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.

Sweet Sour Siakap, A Thai feast that ends with an Argument

Want to know what me and my brother argued about? Wait till the end of the post. This time we will be doing a set of thai dish for RM20 fit for five adults.

We'll be having Siakap Sweet and Sour, Sambal Sotong and Fried Mushroom. 3 dish together, no time to document em all, so Sweet and Sour Siakap will be the main character today.

The fish is bought from Tesco. The one you're seeing here cost about RM10. Standard procedure is to have the Tesco people clean the fish (siang ikan) so that when we reach home, all we had to do is to clean the fish with tamarind( asam jawa), wrapped in flour and fry it. Sounds easy right?

Everything that could go wrong is in this picture.

• We have a big fish and the only thing bigger then it is a wok. Don't use wok. Use a non-stick pan. A huge one.
  
• We only had a wooden ladle-spoon thingy. Don't use it. Use stainless steel.
• We skimp on the oil. Don't do that. Oil should cover the whole fish.

If you follow the dark path, the fish's skin will stick to practically any surface it touches. After tossing and turning the fish to make sure it's thoroughly cooked, you'll end up with a messy fluffy fish. Totally unpresentable. Luckily we can hide it with the sweet and sour sauce. Only gordon ramsey from hells kitchen won't be too happy with it. Tsk tsk tsk..




For the sauce its easy, reuse the frying oil, add cili boh (lotsa them) and plum sauce (4-5 big tablespoon of em). Let it simmer for a bit. Add tomatoes and the usual salt and sugar to taste.

pour the sauce on the fish ( to hide the evidence)..

Together with siakap we had hot fluffy rice, oyster mushroom dip in egg and fried so oily that we had to leave it on tissue. We bought 2 packets of medium sized mushroom for rm5... I know some like the crispy mushroom but we're like the soggy mushroom enthusiast..

and of course, not forgettin Sambal Sotong..Ahh divine..

Oh yeah in the end what's there to argue? You remember "Goreng pun Sodap"? It all started with my brother pointing out that an old skool advertisement, Seri Murni Cooking oil shows the husband bringing home a fish from the river and its Siakap. Which is impossible because Siakap is only available at sea.

Well I thought Since Siakap sounds like Sea Carp , so its possible to have carps in freshwater right?

Argument went nowhere. We had no choice but to wiki.

Did you know that Siakap in english is Asian Sea Bass? We end up both a bit wrong, but i know bass lives in freshwater! so I'm kinda right!

How to make a burger like in TGIF for RM3.50

Today we're gonna hack it so that its cheap and fast. A typical burger at TGIF or Chilis will cost you around RM20. Here We're going to make a similar tasting burger for RM4 or less.

Well... actually you have to buy roughly RM14 worth of grocery in order to make 4 burgers. That amounts to plus minus RM3.50 per burger. Its simple and to make it even cheaper, I'll share the recipe for homemade mayonnaise.

We will need, ( I round the price up so it might be cheaper)
Ingredients
1 packet minced meat - RM4.50
4 burger buns ( A packet of 10 would be RM3.50, so that would be RM1.40)
3 eggs ( RM1, 2 for the burger, 1 for the mayo)
4 slice of cheese (RM5 per packet of 6, so that would be RM3.30 )
A cup of oil
Shredded iceberg lettuce, Slices of tomatoes, Ketchup or chili sauce

Hard to calculate the cost of oil and condiments so we have it at plus minus RM14

For the burger patty is simple that you can ask a five year old to do it. Since I don't have a kid, my brother would suffice. You can see here that he is holding an egg yolk and minced meat and that's all you need folks.

If you think using hands to hold a yolk is gross, think again because after that you have mix these stuff together using the same hands and shape the mixture into patties. Oh! before shaping them, mix in salt and pepper to taste and whatever herbs you think is suitable.We put basil in.

We fried the burger in margerine just the way that sponge bob did it ( insert corny sponge bob laugh). Don't overcook it. Why?

 Assemble the burger together lettuce, patty , tomatoes and cheese. If you prefer some chopped onions. We shall then continue the cooking in the oven about 170 degrees.

Now for the mayo is actually simple. But you have to have a blender. We need an egg.I've put it in the blender. It doesn't look to happy...

 We're going to emulsify the oil using egg as the emulsifier.Which means:

Blend the egg while pouring a cup of oil slowly into the blender.It will take you roughly 10 minutes to finish the oil with a short few seconds break in between. You don't want to spoil expensive blender just to make 5 ringgit worth of dressing.

 

You'll end up with a creamy liquidy texture. Don't worry that it doesn't have the supermarket variety texture and taste yet. The liquid will solidify when you put it in the fridge for 3-4 hours. Oh yeah, thats why, you might have to do this first before you make the burger.. As for the taste...

You add vinegar to the mixture. To taste. Up to you how sour you want it to be. Start with a big tablespoon of vinegar and adjust from there. We had only apple cider which smells different but it will do ( but really, if you could, avoid it).

As for the burger? leave in the oven for 5-10 minutes and you'll be able to have the juiciest burger ever with cheese melting all over it. Don't forget to add the mayo and cloud nine in three..two..one ..