FISH BALLS

Fish balls have always intrigued me. I have always been skeptical of recipes which tell you to dump fish meat into a food processor and then to shape the processed paste into balls. And you're supposed to get fish balls.

Simply because I've heard stories and seen recipes where fish meat is chopped up on a board with a mean looking cleaver until it becomes mush, then pounded in a pestle and mortar and then given a good beating by a pair of biceps. All the rigmarole one has to go through for bouncy, springy fish balls that deliver you a good bite.

Then I think of commercially made fish balls and I wonder at all those biceps hard at work in the din of the factory? The sweat of highly able-armed persons mixed with grunts, thin, white cotton T-shirts clinging to bodies and sucking up the sweat? And then those wet and glistening arms dripping with sweat? The whole place dimly lit in a far flung humid and tropical corner of nowhere? Add mosquito infested for some drama. And a murderer skulking by? Gosh. It must be quite a sight. If indeed that is how they make fish balls for commerce.

But I chose to brush those stories off as half truths since I was living in the 21st century. So I made fish balls. In my kitchen. In my food processor. Without biceps. No sweat.


I managed to make fish balls. Clean, full-flavoured and with enough bite to make me kind of happy. I squeezed one between my thumb and forefinger as I've seen some people do as a test for bounciness. It was there. Kind of. I bounced one into a bowl and it jumped right out. Need I say more?

It was bouncy enough for me. And had enough of a bite as far as I was concerned. And all without the lye water.That dreaded toxic substance used in commercial fish balls to add that ever sought after bounce and bite.

Terri from hunger hunger, my invaluable repository for Chinese cooking, guided me along. Bounciness, she says, is all in the fish, the whole fish and nothing but the fish. No lye water needed if you use the right kind of fish. And she named a few, well 3 to be precise.

1. The spotted mackeral
2. 'Tofu' fish with the yellow tail and
3. Yellow tail barracuda

The 'tofu' fish Terri says makes the smoothest and sweetest fish balls. Terri says she can never make fish balls as good as her maid, Vera, does. She wished me luck. I needed it.

So I went fishing and I got 3 'tofu' fish with yellow tails at the night market, all for 11 ringgit. Cheap! Cheap?

I had the surprised fish monger fillet them for me and all I did when I went home was to slice the fillet down the middle and sliced off the tiny spikes of bones that are embedded and that run down the middle. Then I scraped the flesh off the skin with a metal spoon. Easy. I made sure I cleaned the scales off thoroughly first of course.

A mackeral would have been a lot easier to deal with, I would imagine, but it would have cost me much more.

So that's the story of how I made fish balls. And from now on I hope to live happily ever after in my fish bowl...uhm....fish ball world.


The recipe......................uh oh... my son swallowed up half the fish balls before I could count them. But I think I got between 30 and 35 fish balls. It all depends on how small or big you make them of course.

The recipe.......................


300 gm fish meat of one of the 3 fish mentioned above
2 T ice cold water
1tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp oil
1 tsp cornflour

Place fish meat in a food processor and start to whizz.When the meat becomes a paste add in 1 tablespoon of cold water, reserving the other tablespoon in a bowl. Continue to process until the meat is a fine and smooth paste. Remove from the machine and place the fish paste in a medium bowl.

In the bowl with water add in the rest of the ingredients and stir to combine. Pour this mixture into the fish paste and using a fork stir vigorously until the two combine and come together into a firm and shiny mass.

Place in the freezer for about 10 or 15 minutes.

Using 2 teaspoons pick up a blob of the paste and shape by moving the blob from one teaspoon to the other until it is compact and smooth. (you could grab a whole mass of the paste in the palm of your hand, make a fist, squeeze and release a blob through your thumb and forefinger and scoop off the blob with a spoon).

Place the shaped fish balls in a bowl of water and ice or just on a medium stainless steel tray in one layer. Carry on until the paste is finished. If you used iced water you can skip the 'place in the freezer for 15 minutes'. Place in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Take out the raw fish balls and drop them in one at a time until the bottom of the pot is covered with a layer of fish balls. Do not let water to boil vigorously....only a gentle simmer until the balls float to the surface by which time you can scoop them of with a spider web. Do the same for the rest of the raw fish balls.

Done. Let cool. Use for a noodle soup like here or in stir fried noodles, rice etc.

PRAWN AND FISHBALL RICE VERMICELLI SOUP

Nothing like a good wholesome chicken stock to make a good soup with. So with 3 chicken carcasses that I roasted in the oven until they browned, 1 large onion, 1 head of garlic, a carrot and 2 celery stalks cut into chunks, some water and a large pot I came up with about 5 cups of lovely golden clear broth that was full of flavour.

Then I made this simple noodle soup the next day.


I might also mention that I made the fish balls too but since I avoided using lye water as one of the ingredients, because lye water is toxic, my fish balls, although full of flavour, were lacking in the bounce department. But it didn't matter to me as long as everything was homemade and safe. And good.


Making up the soup the next day was a breeze because there cannot be anything easier than making a clear noodle soup. It is simple, pure and refreshing yet so full of flavour.


The recipe...............for 2 or 3 persons.

Enough rice vermicelli for 2 or 3 people, soaked in just boiled water until softened and drained in a colander. Keep aside.

2 garlic cloves
2 spring onions, white part sliced
3 cups of good chicken stock, preferably homemade
6 or 7 large prawns
10 or 12 fishballs
some bak choy, washed and seperated
2 T cooking oil
a dash of soy sauce
salt and pepper

Heat up the oil in a medium pot. Saute the garlic and spring onions until fragrant and soft. Add the prawns and fish balls and stir to cook through. It will probably take about 2 to 3 minutes. Add in hot stock and bring the soup to a boil and then simmer . Add the bak choy and simmer only until the bak choy is a lovely bright green. Taste for seasoning and adjust if neccesary. Done.

Serve : Put a serving of the rice noodles in individual bowls and por the hot soup over it to cover the noodles. Top with prawns and fish balls and a few stalks of bak choy in each bowl.

CREAMY MUSHROOM SOUP

I can't quite decide whether I am a cheerful pessimist or a melancholy optimist.

That is how I feel when I make mushroom soup. When satisfaction does not come immediately to my eyes and must be sought by pondering, when the good of the food does not strike me as I'm cooking it or when I'm done cooking it, I think I am a melancholy optimist.


But when I taste a spoonful and it wows me, and I know I have to make it appeal to our sense of sight as well, so that judgment will be reserved, so that our immediate instinct would be to scoop a little to our lips inspite of it being such a drab and dull looking soup. Then, I think, I am a cheerful pessimist.


So perhaps I am both. Both a pessimist and an optimist when I make mushroom soup. Let's face it...it looks so dull and quite unappetizing. But tastes so good. So I'll make it and then I'll plate it in the most opposite manner. Simply because they need each other. Balance after all is key. Wouldn't you agree? ;)


The recipe.............................for 4 - 6 persons.

I did not measure the liquid amounts exactly but a creamy mushroom soup is so easy that if you find it too thin add a little more flour or if you find it too thick add a little more stock. But it should be nice and creamy.


I used a mixture of olive oil and butter because the little door to my conscience inside of my head was opening and closing, opening and closing and it finally opened up completely and I felt this rush of guilt about using too much butter with the heavy cream. Sigh.


1/4 cup olive oil
2 T butter

3 cups slice shitake mushrooms or a mixture of shitake and portabello/buttons
2 shallots ,chopped
4 T plain flour
3 cups chicken broth or stock or a stock cube dissolved in water ( I used stock that I made myself)
1 1/4 cups double cream
salt and pepper
some chopped chives (western chives)

Warm the olive oil and melt the butter in a pan. When just hot enough add the shallots and mushrooms and saute until soft.

Add in the flour and stir in. It will become a thickish mixture. Add in the 3 cups of stock or broth.Stir well. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat. Add the cream and stir on low heat. Do not allow to boil. Add salt and pepper and some chopped chives for flavour.

The mixture will be slightly on the thin side.

Take out half the mixture with a ladle and pour into a blender and swish until the mushrooms are one with the liquid. Pour teh blended soup back into the pot and stir to recombine. You should have a nice creamier soup.

Garnish. Plate optimistically. Serve.

CHEESY GARLIC BREAD

I have actually made 3 trays of this bread in the past 24 hours, between yesterday and today, for dinner/snack, for lunch and now for snacking again (with 4 resident and constantly starving men hovering in the home making snacks can be quite an obsession).

I now, however, find myself quite enjoying bread making. It isn't as tiring as I always think it is and there is a certain satisfaction that the kneading, the waiting and the rising of the dough gives that I cannot get out of baking cakes and cookies or from cooking stir fries or sauteeing sambals. Plus it is not as unhealthy either so its easy on my conscience. I know that I'm not stuffing the people I love with too much fat or oils or sugar whilst filling them up.

I would describe this bread as a very full, compact and densely-soft pillow, crowned with a garlicky and cheesy crust.

It is not a light fluffy bread like the Yoghurt buns I made before but is instead a perfect bread to dunk chunks of into a piping hot, creamy soup or into a hot and spicy curry sauce (as Malaysians would) for breakfast or for salads and barbecues because of its denseness and crusty top or just for snacking on.

It is the best garlic bread I have made so far only this time it's with a cheese topping and it is as rustic as I can ever imagine garlic bread to be.


With bits of thyme sprinkled on the top it gets a lovely extra edge of flavour. This is a recipe from the Good Food magazine that I had bought a backdated issue of at half the price.

Here's the recipe.................


500 gm bread flour
7 gm dry instant yeast (I used about 2 tsp)
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp honey
2 garlic cloves ( I used 5), crushed and chopped
25 gm butter, softened
100 gm cheddar cheese, grated
handful of thyme leaves

Measure the flour, yeast and salt into a large bowl. Mix 300 ml hand hot water with the oil and honey in a jug, then pour into the dry mix, stirring to make a soft dough.

Turn the dough onto the table and knead for 5 minutes until smooth then place in a lightly oiled bowl to rest for 30 minutes or when poked with a finger the indentation stays. This is so that it will be easy to stretch to fit the tin later.

After 30 minutes take it out of the bowl and punch it down to rid of air. Knead 2 or 3 times and then place in a lightly oiled or parchment paper lined swiss roll tin and stretch to fit. You can do this by pushing the dough outwards with your the tips of your fingers from the centre and when it almost fits you can pull the corners to fit the tin snugly.

Mix the soft butter and chopped garlic to a paste and spread over the dough. Grate the cheese over the dough and then sprinkle with thyme.


Bake in a 170 C oven for 30 minutes and the top is a lovely golden brown.



Cut into squares or rectangles and serve with a creamy soup.

CASHEW NUT CHICKEN STIR FRY

Terri don't laugh. This is my attempt at a Chinese stir fry. I love stir fries.... the only downside being I'll be at the dinner table sweating like someone had left a tap running on me head. Terri's the sifu of Chinese cooking and her dishes and her endless treasure box/blog of hints and lectures have always intimidated me. However I didn't think I could go much wrong with a cashew nut chicken stir fry because cashew nuts are so delicious just as they are and oyster sauce is a life saver. Anything with oyster sauce and cashew nuts just has to be good.


The dish is a tad colourful, being me, but pretty pretty tasty especially when I splashed in some zingy fish sauce as well. So maybe it's not exactly Chinese after all....it's a little bit Thai, a little bit Chinese and a little bit me.

Here's the recipe. Serves 1 or 2..........


1 chicken breast, sliced thinly
2 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
1 small green and red pepper, cut into small chunks
a handful of roasted cashew nuts

Season chicken slices with :

1 tsp light soy sauce
dash of white pepper
salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp cooking oil
2-3 drops of sesame seed oil
1-2 tsp cornflour mixed with 2 tsp water

Sauce ingredients :

2 tsp oyster sauce
1/2 tsp fish sauce
43 - 4 Tbsp water
1 tsp cornflour plus 1 tsp water, mixed

Cooking oil

Season chicken pieces with the seasoning ingredients. Mix well and keep aside for about 10 minutes.

Prepare the sauce ingredients in a small bowl. Keep aside.

Heat up a wok. Put about 4 tablespoons of oil in and let that heat up till very hot. Fry the chicken pieces in 2 batches very quickly, about 5-6 seconds until the chicken turns white but no need to worry if it not completely cooked. Lift out and drain them of oil. Keep aside.

Remove excess oil from the wok leaving a tablespoon in. Throw in the garlic and stir it around until it turns soft and fragrant. Pour in the sauce ingredients and stir a little to mix. When sauce begins to bubble throw in the fried chicken pieces and stir quickly for 4 - 5 seconds, add the peppers and stir over very high heat for another minute. Throw in the cashews. Taste and adjust. Serve hot.

CRISPY FRIED FISH WITH SAMBAL AND A GREEN MANGO SALAD

I can think of no other way of preparing these tiny, fresh, slender, skinny, yellow tail scad fish (ikan selar kuning) than to deep fry them to a crisp so their bones become dry and brittle, so you could snap them, savour their sweetness, bite their paper thin crisp gills, their lips, their little tails and devour each whole leaving very little of their remains behind. Like a cat would. It's totally fulfilling and lip smacking satisfying.

Especially if you have hot, steaming white rice, and heady luscious condiments like sambal belacan and a sour spicy green mango salad right next to you. Quite the complete rustic meal. Nothing fancy. The whole meal set covers the 3 food groups. Fried, boiled and raw.



There are usually 2 sizes of this fish sold at the market but for deep frying to a crisp, the 4 1/2 or 5 inch ones are the ones to go for. And if you get the fishmonger to clean them for you preparing them for frying would be a breeze.

The secret or not so secret of frying fish to a crisp would of course be very hot oil, a nice crisp forming batter and patting down the fish with some paper towels before coating and frying them. And don't over crowd the pan or wok either or you'll bring the temperature of the oil down and your fish will not be as crisp as you would like them to be. The tumeric used in this batter is typical of Malay fried foods and it gives off a lovely earthy flavour.

We had a wonderful (ok.... unhealthy) dinner tonight and my daughter who complained recently about having missed most of the foods that I blg about was licking her fingers clean, smacking her lips and she went mmm...

Here's the recipe for the fried fish.............


For the amount of batter in this recipe you would be able to fry about...

8 - 9 small fish, gutted, cleaned and patted dry
3 tablespoons of cornflour
2 tablespoons of tumeric powder
1 tablespoon of salt
2-3 tablespoon of water

Vegetable oil for deep frying

Mix the above ingredients to a thick but slightly loose paste. Drop in the fish that has been patted with kitchen paper towel of excess moisture into the paste/batter. Use a spoon or spatula to mix and coat the fish into the batter.

Heat up a deep wok until hot then pour in enough oil for deep frying and when the oil is very hot drop the fish in a few at a time as long as you don't over crowd the wok. Fry until a golden brown and crisp. Continue with the next batch and drain them on paper towels to rid of excess oil. Serve hot.

Please note that this is not a batter where you dip the fish in and fry them. I t is more of a coating batter where the fish are put into the bowl and mixed aroudn until they are coated. So you will not be getting half a bowl full of liquid batter from this recipe.

Sambal Belacan.........


I inch square piece of dried shrimp paste, roasted in a dry pan
4 large red chillies
a few bird chillies if you like
juice of 2 or 3 kalamansi limes (I didn't have these so I used the bigger limes, which are not as nice, in my opinion)

Pound the chillies quite finely using a little salt as an abrasive in a pestle and mortar (or mortar and pestle, whichever came first). Add the toasted shrimp paste and pound again until you get a nice fiery red and moist paste. Scoop the luscious paste into a small bowl and squeeze lime juice over. Mix with a spoon. It's ready to be served.

Green mango salad.......My MIL's version....


3 mediun sized green mangoes, peeled and shredded or grated coarsely
1 cm x 2cm piece of toasted shrimp paste
2 large red chillies
some bird chillies if you like
salt

A handful of roasted and crushed peanuts (I didn't have this)

Put about a tablespoon of salt in the shredded mangoes and mix them well. keep aside for about 15 minutes to allow the juices from the mango to exude and to reduce the sourness. After 15 minutes use your hand to squeeze teh mango pulp as dry as you can. Then place the shredded mango into a colander and run some water through to rid it of excess salt.

Pound the chillies and shrimp paste in a pestle and mortar until quite fine but not too fine. Mix the paste with the rinsed shredded mangoes well until evenly distributed. Scatter some crushed peanuts over the top and it's ready to be served.

Serve the fried crispy fish with the sambal belacan and teh green mango salad. YUMMEE.

A MALAY BEAN SPROUT SALAD - KERABU TAUGEH

This is a Malay salad recipe that is one of my favourites. I love the combination for the dressing which happens to work superbly as a dressing for a bowl of boiled, fat and juicy cockles as well....absolutely mouth watering. However, if you would like the best of both worlds the combination of cockles and bean sprouts and the dressing makes a fantastic seafood vegetable salad and in my opinion it is salad heaven.

I just can't describe how much I love this dish. Unfortunately I could not get any decent cockles at the wet market today so I had to settle for a just a lovely bean sprout salad.

The dressing is made up of typical South East Asian ingredients. Tamarind juice for the sourness, lime juice for it's tanginess, a pounded golden coconutty paste (kerisik) for body and sweetness and chillies for some spiciness and bite. A totally absorbful, if there is such a word, and clingy dressing. The bean sprouts take in the flavours well and if I had used cockles the dressing would just coat, enter its crevices and cling to those succulent, juicy morsels.


Here's the recipe..........

180 gm of bean sprouts, tailed if you're feeling up to it, washed and drained.
3 limes
1 Tbsp of tamarind paste
2 large red chillies
3 bird chillies (optional)
5-6 shallots, sliced finely
1 cup of freshly grated coconut or 2/3 cup canned dessicated coconut
salt

Place the grated coconut into a small to medium pan and dry fry or roast until it turns a dark golden brown. This takes about 7 to 9 minutes over medium flame. Watch it carefully because the coconut can burn easily and keep stirring to allow the coconut to brown evenly.

While it is still hot or warm pound the roasted/fried grated coconut in a pestle and mortar until it becomes a thick brown paste and the oils exudes. Scrape it up and put it in a medium bowl.

Pound the fresh chillies and bird chilies, if using, until it is quite fine or pasty and throw that into the bowl too. Mix the tamarind paste with 2 tablespoons of water and strain and pour that into the bowl as well. Squeeze the limes, discard the seeds and pour that in as well. Stir the mixture until it is well combined, add salt to taste and adjust sourness with extra lime juice if necessary and sweetness with a tiny sprinkle of sugar if you like. Mix well.

Add the raw bean sprouts, sliced shallots and boiled cockles if using and toss well incorporating the dressing into the vegetables/cockles well. Taste for salt again and adjust. Serve slightly chilled or at room temperature. YUMMMMM.

SRI LANKAN SALAD MOJU

Thank god I have something to blog about. Finally. I was getting a little desperate and was considering taking pictures of my cat.

This is a dish where I had scrutinized the tv, furrowed my eyebrows and pricked my ears up just to get at that little bit of ingredient that I kept missing on AFC because some people were having a cross fire discussion on either side of me, quite loudly, or someone called out for me at that very crucial moment, quite loudly, or the surat khabar lama man (old newspaper collecting man) announced himself, quite loudly.

And what made it totally weird was that it each happened at the exact moment that particular ingredient was being thrown in and mentioned by the Sri Lankan chef while Bobby Chin chatted into his ear, quite loudly, which blurred out the word of the ingredient that he was mentioning anyway.



Finally though after watching the show once again (again) (thank God for reruns) I finally caught the word. And it was just a spoonful of plain old sugar...

Then I became puzzled by the word moju......I just had to know what it meant. This is a brinjal moju, then there is also the fish moju. I googled but I couldn't find the meaning for the word anywhere. Feeling a little frustrated I finally requested my son to enquire the meaning from his Sri Lankan friend and it turns out that moju simply means pickle or something like a pickle. And that makes sense because this dish uses vinegar and is sort of picklish in flavour.



The ingredients that went in made this dish very enticing. There were so many flavours folded in. It has cinnamon, garlic, ginger, a fruit pickle, pepper, vinegar, fried dried anchovies (ikan bilis)and mustard seed paste. The last was a very intriguing ingredient because I have never used pounded mustard seeds before.



Although sauteed mustard seeds taste pleasantly nutty with an almost groundnut flavour, roasted/sauteed and pounded mustard seeds however gave off such an unexpected and astonishing albeit familiar aroma that it took me quite by surprise and it was quite a while before I could place my finger on that very familiar smell. Finally after taking it all in I realized that it had the exact same aroma as dry fried grated coconut which had then been pounded to a paste. Exactly.

I then tasted it and it was simply good. I loved it. I couldn't wait to get to the end of this dish because it looked terribly appetizing and saliva inducing.



So here's the recipe.....

4 small brinjals
3-4 whole green chillies
5-6 shallots peeled and left whole

2 pips garlic, peeled
1 inch ginger, skinned
1/2 inch cinnamon
ground black pepper
1/2 tsp tumeric powder
1 tsp sugar
1 or 2 tbsp of mango chutney (or other fruit chutney)
1 -2 tsp rice vinegar (I used apple cider) or you clould use tamarind juice (yum)
2 tbsp or sauteed mustard seeds pounded to a paste

a handful of dried anchovies fried to a crisp (optional)

Pound garlic, ginger and cinnamon bark in a pestle and mortar using some salt as an abrasive.

In a medium bowl put in the ginger/garlic paste, add tumeric powder, some ground black pepper mango chutney, vinegar and the lovely mustard seed paste. Mix tehm all around and add some pepper or cayenne pepper if you like to spice it up.

Cut the brinjals into thickish strips (very much like chunky fries) and deep fry the brinjals, shallots and whole chillies in hot oild briefly just until the brinjals turn light brown. Drain
of excess oil and put them into the bowl of dressing.Add the fried anchovies and mix them up like you would salad. Adjust flavours by adding a little more salt,vinegar or chutney to your taste. Serve. YUMMM

TORTILLAS PRONOUNCED TORTEEYAS

I am having a serious case of writer's block here and now. So what shall I say? Shall I tell you about tortillas? Or torteeyas. Yes because that's how they are pronounced. Or shall I tell you about what I did today? Shall I tell you about a marriage I just read about? Or shall I tell you about my life? Shall I tell you about my cat or shall I tell you about a philosophical doctrine of happiness and virtue? Tell me. Tell me.

(Cupping my ear and stretching my neck). I don't hear anything. Oh wait a minute did I hear someone say "Tell me about the marriage you just read about."?

Well....ok...but it's a long story. But a great one. And a funny one. And this is where I read it. Take a peek and read it for yourself for it's a long long story. And by the way, this is where the tortilla slash torteeya recipe came from too.

But wait! What about my tortillas slash torteeyas? Wait don't go. Because tortillas slash torteeyas are ssooooo quick and easy to make. It takes about a minute to cook on each side which is way faster than I can get used to saying torteeyas instead of tortillas. And they are really tasty and soft and easy to roll up or fold.


Did you know that fried tortillas...(roll eyes)...torteeyas...become tacos and rolled torteeyas become burittos? uhuh....discovery of the century.... for me..... I'm not very familiar with Mexican food so tortillas were quite foreign to me..... until now that is. Now I love them and I have many plans for them.

They will definitely replace bread (loaves) because they can be fun to eat, rolled up with whatever leftovers are around, they can be toasted to a crisp and dipped in chillie sauce or salsa as a snack, they can be toasted with cheese in the my oven toaster as a skinny pizza, they can be spread with butter, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon and toasted and of course they can be turned into burittos, tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas and fajitas.

But wait a minute..what are all those ohs and ahs? Well, I've been doing some research to clear my head too and these are what I have digested. Tortillas are what you see in the pictures on this post.



Burittos are thin flour tortillas rolled up with a filling of meat, refried beans or mexican rice.

A taco is a tortilla fried to a crisp.

Quesadillas are two tortillas sandwiched with cheese and grilled in a pan.

Enchiladas are corn tortillas rolled around a filling (meat, cheese, beans, vegetables, potatoes etc) and covered with chili pepper sauce.

And fajitas are strips of marinated meat, poultry or vegetables,cooked over an open fire and then rolled up in a tortilla.

So tortillas are, in one word, versatile. Like rice. You can eat it with anything and in any way you like. Rolled, folded, sandwiched, fried, baked or grilled. So although a tortilla is not much different from a chapati in look and ingredients, it has however, gone a long way in the ways it is used. More ways than one can ever hope to understand or remember.


And here's the recipe........

2 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp. butter, softened
1/2 warm water

Place flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl and mix. Rub in the butter with your fingers until it resembles breadcrumbs. Pour in the warm water and mix with your hands until it becomes a smooth dough. Divide into 8 balls, place them on a plate and cover with a clean dish cloth and let rest for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes roll each ball into a 6 to 8 inch circle ( the thinner it is the softer it will be and easier it is to wrap or roll when it's cooked).

Grill each piece of pancake in a dry non stick pan for about a minute and a half on each side until the pancake turns white and puffs up a little and develops some light brown brown spots. I liked mine a little pale and dainty looking.

As each one is cooked put on a plate and cover with a dish cloth to keep warm and soft. Serve with whatever filling or curry that you like.

TUMERIC SQUID RINGS

I needed to show you this pretty bowl that had a tiny almost invisible chip at its edge, was a beautiful baby blue and was as smooth and round as baby's bottom, that I had bought yesterday at a ridiculous price.

So I just couldn't wait to take a picture of it. But what good would a pretty bowl be without anything in it? Like a pretty dress without a pretty person or a divine painting without its gilded frame or a marriage without love.


And that's where these tumeric squids come in. Golden rings of fresh succulent squids, quickly fried and tossed with caramelized onion rings, seasoned with salt and pepper and with a sharp tangy squirt of lime or lemon juice at the end. Fried, tossed and piled in a deliciously pretty bowl.

Frying squids is quick and easy and as long as you towel dry the squids to rid them of excess moisture before frying them it's not at all messy to prepare. Unfortunately I had found this out the very hard way after years of popping, spluttering and getting oil spots and tumeric stains and ruining some cute t-shirts for a good part of my life.


However, whenever I think squids it is always tumeric squids that come to mind. It has that earthiness of the tumeric and the juiciness of tenderly cooked rings of squids entangled with soft floppy loops of white onion and studded with pieces of crimson chillies.

It is a dish that can be spicy if you like it that way, by simply adding some chopped bird chillies or it could almost be a salad of sorts by just tossing it with those onion rings, some chopped large red chillies and the refreshing lime or lemon juice and of course salt and pepper. It's all up to you really.

So here's the recipe.........................

2 medium sized squids, skinned and cut into rings and towel dried
1 large white/brown onion, sliced into rings
1 tsp tumeric powder
salt pepper
1/2 lemon or 2 limes
cooking oil

Sprinkle the tumeric powder and some salt over the raw squid rings and toss with spoon to get the squids covered evenly with the seasonings. Heat up a pan or wok add 2-3 tablespoons of cooking oil till hot. Fry the squids in two or three batches until it turns white but is still tender and juicy. Never overcook squids or they'll be as tough rubber bands. Drain and keep aside.

Pour off excess oil leaving behind 1 tablespoon in the wok. Fry the onion rings till soft and caramelized at the edges, add the chopped large red chillies/bird chillies and stir to mix. Add the fried squid rings, stir to mix just for a few seconds and turn off the heat.Squirt in the lemon or lime juice, add more salt if necessary and a twist of pepper. Sprinkle with some chopped parsley. Serve with white rice.