Day 75 ... Kari Kepala Ikan Parang

KARI KEPALA IKAN PARANG
CURRY WOLF-HERRING FISH HEAD

This evening, we made curry fish. 

Bryan had taken out an ikan parang (head portion) and a ma-yau (fillet) to thaw. Checke the english names for the two fishes and learned that, ikan parang is "wolf-herring" while ma-yau is "threadfin." So, if You want to have a more exotic name for this dish, ahh, a more kuai-low name, well, we could say, we're cooking wolf-herring & threadfin curry this evening. In short, fish head curry la.

The Ingredients.

Bryan bought a packet of instant fish curry paste (brand A1), 

so we decided to just use that.

1. The Curry

Add filtered to the curry paste.

Prepare some tamarind juice.

Add the fish.

2. The Vegetables

Chop the vegetables into bite size.

Add the vegetables.

Allow the brinjals to cook a bit.

Then add the bean curd puff.

This is Bryan's favourite. He loves taufu pok.

Add the tamarind juice, and some seasalt as desired.

3. Garnish

with a bunch of coriander leaves.

That's my plate. Those lil bits of fish that broke was from the ma-yau. 

Not suitable for curry purposes, I guess.

The parang was really good. Flesh was actually quite sweet.

We ate our dinner, with our fingers.

Yummy!

LUNCH

We still had some leftover soup from the night before, so we had noodles again for lunch. My mother had bought us a packet of fish paste, and we added that in. The above is my bowl. :D

Justine's bowl. Notice the chilly-padi and garlic sambal.

Bryan's bowl.

The soup, as always taste even sweeter the day after.

Slurpppp ...

Time of Posting : 12:02 pm (Thursday)

Day 74 ... Claypot Noodles In Clear Soup

CLAYPOT NOODLES IN CLEAR SOUP

This evening, we had noodles for dinner. 

Bryan made some fried rice out of the leftover pilau rice from the night before, so we were still kinda full from that. There was still some laksa rice noodles left in the fridge so we thought we might as well use that up. Justine and I had the laksa noodles, while Bryan had bee hoon. 

So, here's how we made a simple soup base for the noodles, and some must-have condiments to go with it.

1. The Soup

The ingredients for the soup.

onions, garlic, daikon, carrots, chicken, Knorr mushroom stock (no preservatives)
bought by Grace when she was in Singapore. :D

Add the soup ingredients into a pot of filtered water.

Add some cabbage.

We used a pressure cooker to prepare the soup.

When the soup is ready, 

remove the chicken, and shred the flesh.

2. The Condiments

Brown some onions ...

Fragrant sweet onions.

Chop some garlic and green chillies. We didn't have cili padi.

Add dark shoyu.

Chilly-Garlic Sauce for a bit of spice.

Garnishing Ingredients

3. The Noodles

Justine's Noodles - She added an egg and soft tofu.

My Noodles - A little of everything turns out into something.

We transferred the soup to a claypot to cook our noodles separately. I broke an egg in mine. 

Toss whatever's on the chopping board in. Added seasalt, shoyu, and a dash of black pepper.

Hmmm, a tasty-fying meal. :D

LUNCH

Fried Pilau Rice With Egg & Sambal

I had my one shake of The Green Drink for breakfast, 

fried rice for lunch and noodles for dinner.

To Sum Up

1 shake & 2 meals

Juice. Fruit. Hemoberry. Water.

Time of Posting : 9:50am (Wed)

Day 73 ... Sambal Stuffed Grilled Mabong

 SAMBAL STUFFED GRILLED MABONG

Oooohhhh, Would - You - Look - At - That!!! :D

This evening, Byran prepared sambal stuffed fish.

This is our family's favourite in the whole, whole, whole wide world. Dinner was going to be just superb with this delicious chilly fish. You gotta eat with your fingers when the time comes. :D He prepared pilau rice too for the extra ooomph. :D

1. The Pilau Rice

The Ingredients
onions, garlic, black sesame seeds, jintan manis, 
cardamons, cloves, cumin, cinnamon stick, star anise

Stir-fry the ingredients in cooking oil

directly in pressure cooker pot until fragrant.

Add the rice. Stir-fry to mix well.

Add water and seasalt.

Close lid and leave rice to cook. 

The rice is ready.  Hmmm ...
The aroma is intoxicating. 
Perfect.

2. The Fish

Sambal Ingredients
onions, garlic, ginger, lemon grass, red and green chillies,
limau kasturi juice and leaves. 

Blend all the sambal ingredients.

We added a small tub of homemade chilly paste 
that Cathy made for our assam laksa on Saturday, 

as well as some chopped bunga kantan at the last minute.

Add seasalt, brown sugar and limau kasturi juice for taste. 

Heat cooking oil in frying pan, 
and fry the sambal ingredients.
Add a generous sprinkle of finely chopped limau kasturi leaves.
And of course, a large one for photography purposes.

Slice the Fish.

Stuff the Fish with the sambal.

Oh my, honestly, how not to salivate ... :D

Pop into the oven and grill 

at 180 degrees celcius for about 30 minutes. 
Grilling in the oven is so much healthier 
and doesn't make a mess like frying does. 
 

3. The Vegetables

cauliflower, carrots, green and red bell peppers

Water-fry the mixed vegetables.

Add sesame seed oil and shoyu.

It takes less than 5 minutes to prepare this dish.

Bryan's Plate ... See his artistic side emerging ...

I suppose You could play noughts and crosses 

with the vegetables for personal entertainment. :D

Dinner was really delicious!

The fish, let me assure You, was truly out - of - this - world!

Grilled to perfection honestly, and the sambal ...

Don't even get me started on the sambal.

Truly, finger lickin' fantabulous sambal fish with 

the fluffy and extremely fragrant spice-rice 

and crunchy vegetables. :D

Time of Posting : 9:25am (Tues)

Day 72 ... Tom Yum Fried Lai Farn

TOM YUM FRIED LAI FARN

This evening, Bryan fried some noodles with the laksa noodles we had left from our cooking session on Saturday. Grace brought two packets of KNORR Mushroom stock-cubes (with no added preservatives) from Singapore - Yup, from Singapore, You can't find it here ... and I suggested that we try that.

So, here's how Bryan did his night time big-fry hawker cooking at home. :D

1. Beat 2 eggs, fry like an omellette 

and break it up.

2. Saute onions and  garlic in sesame seed oil.

Add 1/4 of mushroom cube and tom yum paste.

Add limau kasturi leaves (shred thinly).

Add noodles. Add water.

Add dark sauce, shoyu and pepper.

3. Toss the egg into the pan and stir fry to mix.

Garnish with strips of red chilly, 

a sprig of mint leaf and limau kasturi.

There's just something irresistable about lai farn, I think. Have always liked this laksa noodle, all slippery and goes with any kind of stir-fry or soup. Cathy had said that even the other kind of laksa noodle is nice. Think I'd try to get that the next time and maybe do a soup thingy with that.

Ohh, dinner was just heavenly. The noodles were extremely flavourful, though made up of simple ingredients only. The limau kasturi leaves sure gave a twangy taste to it. :D


Time of Posting : 12:57pm (Monday)

Day 71 ... Penang Assam Laksa

PENANG ASSAM LAKSA

This evening, we had the most wonderful time preparing assam laksa, Penang-style. 

Our dinner chef-guests were Cathy, Ming, Hayley, Grace, Amelia and Uni.
The above picture is Cathy's creation. :D

1. The Fish

 3 kinds of fish : Parang. Tenggiri and Mabong

Boil the fish in filtered water.

No need to marinate. No need salt.

Simple, right?

 2. The Soup

These are the ingredients for the soup base.

Lemon grass, shallots, bunga kantan, tumeric root, galangal,

belacan, assam jawa, assam keping, blended dried chilly paste and daun kesum.

Blend : shallots, belacan, tumeric root, lemon grass

Boil in a large pot with filtered water.

Simple, right?

3. The Garnishing

Pineapple, bunga kantan, cucumber, limau kasturi, large onions, 

mint leaves, green and red chillies and heko (prawn paste).

We do not have chinese green salad (the one you use for joo hoo char) 

so we're gonna romaine lettuce (cut into slim strips).

Simple, right?

Cathy, our Head Chef of Assam Laksa committee, 

begins the cooking ceremony by boiling the fish.

We are allowing Bryan to take this snapshot with the assam laksa ingredients for his blog even though strictly speaking, he isn't in the assam laksa committee. He's in the DRINKS sector.  :D  Our order of drinks for the evening include his famous teh tarik panas, and newly added into the list are hot milo, chilled biofruity and ah, sky juice. For coffee, we have to do it ourselves.

Grace and Amelia preparing the garnishing ingredients.

The shallots, belacan, tumeric root and lemon grass 

are blended before adding into the soup base.

Uni is preparing the pineapple strips.

While the soup is boiling, the girls are carefully stripping the fish to the bones.

The flesh is amazingly tasty and fresh.

No fishy smell at all. My first time tasting boiled fish on its own. 

It is really, really good. :D

The garnishing is all ready ...

They are so pretty to look at ...

A lot of labor of love has gone into this ...

The noodles are ready. 

2 options : laksa noodles and bee hoon 

(bee hoon - the three elephant brand).

The soup is about ready.  The aroma is simply tantalising.

Cathy removes some of the daun kesum and bunga kantan before adding the fish.

We sang the Birthday Song for Hayley and Uni, 

and said grace before we tucked into dinner.
See dessert entry below.

Bryan's bowl. How could anyone resist this!

We all had 2 bowls each. Everyone enjoyed the laksa very much and sounds of hmmms and oooohs and waaahhhs were echoing throughout dinner. You could appreciate e-v-e-r-y single bit of ingredient that was in it. The soup with the heko, brought by Grace all the way from Penang, was truly out of this world.

I don't normally take the fish when I have assam laksa at the shops, and would normally leave most of the ingredients in the bowl ... but THIS one is clearly head and shoulders above all the assam laksas I have ever tasted. And that is to put it mildly.

Cooking with a sprinkle of love and a pinch of joy sure makes all the difference.  :D

Woah, can't believe we actually did it!

Thanks to our Head Chef, Cathy for simplifying the steps:-

Penang Assam Laksa in 3 Simple Steps ...

After dinner, we rested for a bit before our Attitude Choc Cake with Ice Cream for dessert. See entry below.

We were all so thrilled with our accomplishment today that we have decided to attempt Birthday Noodles next with Curry Puffs for dessert.

Time of Posting : 11:03am (Sunday)