GYO #35 Roundup

It was a great experience hosting my first Grow Your Own Event. Thanks to all who've participated and as promised, here's the roundup :

I tried out an interesting recipe of Thai Rambutan Salad with rambutans I received from a family friends orchard.

SE of Denufood prepared a healthy Moth Bean Sprouts Curry made from their own sprouted beans.

The Gulo gulo or Banana fritters prepared by Ela was interesting as it reminded me of the common pisang goreng or fried bananas back in Malaysia.

Graziana prepared Vegetarian Balls in Roti Bread - something I hope for as a quick bite during lunch.

While Andrea's Zucchini Risotto seemed like a hearty meal one could have for dinner after a tiresome day at work.

The Spicy Green Bean, Potato and Carrot Tortilla by MangoCheeks seemed well as a healthy evening snack or quick lunch bite.

Vincent & Linda Simon from Kitchen Therapy made a lovely Ground Cherry Jam with Orange with ground cherries produced from their garden.

As something entirely different, Nathan prepared a refreshing barley with pandan leaves drink - prepared for a hot day.

Lorelei's prepared a hearty portion of Apple Pie from the apples growing on her tree. Nothing beats a slice of Apple Pie for me when it comes to dessert.

Mom's Gateway prepared Kimchi - something that came out as a bright delight. It also reminds me now that it's been a while since I've hit Korean joints downtown Kuala Lumpur and should be heading there pretty soon.

Sense explosions! Tropical Rambutan Salad

It has been a great pleasure hosting the Grow Your Own #35 event this month and I sincerely thank all those of you who've taken the effort to submit your dishes for this event.

Hoping I'm not too late, I'm going to finally send in my GYO submission before the clock strikes 12 in a couple of hours today. For those who are familiar with Asian fruits, you just might have heard about this hairy little things called rambutans. These tiny fruits are distinct with their hairy exterior - dig in through the skin layer and you would be duly rewarded with the sweet and fleshy fruit.

I was lucky to receive a bag of freshly plucked rambutan fruits from a family friend, who owns a farm in the state of Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia about an hour and a half away from Kuala Lumpur. Below is a nice recipe of a tropical rambutan salad i adapted from Maritasays with a Thai influence.

Tropical Rambutan Salad

( Adapted from Maritasays)

8 rambutans, skinned and carefully pitted

½ tablespoon crushed peanuts
1 small red chili seeded and minced
8 very small pieces of lime, optional to keep the skins on
½ tablespoon of minced fresh ginger
1 tablespoon soft brown sugar
a little water

Method

1. Heat sugar with a little water in a saucepan over medium heat - stir consistently.

2. Once sugar has melted, the water reduced, and the mixture becomes sticky - remove from heat. Scrap the melted sugar into a bowl to set and then crush slightly to achieved a hard and crumbly texture.

3. Once the rambutans have been deskinned and pitted - take a little of each ingredient and assemble inside one part of the halved rambutan - spread some melted brown sugar on the mixture and cover with the other half of the rambutan fruit. Serve chilled.

4. The sensation you would get at a bite of this dish would be an explosion of crunchy, sweet, sour and spicy senses.

Grow Your Own #35

As many of you might already be aware of, I’m a frequent participant of Andrea’s Grow Your Own event. I love the feeling of picking fresh produce from the garden and putting them right through the stir fry pan and on the dining platter and with the myriad of vegetables and herbs in my garden, I’m thankful I wouldn’t be running out of ideas so soon. It was delightful to have the opportunity to host this round of Grow Your Own – after sending in my Baingan Masala and Carrot Mint Raita as submissions in the past.

So in case you’re wondering :-

What exactly is Grow Your Own?

Grow Your Own is a twice-a-month blogging event that celebrates the foods we grow or raise ourselves and the dishes we make using our homegrown products. Anyone with a blog can participate! Do you write a food blog? A gardening blog? A farm blog? A hunting or foraging blog? An eco blog? A frugal blog? Anything whatsoever related to home and garden or fun activities to do with children? You can write a post about some of the edibles you have raised, grown, or found and cooked with. Having a food blog is not a requirement for participation.

So how would I join this thingamajiggy?

The rules are simple:

• Make a dish that uses at least one item from your very own garden or farm and post about it. Your garden doesn’t have to be big. Container gardens are welcome! If you hunted or foraged, those items are also eligible. You can also use something that was given to you, but the giver must have personally grown or raised the item. If you paid for it, then it doesn’t count.
• Anything edible that you have grown or raised qualifies, including fruits, vegetables, herbs, sprouts, edible flowers, nuts, grains, legumes, dairy products, eggs, livestock, and anything else I might have forgotten. Produce from both indoor and outdoor gardens are welcome! Different regions will have different things available, so feel free to feature things unique to your area. We are all about celebrating variety!
• Please make sure your dish is posted during the month of the event because we like to celebrate seasonal items. One post per blog, please.
• As a courtesy, please include a link to this announcement in your blog post, and then update later with a link to the round-up.
• If you want to include one of the Grow Your Own badges in your post, feel free to grab one from below. (Please upload to your own server/image repository.) Logos professionally designed by Jeff Meyers.
• 
  

Sounds good – I’m interested. What do I do next?

Drop me an e-mail at mangomaples[at]gmail[dot]com by the 15th of September 2009 with the following information:

• Subject line: Grow Your Own #
• Your name and location (country, state if applicable)
• Your blog URL
• Permalink to your post
• 300×300 pixel photo of your dish (As long as the photo is no larger than 300 pixels in either direction, it will work.)

I’ll post up the roundup within a day or two after the deadline.

Lets go green people . Cheers!

Beware the frost bites!! - Kulfi Madness

Kulfi Ice Cream, originally uploaded by MasalaHeaven.

Its been a while since I've indulged in Indian dessert. The last would probably have been back in March when I was in India, blissfully chomping down premium barfi's from Lyallpurs. The indian sweets back in Kuala Lumpur, sadly - does not give my tastebuds the kind of zing the way the sweets from Lyallpurs do it and hence I indulge in indian sweets sparingly.

Babe_kl was kind of enough to host Merdeka Open House 2009 yet again. Since the theme called for the preparation of a traditional ethnic sweet dish - I decided to roll up my sleeves and prepare an Indian sweet dish different from the regular South Indian Kesaris and Athirasams ubiquitously found in Malaysia.

Kulfi, which you'd probably find in North Indian restaurants in Kuala Lumpur, is a popular Indian ice cream made out of milk and cardamoms. I prepared a plain version but more often that not you would find versions with almonds and pistachios which are just as lovely.

Kulfi
1 tin of evaporated milk
3 cardamoms - lightly pounded
6 strands of saffron
3 tablespoons of single cream
2-3 tbsp sugar

1. Add evaporated milk to a heavy bottomed pan with sugar and cardamoms. Cook over low heat for about 10 minutes while continuously stirring and scraping bottom until sugar dissolves and milk thickens slightly.
2. Remove milk from heat and remove cardamom pods. Add saffron and cream to milk and well. Allow to cool.
3. Once cool, put mixtures into kulfi moulds. ( I didn't have moulds and so I simply filled them up in little shot glasses)
4. Freeze in a freezer and stir once every hour for the first two hours to prevent formation of ice. Freeze for at least 4-5 hours before savouring the blissful milk ice cream.

Street Eats - Spicy Pan Mee @ Kee V

I had the pleasure of discovering this hidden gem two weeks ago when April planned for a tweetup (read: gathering of likeminded twitter addicts). Startled up from bed at 10.15 am when I was supposed to meet the tweeps at 10.30 am. Scrambled out of bed – got dressed and off I went on my way. A few missed turns here and there (sorry guys) and I finally arrived at the sanctum of the spicy soup.

I was happy meet to meet new faces, some of whom I regularly keep in touch via twitter – you know the whole matching the face to the twitter profile thing J. As soon as the dishes arrived, we thought no less for a second and digged in right away.

The spicy pan mee soup came in two versions – one with the smooth hand torn noodles and the other was a thin and more springy version. For the initiated – please do head your cursors to the Wikipedia entry of pan mee.

Smooth hand torn pan meen in a fiery soup

The soup by itself had a nice peppery herby flavor to it and complemented the noodles very well. It was spicy yes, but not spicy to the extent that I would break into sweat and gulp down buckets of water (Too much K factor?). Anyhow, I appreciated the mild spiciness that worked harmoniously with the noodles.

Springy noodles at dancing in hot soup.

The claypot chicken and claypot pork cooked with Chinese Rice Wine we ordered were the other specialities of this place. The pork had a mild spicy and salty tinge to it while the chicken was delicate, sweet and soaked up the flavors of rice wine brilliantly – was a great accompaniment to the spicy soup.

Claypot Chicken with Chinese Rice Wine

For extra bites, the minced pork in foo chook rolls was perfect for its role. Tiny little delighted morsels of minced pork simply bursted with meaty goodness at every bite. The meal came up to about RM168 for a group of 9 which translated to about RM 19 per pax – extremely reasonable for the quality and amount of food we gleefully walloped. Ended up leaving Kajang with a porky filled belly like crocodiles after a hearty lunch.

(from left) 1. Divine steam released from the claypot, 2. Pork rolls, 3. Ooh so springy :)

Location:No.468, Jln 13, Kg Baru Sg.Chuah, 43000 Kajang, Selangor.

Web: http://www.restorankeev.com/

(I thought I was dreaming when I found the website of this little wooden shop with zink roofs – well yea, I guess their famous:p)

Delicious Crustaceans

Delicious Crustaceans, originally uploaded by MasalaHeaven.

I simply heart crabs :)

Usually when I need my crabby fix, I’d drive down to the ubiquitous dai chow type seafood restaurants in Klang Valley for amazing mudcrabs cooked either the spicy Kam Heong style, with salted egg yolks or plain steamed.

Back home however, when dad gets the mood he’d buy flower crabs from the local market and to suit the curry cravings of everyone – we’d usually cook it dry with spices and since it’s so good on its own – we’ll have it sans rice.

I learnt this particular recipe from my dad – a gifted cook. I don’t mean to be bias – but his recipe for curried crabs is pretty much one of the few real good ones I’ve had.

Crab Curry
1 kg of flower crabs ( each chopped into half)
1 onion – chopped into rings
3 cloves garlic – chopped finely
2 thumb sized ginger pieces – sliced thinly
¼ tsp fenugreek seeds
¼ tsp cumin
¼ tsp coriander seeds
1 cinnamon stick
2 pieces clove
1 piece star anise
a sprig of curry leaves
1 tbsp chilli powder
1 tbsp coriander powder
1 tbsp cumin powder
1 medium sized egg
Vegetable oil
salt

To make :
1.Fry fenugreek seeds lightly in oil
2.Add in the other spices : cinnamon stick, coriander, cumin, clove, star anise, curry leaves and fry lightly
3.Fry onions, garlic and ginger till fragrant
4.Push fried stuff to the side of the pan and add chilli powder, coriander powder and cumin powder. Roast lightly on fire until the raw smell of spices is non-evident.
5.Once that is done, add in crabs and toss in the spice mixture. Within less than 5 minutes, the crabs should turn slightly pink/red in colour. Add in salt to taste and a little water at this juncture. Continue tossing the crabs.
6.Break in an egg into the curry and toss till cooked.
7.Can be served with rice.

Quick Bites : A Perfect Omelette

An omelette - what does it say? A simple fried egg you may say. I beg to differ - I've always been craving the perfect omelette. The closest I've gotten so far was those egg stations in morning buffet breakfasts during my hotel stays and what we used to get at home were those unappetising limp and overcooked omelettes.

Fiddling on google one day, I tried searching for tips for the perfect omelette and frankly I'm quite glad I found a good tip on the BBC website and not long later this clip below. Somehow writing this post makes me feel like a dodo - but I hope its of some help to those ( like me) who have been having limp omelettes all their lives and would do well with some properly made omelettes for a change.

Getting back into track, eggs is right way on top of my list whenever I need a quick bite - simply cause its quick to cook, nutritious and yummy :) Here's a glimpse of what I did one day :

Tomato, Coriander and Ham Omelette

Why this combination?? Cause I was in a hurry and these were lying in the refridgerator.

Serves : 1

Checklist : Tomato, Coriander leaves, Ham, Salt, Pepper, Ketchup/Chilli sauce, Cooking oil, Bowl, Pan, Whisk/Fork

Tasks :

1. Chop 1/2 tomato, 2-3 sprigs of coriander leaves and a slice of ham finely into bite size pieces.

2. Break 1 egg into a bowl - season with salt and pepper and beat with a whisk/fork till slightly frothy.

3. Heat pan and pour a little cooking oil into it - Pan must be hot

4. Cook egg according to directions in the video above.

5. Towards the end add tomato, coriander leaves and ham and fold over.

6. Serve hot with chilli sauce/ketchup.

P.s : I personally love the undercooked soft top of the omelette with the stuffing - blends in the tastes really nicely.

I'm sending in this simple and (dodo you might think) post of mine to the No Time to Cook #5 July 2009 Challenge.