Birthday party - thirteen

I find teenager birthday parties much tougher for me to organize than kiddy parties. All the ideas I find online for girl teenagers involve things that my girls really don't care for. So in case someone else out there is looking for ideas that don't involve pink fluffy unicorns, make up and such, this is for you.

Blueberry Mocktail - see below for details

We had a karaoke party! My daughter was very worried. "What if my friends don't want to sing?" I was pretty sure it was not going to be an issue and I was right!

We rented a machine from Kinder Geburtstag Events. They deliver to anywhere in Germany, but I'm sure that you can find such services everywhere in the world. And if not, all you need is YouTube, an amplifier, speakers and microphones. The Karaoke machine came with everything we needed and a "disco ball". The kids were a bit peeved that it was not one that could be hung from the ceiling, but I was very glad because I was dreading installing a mirror ball on our concrete ceiling! Its made up of LED's and you just plonk it down on a table (phew!).

We set the Living room up like a club. We put out tealights and a few cushions on the couch. As snacks we had pretzel sticks, peanuts, crisps and Gummi sticks (well we are in Germany). Of course none of this photographs well in the dark (you know this if you've ever tried to take pictures at a night club!) so I snapped a few clicks in day light.

To make things interesting I came up with a few mocktails (see below for recipes) and made a menu. It was made in A5 format and you can find it here. However, it is in German. To make it a bit fancy I printed it out (I don't have A5 paper so I had to print it out on A4 and then cut it to size - just in case: A5 is exactly half of A4), took some blank cards I had lying around and secured the paper with a rubber band. If I had had more time I would have tried using ribbon and maybe decorating the front of the card.

I bought some cocktail glasses and set up our kitchen counter as my bar. I had a lot of fun with this.

For dinner we had veggie burgers with fries (burgers are all the rave in Germany right now) and coleslaw and they made ice cream sundaes for dessert.

All of this is doable even if you have a busy schedule.

If you have a bit of time you could always make a birthday cake

Here are the mocktail recipes:

NOTE: It is advisable to always use organic citrus fruit and to wash them very well. The rind of many non-organic varieties are not suitable for consumption.

L.I.M.E

2 tbsp. Lime syrup, 1 tsp. lemon juice, 1/2 cup crushed ice, sparkling water (or soda), 3-5 leaves fresh mint, lime wedge

In a glass that holds 300 ml (preferably a cocktail glass) put the lime syrup in the glass making sure it does not run down the sides. Add the lemon juice and then the crushed ice on top. Add sparkling water to make up the 300 ml. Bruise (muddle) the mint leaves and put on top and garnish the side of the glass with a wedge of lime.

I put in a straw (we only use re-usable straws Kikkerland has some ) so that they could stir it themselves. 

Schlumpf (Smurf)

Slumpf is on the right!

1/2 tbsp. Curacao syrup, 1/2 tbsp. lime syrup, 1/4 cup crushed ice, sparkling water (or soda), Haribo gummi smirf on a cocktail stick, one cherry

In a 250 ml martini glass first put the curacao syrup in the bottom followed by the lime syrup. Add the crushed ice on top (you can use more ice if you like!). Make up with sparkling water and gently add in a Smurf on a stick and a cherry (unfortunately I could not find a cherries on a stem).

Mix after serving.

Kaptain Blaubär (Captain Bluebear)

1 tbsp. Blueberry syrup, 1 tsp. lemon juice, 1/4 cup crushed ice, sparkling water (or soda), 4-6 leaves fresh mint, 4-6 blueberries, lemon wedge

In a 250 ml martini glass carefully add the blueberry syrup and then the lemon juice. Add the crushed ice on top and fill up with sparkling water. Bruise (muddle) the mint leaves and the blueberries and put on top. Garnish with a wedge of lemon.

Mix after serving.

KiBa

1 cup banana juice, 1/4 cup cherry juice, 1/2 cup crushed ice, cherry, banana slices

In a cocktail glass that holds 300 ml glass add the crushed ice and then gently pour in 1 cup banana juice onto the ice through a funnel. Carefully pour in the cherry juice into the middle of the banana juice using the funnel. Add a cherry and garnish the sides with a few slices of banana. 

Sunrise

120 ml Mixed fruit juice (Multivitaminsaft if you are in Germany), 30 ml cherry juice, 150 ml Fanta, slice of orange, wedge of lemon, a cherry

in a glass that holds 300 ml add the mixed fruit juice (make sure it is deep orange and denser than the Fanta) and the cherry juice. Stir gently. Add the Fanta by gently pouring it down the back of a spoon. The aim is to float it on the top of the fruit juice. Garnish the glass with the  orange and lime and carefully drop in a cherry. 

Rosemary garlic focaccia

I am horrible at making bread. I think it is because my hands are too cold. However I'm not complaining because this means that its really easy for me to make pastry and truffles. But this focaccia comes out perfect every time. Nowadays I use the kneading hook on my kitchen machine, but when I first started making this I didn't have anything but my hands to knead the dough and it still came out well. So if bread is not your thing you should totally try this recipe out.

I traditionally make this focaccia to eat with my butternut squash soup and we have olive oil and salt on the side to dip it in, but it's great with a salad or just on its own as a snack. It's also very versatile. So although I make mine with rosemary and garlic you could top it with all the normal foccacia toppings (sun dried tomatoes, onions, roasted garlic and herbs come to mind).

Preparation time: 3 hours (includes rising time); makes 1 15" by 10" loaf 

Ingredients:

3 cups/12 oz/340 g	Flour (wheat or all purpose)
1.5 tbsp	Sugar
1 pkt.	Dry yeast
2 tsp.	Salt
1 tsp.	Garlic granules
1 sprig	Rosemary (about 10 cm long)
3/4 cup/175 ml	Water
1/4 cup/60 ml	Milk
1 tbsp./1/2 oz/16 g	Butter
1 1/2 tbsp.	Olive oil
	Rock salt
	Rosemary
2 tbsp.	Parmesan

Method:

In a large bowl combine 1.25 cups/175 g of flour with the sugar, dry yeast and salt. Put the water, milk and butter in a heatproof jug and heat in the microwave for around 40 seconds. Stir until all the butter has melted. Heat it a little more if it does not melt. You want the liquid to be around 130 F/55 C. Too much deviation either up or down will kill the yeast and the dough won't rise.

Add to the flour and beat either with a hand mixer or the paddle attachment of a kitchen machine. Beat for 2 minutes on medium. Add garlic granules and finely chopped rosemary. If you don't have garlic granules you can add freshly made garlic paste. I don't use the garlic paste from the jar because I find it tastes weird, but it's a matter of taste and it can definitely save you time!

Once everything is combined add 1/4 cup of flour at a time and mix in. I keep using the mixer blade until it feels like it's strained then I switch to my dough hook. It you don't have a dough hook turn your dough out on to a lightly floured surface and knead the rest of the flour in. Once all the flour is incorporated start kneading, either with your dough hook or by hand. Knead for 8-10 minutes until it's smooth.

Then find a large bowl and lightly oil the inside. You need to cover it with something. I would suggest clingwrap or a plate.  The dough will rise so if you feel like it will hit the top you should oil this too.

Allow to rise for 45-60 minutes.

Dust a 15" by 10" baking sheet with flour. This is a US recipe hence the size. Metric equivalent would be 38 by 25 cm or use a pan with an area of 950 cm². Of course since it is bread you can use any sized tray and just roll it out to the above dimensions. Put the dough on the baking sheet and using a rolling pin roll it so that the dough fills the pan. Now you need to let it rise again. Since I never have a food safe plastic bag big enough to put over the dough I cover the dough with a clean kitchen towel and then put it in a big trash bag! Allow the dough to rise for a further 30 minutes.

Heat a fan oven to 180 degrees Celsius (convection oven 400 F or 200 C).

Now unwrap the dough and make indentations at 5 cm intervals with the handle of a wooden spoon or any other small round object (I use the handle of my rolling pin). Brush the top of the dough with the olive oil and sprinkle on the salt, chopped rosemary and Parmesan, or with whatever tickles your fancy!

Bake for 15 mins. or until top is golden.

Here is a printable version.

Cupcake bouquet - some tips!

My daughter was turning 13 and after much deliberation (which lasted weeks) we decided on a cupcake bouquet. They are not super difficult to make but here are a few tips.

• I used a cabbage instead of polystyrene to arrange the cupcakes on. It is bio-degradable and you don't get little white balls everywhere! Try to use a savoy cabbage. I used a white cabbage and it is not as symmetrical and much harder. The upside is of course that you can use any leaves that you have to take off to make some coleslaw. The downside is that it is quite tough to push the toothpicks into.

• I bought fancy green cupcake forms. That was a mistake. It was extremely difficult to make holes with the toothpick. I had to make the holes before I iced the cakes. This meant that I could not chose which way to orient the cakes when doing the arrangement. Moral: use the cheap ones that stick to the cake. Note that another problem I had was that the cake separated from the form. This has never happened to me before but it is really important that it does not happen when making a bouquet. 
• Don't use a light fluffy cupcake. The heavy butter cream will pull it down. Use a solid cup cake. Maybe a pound cake would work. 
• Two toned flowers look way better than a single colour. 
• Make some extra flowers in case you drop some! And check how many cupcakes you need before hand.
• Glue gun the ribbon onto the flower pot.

Here are the tutorials I used:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haoSabf4JSs

https://www.facebook.com/wilton.cake.decorating/videos/470567203770825/

Thosai - Urid Dahl Pancakes

I've been making Sri Lankan style Thosai since 2011 and I think I now finally have the secret AND the it's not a secret ingredient! When I first started making them they turned out fine, but then my frying pan died and I had to replace it. Of course the magic was in the pan. I figured that all I needed to do was to buy a cast iron "roti thatiya". I could not find one in Germany so when I was last in Sri Lanka I was determined to go and buy one.

I figured this would be very easy after all my mother has one (unfortunately when I last saw it it was split down the middle so I could not steal it off her!). So I trotted off to Kandy town and went to the store where I used to buy fancy household items when I last lived there. Oh lets see now... that would be over 20 years ago. To my despair I found that the much loved Abdul Rahims was no longer where it should have been. In fact there was nothing but an empty shop where it used to be. Come to think of it this does not mean that it does not exist anymore. It might just mean that it has moved. This thought did not occur to me at the time :(

Continuing down the road I dropped into every store that seemed likely to have such a pan. I was offered non-stick at every turn. And as all of you know, non-stick just doesn't cut it. At the last store I could think of I asked the sales man where I could get a cast iron roti thatiya and he pointed me in the direction of a store further down the street.

This store has literally everything (except perishable items) you could want. So I walked in and asked for a roti thatiya. A young gentleman walked up to me and told the sales person to get lost that he would help me (well not in those words, but his words would be boring). I was a bit worried because he didn't look like the other sales people i.e. he wasn't wearing the mandatory t-shirt. So I step back and whispered to the lady at the front desk "meya methana weda karanawada?" (does this guy work here?) to which the answer was "ow" (yes). So I relaxed and told him very politely that I wanted a "roti thatiya". The guy looked at me weird and asked me in English what I was looking for. At this point I got a bit embarrassed. The shop was very obviously owned by a Sri Lankan muslim. Most of the time they speak Sinhala (which is what I had been speaking up to now), but it could be that the sales person didn't understand me. But here is the hitch, what is the translation for a "roti thatiya"? I had absolutely no idea. So speaking in English I asked for a "roti thatiya". This did not go down well. So I said I wanted a pan to make roti. I thought this would help. But the guy did not know what roti were!! I was flabbergasted. How can any Sri Lankan, whatever race, not know what roti were. The term is used in all 3 commonly spoken languages. I guess I could have asked for "a flat cast iron pan which unlike a frying pan is in its entirety flat"!! My guess was he would not have understood that either. At this point, very fortunately, the owner of the shop materialized and very carefully, in English, told him exactly where to go and what to get. So here I was standing in a shop, speaking to the shop keeper in Sinhala, who was then shouting at the sales person in English to get the damn pan off the hook on the wall!

I gathered from the look on the shop keepers face that the sales person was a bit of a dud! But I walked out of the shop with a small cast iron roti thatiya wrapped up in newspaper and tied with a piece of string. I was the happiest person in Kandy (I'd like to say on Earth but I understand that that might be a bit of an exaggeration). And sorry for bothering you with this story when all you want is a recipe, but I just had to get it off my chest.

When I came back to Germany and my husband saw my roti thatiya he just kind of rolled his eyes and I can totally see where he was coming from. The top surface was rust coloured, the edges were painted with black paint that came off everywhere, and there were iron filings in the newspaper wrapping. I gave it a nice wash, and a polish (and ruined a new sponge in the process) and put it away, because I was no longer quite sure that this was going to work.

Well yesterday I was determined that it had been sitting in the basement for long enough. So I took it out and seasoned it and got ready to make some thosai. And the reason I get to share this with you today is because that rusty black thatiya turned out to make the best thosai ever! Not a single one had to be trashed due to sticking. I did trash the first one I made because I was hoping it would pick up all the minute iron filings that were left. But we all agreed that as long as it was actually iron we all needed a bit of extra iron in our diet!

Now to more interesting things.

Preparation time: min. 6.5 hours (includes min. 5 hours soaking time); makes approx. 25 

Ingredients:

2 cups	Urid dahl
1 tsp	Fenugreek seeds
5 cups	Water
50 g	Wheat flour
75 g	Rice flour
1 tsp	Salt
1 tbsp	Oil/ghee/butter
1/2 pinch	Turmeric
150 - 180 g	Red onions (optional)
1 sprig	Curry leaves, finely chopped (optional)
100 g	Ghee/butter (optional)

Method:

The urid dahl and the fenugreek seeds need to be soaked. This is what makes this recipe so time consuming. If you want to make the thosai for breakfast or lunch then you should put it to soak before you go to bed the night before. If you want it for dinner put it to soak as soon as you get up in the morning. With a bit of planning it can be simple enough.
However, just for all of you I wanted to figure out what is the minimum soaking time needed. I determined that if you soak it for 5 hours it should be enough but it won't be particularly bubbly.

Wash the urid dahl a couple of times in cold water. You don't need to wash it until the water is clear. In fact I believe that a bit of that starch could be helpful. Drain it and place it in a large bowl with 5 cups of water and the fenugreek seeds. Let it stand for a minimum of 5 hours.

I like to add fried onions and curry leaves to my thosai. It makes them a bit more exotic. If you want to add them to yours slice your onions and curry leaves very fine and fry them in a tablespoon of oil over high heat for about 5 minutes or until they are caramelized. To prevent burning you need to stir them all the time. This whole process will add on about 15 minutes to your prep time. Other things that you might add include brown mustard seeds and finely chopped green chilies (these should be added raw).

Once the dahl and fenugreek seeds have been soaked they need to be processed. I do mine in small batches with my Indian Sumeet food processor. A heavy duty liquidizer or food processor should work too. The water that you used to soak the dahl is also part of the mix, so don't throw it away! Grind or blend until you have a nice smooth paste.

Add the rice and wheat flours and then the salt. I put these together with the dahl into the blender so that I don't have any lumps. Stir in a tiny pinch of turmeric. This will give your thosai a slightly golden tinge (which will do nothing to the taste but do wonders for your next insta post!).

Without turmeric made in a frying pan

If you read the rave above you will now know that for the perfect thosai you need to have a thatiya or a well seasoned cast iron frying pan. Non-stick frying pans don't work very well because the batter does not stick to the pan, thus it's impossible to spread the batter. 

Heat your pan over medium-high heat. You can test if it is hot enough by dropping a drop of batter in the pan. If it sizzles and ... you'll know that it is hot enough.  Put 1/2 tsp. of ghee/butter in the pan and using a paper towel or piece of clean cloth wipe it over the whole surface. Then pour in 2 tbsp. of the batter into the middle of the pan. You may need to adjust the amount depending on how thin you can get your pancakes and how large your pan is. Using the back of a spoon and starting at the middle of the pan, spread the batter across the surface using circular motions until there is no batter left to spread.

If you want to put extra ghee or butter on your thosai do this once the batter is no longer liquid. If you have a thatiya you can do this with a regular knife. If you are using a frying pan it might be a good idea to melt the butter and apply it with a brush.

You can turn the pancake as soon as the bottom has become golden brown. The best way to remove it from the pan is to pass a metal spatula (like the ones we all use for icing a cake) under it, but this only works if you have a thatiya! Cook it on the second side for 20 seconds.

Stack the done thosai on a plate. This will keep them warm for longer. Serve warm.

Thosai can be eaten with any Sri Lankan or Indian curry. Our favourites are potato masala, chickpea curry and red lentil curry.

Stuffed with potato masala and served with mango chutney

Butternut squash soup

Although the days are getting longer it's still cold out there and nothing feels better than a nice hot soup at the end of the day. I've tried soups with different types of pumpkins and squashes, but this is my most absolute favourite squash soup. The base recipe I found somewhere on a website many, many years ago. I've served it at all kinds of functions. 

The one time I will never forget is the time I had my coworkers in San Francisco over for a party. It was the first time ever that I was serving soup and I only had a small ladle. One of my friends asked me what the deal was and whether I didn't want her to enjoy too much soup. At first I didn't get it (for all my Sri Lankan friends, yes I am a total tube light). But then she very abruptly asked me whether I didn't have a larger spoon! I was so embarrassed. I dug into my drawers and found the largest coconut spoon that I could. She was still not totally happy. I think it was because she enjoyed the soup so much that she wanted a huge serving! The next day I went out and bought a proper soup ladle. Never again will I be embarrassed for the lack of a proper soup ladle!!

Preparation time: max 1.5 hours (includes 45 minutes baking); serves 4-6 

Ingredients:

1	Butternut squash
1-2 tbsp.	Honey
1/2 large	Onion
2 tbsp.	Butter (or oil)
2	Vegetable cubes
4 cups	Water
1/2 tbsp.	Chopped, fresh rosemary
	Salt and pepper

Method:

To make this soup taste good you have to have all the ingredients. Substituting will make it taste different. Not necessarily worse. Just not the same. If you are making this in Sri Lanka and can"t find rosemary, I'd love to hear what you substituted it with and how it tasted.

Take your butternut squash and split it in half lengthwise. Scoop out the seeds and then brush the cut surfaces liberally with bees honey. Put it cut side up on a baking sheet and bake at 160 C in a fan oven for 45 minutes (180 C/350 F in a convection oven) or until well cooked. It is a good idea to put the squash on parchment paper or something similar. If either the honey or the sugar from the squash drip down onto the baking sheet it is a pain to clean. Once it comes out of the oven let it cool for about 10 minutes.

Saute the onions in butter for a couple of minutes over medium high heat. Add the water and the vegetable cubes to the onions and bring to the boil. While you are waiting for the water to boil remove the skin from the pumpkin, chop it roughly and add it, together with all other ingredients, to the stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes. 

Now you have choices! If you want a chunky soup you can mash the hot soup with a potato masher. If you want a very smooth soup (I prefer smooth soups) you either have to let the soup cool and then put it into a liquidizer or use a heat resistant stick blender and stick it directly into the boiling soup. If you use the last alternative you have to be very, very careful that the liquid does not spit. Although rather dangerous it's the method I use and the one by which I calculated the preparation time. 

Whichever method you use, bring the soup to the boil again. Serve hot with home made croutons and fresh bread. (Make pretty patterns with heavy whipping cream.)

Vietnamese summer rolls - vegetarian

What I really wanted was spring rolls to serve with a dim sum dinner. But I figured that there would be too many fried things and summer rolls would be nice and healthy. In addition, I still had wrappers left over from a previous try.

I really like these rolls because they are crunchy and fresh. You could put so many different things in them. And the only time consuming thing about these rolls is that you have to cut up the fillings into nice thin sticks. My husband thought that the rolls were too big, so I cut them in half which really helps show off all the fillings inside.

Most people make these with shrimp because they like how they look with the shrimp. You can add shrimp to the filling (marinade with lime and salt, steam and slice lengthwise), but personally I think they look much better without the shrimp. In fact I find it quite spooky with the shrimp showing through. This might be because I am vegetarian!!

Here's my recipe:

Preparation time: max 2.5 hours (includes a lot of sitting time); makes 16-20 rolls 

Ingredients:

16 - 20	Round rice paper wrappers, available in Asian stores (at least in Germany and the USA)
1 pack	Tofu, firm
2 - 3	Carrots
1/2	Cucumber
1 head	Lettuce
2 oz	Bean thread noodles, Chinese vermicelli, rice vermicelli
10 sprigs	Coriander
5 sprigs	Mint leaves
1 tbsp.	Soya sauce
	Oil for frying
Dipping sauce
1/4 cup	Peanut butter
1/2 cup	Coconut milk (3 tbsp. coconut milk powder + water)
2 tbsp.	Sugar (omit or reduce if peanut butter already has sugar in it)
1 tbsp.	Fresh lemon juice (about 1/2 lemon)
2 tsp.	Soya sauce
2 tsp.	Sriracha sauce
1 tsp.	Sesame oil

Method:

I don't particularly like fresh firm tofu so I fried some for these rolls. Tofu fries best if some of the water is pressed out. There are many ways to do this. I drained the water out of the pack. Placed the tofu on a chopping board which I made sure was tilted enough so any pressed out water would run off. Placed another chopping board on top. Filled a jug with water and placed it on top of all of this. Now you probably can figure a safer way of doing this. In my case eventually the water jug fell off because the tofu got compacted unevenly. Lucky for me the glass jug fell into my plastic strainer that was in the sink. The glass did not crack and all the water fell tidyly into the sink. Of course this was my plan all along ;) At least this is what I told my husband after we both rushed downstairs to the kitchen to see what the noise was. (We had had scares the night before because we heard thuds in the night. These turned out to be ornaments slipping off our Christmas tree because the tree had dried out!) Anyway, let the tofu drain for around half an hour.

Slice the tofu into strips. I cut the block into 3 slices parallel to the kitchen surface and then widthwise so that the sticks cross section was roughly square. The width of the tofu is the perfect length for the sticks. Heat a pan of fresh oil (else the sticks will not taste very good) over high heat and lower the sticks in a few at a time.
I'm sure others have noticed that when you deep fry tofu sticks they attract each other and stick together. For this reason I only fried 3 at a time trying hard to keep them from getting stuck. Each stick was fried for 1:20 to 1:30 minutes (I aimed for a light crust and a soft inside) and drained on kitchen paper. Set them aside to cool.

Next thing to do is to soak the noodles. There are many different types of noodles that you can use. I actually have no idea which ones I have in the kitchen right now (Eeek!). My guess is that they are bean thread noodles. You can use rice noodles as well. To make my life easier I buy the cheap noodles that are packed in a plastic bag and are all broken to pieces. I really hate the regular noodles that are all so nicely packaged because when you want only 1 oz from a 5 oz pack it is almost impossible to separate them. And there is no magic way that I know to separate them. I've tried knives and scissors. I gave up when I saw my father-in-law (previously the owner of a fantastic Chinese restaurant) instruct his daughter to cut a pack up with scissors. It was a very cruel form of torture and it led me to believe that there was no better way to divide up bean thread noodles. Then I discovered the cheap bags in the local Asian store. They are really a life saver if you can find them.
I poured boiling water over my noodles and left them to soak until they were soft. Once they are soft drain them really well by letting them sit in a strainer for 15 minutes or so.

Cut the carrots into sticks as thin as possible and about as long as the tofu sticks. Cover them and set aside. Peel and de-seed the cucumber and also cut into sticks. These can be a bit thicker than the carrots but should be around the same length. Cover and set aside.

Wash, dry and cut the leafy parts of the lettuce into thin strips. I used romaine lettuce to get a bit of crunch.

And wash the coriander and mint leaves. Remove the leaves from the stems and cut the mint leaves into very fine strips.

By now the tofu has cooled off. Take each matchstick and cut, using a very sharp knife, into 4 quarters lengthwise. Sprinkle the soya sauce over the tofu.

Now set everything up in an assembly line fashion. Get a large bowl of very warm water (but not boiling) to soak your wrappers in and you are ready to start.

Immerse a wrapper in the bowl of water and let it soak for 10 seconds. Take it out and lay it on the counter and wait until it is completely soft. While waiting you can soak the next wrapper. I seemed to be able to have two wrappers on my counter at any given time. Once the wrapper is soft you are finally ready to put everything together. It's so difficult to describe how to do this so here are some pictures to guide you. The photos are (obviously!) from left to right!

1. carrots, 2. cucumber, 3. tofu, 4. lettuce, 5. noodles, 6. coriander & mint

Now the big challenge... rolling up the roll. The good thing is that these things are very elastic and don't break very easily. If you are Sri Lankan, then roll it up just like a Chinese roll. If you have no idea what I am talking about it would be best to take a look at this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfI1wMeDXhg starting at around 21 seconds. Some people like their summer rolls flat, but I like mine round!

You can make your rolls in advance and keep them on the counter for a couple of hours. However, they will stick together. Thus you should line them up so they don't touch each other and cover each layer with cling wrap. Finally cover everything with cling wrap to keep them fresh and moist until you are ready to serve. If you are going to cut them in half you should do this just before serving.

Now no summer roll would be complete without a dipping sauce. My favourite is a peanut sauce. You can either buy it in a bottle in any Asian market or you can make it yourself. Just put all the ingredients for the sauce in a blender and pulse until everything is combined. Alternatively mix with a fork.

Guten Appetit!

Eggplant with Tofu - Chinese

This year I planted eggplant in my small vegetable patch. It amazingly survived 3 super hot summer weeks without water and produced a decent number of fruit. Not enough for our normal consumption but enough to enjoy.
I also had a cabbage plant that did not do well at all. It grew tall and flowered. The blooms were really pretty so I just let it be. Turns out that the seeds from the cabbage dropped all over my vegetable patch and late in the summer I had literally hundreds of tiny cabbage plants. I had to thin them out because there was no way that any would survive at that density.
So there I was with a couple of eggplants and heaps of very young green cabbage and dinner to cook! I figured I'd try and put them together Chinese style because I also happened to have a pack of tofu in the fridge.

Served over udon noodles

The resulting experiment was very well received, which led to me having to jump up from the dinning table and grab a pen and paper before I forgot what I had put in to it. It took me a while to revisit the recipe, but that is exactly what I did last night. I didn't have any homegrown produce so I thought it might not taste as good. This didn't seem to be a problem. My teenager stuffed her face and could not keep saying how good the food was! This is not the normal reaction I get these days. Normally I get "oh, not that AGAIN!". So I figured I better post this recipe before I loose my notes!

Preparation time: 1.5 hours ; serves 8 (together with a couple other dishes) 

Ingredients:

800 g	Eggplant
1 bunch	Any type of greens (mustard, leafy green cabbage, etc.)
1 pack	Firm tofu
8 tbsp.	Oil
1 tbsp.	Minced garlic
1 tbsp.	Minced ginger
Sauce
1 1/2 tsp.	Bulion powder or 1 veggie cube
250 ml	Water
4 tsp.	Soya sauce
1 tbsp.	Hoisin sauce
1/2	Lemon, juice of
1 tbsp.	honey (substitute maple syrup if vegan)
1 tsp.	Sirachara sauce

Method:
First of all let me say that the amount of eggplant and greens that you use is not that precise. I used 2 eggplants and I am pretty sure they were much smaller the first time around. If you eat a large amount of tofu you could use 2 packs instead of one. And I really can't tell you what a "bunch" is!! Chopped up I had a cereal bowl full (how big is your cereal bowl?). Sorry that I forgot to weigh the greens :(

Start by cutting the tofu into this slices about 5 mm thick. Lay the slices out on a paper towel, cover with a second paper towel and leave them to allow the water to be absorbed. While your tofu is drying cut the eggplant into 1 cm dice (fancy way to say 1 cm cubes) and wash and roughly chop your greens. You can really use any greens that you like. First time around I used a bowl full of young cabbage plants, the second time around I just picked up some nice looking green stuff from the local Turkish store. I don't even know what they were, but they looked mighty like kale. It might be a good idea to try greens that won't loose too much water when you cook them.

Heat 2 tablespoons of your oil in a frying pan, over medium high heat and add a layer of tofu rectangles. You need to make sure there is no overlap. Fry each side until slightly brown and then flip them over and do the other side. Drain them on paper towels. I had to do three batches. The best type  of pan to use is of course a cast iron pan. I happened to use a heavy bottomed non-stick skillet this time around and it worked fine.
If you're pan runs dry of oil add another tablespoon. If there is not enough oil your tofu won't become golden brown and will dry out before giving you any colour.

Once the tofu is done add 4 tablespoons of the oil and fry the eggplant. Give it a good stir at the beginning so that all the pieces are coated with oil. Fry the eggplant until cooked through and possible browning. You'll need to stir it once every minute or so to make sure it browns evenly, and doesn't stick or burn. While you're doing this you can mix the sauce together. Just get a large enough bowl and mix all the "sauce" ingredients. You can also get your ginger and garlic ready. There should be plenty of time! Eggplant takes a while. Once the eggplant is cooked tip it out into a bowl and return the pan to the cooker.

If you are preparing other dishes and want this to go to the table piping hot you can stop right now. The rest will take you about 10 minutes to put together.

 Add another tablespoon of oil to the pan and tip in the ginger and garlic. Saute for 5 seconds. Don't let them burn, although browning is okay. Add the sauce, mix well and bring to the boil. Then add the tofu to the pan and bring it back to the boil. Use a slotted spoon to remove the tofu and arrange on a serving dish.

Add the eggplant to the pan and toss in the sauce. Bring to the boil and then using a slotted spoon spoon out and place on top of the tofu.

Finally add the greens to what is left of the sauce. Saute until cooked (i.e. the greens are limp) and tip the greens together with the remaining sauce onto the eggplant.

Serve steaming hot with jasmine rice or with udon noodles.

Here is a printable version