Assam Fish Curry

Mum has a lot of curry and assam dishes and this is one of my favorite. I don't know if it is the tamarind in the recipe that really makes this dish so appetizing for me as I could eat platefuls of rice with just the curry gravy. I can do without the fish or any of the rest of the accompaniments for it is the gravy that I like.

Mum cooked that for us 2 weekends ago and she was rattling off the ingredients and method of doing it. Apparently you can use any type of fish or fish fillet for this dish, but most of the time, garoupas and pomfrets are used. I used the bawal hitam (promfret) for the dish.

Apparently this curry dish tastes better overnight but sometimes, there just isn't any left at the end of the meal to be kept for the next meal even, let alone the next day :).

This is mum's version of the Assam Fish Curry.

Ingredients

1 large bawal hitam (pomfret) cut into slices about an inch thick
10 pieces of okra (ladies fingers)
2 tbsp of assam jawa (tamarind paste). Soak this in 2 cups of warm water and strain, keeping the juice only
3-4 stalks of daun kesom (polygonum)
1 tsp of curry powder
1 tsp of turmeric powder
3-4 stalks of lemon grass (white part only)
1 tbsp of sugar
salt to taste
3 tbsp of oil

Paste ingredients
1 clove garlic
5 shallots
8-10 dried chillies (depends how spicy you like)
1/2 tablespoon of belacan (prawn paste - optional as some people don't like this)


Method

1. Blend the paste ingredients in a food processor and set aside.
2. Heat up 3 tbsp of oil in the wok and put in the blended paste and fry until fragrant
3. Add in the tamarind juice, curry powder, turmeric powder, lemon grass stalks and bring to a boil.
   
4. Add in the okras and the daun kesom.
5. Add in the fish and about 2000ml of water
6. Simmer on low heat until the fish is cook
7. Add in the sugar and salt to taste.
8. Best eating with steaming hot rice on a rainy evening
   

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Stir Fried LaLa (Clams)

I was at the supermarket yesterday after work, just to pick up some stuff for the bak kut teh soup that I had in mind to make when I walked pass the fish section. Saw their la la selling at RM1.09 per gram. They were very nice and fresh (as most of them were sticking their little tongues at me). Decided just to get about 300g of these lovelies back and when they are all so nice and fresh, 300g is enough for 2 to 3 people. Normally when they are less fresh, you end up throwing quite a fair number away, which is such a waste. I have bought some before at another supermarket when they were not as fresh. Ended up throwing more than half away as they were either just empty shells or dead (they do not open even after cooking).

I love Kam Heong La Las but have not really asked mum how to cook that dish. She has only taught me how to do to stir fried la la in fermented beans style. Anyway, for kam heong style la la, I would need curry leaves, and they didn't have any left in the shelves at this time of the day. So that decided it for me. I'll do the stir fried la la in fermented beans.

This stir fry dish is done in a matter of minutes as there was not much preparation need. All you needed were some chopped garlic (I used 2 large cloves, but you can add or reduce the amount depending on how partial you are to garlic. Took 2 tablespoons of fermented beans out from the bottle and mashed them up a bit. Julienned some spring onions and 1 red chillie (these are part of the garnishing actually).

Rinse the la las in running water but the ones that I bought were so clean that I didn't see a single speck of mud in them. They really made my job easy. Set them aside to drain off all the water.

Heat about 2 tablespoon of oil in a hot pan and put in the chopped garlic first. Fry these until they are aromatic and add in the 2 tablespoons of fermented beans. You should really be getting a very aromatic smell now. Add a little bit of water if the gravy is getting too dry (this happens when your fire is too hot).

Stir in the la las. The fresh la las will all open up now. Stir it around to make sure the gravy covers all the lovely fleshy la las. Add in the spring onions and chillie. Dish up and ready to be served for dinner :)

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Pork Fillet with Green Peas

I have always loved peas even as a child and back then, mum only buys peas in a can and never those frozen ones as those were more expensive. This is a very simple dish that mum used to make that will definitely make lunch or dinner time a wonderful meal for me. The meat for this dish can either be pork or chicken. Not sure if it will taste the same with beef or mutton but pork and chicken are my preferred red meat.

This is mum's recipe for one of my favorite meat dish...Pork Fillet with Canned Peas.

Ingredients

6 slices of chicken breast meat or pork loins
1 tsp of sesame seed oil *
1 tsp of light soya sauce *
1/2 tsp of sugar *
1/2 tsp of salt *
a dash of pepper *
1 can of Green Peas (drained as we don't want the water that the peas were soaking in)
1/2 large onion (sliced)

*all this is used to marinade the meat

Method

1. Taking a chopper or mallet, pound the chicken breast meat or pork lions. This makes it very tender to eat, without having to use meat tenderizer
2. Put in all the marinade ingredients with the meat and leave for 20-30 minutes
3. Heat up a little oil in the wok/pan and put in the sliced onions.
4. When the onions start to soften, add in the meat.
5. If it gets too dry, sprinkle a little water into the wok/pan
6. When the meat starts to turn nice and slightly golden, add in the green peas
7. Depending on the brand of Green Peas that you buy, some are softer than others. For those which are rather hard, you may need to cover your wok/pan for a minute or so to soften them
8. Once the peas are soft, add a little bit of water (if you like gravy) with a little corn starch.
9. Add a little salt and sugar for taste.
10. Ready to be served.

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Stir Fry Kai Lan with little silver fishes

Ha Ha.. what a title. In fact, I have been holding onto this post for a while... in search of the right name for those little tiny silver fishies (ngan yee chye). I do love eating them and I also heard mum say that they are very rich in calcium. See not all things good for you tastes bad.

This is a rather special type of stir fry kai lan as the leafy part of the kai lan is the unusual part of the dish, and not the tiny silver fish. You have to fry the leaves first to make it crunchy. It is rather appetizing, and a good inducement for people and kiddos who do not really like the green taste of the leafy part of the vegetable.

For this dish, what you do is firstly clean the kai lan in a bit of salt water. Mum says this is to "disinfect" the vegetable and since mum knows best, I do not question her.. just do as instructed.

Wash the little silver fishes and rinse well as they are sometimes a bit dirty as I have seen them being dried on the sun uncovered. You just don't know what has landed on them.

Take out the kai lan and cut the leafy part from the stem. Try to shake the leaves as dry as you can. Then using your knife (chopper), slice the leafy part. These are to be fried in oil and when they are done, take them out and sprinkle in some salt.

Cook the stems like normal. Put a little oil in the pan/wok and put in some slice or chopped garlic when the oil is hot. Put in the little fishy when the garlic turns aromatic. Stir them abit and put in the kai lan stem. Add a little salt and rice wine (optional). Once they are done, quickly stir in the fried leaves and turn off the fire. Serve with rice.

By the way, does anyone know what these little fishies are called? This mystery is killing me!

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Sui Kow (Prawn Dumplings) in Soup

This is what mum sometimes makes for Sunday lunches as Wonton Mee (Noodles) with Sui Kow soup is one of my dad's favorite food. At one time, she even went to the extend of filleting her own fish to make make fish paste for the dumplings until her hairdresser told her that buying the fish paste from the market is not going to make that much of a difference to the taste plus it is much less work. Since then, we seemed to have Sui Kow in soup a little bit more often :)

The Wonton Mee that she buys from the market are normally the ones with egg in the ingredients to make the mee. The ones without eggs are not as nice to eat but it is cater to strict vegetarians who do not consume eggs. I normally like mine wonton noodles dry but I will have the sui kow in soup...see greedy.. end up having everything.

I found that sui kow is simple to make as one can change the recipe according to one's preference. Like for instance, if you don't like fish paste, you could change it to mince chicken or pork. Mushrooms, carrots, water chestnuts, chinese black fungus can be added or done away with. Green peas can be added if one likes green peas. Hence, one can really play with the ingredients according to one's preference. Anyway, what I have done is just reproduced what mum normally puts in her Sui Kows and for the soup, it is always ikan bilis (anchovies) soup.. the real type..not the stock cubes. Actually, I can taste the difference.

Ingredients

150g fish paste
100g shelled prawns (chopped)
5 pcs of water chestnuts (chopped)
1 carrot (diced or julienned)
2-3 pcs of chinese black fungus (sliced) - can be replaced with shitake mushrooms
spring onions (chopped)
1/4 cup of green peas (optional, will put only if we have some in the freezer)
sui kow skins

Seasonings
1/4 tsp of light soya sauce
3/4 tsp of corn flour
2 tsp of sesame oil
salt and sugar to taste
a dash of pepper


Method

1. Mix the fish paste and the chopped prawns in a bowl. Stir to mix well.
2. Add the seasonings into the meat. Make sure the seasonings are well combined into the meat. Leave for about 1/2 hr in the fridge
3. After 1/2 hr, remove the meat from the fridge and add in the rest of the ingredients and give it a good stir
4. Take a piece of the sui kow wrapper and place a spoonful of the meat mixture in the middle of the wrapper.
5. Place a bit of water on the edge of the wrapper, fold it into half and seal.
6. Heat up some water in a pot and when the water is boiling, place the sui kows in.
7. When the sui kows are cooked, they will float to the surface.
8. Remove and place in a bowl. Add in the ikan bilis soup.
9. Serve with some chopped spring onions for garnishing. I added some lettuce into my ikan bilis soup pot just before I turned off the heat to give it some color variation

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Pork Ribs Soup

The ingredients and the method of cooking of this pork ribs soup is exactly the same as that for the ABC soup. Only difference is the meat itself and also as I think I am also coming down with the sniffles, I added a handful of peppercorns into the soup.

Ingredients

Pork ribs (1 used only about 300g)
2 potatoes
2 tomatoes
2 carrots
1 big onion
10 peppercorns
salt to taste

Method

1. Put 3000ml of water into a pot to boil
2. When the water is boiling, add in the ribs, onion and potatoes. Boil for 10 minutes in high heat.
3. Add in some slightly crushed pepper corns
   
4. Turn the heat down and add in the carrots and tomatoes.
5. Leave it to boil at this heat for about an hour.
6. Add some salt and a little pepper to taste before serving.

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Stir Fried Vegetables

I have come to realize that cooking vegetables by stir frying them (chinese style) is really very easy, as easy as abc. Honestly. All you need is the vegetables and it could be any leafy greens or broccoli or cauliflower with some shredded ginger, chopped garlic, a little salt and some Shao Hsing Hua Tiao Chiew (chinese cooking wine and this item is really optional).


You just have to heat up a little oil, put it the garlic and ginger when the oil is hot. Stir it abit until they turn aromatic. Put in the vegetables and if the pan/wok is too dry, sprinkle some water with your fingers into the pan/wok. DO NOT pour in the water as this will make the dish too watery. Add in the salt for taste. Optionals will be the Shao Hsing Hua Tiao Chiew (chinese cooking wine) and the light soya sauce.


Another important thing that my mum tells me never to do when stir frying vegetables..... NEVER cover the wok/pan whilst the vegetables are simmering. This will turn them yellow and limp (lembek). Always use a little oil as this will give the vegetable a light shiny sheen. See, stir fry vegetables are as easy as ABC :)

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Braised Pork Belly

This is a dish where my mum will fix up for us when she cannot think of anything else better to feed us with when we were kids. She knows that we will eat rice by the bowlfuls as this dish is rather sweet and all kids if not most love sweet foods. This is really a no-frill home-cooked dish. I am not sure if you made it with other sorts of meat, the outcome will be the same. It is just the texture of pork is different from chicken and beef. I suppose if some one is game to try it with beef, do let me know the results :)

Ingredients

600g pork belly (uncut)
250g superior dark sauce
250ml of water
100g sugar
3 cloves of garlic, chopped

Method

1. Heat up the non-stick pot and put in the chopped garlic.
2. Stir it a bit and add in the superior dark sauce
3. Add in the water and the sugar and turn off the heat.
4. Put in the pork belly into the pot and coat the pork with the sauce.
5. Leave the pork in the pot for an hour to marinade.
6. After 1 hour, heat up the pot and turn the pork around.
7. Leave on very low fire and let the pork simmer in the sauce.
8. Cook the pork for another hour. Turn it around every now and then to make sure that the pork is cooked evenly.
9. Remove the pork and when it is cool enough to be handled, cut it into slices about 1/2 cm thick (or you could have it thicker if you want).
10. Serve with piping hot rice would be nice.

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ABC Soup

Oh dear, it must be the time of the year again when the flu bugs starts biting. I was away for the weekend and yesterday for the Qing Beng and when I came back, I found that some of my friends (and blogger mates) are down with the coughs and the flu. Must blame it all on the weather. My mum too was having a very bad throat over the weekend, with fever too. This is a time when the best remedy is rest and lots of fluids, no fried foods and no spicy foods too. Soup is a very good source of nutrients and easy to take in too. Over the weekend, I managed to boil 2 types of soup. The fist one that I did was a very simple soup which my mum calls it the ABC soup. It is actually a chicken soup (broth) with carrots, tomatoes, onions and potatoes. She calls it the ABC soup as it is supposed to have vitamins A, B and C in this soup or actually she meant that this soup is as easy to cook as ABC... :D

Yup, this soup is exceptionally simple to make and it is actually considered a clear soup. Sometimes, you can also add peppercorns to it but not if you are having a sore throat.

Ingredients

3 pieces of chicken drumsticks (thigh)
2 potatoes
2 tomatoes
2 carrots
1 big onion
salt to taste

Method

1. Put 3000ml of water into a pot to boil
2. When the water is boiling, add in the chicken, onion and potatoes. Boil for 10 minutes in high heat.
3. Add in some slightly crushed pepper corns (optional)
4. Turn the heat down and add in the carrots and tomatoes.
5. Leave it to boil at this heat for about an hour.
6. Add some salt and a little pepper to taste before serving.

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Steamed Kampung Chicken

My mum has always tried to buy Kampung Chicken when she can for the family instead of the ordinary chicken from the market. She claims that Kampung Chicken are healthier chicken with less fat as they are not cooped up inside their pens, feed to the maximum just for the slaughter. Checked Wiki and this is what they had to say about the Kampung Chicken...

"A special type of chicken in Malaysian cooking is called the "kampung chicken" (literally village chicken). These are free-range chickens which are allowed to roam instead of being caged. These chickens are generally considered to have higher nutritional value. They are scrawnier than their farmed counterparts, meaning they have less body fat."

Mum's recipe for steaming Kampung Chicken is extremely simple which can be done with minimal fuss. I did exactly that minus the Kampung Chicken. Why? Just simply a matter of Demand more than Supply. They don't have that many Kampung Chickens for sale and if you go to Supermarkets to shop like yours truly here, sometimes you simply cannot find them there. So, I had to substitute with the normal chicken. The dish turned out ok but mum would have said "Go to the wet market lah to get the Kampung Chicken, you lazy girl".

Ingredients

1 Kampung Chicken
2 stalks of spring onion (shredded)
2 stalks of coriander (chinese parsley) for garnishing
3 shallots (chopped)
1 piece of ginger (about 1 1/2 inches, shredded)
1 tsp of Shao Hsing Hua Tiao Chiew (chinese cooking wine, optional)
1/4 of water
Sugar to taste

Seasonings

2 1/2 tbsp of salt
3 tbsp of sesame oil


Method

1. Rinse the kampung chicken and pat dry with paper towels.
2. Heat up wok/pan and put in the 2 tbsp of sesame oil and the 2 tbsp of salt. Fry until fragrant and turn off the fire.
3. Use this to smear all over the chicken and leave it to marinade in to fridge for at least 2 hours.
4. After 2 hours, remove the chicken from the fridge and put it into a steamer and steam for at least 25 minutes (or until cooked).
5. Once the chicken is cooked, remove from the hot steamer and set aside. When the chicken is cool enough to be touched, chop the chicken into chunks. (note..I didn't do that as I am not a great chicken chopper .. bound to get uneven pieces..so my chicken was intact)
   
6. Heat up wok and put in the chopped shallots, shredded ginger and shredded spring onions.
7. Fry until they become fragrant. Add the cooking wine but this is optional.
8. Add in the water and bring to a boil.
   
9. Add a bit of sugar for taste. There is no need to add anymore salt as the chicken should have enough salt on it.
10. Pour this hot sauce onto the chicken and serve.

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Steamed Prawns in Ginger

I know that when one is in a rush, the easiest and fastest food to dish up for a meal is anything steamed. Luckily I bought some large white prawns last week and kept it in the freezer because the price difference for these prawns was up almost RM2 per 100gm.

This is a highly simple dish and quite yummy, especially if you like prawns. The prawns has to be really fresh as for all steamed dishes. However, I was quite surprised that freezing the prawns didn't not alter the freshness of the prawns (luckily).

Whilst the prawns(6 large ones) were defrosting naturally, i got the following stuff for the sauce;

2 inches of young ginger *
4 cloves of garlic *
1 tbsp of light soya souce
1 tsp of Shao Hsing Hua Tiao Chiew (chinese cooking wine, optional)
1/2 tsp of sesame seed oil
salt and sugar taste
chinese parsley for garnishing

* chopped/blended

Pour all the sauce onto the defrosted prawns and put in a steamer for about 15 to 20mins, depending to intensity of the steamer. I noticed that electric steamers generate more heat then gas. Once done, remove from the steamer and garnish with some chinese parsley

The entire cooking time can be as short at 25mins, if your prawns are not frozen stiff. A quick and yummy dish for lunch or dinner.

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A Quick Curry Chicken Recipe

Do you know the best type of food to eat when it is raining? Curry. Absolutely yummy. I love curry chicken with rice and bread. As it has been raining quite a fair bit the whole of last week, I decided to try my hand in cooking curry chicken. Called mum yesterday morning and she was rattling her recipe as usual with a lot of dashes and pinches of stuff...sigh.. and me, the "starter" cook was totally lost after the 3rd ingredient.

So, what to do? Went over to the supermarket, picked up some serai (lemongrass), some pandan leaves for the rice, 2 bags of coconut milk, some curry leaves, a chicken, some potatoes and going over to the spices section, found this beauty.


Rushed home and first things first, washed 3 cups of long grain rice and soaked them in water whilst I started preparing the curry chicken. Watched an auntie on AFC channel say that if you soak the long grain rice in water before actually cooking it, it will turn out much better. I reckon better meant you could actually see each grain of rice once cooked.


For the curry, the packet of spices Instant Chicken Curry Sauce listed in its ingredients Palm Oil, chilli, lemongrass, onion, spices, ginger, sugar and salt. But I wanted my curry to be a little bit more pungent, so, I added some chopped garlic, shallots and ginger, 2 more stalks of lemongrass and 2 sprigs of curry leaves, and I was ready to cook the curry.

But before that, I drained the rice, put it in the rice cooker, added 220ml of coconut milk, another 2 1/2 cups of water, a pinch of salt and the pandan leaves. This will take care of its self and when the rice is cooked, just fluff it up and let it stay warm in the rice cooker.

Before I started with the curry chicken proper, I heated up 2 tablespoons of oil and fried the potato chunks first. This is to cook the potatoes a bit hence keeping the potatoes intact later when it is cooking in the curry. When we don't do this, the potatoes can turn mushy (so advised my mum).

Coming back to the curry chicken, heated about 2 tablespoons of oil, put in firstly the chopped garlic, shallots and ginger. When it turns aromatic, empty the packet Instant Chicken Curry Sauce in. Added 220ml of thick coconut milk and stir well. Then add in the chicken pieces and potatoes. Add enough water to cover the chicken and potatoes and cover.



Once the chicken is cooked and the potatoes have soften, add salt and sugar to taste. Dish up and eat with the rice or bread. Sadly, it didn't rain last evening...so, I was really building up a sweat whilst eating this spicy concoction... haha..more enjoyable sweating this way then on a treadmill :D

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Home cooked Meals at Mum's

I love eating mum's cooking as the food is simple, nice and yummy. This week, she asked me what I would like to eat... wow, that is like being given a blank cheque. So, I rattled on about 4 to 5 types of my favorite home cooked dishes and she cooked most of all those I listed. There were 5 adults (inclusive of the maid) and 2 kids for dinner that evening and we all polished off all the food.

This is french beans fried with choy poh , dried tofo and chilli. Dice all ingredients before hand. Heat up work, fry some chopped shallots until aromatic. Dunk in all the diced ingredients. Add a little salt and sugar to taste. Serve.

Meat parcels/pockets (tan kok). A little bit more interesting to do. Will post some photos and ingredients later as I tried this for yesterday's dinner.

Steamed eggs for the kiddos. Easy peasy. The recipe can also be gotten from Lily's Wai Sek Hong's blog

Stewed pork.. this is really my all time favorite. All it takes is some pork belly, soya sauce both light and thick, salt and sugar. And there you have it :)

Simple fried fish. The hardest part to frying fish is one, making sure the oil doesn't get you and two, the skin of the fish stays on the fish, and not on the pan/wok.

Yummy!

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Mum's Recipe: Steam Pomfret (Ikan Bawal)

This is about the simplest dish to cook but because it has to be eaten when the fish is just taken out of the steamer, mum will only cook this dish when she is sure that the family will turn up for dinner on time. Over steaming will make the fish texture turn "rough". Fish must not only be fresh, but also taste fresh (i.e. the flesh must be smooth and soft). We normally have this dish during Chinese New Year's reunion dinners in the past but since my dad passed on, we have decided to have our reunion dinners at restaurants, just to safe mum from all that effort having to go to the market and cooking for us.

I did this one time and following closely to mum's instructions, I must say it turned out alright.

Ingredients

1 pomfret 500g - 800g (I managed to get a bawal emas from Carrefour)
2 inches of young ginger (shredded)
20 pieces of wolfberries
2 stalks of spring onions or chinese parsley

2 tbsp of light soya sauce *
1 tbsp of oyster sauce*
1 tsp of sesame oil*
1 tsp of hua diao wine*

* seasonings for the fish

Method

Clean fish of all innards and cut slits onto the body of the fish
Prepare the steamer or wok, ready for steaming
Place the fish on a plate and cover it with the wolfberries and shredded ginger
Once the water is boiling in the steamer, place the fish in the steamer and steam it for about 15 minutes (fish is cooked when the eyes popped)
Remove it from the steamer and pour in the seasonings*
Sprinkle with spring onions or chinese parsley

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