Cucumber Salad in Coconut Milk

This is a very simple cold salad that is very refreshing and easy on the palate. It balances a rich and spicy meal.

2 cups of sliced cucumber, thinly sliced
1 cup of sliced pineapple (optional but nice)
I large onion sliced thinly in rings
3-4 prawns peeled and sliced horizontally and boiled until it turns pink
1 egg, hard boiled and quartered
1/2 a large chillie seeded and sliced

About 1 cup of thick coconut milk, the consistency of fresh milk
salt to taste
squirts from 1 large lime

Mix all sliced vegetables and prawns with the coconut milk, lime juice and salt.Season and adjust to taste until the balance of salt and sourness and the sweetness form the coconut milk is just right.

Place the mixed salad in a serving bowl and then place the quartered egg randomly around it. Chill before serving.

TIP : In the picture you can see that I did not slice the cucumber in the normal way but what I did was to cut the cucumber into short 1 1/2 inch lengths and then I ran the knife around each length spiral-like until I reached the core and threw the core away. It would look something like the skin of an apple that does not break off when you peel it around and around and around continuously. Then I sliced the 'spring' into thin strips. Sounds confusing?Actually slicing normally would be perfect but I just wanted it to look a little nice in the picture that's all.

Hot Prawn Sambal

LOve it! If it wasn't for the cholesterol I would eat this everyday. A thick, rich, red and hot sauce with a mound of blushing prawns hiding inside. Comfort food.

500 gm large prawns, skin and head intact, cleaned with their little leggies and top of the heads trimmed. Remove 'vein'. Rinse and pat dry with a kitchen paper and sprinkle a little salt on it.

1/3 cup cooking oil

Grind the following 4 ingredients :

3 large onions
6 -7 fresh red chillies, seeded
8-9 dried red chillies, soaked in hot water for 20 minutes, cut up and rinse under running water in a sieve to remove seeds.
3 cloves garlic

salt to taste
1 tsp sugar
1/4 cup very thick santan, in a packet will do
1 tsp tamarind pulp mixed with 1/3 cup water and juice extracted
1 lemon grass, crushed

1/2 cup cooking oil

Serves 4-6

Heat 1/3 cup cooking oil in a pan and quick fry the prawns in 3 portions until just pink and half cooked. Drain and keep aside. Discard oil.

Heat 1/2 cup cooking oil in a pot or wok. Saute ground ingredients until the paste turns a dark red and oil rises to the top. Throw in the crushed lemon grass. It will take a good about 7-8 or 10 minutes on medium heat. Add the thick coconut milk and tamarind juice as well as salt and sugar. Let it simmer further for another 8 to 10 minutes or maybe a little more until the sambal is nice and thick, then add the prawns and let it cook another 4-5 minutes. Adjust salt to taste.

I'm just guessing the times as I did not time the cooking just now but as always cooking seems to take forever. But the prawns don't take long to cook at all. It is the sambal that one must ensure is cooked well until it is of a lovely thick consistency that it just dollops on your plate when you scoop it. YUM!

Spicy Mutton Soup

This dish is not spicy as in chillie hot but spicy in the sense that it uses spices like coriander, cumin, fennel etc. A deeply satisfying and quite rich soup, it is the typical 'Sup Tulang' (bone soup) in the Malay home. Beef ribs or oxtail are usually used for a soup of this kind but since I stumbled upon some shoulder of mutton at the supermarket today, mutton soup it is.

It's lovely eaten with a steaming mound of plain white rice of with some yellow noodles plunged into a steaming and soupy bowl of it. Either way its delicious.

1.5 kg of mutton shoulder, oxtail or ribs
2 potatoes , skinned ans cut into chunks
some baby carrots

1 large onion
3 cloves garlic
1 inch ginger

2 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp whole cumin
1 tsp whole fennel
1 tsp white pepper

1 large piece of cinnamon stick
3-4 cloves
1 star anise

3 tbsp cooking oil

Serves 6

Process or pound in a pestle and mortar half the onion, garlic and ginger. Slice the other onion half. Keep aside.

Dry fry the whole cumin and fennel until it releases its aroma. Then pound in a pestle and mortar until a powder and mix wth the powdered coriander and white pepper. Add water to make a paste.

Chop the shoulder of mutton into smaller pieces if necessary and remove excess fat.

Saute the sliced half large onion until a golden brown. Add the pounded onion, garlic and ginger and saute furhter until aromatic and the onion mixture is soft and slightly brown at the edges.
Add the spice paste and stir and continue sauteeing until aromatic. If you find it a little dry add some water and saute until it turns a darker and it seperates from the oil a little.

Add just boiled water and then the mutton bones/shoulder and add some more water until the bones/meat is covered. Add salt and let the soup come to a rolling boil and then reduce the heat and let it boil gently until the meat is tender.

Add cut potatoes and the baby carrots and simmer until the vegetables are tender and add salt if necessary.

Chop some scallions and sprinkle them onto the soup just before serving followed by some sliced and golden fried onions if you have them (I did not).

TIP : the only reason I used powdered coriander is because I did not have any coriander seeds in my cupboard. I prefer to dry fry them myself and then pound to a powder rather than use the powdered ones as I feel it is fresher and releases more aroma.

Microwave Ovens - Boon or Bane?

During a visit with some friends about a week ago the conversation steered towards the use of microwave ovens. Their microwave oven had been sent for repair and in the course of the event they were told by those at the fixit shop how to use the microwave oven safely.

They were advised that food cooked or heated up in a microwave oven should not be eaten immediately but left for about ten minutes before being consumed. They were also warned that when the beep of the microwave goes off it is advisable to wait for several minutes before opening the oven door in order to avoid ourselves being exposed to an unnecessary amount of microwaves.

This reminded me and confirmed that my refrainment from getting that oh-so-convenient microwave oven at all was the wisest thing I have done in my entire life. Very few other decisions can compare in wisdom, if there are any at all.

There have been reports of the dangers of consuming food cooked or heated up in a microwave oven for years but apparently the convenience that a microwave oven provides especially for working or single mothers far outshines the danger that it poses and as a result most who can afford do and will own one.

In all forms of cooking whether it be stir frying, steaming boiling or baking and so on, heat is applied to food. This heat comes from an external source. It is generated by some sort of fuel, firewood, charcoal, gas or electricity.

Microwave ovens however don't produce heat. Microwave ovens cook food by producing waves of energy, that is the microwaves, which is a high energy radiation that excite certain molecules within your food such as water and fat. Atoms, molecules and cells within the food are forced to reverse polarity, causing fricton which in turn produces the heat.

In other words the heat is produced in the food itself which in turn explains why the food that is microwaved is always hotter than the container that holds it. This oscillation tears and deforms the molecular structure of food and new compounds, called radiolytic compounds, which are not found in nature are formed. This deformation impairs the quality of the nutrients and the damamged cells also become easy prey to viruses, fungi and other microorganisms.

This 'tearing apart' of the food molecules sometimes rearranges them into toxic substances that cause many allergic responses.

Dr Hans Ulrich-Hertal, a Swiss biologist, in his study proved for the first time that microwave energy(retained in food) which promoted cancer could be transmitted to humans through the consumption of this food, and not by just being near the oven as has long been known.

Other studies done in the US and elsewhere lend support to Hertels findings

Russia banned microwave ovens in 1976 because of the negative health consequences.

Tests in Russia conducted on microwaved food showed that carcinogens were found in virtually all foods tested. We all know that carcinogen is a cancer causing substance.

Some of the other findings are:

1. Microwave alters food substances causing digestive disorders

2. It alters the food chemistry and can lead to malfunction in the lymphatic system and degeneration of the body's immune system's capacity to protect itself against cancerous growth.

3. Microwave foods lead to a higher percentage of cancerous cells in the blood stream.

4. Microwaving milk and cereal grains converted some of their amino acids into carcinogens

According to Russian studies one need not eat microwaved foods to suffer from its side effects. Exposure to the energy field itself when one uses it or is close to the oven can be detrimental to health.

This is because all microwave ovens leak.

In 1990, during a microwave oven testing programme conducted by the Berlin Foundation for Product Tests, it was found that all of the ovens emitted microwaves while in operation.

Slamming the oven door, basic wear and tear, broken or missing door glass, manufacturing defects and food particle build up around door seals can also cause microwave leakage.

While gas leak is easily detected,with microwave ovens there is no easy way to detect leakages. Leaked microwave can damage your health. They can cook the protein in your eye lens causing cataracts.

Parts of the body that can be affected by microwave radiation are those that cannot dissipate heat quickly like the lens of the eye, stomach, intestine and the bladder.

In 1991 Norma Levitt of Oklahoma had hip surgery only to be killed by a sample blood transfusion when a nurse warmed the blood for transfusion by microwaving it. Although blood for transfusion are normally warmed they are however not warmed in the microwave. It was reported that the microwaving altered the blood.

Other tests have shown that the practice of reheating leftover food in the micrwave is potentially dangerous.

In 1995, the UK Consumer's association reheated food in 14 microwave ovens, tested them and found temperature differences of up to 40 degrees C between the hottest and the coldest parts of the food. The presence of cold spots means that some bacteria in the food will survive and can cause ill health.

Heating up food is always a chore as I have to either heat up food in a pan over the stove or in the oven. It takes longer and is certainly not as convenient as heating up food in a microwave oven. Inspite of that I am still adamant about getting a microwave oven because I know that if there is one in the home the temptation of using it on a daily basis is very great.

However, after reading many articles on the dangers of microwave ovens I have opted very willingly to make my life somewhat miserable if just to go to sleep at the end of the day with a guilt free conscience and for the sake of my family's health.

Health before convenience.

The information above have been obtained from various sources, that is, an article that appeared in a paper by the Consumers'Asociation of Penang and here and here and here.