What I've been up to & a May cookalong recap
It’s June! We’re officially midway through the year! I hope 2022 has been good to you, dear reader. Last night, someone DM-ed me, “Waiting on the next podcast episode 🤣🤣” It was really cute and endearing because I thought no one would notice that I’ve been taking a break from the podcast lately, but apparently the podcast has been “a very enjoyable listen on the commute to work”. Thank you for listening and being such eager beavers - I’m very grateful!
The reason for the temporal break is that 2022 has been such a whirlwind of a year! I’ve been doing so many things that sometimes I can’t believe it myself. I find it difficult whenever I meet new people or catch up with acquaintances and they ask, “What do you do?” or “What have you been up to?” because it’s impossible to sum it all up in a pithy sentence like how I used to, pre-pandemic: “I work as a chef.”
Since I moved to Daylesford two years ago, I’ve been working for a farmhouse cooking school, helping with the marketing, website copy, and kitchen support whenever we have classes.
At the start of this year, Wex’s colleague’s wife was looking for someone who could help with her start-up, providing healthy vegetable-forward lunches for the community because obesity is shaping up to be a big problem in Australia. At the same time, I felt like I needed to root myself in Daylesford, because working from home was getting very isolating. So I’ve been doing a few shifts a week and it’s been lovely getting to know more people around town!
Seasonings Magazine is wrapping up the subscription year with one final edition! It will be a National Day edition, with themes of identity and history, so it is such a good way to bow out. Print copies of #1 and #2 are completely sold out on our website, but you can purchase digital copies from us or read them at most library branches if you live in Singapore.
It’s been full steam ahead with the cookbook writing! For those of you who are new to the newsletter, I’m working on a cookbook that is all about celebrating veggies from an Asian perspective. I have developed 57 out of 64 recipes, and interviewed 16 out of 24 people from different parts of Asia so far - Tibet, China, India, Sri Lanka, Korea, Japan... The way I see it, the book is equal parts food & storytelling, as it delves into the philosophy that underpins the way Asian cultures approach plants. I’m so thrilled and wish I could share more, but am trying to contain myself for now! Soon!
A lot of the times with social media, it can make me feel like I’m not social enough, or that my life isn’t eventful enough (condition of living in the countryside), or that I’m not working enough on Singapore Noodles as a brand (or whatever you want to call it). But sometimes it’s nice to not have to put everything online, to not have to curate your life, or to not have to streamline passions the way you have to when you have a ‘brand’… and to just embrace the nature of being human - that we can be multi-passionate complex beings, who are free to live life without having to market the hell out of it :-)
Oh, something lovely happened recently! We had our May cookalong where one of our members, Diana, was teaching us how to make her family’s sambal goreng jawa. I’ve been following Diana for awhile on Instagram and she is clearly so passionate and knowledgeable about the food of her heritage, so I invited her to teach us.
She shared a vegan version of sambal goreng, with options to add prawns and beef. The heart of this dish is tempeh and firm tofu, that are deep-fried then stir-fried with the aromatics and other ingredients. Most of the tempeh you get in Australia is really not very good. I don’t understand why tempeh sold in supermarkets here is always sold pre-marinated in soy sauce, so what you get is brown and moist to the touch. You don’t get that beautiful bready aroma when you open the packaging, or the soft fuzzy feel of mycelium (okay that doesn’t sound appetizing haha). Unlike marinated tempeh, good tempeh fries like a dream. It is so rich-tasting and umami that I could eat it on its own. (If you’re living in Melbourne, I get good tempeh from Laguna on Russell St!)
What I found fascinating about Diana’s method is that she calls for the aromatics to be sliced as thinly as possible. The only thing that is ground is the dried chillies. What this means for the dish is that when the aromatics are cooked, they kind of cling to the tempeh, tofu, and vegetables and each bite differs from the next. One bite can be more lemongrassy, and another can be more spicy. I love that. There’s also more texture overall in the dish.
The recipe made enough for 2-3 people and was so yummy that I actually made a second batch right after the session ended with the rest of the tempeh and tofu. Sambal goreng is love! Thank you Diana 🧡 If you’re a member and missed this session, you can watch it on-demand here.
Ingredients in Diana’s Sambal Goreng Jawa: