Souvlaki

When I was a student in Melbourne, one of my favourite foods was Souvlaki. There were plenty of greek cafes dotted around Melbourne and I was partial to the souvlaki where the meat was in cubes and grilled on a hot plate rather than the kebab kind where it was sliced off a spit.

When we visited the Gold Coast late last year, I was quite disappointed to find that Souvlaki wasn't as readily available as it was in Melbourne. However, I was really thrilled to be able to find a shop selling souvlaki and to introduce my children to it. They really loved it and I decided I would need to try and make it one day.
One of the things that has stopped my from making Souvlaki is that we dont seem to have souvlaki bread available her in KL. The use of pita bread was never a consideration as the pita we get is somehow to thick. Of late however, I have noticed that the Mission brand has different types of breads - Pita, Naan and also Wraps. The wraps look like kind of a thinner version of a souvlaki bread and so I reckoned I would try it out. In my minds eye, I would use lamb chunks for the meat, make a yoghurt garlic sauce and throw in a bunch of chopped tomatoes and lettuce all wrapped up with the flatbread.

Pomegranate Cucumber Raita

Raita is a great dish to serve to accompany a Fiery Curry. Usually, The Lovely Wife makes the Raita and she just uses shredded cucumber and yoghurt with maybe a few spices. This time, she chose to jazz it up. This post actually completes (finally!) the menu that we served for lunch when my dear friend, Naomi, came to visit many months ago.

I really dont know how The Lovely Wife hit upon the idea of using pomegranade for Raita but I have to say it gives the Raita a lovely flavour as well as added colour. Sometimes she adds raisins to the raita but I think pomegranade is so much nicer! My little princess loves anything with Yoghurt in it and she loves nothing better than Rice with Raita, so this was certainly a favourite with her.

It would be kind of difficult to give you a recipe for Raita simply because a lot depends on your taste. Some people like it really yoghurty while some prefer it with just a dash of yoghurt and more cucumber. Bear in mind too that the cucumber lets out water while it sits with the yoghurt so the mixture can get a little runny too. That, to me, just adds to the beauty of this dish.



Anyway, what The Lovely Wife did with this creation was to cut up the cucumber into tiny chunks rather than shredding it like she normally does. Then she added in some yoghurt, seasoned it with a little salt and pepper and added in pomegranate and some mint leaves. As easy as pie! Except that this is Raita and not Pie... get with the program, please... :)



So! As I mentioned earlier, this post completes the meal that we served for lunch and this was the menu:

Pomegranate and Cucumber Raita
Spicy Pork Patties
Murgh Masala or Fiery Chicken Curry
Sambar
Kangkung Belacan
all served with Rice of course.
and for dessert Double Chocolate Mousse Cake
Quite a lovely lunch, even if I do say so myself!

Murgh Masala or Fiery Chicken Curry

This is a fiery Chicken Curry fashioned in the North Indian style. Murgh is the Hindi word for Chicken and Massala basically means spices. I first had this dish as a Uni student in Melbourne, Australia. One of my two flatmates used to work part-time in an Indian Restaurant on Tuesday nights. He would often bring home some of the leftover curries from the restaurant. We used to look forward to this and would sometimes stay up past midnight to partake of the food he'd bring home.


One night he brought home this fiery chicken curry and we all enjoyed it immensely. I tried on numerous occasions to get the same flavours and finally got the approval from my flatmates after about a year!



Ingredients
A:
500g Boneless Chicken Breast
250g Plain Yoghurt
2 Gloves Garlic
1 inch Ginger
1 tbsp curry powder
½ tbsp chilli powder
Salt

B:
2 Tbsp Curry Powder
1 Tbsp Chilli Powder
3 Dried Red Chillies
1 Large Onion
1 clove Garlic
2-3 pods Cardamom
5 Tomatoes
2 Tbsp Cooking Oil

Method
Chop Garlic and Ginger finely. Slice Chicken into thin strips. Marinate Chicken with Ingredients A and let rest in fridge for at least ½ hour. Meanwhile, cut dried chillies into four pieces each. Slice Tomatoes thinly. Slice Onions and chop garlic. Heat oil in a wok or non stick pan and fry Chillies, Onion and Garlic till soft. Add in Curry Powder, Chilli Powder and Cardamom and fry lightly till fragrant
Add in tomatoes and cook till a nice paste is formed. Add some water if necessary. Add in marinated chicken mixture. Cook well. Add in ½ cup of water into marinade bowl, scrape the sides and pour into the cooking chicken. Simmer for 20 minutes or until curry becomes thick

You may notice some white flecks appearing when the chicken and yoghurt are first cooked. This is perfectly normal and is caused by the acidic tomatoes separating the yoghurt.



This Murgh Masala remains one of my favourite dishes to serve, especially when entertaining. I served this when my friend Naomi came down from Japan for a visit bakc in August. I paired it with Sambar as well as a few other dishes. But we'll leave those dishes for another day!

Cultural Exchange - Malaysian Strawberries and Cream!

How in the world does Strawberries and Cream become a topic for cultural exchange? Well read on and find out!

My son is a great fan of fruits and cream. He just loves it. Even better is Strawberries and Cream! Now Strawberries are rather expensive as they are not your typical Malaysian fruit. You can get the frozen variety but those are expensive as well and end up being quite mushy.

Most of the Strawberries you find are imported. Did I say most? Indeed!
There is a place called Cameron Highlands, one of four well known highland resorts that rise more than 1000 meters above sea level (the others being Genting Highlands, Frasers Hill and Maxwell Hill). At this height, the climate is cool with temperatures rarely rising about 25C and no lower than 12C. So that kind of makes it great for Strawberries!

Cameron Highlands is also where they cultivate tea leaves - and Malaysia is famous for its tea as well!

One of my fave foodie friends, Valli, who is in Canada knows all about Cameron Highlands - or at least her father does! See how small the world really is?



Even though you can get local strawberries, they are still expensive.
Nowhere near as expensive as the imported variety but expensive nonetheless. They are not easy to get either as they kind of get snapped up really fast.

So when I saw a heap of packets down at one of the hypermarts, I couldn't resist picking one up. With strawberries in one hand, I went round looking for cream. The usual assortment of cream seemed to have disappeared and the only option left was a rather exorbitantly priced brand. Bugger it. Maybe I"ll just use some yoghurt. So I bought a large container of yoghurt and made a mental note to check out how to sweeten and thicken yoghurt.


Lovely fresh strawberries!


Later that evening...

After a quick check on the web, I knew what had to be done. I made a thickened
vanilla cream out of yoghurt and it was just superb! It tasted almost like cream although it was much lighter. It was nice and thick and tasted lovely. It could even have been vanilla yoghurt ice cream!
This is what I did.

400ml yoghurt
4 tbsp icing sugar
2 tsp vanilla

Line a colander with cheese cloth or lots of paper kitchen towels. Put the yoghurt in and let it drain for about an hour so that it becomes nice and thick. Next, add in the sugar and vanilla and whisk together till smooth. Return to the fridge and let it chill until ready to serve.


See? It even Looks like cream!

Cut the strawberries and arrange them on a nice plate - just to make it look nice.



Then bring out the Faux Cream, spoon over the strawberries and enjoy! I really dont have to tell you how to enjoy strawberries with cream...!


Both the kids and the lovely wife LOVED the Faux Cream! As you can see, they polished off the bowl of yoghurt and my little princess asked for more.




Unfortunately, I had used up all the yoghurt. I'll definitely make this 'cream' again and perhaps even experiment with substituting it for cream in other desserts. The possibilities are really quite endless...

So now not only do you know a little bit more about Malaysia but you can also 'wow' your friends with the fact that Strawberries DO grow in the tropics!