Nuts…

I mentioned in an earlier post that I went browsing around the Sibu Central Market the other morning. I like going there early as it will not be so crowded and it will be very much cooler as well – the only drawback would be how some of the stalls are not open yet like the ones at the native/ethnic jungle produce section and the stalls selling hay bee (dried prawns), belacan (dried prawn paste) and what not.

I did not have any intention to buy anything specifically but I saw these very nice pisang keling…

…literally translated as Indian bananas, RM4.00 a kg and I bought 2 kg, RM8.00 altogether. This is my favourite variety – I may buy the others like the chay gay (in Hokkien – I think it is called Cavendish in English) or the pisang emas (golden bananas) when this particular variety is not available. It does seem to be getting harder to get these days – more often than not, it is not available and that was why the moment I spotted them that day, I just had to grab some, no second thoughts about it.

At another stall, I saw these groundnuts…

– another thing that is not easy to come by here and when we do come across any, they will be small and very dirty. These looked like they had gone through the trouble of washing them nicely but even so, we did rinse them again a bit before cooking. Of course, I had to buy them – my girl enjoys eating these a lot – RM10.00 a kg.

Cooking is easy – just submerge in water, add a little salt and bring it to boil, something like how we cooked corn the other day. except that you will have to boil them a whole lot longer, for an extended period of time until the nuts become very soft…

…like those braised peanuts…

…served in restaurants and sold in cans in the shops and supermarkets.

Once done…

…drain away all the water as leaving it soaked in the water may turn them kind of black and other than that, it may affect the taste somewhat and it will not be so nice.

I sure was glad I bought them that day especially when I saw my girl enjoying feasting on them…

…when she came home from school and needless to say, when the girl is happy, the daddy will be happy too!