Somebody’s gotta do it…

One morning, my neighbour gave me one or chio/ikan bawal hitam/black pomfret…

…a small one, to reciprocate for all the butterfly pea flowers that I would pluck every morning to give to her.

She said that her son’s brother-in-law or somebody has a fishing boat and sometimes, when the ship comes in, he would give him some of those that he has caught. “It’s not cleaned yet,” she told me and I replied that it was perfectly all right as I could easily do it myself.

I asked her if she would do it herself too and she said yes but she added that when she was still single, she did not know how to do a lot of things and only got to learn after she got married and had a family of her own. That would be the case with most young people, I said. As the saying goes, “Necessity is the mother of success,” and another one says, “It’s a dirty job but somebody’s gotta do it!”

Here, the fish seller will do it for you but he or she may not be that thorough so upon coming home, we would have to clean it all over again to get rid of what is left of the scales and the inside of the fish, those streaks of black along the middle bone and elsewhere. My girl is very particular about cleanliness and she would stop eating at the mere sight of it.

I never had such a small one as usually, we would fry one that is big enough and eat one side of the fish for lunch and heat it up later to finish off the other side for dinner. However, I found that it might get a bit hard come dinnertime, not as nice as when we had it for lunch. I do think it is a good idea to buy two small ones and fry one for lunch and the other one for dinner so no reheating would be involved.

We like it plain so it does make a difference whether it is really very fresh or not. The fresh ones, like the one my neighbour gave me, would be so very sweet, so very tasty you can just eat and enjoy it just like that. Otherwise, we would have to serve it in sweet and sour sauce…

…or cook asam fish or curry with it.

As far as these chio or bawal or pomfrets go, we like these black ones the most. The kim chio (golden pomfret)…

…is more affordable but somehow or other, we are not that crazy about it nor are we into the very popular and expensive pek chio, the white or silver pomfret…

The latter is smoother and has a milder taste but since we do not enjoy it as much and it is not that affordable, we never bother to buy it to eat.

When we were young…

If you go to a coffee shop here and order a toast, you will get a toasted plain/white sandwich bread with Yeo’s kaya (coconut jam) and Planta margarine which is not quite to my liking. I prefer butter, real butter not those supposedly-butter spread wannabes, and nyonya kaya…

…but there are people who would rather go for the aforementioned as anything else will not be the same as what they had enjoyed so much when they were young, together with two half-boiled eggs and a cup of fragrant local coffee, kao kao (strong).

I have a friend here in Sibu, a foodie who posts photographs of things that he eats every day on Instagram and Facebook and the other day, he shared one of a toast that he had with butter, peanut butter and kaya…

…and that seemed to arouse quite a bit of excitement. His sisters, no longer residing in Sibu, started commenting as they recalled how they enjoyed that…

…during their growing up years when they were young. Gee!!! I never had toast like that before.

Yes, I had it with butter, peanut butter and jam…

…which was nice too – throw in some bananas and bacon and you will get that celebrated awesomely delicious Elvis Presley sandwich.

I don’t know if it was the kaya that I used but I felt that the peanut butter drowned out its taste altogether. In the case of the jam, I could still taste a bit of it above the stronger peanut butter flavour. Well, at least I’ve tried but since I am cutting down on my intake of sugar these days, I shall stick to peanut butter (and butter) alone on my toast…

…no kaya, no jam but even this is not entirely sugar free as there are carbs in that slice of bread and there is sugar in the ingredients for peanut butter. I will just have to confine myself to a slice or two once in a long while.

Plants…

I have not been very active lately with my gardening – I just spend my time weeding and watering, trimming and getting rid of some of the things that are growing a bit too old and are not flourishing.

My butterfly pea flower is doing all right, all along the fence in my backyard. Every morning, I would go and pluck all the flowers and give to my neighbour – she wants to dry them and keep for her daughters who are living elsewhere, not in Sibu. I was doing that myself once and I managed to collect one bottle full. In the end, I gave it to Melissa’s coursemate who is currently teaching in Sibu. I also gave him some seedlings and some seeds that I had collected.

Well, the other day, he shared with me this photograph…

…on Facebook. He said something about it not doing too well initially but it looked like it managed to pull through and should be flourishing from now on. It’s not difficult to plant, not at all and that makes me wonder why those people in the nasi kerabu and Malay kuih businesses would not plant for their own use – instead, they choose to use artificial colouring.

I’ve seen photographs in food blogs and online recipes where they use the flowers for the colouring and I noticed that they used the dried ones. As far as I know, they do not come cheap – I saw it once at a supermarket, RM13.50 for 300 gm! In my neighbour’s words, good things do not come easy and only when we do it ourselves, we would not know how difficult it is. We dry a lot and end up with just a little. I wonder how much she has managed to collect so far. It certainly is a lot easier to plant one’s own and use the fresh flowers.

Going back to Melissa’s coursemate, in his post, he was discussing with his friends, complaining about how their kunyit (turmeric) and serai (lemon grass) never flowered. I’ve yet to see my serai doing that but my kunyit flowers…

…all the time, one after another, sometimes two or three at one go. They say I am very lucky because it is not something that happens so easily and frequently.

For want of something to do during this pandemic that does not look like it is ever going to end, the ladies in the house have started planting vegetables and flowers. I, for one, will not bother to grow anything that is not edible. We’ve yet to get to eat any of the vegetables but I must say that the flowers do look rather pretty.

My girl planted some succulents that do not need much watering and attention and they started flowering…

…in no time at all…

The mum planted this…

…that looks like a daisy but the plant looks kind of different from anything I’ve seen before.

Well, I don’t have to plant any – just like the papaya trees that popped out of nowhere, time and again, there will be plants appearing out of the blue and the other day, I spotted these lovely flowers…

…by the fence. Truly, God works in mysterious ways…

All the time…

Usually, we would have those same few dishes for our meals so much so that we got kind of tired of them and most of the time, they were not anything we would look forward to and would just eat for the sake of eating. However, with the pandemic dragging on and on like it is never going to end, my missus has been trying out new recipes that she has come across online. She is particularly fond of this guy’s cooking shows, that much I know.

Of course, there have been some hits and some misses and after being “deprived” of those dishes from our comfort zone in the good ol’ days, I kind of missed eating those. The other day, I asked my missus to cook her soy sauce chicken with Bombay onions and potatoes and I really enjoyed it and on another day, I spotted some tau kua (bean curd cake) in the fridge so I decided to cook another dish that we liked a lot using those. I did blog about it in March last year.

I cut them into halves, cut a slit in the middle and stuffed them with minced meat…

…and I also made some meat balls to simmer with the five cloves of garlic for the soup.

There was an open packet of tau hu kee (bean curd sticks) so I took what was left in it to soak in hot water to soften…

This will go into the soup later.

I fried the stuffed tau kua lightly and once done, I threw them into the soup, adding a handful of tang chai (preserved vegetables), a tablespoon of chicken stock to season and some chopped daun sup (Chinese celery) for the added fragrance.

Once done, I served it…

…garnished with some spring onions from my garden.

Knowing how my girl would enjoy this soup with tang hoon (glass noodles), I took a small pack and soaked it in hot water…

…to soften and that was what she had for lunch that day.

For our vegetable dish that day, I harvested the cangkok manis in my garden and fried it with egg…

We sure enjoyed our lunch that day even though we did not have anything special, just a couple of familiar dishes that we used to cook all the time.

We did it!

Dining in is not allowed here in Sibu for quite sometime now and eventually, throughout the whole state of Sarawak as well. One consolation would be the fact that we can go and buy at the shops, cafés and restaurants and take home to eat or we can order via whatsapp or online and get them to send to the house.

We have two Korean fried chicken franchises in Sibu, one here and the other one here and yes, we’ve been to both of them. Incidentally, I heard that in the case of the former, the original outlet has since closed down, possibly because of the horrendous pandemic and I’m not sure about the newer outlet at Jalan Dr Wong Soon Kai, formerly Jalan Pedada. No, we have not gone back to either of them for quite a long while now but I did order a platter of Korean fried chicken from another place for my missus’ birthday dinner at home.

Anyway, the other day, my girl was somewhat excited when she came to tell me that the mum was trying to cook her own Korean fried chicken…

I guess this was her version of the yangneyom chicken (양념치킨), a crispy and tender Korean fried chicken smothered in a sticky, spicy red sauce.

According to this website, the sauce is what makes this chicken dish so special. The main ingredients typically include gochujang (fermented Korean red chili pepper paste), ketchup or chili sauce, garlic, and corn syrup. Some of you may recall my photograph in my post…

…the other day – the gochujang is the one in the red tub.

I don’t know exactly what my missus did when she cooked her version of the yangneyom chicken…

…but it was very nice – a little spicy, a bit sourish and sweet as well and yes, I did enjoy it a lot.

She fried a few pieces of plain fried chicken…

…for me just in case I was not into those Korean ones but she shouldn’t have bothered as I was perfectly fine with those. After all, I don’t think any kim chi was used in the preparation, no sesame oil either, just the lightly-toasted sesame seeds used to coat the meat and I sure did not mind those.

As a matter of fact, I do think that these Korean yangneyom fried chicken wings would make a lovely dish to serve at a buffet dinner gathering at home on some special occasion or to bring to a potluck party somewhere but looking at how things are going from bad to worse, I guess all those would be out of the question for a very very long time. Sighhh!!!

Not too much…

The other day, I blogged about eating bananas and before that, I also discussed whether it is all right to eat sweet corn too, paying special attention to how they may affect an individual’s blood sugar level. This time around, I want to check out if papayas are all right or not.

Well, this website says that the good news is that papaya is safe to eat BUT fruits are naturally sweet, and since consuming sugar affects blood sugar levels, some people might think that fruits are off-limits. But fruit is actually part of a healthy diet, and it’s OK to eat in moderation.

It goes on to say that papaya isn’t only a good choice for people with diabetes because of its medium GI – eating papaya might also lower your blood sugar. According to some reports, papaya may have a hypoglycemic effect on the body. The fruit contains flavonoids, which are natural antioxidants that may help regulate blood sugar.

Of course, they did add one last word that one should take note of: Moderation is key, though. Try to eat only one or two pieces of fruit per day. It sure looks like it is all right to eat but not too much.

Talking about papayas, I went and bought one the other day and peeled it and cut it into bite-size chunks, ready for consumption.

To start off, I cut off the top of the papaya…

…and after that, I cut it into halves, lengthwise…

Next, I removed all the seeds…

Most people would continue cutting it lengthwise into smaller segments before going on to peel the skin. I am not into that because I am not very gentle and may end up squeezing the fruit too hard and do some damage to it.

Instead, I would cut it into shorter lengths like this…

This way, I would be able to cut off the skin…

…without having to hold on to it tightly.

When he was still around, my late dad would insist that the Indon helper cut away that kind of mushy layer inside the fruit that the seeds would cling to and as they say, like father like son! So, as you can see, I would cut it away …

…too. I wonder how many people would do this – my missus doesn’t bother and actually, I did read somewhere that it is good for health, just that I do not remember what it is good for. By the way, I hear the seeds have some health benefits too!

There you are! My papaya, nicely peeled and cut…

…ready for the eating.

This one that I bought was quite big and I had to fork out a bit over RM7.00 for it. I would say it was well worth it as it was very sweet and was not strong on that papaya smell so everybody in the house enjoyed it very much. Of course, I only ate a bit, not too much!

So far, I think I read somewhere that watermelons aren’t so good and pineapples too even though many are talking about how they are good for people with coughs.

Sweet surprise…

I received an sms out of the blue that day from my ex-student/lawyer-friend, Louis, now residing with his family in Kuching. He asked if I was at home and of course, I replied that I was. These days, I would be home most, if not all, of the time. He said he was on his way to my house.

Oh? So he was in Sibu again? He comes over very often – I guess he has a lot of cases here but most of the time, he would be here for a day or two and he would have to rush back to his missus and boys in Kuching, not much time for much else while he was in Sibu.

He said he had some things for me and I just assumed that somebody had sent some stuff from Kuching to me through him but no, it turned out that he bought some Sibu Foochow-style sio bee…

…from here for me to enjoy. As far as I know, without fail, he will drop by that coffee shop everytime he comes back to Sibu for his favourite beef noodles in town.

For me, the sio bee from this coffee shop…

…are small but they are very nice, going all the way back to 2012 when I first tried the ones from their branch along Island Road, since demolished to give way to some construction there. They were 70 sen each then – the last time I bought some, the price had gone up to 80 sen, dunno how much they are now.

Their bak chang is also very nice and yes, Louis did buy me a few…

…to enjoy as well.

He also got me this one…

…but he was not sure what was inside, kacang or something, he said. Here, if people say it’s kacang, it can mean peanut or tau sar (red bean paste). At the time of writing, I have not tried it yet so I don’t know which that would be.

Thank you so much, Louis, for the sio bee and the chang, so very nice of you to think of your old teacher and to go through the trouble of buying and sending them all the way to my house – it sure was a pleasant and sweet surprise.

The Dragon Boat Festival or 端午节 Duānwǔ Jié, usually called the Chang (Dumpling) Festival falls on the 14th of June this year so it is just a few weeks away. I guess when the time comes, I can just buy a few of the nice ones from here to eat to preserve the tradition, our heritage.

SIN KIAW CAFE (2.291287, 111.826611) is located along Ramin Way, the first shop on your right as you turn in from Jalan Kampung Nyabor, right behind the petrol station located at the bend.

Good timing…

Two crucial ingredients in cooking kampua mee are the shallot oil for the tossing and the fried shallots for the garnishing…

Some people will insist on using lard but regular cooking oil will do fine – as long as it is used to fry sliced shallots first for that special fragrance before use. The people at the kampua mee stalls will tell you that they mix the two these days as lard is mighty expensive now so they cannot just use it, unadulterated. That is why many will tell you that the mee at one place is better, nicer than all the rest and most of the time, it is purely because of its stronger lard fragrance.

However, not everyone gets their fried shallots perfectly done. Frying the sliced shallots…

…requires good timing. Once it starts to turn brown, remove it from the oil. Many will wait till it has turned a beautiful golden brown before turning off the fire. It will continue cooking in the residual heat of the hot oil and the pan and will end up burnt. You can see a little bit overdone in the above photograph – I was a bit slow because I was taking photographs of the process at the same time.

From what I have seen at some of the kampua mee stalls, instead of slicing by hand, they just throw the shallots into a food processor. In the end, you get all the minute bits that make the plate of noodles look somewhat messy and dirty. Other than that, at the prices of shallots these days, they may not even bother to garnish with those at all.

I would take the fried shallots out of the oil before using the shallot oil to toss the noodles…

…because when mixed with all the other ingredients and everything, they may turn soggy, not crispy anymore and not quite to my liking. That morning, I added a spoonful of Bovril, a teaspoon of dark soy sauce, pepper, a pinch of msg and some chopped daun sup (Chinese celery) to the shallot oil.

I bought some mee pok (flat noodles) because I could not find any old-school mee kua at my neighbourhood shops. The texture and the taste of the latter are different, much nicer and they are a bit darker, their shade of yellow plus they take a much longer time to cook, something like spaghetti.

Well, as they say, beggars can’t be choosers so I just grabbed what I could lay my hands on and that morning, I cooked two pieces…

…in the saucepan.

Once cooked, I rinsed the noodles thoroughly in water, room temperature, a few times to get rid of the excess starch and then I added the hot water from the boiler and put the saucepan back on the gas stove to heat it up so the noodles would not be served cold.

Making sure that I had drained them really well, I added them to the ingredients in the pan…

…and tossed everything together.

Finally, I garnished the noodles with the fried shallots I had prepared earlier and some more chopped daun sup…

…and my Bovril mee was ready!

Yes, it sure was good especially after not having enjoyed it for a very long time. I had not had it all this while because Bovril was out of stock here for an extended period of time, probably due to the problem with shipping during this pandemic, and when I heard that they had it at a few places in town, I was not all that keen on rushing over to grab a bottle or two but I finally did so that day and I sure am glad that I did!

I’m not getting excited…

So far, we only enjoyed his crispy prawn and chili sambal. My girl quite liked his lamb curry but I was not really impressed and all of us agreed that the ayam masak merah was at best, just all right but not anything like the real thing.

That left us with just one more thing that I bought from the guy that we had not tried yet – his kapitan chicken curry (RM45.00)…

That day, I took it out of the freezer…

…to defrost and later, my missus heated it up for our lunch.

Yes, it tasted pretty good…

…something like what they call the ayam berlada…

…at the Malay food stall at Bandong Walk but I would say that those people there do a much better job at cooking this dish.

My missus cooks it…

…too sometimes so I would not say that it was anything to get me excited . After all, we have had something like it before and time and time again so to us, it really wasn’t anything special.

I have not tried his chicken rendang but looking at how things have turned out with what I have bought from the guy so far, I probably will just give it a miss.

COLOURFUL CAFE (2.316673, 111.837539) is located in the Renew4U building at the junction of Brooke Drive and Lorong Kwong Ann 8, across the road from the Church of Jesus  Christ of the Latter Day Saints.

Strong enough…

Are you strong enough to unscrew the lid of your bottle of Bovril…

…when you take it out of the fridge, cold?

In my younger days, the lid was made of metal and when it could not be opened, my dad would heat it over the gas cooker fire. Metals expand and after a while, it would open quite easily. Now, it is made of plastic so doing something like that is definitely out of the question.

When I was in Auckland, New Zealand, my friend there was grumbling at how she simply could not open her jar of Bovril and everytime, she would have to enlist the help of her strong and handsome hunk, her knight in shining armour – her hubby, that is, to do it for her. I told her I knew of a way to do that and showed her how to go about it.

You will have to put the bottle under running tap water…

…for a while, say around 30 seconds. It does not matter if the whole bottle gets submerged as it is airtight so the water will not get in. However, when you take it out of the water, make sure that you wipe it completely dry before you open it so the water will not get into the bottle and dilute the Bovril inside.

You should be able to unscrew the lid and open the bottle with ease but if there is a problem with that, just repeat the above process and you will be able to get it done…

…eventually.

Once open, you will be able to use the Bovril for whatever you have planned. In my case, more often than not, it will be to toss the noodles for my Bovril mee…

…for our breakfast.

That morning, there was just a little bowl left so I had that reheated for my lunch. There was some leftover rice in the fridge so the ladies were able to cook kim chi fried rice with the latest batch that my missus made and they enjoyed that to the max!