Vanilla Twilight…

The following is taken from an old post:

*When I heard the song, “Hey there, Delilah“, by Plain White Ts when it first hit the airwaves sometime ago, I liked it instantly. I kept sending smses to Pat & Mag on TraxxFm asking for the song every day, so much so that Pat, at one point, got quite fed up and remarked, “What’s with this cikgu and Hey there, Delilah?”

For one thing, it has a light, pleasant and catchy melody but what appealled to me most were some lines from the lyrics. My daughter had just left for her further studies then in Sungai Petani, Kedah and when I heard them singing about “I’m a thousand miles away…Don’t you worry about the distance. I’m right there if you get lonely. Give this song another listen, close your eyes…I’m by your side…” and later in the song, “A thousand miles seems pretty far but they’ve got planes and trains and cars, I’d walk to you if I had no other way…“, I just could not help it if somehow  it pulled at my heart’s strings at that point in time*

Well, if you have never heard this song before, you can click and watch the original video clip below:

But the other day, on my way to my tuition class, I heard a new song on the radio – TraxxFm and fell in love with it instantly. The problem was the deejay did not announce the title nor the singer(s) of the song, so I had to search for the song myself. I only heard the word “twilight” but surprisingly, I found it in no time at all. I shared it on Facebook…and within seconds, somebody liked it and downloaded it from the internet and somebody else reposted it as well.

The song I am talking about is of course, “Vanilla Twilight” by Owl City that is currently very popular for their song, “Fireflies” which does not really appeal to me very much. Just listen to it and let me know what you think…

Gerrie likes it too and posted a link on Facebook as well. Once again, what I like the most about the song are the lyrics – especially when someone you love is far away and you particularly miss that someone dearly…

Cracklin’ Rosie…

Over here in Sarawak, when people talk about keropok – fish, prawn or sotong (cuttlefish) crackers, that is, it has got to be the ones from Mukah, and even there, one would need to know where to get the better and tastier ones. I used to have a teacher from there in my SPM English marking team and each year, we would place our orders and have her bring them over from the town.

This year, I did not have any Mukah keropok though…but my daughter’s friend from Trengganu, Soleha, gave us a whole lot when I met her in KL in mid-January. To make sure that your keropok is crispy and crackling when you eat them, you will have to dry them in the sun…

Owing to the presence of straycats in my neighbourhood, I had to string them up and hang them on the clothesline.

To fry them, heat an adequate amount of oil in the wok and just throw in the pieces. They will expand and end up looking like this…

Make sure that once the keropok has cooled, store them in a dry, airtight tin or container.

The best way to eat keropok is of course with acar timun (pickled cucumber)…

Just place a bit on the keropok like this…

…and into your mouth it goes! Yum! Yum!!!

And for your mid-week boost and entertainment, if you know the song, perhaps you would like to sing along…

…and get your spirits up high! Take it away, maestro! LOL!!!

Baby one more time (2)…

If you may recall, I cooked this for my family’s Chap Goh Meh dinner and in response to the many comments on it, I mentioned that I would cook it again and post the steps in whipping up the yummy soup.

Firstly, boil two large Bombay onions with some wolfberries and one chicken stock cube in water…

I did not have any peppercorn in the house,  so I just sprinkled ground white pepper generously all over it. In the meantime, I melted a scoop of olive oil margarine in a frying pan (as I did not have any butter in the house)…

…and then I fried the chicken pieces lightly in it…

Next, I transferred the chicken into the now simmering water…

…before putting in the sliced potatoes…

Simmer for a while…and when the potatoes have softened, add the snow/white fungus and daun sup (Chinese celery). Well, no daun sup in the house either that day, so I guess chopped spring onions would have do.

There you have it, my butter chicken, onion and potato soup…

…not exactly as how my late aunt used to cook it but I guess that came pretty close. No, you do not have to add any salt or msg; the chicken stock cube is enough…and you will find that the soup is tasty and salty enough as it is.

Absolutely delicious! Yum! Yum!!!

North to Alaska…

Since it was getting quite difficult and expensive to get the local fish – river and sea alike, many restaurants turned to serving imported fish. Initially, we had snow fish…and also what they called Alaskan fish and they were very popular if you went to those full-course Chinese sit-down dinners at the restaurants here. I do not know exactly what fish they were…but lately, we can buy imported fish and cook them ourselves, like cod and halibut.

My missus bought two palm-size slices of halibut plus a small piece that probably came from near the tail of the fish for RM20.00. She intended to cook that for our Chap Goh Meh dinner but I had already bought one HUGE ikan buris (for RM25) for the occasion. So that had to go into the freezer…and last Friday, being a non-meat day for me, I decided to cook it.

It is very easy to steam fish – Chinese style. Just chop some garlic and sprinkle it over the fish – they say this is to remove the fishy smell. Then cut thin long strips of ginger and spread that over the fish too – this is more for the taste. You may add other things that may enhance the taste, if available – chilli, Chinese celery…even tomatoes…like what I did. Some people add salted vegetables and thinly-sliced softened dried Shitake as well. Finally, I diluted a tablespoon of oyster sauce with a tablespoon or two of water and poured that over the fish.

Boil some water in a steamer or a wok and when the water has started boiling, put in the fish (on a rack, if you are using a wok). You should not steam it for too long – around 10 minutes would be just right. Then, you can take it out and serve. There you have it – best eaten when hot!

I also cooked some finely chopped longs beans with egg that day. Just brown some chopped garlic in a bit of oil. I added a few prawns but that is actually optional. Beat two eggs, add salt and msg and pour that into the wok. Once the egg is cooked, the dish is ready…

Well, as you can see, Chinese cooking is also very easy. Not much hassle and very nice to eat! Give it a try!

Do that to me one more time (2)…

The last time I cooked some tempoyak (fermented durian) prawns, I followed some recipe that I got through googling for it. It required the use of pounded shallots, garlic and what not…even kunyit (tumeric). With all those ingredients, needless to say, the end result was really very nice. However, I thought it did not taste like kampong cooking…and besides, kampong cooking is simple and does not require so many ingredients and so much work.

So the other day, I decided to cook tempoyak prawns again – kampong style, and these are the ingredients you would need…

A few stalks of serai (lemon grass), chilli (clean and seeds removed), a cube of belacan (dried fermented prawn paste) and tempoyak (fermented durian). I needed some sugar as well because the tempoyak that a friend gave me was extremely salty. You would probably need sugar as well if your tempoyak is sour and you would need to offset the sourness. You may increase the number of chillies and the amount of tempoyak and belacan, say, double…if you prefer a hotter and stronger taste.

Just throw all that in water and let it boil…and when you can detect the fragrance in the air, add the udang galah (freshwater prawns). Once the prawns are cooked, the dish is ready…

Now, don’t you think it looks absolutely delicious? Tastes delicious too! Yum! Yum! LOL!!!

STOP PRESS
I just remember that it is my blog’s 2nd anniversary today. Two years have gone past – 761 posts to date with 265,428 views and 17,534 comments (and over 4,000 spams).

Thanks to one and all for dropping by and especially to those who take the trouble to post comments. CHEERS!!!

I can’t tell the bottom from the top…

Ummm…actually, I can but it does not matter as I eat both parts – the tuber or the root…and also the leaves. Well, if you’re wondering what this is all about, I’m talking about the tapioca plant.

I love tapioca best – steamed or boiled with a sprinkling of salt and eaten with attap (nipah) sugar mixed with lard. The kuihs made with tapioca, for instance, the bingka bandong take second place. As for the leaves, I eat them fried or cooked as a soup. In this post, I will be featuring the steps in cooking the latter.

To do that, you need the leaves…

You can pound them by hand or use a blender…

You will need to pound some ginger as well…and some stalks of serai (lemon grass) will be needed too…

Brown the ginger in a bit of oil and throw in the serai…followed by the leaves. Add water to it and also one ikan bilis stock cube. Preferably you should use belacan (dried prawn paste) and add a chilli or two (cleaned and seeds removed) as well…but I’m giving some to my mother, so I had to do without those two items.

Finally, I added the ikan buris, the one-third of the river fish that I had left over after frying the rest of it for our Chap Goh Meh dinner. Simmer it for a while to let the sweetness of the fish seep into the soup…and add salt and msg according to taste.

There you have it, my tapioca leaves soup…

It would be nice to add some fresh young baby corn (anak jagung) as well and incidentally, instead of fish, you can substitute it with udang galah (freshwater prawns) and it will be equally, if not more, heavenly!! Drool!

That’s my girl…

Goodness gracious! This, you really have to see to believe…

One of my daughter’s coursemates fried some sausages to eat and burnt them to cinders…and good grief! They actually ate them (and thankfully, my daughter wasn’t one of them)!!!

Well, MY daughter cooked some sausages too…with scrambled eggs…

…and I must say that hers definitely looked a lot more appetising.

She also made this chicken rendang to go with her rice…

…and thumbs up for this one too!

Once, she cooked some kind of soup steamboat-style which was to boil some water and throw everything it. It looked pretty yummy as well, don’t you think?

And this was her attempt at cooking pasta – penne pasta with tomato and mushroom sauce…

…and here was her cheese omelette with swiss mushrooms…

Well, whatever it was, it certainly was nothing like the sausages in the first photograph…and that’s my girl! LOL!!!

I guess there’s a lesson to be learnt here – that when you do EVERYTHING for your kids, you are NOT doing them a favour. It certainly is good to let them do things on their own and LEARN so that when the time comes and they have to leave the roost, they will be able to take good care of themselves…

Ready to roll (2)…

This is the second in the two-part series on making popiah…

First, you will need the skin…

I do not know how to make it but it is available here at RM8.00 a kilo. Elsewhere, you can use the frozen ones available in many supermarkets. Just defrost and use quickly before the skin becomes hard and tough/rubbery…in which case you can always deep fry the spring rolls and they can be very nice as well. As a matter of fact, my daughter prefers deep-fried popiah…

So this is what you do. Firstly, take one piece of the skin and apply a coat of the pounded fresh chillies with garlic…

…and add the egg…

before or after the popiah filling…

…and sprinkle the ground peanuts all over the condiments…

Apply the glue – the sweetened cornflour starch on all sides…

…and fold in the bottom part of the skin…

Fold in the sides…

…and roll upwards. There you have it, one nice homemade popiah…

All that is left for you to do now is to eat it…

Yum! Yum! LOL!!!

Ready to roll (1)…

This is the first of a two-part series on making popiah or spring rolls.

You will need to cook the filling first. For that, you have to fry chopped garlic in oil until it turns golden brown…

…before you add the minced meat…

For halal popiah, you can use chicken or just leave out the meat and use chicken stock granules instead. Of course, it will be A LOT nicer if you add minced prawn or better still, crab meat…but my mum and sis are allergic to crustaceans, so this time around, I had to leave those things out.

Then you can add the chopped long/french beans…

…before adding the sliced tau kua (soya bean cake)…

…and the shredded mangkuang (turnip), or what West Malaysians call sengkuang…

…and the taugeh or bean sprouts…

Add salt (and msg) according to taste…and some may prefer to use oyster sauce instead…or even fish gravy.

Fry until all the ingredients are cooked, and the filling is ready…

At the same time, you have to prepare the condiments which include the pounded fresh chillies with garlic…

…ground peanuts…

…finely-sliced omelette…

…and the “glue” – sweetened corn starch…

You can give it a nice brown colour by caramelising the sugar in a pan before adding water. I didn’t… I just used attap/nipah sugar!

My late aunt would fry onions and garlic slices to add as condiments too…and people in Kuching would swear by those coriander leaves – they insist that without those, popiah is not popiah but to many, they smell of cockroaches… LOL!!!

Anyway, having prepared all that you need, now you are ready to roll…

I learned from the best…

My late aunt used to cook this very nice butter chicken and potato soup and the other day, Sunday, I decided to cook that to bring over to my parents’ place for our Chap Goh Meh family dinner, the 15th Night of the Chinese Lunar New Year that signifies the closing of the festive season.

Firstly, you boil two Bombay onions in water together with a handful of peppercorns. In the meantime, you melt a bit of butter in a pan and lightly fry your pieces of chicken in it…and then you transfer the chicken into the now simmering water. Peel some potatoes and cut into thin slices and add them in – boil until cooked…and add salt and msg according to taste. Garnish with Chinese celery (daun sup) before serving…

However, when I cooked it that day, I added a chicken stock cube to the water…and I also threw in a few of those red wolfberries. When it has cooked, I added some white fungus and hardboiled quail eggs…

I did not add salt or msg as when I tasted the soup, it was very sweet and savoury enough. Really nice! My daughter used to love it a lot whenever we dropped by for lunch or dinner at the ol’ kampong house and my aunt happened to cook it…

For our Chap Goh Meh dinner, I also made popiah (spring rolls) and kuih pai tee (top hats)…

…and when I went to the market that morning, I saw one HUGE ikan buris. This is a river freshwater fish which is beginning to get quite rare and though it used to be dirt cheap when I was a child, it now costs a bomb – if you are lucky enough to come across one, that is. There are usually some small ones available at the Jungle Produce Market here and those are cheaper but they are not so nice. The simplest way to cook it is to deep fry and eat with soy sauce. That, in itself, is heavenly enough…and that was exactly what I did for our Chap Goh Meh dinner…

The one I bought cost RM25 which really was a good buy as my parents enjoyed it tremendously and was full of praises. It was so fresh…and there was so much flesh…

Imagine – the one-time humble ikan buris is now worth serving at the dinner table on such an auspicious occasion as a Chap Goh Meh dinner! Time certainly has changed a great deal, hasn’t it?