Made in My Kitchen: Bean Sprouts, Mushroom, Green Beans and Chinese Turnip Stir Fry

As the name suggest, stir-fry is one of the easiest dish one can prepare because nothing can go wrong with mixing a number of vegetables in a heated wok. Besides, it is also a great way to finish up the remaining veges in our fridge (explain myself much). Especially when it's women's nature to buy a number of veges because they (I in particular) want to cook everything, hence we tend to buy almost every veges the supermarket has offered (in small quantities, of course. Women do think about saving up some money). It's a win-win situation.

The choice of veges are broad. It is also cost-saving, since this dish uses only small amount of the each veges, and usually they are the cheap ones. But usually I love to use some different coloured veges to get an eye-candy result. And taste. 

Ingredients:

Half a yellow onion (diced)

4 garlic (diced)

5 bird-eye chili (diced)

A bowl Chinese turnip (cut into matchstick size)

Half a carrot (cut into matchstick size)

A bowl of bean sprouts

Some green beans

A bowl of mushroom

2 table-spoon oil

1 teaspoon chicken stock

1 table-spoon sesame oil

Sprinkle of dried parsley

Cooking steps:

1. Heat oil. Sautee the onion, garlic and chili till brownish.

2. Put the hard veges first; carrot, Chinese turnip, green beans, mushroom and beansprouts.

3. Put in the chicken stock, sesame oil and dried parsley. Stir.

4. Done

Even though I did not put any sugar, the taste was surprisingly sweet, especially from the Chinese turnip. When the SARS virus broke down a few years ago, the price of Chinese turnip once flew high because some medical traditionalist claimed that eating Chinese turnip soup can prevent the spread of the virus. It is also believed to be an anti-cancer vege! 

But if you have indigestion and stomach-gas problem, then, beansprout is not really recommended for you.

Made in My Kitchen: Chicken Sandwich

I love sandwich. And I love it that it is simple, fresh and filling. Sandwich is not a Malaysian staple, so I will regard sandwich as a luxury meal (like how I was surprised at being charged RM20++ for a Subway meal in KLCC food court). I made this sandwich last week based on the drooling entries in Grilled Cheese Social, only that the major ingredient I omitted is the cheese. Apparently I had used all the cheese I had to make grilled cheese sandwich and not once I took picture of any of them.

My brother said that I put too many vegetables. My mother came back from Cameron Highlands with loads of veges namely cherry tomato, asparagus, lettuces, mushrooms, purple cabbage, capsicum and Japanese cucumber. All are calling for a salad, but my brothers won't eat vegetable for sure so I had to twist it a little, combine with some sauces, bread and meat. Hopefully they give in. They did, so yeay.

Making sandwich is I believe, a trial-and-error just like any other cooked dishes are. If we get one ingredient wrong to our liking, we might instantly don't like it. And it can be costly too, especially if we don't have some of the ingredients in hand. I had to invest in some imported products such as gherkin pickle, mustard, BBQ sauce, which to me are expensive, but i think it can go a long way, so it's quite worth it. Still!

To me, sandwich should contain protein (meats), vitamin (veges) and calcium (cheese) apart from the carbohydrate from bread. The choice of fillings are really up to you. 

Meat:

- Leftover chicken or beef, shredded (these are the best! It is cost saving, and adds some special taste to the sandwich)

- Chicken pepperoni (I tried this, and I believe you should put more than one to get some meat taste)

- Fish (sauteed, fried, or grilled. I recommend trying smoked salmon for some divine)

Vegetable choices

- Lettuce

- Asparagus (sauteed with onion, or boiled first)

- Sauteed mushroom

- Tomato (I prefer not the ripe one)

- Capsicum (for crunchiness)

- Cucumber (Japanese cucumber for crunchiness)

- Red onion (for its tangy and sweetness)

- Avocado (for some milky taste)

- Gherkin (for a sour taste)

- Olive

- Beetroot (for its sweetness!)

Cheese choices:

- Cheddar, Tasty, Mild, Mozarella, depend on your budget

- Cheese slices like Kraft can be good too

Sauces choices:

- Sweet chili

- Mayonnaise 

- Mustard (might be a bit sour to your liking)

- BBQ sauce (I tried Heinz, for me it's a bit sour)

- Black pepper sauce

Another sauce I have tried making is using fruit chutney (acar buah). It was quite different compared to our local fruit chutney. It was sweet with some taste of herbs, perhaps nutmeg. 

Anathoth Fruit Chutney. Source: Foodtown

To make the sauce: Mix 5 spoon of fruit chutney with some chopped garlic and ground black pepper. I used some grilled beef for the protein source, with salad and beetroot for vitamin. And voila! If I can get my hands on some beetroots and those fruit chutney, I would definitely making this recipe again. 

Open Beetroot Steak Sandwich in Recipes+ Edition August 2009

Made In My Kitchen: Mee Goreng

Another reason for the Popiah Basah leftover yesterday was because of this impromptu Mee Goreng I cooked at 7pm. So much for Eat Healthy, I might say. BUT, I cooked it at the thought of having half of it for sahur, only that my husband loves mee goreng so much he ate half of this alone (and I am a happy wife for it hee). Thankfully, I managed to keep some of it for his sahur,

Ingredients:

1 pack of yellow mee (easily found in Malaysia's supermarket, a bit thicker one in overseas Asian Market)

100g chicken (cut to pieces)

1 fishcake (cut thinly)

An egg

4 fried tofu (cut to pieces)

Handful of green mustard (cut)

Handful of beansprouts (in my case, two handfuls because I love beansprout)

Chives (I omitted this because the supermarket ran out of it)

Paste Ingredients
Dried chili, boiled (or chili paste, whichever makes cooking easier)
Shallot
Garlic
1 table/spoon soy sauce
1 table/spoon oyster sauce
2 table/spoon chili sauce
2 table/spoon ketchup
Salt to taste

How to make:
1. Blend dried chili, shallot and garlic finely.
2. Sautee the blended paste, add in chicken and fishcake.
3. Add in soy sauce, oyster sauce, chili sauce and ketchup till fragrant and oil emits.
4. Salt to taste.
5. Add in egg and stir.
6. Add in the noodle (I run it under the tapwater first to wash away the oil. Some might use hot water). Stir well.
7. Add in green mustard, chives, fried tofu and stir well.
8. Lastly, add in beansprout. Stir for a short while if you like the beansprout crunchy.

Serve with some lime.

Initially I wanted to make this noodle mamak style. Mamak style is frying with big fire using gas stove, and usually in smaller portion of one person. Therefore, sometimes it can be a bit scorched and sometimes too oily to my liking. If we try to do this in our kitchen, we can control the amount of oil used and still enjoy our favourite dish.

Unfortunately my stove is out of gas so I have to turn to my electric multi-cooker. It could not come out to my desired outcome. Next time, maybe.

Made In My Kitchen: Popiah Basah

This is my first Ramadhan in my home country after six years abroad! I could sense some excitement, especially when it is shared with loved ones. Last year, I told my mother that I wanted to get married after Eid ul Fitr just because I felt that I haven't been with my family during this special occasion for far too long. But I got married in March, so I have to prepare myself either being able to celebrate the first day of Eid with my family or the family in-laws orrrr, here with my husband if he has to stay for work. Sob sob. 

Anyway, 

My husband requested that we eat healthily (and less, to add the definition) during this Ramadhan. He just came back from a two-week course which schedules include some exercising in the morning and in the evening. Even though we didn't look at the scale, we could see a difference in his weight. I am jealous! Women can never get rid of that same excess weight in that same two weeks.

Happy to serve him his request, at first I only prepared Popiah Basah for breaking fast, with the thought that if I can prepare dishes as many fresh vegetables as possible, it would score the point of healthy food. Less oil, retain the vitamins. This is my second time preparing this dish, the first time was last year. I am actually very happy to prepare this to my husband, as I did to my friends before because I love trying new dishes and having people to finish them are really satisfying.

The truth is, this is my favourite appetizer, half of this Eat Healthy objective is to satisfy my craving (I find that killing two birds with one stone is the way to go to keep both of us happy). And because I am used to having this mental note `You Want It, You Make It' due to deprivation of Bazaar Ramadhan overseas as well as `Do Not Worry, You Made It Yourself' due to consciousness towards halal ingredients and its cleanliness, I decided to do it myself. 

Filling Ingredients:

Small Spring Roll Pastry

Cucumber (cut into matchstick size - I used Japanese cucumber for its crunchiness)

Chinese Turnip (cut into matchstick size)

Carrot (shredded - tastes better than cut into matchstick size)

Bean sprout (washed with ice water and salt to keep its crunchiness)

Dried shrimps (Washed, mixed with KFC flour - shallow fried - roughly blended)

Sauce:

Dried chili, boiled (without the seeds)

Shallots

Garlics

Palm sugar

White sugar

Salt

Ground peanuts (I substituted with roasted sesame seeds because I don't have peanuts)

1 t/s Corn flour 

How to make the sauce:

1. Blend the fried chillies, shallots and garlics.

2. Sautee the blended paste, add in palm sugar, white sugar and salt to taste.

3. Add in ground peanuts @ sesame seeds

4. Add in corn flour to thicken the sauce.

The rolling process, as you can imagine. Spread the sauce first and throw everything (nicely) on the pastry and then roll.

Budget wise, I could make this as many as I want with little cost. 

However, I did this too many for two people (I am so used to prepare food for a festive number of people! Sigh..). However, good thing about this dish is it can be stored in the fridge and eaten the next day. The pastry is a bit soggy (I put too much sauce) but the veges are still crunchy when I ate it during sahur..

Sketch#5 The Traditional Malay House

I have a fond towards the humble traditional Malay house because it is based on our socio-culture and it shapes our identity. The traditional Malay house also accommodates the Malay women needs in terms of privacy, safety and responsibilities. Where would we find a house that celebrates a woman by naming its important space rumah ibu (mother of the house)?

In my recent trip to Kelantan, I found several bungalow houses (made of bricks and concrete!) built on pillars which I think either imitating the traditional Malay house or improvising in order to tackle the problem of flooding season. Either one, it looked to me that deep down, people will resort to traditional and vernacular way to adapt themselves with the surrounding environment.

It is my ultimate dream to build a house based on the traditional Malay house concept, maintain it like our ancestors did, and over time, extend it according to my family's growing needs. InsyaAllah.

Postcard - Traditional Melaka house. Photo by: Joseph Jacobs

A little nice postcard I bought in Central Market recently while showing around Kuala Lumpur to my Sri Lankan supervisor during her transit back to New Zealand.


As shared in Emila's Sketchy Sunday

Of Writing It Professionally

As of right now, my progress on the conference paper is one-month-way-behind, I started to panic!

I'm holding on many thoughts and wishlist, and crappy feeling, because I want to do this right. 

As my husband used to say, when we go to one place, at least we must leave something for the benefit of others.   I do want to leave something. That's why I am studying the relationship between Malay Women and urban housing development. I hope I can be a good Malay woman. 

If you're interested, read this as a start. Mencari Melayu. 

Of Finishing Last Year's Organza Flower

This was.. my last year's project. For my wedding actually. I started it when I was bored with reading research papers. I wanted to make some boutonniere, head band, anything cute out of it. But... planning was all planning. I got happily married to my serious-but-cheeky-but-loving husband without this organza flower. And today, while going through my wardrobe's drawers, I found the bag that contains ALL the raw materials. Finished it, and going to wear it today while going out with my cousins.

Tutorials later!