Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

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September 3, 2009 By cheryl

Chilled Soup: Those Healing Green Beans


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The Chinese in Singapore are big believers in the healing properties of soups — specifically, “heaty” and “cooling” soups, which either add fire to your body or cool it down, getting just the right balance of Yin and Yang. 

I know it’s sacrilege to say this — and I can already hear the clucking of my Mum and aunts who might actually read this — but I don’t give two hoots about heaty or cooling.

The most important question for me always is, “Does it taste good?”

And with green bean soup, the answer is: Yes, oh yes.

Despite my love for this sweet soup, I’ve never known how to make it. So, when my Let’s Lunch friends, a group of intrepid cooks spread across two continents who’ve been staging virtual lunchdates, suggested that we make a chilled soup for our next meal, I jumped at the excuse to learn my mother’s recipe.

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Filed Under: Bacon, Dessert, Let's Lunch, Recipes, Singapore, Soup, Sweets, Tales From the Road, Vegetarian Tagged With: Apple, Bacon, Borscht, Cilantro, Cooling, Curry, Dessert, Gazpacho, Green bean soup, Heaty, Let's Lunch, Mint, Mung beans, Pandan, Paris, Poached pears, Sago, San Diego, Snack, Soup, Strawberry, Sugar, Sweet potato, White grape, Zucchini

August 31, 2009 By cheryl

Braised Duck A L'Aunty Alice


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When I think of the family feasts of my Singapore girlhood, there’s always a duck in the picture.

To say that my people — that would be the Teochew ethnic group from Southern China — adore duck would be a major understatement. During a recent trip to Shantou, the area in China where my great-grandfather lived as a boy, duck and goose were inescapable at every dinner table.

So it’s more than slightly sacrilegious to say that I often avoid duck simply because it isn’t one of my favorites. (Hey, I’m a big hunk of red meat kind of gal — what can I say?)

I do make an exception for some versions, however — and Teochew-style braised duck is one of them.

While I’m really good at eating it, making it is another matter altogether. But this was something my Aunty Alice, the best cook among my mother and her sisters, was intent on fixing right away.

On a recent weekday, she arrived at my Singapore home armed with two ducks and a bag of ingredients and the tutorial began…

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Filed Under: Poultry, Recipes, Shameless Promotion, Singapore, Southeast Asian, Tales From the Road Tagged With: Aunty Alice, Braised duck, China, Eggs, Five-spice powder, Galangal, Garlic, Hockchew, Salt, Shantou, Soy sauce, Star Anise, Sugar, Teochew

July 17, 2009 By cheryl

Cinnamon Raisin Bread: Devil in a Loaf Pan


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It was only as I was licking cinnamon sugar off a plate after rapidly devouring three slices of bread that I managed to put a finger on the word I was looking for to describe the cinnamon raisin walnut loaf I had just made.

Trouble.

And this is coming from someone who has generally preferred savory or plain loaves to sweet cinnamon-raisin breads.

Peter Reinhart’s recipe for cinnamon-raisin bread? It’s trouble.

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Filed Under: Baking, Books, Bread, Breakfast Tagged With: Baking, Bread, Bread Baker's Apprentice, Challenge, Cinnamon, Cinnamon Buns, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Domestic Putterings, French toast, Jon and Kate Plus Eight, KitchenAid, Peter Reinhart, Raisin, St. Tropez, Sugar, Us Weekly, Viagra, Walnut

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