Yesterday I spent an hour or two persuading SOMEONE to go to the gym and then reality hits me… I haven’t even worked out in a while to the point that I have no clue where my shorts are. I had been cooking, travelling, backpacking, hitch-hiking friends, sleeping on friends’ couches or even moving from my bed to my couch and then back to bed from couch– all of which signalled that no attention has been paid on working out. Has not even been doing yoga/ zumba at home let alone visit Gemma at A Pole New Adventure on Carver Street (Sorry HUN!!!!Had been such a BUM). My only version of living healthily these days is probably the transformation from drinking redbull on a daily basis, eating crisps or chocolates with lack of sleep- walking around like a zombie to munching on granolas, cooking and resting.
Personally, there is nothing wrong with dining out and there are restaurants which offer healthy selections. However, at the same time we don’t have direct control with the production of the food and therefore we won’t know what is added. This was wisely brought up by my friend, Haz who is the producer for Oklat Mico. He commented that, with a lot of establishments’ being proud on using organic ingredients, but how are we to know that these ingredients are indeed organic and the food is healthy for us, afterall there could be a mismatch in between what customers have in mind and also the method by which restaurants are trying to maximise their profit margin!
It didn’t click until later on that possibly, the ingredients could be organic-freshly delivered every morning-but won’t that be expensive at the same time? Not to forget, what about the amount of salt used, what about the beef/chicken/veg stocks- are they artificial or are they freshly made and what about the use of flavourings/ MSG to enhance the taste?
It is still fresh in mind, the memory of the ‘EXTREMELY SALTY’ Paella that I had at Pollen Street Social sometime either last year or two years ago on Valentine’s Day– that was horrifying. The servers only apologised but didn’t offer to do anything about it either- questionable service provided by a one Michelin Star restaurant!
Another example is Mori– I never knew how to describe it- sometimes even referred to it as a ‘classy’ takeaway. Mori Shops are usually located at high end London areas such as St John’s Wood, Kings Road, Fenchurch Street, Marylebone High Street and Park Royal. Yes they do serve sushi which is indeed healthy- but also left to be displayed on the fridge throughout the whole day for a significant price to be paid. On top of that, their hot dishes such as miso marinated salmon; chicken teriyaki etc. can’t be freshly made. The turnaround time in between ordering and being served is so short that I doubt that either meal was cooked on the spot- if they did I really would love to learn on how to. For some of the dishes, to run a takeaway like establishment, I understand that the meal cannot be cooked on the spot but when it requires grilling- I just don’t see the reason on why they shouldn’t. As I thought about it, I became more curious- were these dishes frozen- when was it prepared, what sort of flavourings that were used etc., why a less classy sister- YOUMESUSHI provide customers with the option to purchase made by order sushi and why can’t Mori do the same, afterall Mori is more expensive than YOUMESUSHI! Yes it is safe to say that I won’t be dining out for awhile!
Anyway, for last night’s dinner I decided to make a sandwich because, after all, bread contains the least amount of calories. On my previous post, I mentioned that my dream will be to open a sandwich shop. It will not be any ordinary sandwich; the fillings will be westernised-Asian cuisine. Truthfully, this rendang dinding filling was my starting point. Of course, Malaysian staple is rice or in fact this is the same for most part of Asia. The difference is in terms of the types of grain used- Sushi rice for Japan, Basmati rice for India and Jasmine rice for Thailand etc. However, in Malaysia there are three main races- Malay, Indian and Chinese. Oh let’s not forget the ones we call ‘Mamak’. From my understanding, they are off the combination of Malay and Indian, often from the northern part of Malaysia such as Penang, Kedah and Perlis (mostly Penang!). In Malaysia, Mamak stalls/ restaurants offer variations of high calories-unhealthy breads such as Roti Canai, Roti Telur (Egg Bread), Roti Sardin (Sardin Bread) and so on. So even if bread isn’t a staple for us unlike French with their baguette or Italians with their Pizza, Ciabatta or even Focaccia, bread does play some role in our food culture.
I then recalled the time when I was younger, if my aunt made rendang or sambal for dinner, I would then have sandwich with rendang or sambal as my filling for breakfast the very next day. As previously mentioned, I had been championing ‘my sandwich shop’ fantasy to my friends, but this morning David then alerted me on this article which felt like a slap on to my face. The article was on ‘How Britain is Committing Crimes Against International Cuisine’ To be honest some of the filling do not make sense- lasagne sandwich (Really Tesco?!) and apparently paella sandwich. A paella sandwich will be the equivalent of making a ‘nasi goreng’ sandwich and a lasagne sandwich will be similar to a ‘mee goreng’ sandwich. THAT IS INDEED A CRIME. Although, the rebellious part of me went ‘WHAT WOULD HESTON DO?’.
But then again, if I included or forgot about one or two ingredients when I am cooking, my mum will already be next to me giving her disapproving face– let alone informing her that I will do such a thing to any of the Malaysian dishes (Oh and FYI, my mum does not cook AT ALL!). So, in contrast, for my vision, I will try to retain the traditional value of each dishes, only choose dishes that can be eaten with breads or as with my Malaysian Deconstructured Stuffed Omelette- to still keep the identity and integrity of it- with the exception on how it is presented. I didn’t alter the dish drastically but at the same time, the combination of the ingredients had been perfected over time (to be fair I did start cooking Malaysian food since I was 16- so it has been 12 years now and I think it is time to be inventive, or in my very own wishy washy philosophical artistic way- TIME FOR THE WORLD TO DECHIPER MY VOICE VIA FOOD!!).
On top of that, upon receiving a bad news from home, I needed a healthier version of a comfort food- NO MORE TESCO SAUSAGES PLEASE! Although my choice of making Rendang Dinding is debatable because of the amount of cholesterol that is often associated with beef- BUT HEY I HAD MOSTLY BEEN CONSUMING WHITE MEAT so my body needed some sense of balance. Plus my justification was that I didn’t use any artificial beef stock (no cubes/ oxo etc.) and I didn’t even use any salt, just the soya sauce used to marinate the beef- probably a lot of people out there will be cringing, but I can assure you that the level of salt contained in soya sauce is more than enough to create such dramatic flavour. Other than that, as per mum’s great advice, I used a lot of ginger and garlic.
Ingredients (For 4 Servings):
700 grams of stewing beef (cubed) – bought from the Asian grocery store £4.60
Ginger (a thumb is enough but I am on my high ginger intake regime so I used approximately 60g) – £0.60
Garlic- Half a bulb
2 Onions (one to be blended and one to be added to the sauce)
Chilli Paste (couldn’t find my dried chillies, so added 2 tablespoons of chilli powder with boiled water instead to make a chilli paste)
Soya Sauce (enough to marinate the beef)
Brown Sugar
Tamarind juice
White Bread and low fat butter (In my case I needed to get rid of the bread as it was expiring!)
Salad of your choice as garnish- (I have a bad habit of eating raw vegetables so I added raw cabbage and raw carrots for added texture/ crunch).
Methods:
Add beef into a pot and fill it with just enough amount of water to cover it. Let the water boil and remove the beef but keep the water.
Beef Stock- Ish
Boiled Beef
When the beef has cooled down, find a meat mullet and mullet the beef- this is to create a shredded texture. Marinate the beef with soya sauce (for every tablespoon of soya sauce used, add half a tablespoon of brown sugar- otherwise use sweet soya sauce). Fry the marinated beef and put it aside.
Beef Marinated with Soya Sauce and Sugar
Blend ginger with onion (Make sure that it is of a thick consistency- if I have lemongrass in hand I would have blended it together, but I didn’t have any).
The Usual Suspect for Rendang Dinding
Sauté the ginger and onion mix on the same frying pan. Add in the chilli paste. Add the beef and mix it together. Add the water used to boil the beef depending on your preference for the sauce. I also added a whole onion on to the sauce and cook it down.
Onions
Taste, add tamarind juice and soya sauce as per required.
For the bread, I cut them into circles, spread it with low fat butter and grill it for 2-3 minutes.
Bread, Buttered and Grilled
I then garnished the sandwich with raw carrots and cabbages.
Rendang Dinding Sandwich
In the end, I only spent £1.40 per serving for this dish as I already have most of the ingredients. It might sound a bit tricky but you will get used to it and it is really simple :D! It is also good as finger food or as a snack! ENJOY!!!
Livin On A Budget 