Sun and the stars…

My mum used this brand everytime she cooked some satay beef and then, at one time, for reasons unknown, it disappeared from the shelves. She was forced to use another brand and though it tasted fine, it was kind of yellowish, probably the result of too much kunyit (turmeric) in the ingredients. When her favourite brand became available again out of the blue, as mysteriously as it had disappeared, of course, she went back to that one.

This time around, it was available for quite sometime and needless to say, we had been using it to cook our satay beef or chicken, and one fine day, it disappeared again and like the first time, no one knew why. My since-deceased very good friend, Jimmy, told me that this brand…

…was good but my missus seemed to have something against the brand – probably she did not like the name and actually, it reminds me of some electrical appliances, if you get what I mean. She tried some other brands including some from Singapore but no, they were not to our liking and finally, she tried this one…and yes, she loved it! Of course, I had to rub it in and said that I told her so long ago, I had heard it from Jimmy, but no, she simply would not listen. Women! LOL!!!

Normally, when we used this or any of the instant curry pastes to cook, we would just fry some finely chopped Bombay onion and throw in one or two stalks of serai (lemon grass) for the added flavours but that morning, I went a step further and had some very thinly-sliced daun kunyit (tumeric leaves) and daun pandan (screwpine leaves), knotted…

…as well.

Of course there wasn’t any beef in the freezer and I did not feel like chicken so it had to be pork then. I sliced the meat thinly and then poured the satay sauce all over it, threw in the daun kunyit as well and mixed everything thoroughly, letting it stand…

…for around 30 minutes once that was done.

To cook this, just fry the chopped onions in a bit of oil till a little brown, throw in the serai and after frying a bit longer, add the meat and mix well. Stir for a while and then cover the wok to let the meat cook until the juices have come out. Finally, add water to let it simmer till the gravy becomes thick again before you dish it out and serve…

No, there is no need to add anything else but of course if you want it a little more salty, you can add a bit of it or if you prefer it sweeter, a sprinkling of sugar would be fine.

Yes, it was very nice…

…and talking about nice, the other day, I got these beauties…

…from Angela, my good friend and ex-classmate, Robert’s wife, who made the just-as-nice kuih talam for our dinner that night. We can’t get any decently-good kuih serimuka, aka kuih salat or what we call tinggi salad in my family, in Sibu – there are some available in Kuching but not here – so, of course, I was absolutely delighted to get these from Angela, so so so lemak, so so so very nice. Thanks a lot, Angela and to you too, Robert.

Now, seeing that the satay sauce is very nice, I am wondering if I can use it to make my own rojak tambi or gado gado with all my favourite ingredients, potatoes, lots of eggs and maybe some quail eggs and even yeu char koi (Chinese cruellers), lightly fried till crusty. What do you all think?