To make a sandwich..............

being typically chinese malaysian..I never really had a thing for sandwiches until I went to australia. suddenly... sandwiches were the thing to have for lunch instead of hot noodles in soup or rice with meat and veg. I suppose asians like their meals hot anytime of the day [like porridge for breakfast!]. I failed miserably in my first attempt to make sandwiches, they were soggy and gross by the time we unwrapped them for lunch [never put wet lettuce and mayo next to the bread...]

so, making a good sandwich does take some planning and finesse. first, get some yummy but healthy ingredients. they MUST be balanced. that means..some protein..and some veg.
here, some rotiserrie chicken... sliced lettuce, capsicum and cucumber.

and cheese! I love colby cheese.......

get some nice bread rolls..or buns.

put the dry ingredients on the bread first so that anything wet will not soak into the bread [that'll make it soggy]

I like spicy salami but it's really really fattening!

arrange it like so: and there you go! an easy sandwich that you can take along anywhere...

the leftover ingredients can be mixed up into a big salad.


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reminiscing about tassie [that means....2 years ago!]

At salamanca market one morning we went to have morning tea and Alix ordered the fried English breakfast. full of cholesterol but isnt it soooooooooo yummy........
bacon.. [saturated fat] egg [cholesterol] on toast, grilled tomato [the only healthy thing] and black pudding [gross!]
still....there're few things as beautiful as this.

Sarawak's yummilicious delights

the thing i love most about sarawak is their laksa. a breakfast favourite, this spicy soupy dish is different from mainland laksa in that it has a strong belacan flavour and its soup is greyish from all the spices. it comes with a bit of sambal for those who want it spicier [and I always do!] and a squeeze of lime. topped off with chicken and shrimp, this really is the best thing about sarawak! I've been wanting to have it ever since my trip to Kuching and thankfully there's a lady who sells it at "nam chun" kopitiam in bangsar's lucky garden. we bought some laksa paste in kuching and tried to replicate it but somehow it didnt taste even half as good.

belacan beehoon. I'd never seen such a thing until I came here. it's some thick beehoon [rice noodles] with a sweetish black sauce and boiled squid. unusual but tasty.

not to be missed also, is the kolo mee. this stuff is addictive because of the fragrant flavourful pork fat used to coat the ramen type noodles before being topped with char siew [roast pork], minced pork, fried shallots and some sprigs of choy sum.

tri coloured tea is really popular here too, with gula melaka as the sweetener, topped with evaporated milk. the 3 layers look quite intereresting together.

while walking along the streets in the "city" we came across some crispy "woo kok" [deep fried yam dumplings filled with minced pork]
this isnt specific to sarawak but they just looked so tempting in the window display that i couldnt resist.

and siew pau [pork buns]

I really do love Sakae Sushi. it's so much nicer to eat here than sushi king or shogun. sushi king is really expensive and ambience is like a fast food place, and shogun's even more expensive with most of its fish not as fresh as you'd like it to be. so I think sakae sushi is my favourite one in terms of everything as it has nice and cozy ambience, nice food, and not so frightfully expensive than you'd have to sell an arm and a leg to eat there.
This teriyaki chicken don was nice. although I wonder how they get enough fibre. seems like all we eat at japanese restaurants are protein and carbs. the only veggies are the pickled ones or deep fried battered ones in the tempura....
this is their fried tofu which i found really yummy.

we also had these deep fried salmon and shrimp dumplings [inside it was flaked cooked salmon encasing a whole shrimp] servied with mayo and a sweetish dark sauce.

this place has the cheapest salmon sashimi. this place of sashimi with 4 slices was RM5.90

I love miso soup as always.

I think chawan mushi must be the japanese comfort food. soft,warm and flavourful, one cannot help but like this!

and my favourite: the spicy salmon sushi. chopped up raw salmon [i love!] mixed with...what might be yoghurt and spices. I dont know what the spices are except that they really are spicy. perhaps cayenne pepper? or chilli powder? I order this every time I go to sakae sushi. at RM1.90 per plate [2 pieces]


So, in line with the whole Japanese thing, i decided to try making konnyaku jelly. I found some old jelly moulds and tried this recipe using the peach flavoured justea drink. it worked very well although I couldn't get most of them out of the molds without breaking them.how does one do it? it couldn't slide out and i had to poke them with my fingers to free them from the mould. but then, when i poked them, they get misshapen.

i also made some using lychee juice, so the brown ones were the peach tea ones and the whitish ones from the lychee syrup. they tasted good although most looked deformed. what a pity as those moulds are so pretty in their flower, heart, star and leaf shapes.

There's something about the chips with dip at swensen's.....
they arent anything out of the ordinary...just deep fried hot chips... served with two dips -tomato sauce and tartare sauce...and yet..
the sight and smell of them just makes you crave them. we gave into the temptation and ordered one althugh it was so ridiculously overpriced [RM7.90]
is it the fact that they're served in a cute paper cone? or the fact that the two dips are stacked on different levels? or the aroma of something deep fried? watever it was, it's hard to pinpoint why these seemingly ordinary order of chips were so tempting.
in any case they tasted great -as anything deep fried would.................

Some random food pics of what I ate today. I had breakfast at the wong soon kee stalls in SS14 where I ordered "spicy cintan mee". It's like a deluxe version of what you'd make at home with instant noodles. The bright red soup was indeed nice and spicy but some cut up cili padi was provided for those who want it even hotter. along with the maggi mee type noodles [yellow curly ones] were pieces of fish cake, foo chok [tofu skin], a poached egg, chicken breast slices and my favourite choy sum.

The pork noodles looked good too. what I liked about this stall was that the owner speaks english! [heheheeee]


At 1 Utama we had dinner at "sri melaka" and ordered "egg foo young" which was an omellette filled with chopped onion, prawns and some green stuff which i presume to be parsley. it was.......tasty............ like it would be if u ordered it anywhere.......


now the chicken "curry kapitan" was a bit disappointing as it tasted like ordinary curry.
G said that it wasnt "real" curry kapitan. well, I dont know what the real stuff tastes like so I can't say. I suppose there're very few nyonya folks out there who REALLY know how to make it the traditional way. But, it was tasty so for an ordinary curry, it's pretty good.

Belachan kangkung. G's favourite and I like it too. we ordered two of these.......

Kiwi-ness...........

I made some "hokey pokey" biscuits using a traditional new zealander recipe from a new zealander/australian cookbook. these biscuits [they dont say "cookie" in NZ]
have a nice caramelly- burnt sugar flavour from the golden syrup. and really easy to make too.... because they have no eggs the texture's nice and light.

Get the recipe here.

We had a korean and japanese cooking lesson back at the student hall [Christ College] where I learnt to make
"Oyakodon" -japanese egg and chicken on rice
"Butano Shogayaki" - Japanese ginger pork
and "Dakdoritang" - Korean spicy chicken with potatoes and carrots

that was one of the best lunches i'd ever had at tasmania bcoz I was craving so much for asian food after weeks and weeks of...sandwiches, "stir fries", steaks, fish and chips and deep fried everything. We bought the ingredients at the asian food shop in Sandy Bay.


Gochujang -Korean chilli paste which i totally totally love!! It's used in a lotta korean dishes like bibimbap and soups as well. it's actually not THAT spicy. I'd say... only mildly spicy although the bright red colour would scare some.


Mirin which is a sweet kind of cooking sake, used to flavour the "oyakodon"

Dashi which is a stock powder made from.... some kind of fish called "bonito"


all the ingredients for the "dakdoritang" namely garlic, ginger, spring onions [scallions] sugar, black pepper, onions, carrot, potato and gochujang.

here's me trying to look helpful by holding a plate of sliced onions.

the tedious chore of cutting the meat off the chicken bones [i was never good at this, i'd prefer to buy chicken thigh fillets!]

the boys cooking up a storm.

the finished products. on the left, the delicuios spicy "dakdoritang" and on the right, the watery oyakodon [he put too much water]

everyone just CAN'T WAIT to dig in!!

Takashi showing us his super cholesterol laden butano shogayaki [thr was so much fat that when it was cooking..it melted off..but later it solidified again when it cooled down! euw how gross is that?] but it was so yummy, as most fattening,unhealthy things are.

dak do ri tang

Ingredients:

1 chicken

2 red/green fresh chilis

2 potatoes, peeled, cubed

1 carrot, cubed

2 onions, cubed

4 cloves garlic –crushed

2cm pc of ginger –crushed

1 tbsp chopped spring onions

sauce:

2 tbsp Korean chili paste [gochujang]

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp chili powder

2 tbsp chopped spring onions

4 cloves garlic-crushed

2cm pc of ginger –peeled, crushed

1 cup of water

method:

1. chop chicken into pieces, clean with cold water
2. in a deep pan, stir fry chicken till golden brown. Remove oil
3. pour 2/3 sauce into pan. When it starts to boil, add potatoes, carrots and onions. Add fresh sliced chili.
4. simmer 15 minutes, stir, make sure that nothing sticks to the pan.
5. add remaining sauce and let simmer another 5-10 minutes
6. serve with rice.

Pasar malam food is cheap and sometimes yummy. i say sometimes..because there are some vendors at the subang jaya one that sell untasty food.


processed deep fried food that go straight to your arteries


malay lauk.


fried "chai tow kueh"

john bread [whats inside it? any idea?]




potato and yam balls. looks yummy