This I promise you…

I know! I know! This is a song that people sing at weddings but the only other song that I know that has the word “promise” is the oldie, “Broken Promises” (If I’m not mistaken, it was sung by Del Shannon) and it is not very appropriate as no promises have been broken. The promise in question is the one Huai Bin made to me sometime back. Nope! He didn’t propose to me or anything like that, thank goodness…but I bet some girl(s) out there must be wishing and hoping he would pop the question. Right or not, Huai Bin? LOL!!!

Well, he promised he would treat me to Sheraton fish head curry. This dish is really very nice, I assure you. My cousin and her family came once and I took them there. Her hubby would take photographs of all alluring dishes even though he was not a blogger, but when it was served, it looked so appetising that he dived in immediately and forgot all about “saying grace”. Anyway, the date was set…and I was all ready to go when disaster struck!

Sheraton was closed for a few days, so Huai Bin called and asked me, the so-called walking food directory, to suggest an alternative…and since it was fish head curry that we wanted, I proposed Phoenix Court, the halal (No pork!) Chinese restaurant at Paramount Hotel. So as promised, we had the fish head curry there… 

Rumour had it (I don’t know how true this is!) that the chef actually came from Sheraton and everyone who had a craving for the dish followed him to this new place…only to find that it was not as nice. They claimed that only the lady boss at Sheraton knew the secret recipe and she would prepare the ingredients, the spices and what not…and the chef only cooked it. Everybody was quite disappointed and headed back to the old place for their favourite dish…but the chef has improved somewhat and it was not too bad. I still prefer Sheraton’s though. But all was not lost for Huai Bin ordered another dish as well…

This is one of Phoenix Court’s specialties: giant-sized fresh water prawns (udang galah) in their special thick gravy. Here’s a close-up photo of the dish…

It was out of this world, I tell you! Very very nice!!! And the dish came with this none-like-it-around crusty bun for us to dip in the gravy and savour the incredible flavour…..

We finished everything and she-who-would-not-be-named used the bread to “wipe” the plate clean. It was THAT nice! I would not compare it with Ruby’s butter scotch prawns as they are completely different dishes altogether. Both are definitely must-haves, so you’ll just have to make a choice. This price of this one at Paramount, however, was a bit steep…but never mind, I was not the one paying! Hahahahaha!!!

I told Huai Bin to order just the fish dish for the four of us but he said that I should not be so “khek khi” (stand on ceremony). In the end, we did not finish the fish and there was a lot of fried tofu left. Everybody was just too full.

Well, thanks for the dinner, Huai Bin! We’ll go for that elusive Sheraton fish head curry some other time, won’t we?…..

I got it from my mama…

Indeed, I learnt how to cook, including all those ethnic kampung culinary delights (that I have featured in some of my earlier posts) from my mama. In the past, when I used to entertain at home quite regularly, I would ask her to make this very simple dish…and without fail, it would go down very well with my guests. All of them would love it so much and sing its praises. This is a vegetable dish – cucumber, to be exact, with sambal udang kering (dried prawns sambal).

You will need some chillies, sambal belacan (prawn paste) and sugar and you pound all these together…

and then you add the udang kering (dried prawns) that you have soaked in hot water and pound that as well…

Those of you from outside Sarawak may wonder why the udang kering (dried prawns) looks different. This is the type we have here – huge and straight…and quite expensive, around RM60-70 a kg. We call it Rajang hay bee (Rajang dried prawns) in Hokkien. I would buy some for my friends in West Malaysia everytime I went over and each time, they would ask, “Why are they straight?” I would just reply, “Because they are not gay!” LOL!!! Catch the drift? Ooo…they love it so much, especially with their beer or liquor! Well, normally, it looks quite red but after soaking, it loses some of its colour. So after pounding that together with the ingredients earlier, this is what you will get…

Then, you will need some lime. Cut them in halves, remove the seeds and squeeze in the juice. Mix it thoroughly with the pounded ingredients…

Having done that, you can take the cucumber and cut it into slices…

Then you arrange the slices on a plate and distribute the sambal udang kering evenly on top. If you have a lot of cucumber, you can arrange them in layers and put some of the sambal in between…

I like keeping it in the fridge before serving, so it will nice and cold…and absolutely delicious! Easy, isn’t it? No hassle! No cooking required! No oil, no salt, no msg!!! You think you wanna give it a try?