Haruan fish (common snakehead) is often “prescribed” to those who are recovering from external wounds. Since Haze is recovering from her ankle fracture and subsequent surgery, her mom brought us a haruan fish and some herbs for the exact purpose.
We had initially been told to boil the fish with herbs (and maybe add some salt) and be done with, but that would be boring and not terribly palatable. I remember having a dish of awesome steamed haruan at Yap Yin at Seri Kembangan, so I thought perhaps we could prepare it in a similar way. This is my version of steamed haruan with chickene essence.
preparation – cleaning and cutting the haruan
Ingredients:
and a bottle of chicken essence for extra goodness
Instructions:
Haze and KY enjoying yet another home cooked dinner
The result turns out to be quite lovely, the chicken essence does add quite a different dimension to the fish, providing a bit of savory taste to counter the fishiness of haruan. Try it.
Happy cooking!
It just occured to me that half of June has passed and there isn’t a cooking post for the month yet. So lets get back to the plan of writing at least 2-3 recipes every month on this blog. After all not everyone can visit those restaurants, but cooking can be done at every home!
ikan kembung with petai
Today’s recipe will be tumeric marinated ikan kembung with stir fried petai. This isn’t exactly a recipe from anywhere but rather a combination that I made up when ingredients at hand.
As it turned out, the dish wasn’t too shabby at all, anyone who loves petai and some good old fashion fried kampung fish should find this palatable.
marinate ikan kembung with tumeric powder and salt
Alright, here are the ingredients, they’re easy enough to be obtained from any wet market.
remove center stem from petai to prevent that bitter taste
Instructions for the fish:
pan fry fish in oil, then stir fry petai with chili padi, garlic, ginger
And here’s the preperation method for the petai:
The result is a dish that should stand up to scruitiny by any kampung aunties and perhaps pontential mother in laws. Good luck!
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Last month it was the Vietnamese cooking demo and Vietnamese promotion at Latest Recipe, Le Meridien. Now the very same hotel runs the Taste of Italy” culinary event featuring guest Chef Fabrizio from Westin Bejing Financial Street.
Together with a bunch of bloggers & members of media, we were treated to a cooking demonstration by the good chef, and here’s one of his recipe.
Now even I think I can properly cook a meal with lobster that will do the shell fish justice. Here’s the recipe.
glorious Maine lobster in frying pan with olive oil, herbs & cherry tomato
Ingredients:
For the pesto
here’s the spaghetti with lobster
The preparation method is pretty straight forward, and let me just copy verbatim from Chef Fabrizio’s text.
Roast garlic in large pan with olive oil. Add lobster, cherry tomato and cook with some water, add seasoning. Boil pasta in a large pot with salted water until the favorite cooking. Blend herbs with the olive oil for pesto. Take“` lobster out of the sauce, clean the tongs and half the tail. Arrange halved tail in a plate. Strain spaghetti and add sauce with herb pesto and butter. Arrange spaghetti beside the lobster, add lobster meat. Decorate with some herb leaves and serve.
fresh spring herb pesto, prepared with a blender
It’s pretty simple isn’t it?
Chef Fabrizio has a bit of flair and the lack of “seriousness” when it comes to preparation of his dishes. As he proudly said “I am not a pastry chef”, and cooking should involves a sense of flexibility and creativity. I like this style.
In fact, in a short span of 1 hour or so, the good chef prepared three dishes right in front of us, including the eggplant millefeuille recipe shared by Kim.
and we were served a very good buffet spread too, Chef Fabrizio & Chef Antoine
To get a taste of Chef Fabrizio’s creations, you can head to Favola at Le Meridien KL from June 4 to June 12, 2011. Ala carte goes for RM 25++ to RM 130++. Don’t miss out especially if you’re a fan of authentic Italian cuisine.
KY with Chef Fabrizio, Jon & Ciki, Cindy & Kim & Haze, Kim & Gareth
We were also fed an awesome spread of Italian dishes after the event (and after we sampled all three dishes prepared by Chef Fabrizio). There were cold cuts, clams, pizza, bruschetta, smoked salmon, salad, and more. It was a fantastic and certainly gastronomically satisfied session.
Address:
Favola
2 Jalan Stesen Sentral,
Kuala Lumpur 50470
GPS: 3.135631,101.686476
Tel: 03-2263 7888
This is a really quick and simple Penang Nyonya Style Asam Prawn recipe from mom. To us, asam prawn was always this version, and it wasn’t until I came to KL when I found out there is also the asam curry version like the one at Hoowan, Kelana Jaya.
While both versions make use of asam (tamarind), they couldn’t be more different.
steps in cooking Asam Prawn
Ingredients:
glorious Penang Nyonya style asam prawn
Here’s the instructions:
haze enjoying some prawns
Like me, some of you might hate peeling prawns on dinner table, but it is important to not cook this dish with prawns that have their shell removed since you will lose the juiciness of the prawn that way.
The seasoning will naturally sip into the prawn and using your mouth to peel the prawn also ensure that you get to suck on the caramelized bits off it. It’s fantastic. I recommend a good home-made sambal to go with this.
Ma Yau, or threadfin fish, is one of the commonly available sea fish this part of the world, coupled with it’s reasonable price, it is one of the more popular fish in the kitchen and tai chau places alike.
The most common way of handling Ma Yau is usually oil-soaked Ma Yau 油浸马友鱼, which can be a bit dull, so when I had one to work with a couple weeks ago, I decided to come up with something slightly different.
Ma Yau Fish with dark soya sauce and onion
I call this the Mau Yau fish with dark soya sauce and onion, though there’s a little bit more than onion that goes into this dish.
Ingredients:
ingredients for friedd ma yau fish
This dish requires a two part preparations. First, the fish, which is fairly simple.
Then the sauce:
The result is a Ma Yau fish with some kick. The lemon grass gives it a bit of Southern Thailand taste while chili padi added some kick to the sauce. Give it a try, I hope you like it.
p/s: a bit of coriander or basil on top would provide a nicer presentation, but I ran out of those herbs.
