Merdeka Open House 2008: Calling for Suggestion

Updated 31 July 2008 14:00

Comments closed, decided theme is Mee and My Malaysia.

Updated 30 July 2008 15.15pm.

Suggestion will be accepted till midnite, so please keep them coming.


Updated 28 July 2008 4:30pm. 29 July 2008 12.25pm.

Will float this up on top of my blog till Wednesday.


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Originally posted on 25 July 2008 12:05pm

If you have been following my blog since 2006, you might be aware of this virtual open house that I have been hosting on Merdeka Day for the past 2 years. How time flies, we're almost a month away from our National Day which got me into panic mode since I've not done anything yet for this year's event.

For the newbies, here are the gists... all you need to do is cook something to the theme of the open house. Submit your entry or entries to me via email. Post up the entry in your blog. Come 31st August 2008, I will round up all the entries here. If you do not have a blog, don't fret, I will post it up for you. Easy peasy!

Now, how about helping me to come out with this year's theme? Our first open house was all about long forgotten Malaysian recipes and the second was Muhibbah. Kindly leave your suggestions in the comment box by 30th July 2008 (next Wednesday), then I will run a poll to pick the most favourable theme. Please publicise this project or tell your fellow Malaysian bloggers or friends or family about this or best if you drag them to participate. Thank you.

I'm sooo looking forward to this year's theme! So hurry yah...


Some history here:
Check how the first open house came about. Year 2006 theme was Malaysian Recipes Long Forgotten and just look at the mouth-watering dishes that Malaysian bloggers have cooked for 2006.

Year 2007, I got some suggestions then I ran a poll to pick the theme - Muhibbah. It was very muhibbah indeed with some exotic grubs from East Malaysia!


Technorati Tags: Merdeka Open House 2008

Review: MG's Cafe

I used to eat this particular onigiri that hubby brought back after his prayer session. The nori sheet is kept crisp due to the creative wrapping designed. He has no idea where they got it from except that they're of vegetarian nature. However, I noticed there is a sticker with the logo MG's on it.

One afternoon after dropping off my boiboi for his cooking class at The Cooking House, hubby and I wandered around the neighbourhood and bumped into this MG's Cafe. Hey presto! I've found THE MG's haha very happy ok cos we really liked their onigiri.

We walked in and oo-ahs over their cakes, pastries and of course onigiris. They don't looked "vegetarian" at all!!! Best part was... one can just look at the logo on the labels to check if that particular item contains eggs or not!!! Fabulous! Other than selling these, MG's Cafe also serves food ranging from snacks, noodles, rice and individual meals.

Since we have 2 hours to kill, other than having onigiris, the server recommended us their Fried Chicken (RM8.50). She said it tastes like the real thing. Gosh I think we got suckered into it! The nuggets looked good and smelt good... somehow they doesn't tasted like chicken nor the texture was anywhere near one hahaha... Duh we were expecting them to be like those served at normal vegetarian restaurants. She mentioned they're primarily made outta some kind of beans that I can't remember nor know how to pronounce since she only knew the name in Mandarin. The nugget is crispy on the outside but kinda like potato croquet on the inside. Best eaten dipped in chilli sauce. The chicken is served with coleslaw and mash potatoes. The coleslaw was ok but the mash is lousy. I think those are powdered ones and tasted horribily FAKE. We left the lump untouched after tasted a small bite.



I picked a brown rice with tuna onigiri (RM3.50) as shown on the left whilst hubby had a sambal dried shrimp onigiri (RM3.20). The triangle shaped rice snack are wrapped in nori with loads of fillings in the centre. The tuna and sambal dried shrimp tasted like the real thing, just don't ask me how but they do. We loved them both!



Hubby had a cup of chamomile tea (RM3.80) and myself, a very delicious cup of hot milo (RM3.30). The milo brought back loads of memory as it tasted almost like school days' milo van version.

If you fancy some yummilicious onigiri and vegetarian cakes, head on to MG's Cafe.

MG's Cafe
Vegetarian Cafe & Bakery
38-G Jalan 27/70A
Desa Sri Hartamas
50480 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 603-2300 3118
Click here for map

Other branches:
Taipan
47 Jalan USJ 10/1A
UEP Subang Jaya
Tel: 603-5631 3023

Sunway
7-G Jalan PJS 11/28
Sunway Metro
Bandar Sunway
Tel: 603-5638 1295


Technorati Tags: vegetarian

Tropical Durian Cake

My colleague gave me a huge tub of Thai durian last week. Since the durian flesh is of the hard type, it's not really great to eat them straight. Even though they're fragrant but tasted kinda bland. She told me to make something with them instead. I had to blend the flesh with my hand held blender to turn them into pulp like texture.

I did a trial run last week using Agnes Chang's recipe and the cake turned out to be perfect!!! The texture of the cake is fine and moist. No doubt the durian was tasteless but somehow the cake turned out rather fragrant. This durian cake recipe is really a winner!

All test bunnies loved the cake, well perhaps they are all durian lovers heh.

Tropical Durian Cake

(A)
250g butter
200g caster sugar

4 eggs

(B)
180g durian flesh, added (I've used 250g)
4 tbsp milk
1/2 tsp durian essence, optional (omitted)

(C)
240g self-raising flour, sifted
1 tbsp custard powder, sifted (omitted)
1/4 tsp salt

1. Cream (A) till light. Add eggs one at a time, creaming well after each addition.

2. Fold in half of (B) and half of (C) mixture till well combined. Fold in remaining (B) and (C) mixture till well mixed.

3. Pour cake mixture into a lined and greased 20cm (8") round baking tin. Bake in pre-heated oven at 180C for about 45-50 mins until golden brown and cooked (I've used 2 loaf tins and only needed 40 mins to cook).

4. Remove cake, leave to cool, cut into pieces and serve as snack.

Ref: Agnes Chang, I Can Bake, pg 18

Technorati Tags: durian + cake

Dong Sum Soup

Dong Sum (dang shen in Mandarin or codonopsis pilosula) is said to be able to increase blood cells, hence this herb is usually served to new mother every day either boiled as soup or cooked with red dates and drank it like water.

Since I didn't errrmm actually gave birth, technically... I was just fed with soup of dong sum, red dates, kei chi and chicken carcass boiled for 3 hours. Dong sum has a natural sweet taste and this soup can be drank by virtually anyone.




Technorati Tags: confinement food

Devil’s Food Cupcake Ice Cream Cones

The cupcake pic shown yesterday was an experimental piece of this recipe I've gotten after watching an episode of Chef at Home during my recovery period. Chef Michael Smith whipped up a batch of Devil’s Food Cupcake Ice Cream Cones for a Halloween Party which of course looked soooo simple on screen. I was thinking of sending a batch of these cupcakes for my boiboi's birthday celebration at the kindy, but I might change my mind since I still have a month more to experiment.

The laziness in me did not even read the recipe carefully earlier and some sort got into panic mode after I started measuring the ingredients! First the cake part... eh, how come no flour one??? I had to check the recipe again online which really does not contain any flour... so I strived on. The next thing I knew, darn... how much is 4 packages of gelatin??? Urghhh I had to checked online again for the amount which I came to a rough estimate. If you're from Canada, can you please let me know what's the weight for 1 package of gelatin... mamabok, any idea??

Anyway, the cake does rise nicely but as it neared the last bit in the oven, some of them got overflowed. However, this flourless cake tasted FANTASTIC! All test bunnies loved the chocolatey and fudgy cake. Since I only have 12 cones, the rest of the batter I baked them into cupcakes which is fine but some did overflowed cos I filled them up quite full. Best is to fill them half way through. There were concerned of the cones toppling over but it didn't happened even though some bloggers did mentioned theirs did.

Tip: For an easier job, pour the batter into a jug or a pyrex measuring cup or any vessels with spout before pouring the batter into the cones or paper cups.



As for the marshmallow topping, as far as I remembered, I didn't recall Michael using any marshmallows. I think there must be a flaw in the recipe as the ingredient did mention about them but no where in the method said anything about adding marshmallows. I did have them on hand but I omitted the marshmallow. I know I have bad memory but certainly NOT that bad haha...

I did as it instructed, whisking the mixture but I think I've under used the amount of gelatin (2 tbsp, so I think it needs more than this amount). It took me more than one hour of whisking with my Kitchen Aid, of course with many breaks in between as the motor seems to be heating up and I was too chickened to just my precious to go on and on without any breaks. And that too, it refuses to come to a stiff peak, so I gave up. The topping came out to be ok and I can just spoon it instead of piping them on.

As always, I tend to use less sugar in my cakes which made this combination worked so well. The SWEET marshmallow topping complimented the cake hand-in-hand. If you don't mind testing flawed marshmallow topping recipe, do give this a try...

Devil’s Food Cupcake Ice Cream Cones

For the Cake:
8 oz dark chocolate, chopped
1-cup butter
1.5 cups brown sugar
1-tablespoon vanilla
6 eggs
1-cup cocoa
2 dozen flat-bottomed ice cream cones

For the Marshmallow “Ice Cream” topping:
24 large marshmallows
2 cups of water
2 cups of sugar
1 cup of corn syrup
4 packages of gelatin
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of other optional flavour extract, lemon, orange, rum

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

For the Cake:
Melt the chocolate and butter together in a medium bowl set over a simmering pot of water. Remove from the heat and stir in the sugar, vanilla, eggs and cocoa. Mix well.

Place ice cream cones on a baking sheet and fill with batter, leaving a small space at the top to allow for the rising of the cake. Bake for 20 minutes. Cool completely before adding the marshmallow.


For the Marshmallow:
Pour the water, sugar and syrup into a small pot. Sprinkle the gelatin over the surface of the mixture and gently whisk the mixture until the gelatin and sugar dissolves.

Bring the mixture to a simmer, heating it just long enough to melt the gelatin and sugar. It does not need to come to a simmer but it does need to get hot to the touch. Rub some of the mixture between your fingers. If it does not feel gritty and the mixture is very hot move on to the next step.

Add the vanilla and optional flavoring and using a stand mixer begin whipping the mixture on high. At this point you have two options. You may whip until the marshmallows look like soft whipped cream and the bowl feels cools to the touch then pour it into a lightly oiled 9x13 baking pan until it sets then cut it into squares. You may also continue whipping until the marshmallow resembles a stiff meringue and easily holds its shape in stiff peaks then pipe it out.

As the marshmallow cools the gelatin begins to firm up allowing the mixture to absorb air and increase in volume. To test the degree of whipping dip, a spoon into the mixture then remove it and invert it. Watch how the mixture slumps off the spoon. For best results it should be beaten past the point that it holds a soft peak almost to the point that it has stiffened and holds a stiff peak…

Working quickly spoon the marshmallow into a zippered plastic bag and cut off one corner. Pipe onto top of ice cream cones, and garnish with candy sprinkles.

Source: Chef Michael Smith

Technorati Tags: cupcake

My Blog is FOUR today!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Hmmm... time flies especially when one is having fun. I've never realised that I could be doing this for so long, with today entering my 4th year of blogging.

Just wanna wish Babe in the City - KL, happy 4th anniversary and may more goodies come paving your way!

Sea Coconut, White Fungus, Dried Longan and Gingko Nut Tong Shui

I've posted this up before but this time I got a better pic to show.



Check my older posts about this tong shui.


Technorati Tags: tong shui

Chicken and Black Fungus With Wine Soup

No need introduction... this is the standard classic confinement food fare. You can try this even though you're not under confinement, just reduce the amount of ginger and/or wine. Yummy to be eaten with mee sua or noodles.

Chicken and Black Fungus With Glutinous Wine Soup

1 free-range chicken drumstick, cut into pieces
50g shredded ginger
20g black fungus, soaked and shredded
100ml glutinous rice wine (can be replaced with ginger wine)
300ml water
1 tbsp sesame oil

1. Heat sesame oil and add in ginger. Fry until ginger is crispy before adding the black fungus.

2. Add in the chicken pieces, stir-fry till aromatic. Pour in wine and water, bring to boil.

3. Lower the heat and simmer for about 15 mins until chicken is tender. Dish up and serve immediately.

Technorati Tags: confinement food

Stir-Fried Eggplants With Minced Fish

I'm going to post this up today. Something very easy for you to try over the weekend. This is a healthy and fabulous recipe which I've learnt to pre-cooked eggplants with water instead of pre-frying them in oil. Pre-frying in oil caused the eggplants to soak up the oil like sponge.

Roughly following this method from The Best of Patsie Chong - Pregnancy & Confinement recipe book, I fried the fish paste and set aside. Then I heated some oil and stir-fried some garlic till fragrant. Next, I added in the eggplant and stir. Pour in the sauce and add in kei chi and fish paste. Stir and dish up. I did not use cornflour solution since I did not add in much water and it was pretty dry already.

Stir-Fried Eggplants With Minced Fish

(A)
400g
eggplants/brinjal
150g minced fish meat/paste
1 tbsp kei chi (boxthorn/lycium/Chinese wolfberry)
2 tbsp spring onions, diced

(B)
1 tbsp abalone sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 cup broth

cornflour solution

1. Cut eggplants into sections. Put eggplants and 3 tbsp of water in a pot. Cover and cook until steam appears. Remove and set aside.

2. Heat 2 tbsp of oil in wok. Separate fish paste into pieces with spatula. Stir-fry until cooked.

3. Add in eggplants, kei chi and (B). Stir well. Stir in cornflour solution.

4. Sprinkle spring onions. Dish up and serve.

Ref: The Best of Patsie Chong - Pregnancy & Confinement

Technorati Tags: malaysian food + eggplant + confinement food

Review: CANTON-i at 1 Utama

**Non-Halal**

Tucked near TGIF/Burger King, Canton-i can be easily missed out if not for those yummilicious looking roast meats that hung up on the rack right beside the entrance. You can see the chef chopping up plates and plates of roast meat like char siu, siew yuk, roast duck etc. Canton-i is the Cantonese sister of Dragon-i which is of Shanghainese cuisine in nature.

Looking narrow on the outside, I was surprised to be brought to the back of the restaurant where it opens up. However, the tables were placed very very close to one and another. It can be rather uncomfortable, plus it's not so convenient to snap photos in secret hahaha luckily I was just using my mobile for that. Well, in actual fact, not only that, I can virtually hear the conversation next table!

Anyway, here was what hubby ordered... fresh noodles (sang meen or usually known as wantan noodles) with char siu and siew yuk. I had a slice of the siew yuk and it was really yummy. Crunching on the crispy skin was delectable indeed.



I asked for the usual char siu and wantan (meat dumplings) with fresh noodles. I loved the bouncy noodles and the gravy for the dry version, just the way wantan mee should be like. The char siu was nice but since I'm greedy, I would say there are too few slices served hehe..



I ordered siew mai and egg tarts for my boiboi to snack on. The siew mai is packed with solid meat and fresh crunchy prawns which my boiboi ate 3 up!



Now, I have to say that these egg tarts are absolutely gorgeous! The pastry is flaky and crispy whilst the egg custard is wobbly, creamy and eggy. They're simply out of this world!



This is one place that we will definitely return for more... which I'm sure my boiboi would love too.




CANTON-i
G-208 Ground Floor
1 Utama Shopping Mall
No. 1 Lebuh Bandar Utama
Bandar Utama, Damansara
Tel: 603-7729 7888

Technorati Tags: cantonese food + 1 utama

Mui Choy Chue Yuk

**Non-Halal**

Mui Choy Chue Yuk (braised mui choy with pork slices) is a favourite dish amongst many of us. Most times they're cooked with pork belly or at times chicken. There are two types of mui choy (a type of preserved vegetable) - salty or sweet. We usually use the sweet one cos they're not exactly sweet per se as the salty one tends to be overly salty.

To prepare the mui choy, one need to rinse the mui choy carefully, going thru the leaves as there may be sands tucked in there. Next soak them for say 30 minutes or more to get rid of the saltiness before chopping them up for usage.

Cooking Mui Choy Chue Yuk is pretty simple. Marinade lean pork strips with some soy sauce, sesame oil and some cornflour. Heat some oil in a wok and fry the pork strips a bit till they're cooked. Add in the mui choy and stir. Pour in some water and adjust seasonings by adding dark soy sauce or abalone sauce (usually it's oyster sauce but since it's confinement food, oyster sauce is omitted). Place the lid on and braise on low heat for 20 mins or until pork and mui choy are tender. Alternatively, this dish can be cooked with chicken meat. For a healthier dish, you can steam them instead.



This is usually how my meal looked like at my parents', very simple. One dish, in this case Mui Choy Chue Yuk; blanched vegetables mixed with some sesame oil and soy sauce; and rice (pictured was 10 grains rice) plus the standard soup.


Technorati Tags: confinement food

Homemade Chicken Essence

One of the nourishing soup I had is Chicken Essence after the nasty episode. Nope, not those straight from the bottle. The homemade style. I drank this during my confinement after giving birth to my boiboi. This soup made me super alert and kept me awake at most times hahaha that I totally banned it!

The process is pretty tedious to me, as usually one have to smash up one whole kampung (free-range) chicken with a pestle, bones and all. Then these are placed on top of an over-turned porcelain bowl inside a double-boiler. Put on the lid and double-boil the smashed chicken for 3 hours. The essence of the chicken will drip under the bowl. Remove the chicken and the bowl gently and drink up the essence.

Note: When you first open the double-boiler lid, you won't see much liquid inside as shown on the left pic. Don't fret, the essense hid underneath the bowl!



Well, that was the usual way of making chicken essence but this method produces a fair bit of oil. What my mom did was to use lean breast meat from 3 (yes THREE!!! That's a freaking whole lot of chickens that we have been eating every other day!) kampung chickens instead. For a bit of variation, a few slices of dong guai (angelica) can be added underneath the bowl.

My colleague had taught me some years back to make this Chicken Essence. He also told me to reserve the cooked chicken and use it the next day to boil soup. We tried that and the soup turned out tasting sweet as he had mentioned.

Technorati Tags: confinement food

Penang Makan Discoveries in June 2008 Part 2

We brunched at Kek Seng Kopitiam which is located along Penang Road, just across from Komtar. I remember having ice-cream here when I was really young like perhaps 7 years old? Geee... been so long since I last stepped into this kopitiam. I still remember the booth seats haha... and they're still there.

I got myself fried mee jawa (RM2.50), yeah FRIED. First time I came across a fried one. It came dry, like normal fried mee but this one tasted a bit tangy. Not bad at all and luckily the portion is not too much cos my hubby went overboard and ordered so much stuff.



Hubby got a plate of char koay teow which is nothing to shout about since there were better ones.



We ordered 3 pieces of popiah basah and 4 pie tees (RM5.80) from a stall, opted to have some broth over the popiah. Sighhh after the Padang Brown's version, this really pales in comparison but its really not that bad. We loved the pie tee though with my boiboi finishing two. Topping the turnips fillings were strips of omelette. The chilli sauce went very well with the whole combi.





We also have a plate of loh bak (RM6.80) which consisted of 2 items ie. ngoh hiang and something like cucur udang.



My boiboi got a bowl of koay teow tng (RM2.50) which he can't finish. Not that it wasn't good, just that there were too many other distractions like pie tee and popiah on the table haha. Moreover, he was eyeing the ice-cream and jelly at our next table. Most prolly saving space for that later, smart boy there.



Thank goodness the portion were quite small, else there would have been wastage. Anyhow, we packed up those stuff that we can't finish. We need to leave room for these yummy homemade durian ice-cream!!!! They're so fragrant and smooth. They were served on an old school plate and came in the tiniest scoops ever! Darn... lucky thing we were quite stuffed, otherwise, not sure how many scoops we could down in one go.



Since my boiboi doesn't take durian, it was rather funny to see him telling the ahpek in his angmoh slang Cantonese (yeah yeah they understood Cantonese here haha) that he doesn't want durian ice-cream in his ice-kacang with jelly. Kekeke the ahpek ask him what flavour and he replied strawberry. There were a few options of ice-kacang here, the one here is red bean and corn that came with one piece of jelly and 2 scoops of ice-cream. Other than the strawberry, the other given is a peanut which if I'm not mistaken is another of their famous homemade ice-cream. The ice-cream plus ice-kacang costed RM5.20.



Hubby was craving for durians after all these and ask the ahpek where to get durians hahaha... Luckily they told him not to go Balik Pulau as they may be too expensive and gave him directions to get them else where. However, it's too bad we were too early for durians. There weren't any and told us to come back the next week for them! Sighhh... I missed all those thick, bitter sweetish ones from Balik Pulau.

On our way back to KL, we got caught in a massive jam for more than 2 freaking hours, well just to pass thru Jelapang toll! The next time we're going to skip PLUS! @$%&

Penang Makan Discoveries in June 2008 Part 1


Technorati tags: malaysian food + penang food

Penang Makan Discoveries in June 2008 Part 1

We took a short trip up to Penang during the June school holidays. We arrived way passed lunch hour since there was this crawl at the start of the Penang Bridge right till the end of it! Since it was kinda late, hubby took a chance and drove to Pulau Tikus. Now, for the 3rd time in 5 years, he had wanted me to try the siamese laksa at Swee Kong but each time either we were too early or they were closed for reasons known to themselves. We got lucky after getting a parking space with 30 minutes left in the meter to boost. Second time lucky when we walked into Swee Kong and found that the Siamese laksa stall is opened! Hubby quickly secured two bowls and I got something else for boiboi.

Here was the bowl of the elusive Siamese laksa!!! 5 freaking years before I can get a taste... bah. Maybe the long wait had cooked up a high expectation of this laksa, I think it was just all right. Nevertheless it was still good enough for us to lap up every single drop of soup from the bowl. It's quite similar to the assam laksa variety, just that this has santan in it but not a lot. My aunt used to make a killer Siamese laksa which explained why huh?



Needless to mentioned, we rushed to the back of this shop to get our bubur cha cha fix. Goodness, it still tasted sooo good... lots of sweet potatoes and yam.

That evening, we went out fairly early in search for dinner since my boiboi didn't ate much of his lunch. We checked with the concierge on how to get to New World Park after hearing so much of this place from the Penang bloggers. The Pak Cik took out a map and showed us. Whilst he was pointing, I saw the words Padang Brown and asked him about it. He was surprised that I've heard about it. I didn't tell him I got to know it via Lilian's blog haha... He said that place has got lots of hawker stalls where the locals would go. However, he said most of the Chinese stalls are open during the afternoons and the Malays would be open in the evenings.

With me being the navigator, we went thru the roads but somehow we missed New World Park. The next thing I knew, I saw the sign Padang Brown hahaha... Malaysia is really hopeless with the kinda signage they put up! Hubby swerved in and park, well, just to try our luck. Noticed over at the Chinese stalls side, there were only very few stalls remained opened. The rest were either closed or in the midst of cleaning up. You know, I was extremely happy to note the man selling popiah was sitting there lepaking. Hubby asked if he still has got any left and he nodded. Woooo, his face just like the one Lilian had posted haha.



Hubby ordered 4 popiahs (RM5.20) and guess what??? My boiboi whacked 2 on his own and I just knew why... cause this popiah IS the best that I've ever tasted!!! It has lots of crabmeats on top of the usual turnips fillings. Also, a first for us to have a clear broth ladle over the popiahs. The broth tasted of seafood, most likely from the crabs. Superb!



Hubby ordered the Pasembur (RM2.50) next to this popiah stall and some satay (RM4.00 for 10 sticks chicken satay) from a Malay stall. Sad to say, these two paled in comparison.

Not satisfied, we shoot off in search of New World Park. After taking some u-turns and we were back to the start of our hotel hehehe... this time, with the map in my mind, I look around and suddenly I saw this teeny weeny signage with arrow pointing to New World Park, apaler! Sighh we managed to locate the place finally. The moment we went inside the hawker stalls, hubby just have to choose to sit right in front of the drinks and dessert stall in the middle of the huge place. He was so tempted with the varieties of ice-kacangs and ice-creams. As we were quite full from our quick stop at Padang Brown, hubby just ordered a small plate of orh jien (oyster omelette). I tell you, for the price of RM5, you could never ever get such a huge plate of orh jien with fat juicy oyster in KL. Best of all, it tasted fantabulous. Next time, we will just zoom in here to grab our food hahaha cos there were quite a number of well patronised stalls.





I have seen and heard of Tee Nya kuih but it was my first time seeing it at this drink stall. So I packed one container back (RM2.00). Inside has a bag of gula melaka syrup to go with them. I tried them later that night. They're kuih like texture but not mushy though, however when I put them in my mouth, it's kinda like jelly. I just can't describe it. My hubby said out loud if only I can make this kuih since he never like the kuih I've made.

I've tried searching for this Tee Nya recipe in the net but there were none. Any Penangites have this recipe to share??


Technorati tags: malaysian food + penang food