Yee Chai Peng (Cantonese for “ear biscuits”) were these intriguing spiral-patterned, curved fried pastries from my childhood in Malaysia, which were crunchy, slightly sweet and yet savoury. The only ones I ever ate were factory-made; this wasn’t one of those things that you would find people making fresh at home or at their street stall…
Savoury Taro Cake (Wu Tao Ko in Cantonese) was a breakfast snack that I remember being sold alongside Chee Cheong Fun (steamed rice noodle rolls) back in my hometown of Seremban in Malaysia. My parents would typically order a small share plate of it from the hawker stall at breakfast, and it was served steamed…
I remember when XO sauce started popping up in Chinatown menus as an option for your stir-fried Chinese dishes a couple of decades ago, and thinking it must refer to cognac. I eventually learned that it was in fact a condiment made with dried scallops, an ingredient that’s expensive enough that it would deter me…
I got into this “food thing” because of my determination to recreate the food of my Malaysian childhood, so it’s always a bit frustrating when my efforts are hampered by the non-availability of critical ingredients in Australia. For 20 years, one such ingredient was something called bunga telang, aka blue pea or blue butterfly flower,…
I was invited to do a demonstration cooking class at Kogarah Community Services yesterday, where I made a curry laksa (aka curry mee if you’re from Penang) based on a recipe originally supplied by the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Kuala Lumpur. (By the way, I enjoyed the session enough that I’m currently open to offers…
Kuih Ketayap – A Wok Around Asia Recipe courtesy of Parkroyal Penang Resort Kuih Ketayap, also known as Kuih Dadar in my part of Malaysia, is a popular teatime snack which consists of pandan-infused crepes rolled with a coconut and palm sugar filling. It’s an easy recipe to attempt, and the ingredients should be readily…
I wasn’t intending to blog about this Live Asian Kitchen broadcast, because Malaysian Chicken Curry is something I cook on a regular basis and I’ve already posted the recipe in the past. However, this particular batch turned out different enough (in a good way) that I thought it worth sharing. Plus there’s the added element…
I’ve had an aversion to pork since I was a kid, so I have no recollection of ever having eaten Bak Kut Teh (BKT), which is traditionally made using pork spare ribs. The smell of BKT is quite unmistakable however, and hard to avoid if you grew up in Malaysia or Singapore. Since I knew…
In this Live Asian Kitchen you will hear me say repeatedly how much I disliked cauliflower, and how much contempt I held for the attempts at cauliflower fried rice I’d seen online. They looked like gooey couscous or risotto, and bore no resemblance to fried rice as I know it. I thus came into to…
This dish is known by different names depending on which part of Malaysia you grew up in; I know it as har meen (literally prawn noodles), and being pork-averse, I make mine with a combination of prawn and chicken stock, and top it with chicken in lieu of pork. The low-carb version covered in…