I was ecstatic when I chanced upon the rhubarb at Finest just yesterday while shopping for the BBQ stuff. I've been looking out for rhubarb for quite some time but I just don't see it around. The rhubarb is part of the buckwheat family and it was first used in Northern China for medicinal purposes. However, it has made its way into England where the rhubarb pie became ubiquitous.


The rhubarb stems

Most people mistake the rhubarb as a fruit because of its use in pies and jams. However even though rhubarb is really good in desserts, it can be used in savoury foods as well.

It looks a lot like a red celery hence my grandma actually mistook it for celery when I brought it home. As I did not buy much of it, I couldn't make an entire rhubarb crumble. Instead, I decided that the apple and rhubarb combination will do just as fine.

After washing and peeling off the skin of the rhubarb, J sliced it into cubes before I boiled it with vanilla caster sugar to sweeten and soften it. In just 15 minutes, it was reduced to a pretty and pink mess. It's texture is now soft and its taste is slightly sourish and sweet.


Chopped rhubarb


Boiling the rhubarb cubes with vanilla sugar

The both of us proceeded to prepare the sweet-crust pastry and to chopped up a mixture of Pink Lady and Golden Delicious apples- we added lemon juice, brown sugar, salt and cornstarch to the apples before mixing them with the rhubarb mixture and pouring it over the rolled out sweet-crust pastry.

The finishing touches were fun and simple- shaving the pastry dough over the laid out apples and rhubarb and to empty my packet of blanched almonds. We then placed the tray into the oven and baked it at 180 Deg Celsius for 30 minutes.

After washing up, the crumble was ready! Everyone loves this crumble- no complaints about it being too sour, too sweet, too crumbly etc. After gobbling down a slice, I was still craving for that warm apple and rhubarb crumble.

O rhubarb! You should be widely available in every kitchen!



Before baking


Pulling out the tray of sweet and warm crumble out of the oven

Ristonarante Da Valentino

The words "rustic", "warm and homely" and " genuine" comes to mind when you take a step into the restaurant. We were warmly greeted by one of Valentino's family. The interiors of the restaurant were decorated with ornaments from Italy and cherry-brown leather chairs and pink table cloths. I got the feeling that I was in the home of a Italian.

I've been to Ristorante Da Valentino before but it was probably about two years back. At that time, as I couldn't get a seat inside, I was seated outdoors with my companion and it wasn't all that a pleasant experience.

This time was entirely different. I was taken into all the little ornaments as though they could tell me their story or experience. At that moment, I dreamed of exploring Italy and its fascinating food culture.

As our waiter high-lighted the specials of the day, I was listening but I thought that I already know what to order from their menu. When he said "porcini", my eyes lit up and when he added "truffle oil", I was totally sold. So I ordered the day's special of ravioli with porcini mushrooms and truffle oil.

J was also attracted to one of the day's special- King prawns with Linguine. Though he isn't a big fan of prawns, I think he was fondly reminded of his king prawn and risotto that he had at Garibaldi not too long ago.

After taking our orders, we were served warm rolls with bail pesto sauce. The basil pesto was way amazing- well-mixed with anchovies, parmasan, olive oil, pine nuts and of course basil leaves. You could tell that it was freshly made and it served as my inspiration to start getting my lazy butt off to making my own basil pesto.


Bread roll and basil pesto

We shared an appetiser- Parma ham with melon. I was craving for this particular dish even though I ate it at Pregos last Sunday. The presentation of the dish was simple- They simply laid the parma ham over the melon. Despite the barely attractive appearance of the dish, it was lovely. Just imagine the thin, transparent slices of meat fanned out around a sweet orange melon. The parma ham is delicate and soft with details of fat which contributes to its unique taste. Lovely.

Parma ham and melon

Our mains looked as unadorned as our appetiser. The ravioli was so tasty that I just remained silent as I dug into it, forgetting to ask J how his pasta was. I was reminded how I love the taste of porcini mushrooms. Their intense, rich, meaty flavour is like no other and they pair really well with truffles or in this case truffle oil. I could eat another plate of this, seriously.

Loveliest ravioli

J had the king prawns linguine. The prawns for one were really huge! They were the most succulent and sweet. However, the linguine was disappointing. It was kind of bland and somehow to J and I, it seemed like it was a cross between a spaghetti and linguine.

J's tiger prawn linguine

Now, moving on to desserts. I was eyeing the dessert trolley the moment I stepped in. Since i have never seen the dessert trolley in any Italian restaurant in Singapore, I wondered what its mystique was about. In actuality, the reason why it is fascinating is because the waitress introduced the every dessert that was on the trolley. The desserts were mostly simple-Polenta and marzipan cake, fig tarts, Chocolate rum and raisin cake, the chantily cream cake. I was choosing between the chantily cream white chocolate cake and the chocolate crumble cake.



The dessert trolley

I have not seen a chocolate crumble cake so I was interested in finding out how it tasted like. We settled for that and had no regrets. The top part of the cake was made of chocolate cookie like crumble (for some reason, it reminded us of Korova cookies) and it was topped with amaretti cookies (I love). The base was made of a dense chocolate velvety texture. This was way lovely- Way better than the Dark chocolate I had at Laurent's Chocolate Cafe the evening.

This meal brightened up my entire Saturday as I embraced my Italian romance.


Chocolate crumble cake

Worm-like

Heavenly smelling vanilla bean pods: Scrapping off and dumping them into the pot of milk


Boiling and simmering of the vanilla-infused milk



Pâte à choux
Vanilla pastry cream: Making sure that it's smooth without lumps


Our very first attempt at Pâte à choux with vanilla pastry cream with expresso syrup drizzled over it.

We were also highly entertained by our new toy. J, our very own barrister, made expresso and cappucino for us all while we sat by to enjoy our afternoon tea.

Friday dinner was a much- needed treat for the weary and tired.

Dinner at Garibaldi was fabulous.
It's still our favourite Italian restaurant. We headed there after work and ordered the pan-seared foie gras to share. It's served with apricot chutney and balsamic vinegar.

After the first bite, the table was silenced because we were busy finishing the foie gras. It was a perfect balance of taste and textures- Just how a good foie gras should be.

For the mains, I contemplated ordering the spaghetti with sea urchin and grey mullet roe but decided that I wasn't quite in the mood for a surprise so I opted for one of my favourites- the angel hair lobster pasta served in tomato sauce.

J ordered the saffron risotto with tiger prawn. The risotto was really good and the tiger prawn was fresh, sweet and succulent. A pity the lighting did not allow for photo-taking. The photo of the saffron risotto is about the only decent one of the evening.

After dinner, we met Grace and Zhiwen for desserts at Canele, another one of my favourite food places. We shared Jupiter and Cafe Noix- not like there were many choices left. Jupiter was still as good with its contrast of chocolate and passionfruit. As for cafe noix, my first impression of it did not change- I still did not like it because there was too much coffee cream.


J's saffron risotto


Desserts from Canele

***


My New Toy

A latest addition to my kitchen- Milky( it's a timer).
I swear I did not come up with such a silly name. It was on the box that came with it. J bought it in an attempt to cheer me up.

I LOVE it because it's just so adorable; I put it into good use today while baking apple, plum and almond crumble.

The last time I baked the apple crumble, I omitted using plums. Today, I decided to throw in a few plums and the results are more interesting. You'll get the sour flavour from the plum as well, not just sweetness from the apples.

I really do dig warm desserts like this especially on a rainy and gloomy day.
It certainly does much to chase those blues away.

O' comfort food!