Sambal Fried Rice with Anchovies

Sambal Fried Rice

I have some leftover of the Nasi Lemak sambal which I had for Nasi Lemak cuisine several days ago. I have kept the leftover sambal in the fridge since then. So today, I cooked some rice in the morning and later used the sambal as a paste with the rice for the special spicy fried rice. It turned out to be really good. I have now discovered another use for the Nasi Lemak sambal. By the way the Nasi Lemak sambal that I am using is the Chilliz brand which is carried in T&T Supermarket, Chong Lee Market, Soon Tung Fatt Market, Hen Loong Supermarket and many other Asian grocery stores.

Spicy Fried Rice

Other than the sambal (three spoons), I added some fried anchovies and a few eggs to the fried rice. I make sure the eggs are fried first than add the rice and everything else. Stir and mix evenly, especially the sambal. And I also barbecued some chicken drumstick to go with the fried rice lunch. I first bake the chicken drumstick in the oven for thirty minutes on three hundred seventy five celsius. Then, once the chicken drumsticks are cooked, coat the drumstick evenly with barbecue sauce. Put the tray of drumsticks back into the oven at the same temperature for another fifteen to twenty minutes. Once done serve with the fried rice and garnish with a few slices of cucumbers.

Fried Chicken Strips with Bread Crumbs

Fried Chicken Strips

Prepared a simple three cuisines home cooked lunch today. Simple yet yummy. The first cuisine was the fried chicken strips with bread crumbs. The bread crumbs that I used for this cuisine is the Kinkoman Panko brand that I bought from Costco Wholesale. I marinated the chicken strips with some hoisin sauce and then coated with egg white before coating each chicken strips with another layer of bread crumbs. Once the chicken strips was coated with the bread crumb, fried them in a pot of hot cooking oil. The fried chicken strips taste better when they were still warm. So we ate them all during lunch with two other cuisines and a plate of steam rice.

Traditional Penang Ju Who Char

The second cuisine was the traditional stir fried dried squid jicama cuisine which we call the cuisine for all occasions. This cuisine is seen in all kinds of celebrations in Penang such as weddings, birthdays, funerals, religious worships, and all occasions that involves food. This cuisine is as synonymous to Penang cuisines as Char Keow Teow and Water Spinach with preserved squid. I did not cook this dried squid jicama cuisine but was given to us by a friend that have home cooked it the previous day. And, usually we dine with this dried squid jicama cuisine over several days. One of the methods to eating this cuisine is to wrap it in lettuce.

Pan Fried Salmon Fillet

Finally, the third cuisine was another simple fish cuisine. I bought a few pieces of salmon fillet from Save-On-Foods a couple of days ago when it went on sale. So, instead of just salmon fillet for dinner or lunch, I stored them in the freezer for cooking later. Today, I fried a whole piece of salmon fillet with butter as a dish for lunch. While the fillet was still in the pan, I sprinkled it with some salt and black pepper. Once the fillet was done, garnished with a sprinkle of dried cilantro flakes. Although simple, the salmon fillet was flavourful and tasty. I could taste the butter and pepper in the fillet. The salmon fillet was not only a simple process to cook but the recipe was even simpler. Yet, tasted really delicious.

Home Cooking the Popular Malaysian Nasi Lemak

Nasi Lemak

We decided to cook the famous Nasi Lemak yesterday. My wife actually suggested that we cook the Nasi Lemak for two meals. We can have the Nasi Lemak for breakfast and then take to work as lunch. Since, we have to wake up early anyways, because the kids are attending summer classes and their classes starts at eight. Our get up time has been set for six in the morning. We just need about an hour to cook a simple Nasi Lemak cuisine. So, we started with cooking the rice which actually takes the longest time to cook. Clean the rice, then add a canned of coconut milk with water to the level slightly above the top of the rice.

Traditional Coconut Milk Rice

Add a few slices of ginger, onions, a pinch of salt for taste, and a few leaves of the pine screw into the rice. Then press the button on the rice cooker to start cooking the rice. Once I have the rice cooking in the rice cooker, I got on to preparing the other components of the Nasi Lemak cuisine. I got one small frying pan on the stove to fry some eggs and another to fry a handful of anchovies. Once the anchovies were done, I fried some ground nuts. Then, slice the cucumber. As for the sambal (Chilli paste), I relied on the pre-pack sambal from Malaysia which I bought from T&T Supermarket. That really save me some time.

Home Cooked Nasi Lemak

I would usually prepare the chilli paste from scratch or sometimes fry some fish fillet or even cook a pot of curry chicken. But this time, just use the pre-pack chilli paste. This is the thing about Nasi Lemak, the cuisine itself is so diverse. There are so many really great recipes online and even in Malaysia where Nasi Lemak is the most popular cuisine, there are so many versions of Nasi Lemak cuisine. The real trick in Nasi Lemak is actaully the cooking of the rice itself. The other components that comes with the rice are just supplementary, which can also make the Nasi Lemak cuisine special.

Newtown Bakery

Salty Donut

We often stopped by Newtown Bakery for breakfast or sometime even for a snack. Usually, we will pick up a take away. Like they serve the best barbecue pork pau (Char Siew Pork Buns) in Vancouver. Newtown is one of the more popular bakery in Vancouver that serves Chinese cakes and buns. They do have a diner within their bakery but most of their customers come to take away their famous pork and chicken buns. They have three outlets, namely Chinatown, Surrey and Richmond. I frequent the Chinatown outlet the most but the Surrey branch is the closes to home.

Egg Tarts

If I am at Richmond, I will pick something up from there too. Other than their famous buns, Newtown Bakery serves a range of Chinese cakes and buns too. And I like the Hum Chim Pheng (translated from Cantonese means Salty Donut or Cookie) as well. A flavourful savoury donut that is really filling if eaten in one meal. At least for me one piece is filling. Their Egg Tarts are also a popular item. And they are really lovely. Creamy and soft inside but the crust are flaky and flavourful. I will usually buy several half dozen boxes. And at home, they finish really quickly.

Donut stuffed with Black Bean Paste and Sesame Seed Bun

Like I say, they have an assortment of cakes, buns and sweet stuff. So, I also take away some of the buns that I could have for lunch the next day. Like this last trip, I bought extra buns for my kids's lunch. If that is not enough, they actually have a fully equipped kitchen in their Surrey and Chinatown outlets which could cook up some awesome Cantonese cuisines too. I have tried their noodle cuisines, which I found to be good and authentic. Their fried beef noodle is good.

Pulut Inti the Glutinous Rice Pudding with Palm Sugar and Shredded Coconut

A Traditional Rice Pudding

A few days ago one of our friends give us a dessert that I have not seen or tasted in a very long time. I was thrilled when my wife brought them home after her chance meeting with this friend. In Penang, this dessert is commonly found at food carts that sells Baba Nyonya cakes, fritters, puffs and all kinds of local delicacies. This is a popular item that is actually easy to cook. But the process may require slightly longer as the main component is glutinous rice. The glutinous must first be soaked for several hours to allow the glutinous rice to absorb water.

Pulut Inti

Therefore, when steamed the glutinous rice becomes soft and fluffy. My grandmother used to make this glutinous rice pudding for breakfast every so often. I have nearly forgotten about this particular glutinous rice pudding until just a few days ago. I remember, when cooking (steaming) the glutinous rice several of the ingredients used were the same to cooking the fragrant coconut milk rice (nasi lemak). There were screw pine leaves, coconut milk and water added into the pot with the glutinous rice when steaming. The palm sugar and shredded coconut flakes were separately prepared then garnished on top of the glutinous rice.

Traditional Pulut Inti

Basically, Inti means stuffing in Malay but this stuffing is not placed in the wrap in between two layers of glutinous rice just like sushi. But rather, it is applied on the top of the rice pudding to give it a flavourful sweet taste of coconut palm. This sugary liquid and coconut flakes paste were just a mixture of some liquified palm sugar to coconut flakes. The coconut flakes has to be the very fine ones.

Char Siew Chicken Rice

Chicken Char Siew

My wife cooked Char Siew Chicken and Chicken Rice for lunch today. She put together about a dozen chicken drumsticks in a container to marinate. And then, left them overnight in the fridge. The chicken drumsticks were marinated with four spoons of char siew sauce, two spoons of hoisin sauce and one spoon of oyster flavoured sauce. Leaving the chicken drumsticks in the fridge overnight would allow the chicken meat to slowly absorb the marinating sauce. We use the same technique to marinate char siew pork. And every time, the process turns out to be satisfactorily flavourful.

Char Siew Chicken Rice

The chicken rice was cooked with Hainanese Chicken Rice Paste that we bought from T&T Supermarket. There are several brands on the shelves at the Asian section in the supermarket. And we have kind of tried most of them. And majority are good. The difference are in the pricing. But we like the brand that says, "Hainanese Chicken Rice Paste" which is a product from Thailand. And also, this is one of the cheapest on the shelves. I normally cook chicken rice from scratch but with the Hainanese chicken rice paste, it is so much easier and no hassle with ginger, chicken fat, garlic and so on. For each cup of rice, I add two spoons of the Hainanese chicken rice paste into the rice pot.

Stir Fried Teriyaki Noodle

Stir Fried Teriyaki Noodle

I decided to stay home and catch up on work yesterday. So, we just relied on some simple lunch that can be cooked within thirty minutes. First, I opened a canned of spam and cut the luncheon meat to small little cubes. Throw them into the hot wok and fry them first. Once the luncheon meat turned darker in colour, I added some chicken strips to them. And then, mixed the meat and the chicken strips. Then, I threw in the wok a bowl of bean sprouts and a bag of egg noodles or sometimes called the Chow Mien noodles. Next, stir, toss and mix everything in the wok until evenly spread.  

Home Cooked Teriyaki Noodle

Continue to stir and toss the noodles until the noodles were evenly cooked. Then, add three spoons of teriyaki sauce and a handful of spring onions onto the noodles. I could have added some onions if I had any. Although simple to prepare, the stir fried teriyaki noodle cuisine sounded like something difficult to cook. I have seen it been cooked at food stalls in food courts and learned that the teriyaki noodle cuisine was really simple to cook. Importantly, the noodle cuisine must taste good and flavourful. And not to have too much ingredients.

Kids Day in the Kitchen

Homecook Pepperoni Pizza

My children sometimes volunteer to cook lunch and dinner on the weekends. And, when they do that my wife and I leave the kitchen to them to do whatever they want. But once in a while they will run out of the kitchen asking for help. Especially, the whereabouts of certain ingredients they need. Our kitchen cabinet are pretty much stocked up and arranged in a systematic order but still some of the bottles, bags, boxes, and cans are stacked right deep into the cabinets. The kids usually manage themselves well in the kitchen. Often they are being over creative and follow exactly whatever they see and read on the internet.

Home Cooked Roast Duck

This is the way kids today use information. In our days, we ask our parents for cooking advice but kids today are overwhelmed with all kinds of information from the internet, even with cooking recipes and processes. Internet has become the most important communication media and an integral part of our lives today. We have to allow and encourage our kids to embrace this technological advancement to keep pace with the technology savvy environment in order to succeed in their chosen careers.

Sushi Mix

In the kitchen on their own, they cooked up three distinctively different cuisines with whatever they could find in the kitchen. The first was a familiar western cuisine. So, we ate the home cooked Pepperoni Pizza for lunch. While the other two cuisines were being prepared for dinner. Surprisingly, the kids prepared and cooked Roast Duck. The roast duck was cooked to perfection following the recipe for roast duck the kids found on the internet. And finally, they also rolled up some creative sushi and tempuras. I am really proud and happy with their ability to follow instructions from the internet.

Hons House of Noodles in New Westminster

Honey Garlic Pork Ribs

Went to Hons House of Noodles on Sixth in New Westminster for dinner last night. Like usual, we asked the kids to pick their menu choices and like always, they picked the cuisines that were the familiar cuisines to them. To think of it, what we order usually depend on location. Depending on which Hons we dine in, it is pretty obvious that the cuisines that the kids select usually depends on the Hon's location. When we are dining at the New Westminster Hons, we usually settle for more of the clay pot and stir fried meat with vegetables cuisines but when we are at the Chinatown location, we like to order some of their seafood cuisines, like rock salt fried female capelin fish and the spicy stir fried shrimps.

Clay Pot Egg Plant and Tofu

So, in yesterday's dinner the honey garlic pork ribs was one of the cuisine ordered. My youngest kid loves this particular cuisine because the meat was crispy and sweet on the outside but juicy and tender inside. One of this crispy pork cuisine was enough to satisfy his dinner desire. He does not need any other cuisine other than a bowl of steam rice. He is easy to satisfy. The second kid ordered the clay pot tofu with egg plant which was actually the first time we have this egg plant cuisine. In the clay pot were so much egg plant and on top were garnished with some egg tofus. It was a tasty and flavourful cuisine.

Stir Fried Beef in Sweet Sauce

The next cuisine was the steam fish fillet with mixed vegetables. This cuisine too was new to us. Simple, plain and tasty. Although, we have dined in Hons many times before, we still haven't tried everything in the menu. Of cause there are certain cuisines that we will not order but still it will take us a while before we sample every item in the menu. Of all the Cantonese cuisines that Hons serve in their restaurants, the stir fried beef in sweet sauce is a cuisine that we never miss every time we dine at the New Westminster Hons. This cuisine is somewhat synonymous to Hons at New Westminster for us.

Spicy Soybean Steam Fish

Spicy Soybean Steam Fish

We planned for a simple home cook cuisine for dinner yesterday. Started with preparing a whole pomfret for steaming. Once done steaming pour away the liquid in the plate and set aside to cool a little. While waiting, prepare the spicy soybean paste. Add in a hot wok two spoons of cooking oil and followed with some chopped garlic. Quickly add two spoons of preserved soybean, one spoon of fresh chopped chillies and three spoons of water. Allow to simmer a bit then add in fine cut ginger strips and spring onion strips. Immediately, pour the spicy soybean gravy onto the fish.

Stir fried Napa Cabbage

The second cuisine for dinner yesterday was the Napa cabbage stir fried with dried shrimps. This was an even simpler cuisine. Just clean and cut the napa cabbage in four inch strips and set aside. In the hot wok, add two spoons of cooking oil and two spoons of dried shrimps. Stir fry until the dried shrimps are crispy and add the cut napa cabbage. There is no need for any additional ingredients. The dried shrimps was enough to provide the flavours and taste to the plain napa cabbage. The third cuisine for the evening was another simple vegetable cuisine.

The Famous Penang Hokkien (Prawn) Noodle

The Famous Penang Prawn Noodle

Penang is not just a place with many wonderful food cart cuisines and beautiful beaches but the people that grew up in Penang are very familiar with the flavours and taste of the food they grew up eating. And because of that many Penangnites have craving for that familiar flavours and taste when they live far away from Penang. Among my friends that hailed from Penang, we are so accustomed to these familiar taste and flavours, we can tell whether a Penang cuisine is authentic or not in taste and flavours. Or whether the cuisine is a familiar Penang cuisine. So, naturally any Penangnite can become a Penang food critique because we are the most familiar.

Penang Hokkien Noodle

And one of the most difficult to prepare and requires many different ingredients is the Penang Prawn (Hokkien) Noodle cuisine. This is a soup base noodle cuisine and the flavour for the soup comes from boiling lots of shrimps and pork ribs for a few hours. Therefore, the prawn broth is the most important component of this famous Penang Prawn Noodle cuisine. My spouse prepared the ingredients and cooked the special prawn broth for the famous Penang prawn noodle yesterday. I then, prepared the other ingredients and noodles to complete the Penang prawn noodle cuisine. There is actually a lot of work in preparing and cooking this special Penang noodle cuisine.

The Famous Penang Hokkien Mee

The soup is boiled for about an hour with lots of shrimp skin (like a whole bag full) with at least two pounds of pork ribs. After an hour removed the shrimp skins and leave the pork ribs to continue boiling. Add a small piece of rock sugar, five spoons of dried chilli paste, two spoons of shredded dried shrimps, one spoon of belacan and one spoon of chicken stock. Other than the prawn broth, the other components of the prawn noodle were blenched and placed in the serving bowl. The more popular items in a bowl of prawn noodle are shanghai noodles with vermicelli, a few shrimps, half of a boiled egg, few slices of pork, some water spinach, one spoon of fried shallots and one spoon of fried lard (bits). Four to five scoops of the boiling prawn broth onto the noodles in the bowl and served while it is still hot.

Home Cooked Sambal Petai for Dinner

Sambal Petai Anchovies

Came home late from work one day and decided to prepare and cook dinner in an hour because the time was already eight o'clock in the evening. I went straight into the kitchen and pulled whatever I can reach first from the fridge. Hastily, I managed to grab a cucumber and an egg plant. So, I immediately thought of sambal petai. In which (petai), I have actually just bought from Hen Long Supermarket just a few days before. The first thing I would need to prepare for this unique cuisine is to fry the anchovies and squeeze some tamarind juice which I set out to do.

Blench Kailan with Oyster Flavoured Sauce

Cooking sambal petai anchovies is simple and can be quickly done in less than an hour. I poured about four spoons of cooking oil into a hot wok and then throw in a handful of anchovies. Once the anchovies were fried, I throw in the cut egg plants (cut into small cubes) into the wok. Followed with two spoons of chilies and then the cucumbers (also cut into small cubes). Lastly pour in the tamarind juice just for the right taste and flavour. Allow the sambal petai anchovies to simmer a little bit and afterwards transfer to a serving plate.

Roasted Chicken Wings

The dinner won't be complete without a vegetable dish. Therefore, I boiled a pot of water to use. The hot pot of boiling water was used to blench a bunch of kailan vegetables. I later garnished the plate of vegetables with two spoons of oyster flavoured sauce and the fried anchovies. While I was doing all this, my kids had two trays of chicken wings in the oven already. The chicken wings were marinated from last night and allowed to set in the fridge overnight. So the kids when to the fridge and took the chicken wings out from the fridge and left them to roast in the oven for about thirty five minutes. Meanwhile, as I was finishing up on my two cuisines, I also got the rice cooker going with one cup of rice. Dinner was ready just slightly one minute after the hour at nine.

Curry Squid

Curry Squid with Okra

In Kuala Lumpur, this is one of the more popular night time cuisine that is served at the food stalls for seafood specialties. Of cause the barbecue fish (ikan bakar) is always the main course and than followed by curry squid, ginger stir fried manila clams or a bowl of clams blench with boiling hot water. Yesterday, I home cooked a plate of the curry squid (called curry sotong in Malaysia) and had it for dinner. I first simmer curry paste (curry powder with water) and curry leaves in a hot wok until the kitchen fills with the aroma of curry leaves.

Home Cooked Curry Squid

Then, add the cleaned squids onto the curry paste in the wok and allow the squid to simmer with the curry paste. Once the squid was cooked, throw in the cooked okra, which was earlier boiled in water. Mix everything evenly and wait till boil to transfer to a serving plate. Other than cooking curry with squid, this seafood is versatile. Just like most other seafoods which can be fried with batter, steamed or cooked with sauces, squids can be cooked with variety of recipes. But I have really missed this curry squid cuisine.

Bite Size Teriyaki Chicken Nuggets

Teriyaki Chicken Nuggets

Yesterday, for dinner I cooked a chicken cuisine using the teriyaki sauce. Like always, I wanted to prepare and cook dinner within an hour. So, I went through my kitchen cabinet where I keep all the sauces and canned food for some cooking ideas. It seems like I have a lot of sauces that I have actually forgotten about, and should work on utilizing them before they expire. I took out whichever that was nearest to the expiration date and rearranged them in the cabinet to remind myself which of the sauces I should use first.

Home Cooked Teriyaki Chicken 

Since the teriyaki sauce was the bottle that was at the nearest to expiration, I decided to use it first. I took two pieces of chicken breast from the freezer and thaw for about thirty minutes, then cut them up to bite size pieces. Then, poured three spoons of cooking oil into a hot wok and fried the chicken pieces. Once the chicken nuggets were cooked (when turn light brown), I added three spoons of the teriyaki sauce. I also blenched some broccoli to be presented with the teriyaki chicken in the same plate. As I have anticipated, the teriyaki chicken turned out to be really flavourful and blended well with the broccoli.

Fried Tofu

While I was waiting for the chicken breast to thaw, I fried some pressed tofu. This was to be our second cuisine for the dinner last evening. I just cut the larger piece of tofu to four cubes and fried them. I did not add any flavours or taste enhancer to the fried tofus. But went served, I usually add two spoons of chilli sauce for dipping, on the side of the serving plate. Overall, I took slightly more than one hour to cook yesterday's dinner cuisines which was still within the acceptable time frame for me.

The Flavourful Bean Sprouts and Salted Fish Cuisine

Bean Sprouts with Salted Fish

Salted fish is somewhat of an exotic food item in Vancouver. The variety of salted fish sold in the Chinese medical/herbal shops in Vancouver are mostly if not all are imported. I found the prices of salted fish here to be a little too expensive for my taste. It is also quite expensive compared to the fresh fish in Malaysia but never that much of a different. In Vancouver the prices are sometimes doubled of the fresh fish. Because of that, I rather eat fresh fish than the salted version.

So, at home, we seldom cook with salted fish because the ones that I have in the fridge were brought here from Malaysia. Every time my spouse or I travel, we will buy among other seafood stuff, a piece of the best salted fish (meat only).

Flavourful Bean Sprouts

Yesterday, we sliced a piece of that salted fish and fried it. Then, blench a plate full of bean sprouts and throw them into the hot wok that was previously used to fry the salted fish. Mixed the leftover cooking oil with the bean sprouts and garnish with the chopped fried salted fish. The salted fish adds flavour to the bean sprouts cuisine but overall, still needs to add a pinch of salt for taste. This bean sprouts cuisine used to be a simple cuisine and also the cuisine for the poor because both salted fish and bean sprouts were really affordable. But today, only the able and affluent can afford this cuisine.

LA Fried Chicken and Rice

Yummilicious LA Fried Chicken

My spouse bought LA Fried Chicken from Richmond on her way home from work. So, we had LA fried chicken with steam rice for dinner last night. This was not the first time that we have fried chicken with steam rice but have been our type of dinner several occasions before. LA Chicken which is located on Thorpe and No. 5 Road in Richmond serves one of the best fired chicken in Vancouver if not the best. My kids and I have tried fried chicken from many different fried chicken outlets and we still prefer LA Chicken.

Fried Chicken with Steam Rice

The fried chicken is tender and juicy inside. Not dry inside like some fried chicken parlour in town. The skin of the fried chicken has a layer of crispy and crunchy batter that is fried just perfect. LA Chicken is managed by a husband and wife team, and they do not have any other outlets nor do they want to franchise their business. Therefore, my spouse and I always take the opportunity to stop by their Richmond outlet to pick up a tray of their yummilicious fried chicken whenever we are in Richmond for work.

Home Made Pork Meatballs

Homemade Pork Meatballs

I prepared some homemade pork meatballs for dinner yesterday. Home made are always fresh, tasty and flavourful. Unlike the meatballs from the grocery store, these were made from scratch with raw meat and ingredients. The two main components of the pork meatballs were ground pork and fish paste. I mixed about one to one portion of the ground pork (300gm) and fish paste (300gm). Add a little oyster flavoured sauce (one spoon), sesame seed oil (one spoon), an egg, a pinch of salt for taste and one spoon of multipurpose flour. If not, just replace with corn starch. And no water was added.

Golden Brown Meatballs

Once everything is ready, just mix them all up with your hands. Then, drop one ball at a time into a wok with cooking oil (400 ml). Transfer the pork meatballs into a serving plate once the meatballs turn golden brown. My family loves these homemade pork meatballs and could eat dinner just on these without rice or noodle. The ground pork can also be substituted with luncheon meat like spam or the imported version. But that would not be as fresh as these ones that was made from scratch. Sometimes, I even add a little mash potato with the mix before frying. The potato will add flavour to the meatballs.

Fresh Kailan

Alongside the pork meatballs cuisine, I have also prepared a plate of vegetable cuisine for dinner. The choice of vegetable depended on what was the available vegetable I have in the fridge. I do not normally stock up on the vegetables because if I do not cook them within the few days after purchasing them, they will spoil rather fast. So, to avoid wasting these vegetables unnecessarily, I rather stock up on cabbages, cucumbers, egg plants, napa cabbages, bitter gourds or French beans. Anyway, I cooked the kailan vegetable instead because I have one more bunch of them in the fridge.

Ginger and Spring Onion Steam Fish

Steam Fish with Ginger and Spring Onions

Steam fish is one of the tastiest and freshest seafood cuisine that can be prepared at home. And also simple to prepare. First, clean the fish. Most sea fish can be use for this cuisine but I prefer the pomfret, barramundi,  rock fish, or grouper because of their firmer meat. Steam the fish in a steamer or just a wok with a proper lid. The fish is separately cooked before garnishing with the sauce and ingredients. There are going to be lots of water in the deep plate after steaming the fish; pour the liquid away. Transfer the fish into a serving plate if you choose to. Or else just use the plate you steamed the fish in.

Ginger and Spring Onion Steam Fish

At the same time, in an another wok or pot, while the fish was steaming, prepare the sauce. In the small rice bowl, mix three spoons of light soy sauce with half spoon of oyster flavoured sauce, one spoon of sesame seed oil, and half spoon of sugar. Pour this sauce mixture into the wok or pot to boil on low heat. While waiting for the sauce to boil, quickly slice ginger in thin strips and spring onions also in four to five inch thin strips. Garnish the ginger and spring onion strips on the fish and pour the boiled sauce mixture onto the ginger and spring onions once it is ready.

Fried Tofu with Soy Sauce

The second cuisine for that evening was also another simple cuisine. I simply fried some sliced press tofu and sauced with dark soy sauce with a spoon of sugar. Since the press tofu was already cooked, the frying was short. Once all the tofu slices were fried, I poured a spoon of dark soy sauce and the one spoon of sugar onto the fried tofus. And mix the soy sauce and the sugar evenly until every slice of the tofu is coated. This cuisine alone with a bowl of rice can feed an entire family.

Home Cook Ginseng Chicken Soup

Ginseng Chicken Soup

The all mighty Chinese traditional ginseng herb for soup. It is believed by many Chinese that the ginseng root is the herb that has many useful medicinal cures. Ginseng has traditionally been taken to aid in several medicinal conditions but I like the aroma more than its medicinal values. I came across the fresh roots sold in T&T Supermarket a few days ago and bought one pack of the root to try it out. So, I simply boiled the ginseng root in a pot of water and add chicken, dried dates, sesame seed oil and a pinch of salt for taste. And there I have ginseng soup for dinner.

Home Cook Ginseng Chicken Soup

But the aroma wasn't as strong as I would have expected. I thought this farmed fresh ginseng root was going to have a strong ginseng smell but I was wrong. So, now I learned that the aged ginseng roots which fetches prices up to the thousands of dollars are the really good ones. There are lots of these dried ginseng roots display in Chinese Medicinal shops and they are supposed to be the aged ginsengs. Most are cultivated today in ginseng farms which happen to be situated in US, China and Korea.

Authentic Malaysian Nasi Lemak and Penang Char Keow Teow in the park

Malaysian Nasi Lemak

My jalan-jalan cari makan friends got together on the first weekend of July and celebrated Canada Day by going to Barnet Marine Park for a picnic. Each of us contributed to the picnic with fruits, cakes and other familiar home made desserts. One of the friend came with nasi lemak (coconut milk fragrant rice) specially wrapped with sambal anchovies, ground nuts, cut cucumbers and egg. Although simple, the nasi lemak cuisine was really tasty and flavourful. It was the best nasi lemak cuisine I have eaten in a long time. The nasi lemak was cooked with basmati rice, coconut milk, slices of ginger and screw pine leaves. Whereas the sambal was prepacked sambal paste from the brand "Chillies", which can be found in most Asian grocery stores.

Penang Char Keow Teow

The rest of the condiments were garnished on top of the fragrant rice and sambal before wrapping up the nasi lemak with banana leaf and parchment paper. Although the finished product looked really simple and takes less than five minutes to eat, the preparation, cooking and wrapping processes could have taken at least two hours. That too, did not account for the time sourcing for the ingredients.

Same with Penang Char Keow Teow, the finished product looks fairly simple but it takes a lot of time and effort to prepare. The ingredients for Char Keow Teow are flat rice noodles, shrimps, fish cakes, bean sprouts, Chinese sausages, chives, clams, eggs, cooking oil (or lard) and a special concoction of sauces.

Char Keow Teow in the wok

And besides that, the skill and experience to frying a really good plate of the famous Penang Char Keow Teow is never easy to follow or emulate. It is never a secret among my friends that I fry the Char Keow Teow in front of them, a plate at a time. The technique seems simple and I have even taught some of the friends. And anyone could have copied and learned the technique but till today nobody could.  So, I have to do all the frying myself. And that is hard work and stresses me out having to fry between thirty to sixty plates in two sometimes three hours depending on how big the group was. Also, for the benefit of my friends, I only do this occasionally and with a small group at a time. Therefore, every plate of the Char Keow Teow that I fry would be consistent. And I have a system which I follow diligently.