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Recipe : Fresh cordyceps root soup

I have seen these maggots like fresh cordyceps sold in supermarket but never have the inclination to buy them because they really look like maggots. But the other day, the old gentleman in Pulau Tikus market talked me into it to give it a try.

So, I boiled the soup with some red dates, yuk chok and meat.

The fresh cordyceps has little flavour and it doesn’t taste ‘floury’ like what I expected it. However, it makes a nice, clear soup.

The soup ready boiled.

And here is my maggot rice. Lucky the size of the cordyceps is rather huge so it doesn’t give me the creepy crawly feeling. Otherwise, I will not even look at them, what more buy and boil soup with it.

Popularity: 20% [?]

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Recipe : Ang Chiew Mee Suah

My sister gave me the original ang chiew and mee suah from Sitiawan. I love ang chiew mee suah and in Penang, we do not find many hawkers who sell it. So far, the only ang chiew mee suah I ate is from Burmah Road/Kedah Road junction. I saw another stall in Hillside, Tanjung Bungah but have yet to try it.

Ang chiew is translated as red wine. It is homemade, using red rice fermented with something like a piece of yeast. Sitiawan, Perak is famous for this because ang chiew is the specialty of Hokchiew descendants.

I have never cooked ang chiew mee suah before but I have a rough idea how to do it. Very simple.

Ingredients :

2 chicken drumstick

Large piece of ginger, cut finely

About half a cup of ang chiew

Black fungus, if prefer

Generous amount of sesame oil (like 2-3 tablespoon)

half cup of water

Salt for flavouring

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Method :

Heat sesame oil, fry ginger till fragrant. Dish out half of it to garnish later, leave the rest in the wok. Add the chicken, black fungus and water. Simmer till chicken is cooked. Add the red wine or ang chiew to simmer further.

I cooked the portion for only myself. Ang chiew is best served with mee suah. Boil the mee suah separately and pour the soup over it.

Garnish with spring onions and the fried ginger. The above is the ang chiew I cooked. It is very, very red and looks gory in the photo, huh?

Meanwhile, the below is the bowl of ang chiew I bought from the hawker in Burmah Road.

Ang chiew mee suah is something you either like or detest. No two way about it. I love the warmth it gives and the burps after that.

I do not know if I am cooking it the correct way because I do not know anyone who knows how to cook nice ang chiew mee suah. If you have any suggestions, please share.

Popularity: 27% [?]

Recipe : Hainanese Gulai Tumis

I know a lot of Hainanese restaurants serve this Gulai Tumis so I shall claim this as a Hainanese dish. In case you are not aware, Hainaneses are Chinese from the Hainan island in China. Hainan is near to the equator and hence, their cooking differs from the Chinese from the northern part of China like the Cantonese. Therefore, it is apt to call Hainanese women ‘typhoon’ because they are said to be more bad tempered (like me, me, me) and our ‘wind’ blows harder when provoked.

The Hainanese men who migrated to Malaysia mostly ended up cooking for the colonial British families in Malaya and eventually, they went on to open restaurants. My father was a teacher but he knows how to make a lot of special dishes. For example, how to castrate cocks (male chicken, ok?) to fatten them to make delicious Hainan chicken rice or injecting growth hormones to make the chicken grow faster.

Since Hainan island is hotter, I suppose they have all these lovely herbs like lemongrass, tumeric, ginger flower, cekur and etc. Therefore, our cooking is rather spicy.

Seen above are some of the herbs like lemongrass, fresh ginger, fresh tumeric, chillies and onions. To make gulai tumis, they normally chopped them finely. However, I am lazy so I blended them roughly.

The pinkish flower above is the bunga kantan or ginger flower. It is not only pretty, it has the nicest fragrance. The brownish glob of things are the tamarind pieces and a tiny piece of belacan, the most vile smelling prawn ‘chocolate’. I hate cooking anything with belacan because I need to wipe my kitchen wall, mop the floor and still smell of the prawn smells. After that, I need to shampoo my hair twice to get rid of it.

However, don’t let my dramatic description fools you. Belacan is an essential item in cooking curries and it really smells good when combined with the herbs.

Recipe for gulai tumis

Ingredients :

Two large onions

Three to four stalks of fresh red chillies

Thumb size fresh tumeric

Thumb size fresh ginger

Two lemongrass, only the whitish parts

(blend all the above roughly)

One ginger flower, either chopped up or quartered (some people dislike biting on it)

Little quarter of belacan

Four pieces of tamarind pieces

A little pulp of tamarind to make the juice

Oil for stir frying

Salt and sugar to flavour

Enough water to cover the fish (this curry is meant to be quite dry so use water sparingly)

Fish - About 600 grams. Oily fish is good. So is fish head. Salmon head will be fantastic too

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Method

Heat some oil and fry the blended herbs and the other ingredients. Put in fish, add enough water to cover and simmer. Flavour with salt and sugar.

Garnishing

Mint leaves and the other leave (daun kesum, can’t remember the English term) will be great.

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Do you know that this gulai tumis is fantastic with cream crackers? I grew up eating lots of cream crackers dipped in the gravy of the gulai tumis. Try it next time.

If you like a particular restaurant gulai tumis, here’s a wicked way to pack the curry home. Normally, we cannot finish the gravy during our meals but they taste really delicious. So, we order a bigger portion, eat some and packed the rest home.

Writing this post suddenly made me missed my mom’s cooking. It is kinda warm and yet, sad that we sometimes think of someone whom has passed on when we see or eat a particular dish. In my mom’s memory….gulai tumis.

Popularity: 34% [?]

Recipe : Curry salted fish bones, kari ikan masin

I grew up eating this salted fish bones curry but somehow, I never like it enough to cook it. I think this is the first time I am cooking curry salted fish bones. My mother loved to cook it very often and that’s probably why I dislike it. However, it is a really delicious curry and if you add in lots of vegetables, it is even nicer.

Ideally, one should put some pineapples and tau-foo-pok as part of the ingredients. However, I couldn’t get these two ingredients.

Seen above are :

5-6 pieces of salted fish bones (Mergui brand is good), soaked a while to remove salt

One brinjal

One carrot

Two stalk green/red chillies

Bunch of long beans

Cut all the above ingredients into standard sizes.

The important ingredient is the curry powder. Look out for prawn or crab curries powder and NOT fish curry powder. I found this Cap Tarbus brand and that’s why it evokes the memories of curry salted fish. Used to buy that for my mother when I was young.

I blended : Two onions, One bulb garlic, thumb sizes of ginger and tumeric and mix them with the curry powder.

The above are the two spices I used. The black one is mustard seed and the brown one, fenugreek. Just a teaspoon of each will do.

Method : Heat oil, fry the spices. Then, add the blended ingredients and continue stir frying. Add a tiny piece of belacan if you have them. Add the salted fish bones. Then, all the vegetables and add enough water to boil. Add about RM1 of coconut milk and flavour the curry with some sugar, if preferred.

If you use pineapple, the curry will have a nice sourish and lemak flavour.

The curry tastes even better left overnight in a fridge. Normally, if I cook it, I will give some away to my relative because after adding all the different vegetables, I will end up with a big pot of curry.

Seen here is my plate of rice with a sprig of mint leaves. Mint leaves are lovely with the curry. I also fry some papadums and fried chicken.

Try it. It is not so hard to make curry salted fish head after all. We just need to use our instinct to get the flavour balanced well.

Popularity: 36% [?]

Ubah gaya hidup - Garlic bread DIY

One of my reader asked the below :

Dear 5xmom, could you please post(or maybe point to a site or 2?) recipes for an easy dish for a bachelor to cook? but yet suitable enough to get his friends to go ‘Wow’ & actually impress the gals? Basically something presentable, delicious yet easy to cook. It can be of any type(M’sian/non-Msian). Its a bit troublesome, but I do hope that with your experiences & expertise(who knows, your sons might need them not so near in the future too! :p) you could help this helpless guy whip out something. Thanx!

Well, I didn’t forget your question or ignore it. Before I can provide you some ideas, I need to know what kind of kitchen gadgets do you have so that I do not find something that you aren’t able to dish up due to the unavailability of the cooking gadget.

So, how about garlic bread? Do you have a toaster that looks like a tiny oven? If you do, it will be great to toast some garlic breads. French loaves are very cheap too. I bought mine from Tesco for RM1.59 cents only.

I chopped a few pips of garlic and sweat it with olive oil. Sweat means to make the thing limp but not burnt. It will make the garlic less pungent.

After that, I mix the garlic with butter. I cut the french loaf into slices and let my kids smear the garlic butter. Do not buy those pre-made garlic butter because the taste sucks. You can easily do this at home.

I grated some cheddar on top and bake them till crispy. Sometimes, instead of putting too much butter, I drizzle olive oil and use less butter. Butter is awfully expensive nowadays!

If you are making a big batch, all you need is to prepare the slices of bread in advance, apply the garlic butter, wrap up the whole loaf in an aluminium foil. You can bake the whole thing in the BBQ fire too if you like.

For the main course, do try my pasta recipes.

Since you said you are a bachelor…on second thought, maybe garlic bread is not such a great idea after all. I do not want to spoil your date and kiss with killer garlic bread breath. But it is perfect for meals with the guys.

Do let me know what kind of kitchen gadgets you have and whether you prefer Chinese, Indian, Malay or Western.

Popularity: 44% [?]