Home alone…

My girl and her mum went out that morning so I was home alone…and left to my own devices, I decided to cook lunch.

I still had those Khadijah’s Kitchen’s instant pastes that I received from my cousins. I did not get to use them during Chinese New Year as my missus insisted on cooking her own specialties so those obviously had to wait. I picked the rendang tok…

…and knowing how lazy I am, always taking shortcuts and choosing the easy way out, this…

…certainly appealled to me in no small measure. However, I did prepare some ingredients of my own…

– one Bombay onion, finely chopped, one stalk of serai (lemon grass), bruised at the end and a sprig of curry leaves.

I fried the onion in a bit of oil till a little brown before adding the serai and the curry leave and then, the beef, in thin slices. I mixed the meat well with all the ingredients and then, I added the water and the paste. While it was simmering, I decided to peel two potatoes that were lying around in the kitchen, cut them into chunks and throw them into the boiling gravy. When it was almost done, I added a bit of evaporated milk…before I dished it all out into a bowl…

I would say it was very nice but no, it did not come across to me like rendang or those that I have had before. I thought it was something like the curry that my mum and all in the family used to cook which was very nice, drier than other curries. All things considered, we did enjoy it…

…very much, I would say.

For our vegetable dish, I decided to fry some leek with garlic, egg and the lap cheong (Chinese sausage) that I received the other day from my friend, Annie…

As you can see, I used one only and sliced it very very thinly for the simple reason that they are very nice and I certainly would not want to finish them all too quickly especially when I do not know when I would be getting some more again. Once you’ve tried this, you would never go back to those terribly dry and hard ones that one can get in the shops here. The mere idea of having to cut it into slices would make me break out in cold sweat…and needless to say, they do not taste as nice as these.

I fried the garlic, finely chopped in a little bit of oil till golden brown before adding the lap cheong, mixing it well with the garlic and frying till the fragrance came out and then I threw in the leek, very thinly sliced. I did add a little bit of water periodically, very very little of it – just enough to let it sizzle and cook the veg…and once done, I added the eggs…plus a pinch of ikan bilis stock for seasoning. Then it was done…

I guess I would not need to say anything – one glance at the photograph…

…would say it all. Yes, it was as nice as it looked.

There you go – our lunch as it was served that day…and it was all my own work!