Secret of Antara Gapi
I have been visiting the Welfare Home at Antara Gapi for almost a year now but I did not realize the secret of this little town. There is a huge vegetable farm tucked right behind the housing area where the welfare home located. The top picture is huge farm of leafy vegetables waiting to be harvested. The stretch of land in front of the picture is waiting for new seeds. The second picture shows a mixture of crops from sweet patoto, choy sum and short plants which look like ladies' fingers. It seems that the farmers are practicing hybrid farming where a variety of crops are grown on the same plot of land. A farmer friend once explained to me that this help to nourish the soil and prevent one crop from depleting one particular minerals from the soil.
The farm hands seems to be labourers from Bangladesh. They stared at me curiously. I on the other hand, am more impressed by his seeds sowing catwalk posture :)
September 23rd - The Diary of a the Family Wok
I am a wok, and my master calls me ‘tia’, or wok in the Hokkien dialect. But her daughters call me ma’s black tia. I am black but shiney black from the 15 years of serving the Chua family. I weigh 10 kg and am 18 inches in diameter.
When I am not working, I sleep in the cabinet beneath the stove. I am very relaxed most days of the week nowadays. On Sept 23, I was awakened early to work at 8am. Usually this happens when my master’s daughters are at home. In my deep belly my master poured water before she placed on top of a steaming sieve and a plate of 3 big pork buns and 2 red bean buns. While I was diligently warming up the buns, Mrs Kettle stood beside me whistling that her hot water was ready for the local coffee bags waiting in the cups.
There was sound of chili pounding and scrapping of the lemon grass. A large piece of pork ribs was seasoned with black pepper in a neighboring pot. Fresh prawns were cleaned and chilled in the fridge. By 11am, I was cooking up a storm of soya sauce stewed pork and deep fired tofu to be served with claypot tapioca and carrot porridge. In my deep belly of hot oil, chopped garlic and dried shrimp and fresh sambal simmered in delightful mini fireworks. Despite the protest of the cut long beans, they were stirred and sautéed. This was the last dish I serve for lunch.
I took a nap in the afternoon while the Chua daughters made themselves pots and pots coffee to go with the famous white lotus paste mooncake from Shangri-LA Hotel in Singapore . The weather was extremely hot and one of the Chua daughters decided to serve icy cold orange drinks. The rest protested as it was only sugar syrup with colours. Anyway everyone eventually conceded as it is festive afterall.
I swing into action at 5pm. My first task was to fry curry paste with shallots, ginger and numerous spices. Chicken pieces and cut potatoes were poured into my deep belly and I work my magic to melt them into the elixir of spicy curry paste. Mission accomplished and I moved on to the next task of deep fried garlic prawns. The prawns were big, fat and juicy. I was glad that the first Chua daughter did not force all the prawns on me. Only three were fried at a time and that made it all more manageable. Then her mom murmured something about the duck soup. The sour vegetable pickles were cleaned and cut into strips while the claypot next to me is being ushered in to get ready to whip up the duck stew.
Next I was presented with the mission to present the sweet and sour pork ribs. The pork ribs must be selected prime meat so there is a nice balance of fat and meat. The ribs were fried slightly until they turned golden brown with slightly caramelized honey. There was a discussion whether the sauce should be made now or later. Then the consensus was to prepare the vegetables.
I was thinking something was amiss. Aha, it was the longevity noodles. In my 15 years of serving the Chua family, there was no feast without the fried dark noodles, apparently the favorite dish of the Head of the family. Since this is his birthday, and there is no birthday celebration without the noodles to signify long life and prosperous living. True enough first the ingredients like shredded pork, Chinese sausages, garlic, shallots, shrimps were sautéed. Then beaten eggs lined my belly which I turned them into a thin crepe which was then cut up in strips. Soon the noodles were mixed in, with all the previous ingredients and eggs strips.
There were remarks about the orange red colour of the curry chicken. The house puppy Dyno tried to sneak into the kitchen but was ordered to stay beyond the kitchen door. Looks like everyone knew something good was brewing in the kitchen. When I thought my tasks were accomplished, there was one last task – to steam a fish. Of course, this has to be the last.
The evening sun was setting but the weather was still as warm. While the fish was being tamed in my belly, the table was set and bottle of red wine was selected. The feast would soon begin …and I am glad I accomplish my mission of today.
Ramadhan goodies for Kasih Sayang Home
With Ramadhan approaching, I thought it would be a good idea to send goodies to the Welfare Home I help look after. Last time I bought the provisions from a warehouse in Cheras, a suburb about 18 km away from PJ. Since then I have not visited that place.
Hence on Saturday morning, aimed with a shopping list from the Home carer Ragu, I set off to the warehouse hoping that I would not lose my way in Cheras. However, after 40 minutes of circling around, I gave up and decided to buy the provisions from a huge Giant hypermarket. The advantage of buying from the warehouse versus the Hypermarket is the packaging. Unlike hypermarket, the warehouse offered 36 cans of milk packed in a cartoon box, or 50 packages of instant noodles in a carrier bag.
I bought :
- 40 kg of rice
- 5 big tins of Giant sweetened milk for them to make "kopi"
- 60 packages of instant noodles , enough for them to lose their hair
- 6 boxes of toothpaste with standard flavour, mint and supermint
- 50 pieces of body soap with assorted varieties from lavender to strawberries
- 2 big bottles of Dettol disinfectant
Total price = RM221.88
Happy Mooncake Festival
Mari kita bersama sama menyambut pesta tang-lung
Entrapment
Another absent-minded car owner who forgot to remove his car before the night market vendors took over the streets
Cotton Candy
Nope, there is no camera trick and I was not on a highland. This was at the traffic light junction outside Kg.Kerinchi. The weather this evening was an unusual one. The late afternoon sun was fighting a losing battle trying to force its ray through the thick shields of clouds. But the light that sipped through the clouds wrapped the city in a mischevious atmosphere.
Sautee Eggplant
I have always loved eggplants cooked in all sorts of ways: grilled, roasted, baked, fried. Only problem is I had trouble cooking them myself because it guzzles cooking oil in my hot wok. Recently while swtiching TV channels, I stumbled upon a Miss Big-Square-Glasses Kailey Kwang demostrating a stir fried vegetables the Cantonese style. She murmured something about rubbing eggplants with salt before cooking so as to extract the juice. I heeded her advice and viola ! The end-result was fantastic. With toasted buttery brioche from the bakery, it makes a perfect Sunday brunch.
Ingredients:
- 3 small cloves of garlic
- A quarter chopped onion for its natural sweetness and a small pinch of salt
- A handful of chopped parsely or rosemary
- 3 fresh button mushrooms or shitake mushrooms cut into strips
- 1 red tomato cut into cubes or several baby tomatoes (I prefer the firmer ones as they do not give too much juices)
- Half egg plant cut into strips and left aside with sprinkled salts for an hour before cooking
- Half a carrot cut into strips
