Rojak Pasembur

My version of rojak pasembur

Living in foreign land makes you think about home food all the time. There is no mum to make them for you nor do you have an option to go out and buy them whenever you feel like eating. Like it or not, you have to learn to make them. You will be lucky to hit all the right taste on the first try… as for me.. normally the third attempt most likely to get the approval from the other half. Most of malay dish do not have a precise measurement.. you just need to adjust them to your taste bud and if you notice.. most of my Malay recipe will state the the amount of sugar or salt is always “to taste”.. and being a kelantanese, I like my food to be sweet. You might faint if you see the amount of sugar I put in my dish hehehe.

As for the recipe below.. these are the rough measurement used because as I told you before.. Malay cooking is all about “agak agak”.. so you need to taste and tweak them as per your taste bud. The more you do it, the better your end product will be. Happy tweaking.

These are all the ingredients that I manage to gather..

Ingredient for the sauce:

• 100g potato – boil till tender
• 150g sweet potato- boil till tender
• 400g onion – blend
• 6 cloves garlic – blend
• 6 tbsp chili paste
• 750ml water
• 60ml tamarind juice ( adjust this per your taste bud)
• 100g palm sugar
• 50g sugar (adjust this per your taste bud)
• 100g grounded peanuts.
• salt to taste
• 60ml oil

Method for the sauce:

1. Place boiled potato and sweet potato in the blender. Add water and blend till smooth. Set aside.
2. Heat up the oil in a sauce pan and fry the blended onion, garlic and chili paste till fragrant. (Malay always cooked them until the oil split from the other ingredient)
3. Add in the blended potatoes and sweet potatoes, palm sugar, sugar, tamarind juice and salt into the sauce pan. Add water if the sauce is too thick. Cooked with slow fire until boiled.
4. Add in grounded peanuts and once the taste is right, the sauce is ready.

Other Fresh Ingredients

• Hard boiled egg – quatered
• 1 sengkuang (the english term is Jicama)  – julienne
• Cucumber – julienne
• Firm bean curd – deep fried and cut into cube
• Beansprouts
• Steam potatoes – quartered
• Cucur Udang (Prawn Fritter).. Click here for the recipe.

Jeruk Mangga Asam Boi

Jeruk Mangga Asam Boi

Oh My God…. sedap nya jeruk mangga asam boi ni. This jeruk mangga asam boi or the english term would be “green mango salad with preserved plum” is so popular in Malaysia at the moment… couldn’t resist it anymore. Made it last night and it didn’t last till morning hehehe and today after sending kids to school, I went to Lulu Hypermarket to get some more green mango… and here we are again. There are few recipes flying around but I decided to made it using recipe from Azlita Aziz blog simple because she made it looks soooo yummy hehehe. So, here is her recipe with some minor adjustments …

This is to die for hehehe

Ingredient:

• 4 green mango ~ peeled and sliced into strips
• 20 – 25 asam boi (preserved plum)— I do not have this, so I used 15 tsp of asam boi powder
• 10 – 15 bird eye chilies ~ thinly slice — I only used about 7
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 lime  ~ thinly slice — I used lemon
• 1 liter water + 1 tbsp salt
• 1 liter water + 1 tbsp lime water (air kapur)

Method:

1. Soak the sliced green mango in salt water for 30 minutes, and then drain them. (cant remember why but my mum always do this when she’s making jeruk). Now transfer the mango into lime water and soak them for about 30 minutes. This is to make sure that the mango remain crunchy after the whole process. Wash and drain the water completely.
2. Place the mango in a big bowl and then add the sugar and mix well. Then add the thinly sliced bird eye chilies and then the preserved plum. Mix well.
3. Lastly add the sliced lemon/lime. Cover and leave it in the fridge for few hours. Enjoy!

Sapa nak cepat datang rumah!

Caesar Salad

Caesar Salad

My all-time favorite salad is Caesar salad. To most people including me this is the king of salads. Caesar salad is named after chef Caesar Cardini who created it in his restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico in 1924.   The best Caesar salad in Kuwait in my opinion is from Buongiorno. I love the freshness of their salad and the dressing is of the right taste and consistency….chewah! macam food review la pulak muahahaha.  Anyway, since I love the salad so much, I think it is silly for me not to try to make my own salad, so I started surfing the internet and I found lot of recipes but most of them use raw egg yolk and since I’m not sure that the egg in my kitchen is always fresh (risk of salmonella bacteria) , I substitute  raw egg yolk with mayonnaise. Instead of using raw egg you can also use coddled egg. To make coddled egg yolk you have to place a room temperature egg into a small bowl and pour boiling water around the egg until it is covered and let it stand for 1 minute and then take it out and use in the recipe.  Anyway, I stick to mayonnaise just to be on the safe side. OK…lets see my version of  Caesar Salad.

Ingredient :

Caesar salad:

• 1 head Romaine lattuce, hearts and tender leaves only
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup homemade croutons
• 2 tbsp freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• Caesar salad dressing

Homemade croutons:

• 2 slices of bread
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

Caesar salad dressing:

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/2 tsp anchovy paste
• 2 medium clove of garlic – finely chopped
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 5 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• salt n pepper

Method:

Homemade croutons :  Preheated oven to 175 C. Dice the bread into 3/4 inch cubes. Toss with enough olive oil and spinkle lightly with salt and spread out on baking tray. Bake about 10 – 15 mins or until golden brown. Halfway through the baking, give the pan a shake to make sure the croutons toast evenly. Remove from the oven and cool completely.

Caesar salad dressing : Whisk together the garlic, anchovy, pepper and salt until combined. Add in the Worcestershire sauce and lemon juice. Whisk in the mayonnaise and the slowly drizzle in the olive oil with one hand while vigorously whisking the mixture with the other. When the dressing is well combined, whisk in the Parmesan cheese.

Caesar Salad : Separate Romaine leaves and discard the coarse outer leaves. Wash, drain and pat dry with paper towel. In large salad bowl, add 1/3 of the caesar salad dressing and toss with the croutons untill well coated. Add the Romaine lattuce pieces and the reamining of the dressing and toss until coated. Sprinkle the freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Thai Mango Salad

 

Thai Mango Salad

Mango is really an amazing fruit…you can eat it when it’s ripe or unripe, not to mention that you can make a dessert as well as a dish or side dish out of it…. and one of my favourite side dish is Mango Salad. The best Thai Mango salad that I’ve tasted so far was at a restaurant in Kg Baru- Restaurant Ali Tom Yam… and if you are in Kuwait, you can go to Oriental Cuisine Restaurant to have a taste of this great side dish.

Ingredients:
1 green unripe mango (125g), peeled and shredded
1 small onion, sliced
1 red chili, seeded and sliced
1 tbsp briefly chopped coriander

Garnishing:
2 tbsp dried anchovies, rinsed and fried
Some roasted peanuts

Dressing:
1 tbsp dried shrimp, rinsed
2 Thai chilies
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp sweet chili sauce
1 tbsp sugar (+/-)

Methods:

1. Slightly crush the chilies and dried shrimps in a mortar. Then, put in fish sauce, lime juice, sugar and sweet chili sauce. Mix well.
2. Pour in the above mixture into the shredded mango, sliced onion and chili . Mix well. Garnish with fried anchovies, roasted peanuts and chopped coriander.