The Food Canon

I led a cooking demo recently on how to appreciate and enjoy our local herbs, and I showcased Nasi Ulam. I worked on a minimalist version which is still delicious, proving that "less can be more." Here are my lesson notes. 

Nasi Ulam (light version)

Ulam means herbs in Malay. Traditionally, it was a kampung dish using fresh herbs of nearby plants. If salted fish, meat/fish and sambal belachan were added, it made for a cheap and delicious one plate meal. 

I love tempeh. You can get it fresh and cheap if you buy it in the wet markets. I prefer to use the paper wrapped ones with leafs but those larger ones that come in plastic is fine too.

The supermarket ones are fine too (refrigerated section) but you will pay a bit more.

This simple recipe is fast and easy to do. The basic idea is to add sweet and salty sauces to fried tempeh and mix it up. I find that tempeh taste best if deep fried. Depending on the size of the pieces, a 10 to 15 minute frying in medium fire should suffice. I normally use a small pot to dry up the tempeh. Tempeh don't seem to absorb the oil. Drain it properly after frying. Air-frying is another option though for some reason, deep frying has better results.

So this recipe is indeed simple.

Slice your tempeh.

Deep fry for 10 to 15 minutes.

Drain the tempeh.

In a bowl, mix in some good soy sauce and recap manis (my favourite brand is Bango). Drizzle in some lime if you can. Garnish with some green herbs.

Sweet, Salty, Sour, Fruity.

I am sure you can imagine what else you can add to the tempeh.

It looks beautiful and taste beautiful. Goes well as a snack or as a side plate for dinner.

Cook a pot of good rice.
Prepare some delicious sambal.
Fry some ikan bilis and peanuts.
Make some hard-boiled eggs.
Cut some fresh cucumbers.

1.  Wash the rice 2-3 times and drain.
2.  Add equivalent amount of water (5 cups) and salt.
3.  Start cooking the rice.
4.  When the rice has risen (button on rice cooker turns to "warm”), add the coconut milk and knotted pandan leaves.
5.  Stir and mix the rice and milk. Keep the rice warm till you serve.

Notes: Basmati is forgiving and stays separated and less likely to be mushed up when cooking in a rice cooker cf to jasmine rice. It is also lighter than jasmine rice. Don't cook rice with coconut milk at the start. It will end up looking like chicken rice with the oil soaked through. Jasmine or regular Malaysian rice has a fluffiness which you can’t find in Basmati. You can still make good NL rice with  it (my Mum uses Jasmine rice) but sticks strictly to a 1:1 water:rice ratio. See this post for some tips when using Jasmine rice.

As for coconut milk, any kind will do. If you are squeezing your own coconut milk, the steps are different as spelt out here.

1.  Blend or dice 2 onions.
2.  Slice 2 onions and set aside.
3.  Blend the chilli into a paste.
4.  Heat up the oil in a wok on low fire.
5.  Add the blended/diced onions. Simmer for 15 minutes.
6.  Add the chilli paste, water, sugar and simmer for 10 minutes.
7.  Add the fried ikan bilis and sliced onions. Stir and mix.
8.  After 2 minutes, the sambal is done.

Fried Assam Prawns: Marinate in tamarind sauce, pepper, salt and dark sauce. Pan-sear each side for 2 minutes.

Dinner Spread.

I will blog my cooking notes here on a recent batch of Nasi lemak Sambal which turned out very well.

As I have said elsewhere, my idea of a good Nasi Lemak Sambal is:

1. It should be on the sweet side, complimenting the savoury nasi (coconut rice), ikan bilis (fried anchovies) and other ingredients on the plate. 
2. It's spiciness should be average so that the diner can eat more of the sambal along with the rice. 
3. I like texture in the sambal and I get this by adding slices of large red onions and fried ikan bilis towards the end. 
4. The sambal needs to have enough oil for the mouthfeel and for some of it to soak into and color the rice. 

Method

1. Blend the peeled shallots and chillies.  
2. Fry the ikan bilis in the oil. About 1-2 minutes. Set aside.
3. Using the oil leftover from frying the ikan bilis, heat it up in a wok and add the shallot paste. Gently fry for about 10 minutes.
4. Add the chilli paste.
5. Add the sugar, gula melaka, assam paste and salt along the way, adjusting the taste if you need to to find a good balance..
6. Simmer for another 15 minutes. Adjust the taste if needed. Do remember that when you add ikan bilis, the sambal will be saltier. Go easy on salt. You can even omit salt it the sambal is sufficiently savoury after you add ikan bilis. 
7. Add the slices of large onions and the fried ikan bills. Cook for another 5 minutes and switch off the fire.

I have already blog a recipe for Winged Beans (or Four Corner Beans or inMalay, Kacang Botol).

This bean is tasteless and is eaten for its texture. It goes well with anything that has a strong taste, i.e. Sambal. To retain the texture, it only needs some light cooking.

We cook it recently to in a Nasi Ulam party spread. Here is the recipe.

1 kg of medium-sized prawns
200 ml Oil
15 pieces of shallots
Two tablespoon of chilli paste
1 slice of belachan
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar

Nasi Ulam (photo: Joyce Ho)

We love making Nasi Ulam for gatherings.

It is a favourite at the Alpha Courses held at St Andrew's Cathedral.

It always put a smile on people's faces. The explosion of indescribable flavours fills one's senses with every spoonful. It is decidedly local and yes, very cheap to make.

The meal do not sit heavily in your stomach. It is light and refreshing. These herbs have their health value, rich anti-oxidants and all. Not that anyone cared too much for that.

If you are a vegetarian, you will be very happy to have this on the dining party table.

Ulam means herbs in Malay. I have already blogged the "recipe" here. I am not sure recipe is the word I should use as each lot of this has turned out slightly different.

I have come to use these herbs more often than others:

Basil (sweetish)
Daun Keduk (Pepper leaves)
Mint Leaves (slightly bitters)
Turmeric Leaves (gingerly)
Laksa Leaves (Daun Kesum, strong flavour - us win moderation)
Torch Ginger Bud (Bunga Kantan)
Kaffir Lime leaves (leaves are hard, strong flavour, use in moderation)

You can get these herbs easily in many wet markets. Tekka Market is my favourite source.

Some of the herbs I normally use, left to right, : Turmeric leaves, lemon grass, torch bud, Daun Keduk (bottom), Mint leaves (top), Basil Leaves (right), Kaffir lime Leaves(top right) (photo: Goh Eck Kheng)

Salt, toasted and crumbly salted fish and sugar are also added to the rice. And for the refreshing crunch, garnish with thin slices of shallots, carrot strips and tiny cucumber cubes.

After you wash the leaves, it is important to ensure it is dry before you cut it. A sharp knife is needed so that the herbs are diced finely and neatly. If you use a blunt knife, you are crushing the leaves and the diced herbs will be wettish.

The rice must be cooked perfectly as mushy rice is a disaster for Nasi Ulam. We normally use the 1:1 water-rice ratio. Basmati is our favourite as it is light. After the rice has been cooked and cooled down, we mix in the herbs. If you add the herbs into steaming hot rice, the herbs will be cooked and lose it's freshness.

The beautifully pink Torch Bud Ginger (photo: Joyce Ho)

For the Nonya or Malay pairing dishes, a sambal dish goes well with it. Sambal Prawns is our usual favourite or simply, a plain Sambal Belachan. As for meat, a mildly flavoured meat dish will go well, such as Ayam Sioh or Inche Kabin (nonya friend chicken). We sometimes offer Buah Keluak flavoured meat but we will dial down the intensity of the bush Keluak paste so that its do not compete with the herbs. The rice should not be drenched in gravy either and so, soupy dishes are out.

Explosion of flavours in every spoonful

I will share our notes on dishes which we cooked to pair with Nasi Ulam: Buah Keluak flavoured "Tau You Bak" (pork belly) and sambal prawns with the crunchy four corner beans (kacang botox) in the next few posts.

Meanwhile, I hope this post will inspire you to try making this. Unless your guests are on an Atkins diet, expect them to return for multiple helpings.

Garnished with cucumber and carrot strips

I am taking some cooking notes as I begin to understand how to make good Beef Serunding. It is by no means a finished recipe. But experienced cooks should find my sharing helpful.

I am now a Singaporean since 8 years ago but Malaysia is my country of birth. I can still remember growing up in a strongly multi-racial environment. I have an adopted brother, Ismail Hussein, who was loved by my mother and we treated him as family. I made friends with Malay and Indian classmates.

And I love Hari Raya visitations. We get to enjoy home made satays and this delicious beef floss (daging serunding) which were eaten with ketupat (pressed rice). Somehow, through these palate memories and I can still recall those visits. Sigh - it has been a long time since I was invited into a Malay home and enjoyed Hari Raya festivities.

I hope the recent election developments signal a new era for Malaysians and rediscovery of those better days where citizens from races were mixing well together.

Let's turn to my cooking notes.

In Malaysia and Indonesia, "Serunding" is normally reference for toasted coconut flesh, meat floss or a combination of the two.

Daging or Beef Serunding is very popular in Malay cuisine. It is the best beef jerky there is. It makes use of cheap but tough and flavourful cuts like topside, chuck and so on.

If you are familiar with making Beef Rendang (page 87, Mum's Classic Revived) or frying Kerisik (toasted coconut), this recipe is not difficult. These are the three main steps:

1. Cook the beef first and tear/floss the meat.
2. Cook the spices (rempah)
3. Add the beef and coconut meat and stir-fry till it is dry, similar to making kerisik.

It can be done in your wok and you do not need to use the oven.

Once you understand the basic, you can take this technique in many direction. You can change the spices. You can use chicken or pork, which are even easier to floss.

Beef Serunding is easy to store. You can eat it with ketupat, rice, porridge or bread. You can eat it with Nasi Ulam. If you add in more oil, it will keep well and become the "XO Sauce" from your fridge. Every meal with beef serenading can be appetising.

Here is the recipe from my first tryout:

1 kilo of topside beef, sliced in chunks

Rempah:

Ikan Sumbat using Selar Fish - This recipe was shared at the O.P.E.N. kitchens event. Click here for some videos of the event where you can see the fish stuffing and frying in action.

Ikan Sumbat using Cencaru

Yumms....

I use to think that the electric cooker messes up the nasi for Nasi Lemak.

I have most of the time gravitated to steaming the rice as one way to ensure that the rice is separated and fluffy. I have done up many posts about it here. Indeed the steaming method is a good one, albeit more troublesome and not always practical if you are cooking a small batch.

I have since learned that with care, an electric cooker, even a very large one can be use to make good nasi. The basic principles I adhere too is this:

1. When I am cooking the rice, I do not want to cook it in oil. The texture for Nasi Lemak should be different from Chicken Rice, which is cooked with oil added. It should look like plain rice (white and opaque) and yet, has the unmistakable flavour and fragrance of Nasi Lemak.

2. To ensure that the rice will not end up mushy, I use the 1:1 rice/water ratio.

3. It is after the rice is cooked that I flavour the rice with the coconut cream or thick milk and pandan leaves.

When I am cooking the rice, I minimise or omit together any oil.

When I am flavoring the rice with coconut milk, I keep the liquid (water) to the minimum and ensure thick coconut cream is used. If you add too much water after the rice is cooked, it won't turn mushy but soggy. You won't want this either.

In this recipe, I will give the proportions but you are free to adjust i.e. add more coconut cream or pandan leaves. As long as you don't cook the rice in the oil, you will get the end result that I seek for in a good nasi. And yes, salt is important or else the rice will be tasteless.


Nasi for  10 pax

5 cups of jasmine rice
5 cups of water
1 Tbp of table salt or 2 tsp of cooking salt
Cream from one coconut
10 pieces of Pandan leaves

Add the rice, water and salt into the rice cooker. Start the cooking

When the button turns to "warm", pour in the coconut cream and stir gently. Tie up the pandan leaves and add to the rice. It is important to fluff and stir the rice as the way the electric cooke ris designed, the rice eat bottom is often more cooked that this eat the surface. Close the cooker and keep cooking it. After about 5-10 minutes or so, the button will turn back to warm (because of the internal heat). The rice will be ready to serve by now. You can keep it at warm mode for another half an hour if you wish.

If you are serving the rice much later, it will be better to switch off the rice cooker. Depending on the rice cooker you are using, even in warm mode, sometimes it is hot enough for the rice to keep cooking. Here is where it could turn mushy.

It is actually quite simple. Experiment for yourself and once you understand how to do it, you will be encouraged to cook Nasi lemak more often as the electric cooker is convenient to use.

Photo credit: Joyce Ho

I have been asked if Beef rendang can be made using the Sous Vide method and the answer is absolutely yes.

For braising recipes with long cooking hours, I often use the SVmethod. I find it convenient to cook the meat beforehand as it frees up stove space and time for me to cook other dishes.

Beef rendang is one good recipe for this. I have already blogged the recipe here and it is also found in page 87 of my cookbook. Beef Rendang is a wonderful dish to serve for dinner parties and the SV way can make a delicious version. .

The traditional way of cooking beef rendang will end up with the meat picking up a lot of flavours from the rempah. For this reason, I use the cheeper and leaner cuts like chuck, top-side or shin beef.

If I am using Sous Vide, I will have better control over the meat and work at a balance where the meat almost taste like steak and yet you have  delicious rempah. I will go for higher marbled cuts like brisket or Short rib. After long SV cooking, it will have a "melt in your mouth" effect.

Sous Vide Rendang beef is not necessary better. It is just a different kind of rendang.

It involves three steps:

1. Sous Vide cook the beef for 24 to 48 hours
2. Cook the "rempah"
3. Add the beef and braise for 20-30 minutes.

In the recipe here, I am going for a green looking rendang through using green chillies. As I am not braising the rempah for a long time, it will result in a fresher looking rempah with some of the colours retained.  (??)

As for kerisik, you can now easily buy from local stores. However, there is nothing like making your own.

Ingredients

2 kg of boneless Short rib beef

For the Rempah (Paste)

To blend:
20 pieces of green chillies or 10 pieces of green chilli padi
15 Shallots
1 inch turmeric (kunyit)
1 inches of galangal (blue ginger or lengkuas)
1 inches of ginger

2 stalks of lemon grass – bruised
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp table salt
1 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp cumin powder
100 ml fresh coconut milk (optional)
2 dried tamarind slices (asam gelugur or asam keping)
2 tbsp of kerisik
3 Kaffir lime leafs, diced finely (to garnish)
1 cinnamon stick

Steps

Preparing the Kerisik

1. Use 1 grated coconut (clean, without any husks). 
2. In a wok on low fire, toast the coconut till it is brown in colour, but not burnt. Stir from time to time to prevent burning. It will take about 30 minutes.
3. Using a strong blender, blend it till it is only. You can also use mortar - will be a lot of hard work!
4. Reserve the kerisik for other use i..e Nasi Ulam. It stores well for weeks in the fridge. 

Preparing the meat

Making the rempah

This dish is almost unique to our local cuisine (Malay and Nonya).

Alpha Course is starting again and once again, we can expect some good home-cooking from the Cathedral community. More info on the Alpha Course at the Cathedral can be found here.

We made Nasi Lemak again for the 190+ -pax Alpha Intro dinner.

At the Cathedral kitchen, the facilities are more limited. For the rice, we had to cook it using the electric rice cookers instead of steamers, our usual preferred method. I am learning that you can also do some really nice Nasi Lemak Rice without going the "kukus" way.

So, how did it go?

With some care, I will say that it is possible to cook some good NL rice this way. We were pretty happy with the results and I will detail here our cooking notes of what we did.

The Rice
10 kg of Jasmine Rice
Fresh milk from 6 coconuts
Salt
Pandan Leaves

A ratio of rice:water 1:1.1 was used to cook the rice. A tablespoon of salt was used for every kilo of rice. After the rice has cooked (when the switch goes to “warm”), coconut milk and pandan leaves were added. We used freshly squeezed milk which we bought from Tekka Market. Using a spatula, we fluffed the rice. Then we kept the rice cooking on warm till it was served for dinner later.

For good Nasi Lemak rice, the rice should be fluffy, with whole unbroken grains. Too much coconut milk will make the rice greasy and keeping to this ratio is important. Salt - and enough of it - is essential.

You need to imagine how the rice will go with the rather oily sambal and the salty ikan bilis. 10 kilo was barely enough for 190 pax and we could have cooked a kilo more.

Assam Fish is a sourish, spicy and appetizing dish which my Mum made regularly.

I have been slower in putting up recipes since my life has gotten busier with a shift in my work place.

I have also been focusing on getting the cookbook out, which involves focused work and discipline. I have to dedicate my off days to do this and we are aiming to release the cookbook in October.

I want to talk about pickling today.

I am always amazed how the humble cucumber is transformed in flavour and texture through some simple pickling process.

Pickling typically involves immersion in vinegar. The adding of salt dehydrates the vegetables further, resulting in a more intense flavour. A popular local pickled recipe is Acar, a recipe which I hope to put up one day soon on this blog.

I have explained in this post how to cook brinjal well. For the home, a two step method of first cooking it on high heat - roasting in oven, pan-searing or deep frying - before flavouring it works well. The skin of the brinjal is delicious and crisped up when roasted or seared coated in some oil.

Fried Batang fish, served here with kecap manis sauce, omelette and rice.

This is a simple recipe which you can use for your daily dinners.

Fried Batang or Mackerel fish, marinated in turmeric powder was a comfort food in my childhood home. I can also recall it being sold in my Mum's restaurant and canteen.

Over the years, Batang has become more expensive but it is still a relatively cheaper fish to use and is very suited for pan or deep frying as the flesh is firm.

Whether you are serving a whole family or just a dinner for two, this dish is convenient and easy to make.

Note a few tips about fish:

• As long as it is fresh, you won't need to do a lot to make it taste good.
• It keeps well frozen.
• Fish does not need to be marinated for too long. 30 minutes at most. 
• Clean your fish thoroughly to remove the blood and scum. 
• Fish bones and heads can be used to make stock.

It is a joy to be able to get back to "community cooking" in this new church I am serving in. As I have said elsewhere, it is a familiar environment that I grew up with where I am very much at home.

We ran the Alpha Introductory Dinner recently and made a decision to offer "home-cooked" dinner. This article serves as cooking notes for  myself and the team and I am sure, you will find helpful as well.

As I have recently learned to prepare Nasi Ulam, I thought a Malay or Nonya themed dinner will be nice for the occasion.

And if you check your Nonya cookbooks, including the magisterial "Cooking for the President," (a great cookbook!) you may drop all considerations of making it because at first glance, it sure looks complicated and redoubtable.  

"Nasi" means rice and "ulam" means salad. The key is to dial it down to something you will consider making for your daily dinners. Bear in mind that for the humble Malay Kampung home, their Nasi Ulam basically uses herbs and dried seafood that are available off their larder or garden. Sometimes, it is just using leftover herbs. Eat it with some sambal belachan and it will be sedap all the way.

There are many types of Ayam Goreng and I hardly stick to a fixed recipe, apart from being consistent with a few basics behind a good fried chicken Malay style.

This latest recipe is quickly becoming one of my favourite for its simplicity and great results.

I have been making it as a side dish with Nasi Ulam, a recipe which I will be blogging soon.

I have always been curious about the "crispies" that I see on the Ayam Goreng which is served in Malay stalls in Malaysia. After some conversations with makciks (they are always friendly and willing to share their tips...some will even let me see who they cook them in their kitchens!) I finally figured out that it came from blended or pounded ginger. The blended ginger sticks to the chicken when fried and adds texture and flavour.