Friday 25 February 2005

Fried Rice With Chinese Sausage



Looks yummy or not? Hehehe I guess must be the colour of this photo or was it because I've used extra virgin olive oil instead?

Fried rice is one of the simplest one meal dish to muster up. All one needed is some over night cooked rice and whatever other ingredients you could find in your fridge ranging from eggs, sausages, Chinese sausages, French or long beans, mixed vegetables, meat, onions, sardines, green peas... well the list is endless.

This time I've Chinese sausages, French beans and eggs on hand. First I scrambled the eggs in some oil and set aside. Next, I stir fry the skinned and thinly sliced sausages in olive oil. Dunk in the diced French beans and stir. Add in some salt and pepper. Rice is added next and give them a good stir. Scooped up some rice and tasted it. Added more salt. Sometimes I do not use any salt at all and in place, I use light soya sauce, other times oyster sauce is added in. Dump in the scrambled eggs and stir till well mixed. Dish out and pig out!!!

Wednesday 23 February 2005

Yuanxiao Festival, also known as Lantern Festival



Falling on the 15th day of the first month of the Lunar Year, Yuanxiao (in Mandarin, Yuan literarily means "First" while Xiao refers to "night") Festival, more popular known as Chap Goh Mei (in Hokkien) in Malaysia. It is part of and the last day of the Chinese New Year and marks the end of the New Year celebrations.

It is traditionally a time for family reunion. The most prominent activity of the Yuanxiao Festival is the display of all types of beautiful lanterns. So the occasion is also called the Lantern Festival.

Yuanxiao Festival is also popularly referred to as Chinese Valentine’s Day. In the past, it was the only day of the year that a single woman could go out (chaperoned) and be seen by eligible bachelors. Now, many single people gather at the festival, and some play matchmaking games with the lanterns. Young ladies would converge to throw mandarin oranges into the sea wishing to get a good life partner.

Everything will be back to normal tomorrow especially those Chinese owned businesses where all staff will be back at work on full force. Sighhh this means the traffic in KL is going to be all time high again!!!

Wishing everyone a good year ahead and happy celebrating Chap Goh Mei!

Tuesday 22 February 2005

Pak Nien Hoe Hup



Pak Nien Hoe Hup literally translated means still being together after 100 years. This is a very popular dessert served at Chinese wedding banquet. I made this during Chinese New Year as this sounded kinda like a prosperity dish hehehe...

Anyway, this is one of the simplest tong sui (sweet soup in Cantonese) as it contained 3 ingredients - dried longan, dried lily bulb and dried lotus seeds. Simply boil all of them in a pot of water until the dried lotus seeds turned soft. Alternatively, you can steam the lotus seeds first before adding to the soup. Well, I was lazy, hence, I dunk everything into the pot. Add in rock sugar to taste. You can serve it either hot or chilled. We liked both versions!

Friday 18 February 2005

Our First Day of New Year Dish

It's usually a one dish vegetarian meal. A pretty simple dish and one can play with the various ingredients that can be cooked together. It's simply amazing. Err it doesn't even have a proper name cos usually people will just name it Tzai Choy (vegetarian dish in Cantonese).

The ingredients that one can put in are deep fried beancurd sheet, gluten, glass noodles (also known as bean noodle), cabbage, Chinese cabbage, black mushroom, shimeiji mushrooms, golden needle mushrooms (enoki), black fungus, cloud ears fungus, dried lily bud, fatt choy (Cantonese for black moss) and so forth. One can omit or include any of these ingredient. The essence of this dish is actually the usage of lam yue (Cantonese for red fermented beancurd).

What I do is usually deep fried the dried beancurd sheet. Once that is done, remove the oil and leave some in the wok. Add in lam yue into hot oil. Stir and mash them up until it's fragrant. Next add in cabbage and fry them for a while. Add in the ingredients that you're using one by one starting with those that take longer to cook first. I add in the glass noodle last as that can crushed up easily.

Lastly add in some water and cover the wok. Braise till the cabbage is soften. Add salt to taste and voila... a yummy vegetarian dish to be served on the first day of Chinese New Year!

Tuesday 15 February 2005

What's Inside the Little Blue Box???

After the removal of the signature white ribbon and cover...



I guess one must be paying a lot for it's "packaging"!! The suede pouch is so lovely to caress. AND this was what I got from my darling...





It's a sterling silver 1837 Collection™ ring, hallmarked with T&CO and the year Tiffany was established.

It was actually something he HAD liked whilst browsing thru their website sometime last year. Hence, he got himself one too!!!

His & Hers...







Preview of the Little Blue Box

Monday 14 February 2005

Happy Valentine's Day!!!!

This is to the crown and blessing of my life,
The much loved husband of a happy wife;
To him whose constant passion found the art
To win a stubborn and ungrateful heart,
And to the world by tenderest proof discovers
They err, who say that husbands can't be lovers...
~ Anne Finch



Wishing everyone a very Happy Valentine's Day!

PSSSTTT, I've got a surprise gift in a BLUE BOX!!!!! Awwwwww... hubby is sooo scweeettt cos it must have been a while since he last bought me something on this day as things got overly commercialised. Will show you guys what it is later.

Thank you, love! I love you :x

Friday 4 February 2005

Xin Nien Kwai Le

Come 9th February 2005, Chinese will celebrate the lunar new year, fondly known as Chinese New Year in this part of the globe. This is one of the major festival celebrated by the Chinese all around the world. It's an occasion to pay respect to the elders, family and friends by visiting them during this auspicious season.

There are a lot of things I can write about this but time is an essence. So I'll do the shortcut way hehehe sorry ok. Check out Renee's rendition of the New Year (in Singapore though).

This will be my last day of work for the year of Monkey. My office will only be opened on 15th February 2005 at 9.15am to welcome the year of Rooster, well it was supposedly an auspicious time and date to do so. So my blog will be going on leave too unless I find some time to squeeze in to write in between the visitings, dinners, snackings and drinking.

Will blog about my lunch today with Leo, Ed and LC over at Hong Ngek over at Jalan Tun HS Lee. We had half portion of Yue Sang (Raw Fish Salad in Cantonese) even though there are only 4 of us. What the heck but it was a good choice.

Yue Sang also known as Low Hei (means prosperous) is uniquely started off from Kuala Lumpur in those days where our forefathers who came from China to Malaya to trade and work in the tin mines. They missed their family back in China during the festive season, hence, created this dish to usher in the New Year with lots of prosperity.

This dish consisted of shredded carrots, radish, pickles (sorry I'm not sure of the exact ingredients), ginger, pomelo and so forth. Topped with some fried cracker puffs, peanut and sesame seeds, plum sauce, peanut oil and of course slices of raw fish (usually grass carp is used but due to commercialisation salmon, tuna, abalone, lobster, clams etc are available too) which is mixed with some pepper and 5 spice powder.

Once everything is poured into the plate, all diners will raise their chopsticks and start to low hei or low sang (toss). Good wishes and tidings will be mentioned by all whilst tossing the Yue Sang, hoping the new year will being in all the good tidings.

This is the dish before tossing.



Leo mixing the raw fish with pepper and 5 spice powder.



The tossing of our Yue Sang with chopsticks. Pardon my translation ok hehehe... Tidings heard were Poe Poe Go Sing (promotion in work to greater heights), Sun Tei Kien Hong (good health), Chuk Ed Fai Tit Sang Farn Guo Kai Tzai (hehehe wish Ed faster have a newborn baby Rooster) and many more...



This Hong Ngek was packed to the brim today even though Leo had booked a table. Thank goodness the dishes came out fast. This Mun Yee Meen (braised egg noodles) came right after we finish our Yue Sang. Done ala Hokkien Mee style, hence it's very dark in colour due to the thick soya sauce used in KL. Tasty and have lots of ingredients in there ie meat, shrimps, fishcakes, squid and lots of choy sum (errr I think its mustard green).



Next up is one of my fave, Fried Pak Kor Meen (fried rice cake where certain place this pak kor is also known as Shanghai Nin Go) ala Hokkien Mee style too but has a whole lot more of gravy than Mun Yee Meen. They have the similar ingredients with the addition of Chinese Parsley which gave a hint of flavouring that I liked. Yummm...



Close up on how pak kor in the shape of an oval looked like.



We added one Tong San Mai (China Bee Hoon or China Rice Noodles). Not sure how the name came about but this is the typical fried rice noodles quite similar to Hokkien Mee but drier. Hey, I know how to cook this hehehe... Next time ok I'll blog about it. Leo liked this dish.



We order one side dish which I did not grasp its Chinese name but it's vegetarian gluten stuffed with fish paste which were deep fried before coating with a sweetish honey sauce. Hmm this one I like. Something different from the usual Crab Meatball which Hong Ngek is famous for.



That's what we have for lunch today and hopefully we get to have another round of Low Hei during the new year. Err Chinese New Year is celebrated for 15 days hehehe...

I'll leave here with this. Will keep my fingers crossed for some time to blog about new year celebration. Oooooo I can now imagine all the lovely dishes and snacks like pineapple tarts, cookies, kueh kapit... waiting for me. WOW!!!!

Kung Hei Fatt Choi to all of you.

Thursday 3 February 2005

A Vietnamese Gem In A Foodcourt

Sorry for the long silence. I've been busy plus with so many public holidays around, I was away from work and busy preparing for Chinese New Year festival. More on that later.

Hmmm it's kinda hard to let out this secret gem but then I love to share good food with friends especially good find. This Vietnamese stall is located in Bukit Bintang Plaza's Foodcourt. This foodcourt is located at the basement where Johnny Steamboat and Rasa Utara are. Can be access via escalator near Guardian or via Metrojaya's Men's Department.

It's run by a Vietnamese family and I would say their food tasted great for what they're are charging.

Check out their prices on the menu. Reasonable ain't it?



This is their delicious Ginger Chicken and Mushroom Fried Rice. Reminded me of my confinement food actually. This rice has chicken strips and oyster mushroom strips fried with lots of ginger strips. It's very very fragrant even though I don't really fancy ginger. They have the beef version too.

Deep fried rice rolls are freshly deep fried. The skin is crispy whilst the ingredient detected inside are glass noodle, minced chicken, black ear fungus, can't remember if it has any carrot strips in there though. We like this a lot as its crispy and crunchy, best dipped in the accompanying dip of soya sauce, chillies and fish sauce.



Close up of the fried rice.



This one is Noodle Salad which I absolutely love. Main ingredients are beehoon (rice noodle), shredded carrots and cucumber, lettuce and deep fried rice rolls. There is a sprinkling of crushed peanut and served with a bowl of sauce [tasted some soya sauce, fish sauce, bird eye chillies (cili padi in Malay) and more crushed peanut] which you are supposed to drizzle all over your noodle salad before eating.



This stall serves Chicken Chop ala Vietnamese style too with some white rice. Can't comment as I've not tried this. From the look of it, seems nice. Maybe next time.



Their beef and beef ball noodles are not too bad either but I personally find the soup lacking something cause I've tasted better pho in Australia. The portion is quite generous though.



You can also opt for their Curry Chicken with plain rice. Their main dish of the day usually varies from day to day. Once, I tasted this wonderful beancurd stuffed to the brim with glassnoodle cooked in mince chicken and black fungus. It was superb!



Well the secret is out... it's time to pay them a visit soon!


Blog Revamping

Hello... I'm in the midst of revamping my blog to make my life a little easier. So do not be alarmed as work is still under construction.

Cheers,
Babe_KL
16 Oct 2012