Talam Keladi Berlauk ~ Taro Cake, Malay Style 马来芋头糕

The Chinese community in Malaysia has a kuih called WooTauGou 芋头糕 or some call it as Yam Cake or Taro Cake. Usually sold at old fashioned breakfast joints, or tea break stalls, or some even sell it as supper fare. It's a flavourful savoury kuih loved by many.

This talam keladi berlauk, translated as 'Taro Tray with Savoury Toppings' is not the same as the Chinese version. The flavour is richer, much richer, although it looks similar.

Guangxi Banana Leaf Dumplings 广西蕉叶糍

Today is my mother's birthday. I will try to post one Guangxi dish each year on her birthday to honour her heritage.

Guangxi is one of the few places in China where banana leaves are abundant, and I saw on the internet that some are so huge, you can go all bare behind a frond and not get seen.

Taiwanese Mugwort Dumpling 草仔粿 - Sticky #1

Chinese Mugwort 艾草 (pronounced "ngai chou” in Cantonese) is a household herb that is usually used in omelettes and soups. It can also be used to add colour and flavour to dumplings. This herb is said to be good for women and to dispel wind from the body

This dumpling is also found in China and Malaysia as well. In China, it can go with many names like 清明粑，清明糍，艾草粑粑 and quite a few more that I can't remember. There are some differences between the Taiwanese version and the rest.

Fish Satar, Kelantan Style- MFF Kelantan #8

I had Satar many times before.
Flaky fish parcels that bursts with sweetness from the coconut and onions.
It's origins are from Terengganu. But they are sold almost everywhere nowadays.

When I went to Pantai Bachok in Kota Bahru, I saw this satar stall and as usual, I will buy some. To my surprise, there was a crunch factor in it, and it was green! I asked the lady what was the green crunch and was told it was water convolvulus or locally known as kangkung. Being the inquisitive me, I asked whether this was Kelantan's style and she happily said YES.

I find it hard to forget... crunchy, juicy and fragrant. I love it

I tried to replicate it and I'm glad mine tasted alright, but sadly without the smoky fragrance as mine were oven grilled. The texture was soft and flaky, unlike fishballs were we expect them to be  bouncy and very smooth. And they were juicy. Not spicy. But I think I should use more shallots.
I also chose to use aquatic kangkung as these grow on water and are known to have crunchier stems.

Kelantan Fish Satar
by WendyinKK

100gm fish flesh (from 250gm fresh sardines)
2 shallots
1 small piece of ginger (7gm)
1/2 red chilli
60gm freshly grated coconut
1 tsp asam pulp mixed with 50gm water, rubbed to dissolve.
1/2 tsp salt and some black pepper
1/2 tsp sugar
4 sprigs of aquatic kangkung

6 pcs of banana leaf (6X6inches)

1. Pound shallots and ginger until pasty, then add in chilli and coarsely pound it. Remove all these and set aside
2. Put in coconut together with fish. Add in salt, sugar, pepper and asam water and mix until combined.
3. Thinly slice kangkung and mix it in. It's is now ready for wrapping.
4. Wilt banana leaf over open flame or blanch it in boiling water.
5. Fold banana leaf into quarters and open up a pocket. Fill in one heaped Tbsp of fish mixture. Press the mixture to fill the corner on the bottom. Fold the top to close up.
6. Grill at 220(fan forced) or 240C for 15 minutes until the parcels release juices and the leaves start to  char.

*Traditional recipes call for pounding, but I used my chopper to do all the pounding work, with the same sequence.

Pulut Lepa Kelantan - MFF Kelantan #7

A lot of us are used to Pulut Panggang.
Those that I ate before are either filled with  a spicy coconut sambal or a dried shrimp sambal.

But on the east coast.... this is not the usual case.

In Terengganu,  the rice is infused with fenugreek and filled with a moist coconutty fish filling, whereas in Kelantan, the rice is just with the usual coconut milk and salt, BUT, sweet. Yes, it has a heavy tinge of sweetness, but not sweet like dessert. And the filling is no other than the famous beef serunding.

Pot Stickers / Guotie - Wrapped # 1

Recipe recreated in July 2011

I first learnt to make these when I was 13 or 14. I forgot exactly when.

My friend, LSP's mom is a Taiwanese. She doesn't call these pot stickers, but instead as ShuiJiao.

To celebrate LSP's birthday, her mom, Mrs Loh organized a "ShuiJiao" session at her home. A few of us were invited over to make your own and eat your own dumplings. Since it was a first for most of us, we made the skin thick and fillings miniscule. LOL. Kids!

Chinese Chives and Dried Krill Fritters - Seafood Week #1

I am a teacher. Still am. I am just on leave. I have not resigned. I teach Living Skills in school, or Kemahiran Hidup as called locally. In Living Skills, there are 4 electives to be chosen, something like a minor thingy, namely home econs, technical studies, agriculture and accounts.

When I was teaching in PESS, I was given 1 class with home econs as an elective in the subject.
The class was split to 2 for the subject and the other teacher sharing the class with me was Meldylocks. Home Econs consist of sewing and cooking basically, but the school didn’t encourage cooking. Yes!!! You heard me. So, it was all talk and chalk. Both of us were like “Huh??”How can cooking class be just talk and chalk?

I have taught Home Science for 2 years in Selancar and there will be cooking lessons for every chapter. I have never encountered a situation like such. Our subject form supervisor in PESS told us, there was no budget, and that she was told by the subject supervisor that we just explain, no need to do practical work. Meldylocks and I just couldn’t bring ourselves to teach this way. In the end, we used our own money and bought some ingredients to teach our students about “Batter”. This is the recipe that I made with them to demo “thick batter”. It was a nice experience with the students and I left the school the next year and came to where I am now. Ex 1-Teratai of 2007, if you happen to read this, I was happy to conduct those lessons with you gals.

Jicama and Krill Fritters (cucur udang geragau)
Source: Wendyywy

1 cup all purpose flour
½ cup water
1 egg
1/3 tsp salt
¾ cup dried krill, 虾皮
½ cup chopped Chinese chives
½ cup grated jicama (sengkuang)

Pouring chilli sauce

Every 2 part of chilli sauce, mix with 1 part water.

Make as much as u need.

1. Put dried krill in a sieve and rinse under running water for few seconds. Drain.
2. Mix water, and egg together. Pour into flour and salt, and mix until well combined
3. Put in rinsed krill, grated jicama and chopped chives and mix.
4. Heat some oil for deep frying.
5. Put in ½ tablespoon of batter and deep fry until golden. Repeat until batter is finished.
6. Serve with pouring chilli sauce.

Pulut Panggang

One of the all time favourite savoury kuih of Malaysians, a definate local kuih, using all local ingredients... Err... mind u, the currypuff /karipap is not 100% local, it uses wheat flour...wheat...wheat, u see.....

I did this my way!!!

The assembly...
I was lazy to flatten each piece of rice like making sushi roll, so I did it this way.

Or u can just do it swiss roll style!! Your own way, any way.


Filling:
10-12 dried chillies (soaked, seeds removed)
60gm dried shrimp (soaked)
50gm shallots
3cm fresh turmeric
2 lemongrass
280gm fresh grated coconut
2 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
1 cup water
¼ cup oil

1. Place dried chillies, dried shrimp, shallots, turmeric and lemon grass into a food processor and puree.
2. Heat wok and put in oil. Fry (1) on medium heat until fragrant and dry.
3. Put in grated coconut, and mix well. Continue to fry until coconut is fragrant. Put in seasonings and water. Cook until mixture is slightly moist, as in packable when pressure is laid, but not so moist that u see juices seeping out.
4. Remove from heat and let it cool.
This step can be done in advanced for many days, kept frozen until needed. This amount is for double the amount of rice stated below, so u can freeze this in separated into 2 portions.

Rice:
600gm glutinous rice (soaked overnight, or at least 3 hours, and then drained)
100ml thick coconut milk
500ml water( or more)
3 blades pandan leaves, torn
2 tsp salt
Placed drained rice into a baking pan and put in water, salt and coconut milk. Make sure the liquid is fully covering the rice.
Steam on high heat for half and hour or until rice turns translucent and cooked. Keep rice warm.

Banana Leaves:
Wash leaves and cut into preferred sizes. Bring a pot of water to a boil and put in few drops of oil. Blanch leaves until they are pliable.

Assembly----My Way:

1. Line baking pan with baking paper overlapping on the sides.



2. Place half the warm rice into the lined baking pan and level rice with a fork.
3. Place half the filling onto leveled rice, and level the filling.
4. Spoon the other half of rice evenly over filling.


5. Press rice to firmly pack it up.
6. Leave to cool down.


7. When rice has cooled down, overturn it onto a cutting board, and slice it into preferred sizes.


8. Wrap each piece of rice with a piece of blanched banana leaf, sealing up the sides with staples or toothpicks.




9. Grill wrapped rice until slightly burnt. (Or u can fry them in lightly greased pan)


Your grilled glutinous rice is ready to be served!

Radish Dumplings 萝卜板

There’s not a trace of radish in this dumpling. Why call it so? The shape…
This dumpling is shaped like a radish.

I first tasted this from a kuih hawker at Dataran Sunway. No where else I’ve seen this. And I got this local delights cookbook from Popular Book Store, and to my surprise, the recipe’s in it! OMG, I just can’t wait to try this out.

The cookbook’s proportion of ingredients is …. Incorrect. I had to adjust some. I had to add almost 70% extra water, if not the dough will remain as crumbs. Yeah, that bad!
And the amount of dried shrimps stated in the recipe scared the hell outta me when I weighed it. I only used 20% of it. Sometimes, it’s really frustrating when the recipe’s not all that accurate. If one has no experience in eating it or seeing it b4, one can never make it based on that recipe. I’ve corrected it, no worries, this one is accurate.

To make 24 pcs of radish dumplings:-

U need 24 pcs of cut up banana leaves (app 5cm X 10cm)
some oil for coating the dumplings and .......

Filling1 kg jicama/sweet turnip/sengkuang, peeled, cut into toothpick length and thickness. (or u can use a coarse grater, but this method will make the jicama wet, just squeeze some of the juices out)40gm dried shrimps, soaked, drained, chopped
1 shallot, chopped finely
1tsp salt, or more (How much salt depends on how salty the dried shrimps are)
2 Tbsp oil

Heat wok, put in oil. Saute shallots until fragrant and put in chopped dried shrimps. Continue to fry until very fragrant, put in salt. Mix well. Put in jicama. Continue to cook until jicama softens and turns translucent. Taste, if not salty enough, add more salt. It should be slightly oversalted. Dish up and cool. If there are juices, drain it. Shape cooled jicama into 24 oblong pieces by lightly squeezing them in palms.



Dough:
450gm glutinous rice flour
75gm all purpose flour
350ml hot water
2 Tbsp cooking oil

Just knead everything together until dough is smooth. Leae to rest for 30 minutes. Divide dough into 24 pcs, abt 36 gms each.


Assembly:
1. Take one pc of dough, flatten it. Put in one pc of shaped jicama filling. Seal up and shape into a radish.



2. Lightly coat each dumpling with oil and place each pc of dumpling onto a piece of cut up banana leaf. Steam on medium heat for 10 minutes.




All ready to be chowed down!!