Foodiva's Kitchen: International Incident Party: Somewhere Over The Rainbow...

Sunday, December 19, 2010

International Incident Party: Somewhere Over The Rainbow...


It seemed that I blinked and it's already December. Time to celebrate our greatest moments over the year but more importantly, time for another International Incident Party! Penny of Jeroxie.com as our lovely host has wisely pronounced 'Colour' a.k.a. 'Color' as the theme of this month's party. What better way to see the year out than with a big bang, an explosion of culinary colors? 

In the six months since I've embarked on this blogging journey (I'm a mere baby in the blogosphere!), my kitchen has seen its fair share of rainbow-like dishes gracing its countertop and table. I certainly like to play with the most vibrant colors naturally available - reds, greens, yellows - but there is one oddity and that is my predilection for purple and pink. Strange really, because I'm not terribly feminine in outlook or appearance (in fact, I often imagine myself as a tattoed-up Jesse James with boobies and a black leather apron, real baad, oh yeah!). All this time, my poor brain may possibly be rebelling against this constant desire to be a biker-foodie chick, resulting in recipes that manifest themselves as the girliest-looking concoctions, as you can witness below:  


Anyway, back to this party. I was so excited to showcase more colors in my food that I ended up preparing a three-course meal bursting with flavors and vibrancy. I suggest you put your sunglasses on now as it's going to get crazy-bright in here ;-).

Appetizer: Colorific Salad-in-a-Sushi 


A refeshing, colorful salad presented in sushi form! Slivers of red cabbage, cucumber, carrot, beetroot, yellow pepper and mango are encased in fried egg-sheets, which are again rolled within nori sheets. If you can roll sushi, you can definitely roll these. They're slightly larger versions of regular sushi but they look like pyschedelic babes on a plate! My heart hurt to have to eat these, but hey, someone's got to do it...


Main course: Mother-in-Law's Tongue Pasta (Lingua di Suocera)


I've been intrigued with these unbelievably stunning noodles for a while but when I googled it up, there was no information on how to actually make it. For now, it seems that the secret recipe and technique for producing this pasta will remain with the Marella family in Puglia, Italy who makes these by hand! Never one to give up, I bravely attempted my own version of Lingua di Suocera. However let me just put on record that my real-life mother-in-law's tongue was not the inspiration for this creation (in fact, I'd be worried if hers took on these hues!).

I experimented with 6 colors derived from carrot (orange), spinach (green), black sesame (black), blueberry jam! (blue), turmeric powder (yellow) and cocoa powder (brown), and left one plain. It was pretty tedious work lining up the linguine-sized noodles lengthwise against one another before rolling them flat to seal - and of course, they never do in the exact way you want them to - then trimming off the edges to form a wide, flat, stripey, colorful noodle.

It was a warm afternoon when I made this, and after painstakingly crafting a whole set of just 5 noodles, I gave up and  jumped into the pool with the kids. The rest of the linguine was not wasted though, they were heaped together and cooked into a gorgeous multicolored pasta dish that my young housemates devoured after their swim. Luckily, I remembered to take a snapshot before it was all gone!

But here's the real star of the party, my version of Mother-in-Law's Tongue pasta accompanied by red cabbage, garlic and coriander (cilantro) sauteed in butter. Those Italians have totally got it sussed out, they know exactly what it takes to make food that take your breath away. 
  
 
Hmm, I could stare at this the whole day.... if only I wasn't so hungry.

Dessert: Sweet Potato and Coconut Milk Agar


This purplelicious layered agar is flavored with purple and orange sweet potatoes and coconut milk, two ingredients that go extremely well together. The topmost layer contains thin strands of purple sweet potatoes (achieved using a mandoline) encased in sweetened clear agar. For the opaque sweet potato layers, the potatoes are first steamed and then blended with hot agar liquid to form a puree. Despite its carb contents, this pretty layered dessert makes for a delicious and surprisingly light finisher!


I had fun creating these dishes, it felt as if the rainbow had somehow shone its way into my kitchen and inspired me to look closer at its spectrum for ways to brighten up the plain old plate. Now before you come here looking for that pot of gold, check out what colorful goodies the other participants came up with by clicking on the thumbnails below. 

In the interest of maintaining a fun and light International Incident Party atmosphere, all recipes featured here will be posted separately in the coming few days. We wouldn't want to derive yawns resulting from a long-drawn out post now, do we? Haha, no we so wouldn't.

Don't forget to put some (natural) color in your lives and on your plates. Thanks for reading, and yes, you can take those sunglasses off now!



15 comments:

leaf (the indolent cook) said...

That pasta is an amazing effort... and I love coconut milk agar jellies! Beautiful.

Unknown said...

Thanks, Leaf. I've been wanting to make the pasta for a while, and I was glad I was able to do it for this party!

Cherrie Pie said...

wow, all three dishes look so colourful. I particularly like the pasta. WOW

Tasty Trix said...

Okay, if there was a prize I think you would get it - these entries are stunning and SO clever. I have seen that pasta also and wondered how on earth it was done. Bravo to you for having the patience to do even five - I would have torn out my fingernails by the the second one. This was really some fab eye candy.

msihua said...

Oh my.. you are amazing.. that mother in law's tongue pasta looks fabulous! I shudder to think of the effort!! Well done!

penny aka jeroxie said...

I love all 3... can't pick one favourite. I am so looking forward to all the recipes. :)

Thanks for the beautiful and colourful dishes. Merry Christmas!

Indonesia Eats said...

Love the colour!!! As I know, you are very creative in using natural colour resources.

Right now, I'm enjoying the "bunga" as well.

Conor @ Hold the Beef said...

Purple is my favourite colour, so this post is a whole big pile of awesome for me. Such inventive dishes, I love them all. Too attractive for me to eat though? Nope :D

Agnes said...

Oh my gosh, all three of your dishes look amazing! Well done, they're so stunning :)

Unknown said...

Thanks everyone, if I had to pick a favorite dish, I must say it's the pasta. Not only because I nearly tore out my fingernails making them (you and me, Trix), but because of the amazing colors! I couldn't stop staring at them, if I could I'd make a blanket out of them and cuddle up in bed... Haha. Insanity.

I really enjoyed everyone's contribution too, but I haven't finished making all the rounds yet! Thanks Penny for a fab.u.lous party, as always.

Nancy said...

Maya, you are the queen of colour and color! (hehe) Your culinary talent and creativity is amazing and always leaves me in awe. Everything looks so delicious and it would be a hard choice to pick just one to start with.

Evelyne CulturEatz said...

Triple WOW, you went all out. I came so close to doing similar sushis lol. Amazing job

Unknown said...

Nancy, you're very generous in your comments, as always. For many years, I stayed out of the kitchen and to think that now I have some sort of 'culinary talent'... well, my brain still needs to process that!

Evelyn, I was equally WOWED by your triple creations too! Thank you.

Sandra said...

I...I am speechless! You should see expression on my face! What a wonderful blog, and recipes!

Unknown said...

Sandra...haha, you crack me up!

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