Episode 104 - Dad's Beef Ribs Soup

I came home for lunch today and to my surprise my dad cooked beef ribs soup (Usually it's the boring Ikan Goreng *hehee*). Actually he lied to me saying that it was deer meat and I believed him! *haha*. My Dad can cook well cos I enjoyed drinking the soup *slurps* and eating the sweet and tender meat! Here's the recipe and it's really simple!

Dad's Beef Ribs Soup

Ingredients:

1 kg beef ribs

1 large onion

3 cloves garlic

2-3 Cardamom Seeds

1 stick of Cinnamon

Salt

Pepper

Method:

Sate the sliced onion, garlic, Cardomom and Cinnamon in a pot with 3 tablespoons of oil. Once you can smell the aroma of the spices put in 4-5 bowls (medium sized) of water and place the cut ribs into the pot. The water level should be slightly above the meat.

With the lid slightly opened, let the soup brew on low heat for 2 hours or until meat is tender n soft. Lastly, add salt and pepper to taste.

To add a little more taste to it, you can lessen the amount of salt you put in the soup and instead put around 2 tablespoon of Bovril.

Delish!!

Serves: 5

Episode 103 - Good Food in Kuching, Sarawak

Sizzling Beef

Steamed Promphet

The oh-so-nyaman prawn with peanut sauce

The mix vege (right) and roti, another glimpse of the peanut prawn (top)

I asked some of my friends to check out my blog yesterday and asked for their advise. Most of them were positive and they gave me a few good tips! Thanks guys! So i checked out other food bloggers and I thought I lacked some sort of organisation with the Ingredients area and Methods. So guys, I edited my posts and I think they look better. Then I found out that there are at least 3 or four others with the same title for their food blog :oS Guess I'll change it into something local when I think of a good one!

So guys, last December 2008, my family and I went back to Kuching (my mum's hometown) to visit our relatives there. It' s been so long since I went back to visit my Grandmother and it felt really good to meet my Aunts, Uncles and Cousins after 10 years! I met my little cousin Darren and OMG he's so adorable and smart! He talked like an adult!

So there's nothing much in Kuching. There was a new shopping mall called The Spring which was not bad. I managed to spend my Ka-Ching away :oS hehe but it was all good fun. The only best thing about Kuching was it's food!

THE Best Dinner!

On the 1st night we had dinner at this Seafood restaurant called "Rock" Seafood. I hope I got that right. We had several darn good dishes and some purely Teo chew dishes. It was the first time I had a vege dish which was consisted of several types of beans together! Then there was the Sayur Bayam which was cooked with garlic but topped off with crispy baby Bilis and Century Egg! Astonishingly, it was so nyaman! We ordered their special in-house prawns with peanut sauce. I must say it was rather a unique dish. But the taste was out of this world. And then there was the steam Promphet fish (Ikan Bawal Putih/ Phek Chio) with Shitake mushrooms, Ginger and Sour Plums. The fish was so fresh that I couldn't stop eating. And it was the biggest Promphet I've ever seen hehe.

As side dishes they served buns. It really tasted like donuts just without the sugar. By the time the last dish arrived, we were really full. So we had to force ourselves to finish up the Sizzling Beef cooked with Bell peppers.

Here are some pics of the dishes. I just realised I didn't take a photo of the Spinach with Bilis and Century egg and remembered it was so good that we finished it quite fast!

Here's my recipe for a simple Steamed Promphet:

Teochew Style Steam Promphet Fish

Ingredients:

2 ekor Fresh Promphets (Medium sized ones)

4 Shitake Mushrooms

2 inches of Ginger

1 Chilli

3 Sour Plums ("Jeruk"-ed in the jar)

Salt

Pepper

Oil

Method:

First, get a steamer ready and let the water boil for abit.

After scalling and de-gill the fishes, marinate them with salt and pepper and set it aside for an hour or so. Then place the fishes in a porcelain dish and garnish it with the stripped ginger, chillies and mushrooms (chillies and mushrooms to be cut in strips too). Lastly put the sour plums and abit of the sauce from the jar around the fish. Make sure you sqaush the plums abit so the taste will ooze out when the fishes are steaming. Drizzle some oil on top and then place the dish into the steamer and steam for around 10-15 minutes until flesh turns white.

There you go, enjoy it with a bowl of rice.

Serves: 3-4

Episode 102 - Fish Begedil

This is my second post of the day. I decided that one recipe to share was too little to start off. You would notice that I will have a great amount of dishes which are Italian based because I love Italian food. But I mostly I will do fusion dishes as they may "fuse" our taste better as some of you might not like pure Western dishes.

This is actually my Mum's recipe. As you all know Begedil in Brunei is made from mashed potatoes but as for this recipe, it only requires some leftover fish meat and crackers! I only called it "Begedil" cos it has a bit of "Begedil" style in it *hehe*.

Fish "Begedil"

Ingredients:
2 cups of cooked fish meat (deboned)
3 pieces of cream crackers (the ones which are so good with kaya)
2 eggs
Fresh Chilli (depends on how spicy/pedas you like)
A handful of parsley (daun sup/ thang chai)
2 red onions
Half large onion
Butter
Cooking Oil

Method:
You can use leftover fish meat (If you happen to have cooked leftover "Tenggiri" meat) or if you don't, you can cook (should be fried or sate'd ) slices of fish and mash it up into a bowl. Add the crushed cream crackers, an egg, cut chillies, diced onions, finely chopped parsley, butter and some salt and pepper. Mix them well and by using your hands, ball them up (a large tablespoon will do).

There are 2 options to cook this. Either you bake them (which is healthier) or you pan fry them (which can be messy for some people). So after the mixture are ball-ed up, place them into a foiled baking tray which is buttered or oiled. You can glaze the top of the "Begedil" with egg wash/ shredded cheese before you place them into the oven numbered 5-6 until they turn golden. If you are pan frying them, just fry them on both sides with some butter/oil until they turn golden. Pan frying might need a bit more oil to cook the sides better. Before frying or baking them, you can also dip them into a bowl of beaten egg then cook them. That's more of the "begedil" style.

Eat them with sweet Chilli sauce or some other dips like mayonaise or tartar sauce!
Nyaman tuuuu...

Serves: 5

Episode 101 - Pilot

Hey you all, Welcome to my blog! There's just two things you need to know about my blog. Firstly, it's about my passion for good food and secondly it's created to share with you my love for food. It will contain recipes, secret (well, not so secret) tips and various ideas about food and anything associated with it. I will also share my views on my favourite places to eat and what to eat.

To kick off my Pilot episode, I will share with you my all time favourite snack or appertiser - Bruschette (I just made this yesterday and OMG i forgot how tasty it is!):

Butter Toasted Baguette with Tomatoes

Ingredients:
A short loaf of Baguette
Butter (Salted)
Tomatoes (8-9 large)
Olive Oil/spread
Half a lemon
A handful Basil (Fresh or dry)
Salt
Pepper
Phillidelphia Cheese

Method:
Get the Baguette (sounds complicated? It's just French bread! hehe, Can get it off from any bakery or SupaSave!) and slice them into half an inch and butter them up on one side and toast them in an oven until golden brown. Make sure you switch your oven to just the top heater On. For those health conscious people, you can use olive oil or spread instead of butter and lighlty salt them after.

Now, you dice some fresh tomatoes (Don't forget to wash your tomatoes. I recommend using some Vegetable washing liquid you can get from any Supermarket which gets rid of the wax and dirt Pronto!). Then add olive oil, finely chopped fresh basil or dried ones which you can get in bottles in the Supermarket , salt and pepper to taste and a squeeeeze of lemon.

To serve or to enjoy your Bruschette. Spread a kind amount of Phillidelphia (hope i got that spelling right) cheese and put a few spoonfuls of tomatoes you just prepared. And then take a bite on that crunchy slice of baguette with those sweet tomatoes!

Yummyy!!

Serves: 8