The Food Canon

If you have been to Tekka market, you will find row of stalls selling lamb.

Piles of tulang greets you as you approach the stalls. As with beef or pork; it is a head to toe thing; from tough to tender cuts of meats, suiting many different type of recipes and cooking techniques.

My favourite cuts are the small ribs (about 20 per kg) and the chops (about 26 per kg).

Chops

Ribs

"Cook for an hour?"

"No, no, huff an hour okay. No one hour." the Indian butcher replied, shaking his head for emphasis and dispelling the notion that mutton or lamb needs long hours of cooking. These ribs and chops should be delicious in any kind of curries.

I have always wondered how it will taste with buah keluak paste. Having cooked it a few times, I will definitely give it a thumbs up. Whether on the home or a restaurant table, it should be an amazing dish.

Now, the key to a good buah keluak dish is to make a good buah keluak paste, of course. As I have said elsewhere, I buy ready prepared buah keluak flesh from the dry good stalls at Tekka market. If you want to prepare them from scratch, that will be fine as well and the cost will be cheaper.

The other ingredients you add to the buah keluak flesh depends on what meat you are cooking it with and what dish you wish to make. If I am making it with pork belly and want to make a buah keluak variant of Toyu Bak, I add more garlic. Ginger always goes well with lamb or mutton and so, for this dish, I will add more ginger. I add soy sauce for the salinity and gula Melaka or sugar for the sweet. Then some assam paste for the sour. Crushed black pepper and lime juice will be a good way to complete the dish just before it is served and garnish with some herbs like basil, coriander leafs or kaffir lime leafs. Except for the meat (of course), the rest of the ingredients are local or Southeast Asian.

The technique for this dish is similar to making curries and if you are familiar with curry making, this is a no brainier.

Ingredients

1 kg of a mix of lamb chops and ribs
15 pieces of buah keluak
2 inch of ginger
1 inch of turmeric
1 inch of galangal
10 pieces of shallots
2 sticks of lemon grass (white bulb only)
2 tsp chilli paste (optional)
100 ml soy sauce (or more, to taste)
100 gm of gula Melaka or sugar (or more to taste)
2 tbsp of assam paste
1 piece of Thai lime or 2 pieces of kalamansi
100 ml vegetable oil
200 ml water
For garnishing: sweet basil, coriander leafs or kaffir lime leafs.

Method

1. Using a blender, blend the herbs and buah keluak flesh into a paste. 
2. Heat up the oil in a wok. Add the paste, gula Melaka, soy sauce, Assam paste and simmer for 20 minutes. 
3. Add the ribs/chops and stir. Then add the water and simmer for 30-40 minutes till the meat is tender (but not falling apart). Adjust the taste further with soy sauce or gula Melaka or sugar if needed. 
4. Add the crushed black pepper corn and squeeze the lime juice in and stir.

Meat added to the paste before it is simmered for 30-40 minuets

After simmering, t he dish is done.

You can cook this way before dinner time as this dish keeps well and the taste gets deeper with time.

This dish is best serve warm or at at room temperate. Garnish with any of the green leafy herbs before you serve. If you are using Kaffir lime leafs, dice it up. Basil and coriander leaves can be used whole. Eat with hot steamed rice.

Local, delicious and unusual. There are many reasons to like this dish.

Everyone in once in a while, church members will give me a bagful of green belimbing fruit.

This longish oval sour fruit has a pretty bright green colour which turns yellow and will soften if it is too ripe. It is best cooked when it is still green and firm.

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

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

Photo credit: Goh Eck Kheng

This is a dish Mum made regularly.

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.

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.

"A good plate of Nasi Lemak is about getting the basics right. It is not about adding good side-dishes or adding expensive gourmet ingredients."

This is one of those "public cooking notes," where I had to jot down notes after cooking a good dish and you get to read it.

It was a wonderful day of celebrating the 50th birthday of our nation. Being a Sunday, it started with worship in church where we prayed together a prayer of thanksgiving. Then families gathered to watch the NDP together in the evening. What should we serve for dinner?

We decided on Nasi Lemak and indeed, it was the right choice.

Both Malay and Nonya at the same time, this dish which originated in Malay seaside villages has evolved in our multicultural city to what it is today. In fact, there are many versions of it, from the simple and essential, to those that come served with many side dishes.

Updating this old post and added some pics. I have written another post with a simplified recipe here. 

I have grown accustomed to her taste

Tau Yew Bak! Tow You Bak! Toyu Bak! (Oh dear, how do you anglicize or 'engli-pinyin' this?)

This dish has been blogged and 'reciped' to death. It can be found in just about any Nonya (almost synonymous with Singaporean) cookbook out there.

So why another one?

I am blogging this recipe for a Canadian friend who had visited Singapore before and was missing the food there, especially laksa. She wanted to learn how to make it.

It is was not difficult to make the laksa broth. Make the chicken stock and then combine with the rempah (curry paste).

What was more challenging cooking it was using whatever ingredients I could find in Toronto and having to do it within the limitations of a hostel kitchen. I will describe the recipe here and the options one can take to improve or simplify it.

I love to eat squid and I like it cooked whichever way.

Squid is prized for it's succulent texture. In Southeast Asian cuisine, it is often paired with strong and robust sauces.

If I were to order from a Nasi Padang stall, I would almost always choose a squid dish, especially Sambal Sotong or when it is cooked in it's own black ink: Sotong Goreng Hitam.

The fresh Arrow Squid is really cheap at about $10 per kilo and fresh when you buy it in wet markets. With the escalating price of prawns recently, I will say sotong will be the way to go.

Ed notes: In this post, I have done a major update of the recipe and rewritten the cooking notes since I first published it two years ago. I have also written a series of posts with more photos, the "science" behind it and how to cook this for a large party. Check out the series of posts through this link. I have also worked out a smaller portion recipe. 

My mum's Hokkien Prawn Mee was one of her 'signature' dishes.

It brings back many fond memories.

Annually, on Teachers' Day, she would cook for all the children teachers and helpers in my church's Super Powerkids Ministry. That tradition has of course ceased the year my mum passed away.

When news got round that she is cooking this, family members and friends will gather in anticipation.

And this is the dish she cooked for a a group of friends before she fell seriously ill. It was her last celebration. I still remembered how I visited my friend's place to enjoy it. When we meet, we still reminisce about this.

One of my favourite ways of eating prawns is the fried assam way.

The prawns are marinated in sugar, salt, dark sauce and assam paste (tamarind sauce). And then pan seared in a shallow layer of oil. The prawn is enjoyed with shells on. This way of cooking utilises the flavours in the shell to enhance the dish.

I grew up loving my Mum's curry chicken which she cooked very often.

I have made her recipe many times. But it was when I started using the Anxin "naked-necked" chicken of late that some memories returned on how hers used to taste like.  

A day trip was all it took for me to learn about the chicken we use today. It answered many curious questions I had about the types of chicken we used today and it tasted differently from the ones I grew up eating.

We cooked Nasi Lemak recently for 60+ folks at the closing session of Alpha Course at our church.

I will detail here some of the experience and this will also act as a journal record for future Nasi Lemak meals as I am sure last night's will not be the last.

I have said before that Nasi Lemak makes for a fine party spread for these reasons:

• It can be made beforehand and except for the rice, the items can be served at room temperature.
• It is inexpensive as far as the 'essential' Nasi Lemak goes with additional costs coming from the extra items like chicken, prawns etc.
• It is not labor intensive either and does not need great culinary skills and efforts to make. This means, others can be roped in to help.   

We finally come down to the recipe.

I should pause to credit the recipe to my brother Clement and my sis-in-law, Mary from Ipoh. They love Assam Laksa and have taken the trouble to learn it from my Mum. Some of the beautiful pics here were taken by their daughter Japhia Wong. You can see through her lens that she is talented.  

The preparation of the fish broth is described in greater detail here. For info on some of Assam Laksa special ingredients and how they are prepared, go here.

This is my third crustacean recipe.

You may recall my lament on how crustacean-like the aliens are in Hollywood movies. Prawns can look downright scary. My second post - fried Assam fully dressed ones - did not fare very well in the looks department either. 

I have to say though, that this particular one looks ravishing. Stripped off from their head gears and gowns, naked for a brief moment and then coated in a spicy red glistening sauce, they are dressed and ready for the dinner ball.

And best of all, if you are like my wife, you will love the fact that you don't need to do any peeling at the dinner table. As all good spouses do, I sometimes have to do that for her. With this, I can focus on my own prawns.

I am glad I am moving away from eggs and Sous Vide with this post. My mum would have found it amusing and rather beyond her, if she sees the gadget and wires in the kitchen.

She loved soft-boiled eggs. If she had tasted my home-made ones, I am sure she would have egged me on. She would have spared no effort at making a dish as delicious as possible. Some readers are confused as to the fuss: 45 mins is too long! For a millionth time, let me repeat this: I do have the plastic drip egg-maker and I do know how to perfect them the 5-7 minute way. I may still return to it from time to time, but the 45 min Onsen Tamago way is different.

This illustrates again what I have said here about an observation I have made since childhood: cheap produce, if cooked with some effort can produce spectacular result. What I like about eggs is that they are so cheap and common. You can have them soft-boiled, hard-boiled, scrambled, sunny side up, or on your salads and flavorful bowl of ramen. The humble egg can be put to great service at any meal throughout the day, home or restaurant. If you make it well, it turns into something special.