Merdeka Edition Meal

For this PH, I decided to have a feast of tradition (my family that is) . Did not took leave on Monday, so not worth my money to go back KL on 31st Aug. Already planned to cook for iftar and invite few friends over. So what did I cooked?
 Menu:
Nasi Kerabu ala Utara
Asam Pedas Keladi
Sambal Terung Belanda a.k.a Terung Pipit
Ikan Cencaru Goreng

That is the main ones, the rest are supplied by the guests. I only managed to snap few pics of the ingredient, by the time I finished cooking, it was already maghrib and I was too tired (could not be bothered actually) to snap anymore pictures..hahaha... But the highlight is of course Nasi Kerabu ala Utara. This is not at all the same as Nasi Kerabu that you normally get elsewhere. Only people in Kedah still eat this, though I saw one stall in Cheras sells this, but did not buy for I scared that it would not meet my expectation.

raw material...

So lets go to the recipi ;)

Nasi Kerabu ala Utara
Bahan-bahan:
1 mangkuk besar nasi putih
1 sudu makan halia + serai : ditumbuk halus
1 biji bawang besar : dihiris halus
1 sudu teh lada hitam : ditumbuk halus
1 sudu makan ikan kering (talang) : digoreng dan ditumbuk halus
2 sudu makan kerisik
Segenggam ulam-ulaman : diricik halus (this part I failed miserably..but anyhoo...)
Garam untuk perasa

Cara membuatnya:
Nasi putih dicerai-ceraikan(betul ke ni?) supaya tidak berketul dan dibiarkan sejuk. Dah sejuk,campurkan kesemua bahan-bahan di atas dan gaul rata. Hidangkan bersama asam pedas keladi...
Ulam that was used : daun cekur, daun pegaga, daun gajus...and another 1 more that I did not know what that is..


Asam Pedas Keladi
3 keladi (1 keladi ada ~3-4 batang) : siat dan buang lapisan luar, rendam dalam air
10 biji cii kering
1 sudu teh halba
1 sudu teh jintan manis
1 sudu teh lada hitam
4-5 keping asam
1-2 cm belacan
Segenggam daun kesum
Air secukupnya
Garam untuk perasa

Cara membuatnya
Rebus batang keladi dengan 2 keping asam hingga masak. Tos dan ketepikan. Rendam halba, lada hitam dan jintan manis ke dalam air panas, tumbuk sampai lumat. Kisar cili kering dan masak bersama belacan dan rempah tumbuk tadi. Apabila cili sudah masak, masukkan air, asam keping, daun kesum dan garam. Masak hingga mendidih, kemudian masukkan keladi. Siap untuk dihidang..
 p/s: SMS my mom to get the two recipies..hahaha..baru nak belajar, previously I only prepared the stuffs and she will do all the cooking and what not...

Game Day!! Portugal vs Spain

29th June 2010

After first day not going according to plan, we decided to consult the admin of where we stay, they also provides services to book certain trips and activities. So second day we decided to stay in the city since we don't want to be late for the game ;)

We started to climb the Signal Hill (the starting point is like 10 minutes walk from where we stayed) around 10 pm. Bumped into one local guy. He was asking us where to go. Turns out he is concerned about us. We were told to keep our cameras in the bag, the actual place is safe, but getting there, the road is a bit quite. We were also told to be vigilant, do not let any strangers talk to us.

We were the first one that gets to the hill, it was windy and freezing cold, then hill overloking Cape Town city, waterfront and Green Point Stadium. The Noon Gun ceremony was initially intended to signal the sailor, such that when the gun is fired at 12 pm, sailors around Cape Town waters will reset their watch.These days, it was continued in honour of the ceremony.

with one of the navy on duty, Alistair

The other tourists arrived in taxis and vans, seems like we were the only two that climbed by foot ;p After the ceremony, we went down and make way to Bo Kapp, a supposedly Muslim area. There is one restaurant, and we decided to have lunch there. The tagline is 'Malay Cape Food' but when I looked at the menu, only one that I can identify with Malaysia, Pienang Curry (yup, spell that way). The rest is more Indian than Malay, lots of other curries, and main dish is beriyani. But the thing that ticks me the most is this. Anybody ever heard of this?

We didn't even finished lunch when the rain started pouring, and both of us did not have neither rain coat nor umbrella. After lunch, we decided to find a mosque, but most of the mosque are locked, we made way by foot to the city, and bought ourselves raincoats before heading to stadium. The day was getting colder and it was only 2.30pm. Passed by waterfront and the Japanese-Paraguay was shown on the big screen. Not many people as it was still raining.

So we made way to stadium and waited till we can get in. 3 hours before kick off, the gate is opened. There is a fan zone that consist of sponsors camps set up all over. I was like a kid in a candy store jumping from one camp to another. 1.5 hour before kick off, we went to look for our seat. We got the second tier seating despite paying the Category 1 ticket. I saw from my place that Eduardo, Portuguese goalkeeper came out for warm up.

I quickly ran down trying to get a closer look. I got a close up look on the whole team ;)

too bad that my favorite no 6 did not come close..so lelaki ini je la yang enterframe..hehehe...

It was an entertaining game despite the bummer that is only one of my favorite team will advance to q-final. I really enjoyed the live game experience. I was lucky that the ticket that I bought one year ago, is for this particular match. Where and when again I get to see Spain vs Portugal, only Allah knows.

We went back exhausted, partly due to the endless walking, which is compounded by walking in the rain, but satisfied ;)

Real Survivors

I've been blogwalking, (which I happens to do a lot lately) and stumbled on pretty amazing blogposts though..

See, all my life I live in Malaysia. So I never experienced living in any other countries (well, a one week trip could not be considered as living rite?) . My first overseas trip was to Phillipines, and back then I was already worried about food. Pinoys have pork in almost all of their dishes. It is almost impossible to find a halal eateries in central Manila. I went to an outskirt area, about 2-3 hours drive from Manila, Tabangao, where there is no Muslim at all. Strict vegetarian is close to non-existence, said my Pinoy colleague. So to prepare for the trip, my colleague and I packed ourselves loads of Maggie Mee, crackers, squashed bread and Campbell Instant soup, good for one week ;) We survived just fine.

See, I came across many blogs that belongs to Malaysian living abroad, and more often than not the blogs talk about what else? Malaysians top craze, FOOD. Living in different countries, they have shared how they managed to whipped up some Malaysian food. Most of the things that we totally take for granted. Those things that when I crave for it, it will be just a 10-15 minutes drive away.

For instance, there is this one lady who lived in Doha, made her own mee kuning!! We here in Malaysia bought the yellow mee in market, and off late many consumer reports came up with findings that higher bromic acid are detected in these products. Plus, there has been too many consumer reports exposing unhygenic premise producing such product. Now, making it from scratch is a much better options right? I think so.

I also found about a lady who made 'apam balik' , something that is available on daily basis (at least in most part of peninsular Malaysia). Just the other day, I read about some Malaysian student in UK craving some 'cendol' and a colleague just explaining during lunch time on how she used to help her cousin make cendol when she was small.

Living outside their comfort zone has caused these people to be creative, going the extra mile just to savour the exact same delicacies that we can get anytime we want. So what does this tells me? Instead of just buying it, why not try to make it?

Suddenly I feel the urge of making something, ideas?... ;)

Carrot Cake

I almost forgot!! To Cik Aida, here's the recipe. Very easy and I think you'll pass in no time ;)

Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups grated carrot, about 3-4 carrots
2 tablespoons orange juice
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 1/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

How to make it:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (~175 degC). Grease and flour a 9 inch square baking pan. In a large bowl, beat together the eggs and sugar until creamy. Stir in the vegetable oil until well combined. Add the grated carrots, orange juice and walnuts and mix well. Add the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg and stir until just combined. Pour into prepared baking pan and bake for 25 - 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow cake to cool and then frost.

Normally carrot cake is glazed with cream cheese frosting. Just beat the cream cheese, with some sugar and lemon juice (ni main agak2, no specific measurement, to suit your taste bud), but I normally serve as is, malas nak sapu cream cheese, nak-nak kalo buat cuppies, banyak keje.. :)

Selamat mencuba ye puan-puan ;)

What's Up Doc?

When I'm bored....I bake, when I feel like I need to do something...I bake, when I feel like tasting something different....I bake and definitely when I'm happy, guess what? I bake too ;)

My catalyst loading went well yesterday, and I decided to bake something as a reward to myself. I actually had this oven quite some time already, made few stuffs on it already, namely my almost famous Eggless Pinwheel cookies and what else, my favorite, carrot cake.

(rupa ada sikit buruk..coz yours truly masih in beginner stage, but the taste is superb!!)

So went back after Maghrib, head to PD town to buy the ingredients. Nothing fancy just the normal flour, sugar, carrot and stuffs. I was making carrot cake, and the only exquisite ingredient is walnut. PD town only have 2 main supermarket (cowboy town, what do you expect?) So I went to The Store, and suprise, suprise...they don't have walnut, not even almond, what more pistachio. The only nuts that they have is kacang panggang cap tangan, stocks for CNY ;p

So I tried the other store, Billion, and they have it, just that 50 gm cost RM 4.50!! I would need 200gm, easily RM18. So the next best thing is salted cashew..hahahaha...belasah la, janji bukan kacang panggang cap tangan.

I went back, make the batter and started baking.

I used my 'tried and works' recipe and instead of baking it in a pan, I bake it in small cups. To ease the eating process later ;) So I bake two tiers, set for 20 mins. The lower one took more than 20 mins to get done. The top one only took like 15 mins and it starts to crack.

I took it out, sample one of it, tasted weird though.... The carrot is not cooked and even the bottom is not browned yet.

The lower tier was done in ~30 mins. So I have to re-bake the top layer to make it cooked nicely. At first I thought because it was much smaller compared to pan, it would take shorter time to cook, but boy was I wrong. So lesson learnt, carrot cake is carrot cake, it will need the time to properly cook the carrot, irregardless the size.

And this morning this is the results. The biggest is for Ops, blue container for Lab people and smallest for Shafiq & Jignesh.

Year End BBQ

Tangan gatal nak menulis but I don't know where I put my camera cable and just writing won't do justice to the story. Anyhoo...we had the BBQ last Wednesday. May people turned up but we still have lots of leftovers.

Some prep work behind the scenes...

The guys started lighting up the fire at 5.30pm ish, I rushed home to make the main dish, Vege Fried Rice and Seafood Fried Meehon. Arrived back in Sports Club around 7.00 pm. Already there were one batch of burned chicken... hehehe.....

The weather does not look good, dark clouds were all over us. And right in the middle of the sea I can see the rain is pouring, not a good sign. While some of us moved the food to dining area, which is quite far from BBQ area, the rest of us are still hopeful and even continue 'burning' the chicken under umbrella..huhuhu...

Half of the crowd...the rest under shades, out of the picture ;)

Somebody suggested we should have games, but everybody is so caught up catching up and trying to rescue burnt chicken, so we did not played any games.

Finish clearing up around 11pm-ish, had a lot of helping hands, glad that we managed to pull this through ;) If we can get the same crowd, definitely we can do it again next year.

Halal Meat

In the spirit of being Malaysian (not 1Malaysia), I'd love to share this funny video on 'halal' meat ;)

More of these from http://15malaysia.com/films/

Another one that I like is the Potong Saga

p/s: two thumbs up for me knowing how to embed video (says IT blind gal)

Oaty Morning

Am at work on Friday morning, the day before the long CNY break. It’s rather quiet, and my breakfast ‘kaki’ is not in.

• 9.30 a.m – decided to have a look at pantry, see what they have left. Hopes are high as my stomach starts singing, only to be disappointed by the cleaned trays, no more left.
• 9.40 a.m – went out to the canteen, waa…so many people, yet no one I know. Have a peek at the counter, no kuih, all heavy stuffs, uh-uh….no.
• 9.50 a.m – walk back to office, first time ever regret that I missed breakfast
• 10.00 a.m – decided to have my OWN made breakfast and voila…

Recipe:
1 packet of 3 in one Instant Quaker Oat Chocolate flavoured
10 tbsp of Quickcook Oatmeal
1 whole mandarine oranges (free supplies for the CNY)
1 cup hot water

Am I healthy or what :)

Makan @ my place

I moved to this new house early of the year and since then people from work has been bugging me to host a housewarming party. Having postponed it for quite some time, I think Raya is the best time to deliver. Since the landlord leaves most of kitchen utensils, my life gets more easier!!

So here are some pictures of last nite's food :


Kuah lodeh, nasi himpit and rendang in the making..

The serving...
Total spread
Kek Lapis from Miri..yummeh..

The people......
BY, me , NKOTB
Most of us