Plusixfive Seafood Feast

Last night, Frangelico, my sister Rice Krispie, her pal JC and I were at the plusixfive supper club again. This was only my second time there, and we looked forward to it with all the excitement of visiting an old friend's home.

The theme this time around was seafood, and the club featured the creations of guest chef Yolanda Augustin. Yolanda is half-Malaysian - of Eurasian descent, she explained, hence the Portuguese surname 'Augustin' - and half-English. She grew up in Malaysia with a maternal grandmother who was one of those amazing-cook-matriarchs that South East Asians will know well. Moving to England for her 'A' Levels, she realised how much she missed the food from home, and she started trying her hand at some dishes. The rest is cooking history. Yolanda, an oncologist by day, is in now the process of setting up her own supper club in London, called Wild Serai, and plusixfive was hosting her first foray into the genre.

We started off with pork belly satay from Goz, chef and founder of plusixfive (day-job: private equity lawyer). If you're in Singapore or Malaysia, you're unlikely to find pork belly satay in a restaurant or hawker centre. Reason being, satay originated in the Malay-Muslim community. Chinese communities in Singapore, however, engineered an alternative that would yield satay as tender and melting as the traditional chicken and lamb. Frangelico described Goz's satay as 'superlative'. I need not say any more, except that the peanut sauce that the satay came dressed in was better than anything I can recall having tried in Singapore: chunky and studded with peanut, limey and aromatic, sweet and sour. If any sommeliers are reading, I challenge you to find a wine pairing for Goz's superlative peanut sauce!

Hunger Emergency Seafood Spaghetti

This was dinner tonight.  It almost didn't happen.  I had just finished bashing out Queens of the Stone Age on my guitar, and I was in a rebellious mood.  I stood hanging around the kitchen, not really feeling like cooking, with images of local take-outs' menus floating around in my head.  The reluctance was compounded by the general absence of cookable things in the fridge (I'd chosen gym over supermarket today).  However, the realisation that we'd taken out a little too often over the weekend made me relent, and rustling around in the freezer, I came across a pack of frozen seafood and frozen minced garlic.  And so it came to be.

200g spaghetti
400g pack of frozen seafood (prawn, mussels, scallops, squid rings)
a generous handful of frozen minced garlic (use less if using fresh garlic: that stuff's powerful)
1 dried red chilli, crushed (or half a fresh red chilli, sliced; or 1/4 tsp red chilli powder)
dash of Martini bianco or white wine
dried parsley flakes (or a handful of chopped fresh parsley, if you have cookable things to hand)
salt and pepper

1. Cook spaghetti according to packet instructions.
2. Put a generous splash of olive oil in a hot pan and add the minced garlic and chilli.  Cook until starting to colour.
3. Add frozen seafood and allow to cook.  Season with good amount of salt (it'll have to do for the entire dish, including pasta) and pepper.  A lot of water will be released, so don't add any liquid.
4. Once seafood is cooked, add the martini or white wine and allow to bubble away.
5. Add parsley, more olive oil if required, and stir.
6. Stir through spaghetti and serve!

Optional: pick up Queens of the Stone Age again, feeling less hypoglycaemic (and glad to have sorted out dinner without needing to budge out of the flat).

Love

Truffle