Baker Helen Goh's fridge is chock-full of far-eastern flavours, but with a few fusion surprises. From curry leaves to kefir, her fridge reveals a love for bold tastes and practical storage solutions.
A Fridge Full of Far-Eastern Staples
Goh used to freeze fresh curry leaves, but after a tip from chef Romy Gill, she now fries them to make curry leaf oil, which keeps them fresh and can be crumbled into dishes like dal. Her fridge also contains an array of tofu – firm, medium, soft, and puffy – including a breakfast tofu in ginger syrup, which she describes as like junket but made with soya beans. The secret ingredient is plaster of paris, which she gets from Asian grocers.
Her chilli box is on wheels because she is short and needs to get to the back of the fridge. She loves Poon's Everything Everywhere sauce, which she uses with poached prawns or chicken, or adds to ramen with veggies and tofu. Her ethos is: “always have two so you always have one,” though she admits she forgets which one is open.
Meat, Marinades, and More
The meat drawer contains marinated lamb for the week, mince for mapo tofu, Chinese sausage, white anchovies, and dried scallops. She also collects parmesan rinds in a bag, which she plans to use but sometimes just sits there. Goh is a two-kiwi-a-day person, eating one in the morning and one in the evening for something sharp, sweet, and puckery.
Black sesame paste is used for tang yuan, glutinous rice balls filled with the paste, when she craves something chilled and sweet. She used to make shawarma marinade from scratch but found it a pain, so now she uses a marinade from Ottolenghi for Friday night dinner, smothering a leg of lamb with it. Garlic shoots are a quick fix for greens: she blanches them and stir-fries with Chinese sausage, then adds rice and an egg.
Fusion Finds and Baking Secrets
Goh doesn't drink kefir but uses it like buttermilk in cakes, finding it better than buttermilk which is not always consistent. For her son, who is “protein maxxing,” she always has salmon, which she oils with mayonnaise, tosses in soy sauce, shaoxing wine, lemon juice or rice wine vinegar, sometimes wasabi paste, and grills for two minutes per side, serving in poke bowls with edamame.
She has been experimenting with homemade elderflower cordial, reducing the sugar to make it sharp but refreshing. Her seven-year-old vanilla essence is made from vanilla beans she pops in a jar after use, and she distinguishes between homemade, cheap, and good vanilla paste. She has both Thai and Indian tamarind, using it in baking, caramelising, or adding a squeeze to dal and curries. A friend from Malaysia sent her World of Nyonya all-purpose spice paste, which with coconut milk turns into laksa, and she adds beansprouts, fresh egg noodles, and puffy tofu.
