Food, glorious food!

Hello! Been very busy lately. Uni session just commenced and I'm pretty stretched out over my heavy core subjects. Enough about that, this post will be my top ten fave foods of the week. Yay!

1. Curry noodles! I love it when the gravy is diluted but tasty, with plenty of fried tofu.



2. Pineapple Fried Rice. This little dish is hard to mimic! Best I've had is @Basil Thai Nudle House, Bangsar Village.



3. Vietnamese Spring Rolls. One of my goals in life is to go to Vietnam and have some of these.



4. Sotong Goreng. You can never go wrong with this, I tell you! Love the ones Restoran Muhibbah @TTDI used to make. Apparently they have a new restaurant elsewhere now.



5. Gado-gado. An Indonesian favourite, best made at home where you can guarantee all the ingredients are fresh.



6. Pesto pasta. A good pesto paste goes a looooooong way. 'Nuff said.



7. Chinese Lemon Chicken. Love love love love.



8. Maggi Goreng with an egg, sunny side up! :) Devi's Corner @Bangsar used to make an awesome plate of it. Now, I frequent to Pelita Nasi Kandar @Bangsar.



9. Korean Fried Chicken. Better than Kentucky Fried Chicken. I'd bet on it.



10. Wanton Noodles. Simple and glorious.

Disclaimer: Pictures are not mine. I just like to look at them and make myself hungry and silly. Oh, and I didn't eat all these in a week. Though, I'd dream of that. =P

Eid 2011!

What is Raya/Eid without food? The heart of many celebrations or festivals is food, more so if you are Malaysian. For Chinese New Year, I always look forward to boxes and boxes of mandarin oranges, traditional cookies and what not. For Deepavali, I look forward to ladoos, murukku, chapattis and whatever other breads.

My Raya is always revolves around a few "staple dishes", which are beef/chicken serunding(floss), nasi impit, peanut/satay sauce, beef/chicken rendang and chicken satay.

1. Nasi Impit 2. Beef Serunding 3. Peanut sauce 4.Roti Jala 5. Chicken satay 6. Chicken Curry
7. Palm Sugar Agar-agar

As you can see, we did have a few new dishes introduced into our Raya feast this year, i.e. the Roti Jala and it's counterpart the Chicken Curry, as well as the jelly(agar-agar).

The Roti Jala translates directly to English as "net bread", due to it's appearance. Rolled up, one can't really see the holes but if you open and spread it out, it'll look somewhat like a fishing net. This bread usually goes with a good chicken curry(though some have it with dalca). In my opinion, a good roti jala should act almost like a sponge and absorb the gravy of the curry. Okay, now I'm hungry!

I suppose my mum went the extra mile this year and prepared the agar-agar. Back when my siblings and I were kids, she'd make the jellies in various colours. Now, she just can't be bothered! It's a simple recipe of boiling streaky agar-agar in a pot of water, adding palm sugar(gula Melaka), pandan leaves for the fragrance and last but not least, some coconut milk for richness and appearance. She then strained the mixture into jelly moulds and left to settle firstly at room temperature and in the fridge later on.

Satay is usually accompanied by peanut sauce and nasi impit, as well as fresh cut cucumber slices and red onions. Our family doesn't usually make chicken satay, only when we know a big crowd is coming on the first day of Eid. It also takes plenty of work to prepare the ingredients so it requires extra manpower. Hehe! When we lack it, we usually just prepare the nasi impit and peanut sauce. Recipes shall not be shared, and shall be kept in the family ;)

One of my highlights of Eid is beef rendang. Now, I'm not an avid fan of beef. I just don't like the texture and taste of it. However, I can never say no to a good, hearty beef rendang. My maternal aunt makes the best I've tasted so far. Little did I know that it takes a good four to five hours to make the perfect rendang. The spices should be chopped and blended until it reaches a creamy texture. Then, I believe it is fried in oil together with the beef, coconut milk is added along with seasonings and turmeric leaves. This mixture will have to be stewed over the stove for at least 3 hours or so until the gravy has dried up and your energy levels drop. It's hard work, and by the end of it you'll end up smelling like rendang as well.

Last but not least is the beef serunding. I'm very picky over my serunding. It needs to be spicy, contain lots of coriander seeds, fennel seeds as well as cumin seeds for that extra crunch! The floss must not be too fine, I don't like that. This dish is really versatile, I think. You can have it during Raya or even on an ordinary day with plain white rice and a fried egg. Yummy! The best serunding I've tried hails all the way from Kelantan, my kampung. It's called Serunding Kampung Laut and oh boy, that shit is good!

Pre-Raya Feast

So, I came back two days before Eid Fitri and the family had a pre-Raya feast. It was awesome because staying abroad for almost two months, I have to confess! I miss Malaysian food. It's true what they say; you can take the Malaysian out of Malaysia but you can never take Malaysia out of the Malaysian. We love our food and that's that! *Ahem* because our food is tasty and spicy. :)

Nasi Kukus

This, ladies and gentlemen, is Nasi Kukus from the Ramadhan bazaar. A discovery made by my brother-in-law. Hence, he introduced it to the family. Sorry for the unclear pic. Literally, it means "steamed rice". Served with fried rempah(spiced) chicken and it's eaten with sambal belacan and a gravy I believe to be a diluted curry. Very tasty!

Peanut sauce, Gado-gado salad, Soysauce Chicken, Chicken Rice sambal

The picture above shows my aunt's take on the Indonesian Gado-gado which is really, a kind of salad served with peanut sauce as it's dressing. The salad consisted of hard-boiled eggs, boiled potatoes, lettuce, and tomatoes. The top right of the picture shows the soysauce chicken to be eaten with rice(Chicken Rice), bottom right is the sambal to go with it. It's really easy to make the sambal. We just blended about 3 cloves of garlic and about 5-6 fresh chillies. We then seasoned it with salt, sugar and about 1-2 tablespoons of lime juice(up to you, really).

Cempedak Goreng, Kuih Bakar, Pulut Panggang

Top left of the picture shows cempedak goreng, a.k.a.fried jack fruit and the centre of the picture is kuih bakar, a type of Malay kuih made using pandan, eggs, coconut milk as some of it's ingredients. Also, you can see pulut panggang which is grilled glutinous rice, stuffed with desicated coconut, chillies and dried shrimp, wrapped in banana leaves for that distinctive aroma.

Lets just say that Eid came early for us! ;)

Homemade Nasi Lemak

Tadaaaa! That was my first attempt at making Nasi Lemak at home. The key to a good Nasi Lemak, as I've learnt, lies in the richness(lemak) of the rice and of course, the unifying factor, which is the sambal.

There's a simple trick to making good Nasi Lemak rice, and it is the ratio of 2 cups of rice to one cup of coconut milk. Add in water(usual measurement when mixed with the coconut milk). Other than that, chuck in some sliced ginger and some salt to taste. The salt will bring out the richness of the coconut milk and that's what you want. Some people say that the secret to good Nasi Lemak is to add pandan leaves but I found that it tastes just as good without. Perhaps you can argue that it's a matter of personal taste.

More often than not, Nasi Lemak would be served with one or half of a hard-boiled egg. However, some people(like me), love the taste of the runny yolk of an egg fried, sunny side up, to go with my rice. Again, I believe this is a matter of personal preference.

As for the sambal, I believe that it should have a good base of either dried shrimp or dried anchovies. If you're not a fan of that, I think a base of onions would be fine as well. I believe vegetarians use onions as a base. What I did here was, I blended garlic, roughly chopped fresh red chillies(my grandma would actually use dried red chilli, soaked in hot water and seeds removed), plenty of onions(for sweetness) and dried shrimp that I've soaked and drained. I then put some oil in a pot and fried the blended ingredients. Later, I added anchovy paste(traditionally, belacan would be used), salt and plenty of sugar as well as lemon juice for that twang! Ideally, tamarine should be used but I didn't have that. I have to confess that I did cheat by using a tiny bottle of Sambal Indonesia from the local Tesco to add a punch of chilli spiciness. I cooked it until the oil broke onto the surface and voila! Ready to serve.