Crumble – AMCARMEN'S KITCHEN

Hello Everyone! I hope you all had a smooth-running first week of the New Year and resolutions haven’t been broken yet. I stopped making resolutions a very long time ago because I never follow them anyway. Instead, I always like to set an intention for the New Year. Read further after the recipe to find out more.

Last week we (as in my family and I) hosted a potluck lunch on New Years Day. Our relative brought over a TON of food. Even though I asked them in advance what they would be bringing so that we wouldn’t double up on the same dishes, it was the quantity of each dish that went beyond my expectations. Amongst the dishes that they brought over was Buko Salad.

Buko Salad, or in English, Sweet Young Coconut Salad, is a mainstay dessert dish served in every, or any special occasions such as fiestas or birthday parties. The main ingredient of this dessert is definitely freshly shredded young coconut meat, accompanies by fruit cocktail from a can, sugar palm fruit, coconut gel (nata de coco), condensed milk, and fresh cream. Some (i.e. me) like to add little chunks of cheese into it as well.

With an abundance of it from our potluck party, I could do two things:

Continue eating it as it is, or

Make another dessert out of it.

Which did I choose? Well both obviously! I continued to eat it as it is, and also shook things up with it. I already had the intention of making a Buko Pie Crumble for my series of Coconut Recipes for this month, and when I was eating a bowl of this Buko Salad while watching a teleseyre the day after the potluck, a light bulb flashed. I could totally use this Buko Slad mixture for my crumble instead!

So just to let you know, my measuring cups and spoons were nowhere to be found. I mean, they are probably in a box that I have yet to unpack since moving back to the Philippines – but I wasn’t about to go look for them when I had the oven already preheating and the Buko Salad already in their cocottes. I followed my Peach Crumble recipe to make the crumble, but I ended up just eyeballing all the measurements. Still turned out good though! If not, even better than the one I made for my Peach Crumble.

I ended up having about half of the crumble mixture left over *cheeky grin* so I placed the extra mixture into the freezer and then made another crumble the next day with the apples we had sitting on our table from our 12 Round Fruits for the New Year.

PREP TIME 10 MINS | COOKING TIME 20-25 MINS | SERVES 4

INGREDIENTS

Leftover Buko Salad*

For the crumble topping

100g salted butter (cold), cut into little cubes
1 cup plain flour
2/3 cup white granulated sugar
1/3 cup walnuts, roughly chopped

Ube Ice cream, optional

*Or you can always make a fresh batch to make this crumble.

METHOD

Preheat oven to 190C (375F or gas mark 5).
Divide the buko salad equally into 4 mini-cocottes, filling about half or three-quarters of the way. Set aside.
Add the sugar together with the butter, flour, and walnuts in a medium sized mixing bowl that has been chilled in the freezer for about 10 minutes (this is to help keep the butter chilled when making the crumbled).
With your fingertips, quickly mix the ingredients together until looks like rough breadcrumbs. If your mixture is too warm, put the bowl into the refrigerator for 15 minutes and start again when it has chilled.
Top the buko salad with about 2-3 tablespoons of the crumble mixture.
Place the mini cocottes on a baking tray and into the oven. Bake for 20 minutes, uncovered.
If your crumble topping is still towards the blonde side, turn the grill on and bake for a further 5 minutes or until the crumble starts to brown.
Serve hot out of the oven or at room temperature with ube ice cream (optional).

So, I initially wrote the following up at the beginning of the post, not knowing that I would be getting personal with two long paragraphs. I didn’t want to start my post of with this so I moved it for after the recipe for those who want to read on.

I mentioned in the beginning that I’m not one to make resolutions. Instead, I set an intention. Last year I tackled things with a “there is a difference between giving up and knowing when you’ve had enough” mindset and it definitely worked. The two things that bothered me when I entered the New Year last year were:

My Job, and

A Man/Men in general.

I hit a low point with my job. I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing anymore and to make things even worse, the environment and the toxicity of the people that surrounded me really affected my work and the way I worked. It also affected the way I interacted with my family and friends outside of the workplace – I was always grumpy and always avoided socialising with my friends. For 3 years I put up with this environment, and I let it consume me because I didn’t want to show others that I was weak for letting the people at work get to me. I didn’t want to give up. I wanted to fight. I reminded myself that: there is a difference between giving up and knowing when you’ve had enough. I didn’t give up. I knew that I definitely had enough. I put my foot down and filed for resignation early that year and I’ve never looked back.

Towards the second half of 2017, I met a man and we both fell in love with each other. It was a bit difficult seeing as he was all the way in the States and I was still working in Brunei at that time. We talked everyday. Made future plans together. Heck even made a bucket-list of things we’d do together. Shortly after, things started to die down. He started talking to me less and less each day even though I still tried just to keep things going. Eventually he stopped. He disappeared. He ghosted me as if I never existed at all. I stopped trying. I realised in time that we never really loved each other; we both just fell in love with the idea of falling in love. Did I give up on him? No. I just knew that I had enough trying to convince him and myself that it was love. After him, I had enough with men in general. I stopped looking for love and reminded myself that it’ll come when it comes.

So what is my intention for 2019? To be honest I haven’t thought much about it, but I looked at myself and where I am in life right now. What do I want to achieve by the end of the year? And this is it:

Go with the flow. Force Nothing. Let it happen.

Trusting that whichever way it goes, it’s for the best.

Happy New Year once again to all!

BON APPÉTIT

– Ally xx

For my 21st Birthday (which was like a year and a half ago), one of my friend’s from church, Tom, got me a set of 4 mini-cocottes with an accompanying cookbook. It was probably one of the best gifts I’ve ever received – a lot of people back then knew that I am a foodie and that I love to cook. The mistake they always make is that they get me food, such as chocolates and even gingerbread cookies (since my birthday was towards the end of the year, they thought they’d give me a birthday and Christmas gift too). I never really liked receiving food as gifts as I always say “I’m just gonna poop it out later anyway”, but cookware or even tableware? Best.

Note, I’m actually not a very big fan of chocolate. Moist, warm, oozy, chocolate cake: Yes. Chocolate bars, candies: No.

From this cookbook, I’ve only actually made two recipes, Shepard’s Pie and of course today’s post, Peach Crumble – which I have made numerous times because I just love it! Even my friends love it! It’s also simple and requires no more than 10 ingredients. I’ve tweaked the recipe a bit in terms of lessening the amount of sugar (I don’t really like my desserts too sweet and sometimes when I see ‘1 cup of sugar’ it scares me a bit). I also used less peaches than what the recipe calls for, and discarded the juice of lemon – in the past I have found the lemon too overpowering, making the dessert very sour. I think the zest adds enough lemony flavour to the crumble.

This is usually a dessert I pull out during the summer as peaches are in season then here in Australia. To my surprise, when I went shopping a few days ago at Coles, I found peaches! At first I was a bit skeptical knowing that they weren’t in season, and then I realised they had been imported from the US. I bought them anyway despite it being a tad bit more expensive than the local peaches during the summertime, because I needed peach crumble in my life right now and I couldn’t sit around and wait for summer to come along. But a warm peach crumble dessert fits perfectly with the cold weather don’t you think?

PREP TIME 15 MINS | COOKING TIME 20 MINS | SERVES 4

INGREDIENTS

3 large ripe peaches
100g cold unsalted butter, cut into little cubes
1 cup plain flour
2/3 cup caster sugar
1/3 cup crumbed walnuts
1/3 tsp ground cinnamon
Zest of one lemon

METHOD

Preheat oven to 190C. Lightly butter 4 mini-cocottes.
Bring a saucepan on water to a boil and plunge the peaches in one by one for 2 minutes. Remove using a slotted spoon and transfer to a deep dish to cool. Once cool, the skin should easily peel off. Cut into generous chunks or slices and mix with the lemon zest, cinnamon, and half of the sugar. Set aside.
Mix the remaining sugar together with the butter, flour, and walnuts in a bowl. With your fingertips, quickly mix the ingredients together until looks like rough bread crumbs. If your mixture is too warm, put the bowl into the refrigerator for 15 minutes and start again when it has chilled.
Fill each mini-cocottes with the peaches and top with the crumble mixture. Place any remain peach slices on the top.
Place the cocottes on a baking tray lined with aluminium foil. This is to catch any juices that may overflow from the cocottes; saves having to clean the tray later. Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes, uncovered.
Serve hot out of the oven or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream (optional).

Additionally, you can use any stone fruit besides peaches, such as apricots and plums – anything that is ripe, available locally, and in season. Reserve and leftover crumble by freezing it in a small ziplock bag.

BON APPÉTIT

– Ally xx