Potluck Featuring Chinese Malaysian Cuisines

Sambal Udang Petai

My jalan-jalan cari makan friends got together to celebrate the homecoming of a friend and his daughter's graduation from Simon Fraser University just a couple of weeks ago. And, that was reason enough for us to celebrate and have a gastronomical potluck gathering. But the main reason was no more than getting together for an evening of dining and friendship. Just like always, we had so much leftover food that we had to take home. I went to the potluck with two Malaysian cuisines. The first was the popular Yau Yee Hong Choy, in Cantonese for Water Spinach and Squid in Rojak and Peanut Sauce. This popular cuisine originated from Penang but today it is found nearly everywhere in Peninsular Malaysia.

Stir Fried Chicken with Ginger

My second contribution to the potluck was the another popular Penang cuisine. Char Kueh Kak (in Hokkein) is the Penang version of the fried radish cake. Relatively similar in taste and flavour to the famous Penang Char Keow Teow because both uses many similar ingredients. The fried radish cake that I prepared did not turn out to be as presentable as I had earlier expected because the homemade radish cake did not turn out to be as firm as I wanted. And because of that, the fried radish cake became lumpy and too soft. The taste and flavour was authentic but the cuisine obviously did not look anywhere close to authenticity.

Malaysian Curry Chicken

Among the other Malaysian cuisines that we had that day were Sambal Udang with Petai. Our host for that evening has just returned from Malaysia and among the many food items he brought home from Malaysia was fresh petai. And he wanted to share the petai with everyone. So, he decided to surprise us with the sambal udang petai which was one of the authentic Malaysian cuisine that was familiar and fairly missed by everyone there that evening. Everyone loved the spicy shrimp cuisine. Among the many other Malaysian cuisines were soy sauce baked chicken wings, chicken curry, chicken with ginger, Soy Sauce Pork and Eggs, Fried Beehoon, Fried Rice and some Malaysian Desserts.