Mama Pongkey's Seawater Prawns in Garlic Cream Sauce with Salad

We hadn't been eating at home lately, and it has come to the point that even the thought of going out is causing me dread. The weather is very hot and so it seems more pleasant to stay put where we have our fans and air conditioner going on. :-) Also, I posted an article today on eating at home in Facebook. Now I really should follow my own advice, eh? ;-)

So this is a little something I threw together in the wok, using what I had in the fridge. It cooked really fast and I had it with some plain basmati rice. Mmm hmm. Just that peeling the prawns took quite some time, as this time the prawns I bought were pretty small-ish.

Mama Pongkey's Seawater Prawns in Garlic Cream Sauce

Ingredients:

0.5 kg seawater prawns (but after deveining and peeling them, probably only 350g left?)
200 ml cream
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
108 g cream cheese (I used one of those Kiri cubes, akin to Laughing Cow)
1 tablespoon palm oil
2 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper to taste
2 cups salad greens (I used iceberg and romaine)
1/3 cup cherry tomatoes
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (for soaking salad and prawns, separately)

Directions:

• Rinse and soak the vegetables in water and apple cider vinegar. Leave to stand. When prawns have finished cooking, give the veggies a final rinse and spin dry in a salad spinner for crispy leaves.
• Peel prawns except for the tail end. Remove head and take out the main vein on the upper back. Soak in water and a bit of apple cider vinegar to remove possible contamination for 15 minutes. Rinse in water.
• In a pan, heat the oil and melt the butter. Add in the cream, cheese and garlic, and stir for 3 minutes.
• Add in prawns and herbs, and stir until lightly pink. I dislike overcooked prawns, so when I judge the prawns are just before the point of being fully cooked, I turn off the heat and add in salt and pepper while I stir. And leave it to stand while I sort out the salad.
• Arrange the salad in the bottom of a wide dish, then carefully pour the creamy prawns on the salad. Serve with love :-)

My Sweet (Potato) Love is Purple / Keledek Ungu Idaman Hati

My first-ever sweet potato harvest.

A few months back Aunty Kan, my neighbour from across the road, gave me several cuttings from her sweet potato plant. I don't recall how she came by her plant, it was either from some cuttings or a sweet potato she planted out of curiosity. I stuck them in a styrofoam box filled with potted soil and sort of ignored it. I only fertilised it once, with blended fish guts. It grew and grew, and soon threatened to take over it's corner of my Jung-Den. It got quite difficult for me to go into the cat enclosure because it's vines were sprawling all over the pathway. So I had some of the leaves cleared. Then AFTER that, I suddenly felt I wanted to try some of the sweet potato shoots in a stir-fry. And oh boy, did it taste so gooodd.. and I regretted not eating the leaves before. Better tasting compared to kangkung actually. I hear sweet potato leaves can also be juiced and taken raw.

Another neighbour came by with her daughter, to visit my cats. She got curious about my styrofoam-dwelling sweet potatoes, and started digging with her bare hands. Imagine my delight when she unearthed this sweet bounty below:

Purple sweet potatoes, just the way I like them.

We left most of the plant as it is, and reburied a few smaller sweet potatoes in the hopes that they will grow bigger. This is harvesting technique is called 'bandicooting' according to Diana of Kebun Malay Kadazan Girls. Bandicoots are rat-like marsupials resident in Australia and New Guinea. I guess there is also something to learn from nature, and I am kind of amused by the word 'bandicoot' because it sounds like bandits. Sweet potato bandits, to be exact.

Then I hopped over to my neighbour's house, and she dug about in her raised bed and bequeathed me with her own yellow sweet potato. I got curious and wrapped them up in tin foil, and baked them in the oven at 170-180 degrees Celcius, alongside my gluten-free quiche, for about 40 minutes. And the result is here:

Left: purple sweet potato. Right: yellow sweet potato.

I dug into both sweet potatoes with glee. They were absolutely, fantabulously DELICIOUS!!
How do they taste like?
Well, if you are after a creamier and starchier sweet potato, the purple one ought to meet your requirements. If you prefer a sweeter, smoother texture, then the yellow sweet potato is your pal.

As for me, I love them both for what they are: delicious organic food, home-grown with love.

After that food-tasting, I immediately started 2 more boxes of sweet potatoes. ;-)

Karahi Chicken

Mama Pongkey's Karahi Chicken

This post was inspired by some comments in a post by Encik Iskandar of tanamsendiri.com fame:

ShahRose said: Coriander leaves (also known as cilantro) are great in murghi karai, a Pakistani dish.

Encik Iskandar replied: I am not yet familiar with Pakistani cuisine.

Karai... karahi... Karahi Chicken...

Karahi (Urdu for wok) chicken was one of my go-to recipes while I was a student in the UK. I usually had most of the ingredients readily stocked in my kitchen, especially since most of them are flavours I already love: tomatoes, coriander, onion, ginger and garlic. The original recipe was from one of those thick cooking tomes, bought for cheap at a discount book store, most likely this one:

I misplaced this huge book. Yes, how is that possible? Image taken from amazon.com

Blessed, good memories of love, friendship, neighbourliness surround this dish. But for some reason I hadn't made this dish in a long, long while. Partly because we went low-carb, and any curried dishes just increased my cravings for piping hot, steamed white basmathi rice. But since now I have reintroduced some rice into my diet this dish is a go.

So here I am reconstructing this recipe from the cobwebs of my mind. The dominant flavours are onion, tomato, and coriander. The amounts are approximate/guesstimate, because I don't really measure as I cook. Here it goes:

Mama Pongkey's Karahi Chicken

Ingredients:

• 1 kg chicken, cut into small pieces so it will cook quickly 
• 3 large onions, diced
• 1 tablespoon ginger & garlic paste
• 3 cardamom pods
• 1 star anise
• 1 teaspoon garam masala
• 1/2 tablespoon coriander powder
• 1/4 teaspoon cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 5 tomatoes, diced
• 1 handful of fresh cilantro/coriander leaves, chopped
• 4-5 green chillies, sliced in an attractive manner
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil
• 1 tablespoon ghee
• 1 bay leaf
• Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Brown the onions properly, this is a key step in most Pakistani and Indian dishes

• Heat up coconut oil and ghee in a wok (okay I am in the process of replacing my non-stick wok, so I am using a claypot instead. :-P)
• Add in diced onions, and stir fry these until they are oh-so-slightly burnt. Or brown, if you prefer.
• Add in ginger-garlic paste, cardamom pods and star anise.
• When the whole thing starts to be a bit sticky, add in the chicken.
• Add in the chopped tomatoes when the chicken pieces have browned sufficiently.
• When the chicken is halfway cooked, add the powdered spices, and stir, stir away! 

• Add some water, I added about 1 cup, and the bay leaf. Leave to simmer for about 20 minutes.

• Add salt and pepper to taste.
• As a last ditch effort, dump in the chillies, stir for a minute and switch off the heat.
• Just before serving, garnish with cilantro.

And here is our dinner, served with white rice and chilled raita:

Karahi Chicken with Raita and White Ponni Rice

Meatzza Mania! (Egg-free Recipe)

Today is a special day, so DH wants to have a nice meal. The last pizza we indulged in was the excellent Sunset Diavolo (thin crust) at Little Croc a while back. We are also curious about the oft-mentioned Meatzzas, a grain-free carnivore extravaganza that promises to cure any pre-Paleo/low-carb longing for the delights of crusty pizzas.

I am using the double zz in Meatzza because I think it lovely dish like this deserves an extra Z in its name. We used Mark Sisson's Greek Meatza with Creamy Feta, Kalamata Olives and Red Onion recipe as a starting point, and modified it somewhat. For starters, DH is not a huge fan of olives, and we definitely don't have feta cheese. We aimed for a more Italian feel. And we didn't use any eggs, because while making our own burgers we never needed to use any sort of binding agent. I got up nice and early and got our meat fresh at the Farmer's Market. DH ground our meat in our small meat grinder, and de-seeded the tomatoes for the sauce. You could also use any pasta sauce of your choice, just watch out for any wheat, MSG or any other unfavourable additives. Start off with the sauce first, if you are making your own, then while the sauce is simmering on the stove top you can start on the meatzza base. So here goes:

Mama Pongkey's Meatzza Mania

Ingredients for Simple Tomato Sauce:

• 0.9 kg tomatoes, deseeded and chopped
• 3 small red onions, sliced
• 3 garlic cloves, sliced
• 1 teaspoon mixed herbs (thyme, rosemary, marjoram, basil, oregano, sage)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tablespoon palm oil
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 5 teaspoons tomato puree
  
• dash of fish sauce
• salt and pepper to taste

Method for Simple Tomato Sauce:

Heat up the oils, and add in the chopped onions and garlic. Saute until slightly browned.
Add the rest of the ingredients in, and cook on low heat until tomato pieces are softened.


Ingredients for Meattzza base:

• 1 kg minced beef
• 2 cloves garlic, pounded
• 1 tablespoon crushed fried red onions/red shallots
• 2 teaspoons mixed herbs
  
• 2 teaspoons Himalayan rock salt, or to taste
  
• 1 teaspoon cracked black pepper, or to taste

Ingredients for topping:

• 250 g shredded cheddar cheese
• 125 g shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1 green pepper, sliced
  

Method for Meatzza:

Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celcius (or 340 degrees F)
Mix all ingredients thoroughly by hand.
Place mix into a tray of choice, preferably with edges to catch the drippings.


















Bake for 10-12 minutes.



















(I think we left this one in the oven a wee bit longer than 12 minutes. If you look closely, you can see the cracks in our base. I think it looked like a delta.)

Take the meatzza out, spread the Simple Tomato Sauce on top.
In the meantime, set the temperature of your oven to grill at 220 degrees Celcius (430 degrees Farenheit).



















Place veggies, cheddar and mozzarella on top. Top off with a sprinkle of mixed herbs.



















Grill for approximately 5-7 minutes. This really depends on how you like your cheese, just softened and melted, or slightly browned as we do.

Taking Stock Off Chicken

From http://www.maggi.com.my/en/family/fw/minikiub.htm

I first came across homemade chicken stock while watching cooking programmes on the Asian Food Channel. I don't remember exactly which chef it was, most likely it was Michael Smith in Chef at Home. I thought it was a nifty idea indeed, making my own wholesome chicken stock instead of using the store-bought stock cubes I was so fond of. Yes, once upon a time I used to dump those cubes in practically every dish I made. I would eschew MSG but I used MSG-laden stock cubes, haha the irony! I soon realised the error of my ways. Hence I merrily (repentantly?) set upon my homemade stock/broth making journey, eventually expanding my repertoire to include shrimp, beef and lamb stock. Our household has been liberated from store-bought stock cubes since 2008. :-) The only stock cubes I have are the homemade ones I have frozen in ice trays.

Why Bone Stock is Good for You

After starting to eat healthier (Paleo! Primal! Real Food! Traditional Food!), I soon discovered that not only is homemade stock free of MSG, they are also good for you. Many traditional recipes call for bone stock, and make use of the whole bird. Bone broth is a healthy source of gelatine and minerals. The GAPS diet recommends daily servings of bone broth to heal the gut lining. WAPF has great broth recipes here, and also the Dr.s Eades recipe (scroll down for the ingredients and instructions) is delicious too. Their recipes both call for addition of vegetable bits, which in my opinion, do add to the flavour of the broth.

In a nutshell:

• homemade bone stock contains a lot of these minerals: calcium, phosphorus, magnesium 
• homemade bone stock contains a lot of amino acids: glycine and proline
• homemade bone stock is easy for the body to absorb and digest, and supports growth of good bacteria in the digestive system
• homemade bone stock contains gelatine and collagen, which is also good for your skin and joints
• homemade bone stock is an easy way to make your foods taste good

So for my chicken stock this week, I had several pairs of chicken feet, some bones saved from roast chicken and a chicken head from a kampung chicken I bought from the farmer's market. Most of the chicken bits are organic, kampung chicken (chicken cross-bred with jungle fowl). My favourite brand is Az-Zain's organic herbal kampung chicken (green label). I can attest that the chickens I buy from them taste really clean and delicious. Their chickens come frozen without the heads and inner bits (liver, giblet) which to me is a shame because I would've loved to make stock out of the head and eat the liver. The thing about kampung chicken is that they really need at least part of their diet to consist of green foliage and herbage for optimum health. Az-Zain seem to feed their free-range chicken with herbal extracts from turmeric, ginger, pandan, habbatus sauda and kaffir lime leaves.

Mama Pongkey's Simple Chicken Broth/Stock

Ingredients:

• chicken feet
• chicken head
• chicken bones from roast
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar (or any vinegar)
• filtered water to cover the bones, or more if you want more stock
• slow cooker

Method:

• Place all ingredients into your slow cooker and turn it on low
• Clear any scum that rises to the surface (about 1 hour in)
• Continue simmering for 12-24 hours
• Strain out the stock, use immediately. Or, place in fridge and use within 1 week. Or, freeze up to 2 months.
• Place the bones back into the slow cooker and add water and vinegar
• Repeat until bones fall apart

 *If you are using commercially-raised chicken, please get rid of the fat in the bone stock. An easy way is to put it in the fridge, and scrape off the fat layer. If you are using organic chicken, the fat layer is okay to consume.

Questions:
Why the heck does it need to take so long?
So you can extract the maximum amount of nutrients from your bones. There is a much faster pressure cooker method here by Nom Nom Paleo. Her slow cooker method is here. :-) I say this calls for more experimentation.

Why apple cider vinegar?
According to traditional-foods.com:

Vinegar will help draw minerals out of your soup bones but we have made many batches without vinegar and just keep cooking the bones .. until we are sick of them or they disintegrate. We get a whole lot of mineral content from our bone broth in the process.

You can actually reuse these bones?
I have only started reusing my bones recently, after being inspired by this article. Imagine getting 12 batches of stock from a single set of bones? I must see how far I can make mine stretch. I somehow don't think I can get much gelatine from the 2nd or 3rd simmering, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

What's the difference between chicken stock and chicken broth? And why do you use these words interchangeably?

Well, to be honest I thought there is literally no difference between the two. But apparently, there is. You get chicken stock when you boil bones, but you get broth when you simmer bones with meaty bits + flesh. So I guess what I am making is chicken stroth, or chicken brock, since I really don't care what bones or meaty bits that end up in it.

How do I store the extra stroth/brock? Hehehe couldn't resist.

I use a combination of ice cube trays and tupperware. Like so:

Yes, I do realise I may need to defrost soon. Or do a wipedown at least. Those are shrimp stock in the bottom left (blue trays), lamb stock cubes in the green trays, chicken stock on the right and right at the back, some veggie stock.


So now that we have a lot of chicken stock/broth, what do we do with it?
Well, you can:

• Drink it straight. Oh yeah. Only for the hardcore.
• Use it to cook rice. Like Biriyani or Chicken Rice or Claypot Chicken Rice or Kabsah rice.
• Make clear soups, any soups. Spike your chicken soups with this and it will be an unforgettable experience of gastronomic proportions. Seriously. Yes, I had one of these recently, 2 days in a row.
• Make thick, creamy soups, like Mushroom Soup.
• Make Soto Ayam.
• Make Kueytiaw Sup or Meehoon Sup.
• Make Kueytiaw Goreng or Meehoon Goreng.
• Make Garlic Chili Sauce.
• Add into curries. Yes I did this recently too. :-)
• Add a cube into stir-fried veggies.
• Make vegetable soup.
• Make rice porridge. Easy peasy.

Basically, have fun experimenting with your broth. Making bone broths/stock is an art, not a science, and you can definitely tailor your broth according to your personal preferences. Good luck and happy simmering :-)

Roasted Chicken

Cover image taken from novoink.com.

This recipe is adapted from one in Wolfgang Puck's "Makes It Easy" cookbook. As usual, some 'halalifying' was necessary: I substituted the alcohol with a squirt of lime juice and some pomegranate juice in my fridge.

Mama Pongkey's Whole Roasted Garlic Chicken in Herb Sauce

Ingredients for roast:

3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons chopped flat leafed parsley/celery shoots
2 tablespoons extra light olive oil (I ran out of extra virgin)
1 whole frying chicken, about 4 pounds

Ingredients for sauce:

1/2 cup pomegranate juice diluted with 1/4 cup water and squirt of lemon juice (I basically had 1/4 cup water, then added about 3 tbs pomegranate juice, squirted in some lemon and topped up to 1/2 cup with water. This is to avoid too much sugars from the fruit juice.)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons salted butter (I ran out of unsalted)
1 tablespoon dried'tarragon' (at least it looked like tarragon. The Iranian guy at the shop didn't know what it was called in English. I bought it anyway. Ha.)
Lime wedges for garnish

Directions:

I preheated the oven to 230 degrees Celcius. I then tossed together the parsley/celery and garlic slices, then eased this mixture in between the skin and meat of the chicken. Then I gave the old bird a good massage with olive oil and a salt & pepper body rub.



I placed the chicken in a pan in the oven lying on its breast, and set the timer for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes are up, I turned the temperature down to 170 degrees Celcius (I forgot this part, and only turned down the temperature only after 10 minutes!!! Eeek one side will be more tanned than the other. LOL), flipped the bird to its side and turned the timer on for 15 minutes. And repeat for the other side for another 15 minutes. For the last I flipped the bird on its back, and cooked till golden brown, which takes about 30-40 minutes. You'll know the bird is cooked when the juices run clear when the chicken thigh is pierced with a knife, or a thermometer inserted into the thigh reads about 74 degrees Celcius.

Then I transferred the chicken onto a serving platter, taking care to conserve the chicken juices in the pan in another bowl. I heated the pan over high heat, added the pomegranate/lemon juice, and stir and scrape to remove the glazed deposits at the bottom of the pan. Then I add the lime juice and boil to reduce the liquid by half.I added the butter while it is still chilled, cube by cube. Finally I stir in the dried herbs. At this point you are supposed to blend the sauce but honestly I couldn't be bothered. Besides, I like chunky bits in my sauce.

And here is the final result:



It tasted.. good. Mild flavours from the garlic and celery. The tarragon tasted quite smokey in the sauce. Parts of the skin turned out a bit crispy. I think if I roasted the whole chicken at 230 degrees Celcius I could probably achieve crispy roasted chicken. Maybe. Anyway we polished the whole thing off. Would I make this again? I would, but make it even spicier :-) Alhamdulillah.

Cooking Frenzy: Lontong (no pics, sorry!)

I found some succulent 'Solo' seawater prawns at my local market, and remembered I had some grated coconut in my freezer, and so, what better than to use the prawns and fresh coconut milk to make Sayur Lodeh, to be eaten as Lontong. I bought a few more ingredients to go with it, and made the following recipe, which is adapted from this Sayur Lodeh recipe. Mine has much less ingredients and is much simpler, because I think the freshness of the ingredients makes the dish a real winner. Plus I am just too lazy, okay? :-)

This is what Lontong looks like: rice cubes in coconut milk gravy topped with spicy anchovies.
Hmm.. sorry no suitable picture, most people put bean sprouts and eggs in their lontong, which I consider strange. And somewhat off-putting. Whyyyy sprouts and hard-boiled eggs in absolutely everything??????


Mama Pongkey's Sayur Lodeh (serves 6)

To be finely chopped/minced:

• 10 dried chillis
• 2 large onions
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 cm old ginger
• 2 cm galangal (lengkuas)
• 2 tbsp dried shrimp (udang kering)
• 2 tbsp dried anchovies (ikan bilis)

• 2 stalks lemongrass - crushed
• 400 gms prawns (I used large 'Solo' prawns ~ yummy!)
• 1 carrot - sliced
• 10 French beans - cut into 5 cm pieces
• 100 gm cauliflower - diced
• 1 firm tofu - diced
• 3 packets of tempeh (the ones that come wrapped in banana leaves, they taste much better) - diced
• 1 large piece of dried fermented soy 'pucuk' - broken up into squares
• 1 handful of suhun (dried vermicelli)
• 1 tablespoon organic powdered turmeric (the nonorganic variety usually has added cornflour, and much less taste)
• 1/2 cup prawn stock (I boiled the shells and heads of the prawns to make the stock)
• 1 liter coconut milk (mine is rather thin, so if you are using creamed coconut you might want to thin it down)
• 1 tbsp cooking oil
• Salt to taste
  

Method:

• Heat up the oil in a pot and saute all the minced ingredients until fragrant.
• Dump in the lemongrass and asam keping and stir for 2 minutes.
• Dump in the coconut milk, turmeric powder, carrot, cauliflower, suhun, pucuk, tofu and tempeh. Turn the heat to low. The trick to cooking with coconut milk is not to overboil it, as it then starts to curdle and loses its flavour. Low temperatures are key.
• When the mixture has been gently bubbling for a few minutes, it is time to dump in the rest of the ingredients. Watch the prawns, and turn off the heat when the prawns are just nicely cooked. Overcooked prawns taste like rubber, yucks.

Ta-da! Sayur Lodeh is traditionally eaten with compacted rice cubes boiled in coconut shoots (ketupat) and spicy dried anchovies cooked in chili (sambal tumis ikan bilis) or peanut sauce.

Mama Pongkey's Sambal Tumis Ikan Bilis Bertempe

• 1 cup dried anchovies
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1/2 cup cili boh (boiled dried chillies ground into a paste)
• 1 pack tempeh, diced
  
• 2 pieces of asam keping/asam gelugor for its sour taste.
• 1/2 cup water
  
• oil for frying (1/2 cup, depends on the anchovies the oil needs to immerse)
• Salt to taste
• Brown sugar (optional)
  

Directions:

• Heat the oil, then dump in the rinsed anchovies. Make sure the anchovies are dry, or things could get real ugly!
• Turn down the heat and saute the anchovies crisp.
  
• Add in the chopped onion, garlic and tempeh. Continue saute-ing.
• When the onions are soft, and the tempeh has firmed up a bit, add in the chilli paste and water, and continue stirring.
  
• You'll know it's ready when the chilli paste darkens. If the dish is too hot, just add a tablespoon of brown sugar.
  

Didn't I tell you I was lazy? I had mine with rice, not rice cubes. I am not about to hunt for coconut shoots, and I plain forgot to buy the banana leaves which could also be used to make rice cubes.

Verdict:
I was too busy wolfing down the whole thing to take pictures. I only remembered when it was all gone. Hahaha. Papa Pongkey didn't mind eating the whole thing with rice instead of rice cubes. He loved the Sayur Lodeh, he said the taste was spot-on. :-) Alhamdulillah... burpp! (It's not considered rude for us to burp after a meal.. hehehe.)

In a future entry, I will describe how I use the leftover spicy anchovies for another favourite dish, Nasi Lemak.