Sitiawan and Taiping

It's rather a busy weekend. Daph bro is getting married and the preparation is a little havoc. Now only got time to do a little blogging. I went to Sitiawan to attend Daph younger bro marriage dinner last Saturday (19/9/2009) with her family. We took the old road to Sitiawan and to Pantai Remis which is her brother's wife hometown. It's rather interesting going via small road as you can see many small town or pekan. We took the Kuala Selangor road and the journey took us a total of near 4 hours from Kepong to reached Pantai Remis. We stay in a rented house while we were there and it situated only a few KM from Sitiawan and 50KM to Taiping. I was glad that it's very near to Taiping as I will be going to visit my sister new born baby on the next morning. I must admit that 'kampung' wedding dinner start exactly on time unlike in KL. The wedding dinner is 6pm and by the time we reached there at 6.05pm due to some hiccups in our journey, everyone has already arrived. Wow! We were the pig leg (Daph bro and his wife) and yet we arrived late! It’s so different from KL, as normally the pig leg will be standing in front of the restaurant waiting for everyone to arrive. In KL, if the wedding dinner is said to be 7pm, it's actually 8.00-8.30pm before everyone can start to eat. Not to mention some even start at 9pm! I wonder if KL following Thailand time. Maybe we need to set out KL GMT to +8 instead of +7. The wedding dinner finish early at around 8.15pm in Pantai Remis. I am so not used to it as normally it will finish around 10pm something. The celebration is quite good but the food in the restaurant is kinda below par. It is said to be one of the best restaurant in Pantai Remis but somehow it's not up to our expectation. The food here really is only a so so. After dinner, we went home to the rented house and it's photo shooting session. The next morning, we visited Daph bro's wife house and her parents is kind enough to offer us a few fresh coconut to bring home. Anyway, there is a lot of flies in Pantai Remis especially her wife’s house. Just imagine if you were to drop a piece of 15" pizza on the floor, it will be fully covered by flies within a few second! No joke! I am not sure the reason behind this but I regretted that I closed my car door a few second too late. Lucky enough we managed to fought and expel the flies out through the window while on the way to Taiping. Daph family drove back to Kepong while we continued our journey to Taiping. The journey along the kampung road to Taiping was really refreshing in the morning. We drove slowly while enjoying the weather and sightseeing Malay celebrating Hari Raya festive in kampung. Sister newborn baby Brian is really cute. He was only a few days old. Youyou is getting cheeky and naughtier but he seems really happy moving from Singapore to Taiping. Maybe it was due to Singapore houses was small in apartment while here in Taiping the house is so huge and he was able to run here and there. Moreover, there are a lot of people to play with him too. Ah Hun bought us to makan makan while we were in Taiping. We went back the next day via old road but different route from where we came from. We stopped at a few places such as Ipoh, Bidor, Kampar and many more places which I couldn’t remember the name. It took us a total of 7 hours driving slowly back from Taiping to Kepong as we took our own sweet time exploring lot of small towns. It's a tiring but lovely trip.

Chef Ak in action - Friends Birthday Celebration

I was a bit stunt when I invited 12 bunches of ‘honourable’ guesses for Ah Fatt and Sau Fong double celebration birthday. How do I cook 13 portions with such a small wok and small pot? How would it taste if I cook in large scale? Will I able to meet the demand? So far I have cook only for 6 person max. This time, double of the amount. How if I failed to cook acceptable dishes for everyone? I thought to myself… Alas, I put all the thoughts behind and carry on with the plan on last Saturday morning. I bought some of the groceries in JJ, Kepong while waiting for Daph to finish her work. Then we had lunch with her friends and only started to look for other groceries around 5pm. I need to buy spare rib and lotus as I need to prepare overnight cooking in slow cooker. We went to 3 Giant but none has spare ribs. We only manage to find it in Carrefour Subang around 8pm but unfortunately, lotus root is still nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, I remembered there is a few shops that sell vegetable in Taipan and off we rushed to Taipan after buying the rest of the groceries. Lucky enough, we managed to get hold of the lotus root in one of the shops and we reached home at 9.30pm. We started to prepare lotus root soup and spare rib, peel and crush garlic, prepare jelly, chopped some vegetables and clean chicken meat for tomorrow's cooking. All this took us about an hour plus. Lucky enough Daph have bought me a bigger '2 in 1' cooking pot with steamer and a few pans. The next morning we started to prepare all the dishes around 10.30am. The lunch will be held at 1.30pm and you might ask why the heck so early to do the cooking? Here, take a look at the list of dishes to cook. 1. Curry of Life 2. Orange Honey Chicken 3. Egg Ham 4. Fried Enoki Egg 5. Stuffed Mushroom with Pork and Fish Paste 6. Baby Kailan 7. Fanshu Leaf 8. Minced Pork Tofu 9. Fried Cabbage Tuna with Glass Noodles 10. Lotus with Spare Ribs 11. Konnyaku Jelly Yup, a total of 10 dishes with 1 dessert! It was quite a challenge but at the same time I was damn excited. Lucky enough I have my helpful asst. Daph to help me with preparing core like washing, chopping, cutting and preparing the thing that I wanted to cook. Konnyaku Jelly was cook by her. I started to cook around 10.30am and finished by 1.30pm. A freaking 3 hours plus and yesterday 1 hour plus. Total of near 5 hours spend cooking for all this dishes. By the time I have finished cooking, I was so exhausted to even eat. But all the tiredness went off when I see all my friends are happy and appreciate my cooking. In fact nearly all the dishes have been cleared up. The satisfaction seeing all the 10 dishes being eaten up are nowhere to describe. I am rather relieved as all the dishes have reasonable taste even though the quantity that I cook is in large portion. Take for example the fried cabbage tuna; it was really heavy and tiresome to stir fry one whole big wok of cabbage in it. The wok is medium size while the cabbage is damn a lot to even stir fry. It really required some skill to cook such a large amount of food. I am lucky that all the previous training really took off rather well. For the stuffed mushroom, only after when I took a bite of the mushroom when I realised that I completely forgotten to cook the oyster garlic sauce. It was suppose to have this sauce to go with. Alas, everyone went home and it's time for me and Daph to really relax. We took a bath and straight went to bed. It was very tiring for both of us but one thing for sure is we felt rather satisfied for today's cooking. Hope they really enjoyed their meal and so does the birthday boy and birthday girl. This last picture will give reader a sense of my 'honourable guesses'

Chef Ak in action - Orange Honey Chicken

Orange Honey Chicken Method and Ingredients 1. Combine flour, salt, and pepper together in a plate 2. Dip chicken in egg mixture and roll evenly in flour mixture to coat 3. Heat oil and deep fried the chicken until it turned golden colour 4. Take it out and put it aside 5. Mixed orange concentrate, honey and soy sauce together in a small bowl 6. Fry garlic and ginger to fragrant 7. Pour in a cup of water and mix sauce in step 5 8. Turn the heat to medium and let it boiled for a few minutes 9. Mix 1tb of cornstarch in quarter cup water and mix thoroughly 10. Slowly stir cornstarch mixture into sauce until it thickens 11. Put in the chicken and mix well 12. Garnish with slices of orange and spring onion Stuffed Fish Paste Mushroom Method and Ingredients 1. Takeaway the bones in the Mackerel fish and minced thoroughly 2. Dissolved some salt in water and slowly adding it into the mince fish 3. Set the fish paste aside 4. Soak dry mushrooms until softened 5. Fill up the mushroom with the fish paste 6. Placed the Siu Pak Choi onto serving plate 7. Steam the stuffed mushrooms for about 20 minutes 8. Make some oyster garlic sauce and place it on top of the mushroom 9. Sprinkle with spring onion Dried Bean Curd Soup with Black Fungus Method and Ingredients 1. Soak black fungus and glass noodles (tang hoon) in water for about 10 minutes 2. Bring water in pot to boiled and put in soak black fungus 3. Add in a few slices of Szechuan vegetable 4. Add in dried bean curd and simmer for 15 minutes 5. In another wok, fried beaten egg, drain away the oil and mix it into the soup 6. Let it simmer for another 10 minutes before putting in glass noodles Overall I enjoyed the Orange Honey Chicken very much. It taste good and agreed by my fellow housemate. It's my first time and it seems to be quite successful. Stuffed Fish Paste Mushroom in the other hand resulted to be a little too salty for the fish paste. This was due to over putting salt and light soy sauce when minced the Mackerel fish. It could have been better. Nothing to shout about for the bean curd soup but just that I had put in a little too much of glass noodles. It doesn't look much at first but trust me, once it is soak in the water it became a lot. I like to learn and cook new dishes as I tend to be over bored with the same old menu. Most of the recipe is taken from the net. I am sure you guys have notice that lately there is a little improvement in the appearance of my dishes. I am still learning on creating appealing dishes. Sometime a simple decoration will make the dishes look more pleasant.

Chef Ak in action - Sambal Mackerel Fish

Sambal Mackerel Fish Method and Ingredients 1. Marinate Mackerel fish with turmeric powder for 15 minutes 2. Fried in medium heat oil until it turn golden colour on both side 3. Took the fish out and add in garlic 4. Add in big onion and stir fry for 2 minutes 5. Add in chili paste, sugar, salt and light soy sauce to taste 6. Mix the sambal sauce together with the fish 7. Garnish with spring onion Cabbage Tuna Egg Method and Ingredients 1. Cut the cabbage to small slices. 2. Fry the garlic to fragrant 3. Add in tuna chunk and beaten egg together 4. Add in cabbage and continuous stir fry 5. Add in 1/2 tsp of salt to taste. 6. Garnish with spring onion and fried shallots Baked Bean Egg Method and Ingredients 1. Fry garlic to fragrant. 2. Add in beaten egg and stir fry for 1 minute 3. Pour in a can of Ayam Brand baked bean 4. Mix well and bring it to boiled 5. Garnish with spring onion This is the first time I ever cook fish dishes. It turnout good and I kinda like it. All this while I didn't know that Ikan Tenggiri is actually named Mackerel fish in english. I thought it was some kind of sardine fish as I saw this word quite often in can of Ayam brand lol.

Chef Ak in action - Black Fungus Chicken

Black Fungus Mushroom Chicken Method and Ingredients 1. Fry garlic to fragrant 2. Add in sliced ginger and soak dried mushroom 3. Add in chicken and stir fry for 10 minutes 4. Pour in light and dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, salt and pepper 5. Transfer to a pot and add in black fungus 6. Simmer for another 15 minutes Cabbage Tuna Method and Ingredients 1. Cut the cabbage to small slices. 2. Fry the garlic to fragrant 3. Add in tuna chunk 4. Add in cabbage and continuous stir fry 5. Add in 1/2 tsp of salt to taste. 6. Garnish with spring onion Minced Chicken Tofu Method and Ingredients 1. Fry garlic and minced chicken to fragrant 2. Take it out and add in the tofu 3. Add in soak dried mushroom 4. Sprinkle preserved radish on top of tofu 5. Add in oyster sauce, sesame oil, and pepper, light and dark soy sauce 6. Steamed in under high heat for 15 minutes 6. Garnish with spring onion I actually dun quite like black fungus as it's kinda tasteless but it seems to have some potential benefit to improve health. If you want to know, please google the benefit of black fungus. The Black Fungus Chicken is a little too salty where else other dishes are good. My Black Fungus Corn soup is a failure as it tastes not too good. This is mainly because of the overnight cooking in slow cooker that overkills the soup. Soups such as corn, tomato, white or red carrot just to name a few is not suitable to be cooked overnight in slow cooker. Somehow it either didn't bring out the taste or totally overkill it. Only vegetable that is hard such as lotus root or herbal soup benefits for overnight cooking using slow cooker. A lesson learned. PS: Most of my cooking blog that I posted here are yesterday night cooking. Tonight cooking will be publish by tomorrow night.

Mum's KL Visit

29/08/2009 I fetch my mum from Melaka and we head to KL at 10.30am. This is her first official visit to my rented house and KL visit. Upon arriving at my house in Subang, we rested for a while and headed to our first destination, Sunway Piramid. We took our lunch at Dragon I and mum was impressed with the classy environment of the restaurant. The place where we were seated overlooks Sunway Lagoon which is rather a great view. However, for the food, the beef and Szechuan Ramen and 'Xiao Long Pao' were just an average joe to her. Then we do some window shopping before heading back home for a bath and rest. Mum couldn't walk much as her leg is not very good due to her heart surgery many years ago. Around 5pm in the evening, we headed to Daph’s house and later to KLCC. She has been to KLCC before but it was quite a long long time ago. We took her dinner at Sakae Sushi and she told me that Sushi King taste better than Sakae. Somehow, it was very true as KLCC Sakae sushi is not really up to par. Perhaps it was because the restaurant was too packed at that time. We even waited for about 15min before we had a place. After dinner, we took some KLCC photo together and have a short window shopping there before calling it for a day. 30/08/2009 We woke up as early as 8.00am as we are going for Sunday Mass in Kepong church. I brought mum for breakfast in Teochew Fishball noodles in DU and later fetched Daph together to attend mass which started at 10.30am. After mass we head to PJ and had our Seafood Porridge lunch. This should be the tastiest porridge I have eaten so far in my entire life. However take note that it cost RM32 a pot but could easily feed 3 people and the ingredient is rather generous. After lunch it's time for Sungai Wang shopping. We went to Lowyat and Sungai Wang and had our teatime at U-Village. A rather boring time for me but a heavenly time to Daph and my mum as they happily shopping for shoes and clothes. Yawn. Luckily there is many handphone store around for me to window shop. Haha. We headed to Petaling Street around 4.30pm and had the famous Mata Kuching drink. We walk around Petaling Street and browse through lots of handbags and clothes while we were there. We then drive to The Curve and again do some shopping at FOS before we finally had our scrumptious dinner at Cineleisure Tony Roma's. We ordered TR Sampler Ribs and ribeye. Last time me and Daph ordered 7oz filet mignon cook in medium rare which is too adventurous for us. So this time, we ordered a 10oz ribeye cook in medium instead. It tastes perfectly to us. We also ordered a Potatoes Baked soup and Onion Loaf. Mum seems to enjoy the dinner very much. I can feel that my stomach is getting more and more bloated! We take a stroll along Cineleisure before calling it for a day. 31/08/2009 Today is our Independence Day but somehow there is not much celebration. Some said this was cause by H1N1 but the fact is most Malaysian is fed up with the never-ending political drama. I won't go detail into political issues as it's not worth blogging. Today morning as usual we headed to Daph house to pick her up. Then we go to the famous Ikea. Mum was rather impressed at Ikea as there are many things to see and buy. She has never seen such a gigantic furniture shop in her entire life before. She bought a few small thing and we had our lunch at Ikea. We ordered meatball and Swiss cake. After Ikea, it's time for me to send mum back to Melaka. We reached Melaka around 3.45pm. I had a great time with my mum during her present.