u m a m i

Facebook recipe helper

When my helper joined our household, she did not know how to cook. Not even how to fry an egg, or boil up some pasta. I taught her the basics, and over time, we delegated the meal preparation tasks to her. She shops for the ingredients, and plans our meals. Lately, we have been using social media to broaden our repertoire. One of the best resources are the countless video recips we can find in Youtube and Facebook. She made this delicious Chinese style glazed pork belly after I shared the link to her Facebook page. She will probably adjust the recipe as she makes it a few more times, until we customise it to our family preference. 

 Served with salad, sauteed greens and steamed corn. 5 types of fruits and vegetables in a meal. 

Cucur Udang

 

Last weekend I hosted a Tupperware party. It was my first time, yet there was a strong feeling of deja-vu, because I remember attending such parties when I was a child. The best ones involved lots of layered multi-coloured jellies and fluorescent popsicles made with Tang and Ribena.

Our palates though, has since outgrown such innocent treats, something else is called for. I made some vanilla cupcakes with peanut butter frosting, those went down well with the adults and  children alike. For something savory, I turned to my helper. She suggested cucur udang, bite-sized prawn and vegetable fritters. It was too delicious, and were all too quickly eaten up. Here's how to do it. 

Ingredients: 3 types of vegetables, prawns de-shelled, cleaned and cut up into 2-3 pieces, tempura flour, 1 egg, salt, pepper and red chilli powder. Choose vegetables that would retain crispness  but not leach water when cooked e.g. french beans, cabbage, carrots.

Grate the carrots and cabbage, and cut the beans into little discs.

Season the prawns.

Toss the vegetables to mix, and season with chilli pepper, salt and pepper to taste.

Break the egg into the vegetable mix and stir it in.

Add the tempura flour. When I asked her, "how much?" She replied, "until it becomes sticky." Start with 3 heaped tablespoons and mix, until the vegetables are just about held together. She used about 5 tablespoons in the end, and did not need to add any water to loosen the mix.

The batter should look like coleslaw. Add the prawns last. Use hands to shape each fritter, ensuring that each piece has at least a good-sized piece of juicy, succulent prawns. Deep fry, drain and serve. Test the first piece to ensure correct seasoning, batter thickness etc. Can be held in a 50 C oven for a couple of hours before serving.

 

Boeuf Bourguignon

Two Sundays ago, we had a small birthday celebration for V. Just family and some friends. On the morning itself I woke up in a bit of a panic,counting off all the tasks still left undone- including making fish fingers from scratch- and for a minute, I did regret not calling in the caterers.  Too late for that though, and at least we had a big pot of boeuf bourguignon sitting in the fridge. Which I had cooked with husband, the day before.

Actually, boeuf bourguignon has always been husband's specialty dish, he makes it about 3-4 times a year or for parties, and it is about the only beef dish we eat at home. He uses a recipe from a thick book with yellowing pages. I had never made boeuf bourguignon from this recipe before, so was curious to see it. First printed in 1976, the recipe pages are preceded by sections on seasonal produce, refridgeration, nutritional information and pictures of cows and lambs with the relevant cuts of meats. Recipes are charmingly old fashioned and surprisingly brief yet instructive, with cute icons to indicate if they are economical or expensive, easy or hard, and even if they are suitable for parties, prep and cooking time, plus caloric count. Caloric counts were big in the eighties, seem so quaint now.

Boeuf bourguigon comes in at 740 calories, I believe this is equivalent to a plate of char kway teow. The reason became clear when I read the ingredient list. 200g of lard and 100g of butter to 1.6kg of beef!  I always have butter in the freezer but no way was I using so much of my precious stash, and in the end we got away with using a good glug of canola oil and about 30g of butter for 3 kgs of beef (combination of stewing beef and shin, from Huber's Butchery). He pinched half the bacon that I bought for another dish I was making, forcing me to supplement that dish with ham.. but that is another story.

Other ingredients were small onions, carrots, and mushrooms. We were supposed to make a bouquet garni of mixed herbs, but I only put in the thyme during the cooking and sprinkled chopped parsley just before serving. The beef was marinated in a whole bottle of good red wine; the author recommended adding the carrots and onions into the bowl as well, but I decided against it as I didn't see the point.

First thing to do was to brown the bacon and render the fat out in the mixture of oil and butter. The crisped bacon pieces were scooped out, and then each piece of meat was seared individually. There was a crazy amount of oil spitting and spluttering since the meat was scooped out from the wine bath before touching hot fat, so I wore gloves to do the job.

The onions were next, they got tossed in the fat briefly while I scraped the bottom of the pot of as much of the fond (browned bits) as possible. The beef went back into the pot, and was sprinkled with 4 tablespoons of flour (recipe called for 8, but we preferred a thinner gravy) then we poured  the wine plus enough water to cover most of the meat, and the bunch of thyme jammed into the middle of the pot. Brought to boil, then lowered heat and simmered for 3-4 hours on low heat. Carrots in for another 45 mins, followed by mushrooms for 30 mins. At this stage it can be served, we kept it overnight which improved the flavour further. 

There is no picture of the finished dish as I was too busy and distracted. Everyone loved it, even the leftovers were packed as takeaway for someone's supper. The meat was tender, the vegetables still whole and succulent, and the gravy very flavourful without being greasy. All in, a reliable crowd-pleaser in any cook's repertoire.The French would serve it with boiled potatoes or tagliatelle pasta, but Asian palates would prefer to accompany with some steamed white rice.

 

Sambal ikan bilis- so hot your ears will twitch!

I mentioned this dish a long time ago but these past few months, readers of my microblog and twitter  would have noticed how often sambal ikan bilis crops up in our meals. Last December my brother brought a batch over when he visited and I kept them in little packets in the freezer, they came in very handy for quick meals or whenever we wanted something very intensely spicy, savoury and sweet in a jiffy.

During my trip home in February, I finally had a chance to find out the recipe and watch my mother make it. My mother said also that she used the same sambal base to glaze fried chicken wings in a dish that my fourth sister named "the ear-twitching spicy chicken", because every time she ate it, the heat made her ears go all red and tingling.

The ikan bilis is important. Very fresh ones from a wholesaler whose turnover is fast, bring them home and pick off the heads and gut them. Nowadays it is possible to buy them already cleaned. Mother likes to rinse them briefly to render some saltiness out.

This is batch one. Ready for frying.

Fry the ikan bilis in small batches. Drain. Set aside. Repeat for batch 2. She did this in the kitchen at the back of the house, the smell of crisping fish hung in the still and humid air, driving the cats insane.

The other ingredients are onions, gula melaka and ground chilli. Dried chilli ground with a little water to make a wet paste, in this case it was slightly too wet. The sweetening ingredient is gula melaka, the local palm sugar lends a gentle caramel sweetness to offset the intense heat. The sugar should have been chopped up finer too, but she didn't remember to supervise the kitchen helper. Quantities unspecified, as Mother says, "it depends on how hot you like it".

At this stage, the ikan bilis would make a lovely snack with drinks, but I resisted from scoffing the lot.

The wok was cleaned and filled with a new batch of cooking oil. It is heated gently then she poured in a scary amount of the chilli paste.

The chilli is cooked slowly over a low fire, it got all bubbly and splutteringly hot so Mother put a plastic bag over her hand for protection. Excess oil was ladled out.

The sambal lava, after cooking for about 15 minutes and emanating pungent fumes, was then ready for coating the ikan bilis. Batch 1 went in, followed by the gula melaka. Stir to coat, breaking up any unsuitably large sugar pieces.
 

Batch 2 of ikan bilis went in. Mixed and stirred.
 

The onions go in last, and are cooked very briefly, just enough to soften them slightly yet retain a bit of crunch.
 

Ta-da! The sambal ikan bilis cooling on a large pan. It was then time for Mother & I to sit down and pack into little packets, ready for my plane journey the day after.

Heong Kee Seafood

I know this blog has been quiet. Thank you for coming back, I do still have goodies to share, it's just that there are so many other distractions in my life right now.

Coming up, a family recipe for my favourite sambal ikan bilis, and a wonderful trip to the Alsace region. Meanwhile, the next time you go to Selayang, you could do worse than head for this gem of a place.

My third sister has a friend, he's known to us as The Collagen Man because he runs a business selling collagen-based beauty supplements derived from seafood. Collagen Man's skin is radiant with a youthful firmness that Nicole Kidman would envy, and he attributes it to a collagen-rich diet. One really hot afternoon in February, he treated us to a seafood lunch.

Restoran Heong Kee Seafood is located about 45 mins away from KL city centre, near the Selayang Wholesale Market. It is the preferred meeting place for the seafood suppliers and dealers of the wholesale market; so how does it pass muster for this group of highly discerning customers?

To start, the menu is heavy on fish and other seafoods, all of tip top freshness. The cooking is deft and light. River fish tail steamed and doused in soy sauce was excellent, the flesh firm and silky with no discernible muddiness. The head was braised with bean paste sauce and was just as delicious.
 

Prawns steamed in eggwhite was another crowd pleaser, especially with the children.

 

Teochew fish porridge was delicious too. Rice cooked till broken but not too soft, with thin flavourful slivers of fish floating in a rich and clear fish-stock was very refreshing on a hot day.

There were other dishes, such as the requisite plate of sauteed green vegetables but the highlight though, was a collagen-packed dish of braised fish jaw and fish-maws. Random cubes of bamboo shoots provided contrast against the slight crunch of the fish maws and the slippery smoothness of fish cartilage and gelatin, all bathed in a really umami-rich sauce. We picked the bones clean, and licked our lips still sticky from all that natural glue. Yum yum!

Just don't tell Nicole Kidman the address...

Restoran Heong Kee Seafood

33,Jalan Sj 1,Taman Selayang Jaya, Batu Caves 52100

T: (60)3 61371098

Shallots, chorizo & gorgonzola pasta-in-a-pan

I don't own any pasta cookbooks but if I do this would be a standby recipe because it is easy, fast and versatile not to mention very tasty. It doesn't contain much meat but would satisfy meat lovers, children would not know that they are eating a bunch of vegetables and  few adults would not succumb to the "sauce" which is essentially melted gorgonzola. If you stick to using hard vegetables (vs 'wet' ones like chinese cabbages or leafy greens that leach water upon cooking) you can make extra and it'll keep well for lunch the day after.

The base is made up of roasted vegetables and some tasty meat. Here I used a packet of chorizo sausagemeat which I bought from Bellota Bellota but I've had really good results with Italian sausages and fresh sausages from my market charcuterie.

I love roasting vegetables like leeks, onions, shallots, and going down the bitter and anise flavour profile, fennel, endives and even brussels sprouts. For a different effect, roast eggplants and zucchinis as I did when these vegetables were abundant in late summer. Equally happy to go into the mix are carrots, green beans and broccoli. On this occasion I used leeks and some leftover shallots, and broccolli which I could have roasted but didn't because I did not want to crowd the roasting pan. 

Try to time the pasta to finish cooking at the same time as the vegetables. All ingredients except the cheese should be hot at the moment of mixing otherwise the dish would cool too quickly. I reserved some pasta cooking liquid just in case the pasta sticked, but it was not really necessary.

Ingredients

Pasta

2 leeks, cleaned, sliced in diagonal chunks

2 shallots, quartered

1 cup chorizo sausagemeat

1/2 head broccolli, cut into florets

1 slab gorgonzola, cut into small chunks

1. Roast shallots and leeks at 190C (200C if not using convention oven) for 30 minutes then add chorizo and continue to cook until vegetables are soft.

2. In meantime, boil broccoli in oiled and salted water until tender. Set aside. Just before mixing reheat in a microwave or plunge into boiling water for 1 minute.

3. Cook pasta in oiled, salted, boiling water until done. Drain.

4. Take leeks out of the oven, quickly put pasta, broccoli and cheese into the pan and stir briefly. Serve.

 

Ginger-Assam Ducky Stew

I probably shocked my friend Florence once by telling her I hate to handle raw meat, especially chicken. It's not difficult to chop up a chicken but I would prefer not to do it because my cleaver cannot cut cleanly through the bone. Fortunately my regular vollailer, or poultry stall at the market, understand what I want. The owner and his son, as well as some of their more experienced workers, can strip a chicken from its bony skeleton, although this is a pretty unusual request because most French people nowadays don't know what to do with the carcass. They will obligingly cut up a whole chicken, or even chicken or duck thighs, into small pieces that is typically called for in Asian dishes. My mother would probably not approve but I really appreciate the convenience, it cuts down a lot of prep and washing-up time.

So, three juicy duck legs all cut up ready for the pot; what does one do with them? A stew, perfect for the cold weather. In any case, I always make some sort of a stew or braise once a week; it gives the impression that I am dedicated housewife and fills the apartment with tantalising smells.

I thought of the block of assam, or tamarind paste, languishing away on the bottom of my fridge; it would give a mellow sourness which is great for such a fatty meat. Rounded off with sweetness from dark sugar, kicap manis (sweet Indonesian soya sauce) and carrots. I used a cube of the dark ginger sugar that Andrew gave me last year- the mahjong tile-sized cube has fresh ginger preserved in between sticky black pressed sugar, the ginger added a welcome warmth. When my stash is used up I will probably substitute with fresh ginger and unprocessed soft brown sugar or even palm sugar.

The result was gratifying, neither an adobo nor an itek sio, but something in between, with lots of velvety soupy sauce that husband gleefully poured over his steamed rice. The child liked it too, the ginger spiciness not too overwhelming for her, in any case she was distracted by the tender duck meat and carrots cooked to an almost candylike state. 

3 duck legs, cut into small pieces, bone in. Peel off/remove as much fat and skin as possible.

2 carrots, peeled, cut into chunks

Flavouring

4 tbsp assam paste, made into slurry with 6 tbsp hot water, strained to discard seeds. 

2 tbsp kicap manis 

2 tbsp dark soya sauce

2 tsp Worcestershire sauce (optional)

1 cube ginger sugar (or 1 tbsp soft brown sugar and a thumb-sized piece of ginger smashed up)

Black pepper (optional)

1. Put duck pieces into a pot. Add cold water to cover the duck. Bring to boil and discard the water, along with the scum that would have risen to the top.

2. Return duck to pot. This time, with just enough water to cover 70% of the duck.

3. Add all the flavouring ingredients. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a slow simmer. Let it cook, covered but allowing a little steam to escape, for 30 minutes.

4. Carrots go in and the stew cooks a further 45 minutes. Taste again and adjust seasoning. Remove surface oil if there is a lot of it. If is not sour enough, or is too sweet, finish with some lime juice or a few dashes of good vinegar.

Hey Presto Pesto

Ages and ages ago I saw on BBC TV how pesto is made. It involved  a marble mortar and pestle and much slow grinding of pine nuts and dribblings of olive oil, you know, the old mama cucina way, with sun dappled Tuscany mountain view a requisite backdrop. That kind of intimidated me and thereafter I only ever ordered pasta with pesto sauce in restaurants. Eventually I stopped eating pesto altogether, because restaurant versions became watered down or weirder e.g. crusted on salmon steaks, and it  kind of fell out of fashion. Readily available commercial versions didn't help either, most are too salty or taste like crushed up grass.

Fast forward to May 2009. I went to BHV and was so seduced by the Magimix demo (grated carrots!, coleslaw!, aioili! the chef magicked them all up on the spot) that I bought one on the spot. There was a recipe for pesto in the manual, and looking around my pantry and fridge I did have all the ingredients on hand. Chunks of 26 month old organic parmesan, fresh basil, pinenuts sitting in the fridge waiting for this very fate ( I toasted them slightly but it was quite a redundant move), couple of cloves of garlic, olive oil and salt. As simple as that. I think the proportions was something like 2 cloves garlic: 200g nuts: 200g cheese: 1 bunch of basil.

All the dry ingredients together with half the basil leaves were pulsed with a little olive oil and salt until roughly chopped, then the rest of the basil went in and the button pressed to "blend". Olive oil was dribbled in until the pesto became creamy, et voila, we had pesto. The kid licked the spoon and pronounced it yummy. I thought we would smear it on toast but we ended up eating it neat as it was so delicious.

I saved some to dress some linguini the next day, mamma mia it was a good lunch.

Really Old-School Char Beehoon

Here we have a plate of Char Beehoon (Chow Mai Fun in Cantonese, Cao Mi Fen in Mandarin). It is one of my favourite dishes, this, together with fried rice, was the dish I requested without fail every time I came home for term breaks and holidays. Yet I hardly ever make it myself because I always make a mess of it, ending up with a sorry pile of broken rice noodles each time. 

Knowing how much I like this dish, Chan-Che - who is now cooking for our family again- made it for me a few days before I left KL. Watching her cook was as ever, a pleasure and a learning experience at the same time. She does things the old fashioned way, methodically, patiently taking the time to do each step properly.

When I entered the kitchen, she was already frying up lard in some cooking oil. The lard renders more fat into the oil and turns into little nuggets of crispy porky bits.

Meanwhile, on the chopping board, she got ready to slice carrots and mince some garlic. There were also some shallots nearby, to be peeled and sliced in 2-3 mm semi-circles. I looked around and noticed the other ingredients.

Chinese cabbage, rinsed and sliced.

A stack of of omelettes cooked earlier. It would be sliced into thin strips.

A colander of beehoon, soaked in hot water and then rinsed and drained, ready for cooking.

The crispy lard pieces are set aside.

She stir-fried the shallots first, qickly cooking them until they lose their bite and yet were still sweet and crispy.

The shallots set aside, the wok was readied for sauteing some minced garlic. Garlic sticks easily, it's important to have a low fire and enough oil in the wok.

When the garlic released its aroma and turns to a shade of pale gold, the carrots were stirred in and tossed.

Followed by the cabbage. 

 

The cabbage and carrot are cooked till soft but not mushy.

In the now-empty wok, she heated some oil to saute some more garlic.

From the refridgerator, she took out a bowl of sliced pork which she had marinated with some soy sauce and pepper and cooked that with the garlic.

Water was added to deglaze the wok and make a simple meat gravy that will give tonnes of flavour to the noodles.

The noodles went in. This is a crucial step. She handled the noodles real gently, hardly stirring them, instead, she  used a pair of chopsticks to loosen the strands so they can absorb the gravy

More chopstick action when the cooked cabbage and carrots were returned to the wok.

Shallots went in right at the end.

My plate of noodles, topped with omelet strips and crispy lard bits, with some fresh cut chillies on the side. Bliss.

She sometimes add dark soy sauce which would turn the noodles a beautiful brown colour and add a tinge of caramel saltiness to the dish, but not that day because my nephew was on a restricted diet. My mother favours a more adult version which I love too, where the noodles are cooked till very dry, almost the texture of the original uncooked state. I like very much also the street version, usually nothing more than noodles, dark soy sauce, MSG and beansprouts. I like my Char Beehoon with fried shallots toppings, or with a fiery sambal belacan accompaniment. I like them fried with sardines, with tinned pork trotters, with seafood, with pickled vegetables, heck I've never not like any that came my way.

This version though, is the one I come back to often. It's homely and familiar, and delicious too. 

Pilates congee

I don't know what people think about when they're doing their  Pilates. My thoughts are always on food, specifically, lunch; as my classes end at 11 am this leaves about 1 hour to shop for something, return to the apartment to finish housework left over from the morning rush, and serve my tired and very hungry body some food as soon as possible.

It was during one of those sessions that I built up this recipe in my head. Hot watery congee, just the thing to go with fu-yu, the fermented bean curd's assertive umami flavours mellowed by the warmth and velvety texture of the porridge. Eggs and frozen vegetables for added nutrition. On the way home I stopped by the supermarket for milk and juice and somehow a bag of Knacki hotdogs found its way into the shopping basket. 

It was quick to put together with minimal prep work, and the result was very tasty yet  a a little trashy on account of the hot dog. Fresh meat would balance the dish, but that would not be in the same spirit. I used organic eggs and peas because the flavours are better,  but that belief may be psychological.

Serves one.

1/4-1/2 cup rice depending on how thick you like your congee

1/4 cup frozen vegetables e.g. corn and peas 

1 egg

1- 1.5 cube fu-yu (normal or chilli version)

2 hotdogs

1. Put washed rice and about 2 bowls of water - use the bowl you're going to serve the congee in- to boil. A few drops of vegetable oil in the congee will give the congee a smooth finish. Let it bubble and simmer at medium heat.

2. Dump frozen vegetables in when rice grains swell up. In the meantime, slice hotdogs, I used scissors which means you don't need to take out the chopping board.

3. When rice is soft and disintegrated and the liquid has reduced in half, the congee is 95% done. Crack an egg into a bowl and slowly drizzle it into the pot so the egg cooks in ribbon-like strands. Stir in the hotdog and fu-yu, turn off the heat and voila, lunch is ready.