The other morning, my missus came home from the shops in the next lane (Jalan Ruby) from my house with one big mackerel (ikan tenggiri). She said that there was a guy there selling fish at a temporary stall – he said that he would be there if there were fishing boats coming in (bringing a whole lot of fish).
So far, I never saw any big mackerels at the stall that I usually frequented, the one at the supermarket not far from my house. At best, there might be some small ones and no, I did not bother to buy those. You cannot even cut across the fish to get a big enough slice to fry. I can’t remember how much my missus paid for the one she bought – RM30 a kilo, I think. She did say there were even bigger ones but those would cost even more.
Well, she got down to work right away and filletted the fish to scrape out the meat to make fish paste to stuff some vegetables and cook with black bean sauce for this yong tofu dish…
There were some bitter gourd…
…and brinjal…
…and ladies’ fingers…
You can imagine how much work and what a chore that was!
Yes, she did make some fish balls too…
…and she boiled the unwanted parts of the fish – the head, the bones and everything…
…to get the stock for the broth for the fish ball soup…
Of course, it was very nice, so very sweet, bursting with flavours but all that work to come out with the two dishes stretched till almost lunch time! Actually, I expected her to throw all the stuffed vegetables into the soup as well but she had ideas of her own. I sure would not go through all that trouble, thank you very much!
…and the other varieties of similar sizes such as the mak chik…
…for instance.
I do not know their names but there are others like these…
…or these…
For one thing, they’re cheap, all in the region of around RM10.00 a kilo, more or less. Of course, if I buy a kilo or two, there will be quite a number of them but the boy at my regular fish stall near my house will clean them for me, no problem at all.
Unfortunately, they do not get a lot of these – every day, there will be a lot of ikan bawal hitam/or chio (black pomfret) or kim chio (gold pomfret) or those from the lakes at the Batang Ai Hydro-electric Dams – the tilapia, the barramundi (ikan siakap) or the ikan sultan but those do not come cheap. The big ones can fetch around RM30.00 a kilo! I would have to go to the main wet markets to get these small ones but I have not set foot at those places ever since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
I love how they will cook these small fish at the Malay nasi campur (mixed rice) stalls and shops. Some will deep-fry them coated with some kind of kunyit (turmeric) batter…
…and I love the ones at one place here, served with their very delicious black sauce or they may cook my favourite asam fish dish (with tamarind – for their fish curry, they usually use the much bigger ikan tenggiri…
…or the ikan tongkol, the tuna, that is or the ikan bawal hitam) with them like what my missus came out with the other day…
She said she did not add any belacan (dried prawn paste) for its flavour and sweetness because at the moment, I am recovering from my terrible skin affliction so we are avoiding all those things that I should not eat lest I will end up scratching all night long. That was why she did not fry the ladies fingers with hay bee/udang kering (dried prawns) either…
…that day and substituted those with ikan bilis (dried anchovies) instead.
If you go to the Chinese chap fan (mixed rice) places, you may get these fishes in their selection too but they will just deep fry them like that, take it or leave it! I guess they do not have the time to be that creative about how they will serve their fish or they couldn’t be bothered at all.
At one time, at our favourite Indian/Indonesian restaurant here, they had the ikan kembong sumbat (stuffed ikan kembong), see 1st picture above. My missus loved it so much and would order it everytime. They would take out all the bones in the fish and stuff it with their very nice filling…
…before deep frying it to perfection and serving it.
I guess as they always say, size does not matter and as long as I enjoy eating these smaller varieties of fish and the price is right, you can bet I shall not hesitate to buy them anytime when I happen to see them.
There are people who take pride in their culinary skills and are very fastidious in their cooking – the Peranakans or the nyonyas, for instance. They will go through all the trouble to make sure that what they dish out is simply the best, second to none and woe betide you if they get to sample one of your half-baked efforts in cooking one of their traditional dishes. They will not mince their words, I assure you, when they tear your pride and joy to shreds.
On the other hand, there are people like me! I am all for taking shortcuts, the easy way out, the simpler the better as long as the end result is nice. Yes, I would insist on that – being just edible sure is not good enough, I’m afraid.
In an earlier post on using that very nice A1 Mountain Globe instant paste for cooking curry, I mentioned that at one time, I could buy curry gravy in a can, Yeo’s brand and I used that to cook sardines, rinsed to get rid of the tomato sauce, to come out with my own fish curry. I quite enjoyed it but the older folks in my family were not impressed – they did not like the “canned smell” that we would usually encounter in tinned stuff.
I never tried but I do think it would be good to use that to cook a bowl of vegetable curry – just throw in some ladies’ fingers, long beans, brinjal and so on…or egg curry by adding a few hardboiled eggs to it. The gravy would go well with rice, I’m sure…but unfortunately, I do not seem to see it in the shops anymore these days. Perhaps, it did not sell very well so the company has stopped its production.
I did mention in that aforementioned post another shortcut that we used to resort to when cooking one of our favourite dishes – wee’s satay sauce to cook our satay meat dish…
We would use that to cook beef (usually) and serve it during festivals and at our home parties/dinners…
It was very nice and something everyone would look forward to. For reasons unknown, they stopped production – one fine day, we found that it was no longer available in the shops despite the fact that the other products from that same company were still available.
My mum switched to Ayam Brand but theirs was yellow in colour, nothing like the peanut sauce they give you when you go and eat satay at the stalls or shops. She added a bit of tomato sauce so it would look nicer and for a time, we had to be happy with that.
Finally, at long last, this came out…
…on the shelves and it was as good as wee’s – the taste, the colour, everything so of course, if you take a peek into our pantry, you will find a few cans of this stocked up for use anytime we feel like having satay at home.
Of course, I am off beef and all red meat these days so we would not be cooking those anymore. When I was in Kuching a few years ago, at this place called Lao Eya Keng along Carpenter Street, the pork satay…
…was a crowd puller but I thought it was just all right – it sure did not get me jumping with delight. I love lamb but that too is red meat so left with no choice, we would use the satay sauce to cook pork…
…too. We already have too many chicken dishes so we are not all that keen to use poultry for the dish.
We’ve never tried but I do feel that another shortcut we can take is to use this satay sauce to come out with our own Indonesian gado-gado…
…or rojak Kassim/tambi…
I’m pretty sure that would be very nice.
This…
…seemed to have disappeared off the shelves at the shops and supermarkets as well. It used to be another shortcut that I used to take to cook my own sharks’ fins soup minus the unmentionables, the offensive stuff…
It was so very nice, just like the real thing that they served at wedding banquets. Everyone enjoyed it so much and would never fail to lick the pot clean everytime I cooked it. It was so easy – I could get it ready in minutes, I tell you!
Well, talking about soups, we had this fish maw soup…
…the other day. My missus cooked that and no, she’s not one who will resort to taking shortcuts when she’s cooking. She even went and bought some quail eggs to boil and peel and throw into the soup – my girl loves those eggs (Funny how she is not a fan of hardboiled eggs though – I would have to eat her share everytime!). Ah well! I guess it takes all kinds to make the world – we are all different in our own ways, right?
I don’t remember ever using any instant pastes when it came to cooking curry in my younger days.
The closest we got to it would be when my mum would send me to a stall by the river/stream where the Sibu Central Market is today to buy the curry mix from some ladies there, right next to the celebrated ngor bee therng stall, a ringgit or fifty sen, perhaps – I don’t quite remember now. They would have all the pounded ingredients ready and when you told them you would like to cook curry, they would take a bit of this and a bit of that and wrap everything together for you. People in Kuching would go to that shop near the mosque to buy something like this – in fact, whenever I went to Kuching, my mum would ask me to go and buy and bring home to keep in the freezer till she wanted to use it.
I still had to do a lot of peeling and pounding at home though, all the shallots, garlic, chili and what have you. My mum would enlist my service to do all that that and being the typical nyonya, I could not do it anyhow – I had to keep on pounding till she was satisfied that I had done enough. Yes, that was such a lot of work and do not forget that those days you would have to buy your own live chicken and slaughter it yourself, remove all the feathers and everything and cut into pieces ready for cooking. My mum did all that, of course – that would scare the living daylights out of me!
No wonder we usually had it on special occasions only like Christmas or Chinese New Year and family and friends would come by the droves to enjoy my mum’s curry with slices of sandwich bread or roti bayi (some Indian shortcrust pastry bread that my mum made herself). Not many people could cook curry and not many could cook it well – I might have eaten the very diluted curry powder plus santan (coconut milk) ones from some restaurant in town, take it or leave it.
I do recall the not-too-bad curry gravy that came in tins, Yeo’s brand. I used to take a can of sardines, rinse away the tomato sauce and cook them in the curry gravy to serve as fish curry. I did cook for some members of the family but they were not impressed – they said it had the smell of canned foods but of course, as they say, beggars can’t be choosers. I have not seen that Yeo’s curry gravy in tins for a long time now – perhaps they did not sell well eventually and they have stopped production.
I do not remember when I first stumbled upon this A1 Mountain Globe instant curry sauce…
…and there had been no turning back since. This was in 2008 and this was in 2009 – I was still taking blurry snapshots with my handphone then for my blog. Perhaps it started around that time and we loved it so much that we started telling everyone in the family and everyone ran to the shops to buy and take home to try. The verdict? Yes, everyone loved it! They said it was not the same as when cooking curry from scratch but when one was craving for curry, this was more than good enough!
Come Christmas or Chinese New Year, we would cook chicken curry using instant paste, this brand no less…
…and beef satay using wee’s satay sauce…
…which incidentally is no longer in production – these days, we use Sunstar, another one of our shortcuts to great dishes minus all the work and the hassle.
Gee! That sure is a very very long time and after all these years, we still enjoy it as much as when we tried it for the very first time. Yes, I did try some other brands but no, none of them measured up and of course, there was never a second time. Then, for reasons unknown, this particular instant paste got spicier and spicier till it was way too hot to handle. We are notorious for our ability to eat very spicy stuff but it seems that here, we have met our match. I told my missus not to use the paste anymore after that.
We did try a few more of the other brands – the Ayam Brand Thai ones are pretty good, but NOT hot at all and they are different as far as the tastes of the curries went.
In the end, I suggested to my missus to either use less of the instant paste or cook double the amount of chicken and this was what she came out with…
*2023*
She cooked a lot more than usual and gave half to her brother – he always enjoyed her curry. The colour looked a bit different than before…
*2021*
…as other than the santan (coconut milk), she added evaporated milk in the hope of reducing the spiciness. Thankfully, it did not affect the taste – it was still as nice as ever!
So, was it still spicy? I would say it was but not unbearably so. It was within our threshold so we could sit down and enjoy it like before. I guess we shall just stick to this same brand for the time being.
My girl’s good friend/ex-coursemate in Kelantan was intrigued by the Bovril (or Marmite) noodles that I kept blogging about and she told her that she would like to try using the Australian favourite, Vegemite. I did send her a link to one of my posts where I cooked the noodles using one of the two but I don’t know whether she has made any attempt to cook it yet or not.
Anyway, not one to rest on my laurels, I went ahead and cooked my own – Vegemite noodles/mee…
– I was using the freshly-made mee pok (the flat version of our kampua mee), easily available at the market, shops and elsewhere by the kilo in plastic bags that my missus bought and was keeping in the fridge. You may use any factory-made instant noodles or dried egg noodles sold in abundance at the supermarkets, no problem at all…or mee sua (longevity noodles), if you so desire.
In the meantime, get the ingredients ready…
– a spoonful of cooking oil (best if used to fry some sliced shallots first for the fragrance), half a spoonful of Vegemite and half a teaspoon of Aji-no-moto (msg). I also added half a spoonful of dark soy sauce to give the noodles a darker shade of brown so it would not look so pale. It would be darker with Bovril but even then I would still add a bit for the added taste (and to reduce the amount of Bovril used as it is so expensive). Of course, you may vary the amount of the ingredients according to taste.
Vegemite is not so soluble, unlike Bovril, so you may want to dissolve it in the cooking oil first…
…but do not worry if it does not dissolve completely. Later when you put in the piping hot noodles and toss them altogether, it will melt readily and you can mix everything together well.
Bring some water to a boil in a saucepan and cook the noodles till done…
Drain it well and rinse thoroughly under the tap to remove the excess starch. Add some more hot water and bring it back to boil – you would not want to eat cold noodles, I’m sure even though I do know they have that in Japanese cuisine.
I spotted some of my missus’ fried chopped garlic and sliced shallots in the kitchen and I decided to throw a bit in for the added flavour and fragrance…
This is optional, of course.
Last but not least, drain the noodles…
…really really well. I hate it when I go to eat at the kampua mee stalls only to find the noodles swimming in the water underneath. That will affect the taste adversely, no question about that. I do wish those “professionals” would be more careful with these nitty-gritty details.
Toss well with the ingredients you have prepared in your plate…
…and serve! I did add a sprinkling of chopped spring onions on top – if you wish to add any meat or fish cakes slices or thinly sliced omelette or whatever, it is entirely up to you. At places where they serve halal versions of such dry noodles, they usually top it up with shredded chicken or thinly sliced boiled beef.
Yes, it was very nice but I would still rank it at No. 3 after Bovril and Marmite, in that particular order. Good luck, folks! Bon appetit!!!
These days, we would go for the barramundi (ikan siakap) from gigantic lakes at the hydro-electricity plant at Batang Ai…
– very fresh and sweet and no fishy smell and the meat is so smooth and soft plus it is comparatively cheaper/more affordable as it is a farmed fish, all of a standard size of 600 gms each..
In the past, we used to opt for the white pomfret (ikan bawal putih/pek chio) sometimes…
…when it came to steaming fish but these days, the price has shot up so much that it is way beyond our means. Anyway, it is a mild-tasting fish, not really nice, I must say and the meat is not that thick (unlike the black ones, the or chio), not quite enough to go round. A lot of people would go for the kim chio, a very much cheaper variety, instead but for some reason or other, I am not fond of it – perhaps it has a certain smell that puts me off and I am not fond of the texture either!
No, we do not go for the rest such as the very popular tapah or the patin and so on – perhaps we would order those once in a blue moon at the restaurants. I would prefer the lajong…
…though at one of our favourite restaurants in town, since closed down.
One fish that we used to buy long ago would be the ikan jelawat, better known as ikan sultan…
I read somewhere that it was thus called because the Sultan of Pahang loved eating it so much and everyone started calling it ikan sultan and the name got stuck.
Eventually, I stopped buying this fish because of the terrible mud smell – it was a very popular farmed fish but those from the ponds where the water does not run continuously (unlike the ones at Batang Ai) would be so smelly, not palatable at all. I did manage to get hold of some very good natural ones once in a long while but I was not that keen on taking the chance so I never bought any again altogether.
Well, the other morning, my missus came home with this…
…one of the farmed ones from Batang Ai and she got it ready to be steamed. I used to steam fish before a long time ago but mine was very very simple. Just sprinkle some chopped spring onions and garlic and strips of ginger and chili on top of the fish, pour oyster sauce over it and put in the steamer to steam till cooked. As they say, boys will be boys, I guess.
When I watched my missus doing it that morning, it sure looked like a lot of work – I wouldn’t want to do all that! I thought she would use the steam fish sauce…
…that Eric gave me the other day but she said she had a lot of unfinished sauces and she would like to finish all of them first. I saw her adding some Kikkoman sauce, some of our traditional Foochow red wine…
…some salt and some sugar and dunno what else – my limited concentration did not last that long! LOL!!! There were slices of garlic and ginger, strips of spring onions here, there and everywhere and when it was ready, she placed the fish in the steamer and steamed it till it was done…
…and ready to be served but that was after she had sprinkled some fried sliced shallots and finely chopped garlic and whatever else on top!
Yes, it was very very good and I particularly liked how this variety from Batang Ai did not have many bones. At times, when eating fish with a lot of bones, that would take away quite a lot of the enjoyment.
It was a few days after he came back from the Singapore Expo hosted by STATOS – the Sarawak Trade and Tourism Office Singapore in the island republic when the enterprising and highly successful proprietor of The Kitchen Food – Sibu Instant Kampua (厨艺食品), Eric, shared on Facebook this photograph of the pek chang kay (poached/steamed chicken) that he cooked himself…
…It does look very good, doesn’t it? I jokingly asked him if there was any home delivery, referring to the chicken, and he replied instantly to tell me that he was currently giving out free samples of soy sauce and asked me if I could go and collect it at his shop or whether he would like him to send it to me. Of course, I did not want to trouble him to do that so I just mentioned briefly that I would go over though not right away as I was not exactly that mobile lately in my current health condition with my skin affliction and all.
A few days passed and out of the blue, he showed up at my gate to pass me these…
There was a bottle of light soy sauce…
…that is used to puak (toss) the original version of the Sibu kampua mee. We never have this in the house so when I cook my own noodles at home, I would just use the dark version…or Bovril or whatever. That is why I never go for kampua mee – black when eating that outside – it is just not authentic!
Other than that one, there is also a bottle of steam fish sauce…
If you are one of those who are always wondering why your steamed fish is never as nice as the ones at the restaurant, this may be the secret behind it all. I’ve watched video clips on Youtube of people steaming fish at the restaurants and it sure is a lot more complicated than just pouring oyster sauce all over it and putting it in the steamer to cook.
The third bottle that Eric gave me was this Chinese Angelica vinegar…
…that he used to cook this gorgeous pork leg dish…
…that he was showing off proudly on Facebook. Drool! Drool! I bet I would have at least two plates of rice if I had that to go with it.
No, I did not know what Angelica vinegar was – I just guessed that would be what people use to cook black vinegar pork leg. I love that and of course, I’m hoping my missus will cook that soon now that we have the vinegar in the house. I went and googled and this was what I got – it is actually 當歸 (dāng guī) otherwise known as female ginseng and it sure has a lot of health benefits. I also came across this at this website: “The best thing is that this herb also has anti inflammatory as well as anti bacterial as the properties. This means consuming this herb plant will also help you to reduce the risk of getting various skin related diseases such as eczema, psoriasis, as well alopecia.” Who knows, it may help a bit with my recovery from my skin affliction, fingers crossed.
Thank you so much, Eric – it is so very kind and generous of you indeed. Well, if anyone is keen on grabbing a bottle or more of these, he or she can drop by his shop, right next to the UOB Bank at Jalan Pahlawan. Believe you me, when you are there, you will see a whole lot of interesting things (mostly Sarawak/Sibu/Foochow specialties) that you would want to grab and cart home!!!
THE KITCHEN FOOD shop (2.304994, 111.847404)…
…home of the original, the one & only Sibu instant kampua, is located in the Sibu Bus Terminal area at Lorong 7A, Jalan Pahlawan, right next to the UOB Bank there.
This was a couple of Saturdays ago and yes, my girl and the mum went for the Saturday evening sunset service in church as usual and when it was all over, at 8.00 p.m., they stopped by this café round the corner from my house for a late dinner/supper like what they would usually do.
No, I do not think it was because they liked the place so much or they were not so adventurous and did not bother to check out any of the other places all over town. Most/all of these places close at 10 so it is best to go to some place convenient and once you get there at 8 something, you can order something and eat quickly. There will not be that much time left.
Actually, there is a coffee shop near my house where the food is very nice but past 8, they would be stacking up the tables and chairs and putting them away, getting ready to lock up for the night even though closing time is at 10. No, they will not ask you to go elsewhere – they will cook what you order, usually not their best effort under such circumstances and they will stand around waiting for you to finish so they can clear the table, wash the plates and everything and call it a day. After seeing this happening a few times, we decided we would never go there again, thank you very much.
Anyway, back to the what the ladies had that night, they came home singing praises of the signature mee goreng (RM10.90)…
…which certainly looks a lot nicer in their menu on Facebook. Now, my girl is very fussy about her pastas and would like everything perfectly done. Most of the time, 9 out of 10, when she ordered something creamy, it was not to her liking and after struggling the whole time, she probably would manage to finish half of it…and yes, she did not like this one that she had that night AGAIN!!! I wonder why she bothered, knowing that the fly-by-night half past six chefs here lack the skill and expertise to do a good job when called upon to do so.
And talking about pastas, I bought her a packet of this instant pasta, Prego brand – their Mac & Cheese…
…and she cooked it right away, adding a bit of cauliflower and herbs and it turned out to be really very good!
I spotted it at a supermarket near my house, alongside this one…
…and I quickly bought them for her even though I did not get my hopes up too high knowing how fussy she can be about her pastas.
She has always been a fan of Mac & Cheese since she was little and there was a coffee house at a hotel here that did it really very well. We would go there so often to let her enjoy it even though it wasn’t a very nice place, a little run down, not very bright, with the smell of stale cigarette smoke and alcohol (beer) as it doubled as a pub/music lounge with a live Filipino band at night.
My missus and I loved their beef noodles and we would always go for that while our girl had her Mac & Cheese. Eventually, they renovated the place, made it very nice and classy, a lot nicer than before but when we dropped by, the friendly waiter told us not to order the food as they had some new chefs who obviously did not have the magic touch of the former ones. We never went back there again.
I forgot to take note of the prices for the instant pasta but no worries! I certainly will buy some more since my girl enjoys it and I shall mention the price the next time I blog about it.
I guess that’s it for now till around this time next year. I did not go to visit my relatives and friends during Hari Raya this time around owing to my ill health and my skin affliction – I bet the sight of my ugly sores all over my arms and legs would ruin their appetite for all the nice stuff that they had prepared for the auspicious occasion and I didn’t think I’d be the best of company that people would love to have around.
My sister did give us some of the Malay culinary delights that she got from a good friend, the beef rendang…
…and the chicken korma…
…which was in a darker shade than what we would see usually and the daging masak hitam…
We sure enjoyed them all with the ketupat lemak or ketupat pulut that she also got from the aforementioned friend…
That was during the pre-COVID days, so very long ago so I am not even sure if she is still around or not and anyway, when I did manage to grab hold of a few that year, they were somewhat over-cooked and a bit disappointing. I guess that is always the problem when you want to cook something in bulk, a whole lot at one go.
Well, we had had our fair share of all our favourite Malay culinary delights throughout the month of Ramadan…
…so come Hari Raya proper, after this round, I was feeling that I had had enough of these things and was craving for some porridge and a couple of simple dishes to go with it instead. This usually happens around Chinese New Year but that would be during those few days only – Ramadan lasted one whole month!
I fried this omelette with a sprinkling of chopped spring onions from our garden…
…and I opened a can of baked beans…
…to go with my porridge, with Bovril added, of course…
Yes, I sure enjoyed that!
Well, the weekend’s here! School will reopen on Tuesday as Monday, May the 1st is a public holiday – Labour Day and Thursday, the 4th of May is Wesak Day. I guess my girl will have to go back to the grind for a few weeks before the Gawai Dayak and the mid-year holidays come around. Gee! Life sure is good, isn’t it!
My sister bought me two big packs of instant noodles that day. She said that her friend who was here recently (not from Sibu, probably home for Ching Ming or something) spoke highly of this particular brand…
He said that he had eaten so many different brands already and after all this time, he felt that this one was second to none – the absolute best!
Well, I sure would not say that I would agree with him about the packaging. That piece of paper (the label) inside the pack was so badly done, so blurry and it looked like the printer was running out of ink and they were trying to squeeze blood out of stone. Tsk! Tsk!!! If I saw anything of such poor quality on sale anywhere, I would not even give it a second look…much less go and buy it to try!
The one in the other packet – the mee pok was a bit better…
Anyway, since I already have the two packets at hand, I decided that I would just give it a try. Who knows? I might be in for a surprise. As they say, never judge a book by its cover!
Now, inside each pack are four individually-wrapped packets…
…with the noodles and two sachets, one with the (light) soy sauce and seasoning and the other with the shallot oil…
I decided to open the mee pok first and boy! It sure took a very long time to cook!!! That reminded me of the mee kua (mee sanggul) that we loved so much back in the 50’s and 60’s – I was hoping against hope that this one would be like those so once the noodles were soft enough, I tossed them in the ingredients provided and served…
No, they did not provide any fried shallots or chopped spring onions for garnishing – you will have to come out with your own.
Well, I would say it was nice…
…but no, it wasn’t anything to get excited about. The taste was great but no, if it is the authentic, old school kampua mee taste that you are looking for, you’d be in for a disappointment and no, it did not have the lovely fragrance and taste of our mee kua in the past, not at all. I tried adding a bit of Bovril and yes, it did help enhance the taste a bit…but no, you would not see me rushing out to buy more to enjoy.
At the end of the day, I still think it is better to just go out and buy the very much cheaper freshly-made noodles (sold in plastic bags by the kilo) – you can choose the thin and curly ones or the flat ones (mee pok) and cook and toss with your own ingredients. I believe what you will get in the end is a lot more like the authentic stuff, the real thing…than these manufactured ones. Incidentally, there is so much in a one-kilo bag, it will take you forever to finish all of it!
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 