What Is Love?

And the correct answer to that question is: RPM 47 Track 7.

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Happy Valentine's Day! wherever you are. I've always liked Valentine's Day, the one day of the year where I feel it's okay to get all cheesy and go overboard with the hearts and pink and red glitter and CAKE! I was originally planning to make a bunting using small pink and red glittery hearts, as well as whip some cream to decorate the chocolate cake I made, but after I was done making dinner and baking said chocolate cake (which also involved numerous checks on FBC who decided he was going to be tiresome and hangrier than usual), I was SPENT. So, no glittery pink and red hearts this year, and an unadorned (but still delicious) chocolate cake. What a pity.

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I said to Jon last week that we've spent more weeknights at home watching TV and talking nonsense in the past few months since he moved in-house than we did when we were first married, even though that was supposed to be the honeymoon period, etc. Funny, that there was a time in the first year of marriage I felt constrained by being a wife, a daughter-in-law, and wanted so badly to just not be those things anymore. (I always have and always will be a daughter, how do you not want to be something you have always been?) Does everyone go through periods like that when they're married? When they suddenly realise that they've lost the choice to see other people, are unable to do whatever they want whenever they want, and have so many more responsibilities? 

I think, though, that those feelings were due in part to the fact that Jon was working so hard at the Angmoh Firm. We've said before that we stopped quarrelling so much after we got married, maybe that was due to that too - I could pretty much do whatever I wanted because he wasn't home most nights, anyway. And we quarrelled more in the first few weeks of FBC's life than we did in our entire marriage up to that point - along with post-partum hormones, those first few weeks were probably the most time we'd spent with one another at home at a stretch. 

Because, after those first few weeks as new parents, and many weeknights at home watching TV and talking nonsense later, I've come to the realisation that I wouldn't trade being a wife and mother, and all the attendant responsibilities of those roles, for anything.

Oh, it's not all a bed of roses, I'm sure you know that. The more I Stay At Home, the more I realise how much is required just to keep the household functioning at some basic level of cleanliness and homeliness - and my standards are already pretty low. Not that I think women should martyr themselves for the SAHM cause, I definitely do not want to become someone like that, but you know what I mean. Sorting the laundry, doing it so the part-time help can iron it; sweeping up all those strands of hair I'm losing post-partum, cooking, doing the dishes*, making baby food, playing with the baby, doing his laundry, making sure the adults in the house have enough good and healthy food to eat... The little things which together take more from you mentally and emotionally than you ever thought they would. And we're dead-set against engaging a live-in helper, even when I return to work and maybe even after we have our next child. 

If there's anything I've learnt in the past few years though, it's that you just deal, and life goes on.

*Usually, the spouse who doesn't cook does the dishes, but it's okay, there are some things I can live with. 

***

Here is the recipe for the baked malfatti I made for our early Valentine's Day dinner. There are a number of components to it which can probably be completed in a day, but I broke it up into two days because most of the active cooking had to be done when FBC was napping (or I was in the mood for some CIO action. Haha.)

I'd originally intended to make lasagne rolls, but ditched the idea when I realised that the no-cook lasagne sheets I had in my fridge were almost 3 years old, having been purchased for a pound while Jon and I were on our honeymoon Part 2 in London. Well, okay, I really ditched the idea only when I realised after boiling them that they wouldn't behave like the Barilla ones apparently do, i.e. get all soft and pliable and easy to roll. These kept splitting as I tried to roll them up.

I had already purchased the ingredients for making ricotta when I decided to test the lasagne sheets from the fridge, and neither Jon nor I like the taste of fresh milk, so I had to commit to making ricotta. It was then that I contemplated making fresh lasagne sheets without a pasta maker, but after about 3 hours of researching the intricacies of this process, I decided it wasn't something I wanted to attempt with a child prone to hangry outbursts (on that note - he gets it from his father, I think. Unwilling to wait just ten minutes more to eat) and with eggs being so dear (they have been steadily increasing in price. A carton of 10 large local eggs used to cost S$1.95 at the minimart across the street. They now cost S$2.35). 

I was resigned to buying a box of Barilla lasagne sheets and having the remainder sit in my fridge for another 3 years**, when I remembered the ricotta and spinach dumplings, "nude gnocchi", which Anne Burrell made on Secrets of a Restaurant Chef. Another three hours of research later, I decided to make a baked version.

**It's not that I don't like lasagne. I mean, I don't buy ingredients just so they can languish in my fridge only to be thrown away years later. Lasagne is just so time consuming if you, like me, want to do everything from scratch. At least chopping the vegetables finely got easier with a food processor.

The traditional way of making malfatti is to boil the dumplings. I tried with one and although it held its shape bits of it disintegrated so I decided to go with the baked version (may be a travesty, but ah well). 

I also learnt some interesting things about Italian cooking in general when I was researching the making of this dish - for instance, the difference between "lasagna" and "lasagne" (the latter is the plural of the former), and that chicken is never paired with pasta in traditional Italian cooking. Dishes like chicken alfredo only came about because, as the commenter put it, "Americans have something about chicken". 

To give it its real, atas sounding Italian name, this is Malfatti di ricotta e spinaci, or malformed "mistake" dumplings of ricotta and spinach

Overall recipe adapted from Scrumpdillyicious

A. Ricotta

Recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen. I tripled the recipe and got about 400g of ricotta.

Ingredients

• 10.5 cups of whole milk (I got two 1 litre cartons of Hi-Low milk for S$5.15 from Giant, it was more than enough)
• 1.5 cups of heavy cream (I used Emborg whipping cream, which is 38% fat)
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 9 tbsp lemon juice

Method

1. Put milk, cream and salt in a large pot. 
2. Bring to an almost boil (I don't have a cooking thermometer. Maybe that would make a nice Valentine's Day gift?). You can tell it's "almost boiled" when there are small bubbles at the edges where the liquid touches the pot. The mixture should not be allowed to come a full boil, i.e. large bubbles form, liquid spatters up at you (I'm not sure why you shouldn't bring it up to a full boil, but don't. I think it'll affect the structure of the milk proteins and it won't curdle properly).
3. Take the pot off the heat, stir in the lemon juice and let it sit for about 10 minutes. 
4. Pour entire mixture through a sieve lined with cheesecloth set over a large bowl. The whey will collect in the bowl, leaving the curds in the cheesecloth.

As the ricotta needs to be firmish - think crumbled taupok, but a bit smoother, let it drain for about an hour to an hour and a half, or longer if you think it's still too soft. I stuck my ricotta in the fridge, wrapped in cheesecloth, for about two days.

B. Malfatti

Ingredients

• 400g ricotta (although I made my own ricotta, if you can bear to, just use store-bought. Especially if you have to clean the pots yourself. Please do not wait too long to wash the pot you almost boiled the milk and cream in, or you will have a terrible time getting the curds off. Soak in water immediately after pouring liquid to strain)
• A pack of frozen spinach, defrosted, steamed, wrung as dry as it will go. I used Emborg frozen chopped spinach, about 450+g of spinach or so per pack. Erring on the side of caution as I'd never dealt with frozen spinach prior to this recipe, I actually defrosted and steamed two packets, so I may have used about 1 1/3 packets. With the remaining spinach, I made pork and spinach meatballs.
• About 3 cloves of garlic, finely grated
• Zest of a lemon
• 5 tbsp finely grated Parmesan
• 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
• Pinch of nutmeg
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1 egg

Method

1. Mix everything together, except for the salt, pepper and egg. 
2. Taste as you go along, and add salt and pepper until it tastes nice (yes, really)
3. Add egg and mix thoroughly. The mixture should still be slightly sticky and you should be able to form balls which hold their shape from it. 

I stuck the malfatti mix in the fridge overnight, putting two paper towels between the mix and the clingfilm to prevent condensation from getting into it.

C. Olive oil bechamel

Fry 2 tablespoons of finely minced onion with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, until onion is mushy and a bit brown. Add 2 tablespoons of flour and whisk to combine. Once you get a smooth sort of paste, cook for a bit until it turns a light brown, then add about 1 1/2 to 2 cups of milk, whisking constantly.

At this juncture, I should admit that I am not quite sure how to cook bechamel. However, I just sort of let it come to an "almost boil", whisking constantly to ensure there would be no lumps, until the mixture thickened to my liking. I actually took the trouble to strain it, but feel free to leave the minced onion in.

Leftover bechamel can be frozen until you decide what to do with it. But don't take too long.

D. Marinara sauce

Fry about 3/4 of an onion, finely minced, and 3-4 cloves of garlic, finely minced, in about a tablespoon of olive oil. Add a can of chopped tomatoes (I used the Cirio brand) and simmer. Add salt, pepper, and if you find the taste too acidic, add about 1-2 teaspoons of brown sugar.

This made more marinara sauce than I needed, so I froze the remainder together with the pork and spinach meatballs I mentioned. 

E. To assemble the dish

Oil a baking dish with olive oil - just a thin layer will do. Spread bechamel on the bottom of the pan. Form slight oval shapes with the malfatti mix, mine were a bit smaller than a small egg. Place them in the baking dish - mine held about 10, and I made another pan with 16 for my parents - on top of the bechamel. Pour more bechamel over, then spoon some marinara sauce on top of each malfatti. Sprinkle Parmesan (I had a pack of not so finely grated Parmesan, so I used that instead of the one which looks like grains of sand) over each malfatti, and top with shredded Mozzarella. 

Bake at 170C (fan-forced) until cheese has melted and browned. Serve immediately. The portion I made for my parents was cold by the time it reached them, which prompted both my usually salt abhorring parents to say that it wasn't salty enough. But the next day, after my mother heated up the leftovers, she immediately WhatsApped to tell me that it was yummy and didn't need any additional salt. Pooi, I say.

***

Yoga video of the week here. If you try it, you should be able to make this chocolate cake and have it for dessert without feeling too guilty. To the batter, I added 4 tsp of the following spice mix:

• 3 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper

4 tsp was enough to give the cake a subtle, spicy kick, but you could always add more than that if you wanted more spice. 

We're at about 6:12/ km now for 10km (our fastest being 5:30 or so per km).