Food for Thought

Comfy Roti John for breakfast, snack and brunch

Roti John with porkmince

This weekend the temperature dropped together with rain and wind it's getting chilly, a good reason to bring in some warmth with comfy food. We strolled over the local freshmarket in the centre of Leiden and stopped at a Morrocan stall where we bought fresh baked flatbread, other mediterranean ingredients and moved on for our dinner groceries.

Once home hubby suggested a Dutch winterdish "Prei Stampot", however we modified the original recipe with extra ingredients and a thick cut pan-fried pork chop just to satisfy the boys tastebuds. But the real surprise comfy food was when I'd prepared a "Roti John" for brunch, just by looking at the crusty loaf, minced meat and a tin of sardines it made me remember our visits to Tekka Mall Foodcourt, Sim Lim Tower for Kaya toast and other eateries in the basement foodcourt.

Roti John, is a popular Malay breakfast and favourite snack at Kopitiams in Singapore and Malaysia. Basically a meat-omelet sandwhich with choices of Chicken/Lamb mince, sardines or tuna together with onion, garlic, chilipaste and eggs all scrambled together topped on bread and then pan-fried. Tea Tarik would've just made it picture perfect with this simple snack, but we indulged ourselves anyway .

The first loaf was with Sardines and it tastes so good, that we had another Roti John this morning with porkmince and Sambal Badjak as chili paste instead. It didn't last long either.......

Ingredients

• 1 French loaf (Turkish/Morrocan crusty flatbread is better)
• 100 gms Minced Chicken/Pork/Lamb/Beef or small tin sardines/tuna in tomato sauce
• 3 Eggs
• 1 Onion & 1 garlic clove, chopped
• 1 Tbl chili paste (Sambal Belanchan or any chili paste to your liking
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• Chillies, slice diagonally to mix in or just scatter on top
• Garnish with tomato parts, cucumber slices (fresh chili's) with a dollop of chili sauce on the side

Method:

1. In a bowl mix the first five ingredients and beat together with the eggs.

2. Slice the french bread in halves, press cavity and fill in with above mixture.

4. Heat up the pan and add vegetable/olive oil.

5. Put the bread with the egg-meat side into the frying pan, mixture side down.

6. Listen to it sizzles, cook and turnover both sides until golden brown and sprinkle chillies to your liking.

7. Serve with a sweet chili sauce, garnished with cucumber and tomato slices.

Give it a try, you'll like it:)

Crossover between words and ingredients

Ok, after receiving the closing e-mail a few days ago I just briefly went over and hit the button making the switch to TypePad while I actually had abandoned Vox blog for quite some time due to spam annoyance and trouble with previous vox blog settings. Being curious is what actually brought me here to experience how this will work out and perhaps even make a jump to a professional account who know

Co-incidently I made another cross-over, after having spent a decade in Asia my family is back to country of origin, The Netherlands. A  short-stay has transferred into moving back for a longer term untill the next job/project sends us abroad again. Till then this will be home again where luckily all Asian spices and ingredients are abundently available so the flavors will be on our table soon again to taste.

Due to circumstances we are still staying at a hotel and tonight we've finally enjoyed a home-cooked dinner after evenings of dining out, which is easy but nothing beats a home meal. Dinner plan for tomorrow is a Dutch mash potato dish, but then again that's the plan depending what we come across on offer shopping for ingredients.