Harvesting my First Batch of Homegrown Roselle

Still remember my post about the Roselle (scientific name, Hibiscus Sabdariffa) fruits that I bought from the market to make drinks? Well, I planted some of seeds in my garden and I harvested my first homegrown roselle fruits today. Although I managed to collect only 11 mature fruits, there are still lots of smaller ones on the trees. The roselle has pretty pink colour flowers and the fruits would form when the flowers drop off. Some of the earlier fruits dropped before reaching maturity so I boosted up the soil with some plant nutrients and managed to overcome this problem. I didn’t use any insecticide so I guess my roselle is healthier compared to the ones sold at the market. The stem of the trees are too soft to support the weight of the fruits and some of them bent during a heavy downpour yesterday. Luckily the stems were not broken and tied them up to my fence for support. Therefore, I quickly plucked all the matured fruits today! The eleven fruits I collected were enough to make around 6 glasses of tasty roselle drink. Cheers!

Late Night Supper/Dinner at Pak Mod Tomyam Stall

After having porridge for dinner, my eldest son and I were hungry again. Therefore we went out food hunting and decided to fill our stomach with solid food like rice but not too filling because it was close to bed time. Anyway, we found Pak Mod stall along the main road in Bandar Sri Damansara along with other tomyam stalls. Both of us love to eat Tomyam from Malay stalls. Somehow it must be the cooking style or the generous amount of serai (lemongrass) that they put in contributed to a bowl of tasty tomyam. Most of the time my son would eat the tomyam bihun (rice vermicelli) but this round we had it with rice. We also ordered 2 Fu Yong eggs (Fried eggs with onions) or Telur Dadar. The eggs are fried thoroughly in hot oil and the aroma is very appetising. We flooded our rice with the tomyam campur (mixed) gravy and happily ate it with the telur dadar. The total bill for one tomyam campur, two telur dadar and two plates of rice came up to be RM8.

Address
Pak Mod Stall Jalan Cempaka SD12/1 Bandar Sri Damansara Kuala Lumpur

Google Earth : Latitude 3°11'34.74"N Longitude 101°36'24.14"E

Map Pak Mod, Bandar Sri Damansara

Simplified Chicken Rendang Kunyit (Turmeric) Recipe

My simplified Rendand dish................I love to eat it with durian and rice! LOL!

I would normally store a bottle of fried kerisik (coconut grating) in my fridge and use it whenever I want to cook rendang (dry curry with coconut grating). This is a simplified rendang recipe and you can cook it in a jiffy. I used pre mixed Adabi Rendang curry powder, so it saved me the hassle of mixing my own rendang spice. Chicken don’t need long hours of cooking compared to beef. Therefore, I managed to prepare this wonderful dish within less than 30 minutes for dinner!

Ingredients
Chicken, ½, cut into small pieces
Adabi Rendang powder, mix with water to make a paste
Kunyit powder (turmeric), 1 tablespoon mix with Adabi Rendang paste
Kaffir Lime Leaves, 5 pcs, cut into small strips
Kerisik (fried grated coconuts), 1 tablespoon
Potato, 3, cut into four each, steamed until soft
Salt to taste

Blend
Serai(lemongrass), 2 pcs
Shallots, 5 pcs

Heat up wok and put in around 4 tablespoons of oil. Sauté serai and shallots mixture until fragrant. Add Adabi rendang powder and kunyit paste. Stir fry for a short while. Lower down the heat to avoid burning the paste. Add kerisik and kafir lime leaves. Put in the chicken and add a little water. Cover the wok until the chicken is cooked thoroughly. Add in the pre boiled potato. Stir until all the gravy cover the potato. Add salt to taste.

Braised Pork Rump with Sawi (Mustard Green) Recipe

I love tender braised pork rump that are cooked in spice. You can use any part of the pork leg/ham cut that have a little fat and skin attached to it for this recipe. To cook the meat until tender the fastest way of course is to use a pressure cooker but some claim that it would taste better using the traditional slow cooking method. Whatever it is, the choice is yours! LOL! I like to add sawi to the braised pork meat and boil them until they turned a little yellow. The sawi (mustard green) would soak up all the aromatic and sweet pork gravy!

Ingredients
Pork Leg cut (or rump), 500 gms
Star Anise, 3 pcs
Cinnamon, 2 pcs
Black Vinegar, 1 tablespoon
Chinese Rice Wine, 2 tablespoon
Dark Soya Sauce, 1 tablespoon
Light Soya sauce, 2 tablespoon
Corn flour and water mixture
Salt to taste
Sawi, 1 bunch, cut into long strips

Put some water in pot and bring to a boil. Put in all the ingredients except the corn flour and sawi. Cook until the pork rump meat is tender. Add corn flour and water mixture to thicken the gravy. Put in the sawi vegetable and boil until they turned soft. Serve with steamed rice or mantou (Chinese soft bread).

Lunch at Togo Fruity Cafe, Wisma Methodist, Lorong Hang Jebat, KL

Apart from having a cute and unique name, Togo Fruity Cafe is a good place for a lunch meal. This is my second visit to this nice and comfy restaurant. There are two stalls in this air conditioned restaurant which is located in the vicinity of Wesley Methodist Church and just a stone throw from the famous Petaling Street. In my previous visit, I ate the Mee Siam but I forgot to take a picture of it! This round I ordered the Curry Mee which cost RM4.90 per bowl. The serving is rather generous for a restaurant located in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. I requested for a mixed noodle of rice vermicelli and yellow noodles (mee). The curry mee is delicious and the nice tofu pok (fried tofu) soaked up all the savoury gravy. The gravy is not so thick, just nice and the curry aroma is very inviting! Since there are a few schools around this area, you will see students having their meal here after school hours. Check out this place if you happen to be around this area!

Opps, sorry forgot to take the photo before I eat! Got carried away chit chatting with my cute lunch companion! LOL!

Address Togo Fruity Cafe No 1, 1st Floor, Wisma Methodist Lorong Hang Jebat 50150, Kuala Lumpur Map to Toto Fruity Cafe

Kam Heong Prawns with Long Beans and Okra Recipe

Actually I was trying to save some time by adding long beans and okra to the Kam Heong Prawns dish so that I don’t have to cook additional vegetable side dishes. Anyway, it is nice to chew on the crunchy long beans and taste the nice kam heong gravy as well!

Ingredients

Prawns, 600 gms, cleaned

Dried Prawns, 2 table spoons, soak in water

Curry powder, 2 table spoons make into paste

Curry leaves, 3 stalks (optional)

Chili paste, 2 table spoons

Oyster sauce, 2 table spoons

Dark Soya Sauce, 1 teaspoon

Ginger, 2”x2”x2”

Shallots, 5 pcs

Okra, 5 pcs, cut into slices

Long Beans, 3 pcs, cut into 1 inch length

Corn Flour, 2 table spoons, add with a little water

Salt to taste

Vegetable oil 3 table spoons

Blend ginger, dried prawns and shallots. Heat up wok and put in the vegetable oil. Saute the ginger, dried prawns and shallots mixture until fragrant. Add in the curry paste, chilly paste, dark soya sauce, oyster sauce and curry leaves. Fry for a short while. Add in the prawns, okra and long beans. Fry until the prawns are cook. Add a little water, salt to taste and corn flour mixture. Serve with steamed rice while still hot!

Square Tin Marble Cake Recipe - Mmm, sounds like Sponge Bob! LOL!

I am not really into baking because I would need to measure the required ingredients and sometime the cake just doesn’t turn out right. Therefore, I just use cups and spoons for my measure and save all the hassle of bringing out the weighing machine which I rarely use. The batter for this recipe is enough to fill my 8”x8” square aluminium baking tray. Here is the Marble Cake that my daughter and I baked last weekend. She loves cooking and was delighted to be able to help me bake this cake. And of course, she gets to lick clean the leftover cake batter in the mixing bowl! LOL!

Ingredients
Butter, 250gms
Eggs, 5 pcs, beaten slightly
Flour, 4 cups
Baking powder, 1 teaspoon
Milk powder, 2 tablespoons
Shortening, 1 tablespoon
Castor (caster)
Sugar, 2 cups (or 1 ½ cup)
Vanilla Essence, 1 tablespoon
Cocoa powder, 1 tablespoon

Put butter, shortening and castor sugar in a mixing bowl. Mix well until the mixture stick to the bowl and will not drop when you turn the bowl upside down. Add egg and stir the batter thoroughly. Sift flour and put it in slowly to the batter. Pour in the vanilla essence, milk powder and baking powder. Stir until well mixed. Take out around ½ cup of the batter and put the cocoa powder into it. Pour the rest of the batter into the oiled and floured baking tin. Use a spoon to put the cocoa mix in straight lines on top of the base cake batter. Use a tooth pick to drag the desired pattern on the cake. Bake in preheated oven at 200 Deg C for 20 minutes.

Serai (Lemongrass) – Destroyer of Malignant Cancer Sells

My friend’s sister who is a teacher had just undergone an operation to remove 1/3 of her lungs that was cancerous. The operation was done by a Cardiothoracic Surgeon and I was told that there is only a handful of this specialist in Malaysia. A few hospitals in KL share one Cardiothoracic Surgeon. She was told to stay away from meat for five year and have to be on strict medication during this time. One of the nutritionist in the hospital told her that Serai (lemongrass, Scientific Name, Cymbopogon citratus) is effective in killing cancerous cells. She was asked to boil serai in water to drink from time to time. In fact it would be good for the whole family members to drink this serai drink as well. Then, I remembered that I have written about the properties of serai in my previous post Edible Plants, Fruits and Herbs in a Foodie Garden. It seems that the active ingredient citral in serai is capable of destroying cancer cells in our body. I have seen my dogs which are sick chewing and eating serai plant when I was young. They seem to be cured after eating the serai plants at my house. Apart from that serai also have anti fungal properties and is commonly used as insect repellent. I boiled some serai and added in a small amount of rock sugar for my family to drink. Actually it tastes quite good!