That sino-italian link

Seems like the Sino-Italian exchange continues to this day long after our beloved ta mee became linguini and mee pok morphed into fettuccini.

In honour of gastronomical collaborations, our initial idea of cheese-and-wine CNY, which evolved into a teochew muay supper concept (both of which did not materialise), became a local fare punctuated with European flavours affair.

OK, OK ... it was ciabatta and curry.

The result was chewy and light ciabattas enlisted into the service of spicy chicken curry as a gravy scooper and spice-negator. It was the perfect pre and post blackjack dish.

the italian job

An almost picture-perfect match of Bertinet's own picture in his book, this Rock Salt and Rosemary Foccacia was a success in the stomach stakes too.

Not as olive oil-laden as many I've tasted, the symmetry of this bread's shape is as pleasing as the salty-savoury balance of taste that lingers long after slices have gone.

getting fat

Memory fails me, but this could be the first '08 bread.

Sweet, soft and just on the pudgy-cuddly side, this is the springy Pain Viennoise, perfect for hand-tearing and sharing on a Saturday afternoon with fine-leafed tea.

Pale and skinny at the resting stage (below), it emerges bravely browned and bulgy quickly.

Just as quickly, this is easily wiped off the tray. Only fears of our own expanding girth stopped the perfect partnering of pain viennoise with gooey, sticky nutella for a proletarian version
of pain chocolat.

spice really is nice

One of the most heady scents, in equal measures of aversion and attraction, belongs to cheese. What more when it is pungent gruyere being baked to brown perfection.

The second attempt by the D goddess at the much-appreciated Gruyere and Cumin Bread was an olfactory attack.

But out of the oven, it was a proud moment, like a parent seeing a suspiciously errant child become a worthy character.

Punchy in flavour, pricelessly chewy in texture, photogenic in the morning light ... those uncertain, erratic experiments with dough had reached a next level.

Consistency is all.

go forth and bear fruit III

On a Christmas past, before the D goddess found her calling from bread and Bertinett, explorations in the kitchen had begun.

The plan was to make small, meaningful gifts for friends that would hopefully capture the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future. So the season's hues of cranberry-red and fresh pistachio-green were enlisted to make crisp slices of biscotti. But perhaps small is relative and our biscottis were more biscuits, but they were just as happily devoured by hungry friends and selves.

And then the bread man cometh and in his book, a cranberry and walnut loaf looked most longingly to be sifted, shaped and summoned into bread being. Ah! That light bulb went up bright on the most brilliant idea on how to use up those niggling cranberries from a season past (well, it was just under a month really).

Amidst the digging up of ingredients, the D goddess forgot the whisper of the walnut and popped the pistachios into the dough instead.

The result is this bread version of our earlier biscotti.

go forth and bear fruit II

It was, as mentioned in the earlier post, a whirlwind of bread-making on late nights.

The raisin and hazelnut emerges fresh from the oven.

Just as quickly, it was half gone in 12 hours' time.

go forth and bear fruit I

The D goddess is on a kitchen rampage.

Faster than you can 'kitchenaid', there birthed on the wooden board and cooling rack a variety of fruits that lent their sweet and tart flavours to humble flour and water.

Stomach acids have short memories and the baking was fast and furious, so Dough-A-Deer didn't know which came first: the-lemon-rolls-that-could-be-baguettes, the Van-Houten-would've-been-proud fruit&nut raisin and hazelnut loaf or the season-inspired cranberry and pistachio bread.

But, here they are .... let the lemon begin....

the missing loaf

After a not-very-encouraging first bake of the earlier, misshapen Epi (that dreamed of growing up to be a proper baguette), the D goddess was surprisingly undeterred in the endeavours of dough-slamming.

And so was born a new bread -- the sweet loaf of orange and mint bread that left one citrus fruit naked and some stomachs sated.

Sadly, the much-more-deserving bread was gobbled up before it was pictured. Such are intentions (like this one to blog) after the event has happened (we baked, we burped and we never saw the back of that road).

Next time, we will be sure to let no yeast and flour be left without a picture, a crumb of its former life...