The ABC of the Quintessential Malaysian Dessert - more Cultural Exchange

In this hot climate of ours there is no snow, nor will there ever will be. We do get hailstones some times but that is rare. What we do get though is rain. Lots of it. Torrential rain and thunderstorms. Then Kuala Lumpur floods. Traffic crawls. Trees get uprooted. Damage occurs. You get the idea.

But I digress. I started this post off to say that we don't get snow. Why snow? Because as a young lad, I remember reading books that talked about scooping out snow and covering it with maple syrup or honey - written by western authors no doubt.

Many countries and cultures have evolved to using shaved ice instead of snow and pouring syrup over it. We do that here too and we call it "Ice Balls". Better than that however is our very own dessert known as ABC - Air Batu Campur. Air Batu means Ice (Air is pronounced I-yay and means water while Batu is pronounced Bah-to and means stone) and Campur means to mix or mixture. The language has evolved and Air Batu is now commonly known as Ais (ice!) So the dessert is also commonly known as Ais Kacang (literally Ice with Nuts or Beans).


The dessert is usually made with Red Beans, Peanuts, Cincau (grass jelly), coloured jelly pieces (or shredded) and some cream corn. It is then covered with shaved ice to which coconut milk is poured on top and then covered with Gula Melaka and Red Syrup. Sometimes, instead of Coconut milk, evaporated milk is used. Sometimes too, the syrup used is only Gula Melaka or Red Syrup. Nowadays, the ingredients to Ais Kacang are wide and varied and include fruit cocktail in addition to the other ingredients. The options are really limitless. Some places like to place a scoop of ice cream over the ABC as well.

Both my kids love their Ais Kacang. The Lovely Wifes sister-in-law has an electric ice scraper that TLW borrowed to make home-made Ice Kacang. Although the home version of the ice scraper doesnt produce as fine a shaved ice, it does a pretty good job.



For the homemade version, TLW used Evaporated Milk rather than Coconut Milk - healthier although not quite as tasty. She made the gula melaka syrup by melting the solid gula melaka with a little water while the red syrup is simply coloured sugar syrup flavoured with some pandan leaves. She also made her own jelly by boiling agar-agar with pandan leaves and then adding in sugar and food colouring. The red-beans took a long time to soften and I had suggested that TLW just get canned beans isntead. The rest of the ingredients, like grass-jelly, peanuts and cream of corn, are easily available in the local stores.

Sometimes, the jelly is shredded and sometimes it is just cut into small cubes. For the first serving of the Ais Kacang, TLW shredded the jelly. Subsequent servings were just served with cut up jelly!

Ingredients
At least two types of Agar-agar (Jelly made from seaweed)
Cincau (Grass-Jelly)
Cream of Corn
Evaporated Milk
Gula Melaka
Red Syrup or Rose Syrup
Peanuts
Red Beans - boiled till soft
Lots of shaved Ice
Method
Arrange the ingredients in the bottom of a bowl. Cover with shaved ice and then pour evaporated milk/coconut milk on top. Drizzle over Gula Melaka and Syrup.

Here's a little step by step pictorial for you to truly understand the composition of Ice Kacang.


1. Place all the ingredients in the bottom of a bowl. I usually like to put my cream corn in too but TLW and the kids like it on top. To each their own I guess!


2. Place the bowl under the ice scraper maching and fill up with ice shavings.


3. Pour over the evaporated milk (or coconut milk)


4. Then pour over the Gula Melaka...



5. ... and the Red Syrup


The dessert is then ready for the eating!!
Ice Kacang is a great dessert to end a meal with. More than that however, its a great treat to have at any time of the day. The only problem with Ice Kacang is that eaten too quickly, it can cause 'Brain Freeze' as my little princess found out!

One Day we made Onde Onde - more Cultural Exchange

Malaysia is famous for its Kueh - pronouned Kway. What the heck is Kueh I hear you say. Well, it's a bit hard to explain but let me try anyway. It's kind of the equivalent of the western pastry - although its not really a pastry. Maybe it'll be easier explained as a sweetmeat. Then again, that's not really all that apt. Maybe the best way to explain it would be to say it's an Asian Cake. Perhaps not quite the best way to explain it but possibly the easiest way!

Kueh-mueh is the plural of Kueh and Malaysia has many Kueh-Mueh. It's available at breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner - anytime at all and like the western pastry, is usually a dessert or mouth sweetener - usually sweet although sometimes there are savoury ones too. There are so many varieties of Kueh-mueh and all of them are delicious.

Mostly, the Kueh are usually made with ingredients that include coconut, or conut milk, pandan leaves(screwpine leaves also known as pandanus leaves) and gula melaka. Incidentally, my very first Cultural Exchange post featured Gula Melaka.

Another key ingredient in kuih is of course flour. However, wheat flour is seldom is hardly ever used. Instead, the flour used for kuih takes the form of rice flour, pulut (glutinous rice), pulut flour and even tapioca and tapioca flour. Sometimes green peas are used as well.





My son loves his Kueh while my little princess enjoys it as well, but not as much as my son. The Lovely Wife and I also enjoy our Kueh and it's always a treat to buy Kueh from the local market, hawkers or food courts. The Lovely Wife refers to the Kueh sellers as the Koi-koi man - a play on the word Kueh. This term is used by quite a few people in Malaysia too!

My son's favourite kueh is Onde-Onde (pronounced as Oanday-Oanday although the 'oan' would be very short). Basically, its a ball of glutinous flour with a filling of liquid Gula Melaka and covered in lightly salted grated coconut. The balls are boiled and the texture would be slightly sticky and chewy - perhaps like a gnocchi? When you pop the ball into your mouth and bite on it, the gula melaka explodes in your mouth - pure heaven to your taste buds!

The Lovely Wife has a couple of books on Kueh - one of which the kids got her for Christmas - and one day, she decided to make Onde-Onde. I decided to help and we consulted both the books. One is by Rohani Jelani called Malaysian cakes and desserts while the other is a collection called Hot Favourites Kueh - author unspecified.


This is what we did:

Ingredients
300g glutinous rice flour
10-12 pandan leaves
150ml water
1/2 tsp alkaline water
180g gula melaka - finely chopped
100g grated coconut
salt

Method
Combine grated coconut and salt and steam for about 5 minutes. Set aside to cool.
Blend pandan leaves with the water in a food processor. Strain to remove the solids and set the juice aside. Mix the juice together with alkaline water and then add into the sifted flour.

Knead well to form a smooth dough. Cover the dough with a damp cloth to prevent drying. bring a large pan of water to the boil then lower heat to simmering. Pinch a small piece of dough (about 2cm) and flatten into a disk. Drop the dough into the water till it cooks and rises to the surface. Remove with a slotted spoon, shake off excess water and knead the cooked dough into the rest of the dough.
If dough seems to sticky, add in a litte more glutinous rice flour.

Pinch of small balls of dough the size of small limes and roll in your palms to form smoot balls. Carefully make a small well in the dough and fill with some gula melaka. Pinch the top to seal the sugar inside and then roll gentlty Alternatively, flatten the balls a little like a dumpling and fill with gula melaka before sealing the top and gently rolling it smooth with your palms. Be careful as the gula melaka will cause the dough to sweat and it can leak out.

Drop the balls gently into the simmering water. Don't overcrowd. When the balls are cooked, they will float to the top. Gently remove with a slotted spoon and then allow the water to drain. Toll the balls in the salted coconut. Transfer to a serving plate.

Yes, all in all a rather complicated recipe but the results are well worth it! It takes quite a bit of skill to keep the gula melaka inside when rolling and some of it actually leaked out when cooking.

Granted, the onde onde that we made wasn't quite as good as the ones we get from the kueh man but it was still very good. Nothing is quite so satisfying as making something at home that you would never dream of making.

Best part though, is that my son was pleased as punch with the homemade onde onde. He too admitted that the bought ones tasted better but he was just so thrilled that we could make it at home!

He couldn't stop stuffing his face with them and that, in itself, was worth all the hard work!

Honey Chicken and more cultural exchange

My son's favourite dish to order at Nasi Kandar restaurants is Honey Chicken. For my foreign readers, Nasi Kandar is basically rice with a variety of dishes, usually curried or spicy. Nasi Kandar is thought to have originated from Penang and is is basically food with a strong Indian Muslim influence.

Literally translated, from Malay, Nasi is Rice while Kandar is a yoke or to carry with a pole on the shoulders. Picture a vendor in days of yore, balancing a pole on his shoulders with each end of the pole attached to containers of rice and curries! Today, Malaysia is full of Nasi Kandar shops and the key or trick to a good Nasi Kandar is to mix a little bit of curry/gravy from every dish in addition to the main meat dish that you choose. Ergo, if you chose to have a chicken curry with rice, you would take a serving of chicken curry but you would also add a litte of the gravy from the mutton curry, the fish curry, the chicken kurma, the chicken sambal... you get the idea.

One of the specials at most Nasi Kandar restaurants is the Honey Chicken. This is basically chicken cooked in a honey sauce flavoured with spices. Some shops add a bit of chilli powder to make it a little spicy. Most times, the chicken is fried first and then coated in the sauce.





Any time we go to a Nasi Kandar restaurant, my son will order Honey Chicken. Since my son loves his Honey Chicken so much, The Lovely Wife decided she was going to try and make this at home - without frying the chicken first so that it would be healthier. This is what she did.

Ingredients
Chicken
4 cloves garlic
1 inch ginger
1 onion - sliced
cinammon stick - broken into pieces
1 Tbsp Dark Soya Sauce
1/2 Tbsp light soya sauce
3-4 Tbsp Honey
Method
pound ginger, garlic and marinate the chicken together with the dark soy sauce. Fry the cinammon until fragrant. Add onion and cook till soft. Add in chicken and cook well. Add light soya sauce to taste and then add in the honey. Continue to cook until chicken is well coated and honey is caramelised.

It turned out really well and we all really enjoyed this. I guess the true test of the success of this was my son licking his fingers and declaring. "No need to go to Nasi Kandar shops anymore Mummy!"

A drink called Michael Jackson and more cultural exchange

Malaysia is famous for its food and where there is good food, there must also be good drinks! One of the favourite beverages here is Soya Milk. You can get Soya milk in cartons and you can also get it fresh from roadside hawker stalls. Some stalls sell them in plastic bottles too and you can get the milk sweetened or unsweetened.

A couple of years back, an interesting drink started to appear in many coffee shop and restaurant menus - Michael Jackson. My son loves this drink and it has nothing to do with the fact that his name is Michael!

So what exactly is a Michael Jackson? Well, it is Soya Milk with Cincau - otherwise known as Grass Jelly or Black Jelly. I'm not exactly sure what Cincau is made out of but a quick check on Google shows that it is a jelly made from boiling the aged and slightly oxidized stalks and leaves of Mesona chinensis - some sort of mint like plant.

There is also another drink called Cincau which is simply Cincau with sugared water. Cincau is also used in other desserts like Ais Kacang (Shaved Ice with syrup and a whole host of beans and nuts) and many more.

I've also got no idea why this drink is called Michael Jackson. Maybe it has something to do with his song Black or White as the drink is a mix of Black and White? Who knows?



I understand that many Asian stores in Australia, UK and even the USA sell Cincau (Black Jelly/Grass Jelly) in cans so I'm providing this recipe for all of you that want to try and sample a Michael Jackson.

Ingredients
Soya Milk
Cincau (Grass Jelly / Black Jelly)
Method
Dice the black jelly and set aside
Fill a glass with Soya Bean Milk and sweeten to taste. Add in the Cincau and lots of ice.

See how Michael is enjoying his Michael Jackson?!
Its a very refreshing drink and very tasty too. Serve it with a spoon to scoop out the jelly Try it, I'm sure your kids will love it - maybe even you will!

Not just Vadai but spinach Vadai...

Vadai is a favourite savoury snack with its origins from South India. In Malaysia, many South Indian shops sell Vadai mostly at tea time but some sell them throughout the day as well. You also find Vadai sold in hawker stalls.

I am familiar with two types of Vadai - Ulunthu Vadai that is doughnut shaped and softer as compared with Paruppu Vadai that is rounded and is made with lentils and more crunchy. I'm sure there are other types of Vadai as well but these two are the most common.

Often in Malaysia, whenever you have family of friends coming over in the evening, you will buy a whole stack of Vadai to enjoy with a cup of tea (or coffee or cold drinks as may be the case). Vadai is just as famous as Currypuffs are in Malaysia.

I have to say that Vadai is the kind of thing that we would never imagine making. It looks too difficult and since its so easily available in the shops, we have never ever imagined making it.





The Lovely Wife however, decided she was going to try out a recipe from one of her Indian cookbooks. This Vadai is a little different. It is a version ofParuppu Vadai that uses spinach as one of the ingredients. That is rather uncommon and I believe made this Vadai all the more tasty.

This is her take on the recipe that comes from Indian Shortcuts to Success by Das Sreedharan

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups yellow split peas
250g spinach leaves, with stems removed
1 onion, finely chopped
2 green chillies, chopped finely
1 inch ginger, minced
10 curry leaves, chopped
salt

Method
Soak the pentils in a large bowl for about an hour. Meanwhile, blanch the spinach in hot water until just cooked. Set aside to cook then chop finely.
Drain the lentils and then process in the food processor till it becomes a coarse paste. Don't grind it too fine as you want some texture to the paste. Tip into a large bowl and add the spinach, onion, ginger, chillies and curry leaves. Season with salt and then mix well.
Divide mixture into small portions and roll into the size of a golf ball with your hands. Flatten into a small round patty.
Heat some vegetable oil in a deep wok or frypan till hot. Deep fry the patties until a deep golden brown. Remove and drain on paper towels.

To say the the Vadai turned out well would be an understatement. They were simply fabulous! As I said earlier, the spinach added a nice touch to the Vadai. Making the vadai was no where near as complicated as we thought it would be and actually it turned out to be rather easy.

This is the kind of food that people will be in awe of when they find that you prepared it at home. The Vadais didn't last very long and the main culprit that kept wolfing them down was none other than Me!



The Lovely Wife reckons that the next time she makes these, she will add some chopped dried chillis to the mix for a bit of a piquant zing. I can't wait till she makes it again...

BloggerAid Culinary Olympics - Ayam Goreng Sri Wangi (Fragrant Fried Chicken)

The Malaysian Flag is raised at the Culinary Olympics 2010 hosted in Canada...


If there is one thing that symbolises Malaysia, it would be its veritable assortment of food. Assortment doesn't quite give you the right picture though. Think more along the lines of multifariousness, multiplicity, mélange, potpourri, mishmash, range, variation and you get more of an idea. With three main cuisines of Malay, Indian and Chinese, interspersed with Portuguese, Dutch and English, you get an idea of what true Malaysian food is. Throw in a fetish for Japanese, Italian, French and German cuisine and Malaysia is a melting pot for all kinds of food. Want a foodie holiday? Come to Malaysia! Sadly, the same can't be said about our sporting prowess.

That brings me to the BloggerAid -Changing the Face of Famine Culinary Olympics. This cyber event is being held to coincide with the Winter Olympics in Canada. The aim of this event is to promote food (might they make it an official sport?) and BACFF's mission to actively promote the alleviation of World Hunger. This event is only open to members of BloggerAid Changing the Face of Famine (BACFF). Since I am a member of BACFF, I have decided to take part in these the inaugural Culinary Olympics!




Malaysia only ever takes part in the Summer Olympics - for obvious reasons. However Malaysia has never won a Gold medal at the Olympics. We've won Bronze and Silver (for Badminton) but that is all. Our Football (soccer) team hasn't made it to the Olympics since the 80's and our Hockey team, once sure bets for the Olympics, have failed to qualify in recent times. Sad, sad indeed.

Never mind about the Olympics though, we STILL have the Worlds Tallest PAIR of Buildings!! It used to be the Worlds Tallest Building but that has long been superceded most recently by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Good thing we built the towers as a pair...



We also have the Sixth tallest Communication Tower in the World in the form of the Kuala Lumpur Tower.



In deciding what dish to submit, I wanted it to be something distinctly Malaysian as well as something that is well liked in our household. I'd already posted about Satay previously as well as Nasi Lemak. Then it struck me. One of The Lovely Wife's favourite dishes to make and that we all love to eat, comes from Malaysia's very own Chef Wan. I had photographed this dish quite a while ago and so decided to finally get the writeup done for the BloggerAid Olympics!




The recipe comes from Simply Sedap by Chef Wan and this is how it goes:

Ingredients
4 Chicken breast fillets - cut into strips
2 stalks lemongrass (serai)- finely sliced
1 torch ginger bud (bunga kantan) - finely sliced
10 birds eye chillies (Chilli padi)
2 Tbsp Tom Yam paste
1/4 cup water
1 tsp honey
1 1/2 Tbsp mayonnaise
3 kaffir lime leaves - finely sliced

Marinade
1 1/2 Tbsp Oyster sauce
1 medium egg - beaten
3 Tbsp cornflour


Method
Combine the chicken with the marinade and set aside for at least 15 minutes. Deep fry the chicken until it is golden and crisp. Drain
In a separate pan or wok, heat a little oil and saute the lemon grass, torch ginger bud, chillies and tom yam paste until fragrant
Add in the water, honey and chicken. Mix well. Remove from the heat and stir in the mayonnaise. Stir in the kaffir lime leaves.

This chicken dish is rather spicy what with the addition of chilli padi as well as the tom yam paste. It goes really well with rice and although it is piquant, you sort of keep wanting to eat more and more...and more still!



Members of BACFF have also been asked to do a little promotion for the BloggerAid Cookbook, available online. All proceeds from this book will go to the United Nations World Food Program. One of my recipes is also featured in that book and I received my order of the book just a few weeks ago. So do what you can for a good cause.

All entries for the Olympics will be posted on the BACFF website on the 5th March so don't forget to check out all the awesome entries!

And when are you coming over to visit this wonderful country of mine?

Rice Porridge and more cultural exchange

In Malaysia, a dish that you will find in many hawker stalls and in fact even some Restaurants is Porridge. It's also a great dish to make at home and many a household would have their own variation of a rice porridge. This porridge is savoury rather than sweet and is known by many a different name, depending on which culture you are referring to. The Chinese call it Chiook, the Indians may refer to it as Kanji, the Malays call it Bubur while the English would call it Congee. These are the names that I am familiar with anyway. A quick check on Wikipedia will show you that there are many other different names and variations for this simple rice dish. As Shakespeare might say, a porridge by any other name would taste just as great!


I really enjoy a good porridge and it can be eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Many a Malaysian hotel will serve Porridge as one of the items on their buffet spread. The porridge will be in a large steaming pot while the condiments and 'fillings' would include shredded chicken, liver, sesame oil, spring onions, soy sauce, pepper, salted egg, fried onions and a whole host of other ingredients for you to customise the porridge as you wanted to.

Chicken Porridge is also a great dish to eat as comfort food and as a substitute for chicken soup when one is not feeling well. The rice in the porridge means you have a far more substantial meal while it is still easy to eat and provides all the necessary nutrition to fight off the fever and chills body!

The Lovely Wife has often made porridge but recently realised that the secret to a good porridge is in making a good stock first. The best thing to make a good stock is the carcass if a chicken or chicken bones. For the vegetarians out there, just make a good stock out of vegetables.



The secret to a good porridge is also not to make it too salty as it is best served with Soy Sauce - with the 'eater' adding in as much soy sauce as they like. Soy sauce has a slightly different taste to salt and adds some colour to the bland looking porridge. Garnish the porridge with spring onions and coriander for some extra colour too.

Ingredients
carcass of 1 chicken
2 cups rice
3 inches ginger
6 cloves garlic
200g chicken fillet - cut into strips
2 tsp sesame oil

Method
Put chicken carcass in a large saucepan and fill with water till carcass is covered. Bruise 3 cloves of garlic and add half the ginger strips. Reserve the rest. Bring to the boil and allow to simmer for about 15 minutes to make nice stock. Season with salt and pepper. Remove the carcass and set the stock aside. In a separate saucepan heat a little oil and sautee the remaining garlic and ginger - cut into strips. Add in the rice and mix well. Add the stock into the saucepan and cook until rice becomes a porridge. Add in the chicken strips and continue to simmer until the chicken is cooked. Add in more water if needed. Stir in sesame oil before serving. Garnish with onion leaves and coriander.Serve with Soy sauce and Pepper.

The thing I really love about a porridge is that you can use any type of meat with it or even just vegetables. Some people even eat a spicy version of porridge where they would add in some chicken curry or beef curry into the porridge. With porridge, the possibilites are practically endless.



Home made Porridge is also something that many Asian families make to feed their infants - once they start eating solids. The porridge will be cooked with carrot, potatoes and other vegetables and then mashed together to make it even finer and easy to eat for baby!

Porridge - a yummy, timeless food that feeds everyone, young or old!

Not 4 but 2 Heavenly Kings - and its not poker but Cultural Exchange!

Chinese Food often has interesting names like Buddha Jumps Over the Wall - a very expensive soup-like dish that includes more than 30 ingredients. I've never tried it so I wouldnt know what it tastes like...

Another dish that I HAVE tried is the 4 Heavenly Kings or 4 Kings Vegetables. It's a favourite dish in many local Chinese restaurants and one that we often enjoy. Basically, this is 4 vegetables stir fried with belacan - usually long beans, lady's fingers, brinjals and 4-angle beans although sometimes asparagus or even petai is used.




Petai is a famous bean in Malaysia and is often cooked with belacan. I'm not a fan of petai (otherwise known as bitter bean,sataw, twisted cluster bean, yongchaa, yongchaak, zawngtah or stink bean). I'll eat it but I'm not a fan.

I dont know where the name 4 Heavenly Kings comes from. Maybe it started one night when a bunch of chefs were playing poker and one of them had a hand of Four-of-a-kind and they were all kings. He would have spread his cards out and said "4 Heavenly Kings - read em and weep!" Nice imaginative story but I doubt that has anything to do with it...

The Lovely Wife had wanted to make this dish for a long time and when we bought some four-angle beans at the market, she decided she was going to make this - never mind that we didnt have the ladies-fingers or long beans/asparagus/petai.

I never saw a rule saying that there had to be 4 kings. Two kings are quite enough and delicious too!

Ingredients
2 chinese brinjals - cut into pieces
4 four-angle beans - cut into pieces
4 cloves garlic - chopped
1 Onion - thinly sliced
50g dried prawns
2 tbsp Sambal Belacan
Method

Fry the brinjals in a little oil till half cooked. Remove from pan and drain. Sautee garlic and onion in a little oil. Add in the belacan and cook well. Pound the shrimps in a mortar and then fry together with the Belacan until nice and fragrant. Toss in the brinjals and stir till tender. Add in the 4-angle-beans and quickly stir fry to combine.

Very simple and very tasty. The 4-angle beans offer a crunchy complement to the brinjals and the belacan with shrimps brings everything together. Its a yummy dish eaten with rice on its own or as an accompaniment with a meat dish.

Now just imagine how much better this dish would taste with another 2 kings! After all, four-of-a-kind surely beats a pair!

Curry Leaf Chicken and more Cultural Exchange

With a name like Curry Leaf Chicken, you would automatically assume this is an Indian Dish. However, you would never, ever find this dish in an Indian shop or restaurant. You WOULD however, find it in a CHINESE Restaurant! This is how Malaysian food has evolved with Chinese Cuisine borrowing from Indian as well as Malay cuisine - giving you a dish that is authentically and uniquely Malaysian.

The Lovely Wife and I both enjoy this dish and we order it rather often whenever we go out with family and friends for Chinese Food. Regular readers of my blog would know that The Lovely Wife has caught my disease of trying to replicate food that we have eaten outside in our own kitchen. She has become very succesful in not only replicating dishes without the aid of a cookbook, but doing even better than what we eat outside.


Getting Chinese Food to taste as good as you get outside is particularly difficult du to the high heat used and the heavy wok that distributes the heat so well - thus enabling the food to be cooked so fast. Most chinese shops also love to use MSG - Monosodium Glutamate - that although makes the food taste good, leaves a drying feeling in the mouth long after the meal has been consumed. That's another reason why home cooked food is always better!

This chicken dish is spicy, with loads of chilli padi (birds eye chilli) and even dried prawns to give it an added crunch and flavour!



This is what she did:

Ingredients
1 inch ginger
6 cloves garlic
2 big onion - sliced
400g Chicken Fillet - cut into strips
5 stalks curry leaves
10 birds eye chillis (chilli padi) - chopped finely
1 tsp chilli powder
1 Tbsp curry powder
1 Tbsp Dark Soya Sauce
25 g dried prawns - soaked and pounded
1 Tbsp Honey (if needed)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Method
Marinate chicken with salt and pepper. Blend together ginger and garlic then Sautee
in a little oil. Add onions, chilli powder, curry powder and cook well till fragrant. Add in curry leaves, chillies and prawns. Cook well and then add in chicken. Add a little water if needed. Keep stirring until chicken is cooked through and liquid is reduced. When half dry, add soya sauce and continue cooking till mixture is dry and the chicken is well coated. Add the honey if too spicy!

This dish goes really well with rice. She also served it with some Yau Mak that also happens to be my son's favourite vegetable dish. The Yau Mak goes really well as the oyster sauce and crunchy greens help to tone down the spiciness, or rather piquancy (is there such a word?) from the chillis.



A highly tasty and succesful replicating endeavour from The Lovely Wife. As has become the case of late when either one of us replicates something succesfully, the kids will pipe up - "Another dish that we dont have to eat outside anymore!"

How to get more Choc Fudge from McDonalds...

This afternoon, we all went out to one of the large shopping centres - just to window shop and have an outing. After walking into one shop after the other and the length and breath of the shopping centre, the kids started to get hungry. We decided to have lunch at McDonalds - good value now with meals (including coke and fries) starting from RM5.95.

After we all wolfed down our lunch, TLW enquired why I had ordered 4 meals since there were so many fries left over. I worked on the presumption that the meals were only 1 ringgit more than the burger so it was worth it. TLW pointed out that if I had ordered only 2 meals and 2 ala carte burgers, I could have saved 2 bucks and then she could have a Sundae. She was just trying to make a point and being difficult. She got her Sundae anyway!

The kids, who at first declined the offer of the Sundae, proceeded to devour it with great abandon. So much so that after the Sundae was half eaten, there was NO MORE Choc Fudge left! How do you eat a Choc Fudge Sundae without anymore Choc Fudge?


I hit upon a plan. I sent my son and daughter to the counter to ask for more Hot Fudge. I figured that if I went, they may not have entertained me but who can resist two childred 'pleading' for more Choc Fudge?

They both ran back to the table in delight with a WHOLE LOT MORE Choc Sauce than we actually started off with!

I guess the secret in getting things done is to send your kids to do it? Does that make me a bad Daddy for sending my children to get more Choc Sauce?

As Malaysian as you can get - Sago Gula Melaka - Cultural Exchange

If there was one dessert that was truly 100% Malaysian, this would be it. Then again, that's not entirely true as I can also think of a myriad of other desserts that are truly Malaysian. So let's try again. If there was One truly Malaysian dessert that could be Home Made without any fancy equipment (like Ice Scrapers - think Ais Kacang or Cendol!) then this would be it. Hang on, then what about all the tradional Kuih (sweet cake like things but not quite cakes...)that can also be made at home? That's the trouble with Malaysia - just too many varieties of food and dessert!

Okay. How about this? My Favourite Malaysian Dessert, that can be home made without any fancy equipment would be this!

All said and done, Sago Gula Melaka is definetly a famous Malaysian dessert and a firm favourite Everywhere in the country and especially in my house! I would even go so far as to say that Sago Gula Melaka is the quintessential Malaysian Dessert!


Sago Gula Melaka is really not that difficult to make. All you need are 3 ingredients:

1. Sago (but of course!)

Sago is commonly sold as sago pearls and is actually the starch from the pith of the sago palm (Metroxylon sagu Rottboll). Sarawak, in East Malaysia, is the world's largest exporter of Sago. To get Sago, the trunk of the sago palm is split lengthwise and the pith is removed. The pith is then crushed to release the starch, washed and strained to extract the starch from the fibrous residue. The raw starch suspension is collected and this is then made into flour. Sago Pearls resemble tiny dried pearls that when boiled become transparent, soft and almost spongy. This is what is used for Sago Gula Melaka.

2. Gula Melaka

Gula Melaka or Malacca Sugar, is also known as Palm Sugar. Gula Melaka is made from the sap of the flower bud of the coconut tree. Some refer to Gula Melaka as Jaggery but technically, Jaggery is sugar made from the Palmyra Tree. I explained this (with pictures) in my very first post on Cultural Exchange

3) Coconut Milk

Sometimes you take things for granted and assume the whole world thinks the same thing. In one of my earlier posts, when I spoke about Coconut Milk, I realised that a lot of my Western blogger friends think that coconut milk is the juice of the coconut, meaning the clear fluid that you get when you break a coconut. No, no, no! That is what we call Coconut Water - the one that is very good for your daughter (Remember Harry Belafonte and his song Coconut Woman?). Coconut Milk is what the Westerners would call Coconut Cream although coconut cream has been thickened and would be far too thick. Coconut Milk is what you get when you grate the 'meat' of flesh of the coconut - the white flesh inside - and then squeeze it to get a lovely milk that is often used as a thickening agent. We refer to this as Santan
When we talk about Coconut Milk in Malaysia, we also regularly refer to the 'first milk' and 'second milk' or 'first squeeze' and 'second squeeze'. The first squeeze is always the thickest and best tasting and sometime you need to add a little hot water to the grated coconut after the first squeeze to get everything out. Very, very seldom would you do a third squeeze.

So there you have it. The three ingredients for Sago Gula Melaka.

How to make it do you say? Ahhh... well, no real recipe is required and neither do I have measurements for you because it is just so simple!

First, Wash the sago well and let it soak in water for a few minutes. Strain the sago and boil it in water till it becomes soft and transparent. Drain and rinse in cold water to remove the starch. Pour it into a large bowl (or smaller bowls if you like) and let it cool. Whisk in an eggwhite - this is to prevent the sago pearls from sticking together too much. Leave in the fridge to get cold.

Make some liquid Gula Melaka by melting some gula melaka shavings with a little water. Make as much as you like.



Finally, make the coconut milk by grating coconut and squeezing out the milk. If you are using canned coconut cream, thin the cream out with a little water. Some people like to use fresh milk as well but the taste is just not as good.

To serve, spoon some of sago out into a serving bowl, add in as much of the Coconut Milk and Gula Melaka as you like and enjoy!

This is really a most delicious dessert and is found in a large number of Malaysian restaurants and hotels. In fact, I remember many years ago when The Lovely Wife and I were dating, I took her out for dinner. After dinner, I suggested we have dessert at the Crystal Crown Hotel, PJ where I knew they served these Huge bowls of Sago Gula Melaka - for a reasonable price too. Not too sure if they still serve it there... Maybe it's time for a return visit. Good thing for me The Lovely Wife enjoys Sago Gula Melaka as much as I do!

A National Heritage...definitely a cultural exchange!

Yesterday, 14th of February 2008 2009, I was fortunate to have witnessed the ceremony where my Alma Mater, the great Victoria Institution was declared a National Heritage by the Minister of Unity, Culture, Arts and Heritage, Malaysia. The ceremony was held at none other than the Victoria Institution School Hall!


10 pre-war buildings were among 172 items listed as national heritage, including collections from the National Archives, archaeological artifacts, traditional delicacies and art. The school, founded in 1893 is one of Malaysia's best known, premier and prestigious schools - if not THE BEST School in Malaysia!! During the war, the school was taken over by the Japanese and used as their headquarters. when the Japanese finally surrendered, the surrender was actually signed in the School Hall.

I was in the VI from 1980 to 1984 and the occasion of VI being declared a National Heritage was indeed a very proud day for me. What was even better was that it was declared that the official name of the School would revert to Victoria Institution - now that is has gained national heritage status. Although everyone knows and refers to the school as Victoria Institution, or VI for short, the official name was changed to Sekolah Menangah Victoria (Victoria Secondary School) in keeping with the official Bahasa Malaysia (Malaysian National Language) method of naming schools.


This is the slide that appeared when the announcement was made

The Minister, in his speech, called for for the school’s heritage to be conserved as each characteristic “be it a wall, a window, balcony, roof, tower or its field has its own story.” He also said that every building in the VI, even building 206, would be conserved as a National Heritage. This was received with raucous applause as building 206 is infamous to all Victorians as the boys toilet!!

The plaque that was quickly affixed to the main entrance just outside the hall and under the clock tower.



I went to the function with a good friend of mine, Ramesh, and we met a few other old schoolmates there as well. After the declaration, we spent a lot of time walking around the school, taking lots of pictures and meeting some of our old teachers. We met Mr. Jeyaretna, Mrs Chong, Mrs Vaz and Mr Teh Mun Heng. We also spent some time talking to some of the present students and it was good to see that although there are definitely some changes in the school since we left more than 20 years ago, the School traditions and the School Spirit is still very much intact - so there is some truth to the last line of the School Song

That the New Victorians, match with Old Victorians!.


The famous clock tower where the 4 faces of the clock have always shown a different time. It has always been too costly to fix the complicated mechanism of the old clock and now hopefully with Heritage status, the clock tower may yet be fixed!

I'm very proud to be a Victorian and I leave you with the School Motto - Be Yet Wiser - that comes from Proverbs. Give a Wise Man instruction and he will BE YET WISER.