Not anymore…

I don’t think I like eating out these days, not anymore…the reason being the fact that I seem to have developed an aversion for the food at some places owing to the massive overload of monosodium glutamate (msg).

Like the other day, my missus had some kind of gathering at work in conjunction with Hari Raya and she had a lot to eat, so she did not want to cook when she came back. Instead, she stopped by a restaurant on the way home and bought a couple of dishes for my dinner. I could not finish all of it, so we put the leftovers in the refrigerator. This was what it looked like when I took it out the next day…

Look at all that fat/oil that had solidified in the cold! And it wasn’t even nice – as you can see in the photo, the Japanese tofu was over-fried until it was all wrinkled up. Actually, this was not too bad. She bought something else from another place not too long ago and the next day, when I wanted to heat up what was left, I could not get it out of the container as it was “cemented” to it by the fat.

It is pretty obvious that it just isn’t just the msg…but also the amount of oil  or fat used in the cooking. It certainly would be healthier and a lot nicer as well to cook a simple dish like this…

…and eat it with rice.

I had a post not too long ago in which I featured the way to cook it but I used fish then. It is really very easy – you just boil some stalks of serai (lemon grass), chillies and some belacan (dried prawn paste) in water and when it has started boiling and the belacan has dissolved, add the sliced terung Dayak (Dayak/sour brinjal)…

When the terung is cooked – it would have become soft and the skin may come off a bit at the ends, add the prawns and once, the crustaceans are cooked, the dish is ready…

That day, I added a tablespoon of tom yam paste to give it a bit of colour and to further enhance the taste.

There you have it – an all-in-one dish with prawns and veg – no salt, no msg and no oil added and it goes so very well with rice that you would be sure to want seconds!