Tepee

Yes, it is hainanese chicken rice, Ah Leung Gaw. Ahh, we need Ben Sook to spin a romantic yarn on how the balls came to be....like some dutiful wife of some farm folk packing a dozen balls for her partner to take to the fields....etc...etc....but wait a minute...isn't it the women folk who work the fields?? I think it's just some genius marketing gimmick which worked. The chicken ball shops are really popular. Edit: Found some theories.

I didn't know hung yan is olive kernels...always thought they were chinese almonds. Dai gah jeh, you've got me craving for hung yan woo. My mother used to make that and chee mah woo (sesame seed cream) and fah sang woo (peanut cream) for rainy nights. I need to make these too....nice childhood food memories. I just called up my mom for a recipe. She says to grind up some hung yan to add to a gooey (up to you on how starchy) soup made with some glutinous rice flour. For more flavour, add some almond extract. Now to buy some hung yan.........

Dai gah jeh, those are chicken rice balls. See recipe here and an article on chicken rice balls. A method of measuring how much rice you can eat.....by the balls!

It's dinner time here. Lazy Monday and we were too busy to go to the market this weekend....so very simple stir-fries this evening. The girls went out with their aunt this afternoon and doggy-bagged some char yoke (hakka deepfried spice pork). Hakka char yoke Black Bean and Black Soya Sauce Chicken fried with onion wedges and 2 slices of ginger. I didn't even have any green leafy veg. This is leek and yellow capsicum stir-fried with dried shrimps (har mai) and garlic. So simple. I'm humbled by the awesome meals upthread. Sheetz, what lovely daan tarts!!

Splendid idea, dai gah jeh! I am chinese but I only cook chinese 2 or 3 times a week; have been ta-pau-ing (take-away) meals this year And, I don't (get to) take pix of dinner dishes because, usually, it's done very fast and eaten even faster. Heavy kids timetable. Besides, stir-fries and braises aren't the most picturesque dishes to shoot in home lighting. However, I shall be participating in this thread on and off.

Yes! Cooking (especially for special occasions) was usually a family or communal effort. Fun!

What was special about the gai dan go was the way it was made back then. Mother always made a huge one...with all the eggs in a large clay pot and everyone took turns beating the eggs with this giant sproingy whisk.

Instead of sai keh mah, we call it saat keh mah. All my siblings and relatives know it by Kill Ride Horse. Must be another Msian transliteration gone awry.

The original steamed cake sans fizzy drink and ovalette is called 水 蒸 雞蛋糕 soy jing gai dan go (cantonese) or shui zheng ji dan gao (mandarin). Edit: My bad. Jason wanted to know what ovalette is in Malay* or Mandarin, not the name of the cake. Sorry, can't help you there. IMHO, ovalette isn't really necessary. I've tried using it and omitting it in recipes which has ovalette in it. The eggs just have to be whisked to the right stiffness. In fact, I don't like the taste and texture of cakes with ovalette or Quick 75 at all. * If you say Malaysian, you could mean anything from Malay, Chinese, Indian etc...

Whatever you cook, try to finish cooking and clearing off cooking smells before she arrives. I think that normally do a lot of pregnant women in...including me, every time.

I was told that Tokaji => aphrodisiac.

Thank you, Peter. Very enjoyable read.

Ivory. My mother has them...from way back then. But I think the ivory trade is now banned (?) hence the difficulty of finding chopsticks made from ivory. I don't have a preference for any particular chopsticks because I don't use them often enough. If I do buy them, it's for the aesthetics, not the handling.

Morning, yunny. So, no Germany...whereforth?

sheenagreena: Have to google its pinyin name. Ba Zhen soup

It was GOOOOD! Fights cold, you say?

Leave it for a day or 2....the heat will tame down. Or take your meal with warm milk...so that the capsaicin is carried off in the fat molecules.

Okie.....off to look for it during my weekend grocery run. I've got a nice free-range chicken just the right size for this dish. Tks, Abra. On 2nd thots...you did say you liked the Pak Chan soup....so how do we know this is not funky like that? Just kidding. I think I know how this tastes...chinese herby.

Those little seeds are basil seeds....very cooling but adds an interesting texture. Abra! I salute you for drinking 2 bowls of that vile stuff. BKT is nothing like it. If the B word in BKT is spelled Bat, it's wrong. BAK is meat in Hokkien, Kut=Bones. LOL, yunny, this Msian is enjoying being educated from your blog. Lots of stuff the average Msian doesn't get to do. Have a good holiday!

My fridge already has salted fish, belachan (fermented shrimp) and etc...well-packed, though; the more pungent food the merrier! Tks. At least I know I won't die out of greed...hmm...maybe another time another food. I love a good kimchi.

Aaah, Racheld, since you're no stranger to Mr Google, then I presume you've seen images of the pandan plant? No self-respecting Malaysian who cooks will be without at least one plant in their home. Think Msian dessert and the pandan leaf will almost undoubtedly feature as one of the ingredients. I'll give a stab at describing the fragrance...it would be 75% vanilla and 5% rose and 20% a sweet smell which I can't place . It's the perfect match for food containing coconut milk and palm sugar. Edit to put in a cautionary word: Please do not equate pandan essence from a bottle to be close to the real thing. It's far from it. I don't think I've come across any essence which has successfully mimicked the leaf's fragrance.

A friend from East Msia (we're at West Msia) just came back from S Korea. He couriered over to us some kimchi. Must have taken a day to reach us. Yesterday, it arrived in a plastic container. Inside that was 2 bloated plastic bags of kimchi, smelling very strongly. Anyway, we put the bags in the fridge and today it seems OK, no vile smell. Is it safe to eat? TIA!

Good to slit to enable the fish to cook more evenly and quickly. Yes, rub kunyit into the slits as well as the belly. Where's the sambal belacan in the pic? I'd slather it thickly all over and inside the fish for oomph. The nasi lemak was meant to motivate, not to torture, lol. Apologies!

The round ones are deep-fried glutinous rice balls rolled in sesame seeds. These ones were filled with peanuts, mashed green beans and sugar. The long one is kuih ketayap or kuih dadar, basically a fragrant pandan-flavoured pancake filled with a sticky coconut cooked in palm sugar and fragranced with pandan leaves. Curry puff for the smirky smile. The nasi lemak is a basic one...comprising the coconut milk rice, roasted peanuts, fried anchovies, sambal, cucumber and hard-boiled egg. It's an addiction (worse than any space cake I should think) and costs only RM1 (US$0.28) almost everywhere in Msia. Here's a recipe.

For breakfast today, I had nasi lemak and kuih in honour of your blog. Also...hoping to inspire you to make it one of these days. Yunny boleh! since you did such a great job with the ikan bakar. Happy to send you any of the stuff you need, like ikan bilis...since I just came back from a holiday in Pangkor.