Hunger Management: Knead to calm down

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SINGAPORE - Are you fraying at the edges? You're not alone. We all are.

 

Aggressions are no longer micro. Adults and school kids are getting into fights, and worse. People flout the no-alcohol-after-10.30pm rule. Some won't wear masks. They gather in large groups.

 

I was delusional, thinking I was handling it - you know, this never-ending saga with Covid-19 - well.

 

My fraying manifests itself in ways that surprise me.

 

I am usually pretty even-tempered but, in the last few months, I notice myself losing my cool way too easily, way too often. Some days, I have zero patience for anything and anyone, and I snap at people. The air in my car is often blue from all the cussing I do.

 

There is the exhaustion at the end of the work week. On weekends, I'd rather just burrow and cocoon, and not have to face the world.

 

And then there is the feeling of helplessness. The industry I report on, food and beverage, is suffering badly. There seems to be nothing I can do about it. Of course, I support my favourite restaurants and food businesses. But what difference does one order of food really make, let's be real?

 

I think about how they must feel, fighting fires that won't go out. Dealing with ever-changing rules. Policing their customers, when they had signed up to be hospitable. Worrying about rent and salaries and paying suppliers. Living on the edge 24/7.

 

Recently, after four back-to-back interviews with restaurant owners, I went home, flopped on my armchair and couldn't move until it was time to go to bed.

 

What stops these fraying edges from developing into full-blown tears and rips are my coping mechanisms.

 

Exercise saves me every day. During my walks - I don't do anything fancy - I think about the features I am writing, I plan ahead, I listen to podcasts. Sway by Kara Swisher from The New York Times; Food With Mark Bittman, the cookbook author; Radio Cherry Bombe, the podcast of the American food magazine focusing on women in F&B; and even something fluffy like Conbini Boys, where two Americans talk about Japanese convenience store offerings, give me constructive things to think about and sometimes to laugh about.

 

Tending to my plants lifts my mood too. Somehow, in the last 18 months, I have amassed rather a lot of them. I take great delight in watching each new leaf unfurl. I feel so happy every time a repotted plant survives and thrives. I am grateful for growth and life in those pots.

 

There are also Korean dramas, which have replaced my former diet of American TV shows. The big emotions, the tropes, the Easter eggs, the fashions, the food, the diamante-studded house slippers - everything in such stark, high-definition contrast to my drab, monochrome life.

 

After an ugly cry - the showrunners really know how to turn on my waterworks - I feel better. It's cathartic.

 

But the biggest weapon in my arsenal is baking.

 

Making bread is like meditating to me, a way to calm my monkey mind.

 

I wish I had thought to take note of the number of kilograms of flour, sugar and butter I have gone through from the start of pandemic isolation. But you see, I never thought I'd still be needing this crutch more than a year later.

 

Planning what to bake, looking up recipes, coming up with my own recipes - these keep me busy and stop me from dwelling on the negative. It really is the one thing that gets me out of bed on weekends.

 

A friend asks how I stop myself from eating everything. Well, it helps that I am not particularly interested in eating stuff I make. Satisfaction comes from making the bread, not eating it. The process is the payoff. I foist the bakes on beleaguered friends.

 

Recently, two of my coping mechanisms collide. My pandan plant is flourishing, and to use up some leaves, I decide to make bread coloured and scented with pandan juice. The result is lacklustre. I use 24 leaves, but the pandan flavour is not strong enough.

 

Somehow, pandan buns morph into coconut buns. I tinker with the bread dough and the filling, and make my family taste many batches before arriving at the recipe.

 

I go back and forth with the coconut filling - desiccated, then freshly grated, then back to desiccated. The thought of people falling ill from eating coconut gone sour keeps me up at night. I value my sleep and your health, so desiccated it is.

 

The dough can also be made into unfilled buns and loaves. It is delicious toasted and spread with butter and kaya. Or use it to make savoury buns using chunks of otah, for example.

 

One bun at a time, one kilometre at a time, one drama at a time, one new leaf at a time, I am trying to mend the frayed edges of my life. Despite evidence to the contrary, this hell, this limbo we're in, it will pass.

 

When it does, I want to be fighting fit, physically and mentally. I will do whatever it takes to get there. I hope you will too.

 

Coconut buns

 

Ingredients

 

For the bread

 

• 300g bread flour
• 5g salt
• 40g sugar
• 5g instant yeast
• 150g lukewarm coconut milk
• (not coconut cream)
• 20g coconut oil or melted butter
• 1 egg (60g with shell)

 

For the filling

 

• 80g unsalted butter
• 3g salt
• 60g red jaggery sugar
• 10g cornstarch
• 60g desiccated coconut
• For the topping
• 15ml coconut milk
• Desiccated coconut

 

Method

 

1. Weigh the dry ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. Mix with a spoon. Add the coconut milk, oil and egg. Mix on low until the dough comes together. Stop the machine, scrape down the sides, gather the ingredients into a ball and flip it over. Knead for eight minutes on low until smooth, stopping every two minutes to scrape the dough off the hook, gather it into a ball and flip it over, before kneading again. This ensures the dough is evenly kneaded. The dough will clear the sides of the bowl, but will stick at the bottom. It is properly kneaded when it is soft and smooth.

 

2. Scrape the dough down into a rough ball, cover the bowl and proof for one hour or until doubled in size.

 

3. While the dough is proofing, make the filling. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

 

Add the salt, jaggery and cornstarch. Stir until the sugar has melted and there are no lumps from the cornstarch. Take the pan off the heat. Add the desiccated coconut and mix thoroughly with a fork or spoon. Scrape into a bowl until ready to use.

 

4. Line a 20cm square baking tin with baking paper, so that there is paper overhang on all sides. If you do not have a 20cm square baking tin, make free-standing buns.

 

5. After one hour, deflate the bread dough and divide into nine equal portions, each 60 to 62g. Pull the edges of the dough towards the middle on all sides and shape each piece of dough into a ball. Rest the balls of dough for 15 minutes, covered with a tea towel.

 

6. On a very lightly floured work surface, roll each ball into a circle about 15cm in diameter. Place 22 to 23g of the coconut filling in the middle. Gather the dough around the filling and pinch firmly to seal. Invert, so the seam faces down, and shape into a sphere by cupping your hands around the dough and moving it clockwise. Arrange the balls of filled dough in the pan, three on each row, spaced out evenly.

 

7. Cover the pan with a tea towel and set the timer for 30 minutes. At the end of that time, pre-heat the oven to 180 deg C and continue to proof the dough for 15 more minutes.

 

8. Brush the buns with coconut milk and sprinkle with a little desiccated coconut. Bake the buns for 20 minutes or until the tops are golden brown. Remove from the oven. Use the paper sling to remove the buns from the pan and onto a cooling rack. Remove the paper. Cool the buns for at least 45 minutes before serving. Store leftovers in the refrigerator and toast before eating.

 

Makes nine

 

Source: The Straits Times © Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Reproduced with permission.

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