Western…

Usually, when I fry rice, it will either be in our kampung style with ikan bilis (dried anchovies), with or without belacan (dried prawn paste), or our Chinese style with lap cheong (Chinese sausage) and egg, for instance. The other day, I used luncheon meat instead of lap cheong – bits of char siew can be another alternative.

Well, the other morning, I found some leftover basmati rice from the day before in the fridge so of course, I took it out to fry for my breakfast. My girl cooked a slab of salmon for dinner the previous evening so of course, she was not able to finish all of it. Seeing that, I decided to fry the rice a little differently this time around – with a western touch!

I melted some butter in the pan and added quite a lot of chopped garlic. When it had turned a lighter shade of brown, I added a bit of the salmon, mashed. I found some canned mushrooms in the fridge so I took them and sliced them and threw them in as well. Next, I seasoned the rice with those bottled Italian herbs and generously sprinkled a whole lot of chili flakes all over it. When it was almost done, I put in an egg, followed by a bit of salt and pepper according to taste, and it was done…

I garnished it with some chopped spring onion from my garden and sat down to eat. Much to my delight, I found that it was very nice, different from what I would fry usually and bursting with all kinds of flavours from the ingredients added.

I quickly took a bit to fill a separate bowl, making sure there were a lot of the salmon flakes and mushroom in it…

…to save for my girl to eat for breakfast when she woke up. Unfortunately, she did not feel like having that so in the end, I finished it all off for lunch that day. Sighhh!!!

Very good…

My missus went to that supermarket in town, the one that imports all kinds of stuff from everywhere within the country and from countries overseas and came home with this…

As far as I know, the only good ones available in town are from this shop and also from those dim sum selections at one Chinese restaurant here. I guess the latter are freshly made but the ones at the former are actually brought in frozen from the main shop in Kuching – they only steam them for sale here. They started off at RM1.50 each in 2017 and now they are over RM2.00 each. I have not been to the dim sum breakfast at that Chinese restaurant so I am not sure how much theirs cost now. If I remember correctly, they were RM4.50 for a lau (storey/basket) of 2 a long long time ago.

Where I am concerned, the locally-made ones are not worth the calories. The meat filling may or may not have the right shade of red and it does not even taste of char siew (BBQ pork), not at all. The meat ones may be quite good depending on where one goes to so I may buy those instead sometimes.

These that my missus bought are from Johore, distributed by a company in Skudai but there is no mention as to where exactly the factory that makes the buns is located. The skin is very good and yes, the char siew filling…

…is very nice too.

There are 9 of these mini buns…

…altogether in a pack, tagged at RM9.80 each which means that one costs less than RM1.10. Be forewarned that they are very small and because they are so nice, you may finish off half the pack in one sitting without your realising it!

TA KIONG EMPORIUM (2.2933,111.82713,783) is located at No. 42-46, Jalan Tuanku Osman.

I really did

All these years, I have wanted to make my own so much so that I even bookmarked this 2012 post in this particular blog that appeared very detailed and comprehensive about how to go about it. However, it has turned out to be a case of the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak and I never got down to doing it.

I am talking about my favourite Malay kuih, the serimuka…

…also known as kuih salat or what we call, for reasons unknown, tinggi salad.

Over the years, we never had any good ones here unless we get it from Kuching – I do not even recall enjoying any special order homemade ones that were good. The ones they sell at the Chinese cake stalls or the Malay kuih ones are not worth the calories. I do not know why the pulut (glutinous rice) is extremely white but it is very obvious why the upper egg custard layer is a stunning apple green – it is all artificial colouring, not pandan, and as if that is not bad enough, the texture is all wrong, something like agar-agar which should not be the case.

Well, lately we have been able to get some pretty decent ones from a couple of places here and the other day, my sister bought some from here and gave us a couple of packs. One thing that I liked about this one was how they did not staple the corners of the plastic packs…

The lid fits perfectly so it will not open by itself anyhow. I do not mind the ones that use cellophane tape, unlike the stapled ones – those are very hard to open as the flimsy plastic tends to tear easily and besides, the hardly visible staple may come loose and drop into the kuih! That is so very dangerous if it is accidentally swallowed!

We all tried these…

…that are available on certain days only – the ones on other days may be from this girl – hers would be good too but all of us agreed that this one has a slight edge over hers – it was a little bit more lemak and my missus was praising the texture of the green layer that she said was very nicely done.

I hear there are other types of nice nyonya kuihs available but I do not know how much they are selling them for – they shouldn’t be very expensive. Usually, these kuihs are quite affordable here unlike the ones over in the peninsula and they may not even be nice! However, much as I love them, I am staying away from these sweet delights at this point in time – they usually have a high sugar content and pulut (glutinous rice) is notorious for its level of hidden sugar. Do drop by the place yourself and ask the people there if you are thus inclined.

HONG KONG PUFF is located along Ramin Way (2.291180, 111.826634), beside Sin Kiaw Coffee Shop, right behind the Petronas station at Kpg Nyabor Road (formerly Esso) across the road from the HSBC Building, Sibu branch. 

Highway…

I blogged about this brand of corned beef before…

…and yes, we thought it was all right, just that this Brazilian product is a few ringgit more expensive than our favourite brand…

…so we would not bother buying it when the latter is available.

My sister gave me a can sometime ago – she said that she bought two when the ones from Linkz were not available. I can’t remember what she said was the reason why she was not all that fond of it.

I opened it the other day and I noticed that there were very few traces of white – no fat and the meat was minced till really very fine…

The one from New Zealand, Palm Brand, I think, is very coarse, like pulled meat and I thought it was very nice. My girl did not like it though and since it is VERY expensive these days, I never bother buying anymore.

These were the ingredients…

…that I prepared for use that day. Normally, we would fry the onions in a bit of oil first and some people may prefer to cook the chunks of potatoes in the oil too, nicely fried till a bit charred on some sides, instead of boiling them first. I did not want to do that as I did not want to add any oil to it.

I fried the corned beef for a long while and it was as I suspected. There was very little fat so not much oil could be derived from the corned beef. Nonetheless, I just carried on and added the sliced onion, strips of chili and curry leaves to the corned beef and went on frying till I felt it was done. I threw in the potatoes that I had boiled, mixed everything together well before dishing it all out…

…and serving it.

I thought it was all right. No, it was not too salty but I felt it was kind of dry – perhaps it would be nicer if I had fried it in a bit of oil instead.

Good for me…

I’ve mentioned my Brazilian spinach in my blog a few times and yes, we’ve cooked it to eat time and time again.

I don’t know where my missus heard it from but she said we must tear the leaves into bits to cook with egg like cangkok manis and they even taste somewhat similar. Probably her sister-in-law told her that when she gave us the ones she planted and we saved the stems/stalks to stick into the soil to grow our own.

Well, I cooked some…

…the other day and yes, I saw cute little Ayden cooking it in Submerryn‘s Youtube video…

…sometime ago and no, he just fried them like that, no tearing, nothing and of course, I did not do that as well. That was because I did notice the last time my missus cooked it, she cooked the kind-of-thick and hard leaves a little longer and they all went nice and soft just like that.

I harvested the ones from a little plot in another section of my garden and I got a whole lot of the leaves…

I cut just the leaves only and threw away the stems and the stalks but I did keep those with holes…

– the ones not too badly eaten by pests. My missus says that when buying vegetables, it is best to buy the ones with holes as it shows that they have not used those harmful poisonous pesticides in the growing.  If those are good for them, they are good for me!

I fried some chopped garlic in cooking oil, added a tablespoon of sambal belacan (dried prawn paste) and a handful of prawns, peeled and cleaned before putting in the spinach straight from the basin, dripping wet. I fried till they have gone all soft and tasted the sauce to see that it was salty enough (from the belacan).  Yes, it was good so I dished it all out…

…and served.

Yes, it was very nice and I sure enjoyed it. The thing is we have so much of these leaves so right now, I am thinking of clearing some of the plots to plant something else. I wonder what else is as easy to grow.

You won’t know…

…until or unless you try.

Well, I was blogging about frying leftover rice that day when Irene, my loyal follower and regular commenter from Kuching, suggested that I could use it to cook porridge instead of frying. I think I’ve done that before, once or twice but I have never tried doing it with basmati rice. That was why when I spotted a bit leftover in the fridge yesterday morning, I quickly grabbed the chance to use it to cook porridge…

My missus said that we can’t use the more expensive long grain lower glycemic index (low starch) rice to cook porridge because it will turn out to be like rice, still whole grain, drowned in soup. I do recall eating porridge like that at the Open Air Market in Kuching, the restaurant/chu-char side, in the 70’s and somebody said that was Teochew-style porridge, not gooey the way I like it. How true that was, I wouldn’t know.

These were the ingredients I had…

…at hand – some chopped garlic that I fried in oil till golden brown and used for garnishing later, a bit of cangkok manis from my garden, torn/shredded and chopped daun sup (Chinese celery). I also had the stock that my missus kept after making the fish balls using the ikan tenggiri/bay kar (mackerel) paste that I bought not too long ago. and of course, the fish balls…

…as well and I took some minced meat to make a few meat balls to add to my porridge.

I boiled the stock and threw in the fish balls and the meat balls to cook before adding the rice and leaving it to simmer till I saw the gruel thicken a bit and finally, I added the cangkok manis and daun sup (Chinese celery). I could see it was very slightly starchy but no, the grains of rice were still whole…

I broke an egg onto a ladle-like sieve and lowered it into the broth, taking it out once it was cooked to serve with the porridge later and I also fried the aforementioned garlic to use as garnishing…

…as I have mentioned earlier. I would say the rice was a bit softer and a whole lot more palatable, compared to when we eat it as rice per se.

Much to my surprise, it so happened that my friend in Kuching commented on the photograph I shared on Facebook. She said there is a Foochow stall selling this there and her daughter loves it! They call it “泡饭” (pao fang), she added and according to this blogger, “pao” 泡 means “submerging”, while “fan” 饭 refers to rice. Some restaurants call this “poached rice” and it is gaining traction in many Chinese restaurants and zi char eateries, and he insisted it is NOT porridge and should not be confused with the usual porridge. Gee! I did not know that! We sure learn new things every day, don’t we?

Everything is fine…

I went and bought some taugeh (bean sprouts) for my Sarawak laksa that day and a couple of days later, my missus took some and fried for our lunch and dinner.

However, she did not finish all of it as she thought perhaps I would want to use it when I cooked some noodles or whatever. No, I did not have any such intention and of course, it bugged me to see what was left in the container staring at me in the face everytime I opened the door of the fridge. In the end, I decided to take it and do something with it.

My girl is not really  a fan of fried taugeh and when my missus fried it that day, it was very nice when we had it for lunch, fresh looking and very crunchy but when it was heated up for dinner, not only had the colour gone off and turned into a shade of grey but the texture was very different too, kind of hard to chew, no longer crunchy. Nonetheless, we did manage to finish all of it even though I can’t say that we enjoyed it a lot.

I remember that not too long ago, we had taugeh in the fridge too and my missus made some kerabu (Malaysian-style salad) with it and it was so very nice. Even my girl loved it! That was why that day, I decided to take what was left of the bean sprouts and make my version of it…

…for our meals.

Unfortunately, I did not know the recipe so I went and googled. What I saw was not very encouraging – there were so many ingredients and so many steps in the making. Just seeing the list alone would put me off making it already.

In the end, I decided to do it my own way. Firstly, I peeled and sliced some shallots, added a few cili padi, sliced and squeezed calamansi lime juice (with a teaspoon of sugar to counter-balance the sourish taste) all over them…

…plus a tablespoon of fish sauce.

Next, I added some hay bee/udang kering (dried prawns)…

…that I had soaked to soften and pounded and after that, the chopped daun sup (Chinese celery) that I bought together with the taugeh for the Sarawak laksa that day too plus a sprinkling of pounded peanuts…

No, I did not follow any recipe – I just reckoned that I could just add anything and everything and it will work out just fine. I did not want to add anything too strong like belacan (dried prawn paste) or cincaluk (fermented shrimps) or air budu (fermented fish sauce) in case my girl would get put off by it. Otherwise, I think those Thai basil leaves in my garden would blend in very well and of course, there are other things that may go well with it too like some bunga kantan petals, for instance.

I blanched the taugeh, taking care to see that it was not overdone, and tossed it really well with the ingredients I had prepared and served…

No, it was not as nice as what my missus made before but it was pretty good. My girl tried and commented that it tasted like the taugeh and whatever else in nasi kerabu. In other words, she quite liked it and I would say it really wasn’t too bad.

Those days…

All throughout my growing up years, whenever we had any leftover rice, my mum would fry it in the morning for us for breakfast. Her recipe was very simple – she just fried some sliced shallots in oil, put in the rice and egg, added the seasoning – salt and msg and that was it. Sometimes, she would use dark soy sauce instead of salt.

It doesn’t sound like much, does it? But we thought the world of it and back in those good ol’ days, we considered having that for breakfast a really special treat, not something we would get every day. We did not have kampua mee all that often either. In fact, it was our weekend treat, only on Sundays after church provided we behaved well all throughout the service. Some of the young ones these days are not thus inclined and would rather go for something else, a burger at one of those fast food joints perhaps. Time sure has changed.

Well, these days, whenever there is leftover rice in the fridge, either we would steam it to heat it up and have it for our meals the following day or I would take and fry it for breakfast. I know people who would not touch overnight rice – it does taste a little different, not as nice but we’re fine with it.

There was a tub of leftover long-grain basmati rice in the fridge that morning so I took it to fry…

Right now, we have switched to this kind of rice as it is less starchy, not so bad when it comes to the hidden sugars and yes, we’ve cut down on the amount too, not so much each meal.

I peeled and sliced some shallots…

…and chopped some peeled garlic too…

…and I decided to throw in all the chopped daun sup (Chinese celery)…

…that we had for our Sarawak laksa that day but we could not finish all of it.

There was still some luncheon meat left in the fridge – I had had a few slices for my breakfast in the morning and I had not finished all of it yet. I decided I would use it in my fried rice so I cut a few slices and cut them all up into little cubes…

We have a lot of prawns in the freezer at the moment and I took a few and used…

Instead of adding salt and msg, I just took a tablespoon of my missus’ blended chili dip…

– that would be good enough.

When it was done, I garnished it with some chopped spring onion from my garden…

…and served.

I had that for my breakfast that morning but nobody else wanted it – maybe they have grown sick and tired of my fried rice, never mind that I try to cook it in so many different ways, and would rather go for those Korean instant noodles, for instance so I finished off the rest for lunch. Nothing went to waste!

Two ways…

The other morning when I went over to the neighbourhood shop to buy the ingredients for my Sarawak laksa, the lady boss kept trying to persuade me to buy the fresh venison/deer meat that had just arrived. I was not all that keen as I have never been a fan of the meat. I feel it does not have its own unique taste or smell unlike beef or lamb or wild boar. At best, I will eat when there is any but I will not go out of my way for it.

I don’t think there is a problem getting to eat it at our local Chinese chu-char stalls and restaurants but as far as I know, they all cook it in that same way – with lots of ginger and soy sauce, served in a hot plate like the one here…

…or here…

…or just simply in a plate…

…like what we had here.

What I did not know was that my missus  was quite keen so when she went over that afternoon, she bought this huge chunk…

…of the meat.

Of course that was a lot so she divided it into two and cooked one half of it…

…for our lunch and dinner that day.

She cooked curry…

…with the other half to keep in the fridge to take out and enjoy on another day. My late mum used to buy venison sometimes – it must be dirt cheap way back then – and cooked curry with it.

Yes, it was nice and yes, we enjoyed it very much but like I said earlier, because it does not have any taste or smell of its own, it could jolly well be pork or chicken – they’re all pretty much the same.

Do like that…

I happened to see this Australian-Vietnamese chef, Luke Nguyen, on one of his food travel shows on TV the other day. He went round all the places in Vietnam enjoying all the gorgeous local culinary delights. I do love Vietnamese cuisine and the best that I have had the pleasure of enjoying would be this one in Kuching that I enjoyed a lot more than this one in Miri.

I saw on the aforementioned TV show how they eat those Vietnamese mint or daun kesum leaves…

…with whatever they were eating just like that. I do have those growing in my garden and we do use them in our cooking like when my missus cooks chicken in the ethnic ayam pansoh (chicken cooked in bamboo) style or when I cook ikan buris wrapped in daun kunyit (turmeric leaves)…

…but no, I would not want to eat them raw because of the extra-strong pungent smell which blends in rather nicely with whatever one is cooking when cooked.

The ones in my garden do not seem to be doing too well right now, growing but not flourishing. Hopefully, they will recover and look a whole lot better soon. The same goes to my Thai basil…

…which is another one of those leaves that they eat a lot in Vietnam, raw. We do use it quite a lot in our cooking…

…but just like the daun kesum, we do not eat it raw. At best, I would just take the leaves, throw them into the piping hot soup and take it from there.

We have acquired the taste of this sawtooth coriander…

…the “cousin” of the daun ketumbar (coriander leaves) that is a must in Kuching popiah or as a topping in Kuching laksa. The uninitiated would quickly pick them up and get rid of them, grumbling that they smell of bed bugs! LOL!!!

We got ours from our friends at Payung and talking about them, they also gave us these Holy Basil…

…seeds. Brew the leaves with ginger and mint…

…for instant relief from cough! It certainly worked quite well for me.

I must say that I rather enjoy watching those food and travel shows that feature our neighbouring countries and seeing how similar we all are in what we do and eat.