St Andrew's Day, Nov 30

The Aberdeenshire council is responsible for the running of the schools in our area.  One of the areas they're pretty good at is school lunches.

Connor generally eats the lunch that school provides.  We buy him a book of school dinner tickets and then he exchanges them for a meal at school.  The food's pretty good too.

I have since discovered that the council takes its job very seriously.  It doesn't just provide a hot meal.  They also try to take into account celebrations and change the menu accordingly.  For St Andrew's Day, the school lunch menu was haggis, mince, neeps and tatties.  I took one look and told Connor before we left for school that day that he should opt for sandwiches that day at the school dinner hall.  My son doesn't like beef and potatoes.  And I was pretty sure he would hate the haggis.  Best to eat tuna sandwiches.

Unfortunately, my little boy didn't pay attention to me.  So he lined up for the haggis option.

It was SO predictable what happened next.

My son came home at 3:30pm starving as he'd been completely grossed out by the haggis and had refused to eat anything on his dinner tray.

"What did you have for lunch today, Connor?"
"I had haggis!"
"Did you like it?"
"NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It smells terrible!"

After I'd stopped laughing my eyes out, I fed my son.

Now if he's naughty, we threaten to feed him haggis.  Hahahahahahaaaaaa......

East vs West: Connor's lunch

Last weekend, we had someone in to measure our hallway for new carpets.   Connor and I were having our lunch in our kitchen.  Mummy had cooked delicious chicken rice porridge with an egg cracked in, all seasoned lovingly with sesame oil and some soy sauce.  Connor adores chicken rice porridge and can eat bowls and bowls of it.

When he's off to Primary 1 come August, I'm planning to send him off with chicken rice porridge for lunch.  I'm Malaysian.  The standard kid's school lunch of a sandwich and a bag of crisps plus two slices of apple doesn't really count as lunch in our eyes.  For us, lunch = plate of rice + vege + some slices of chicken.  Or char kuey teow.  Or a bowl of prawn noodles.  To us, sandwiches is party food and nibbles.  Every time Dear Hubby tells me he has sandwiches for lunch at work, my heart bleeds for him as I always feel that can't be enough to fill him up.

When the carpet guy came into the kitchen to speak to us, he looked at our bowls and I could see he was clearly puzzled by what we were eating.

After he'd left, I told Dear Hubby, "I could see he was puzzling over what we were eating."  Chicken rice porridge is not a very common lunch in Scotland, I guess.  I don't think he could even begin to guess at what we were eating!

I can just imagine what Connor's friends in school would be saying about his lunch.  "What are you eating, Connor?  Chicken rice porridge???  Wow.  Your mum's weird.  Want a sandwich?"

A super sambal recipe

When you're miles away from home, sometimes all you want is a taste of it.  My husband longed for proper sausages and pork pies when we were living in Asia.  Similarly I find myself dreaming of the food of my homeland now that I'm here in Scotland.  I think of nasi lemak, lontong, char kuey teow... all the delicious smells of my country! - and I think of home.  I'm Malaysian.  All we think about is food.

For those of you faraway Malaysians looking for a super-easy, super-delicious sambal recipe, try this one here called "My Amah's Sambal Udang Petai".   This is the recipe I used when I made nasi lemak a week ago.  I can vouch for its authenticity and sheer syiok-ness.  I didn't have petai on hand when I made it so I just left it out.  I also didn't remove the seeds from the dried chillies as I didn't have time so it was like yowza! spicy.  To tone it down, I added in some brown sugar... I like my sambal  on the sweetish side anyway, just like how my mum makes it.

Just a warning:  My entire house smelled of belacan after that and I had to open all the doors and windows to try and air it out.  So be careful if you live with angmoh housemates/partners who aren't used to the smell of belacan.  Some foreigners find the smell quite objectionable.   I had to go pick Connor up from school after I'd cooked the sambal  and I was careful to stay away from the usual pack of parents because I didn't want everyone to faint as I knew I had to be smelling of belacan.

Happy cooking!

Proudly supporting Scottish industries

Look what I got at the village market today!  

The moment I saw the ingredients, I couldn't pass up a chance to taste them.  How could I walk away from them!  

Can't get any more Scottish than this surely.

For those not in the know, this is what Irn Bru is.

Connor and his yoghurt

These are Connor's new favourite food.  And it sounds like his name - they're Müller's Corners!  His favourite variety is the one with dark chocolate balls.

This what they look like inside:

It's a portion of plain yoghurt with one corner portion of flavouring.  You can get them in various flavours - fruit, those chocolate balls, strawberry and milk balls, banana choc flakes etc etc.

I love that he's eating dairy products.  The downside is that they are expensive.  They normally retail at £3++  for a pack of 6 and this is pretty expensive compared to the previous brand of yoghurt he was eating that retailed at £1 per pack of 6.  So I normally "forget" and get him a cheaper one instead.

Recently they've been on offer so I bought him some.  I was careful to buy only the ones with dark chocolate balls.  Connor gobbled them all up, eating a pot every day for breakfast.

When they ran, Daddy picked up some.  But Daddy wasn't as observant and bought a different type.  They had banana choc flakes instead.  When Daddy served them up for breakfast, our son wrinkled up his nose and told Dear Hubby, "Daddy, they're the WRONG yoghurt.  My yoghurt is chocolate balls."  But he ate them anyway.

So the next time we stocked up, Daddy bought what he thought were the right ones.  They had chocolate balls on the picture.  

BUT Daddy failed to notice that they were mixed dark and milk chocolate balls.

"DADDY!!!" our son wailed at breakfast.  "Not black and white chocolate balls yoghurt!  Just black chocolate balls yoghurt!"  So Mr Picky picked out all the dark balls to eat but luckily found it too much of a bother and gobbled everything up in the end... chocolate is chocolate, no matter the colour.

This is what you get with a child who's semi-OCD.  Not his fault - both of us are semi-OCD sometimes  too!

East vs West: How do you like 'em eggs?

"What are you doing?  Are you mad?"

"What?"

"You're putting soy sauce on your eggs."

"I'm CHINESE!  I put soy sauce on everything!"

Sesame Seeds

I don't like to eat sesame seeds.  I love sesame seed oil but I hate the little things.

It's not the taste.

It's not the texture.

It's the fact that if you eat enough of them, you can see them dotting your poo in the toilet bowl.  I hate that.  It freaks me out because they look like little worms' eggs and I think, "Oh no! I have worms!" And when I think that - just the very thought of worms and worms' eggs in poo - I swear I can feel those little slimy fellas wriggling out of me.

Did I just ruin your breakfast?

Have a nice day. :)

East vs West: Dinner

The first time my mum has roast chicken at our home here in Kuala Lumpur....

Me:  Okay everybody!  Dinner is almost ready!
Mum:  Let me help you.
Me:  Okay, just help me put the chicken outside while I finish the gravy.

(A little later...)
Me:  Dinner is served!  Roast chicken! Come and get it!

(My mum wanders up and looks at the food on offer - roast chicken, roast potatoes, steamed veg)
Mum:  (genuinely surprised)  Where's the rice?

East vs West: Lunch

Me:  Ooh!  I shall have rice porridge for lunch tomorrow!  With pickled lettuce!  And a fried egg!  With soy sauce!  Yum-yum!
Dear Hubby:  You're a very strange person.

Connor and the karipap

Connor adores karipap.  (curry puff)  He calls them "special egg cupcake".   This is because I bought half a dozen from IKEA the other day and they have a slice of hard-boiled egg in theirs.

The filling's too spicy for him at this moment so all I do is empty out the karipap and offer him the pastry bit.  I have to make sure he has a full cup of juice available each time we eat "special egg cupcake" because he's just learning to eat spicy foods and can't tolerate much heat in his food.   It's a very sly way of getting Connor to get his fluid intake for the day, hehe.

Makcik Nasi Lemak: The art of good salesmanship

There is a Makcik who sits under a colourful umbrella along Lorong Maarof, selling nasi lemak and karipap.  I have been her loyal customer for about half a year now and often stop by to pick up a pack of nasi lemak after I've dropped Connor off at school.

Today as I was buying my usual, she recommended I try her new item, the mihun goreng.  I'm a BIG fan of mihun goreng and snapped up the last pack without hesitation.  As she packed my food, she asked if my holidays were over.  I said "Oh I don't work.  I'm here again because my son's school holidays are over and I've just dropped my son off at school."

She was astonished.  "You have a son?  You are a mother?"  Amused, I answered "Yes.  I have a little boy who's almost 3."  Her next sentence made me laugh out loud. "I thought you were a college student!"

"No, I'm going to be 40 years old in a few years' time.  I have not been a student for a long time now, Makcik."

We said goodbye to each other and I walked back to my car with an extra spring in my step.

Was it just my imagination or did her nasi lemak and mihun goreng taste extra nice today?

Will I be going back to buy more?

For sure.

Thank you for making my day, Makcik.

Foo-yoh assam laksa!

If there is any subject dear to a Malaysian's heart, it is food. Or more precisely, eating it. The best local eateries never need to put out any ads or signboards. Word of mouth is more than sufficient. How many of you Malaysians have directed friends to eat at some obscure place that has no name? You'd probably described it as something like "... aiya... that one lah... the stall under the tree, next to the car park? The auntie there makes the BEST char kuey teow ever!" And when you get there, it seems 50 other Malaysians knew about it before you did because there's a looooong queue.

There are numerous local blogs on eating. Where to find the best char kuey teow. Where to eat the freshest steamed fish. Which stall has the best nasi kandar. I asked Dear Hubby "How come the UK doesn't have its equivalent?" Of course, this was WAY before I went to the UK and tasted their erm... cuisine. Someone should teach Brits that there are more spices in the world than just salt and pepper.

So when Penang's assam laksa turned up No. 7 on the World's 50 most delicious foods survey carried out by CNNGo, you can imagine our pride and excitement. That it trumped Thailand's famous tom yam goong and left Singapore's chilli crab eating dust is a matter of national pride. I can so see the next Tourism Malaysia ad - Malaysia, Truly Assam Laksa. Has quite a nice ring to it eh!

We are so proud of you, Penang assam laksa!

Mummy's Bright Idea: Gallon Zipper Bags

I have not met a child who doesn't like chicken fingers. Even the hubby can't resist it at his ripe old age.

Chances are if you're a mum of a toddler, chicken fingers rank quite high on your child's food wish list and you're making quite a lot of it. I know I am. What I hate about it is the step where you dunk your chicken into flour, shake it off, dip it into egg, shake that off and then into the crumbly coating. That always takes me a LONG time because I *have* to have the entire chicken piece coated with flour evenly, the egg can't drip and the crumbly coating has to be just right... plus the forks I use for each step can't mix... yadda, yadda, yadda....

So even though I knew Connor loved chicken fingers, I didn't make them often because it was just so tedious. I don't exactly make a few fingers at a time either, I make a big batch because that's the whole family's dinner. Connor has his with chips and we have ours with a salad.

Then I had a bright idea yesterday. Why don't I use those gallon zipper bags instead? So this is what I did:
1. Put chicken into gallon zipper bag.
2. Put in flour
3. Massage chicken and flour in the bag, shake it about a little.

Ta-dah! All evenly coated!

Next was figuring out how to get the excess flour off. I used a sieve. Just dumped everything out into a sieve and guess what? The excess flour went through the sieve while the chicken stayed on top.

Floured chicken went into a bowl of beaten egg to be coated then back into a 2nd gallon zipper bag with the crumbly coating. Another shake and massage and all my chicken pieces were beautifully coated. Off into the frying pan!

Brilliant. A delicious dinner was ready in no time at all and Connor ate everything that was put in front of him and burped after.

I can't believe it took me this long to figure out this time-saving step!

Idiot-proof roast chicken and other stuff

This recipe is for Roy who wants to cook for his housemates next weekend.


IDIOT-PROOF ROAST CHICKEN
1 chicken
Some carrots
An onion
A whole head of garlic
Salt, pepper, thyme
Some oil
A can of beer


1. First pop open the can of beer and make some shandy. I don't really like beer so I make it 3 parts beer and 7 parts of Sprite.
2. Pre-heat oven to oh... 250C.
3. Rinse and pat dry chicken. Stuff garlic into cavity.
4. Slice the carrots into thick long slices. Slice onion into three thick slices. Lay these at the bottom of your pan, this is your vegetable trivet. (So says Jamie Oliver) We actually use a casserole deep dish for this, we get a lot of juices that way.
5. Season your chicken generously with salt, pepper, thyme.
6. Place chicken breast-side down (so it doesn't dry out in the oven) and drizzle generously with oil
7. Put your chicken uncovered into the oven and let it brown for maybe 20 min
8. After that, cover your chicken (use tinfoil. For us, we simply put the casserole lid on) and turn the oven down to 200C.
9. Forget about your chicken for the next 2++ hours.
10. Drink more beer/shandy but don't drink all the beer.



BESTEST-WESTEST ROAST POTATOES
1. While you forget about your chicken, peel your potatoes
2. Parboil the potatoes in a large pot of water
3. Drain them and erm.. what's that term.. rake them with a fork so that you get a "groovy baby" potato
4. Cover your pan with tinfoil and place your potatoes on them. Arrange them so that they are spaced apart. If they are too close together, they'll just steam and won't roast.
5. Season with salt.
6. Splash oil... I like lots of oil.
7. Now remember your chicken? Yep, yep. Move that to the lowest rack of your oven and place the roast potatoes on the highest rack.
8. Turn your oven up to say 220C.

I find roast potatoes take about 45-60min to get all nice and crispy so time your preparations accordingly. Don't go parboil them too early.



CURI FROM JAMIE OLIVER SUPER-DUPER GRAVY

Pan juices
Plain flour
Chicken stock
Beer

1. That chicken of yours? Remember? Well, tip the juices from that into a saucepan
2. Dig out the vege trivet. Mine usually falls to bits just as I'm transferring it to the saucepan.
3. Place saucepan on medium fire and use whatever utensil you're using to mash up the vege as the juices come to a boil.
4. Add in some flour to thicken it up. Don't care what flour lah... Jamie said to use plain but I've used self-raising and nope, the gravy didn't turn into a puffball.
5. Tip some of your beer into the gravy and watch it bubble. Tip the rest into your glass for another shandy
6. Add chicken stock/water if you need more liquid
7. Simmer away till you get your desired consistency. Mine usually varies depending on how hungry I am. The hungrier I am, the more watery my gravy is.
8. Sieve gravy and serve HOT. Englishmen don't like their gravy lukewarm.


EASY-PEASEY PEPPER CABBAGE

Cabbage
Butter
Pepper to taste

1. Slice cabbage
2. Throw into a small pot and add a knob of butter
3. Oh before all this... grind up some pepper. I always forget. This is why it is Step 3 and not Step 1.
4. Stir cabbage on medium flame until all coated with butter and slightly wilted.
5. Mix in pepper and stir to coat
6. Serve. Simple kan? Unless you forget to grind the pepper beforehand like I usually do.


I hope you can follow the recipes Roy. Semoga berjaya!