CURRY PUFFS

When my children thought these puffs were deep fried it was like little bubbles of pleasure had burst inside of me. I knew I had hit the jackpot.

Traditionally Malay curry puffs are deep fried to acquire a crispy crust to complement the spicy curry filling of meat and potatoes inside. But finally, I have conjured up the perfect curry puff crust....that is, baked and not fried, for a healthier version.

Yet they were crisp, crusty, crunchy and flaky and stayed that way for hours. Comparable and as delicious as the traditionally deep fried ones.


I had used the short crust pastry dough for the Nori Nibbles in my previous post but to which I added an extra ounce of butter which proved to be a very good move because it simply made the pastry that much crustier.

Since I also wanted the pastry to take the form of a spiral pastry dough which seems to be the rage these days in Malaysian curry puff world I rolled out the dough into a rough rectangle that was about 1/4 inch thick.

Then, just in the nick of time, I remembered Jamie Oliver's pastry for his Portuguese Egg Tarts. So I decided to sprinkle some cinnamon powder over the pastry rectangle before rolling it up.

That little activity stimulated me and I thought chillie powder would be good too so I reached for some and sprinkled that on which in turn got me more animated that I thought cumin would be even better so I sprinkled that on as well.

With that, I may have perfected the Art of Indecisiveness.


Verdict : None of the spices stood out in flavour. I should have stuck to one spice and sprinkled a substantial amount rather than a little of each. Preferred choice : cinnamon. Or curry powder?

No matter. The curry puffs were a hit anyway.

And although they were not as pretty as I would have liked them to be they passed the bill in this house.

PS : I had also sprinkled some grated cheddar cheese over the filling before I folded the pastry over to seal. That added a nice cheesy twist.

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

For the filling...............

200 gm beef fillet or chicken tenders, minced or cut into very thin and tiny pieces
2 medium potatoes or 1 medium potato and 1 small sweet potato, skinned and diced small
1 white onion, diced finely
2 pips garlic, (optional)
2 T curry powder plus 1/4 cup of water and mixed to a paste
1/4 - 1/2 cup water or chicken stock
1 T cornflour mixed with a little water
salt

Some grated cheddar cheese (optional)

4 T cooking oil



Heat the oil in a pan and saute the onions, garlic until fragrant. Add the curry powder paste and continue to saute until the curry paste turns darker and is cooked through.

Add in the diced potatoes and the meat and the chicken stock or water, bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer until the potatoes are tender and the meat done. Add salt to taste. Finally thicken with cornflour.

Ideally the mixture should be between dry and ever so slightly saucy. Thick-ish really.

Let the cooked filling cool completely before using.

The pastry......................

8 oz plain flour
5 oz butter, frozen block of it
5-6 T of ice cold water

Sift flour into a medium bowl, Grate the frozen butter over the flour. Using your finger tips mix the flour and butter so that the curls of butter are well coated and are distributed evenly throughout.

Sprinkle about 5 or 6 tablespoons of cold water over the flour-butter mix and using a fork at first stir to bring the dough together. If the dough seems a little too dry add another tablespoon of cold water and mix again. When the dough looks moist enough to cling together, use your fingers to gather and pat and squeeze the dough into a squarish shape very lightly.

*Excessive handling will make the dough tough and the butter will melt.

Wrap the dough in cling film and place in the freezer for 15v minutes or so until it firms up but not too hard sothat you can still roll it out.

*It is important that the butter remains in visible pieces because this is what will make the pastry puff, be crunchy and ever so flaky. The batter forms pockets as the pastry bakes and as it melts and the steam from the melting butter pushes up the dough forming layers making the resulting pastry puffy and flaky.

Take the dough out from the freezer and flour a board. Place the dough on top and roll out the dough until it forms a rough rectangle that is about between 1/4 inch thick. (Sorry that I did not measure the size)

You may make the edges neat by trimming them. I didn't because I did not want to waste any pastry.

Sprinkle some cinnamon/cumin/chillie powder or cayenne pepper generously over the rectangle of dough. Roll up the dough tightly from one end until it becomes a log. Place in the freezer again to firm up if your kitchen is warm like mine.

Constructing the curry puffs...............

Take out from the freezer and slice a few slices at a time (perhaps at most 4, if your kitchen is warm). The slices should be about but not quite 1 cm thick. Roll out one slice until it becomes a bigger circle about 3 inches in diameter. You will be able to see a spiral of dark spice in the slice of dough. Put the filling in the centre using a small teaspoon, add some grated cheddar dheese if you like then fold the pastry circle over the filling and crimp to seal with your fingers, Malaysian style, or press with a fork. Finish the rest of the pastry in the same way. You will get about 20 - 25 curry puffs. While you are doing a few slices refrigerate the rest.

Bake the curry puffs in a preheated oven at 170 C for s5 - 30 minutes until teh curry puffs ar alight golden brown. Serve warm or cold. Enjoy!

EGG SAMBAL

What makes this dish unique from other egg dishes is that the egg is not just simply boiled and then thrown into a sambal or a sauce or a dip. It is boiled. Hard boiled. Peeled and then deep fried whole until the surface of the whole egg is golden brown and blistered.

The Thais have a dish quite similar to this where the egg is also deep fried to a golden blister. And they call this Son-in-law eggs. And "it is interesting to speculate from the grins of the Thais that it has something to do with a mother in law who doesn't have a very high opinion of her son in law.!" (Excerpt from Thai Cooking by Jennifer Brennan).


Now, this was the very first dish that I cooked when I visited my daughter and son in law in the US a couple of years ago (without hub). In fact I cooked this dish quite regularly when I stayed with them. In fact I cooked it so regularly that I would be surprised if my son in law did have a very high opinion of me or of my cooking.


I did so because my daughter had a ready bottle of homemade ground dried chillie paste in the refrigerator. I did it because I could boil eggs blind folded. I did it because it was my chance to eat really spicy food for a month without having to cook a separate dish for hub. And I did it because eggs do not need to be chopped, minced, fiddled with or skinned. In fact it need not even be fried into a golden blister if the fancy does not strike you. It just needs to be boiled. Hard boiled that is.

Because what makes this dish really really lovely is the sambal. In fact to a South East Asian being what makes any dish really scrumptious is the sambal. Period.

You could throw anything into a sambal....deep fried chicken, prawns, deep fried fish, deep fried brinjals or eggplants, squid, thin slices of deep fried beef, deep fried tempe, deep fried crispy anchovies, deep fried anything and it's heaven sent and good to go.

All that is needed to complete the meal is a plate of white steaming and freshly cooked rice. A big white and pristine mound of it.


And the rest they say is.............burp.....oops ...scoosh me

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

5 eggs, boiled, cooled and skinned
2 medium red onions or 6 shallots, peeled and sliced
2 or 3 cloves garlic
6 fresh red chiilies, seeded if you prefer it mild, which defeats the whole purpose of a sambal by the way.
2 teaspoons of ready ground chillie paste in a bottle
1/2 inch piece of belacan or shrimp paste
1 teaspoon of tamarind paste mixed with 1/2 cup water and juice squeezed out

cooking oil

Dry the boiled and peeled eggs thoroughly. Heat up a wok and pour enough oil into it to deep fry the eggs. When the oil is hot drop the eggs in gently one at a time and deep fry them until the surface is blistered and golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and keep aside on a kitchen towel to drain of excess oil.

Pound the sliced onions or shallots, garlic together with the fresh large red chillies in a pestle and mortar until it becomes a coarse paste. Add the belacan and pound a little more. Keep aside.

Strain the tamarind juice and keep aside.

Take away some of the oil from the wok that was used for deep frying the eggs leaving about 4 tablespoons.

Heat up the oil again a little and then saute the pounded chillie and onion mixture. Add in the chillie paste almost immediately and saute until fragrant and the sambal turns a darker red and the oil rises to the top. Probably about 6 or 7 minutes. Pour in the tamamrind juice, add salt to taste and a pinch or two of sugar. Let it come ot a boil and then a slow simmer until the sauce is reduced to a wet, thick paste.

At this point you can throw in the eggs, whole, and mix to combine and cover the eggs completely with sambal of if you prefer slice the eggs in half and place on top of the sambal in a serving dish. Personally I would have preferred it the first way but because I wanted it to look a little pretty to be photographed I halved the eggs.

Enjoy.

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.

PEARL SAGO PUDDING

There was a time when school children were required to starch their uniforms if they wanted it to look crisp, neat and smart.

So we made starch from tapioca flour. I used to do that. I mixed some tapioca flour with a little water to make a nice thick paste and while I waited for the water to boil in the kettle I would pinch little pieces of the chalk white mixture from the bowl and let it drop onto the window sill. It would form into little blobs and it was these blobs that fascinated me. They were not quite liquid nor were they quite solid. They were in between. Like mercury, almost.

I would blow at them and they would roll and quiver as the sun shone on them. Sometimes I would nudge them gently with my finger and they would do a little roll, quiver and then come to rest in a blob. Sometimes I would let a big blob drop to the floor and watch it break into a million blobs dots. They looked almost like sago granules. I would do this in complete fascination and it would hold my attention for quite a while until the water came to a boil.

And when I added the hot boiling water it would turn completely translucent after a few stirrings and that was what I used to starch my uniform with, by soaking it in the liquid starch, hanging the slimy thing out to dry in the sun, ironed it to a crisp and that was the cardboard that I marched to school in everyday almost all of my primary school life.

Over the years as I moved upwards and life progressed my spinach green, box pleated, cotton pinafores of my primary years gave way to a synthetic fabric in a bright turqoise blue which did not require starching.

But starch was something I continued to make with tapioca flour because that was what I used as gum for school art projects. It was exactly the same as the making of starch for my school uniform but very much thicker and gummier.

Then one day in the early days of my marriage whilst surviving mostly in a semi conscious state I ventured out into making some sago pudding, a much loved dessert. When I had boiled the white sago granules long enough and they had turned translucent, I poured them into moulds, chilled them in the refrigerator and one bite later I found that I had actually made starch. That was what it felt like and that was what it smelled like and that was what it tasted like. It was a childhood memory reincarnated into a face screwing pudding. I threw it away.


But after life shook me by the shoulders a few months and years later, snapping me out of my state of enlightenment, by handing me a complete stranger in the form of a shrieking baby and more babies and more babies later I became animated and adventurous and discovered through experimentation that the secret to making a good sago pudding that doesn't taste like a big blob of starch/gum for an art project was to simply rid it of excess starch.


And that was exactly what I did. I rid it of the excess starch and the sago pudding became magically edible worthy and deserving of a rich and thick dark palm sugar syrup and creamy coconut milk flowing down its sides and resting in a divine pool around it.

I have never looked back since (whatever that means) and every time I came across someone who made starch instead of sago pudding and lamented about it I remained tight lipped and refused to share my little secret. I revelled meanly at her perplexed state and offered no suggestions. (I'm feeling guilty right now..heh..repent Zurin).

I remained mean for a good number of years until today when I have decided to be gracious and share my little secret with you (if you still haven't yet discovered it for yourself that is). :P

Here's the recipe....for 4 small servings

150 gm of sago pearls (I used the small ones)
4 - 5 cups of water

some palm sugar or muscovado sugar
white granulated sugar, about 1 tablespoon
about 1 cup of water
a pandan leaf

1/2 cup of coconut cream
pinch of salt

Pour the 4-5 cups of water in a small pot. Pour in the sago pearls and bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat. When it has come to a boil lower the flame to small and watch the pot because starch/sago burns easily. Cook and stir until the sago pearls turn transparent/translucent and there are very little white spots visible.

Remove from heat and over the kitchen sink pour the cooked sago mixture into a fine sieve. Run some water from your tap through the sago mixture whilst stirring the sago in the sieve with a wooden spoon. This will rid it of all the excess starch and what is left in the sieve will be lovely translucent pearls of sago. Leave a little water in if you want a softer pudding.

Scoop the sago into 4 little moulds or one larger mould and chill in the refrigerator.

Meanwhile make the palm sugar syrup to your taste and consistency (using the pandan leaf as a flavouring when you're boiling the syrup) and when done pour into a small jug (discard the pandan leaf). Add a pinch of salt to the coconut cream, stir and pour into a small jug.

When the sago pudding has firmed up which will happen very quickly unmould them by running a knife around the edges and teasing it out onto a saucer or bowl. Serve and let guests help themselves tot eh syrup and cream. Delish!

APAM BALIK - PANCAKE TURNOVERS

Brass pots and pans are so hard to come by nowadays and are getting a little pricey for my liking. I went in search for them about a week ago at PJ old town, rummaging through topsy-turvy and dusty old shops. These are shops that seem completely disorganized with cast iron woks, bamboo brushes, heavy duty commercial gas rings and a myriad of other kitchen stuff sprawling over to the floors in dark dim corners ready to trip you up. These are shops that seem to have anything that you would need in an Asian kitchen from the small home cook to the commercial restaurant or stall owner plus some more from canes to whack your children with, if you are so inclined, to plastic dustbins, to rattan baskets, to tiffin carriers and to feather dusters. My kind of store.

Unfortunately they did not have the brass mould that I was looking for at a price that I was willing to pay for. So I left and decided that a good old non stick would just have to do for the pancakes that I was planning to make.


Traditionally this pancake turnover or apam balik is made in a brass mould because brass distributes heat evenly, is thick and heavy so food does not scald easily. These are what the brass moulds look like...


And these are the pancakes that are made and sold to a long queue of customers every Sunday.


The fillings are crushed peanuts, creamed corn, sugar and artery clogging magarine.

So these are what I made today,a Monday, when the apam balik family stall is not around. This is a very good recipe that makes a very good apam balik. As good as the apam balik man's apam balik I must say. It was given by one of the Malaysian ladies when we were in Taiwan at a time when many Malaysians get homesick and yearn for good old Malaysian street food. Thanks to her we were able to satiate our appetites for lovely apam balik. Did I tell you I have a bad memory for names? Unfortunately I do. I must try to recall.


The picture above and the one below are the first two apam baliks that I made. They weren't as pretty as the very last one that I made (in the first 2 photos above). Practice does make perfect. But it tasted good nevertheless.


Here's the recipe..........makes about 6 pancakes depending on the size of your pan...

340 gm plain all purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
3 tsp sugar ( I used about 3 tablespoons instead)
2 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups water
1 cup evaporated milk
3 tsp vegetable oil (I used canola oil)
a pinch of soda bicarbonate

1 cup or crushed peanuts (slightly coarse, not like powder)
1/2 cupof granulated sugar, more or less
a small tin of creamed corn, optional
some butter or magarine

a little cooking oil for swiping the pan.

Mix all ingredients in a medium bowl until you get a smooth batter. Let the batter rest for at least 30 minutes or more. It will thicken upon resting and yield a nice thick batter.

Heat up a non stick pan. I used one that was about 7-8 inches in diameter. Swipe the pan with a little oil using kitchen paper. Make sure the pan is nice and hot.

Ladle up some batter, about 100 ml (a little less than 1/2 a cup), the amount depending on how thick or thin you would like your pancake to be. Pour the batter intot eh heated pan. Make sure the pan is on medium heat. Spread the batter around the bottom of the pan using the back of the ladle (in the case of the stall owner below, she used her enamel mug) until the batter is in an even layer.


Let it cook a little while until bubbles begin to appear....like so.....



Then sprinkle a layer of crushed peanuts, then a layer of sugar (granulated) and then if you like drop small dollops of sweet creamed corn from a tin, some blobs of butter or magarine and let the pancake cook until the top firms up and the batter is cooked through.


Using a flat ladle or spatula. lift and fold the pancake in half and take it out of the pan and place on a wire rack while you continue making more pancakes with the rest of the batter.




Cut up the pancake and serve, preferably hot or warm.


Home made apam balik below......YUMMY.............

COOL CUKE SALAD

Well I never! Imagine seeing a cucumber salad recipe on the New Scandinavian food show and realize after you make it that it tastes exactly the same as the one that your mother in law used to make in a far flung corner of the island of Borneo, thousand of miles away from snow capped mountains, freezing rivers, romantic and idyllic looking grassy slopes and with no bone freezing wind whipping your face.


The show has an IKEA-ish looking outdoor kitchen put together in a matter of minutes usually on a cold Scandinavian mountain top with a picturesque view of snow capped mountains and a wide, lazy bend of a river in the background.

My late mom in law did it in a hot humid corner of her kitchen with no such view, but where a cool cuke salad fitted perfectly in and was a perfectly logical dish to serve on a hot, humid, blistering and blazing afternoon for lunch.


And so it was. Exactly the same. I guess. Because blond, gap-toothed Andre Viestad, who pronounces every syllable so precisely and a little haltingly and uses deciliters in his recipes, called for white wine vinegar but I used apple cider vinegar instead. I do suspect white wine vinegar might taste a little sweeter but whatever it is this is a recipe for very lazy people and for those on a seriously intensive diet. It has no oil, no egg yolk or no any kind of fat in its dressing. Nothing could be simpler and it is definitely refreshing. I could have eaten the whole dish as a snack except that I am/was/and never will be on a diet.


But for those who are...............here's the recipe............

1 cucumber, sliced very thinly
coarse salt

1 medium red onion, cut in half and sliced thinly
1 -2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp sugar

Sprinkle some coarse salt (to taste) on the sliced cucumber pieces in a bowl, cover the bowl with a plate and shake for a few seconds to get the salt into the cucumber slices, to soften them and to draw the juice out of the cucumber. This allows the cucumber to soak in the dressing afterwards.

Add the sliced red onions, the vinegar and sugar. Mix them all up, chill if desired, and serve. You could add some sliced red chillies too like I did!

FISH CURRY

 A deep sunset fish curry was my father's almost daily and required dish with rice. But like any fish dish the curry is only as good as the fish is fresh.

Whenever I think fish I always recall the years I spent in Kota Kinabalu, a town on the west coast of Sabah. Marketing was a complete pleasure there. Not only were the fish fresh where loads of them arrived by boats each morning, delivered at the doorstep of the wet market which fronted the sea, but most of the fish would be glistening and rebellious with life, squirming and flipping arcs and somersaults. Squids would be flickering lights off the surfaces of their skins, crabs would be trying to get away and the prawns they would lie there very firm, full bodied and dignified with their heads still firmly attached. It was a place where you could smell the ocean..

But in KL where most fish often come all the way from Thailand (God knows why!) you would be very lucky to catch sight of bright eyed, firm fleshed fish or prawns with good heads on their shoulders. Most are stale, limp and dull and compared to Kota Kinabalu marketing couldn't be more disheartening and boring.

So for those of you who live in coastal towns where the daily supply of fresh fish is almost as certain as the sun coming up every morning please enjoy it. There could be nothing sweeter than the flesh of a fresh fish freshly grilled, steamed or curried.

Recipe for a fish curry....

Serves 4 -6

900 gm of a firm white fleshed fish, sliced into steaks

3 medium large onions,
2 garlic
1 inch ginger

1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
4 tbsp curry powder for fish ( I used 'Baba' brand)
2 tsp tamarind paste, mixed with 1/4 cup water and the juice strained
10 - 15 curry leaves

1 1/4 cups thin coconut milk
1 1/4 cups thick coocnut milk

1 medium brinjal halved and cut into 2 across, or diagonally (no rules here)
3 lady's fingers or okra, topped
1 large tomato, halved

1/4 cup cooking oil

salt

Slice one of the onions finely. Keep aside. Blend in a blender or food processor the other 2 onions, garlic and ginger to a paste. Mix the curry powder with the blended onion mixture and add some water to make it a loose wet paste.

Heat the cooking oil in a fairly large pan until hot. Saute the sliced onions, mustard seeds and fenugreek seeds until the onions turn soft and the spices fragrant. Add in the curry paste and curry leaves and saute for a further 6 or 8 minutes until the paste cooks through and oil rises to the top. Scrape the pan if necessary to loosen any paste that sticks to the bottom.

Pour in the thin coconut milk and bring it to a boil. Put in the vegetables and let boil for 2 or 3 minutes then put in the pieces of fish and turn the heat down to a simmer. Pour in the tamarind juice and add salt. Add in half the thick coconut milk if there is not enough liquid to cover the fish two thirds of the way.

I did not time the cooking but when the fish seems about to be cooked through add in the remaining coconut milk and stir carefully to avoid breaking up the fish. Adjust for salt. Serve with white rice.

SPICY CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP- SOTO AYAM

Soto ayam or chicken soto is a lovely spicy (as in heat) dish. It's a thin chicken soup, sweetened with ground onions, garlic, ginger and tinged yellow with tumeric. It's aromatic flavour comes from the addition of ground coriander, ground cumin, the whole spices of cinnamon, cloves and cardomon pods and last but not least it is made from freshly made chicken stock.

The softness of the fine rice noodles contrasts with the crunch of the bean sprouts. The meaty flavour from the beef patty and the shredded chicken combine in a wholesome way. The rice cakes and hard boiled egg rounds it off as a complete meal. And the burst of flavours from the chopped spring onions, coriander leaves and the sweet fried onions add much flavour to make it an absolutely, heady, aromatic, warm and delicious comfort food when finally it is drowned and drenched with the hot, steamy and spicy soup.

Typically, a dash of thick, sweet soy sauce spiced up with chopped fiery, bird chillies may be dribbled over as the final condiment to complete the dish. It is a bowl bursting with flavours, textures and sensations. It's utterly comforting yet light and slurpy. If we had winter, this would definitely be the ultimate warm, winter food.

I just wish the bowl that I used was bottomless. As you can see I filled it to the brim and there still wasn't enough soup for me!

Serves 2

4 chicken whole legs/breasts
Some chicken bones/carcass, optional
4-5 kaffir lime leaves
1 lemon grass, crushed
salt

The above ingredients are to be boiled in 5 cups of water for about 45 minutes until chicken is cooked and tender. Once done remove chicken and drain. De-bone and shred the chicken meat and keep aside. Reserve the stock. Discard lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves. There should be about 3 1/2 to 4 cups of liquid stock left.

3 shallots
2 garlic
1/2 inch ginger
1/2 inch galangal/lengkuas
1/2 inch fresh tumeric or 1 tsp tumeric powder
2 candlenuts/buah keras
2 heaped tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground black pepper

The above ingredients are all to be blended or processed until it becomes a fine paste. Add a little water or oil if necessary.

1 cinnamon stick
2 cloves
2 cardomon pods

1 kalamansi lime
1/2 tsp sugar
salt to taste

Noodles and Garnishes for Serving :

3 oz of rice vermicelli/ mee hoon, blanched in boiling water until soft. Drain & keep aside
a handful of bean sprouts
1 stalk spring onions, chopped
1 stalk coriander leaves, chopped
1 egg, hard-boiled and halved
2 kalamansi limes, halved
2 tsp of golden fried onions (slice 2 shallots finely and fry in oil until golden brown)
2 pieces of potato and beef patties (recipe below)
8 cubes of rice cakes/rice cubes, optional

Heat up a medium sized pot. Put 3 to 4 tablespoons of cooking oil and heat up till hot. When hot saute the ground paste and whole spices of cinnamon, cloves and cardomon pods until fragrant and the oil rises to the top probably about 5-6 minutes over a slow fire. Stir occasionally to prevent paste from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Add all the stock to the pot and bring to the boil and then simmer. If the stock was reduced to 31/2 cups add 1/2 cup of water to make up to 4 cups of soup. Add salt and sugar to taste and more pepper if you like for more heat.

Add the juice of 1 kalamansi lime. Stir and adjust salt for taste.

To Serve :

Divide blanched noodles between 2 bowls. Top each bowl of noodles with bean sprouts, shredded chicken, halved hard boiled egg, potato and beef patty, rice cakes, chopped spring onions, chopped coriander leaves and fried onions. Pour the soto soup over. Serve hot. Enjoy!

BEEF & POTATO PATTIES - PERGEDIL DAGING

An Indonesian carry over. This is a beef and potato patty that can be eaten as an additional dish with rice or as a must have topping to a lovely spicy soup noodle dish called Soto. What is nice about this dish is that the potatoes are deliberately left lumpy instead of smooth as opposed to the mashed potatoes of croquettes. It can be made with any kind of minced meat or even fish such as mackeral or our local tenggiri. Very rustic in its use of cumin, chopped coriander, chopped spring onions, chopped chillies with a few squirts of lime or lemon juice, salt and pepper. Very delicious.

4 medium potatoes, boiled, cooled, peeled
180 gm mince meat
1 stalk spring onion, chopped
1 sprig coriander, chopped
1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp or more ground black pepper
1/2 tsp or more salt or according to taste
juice of a lime or half a lemon

1/2 egg, beaten
1 egg extra, beaten

1/2 cup of cooking oil

Heat a small pan and dry fry the mince meat until it turns brown, and the moisture has evaporated and is cooked. Remove from heat and put into a bowl and let it cool.

Add the boiled and cooled potatoes to the mince. (Alternatively, the potatoes may be cut up into wedges and fried and cooled).

Break up the potatoes with a fork roughly. Do not mash.

Add the chopped herbs, ground coriander, pepper and the salt. Squirt in some lime or lemon juice. Taste for salt. If necessary add some more salt. Add 1/2 a beaten egg and using your hands bring the mixture together and form them into patties. You should get about 10 patties.

Heat up the cooking oil in a small pan. Dip each patty in the beaten egg and shallow fry till golden brown on one side then turn over to cook the other side. Serve.



TIP : Potatoes and mince must be cooled down before mixing otherwise the moisture from the heat will make the mixture soggy, difficult to handle and will break easily when frying.

TIP : Mince meat must be cooked to rid it of moisture before mixing into potatoes. If using fish the fish too should be shallow fried or poached, drained well and then flaked in largish pieces before mixing with potatoes.

PEANUT SATAY SAUCE

I don't make this sauce very often because of the peanuts in it. Hubby and I are trying to avoid clogging our arteries so... But it's a very good sauce to go with satay (obviously) but also with nasi impit (compressed rice) and ketupat nasi (rice packed in coconut leaves), with fried soya bean curds and also vegetables, some raw and some blanched. When dribbled over vegetables the dish becomes a very tasty salad called, in Malay, gado-gado (fight-fight)...literally translated. :D

So this is a very versatile sauce and if you're really out of anything you could just use it as a dip for some crunchy cucumbers, celery, carrots, fish or prawn crackers, nachos, you name it. It's very very yummy. In fact I think it's just a spicy version of the western peanut butter but just a tad more saucy, as in sauce.

Some like their peanuts ground finely and some like it coarse. It's all a matter of taste. Just like in smooth and crunchy peanut butter! But whatever way you make it it's definitely going to be good and a crowd pleaser.

I made it just now and when I thought it was done and tasted it I felt that there was something that was really missing. I just wasn't satisfied. It was ok but it definitely did not make me jump up and down. So I did what most people would do. No, I didn't call my mother. I googled. and I saw some versions of this recipe that used coriander powder. I thought coriander powder seemed so right so I added 2 teaspoons of coriander powder to the sauce, cooked it a while longer and that just made so much difference! It jumped from a 5 to a..... well, I'd like to say ten or even a nine but I'm sure there are some better ones out there, so I'll just say a modest 8 1/2.

So here's the recipe :

About 1 1/4 cups ground peanuts, a little more if you want your sauce slightly thicker,

3 medium sized large red onions, I used ones the size of ping pong balls,
4 garlic cloves
1 lemon grass, sliced
4-6 dried chillies, chopped up

The above ingredients except the peanuts are to be blended with a little water until it becomes a thick and fine mush,

2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 inch galangal/lengkuas, bruised

1 cup coconut milk of medium consistency, like fresh milk,
2 heaped tsp tamarind paste/asam jawa mixed with 1/2 cup water and the juice strained,
1 tsp sweet soy sauce
5-6 tsp palm sugar or white sugar
salt to taste

cooking oil

Heat up 1/4 cup of oil and saute the ground spices, put in the ground coriander and the bruised galangal. Saute it for about 7-8 minutes over a slow fire until fragrant and the oil rises to the top. Add the coconut milk, tamarind juice, sugar, salt soy sauce and lastly the ground peanuts. Stir to mix well and simmer over a low fire until the oil rises to the top again. Adjust the amount of peanuts according to your preference. A little more for a thicker sauce and a little less for a thinner sauce. Taste for salt. Done.

TIP : Adjust the amount of chillies according to your heat tolerance. Since everyone of us at home have different chillie heat tolerance levels I used my Sambal Tumis to top up one of the bowls of sauce for those who prefer it spicier.

TIP : Watch the sauce as it cooks. It can burn easily if you are making it quite thick. If you find at the end that it is too thick just add some water to thin it down.

TIP : Even if you would like your sauce to be crunchy I would suggest that you still grind or pound half of the amount of peanuts finely so that the sauce has a creamy base while the coarser bits will give the texture and crunch.