Snackety Snacks!

Pasar malam! Literally translates to "night market." Anyone from Malaysia can tell you what pasar malam entails. It's blocks of streets closed for pedestrians to skip, hop, and jump from one stall to another. One can find most any categories of things on this closed street, including but not limited to, food - fresh produce & vegetables to prepared food & snacks, clothing, household needs, traditional medicine, palm readers / pyschics, etc. Since this is a blog related to food, I would just stick to the topic. There's rice and noodles dishes that could fill one's stomach as dinner or supper, and then there's also a great variety of snacks that would eventually fill one's stomach as well! (Of course, that said person wouldn't usually notice his/her expanded stomach as he/she is chewing and swallowing as he/she is walking and walking...)

When Ah Po goes to pasar malam to get her groceries and "socialize" with the neighbours, she would often bring back treats for my brothers and I. And by treats, I meant snacks, by Malaysian standard, that is. Depending on the day, the treats can be kuih, tau fu fah (my brothers' favorite), biscuits (yup, they're biscuits in Malaysia, not cookies), steamed sweet corns, putu mayam, apam balik.... gosh, the list just goes on and on. Hence, my attempt to make apam balik. The first three turned out to be, well, I'll just say "burned." As I'm trying to figure out what the heck was wrong, I then remembered that the uncle that sells apam balik always cleans the pan once the cooked apam balik is removed. So I tried that and, voila, it works. I finally got three that looked decent; two thin and one thick (my preference).

Another treat that Ah Po spoiled us with is agar-agar. Typically, she makes agar-agar for special occasions, such as birthdays. Or other times when she deemed it a special day; for example, when she's in a good mood. The ones that she made are always the plain, pinkish agar-agar (using the same red coloring that she would use to make red-colored eggs for birthdays). Then I got creative and put a spin to her version. I would make kuih lapis agar-agar, with alternating layers of pink and clear. Since purple is quite the "hot" color currently, I thought I'd give it a try by mixing red and blue. Turns out, blue is very dominating and the outcome, is kinda like blackish...

Spoiling myself like this, makes me feels like Ah Po is spoiling me... all over again!

Apam on apam

My thick apam balik

Agar-agar

just thought this is quite a funky photo!

Apam Balik
200 grams of flour
2 tsp of baking powder
3/4 tsp of baking soda
1/2 tsp of salt
50 grams of sugar
160 ml of water
160 ml of milk
1 egg
40 grams of melted butter

Filling:
1 cup of toasted peanuts, grind coarsely
1/2 cup of sugar
some butter

In a large bowl, add in all ingredients for batter. Mix well into smooth batter. Set aside in the fridge for 2 hours.
Heat up a non-stick pan and very lightly grease with a bit of oil. Clean off excess oil with paper towel.
Pour a ladle full of batter into the pan and swirl the pan to completely fill it with batter. Put more batter if thicker apam balik is desired.
Sprinkle some peanuts, sugar, and a few dollop of butter. Then cover with lid.
Cook until the center is cooked and the edges are browned.
Remove and fold into half.
Serve.


Kuih Lapis Agar-agar (my own, no measurements instructions)
1 packet of agar-agar
Water
Sugar
Food Coloring

Rinse agar-agar. Put in a pot and fill with water till all agar-agar is submerged. Bring to a boil. Stir occasionally as the agar-agar is dissolving.
Then add sugar. (Add sufficient sugar till the desired sweetness is achieved.)
When agar-agar and sugar is fully dissolved, separate the mixture evenly into two pots.
Add coloring #1 to pot #1, mix well and continue to simmer the mixture.
Add coloring #2 to pot #2, mix well and continue to simmer the mixture. (If clear is desired, coloring is not necessary.)
Measure 6 oz of mixture #1 and pour into an 8-inch baking pan (or agar-agar mold, if you have one). Let mixture cool and the top surface solify.
Then, measure 6 oz of mixture #2 and carefully pour on top of the previous layer. Let mixture col and the top surface solify.
Repeat creating layers until all mixture are used up.
Set aside to slightly cool before putting into the fridge.
Serve cool.