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Otago Daily Times
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Combining cultures
Julie Lin is an author, recipe developer and broadcaster. She has just published her first book Sama Sama which fuses Malaysian, Chinese and Scottish influences from her heritage. In 2011, Julie Lin made a note to self on Facebook: "New mission in life," she wrote in a status update: "be Nigella Lawson." At the time, she was working in retail in Glasgow and teaching piano and violin while channelling most of her creative energies into cooking dinner parties for friends. Flash forward 13 years and while Lin may not have fulfilled her mission exactly as stated, she's been making all the right moves in that direction. First she went on MasterChef in 2014 and made it to the quarter finals. Then she quit her job and became a chef, before setting up her own street-food stall in Glasgow. She graduated to a "proper"restaurant on the city's south side in 2017, then a larger one called GaGa which is still going strong today. Now she's written a cookbook, which unites the two parts of her heritage — Malaysian and Scottish — in unexpected and delicious ways. "My mum's from Malaysia, and I go there every year," she says. Her father is Scottish and she grew up in Glasgow "with an abundance of amazing Scottish produce. So it feels like I'm from both places." Chinese sausage bucatini carbonara Carbonara will forever be one of my favourite dishes. The Chinese sausage (lap cheong) I use is an ambient food, so I always tend to have it in the cupboard. It's truly one of the finest ingredients — its smoky sweetness makes it taste like maple-cured bacon and it works perfectly with the rich egg yolks. Allowing the fat to render a little releases the oils into the dish and creates the most moreish flavour. Serves 2 200g dried bucatini (or another long pasta) 40g Chinese sausage (lap cheong), thinly sliced at an angle 1 Tbsp olive oil 4 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped 3 egg yolks 50g parmesan, grated, plus extra to serve 1 tsp light soy sauce ½ tsp kecap manis (sweet soy sauce) salt and black pepper Method Bring a large saucepan of well-salted water to the boil. Add the bucatini to the pan and cook for 8 minutes (or according to the packet instructions). Meanwhile, in a dry frying pan, gently fry the sausage over a low heat until the oils are released, allowing it to get a bit crisp. Remove the sausage from the pan and set aside. Add the olive oil to the pan and fry the chopped garlic until fragrant but not browned. Using a fork, whisk together the egg yolks, grated parmesan, soy sauce, kecap manis and a pinch of salt in a bowl. Once cooked, drain the bucatini, reserving some of the pasta cooking water. Add the sausage back into the pan along with the drained bucatini and toss in the garlic oil. Slowly add a little of the pasta cooking water to the egg yolk mixture until glossy and combined. Pour this over the hot pasta and sausage and mix together. Serve immediately with black pepper and the extra parmesan grated on top. Chinese-style spicy garlic celery Celery divides people. I think that's because most of us are introduced to it in the form of batons dipped into hummus. But I adore celery in its cooked form, especially with soy and garlic. This is a version of a common wok-fried celery dish we eat at large banquets in Malaysia. Serves 1 2 Tbsp Shaoxing rice wine 3 Tbsp light soy sauce 1 tsp white sugar 2 Tbsp vegetable oil 1 bunch, celery sliced on an angle 5 cloves garlic, peeled and finely diced 1 tsp cornflour, plus 3 Tbsp water to make a paste 1 tsp Malaysian crispy prawn chilli or crispy chilli oil salt and ground white pepper Method In a small bowl, mix together the Shaoxing rice wine, soy sauce and sugar. Heat the vegetable oil in a wok over a high heat. Add the celery to the hot oil and stir-fry for 1 minute, or until a little translucent. Next, add the garlic and stir-fry for 2-3 minutes, or until fragrant. Add the rice wine, soy and sugar mixture, then add the cornflour paste and stir-fry until everything thickens slightly. Allow all of the flavours to come together, then taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and white pepper. Finally, add the crispy prawn chilli or crispy chilli oil and make a few last tosses. Serve immediately while piping hot. Nasi goreng with smoked mackerel Nasi goreng is probably one of the most recognisable dishes in Indonesian and Malaysian cuisines. Nasi means rice and goreng means fried, so it translates simply as fried rice. Full of flavour, this dish can be adapted to use up any ingredients you have in the fridge. I adore adding mackerel to this; the smokiness makes it extra punchy. It's important to cook out the paste (rempah) here so that all of the roundness of the flavours can coat the rice. All of the day-old rice grains should absorb maximum flavour. Remember, nasi goreng is a simple dish to cook, but it's all about making sure it's not still wet at the end of the frying process. Serves 2 vegetable oil for frying 2 spring onions, chopped into 4cm chunks 150g fine green beans, trimmed 50g smoked mackerel, flaked 300g cooked and cooled jasmine rice (preferably a day old) 1 ½ tsp kecap manis (sweet soy sauce) 1 ½ Tbsp fish sauce, or to taste 4 eggs 150g beansprouts For the rempah 1 long shallot, peeled and roughly chopped 5 cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped 2 fresh long red chillies, deseeded and roughly chopped 4 dried red chillies, soaked in warm water for 20 minutes, drained, deseeded 2 Tbsp dried anchovies (ikan billis) Seasoning station (optional) sambal belacan, chilli crisp oil, fish sauce, light soy sauce, lime juice, salt Method First, make the rempah. Place all the ingredients in a food processor or blender and blitz to a paste. Heat plenty of oil in a wok over a medium-high heat. (You need lots of oil to make the paste oily enough that it coats the rice.) Once the wok is hot, add the rempah, spring onion chunks, trimmed green beans and flaked mackerel. Fry everything for 1-2 minutes, stirring continuously so that the paste doesn't catch and burn. Turn the heat down, then add the cooled rice to the wok with a few tablespoons of water. Add the kecap manis and fish sauce, stirring furiously until everything is mixed together. Create a well in the centre of the rice. Keeping the heat on medium-low, crack two of the eggs into the centre of the well and allow them to scramble. Once fully cooked through, mix the scrambled egg through the rice with the beansprouts. Heat enough oil to cover the base in a separate pan over a very high heat. Once the oil is very hot, crack the remaining two eggs into the pan. Fry until the skirts of the eggs are golden and crispy. When ready to serve, spoon the rice into two bowls and top with the crispy fried eggs. Add whichever of the ingredients you fancy from the seasoning station. — The Observer
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
GaGa ball, pickleball and hiking trails: NKY city's parks get $500K for improvements
Dayton residents can expect new ways to get out and get active this coming year as the city approved several large projects Monday that will focus on enhancing features of their community parks. Officials of the small Northern Kentucky city said in a news release they plan to invest $500,000 into two of its marquee parks: Gill Lynn Park and Sargeant Park. The investment will make way for four new pickleball courts, a new GaGa ball pit, resurfaced basketball courts, updated playground equipment, revitalized hiking trails and more. 'We are very fortunate to have seven great public parks in our city,' Baker said. 'Gil Lynn is one of our largest parks and our most active park, but it is starting to show its age, and these improvements will make it a more inviting public space for our children, our residents and our visitors.' This development coincides with the efforts of Southbank Partners, a nonprofit regional economic development organization serving the urban core of Northern Kentucky that aims to improve and add more recreational opportunities to the region. Gail Lynn Park, in particular, is one of the several parks that sits on the nonprofit's Riverfront Commons, an in-progress, 20-mile continuous multi-modal corridor that lines the south bank of the Ohio River. The first of many developments in Dayton kicked off with the addition of a highly anticipated GaGa ball pit, a fast-paced, dodgeball-style game played in an octagonal pit with walls in Gil Lynn Park. The school unveiled the $4,000 GaGa pit to students in a surprise ceremony Monday after several weeks of discussion between Mayor Ben Baker and City Administrator Jay Fossett regarding the future improvements they wanted to see at Gil Lynn Park. 'When we met with members of the student council, they provided us with a lot of good ideas about how to improve Gil Lynn Park, but construction of a GaGa pit was by far their top priority,' Baker said. Dayton's park board made many recommendations to City Council for improvements it would like to see in Gil Lynn Park, which is next to Lincoln Elementary, Dayton High School and the school district's athletic complex that is currently under construction but will be dedicated late this summer. City staff and council discussed these recommendations at its strategic planning session on Monday, according to Baker. A week prior on April 8, the Dayton City Council approved a contract to spend $111,300 to improve the pavilion, garage, bathrooms and concession stand at Gil Lynn Park and the pavilion at Sargeant Park, according to the release. Due to its proximity to the high school and elementary school, the school district and its students are often the heaviest users of the park. The schools also use the park for gym classes, recesses and special events. Other Gil Lynn Park improvements recommended by the park board and city staff are: Construction of four pickleball courts ($145,000). Replacement of playground equipment ($200,000). Resurfacing basketball courts ($40,000). The city will also turn their focus to Sargeant Park, located in the southern part of the city with over two miles of hiking trails and Covert Run creek. With these new developments, the city is also working alongside the Northern Kentucky Stream and Wetland Restoration Program at Northern Kentucky University to undertake a major stream restoration project in Sargeant Park. This program will address erosion problems caused by the creek, remove dangerous trees and incorporate other improvements to the park and its ecosystem. The stream restoration project is currently being reviewed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which approves projects such as this. When completed, these improvements are expected to be in the range of $1 million. Funding for these projects is possible due to several grants and the implementation of the city's park tax, which has seen a substantial increase in revenue in recent years due to further developments in the city. Both the city of Dayton and Dayton Independent Schools will contribute to this funding to supply and construct the playground equipment at Gil Lynn Park. Much of the existing playground equipment at the park is around 20 years old and in poor condition. 'This new GaGa pit and the other improvements the city plans to make at Gil Lynn Park means the world to these kids, especially since they had the opportunity to speak up and have their voices heard by the city administration,' said Dayton Independent Schools Superintendent Rick Wolf. 'It's important for our schools and our city to continue to work together and see what we can do to make things better for our kids.' As for Sargeant Park, Dayton invested $200,000 to construct trails and make other improvements back in 2021, which was funded by multiple grants from the Kentucky Recreational Trails (KRT) program, L'Oreal, Duke Energy and the City Park Tax Fund, according to the release. Also, in 2024, the city obtained another $120,000 grant from the KRT program to enhance the existing trails and construct new ones in the park. The project was recently completed and the improved trails were reopened to the public a couple weeks ago. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Dayton, Kentucky, pours $500K into city parks for improvements
