Love Cake - - Well Wisher

There's no better name for an end. Hope it goes for all!

Love & Peace.

Embarking on a 10,000 miles journey for Ah Po's 80th birthday!

Love Cake - Well-wisher
450 grams of semolina (sugee)
700 grams of sugar
335 grams of butter, cut into smaller cubes
335 grams of cashew nuts, finely chopped
12 egg yolks
6 egg whites stiffly beaten
3 tbsp of honey
1 tsp of lemon rind, finely chopped or grated
3 tsp of mixed spice (ground nutmeg and cinnamon)

Warm the semoline over low heat.
Remove from fire and add the butter cubes to it. Set aside.
Beat the sugar and egg yolks well.
Then add the honey and the semolina and butter mixture.
Add the chopped cashew nuts, lemon rind, and mixed spices. Fold in evenly.
Lastly fold in the egg whites that have been beaten till stiff.
Pour  mixture into a lined and greased cake pan.
Bake at 180 Celcius till slightly brown on top and cooked through when tested with a skewer.
Serve with love.

Penang Hokkien Mee / Prawn Mee

Sigh.... of relief! I'm so glad that I had the time to cook tonight, especially since Penang Hokkien Mee was on the list. It is no wonder why hawkers have to get up before the break of dawn to start their business. I think the monetary value of a bowl of Penang Hokkien Mee (as well as many other staple noodles and rice dishes in Malaysia) does not speak wholly to the effort put into making such amazing dish.

Though the recipes called for is not complicated, it does takes the right balance of the mix to create a bowl of noodle that is not extremely spicy and has a slight hint of saltiness and sweetness. Even though I cheated (I do not have kangkung and bean sprouts), the noodles is simply appetizing, delicious, and makes one begs for more!

Penang Hokkien Mee / Prawn Mee
1 bag of prawn heads and shells (from about 3 - 4 lbs of prawns)
15 cups of water, reduced to about 12 - 13 cups of broth
2 - 3 pieces of rock sugar or to taste
1 - 1.5 lbs of pork ribs, cut into pieces
Salt to taste

Chili paste:
30 dried chillies, deseeded and soaked to soften
10 shallots, peeled
5 cloves of garlic, peeled
2 tbsp of water
6 tbsp of cooking oil

1 lb of yellow noodles, scalded
1 pack of rice vermicelli, scalded
Some kangkung (water convolvulus), scalded
Some bean sprouts, scalded

Toppings:
1/2 lb of lean pork meat, boiled and sliced thinly
1/2 lb of prawn, deshelled and deveined
6 hard boiled eggs, shelled and halved or quartered
Some fried shallot crisps, store-bought (optional)

Blend the chili paste ingredients with a food processor until finely ground and blended. Heat up the wok and add cooking oil. Stir fry the chili paste for 5 minutes. Dish up and set aside. On the same wok (unwashed), add in a little oil and cook the prawn topping. Add in a little chili paste, sugar, and salt. Pan-fried the prawn until slightly burned. Dish up and let cool.
Add 15 cups of water into a pot and bring to boil. Add in all the prawn heads and shells, simmer on low heat for about 2 hours or longer, until the broth becomes cloudy and tastes really prawny.
Strain the broth through sieve and transfer the broth into another pot. Discard the prawn heads and shells. Scoop up and discard the orange foam forming at the top of broth.
Bring the broth to boil again. Add in half of the chili paste. Add more if spicier is desired.
Add in the pork ribs and continue to boil in low heat for another 1 - 1.5 hour until the pork ribs are thoroughly cooked.
Add rock sugar and salt/fish sauce to taste.
To serve, place a portion of yellow noodles, rice vermicelli, water convolvulus, and bean sprouts in a bowl. Ladle hot broth over. Top with meat slices, prawns, eggs, and sprinkle with shallot crisps.

Penang Assam Laksa

This dish is one that I made about a month ago and had forgotten to write about... perhaps I was too disappointed and was trying to erase it out of my memory! The disappointment... well, let's just say, the sourness was there but the spiciness was off. Felt let down as this dish is another staple dish of Malaysia. Rain or shine, sunny or cloudy, one will still find contented smiles on faces of those who have just completely consumed their bowl of Penang Assam Laksa!

I guess I'll just plan on buying assam laksa as opposed to making them myself :)

Penang Assam Laksa
1 lb of Mackerel fish
8 cups of water
5 pieces of assam keping
1 pack of fresh laksa noodles

Spice paste:
12 dried red chillies, seeded
5 fresh red chillies, seeded
8 small shallots
2 tsp of belacan
1 stalk of lemon grass

Tamarind juice:
Tamarind, about the size of a ping pong ball
1/2 cup of water, repeat 3 - 4 times

Seasonings:
1 tsp of salt
2 tbsp of sugar
1 tsp of fish sauce

Garnishing:1 cucumber, julienned
1 bunch of mint leaves
1 bunch of Vietnamese mint leaves
1 bunga kantan/ginger bud, cut into small pieces
1 red onion, thinly sliced
1 lettuce, thinly cut
1 red chili, cut into small slices
1 small pineapple, cut into short strips

Condiment:
Heh Ko/Prawn Paste

Clean the fish, remove scales and gut. In a pot, bring 8 cups of water to boil. Add in the fish and boil for about 10 minutes. Transfer the cooked fish out into a bowl and let cool. Strain the fish stock, then add in the peeled tamarind, and the Vietnamese mint leaves and continue to boil in low heat.
Wet your hands constantly with a bowl of water, pick the flesh out of all the fish and discard the bones. Break the fish meat into tiny pieces and put the fish back into the stock, cover the lid, and lower the heat.
Using a mini food processor, grind the spice paste until fine. Heat up a wok and saute the spice paste with cooking oil for about 6 - 8 minutes or until fragrant and spicy. Transfer the spice paste into the boiling stock.
Extract the tamarind juice and add it into the stock. Strain the tamarind juice and keep the seed. Repeat 3 - 4 times with 1/2 cup of water each time to make sure you extract all the essence from the tamarind. Continue to taste your Assam Laksa stock to make sure it's sour and to your liking. For seasoning, add sugar, salt, and fish sauce.
Prepare the laksa noodles by following the packaging instructions. In a serving bowl, add in the laksa noodles and garnish all vegetables on top. Pour the Assam Laksa soup into the bowl and serve immediately with a spoonful of Heh Ko/prawn paste.

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.

White Radish Soup

Ah Po often make soup for us, perhaps because of her Cantonese descendant nature. But for a while, I couldn't think of what soups she has made... until I came across a recipe for this delicious white radish soup. It was an "a-ha" moment!

When I was a kid, I refused to eat many things, among other green vegetables (or any type of vegetables, for that matter). Ah Po would complaint to my mom and said, "Your daughter is very picky. What also don't eat!!" and mom would just nonchalantly replied, "Let her be." The reason I mention this is because there is a context to this soup that I make. I used and put in all the necessary ingredients, just like Ah Po would. But when I scoop out a bowl of it for my own enjoyment, I did it just the way I used to when I was a kid; I'll scoop out the broth and a lot of the dried oysters, leaving the white radish behind! Some things just never change :)

White Radish Soup
300 grams of pork ribs
1 white radish, cut into large chunks
8 red dates
6 - 8 pieces of dried oysters (put more if you like)
1 piece of dried cuttlefish (optional)
700 ml of water for soup
500 ml of water

Bring 500 ml of water to boil in a pot. Add pork ribs and allow the meat to cook slightly. Remove scum from surface of water. Remove meat and discard water.
Bring 700 ml of water to boil in a clean pot. Add the partially cooked meat and the rest of the ingredients. Bring back to boil. Then, reduce the heat to low, simmer for 2 - 3 hours. Add salt to taste before serving.

Braised Pork Trotters with Vinegar (Ju Kiok Chou)

Yup, here's the long-awaited dish; one of the legendary dish that Ah Po makes. I don't personally feel it is one of my personal favorite dish, perhaps because of the vinegar. But, this dish has been again and again requested and demanded by friends and families who visit Ah Po. Case in point, my high school friends who visit Ah Po during Chinese New Years, while I'm not in the home country, would ask for Ah Po to make Ju Kiok Chou for them. And Ah Po is always so happy when she get requests like that; happy that people are visiting her and happier that people are enjoying the meal she makes. I can't say enough how kind, generous, and loving of a person she is! She would get excited upon hearing such news and strategically planning on her groceries shopping. Rumor has it that she use "special" vinegars that she used to get from Perak, a neighbouring state, or later on as age and distance becomes her nemesis, she would get the vinegars from our old neighbourhood, Jalan Meru, I think.

As I was chopping the pork trotters into smaller pieces, I thought to myself... right, this is why I don't eat this dish. (And the reason why I added lean meat to my dish!) By the way, those are some stubborn bones and fat that are not very chop-friendly. Then, after several hours of simmering, I took my first slurp of the broth and then believes how this dish is a favorite of so many souls. And yes, I finally ate (possibly) my very first pork trotters.

My personal experience of making Ju Kiok Chou did quite mark a significant day in my life; the pressure was absolutely high. Primarily because this is Ah Po's signature dish and also the fact that I know mine will not turn out to be like hers (I don't need food expert to tell me that). More regretfully, I don't know her methods for making this dish. It was truly a bittersweet day as I finally cook the Ju Kiok Chou but it was not Ah Po's Ju Kiok Chou.

PS: Friends, this is dish #75!

Braised Pork Trotters with Vinegar (Ju Kiok Chou)
2 pork trotters
4 tbsp of sesame oil
1 1/2 lbs of old ginger, skinned and smashed
3 bowls of sweetened black rice vinegar
2 bowls of sour black rice vinegar
6 - 8 dried chillies (optional, use if young ginger is used instead of old ginger)
Brown/palm sugar to taste
3 - 5 bowls of water, or enough to completely cover the meat
5 hard boiled eggs

Clean and pluck off the hair from the pork trotters. Cut into big serving pieces.
In a wok, heat the sesame oil. Fry the ginger until it's golden brown and fragrant.
Add pork trotters pieces and stir fry until they are slightly cooked. While frying, you'll notice water draining out from the meat.
Place the ginger and pork trotters into a big pot. Add the sweetened and sour rice vinegar, and water. Bring it to boil and let simmer in low heat for 2 - 3 hours or until ginger and pork trotters are soft.  If dried chillies are used, add it in as well.
When pork trotters are ready, add brown/palm sugar to taste and cook till the sugar dissolved.
Add the hard boiled eggs 1/2 hour before serving.
Serve with warm white rice.

Pineapple Shrimp Curry

Looks like I have a sambal/curry + prawns/shrimps trend going on here. The spiciness makes food much more appetizing, I think. And I just can't get enough! Adding pineapple simply adds a hint of succulent and sweetness to this dish. Ahhhh.....

Pineapple Shrimp Curry
1 1/2 lbs of large shrimp/prawn, shelled or deshelled
2 cups of fresh pineapples, cut into bite sizes
2 - 3 tbsp of Malaysian fish curry powder
1 - 2 tbsp of Malaysian chili powder
2 tbsp of oil
1/4 tsp of tumeric powder
2 cups of coconut milk
2 tsp of sugar
salt

Paste:
1 stalk of lemongrass
1 inch of galangal
2 cloves of garlic
4 shallots
1 tsp of belacan

Grind the lemongrass, galangal, garlic, shallots, and belacan into a paste using a food processor.
In a small bowl, combine curry powder and chili powder, add a few tbsp of water and mix into a thick paste.
In a wok, heat oil on med-high. Add grinded paste and stir fry for 5 - 8 minutes. Add curry paste and reduce heat to low. Stir fry until quite toasted and oil starts to ooze from paste (do not burn!)
Add coconut milk, pineapple, sugar (or some of the sweet pineapple juice if using canned) and season with salt. Bring to boil, then immediately lower heat to med-low and simmer for 15 minutes.
Add shrimp and simmer until shrimp turn just opaque, about 2 - 3 minutes.
Remove promptly from heat and let stand for 15 minutes (for flavors to meld).
Serve with steamed rice or roti (bread).

Chicken with Potato

Chicken with potato is one of the dishes that Ah Po often make for us. This dish is simple, just like my Ah Po, yet very fulfilling. I guess that's how some dishes become the staple of home-cooked meals and never made it to the menu in restaurants.

The following recipe and instructions were given by my mom; I'm not sure how my Ah Po cook hers. To think of it, Ah Po never asks me to help in the kitchen. I couldn't recall exactly, but it's very likely that she had told me, "Don't disturb! Go study!" or "Go sweep the floor" or some other chores. Just not cooking.

Chicken with Potato

2 - 3 tbsp of oil

2 - 3 cloves of garlic

1 - 2 potatoes, sliced

1/2 chicken, cut into bite sizes

Sauce:

3 tbsp of oyster sauce

3 tbsp of dark soy sauce

1 tbsp of fish sauce

1 tsp of sugar
3 tbsp of water

Heat oil and fry the potatoes. When slightly brown, dish up and set aside.
Then brown the garlic. Add in chicken and stir fry until chicken is cooked. Add in browned potatoes and stir fry for a little, about 3 - 6  minutes.
Put in sauce mixture, stir until well blended with the chicken and potatoes.
Lower the heat and simmer for 25 - 30 minutes.
Serve with white rice.

Kuih Bahulu

It's less than a month before we celebrate Hari Raya Aidilfitri in Malaysia... and across the world, for that matter. It'll also be the day for me to fly out of KLIA back to the USA. Well, back to Hari Raya. It is Malaysian's culture to incorporate various delectables for celebration. Not only during the Raya celebration itself; one can bet on putting a few good pounds with the variety of yumminess that is being offered a month before the days of Raya celebration, that is the month of fasting.

Kuih Bahulu is one of the traditionally and widely served pastry during the celebration for family and friends. Chinese do the same during Chinese New Year too. The kuih smells yummy and taste yummy!

Kuih Bahulu
3 eggs
1 cup of sugar
1 1/4 cup of flour, sifted
1 tsp of vanilla extract
1/4 tsp of baking soda
2 tbsp of butter

Beat the eggs until frothy. Then add sugar. Continue to beat until the sugar is well dissolved and the mixture becomes sticky.
Add in the vanilla extract and fold in the flour gradually. Then add in the butter. Continue to beat the batter until well-blended.
Grease the kuih bahulu moulds and fill up to the surface level.
Bake in preheated oven at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15 minutes or until golden brown.
Remove kuih bahulu from the moulds and cool on wire rack.

Kacang Pendek Sambal Belacan

What I really wanted to cook is kangkung (water convolvulus) sambal belacan. But since I couldn't get kangkung here, I settled with kacang pendek (string beans). The outcome was quite satisfying cos all I really care about was the prawns in sambal belacan sauce!

Kacang Pendek Sambal Belacan
1 lb of kacang pendek
1/4 lb of prawns
1 - 2 tbsp of sambal paste
1 tsp of belacan, broken into small bits
1/4 tsp of sugar
1/4 tsp of fish sauce
2 tbsp of oil

Rinse kacang pendek and cut into 2-inch lengths. Set aside.
Heat up oil in a wok. Add sambal and belacan. Stir well until the paste smells aromatic. Add in the prawns and do a quick stir, then follow by the kacang pendek. Add fish sauce, sugar, and continue to stir until well mixed (but don't overcook!) 
Dish out and serve.