Ms Congeeniality

Kew, the soupy noodle sure look delicious. I can almost smell it. Looking forward to pictures of your curry plant. Absolutely love kedondong. Most memorable is with sambal belacan (shrimp paste), as relish to stimulate the appetite on those hot days. Recently bought what looked like sliced kedondong from the fruit-stall in Sungei Wang Plaza. However it didn't taste like the kedondong from the old days ie. sour & fibrous with a lot of crunch. This one had less fiber, and tasted a little bit sweet... almost like guava minus the fragrant. Anyhoo, I had the sliced kedondong sprinkled with sour plum powder. Speaking of sour plum powder, fruit hawkers seems to be the only place one finds it. Haven't seen it sold in any of the super-mega-hyper-markets around KL. Isn't this bizarre?

This is what I heard too. Some Taiwanese friends use seeded unripe papaya with top lopped off as a vessel for double-boiling. Forgot what they put in the papaya, but supposedly the sap from the unripe papaya is the key ingredient.

The ever observant Yetty is right. Welcome to eGullet, Greatbigsea..

Yetty, sama-sama. Hidup Asia Tenggara absolutely!

Fellow eG members, hope everybody had as much a good time as we had doing this. I made my debut in eG right in this foodblog not a week ago, but certainly we'll see more of each other in the regular forums. For now, I'll do some more cramming for an interview tomorrow, and looking forward to flying home to NY on Friday to taste some of the food that Laksa cooked up. Thanks for being so great & goodnight from Kalamazoo....

Dessicated coconut consists of fine coconut strips. Conventional Nasi Lemak does not have these bits and therefore the santan (milk) would have been accurate, like the way you cooked it. Dessicated coconut is excellent for adding texture to curries. Dad uses them for his assam (tamarind) fish too, which works well. Gladly. Just try to stop me. Meanwhile, you can stay away from it.

My dad has been using that since the 80s and has been touting it to everybody he knows. Real time saver. Don't remember him soaking overnight, though. Could be because he uses it in "soupy" dishes and the coconut just get reconstituted that way??

I would second that...

helenjp, I have often heard of "kumara", but had no idea it was Maori until now. We too use "yam" to mean "taro", but one can never be too sure in the US. FAO postulates that taro originates from southern or south-east Asia. Similar finding was suggested by this website. An excerpt: For example, its speciation has been postulated as occurring in "Indo Malaysia" by de Candolle (1886), in "Indonesia" by Engler and Krause (1920), in "India" by Burkill (1935), Vavilov (1949-50), and Chang (1958), in the "East Indies" by Degener (1945), in "Southeast Asia" by Sauer (1952), and in "Malaysia" by Keleny (1962) and Good (1964). For sure it's been around for a loooong time in Malaysia This is too cool. Seems to be available from Amazon. Great idea for wedding gifts, thanks for pointing this out.

Hey Yetty, this is a revelation to me too. He's usually up earlier in the morning anyway, so I have no idea what he's up to. Looks like he goes hunting..

Pray tell, Ms. Congee...what is an Ugoff salad? spaghetttti, when Burger King introduced premium salads on their menu (Atkins frenzy), they created a snazzy fashion designer character called Ugoff in TV commercials to promote them. House of Ugoff website: www.ugoff.com. I called it the Ugoff salad to distinguish it from their regular salads. Here's what's in the salad: lettuce, tomato, mushroom, cheddar cheese, baby carrots, red onion, cucumber. Choice of grilled chicken or shrimp & dressing.

I was afraid the Ugoff salad might steal Laksa's thunder, and didn't have the heart do it...not!

Most congee inevitably turns thicker the next day. To reduce thickness, add water/broth to a serve of congee and reheat in microwave prior to eating. Repeat until desired consistency is reached.

Sounds like an interesting book.. the more controversial, the better. There are 2 types of ferns that Sarawakians (and Malaysians) eat - paku and midin. The shoots or the tender stems are delicious stir-fried, signature dishes that visitors MUST try and often love, even if they vow off rabbit food. Midin is a smaller version of the fiddlehead ferns found in the US and A (the term Ali G - http://www.hbo.com/alig/ uses), but has a more delicate taste. Don't think bracken fern grows there, although it is possible that it is found in the higher grounds where the climate is more temperate. Yam (known in Malaysia as sweet potato) is native and widely used.

Abra, in your opinion, when there's too much ingredients & the rice cooker bubbles over, would it help to take the cover off and let it simmer that way for a while ? Seems that the TheFoodTutor was able to put a towel around the lid of the rice cooker to minimize it. While I have not encountered this, I'm interested to know how this is tackled.

Dang, this sure beats the Ugoff salad that I had at Burger King last night...

Abra: That looks really yummy! The shitake look so succulent & inviting .What a nutritious breakfast it will make too. Thanks for sharing this with us.

It is true that the white umai dish presented here was inspired by one of my favorite restaurants, made by a Chinese couple in Pantai Ria, which has pickled mustard. In all likelihood Melanau recipes would not have pickled mustard, while other ingredients remain the same. Also, alternative preparation methods include pounding all ingredients into a mixture to be folded into the fish. Some people may add turmeric, garlic or even crushed peanut. Umai has many variations. Don't be surprised to find umai dishes from two neighboring stalls to be different. On the other hand, most places make Sarawak Laksa pretty much the same, of course some taste better than others.

West Malaysians have a raw fish dish called yee sang. It's actually a Chinese dish eaten by the Cantonese during Chinese New Year. Slivers of raw fish are tossed with shredded vegetables in this dish. Umai is a distinctly Sarawakian dish which is part of the Melanau people's cuisine. Melanaus were traditionally fishermen who lived in the coastal towns of Sarawak, but are now mostly urbanized. Because of their past, they are also known as Sea Dayak. On the other hand, the ground oven is a cooking method used by the Iban (pronounced ee-bun) people. Iban are also known as Land Dayak because they traditionally lived inland on Borneo. Iban and Melanau are two subgroups within the Dayak ethnic group, and are culturally different. Some background on eating Umai... It is traditionally had with sago pearls. Sago, which comes from sago palm, is known locally as sagu. Because Melanaus also cultivate sago palms, sago used to be the primary staple starch in the Melanau diet. Rice was cultivated inland and was therefore harder to get from coastal towns. To prepare sago pearls, raw sago is cooked with coconut milk, formed into dough, and pellets are shaped out of it. It is toasted and eaten by tossing a handful into one's mouth, accompanied by spicy dishes, such as umai or sambal. Umai & sago pearls are also handy food that can be prepared easily by fishermen on a boat. To call umai a raw fish salad is perhaps a misnomer. It is not "raw" like sushi & sashimi, as the citrus juice would cook it, although pregnant women should still avoid this dish. It is interesting to see the color transforms from translucent to opaque. The citrus juice also serves to remove traces of raw fish smell, and is therefore important to discard. "Cooked" umai fish does not taste raw, but has a firmer texture of raw fish. It is definitely no longer raw, because I have kept it in the fridge for a week and it still tasted good. Would preserved, cured, pickled be a more suitable term than cooked? It sounds like the white-fleshed fish prepared using lukewarm salty water might share many characteristics with the umai fish. Although I have not heard of the Lapita peoples, I have heard that native Sarawakians (eg. Melanau and Iban) share many words with a language spoken in the Philippines. The Philippines are separated by a few miles of sea with Borneo. I think there's probably a link in the past and won't be a surprised if it stretches to the people of the South Pacific.

Do let us know how your congee turn out. There are a lot of suitable ingredients that can be added to make this dish tasty, in addition to meat. It can be prepared vegetarian too, without losing taste.

We usually stir fry it with salted soy bean and garlic. To prepare it, half the bitter gourd lengthwise, and scoop out the core & seeds with a spoon. Rub generously with salt to make it less bitter. Wash the salt off, and put the flat side down on the chopping board. Slice them about 1/8" thick. Sautee chopped garlic in heated cooking oil until aromatic. Add sliced bitter gourd. When the bitter gourd appears softer, add few tablespoons of salted soy beans to taste. For 1 bitter gourd that we get here, I would probably put ½-1 tablespoon of soy bean. Continue cooking for a while, probably 5 minutes or more, so that the soy bean breaks apart and imparts its saltiness to the bitter gourd. (If soy bean is undercooked here, it will be too salty while the vege will not be salty enough when served.) Here's a picture of salted soy bean. You can sometimes find it in a can. I have a craving for this dish once in a while... like right about now. Edited to reflect ½-1 tablespoon of soy bean per bitter gourd. Thanks & Regards, Doreen Tan

Thanks for the clarification on the head/gut. I have never had it with cane vinegar/crushed garlic/chilies mixture and I am definitely going to try it out. Can taste it on my tongue already. Hope our local Asian grocery stores stock the cane vinegar.

Doing this together is certainly fun. I have newfound respect for you past bloggers, and certainly draw a lot of inspiration from your postings. Here's a snippet of our perspectives from behind the scenes: Me: Don't post the picture of the anchovy being cleaned. Him: Why not? Me: It's gross and you don't see pictures of chicken being slaughtered, do you? Him: It's interesting and people should see this. Me: Don't post the picture of the peach. Him: Why not? Me: It looks obscene and it's not like people haven't seen a peach. Him: I've gotta post a picture of everything I eat. Me: It's clutter.

Thanks! That's a very good question. (Whenever I say that, it means that I don't know the answer ). My mum has always taken the heads off, and she takes the guts out also. Congee, did you take out the guts out of those achovies? And you can also buy those achovies without the heads, so I just assumed... Maybe someone more knowledgeable than I can shed some light. Is it possible that there might be more mercury in the heads? I'm grasping here... Well, my mum has always taken the heads off too. Before they were available headless (in Malaysia), my sister and I used to gut & snip them every Chinese New Year, whereby Mum would fry them up as treats. Sometimes we also stir-fry anchovies with vege (eg. cucumber or cabbage). In that case, we leave the heads intact. Then again, we won't eat the anchovies, because it will be flavorless already; all the flavor went into the dish. I feel the gut/head is slightly bitter. Does anybody else feel the same?

Jake, any long-grain variety will work. We use Thai Jasmine rice that is widely available in Asian groceries.