House of Annie

Fancy Baked Mac and Cheese

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:05:00 +0000

What do you do when your kid wants mac and cheese and you don’t want to give him that gross boxed stuff? Make it from scratch, and fancy it up!

By now you know that Nate and I love our food. We love to cook / grill / barbecue it, eat it, sample it outside, wander around farmer’s markets and taste what’s in season. We love the textures of food, and the aromas and the visual appeal of foods.

Sadly, most times our two kids are happy to eat junk foods like french fries, chips, and - to Nate’s disgust - the so-called “Hawaiian” pizzas with ham and pineapple. As for our son Daniel, who loves all things cheesy, his most requested meal is…Mac and Cheese. It doesn’t have to be any fancy kind either (he snubbed the truffled mac and cheese at Alexander’s Steakhouse); he’d be super happy if I fed him that Kraft Mac and Cheese boxed stuff everyday!

Ick.

One day, our friend Felicia served this amazing baked Mac and Cheese at her house. She said that she got the recipe from Ina Garten on the Food Network. My son devoured it in a minute flat and came back for seconds even before we adults had started on our meal! It was really delicious, so I decided I would have to try to make it too.

Fancy Baked Mac and Cheese

The first time I made this baked mac and cheese, I thought the amount of sauce was too much. Being the pake Chinese I was, I added more than the one pound of elbow pasta. I decided I could stretch it out and make a pound and a half.

That was a mistake. My son told me, “Mommy, Aunty Felicia’s mac and cheese is better!” I told him, “Fine! Get her to make it for you from now on!” and went off to sulk.

Well, hellooo? It was my own fault for being cheap by trying to stretch it. I had lost the rich, decadent flavor that was the point of this whole mac and cheese recipe! So the next time around, having learnt my lesson, I stuck to only one pound of pasta (which, by the way, still makes a LOT of mac and cheese).

I did adapt it a little this time but not in a way that makes it less tasty. Instead of gruyere, I used Parmesan (I actually prefer the flavor of Parmesan). And instead of fresh breadcrumb, I used panko (Felicia was the one who gave me that tip) and increased the amount because who doesn’t like a nice breadcrumb topping!

The outcome? Absolutely delicious. My son wolfed it all down and asked for seconds AND thirds! There you go, it’s been given his seal of approval.

(Basking in the warmth of son’s approval).

So if you’re looking for a more fancied up version of Mac and Cheese, do give this recipe a try. This recipe really isn’t too hard. Probably the most time consuming part is the grating of the cheese. Other than that, it’s quite quick to assemble.

(It does involve quite a number of pots, though. That part is no fun when you have to clean up. Thankfully, I have a dishwasher named Nate. ^_^)

Fancy Baked Mac and Cheese

adapted from Ina Garten, Food Network

Ingredients
Kosher salt
1 pound elbow macaroni or cavatappi
1 quart milk
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, divided
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
12 ounces Parmesan (the good kind, please don’t use the pre-grated stuff in the green cylinder), grated (4 cups), original recipe called for Gruyere
8 ounces extra-sharp Cheddar, grated (2 cups)
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3/4 pound fresh tomatoes (4 small)
1 1/2 cups panko bread crumbs (or more, I used almost double), original recipe called for fresh bread crumbs

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Set a large pot of water to boil and make sure to salt it well. When boiled, add the macaroni and cook according to the directions on the package, 6 to 8 minutes. Drain well.
3. Meanwhile, heat the milk in a small saucepan, but don't boil it.
4. Melt 6 tablespoons of butter in a large (4-quart) pot and add the flour. Cook over low heat for 2 minutes, stirring with a whisk. While whisking, add the hot milk and cook for a minute or two more, until thickened and smooth. Turn off the heat, add the Parmesan, Cheddar, 1 tablespoon salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

5. Add the cooked macaroni and stir well. Pour into a 3-quart baking dish.
6. Slice the tomatoes and arrange on top.

7. Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter, combine them with the fresh bread crumbs, and sprinkle on top of the mac and cheese.

8. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the sauce is bubbly and the breadcrumb topping is golden brown.

Enjoy!

Cheers, Annie

Hungry for more kid-approved food? Click below:

Seven Secrets for Perfect Thai Fried Chicken Wings

Our Favorite Layer Cake Recipe

Blueberry Muffins Recipe

Pandan Waffles

Secrets to Making Spam Musubi

Recipe for Khau Yoke (Pork Belly Cooked with Taro)

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:19:00 +0000

House of Annie takes you step by step to create this ambitious, yet delicious, dish of marinated pork belly and taro.

When I first got to know Nate, I found out that he loved Khau Yoke (spelled kau yuk in Hawaii). More specifically Wu tau khau yoke (wu tau is taro or if in Malaysia, known as yam). I love this dish too but had never tried to make it at home. It seemed like something that only good restaurants could make and I never thought I’d be able to replicate it at home.

But my friend Elizabeth (whose mom used to run a chicken rice stall and is a fantastic cook) shared her mom’s recipe for khau yoke with me many moons ago. I’ve always wanted to try it just never found the time or ambition. But recently, when I was looking through my list of recipes to try, I reconnected with this dish. And having had a taste for yummy pork lately, I decided I had to make this dish (and please my hubby at the same time!).

A bit of this and a bit of that

The only thing about Elizabeth’s recipe is that it doesn’t come with exact measurements. This is very common for recipes handed down from our parents’ or grandparents’ generation—I’ve found that so many of them just use the eyeball method so they never have precise measurements. “Oh, just throw in a bit of this and a bit of that and then taste and adjust” seems to be their mantra. So for this khau yoke recipe, I had to guess on amounts (and lucky you, readers, I noted them down—though again, use my measurements as a guide and go with your own tastebuds for best results).

Now, khau yoke is an ambitious dish and I recommend you do this only when you have the time as there are many steps. It isn’t totally difficult but there are many different cooking methods employed and then the steaming time is rather long so read the whole recipe through and map it out in your own head before attempting!

Things I learned

Here are some things I learned after making this dish:
1. Make sure your pork and taro are the same size in thickness and height. I had some pieces of taro that were taller than the pork and the bowl and those pieces did not soak up any of the sauce and so remained rather hard.
2. Steam it for the full 3 hours for maximum tenderness on the taro.
3. Don’t slice the pork and taro too thick but don’t make it too thin either as that will cause the taro to disintegrate. 1/4 inch thickness seems to be reasonable (I had 1/2 inch thickness and the taro did not soften well).
4. Make sure you get taro that is “powdery”. I have no idea what this meant really but thankfully, here in Malaysia, I just had to tell the seller at the market that I was making khau yoke and she chose the right taro for me. According to my mom, if you touch a cut piece of taro, the good ones will leave a trace of white powder on your finger or your knife. Try that out and see if that works for you.

5. When preparing taro, don’t get the taro wet as you’re peeling it. This will cause the taro to become slimy and slippery AND on top of that it could make your hands itch. Instead, use a paper towel to hold the taro as you’re cutting off the skin. Wipe off any residual dirt from the cut taro and do not wash. (If you absolutely have to wash your taro, slice them first, then put into a colander and run some water through and drain.)
6. Making khau yoke does involve boiling, deep frying, and steaming. Prepare ahead. It’s a complicated dish. And yes, I actually deep-fried AGAIN! Can you tell I love my husband?

Now, this recipe did end up giving me a LOT of khau yoke so I recommend that if you only want a small portion to halve it. OR, impress your friends and share some.

Khau Yoke recipe

Ingredients:
1/2 lb (300g) pork belly (buy it in a big slab)
1 medium taro (ask the vegetable seller to recommend a fluffy taro)
1/2 Tbsp thick soy sauce
2 tsp chinese 5 spice powder
Marinate:
1 1/2 cube nam yue (preserved red beancurd)
1 Tbsp taucu (brown bean sauce)
1 tsp sugar
1 Tbsp thick soy sauce (divided)
Oil for deep frying
Sauce:
3/4 cup - 1 cup water (add more water if you prefer more sauce)
1 tbsp oyster sauce
dash of pepper
pinch of Chinese 5 spice powder
1 tsp soya sauce
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp Shao Hsing Wine
1/2 cube nam yue
1/2 tsp thick soy sauce

Method:
1. Bring a pot of water to boil. Blanch the pork belly for 2-3 mins to make for easier slicing. This process also helps to get rid of the porky smell and helps to achieve a slightly crispy skin when deep frying.
2. Remove from water and let cool. When cool enough to handle, use a fork to prick all over the pork belly skin several times.
3. Rub the belly pork with dark soy sauce & Chinese 5 spice powder. Leave to marinade for 30 mins.

4. Heat oil for deep frying. Deep fry the pork belly till skin becomes crispy. Drain it on paper towels then cut the pork belly into thick slices. Don’t worry if meat is not cooked, you’ll be steaming for a long time!

5. Marinate pork slices with preserved red beancurd, brown bean sauce, sugar and dark soya sauce. Set aside while you prepare the taro.
6. Peel the taro. Slice taro into thick slices about the same size as the pork belly slices. Deep fry taro pieces until golden brown. Drain on paper towels and set aside.

7. Use a deep bowl (not plate). You can either use individual porcelain rice bowls (to serve as individual portions) or a big porcelain bowl (I used a small claypot bowl and an oval corningware deep casserole dish). Alternate slices of yam & pork belly (make sure the skin side of the pork is facing down) in the bowl/s. Taro slices should be on the outer side on both ends (meaning start with taro slice and end with taro slice).

8. There should be some remaining marinade in the bowl where you have marinated the pork belly. To this bowl add the sauce ingredients.
9. Pour this mixture evenly all over the pork belly & yam slices in the steaming bowl.
10. Steam for 3 hours or until pork and taro are tender in a covered wok or steamer. Don’t forget to replenish water every so often to prevent burning your wok!

Before serving, Elizabeth recommends that you arrange lettuce leaves on a round large serving plate. Remove khau yoke carefully from the steamer & let it cool a little. Turn the steamed khau yoke over onto the lettuce leaves carefully.

If you’re not so good at this, forget the lettuce leaves and just place a plate over bowl and turn over that way to ensure less mess (like me!). Then decorate sides of dish with cilantro or other greens to make it attractive. And yes, this is important since you have taken the time to make this immensely complicated dish. Present with pride and watch husband devour!

Enjoy!

Cheers, Annie

Hungry for more pork belly dishes? Click Below:

Braised Pork Belly with Tomatoes in Soy Sauce

Jiu Hu Char

Tau Yu Bak (Pork Braised in Soy Sauce)

Mum's Popiah is the Best!

Recipe for Kalua Pig with Cabbage

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:04:00 +0000

Updated 30 October 2009
Originally posted 13 June 2007

This recipe for Hawaiian Kalua Pig with Cabbage calls for simply roasting a pork shoulder in an oven bag. No heavy lifting involved!

Kalua Pig with Cabbage

When Annie and I got married in Hawaii, one of my groomsmen made kalua pig for the big banquet after the wedding. Real kalua pig, cooked in an imu in his backyard the night before the wedding. Instead of coming to my bachelor party, the guy stayed up late to tend to the pig. That was a special wedding meal!

We don't have a pit in our backyard in San Jose but we still like to enjoy Hawaiian-style kalua pig and cabbage every now and then. For our Ultimate Hawaiian Backyard Lu’au, we made our kalua pig the night before. We shredded the pork and reserved the juices from the bag too cook the cabbage on the day of the lu’au.

Recipe for Kalua Pig with Cabbage

Ingredients

1, 5lb pork shoulder
2 Tbsp Hawaiian sea salt
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
4 cloves garlic, peeled
3 slices ginger
2 tsp liquid smoke
2 heads cabbage (or more), chopped

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 325*F.
2. Place the pork shoulder in an oven roasting bag.
3. Add all the ingredients to the bag and massage it in to the shoulder.

4. Seal the bag and place it in a roasting pan. Cut a few holes in the top of the roasting bag to allow steam to escape.
5. Pour some water into the pan until it comes about halfway up the sides of the pan.
6. Insert a remote probe thermometer through one of the holes in the bag and into the center of the pork shoulder. Set the target temperature for 195*F.
7. Place the pan in the oven and roast until the shoulder reaches the target temperature.
8. Remove the pan from the oven and allow the pork to cool.
9. Remove the pork from the oven bag, but reserve the juices from the bag in a stock pot. Refrigerate the stock.

10. Shred the pork shoulder using a couple of forks. The pork should shred fairly easily, but you can also chop up some of the tougher chunks.

11. The next day, you will find that the fat from the pork juices has risen to the top of the juices and congealed. You can now easily remove all the fat.

12. Bring about half of the reserved juices to a simmer in a large pot or saucepan. Add half the chopped cabbage and cook the cabbage down until softened, then add half the shredded pork.

13. Mix well until the pork has been heated through. Empty the kalua pig and cabbage into a serving tray and cook the remaining stock, cabbage and pork.

Enjoy!

Aloha, Nate

Hungry for more Hawaiian food? Click below:

Lomi Lomi Salmon Recipe

Ahi Limu Poke Recipe

Huli Chicken Recipe

Chocolate Haupia Pie Recipe

Mochi Ice Cream from Bubbies (Honolulu)

House of Annie’s Third Bloggerversary

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:35:00 +0000

Today marks the 3rd anniversary for the House of Annie food blog and boy did it come up fast! We originally had plans to do something big and fun to celebrate but since Annie and I were out of town in KL, we didn’t have enough time to work it all out. Oh well; there’s always next month…

A lot has changed in a years’ time! A year ago, we were happily living, eating out and cooking in San Jose, California. The blog was growing, and I think we were beginning to hit our stride and get noticed. We even got a little mainstream press attention when I wrote our memorial to Ryo, the Sushi Man of San Francisco, who was unfortunately killed at the beginning of this year.

An Eventful Year

We got to go to the Fabulous Food Festival and also participated in online blog events such as Grow Your Own and Weekend Herb Blogging. But our biggest, most fun foodie events were throwing the Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24 parties at our house. Starting off with the Chinese New Year Cioppino, followed by the Ultimate Rib Showdown, and then the Ultimate Backyard Lu’au, we were excited to not just cook for ourselves but organize larger and larger parties for our friends.

But we hit the brakes when we found out in April that we had to move to Malaysia . It really put a damper on our blogging activities while we prepared for the move. But it also got us excited over the possibilities of blogging from Annie’s homeland.

We arrived in Kuching, Sarawak in August and almost immediately began making friends. We got to know about local foods, local ingredients, and local markets. We even got to do another Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24 post, this time focusing on a local delicacy of Sarawak Layer Cakes. And once our kitchen supplies arrived, we started up cooking and baking again!

I really want to thank all you loyal readers who have stuck with us through the ups and downs. And welcome to all the new readers who have joined us this year. Special thanks to those of you who comment regularly – you really bring a smile to our faces by letting us know we’re not just posting into a vacuum but building a virtual community.

There is so much more that we want to do with the House of Annie. More baking, more cooking, more events, more giveaways. There is still the matter of migrating over to our own domain. Let’s see what the next year will bring!

Aloha, Nate

Click below for more

Two-Year Bloggerversary Week

2008 Year in Review

Thanks and Thanks Again, PLUS a Seven Things Meme

Bad Ass Coffee: A Little Taste of Hawaii in KL

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:49:00 +0000

I’ve joined Annie in Kuala Lumpur on holiday for just a couple of days. Annie’s cousin has been graciously taking us around to makan (eat) at places around town. One place she said she must take me is Bad Ass Coffee Company of Hawaii because I’m Hawaiian (well, Hawaii-born at least).

Bad Ass Coffee Company of Hawaii, Tropicana City, Kuala Lumpur

Bad Ass Coffee Company is located on the ground floor of the Tropicana City Mall, a newer mall in the SS22 area of Petaling Jaya. We showed up there around 4 PM on Friday afternoon. We couldn’t see too many patrons there at the time – just a table of young guys enjoying the free WiFi, and another couple sitting on tables outside the establishment.

Bad Ass Coffee Company, Tropicana City, Kuala Lumpur

One thing we noticed right away was that they were playing Hawaiian music over their sound system. Not the hapa-haole, steel guitar, touristy muzak, but good, contemporary Hawaiian music by artists like Keali’i Reichel, Makaha Sons, and Amy Hanaiali’i Gilliom. Wow, I haven’t heard real Hawaiian music played at a restaurant since the last time we were in Hawai’i! Nice touch.

There were other touches of Hawaii evident in the ambiance of the restaurant, like the surfboard above the counter and the staff clad in Hawaiian print shirts greeting us with a hearty, “Aloha!”

Bad Ass Coffee Company Surfboard Sign

Still, this is a lone coffee shop in a mall that also boasts a Starbuck’s. What would make anyone want to come and have a cuppa joe here? Two words: Kona Coffee.

Coffee connoisseurs know that Kona coffee – coffee grown on the Kona side of the Big Island of Hawaii, is among the best tasting coffee in the world. Bad Ass Coffee Company sells two kinds of coffee, a “Kona blend” which contains only 10% beans from Kona mixed with other beans from Columbia and Brazil, and 100% Kona coffee. 100% Kona coffee is expensive, but after you’ve tasted it, you will understand why this coffee is so prized around the world.

Bad Ass Coffee Company Coffee Menu

Besides your standard coffee preparations, they also have special flavored coffee concoctions that you can get either hot, iced, or blended. For non-coffee drinkers, they have fruit smoothies that are blended with milk, or “Hawaiian Ice” which is basically a fruit smoothie without the milk. (I was a bit disappointed to hear that, because I would have expected something more like a Hawaiian shaved ice.)

There’s a glass case to the side of the counter that contains various sweet desserts and pastries. Annie’s cousin wanted us to try their macadamia nut cream pie, which is a small pastry tart containing chopped macadamia nuts, and topped with a toasted meringue (but interestingly, no cream!). I opted for the passion fruit mousse. The mousse was delightfully tart, but a little dried out from sitting too long in the case.

Passion Fruit Mousse, Macadamia Nut Cream Pie from Bad Ass Coffee Company

What was also interesting about this place was they had a kitchen that was serving hot entrees like “Hawaiian Pizza”, “Tom Yummy Spaghetti”, and “Lamb Pita Bread”. You don’t find many coffee shops with such an ambitious and varied menu. At least, not in Hawaii.

Bad Ass Coffee Company Hot Food Menu

Daniel was enjoying the music, but he wanted to know if they could play the song “Ala Moana Annie” by Amy Hanaiali’i Gilliom over their system. I went up to the counter to ask, but the staff there said they didn’t know how to access the songs – the songs were played from the owner’s iPod plugged into their sound system. Then Annie’s cousin pointed out that the owner was actually sitting at another table there just outside the doors of the restaurant.

I went over to the table and asked if they had that song, explaining that I was from Hawaii, my wife’s name is Annie, and my son really likes this song. The owner said that he didn’t know if he had that song in his playlist. I thanked him and returned to our table.

A little later, the owner came over to talk to us. It turns out that he used to live in Hawaii, and graduated from the same alma mater – Hawaii Pacific University - as me and Annie’s cousin! He said that I was the first Hawaiian to visit his restaurant, so he wanted to meet me.

He also had one of his servers bring over a slice of cheesecake and a humongous sugar-coated donut, on the house. The kids devoured the donut while Annie and her cousin shared the cheesecake, which they liked. I thought that the cheesecake would have been better with some actual coffee grounds mixed in.

Bad Ass Coffee Company Cheesecake

The owner said that he had really fallen in love with Hawaii, and wanted to bring back a little something from Hawaii to Malaysia, especially the laid-back, aloha spirit. This coffee shop is the first Bad Ass Coffee Company to open in Southeast Asia and it’s been open for only two months. He has plans in the future to expand to other areas of Malaysia, and other SEA countries as well, but first he wants to spend time building up this flagship store and building a reputation for good, quality coffee as well as good customer service.

The hot foods menu, he admits, is a work in progress. He has a chef developing recipes for the menu, but it’s tough to balance the desire for authentic Hawaiian dishes with the Malaysian palate. (To be honest, I really didn’t think the menu was very Hawaiian. Maybe he could try selling a Spam musubi, using Turkey Spam?)

As for the drinks, the kids loved their mango smoothie. My “Jitter Juice” blended coffee drink gave me heart palpitations after drinking about 1/3 of the cup. And Annie’s cappuccino ended up as a latte after some confusion and miscommunication with the counter staff.

Bad Ass Coffee Company Latte

The restaurant’s location in a far corner of the mall, next to the San Francisco Steakhouse, is out of the way for regular mall traffic except on Saturdays. But he hopes that business will pick up when the new office tower opens up, and people begin finding out that there is good, Kona coffee being served here. I wish him well.

Aloha, Nate

Hungry for more Hawaiian food? Click below:

Ultimate Backyard Lu’au

Mochi Ice Cream from Bubbies (Honolulu)

Waiola Shave Ice: the Best Shave Ice in Hawaii

Secrets to Making Spam Musubi

Microwaved Cabbage and Carrot, a Bachelor’s Tale

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:03:00 +0000

The House of Annie has been pretty quiet lately, as Annie took the kids with her to Kuala Lumpur to visit with friends and family. I’ve been staying here at home in Kuching, living the bachelor life for the past five days. Fortunately, there’s a public holiday coming up on Friday so I’ll be joining Annie and the kids in KL for a few short days over the coming weekend. (Yay!)

So, what have I been eating? On Saturday, I ate pretty well, thanks to our friend Mike who took me to have FooChow beef noodle soup in the morning, Hainam chicken rice for lunch, and thosai and garlic naan for dinner. But the rest of the time, I’ve been eating leftovers for dinner.

Annie left me with a big dish of kau yuk – fried and steamed pork belly and taro . It took me three nights to eat it all, but I finally finished it. So here I am on Wednesday night with no more leftovers to eat. Besides finishing the prepared leftovers, Annie told me that I should cook the head cabbage that was left in the fridge.

What the Heck?

I rooted out the cabbage in the veggie bin and also saw some tomatoes left over from the braised pork belly dish she made last week, plus a bell pepper and a carrot. What the heck can I make with that? We don’t have any potatoes, so I can’t make colcannon (besides, there’s no corned beef to enjoy it with!).

On top of that, I wanted to make something fast, and I wanted to make something that didn’t require a lot of cooking implements. Life as a bachelor means a lot of eating in front of the tv or computer, and a lot of unwashed dishes in the sink. If I could minimize the amount of dishes to wash and maximize my time out of the kitchen, all the better. So I got the brilliant idea to cook everything together in the microwave.

Unfortunately, Google is no help in finding recipes for cooking cabbage in a microwave. But there is an Indian recipe site, run by my friend Srivalli of Cooking 4 All Seasons, that talks about easy microwave cooking. And surfing her site brought me to Veggie Platter, which sparked an idea that I could actually toast spices like cumin, coriander, and mustard seed in the microwave, and use that to cook my veggies with.

I thought I’d give it a shot. I’m no gourmet chef. I am barely passable with a knife. But I’m only cooking for myself, so who’s it gonna hurt?

I started off by shredding the cabbage. Then I julienned the bell pepper, then thinly sliced the carrot. Finally I cut the tomatoes into chunks.

Hey, that didn’t take long at all!

In a large glass bowl, I heated a couple of tablespoons of oil on high for 2 minutes in the microwave. Meanwhile, I ground up some coriander seeds, cumin seeds, and white peppercorns in our mortar and pestle. When the oil was done heating, I tossed the spices in. Back in the microwave for 2 minutes on high, give it a quick stir, and two more minutes.

Then, I dumped all the chopped veggies into the bowl, sprinkled on a little curry powder, added a cup of water, and put it back in the microwave for 2 and a half minutes. I took it back out, tossed and turned the veggies, then cooked it for another 2 and a half minutes. When it was done, I tossed the veggies once more and gave it a taste.

Needs salt.

I could have gone for the kosher salt, but since this was an “Indian-ish” dish, I thought I try sprinkling on some Indian Kala Namak salt that we got from our friend Tammy the Spice Hound. This salt is a finishing salt with a high sulfur content, so it tastes strongly of eggs. A little dash’ll do ya!

Here’s the final product.

How’d it taste?

I’m not going to say it was the best thing I ever put in my mouth. I thought it was lacking something, maybe garlic or onions or soy sauce. But it was edible. And I was hungry. So I ate it. In front of the computer. As I’m writing this post. And you know what?

It’s all gone. AND I only have one dish to wash!

Aloha, Nate

Annie will be back to the House soon, cooking legitimately good dishes. So subscribe to our site and receive all our latest posts to your RSS reader or to your Inbox.

I'm entering this post in the October edition of the "Microwave Easy Cooking" roundup, created by Srivalli of Cooking 4 All Seasons and hosted by Suma of Veggie Platter.

Wanna read about more of my cooking experiments? Click below:

Leftover Turkey Omurice

Mushroom and Gruyere Omelette, Banana-Nut-illa

Evolution of Dinner: Grilled Pork Tenderloin

Evolution of Dinner: Grilled Halibut

Evolution of Dessert: Sake-Poached Asian Pears with Ume and Li Hing Sauce

Braised Pork Belly with Tomatoes in Soy Sauce

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:00:00 +0000

Pork is so tasty here in Malaysia compared to the US. I don’t know what it is but there is just more flavor to the pork meat here. It is unabashedly porky and isn’t dry like what I have found in the US, where I always have to brine the pork for it to taste like anything at all. Maybe it is also because the pork we get here at the market is really fresh and mostly locally raised. Whatever the reason, it’s just delicious.

The interesting thing about buying pork in Malaysia is that if you go to the wet market, you will find all the pork vendors in a separate part of the market away from the rest of the other meat vendors. Pork is non-halal for Muslims so whenever you want to buy pork, you need to buy it from a special section. The same happens if you go to a grocery store—they have a special section for all the non-halal items including some imported desserts and foods that may contain lard, gelatin and other pork parts.

The other day, I was at the grocery store in the non-halal section and found some pork belly on sale at a 25% discount. Though it was a thin slice, it had beautiful layers of meat and fat and was just calling my name. I decided that I had to buy it and figure out something to cook later on.

The next day, when deciding on what to make with it, I looked to see what I had and saw that I had some onions and some tomatoes. I decided that I would make a braise with tomatoes and onions and use dark soy to give it a rich salty-sweet flavor. Combined with the tomatoes, this made a really nice braise. So simple and yet delicious.

Braised Pork Belly with Tomatoes in Soy Sauce Recipe

Ingredients:
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 medium yellow onion, halved and sliced
1/2 lb (300g) pork belly, cut into bite-sized chunks
3 medium or 5 small roma tomatoes, large dice
8-10 button mushrooms, halved (optional)
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 Tbsp dark soy sauce
2-3 Tbsp soy sauce
dash of white papper
Garnishing: chopped cilantro and halved cherry tomatoes

Method:
1. Heat up oil in a medium-sized heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Stir in garlic and onions and saute till onions are just softened.
2. Add pork chunks and let it brown (move onions and garlic to sides). Stir every so often to ensure pork pieces get evenly browned. Season with a little salt.

3. Add tomatoes and the rest of the seasonings. Stir to combine well. Once ingredients come to a boil, lower heat and let simmer for 30-45 minutes or until pork is tender. If using mushrooms, add it now.

4. Taste and adjust seasonings. The dish should taste salty and slightly tart-sweet from the tomatoes.
5. Plate up and garnish with cherry tomatoes and cilantro.

There you have it, a quick weekday meal.

Enjoy!

Cheers, Annie

Hungry for more porky dishes? Click below:

Ultimate Rib Showdown

Pork and Daikon Soup with Red Dates and Carrots

Tau Yu Bak (Pork Braised in Soy Sauce)

Homemade Breakfast Sausage

Braised Char Siew (or Non-bake Char Siew)

Dutch Apple Bread

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:10:00 +0000

Dutch Apple Bread

Several Thanksgivings ago, a friend, Andrew, made this fabulous Dutch Apple Bread and shared it at a church dinner. It was so simple looking but on that cold evening, with the bread still warm from the oven, it was a total hit. The bread was moist, hearty and infused with apple flavor. It was comfort dessert at its best.

I ate a slice and it stayed in my memory for days. I love homey cakes and quick breads without the frills of adornment especially when the flavors satisfy every craving I have. And it’s not just the flavor, it’s the texture and the simplicity of good ingredients that make it so memorable for me.

So I talked to Andrew about the bread (it is really more like a cake) and in our conversation he mentioned that he had gotten this recipe from a cookbook called “More With Less” by Doris Janzen Longacre. Our conversation left me intrigued about the cookbook and even though I had asked him to email the recipe to me, I had to look the cookbook up in my local library. Lo and behold, they actually had a copy and I ended up getting the book before he had sent me the recipe!

A Real Treasure

This cookbook is a real treasure. It’s not flashy and it doesn’t have pictures but the recipes in this book are truly comfort foods that use everyday ingredients. For an older cookbook, this is one that is classic and is not dated at all. Her ideas and philosophy are as relevant today as it was then.

I flipped through the cookbook and quickly found this recipe. Even though Andrew had not told me the name of the bread, I surmised from reading the recipe that this was the one. The only thing that stumped me was the sour milk in the ingredients list.

I didn’t quite know what “sour milk” meant. And even though the author gave a substitute suggestion, I really wanted to use the sour milk. So I emailed Andrew and asked what he did. He told me that he usually just put in a teaspoon of vinegar into warm milk and let it curdle. So I did just that and it worked out great (my technique was to put the vinegar into cold milk, stick it into the microwave for about a minute and – tadah - curdled milk!).

The only other thing I changed around was the margarine (I used butter instead). And instead of chopping the apples, I went with Andrew’s suggestion of putting the apples through a large-hole box grater. The bread was really easy to make and most of the ingredients I easily had available in my pantry.

Now that apples are in season, you really need to get yourself some apples and bake this bread. You won’t regret it!

Dutch Apple Bread Recipe

from “More With Less” by Doris Janzen Longacre
(makes 1 loaf)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup margarine (or butter)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup sour milk or orange juice
1 cup chopped apples (or grated with box grater)
1/3 cup chopped walnuts
1/3 cup chopped cranberries (optional)—I didn’t use them

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C).
2. Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Add eggs and vanilla and beat well, scraping down sides after each egg.
4. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt.
5. Alternating with the dry ingredients, add the sour milk or orange juice.
6. Fold in the chopped apples and nuts (and cranberries, if using).
7. Bake in greased 9x5” loaf pan for 55 minutes or until loaf tests done.

Dutch Apple Bread

Let cool, remove to a plate, slice, and…

Enjoy!

Cheers, Annie

This post was entered in the 2009 edition of World Bread Day.

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Roasted, Salted Pumpkin Seeds

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:33:00 +0000

Roasted pumpkins seeds are a favorite snack food here in Asia. And, they’re quite easy to make at home. All you need is a pumpkin.

Last year, I made a pumpkin swirl cheesecake using a Halloween pumpkin that the kids had decorated. It wasn’t carved, so the pumpkin was still intact and unspoiled. I cut the pumpkin up, roasted it, and pureed the flesh to use in my cheesecake.

After first sectioning the pumpkin, I scraped out the pulp and the seeds.

Then I put the seeds and pulp in a colander and rinsed them off while the kids picked out any stray bits of pulp.

After the seeds were cleaned off, I spread them out onto a sheet pan to dry. The kids were kinda impatient, so I broke out the hair dryer. Daniel did the “heavy lifting” as he diligently dried those seeds.

After they were dried, I drizzled a couple tablespoons of olive oil onto the seeds and tossed them to coat. Daniel and Esther then stepped in to grind some sea salt onto the seeds.

They went into a 300*F oven for 30-35 minutes until they started turning brown.

After cooling, we started snacking. And we didn’t stop. Those seeds were gone by the end of the night!

Aloha, Nate.

This post was entered in the October edition of the Heart of the Matter recipe roundup.

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Recipe for Banana Cream Pie

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:36:00 +0000

Banana Cream Pie

I love, love, love pies! There’s something about crust filled with yummy things that just appeal to me (to the cost of my hips). When I first came to the US, I was amazed by the variety of pies and I just couldn’t get enough of them.

I discovered banana cream pie when an acquaintance who attended the Hawaii Writing Project with me brought them one day to share. They were so delightful that I had to get the recipe. She generously shared it with me.

Testing, Testing

I baked this banana cream pie recently because I’m testing out the microwave/convection oven that came with our house. I figured if the crust didn’t turn out, it wouldn’t be as big a loss as a whole cake. From my research into other similar types ovens plus all the help I had gotten from some of you, I plunged ahead with this pie as my first bake.

And it turned out pretty good despite the oven not coming with any manual at all. The crust did bake up brown but I think I still need to work out the timing and temps a bit more to get it perfect. For a first attempt, I was quite happy.

I also chose to bake a banana cream pie because I am now in a land of plentiful bananas. Local bananas are so varied and delicious that we are eating a bunch or two a week. For this pie, I used Pisang Rastali/Kering, a banana that is very similar to the apple bananas you find in Hawaii. They are creamy but have a slight tart apple finish. Simply delicious—my absolute favorite variety!

Lessons Learned

The first time I tried to bake a banana cream pie, I must have had beginner’s luck because everything turned out really well. There have been a few times since then that the egg paste curdled when I mixed it into the milk. I suspect that the milk was too hot when I added the egg yolks (I get impatient and crank up the heat sometimes) and that is what caused the curdling. So make sure you keep the heat on the milk low when you’re adding the egg paste. Don’t let the milk come to a boil! But if you do get some curdling, all is not lost—just strain the pudding before filling the pie.

The recipe for the crust makes a really flaky and tender crust. It’s not the most flavorful crust because it doesn’t have any butter in it. But since the banana and the pudding is very flavorful already, this crust is a nice complement. If you want more flavor, feel free to substitute butter for the shortening, but you will lose the flaky texture you get from the shortening. Maybe next time, I will try it with half butter and half shortening. Anyway, if you are making this dough as it is written, be sure to chill the dough first so that the crust won’t shrink back too much while baking.

This recipe bakes up enough crust and filling to make two pies. And I recommend making two as they disappear very quickly. I served this at a church small group meeting and when the evening was done, I only had a quarter of one pie left to take home as leftovers.

Banana Cream Pie Recipe

(makes 2 pies)

Pie Crust Ingredients:
A:
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup crisco (I used a butter blend here in Malaysia)
B:
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup milk

Pie Crust Method:
1. Rub ingredients A together to form a shaggy dough in a medium bowl. Yes, I know it’s quite a bit of fat but you can always add more flour later if it’s too wet. It’s the fat that makes this pie crust flaky and tender.
2. Mix ingredients B together to form a paste in another bowl.
3. Add B to A and mix gently with a spatula until it forms a dough. If it’s too wet, add more flour to the dough to get a nice soft dough. Don’t overwork the dough; the crust will be more tender and flaky the less it is worked.

4. Form two balls, cover them in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

5. Preheat oven to 400 F (210 C).
6. Roll out your dough into a round, about 1/8 inch thick, dusting with flour to keep it from sticking. Place dough rounds on your pie pan and press into pan and crimp edges to the side of the pan. Dock with a fork all around the crust.

7. Cover with foil or parchment paper and cover with pie weights. In truth, I normally just press the heavy duty foil into the crust and I’ve never needed to use weights. Bake for 10-12 minutes.
8. Remove foil/parchment paper and bake for another 10-12 minutes till golden brown.
9. Cool pie crust.

Pudding ingredients:
4 cups milk
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar (or less, you can taste the pudding later and if it’s not sweet enough, you can add more sugar)
6 heaping Tbsp all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
6 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla essence

Pudding method:
1. Heat on stove 4 cups milk and 1/2 cup butter over med-low heat in large sauce pan.
2. Mix in another bowl the sugar, flour, salt and yolks. Add to this mixture enough milk from the sauce pan to make a paste.
3. Add paste to milk/butter mixture on stove. Make sure the milk mixture is not too hot when adding the paste or the eggs will curdle. Whisk mixture constantly over med-low heat until the mixture thickens and comes to a boil.
4. Remove from heat immediately and stir in vanilla essence. Let it cool slightly. If you want a smoother pudding, strain it so that the bits of cooked egg will be strained out.

To assemble banana cream pie:
1. Slice 5-8 bananas (depending on size of bananas) in half length-wise. You can choose to slice them into rounds but I find that the pie slices hold better when you slice in half and lay them in circles around the crust. Cut as needed to fit all the bananas into the bottom of the pie crust.

2. Pour warm pudding over bananas until the bananas are covered and the pudding is almost at the top of the crust.

3. Cool in refrigerator until set, about 2-3 hours.
4. Just before serving, whip some heavy cream (about 1/2-1 cup depending on how much whipped cream you like), with 2 Tbsp sugar and 1/2 tsp vanilla. Spread whipped cream over pie.

5. Slice into wedges and enjoy!

Cheers, Annie

We're happy to find that our combi convection oven can still bake something, and making plans to bake even more. Don't miss a bake! Subscribe to our blog and receive all our latest posts to your RSS reader or to your Inbox.

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Vi’s Fruit Pastry

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:46:00 +0000

My forum friend Vi shared this recipe with me a long time ago. She calls it a fruit pastry but to me it’s a coffee cake which is topped with fruit. It’s simply lovely at tea time or anytime at all actually! Just beware, it is a very addictive cake and after one slice, it’s really hard to resist going back for a second and third…

Plum Nectarine Grape Fruit Pastry

The recipe is so simple and uses the basic creaming method for the cake. And it uses up whatever excess fruit you may have handy. If you don’t have any fresh fruit handy, just use canned—they work too! I’ve used a combination of different fruit—strawberries, plums, peaches, blueberries, and mandarin oranges. Just don’t press down on the fruit when you lay it down on top of the cake batter. It will sink into the cake all on its own while baking.

Plum Blueberry Mandarin Fruit Pastry

The key to this cake is in the tangy ingredients—the sour cream and lemon/orange zest makes the cake come alive and is what makes you keep coming back for more. I always zest my lemons and oranges whenever I use them and put the zest in a ziplock and stick them in my freezer. That way, whenever I have a recipe that calls for only the zest, I already have some handy to use. My friend, Vi, suggests that instead of freezing, just put the zest into a jar with some sugar and that will keep it from spoiling and is great to be added as flavoring to any of your baked goods.

Plum Blueberry Mandarin Fruit Pastry

Vi’s Fruit Pastry Recipe

Ingredients:
200g sugar
3/4 stick (100g) butter
50g sour cream
3 eggs
210g all-purpose flour (I’ve substituted 1/3 with whole wheat without any issues)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp lemon/orange zest
500g fruit tossed with 2 Tbsp sugar (I find that 500g is sometimes too much so I slice up as much fruit as I think I will need and if I use canned fruit, I omit the sugar)

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Cream butter and sour cream and sugar till light and fluffy.
3. Add eggs one at a time and beat till incorporated in batter.
4. Add vanilla essence and zest.
5. Stir in flour and baking powder and mix till smooth.
6. Butter and flour a 9” round pan. Pour batter into pan and even out top with a spatula.
7. Place fruit on top. Don’t press the fruit down into the batter. Decorate the fruit as you please.
8. Bake for 60-70 minutes or until tester comes out clean when inserted into the cake.
9. Cool and then remove from pan. If you want to pretty it up some more, you can dust the cake with some powdered sugar but it is really good as is too.

Plum Blueberry Mandarin Fruit Pastry Slice

You might even want to double the batch just so you can share with friends. Enjoy this cake and let me know if you are as addicted to this as I am (I love it so much that I’m now afraid to bake it as I am very capable of wolfing down half the cake myself!).

Cheers, Annie

This cake was entered into the “High Tea Treats” Monthly Mingle, created by Meeta and hosted by My Diverse Kitchen.

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Seven Secrets for Perfect Thai Fried Chicken Wings

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:45:00 +0000

Thai Fried Chicken Wings

Who doesn’t like fried chicken? I know it’s something I can’t resist. As a matter of fact, when I was pregnant with my kids, the only thing I ever had cravings for was fried chicken. No, I didn’t crave pickles, and I didn’t crave ice cream. I ONLY wanted fried chicken. And after eating it, I would be so happy and contented.

Thing is, I don’t really like to deep-fry at home. As a matter of fact, I try to stay away from deep-frying as much as I can. I just don’t like how it makes my whole house oily and how much it makes myself oily.

But ok, when I saw this recipe for Thai-marinated fried chicken at Chez Pim’s site, I just could not resist it. The chicken looked so scrumptious, and the flavorings were distinctly Thai but without the spicy bite. And I could just imagine the crunchy snap as you take that first bite into crispy skin. Yum!

Thai Fried Chicken Wings

And so even though I normally don’t like to fry at home, I gave in for this Thai fried chicken recipe. And it was worth it. The chicken was amazingly good. The flavors of the fish sauce, oyster sauce, garlic and cilantro made it mad good! Even my son, who is normally a selective eater, made approving noises while chowing down on these fried chicken! “Hmmm…um…this is very good, mommy! Mmm…can I have another one? Mmmm…” With praise like that, how could I not make this again? I actually have made this recipe about three times now since finding it. So much for not liking deep-frying…

But ah, readers, I have found the secret to deep-frying without too much of a mess: Use a deep dutch oven (like my beloved 5-quart Le Creuset oval dutch oven pictured below). You don’t have to fill with too much oil, and the oil stays pretty much contained in the pot.

The Le Creuset heats the oil very evenly leading to a really nice even browning of the chicken. And I find that if you have to fry, smaller parts are easier than big pieces of chicken. Therefore, I recommend frying chicken wings, which cook up faster and more evenly than chicken legs. I tried them both and the next time I made this Thai fried chicken recipe, I used only chicken wings.

The other trick that Pim recommended was to use rice flour in coating the chicken. I’ve also done this when I first discovered this trick while living in Hawaii in the graduate dorm. A Japanese friend was making chicken karaage using mochiko (glutinous rice) flour, and the deep fried chicken pieces were scrumptious—I’ll have to share that recipe sometime soon. The mochiko flour makes the Thai fried chicken crispy and flavorful! Give it a go and tell me how it works for you!

Thai Fried Chicken Wings Recipe

adapted from Chezpim.com

Ingredients:
2 lbs or 1kg chicken wings (or chicken parts)
4-6 cloves of garlic (if you’re like me, you’d go with 6!), peeled
1 Tbsp chopped cilantro roots (or the bottom stems if you cannot get the roots—I used them both!)

Garlic and Cilantro with Cilantro Roots

1/2 Tbsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp kosher or large grained sea salt (don’t use fine salt)
3 Tbsp oyster sauce
1/4 cup fish sauce
About 2 cups rice flour
enough oil for deep frying

Method:
1. In a mortar or food processor, pound or chop the garlic, cilantro roots, and kosher salt into a rough paste.
2. Transfer the paste into a large bowl, add the oyster sauce and fish sauce and stir to mix well.

3. Rinse and dry the chicken pieces thoroughly, then place them into the bowl. Toss and rub the chicken pieces all over with the marinate mixture. Cover the bowl with plastic and let marinade in the fridge for at least 3 hours (I marinated them overnight).

4. When you are ready to fry the chicken, place your pan over medium-low heat, fill it with enough oil (I used Canola) to cover about 2 inches from the bottom of the pan. Let the oil come up to frying temperature (How do you know the oil is ready? I use the Martin Yan method of placing wooden chopsticks in the pan and waiting for bubbles to form around the chopsticks).
5. Meanwhile, put the 2 cups of rice flour into a large plate (a pie plate works very well for this.) When the oil is ready, take the chicken pieces, one at a time, dredge them with the rice flour. Shake each piece to remove excess flour and place them, gently, into the hot oil. Do this in batches so as not to crowd your pan.

6. Don’t let the oil get too hot. If the chicken is browning to quickly and you see large bubbles forming around the chicken, lower your heat lest you get half-cooked chicken. It should just be gently bubbling and sizzling in the pan.

7. Fry the chicken until they are golden brown and crisp. If you are using larger pieces, cut into one to make sure they are cooked through. If the juices do not run clear, stick them into a warm oven to finish cooking.
8. To retain their crispiness, here’s a trick I learned from Alton Brown, place the chicken on a rack with paper towels underneath the rack to wick the oil away. If the chicken is placed directly on paper towels, the moisture from the chicken will get trapped in the paper towel and cause the chicken to get soggy. So by putting the paper towels under the rack, the oil still gets wicked away but the space between allows the chicken to stay crisp.

Thai Fried Chicken Wings

Enjoy on its own or add a little sweet chilli sauce to add another layer of flavor!

To recap, here are the seven secrets for perfect Thai fried chicken wings:

Use a deep dutch oven
Use smaller pieces of chicken
Dredge the chicken in rice flour instead of regular flour
Test the oil temperature with the bubbling chopstick method
Don’t crowd the pan
Gently cook the chicken
Drain the chicken on a rack over paper towels

Cheers, Annie

Since the cilantro roots were harvested from our garden, we are entering this post in the 37th edition of Grow Your Own, created by Andrea of Andrea’s Recipes.

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Grace Place Sarawak Laksa

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:01:00 +0000

First off, I want to say thank you to all our readers, who have been bearing with us while we get settled in to our new home in Kuching. Even though Annie has been cooking most nights of the week, there haven’t been too many House of Annie recipe posts lately. Most of our posts have been about going out someplace to eat.

The main reason for this is, the big shipping crate carrying all our stuff (including kitchen appliances, all our normal herbs and spices, and the home computer with all our archived food pics on it) from San Jose hasn’t arrived yet. On top of that, the one tiny fluorescent lamp in our wet kitchen (where most of the cooking is done) has gone out, so it’s nearly impossible for me to get good pics of whatever Annie is prepping for dinner.

I never intended for this blog to be a restaurant review site. Most of you readers probably couldn’t fly here to Kuching to eat at the places we’re eating out at. That being said, I do want to tell you about a place we’ve found that serves some good Sarawak laksa.

Grace Place Sarawak Laksa

What is Laksa?

According to Wikipedia, laksa is a spicy, soup noodle dish, originating from the merging of Chinese and Malay cultures (also known as Peranakan or Nyonya) which is found primarily in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Okay now, show of hands: How many of you know have tasted laksa? All right, now how many of you have tasted Sarawak laksa? That’s what I thought, very few.

Like me, most people are familiar with the curry laksa, a coconut-and-curry-based dish found in Singapore or KL. There’s also assam laksa, that sweet-spicy-sourish, fish-based dish found in Penang (I am absolutely in love with assam laksa from Penang!). But I didn’t know about Sarawak laksa until one day on maybe my second trip to Malaysia, when Annie’s cousin in KL took us to a stall in Bangsar that was known for its Sarawak laksa.

At first, I didn’t know if I’d like it. The broth was thin and brownish. There were a few prawns in it, plus shreds of chicken and strips of egg omelette. There was coconut in it, but no sharp curry flavor like curry laksa. Instead it was a mysterious but harmonious blend of spices, punctuated by a generous helping of fresh coriander. After first tasting it, and then finishing the entire bowl, I knew it was something I could enjoy again and again.

Looking for Laksa

When we first arrived in Kuching, we tried some Sarawak laksa from a stall near the hotel. It wasn’t very good – heavy on the white pepper, which covered up the nuances of flavor. Disappointing, but not daunting.

Later on, we moved into a house rented from a friend. We were cleaning up the place one day, when the friend brought over some lunch (what did I tell you about Kuching hospitality?). It was Sarawak laksa (of course, being already in Sarawak, they just call it laksa here).

This laksa was awfully good. I finished it all in no time, and was left longing for more. Our friend said that the laksa was made by a relative who owned a laksa stall. She gave us the location so we knew where to find the place.

Grace Place Sarawak Laksa Stall

One thing I have to note here. In Kuching, everybody eats early. This is especially true if you want to eat ~~Sarawak~~ laksa. The best laksa stalls are sold out by midmorning; after 10 am, you may either get the dregs, or you may get nothing.

So we were very fortunate when we recently showed up at 10:30 at the laksa stall, to find Aunty Rose still tending there. But as you can see, there wasn’t much soup left in her pot! She was literally scraping bottom to fill our order.

Grace Place Sarawak Laksa

Aunty Rose put a lot of effort into making a quality laksa. Every day, she would wake up at 4:30am to heat up her soup. By 6:30, she would be at the stall, selling her laksa. She’ll finish at around 2 pm, then head home to start prepping the ingredients for the next day. By 8 pm, she’d be done prepping and off to rest before the next day comes and the cycle begins again.

I don’t think I could survive that kind of life. But Aunty Rose does it with calm grace, and a smile.

Aunty Rose’s Laksa

Her laksa is thoroughly enjoyable from the first bite to the last slurp. Mix in a little homemade sambal belacan, add a squirt of kalamansi lime juice, and dig in. The thin rice vermicelli noodles still have a little crunch to them. The shredded chicken is flavorful in its own right. The bean sprouts, normally an afterthought, have their tips meticulously picked (another sign of the care she puts into her food).

And the broth? Oh the broth! Rich, savory, coconutty, with a pleasant chilli heat to it, it is slurp-alicious! This is not a broth to be left alone once you’re done eating the noodles. This is a broth that is good to the last drop. Next thing you know, it’s all gone.

You push back from your bowl with a sigh, face slightly sweaty, nose lightly runny, lips and throat tingly. You’re satisfied for now, but you know you want to come back for more.

Grace Place Sarawak Laksa

Unfortunately, you can’t have any more. You see, as of the end of September, Aunty Rose has retired from her stall. (Notice the “Stall for Rent” banner in the pic below.) I literally got the very last bowl of Aunty Rose’s laksa!

I asked Aunty Rose what she is going to do in her retirement. She laughs. “I’m going to clean my house!” Too many years of dedication to the stall, and to her laksa, left her with little time to do anything else.

I say she deserves her break. Of course, it would be a shame to just let her recipe be lost, wouldn’t it? So we asked her if she would share it.

That’s right. We got her laksa recipe!

And we’re going to share it. Because you see, our shipping crate has arrived in Kuching and will be delivered shortly. We have a contractor who is coming to replace and upgrade the lighting in the kitchen. Soon, we’ll be posting recipes (including laksa!) once more.

Life is good!

Aloha, Nate

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Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24: The Making of a Sarawak Layer Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:40:00 +0000

Kek Lapis Sarawak – Sarawak Layer Cakes

Want to know what goes into making such beautiful cakes? So did we!

Getting to Know You

Kek Lapis, or Layer Cake, is originally from our neighboring country of Indonesia. It is made of many, millimeter-thin layers of cake, baked one layer at a time to emphasize the layers. The recipe usually calls for butter, eggs, sugar, flour, and other coloring or flavoring ingredients, but no leavening agents. It’s more like a pound cake than the light layer cakes that we have baked in the House of Annie’s own oven.

About 20 years ago, Sarawakians took kek lapis to the next level by incorporating vibrant colors and different flavors than the original Indonesian recipe. They went even further by crafting intricate designs into the middle of the cakes. These beautiful designs are what makes Sarawak Layer Cakes so unique. The cakes are served on special occasions like birthdays, weddings, or cultural celebrations such as Aidilfitri, Christmas, and Chinese New Year.

Getting to Know All About You

I first discovered Sarawakian Layer Cakes back in my University Malaya days when my classmate, who hails from Kuching, would bring back these cakes after going home for the semester breaks. I was amazed by how tasty they were and also how beautiful. I’ve always thought that if I had a chance to visit Kuching, I would love to get more of these cakes and, if I happened to live here long-term, I would want to take classes to learn how to make them.

Well, it just happens that here we are, living in Kuching and we have been quite enthralled by a lot of the things that Kuching has to offer. When we visited the Satok market a month ago, we found some vendors selling these Sarawakian layer cakes. I was very excited and bought one to try at home. It was decent but not as good as the ones I remembered from back in college.

So it was a nice coincidence that one day when we were looking for a place to eat out, we ended up at a restaurant that happened to be next door to this Sarawak Layer Cake shop.

My Sara Sarawak Layer Cake Shop, Kuching

While waiting for dinner to be served, I ended up walking next door into the store and was greeted by a friendly staff who showed me a catalogue of all the different Sarawak layer cakes that they made. They had numerous cakes all stacked up in their chiller ready to go. But because it was the Hari Raya season (this was about two weeks before the end of the Ramadhan fasting month), ALL the cakes in the chiller were already reserved. Not only that, they weren’t taking any more orders until Raya was over.

Getting to Like You

Being one who never takes no for an answer, I asked if they had any samples at all that I could at least try. Off he went to the back of the shop and came back with not just a small sample, but large strips of discarded end pieces for me to try. With one bite, I could tell that these were no ordinary cakes. They were delicious—moist and buttery and with just the right amount of sweetness.

Lapis Masam Manis - “Sour-Sweet” Layer Cake

I hurried back to dinner next door and told Nate that he absolutely had to try these cakes. After tasting the sample, he too agreed that it blew the first cake we had bought out of the water. We ended up going to the shop after dinner because I wanted Nate to have a look at the store himself.

The staff member (who was actually the nephew of the owner) let us into the back of the store and showed us how they were baking the cakes. We told him we were food bloggers, and asked if we could come back next time with a camera to document the process. Astonishingly, he was more than happy to welcome us back. We got the number of the owner and promised we would return.

When Foodbuzz sent out the call for proposals for this months 24, 24, 24 blog event, I immediately thought that this would make a great event. These Sarawak layer cakes are truly beautiful and labor intensive. The opportunity to learn more about how they were made in a small family-run business was too good to miss out on. We were so excited when they accepted our proposal! We called the owner and arranged to meet him in his store on Saturday afternoon.

Getting to Hope You Like Me

Idris Ibrahim, Owner of My Sara Sarawak Layer Cakes shop

Idris Ibrahim and his wife Hamsiah own My Sara Enterprise. They have been baking Sarawak layer cakes for over 15 years. The storefront, which is located across from the Four Points Sheraton near the airport in South Kuching, is actually only 3 months old. Prior to that, all their baking was done out of their home.

His wife first learned how to make the Sarawak layer cakes from his sister, who teaches baking and other home skills at classes out in the rural communities of Sarawak. After observing her sister-in-law from a distance, she decided that she could do it herself. Without much training of any sort, she took it upon herself to make these cakes and found that she had a knack for doing it. Soon, people started ordering her cakes. Thanks to word-of-mouth advertising, business took off. Last year, they did 700-800 cakes during the Hari Raya season alone.

Idris works only part-time at the store, as he still has his full-time job as a site supervisor for a construction company. One of his best customers and enthusiastic supporters encouraged him to open the store in town to be closer to his customers. At first, he didn’t want to do it because, as he put it, “you don’t have to pay rent if you’re working out of your house.” But the move paid off – this year, they doubled their production with the new store.

In fact, they are so successful, that they were fully booked for the whole month leading up to Hari Raya. In the last few days, he and his staff worked from 7 am in the morning to 4 am the next morning to fulfill all the orders. It was grueling work, but they filled every order. They even managed to make a few extra for last minute customers.

Their layer cakes are famous throughout Sarawak. They are sold to the Sheraton across the street, served to visiting Sultans, sent to stores in Kuala Lumpur, and even shipped to Switzerland.

What is the secret to their success?

Putting it My Way

In a word, QUALITY. They do not cut corners on the ingredients. “Many layer cake makers use vegetable oil or margarine instead of butter. With margarine, the cakes come out drier. We use butter, but not just any butter. We have found that our cakes come out best with Golden Churn brand.” They also use only Grade A eggs and real chocolate flavoring.

Interestingly, it doesn’t take an expensive oven to turn out the best layer cakes. They use inexpensive, gas-fired ovens from Indonesia to make their cakes. Furthermore, they only use the bottom section of the oven. The reason this is that you are not really baking a whole cake – you are actually grilling (broiling) each layer with top heat very briefly. If you tried to bake the cake in a conventional oven, you would end up with a dry, overcooked cake.

Gas-Fired Oven for Baking Sarawak Layer Cakes

When Idris bought his wife an expensive, industrial electric oven for the store recently, he was scolded by the wife. She told him that the electric oven would not produce cakes that were as moist and delicious. With an electric oven, the heat circulates over the whole oven, thereby drying out the layers that are already done. In the gas ovens, the cakes remain tender and moist. This expensive oven now sits in his office unused as they continue to use the gas ovens.

But Nicely

When we arrived on Saturday afternoon, Idris told us that they had gotten a rush order, so his wife and their remaining staff who were not on holiday were back at the home, making cakes. But he stayed behind because he knew we were coming. He even started baking a layer cake for us, so he could demonstrate the process of building a Sarawak layer cake to us. How nice is that?!

A normal layer cake has between 12-20 parallel layers of cake. This particular Sarawak layer cake design has 5 parallel layers on the bottom, a fanciful design section in the middle, and 5 more layers on the top. For each layer, a small amount of batter is measured out, ladled on, and spread evenly in the pan. Then the pan is put in the oven for about five minutes before it is taken out and tamped down flat with a special tool before the next layer of batter is spread on.

Spreading Batter on Sarawak Layer Cake

The middle design will take strips of different colored layer cakes, cut into either square or triangular face.

Green Square Strips for Sarawak Layer Cake Design

Yellow Triangular Strips for Sarawak Layer Cake Design

You Are Precisely

Idris demonstrated how to get a triangular slice by holding a square slice between two, right-angle brackets and cutting between the brackets with a utility knife. The utility knife makes a very clean cut with no ragged edges.

After baking and tamping down flat the bottom layers, he laid down the triangular strips in parallel rows.

Laying Down the First Layer of Triangular Strips

Oh, I forgot to mention that Idris uses condensed milk as the “glue” to hold the Sarawak layer cake design section together. Other cake makers will use jam to hold the layers together but then the cakes don’t last as long.

Drizzling on Condensed Milk Glue for Sarawak Layer Cake

Next, he laid down the square green layer cake strips in the grooves created by the triangular trips.

Laying Down the Green Strips Layer

Another application of condensed milk “glue” and another layer. This time, it’s yellow square strips in the grooves of the green strips.

Laying Down Next Layer of Yellow Strips

And green strips again…

Followed by a last layer of yellow triangle shaped strips, which he then presses down so it is even and parallel to the bottom of the pan.

Pressing Down the Sarawak Layer Cake Design Section

With the design section done, he can continue baking on the top layers.

Spreading Batter for Top Layers of Sarawak Layer Cake

The final layer is the most crucial one. As each layer is baked on, the cake gets higher and the layers get closer to the gas flame. If you are not paying close attention, you will burn the top layer. If that happens, the cake cannot be salvaged and you must start over.

Tamping Down Top Layer of Sarawak Layer Cake

Once the cake is done baking, he cools it to room temperature before putting it in the chiller.

The process of building a Sarawak layer cake is so laborious and time-consuming. Here is a slideshow I put together of the entire process.

Slideshow of Sarawak Layer Cake Making Process

We stayed a full two and a half hours to watch him make one cake (and even then, he had already prepared some of the other layers ahead of time). I can only say that, after having the privilege of watching him make this cake, I am in awe of the people who bake these cakes. I certainly have changed my mind about baking it myself. Even if I knew how to do it, I don’t know if I have the patience to bake something that takes so long and yet is so quickly devoured!

For all the work he put in to making his Sarawak layer cake, his prices are so reasonable. He only charges $25 for a small 2”x2”x8” cake and $100 for a full 2”x8”x8” cake. Thanks to Foodbuzz and the 24, 24, 24 event stipend, we could afford to take home 8 cakes that day.

Before heading off, we walked across the street to the Four Points Sheraton. We went in to see the buffet at the Eatery Restaurant. There we found My Sara’s Sarawak layer cakes, neatly sliced and displayed on the dessert table

My Sara's Sarawak Layer Cakes at Four Points Sheraton Eatery

My Cup of Tea

After dinner, we called up our food blogger friend Mike to let him know we were coming over to his house with some Sarawak layer cakes to taste. Mike set up his special photo lighting stand in his kitchen so I could take pictures of some of the cakes.

Sarawak Layer Cake Medley

After all the photos were taken, we sat down to enjoy the cakes over cups of tea and conversation. Mike and his wife both agreed, these were top quality cakes. Each individual cake had its own delightful character and flavor.

We’re so glad that we found the My Sara Sarawak Layer Cake shop by chance. We were totally amazed by Idris’ warmth, humility, and willingness to share by allowing us into his store to document his cake-making process. And we are very thankful to Foodbuzz for allowing us to share this experience with you, dear readers!

Cheers and Aloha, Annie and Nate

My Sara Sarawak Layer Cake Shop is located at:

Lot 9957, Aras Lantai, RH Plaza
Jalan Lapangan Terbang, Kuching
Tel: 082-459842

You can also find their cakes in West Malaysia, at the Shazzen Sarawak Layer Cake outlets in Jaya Jusco, various locations, KL.

We have so much more to learn and share about the foods of our new home in Kuching. Don’t miss a thing! Subscribe now to receive our latest posts to your RSS reader or to your Inbox.

Stop, Blog Thief!

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 02:36:00 +0000

Thanks to a lot of commenters and personal emails, we have been alerted to a site that has stolen content from the House of Annie blog and many others. Compare the two screenshots below:

Scraper's site

House of Annie site

I am extremely upset to see my work posted on someone else's site, because I have put in hundreds of hours building our site only to see someone else just come and copy our posts to their site. (Okay, they didn't just copy -- they also edited each post to take out our signatures and also changed the internal links to point to their site.)

Because this "scraper" blog is hosted on Blogspot / Blogger (Google), there are a couple of things you can do to report it. If this blog has stolen content from your site, file a DCMA report to Google. The URL for the online report is

http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/request.py?contact_type=blogger_dmca_infringment

For the rest of you dear readers who are just plain mad and would like to do something about it, report the blog as Spam by going to

http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/request.py?contact_type=spam&hl=en&blog_ID=&blog_URL=

and entering

http://hot-kitchen.blogspot.com

in the text box.

Hopefully Google will investigate and take this site down.

To the scraper who stole our content, I leave this haiku:

I wish you would get
A hundred thousand bug bites
Where the sun don't shine

Aloha, Nate

Update Oct 6, 2009: DMCA report submitted to Google. We'll see how long it takes to get the site taken down.

Update Oct 7, 2009: Google has taken down the site! Hot-kitchen has gone cold.

LET THAT BE A LESSON TO YOU BLOG THIEVES!

Simple, Sweet and Spicy Cucumber Salad

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:32:00 +0000

I bet that for those of you that grow your own veggies, you’re probably inundated by cucumbers right now if you’re growing them. That and zucchinis—well, if you’re growing zuchs, you should expect to be inundated!

Cucumbers are lovely to eat when they’re fresh. Crisp, juicy, and so cool when the summer is so hot. Living here in Malaysia, cucumbers are used raw in so many dishes (mostly as garnishes but also as a nice contrast to spicy and heaty foods).

While visiting a friend’s aunt recently, we were invited to stay for dinner (have I already mentioned how hospitable everyone is here?). She served us this cucumber salad and Nate just loved it. It was really delicious, a nice combination of sweet, tart and spicy. I, of course, asked for a recipe. It was such a simple recipe and I couldn’t wait to try it out myself.

Picking Pickle

The next day, I went off to the market and bought myself two cucumbers, some Thai chili peppers, and a lemon among other vegetables. You know, I didn’t really know how to choose the cucumbers so I let the vendor pick it out for me. He showed me how the two he picked up still had the brown flower hanging off the end to indicate how fresh and young it was. I trusted him and they were very nice.

The reason I say I don’t know how to pick a cucumber is because the variety they have here in Malaysia is very different from that in the US. Over here, the cucumbers are not dark green the way they are in the US (I still remember the first time I picked one at the store in the US and looked for the least green, most fat and smooth one only to cut in open and find that it was very seedy and bitter!). They are light green/yellowish green with speckles of dark green. If anyone has any tips on picking cucumbers, whatever variety they are, please leave a comment!

Anyway, I took these two cucumbers home and halved them lengthwise and then sliced these half moons thinly.

Then I sprinkled sugar and salt on the sliced cucumbers.

Tossed it all together with my hands and then added the sliced Thai bird chilies.

Lastly I squeezed the juice of one lemon on the salad.

At that point, I tossed it with a spoon (never a good idea to use your hands when you’re working with hot peppers—might come back to bite you when you accidently rub your eyes!) and let it sit for an hour in the fridge. At that point, the salad released quite a bit of water. You can choose to drain the water, or just scoop out the cucumber leaving the juices behind. Et voila! A nice, cool salad to enjoy with almost anything Asian with a little spicy zing at the end.

So simple it seems silly to write the recipe down but here it is:

Sweet and Spicy Cucumber Salad

Ingredients:
2 medium cucumbers, halved lengthwise then sliced thinly
2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tsp salt
Juice from 1 lemon
2-4 Thai bird chilies, sliced and deseeded.

Method:
1. Sprinkle sugar, salt and lemon juice over sliced cucumber.
2. Add chilies.
3. Toss with a spoon till sugar and lemon juice has coated cucumber slices.
4. Set aside for one hour or more in the refrigerator.
5. Serve and enjoy!

Simple, Sweet and Spicy Cucumber Salad

Cheers, Annie

This post was entered into the September 2009 edition of the Think Spice blog event, created by Sunita of Sunita’s World and hosted by Kitchen Chronicles.

Hungry for more simple recipes? Click below:

Corned Beef, Carrots and Colcannon Recipe

Quick and Easy Pasta With Light Cream Sauce Recipe

Sweet and Sour Fried Fish Recipe

Steamed Egg Tofu with Ground Pork and Shrimp

Ramadhan Bazaar Dinner

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 16:45:00 +0000

I really didn’t feel like cooking last Thursday. It was one of those days when I just felt lethargic, and didn’t have any mood to do much. The day had started with rain and then more rain. The whole morning was dark and gloomy and by the time the sun deemed to peek out, it was already mid-afternoon. Somehow the weather just made me feel very unproductive. Or maybe it’s that one-month mark of being here…feeling not quite like this is home, missing California and feeling somewhat homesick (which is strange because I am Malaysian after all).

So when it came time to prepare dinner, I just didn’t have any energy to do it. I called Nate at work and told him that we’d have to eat out and get some food to go. He tried to convince me that we had enough food at home to make something and maybe we could just pick up a roast chicken or something to go with it. I tentatively agreed but I still wasn’t really feeling it. I was just not wanting to cook anything at all.

Then, it struck me. In all the chaffeuring I had been doing sending Nate to and from work, I passed by this Ramadhan Bazaar at Stutong Market almost every weekday. And almost everytime we passed it on the way home, I would say to Nate, “we should stop by one day and pick up dinner from here before the Ramadhan (fasting) month is over.” And by Thursday, the fasting month was quickly coming to a close; Aidil Fitri would be celebrated on Sunday. So I called Nate back and said, “let’s go to the Ramadhan Bazaar and pick up some dinner there instead!” He thought it was a great idea and so that was where we headed after work.

Ramadhan Bazaar at Stutong Market, Kuching

For those of you who were wondering what makes the Ramadhan month special in Malaysia, it’s the one month of the year when stalls pop up all over various neighborhoods in the evenings selling food and drinks to all the Muslims (and other opportunistic foodies like me) who were getting ready to break their daylong fast. Various dishes, appetizers, cakes, sweets and drinks are sold that sometimes would not be easily found at other times of the year.

This is actually the second time we had gone to a Ramadhan food center. The first was at the Satok Market that we had talked about in an earlier post. But we had gone there after walking the regular night market and we did not enjoy that experience as it was really crowded and we were already tired from all that walking. Plus, we had not planned to get our dinner at that market when we went.

This time, it was an intentional decision: we were looking for dinner. So when we walked in, I must say I was a little disappointed. Many of the stalls were empty (I think this was because Aidil Fitri was almost on us and some of the vendors had already packed up to go back to their hometowns to celebrate). The rest of the stalls were selling similar items: roti stalls selling murtabak (meat filled roti) and other rotis; stalls selling homemade dishes like curries and stews eaten with rice; and lots of stalls selling drinks.

Looking Back

But really, where was the variety? The excitement? The kuihs, cakes, desserts, finger foods, etc? As we continued walking, I had a sinking feeling that this was going to be a bust. I told Nate about how my Ramadhan experiences used to be in Kuala Lumpur. So many, many years ago when I lived in KL, Ramadhan was such an exciting time because I got to have all these different kuihs, finger foods, and ayam percik! Ayam percik was an East Coast specialty that was most easily found during this time. It was a grilled chicken that was basted with a coconut-based spicy sauce as it grilled and the flavor was just phenomenal (I guess I’ll have to attempt making it myself). After being away from Malaysia for more than 10 years, I was really looking forward to eating this again. Alas, Kuching is not KL and there was no ayam percik to be found at this Ramadhan bazaar.

Just as I was about to tell Nate we would have to go somewhere else for dinner, we came to the end of the row and saw lots of smoke rising. Ah…here was where all the grilled foods were being cooked and sold. No, we didn’t find ayam percik but we did find satay and also lots of grilled fish. We bought 10 sticks of chicken satay along with ketupat—rice cooked in a woven coconut packet. And we also got two fish—ikan pari (skate) and ikan sardin (though this translates to sardine, both Nate and I think it’s mackerel but we’re not 100% sure—where’s Pat the fishmonger when we need him!).

Chicken Satay with Ketupat

We took our dinner home and dug into the satay first. We immediately regretted not buying more. The satay sauce was really good and the ketupat had absorbed a smoky, nutty flavor from the coconut leaves. It was delicious! 10 sticks between the four of us meant the kids would only get two sticks each. Daniel calculated it out. “We should have gotten 8 to be fair.” Nate said, “no, we should have gotten 20!”

Ikan Pari – Grilled Skate Wing

Then we turned our attention to the fish. Let me tell you, these were really fresh fish. The meat of the skate was sweet, light and tender. Perfectly grilled and served alongside a sambal sauce and calamansi limes, they were wonderful! My kids kept on eating (without the sambal) and asking for more. I think Skate is one of those fish that is so kid-friendly because there are no real bones. There is only a middle cartilage which is easy to avoid. When skate is this fresh, it is just heaven.

Grilled Mackerel

The mackerel was just as fresh. It definitely had a stronger fishy flavor but again, it was so fresh that Nate and I tore into it and even though we gave some to the kids, we ended up eating most of it. And this fish was paired with a different sauce—it was a sweet soy-based sauce with grated onions and some chillies. That sauce partnered so well with the stronger fish flavor and it was so addictive that when we finished the fish, I caught Nate staring at the leftover sauce and I cracked up because I could tell he was contemplating drinking up the sauce!

Looking Forward

We were very tempted after we had finished dinner to go back the next day just to get more fish. So even though I didn’t find the things I remembered from my past, I found that there were other things that I never used to get that were just as fabulous. It makes sense I guess that they had good fish, after all Kuching is a coastal town and is known for its seafood.

I wish now that we had gone to that market earlier in the fasting month. Today is the last day and tomorrow we celebrate the end of that month. There will be other feasting opportunities now that we come to the Aidil Fitri and hopefully we will get to blog about that too. Regretfully, we won’t see those canopies heralding the month-long time of fasting and feasting till the next year when the Muslims have their month of fasting again.

For me, this month has been like going through a fast of sorts. I’ve been missing our friends in California, our church, the familiarity of my everyday life, the foods, the kitchen, the Bay Area culture and lifestyle. It’s been uncomfortable and sometimes unfamiliar and frustrating. I’ve had pangs of loneliness and emptiness.

But I’ve also made it through a month. And with a lot to be thankful for, I can now see the promise of potential, the beginning of different, exciting experiences. Who knows what other fish we will find when expecting chicken? What new finds to share, to enjoy and reclaim as my country woos me again?

I can’t wait to share them with you as I experience them myself.

Cheers, Annie

Get wooed Annie’s country too! Subscribe now to receive all our newest posts to your RSS reader or to your Inbox.

Hungry for more celebration food? Click below:

Homemade Malaysian Pineapple Tarts, Part 1

Our Favorite Layer Cake Recipe

Jiu Hu Char

Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24: Ultimate Backyard Lu’au

Kuching Food Blogger Meetup @ My Restaurant (Sama Jaya)

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:21:00 +0000

We’ve said before that one of the things that most impresses us about Kuching is the hospitality of its people. Wherever we go in our new home, we find that Kuchingites are welcoming, open, and so very helpful. So we were excited to be contacted by Mike of the excellent Kong-Kay food blog in Kuching. He invited us to dinner at “My Restaurant”, one of the best Western-food restaurants in Kuching.

My Restaurant, Kuching

Setting it Up

We love getting together with food bloggers. We thoroughly enjoyed getting together with Carolyn of FoodGal and Michael of Cooking for Engineers at our Chinese New Year Hot Pot dinner and also our Ultimate Rib Showdown. Sharing a meal with other people passionate about food just energizes us.

I first found the Kong-Kay blog when I was searching on FoodBuzz for Malaysian food bloggers. His site stood out to me because of his great photographs, his writing, and the overall design. When we found out we were coming to Kuching, I hoped we would be getting to know this blogger behind Kong-Kay, because he knew a lot about where to eat out in Kuching.

Mike read about our coming to Kuching through Babe in the City KL’s recent “My Sweet Malaysia” roundup. When he contacted us and invited us to dinner, I asked if he knew any other Kuching food bloggers that might want to join us. Mike sent an email out to Borneo Boy, the blogger behind CW’s Food and Travel Blog. Borneo Boy responded that he could also make it to My Restaurant. We were set to go!

Ready, Set, Meet and Eat!

Judging by the number of posts about My Restaurant on Kong-Kay, you can tell that Mike really likes this restaurant. Once we had the date and time set, Mike called ahead and spoke with Walter, the chef-owner of My Restaurant, to let him know we were coming and to pre-order some of his best dishes. This gave Walter time to plan the dishes, source the ingredients (he buys his pork from a butcher at nearby Stutong Community Market), and prepare our meal. So when we sat down to the table, there was no waiting – our food was ready to come out of the kitchen!

The specialty at My Restaurant is pork. Pork may not be a big thing in Muslim-majority West Malaysia. But here in Sarawak, where there are less Muslims, there is a greater percentage of pork-eaters among the population. Usually, though, it is prepared in the Chinese way: roasted or braised.

Walter is Austrian, and so his pork preparations are decidedly Western influenced. He used to run the restaurants at the Holiday Inn in the Kuching resort area of Damai Beach. He’d been cooking all over the world before that, but once he came to Malaysia, he stayed. He and his wife Angela opened My Restaurant about four years ago.

We arrived a bit late for our reservation, but the restaurant wasn’t too busy when we got there. Mike, his wife Lyn and son Seth were waiting for us. We made our introductions, then sat down. A few minutes later, Chee Wee (Borneo Boy) walked in and joined us.

Roasted Pork Spareribs at My Restaurant, Kuching

The first plate to hit our table was these pork spareribs. I thought I’d never see meaty spares here in Kuching; every pork vendor I saw at the markets carried ribs that were stripped of almost all their meat – good for making soup. These ribs were meaty and nicely flavored. Walter said that he roasted them first for 45 minutes, then finished them on the grill before plating them up and laying some house-made barbecue sauce on them.

Spicy and Mild House-Made Pork Sausages at My Restaurant, Kuching

Walter also served up some of his house-made spicy and mild pork sausages. Here in Malaysia, most sausages are made from chicken. They can be dry and mealy, with little flavor besides salt and pepper. These sausages were the bomb – juicy and flavorful with different spices and herbs. I only got to sample one piece, but Daniel gobbled down three!

Roasted Pork Knuckle at My Restaurant, Kuching

The best dish of the night was this roasted pork knuckle. The crispy, crackling skin and the perfectly cooked pork with just the right amount of fat was heavenly. Drizzled with some mushroom cream sauce, this pork knuckle was truly divine. No wonder it’s a favorite dish at the restaurant.

Not all of our dishes were pork. Walter served us a delicious Caesar salad with real bacon and house-made Caesar dressing that Annie couldn’t get enough of. He also served us a lovely sauerkraut with bacon that I really enjoyed. And an awesome roasted lamb shank with black pepper sauce – fantastic.

It’s People Too

Over the course of dinner, we got to know each other better and build connections. Mike is an interior designer by trade, while CW is an architect who likes to travel. I was surprised that they hadn’t met before, seeing as the Kuching food blogger community is smaller than the bigger cities. But they still had a connection through Mike’s son who is studying architecture. And I had a connection to CW because he designed the exhibition area in the lobby of my workplace.

Of course, we also talked about blogging: why and how we started, why we’re doing it, what we’re doing to make our blogs better. It was an enlightening and encouraging conversation, one that I hope will continue! We all exchanged contact information at the end of dinner, with plans started to meet up again, and hopefully with more Kuching food bloggers.

Thank you so much, Mike, for inviting us, organizing dinner, and making us feel so welcome. Thank you, CW, for your openness and willingness to share your love and knowledge of Kuching food. And thank you, Walter, for an excellent meal. We will be back for sure!

CW, Annie, Nate, Walter, Mike, Lyn

My Restaurant
Lot 13186 &13187
Samajaya Commercial Centre
(at the intersection of Jalan Setia Raja and Jalan Usaha Jaya)
Kuching 93350

Tel:082-361588

Open Tues – Sat for Lunch (11-2) and Dinner (6-10)
Sunday for Dinner only

(reservations recommended, especially for weekends and holidays)

So, calling all Kuching food bloggers (especially FoodBuzz Featured Publishers)! We’d love to meet up! Doesn’t have to be fancy Western food like My Restaurant, it can be just some good Sarawak Laksa or Kolo Mee. Leave a comment here or email us through our Contact link!

Hungry for more food blogger meetups? Click below:

Chinese New Year Cioppino Hot Pot Dinner

Ultimate Rib Showdown

Getting Buzzed at Tokkuri Tei (Honolulu)

How to Use a Combi Oven

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:31:00 +0000

Have you seen this oven (or something similar?)

Toshiba Combination Microwave Convection Oven

When we moved into our house in Kuching, we found that it was completely furnished. The owner had moved out with the intention that she might possibly move back in, so she left all the furniture, and all the pots, pans, dishes, glasses and cutlery. She also left the fridge, the washing machine, the rice pot, and this combination microwave convection oven.

Huh? Wuzzat?

Readers of this blog know that Annie loves to use the oven. Back in San Jose, we had an electric range with a large oven underneath. With it, she could bake scones and layer cakes, roast lamb shanks, braise chicken, broil salmon collars…the list goes on. (Just check out all the items under the “Baked” category on the sidebar!)

In our kitchen here in Kuching, the house does not come with a built-in oven. It only has a gas stove (two burners) and this countertop combination microwave / convection oven. We plugged it in, and found that it still turned on. (Of course, there was no instruction manual to be found)

We managed to figure out the microwave part of it and have used it to reheat our leftover food. But what has us stumped is the convection oven part.

Toshiba Combi Microwave / Convection Oven

How exactly does “Combi” work? Why are there Convec.1 and Convec. 2 settings? Can we actually use this to cook some of our favorite oven recipes? Is it even worth keeping?

Toshiba Combi Microwave Convection Oven

All these questions, but no one we’ve asked here in Kuching has offered a straight answer.

Help!

So we need some help from you, dear reader. Can you tell us how to work this combination microwave convection oven? Please, leave a comment!

If you don’t know, maybe someone you know has the answer. Would you Stumble, Tweet, or share this post on Facebook or any online forum you are active on?

‘Cause we really want to get baking again.

Aloha, Nate and Annie.

I’m sure people out there can help us get baking again, and once we do, we’ll continue posting our baking recipes. Don’t miss a thing! So subscribe to our blog now to receive all our latest posts to your RSS reader or to your Inbox!

Visit to Kuching’s Satok Market

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 17:19:00 +0000

Delia, a commenter on our post “Visit to a Kuching Pasar Malam” , suggested that we visit the Satok Market to see more varieties of food there. The Satok Market is the largest open market in Kuching, and is a major attraction for locals and tourists. Imagine this: you have blocks and blocks of shophouses in one district of the city. In between those blocks are parking spaces and roads. Now imagine that every weekend, all the parking spaces and roads are covered over with tarps and canopies, and vendors from all over Sarawak come to sell their wares.

Satok Market from the Footbridge

Even though the Satok Market is popularly known as the Sunday Market, it actually starts up on Saturday afternoon, runs all night, and shuts down on Sunday afternoon. Annie and I decided to go to see the Satok Market this past Saturday afternoon, shop a little, and pick up dinner from the Ramadan bazaar that was also being held at the market.

We drove toward the Waterfront district, turned in at Jalan Satok, and parked near the Wisma Satok mall. There’s a footbridge going from the mall over Jalan Satok to the actual market site. From there you can see just a small portion of the market, covered by canopies. Underneath the canopies, you will find vendors selling all manner of items. You can find clothes, shoes, toys, plants, kitchenware, books, magazines, and other household necessities.

Satok Market Under the Canopies

There was a cacophony of voices as the vendors called out, hawking their wares. We were undeterred. We were here for the food.

Just as at the pasar malam, you can find all kinds of fruits imported from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, even the US. But nothing compares in freshness and quality like local fruits. These small bananas (pictured below) are small enough that you could probably eat the whole thing in one bite. But they have a pleasant, almost green apple tartness to them. We picked up a couple of bunches.

Another local fruit that we picked up was these jambu air or water apples. They are similar to the mountain apples I used to eat as a kid in Hawai’i. The sweetness of these water apples is muted, but the interesting thing is, there is no seed inside!

Jambu Air (Water Apple) Vendor

There was a large section of the market devoted to fresh meat and fresh fish. Here and there you would also find a vendor displaying bags and bags of dried anchovies, shrimp, and other fishes. I never knew there were so many varieties of dried anchovies. Next time, I’m going to have to get some to make the sambal ikan bilis that will go along with our nasi lemak.

Bags of Ikan Bilis (Dried Anchovies)

We found lots of fresh turmeric root, large chili peppers, and petai (stinky beans) for sale. I like how the vendors lay everything out neatly piled on plates with their prices clearly marked. The freshness and quality (tomatoes notwithstanding) were as good as the best supermarkets in town, but half the prices.

As dusk approached, we made our way to the Ramadan Bazaar to pick up dinner. During Ramadan, observant Muslims fast from eating and drinking from sunup to sundown. You can imagine how hungry people must be by the end of the day. At the bazaar, you will find not just Malay food but halal foods from many other cultures, even Chinese!

The bazaar was crowded with folks buying food to take home for buka puasa – breaking fast. Take dozens of food vendors all boiling, frying, steaming and grilling, mix hundreds of people packed under heavy canopies, add tropical heat and humidity and what do you have? Instant sauna. We picked up our food and got out of there as quick as we could.

On the way back out of the market, we stopped at a stall where they were grilling chickens over a hot charcoal fire. The cook held skewers of butterflied chickens over the coals, letting the fat drip down and the flames singe the skin for some great charred flavor. Every so often, he would baste the birds with his special sauce, kept in a large can on the side of his grill. The aroma was impossible to resist.

As we departed the Satok Market and headed back over the footbridge, we saw rows of food stalls and tables running off into the distance. At each table was a family, but no one was eating yet. Everyone was waiting for the evening call to prayer, which signals the end of the day and the time to break the fast. I can admire their willpower in the face of such a diversity of food available.

There’s a lot more of Satok Market that I haven’t shared in this post. So many sights, smells and sounds remain to be told. But I suppose if I tried to do so, this post would be 4 times as long! So I condensed the images into this slideshow on YouTube.

Enjoy!

Visit to Satok Market

Aloha, Nate

Want to read more about our adventure in our new home of Kuching, Sarawak? Subscribe to our blog and receive all our latest posts to your RSS reader or to your Inbox!

Hungry for more Kuching discoveries? Click below:

Welcome to Kuching

Visit to a Kuching Pasar Malam (Night Market)

What to do With a Pandan Plant

Cooking with Leafy Midin (Fiddlehead Fern)

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 15:38:00 +0000

Stir-fried Midin with Garlic and Shallots

Midin, not to be confused with Paku, is a local fern that, according to my Sarawakian friends, is only found in Sarawak (but that I have not yet verified for sure). When we first got to Kuching, we were invited to a friend’s house for dinner and we had our first taste of Paku. It was delicious! But my friend said, “If you like this, you really have to try Midin, it is much tastier.” She then proceeded to buy us a bunch the next time we saw them.

I took home that bunch and put it in the fridge to cook the next day (ferns are best cooked the day it is bought but if you cannot, it will keep an extra day but it won’t taste as good). Never having cooked with any type of fern, I had asked some questions before leaving my friends the day before. Armed with some idea of how to cook them, I set to work on them the next day.

Spreading Out

Putting them into a bowl, I noticed that this bunch had unfurled their tight heads into more leafy fronds. I wasn’t sure if this happened overnight or if they were bought like this. Later, when I bought my second bunch from the market, I found that they sold them both (already leafy and tightly coiled without extraneous leaves).

If you think of them like asparagus, they have a breaking point on the stalk; anything past that breaking point is too fibrous to eat. I pinched every stalk somewhere 2-3 inches down from the top (found out later that I was too conservative and could have pinched them a little further down) and I didn’t pinch off all the leaves (which I also found out later that I could have…oh well, live and learn). What I had left was a very small bowl of Midin.

Leafy Midin (Fiddlehead Fern)

Simplicity Works Well

Since we are not quite settled in yet, my kitchen pantry is not completely stocked. I had very basic ingredients to work with. I didn’t even have chillies or belacan so any of those types of stir-fries were out for the moment. But I did have garlic and shallots (two very essential ingredients to Malaysian cooking) and I decided to just do a simple stir-fry using just that.

And guess what? Sometimes an ingredient is so delicious that simplicity works well. The midin was wonderful—crunchy, vegetal, sweet, fresh! My daughter who is normally reluctant to eat much of anything much less vegetables, pronounced it “yummy” and proceeded to eat half the plate herself.

I’ve since cooked the tight heads with belacan and it’s good that way too. And, I’ve eaten it as a salad at a restaurant which cooked it “Thai” style which I will soon try to replicate. I guess you will be seeing more posts of Midin. I know many of you readers won’t get a chance to cook with it especially if it’s really true that it only grows here but I can’t help but sing its praises. If you get tired of reading about it without being able to taste it, you know we would welcome you to visit us here in Kuching!

Stir-fried Midin with garlic and shallots

Ingredients

1 Tbsp vegetable oil
4-5 small shallots, rough chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, rough chopped
1 bunch of leafy Midin, washed and peeled at breaking point—about 3-4 inches from top
salt to taste (about 1 tsp)

Method
1. Heat oil in wok on medium heat.
2. Toss in shallots and garlic. Stir-fry on med-high heat until shallots and garlic start to smell really fragrant and are beginning to lightly brown (don’t let them get burnt!).

3. Toss in Midin and stir around for 30 seconds.

4. Add salt to taste. Stir-fry for another minute or so.

Plate up and eat with rice.

Stir-Fried Midin with Garlic and Shallots

Enjoy!

Cheers, Annie

This post was entered into the Weekend Herb Blogging #199 roundup, administered by Haalo and hosted this week by Chris from Mele Cotte

PS: have I also mentioned that I’m enjoying cooking with a wok over a real gas fire (no more electric stovetops for me for a while)! Yay!

We’re just getting started with cooking Malaysian with a Kuching slant! If you want to keep up with us, won’t you subscribe to our blog and receive all our latest posts to your RSS reader or to your Inbox?

Hungry for more Malaysian veggie recipes? Click below:

Paku Fiddlehead Fern

Kabocha Squash with Spinach in Coconut Milk

Jiu Hu Char

Hot Sour Gai Choy Soup with Roasted Pig's Feet and Duck Heads

What to do With a Pandan Plant

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:47:00 +0000

We’re renting a house here in Kuching, one with a backyard. On first day after we arrived in Kuching, we went over to see the house. What do we find, but a stand of pandan growing over on one side of the yard!

Pandan Growing in our Yard

Pandan is a plant with long, tough green leaves. When cut or crushed, the leaves give off this wonderfully sweet, herbal aroma. Cooking with pandan leaves will infuse the pandan flavor into the food. For instance, toss a few pandan leaves in a pot of rice with some coconut milk, and you have nasi lemak!

When we were living in Hawaii, I had a huge stand of pandan growing in the side yard of my Mom’s house. I had nurtured this stand from a small keiki given to me by my friend’s mom. I was very proud of how large it had gotten. (And very sad when I found out my sister had pulled it all out!)

When we moved to San Jose, we couldn’t grow pandan because it is a tropical plant that can’t take the cool California winters. We had to make do with frozen pandan found in the Asian grocery stores. Most of the recipes we made calling for pandan actually used a bottled pandan extract paste. Fresh pandan was just too hard to come by.

Pandan growing in our yard

One of the first things we made in the new House of Annie was barley tea, boiled with pandan leaves. I was starting to come down with a sore throat, so this barley tea with pandan was perfect. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any gingko nuts or fuchok to make it more fancy.

Boiling Pandan with Barley

No matter. When it was finished, boiled and cooled, I drank nearly the entire pot by myself! It really hit the spot.

Barley Tea with Pandan

We’re so happy to find this pandan stand in our yard. In actual fact, every house here in Kuching has a pandan plant growing. Our stand just happens to be so large because no one’s been living in the house for almost two years. That’s a lot of pandan to cook with!

So, we need your help. Give us recipes that call for pandan! Leave a comment and tell us what you’d do with all this fresh pandan.

Aloha, Nate

Want to see what else we cook with our pandan, or other local ingredients we find here in Kuching? Subscribe now to receive all our newest posts to your RSS reader or to your Inbox!

This post is entered in the 2nd Anniversary edition of the Grow Your Own roundup, created and hosted by Andrea of Andrea's Recipes.

Hungry for dishes using pandan extract? Click below:

Pandan Waffles

Pandan Kaya Bread Recipe

Pandan Chiffon Cake

Visit to a Kuching Pasar Malam (Night Market)

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:53:00 +0000

Annie and I love to go to farmer’s markets. Whether it’s our favorite one in Saratoga, farther afield in Palo Alto, or even as far as the wonderful San Francisco Ferry Building Farmer’s Market, we can’t get enough of them. So when Annie’s friend Lily said she’d take us to a “pasar malam” (night market) here in Kuching, we happily agreed.

This particular pasar malam is held on Thursday evenings at the new-ish development called MJC township (Bandar Baru Batu Kawa) on the West side of Kuching. We arrived there a little before dusk, and the market was already in full swing. Hundreds of people were jostling about between the rows of vendors who were selling all kinds of foods beneath their canopies.

Night Market at MJC township, Kuching

Sarawakian Veggies

A lot of stalls were selling paku, a type of fiddlehead fern that we recently had the pleasure of tasting. You could also find lots of ong choy, sweet potato leaves and other Sarawakian veggies.

Annie spotted a table containing plates of petai – stinky beans. They have a very strong, pungent odor and flavor. We enjoy them in Nyonya-style dishes like sambal petai udang – stinky beans with shrimp. You really have to try this dish!

Petai

(by the way, does anyone know what those brown pods to the left of the petai are?)

Fresh Bamboo Shoots

Here’s another type of fiddlehead fern, called “Paku Iban”. The leaves of this fern are broader and less feathery than the commonly seen paku.

Here is midin - another type of fiddlehead fern that is found only in Sarawak. The leaves are redder and thinner than paku, almost grass-like. Our friend picked up a packet of midin and gave it to us to cook. We will blog about that in another post!

Midin

Fish and Fruit

Kuching is right on the coast of Sarawak, so it stands to reason that it has an abundance of fresh fish available. We went past a whole row of stalls selling all kinds of fresh fish and seafood, from shrimp to squid to sardines to skate, even shark. These were not “previously frozen” and thawed out – look how clear the eyes are on these fish!

Fresh Fish for Sale at the Night Market

There were also lots of different fruits for sale. They had imported apples, pears, and plums from other countries. But I was more interested in the local fruits like jumbo seedless guava, bananas, papaya, dragonfruit…

…longans and langsat.

Sago Worms!

Passing by a stall, Lily stopped and pointed at a large tub. “Look at that!” she exclaimed. Inside the tub were dozens of writhing grubs as big as your thumb: Sago worms!

Sago worms are actually beetle larvae that live and grow inside the bark of the tapioca tree. Locals harvest and eat them as a delicacy. They normally fry them up, but the really hardcore will bite the heads off the live ones and consume the bodies. Uh, ok. Sounds like a job for Andrew Zimmern…

I much prefer these delicacies.

Kueh Kueh – Malaysian Sweets

(By the way, you can find recipes for many of these sweets in the “My Sweet Malaysia” roundup that was recently posted on Babe in KL.)

Fried Goodies

By the time we passed this table of fried goodies, we were getting hungry. Our tummies were rumbling and we needed to go somewhere for dinner soon. We hadn’t even made it through the whole of the market!

So we had to cut short our trip. But we will be back, for sure! And I hope we can make friends with some of the vendors, especially the fishmongers.

Aloha, Nate

We’re learning lots about our new home of Kuching, Sarawak. Won’t you stick with us as we explore our new stomping grounds? Subscribe now to receive all our posts to your RSS reader or to your Inbox!

Hungry for more farmer’s market finds? Click below:

Fried Sanddabs with Garlic and Oyster Sauce

Wild Salmon Cakes with Kaffir Lime and Ginger

Sweet Corno di Toro Peppers in Mexican Chopped Salad

Pimientos de Padron: How to Escape the Heat

Roli Roti Porchetta (San Francisco)

Honeydew Sago Dessert Recipe: A Refreshing Summer Treat!

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:56:00 +0000

Updated 29 August 2009

Originally posted 1 August 2008

Honeydew Sago Dessert

In Malaysia, we have many soupy desserts. Some of them are served hot, like the Chinese “tong sui” (sweet drinks) and others cold (like cendol, ice kacang and es teler). The honeydew sago dessert falls into the cold category and it really is refreshing.

During Summer, melons are abundant in the grocery stores and the farmer’s market. One Saturday, we bought three melons at the Palo Alto Farmer’s Market—a bambino watermelon, an orange-fleshed watermelon and a honeydew melon (read about our encounter with a gross "Asian-girl fetish" man). The watermelons we planned to just enjoy on its own but I had plans for the honeydew melon.

Sago = Tapioca pearls

Sago or tapioca pearls can be found in all your Asian grocery stores and probably in some of the regular stores as well. They look like little tiny white beads. I love these things and will put them into any “soupy” Asian desserts abundantly (be careful though as they are also a thickener and too much can turn your “soup” into “pudding”). There’s another dessert that is made entirely of them and I will blog about that later.

Working it out

So anyway, we had brought back lots of stuff from the farmer’s market, right? And Nate had told you that he was working on the grilled pork tenderloin dinner with all the other ingredients. (By the way, I did not agree with his post—we had a little argument about it after it was published, yeah, our first blog fight *lol*. What I think he meant to say was that I also do look at what I have before deciding on what to cook BUT once I decide, I settle on a recipe (or adapt it) and go from there. He, on the other hand, starts chopping the stuff on hand and then continues searching for how to make use of it and what else to make with it…not very efficient…tsk…tsk…).

I love him anyway and sometimes it works out remarkably well. I just have to stay away so as not to get impatient. So while he was putting together this wonderful meal, I took a nap. I woke up feeling refreshed and came into the kitchen to work on my dessert dish. The whole meal came out really great and because pork tenderloin and grilled halibut are pretty light foods, there was room for my honeydew sago dessert which was a delightful way to end dinner and the weekend.

Honeydew Sago Recipe

Ingredients:
½ honeydew melon (save the other half for enjoying plain)
1 cup sago (tapioca pearls)
½-1 cup sugar (depending on how sweet your honeydew is)
½ cup water
1 cup coconut milk shake the can before measuring out the one cup otherwise you will have really thick coconut milk only)
½ tsp salt

Method:

Make a simple syrup: Put water and sugar into a small pot and boil till sugar dissolves to make a syrup. Cool.

Boil the sago: Put a big pot of water to boil (to hold about 7 cups or more of water). When water comes to a boil, add sago to water and cook on med-high heat. Stir occasionally. Sago is done cooking when it looks translucent, about 8-10 mins. Caution: Don’t overcook the sago as it can become a sticky mess. Better to have a few pearls that have not turned translucent than to have a glop of melting sago.

Cut and blend the melon: While sago is cooking, cut half of the half melon into chunks

and buzz in your blender till smooth.

Dice the remaining quarter of the melon into small ½ inch cubes (or if you want to be really pretty, you could use a melon baller).

Rinse the sago: As soon as sago is done, pour it out into a fine-mesh colander and rinse with cold water.

Assemble the dish: Put the melon cubes and the melon juice together in a large bowl.

Add the coconut milk.

Followed by the cooled sago.

Pour in the sugar syrup little by little, to adjust the sweetness.

Salt trick

The trick to getting your dessert to taste better is to add a little salt. Salt enhances the sweetness of any dessert!. Stir it all together and chill.

Enjoy!

Cheers, Annie

This post was entered in the “Merdeka Open House 2009: My Sweet Malaysia” roundup, hosted by Babe in the City – KL

If you like this recipe, then won’t you subscribe to receive all our recipes to your RSS reader or your Inbox!

Hungry for more Asian desserts? Click below!

Es Teler - A Cool Indonesian Dessert

Hearts, eyes, and frog eggs

Mochi Ice Cream from Bubbies (Honolulu)

Evolution of Dessert: Sake-Poached Asian Pears with Ume and Li Hing Sauce

Welcome to Kuching

noreply@blogger.com (Nate-n-Annie) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:10:00 +0000

Paku Fern

The (eating) adventure in Kuching begins…

Packing Heavy

When we originally arrived in KL from America, we came with about 400 lbs (180 kilos) of baggage plus carry-ons. Today, we flew from KL to Kuching, taking Air Asia. If you know anything about Air Asia, they are a budget airline that charges you in 5 kg increments for baggage exceeding 15 kg. We purchased the max amount, 30 kg per person, which meant we could take up to 120 kg total with us - a 60 kg difference.

We spent most of the last day and night in KL packing our suitcases and carry-ons. We had to leave behind some clothes and a lot of books, but eventually managed to stuff the remainder into 5 suitcases and 4 carry-ons! It took two cars to get us and the suitcases to the airport.

Another thing about Air Asia is, they fly out of the “Low Cost Carrier Terminal” of KL International Airport. No fancy check-in stations, baggage handling systems, or jetways. In order to get on the plane, you have to walk out on the tarmac and climb the stairs to the plane. Now, imagine trying to do that with one heavy carry-on in each hand. (Not easy, considering I seem to have a bum shoulder at the moment).

Annie has a friend, Paul, living in Kuching. She contacted him through Facebook, and he offered to come pick us up at the airport. I thought there was no way he was going to be able to fit all our luggage, plus the four of us, in his car. I thought for sure I was going to have to purchase a taxi coupon and take two cars to our hotel.

Daniel with our baggage at the Kuching Airport

Fitting In

Well, Paul arrived, surveyed the situation, and declared, “I think we can fit it all in.” We were incredulous. But, one by one, all the bags somehow fit into his Camry. And there was room enough for us to also get in as well! (I wish I had taken a picture, it was incredible.)

First thing Paul asked us when we got going was, “Are you hungry? I can take you someplace to eat.” Well, we barely had anything to eat for breakfast or lunch so we agreed. He took us to a coffee shop on the road from the airport, and treated us to a meal of Suan chicken rice.

Suan Chicken Rice, Expert Food Court, Kuching

He said that he hangs out here a lot because the food is good. The rice has a slight curry flavoring to it, a local touch. The also serve it with soy sauce eggs and a sweetish, tomato-based broth. We finished every bite.

Feeling at Home

Paul brought us to our hotel so we could drop our bags off. Then he stuck around, giving us the low-down on this and that. I seriously wish I had a voice recorder or something, because there is so much that both Annie and I have to learn about living in this city. I am really grateful that Paul was so helpful and forthcoming.

After a while, Paul told us that, since his brother was in town, there was going to be a large family dinner at his house. We were invited as well! Wow, first day in Kuching and already invited to a home-cooked meal. How could we refuse?

When we arrived, their maid was in the wet kitchen in the back of the house, preparing dinner. One of the dishes caught our eye. “Is that paku?” asked Annie.

Paku Fern

Paku is a Malay word for a type of fiddlehead fern that is found and eaten here in Sarawak. North Americans like to eat fiddleheads either boiled or in salads, depending on the type. Here in Sarawak, they like to stir-fry the ferns with belacan (shrimp paste).

The maid used a stone mortar and pestle to grind together some shallots, garlic, and belacan into a paste. She then heated up some oil in the wok, added in the belacan paste and fried it until fragrant, then tossed in the ferns.

Stir-frying Paku

After a few minutes of frying, she plated it up.

Paku stir-fried with belacan

Besides this dish, the maid also cooked up some chicken curry, sweet-sour fried fish, and a couple other stir-fried veggie dishes. Paul’s mom came over with a big pot of homemade chicken soup. We were treated like honored guests, being served first. Everything was so delicious!

Simply Amazing

Dessert after dinner was longan, freshly picked from the mom’s tree. “No pesticides!” she declared. Ah, it was so refreshing to eat fresh longan. They were so sweet and juicy! It’s been so long since I had longan this good.

On the drive back to the hotel, Paul’s wife arranged for us to see a second-hand car that we might potentially buy. Her father will drive it over to their house, and Paul will drive it over to us to have a look. How awesome is that? I mean, who are we but an old acquaintance who just reconnected a few days ago over Facebook, for goodness’ sake?

Annie and I are just blown away by the hospitality we’ve received here in Kuching. It somehow almost feels too easy, like settling in should be harder. Of course, I expect there will be bumps and curves along the way. But the ones we were so worried about before didn’t turn out to be as bad as we thought, thank God! I really hope the rest of our adventure can be as smooth.

Aloha, Nate

We’re just beginning our adventure in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia. Stick with us as we explore our new home. Subscribe to receive all our latest posts to your RSS reader or to your Inbox!

This post was submitted to the August 30 edition of Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted by The Crispy Cook and administered by Haalo. Paul tells me that Paku is easy to grow – you just stick it in the ground and it will take root. I sure hope so – then I can write another post about it for “Grow Your Own” heheheh.

Hungry for more Malaysian recipes? Click below:

KL-Style Hokkien Mee Recipe

Malaysian Chicken Wings: Two Ways

Sweet-Sour Chilli Dungeness Crab

Jiu Hu Char

Kabocha Squash with Spinach in Coconut Milk