Yakitate!! Japan

I confess; the real reason I had been missing in action since my sister’s wedding is watching an anime on baking bread, Yakitate!! Japan (Freshly Baked, Japanese Bread):

- picture source from Wikipedia

I know I would be considered a tad too late in the anime world to be raving about this series now, where in fact it had been a wave two years ago! There are even bloggers who already made the only recipe given bread in the anime – Rice Cooker Bread, and some inspired by it to make other creative pan (bread). The excerpt of the baking can be found in youtube, now it makes me really want to try it out, but first I got to get the automatic rice cooker, sigh, the things we do for passions.

The reasons I love this movie is how much it relates to me in some ways about cooking/baking. World of culinary is truly amazing, as how many times the anime had try to prove. In the end, the final message is that when something is made out of love and in the mind for that someone, it would definitely taste really delicious. So that is why grandma’s cooking are always the best, it was after all made with love for the whole family.

Besides that, they also emphasizes on being creative in your culinary adventures. Though there are times we should stick to traditions such as Chinese dishes, but when it comes to the world of baking, nothing is impossible. As they say, there is a fine line between a genius and a fool, and bounded by common sense we would not be possible to make new kind of pastries or bread. Thinking back how sometimes I would ask J how can you mix that with that(!) (whenever he try ‘weird’ things in front of me like bread with jam and sausage) and then munched away happily. But if you think just a bit further, meat and jam do go together, like the Swedish meatballs and raspberry sauce, oh so good! So in the end it is about crossing boundaries and willing to create and improve to come up with your own ultimate creation. Oh I am so inspired now!

I can’t wait to really make my own food again, cooking for the J, my family and friends of course. It would so much fun to continue my vow to bake a cake for each and every 1984. This feels like I am about to make a mid-year resolution.

Nevertheless, stay tuned and I will be back with more cooking, baking and of course food review!

Bridesmaid in Need

I am just dropping a note here to say that I am alive and well. Life has been real busy, as I said that I was involved in my sister’s wedding tea ceremony and dinner. After all the stress and sleepless nights, I would say it went really well. Anyway, time for me to catch up on my work, I leave you here with one of my favourite shot of the day:

Apples & Thyme: The First Four Years of My Life

Where have I been missing for so long? Happily busy as commented by a new reader of mine? Yea, I would say so. Currently my tasks are getting heavier, where I see myself working later and later but there is one other thing that is making me go crazy, preparing to be a bridesmaid and helping out in my sister’s wedding! Oh boy, now I know that planning for wedding needs so much of an attention. Every little details counts for big things.

Anyway, enough bout me as I am here to tell you a story about an amazing woman. I mentioned about my Lai Ma in my Chinese New Year great feast at her home. I practically spend the first 4 years of my life at her humble home, surrounded with lots of love from her, her husband and her children. There were also chaos and mischief as I had my dear god sister U and her brother as partners in crime.

The story of how Lai Ma became my nanny started like this. My first nanny was not her, but another lady somewhere in Aulong (a suburb of Taiping) and at that time I was about few months old. My mum had to send me to a nanny because she was working and could not take care of me full time. So one fine day, my Pho Pho(grandma) decided to give me a visit, and took a cab to Aulong. She found me at the hall, crying pitifully, desperate for a nappy change and yet with no one attending to me. As she reminisced to me, she found the nanny happily cooking in the kitchen seemingly unaware of my predicament. That was enough for Pho Pho where she called up my mum immediately, and with a recommendation from a distant relative, my mum drove right over after work, pick me up and drove me straight to my Lai Ma’s house. That was how Lai Pa described, where I came in my mum’s car late in the evening, in need of love and attention right into their home that was never deprived of those. And so begin my years of growing up there.

I would say it had been the shaping years of my life, trust me we children do absorb everything like sponge during the first 5 years of our lives from family and people surrounding us. So environment counts and lucky for me, it was a great one. After that it is the school, the teacher and then to friends. So if you had just turned into a mum or are expecting, remember this, the next 5 years is the time you take to shape your child. Anyway, not to divert, so my Lai Ma, her husband and her three children (all in their teens then) had shaped me in many ways. When I finally move back permanently with my family, I somehow felt I was different, albeit a bit on the stubborn and naughtier side due to fact that I was exposed to peers other than your own siblings, so I was somehow the stronger and mischievous one in school, but that would be another story.

Quite a pity though as when I was young, I was a rascal who refused to eat. All I want to do was play, play and just play. So when it comes to meal time, it was either wham bam thank you ma’am and then rush off to continue whatever game that we were in, or it would be a long torturous road of trying to cheat me into finishing my meal. This was how un-tham jiak I was when I was young. Maybe I did not know how to appreciate food then, which I make up real well now, I hope. I even shied away from Malaysia’s king of fruit, the durian when I was young and no amounts of coaxing or brain-washing can make me eat it. This was another real pity thing as my Lai Pa goes to an estate all the time, to hunt wild boars (yes, hunting with big long guns that you would only see in the movies) and also harvest many wonderful fresh local fruits, and one that always came back fresh from falling off the tree is the durian.

So now I am all grown up, appreciating food in its myriad of tastes, smells and textures, that I see how much I have missed then, oh and yea, I do eat durian now and enjoy it very much. Funny how much one’s taste can change so much as they grew up. My Lai Ma’s cooking was superb, sadly that I realized this so much later, but still not too late fortunately. I also learnt that she was an excellent baker only after I had left Taiping for studies, where her husband and children had once bought her a huge mixer (maybe it was smallest at that time), that lasted her for more than 20 years until now, where in occasions I got to use to bake a few cakes with her and even made my first virgin cheesecake at her place, her acclaimed best recipe from those who had tried. It was a really cool stand mixer, like a KitchenAid of that time, where I believed I would have dream and wish for it then like how I wish for KitchenAid now.

From the recent Chinese New Year (the most celebrated occasion for the Chinese every year is still vividly fresh in my mind), I had managed to learn one of her ‘secret’ recipe, the young papaya pickle. It is thinly sliced young papaya soaked in Chinese rice vinegar, sugar and sliced chillies, in glass containers, which can last for ages but it never does, not in my household anyway. I was lucky last year when once during a visit to her house, she had just made a big batch, soaking in few glass containers of various sorts such as jam jar, taucu jar (her favourite) and other sauces jar, just like how we Chinese like to keep these containers/bottles/boxes for ‘just in case’s, which this time, rarely I might say, was really put to good use. She even reminded me to bring back the container the next time I come back so that it can be reuse for more pickled papayas! So, this year when I visit her again, I casually mentioned that I had brought back the containers for her (proudly as I was really famous for forgetfulness, especially in her household of really keen and responsible people), and she was indeed surprised and happy. Then I also casually mentioned that I simply looove those pickled papayas, where I polished off in just a week and had been yearning for more since then. She perk up immediately to know I enjoy it so much and offered immediatly “it is so very easy to make, let me make a batch for you to bring back tomorrow!” I was thrilled yet worried as my plan was to go back with my cousin was right after breakfast, which she waved off as no problem as she said it can be done in a jiffy.

Come the next day, my mum fetched me to Lai Ma’s house early in the morning before meeting my cousin for breakfast to pick up my precious pickled papayas. My mum was also very intrigued and want to give it a try, which later I passed one jar to her (later claimed by her to be excellent) and took two jar back home to PJ. Yes, my dear Lai Ma had made a huge batch for me, where she had skipped her daily morning walk that day just to get to the market early to buy papaya, come back and then slice and soak them just in time for me to pick up before I leave. I felt so loved, people say food is the way to a man’s heart, for me that is the way to a child’s heart, yes I am still very much a child to her, for me at least, and for all time to come I’m sure.

Young Papaya Pickle


When I asked my Lai Ma how do I know how to pick an unripe papaya that is just right for this pickle, my Lai Pa was right there listening, and as I said that he was a wise food enthusiast too, he told me straight away “when you just see a tiny hint/streak of yellow on a green papaya, then that papaya is just right for pickling”. See, I told you my Lai Pa was a wise food enthusiast (and also in many other areas of life, I’m compelled to add), he gave me such an easy and fool-proof method to my pickling journey! The recipe below is more of an estimation as it really depends how much papaya slices you can get from your papaya, how strong your rice vinegar is, and how sweet and spicy you want it to be, so follow it as a guideline and then taste as you go on.

Green with a hint/streak of yellow papaya (sliced thinly)
Chinese Rice vinegar
Sugar
Red chillies (sliced in inches)

Put the sliced papaya into a jar (from your stashed of ‘just in case’ glass containers)
Pour in rice vinegar to 3 quarter full (do not add to full as the papaya will produce more water as it pickle)
Put in sugar to taste, stir in each addition and continue tasting to just right
Throw in few slices of chillies (as many as you like, but for mine I saw bout 1-2 chilly for a jar)
From time to time, give it a turn around (i.e. spoon bottom to top and vice versa so that all the papayas could get to soak), with a really clean dry spoon.
After a while all the papaya will be happily soaking in rice vinegar and its own juices, so then onwards you can keep as long as you want, just remember to take out with clean spoon every time. (Psst, sometimes I dip in with my fingers when I could not resist but no worries, mine do not need to be stored for long anyway).

P/S: I am submitting this entry to Apples & Thymes to celebrate my Lai Ma, just like a mother to me and a mother to her lovely children, and how she play a big part in my life and my love for food.

Update: The lovely round-up of Apples & Thyme can be found at Mele Cotte.

Me, Myself and My Food

I had been tagged last year (that sound like ages ago) by Jake from Lovely Malaysian Food by a meme called “7 random facts about myself”. Then I was re-tagged by Mochachocolata-Rita on "5 facts about me". I was thinking would anyone be interested in 5 facts about me what more 7? Maybe yes, maybe no, but oh well, as the rule of the game, tagged I am therefore I write:

1. Besides playing with kitchen appliances, I play guitar and drums. Yea, I was a cool teen; I used to have an all girl band name Addicted to Bliithe where I was the drummer. If you have been a long time reader, yes you can guessed it, it were consisted of my 1984s friends. We played in gigs, joined some competitions and even just 'jam' for fun. Does this make me similar to Jamie Oliver, the drummer who cooks?

2. Despite the fact that I am a Chinese, and my grandparents are from China, I do not even know how to read or write Chinese. Luckily I do know my dialects, such as Hokkien and Cantonese. So currently I am on a self learning journey in quest to learn Mandarin.

3. I have a bachelor degree in Business Information System, currently doing something with a mixture of business, finance and IT. I am happy with what I am doing, pretty challenging (the way I like it) yet it still feels like something is missing. This is because my ultimate dream is to have a business of my own, and of course it would be a food business. Food writing comes a close second.

4. I grew up in a lovely town call Taiping, up north in Perak, Malaysia. It is a place where people grew up and grow old. Somewhere in between are people like my mum and dad. Most of them are children and senior citizens. There is a really beautiful Lake Garden there, which was previously a tin ore mine, now made into a wonder garden of lushes trees and sparkling lakes.

5. Recently I had just bought an apartment with J in the heart of PJ, waiting eagerly to get the keys and start unloading all my kitchen gadgets into it and hopefully then, churn out more goodies for me, J, family and friends to enjoy and for you to drool on from this blog.

6. I secretly harbour the desire to knead and bake my own bread, but I have yet to get on with it. Once I bought a bottle of instant yeast and it was left in my shelves for ages and never got into bread making. I was never really a bread person, as in I do not take bread just because (with the exception of my morning breakfast of eggs and toast bread), and I am really picky about what makes a good bread, occasionally only manage to find it in posh restaurants or good bakeries. No, the usual roti canai, Malaysian’s favourite does not make it as one of those bread I desired to make. I want to bake rustic looking bread that would make good sandwiches, not those white bread sandwiching some sad looking lettuce and tuna.

7. I started a mini project in this blog called Exploring My Origin, where I am still very much interested to carry on. I want to learn and understand all there is to know about Chinese food origins, how it is to be made and what makes it so good that it lasted for generations. I am always so worried that these traditions would be lost in our era. If time and place permits it, I will definitely seek it out, practice and make it till it is right and then share all of it here.

There, five non-food-related facts about me and 2 tham jiak facts about me, to kill two birds with one stone. 7 is more than enough I'm sure, and I do hope you enjoy it!

Home is where the Best Feasts are

I am back! Just a long weekend off for my favourite celebration of the year, I felt as if I have left for an entire year! There was so much to catch up on, I felt as if I had an overrun marathon for the whole week that left me breathless.

Although I had eaten so much within that long weekend regardless that I had forewarned myself, I can vividly remember all the wonderful feasts. Few of them was taken outside in restaurants as we do not want to tire our dear grandmothers and mothers, but those few home made feasts was what I treasured most.

On my Ah Ma side, it had been many years since she cooked a feast for our Chinese New Year as all her children want her to rest and relax, while on my Pho Pho side, it would be the usual feast of my favourite dishes such as jiu hu char, which had me standing by the side of the bowl, nearly finishing off by wrapping it in fresh raw lettuce and popping it into my mouth again and again, ah bliss, and also the must have heart-attacking duck soup, I swear that it is more of duck ‘oil’, but nonetheless irresistible! These home cooked feasts will have me gobbling up as if there were no tomorrow while I just nibble on the restaurant food, which once I got so sick off I cheated my way out of dinner by saying I wanted to visit my Lai Ma (Nanny), which I did of course but with no food.

Speaking bout my Lai Ma, she is another wonder woman in kitchen, apart from being a wonder woman of raising kids, which would be another whole story I will share soon. Last year, when I got real lucky, she had me sit down and feasted on her food during my visit. At that time I was already full from lunch at Pho Pho’s but staring at her version of Chinese New Year home feasting; I could not resist and proceeded to have second lunch of the day! I cursed myself for eating too much beforehand while continued on feasting anyway. So this year, with the reminiscence of the wonderful feast I had with the tastes still vividly at the tip of my tongue, I smarted my way out from a lunch out with my relatives in a restaurant and ‘visited’ my Lai Ma on Chor Yat (first day of Chinese New Year) itself. Beside the fact that I was really yearning to see both my Lai Ma and Lai Pa (her husband) after a long time, I was also secretly yearning for her special dishes.

When I got there, many people were there visiting already, including U and her brother which grew up with me together under my Lai Ma’s care. I waited patiently while enjoying their company and once they leave, I casually asked if there is lunch. My Lai Ma was extremely surprised “What! You haven’t had your lunch? Why didn’t you say so just now?” Glancing at the clock which was showing only near to 3pm, it wasn’t that late from lunch but from my Lai Ma’s reaction, just like how a typical Chinese would react, it would had seemed like I had been starving for years. Quickly, she had me get the rice while she got me a big bowl of ham choy thong (salted vegetable soup). I stared at the spread in front of me and proceeded to enjoy the feast, this time with lots of room in my tham jiak stomach to fit in.


The ham choy thong is how I always remembered it would be, as she cooks it quite frequently, salty, slightly spicy and sourish, which serves real well as an appetizer. Then there was the must-have steamed chicken, eaten with her homemade green chili sauce. Another meat dish is the lor bak (deep fried marinated minced pork rolled in thin soybean sheets) which was home made by my Lai Ma’s sister was really good too. The chunky minced pork was really juicy and fragrant while the soybean sheets were perfectly crunchy. My Lai Ma made pickled cucumber to eat with it, which surprisingly pairs really well together and to me, it was better than the usual Loh sauce (dark sauce thicken with corn starch, usually served at the hawker stalls).


Then next is my favourite chow mangkuang (stir fried sliced yam bean) which tastes like my Ah Ma’s Cantonese version with added cuttlefish strips. This dish has similarity to my Pho Pho’s Hakka darker and much more sinful version, which is to be eaten best wrapped in fresh lettuces.

Finally, it was the star dish of the day, which was the first that came to my mind when I was reminiscing about her dishes of last year. It is the stir fried ngaku (arrowhead/arrowroots) with nam yue (fermented red beancurd) that despite looking weird with its pinkish hue, it was a real delight to the palate. Slight sweet yet salty and with just hints of nam yue (many people find this an acquired taste, but trust me it is just a slight complement here). This dish is also a darling to eat wrapped in fresh lettuce, but first slathered generously with tim cheong (sweet sauce). I once asked where to get the tim cheong and my Lai Ma said “Aiya, make it yourself. Very easy! Put this this and that that together, and ta-da – you got your ultimate tim cheong”. Sorry though I cannot remember those ‘easy’ steps, aih, they all make it sound so easy, time for me to buck up! I must start cooking and making more Chinese cuisines. This is definitely one better way to enjoy ngaku apart from the usual addictive fried ngaku crisps which are widely available (both homemade or store bought) at this time of the year.


I ate with such gluttony and tham jiak-ness that halfway through my feasting, Lai Pa took second helpings of rice and joined me together at the table. Now the real family feast has begun!

Too Much of Good Things

Been back to my home town as I said I would, where every year relatives from near and far try their best to return because of both my grandmothers, Ah Ma and Pho Pho. Just for the reunion day itself, I had already indulged in so much food, here is just a glimpse of some of them that I managed to captured:


Yes, and that is just for PRE-Chinese new year. I wonder if my tham jiak tummy can take more to come. Anyhow, this is one case where too much of good things is still good, great even!

I wish you all Happy Chinese New Year, 新年快樂. Till we meet again after all the feastings and gamblings!

A Long Weekend

and so I sat down to blog, and nothing seem to come out. I wouldn’t say I got a writer’s block; I can only say I got a tham jiak block. Oh no! Not so tham jiak anymore? Don’t worry, not everywhere near there, ha-ha, just that J and I have less time to go out and try new food, as work had been quite exhausting for both of us. When lunch/dinner comes, all we want is just to go somewhere near or somewhere familiar to just sit down, relax and enjoy ourselves. Don’t even get me started on what about cooking. I am still very much waiting for my new apartment to become mine, legal matters that involves many parties can never be fast, I learnt this the hard way. So there, with not much of food exploration and none on cooking, what is there worthy to blog about?

Fortunately though, Chinese New Year is just around the corner and I am eagerly waiting in anticipation. Chinese New Year is the time where we are reunited with families and friends, enjoying good food together while catching up on the year that has passed. There would be non-stop feasting and munching as well as the gambling. Ah, these are typical traits of the Chinese, and we does it best and most during this time. I had been gambling with RM1 ever since high school, and it never went up even though judging from my increase spending power plus the inflation rates I should, but age has caught up with me and now gambling is more of just to pass time than to earn money. I still remember that my friends and I used to go house to house collecting ang pows and then sat right down to ‘earning money’. Some year I had huge profits, some losses but most years are neither, so I did quite enjoy this way of passing the time.

So as Chinese New Year is just next week, I will be sure to head home to my beloved home town Taiping. I can’t wait, seriously. So I thought it would be best to blog a little about my humble home town. I have mentioned about it several times, but have lacked terribly in blogging about the good food it possessed. I assure you, it is as good as you would expect from a place shield from urbanization thus still very much prepare food the way it does few generations ago.

There is this place in Taiping where it serves really good authentic Hainanese food. The restaurant still cooks and serves like how it used to way before I was born. The place still looked pretty much the same, except I remember it did some clean up once and built the cashier place bout 10 years ago.


One extra special thing about it is that it serves halal food. I did not notice this of my years in Taiping, until after I came here to study, where one day a friend mentioned she brought her Muslim friend to dine there, stating it is the only choice for Chinese food around Taiping which is halal. Since it is halal, we definitely would not be able to find the infamous Hainanese pork chop, but guess what, it did extremely well in subbing with chicken chop Hainanese style. Prepared the same way, just with different meat, and it is still real good. Definitely a must order at this shop.


The chicken is cooked to the right crispiness, and then doused with the thick deliciously salty sauce with peas, tomatoes and onions. The potatoes wedges are definitely worth mentioning too, for being so well fried, non greasy, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.


Then there is one special dish that I love to order when I am there, and have yet to find it anywhere else in Malaysia. It is called roti sayur (bread and vegetables). Whenever I call this in front of someone who have yet to try it, they would definitely raise an eyebrow. “You want to eat bread with vegetables???” must be going through their mind. That was how J reacted when I ordered it. Then it came, really different looking with sautéed vegetables lying over a thick toast bread with a sunny side up egg on top, bringing to whole dish to new heights, catching the eye of the raised eyebrow.


This dish certainly need some coaxing to people before they are wiling to try it, after all we Chinese/Asian are not that used to eating savoury vegetables with bread, but this one definitely converted many after just one try. J nodded in agreement to it when I passed it for him to try, while I devour his chicken chop. The vegetables were still pretty crunchy, yet soft enough along with the peas and onions are of great combinations. Mixed in with the slightly sweet yet savoury soft bread (from soaking the sauces), it wss certainly a good match. Not to forget smashing the egg yolks as you go, I don’t need to explain why, eh?


Lastly I finish off with my ever good ol’ cham(mixture of coffee and tea). The cham here is just as good as I can get as it is kau (thick) enough.

Alright, so now you know we have good Hainanese food in Taiping, so do drop by if you are ever in north Malaysia, maybe drive up a little from Ipoh, or make a pit-stop on the way to Penang. It is definitely not a bad place for good food.

Yut Sun Restoran
Jalan Pasar
Taiping
Perak, Malaysia

Accidentally In Love

Still posting of last year’s (long, long ago) eat, on the way back from the urban escape at Port Dickson, we stopped by Seremban for lunch. Before, I was having a real bad time, as our dear friend’s car air-condition had decided to break down during our trip, and I am not kidding you when I say driving in Malaysia during mid-day is like being slow roasted in an oven for a really mushy lamb stew. Come to think of it, I should have brought a pot of stew along; maybe we would have a nice stew when we got home. So when we finally turn into Seremban, we took a few rounds circling nearby the market, following another friend’s car and unable to find parking. I was already cursing inside and ready to kill the nearby lambs beside me if we do not stop anytime soon. Finally, my friend parked at the next available space; he had to do a sudden park as there were lambs screaming “park there, someone coming out, THERE!”

So we all stumbled out of the car breathing for fresh air and the hot breeze of our Equator’s neighbouring country. Alright, with head a little clear, we decided to walk to find the other friend’s car, who managed to park by the market, but as we walked down the street, we realized it was impossible to reach (possible, but not at this heat with our half-cooked bodies), so we decided to fall back to a shop we just passed by. We called to ditch our the other group of friends and settled down at Kedai Kopi Saudara (brothers and sisters coffee shop).

As I was just happy to eat anything at that time, still pretty full from the morning’s Nasi Lemak at Port Dickson, I decided to just order my trusty kaya toast with half-boiled eggs. Then J’s chicken rice came, and I instantly regret again I did not order it! Why? Because this one came with seriously juicy looking steamed chicken and to top it off, the rice is the infamous rice ball, a specialty very much sought after in Melaka.

I stared at it showing my tham jiak face, so much so, J ordered another portion of chicken with two more rice balls, such a sweet understanding tham jiak partner. So greedily I eat the perfect rice ball with the sweet juicy and flavourful chicken. To say it was delicious seemed like the understatement of the year, or maybe last year, eh don’t kill me for that overused term. The rice was really fragrant of chicken stock and spices, and then nicely rolled into a ball, not too sticky yet just sticky enough to be able to nestle as mini bites at the brink of chopsticks. Ah, perfect! Although I have never been an avid fan of chicken rice, and had a bad experience with the Melaka’s version of chicken rice ball before, I felt that I had accidentally found the one! I must also mention that the accompanying chili sauce was also really good, the real authentic sour, spicy and gingery sauce that goes so well with steamed chicken. I guess J’s and my tham jiak face truly shone as my friend was attracted into ordering as well, on top of his finished noodles.

The owner, seeing us as true blue tham jiak kaki (gang), after all we ordered one after another from J’s first one portion; decided to drop by our table for some chat. He introduced himself as Kevin, much to our surprised, in fluent English. Then he mentioned nonchalantly that his rice balls and steamed chickens were authentic Hainanese fare; the best in town, claiming that people from all over came here purposefully just for his carefully prepared meal. Judging from our face, he knew we would return, which we definitely would, thus he also mentioned that he had another branch just around the next street, and on some days he might close here but we can find him over there instead. We were feeling bit kiasu (fear of losing), that we might miss him if we ever drop by again, so we asked him to please write down his address, which he did along with his hand phone number, how’s that for good marketing?

So there we ended our meal, I did not take enough pictures as I was first too excited in ordering and then too busy in enjoying the food. Oh, I nearly forgot I had ordered toast bread and eggs, when it came a little later after we devoured our Hainanese meal, so I shared the bread and gulped down the eggs like a good kid. In a dimmer light, but for the benefit of the cook, I must say the bread was well toasted, egg half-boiled to just right (I hate it when it was uncooked or too well cooked) and the white coffee was just the right drink to end a wonderful meal. Ah, bliss. In fact, we lambs were even smiling blithely as we boarded the oven again.