Chayote in Spicy Coconut Milk @ Sayur Labu Siam

This way of cooking chayote is easy and nice. I have never eaten chayote other than those cooked with Chinese cooking methods.

This dish is part of Nasi Liwet Solo.

Zucchini Salted Egg Quick Soup - Zucchini Courgette #2

I cooked this dish based on another common quick soup in Cantonese cuisine, that is the Hairy Marrow Soup (毛瓜汤).

I thought, why not cook zucchini or courgettes this way too! As they are squashes and taste soooo sweet.
I liked the result, and so did my kids.

Summer Squash Pancakes - Zucchini Courgettes #1

Zucchinis and yellow squashes are expensive here. They used to be even more expensive, but now gone to RM6/kg. But when I saw them this time, they were on offer for RM2/kg. Yeah! I got myself about 1.2kg of yellow squashes and used 1kg to make these.

Acar Awak - MFF Penang #2

I love acar  awak.

The one I grew up eating was similar to the one by Rasa Malaysia, that is vegetarian with no belacan and dried shrimp, and consist of only the basic 5 vegetables. I couldn't decide on an exact recipe to follow because a lot of recipes do differ from one to another, but the basic idea is the same, hot and sourish pickled vegetables with lots of peanuts and sesame.

Honey Mustard Roasted Pumpkin, Beets and Carrots - Pumpkin #2

I made this for more relatives who came back from Australia few weeks later after the pumpkin sabzi.

They have past their 50's and are conscious of the things they eat. 

Having living overseas for quite a long time, they love to eat roasted vegetables.
Something my hubby find it hard to take in.

I took the opportunity to try out this dish.
Very well recieved by them. I was only so so about this.

Easy Pumpkin Sabzi - Pumpkin #1

The original recipe called for butternut squash, but I used pumpkin. The pumpkins that I buy are always very orangey in colour. Which is why, I find the taste to be similar to butternut squash. I never knew that there was an obvious difference, not until Anne of Pigpigscorner told me during our meet up 2 years ago.

Steamed Cucumber with Dried Shrimp 蒸青瓜- Cucurbits #3

I know this sounds weird to many.

Both my sister in laws, although Cantonese, have never heard or eaten this.
So far, I have never bumped into anyone who has eaten this before, besides my relatives.

This dish is simple to prepare, with simple flavours, doesn't look appealing but we find it appetizing. We grew up with it. The gravy was light and sweet. It's just a frugal homey dish.
I remember once, when I was about 10, I had 3 bowls of rice (spread out in a span of 2 hours) just because the cucumber that day was absolutely delicious. I just ate my rice with this steamed cucumber plus some gravy.


Snake Gourd with Spicy Eggs Stir Fry - Cucurbits #2

I have never eaten this before I hit 24 years old.

One day, my ex colleague and I decided to buy lunch from a "lunch van" that stops by and sells lunch to our factory workers. The mobile food stall was operated by a Malay uncle and I happen to see this cute U shaped thing that looks mouth watering. I put some of that into my food box, paid money and went back to my desk and can't wait to taste this U shaped veggie. To my surprise I like it a lot!

I didn't know what it was until I looked carefully at the skin and realised it's snake gourd. Hmm, never knew snake gourd can be this delicious.

Luffa with Glass Noodles - Cucurbits #1

The plant family of Cucurbitaceae consists of squashes, gourds and melons.
Pumpkins, cucumbers, zucchinis, watermelons and bittergourds are all relatives under the family of cucurbits. This week, I'm going to feature 3 different cucurbits and my favourite ways of cooking them.

Mango Salad with Dried Cuttlefish - MFF Kedah Perlis #9

The last of my Kedah Perlis dishes! Phew! All done!

Because this month, I am host cum organizer, I am supposed to do 6 dishes, but since there weren't much on the internet, I decided to do more so that there will be more ideas and more recipes to choose from.

Kerabu or Salad made with dried cuttlefish is quite common in Chinese restaurants, but normally they come with cucumber. But in Kedah, especially Serdang area, the restaurants have come up with versions that uses green mango (see here), guava(see here) or even green apple(see here). Again, I saw this on the TV show,  Taste with Jason (Axian)

Tomatoes in Sour Gravy ~ Air Asam Tomato

The perfect side dish for Nasi Daging Kedah

Air Asam Tomato  (Tomatoes in Sour Gravy)
Recipe referred : Rinnchan

1 red onion, sliced
1 tsp finely sliced bird’s eye chilli
3 Tbsp lime juice
2 Tbsp sugar
½ -3/4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp fish sauce
1-2 Tbsp vinegar (or more lime juice)
1 tsp finely minced torch ginger bud
2.5 cups diced tomatoes
Chinese parsley (daun sup) for garnish

1. Mix sliced red onion with lime juice, sugar, salt, chilli and fish sauce. Let it sit for 1 hour.
2. Taste it and adjust with vinegar and more salt if needed. It should be sourish, spicy and a saltiness level that is just right (not oversalted).
3. Just before serving, mix in minced torch ginger and diced tomatoes.
4. Serve this with nasi daging/beef rice

Aubergine Omelette - Eggs # 1

The last egg themed week was last year, before I moved. Quite long ago.
When I saw this recipe, I was caught on by the fact that it used aubergines to top the pancake. I wonder how it tastes like. But I’m not keen on having it as pancakes as I wanted to make this for dinner so I changed it into omelette, thin omelettes.

Brinjal Barrels with Caramelized Mince - Katrika Week #3

Dish prepared on 6/4/2012

I invented this dish when I was still teaching in Selancar, Pahang. My room mate and I could only cook whatever we could buy at the settlement's market  with very limited choices, cabbages, amaranth, water convolvulus, Indian Mustard and beansprouts being the norm of leafy vege. Cucumber and brinjal are the everyday item at the market for fruit vege. Luckily I love eggplant/aubergine/brinjal and am always on the quest to find new methods to cook the purple thingy.

Ratatouille - Katrika Week # 2

Recipe attempted on 24th May 2011

I learnt to know of this dish’s existence through… the cartoon!!! It was very pretty to look Remy (the rat) slicing the vegetables, tossing them into the baking dish, having that baked and served. Although the original version is nothing like such, but more of a pot of vegetable stew, I’m definitely more interested in making the visually more attractive dish.

According to Chef Michael Smith , sautéing the aubergine and zucchini first will give much better flavour. Of course I won’t skip the step. If the chef tells you this step will give you better flavour, go ahead and do it. I always love the smell of fried aubergine and squashes, therefore I truly believe this super tedious step will give me definite satisfaction later.

Slicing the vege is a breeze to me. It’s the searing of the vegetables that almost killed me. Being at 39 weeks, with baby Reuben sitting so low in my tummy, standing so long to sear almost each slice of vege is no easy feat. (Reuben could pop out any minute!, but now he's 10M) I sliced them thin and each vege took at least 3 panfuls to finish searing. I did 11 pans of searing. Haha! But it’s all worth it. The aroma from the seared vege is just wonderful.

Ratatouille

Recipe source: WendyinKK
Inspired by the animated movie, Ratatouille

Vegetables
1 aubergine (12 inches)
1 yellow squash (12 inches)
1 green zucchini (12 inches)
3 roma tomatoes
Olive oil for rubbing onto the vege

Preparation of vege:
Slice every vegetable into 2-3m thick. Put sliced aubergine, squash and zucchini into a big bowl. Pour some olive oil in and toss all the vegetables around. Heat a pan and sear the oiled vegetables.


Sauce ingredients
1 cup chopped onions
4 cloves garlic
1 cup chopped capsicum
400gm tomatoes, chopped
½ tsp ground oregano
Salt to taste
1 Tbsp sugar (more or less to balance the taste of the tomatoes)
Handful of basil
Olive oil for cooking

Cooking of sauce:
After searing the vege, with the same pan, on medium heat, put in some olive oil and sauté garlic and onion until golden and fragrant. Put in chopped capsicum and cook for 1 minute. Put in chopped tomatoes and cook until softened. Add in oregano, salt and sugar. Cook until everything softens and turns thick.


Assembly:
Preheat oven to 200 (fan)/220C
Put sauce onto base of baking pan. Put basil over sauce. Arrange the 4 vege in sequence over sauce.
Bake for 15 minutes.

Verdict:
We had this with some homemade buns. I truly loved this dish, but my tomato basil hating hubby tried very hard to eat a few slices of it. My MIL and BIL enjoyed this dish a lot. The sauce was good and the seared and baked vege was just yummilicious. That is if you love squashes and those sort of stuff. The dish didn’t turn watery as the early sautéing removed some of the moisture and I really cooked the sauce thick. The extra moisture from the dish only came from the roma tomatoes that weren’t seared. The dish is still moist but not soggy, with the top fragrant from the high temperature baking.

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Bake Fest by Vardhini hosted by Sumee

Fragrant Fried Eggplant and Long beans - Katrika (Tamil) Week # 1

Katrika is the name in Tamil for this purple fruit vegetable. Some call it eggplant, some call it brinjal, some prefer its name to be aubergine. Whatever you may call it, it's this purple thingy.

There's a tai-chow (Chinese Hot Stir Fry Shop) in Pasir Putih, Ipoh that is very popular, Peng Tau 兵头. It's affordable, reasonable, quick and delicious! Something like Little Paris of SS2/PJ.

One of their signature dishes is this Eggplant Long Beans. Oh yes, the name is just Ai Gua Dau Gok (埃瓜豆角）. Simple and nice.

Steamed Eggplant with Garlic Vinaigrette 蒜泥茄子

A western recipe? Nope. This is a Chinese dish.

I’ve eaten this before at a local lunch spot, serving mixed rice (chap fan or 经济饭), and this is one of my fav dishes from them. And when I saw the recipe here in MeishiChina , gosh, I knew I just got to try this.

There is a difference though with both recipes. The one I had was lightly deep fried to cook it through, but this is steamed, but the garlic thingy is the same. But I made my own modifications to it.

Even my "sour food hater" hubby found this to be nice and appetizing, maybe due to his love for garlic, hahahaha.

 

Steamed Eggplant with Garlic Vinaigrette 蒜泥茄子
Loosely adapted from: Meishi China

250gm aubergine/eggplant/brinjal
3 cloves garlic
1 tbsp cooking oil
1 Tbsp lime juice (original recipe was vinegar)
1 Tbsp sugar (use ¾ first, if not sweet enough then put in the other ¼)
½ tsp salt
Some lime zest
2 bird’s eye chillies, thinly sliced (I used one red and one green)

1. Peel and cut eggplant into strips (bear in mind they shrink about 40% when cooked mixed with the vinaigrette)
2. Steam on high heat for 5 minutes, until cooked and tender, but not mushy. Leave t cool, if you like to eat it cold, you may chill it. Pour away juices if there is.
3. Grate garlic into a heatproof bowl (just don’t use plastic).
4. Heat oil until smoking and pour onto garlic. Stir.
5. Put in lime juice, salt, sugar, lime zest and half of the chillies into the garlic mixture.
6. Stir until salt and sugar dissolves. Taste, adjust accordingly. It has to be lightly sour, but well balanced with the sugar, slightly oversalted.
7. Pour vinaigrette over cooled eggplants and toss.
8. Put tossed eggplants onto serving plate and top with balance of sliced chillies for garnish.

Pan Fried White Aubergines

I saw some white aubergines at Jusco and immediately got interested with this albino version of what is usually dark purple.

And what was the outcome? I really loved the flavour of this aubergine. It's much creamier than the purple variety and the flavour really shines through with just simple panfrying and doused with some light soy sauce.

Cherry Tomato Basil Tripoline with Tomato Cream

Remember my tomato cream from yesterday? That cream is not a soup. Not cream of tomato. It's a dressing, a gravy, a sauce, antyhing but not a soup.

I’m using the tomato cream to replace milk cream, and remember as this is an emulsion, it’ll break apart when heated too much, just like regular mayos will. So, just put the tomato cream at the end and give it a toss to warm it up. Not too hot though.

It’s a good alternative to people who can’t take dairy, but want to have some creamy pasta. It really almost taste like regular cream sauce pasta, except for the smell, tomatoey instead of milky. But this does not taste like those made with canned tomato paste, and this has a very fresh smell and light tomato taste that my kids love a lot. They keep on asking for the cherry tomatoes.

The pasta
150gm tripoline or any other pasta that is suitable for creamy sauces
250gm red cherry tomatoes, halved vertically
Handful of fresh sweet basil (as much or as little as you like)
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Olive oil for cooking
1 tsp butter for cooking
½ tsp salt to taste
1 cup tomato cream


1. Cook pasta is a pot of salted boiling water according to instructions on packaging until al dente. Drain and set aside.
2. Heat a pan/wok on medium heat and put in olive oil and butter. Put in finely chopped garlic and fry until slightly golden. Turn heat to high.
3. Put in halved cherry tomatoes and spread the tomatoes around. Do not stir it too much. Put in salt. Leave it for 15 seconds and give it a light toss and leave it for another 15 seconds.
4. Put in cooked pasta and toss. Cook for about 10 seconds and put in basil and cook for another 5 seconds.
5. Pour in tomato cream and turn off the heat. It’ll be very warm. Toss the pasta and dish up to serve.

Tomato Cream

Ah.. tomato cream. Something that really caught my attention when I watched one of Anna Olson’s Fresh with Anna Olson. She just blitz cherry tomatoes with oil, season with salt and pepper.. voila!!

And I tried it… and talk about the taste. It’s like a very light tomato mayo…. For mayo lovers, you’ll be in heaven. But I’m not a mayo lover, but I love this.

I don’t mean that I hate regular mayo, but just that I’m not crazy to slather lots and lots of mayo over my sandwiches and burgers. I just put adequate amounts, and not too much, cos I hate anything to squish out from my sandwiches and burgers.

Tomato Cream (recipe adapted from Anna Olsen )

250gm yellow cherry tomatoes

75ml corn oil or any other neutral flavoured oils, put into a measuring cup or a pouring bottle or any container with a spout.

1/3 tsp salt and pepper to taste

1. Quarter yellow cherry tomatoes and put them into a blender. Put the lid on and blend until fine.
2. Loosen the lid and put the blender back on
3. When the blender is on, remove the lid carefully and put drizzle in the oil slowly in a steady steam.
4. When all the oil has been drizzled in, put in salt and pepper (place lid back on) and blend for another 30 seconds. Tomato cream is ready :).
5. You can sieve it if you want, but I don’t bother with it.

Few weeks later, I made another batch with red cherry tomatoes, and here it is. It tasted like a light thousand island sauce. But a lot lot healthier with minimal oil for emulsification.

Tofu with Angled Loofah

The final of the black soy bean trilogy, all posted in 3 days. First I made the soy milk, then I made the tofu, and this time I cooked the tofu ;)

Or maybe I'm a cheater for splitting this post that supposedly can be done in one. Well, they are actually 3 different recipes and when I post them separately you don't lose sight of any of them :) So, no excuses of not seeing either one.

This is a common recipe, and Swee San beat me at posting this, although I made this way earlier than the time she posted (yaya, I did this months ago :p). But there's no competition in the blogging world. Everybody makes their own stuff and blogs at their own speed. I'm definately a loser when it comes to speed. What I made today (yes today) will be seen here end of Nov... I do hope that the period of moving house will temporarily stop me from making any new stuffs, but the blog will go on, cos the drafts are already done, just waiting for the day to see light. By then I can blog quickly after I've made my stuff, so that you won't get any stale bakes and dishes.. BTW, smell anything weird???

Tofu with Angled Loofah

500gm tofu (those that I made earlier, or you can use Japanese tofu), cut into 1inch thick long strips

270gm angled loofah/ridged gourd (Before skinning is 450gm), cut into equal size with tofu

2 Tbsp oil

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

½ egg, beaten

1 cup water

Gravy (all mix together)
Few drops sesame oil
2 tsp cornstarch

2/3 tsp salt (or u can use chicken stock powder, but I do not find this necessary as angled loofah is very flavourful and sweet, salt will do)

1/4 cup water

1. Fry tofu strips until golden. Dish up and drain the oil.
2. Heat a wok on medium heat and put in 2 Tbsp oil.
3. Put in garlic and sauté until fragrant.
4. Put in angled loofah and fry until it is slightly softened, it will give out some moisture. Put in 1 cup water and let it simmer until loofah turns soft.
5. Put in gravy and cook until it thickens.
6. Return fried tofu into wok and gently toss, let the gravy coat the tofu and cook for a while.
7. Drizzle in beaten egg and toss gently.
8. Dish up

By the way,

Do you find my blog being different now?

My posts are no longer in the middle.

Which do you prefer,

 the middle or the left?

Do tell me, please.......