FRIED KUAY TEOW

For those of you who have read my book review post, three posts back, fried kuay teow is another dish that has been mentioned in Preeta's book Evening is the Whole Day. Like nasi lemak, fried kuay teow is yet another dish accepted wholeheartedly by all Malaysians of every race, creed and colour. And like nasi lemak too, fried kuay teow is another one of those comfort foods that every Malaysian misses, painfully, when they are away from the country.

Being a noodle dish, fried kuay teow is definitely a Chinese food that has been welcomed and consumed with open arms by the other races in Malaysia. I have yet to meet a Malaysian who will not salivate at the mention of fried kuay teow. And if such a Malaysian does exist I will pray for him/her.

There is also the Mamak (Indian Muslims in Malaysia) version of fried kuay teow which is equally equally scrumptious and which I hope to post a recipe of soon. I remember eating it as a child at the esplanade in Penang. It was served to us as we sat in the car, our appetites and the wild anticipation in our eyes dimly lit by the street lamp. The fried kuay teow came from an Indian stall that my parents were especially loyal to when it came to Mamak fried kuay teow. Just the thought of it pains me.

But before that here is the recipe for fried kuay teow, Malaysian Chinese style.

Serves 1

200 gm +- fresh kuay teow

3 or 4 fresh prawns, heads and skin removed, tails left intact
some fresh cockles

50 gm bean sprouts
30 gm chives, cut into 1 inch lengths

1 pip garlic, crushed and chopped finely
1 tsp chillie paste, from ground or pounded fresh or dried chillies
1/2 tbsp thick soy sauce
1 tsp thin soy sauce

1 egg

cooking oil

Heat a wok or pan. Pour in 1 1/2 tablespoons of cooking oil. Saute the garlic until fragrant. Add chillie paste and saute for about 15 to 20 seconds. Throw in the prawns and cockles and stir fry till prawns turn pink and cockles are cooked. Add some salt at this point. Add half of chives and bean sprouts, kuay teow, the soy sauces. Mix a little and then push to one side of the wok. Break in an egg and let the egg half set and then scramble it into the kuay teow etc. Add the rest of the vegetables and stir fry on high heat until all the ingredients are well mixed. If necessary sprinkle some water in to loosen up the noodle mixture. Adjust salt if necessary. Serve. YUM!!

TIP : Noodles are best fried in single servings to get optimum taste and flavour or at most 2 servings at a time to ensure that all ingredients are well mixed.

HOMEMADE FLAT RICE NOODLES

I went in search of Kuay Teow (flat rice noodles) today at the wet market; yesterday, at the supermarket, and I just couldn't find any that said 'No Boric Acid' and 'No Preservatives". I used to get a brand that didn't use boric acid before but they are no where to be seen now. But even if they are still being manufactured the kuay teow that they produced wasn't exactly fantastic. I had bought it only because those were the only ones that did not use the dreaded boric acid.

Just in case you didn't know boric acid gives the noodles its bounciness plus a host of ailments if you ingest it. And since the enforcement of rules and regulations not to mention the law is somewhat questionable for the time being (I remain naively hopeful) I would rather avoid foods that are a threat to my family's health and well being.

I nag about this to the children all the time so that they avoid such foods when they eat out so much so that I'm beginning to see more whites in their eyeballs every time I talk to them. They'll thank me for this one day!

So I did a little digging around and found a recipe for flat rice noodles in a Taiwanese recipe book. I tried it and it was a complete disaster. Heh.. did you think I was going to say it was perfect? So I made further searches and I came across this recipe from a blog called neckredrecipes.blogspot.com and Sinner from this blog shared this really fantastic recipe for kuay teow. It's easy to make and tastes really good. Anytime better than the bought ones. So I have been eating and serving fresh homemade kuay teow to my family since and with a very clear conscience since it does not contain anything harmful.

Had I known that it was so easy I would never have bought kuay teow not even the 'safe' ones because even those look slathered with magarine and had a funny taste to it. Perhaps they put too much lye water in it. Lye water is basically alkaline water and is considered a poison. When ingested it can cause corrosive burns especially in the throat, oesophagus and the stomach lining.

In case you didn't know lye water is used commonly in yellow noodles, dried noodles, dried cuttle fish and also in pulled Chinese noodles and many other foods to give them the elastic and chewy texture. That's why I seldom or almost have never eaten yellow noodles or even kuay teow (except for the so called 'safe' ones) for the past several years since I had learnt this.

Lye water or alkaline water can be found easily in grocery shops. They are sold in clear glass bottles.

This recipe for kuay teow uses just rice flour, cornflour and wheat starch flour. All these can be found in your bakery supply store readily. Wheat starch flour is not the normal wheat flour but according to Sinner from Neckredrecipes.blogspot.com it is a non-gluten flour where the gluten has been removed leaving behind the starch, hence the name wheat starch. Please click here for a clearer explanation on noodles containing gluten and noodles which are non-glutinous which in turn explains the difference between wheat flour and wheat starch. According to Sinner wheat starch is called Tung Meen Fun in Chinese.

And I'm telling you that this is a really great recipe. Although it is a little time consuming it is definitely worth the effort. I've been told to never say never but I'll say now that I'll never buy kuay teow again.

One recipe makes about 500 gm of kuay teow and that is enough to serve 2 to 3 people.

150 gm rice flour
1 1/2 tbsp wheat starch flour
2 tbsp cornflour
400 ml cold water
1 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp salt

Equipment :

Steamer

2 or 3 shallow round cake pans (I used non-stick) that fits into your steamer. Grease them well with cooking oil using a pastry brush.

a plastic spatula for lifting off cooked sheets.

Mix all ingredients together and let rest for one hour

Get a steamer ready and bring the water to a rolling boil.

There are two ways of making these noodle sheets.

Method 1 :

Pour enough of the flour mixture into the oiled pan to form a thin layer (I like my layers slightly thick) and then steam for about 5 minutes on high until the sheet bubbles up in the pan. Remove the pan from the steamer and put in the next pan with another thin layer of mixture. While waiting for the second pan of noodle sheet to cook in the steamer the first sheet would have cooled down already. When it has cooled down enough for you to handle loosen the edges with a spatula, lift up an edge, roll it up, take it out of the pan onto a board and slice as wide or as narrow as you want. I love slicing it wide. Carry on doing this using the three pans consecutively until the batter has been used up. You might need to re-grease the pans once in a while.


Method 2 :

Alternatively, as a second method, I have also tried stacking up the layers in one pan, one layer at a time, adding on another layer of batter after the previous layer is cooked through. If you choose to do it by this method you should brush the top of the previous cooked sheet with oil before pouring on the next ladle of batter over it and the same thing goes for the following layers. (Always brush the previous layer with oil before adding the next ladle of batter). This method however requires a longer steaming time after the final layer to ensure that the last few layers are really cooked through. What you will end up with is a stack of noodle sheets in one pan looking very much like a solid white cake. I suppose it might be possible to invert the whole stack onto a plate or board when it has cooled and then proceed to seperate the layers by rolling or folding the topmost layer off first, lift it off onto a board and slice.

I have not been completely successful with the second method and at the moment I have only been able to stack at most three layers in one pan. I also find that it takes a longer time to do it this way.

So for the time being I prefer to cook the sheets one layer at a time using all three pans. The picture below however shows a three layered stack that I managed to do (by the second method) ready to be peeled, rolled and sliced.



Redneck recipes has a great video showing how to make it here. And a great site. Thanks Sinner!

NASI LEMAK - BOILED COCONUT RICE WITH SAMBAL

Nasi lemak is synonymous with Malaysia. Nasi Lemak is Malaysia and Malaysia is Nasi Lemak. Apart from Singapore, which was once a part of Malaysia anyway, I doubt that Nasi Lemak, as in the complete package, exists anywhere else (But do correct me if I'm wrong). I think it is the most authentic Malay dish ever. A rustic paddy farmer's food. It is not an Indonesian carry over nor is it a dish that is a result of Indian or Chinese influences.

No Malaysain food blog would be complete without Nasi Lemak. A supposedly breakfast food; it's sold by roadsides, bus stops, on walkways, amidst snarling morning traffic and sometimes under 'NO HAWKING' signs; these stalls often snare the first pack of hungry breakfast-hunting salivating Malaysians.

That was what we thought it was until one day some one decided that Nasi Lemak had no reason to stop there. The fact that it was rice made it qualify as a lunch food, Kopitiam food, Mamak shop food, food court food, snack food, restaurant food, 5 star hotel food and finally it made it as a dinner food. Just last night I overheard a Chinese family ask for nasi lemak at an eatery where my husband and I frequent.

That was it. I snapped. I have to do the nasi lemak. This food is getting everywhere, all over the place and into every Malaysian's life, hair, blood, body and soul. And book.

Yes, if you have read my previous post where I had promised to post recipes of food that have been mentioned in Preeta Samarasan's book - Evening Is The Whole Day you know now that in Malaysia nasi lemak is as unavoidable as ...as ...as falling asleep in the middle of a conversation once you're on the wrong side of fifty or incontinence when you're old enough to have it.

Nasi Lemak is the common denominator of all Malaysians, young or old, city slicker or rural, rich or poor, blue blooded or not and last but not least, Malay or Indian, Chinese or Kadazan, Iban or Lain Lain (others). Now isn't that charming?

So tell me not to post this recipe and I will tell you to go have a nasi lemak.

More ornate versions exist nowadays with fried crispy chicken, fried crispy fish, a variety of curries, rendang and so on and so forth (the choice is yours), all tumbled onto your plate with the boiled coconut rice and the sambal but never without the token boiled egg and peanuts. Some nasi lemak comes as cheap as 1 ringgit per packet and comes wrapped in a banana leaf, kept snug and tight and ready to go. Others, more embellished, can go up to 12 ringgit per plate especially if you have it at restaurants or hotels.

However, I have made the elemental and fundamental version. I have even wrapped it in a banana leaf to give it that authentic look and feel when opened. With the must have Sambal Ikan Bilis (anchovies), hard boiled egg, fried peanuts and sliced cucumbers on the side.

Some say it is the anchovy sambal that makes the nasi lemak. Yet others say it is the coconut rice that makes it. I suppose it is both. The one without the other does not a Nasi Lemak make.

Serves 2 or 3.

The coconut rice/nasi lemak :

1 1/3 cups rice, washed and rinsed
1 1/2 cups coconut milk
2 or 3 pandan or screwpine leaves
1 lemon grass, crushed
2 slices ginger
1 tsp of cooking oil
salt to taste

Place rinsed rice in a rice cooker. Throw in the pandan leaf, lemon grass and slices of ginger. Pour in the coconut milk which should be of medium consistency (more or less like fresh milk) and the teaspoon of cooking oil. Add salt. Stir.Turn on the rice cooker and let cook till done.

TIP : The cooking oil keeps the grains seperate and fluffy.

The Anchovy Sambal :

1 cup of dried anchovies
3 - 4 tbsp chillie paste
2 medium onions
3 garlic, peeled

1 tsp tamarind paste mixed with 1/4 cup water, the juice strained
1 tsp sugar
salt to taste

1/4 cooking oil

Pound or process the onions and garlic and mix with chillie paste. Keep aside.

Heat up the oil in a pot medium sized pot and fry the anchovies till lightly brown and crisp. Drain and keep aside. Remove some of the oil leaving about 4-5 tablespoons. While the oil is still hot saute the onion/garlic/chillie paste until the mixture turns darker red and the chillie is well cooked and some oil rises to the top. Add the strained tamamrind juice, and let simmer a while longer, about 3 - 5 minutes until the gravy turns a little thicker. Add salt and sugar. Add the fried anchovies and mix well. Adjust salt to taste. Because the anchovies are already salty be careful of adding too much salt. Done. Keep aside.

Other ingredients :

2 eggs
a few slices of cucumber
Some fried peanuts

Bring a small pot of water to a rolling boil. Add a teaspoon of vinegar and then an egg or two. Boil 10 - 12 minutes and then remove egg, plunge in cold water and peel. Halve or quarter the egg.

To serve :

Place a serving of coconut rice on a plate and surround with the anchovy sambal, peanuts, slices of cucumber and half or quarter of a hard boiled egg. Serve.

EVENING IS THE WHOLE DAY BY PREETA SAMARASAN - A BOOK REVIEW

Preeta Samarasan writes about a Malaysian Indian family who struggles to make sense of the emotional turmoil that plague and torment them in The Big House.

Unflinchingly, Preeta brings to life what perhaps many families are but hate to admit to being; dysfunctional.

Every member of this family appears dysfunctional. Aasha, the little girl who sees ghosts and who is aunguished by the inevitable departure of Uma her big sister. Appa, a successful lawyer who is disillusioned with the politics in the country as he struggles with his personal guilt and painful secrets. Amma suffers as an abused child and then as a bitter and misunderstood wife and mother, Paati, a mother-in-law who "reserved her bile for the immutable truths"... and who had declined physically into "a shriveled extra limb hanging off the family's robust torso, waiting to fall off". Chellam the servant girl, a shadow that zooms in and out and who struggles to deal with abuse and fray hopes for her future. Uma, the teenage daughter, who has, for some mysterious reason, taken to cutting off her emotional attachments towards those she once cared for.Uncle ballroom, brother and uncle who waltzes in and out according to his financial circumstances and young Suresh who seems to me the least dysfunctional in relation to the rest of them.

Preeta is a Malaysian but who now resides in France with her husband. This is her debut novel and she has been hailed as a talent to look out for. Her writing has been said to be reminiscent of Rushdie and Roy. I can certainly see the quirky similarities. The very familiar rolling of twoormorewordsintoalongsingleone, the string-of-hyphenated-words, the tragic comic scenes and the sharp wit and humour.

She writes vividly, with agility and grace. She has the ability to touch on the less obvious intentions of her characters and in one particular scene she hit a home run that left me with a gasp. She revealed the something that Appa was searching for in a wife :

"in Amma's luminous eyes....".."and in them he recognized what he had longed for all this time, what had been lacking in the attentions of Lily,Claudine and Nalini: gratitude."

I also found it refreshingly original that Appa lacked a sense of smell as it was this handicap that played a significant part in the development of the story at a certain point. In a comic, sad way it was somehow believable.

Since most of the characters have been given such depth and significance it does leave you wondering who the protagonist is. Unable to put my finger explicitly on one or even two of them I had to concede that this is a story of at least five characters all equally substantial and indispensable to the complexity of the emotional relationships and discord that runs through this family .

Tragic-comic scenes speckle the span of this saga and like many successful writers Preeta was able to get into her characters and play each one out in her writing touching the core of their hopes, pain, disgust or turmoil with utmost lucidity and in almost telescopic detail.

Not heavy on plot this book moves slowly and leaves you wondering what make these people tick rather than what would happen next. It was almost a character study. Deep and intense.

The only time in my reading that left me eager to know what would happen next was towards the end of the book. For the rest of the time I spent most of it enjoying Preeta's poetic prose, her imagery, the amusing Malaysian Indian accents in the dialogues like.."Shaddup your mouth and go away" or "acting-shackting", her sharp wit, the comic-tragic scenes but most of all I was constantly amazed at her ability to expose the complexities of human emotions and of deeper indescribable and unexpected thoughts with brilliant clarity.

The story is set against a political upheaval in Malaysia and at one point a whole chapter was a scene set against the backdrop of the 1969 race riots. Swipes have been taken at "ketuanan Melayu" (Malay master race) and of the disenchantment of Malaysian Indians in Malaysia.

But whatever message that Preeta has managed to get across politically, for me, this book comes across as a story of helplessness and dependency. The helplessness and dependency of children upon the adults responsible for them, the helplessness of those caught between the frying pan and the fire, and the helplessness of the abused.

Perhaps the dependency and helplessness was intended as a symbolic parallel to the feeling of perceived dependency and helplessness of the Indian minority upon a country that they came to in search of shelter, hope and a future. Perhaps. But for me the book touched my sensitivities as a mother, wife and daughter more than in any other way.

The only regret I had was that I longed to have been able to feel a connection for at least one of the characters so that I cared what would happen to him or her. Perhaps they were, each, all of them, too dysfunctional to be appealing. In other words, inspite of the agony and misery that these characters suffered they didn't move me enough or make a dent somewhere inside of me so that I pained for them like I would pain for some people I care for in real life or for some characters in some books. The only character that came close to providing me with that feeling was Aasha, the little girl who sees ghosts.

The story begins at the end and ends at the beginning, cleverly and slowly peeling away the layers and finally revealing part of the source of the dysfunctional misery. The ending, in turn, leaves you wondering what would happen next.

I found this book vibrantly written, elegant in prose, lucid yet complex with stunning descriptions that are often tinged with wit and humour. She plays with language effortlessly. A joy to read.



PS : Since this is a food blog and the fact that even dysfunctional families have to eat I will be providing recipes in the next few posts of the foods that have been mentioned in the book. :)