Roast duck and mango salad (with char siu surprise)

With the way things have been in the political scene, it’s hard to think of only food all the time.  But if one had to just talk about food, how about that Samantha sushi scene in Sex and the City, eh?  I cackled till I cried.  And talking about Sex and the City, I was reading Kevin Cowherd’s article in The Star the other day where he said that men should refrain from watching this movie…let your wife watch it with her girlfriends, bla bla bla….well, I have only one thing to say.  Bald Eagle is a real man, baybeh, coz he surprised me with tickets and laughed throughout the movie.  But then again, how many straight men can confidently tell you that Blahnik isn’t the name of the latest space shuttle to take off from Russia?  And talking about men, I’ve been faithfully listening to Flyfm for the longest time, for 40 minutes in the morning from Mondays to Fridays which adds up to a gazillion jillion hours, but I’m finally going to change loyalties.  Why?  Have you heard their latest lame car-giveaway-to-Mazlan-almost-a-scam thingy?  Whoever came up with the idea ought to be sacked.  Anyway.  I’m in a dilemma right now.  I don’t know what to listen to in the mornings.  I’m stationless.  Decisions decisions.  And talking about decisions, if you’re like me, a devoted wife who wants to provide only the best to her husband every night (and I’m still talking about food here), I am sure you would be occasionally faced with mental block.  It is even more of a challenge for me ever since we resolved, 6 months ago, to eat salads for dinner at least 3 times a week.  I mean, how many different ways can one present a bunch of leaves?  But I suppose when you’re fast approaching the unmentionable years (grey hair, sagging breasts, et al.), it is wise to eat less and eat healthy.  Or at least, I try.  20% of the time.  Anyway.  Bald Eagle was one very happy man this week thanks to me.  (We’re still talking about food here.)  I fed him this very easy to prepare roast duck and mango salad (with char siu surprise).  The base consisted of a bunch of rocket and coriander leaves, a fistful of sweet and crunchy taugeh (bean sprouts), julienned red capsicum for colour and chopped ripe mangoes for sweetness.  Because it was beginning to feel thai, I added a packet of glass noodles (pre-soaked to soften), and then tossed all the items in a sauce made with olive oil, ground palm sugar, a dash of sesame oil, peanuts, minced dried shrimps (fried) and the sauce that came with the roast duck which I had purchased from a chicken rice stall in Lucky Garden at 9.00pm after a hard day’s work.  Well, we all need cheat tactics.  The sauce had a garlicky sweet flavour, so I didn’t bother adding more garlic.  While waiting for the roast duck to be chopped by the kindly old man at the Lucky Garden stall, I saw a tiny piece of glistening fatty char siu.  If there’s one thing I cannot resist, it’s char siu.  Especially if it’s fatty.  A little bit unpremeditated (and unhealthy!), but like my philosophy in life and everything else, cooking should be an adventure.  So in went the roast duck and the char siu.  I squeezed the be-juice-s out of 5 calamansi limes onto the pasta to lift the flavour, and I can tell you this – Bald Eagle was one very happy man that night. (Are we still talking about food?)