The buttery cookies topped with sweet home-made pineapple jam are so firmly connected with the holiday that all other cookies simply cease to exist whenever the lunar new year rolls around.

As much as I love them, I don’t quite have the equipment at hand to make them this year, alas. One must still celebrate, nonetheless. So, in a pinch, I whipped together a batch of buttery shortbread cookies flavored with green tea powder I’d picked up in Singapore and had never used in baking before.

The result? A delicious springtime treat that I may just have to include in my new year cookie rotation in years to come…

First off, this isn’t my recipe. In my recent writing hibernation, there hasn’t been much time to cook up new inventions in my little kitchen. (I did, however, find the time to share my mother and Auntie Alice’s recipe for chap chye, a lucky lunar new year stir fry, in the New York Daily News food section.)

While perusing Twitter late one night for ideas, I came upon a little gem from a blogger in Colorado. This doesn’t require many ingredients and once you have them, the process is super easy. Within a very short time, the sous chef and I were inhaling these green tea butter cookies — cut into festive spring flowers — and thinking, “Pineapple what?” (I kid — about the last bit, anyhow.)

So in the spirit of sharing this season, I give you this recipe for green tea cookies — the color of which turns out to be perfect for the Dragon year ahead.

Here’s wishing you and yours prosperity, health, happiness and good luck in the Year of the Dragon!

~~~

Green Tea Butter Cookies

(Recipe from LovesCool, via Use Real Butter)

Ingredients
Yield: Approx 25

3/4 cup (2.25 oz) Confectioners sugar
5 oz Unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1 3/4 cup (8.5 oz) All-purpose flour
3 Large egg yolks
1.5 TBS Matcha (powdered green tea)
1 cup Granulated sugar (for coating)

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
• Whisk the confectioner’s sugar and green tea together in a bowl.
• Add the butter and green tea/sugar mixture to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix until smooth and light in color.
• Add the flour and mix until well combined.
• Add the egg yolks and mix just until the eggs are fully incorporated and a mass forms.
• Form the dough into a disk and chill in the refrigerator until firm (about 30 minutes).
• Roll the dough out to ½” thickness.
• Cut the dough with a leaf cookie cutter.
• Toss each cut cookie in a bowl of granulated sugar to coat.
• Place the sugar-coated cookie on a parchment lined pan. Bake at 350F for 12-15 minutes, or until slightly golden around the edges.

Baker’s Note: You can purchase Matcha (powdered green tea) from Asian grocery stores or specialty tea shops. In NYC try McNulty’s Tea House, Ito-En or you can order baking grade matcha online. The higher quality matcha you use, the brighter green the cookies will be. Store the cookies in a tin or other container that blocks out sunlight to preserve the color. The green color will fade when exposed to sunlight.

The chopping, the peeling, the dicing — it becomes too clear how distant a memory all that had become when the sous chef suddenly is too sniffly to wield a knife and dinner is suddenly before you.

And so it was that I went on a soup-making binge recently. If that’s what it was going to take to get the assistant back in commission, then by god, pots of healing soups simply had to be made.

Of the soups that filled our apartment recently, one stuck out …

Now, the reason that I love this particular chicken noodle soup is not how tasty it is but rather, how simple the recipe is — it doesn’t involve any nonsense like boiling a carcass for hours in order to just make broth. (Not that I have anything against that — when I have time, and a carcass, this is perfectly acceptable behavior.)

This recipe is great for home cooks without much time — canned broth stands in for home-made broth and you don’t entirely notice the difference because the soup is packed with such flavor from the other ingredients. And you can pretty much toss in whatever root vegetables you have at home if you’re looking to clear your fridge. (In my case, I used the opportunity to take a good whack at the bag of leftover turkey from Christmas dinner.)

Despite its shortcuts, this soup proved to be a keeper. The giant pot I made disappeared quickly and the sous chef was soon on the mend. Good thing, too, as he seems to have passed his little cold along.

Should he feel moved to return the favor, however, here is the recipe …

Easy Chicken (or Turkey) Noodle Soup

(An AllRecipes.com recipe, with slight tweaks)

It happens the first Friday of every month, when a motley group of bloggers from around the world get together to break bread over Twitter. This virtual monthly lunchdate began almost three years ago when three women in three cities who had never met found themselves wishing (on Twitter) at the very same moment that they had a BLT before them. Well, the Parisian, the New Yorker and the San Diego baker made a lunchdate for a BLT. This turned into a monthly affair, which grew larger than we anticipated. Now, we have bloggers in Australia, Paris, London, Canada and all over the United States gathering once a month to share a meal.

It’s been very sweet and genteel so far — we’ve sipped high tea together and shared age-old family holiday recipes. But that was all before someone brought up chili — that’s when the oven mitts came off and a smackdown began …

There is a great deal of passion for chili in our hardy little lunch group — three bloggers have strong Texas connections (the fabulous Cowgirl Chef in Paris, cookbook author/editor Joe Yonan in Washington, D.C., and the saucy Hot Curries and Cold Beer in Texas) and everyone else seems to think they have the best recipe for chili. (Some, apparently, have some credence to this claim, having almost won state championships and all.)

I admit to having absolutely no chili cred — I just know that I love the stuff, and that I love (most of) the versions I’ve made.

For Let’s Lunch, though, I decided to try a little twist on the beef-and-beans chili recipe I’ve been using for years.

Chili always makes me think of one of my favorite Indian dishes: keema mattar, a spicy minced lamb stir-fry that’s packed with garam masala, turmeric, coriander, cumin, gobs of ginger, garlic, onions and capped with peas and cilantro. It’s wonderful over rice — with a slightly runny fried egg on top drizzling yolk all over the place — and, like chili, is a dish that just gets better over time as the flavors mingle and deepen.

And so I gave it a whirl. In went the chopped red onions, garlic, jalapenos and ginger and off we went.

With regular chili, I typically use a U.S. chili powder — for this chili, though, I pulled out the chili powder I use for spicy Southeast Asian stir-fries and curries. This one is from Singapore but you can find versions of it in Asian stores here. Its color is rather different from the chili mixes you’ll find in American groceries — it’s bright orange. And it’s very very spicy so, be warned.

How did it turn out? I omitted the peas because it just didn’t seem right in chili and loaded up my basic chili recipe with the complex flavors of keema.

Paired with sour cream, shredded cheddar and topped with bits of cilantro, this keema chili hybrid tasted delicious — like eating curry, but a minced lamb version, made all the more creamy and rich with the addition of sour cream and cheddar. The sous chef said it reminded him of Cincinnati chilis, which include spices such as cinnamon and cloves and can be on the sweet side — except that this had the added layer of fiery heat that stepped it up a notch.

So, take THAT, Let’s Lunchers! I think we have a winner here.

~~~

Don’t forget to check out the Let’s Lunchers’ chili below! And if you’d like to join Let’s Lunch, go to Twitter and post a message with the hashtag #Letslunch — or, post a comment below.

Cathy‘s Chunky-Style Cowboy Chili at Showfood Chef

Charissa‘s Clean Out Refrigerator Night Cassoulet, A “Frenchified” Chili at Zest Bakery

Ellise‘s Chicken Tinga Chili at Cowgirl Chef

Emma‘s Dave’s Chili at Dreaming of Pots and Pans

Felicia‘s Low-Concept Vegetarian Chili at Burnt-Out Baker

Grace‘s Chinese New Year Chili at HapaMama

Joe‘s Texas Bowl O’ Red at Joe Yonan

Karen‘s Hawaiian Chili at GeoFooding

Leigh‘s Cincinnati Chili at His With Hers

Linda‘s Smokin’ Hot Vegan Vaquero Chili at Spicebox Travels

Lucy‘s “Full of Beans” Chili at A Cook And Her Books

Pat‘s Miso Chili Con Carne y Wasabi Sour Cream at The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook

Renee‘s Aztec-Inspired Chili at My Kitchen And I

~~~

Cheryl’s Keema Chili

(Based in part on an Epicurious chili recipe)

1.5 tablespoons olive oil
3 large red onions, chopped
5 tablespoons chopped jalapeño chilies with seeds
8 garlic cloves, chopped
2 to 2.5 lbs ground lamb
1/4 cup chili powder
2 tablespoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 2-inch cinnamon stick
1.5 to 2 teaspoons of minced ginger
2 teaspoons coriander
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1.5 to 2 teaspoons turmeric
1 to 1.5 teaspoons garam masala
Salt and pepper to taste
1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes in juice
2 15 1/4-ounce cans kidney beans, drained
1 14-ounce can beef broth

Sour cream
Grated cheddar cheese
Chopped fresh cilantro

Preparation

Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add onions; sauté
until brown, about 6 minutes. Add jalapeños, ginger and garlic; sauté 1
minute. Add lamb; sauté until brown, breaking up with back of fork,
about 5 minutes. Add chili powder, cumin, coriander, garam masala, turmeric, cinnamon and paprika, then mix in tomatoes with juices, beans, and broth; bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer until chili thickens and flavors blend, stirring occasionally,
about 45 minutes. Skim any fat from surface of chili. (Can be made 2
days ahead. Cool slightly. Refrigerate uncovered until cold, then
cover and keep refrigerated. Bring to simmer before serving,
stirring occasionally.)

Ladle chili into bowls. Serve with sour cream, cheese and cilantro separately.

Anyone who’s been to Singapore or sampled real Singaporean food knows that my people don’t shy away from spice. My mother, in fact, has been observed eating the tiniest, spiciest raw chilis– like candy.

So when the sister was in town recently, we immediately set off to see what all this making you cry business was all about.

With Singaporean blood coursing through us, this chicken couldn’t possibly take us. No, we would take it.

Now, if you clicked on the link above, you might note that the name of the restaurant in the piece is slightly different from the name listed on this blog post.

If you did, congratulations! You are far more eagle-eyed than we were. After persuading a friend with a vehicle to drive us to the restaurant, we realized, only after sitting down, that it was Peaches Hothouse that we wanted, not Peaches, its sister restaurant.

Not just that, it only had fried chicken strips on the menu, not fried chicken.

We had, however, traveled a full 10 minutes to get to Peaches in Bed-Stuy and the place did look (and smell) awfully inviting.

So we decided to keep our seats and check out the place…

The smoked chicken and sausage gumbo ($6) seemed like a must — we were expecting a small bowl of it, since it was listed as an appetizer. Instead, this dish the size of my face showed up.

Packed with chicken and sausage, this dish was a loaded meal all on its own — the last time our little crew had had gumbo together was in New Orleans, however, where even the most basic versions we sampled were just terrific and all rather spicy. And while this was perfectly good, I thought it could have been a little spicier.

Since our waiters eyes lit up when we mentioned thinking about the North Carolina-style pulled pork plate ($12), that was up next. The pork, which had been slow cooked for 12 hours, was falling-apart delicious and just wet enough. The cornbread that came with it was a little dry and hard but the fries were just right.

The dish that made us want to order seconds and definitely come back, however, was the grits with shrimp, mushrooms, scallions and white wine ($16). I’m not a huge grits fan — having not had very many good versions of grits up north in recent years. But this was outstanding — the mushrooms gave the white wine gravy an incredibly rich earthiness that made the dish irresistible.

And, of course, we had to give the homestyle crispy fried chicken strips ($8) a shot. The breading was lovely, light and crisp — very nicely done, really — and the dijon dip had a nice sweetness to it. While satisfying, this was not a spicy chicken, however, and definitely did not kick us in the face. Which, in the end, made us a little disappointed.

Because we were in the thick of the holiday season, dessert was in order — although the apple pie sounded great, our waiter nudged us toward the brownie with ice-cream. Despite feeling stuffed (and packing half the gumbo and grits for taking home), this brownie was so nicely done — sweet but not too sweet, firm yet soft enough — it disappeared quickly.

Although there ended up not being any crying at this meal, it ended up being a tasty mistake worth making. Soon, though, we’ll make it over to Peaches Hothouse.

If Peaches was its amuse bouche, we already can’t wait.

Peaches, 393 Lewis Avenue, Brooklyn, New York; 718.942-4162; http://peachesbrooklyn.com/

As much of a thrill as it is to walk through Sahadi’s on any day, given that you never know what new delicious morsel you’ll discover, it’s particularly lovely in December, when the usually crammed store gets absolutely packed with a shoppers and a frenetic holiday spirit that’s uniquely New York. Excuse me, there are meals to be made — out of my way! You going to get that box of tea or what? Hurry up! (OK, perhaps I am alone in having these thoughts — everyone else may well be imbued with saintly patience since it is the holiday season, after all.)

Being there always gives me that seasonal rush that propels me to the finish line that is our Christmas dinner, however. And this year, I picked up a little extra something I’d been curious to cook with: Poppy seed paste.

What to do with this paste? Hamantaschen, the triangular cookie filled with poppy seeds that Jewish people eat at Purim, came to mind of course. But given that Purim is a good three months away, it didn’t seem the most appropriate use right now.

After a little poking around, one recipe beckoned: Lithuanian holiday cookies. In Lithuanian cuisine, dense poppy seed paste is sometimes swirled into sweet breads and other pastries for extra flavor. In a dense cookie, however, they’re just delicious. The basic cookie recipe I found called for just poppy seed paste as the main flavoring agent. As a lover of lemon and poppy seeds together, I decided to add some lemon zest and extract, along with a little mace, which just seemed right somehow. (The slightly tangy taste of mace would stand up nicely to the deep and earthy sweetness of poppy seeds, I thought.)

The result? A chewy, slightly cake-like cookie that packed a punch on its own but tasted even better with a festive sprinkling of confectioner’s sugar. One bite of these will send you looking for a tall glass of cold milk as a pairing.

I think Santa would approve.

~~~

Lithuanian Poppy Seed Holiday Cookies

• 1 (12.5-ounce) can poppyseed filling
• 3 large beaten eggs
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• 2 tablespoons melted and cooled butter
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon mace
• 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon peel
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
• 2 generous sprinklings of dried lemon peel
• 1 generous sprinkling of dried orange peel
• Confectioners’ sugar

Perhaps you have noticed that it’s been a little quiet on this blog recently. The igvoiding (a word my sister loves) hasn’t been intentional, I assure you.

Travels for A Tiger in the Kitchen have taken me around the country and across several oceans in recent months. And when I haven’t been on a plane, at an event, prepping for an event or trip or simply recuperating from jet lag, I’ve been taking it (relatively) easy. I’ve rediscovered the pleasure of slowly reading a book — two I recently finished and can’t recommend highly enough: the elegantly written and enchanting “The Manual of Detection” by Jedediah Berry and “Three Junes” by the charming Julia Glass, which I dearly loved and also won the National Book Award for fiction in 2002.

As you might imagine, I have also been eating — very well, in fact. And one of the highlights occurred in Portland, Ore., when a break in the Wordstock Festival gave me a chance to visit a brunch spot friends had been raving about for months: Tasty n Sons.

When even stalwart non-food-lovers practically go crazy recommending an eating hole, I generally pay attention. The place must be doing something very right in order to excite the generally unexcitable.

Judging from the crowds that were there on a weekday well before the lunch hour, our friends weren’t the only believers.

Even the tiny bar was packed with diners — did I mention this was a weekday morning?

One of the first things you’ll see when you walk in is a large board noting where the day’s ingredients are from. I will admit to having a soft spot for places that do that to such great detail.

Who wouldn’t want to know that the meat on their plate that day hails from a place called “Singing Pig Farms?”

Our start was promising: chocolate-potato donuts ($1.50 each) served in a pool of creme anglaise — these were sheer perfection. The donut struck just the right balance between dense and fluffy with a nice crunch in the coating.

The Moroccan chicken hash with harissa cream and an over-easy egg ($10) was good, though less exciting — the hash itself wasn’t as flavorful as we’d imagined. And the large glob of cream — flavored with harissa, a Tunisian chili sauce — felt like just a little too much and slightly too heavy a finish. But it wasn’t bad overall.

Because the Sous Chef is a pancake monster, a side of the cornmeal pancake (typically served with the steak with jalapeño butter) was a must. This came in a searing-hot cast-iron skillet — we quickly figured out that we should eat it quickly as the pancake was continuing to cook as it sat there. The bits that weren’t too crunchy were terrific.

The dish that made us dearly wish we lived near enough to Tasty n Sons to come back every weekend, however, was the Burmese red pork stew over rice and eggs two ways ($9).

The pork was braised to falling-apart perfection and the eggs were phenomenal — Egg #1 was the runny soft-cooked egg that sent a cascade of yolk seeping through the rice crannies. Egg #2 turned out to be less usual: a hard-boiled egg, cooked in a soy-sauce and anise combination, that gave the dish yet another layer of flavors.

The menu at Tasty n Sons offered many many more dishes we dearly wish we had room (and time) for — polenta and sausage ragu with mozzarella and a fried egg; roasted apple with bacon lardons and cheddar.

Portland, it may be a while before we’re back on your soil again. But we already know where we’re going the moment we land.

Tasty n Sons, 3808 North Williams Avenue, Portland, Oregon; 503.621.1400; http://tastynsons.com/

In Singapore, where Christmas is typically celebrated by people of all races and religions — largely as a secular festival, one squarely centered on getting together to eat and exchange gifts — my family, representing a jumble of religions in itself, would do the same. It didn’t matter whether you were Buddhist, Protestant, Catholic or Jewish — we were united on Christmas Day in our quest to eat well, share gifts and sing along to cheeseball Christmas carols.

The venue for these celebrations was usually my Auntie Jane’s — she always had a beautiful tree, a wonderfully decorated home complete with holiday cards she had received fashioned into a 2-D Christmas tree plastered onto a wall and a large buffet table topped with turkey and ham, fried rice and noodles.

The one dish we truly looked forward to, however, was a potato gratin she whipped together just once a year — filled with sliced chipolata, a skinny British sausage that’s packed with seasonings, mushrooms, onions and potatoes, this gratin was a meal in itself. (And it’s usually a hit with even the pickiest of child eaters.)

Despite my fondness for it, this gratin was yet another family dish that I’d taken for granted and never attempted to make. But when my Let’s Lunch group, a monthly Twitter-fueled virtual lunch-date, decided on sharing a holiday dish from your family or culture this month, I decided it was high time I gave my Auntie Jane’s recipe a shot…

This recipe is pretty simple — well, it sounds that way when my Auntie Alice, who somehow happens to be the keeper of this recipe, explains it. You just slice up a bunch of ingredients, stir-fry them together, put them in a casserole dish and bake.

For the most part, that’s true.

Not being able to find chipolata in my Brooklyn stores, however, I had to settle for some organic herbed turkey and chicken sausage, which didn’t look quite the same. And a little fiasco in my kitchen surrounding a misguided attempt to make Kewpie mayonnaise (a Japanese mayonnaise that’s flavored with rice vinegar) rather than get off my behind and trek to an Asian grocery rendered me without the ingredient that Auntie Jane squirts decoratively over her gratin. (It turns out regular mayonnaise isn’t quite the same substitute — mine didn’t brown and puff up the way Auntie Jane’s Kewpie lattice-weave does. Covering a failed mayo squirting with panko and parmesan, however, works quite well, I discovered.)

How did it taste? Not bad. Not the same — which would have been great — but not bad. Next year, though, it might be worth trekking back home for a Singapore Christmas so I can get the real thing.

In the meantime, happy holidays!

~~~

Don’t forget to check out the Let’s Lunchers’ festive family offerings below! And if you’d like to join Let’s Lunch, go to Twitter and post a message with the hashtag #Letslunch — or, post a comment below.

Charissa‘s Coconut Date Balls at Zest Bakery

Eleanor‘s Easy Festive Stir-Fry at Wok Star

Ellise‘s Lime-Chipotle Carrots at Cowgirl Chef

Emma‘s Mom’s Hot Crab Dip at Dreaming of Pots And Pans

Felicia‘s Chinese Butterfly Cookies at Burnt-Out Baker

Grace‘s Fruitcake at HapaMama

Joe‘s Maine Homestead Holiday Dishes at Joe Yonan

Linda‘s Baked Salad at Free Range Cookies

Linda‘s Trinidadian Baked Pastelles at Spicebox Travels

Lisa‘s Potato Latkes at Monday Morning Cooking Club

Lucy‘s “Not My Mama’s” Black-Eyed Peas & Greens at A Cook And Her Books

Maria‘s Grandma Dorothy’s Deviled Eggs at Maria’s Good Things

Patrick‘s Baby Pecan Pies at Patrick G. Lee

Rebecca‘s Grandmother Martha’s Potato Kugel at Grongar Blog

Renee‘s Cranberry Christmas Salsa at My Kitchen And I

Steff‘s Sweet Potato Casserole with Pecan Crumble at The Kitchen Trials

Victor‘s Roasted Parsnips, Carrots & Delicata Squash Tossed With Sauteed Mustard Greens at The Taste of Oregon

~~~

Auntie Jane’s Potato Gratin

5 or 6 large potatoes, cut into cubes
1 large white onion, finely chopped
1 can button mushrooms, drained or 12 oz. sliced fresh mushrooms
1 12 oz. package each of pork and chicken chipolata (or any kind of cooked well-seasoned sausage)
Various dried herbs: Marjoram, Oregano, Thyme, Rosemary
Kewpie mayonnaise
Butter and olive oil for frying

Optional topping:
1.5 cups panko
3 tablespoons melted butter
1/2 cup grated parmesan

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Boil potatoes briefly until slightly soft. Drain immediately and place in a layer at the bottom of a buttered 9 by 13 casserole dish. Cut sausages on the diagonal into thin slices.

Heat a tablespoon or two of olive oil or butter (or combination of both) in a pan and fry onion until it’s soft and fragrant. Add sprinklings of various spices — or, instead of using a bunch of different spices, my aunties just sprinkle on McCormick’s Mixed Herbs. If using fresh mushrooms, add them at this point and stir-fry these together until the mushrooms have softened. Then add sausages and stir-fry well, mixing everything up, for a few minutes. If you’re using canned mushrooms, add them at this point.

Layer the sausage mixture on the potatoes. If using Kewpie mayonnaise, gently squirt it over the sausages in a decorative pattern — a lattice weave, perhaps. As my Auntie Alice says, “Make any design you like.”

If not using mayonnaise, mix topping ingredients in a medium bowl and sprinkle over the sausage mix.

Bake for 15 minutes or until Kewpie topping is puffy and golden brown or, if using panko topping, until panko has browned slightly.

Then, as Auntie Alice says, “Have fun and enjoy!”

These feasts, often buffets,  typically unfold over a few hours in posh hotels — all the better if they’re of the colonial variety such as the country’s fabled Raffles — and feature heaping tables of sweets (scones, clotted cream, jam, tiny tarts) as well as hearty servings of local savory dishes such as curry, noodles, steamed Chinese buns and more.

I always look forward to the scones, cakes and tarts — what proper post-Colonial Anglophile wouldn’t? But it’s often the dainty finger sandwiches that I covet first. Cucumber, sweet curried chicken — I can never get enough.

So when my monthly virtual lunch-group, the Let’s Lunch bunch, decided on doing high tea for October,  little sandwiches immediately went on my docket …

What sandwich to make? Watercress and cucumber seemed just a smidge too predictable.

What appealed far more was a British sandwich I’d been reading about but had never sampled — cheese & onion, one of the most classic and basic British sandwiches, eaten by the young, the old, the poor and, well, perhaps the rich. It’s so common in London lunchboxes that grocery stores there sell tubs of pre-made filler. With no Tesco in sight in New York City, however, I set about figuring out how to make this sandwich — or, sarnie, as the Brits call their sammiches.

For starters, it should be noted that the British do know their sandwiches — they invented them after all. John Montagu, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich, was said to have been so fond of gambling that he made his cook prepare his food in an easy-to-eat way, wedging meat between two slices of bread, so he could eat his meals at the table during a 24-hour gambling binge in the late 18th Century.

(A gambling-inspired meal — my late grandmother would have approved! She did, after all, create “gambling rice,” a one-bowl meal of rice with shrimp, shallots and shredded cabbage to serve to gamblers in the illegal gambling den she ran in her home. You’ll have to read “A Tiger in the Kitchen” if you want to find out more…)

When it comes to cheese and onion sarnies, however, no meat is involved. After seeing a blogger’s attempt to make one by simply slapping cheese and raw sliced onion between two slices of bread, I decided this would not be the shape my high tea sarnie would take.

Instead, I found a few recipes that called for a few kinds of chopped onions (usually green onions and sweet white onions) …

… which you then mix together with mayonnaise and grated cheddar cheese, the stronger the better so it stands up well to the onions. You can also add chopped chives and salt and pepper to taste at this point. Once that’s nicely mixed, just spread it on bread…

… and serve.

Because I wanted to class up this sarnie a bit, I cut off the crusts and sliced the sandwich up into little fingers. And boy were they delicious with a strong cup of milky Assam tea.

With its very intense — and lingering — flavors, blending raw onions and sharp cheddar, this would not be a sarnie best eaten before a meeting or first date. But for any regular lunch or high tea, it’s certainly a winner. I think the Earl of Sandwich would approve.

~~~

Don’t forget to check out the Let’s Lunchers’ high tea offerings below! And if you’d like to join Let’s Lunch, go to Twitter and post a message with the hashtag #Letslunch — or, post a comment below.

Cathy‘s Sweet Potato Tea Bars at Showfood Chef

Charissa‘s Egg Salad Tea Sandwiches with Honey Mustard, Tomatoes & Basil at Zest Bakery

Emma‘s Brown Sugar Shortbreads With Hawaiian Jam at Dreaming of Pots and Pans

Grace‘s Taiwanese Sandwiches at HapaMama

Karen‘s Saskatoon Berry Tartlets at GeoFooding

Linda‘s Mesquite Hemp Cocoa at Free Range Cookies

Linda‘s Singapore-Style Ginger Tea & Kaya (Coconut Jam) Toast at Spicebox Travels

Lisa‘s Little Lemon Meringue Tarts at Monday Morning Cooking Club

Mai‘s Cougar Gold & Shallot Shortbread at Cooking in The Fruit Bowl

Patrick‘s Welsh Rarebit at Patrick G. Lee

Rashda‘s Spiced Chickpea & Sweet Potato Tidbits at Hot Curries & Cold Beer

Rebecca‘s Millionaire’s Shortbread at Grongar Blog

Steff‘s Lemon-Lime Shortbread Cookies at The Kitchen Trials

~~~

Cheese and Onion Sandwich

(From The Kitchn)

Makes 2 sandwiches

4 ounces cheese such as Cheddar, Double Gloucester, Cotswold, or Red Leicester
2 tablespoons finely chopped sweet white onions
2 tablespoons finely sliced scallions
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
Salt and pepper
4 slices bread, toasted or untoasted
Butter

Grate the cheese. Combine in a bowl with the onions and mayonnaise. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Spread the mixture between slices of buttered bread.

I have been incredibly well-fed, that is true. There was an unforgettable meal at Thistle, a quaint hyper-locavore place in McMinnville, Oregon, where some of the produce on our table that evening came from a co-owner’s mother’s garden nearby. In Seattle, there was the discovery of a superb rendition of New York-style pizza at food blogger Molly Wizenberg’s Delancey. And then there was the restaurant that made me consider packing up and moving to Houston just so I could eat there every week: El Real Tex Mex, where the ethereal refried beans, crunchy puffy tacos and stacked enchiladas share a sacred secret ingredient: lard, which the kitchen itself renders from heritage pigs.

The meal that stands far above all others, however, didn’t occur in a restaurant of great repute or one of the must-try scenes of any city I’ve visited. Rather, it took place in a darling little bookstore in St. Charles, Ill., a town 40 miles west of Chicago that’s perched by a pretty river. At Town House Books, owners Doug and Dave set out to not just host a reading for “A Tiger in the Kitchen: A Memoir of Food and Family.” No, they were determined to truly bring the book to life.

And so it was that just a few days before my June reading there, I got a call from Doug, asking me how exactly did my Singaporean aunties wrap the bamboo leaves around the bak-zhang (rice dumplings) and did my late grandmother’s pineapple tarts need to be kept in a fridge if they were made far ahead?

Bak-zhang? Pineapple tarts? When Town House had mentioned a dinner pairing for my reading, these ambitious offerings were certainly not what I had in mind.

The pangs for my family’s dishes immediately set in. And suddenly, I just could not wait to get to St. Charles …

I fell in love with Town House Books the moment I saw it.

Located in a house on a corner, this very well-curated store, which has been around for 30 years, is a throwback to the charming bookstores that used to be the heart of many a small city in America decades ago.

Every cranny is filled with books — each and every one selected with great care and fondness by Dave, Doug and Heidi, the store manager.

If you do find yourself at Town House, be sure to say “Hi” to Dave behind the counter (that’s him below), give him a big hug — and buy many many books, of course. Unlike the clerks you’ll find in many large bookstores, Dave knows his books and actually reads so his suggestions are golden.

The store’s welcome was incredible. In addition to the wonderful smells washing over us when we set foot in the store, there were numerous other signs of the great care Dave had put into the event. (He had even bought beautiful purple orchids after reading that they’re the national flower of Singapore.)

And it was a treat to meet the avid readers of St. Charles, many of whom had already read the book before the event. (One even told the husband: “I just loved your character in the book.”)

Some even came bearing gifts — Susan Blumberg Kason, who blogs about books, drove 40 miles from Chicago just to say hello and give me her book, “All the Tea in Chicago.”

And I met a reader who made me tear up — she said that when she was recovering from chemotherapy and had absolutely no interest in eating, the thing that got her craving food again was reading “A Tiger in the Kitchen.”

After brief cocktails, we were ushered into the bookstore’s cafe. Seeing the menu that Doug, who helms the kitchen of Town House’s cafe, created rendered me speechless. Each of the three courses featured the home-spun recipes of the women in my family half the world away in Singapore. Some of these are dishes that even the most daring home cooks in Singapore don’t try to make.

To start, we had popiah, a Singaporean summer roll that’s filled with julienned jicama, shrimp and various other ingredients. (I’d tell you more but you could also buy the book, where I have a lovely recipe by Simpson Wong, chef of WONG and Cafe Asean in New York’s West Village, a dear friend who is my “cooking uncle” and guru when I am far from home.)

And my mother’s green bean soup, studded with sweet potato chunks. This is the ultimate comfort food for me — the sight of it always brings me back to my girlhood, when my mother would make a large pot of it whenever I had class-mates over.

My mother-in-law got a shout out in the entree — Doug used the marinade she taught me in the book to make Korean-style short ribs, which were braised to such tenderness they practically melted in your mouth.

But the piece de resistance was my late grandmother’s bak-zhang, a pyramid-shaped rice dumpling filled with stir-fried pork with shallots, garlic and soy sauce. And its presentation was just beautiful. Wrapping of bak-zhang is never easy, but Doug nailed it.

My grandmother would have been so very proud.

To finish, Doug trotted out a refreshing lychee mousse, which was the perfect light ending to our big meal and tasted just heavenly.

This was paired with pineapple tarts, made with my late grandmother’s recipe. Now, for those who haven’t read the book (or read about it), these buttery cookies topped with sweet pineapple jam were what inspired my journey back to Singapore to rediscover my culture by learning how to cook with the women in my family.

These tarts hold such intense meaning for me that I am often very critical about the ones I try. None ever compare to my grandmother’s tarts. But Doug’s were absolutely delicious — the two I had disappeared in a flash. (And Dave was kind enough to offer me some to bring back to New York with me. Bless his heart!)

As mind-blowing as Doug’s meal had been, what I could not get over was the sight of 40 readers in the heart of America gathering to sample the food of my family — dishes that my aunties, my grandmothers and my mother had always pooh-poohed as not special or distinctive. I could not help but wonder what my grandmothers would have thought.

So here’s a big thank you to Doug, Dave and Heidi of Town House Books for one of the best meals I’ve had. You have truly made my year.

As for the rest of you, if you find yourself near St. Charles or Chicago, stop into Town House, browse, buy a book — no, buy 10.

Far too few gems like Town House exist any more. Let’s be sure to show them some love.

Town House Books & Cafe, 105 North 2nd Avenue, St. Charles, Illinois 60174; 630.584.8600; thb105@gmail.com; http://www.townhousebooks.com/index.html On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Town-House-Books/47931711093?ref=ts

Truer words have rarely been said. Thankfully for us homesick transplants, however, the Singapore Tourism Board has been on a publicity rampage recently, ever determined to spread the gospel of our extraordinary cuisine.

And so it was that I found myself in the heart of New York City’s fashionable Meatpacking District on Friday, soaking in the heady smells of a creamy spicy laksa brewing, trying to quell my palpitations. Before us was a shipping container, a portable kitchen that the tourism board designed to travel the world, hitting nine cities starting with London in June and ending with Sydney in March 2012.

Starring in New York’s “Singapore Takeout” was chef Malcolm Lee, who helms Singapore’s Candlenut Kitchen, a restaurant that serves traditional Peranakan food, a Straits Chinese cuisine that combines flavors from the Straits of Malaya and China.

Chef Lee will be serving up Singaporean food in New York Sept. 17 and 18 from noon to 3 p.m. and I was lucky enough to get a sneak preview before the public gets to have its first bite …

After much too much speechifying and fanfare — sorry, Singapore, our stomachs were impatient — the container began to unfold …

… revealing Chef Lee inside it (along with New York chefs Anthony Ricco of Spice Market, pastry chef Dominique Ansel and Ed Cotton of Plein Sud, who cooked in Singapore as part of “Top Chef” Season Seven).

The samples are small — but hey, they’re all free. So one really can’t complain.

Plus, you get to watch the cooking crew assemble the dishes on the spot.

I’d been eager to try what had been billed as “Newton Circus Skate,” a dish of barbecued stingray (skate) slathered with fiery hot sambal (chili paste) that many visitors to Singapore know from Newton Circus, the country’s most tourist-infested hawker center. (Hawker centers, by the way, are outdoor foodcourts in Singapore where the country’s most delicious dishes and talented cooks can be found.)

This dish is a must whenever I go home — when done well, the skate is incredibly sweet and juicy, the sambal is so hot you’ll find yourself madly reaching for that ice-cold beer after just a few bites and the combination of flavors is taken up a notch with a hint of lovely char from the skate’s recent spell on the charcoal grill.

If you are craving what I just described, I’m afraid you won’t find it here.

The Singapore Takeout version — done by Anthony Ricco — is tasty, to be sure. (Certainly it likely would be lauded by anyone who has never had the actual Newton Circus stingray.) But the paste here is sweet rather than spicy and the skate, a rather thick cut, was a little tough.

(As always, my beef with versions of my country’s food presented in the west is, why name a dish after a specific dish served in a specific place when it’s nothing like the original? They could have just called this “Singapore-ish Skate.” Truth in advertising is not over-rated.)

Malcolm Lee was similarly experimental with some of his dishes — although he is clear about that in his descriptions of his creations.

Curried stews made with buah keluak, a Malay black nut that tastes a bit like an intense truffle, are a staple in Peranakan cuisine. The nut is hard to find in the United States — in fact, I can’t recall ever seeing buah keluak on a menu in America. Lee’s short rib buah keluak is a modern take on the version he serves up in Singapore — deconstructed, topped with shrimp and served with a square rice cake. While it wasn’t what I expected, the flavors were delicious.

“When you grow up in Singapore eating your grandmother’s food, everything’s served in a traditional way,” he explained. “Your grandmother will say, ‘You must do this’ or ‘You must eat it that way.’ I wanted to try something different.” In fact, Lee mentioned that he’s planning to redo the menu at Candlenut Kitchen next year to make it a little more modern.

His slow-braised pork belly bun was more traditional — the pork, served with a blue ginger, lemongrass and soy reduction, was delicious.

(Although, the taste of it had me craving my mother’s pork belly buns, which have a stronger flavor from dark soy sauce and gobs of minced garlic and shallots.)

In the end, it was Lee’s laksa that blew me away. Good versions of this dish of noodles with shrimp, tofu and fishcakes in a creamy curried broth are hard to find in the U.S. — and Lee’s is outstanding. The broth was thick and complex, filled with the intense tastes of galangal, shrimp paste, candlenuts (which are similar to macadamia nuts), turmeric swirled together in a flabbergasting flavor tornado.

There was one taste that confused me at first, though — the cheesy flavor of a parmesan crisp Lee had added to the mix, saying it is similar to dried shrimp in a way. The Western addition worked, however — in fact, I wouldn’t mind it if this trend started to catch on among Singaporean hawkers.

As Singaporean food goes, these dishes certainly weren’t carbon copies of the ones that occupy our yearnings when we’re far from home. Not that it mattters, however.

Consider my itch scratched. At least for now.

Singapore Takeout, Gansevoort and Ninth Avenue, New York City, Noon to 3 p.m. on Sept. 17 and 18, 2011 only.