eG Foodblog : kew/Tepee

[andiesenji]

I took some shots of the various gourds :

They look exactly like the chayote sold here in Mexican markets and known as Mirliton in New Orleans and other parts of the south.

[JustKay]

And the bakery at the mall, beside Carrefour which is based on the open concept. Customers can see how the food is prepared and cooked.

[Laksa]

I decided to fry rice for lunch...a quickie. I use Sarawak black rice

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Ooooo, how extravagant! You have excellent taste, TP.

The Bario rice from Sarawak are a native variety grown in the highlands by the Kelabit people. The beras hitam (black rice) is closer to purple in color, as you may be able to see from this photo:

Because Bario rice is much sought after, it commands a significant premium over regular rice. At the Bintulu market, it sells for 16 ringgit a kilo (US $4), which is 4 times what I pay for Thai jasmine rice in NY.

[JustKay]

I took some shots of the various gourds :

They look exactly like the chayote sold here in Mexican markets and known as Mirliton in New Orleans and other parts of the south.

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Thanks.

chayote

I see from this site that the chayote's skin is wrinkled and of a darker green.

Perhaps it is a variety of the chayote. The ones at Carrefour were very light green with real smooth skin.

[Laksa]

kew, which Carrefour is that? I think I recognize the security guard who escorted me out of the store during the ais potong incident.

[JustKay]

kew, which Carrefour is that?  I think I recognize the security guard who escorted me out of the store during the ais potong incident.

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OMG!!! I saw a poster that said "Laksa Wanted" but I thought they meant laksa the noodle. I'll have to go check out the reward.

(it's at the Alamanda Putrajaya )

[Tepee]

For dessert, there were ice-cream for the kids and kid-at-heart.

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Won't serving that cigar with the ice cream make it difficult to light? By the way, aren't your kids a little young for cigars?

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Any more cheek from you, sir, and you don't get your

[Tepee]

In my haste to save my computer from disaster, I forgot to post my dessert for lunch.

Goreng Pisang/banana fritters. This is a special treat for me (sniff, sniff) as I don't indulge in deep-fried food often. The batter is extremely light and crispy.

Oh, and on top of the coconut juice, we also had a Barley Drink, the simplest drink to make to get rid of some heat or toxins in your body. Ingred: Pearl barley, pandan leaves, honey rock sugar

Edited March 13, 2005 by Tepee (log)

[andiesenji]

I took some shots of the various gourds :

They look exactly like the chayote sold here in Mexican markets and known as Mirliton in New Orleans and other parts of the south.

←

Thanks.

chayote

I see from this site that the chayote's skin is wrinkled and of a darker green.

Perhaps it is a variety of the chayote. The ones at Carrefour were very light green with real smooth skin.

←

The chayote sold here are very light green but some varieties are quite smooth, some are wrinkled and some are dark with a sort of warty skin but inside they all look alike.

The one shown here is larger with more 'wrinkles' than I usually see.

I have a friend in San Diego that has some of the vine covering a huge pergola in her back yard simply for the shade.

She doesn't eat them but picks them and sets boxes of them out by the curb for neighbors and passersby to take.

I don't care for them raw, but like the slices grilled on the barbecue and sprayed with lime juice and dusted with ground chile powder.

I sometimes add them to my oven-roasted vegetable mixture.

Edited March 13, 2005 by andiesenji (log)

[JustKay]

Thank you andiesenji. I will buy one on my next trip. And perhaps I will ask the gardeners here to plant them; we have pergolas by the pool.

[Tepee]

Aaaaarrrrgghhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!! <<<<Pulling hair>>>>

I was just about done posting my dinner pics and story when my computer shut down slo mo in front of my disbelieving eyes. I can't do it again now. Me need sleep. See you guys in about 8 hours (<----that's how much time I need for my *cough* beauty sleep).

[JustKay]

.... of ketupats and lemangs .....

3 types of ketupats that I am aware of. Ketupat nasi, ketupat pulut and ketupat palas. And 3 different casing shapes that I can weave - ketupat satay, ketupat pasar, ketupat bawang.

And only 1 type of lemang.

ketupat (casing) weaving anyone?

Ketupat is just rice cooked in weaved coconut leaves. It is boiled for at least 3hrs before the rice turns into mush and then compacts upon cooling. It is then cut, with the casing intact. Remove casing then. Sounds easy? Not. One wrong move and the coconut leaves will turn reddish and thus mar your ketupat.

ketupat for the uninitiated

Ketupat pulut are these coconut leaf casings filled with pre-soaked glutinous rice and then cooked in coconut milk. These cook faster.

For an excellent ketupat palas illustration, click here.

Lemang ... part 2, tomorrow. Now 1:30am, ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz

Edited March 13, 2005 by kew (log)

[su-lin]

kew and Tepee, thank you so much for a delightful food blog week! I now miss KL thoroughly (born there but grew up mostly in Canada) and can't wait till I get to Stephen's Corner again (if I remember correctly, their fish curry was really really good).

Any chance of seeing one of my favourites...a kacang putih man??? :)

[Susan in FL]

April 15th? Oh my. And ouch... At a little before midnight on that date, I will be at the Post Office partaking of cookies and punch, and listening to music to mail by.

This has been a great blog. Once again, I've been busy and haven't been able to take the proper time to read it, but I sure have enjoyed looking at the pictures. Beautiful! Thank you both very much for your devotion to this thread. I will go back and read it more carefully at a later time.

[helenjp]

Ketupat - how strange, in NZ Maori people weave the same shape as children's toys, using strips of NZ flax...my kids have some that friends wove for them when they were little. I've never seen them used for anything, though.

Thank you, thank you, thank you both for all the photos!

I'm amazed how similar the look of the shops and foodcourts is to NZ (even the staff, considering how many Malaysian students are in NZ these days!). Markets are a little different, of course... One look at your blog, and my family started recalling all the things they liked about Singapore (apart from the game consoles in the Singapore Airlines planes, that is) so I guess we will be flying the long way round again next time we go to NZ...

Just in case we have to wait a long time for another blog from *our* part of the world, here's a blog that seems to cover most of the bases....girl from Brunei who loves to cook, with Japanese boyfriend, living in Sydney...did we leave anything out?!

[Tepee]

I believe I still 'owe' you my dinner pics.

DH had to go to a wedding dinner, so my family invited me and the girls to have dinner with them in Paris.....the New Paris chinese restaurant ( how on earth did they come up with that name?). They serve pedestrian homestyle food but they do it very well that many people who don't cook or who don't choose to cook swarm there. It's a very casual restaurant, no dress code, and tableware is stainless steel. I took this pic after our dinner and just look at the crowd waiting for a seat. The kitchen is huge, with at least 20 staff.

The pics are pretty bleh. It was a hurried affair because the hungry people at my table were getting impatient with my, "Wait! Don't touch it till I take a picture!" after the second dish arrived.

This is steamed patin fish, a superior catfish variety, a river fish. It doesn't have the muddy taste of catfish. The flesh is velvety, yet firm. It was delicious with the ginger sauce. Wish they gave us more parsley, though.

Soup was Lotus Root with groundnuts in a pork stock. Helen, did you manage to make yours?

Sweet sour pork was ordered more for the kids...they love it.

Tofu topped with minced pork

I'm very mad at myself for screwing up this pic as it was my favorite dish. Fish Head Curry soured with tamarind. Vegetables in the curry include okra, eggplant (er hem, Pan, am I a good student? re: your little class on American terms) and long beans.

Get a load of this. It was ordered by my brother as it's his favorite dish...Frog Legs stir-fried with spring onion and ginger.

Drinks were sugarcane juice and a herbal drink. You may have noticed that alcohol doesn't feature in this blog. Well, Kew doesn't drink; she's Muslim. I'm practically a teetotaler although I do appreciate a good port and wine now and then. My cupboards are packed with liqueur, though....for flavoring purposes!

Edited March 14, 2005 by Tepee (log)

[helenjp]

Helen, did you manage to make yours?

Not yet...butcher happened not to have any ribs or chicken with bones, so I decided I'd rather wait. It will happen this week though, because school lunch service ends for the year this week so lunch will be back on the home menu

[Tepee]

Thank you, everybody, for your very kind words on our blog. I stepped gingerly into it crossing my fingers that I didn't screw up, because our predecessors' blogs were so AMAZING! I learnt so much from them, and, ironically, I learnt a lot from this very blog too, for which I must thank everyone's sharing participation.

Thanks, Kew, for the opportunity to share this blog with you. It had been a fun ride, hasn't it?

And, now, with dragonballs and carrot soya milk by my side, I'll spend the final moments reviewing the blog to see if I've missed any questions.

Another brother came back from Penang (an island, also called the Pearl of the Orient up north) last night and gave me a box

The skin is made from wheat flour and lard, very flaky and fine. filling is Green Bean with fried onions

Soya Milk with Carrot Juice

Edited March 14, 2005 by Tepee (log)

[Pan]

[...]This is steamed patin fish, a superior catfish variety, a river fish. It doesn't have the muddy taste of catfish. The flesh is velvety, yet firm. It was delicious with the ginger sauce. Wish they gave us more parsley, though.[...]

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Was that really parsley or actually cilantro (coriander leaves)? I can't remember being served or seeing parsley in Malaysia.

[...]Vegetables in the curry include okra, eggplant (er hem, Pan, am I a good student? re: your little class on American terms)[...]

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Sure.

Funny thing about eggplants/aubergines/brinjals: There's an Indian-style spicy brinjal pickle I sometimes buy, and given that their clientele is divided between Indians, British, and Americans, they make sure they use all three of the above words on the bottle.

[Tepee]

Was that really parsley or actually cilantro (coriander leaves)? I can't remember being served or seeing parsley in Malaysia.

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I omitted the word 'chinese'...it's chinese parsley aka coriander leaves aka cilantro (just learnt that one in another thread.)

Pan, you can easily find english parsley both in our wet markets and supermarkets now.

Edited March 14, 2005 by Tepee (log)

[Pan]

[...]

Pan, you can easily find english parsley both in our wet markets and supermarkets now.

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The curly-leafed one or the broad flat-leafed one (which we call "Italian parsley" in the US)?

And what do people use parsley for in Malaysia?

[Tepee]

The curly-leafed one or the broad flat-leafed one (which we call "Italian parsley" in the US)?

And what do people use parsley for in Malaysia?

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Both. I use parsley as a garnish when I cook western, but DH loves it and will cheerfully eat it.

[SobaAddict70]

April 15th?  Oh my. 

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Whoops. I meant 15 March. Corrected it, lol.

Soba

[Tepee]

That fried rice looks fabulous - wakame with apples?  Wowsers.  And how does she get that pork into such a uniform, beautiful sheet?  I have a mad craving for a dish of your rice right now and it's only 7:00 in the morning.  Would you give us a few more recipe details?

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Thank you, Abra. I love doing different combinations for fried rice. It's truly the most versatile quick dish; I usually look at the larder and fridge to see what I have.

Other ingredients you can add to fried rice is: corn, green peas, raisins, pineapple, cashew nuts, sunflower seeds, ham, bacon, sliced french beans, other bbq meat, anchovies, eggs (scrambled on the side or hard-boiled), chilli peppers, capsicum, mushroom, gosh...the list is endless!

For seasoning I usually use Celtic sea salt and Sarawak pepper, but I've used a pinch of curry powder, cinnamon, 5-spice powder, worcestershire sauce, chilli sauce...

That uniform piece of pork is actually sweet meat or long yoke in cantonese. The meat is ground and malt sugar, spices, etc are added to it. My mom is quite secretive about this recipe as she has spent a lot of time perfecting it and she used to sell it. I have the recipe and have made it before. But, unless you grill the meat outside the house, you'll have the house smelling for days. If you would like the recipe, you can pm me.

A TPcal Fried Rice (as in the photo)

5 bowls cooked and cooled rice....use less water than normal when you intend to fry rice. So the rice will come out in separate grains, rather than clumps of starch. Loosen the rice.

4 pieces beef topside, seared and sliced

1 large piece of long yoke

6 shallots (to me, that means, little red onions)

1 medium carrot, chopped into tiny pieces

2 green apples ( I couldn't get organic ones, so I peeled the skin off. If I've organic ones, I leave the skins on ... adds color and crunch to the dish)

cut-up wakame

sliced tomatoes (I forgot to include them in the pic)

and

lettuce served on the side

Fry onions in organic grapeseed oil, till just starting to brown. Add 2 meats and carrot. Immediately add rice and mix well, digging in the spatula from the wok bottom. Add seasoning. Splash on some water to mist the rice (I love this part). Lastly, add the apples and wakame. All this should happen within a few minutes.

[helenjp]

Kew & TP, any recommendations on books in English on Malaysian food. I saw Nordin's book on Kuih listed on Amazon Japan and Amazon UK.

My books are decades out of date! Can you bring me up to date?