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A few weeks ago my colleague Joyceanne came out of nowhere and told me she was going to give me some live crab and if I was going to be able to bring them home on my motorcycle. Well, since you don’t get opportunities like this very often, with the help of her friend Kaiqi, who actually supplied the crabs all the way from Johor, we loaded 3 live mud crabs into my backpack. Thank you Joyce & Kaiqi!

The crustaceans took a ride of their lifetime, and arrived safe and sound at home just in time for Haze and I to decide that butter crab is in the menu of the night.

first, you have to do the dirty job by killing the crabs

For the muslims who may not want to consume mud crab, flower crab can be used in replacement with this cooking method as well.

Here’s the pretty simple recipe we found online for butter crab, originally shared on Rasa Malaysia.

The ingredients to serve 2-3 person:

• 3 live mud crabs (or flower crabs)
• 1 stick of butter
• 1/2 cup of evaporated milk
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch as thickening agent
• 6-12 chili padi
• 2-3 stalks of curry leaves
• 1 teaspoon of sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt (to taste)

melt butter, add chilli padi and curry leave before the crabs

The trickiest part of this recipe turned out to be .. killing the crab!

For those of you who has a heart made of steel, just go ahead and rip apart the crab’s shell alive and that’ll do the trick. We ended up using a chopstick and drove into the belly of the crabs, which also effectively killed the crab after about 10-15 minutes.

add evaporated milk and simmer for about 5 minutes

Anyway, here’s the cooking instructions:

• clean and kill the crabs, then cut in halves and remove gills after removing shells, use pestle to pre-crack the crab claws for easier consumption
• heat up wok with medium heat and melt butter
• add chilli padi and curry leaves
• when aroma is released, add crab and stir until the shells turn red
• add evaporated milk and cover to simmer for about 5 minutes
• add cornstarch (pre-mixed with water) and stir for a minute to thicken sauce before serving

here it is, creamy butter crab, goes well with some fried buns

And here you go, the butter crab turned out rather delicious. You can enjoy this dish with some fried buns or with rice/noodle, or basically anything.

Now you know what to do with live crabs! Check out other recipes by yours truly by clicking on the KY Cooks category.

The most famous instant noodle in town, MyKuali Penang White Curry Mee, has been widely praised as one of the bests. Authentic Penang flavor with that aromatic sambal paste right in your kitchen within a few minutes, it’s about as good as it gets, or is it?

the ingredients, with Penang White Curry mee

When it comes to cooking, I always like to experiment. So when I started to get a little bored with the standard way of cooking the MyKuali White Curry Mee, I improvised, and came up with this fried MyKuali Penang White Curry mee. The result turned out to be pretty good!

Here’s the recipe.

first, fry some chopped garlic and perhaps onion or shallots too

Ingredients (for 2): 

• 2 packs standard MyKuali Penang White Curry Mee
• 1-2 bulb garlic and some shallots or onion, skinned and sliced
• 3-4 tablespoon cooking oil
• 2 eggs
• 8 crab sticks (or otherseafood of your choice)

use some hot water to stir the accompanying chilli paste and santan

Cooking instructions:

• heat up cooking oil and fry garlic to golden brown, remove and put aside
• fry shallot/onion to golden brown, remove and put aside
• at the same time, boil the noodle for 3 minutes
• use 2 tablespoon hot water (from boiling noodle) and mix up the seasoning and sambal from MyKuali packets
• fry crabstick/seafood, remove and put aside
• when noodle is done, remove from pot and start frying in the pan with oil
• add the premixed seasoning (I only use about 70%)
• add eggs and continue to fry till eggs are cooked
• served with the fried garlic, shallots, and crab sticks

boil the noodle first before frying with “rempah” and egg

Yeap, this does take quite a bit more effort than your usual 3 minute work for coming up with a bowl of instant noodle, but unlike Indomie or Maggie goreng, you can’t get this at your friendly local Mamak restaurant, and dare I say, it tastes a whole lot more awesome as well.

Try it and let me know if you like it!

Fried MyKuali Penang White Curry Mee with Crab Sticks

For more simple recipes, check out my Cooking section.

A couple weekends ago I had an epiphany. I had garupa fish fillet in the fridge, and a pack of curry powder, so why not put them together and see what happens, right?

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you – fried fish fillet with curry powder.

cover the fish with a layer of curry powder before frying

This dish is so easy to make you could  do it in kemahiran hidup and not mess it up.

Ingredients:

• fish fillet (any type of fish)
• curry powder
• salt
• cooking oil for frying
• 1 bulb of garlic
• petai (optional)

some garlic and petai for garnish

Cooking instructions:

• apply salt and curry powder to fish fillet (must be dry)
• fry fish in medium heat for 7-10 mins each side depending on thickness
• separately, fry chopped garlic to golden brown
• fry petai for 2 mintues
• serve while hot!

fried curry fish fillet with petai and garlic

So there you go, a simple recipe anyone can try. Fried curry fish fillet with petai. For more simple home-cook recipes, check the KY cooks section.

A couple weekends ago Haze and I spent a better part of our afternoon reorganising the kitchen, throwing out expired stuff, rearranging condiments, sauces, and figuring out where is the optimum places to put pots and pans.

After all the hard work, I had to test run the new and improved cooking environment, so I thought I’d try my hands on a homemade roast chicken.

This recipe is inspired by the version of roast chicken at Graze KL Hilton I tried last year.

the ingredients – chicken, root vegetables, thyme & rosemary

The three basic ingredients are chicken, root vegetables, and herbs. You also need an oven, and I strongly recommend having a thermometer to check if the chicken’s cooked too.

Ingredients (for 2 pax):

• half chicken, leave the skin on
• potato, carrot, leek, mushroom (you can mix and match, chop to bite size)
• garlic (cut off the top or bottom)
• fresh thyme and rosemary
• salt and pepper for seasoning
• half a cup of olive oil
• 2 cups of stock or broth (water is a viable option too, I used leftover soup)

cut vege, arrange chicken, simple

preparation:

• pre-heat oven to 175 Celcius
• apply generous amount of salt and pepper on both sides of chicken
• pour some olive oil baking pan (or in my case, an oven safe pan)
• put herbs on both sides of chicken
• arrange vegetable and garlic bulb around the chicken
• pour the remaining olive oil on chicken and vegetable
• pour 1 cup of stock/broth in the mix

internal temperature must be over 75 Celsius

baking/roasting instructions:

• place the chicken in oven for a total of 50 minutes (70-80 minutes for whole chicken)
• after 20 minutes, baste the chicken and vegetable with remaining broth at every 10 minute interval
• chicken is done after 50 minutes, internal temperature of meat should exceed 75 Celsius
• Carve the chicken and serve!

the result is a success, might try crispy skin style next time

The result is a pretty delicious roast chicken that’s rather tender, there are also enough side dishes to make a complete meal as well. If you include leek in the mix, consider putting it under the chicken to prevent them being burnt.

Oh, the garlic turned out great, if you love garlic, consider putting more than one bulb.

Try it yourself at home, bon appétit! Click for more simple recipes from yours truly.

It’s going to be the year of Horse in a few more days, and like so many Chinese families, reunion dinner is on the menu. So are you going to just watch your mom prepare everything? or are you going to be contributing at the kitchen and come up with at least a dish like a good filial son or daughter should?

Well, if you’re the latter and lacks in the finer skills in front of the stove, here’s a simple lala recipe you can follow that just might make your mom proud.

ingredients are lala, garlic, ginger, chili padi

This is a lala (or any clams) dish with garlic, ginger, and chili padi. Takes less than 20 minutes from start to finish, and is also one of the cheapest seafood dishes you can come up with especially during CNY season.

Here are the ingredients:

• 1 big bowl of lala/clams
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 1 inch ginger, stripes
• 6-10 chili padi, chopped
• 5 tablespoon cooking oil

fry till the shells are opened, wise to steam it a bit too

cooking instructions:

• soak lala/clam in salt water for 30 minutes, rinse
• heat up cooking oil and fry ginger & garlic till fragrant
• add in lala/clam
• add chili padi
• fry till all shellfish are opened, you can use a lid to cover the pot for steaming effect
• ready to serve

lala with chili padi and garlic

This is a rather simple and fail proof dish, you can also spice it up by adding some Chinese cooking wine or soup stock to give it a more fragrant flavor.

Click for simple recipes from yours truly, and Happy CNY.