Malaysia Trip Count Down Started

It's official now, our trip to Malaysia during Thanks Giving is confirm. Hubby and I were busying arranging the itinerary yesterday and finally we bought the ticket. We will be leaving on the 21st of Nov and returning on the 11th is Dec. It's only 2 weeks trip because i only have these much vacation save up this year.

The air fare was reasonable but the problem is all the day we selected has no opening seats available so we are force to travel during the weekdays. I guess the good news is we save up some $$ by traveling on the weekday but use up more vacation by staying longer. Oh well.. not actually a bad thing cause that mean I can spend another day in Malaysia eating delicious food.

Since yesterday I started my Malaysia shopping list as well and packing list. This will be our first time traveling with Aidan. A lots to pack and things to remember when comes to traveling with a toddler.

Any suggestion what stuff i should get from Malaysia before i regret? Any advice on traveling with a toddler? So looking forward to the trip minus the time we are going to spend on the plane :(

Mee Goreng ( Indian Style)

Finally, I was able to get some decent looking bean sprout from the asian store and craving for mee goreng. I decided the try this recipe found from my recipe collection. The taste is quite satisfy and hubby love it. Definitely a keeper.

Ingredients:

• 3 tbsp ketchup
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 red chilies, sliced ( Optional)
• 1 medium potato
• 1.5 tbsp chili paste ( adjust according to your own taste)
• 1 tsp sugar
• salt to taste
  
• 1/2 lb shrimp
• 4 deep fried tofu, cut into cube size
• 1/2 red onion,thinly sliced
• 2 tomatoes, cut into wedges
• 8 oz bean sprout
• 6 oz thin spaghetti
  
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp crispy shallot
• 1 lime wedges
• 2-3 tbsp oil

Method:

• cook the spaghetti noddle according to the package instruction. Drained and rinse well with cold water and set aside.
• Boil potato in a hot water until cook. removed skin and cut into cube size
• In a bowl, mix in ketchup, soy sauce, suger and chili paste.
• Heat oil in a pan. Add onion slice and stir fry until soft and a little brown.
• Add in potato, tomatoes, chilies slice and stir fry for about 2 minute.
• Add in noodles and sauce mixture. Stir and mix well for 1 minute.
• Add in bean sprout and stir fry for another minute.
• add salt to taste
• Push noodle aside and make a well in the middle. Add 2 table spoon of oil and crack eggs into the well and scramble them.
• Mix egg an noodle thoroughly
  
• Garnish with crispy shallot and lime wedges.

Chilies Paste

• 8 oz red onion ( about 1.5 medium size onion)
• 1 oz dried chillies
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp dried shrimp paste (belacan)
• 2 oz dried anchovies
• 12fl oz oil
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt

Method:

• Grind onion, dried chilies, garlid and shrimp paste until fine.
• Heat about 4 fl oz oil in pan and fry anchovies over medium heat until crispy. Drained and pound coastly
• Heat the remain oil in the sam pan and stir in onion paste and fried until fragrant and the oil comes through.
• Add in sugar and salt.
• lower the heat and the anchovies, cook for 2 minutes.

This recipe make plenty of chilies paste. you can either freezer for later use or eat it with other dishes or noodle soup.

Stir Fry Bitter Melon with Chicken

Bitter melon is not something you want to eat everything, but if you are looking for something different, you might want to give it a try. The melon has quite intense bitter taste if the fruit is unripe, but they tend to get less bitter if they are fully ripe. More info can be found from here.

Ingredients

• 10 oz chicken
• 1 tsp garlic
• 1 tsp ginger
• 14 oz bitter melon remove all the pith and seed, cut into strip
• 1 tbsp brown bean paste
• 8 tbsp water
• 1/4 tsp sugar
• salt to taste

Method

• Heat oil in a pan, stir fry garlic,ginger and brown bean paste for a minute.
• Add chicken and stir fry for another 2 minutes
• Add butter melon and mix well.
• Add water and bring the pan to boil.
• Cover the pan with lid and turn the heat to medium high and let it simmer for 3 - 4 minutes.

Steam Glutinous Rice Malaysian Style ( Lor Mai Kai)

Do you realized that Malaysia Loh Mai Kai is very different that Lor Mai Kai people served at the Dim Sum place in the state. The one they serve here usually wrapped with lotus leave and don't have a lot of ingredient. Malaysian style serve in a bowl( usually a metal bowl) with chicken, Chinese sausage, pork and mushroom. Don't recall when is the last time I had Malaysian style Lor Mai Kai and hubby never had one for sure. So this week, I made some Lor Mai Kai Malaysia style for him to try. Pretty satisfy with the outcome and it is not very difficult to prepare at all.
Ingredients:

• 500g glutinous rice
• 2 chicken thigh cut into 8 pieces
• 7 slice Char Siew(bbq pork) - slice
• 1 Chinese sausage (lap cheong), slice
• 4 black Chinese mushrooms, soaked and cut into half

Chicken and mushroom marinade:

• 1 tsp light soy sauce
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp oyster sauce
• 1 tsp ginger juice
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp Shao Hsing wine
• 1 tsp oil
• 1 tsp corn starch

Seasoning:

• 3 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp pepper
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 tbsp oil
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 2 tsp dark soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp Chinese five spice powder

Method:

• Wash glutinous rice, then soak it for overnight.
• Marinate the chicken and mushroom for about one to two hours.
• Heat oil in pan, add glutinous rice and seasoning until well mixed.
• Grease 7 small-size rice bowls.
• Arrange mushroom slices, a few slices of Chinese sausages ,chicken and bbq pork slices.
• Top up with glutinous rice and press down with a ladle.
• Fill the bowls with water make sure the water level is above the rice.
• Steam for 20-30 minutes.
• Turn over the rice bowl onto a plate and serve

Stir fry Broccoli with Mushroom

Back home, we don't eat broccoli as often but here, what vegetables can you gets if you don't to the Asian food store. one of our favorite veggie we get from the regular groceries store is broccoli. I like broccoli a lot especially steamed broccoli with some mushroom seacucumer sauce where people serve in the Chinese banquet. I remember when I was young, I was told that broccoli is good for you brain development.. hmm is it true? Here my simple quick stir fry broccoli with dried shitake mushroom.

Ingredients:

• *Broccoli Crown
• *Shitake Mushroom
• *Garlic, chopped
• *Cooking Oil
  
• *Cormstarch
• *water
• Salt to taste

Method:

• Clean and cut broccoli into bite size
• Soak shitake mushroom until soft and cut into thin strip
• Mix 1/2 tsp of cornstarch and 2-3 tsp of water and set aside. This is use as the thicken agent.
• Heat pan with cooking oil, add in garlic and stir fry until brown.
• Add in mushroom and stir fry for another 2-3 minutes
• Add Broccoli and mix well in the pan. Add in water and cover the pan with lid and let it simmer until soften.
• Add salt to taste, and finally add in the thickening agent to thicken the sauce.

BBQ Pork ( Char Siu)

Running out of idea what to cook last weekend and the BBQ Pork country style was on sales last weekend for $1.29 per lb, so we decided to grill up some Char Siu and I could probably made some Lor Mai Kai from the left over.Here's the simple ingredient for marination

Ingredients:

• 3lb BBQ Pork Country Style
• 10 tbsp Hoisin sauce
• 4 tsp garlic powder
• 8 tsp soy sauce
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 tbsp wine
• 2 tsp 5 spice powder
• 2.5 tsp salt
• Dash of pepper

We used the plain old charcoal grill to BBQ the Char Siu for about 30 minute until the meat is cooked. Grilling with charcoal added some smoke flavor to the char siu, that's why we always prefer to use charcoal for grilling.

I prepared some BBQ for Aidan as well. Grill chicken tender. Aren't they looks delish?

Sambal Udang

I love sambal dish whether it's sambal meat, seafood or just egg. A few tablespoon of these hot ans spicy dish could make you finish yup a whole bowl of rice, no wander most of the malay family only cook couple dish for a meal compare to Chinese who usually prepare 3 or 4 dishes for a meal. This my shortcut version, It's very hard to get fresh southeast asian ingredient here especially when i don't go to the asian store. So i cheated this dish with some pre-made jar, sambal olek to replace the fresh chillies and galangal powder.

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp sambal olek
• 3 shallot
• 1 medium red onions, chopped
• 1.5 tsp galangal powder
• 10 cloves garlic
• 3 candle nut

• 1/2 cup oil
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp thick coconut milk
• 4 tbsp lime juice
• 1 lb shrimp

Method:

• Blend first 6 ingredient until fine
• Heat oil in saucepan, fry the blended ingredients for about 10 min or until fragrant
• Add brown sugar, salt and coconut milk and bring to boil
• Add lime juice and shrimp, simmer for 5 min until the shrimp is cooked.

Godiva Dessert

Hubby gave me this box while I was having my early dinner yesterday. I was told that this will be my dessert tonight. hmm.. What's in the box?

A box that fill with Godiva goodness - Chocolate Cover Berries. Yum.. yum...Chocolate cover Strawberries, my favorite. Chocolate cup with raspberries and blueberries, wonderful. Chocolate cup with blackberries, hmm.. hmm..hmm. Needless to say, I love them all. Thanks hon.

Don’t know when Godiva start selling the chocolate frozen drink in their store, I think they taste ok nothing really outstanding besides they use Godiva Chocolate.

Coffee Cupcakes

I need to prepare a cake or 8 cupcakes for my last week cake decorating class, while I was searching for unique recipes for cupcakes, i came across this Vietnamese Coffee Cupcakes recipes from Cupcake by Chockylit. Coffee Cupcakes sound interesting, since I don't have the Vietnamese coffee equipment at home and i do have a big tin of Foldger that we trying to finish up before long, i modify the original recipe by replacing the Vietnamese coffee with Foldger. This is my modified recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup Splenda
• 2large eggs, room temperature
• 1-3/8 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• a pinch of salt
• 3/8 cup strong brewed coffee
• 1/8 cup milk
• 1/2 tsp coffee grounds

Method:

• Beat butter until soft, about 30 seconds.
• Add sugar. Beat on medium-high until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
• Add eggs one at a time, beat for 30 seconds between each.
• Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.
• Measure out coffee and milk together.
• Add about a fourth of the flour to the butter/sugar mixture and beat to combine.
• Add about one third the coffee/milk mixture and beat until combined.
• Repeat above, alternating flour and coffee and ending with the flour mixture.
• Fold in the teaspoon of coffee grounds.
• Scoop into cupcake papers about half to three-quarters full
• Bake for 20 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.

Make 12 cupakes.

This cake has a super intense coffee flavor which is delicious, but the downside of the cake is the texture is quite dense compare to the regular cupcake. The cake get dried out if you don't finish it soon enough or keep it too long in the fridge.

Steam Chinese Eggplant

A friend of mine send me a Chinese Toddler Cookbook from Singapore last month when she was looking for some food recipes for her daughter who are 2 months older than Aidan. I was so excited when I received this book and can't stop myself glancing everything in the book.
Besides all the delicious pictures and the recipes, it also provide nutrition information, notes and tip about the dish that parent needs to be aware. In addition, it also contain guidance on how to wean toddler from milk and feeding schedule. However, I think the feeding guideline provided in this book are quite aggressive where it said we should start the feeding the baby with the cup sometime in the 4th month and stop the bottle complete by 9th month and start the cow milk before one which is quite contradict with most if the advice you found from the pediatric in the state. All in all, Hubby and I think we should try the recipes for the family rather than just for Aidan as he is enjoying adult food more than a baby food except milk.
The first recipe from this mini cookbook is steam Chinese eggplant. Since the target audience for this recipe are toddlers, the flavor is very light and don't require a lot of ingredients. Here's the modified adult recipe.

Ingredient:

• 2 medium size chinese egg plant
• 2 clove of garlic chopped
  
• 3 shallots thinly slice
  
• enough oil to fry the shallot
  
• some light soy sauce
• some olive oil for frying the garlic

Method:

• Heat oil in a pan, add shallot the pan and fry until golden brown. Remove shallot from the pan and set aside
  
• Remove the skin of eggplant and cut the eggplant into strip
• Steam the eggplant in the steaming pan for 10 minutes. Remove eggplant from the plan and place it on the service plate
• Heat olive oil in pan and add in chopped garlic. Fry until golden brown. Remove from heat and pour the garlic and oil on the eggplant.
• Add in some light soy sauce to taste
• Topped with fry shallot
  

This is Aidan's version. Remove the shallot and soy sauce and replace with some salt and water for the sauce. He loves it. Adding the garlic give the whole dish a richer flavor.