MUNG BEAN FRITTERS ~ KUIH KASTURI

 
Afternoon tea is history. It went out of fashion some 30 odd years ago. What a pity because that is, to me, the most fun meal. It is a dessert meal or a snack meal. It was a sit down meal. It was either cakes, fritters or simple fried noodles. Nowadays it's packaged biscuits ~ Khong Guan cream crackers, Marie Biscuits ~ all dunked in hot milk tea or Milo or commercial buns from the nearest bakery eaten 'on the go'.. No one has the time to sit down as a family to enjoy afternoon tea anymore. No family is smiling and conversing at 4 o'clock anymore.

I doubt my children have any idea that afternoon tea was an actual sit down family meal. Yes I'm guilty of it's extinction too. But I'm not alone. Tuition got in the way. Traffic got in the way. Malls got in the way. Businesses got in the way. TV got in the way. Why, afternoon tea got in the way of the British too. Life had to go on. And so it did.


It's no wonder that our tea time kuih(s) have become an all day long snack food. Tea time has disappeared. But not the hunger for the various kuih though. Besides, men get up to feed at midnight. Old fashioned mung bean fritters fill that new hunger. I don't recall my dad or brother being up at midnight hunting for food. But of course World Cup Football was never shown Live either. These bean fritters are one of H's favourite kuih. They are delicious warm.

The Recipe ~


300 gm green mung beans
1/2 dark brown sugar or granulated palm sugar
3 or 4 or  T plain flour
pinch of salt
water


Batter :


1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup rice flour
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
enough ice cold water


Place mung beans in a fairly deep pot. Cover with water completely, the water level about an inch and a half above the surface of the mung beans. Bring to a boil and then lower flame to simmer. Cook until the beans are tender, have broken up and until the beans have absorbed all the liquid leaving only a mush of beans in the pot (very much like cooking rice by absorption). Watch the pot carefully towards the end so that it doesn't burn. Transfer the mush onto a flat plate to cool it down completely.*

When the boiled beans have cooled down completely transfer to a medium bowl and add sugar, flour and a pinch of salt. Adjust for sweetness if you like it sweeter. Mix thoroughly until it becomes pasty and then shape into patties about 2 inches in diameter.


Batter :


Mix all dry ingredients together. Add cold water slowly and stop until you have achieved a nice coating batter.


Heat up a pot of oil until hot. Dip the bean patties in the batter  one by one and fry until a light golden brown and crispy. Serve warm or at room temperature. Enjoy.

* It's important that the cooked beans cool down completely so that when the sugar is added it will not melt and make the bean mixture too soft and sticky to handle. Some recipes call for grated coconut instead of flour to firm up the mixture enough to handle and to taste. I didn't have any.

PINEAPPLE FRIED RICE

At 2.30 am this morning it was Brazil vs Korea ~ Brazil 2, Korea 1. (My boys were relatively satisfied)

At 12.30 pm this afternoon it was Pineapple Fried Rice vs Left overs ~ Pineapple fried rice 2, Left overs 2. (Everyone was satisfied)

That's basically how it went. Allow me to elaborate.

R and I had freshly cooked pineapple fried rice while N and Z had last night's left overs.

I was not being a mean mom. N and Z do not like pineapple. R and I like pineapple. And the left overs were yummy too.

But I love pineapple fried rice only if, in 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil, one sautes.........

3 pips of crushed garlic,

1/2 a cup of sweet pineapple pulp along with the 

Fresh prawns, 

Sliced squid, 

Diced long beans and red peppers, 

Splashes of fish sauce, 

Splashes of soy sauce, 

Sprinkles of salt and crackled black pepper, 

Wicked bits of fiery bird chillies

Scramble in an egg or 2

Tumble in 2 Chinese bowls of plain white rice, freshly cooked

Give an energetic stir all the while and finally, with a flourish, throw in....

Juicy bits of sweet pineapple. 

Serve steaming hot. Cook only 2 servings at a time if deliciousness is what you're after.

You might like to know that I have never had issues using freshly cooked rice when frying rice. I prefer freshly cooked rice because the rice is hot, moist and fluffy and so easy to fry with. You have, after all, the oil to keep the grains seperate yet not dry. Perfect fried rice every time.  True. 

12 midnight  ~ Spain 0, Switzerland 1 (my boys are not too happy)

 

FISH IN HOT CHILLIE PEPPERS ~ SAMBAL BELADO IKAN

Drowned in oil and fiery. The whole fireworks. This is a dish originating from Padang in Indonesia.  It's hard to tear one's self away from one's ancestors when it comes to food. But I have done so. Because I'm married to someone who's ancestors come from a totally different part of South East Asia. 

Someone who prefers soupy food as opposed to oily. And someone who had decided a long time ago, for some reason, that there's not much point in eating fiery food when it burns/numbs your tastebuds. 

So it has been a long time since I've cooked anything remotely Minang, Padang-ish or numbingly fiery. But today when the cat was away I played.

Crispy fried fish slathered in crushed hot chillie peppers. It was hardly numbing because I did not have little bird chillies. Bummer. But there's always another day.

The recipe ~

2 servings


2 pieces of fish, whole or sliced, any firm oily fish
1/4 cup plain flour
1/8 cup rice flour
1/4 tsp tumeric powder
a pinch of baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
water


Mix all ingredients except the fish. Add water until you get a thick-ish slurry. Heat up a frying pan, add oil. When the oil is hot, dip the fish in the batter and fry until a golden brown and cooked through. Drain on kitchen paper and keep aside.


The sambal belado ~

4-5 large red chillies (plus 3 or 4 fiery bird chillies if you like)
3 pips garlic
1 large red onion or 5-6 shallots
Tamarind juice from 1 T tamarind paste and 4 T water
Juice from 1 small lime
salt


Chop the chillies in chunks leaving seeds in. Chop or slice the onion roughly. Peel garlic. Pound all three ingredients in a pestle and mortar (including bird chillies if using) until it becomes a coarse mush. You should still be able to see coarse pieces of chillies or onions here and there. This paste is not usually pounded till fine. BUT it should be pounded. If it is chopped in a food processor it just doesn't give the same results when cooked.


Pour about 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil into a wok or high sided pan. When fairly hot put in the pounded sambal paste. Stir it around and put the flame to medium small. Let the sambal cook through until really limp. About 7-8 minutes. Stir now and then. Add the tamarind juice and cook further for another 5 minutes or until the sambal starts to turn slightly golden at the edges or to caramelize slightly. Stir now and then. Add salt to taste. Add a squeeze of lime juice at the end and stir.  


Put the pieces of fish into the sambal mixture and turn over gently to slather the sambal all over the fish. Serve hot with steaming white rice.

MOCHI GNOCCHI COCONUT PUDDING ~ BUBUR PULUT a' la GNOCCHI

Two of the most harrowing events happened within the past week.  Where fear and gratefulness merged.

 ~ Our cat Sweetie went missing. 

Thank God, at 2 am 2 nights later, she returned. A little scruffy, damp and hungry but complete and safe. The home was whole and warm again, hearts were lifted, joy was etched on faces, Sweetie tailed closely behind N, later to morph into aloofness and surely promises were made to selves to cherish her more than ever before.


~ I could not sign in to my blogger account.

It was an agonizing night, repeated re-setting of passwords, punching of unnecessary keys, head waggings, head aches, furrowing eyebrows, deep breaths, even deeper frustrated sighs and when by a mere miracle I succeeded it was a feeling of release and humbleness that I felt ~ after a long, solitary confinement in that black hole of Blogland that had, for hours, not a crack of light in sight. And then the final sense of complete charge and control over this little area of my life. Woo hoo. 

Life is back to its normal and comfortable disarray.

In between those events I had made a mochi gnocchi-shaped pudding. It was quite by accident that I gave them the adorable 'gnocchi' (pronounced n'yo-kee) imprint. A fork happened to be within reach. It was addictive to sculpt the form. The dough was made of glutinous rice flour or mochi mixed with coconut milk, a little sugar and a pinch of salt. A very forgiving dough.

This is  dough that can never go wrong. This is also a typical South East Asian dessert the gnocchi shape of which gave the dessert a little twist (literally almost). It would have otherwise been rolled into little balls and left at that. Its satisfyingly chewy, with a caress of sweet, soaked in creamy. A little palm sugar syrup (or maple syrup) dribbled over the top would have added a lovely and tasteful finale.

The recipe ~

250 gm glutinous rice flour
1/2 - 3/4 cup coconut milk minus 2 T, preferably fresh ( I used packet)
2-3 T castor sugar
a pinch of salt
2 T pandan juice (3-4 pandan leaves chopped and blended with a little warm water in a blender and then strained) OR a few drops of green colouring 

Coconut syrup :

250 ml coconut milk the consistency of fresh milk
50 gm sugar or more if you would like it sweeter
a pinch of salt
1 pandan leaf tied in a knot

Place the glutinous flour, add sugar and salt and pour in almost half of the coconut milk and 1 tablespoon of the pandan juice in a medium bowl. Mix with your hand and add some more coconut milk and pandan juice as you go along until it becomes a soft, smooth and ball of dough. Add pandan juice until you get the shade of green that pleases you. You may or may not use up all the liquid. The amount is just a guide. Add more if necessary.
Roll the dough into little balls about 1 cm  in size and then press it against the back of a fork and roll it off. Finish off the rest of the dough. Bring a pot of water to a boil and throw in the mochi gnocchi a batch at a time. When the mochi gnocchi floats to the top skin them off and do the rest of the dough. Keep aside on a plate.

The coconut syrup :

Bring all ingredients into a pot. Place over a small heat and stir constantly until the mixture becomes quite warm and the sugar has dissolved. This must be stirred and not left to boil otherwise the coconut milk will 'break' and separate causing oil to rise to the surface. Taste and adjust for sweetness.

To serve :

Place a few or as many mochi gnocchi in a serving bowl and pour the coconut syrup over it. Serve warm or at room temperature or even chilled.