Recently, I came across an interesting photo- article, A 4-Year-Old Girl’s Honest Reactions To Some Of The World’s Fanciest Food. I couldn’t help myself from salivating whenever I look at all the pictures in the article, and lets not forget on how the description of each dishes didn’t make it any easier either. However, when I contrasted my reaction with the reaction as provided by the little girl, I then began to wonder; at what age did we start to develop a more sophisticated palette or even at what age did we become more concern on what we eat- what influenced our decision in terms of the food that we like and the food that we don’t and also the type of cuisine that we enjoy the most?
When I first started cooking, it was a pure coincidence- I was 16 then. As I have mentioned, my mum wasn’t very keen on the idea of me cooking. My mum herself doesn’t cook. It wasn’t even because of my rebellious nature that I learnt to cook but because at that time in life I was simply bored of the food served in my high school canteen and therefore I joined the hospitality club. ‘You’ll get free lunch every other Thursdays’. Who would have thought, this simple phrase as uttered by my friend Liz was what that woken the ‘crazy for cooking’ beast, otherwise buried in me. As it turned out, the ratio in between male and female students that joined the club was imbalance. The club was predominantly joined by male students- not a surprise there. Somehow, the supervisors for the club thought that I’ve cooked at home when all I ever did was sit in front of my grandma or aunt while they were preparing/ cooking.
The first dish that I made was chicken padprik. Although padprik is often associated with Thai cuisine but because of the proximity in between Thailand and the northern part of Malaysia, Thai food is synonymous with Malaysian food. However, I must admit that the Malaysian padprik is only an interpretation of the Thai padprik and both are very distinctive. Out of all the South East Asian countries, Malaysian cuisine share the most similarities with Indonesian food. As for Singapore, I believe that the country simply select the best dishes from Malaysia, add both soya sauce and curry powder and call it ‘Singaporean food’. (Way to avoid ‘food plagiarism’ LOOLLL)
One of the most famous Malaysian dish is sambal. David asked me last night, what sauce is that? If I inform him that it is made by combining chilli paste and onion blended with garlic and ginger, I doubt he can imagine the flavour. Instead I told him that it is similar to tomato passata but instead of using tomatoes, I used chillies. HAAA!
Sambal is actually the melody to every Nasi Lemak and in fact the pride & joy of every Malays. For those who haven’t heard of Nasi Lemak, it is the Malaysian equivalent to English breakfast or Dim Sum (YES, WE EAT RICE FOR BREAKFAST- Not just a normal rice but coconut rice!) . If anyone is to try out Nasi Lemak when visiting Malaysia, some of the restaurants do offer Nasi Lemak but opt for Nasi Lemak as sold by hawkers/ street food vendors. They sell it every morning, probably up until 11am. You will then get to choose from a variation of sambals- squid sambal, liver sambal, anchovies sambal, prawn sambal, chicken sambal, cockles sambal etc. It is definitely authentic but could be a bit spicy for those who can’t handle heat. The price can range from as cheap as probably £0.60 to £1.50.
As I have mentioned in my previous post, my first experiment with making sambal was not as smooth sailing as I wished it would have been. I didn’t even know how to make chilli paste and I didn’t know then the correct ratio in between the onion mix and the chilli paste. However, all that changed in the first year of my PhD, Ikhwan and the gang often invited me to their apartment on Friday night. Arvindd and Ikhwan will be sweating away in order to serve us Nasi Lemak. Arvindd was always in charge of making sambal, Ikhwan was in charge of the fried chicken, as for the coconut rice and other condiments- these are probably team effort between Jinn, Robyn, Joule and Ashwin- although hardly Ashwin! Ikhwan left in my second year so the Nasi Lemak Friday night ended and Arvindd left in my third year. In my second year, I invited friends over for my birthday celebration, it was the night before which soon changed my sambal learning process. Arvindd came over to teach me the techniques of making a perfect sambal. ‘I cant believe an Indian person had to teach a Malay girl on how to make sambal!’– he commented. Ever since then, I had been making sambal on my own- without even having to look at the recipe. I have even made variations of sambal (not in terms of the protein but the cooking techniques)- goreng berlada, sambal without using shrimp paste and sambal using shrimp paste.
For dinner last night, I made King Prawn Sambal. I figured this time around, I’d give my shrimp paste a rest and truthfully I wanted to make Goreng Berlada King Prawn but somehow blended the chillies rather finely and I knew that any hope of making a goreng berlada would end up as a disaster. I fried the king prawn separately in order to avoid overcooking the prawn.
Ingredients:
I used 30 Dried Chillies (only because I have used the dried chillies before and it is not spicy- becareful with the type of dried chillies used, some might be spicier than the other). I suggest using 15 dried chillies first, soak it in boiled water, keep changing the water until the dried chillies soften and then blend it- make sure that the chilli paste is of a thick consistency. Then repeat this process for the other 15 dried chillies (you can keep the chilli paste for up to 5 days max).
1 Red Onions (or 5 shallots), 4 Garlic and 3cm of ginger- blend together and again, make sure that it is of a thick consistency.
500 grams of king prawns
First Time Purchasing from Simmonite
Tumeric powder
Tamarind Paste/ Juice
Sugar and Salt.
Method:
Marinate the king prawn with tumeric powder and salt, set aside.
Ingredients: King Prawns marinated in Tumeric Powder, Chilli Paste and Onion Mix
Heat up 2 tablespoon of oil in a frying pan, sauté the onion mix until it changes to a darker colour. Add in the chilli paste and mix together until the mix turn into a dark red colour.
Add in 2 tablespoons of tamarind paste and some salt. Taste it.
Tips: If the sauce taste predominantly of chillies, keep adding tamarind paste. If it ended with a sour taste, add in salt. If it is too spicy, add in sugar or onions and cook the onions down.
Fry the marinated king prawn and mix it with the sauce.
Fried King Prawns
I had my King Prawn sambal with blanched samphire for added salty flavour and for crunchy texture.
King Prawn Sambal with Samphire
I already have most of the ingredients except for the tamarind paste and king prawn. The tamarind paste costs £1.40 at WaDing and I probably made the worst decision to buy King Prawn from Simmonite which costs me £9 for 12 pieces. The samphire on the other hand only costs me £1 per pack which is an absolute bargain in comparison to Waitrose. In fact, in Sheffield it is almost impossible to buy Samphire- they don’t sell it in Sainsbury’s/ Tesco close to where I live and Waitrose is just out of reach. Lets not forget the ‘WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT’ look whenever I ask the assistants at Sainsburys. The dish will last me for good 3 servings so that should cost £3.80 per serving.
Livin On A Budget 