Chinese, Western, Malaysia best foods and recipes blog

A very vegetarian meal

We couldn’t make up our mind on where to eat yesterday evening and after driving around town, we decided to go to an Indian restaurant which I had featured before.

The above is the cheese balls my son ordered. One bite into it and he decided that’s not the kind of cheese ball he imagined. However, to me, it is really delicious with all the vegetables and black pepper flavourings.

The place hires a lot of (hensem) Nepalese (or some foreigners who are very fair) and it was a problem communicating with them. They said yes to every single question. As you know, Indian foods all sound very ‘foreign’ and I wanted to be sure what I am ordering. In the end, we gave up and just point to every item that we think is palatable.

We ordered two sets of their special Sunday dosai. And the dosais come with these tiny bowls of curries. They do look the same, huh?

The dosai that looks more like omelette. Only RM2.80 for these two pieces and that tiny bowls of curries. The place is airconditioned and you have hensem Nepalese waiters attending to you. Cheap, right?

I am surprised that their Madras filtered coffee actually tastes good. I was expecting cummin flavoured or cinnamon flavoured funny tasting coffee but it has no ‘Indian spice’ hint at all.

Do make a visit to Madras New Woodlands. It is actually rather nice to dine there because the prices are very cheap compared to those exorbitantly priced North Indian restaurants and yet, doesn’t have the stuffy feel of the regular South Indian restaurants.

We had so many dishes and so much onions, my sons said we should be marching with Hindraf! Initially, they were complaining about the vegetables and onions but I convinced them we are eating unity meals. I think I can smell the spices and onions even after a night sleep.

Popularity: 12% [?]

This site is updated with new recipes and foods every day. So, subscribe to Best Recipe RSS feed now so that you don't miss out anything. Thanks for visiting and enjoy!

Nasi lemak Sunday

I found that I have enough ingredients to make nasi lemak. So, in a flash, I whipped up our Sunday lunch as below :

I fried the chicken with some spices, made egg belandah for the little ones, sambal sotong and shrimps for us and boiled some spinach with takua like palak paneer and hard boiled eggs.

The fried chicken is delicious! I seasoned the chicken thighs with jintan manis, jintan putih and kas-kas (fennel, cummins and poppy seeds). Well those are the only spices I have so I make do with them. I deep fried the chicken and when it is about to be cooked, I added some cut onions and a few pandan leaves into the oil. The pandan and onions made the chicken really like those sold by the mamak.

For the gravy, I cooked sambal sotong. I used the brown cuttlefish (sotong basah) and some shrimps. Just cut the onions, fry it with some chili boh, add tamarind and sugar.

I have a bunch of very sad looking spinach (bayam) and decided to cook it Indian style as they are wilted and limp. What I did was to cut them into tiny pieces, add green chili, two squares of hard tofu (taukua), some tumeric and a little pinch of some spices I found at the bottom of my fridge. (the type used to cook curry) Just boil them together till soft. LOL, it turned out tasty.

The nasi lemak made with one tiny box of santan or coconut milk, pinch of salt, some onion and ginger plus pandan leaves.

And that’s Sunday lunch and dinner for us. Our whole island is crammed with tourists from out of town and the crowd around makes going out a big turn off. It is so nice to just stay home doing nothing (and spending nothing).

Like I said, it wasn’t a planned menu so I just use whatever I can find in my fridge. Still, the nasi lemak is damn delicious! Yummy..I have provided the links to the recipes of the individual dish. However, I just cincai-cincai cook the above without going through the whole process. In all, I think I only need less than one hour to prepare all the dishes. I had seasoned the chicken much earlier.

LOL, I asked hubby how’s the taste of the dishes and nasi lemak. He said I am good enough to marry either an Indian or a Malay!

Popularity: 30% [?]

Lovely Malay buka puasa rice from Pasar Ramadhan

For the whole month of Ramadhan, we will be taking those juadah buka puasa from the Pasar Ramadhans around us. It is a very nice experience to buy these delicious traditional Malay dishes from all the sweet makciks who are so friendly. I only wish they sell them throughout the year because these simple foods are mostly healthy and delicious.

This is the nasi daging. It is just plain simpled beef boiled and the rice is richly flavoured with the beef stock and spices. What you get is just rice and beef. They provide air assam and some dhal curry as the side dishes.

The makcik who sells this nasi ulam is very fond of my hubby because he is the only Chinese who buys regularly from her, year after year. If I am not mistaken this is the Kelantan style of nasi ulam. It has some ulam, serunding (or is it kerisik?) , kembong fish, keropok, beef and sambal. The ultimate health food because it has raw vegetable and almost no oil in the cooking.

And the nasi ayam.

All the above from the pasar ramadhan in Kulim, Kedah.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Kid’s Kari (recipe for curry chicken for the idiots)

Many people are turned off by the mentioned of cooking curry because most recipes have those dreary process of grinding, blending, frying and etc. However, there are shortcuts and you can still get a decent one without all the sweat and tears (from the onions).

I cooked the above in less than 45 minutes. I call it Kids Kari because I cooked it for my kids who cannot stand hot, spicy dishes.

What I used :

1 can Kimball tomato soup (the cheapest tomato soup will do)
1 chicken breast cut into cubes
2 potatoes, cubed
2 large onions, cubed
a few pips of garlic, smashed
3 red chillies, cut
1 packet curry powder (meat)
some curry leaves and whatever spices (I have those mixture found in supermarkets)

Fast and quick methods.

Stir fry the onion, garlic and curry leaves with some oil. Add all the rest and simmer. Flavour with some salt and sugar. Done.

Your mom/future mother-in-law may not be impressed with the taste but hey, it is still tasty. Enough to impress the boyfriend/girlfriend, at least.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Theme Tuesday - My dinner

Well, I missed last Tuesday so I am not going to miss another one. Since I am too lazy to find a theme to make Theme Tuesday (a post I make on Tuesday with a certain theme), let me just post what I just ate for dinner, ok?

You see, I don’t cook every day because my children sometimes do not fancy eating the same rice or pasta meals at home. I hate having leftovers to deal with. I like to dump all those edible food into the fridge and wait for Monday and Thursday when my housekeeper will take them to feed stray dogs. She would go around feeding stray dogs (strange huh?) and hence, these foods come in handy. But you know, some of the foods are awfully good and still edible. So, if they are still clean and untouched, I will packed them nicely and freeze for her to heat up and eat as their meals.

So, when I am not in the mood to cook, we just drive out for about 5-8 minutes and we have good foods already. Here’s my dinner tonight. You can check the photo’s exif data and it will show you that the photos are taken just an hour ago.

Belacan fried chicken that my kids love. Three pieces for only RM5.90. Crispy, hot and fresh. Nice!

The tomyam beehoon that I had tried eating three times but failed. Because the hawker only starts selling at 8 pm and on weekends, the business is so good, they couldn’t even be bothered to listen to my order! Sheeesh….Three prawns with lots of fish slices for only RM6.

Catfish curry rice. I love, love, love catfish for it’s oily flesh and this Indian Muslim stall sell huge catfish. One piece of soyabean cake (taukua), one catfish and one piece of beef for only RM4.

Normally, if my husband and I eat out, we go 50-50. I.e. I eat half and he eats half. Secret to our long marriage. Hahaha. We get the best of both worlds.

And a plate of prawn omelette (heh chien). RM6. So, we spent about RM25 for a meal of fried rice (which my two younger sons shared), drinks and all the above. (foods from Kedai Kopi Min Jiang)

Popularity: 19% [?]