Papaya and peach gum soup

and a little about my upcoming cookbook!

Hello from Daylesford, and selamat Hari Raya Puasa to all celebrating! I hope you are having a good start to your week. Wex and I just got our booster shot two days ago, and have been feeling pretty wrecked with chills and body aches. I usually work from home on Mondays anyway, but Wex took the day off. Mondays are usually when I work on my second cookbook - on the Asian approach to vegetables - and today’s recipe to develop was watercress noodles! The dough started out a bright pandan-green, but turned a darker shade when the noodles were boiled. Tossed in a dressing, they almost look like thick, glossy ribbons of wakame. Really beautiful stuff.

I’m honestly feeling so good about the progress of the cookbook and I wish I could share more with you, but it is only going to be out middle of next year!

Honestly, right after writing Wet Market to Table, I was feeling like I needed a long break before I would write a second cookbook. It just takes so much out of you. But the myth of a cookbook bug is real! And sometimes when the idea comes, you just get so swept up in the excitement and mission of it all. I had the idea for my second cookbook in 2019, when I was in Melbourne. That was the same year Wet Market to Table was launched, and by the time I went back to Singapore to do the book launches, I already had the proposal for my second all typed up and ready.

I could publish a cookbook with Epigram again, but I knew for sure that I wanted this book to have international reach because the scope is way broader than my first book, which focuses on produce from Singapore’s wet markets.

I wanted to pitch the book to a publisher here in Australia, but I’ve heard stories about how you need a certain level of reach/ clout to even be considered and I just got daunted by it all. Eventually I decided to self-publish because I’ve managed to find the right collaborator for this project & also because I don’t want the document to sit in my Dropbox folder gathering virtual dust while I build a ‘following’. I mean how ridiculous does that sound? Banking your ambitions and dreams on something as unreliable and mutable as social media?

This project officially started in August last year - I’m now three-quarters of the way in terms of content, and it feels so good. My colleague was like, “What? Then why does it take so long if you’ve got most of the content sorted?” What most people don’t know is that the actual writing is only a fraction of the labour - there’s the photography, recipe testing, proofreading, editing, layouts and design, getting reviews, checking print samples, handling distribution, marketing etc. 2 years is the minimum, so it really feels like a marathon rather than a sprint. More about the book another time!

I wanted to share about this sweet papaya soup that we’ve been enjoying which has been making us feel so much better. If you’ve read the last newsletter, you’ll find some of the ingredients familiar. Great way to reuse the same ingredients you bought.

Soak 50g peach gum in a liberal amount of water for at least 8 hours/ overnight.

You’ll also need to soak 15g dried white fungus for 30 minutes. Drain the peach gum & white fungus, and cut 500g papaya into bite-sized chunks.

White fungus has a tough yellow/ brown centre, so cut that away, and tear roughly into smaller pieces.

Combine everything in a pot with 1 honey date, 50g rock sugar, 1/2 tsp each of northern & southern almonds, 1 1/2 tbsp goji berries, and 2L water. Bring to a boil and simmer on low heat for 30 minutes, covered. You can enjoy this dessert hot or cold. Like the chicken & apple soup in my last newsletter, this hydrates and nourishes your body from the inside-out. Perfect for cold and dry days.

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In other news: Because this is the month of Hari Raya Puasa, I’ve invited Diana (@cookcandiana) to teach us how to make sambal goreng jawa at our next member cookalong. It will be a vegan version with tahu, tempeh, and longbeans, with options to add prawns and beef! If you’re keen, sign up here 👅