I tried to look for a recipe for "egg rolls" that I realised how many different things the term can mean.  Suppose I tell you that I am going to be bringing egg rolls for shared lunch tomorrow.  What would you expect to see?  Something sweet or savoury, crispy or soft?

A. 

Cooked egg (boiled and mashed, or fried) in a bread roll, which has been sliced in half.
Maybe something like a bacon and egg roll, minus the bacon.

Recipe: Ham and Egg Roll (More Than Words blog)
Recipe: Egg Mayo & Watercress Rolls (Good Food Magazine, April 2011) [Link added 22 June 2016 to replace broken link for Egg Mayo Mini Rolls (http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/5765/egg-mayo-mini-rolls, BBC Good Food - Olive Magazine, April 2008)]

B.

Cooked egg (baked whole, or mashed) in a hollowed out bread roll.

Recipe: Baked Beans, Bacon and Egg Rolls (Woman's Day magazine) [Link updated 22  June 2016 from http://recipefinder.msn.co.nz/article.aspx?id=8284773]
Recipe: Baked Egg Rolls (Modaretto blog)
[Updated 22 June 2016: removed broken link to Sesame Egg Rolls (http://recipefinder.msn.co.nz/recipes/womensweekly/742983/sesame-egg-rolls, Australian Women's Weekly magazine)]

C.

An omelette which has been rolled up, with or without a filling such as meat and/or vegetables.

Recipe: Baked Cheesy Egg Roll (Allrecipes.co.uk)
Recipe: Korean Egg Roll - 계란말이 Gyeran Mari (K Food Addict blog)
Recipe: Egg Roll with Fish Paste (Elinluv blog)

D.

A spring roll, which became popularised as egg rolls in America.  According to Dear Dim Sum [Updated 22 June 2016 to remove broken link to http://deardimsum.com/2011/04/12/spring-roll-or-egg-roll-%E6%98%A5%E5%8D%B7%E8%BF%98%E6%98%AF%E8%9B%8B%E5%8D%B7/], spring rolls are those of the soft rice paper variety to Americans, but I'm not so sure—spring rolls are always deep-fried variety in my book.  Otherwise, they would be called summer rolls or fresh rolls.

Recipe: My Mother's Famous Chinese Egg Rolls (Steamy Kitchen blog)
Recipe: Egg Rolls (Sara Moulton, Food Network)

E.

A sweet, flaky, tube-shaped roll eaten in Hong Kong and the southern parts of China.  The most famous in Hong Kong are those produced by Duck Shing Ho, where people queue as early as 4-5 months in advance to get their supplies for Chinese New Year!  (Not sure if something was lost in translation, but it looks like you can buy an egg roll machine [Updated 22 June 2016 to remove broken link to http://www.cloudol.net/goods/6137/%E7%87%83%E6%B0%94%E8%9B%8B%E5%8D%B7%E6%9C%BA] for less than 2,000 Chinese yuan, or a ridiculously cheap NZ$40!)

Recipe: Love Letters / Egg Rolls - 鸡蛋卷 (wery nice blog)
Recipe: Hand Made Egg Roll 香脆手工蛋卷 (more than bread blog) [Link added 22 June 2016 to replace broken link for Biscuit (Egg) Rolls - 手工蛋卷 (http://www.wretch.cc/blog/limpepsi/24131248, limpepsi's blog)]

F.

Fried egg wrapped inside a paratha flatbread, a street food originating in Kolkata, India.

Recipe: Kolkata Egg Roll (Bong Mum's Cookbook blog)
Recipe: Egg Roll: a Wrap Around the Streets of Kolkata (Food Wanderings blog)

G.

Chopped boiled egg, rolled up in sandwich bread, like an asparagus roll.

Recipe: Chicken and Egg Rolls (Mountain Bread.com.au) [Updated 22 June 2016 to remove broken link to http://www.mountainbread.com.au/cgi-bin/index.pl?menu_id=56]
Recipe: Egg Roll Sushi (http://food.ninemsn.com.au)

H.

Hard-boiled egg, wrapped in flour and/or meat and deep-fried, similar to a scotch egg.  The Nigerian version is sweet.

Recipe: Nigerian Egg Roll (All Nigerian Recipes.com)
Recipe: Sri Lankan Egg Rolls (Peter Kuravita, SBS.com.au) [Link updated 22 June 2016 from http://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipe/13407/egg_rolls]
Recipe: Stuffed Egg Rolls (Spice India Online blog)

---

My New Zealand workmates had no idea what an egg roll was, but suggested it could be like an asparagus roll (G. above) or perhaps a bacon and egg roll without the bacon (A.).  Americans I spoke to didn't think they could mean anything other than spring rolls (D.).  To be honest, the first time I heard of the spring roll meaning was when I tried to google "egg roll recipes", so it's surprising to me how difficult it is to find anything about any other kind of egg roll.

What does an egg roll mean to you?  Are there other meanings than what I have listed above?

Posts in this series

• Egg Rolls Part 1: Variations Around the World
• Egg Rolls Part 2: Sweet Flaky Egg Rolls (蛋卷, or Biscuit/Cookie/Wafer Rolls) 
• Egg Rolls Part 3: Recipe for Handmade Sweet Flaky Egg Rolls (手工蛋卷)

Europe Eating: Seaside Dining @ Sole Bar & Restaurant, Rapallo, Italy (or, a Taste of Spontaneity)

For our trip to Europe several months ago, we decided not to plan too far in advance.  We would enjoy it so much more if we didn't lock ourselves down to staying for a certain number of nights in a certain place.  The end result was that we had to pay through our noses for what accommodation was left after the best hotels were booked out, especially in the four cities where, we discovered later, our visit had coincided with Radiohead concerts (in fact the band followed us back to New Zealand and had a concert in Auckland too!).

Someone trying to sell a Radiohead ticket.

In the spirit of adventure, we also hired a car for part of the journey. Driving in Italy was certainly an experience! Before we even managed to get into the traffic, we had to wait "15 minutes" (this is Italian for an hour) for the rental vehicle to arrive, because we had requested an automatic and they had given us a manual replacement without warning, which meant they had to send yet another car over from the airport, a larger, more fuel-guzzling and expensive one.

We were terrified of driving in the cities: even without having to operate a clutch, it was too much trying to dodge pedestrians, remember to stay on the right side of the road, and worry about possibly damaging the Audi A5 with 300km on the odometer (that's right, 300km, not 300,000km!). Once we made it to the autostrada though, it was smooth sailing—our journey from Bologna westwards, along the coast towards Nice, was mostly on toll roads, where bridge after tunnel after bridge meant no mountain was an obstacle.

Our first day of driving also coincided with us having absolutely nowhere to stay.  Up till now, we had generally booked accommodation at least the night before.  This time, not having found the time, crossed with not being sure how far we could get in the car, meant we were in the wild without a plan.  Perhaps we thought we could sleep in the car in the worst instance.

After failing to find a parking space in Florence, and giving up on visiting the touristy Pisa, we had a horrendous lunch at an Autogrill (restaurant at a service stop on the side of the autostrada), before reaching the beautiful walled city of Lucca.  We did some research over drinks, and decided to push on ahead.  Our target was now a hostel in the mountains of Moconesi.

It was a good thing we aimed to get there early, because we had underestimated how difficult the narrow roads would be.  By the time we made it to the hostel, it past 6pm, and we were hungry.  Unfortunately, there was no one at reception.  Although we met a guest while waiting, there was still no staff there over an hour later. Trying the ring the hostel's number failed miserably. It was now dark, and we decided to give up and go elsewhere. There was no obvious other place to stay in Moconesi, so we selected a hotel at Rapallo, a half hour's drive away on the Ligurian coast.  As you can see, this meant making our way down crazy, windy roads, where we were tail-gated by impatient locals (who had much more practical cars) and nearly had a head-on collision with a bus heading up the mountain!

This gives you an idea how windy the mountain roads were.

It turns out it was a good thing the hostel owner in Moconesi never showed up, because we would never have experienced one of the highlights of our trip otherwise.  Our hotel in Rapallo (we just managed to check in before they closed for the night) was a mansion compared to the run-down and more expensive apartments we found elsewhere.  Our suite in the 17th century building had a sea view, a fully functional kitchen complete with dishwasher, plenty of wood-panelled cupboards and a dining table, a separate bedroom opening out onto a private courtyard, a sofa bed in the lounge area, and a massive bathroom.  If only we could have stayed for longer!

What's more, it was just a few doors down from a couple of bakers (where we bought our breakfast the next morning, including a chickpea-based thin pancake which is a local specialty) and just a short stroll to the water.  There, we had a very late dinner while looking at the impressively lit Castello sul Mare, a castle in the sea built in 1551 to fend the residents against frequent pirate attacks.

Beautiful seaside castle setting for our dinner.

There were actually a few restaurants along this strip, but we were glad we chose to eat at Sole.  This restaurant not only had impeccable service, a huge drinks menu (including a delicious range of granitas), and a good Ligurian vegetarian option, their seafood was simple and stunning.

The tuna tartare was fantastic, but the most memorable dish on the table was the taglierini al granchio, translated on their blackboard as "fresh spaghetti with crab".  We had come to expect great pasta everywhere in Italy, but this surpassed our expectations.  Even before we tasted this exquisite dish, our breaths were taken away by its presentation: served in the crab's shell, with a pair of pliers so we could crack the legs open and suck out every last morsel.

Special of the day: crab spaghetti in the shell, and a tuna tartare.

The desserts, too, did not fail to impress, with the waiter coming out with a blowtorch to create the sugary crust on our crème brûlée.  Sure, we've seen this done before, but it was a fitting end to a what turned out to be a beautiful evening.  Thank goodness for the missing hostel staff.

Crème brûlée for dessert.

Restaurant Details

Sole Bar & Restaurant
Via Montebello,14, Rapallo Province of Genoa, Italy
+39 0185 50241

Opening hours:
Tuesdays to Fridays 10am - 1am
Saturdays 10am - 2am
Sundays 10am - 1am

Cashew Nut Cookies (腰果酥)

Happy Chinese New Year!  We had a big family lunch for the Year of the Snake today, and so I turned to a tried and true recipe for which I also happened to have all the ingredients: Cashew Nut Cookies.

This recipe is easy, and turns out deliciously light, crumbly cookies, pretty much what you might call nutty, bite-sized shortbread.  I love how they get that cracked look too, just like the store-bought ones from the Asian grocery.  They are not very sweet at all, so if you have a sweet tooth, you might want to use a bit more sugar.

Cashew nut cookies.

Cashew Nut Cookies (腰果酥)
Adapted from My Kitchen Snippets, January 2009

Makes 80 bite-sized cookies.

270g cashew nuts, roasted and salted (70g are for the garnish)
250g plain flour
60g cornflour
1/2 tsp baking powder
210g butter (or lard for a more authentic flavour)
100g sugar (could increase to 120g)
1 egg, separated (the egg white is the the glaze and could be substituted - see Q&A below)
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Method

1. Pick out the best-looking whole cashew nuts for the garnish.  Halve them lengthwise, where they naturally want to split.  If a nut doesn't split cleanly, try again with another nut, so you have 80 beautiful halves and maybe a few more to spare, and set aside.
2. Measure out 200g of the rest of the nuts, using up the broken bits, and either grind or finely chop them.
3. Sift flour, cornflour and baking powder into the same bowl as the ground nuts and mix.
4. In a separate large bowl, cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy.  Add in egg yolk and vanilla essence.  Mix well.
5. Stir in the dry ingredients and mix well.  Here, I get my hands dirty and turn the crumbly clumps into a dough ball.
6. Chill dough in fridge for 40 minutes.
7. Preheat oven to 180°C (or if using a fan-forced oven, 160°C).
8. Shape dough into small balls, around 2cm in diameter, and place onto lined baking tray.
9. Press a cashew nut half into each cookie ball, so that it is slightly flattened and cracks a little at the edges.
10. Beat egg white and brush onto cookies.
11. Bake 15 minutes or until golden brown.
12. Cool and store in airtight container.

What is the best way of splitting the cashew nuts in half?
What worked for me was using a thin-bladed knife (e.g. a filleting knife) and pushing the tip into the inner curve of the nut along the join line. The two halves then naturally separated.

How far apart should I place the dough balls on the baking tray?
There just needs to be a little gap between each cookie after you have flattened them with a cashew half.  These cookies basically hold their shape.

The dough balls don't need to be this far apart.  They don't spread on baking.

Should I apply the egg wash before or after I press the cashew garnish on?
While the original recipe calls for brushing the beaten egg onto the cookies before pressing on the cashew halves, I found the appearance of the cookies to be more appealing when the glaze is applied right at the end.  You could argue that the nut would stick on more firmly with egg between it and the dough, but I think the nuts will stay on anyway, especially if you make sure the egg wash runs into the crack between the cashew and the rest of the cookie.

Cookie comparison: eggwash applied before cashew (left) and eggwash applied afterwards (right).

I have too many egg yolks from some other baking.  Can I use a yolk for the glaze instead?

Yes, you can.  The original recipe calls for whole egg.  I decided to use the leftover white to reduce waste, though it produces a lighter-coloured finish.  The cookies above were actually glazed with half a yolk and one egg white beaten together.  The more yolk you have, the more golden the end result will be.  If using just yolk, you can also thin it out with a little water or milk.

Bulk Food Savings

There's this little shop on Dominion Road, tucked out of sight behind the Two Fifteen restaurant, a hair salon, what used to be a Telecom shop on the corner, and that delicious tapas restaurant, Serafin [Added 28 July 2014: that corner shop is now Murder Burger and the spot where Serafin was is now another branch of Mink Cafe].  The easiest way for you to find it would be to make like you want to go to the Wendy's drive-thru, with entry off Walters Road.  Then you will see a car park and a squat building labelled Bulk Food Savings, a treasure trove of cooking supplies.

It's funny that I should get excited about a store with no fresh vegetables, but there are just so many things I don't normally see here.  And unlike many ethnic groceries, which also contain inspiring discoveries, this place is spotlessly clean, with plenty of organic options for the health conscious, and a simply-labelled assortment of products for the culinary adventurer.

Bulk bins, a wide range of dried fruit and spices, and much more.

Take the spice rack on the far wall, for example.  Apart from your usual parsley, rosemary and sage, you can find ajwain (carom seeds), amchur (dried and powdered unripe green mangoes), amla (Indian gooseberry), annatto seeds, asario (garden cress, Lepidium sativum) seeds, dill tips, fenugreek leaves, juniper berries, karela (bitter melon) powder, whole mace, whole nutmeg and tukmaria (basil seeds).  They even have a great range in something as basic as pepper: take your pick from whole black pepper, New York cut pepper, ground pepper, cracked pepper, lemon pepper, pink, green or white peppercorns, and of course, organic black pepper.  Szechuan pepper is not really pepper, but you can buy it at Bulk Food Savings too.  There were also things I have never heard of before, like sanchora, which I later discovered was just raw sea salt.  (You can also purchase coarse Sicilian sea salt, kelp mineral rock salt, volcanic black salt, and a pink-coloured mineral salt.)  Not everything is always there though.  When I went a couple of days ago, they were out of cinammon sticks.  Fortunately, I wasn't even half way through the packet I bought there, oh, probably a year ago.

Dried fruits are pretty standard grocery items, right?  But have you seen the variety here?  From dried apples (both sliced and diced), to dried strawberries, to kiwifruit to pear, pineapple, papaya, this shop has all you need to make the most awesome cereal mix, or perhaps the most inventive fruit cake.

Looking for something filling?  Apart from bulk breakfast cereal items like rice bubbles and corn flakes, and the usual baking goods like flour and cornflour, you will find a variety of grains and pulses, such as rice in different forms (from arborio to wild rice), organic amaranth flakes, organic buckwheat flour, polenta in various grind sizes, organic burghul and couscous, toover dhal (split pigeon peas), lentils (beluga, french green, red), beans (adzuki, chana/chickpea, brown chana, moong) and popping corn (available loose in the bulk bin, as well as still on the cob).

Nuts and seeds are not overlooked either, so you can buy a big bag of hazelnuts rather than several of those tiny packets in the baking section of the supermarket.  Some are coated in chocolate.  There are nut butters, which I love, though peanut butter makes me happy as much as a fancier one.  Organic chia seeds and organic ground flaxseed are also available, along with the more familiar poppy seeds.

Those into natural health remedies will be interested in the psyllium powder, bee pollen, and stevia powder (both in white extract form and green leaf form).  There is also a range of alternative milks (soy milk, organic almond milk, organic rice milk, oat milk) and herbal teas.

More into trying ethnic foods?  Here, you can find sesame helva from Israel, rose water from Lebanon, biscuits and tinned vegetables from Europe, various sauces, wild arame, organic miso and organic tamari sauce, as well as convenient packets of Indian food, such as ready-to-fry masala papad.

In short, Bulk Food Savings is a great place to go for your cupboard staples, as well as unusual and organic ingredients.  Despite having little branding or information on most products (I am never quite sure how much of something is in one of those pre-packed bags), chances are, there will be something that takes your fancy.

Store Details

Bulk Food Savings
217 Dominion Rd, Mount Eden, Auckland
(09) 630 6235

Opening hours:
Mondays to Saturdays 9am - 6pm
Sundays 10am - 4pm

To find the shop entrance, follow the sign to the start of the Wendy's drive-thru.

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Foodie Excursion: Pick Your Own Strawberries @ Best Berries

Summer.  You're not celebrating it properly unless you have sun, BBQs, watermelon and strawberries.  And what better way to make sure you have the freshest strawberries than to pick them yourself?

We had been meaning to go strawberry picking for a while, but were always busy with something else.  Finally, on the afternoon of the last day of the season, we made it to the Best Berries farm at Coatesville.

Cluster of strawberries.

We did not have high expectations, since both the commercial pickers and other members of the public would already have been through and collected the best fruit.  Sure enough, we did not see many beacons of red when we cast our eyes over the fields.

Rows of strawberry plants.

There was a quilt show on today though, complete with a sausage sizzle and tea and cakes, which gave the property a festive atmosphere.  And having to search carefully to find the berries that are buried (excuse the pun) behind the leaves gives you a greater sense of achievement when you finally walk away with full ice cream tubs.

More than 2kg strawberries.

No doubt we could have found better specimens if we had come earlier in the season, or spent longer selecting the berries, but we were still happy with our fragrant, colourful and juicy mouthfuls of summer flavour.

Farm Details

Best Berries
114 Sunnyside Road, Coatesville
(09) 415 9552

Opening hours:
Mondays to Sundays 9am - 5pm

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A New Advertising Technique?

Someone stopped me in the street the other day, asking for directions to Ponsonby Road.  I pointed out the general direction, showed him the way on my smartphone, and he thanked me.  So far so good.

"Oh, by the way", he then said, "I have a restaurant - have you heard of <insert restaurant name>?"
"Umm", I replied, humouring him, "well, I know there's one in Mission Bay."
He pulled out a little card, labelled "VIP card", with a 25% discount offer printed on the back, and proceeded to write my name and the date on it, then signed it.  Well, that's nice, I thought.  What a clever way of making me take his advertising, which I never would have done otherwise.

Then it got a bit weird.  "Can I have your number for our restaurant records?", he asked.  Not wanting to risk offence, I gave it to him, though I secretly thought it was intruding on my privacy.  Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised when I later received two text messages, one letting me know he found the place he was looking for, the next inviting me again to his restaurant.

He might have had a clever marketing tactic to begin with, but his forwardness has all but ensured I will not be visiting.