Moved to Sacramento

I moved to Sacramento last year which increases my need to hack recipes. Cooking here is an adventure by itself.

At first I didn't miss Malaysian food much because I can cook whenever I miss Malaysian food . But these thing kinda creep up on  you unexpectedly..

So today I'm gonna share how to make my favorite comfort food,  char koey teow.

I hadn't dare to miss this dish because I don't wanna make my own koey teow.  Koey teow  is rice sheet pasta or flat noodles. It's relatively easy to make but I'm not ready to go down that road yet.

Things change when I saw something similar at my local Asian market.

Shrimp rice sheets. Delightful sheets of rice pasta dotted with dried shrimps and specks of green onions. This cuts out a lot of work of making  char koey teow.

making char koey teow now is as easy as one two three.

All you have to do is to soak the flat sheet noodles in cold water so it separates. I can't wait so I had clumpy  noodles.

Then use sesame oil a spoonful, to fry minced garlic in a wok. I used a cast iron pan. But you use the wok ok?

Then drain the noodles and fry it with garlic. Swirl and char the noodles slightly Add soy sauce to taste . Use sweet and salty soy sauce. Give the Sri Racha bottle a few squirts. 

Now for the best part..  An egg. I like it mushy and wet. Break the egg and Swirl it in the hot wok for 30 secs.

And it eat it while it's hot. Nyum.

No fail Chocolate Chip Recipe

This is my go to no fail chocolate chip cookie recipe. Its chewy and yummy.

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons hot water
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Nasi Tomato with accessories

My mum visited again and this time she made Nasi Tomato!! Needless to say I gained a few pounds... Just look at this!! ni tak masuk nasik tambah lagi...

anyway.. this time we have many add-ons , condiments, accessories.. whats the correct word for it in english? heck I don't even know what they call it in Malay. All I know it makes Nasi Tomato interesting...

So that day our Nasi Tomato is decorated with bawang goreng ( crispy fried onions ), Gajus ( Cashew Nuts ) and Fried Raisins...
Thank you mama

Did you know these food can explode?

Soy sauce
Salted egg
Buah berangan

We brought in the most notorious food hacker

Like Ronaldinho which has been imported to many football clubs, We all pun ada our own pemain import jugak.

Introducing my mum. A food tech lecturer by day, a notorious food hacker by night, she is feared by many...no kidding..

Our mum visits us in kl for a week and these, among many other dishes is what she cooked.

Try as I may, I can't seem to take good pictures in order to build a recipe. I'm just too hungry to focus ... oh the food is soo good..

Kari Ikan Susu

Translating this into english, it's not fish curry with milk. It's a fish curry with a type of fish named "ikan susu". Its a fabulous fish because it has nearly the same taste as ikan terubuk but not as much bones. Ikan susu is available at tesco and the price is about 10 ringgit per kilo.






The hack: she puts spring onions in the curry which gives that extra crunch and sweetness.


Udang Goreng Cili



Masak Lemak Telur Itik
This is one of my most favourite dish. I love duck eggs. Just look at how orange it is!






Paru
This dish takes so long to cook but worth it!



Asam Pedas Melaka
Not your regular asam pedas, this one has more texture and thicker gravy. My kind of asam pedas. Whats yours?



There's more and maybe I'll share the recipe post by post. For now, I'm just goin to say I love you mama! Thank you!! :D

Strange drinks concoction

jasmine tea + soya bean

Mix jasmine tea with soya bean to have that slightly  tart and sweet smelling drink.

Chrysanthemum lemon tea

Chrysanthemums tea are foreign to some.  But for those who has a taste for it,  add a dimension to the taste buds by squeezing lemon in your drink.

Mountain Chocolate malt

We have to have a visual on this because this drink is ugly but at the same time yummy.  A cold glass of milk dumped with chocolate malt milo or vico,  until it's a bit saturated. The coldness create three layers of goodness.  A chocolate milk layer, a sticky clumpy chocolate malt layer,  and a powdered layer on top.  All delicious.

Nasi Lemak Hack part 1

You don't appreciate hassle-freeness of the regular nasi lemak which you regularly have for breakfast, until you tried cooking it yourself. You have to have prepare sambal, clean the ikan bilis and fry it. Find and buy peanuts and try to fry it without burning it to cinder...

In other words, its not a fast food! you need to go out, sweat and buy stuff to make a proper nasi lemak.

Our project this time is we're going to make an improper nasi lemak..
Improper because we want it quick and hassle free, kacang and ikan bilis ( peanuts and anchovies) have been omitted from this dish but just look at how delicious it is...

Some people might not like it though.. This is blasphemy! This is madness!

But before you say ah forget it lets just buy the usual in front of 7-11, the good thing  about cooking the rice yourself enables you to add as much spartan santan ( coconut milk) as you like, adding the lemak-ness like no other.

Now, for the rice you will need santan, ginger and daun pandan and some onions. Not the cucumber though.that one is for later..

Add all of them together in the rice cooker and leave it to cook, just look at how creamy that is.

We use kangkung as a substitute because cooking the vege is easy not to mention that kangkung is the cheapest but yummiest vegetables in the planet and very high in vitamin C. Cooking it is a no brainer. Put it in with water and boil it.

By the way, kangkung in english, is it watercress or spinach or is it another name? anyone knows?

Now for the sambal. You see in food hacking like in real hacking there's trial and error involved.  Rarely will you see accurate numeric measurements in our blog.

First add onions. No one ever complained of too much bawang in a sambal. Use as many as you want. If you want a measurement, nature has an interesting way to say when... Peel and chop the onions. Stop when your eyes are a blurry and you can't get visual on the knife that you're using. Wipe your tears away. Voila. Thats how many you need! ( but if you end up a one measly onion that's the natures way to say that you're a wimp).

Add chili powder or chili boh. how much to put? Just enough to cover the onions and a bit more. A matter of taste actually. Let the chili cook for a while. Uncooked chili taste foul. Make sure its cooked thoroughly. Add sugar and soy sauce (kicap) to the mixture. Sambal to me is like caramelised onions mixed with chili paste. The sugar and kicap adds to the caramelised part. Sugar to sweeten and kicap to add to that carammely look. By the way this sambal was cooked by eekwan my brother.

After the sambal is cooked, add Five ringgit worth of squids. Remember this is 2009. If you're reading this post in 2025, five ringgit would only get you half a sotong. So adjust according to the inflation rate.

When its ready, here we see Sambal Sotong in its natural habitat. The Kuali.

A closeup

Next fry an egg for each hungry person. Because frying is much faster then boiling an egg. Yes boiling is healthier but this is not the malaysian food healthy blog. Assemble everything together. This dish is fit for 5 people but that day it was finished by 3 very hungry people.