Almost 3 weeks after my diving trip to Mabul and Sipadan, I’ve finally sorta figured out how to do simple editing with iMovie. Below are two videos compiled from multiple shootings both under and above water with my canon S90 compact camera.
The above video are edited from multiple dives at Kapalai and Sipadan where we encountered many turtles, grouper, huge ball of jackfish, sharks, and even a little pygmy seahorse. What you can hear from the video was exactly all one can hear while diving. Bubbles and the sound of you sucking that air via regulator, ahh.. tranquility.
This is making me miss diving again!
As mentioned in this post titled Mabul and Kapalai under 18 meters of water, we had an awesome party at Uncle Chang’s dive lodge in Mabul on the first night we stayed there. Now there’s the video evidence.
Irene, Jen, Lynn, Chan, and Gun were all awesome and made the trip that much better too. I can’t wait to go back there again!
Ahh, Maggi Mee, the original favorite instant noodle that has been so instrumental in getting me through college and all those late night hunger. In fact, my first ever meal cooked without the help from mom was a packet of Maggi mee.
Back then, it was the curry flavor Maggi with an egg for extra umph. Nothing fancy, I was already having trouble cracking the egg without making a mess in the kitchen.
After plenty late night cook-outs and a few years spent studying/working overseas, my general cooking skills has leveled up quite a bit; and with that, the sophistication in preparing a plate of good old Maggi too, has improved.
Today, I am going to share a simple recipe in preparing fried Maggi Mee with live fresh water prawn (details on getting the freshest fresh water prawn below). Maggi Mee, my way!
snipping the legs off, frying garlic/shallots/curry leaves, then prawns
Ingredients:
2 packets of Maggi Mee migoreng plus asli pedas (or any Maggi migoreng)
shallots, garlic, and curry leaves
2 eggs
a dash of salt and soya sauce
4-6 prawns (preferably live!)
vegetable oil
boil the Maggi, then fry with the condiments and egg, success!
Steps for Prawns:
heat up frying pan with vegetable oil, and fry shallots, garlic, and curry leaves till fragant
add live prawn, and sauna it to death
add a dash of salt and some soya sauce
tips: add a dash of water and cover the frying pan to steam the seafood a little bit
Steps for Maggi:
boil Maggi for 2 minutes and then drain water
mix the condiment in a small bowl with 2 table spoon of water
stir fry the Maggi with the premixed condiment
add two eggs, and stir till eggs are cooked
Haze, my cooking assistant and prawn fishing extraordinaire
Finally, add prawns to the noodle, and you’ve got a plate of really awesome fresh water prawn Maggi. Bonus point if you can do both of these steps at the same time to ensure that both items are piping hot when served.
That is my way of cooking Maggi, what about yours?
If you think you have a recipe as interesting, head to Maggi Mee My Way’s website to participate in the contest. All you have to do is by submitting your recipe with Maggi Mee and a few photos (remember your unique ingredients, like my live prawn, for example).
Winners walk away with cash prizes up to RM 4,000 plus RM 100 worth of Maggi products hamper. Check out the prizes listing here. I always love it when contests give away cash prizes, money is just so much more versatile.
The video above is the prove that the prawns used for the post were really caught from a prawn fishing pond the hard way. We spent 2 hours (1st 45 minutes in vain as we somehow managed to not used the hook) and got a total of 6 prawns back.
The end result was a couple plates of very delicious Maggi Mee with fresh water prawns. Yums!
When it comes to food, I classify myself in the rather adventurous category. Give me something that another person could demonstrate eating, and I usually wouldn’t have any problem doing the same. (I wouldn’t eat protected/endangered species though).
Then Cheesie decided to be nice and shared a box of Bean Boozled she got from a friend who came back from UK.
Bean Boozled is basically jelly beans that come in multiple color with each color having 2 completely different flavors. Depending on your luck, you might get something normal like peach, or vomit flavor. There’re also juicy pear vs booger, coconut vs baby wipes, cafe latte vs ear wax, and so forth. Kinda like the candy described in Harry Potter.
And we decided to record the tasting session on video. Check it out.
Seriously, the rotten egg flavored jelly bean is now officially the worst tasting thing I’ve ever put in my mouth. It was so disgusting and felt like something straight out from a garbage bag that went through an elephant’s digestive system. It was horrendous.
I also had the (dis)pleasure of tasting toothpaste and black pepper flavored beans but they weren’t too bad. According to Cheesie, baby wipes and vomit were really terrible too.
This Bean Boozled thing is officially the worst crap I’ve tasted so far.
From my trusted and very handy Webweb dictionary (anyone with a PC should download a copy from wordweb.info):
Naked: Having no protecting or concealing cover
Coconut: Large hard-shelled oval nut with a fibrous husk containing thick white meat surrounding a central cavity filled (when fresh) with fluid or milk
highly skilled professional at work
While walking at Carrefour in Tropicana City Mall with Mellissa, Suanie, Horng, and Kerol, we came up to this dude who was manning a stall with a stash of coconut at the back and rows of plastic container with shelled coconuts in front of him. Yes, shelled also mean removed from shell, English is funny like that, go figure.
suanie gave her seal of approval
We were curious on how that is done and stood there to find out. Apparently the procedure is not overly complex:
pick a coconut
use a machete with power and precision to cut the coconut till a ring of flesh shows
use a sharp plastic blade to separate the meat from the shell
make sure there’s a crowd watching
flip the naked coconut high up and catch it with a plastic container
profit!
The first time I saw this was over 10 years ago back in Penang, but it seems that they are gaining popularity only recently. Very cool to see the way it is done though.
action shot of naked coconut to container sequence
After the performance which I took a video of (and somehow a crowd had built up), suanie felt that we couldn’t just leave without buying a couple coconuts from the fella. So she did, RM4 for one, and supposedly RM 7.60 for two but we didn’t get the discount somehow at the cash register. Oh well.
so you know this isn’t from the factory!
After having the coconut chilled in the freezer for about an hour, it was just the most awesome thing in the hot afternoon. Pure coconut juice without anything else, and that glorious firm and delicious coconut meat all for the taking. *slurps*
I am a strong believer that you gotta do something slightly crazy once in a while to stay sane in this world, so last Saturday I invited a bunch of daring friends and hosted an Insect Cook Out. The attendees were Kim, Su Ann, Sammy, Terence, ST, Dree, and of course my house mate Rachel. The following 6 minute video is the whole insect cook out adventure, check it out!
The whole idea actually started right after Terence, Dree, and I went to Bangkok and had our weird and wonderful creatures including insects, worms, and frogs. Kim was protesting the fact that we did not bring back anything for her, and that’s when Terence came up with the idea that we should just cook some ourselves.
the ingredients from aquarium shop and grocery store
I eventually tabled the idea to Kim and she responded enthusiastically, then I got Su Ann, Sammy, and the rest of the gang to join in as well. This thing is actually going to work!
So I set up the official time for this unusual cook out at 5pm on Saturday evening. I went out to grocery store to get the seasonings: pepper, curry leaves, shallots, dried chili, and garlic. Just half an hour before the cook out, I got to an aquarium shop near Sunway and got a box of good size worms (RM9) and 120 crickets (for RM3)
ahhh, glorious protein enriched food
Contrary to Su Ann’s believe that we googled for the recipe, it was completely original sans the “salt juice” suggested by Terence.
First I fry some shallots, garlic, dried chili, and curry leaves to flavor the oil. These are then taken out and the crickets and worms thrown in the hot oil. Some salt juice is then added for extra kick. It’s that simple, and boy it turned out great! (the insects were freeze in the fridge for about 15 minutes prior cooking to prevent them from jumping everywhere)
the crazy diners
The dish actually tasted a lot better than what we had in Bangkok, and we didn’t even save up anything for my buddy Douglas who came late. The worms were a bit like soft shell crab (as described by Sammy), and the crickets still juicy inside while crispy on the outside. Very nice.
There’ll be another short video for this where Rachel and Kim ate the bugs raw, stay tuned!
I’m so going to prepare this again for the next x’mas eve party!
This is my little space on the web where I mainly share my adventure looking for things that go into my stomach, publish some of my attempts in photography, and write about a lot of absolute nonsense!
Photos from recent posts are mostly taken with Nokia N86, Canon S90 and Canon 400D.
