SALAD IN STILL LIFE: FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY 

I may be a masochist. I realised this while watching Masterchef Australia Season 2 recently.

The amateur cooks on the show are fantastic. In one challenge, they're given 45 minutes to come up with their own dish, and they do so brilliantly ­­– it would take me that long just to think of what to make. They know how to cook something off the top of their head ­­– I would be frantically looking through recipes for how long to boil an egg!

It pains me to know I could never do what they do and yet I get pleasure out of watching them show me exactly what I am incapable of. Traits of a masochist? Ouch, big time.


Of course, I am not incapable of learning. And there is so much that the show teaches. Gosh, the contestants who stay as long as they can get so much out of being there; the time spent on Masterchef (and that can be up to six months, apparently) is surely as good as being in culinary school.

In one episode, Donna Hay shows her take on Caesar Salad, that dish that every restaurant serves and yet you find unsatisfactory in every one because you probably have your own idea of how it should be made. Well, Donna Hay's salad looked really good on the plate and I had to try it. The components are half a head of baby cos/romaine lettuce, croutons made from thin slices of baguette, a soft-boiled egg, maple syrup-baked bacon and homemade mayonnaise with anchovies.

History tells us that the Caesar was a dish thrown together using whatever was available at the time it was created. Well, that's the way a lot of salads are made, and mine was no different. I used cos, although the one I had was a full-size head, and I made the mayo from scratch, so I got two of the components called for. But I didn't have maple syrup and glazed the bacon with pomegranate molasses instead, I accidentally overcooked the eggs, my croutons were made from soda bread, and I forgot the sprinkling of grated Parmesan. Purists would have had a field day taking every component of this salad apart and criticising it.

But I didn't make it for a purist. I fed myself and I liked the way it tasted. It just shows that if you put enough effort into a dish (and taste as you go along, as the Masterchef contestants are constantly reminded), it will be presentable and not bad to eat, even if you don't follow every single instruction or use only the ingredients called for.

Was it better or could it even compare with anything the Masterchef cooks would have made? I don't know. But I am painfully aware that it's a pleasure not knowing.

BUT WHERE ARE THE STRAWBERRIES?

Jana of Cherry Tea Cakes was our July Daring Bakers’ host and she challenged us to make Fresh Fraisiers inspired by recipes written by Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson in the beautiful cookbook Tartine.

Now, my confection isn't actually a fraisier. A Fresh Fraisier is a layer cake with fresh strawberries (strawberry in French is la fraise). But since I didn't use strawberries, it's not a fraisier.

And so, taking the liberty, I shall call it Ananasier, after l'ananas, the French word for pineapple. In fact, the Malay word for pineapple is nanas so it's quite appropriate.

Jana did an excellent job with her well-articulated instructions. They were easy to follow and the components were not difficult to make. It takes a little time, mostly due to the refrigeration, but it makes an impressive confection. Here are her instructions. For a slide show of the Daring Bakers' cakes, go to the website.

This is the Ananasier's makeup:

Sweet and high. It's heavy too... Lots to enjoy

The pineapple started out as rings, and then were cut in half and arranged end to end to make that wave pattern. I had some leftover jelly from a series of failures from another project, and cut out pieces to decorate in between the pineapple as well as to use inside the cake (with the pastry cream filling). The cake is flavoured with the juice of pandan leaves (chop them up, pound them in a mortar and pestle and use the green juice).

Cake, cream, fruit, almond paste – a good combination

I really like the disc of almond paste that tops the cake. When eaten together, there's a nice chewy bite to the cake combined with the soft, billowy pastry cream ­­– another component with an easy-to-manage recipe. As a filling, I might add a touch more gelling agent (I used agar-agar instead of gelatin) as the cake got somewhat squashed when I sliced into it. But then, that may just be the fault of  my heavy hand.

Those leaves that I used to decorate the plate, by the way, are edible. They are fuzzy and I am told they are lemon thyme. The bush is growing wild in a pot on my balcony.

My initial plan was to make two individual-size servings by cutting out discs from a sheet cake made in a Swiss roll pan and using a large biscuit cutter to act as the collar to mould the cakes. Obviously, that didn't happen. Maybe the next time I make the cake. And maybe next time, it'll actually be a Fraisier.

WHAT BISCUIT DO YOU LIKE? 

This article on The Guardian's Money Blog on the sort of biscuits (cookies) readers of various British newspapers like made me think about my own preference.

The post states:

"Britons munched, dunked and dipped their way through 141 million packets of biscuits in the past year, equivalent to 2.7 million packs a week or 22,596 every hour... The figures, crunched by Sainbury's using Nectar data from 12 million shoppers, show that UK consumers spent £123m on biscuits since July 2010 with cookies, jam rings, chocolate fingers and Rich Teas following digestives in the biscuit popularity contest."

One hundred and forty-one million packets! One hundred and twenty-three million pounds! Britons like their biscuits, eh? You don't say.

Many things are better homemade, but for me, biscuits are not one of them. I like commercially made ones so much I can sit down and eat a whole packet of Ginger Nuts or Mint Slices or Milanos or Hobnobs or Fig Newtons and not even realise it until I'm picking at the last crumb. No matter how good homemade biscuits are, and how much healthier they can be, I am never tempted to have more than two.

But reading about biscuits has made me want to bake some. I like so many mentioned in the article and here are some I am planning to make:

• Garibaldis
• Ginger crunch
• Fig rolls
• Coconut creams
• Oat

Actually, as I write this, I have already made two types. One is a sandwich cookie with all the main components in it ­­– by sheer coincidence (and I have just realised this!) ­­– starting with the letter "C". More on them in upcoming posts.

There aren't any real Malaysian equivalents of British newspapers so I can't tell whether my taste in biscuits reflects the kind of newspaper I prefer. I do know, however, that I can eat practically any biscuit and keep it down, but the way the government-controlled media over here covers the news makes me sick.