Every year during this time, Babe In The City - KL will organized a virtual open house makan-makan and every year, we was given a theme as what to cook. My first participation was in 2006, subsequently 2007 and how can I miss this year Merdeka virtual open house. The theme for this year is Mee and My Malaysia. “Participants need to cook up a noodle dish of any Malaysian ethnic, of course the rare and unique ones from your family, hometown, kampung or some ulu place are most welcomed. Your noodle dish has to be something original and not fusionised or tweaked to fit the modern age - Babe_KL”

The first thing that came across my mind is the fermented red wine mee suah. How can the Foochow part with their ever famous dish.

You may get the recipe from my previous post. However, if you would like to participate, please do so as the deadline to submit your entry is on 29th August, 2008. We are all for the muhibbah fun. No one wins a prize unless I claimed that I am an amateur cook. Teeheehee…

Post Updated 31 August 2008 - Round up dishes of all sort of Mee (Noodles) from different culture and race.  Check out Merdeka Open House 2008: Mee and My Malaysia Round-up

Hubby’s friend bought for us a whole red snapper (I could be wrong though) salted fish from Kuantan. My first attempt is to had them (flesh only without the bone) stir-fried with rice. That was something like one month ago and I’ve totally forgot about the salted fish! So I cook them again last weekend. This is my all time favourite dish - Taugeh (bean sprout) with Salted Fish.

Ingredients:

Slices of salted fish
Taugeh (bean sprout)
Tau kua (A harder version of Tofu fit for stir-fry)
Homegrown Chives
Cloves of garlic
Chilies

Method:

Sliced tau kua in rectangular. Deep fried them in oil on high fire till golden yellow. Removed from wok and using the same oil earlier fried the slice salted fish till fragrant or crispy. Removed. Discard the earlier oil. Without washing the wok, saute garlic and chives. Add in taugeh and chilies. Give them a quick stir and pour in 1/2 cup of hot water. The reason why I used hot water so that the water doesn’t take a long time to boil and not overcook the taugeh. Transfer the earlier tau kua and salted fish. Season them with 1/2 tsp of oyster sauce. Once the gravy boiled, removed immediately.

Best served with rice. But I had them with porridge. That is another part of me growing up as a foochow. Old habit die hard - porridge for lunch and rice for dinner.

I’ve made Konnyaku Jelly again. Not because I am craving for them, but because I bought a new Mickey Mouse mould. Woot! This time, I’d prefer to leave them in their original clear transparent colour and also using canned fruits. As usual, please refer to the cooking instruction behind the packaging.

Talking about canned fruits especially the cocktail, I’ve learnt a lesson. Never buy the cheapest brand on the shelf. There was once, the kiamsiapness (stingy) in me bought the cheapest brand which still costs me about RM6. I was so dissapointed with the content as they are full of pineapples! This time round, I grabbed the 2nd cheapest - Ligo Brand that cost me RM8.10 in Jaya Jusco. Surprisingly, they are full of pears and peaches! However, the pineapple can hardly be seen. I will keep on trying other brands tho. I never know buying a can of fruit cocktail can be this is challenging. You’ve never know what to expect in the can until you’ve open them up. Don’t know should be happy or not.

Can you spot the Mickey shape? You just have to try harder if you can’t see them. Other than having them cool in the konnyaku mould, I had some of the liquid pour into the kid’s bento box for tomorrow lunch. It is not a good idea to remove the jellies from the mould. Once you do that, they will slowly turn watery.

In chinese, alkaline dumpling is also known as kan sui jong (cantonese) or kijang (hockkien). They are not savory like bak chang. Usually alkaline dumpling is dipped into caramelized palm sugar or kaya. They are easier to make too. This is how you do it:

Ingredients:

500gm Glutinous rice
3 teaspoons Alkaline water (air abu/kan sui)
Small Bamboo leaves
Another 2 teaspoons of Alkaline water

Method:

If possible, buy the glutinous rice from sundry shop and not the one like I used above as those branded packaging is not so pure. They added some rice into it which will later resulted a harder dumplings. Wash throughly glutinous rice. Soak them in clean water with 3 teaspoons of alkaline water added. I soak mine for 6 hours (9am to 2pm). The colour will change yellowish instantly.

As usual, wash the bamboo leaves and the string. Discard water from glutinous rice and you can start to wrap the dumplings. Place 2 bamboo leaves back to back. Shape them into a funnel using one third of the length and work your way up.

Cut away the hard stem on the glutinous rice. You know making dumplings takes a great deal of skills, patience and free time but of course practise makes perfect too. Filled up a big pot of water enough to cover the dumplings. Bring water to boiled. Add another 3 teaspoons of alkaline water into the boiling water before adding your dumplings.

Cook for about 3 hours. Add more water if the liquid drop below the dumplings level. Once done, hang to dry.

For the caramelized palm sugar syrup:

Ingredients:

450gm Palm sugar
200ml or 1 packet of Coconut milk
2 leaves of pandan (screwpine)

Method:

Put a little water in sauce pot. Cut coarsely palm sugar so that they will dissolve faster. Cook under low fire all the time.

Once sugar dissolve, add in coconut milk. Cook till sugar thicken. That took me a good 1 hour!

I can eat 3 dumplings in a go. They are so lip-smacking good especially the palm sugar.

You can try cooking kaya too if you have the time. Seriously I don’t that is why i resorted to palm sugar instead.

The actual day for Duan Wu Jie falls on 7th June 2008. Early Happy Duan Wu Jie to all since I won’t be around that day.

What happen to the weather this few days?  I felt myself living in an oven!  Hot weather makes me moody too and when I am moody I tend to loose my temper easily.  Bad!  So, on a hot and lazy day, I have it easy in the kitchen - Red Snapper fish porridge.

Ingredients:

Red snapper fish fillet
1 cup of rice (measurement for 2 adult and 2 children)
young ginger
spring onion
sesame oil

Method:

Cook rice in low fire for about 1 hour or till rice breaks.  Marinate fish fillet with soya sauce and pepper.  Since fish don’t require longer cooking time, I add them in five minutes before the cooking end.  Season porridge with chicken granules. Leave them in the pot for about 10 to 20 minutes before consuming.  Garnish with young ginger strips and spring onion.  Optional, add in sesame oil and pepper.

My kids just simply love mushrooms and last Sunday, I decided to turn them into 4 ‘Ms’ - Mushrooms Mania on Mouthful Monday! I just simply create this stir fry of Enoki and Bunashimeji mushrooms.  Note: I was told that mushroom contains lots of uric acid which is bad for gout.  Make sure you eat moderately.  Too much of everything is not a good thing tho.

Enoki

Bunashimeji

Ingredients:

1pkt Enoki mushroom
1pkt Bunashimeji mushroom
2 inches thick ginger
2 cloves of garlic
Oyster sauce

Method:

Heat wok with 2 tablespoons of oil. Saute garlic and ginger till fragrant. Add in one rice bowl of water, bring to boil. At the meantime, season stock with oyster sauce or anything of your choice. Add in Bunashimeji to the boiling stock. Bring to boiled again. Lastly, add in Enoki mushroom. Bring stock to boil again and remove from wok. Don’t over cook the mushroom. You should be able to do it quickly.

I’m not the type that is creative with garnishing to my dishes. Probably you can add in some spring onion or carrot. I forgo the carrot, cos we have having ABC chicken soup. If anyone of you cook this with improve version, let me know ya? Can learn a thing or two from you too.

Last night, I was in not exactly in a mood for Japanese but somehow, I ended cooking a full Japanese dinner.  We had Miso soup minus the egg tofu because we already had steam tofu with bonito and on daughter’s special request, we had steam Salmon trout.

Check out the recipe for miso soup by clicking on the link above.  And here you go, the recipe for steam tofu with bonito.  Pretty simple and doesn’t required tedious cooking.

Ingredients:
Tofu
Bonito (dry fish flakes)
Oyster sauce or fish sauce

Method:
Steam tofu and oyster sauce for 5 minutes.  Remove from wok and garnish with bonito.  Pretty easy right?  You may add spring onions or sesame oil if you like.

The above picture is just for show.  In actual, before we dunk into the tofu, we have sky high of bonito you don’t even know there are tofu underneath.

I bought my bonito from the Japanese section in Jaya Jusco for about RM10.90 if I’m not mistaken.  Can anyone suggest other way of eating/cooking bonito?

This is Nien Kau (mandarin).

They are make from sugars (lots and lots of them) and glutinous rice flour. The mixture was then steam in high heat for 24 hours till they turned brownish and sticky.

Some people like to eat them fresh which can be very sweet. But I preferred mine with grated coconut.

This is how you make it:

1. If you have a weeks old or harden nien kau, steam them for approximately 20 minutes. If you want a shorter steaming time, you may cut the harden nien kau into slices. Line them on a plate before steaming them for 5 minutes.
2. Tell the sundry shop that you want the grated coconut for eating and not for squeezing santan (milk). This is to make sure the man grate only the white part of the coconut and not touch the shell at all.
3. Sprinkle 3/4 teaspoon of salt on the grated coconut.
4. Lastly, coat nien kau with coconut.

Other than the above method, you can also deep fried them into fritters with yam or sweet potatoes.  Or how about some bubur cha-cha with nien kau? *drooling!*

Wei, wei, wei, Chinese New Year is just one week away from now. Have you stock up your cookies? This year, I am quite lazy to bake. But because I have few orders from a dear friend of mine, I decided to make just enough for her and also a few for my relatives.

I tried to bake simple cookies this time. To me, the cornflakes cookies is kinda easy to bake.

Just cream the butter, sugar, eggs and flour. Coat them with cornflakes before sending them to the oven. Let me know if you want the proportion for the ingredients.

I find them more presentable and faster if you bake the cookies in mini paper cups but the texture is not completely crunchy especially at the base of the cookies.

I think something is wrong with my recipes. Good for the kids tho as they get to eat the something-is-wrong cookies. *snigger* I remember during my childhood days when my mom make Kuih Kapit for CNY. We only get to get the chau tah (burned) or cacat (distorted) looking ones. The curse has been passed down to this generation as kids STILL get to eat only chau tah cookies but Mom will yell if they ever touch the nice looking piece.

To finish up the cornflakes that I have, I coat them with melted chocolates and deco with some colourful sprinkles.

My Children finished up the whole container of this. By the time I found out, they left only 3 pieces behind. By night time, Baby Princess is crocking! Now I have no more cookies to chia my guest.

At the same time, I baked the pineapple cookies too. This time I’ve replace the pineapple with Buah Kurma (Dates) cos I really want to keep it a simple baking session.

You can find the pineapple cookies recipe here. All you need to do is replaced the pineapple jam with Buah Kurma. Very simple task.

This is how it looks like inside.

I’ve done baking for CNY and earned myself a back pain from the 5 hours of baking. *ouch*

Short Talk - Leaving for a cruise vacation is so exciting that one might forget a lot of important chores like booking for car rental in advance. Everyone remembers getting the cheap flights, but people often forget the airline tickets at home or the hotel when traveling in large groups.

With the Chinese New Year drawing nearer, I find myself getting more lazy to cook. Blame it on the lazy bugs in me. But what do you expect after a tiring days spring cleaning for the oncoming festive season? Thus, no cooking means no update in my ‘Mouthful Monday’ category too. So, I thought of this quick, delicious and yet healthy meals for the family.

The proportion shown here is enough to feed a family of 2 adults and 3 children.

Ingredients for the porridge:

• 3/4 cup of fragrant rice
• Water

Method:

Clean rice and soak them in water preferably overnight. In the morning, rub soaked rice with your palm. Discard water and replace with clean water. Simmer rice for about an hour on slow fire till your porridge gets very soft. Add more water if it dries up. The texture should be a runny.

Now, we are ready for the steamboat!

I prepared my children’s favourite dishes, that is the fish noodles. They are basically fish paste that was shaped longish like noodles. So, no rules as what you should or should not have. Here are some ideas for you - fish balls, squid, shrimps, chicken fillet, fish fillet, pigs intestine, mince pork, bean curd sheets (foo chok), tau pok, yong tau foo, chinese cabbage, baby corn, button mushrooms… Well, just to named a few here. It is up to your preference and availability from the market.

Since I don’t have a steamboat pot, I substitute them by using the electric rice cooker. They work the same. Filled half of the pot with porridge.

Food that required longer cooking like red meat should go in first.

Replaced cover and bring porridge to a boil again. Well, if you really want a more perfect steamboat, you may add some ginger shred, sesame oil, spring onions or fragrant shallots.

Baby Princess was curious why food was cook on the dining table. Well, I have not done this for ages! I’m pretty excited about it too.

Oh, and she is planning to mess them up too. “Daddy, quick! She took the soya sauce!”

Well, the next time I’m going to make it a big feast so that I can have all the dishes mentioned earlier. The  fish balls, squid, shrimps, chicken fillet, fish fillet, pigs intestine, mince pork, bean curd sheets (foo chok), tau pok, yong tau foo, chinese cabbage, baby corn, button mushrooms, ginger shred, sesame oil, spring onions, fragrant shallots…. Bon appetite