Go west…

All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go…over to West Malaysia tomorrow. I will be flying to KLIA and then catch another flight to Penang where I will be taking a cab to Sungai Petani in Kedah where my daughter is studying. Hopefully I will get to meet blogger Dr Bernard Chan and some of my old friends there.

In the meantime, some of you may want to try cooking this saffron/tumeric pineapple (nenas masak kunyit) dish. My mother used to cook it with freshwater prawns (udang galah) but lately, we have been cutting down on those, so I used fish instead…

…and of course, you will need some pineapples, cut into big chunks like this…

Other than that, you need the usual chillies, belacan (prawn paste), shallots, garlic, tumeric (kunyit) and lemon grass (serai) and I also added a bit of lengkuas (gallangal) for added fragrance…

After pounding all those, heat up a bit of oil in a wok and add in the pounded ingredients together with half a tablespoon of sugar to caramelise the rempah (“spices”)…

…before you throw in the pineapples slices…

Then you can add some water and put in the fish…

I added half a tablespoon of ikan bilis (anchovies) stock in place of the usual salt and msg, and let it simmer till the gravy thickened and had become less by which time it would be rich with the flavour of the fish, pineapples and other ingredients.

I would think that it would go very well with this plate of nasi lemak…

Well, do give it a try and let me know how it goes. I will be away for over a week…and hopefully, I’ll be able to blog from that end. Otherwise, you will only hear from me again around the end of next week. Don’t stray away too far, you hear? I would want to have you all back again…..

The morning after (2)…

Breakfast was provided at the Dormani Hotel in Kuching where I spent the night and even though Gerrie said she would take me out, I decided to go and have a look and how come nobody’s surprised? LOL!!! So I proceeded to the cafe…

The buffet spread was quite miserable with the usual selections of bread and buns and cereal…and fried noodles or fried rice, plus juices and coffee or tea. I took the noodles and the rice…

…and to say that they were disappointing would be an understatement! My own homecooked ones would be a lot nicer! Other than that, you can order things from their choice menu as well. I think I was supposed to order eggs done in one way only…but I ordered the sunny side up…

and the mushroom omelette, and got both…

…together with the french toast and smoked beef. All in all, I think I would just give it a 5 out of 10. Then I checked out and when Gerrie came, we headed to the 7th Mile Bazaar…

Good Lord! It certainly has changed a great deal since the 70s when I used to drop by to see my friends (I wonder where they all are now!) here. There were only a few rows of wooden shophouses then. We went to a coffee shop opposite a primary school and had kolo mee… 

…but after the special I had in Lundu, this one paled in comparison. The Sarawak laksa was pretty good though…

After that, it was straight to the airport for my flight back. This time, it was a Boeing 737 all right and there were only 20 passengers, so the cabin crew went round to take individual orders for the drinks…just as in the business class. Safely tucked into my luggage were the precious goodies I got from Gerrie – the irresistable nyonya bak chang (pork dumplings)…

…and the absolutely mouth-watering nyonya kuihs including some serimuka…

…and kuih cangkih (cup kuihs)…

from the Green Road stalls. No prize for guessing what I have been having for tea these past few days! ROTFLMAO!!!