Asam keping/gelugur are sliced and dried fruit used as a cooking condiment in Malaysian cuisine. It comes from a large tree that produced Buah Gelugor (Gelugor Fruit) that is native of peninsular Malaysia. Taste & smell Asam keping is used to lend a sour taste in curries and sambal. It’s used in cooking, not for eating …
Belacan or shrimp paste is an essential ingredient in Malaysian cuisine. This pungent but delicious seafood produce is used in many popular traditional food in Malaysia such as nasi lemak and asam laksa. Belacan is raw and need to be cooked. At supermarket, you can also find those that are pre-toasted in sliced and powdered …
Belacan is a fermented cooking produce used in Asia. It’s made mainly from shrimp and salt, then fermented for a few weeks. It’s then sun-dried and cut into blocks for sale. It is normally made commercially. However, some families at fishing villages makes it themselves too. I have bought one from the Portuguese-Malaccan community at …
Since writing about How to choose good quality Gula Melaka a few years ago, I have received a lot of questions about where to get good ones. For my cooking class, I was searching high and low for high quality palm sugar in Kuala Lumpur for making Peanut Sauce of Satay and Sago Gula Melaka (Sago …
Where to buy good quality Gula Melaka (palm sugar) in Kuala Lumpur Read More »
Kaffir lime leaves are easily recognisable. The leaves are dark green in colour and have a unique double-segmented leaves. Its hour glass shape and deep emerald green leaves adorn dull, brown curries beautifully. I’ll garnish curry with the whole leaf or sprinkle long and thinly slices leaves on it. Tear the leaves slightly and you’ll whiff …
I grew up drinking herbal soup and tonics with a lot of unidentifiable things in it. There were sweet red rounded things (goji berries) and what look like thick tree barks (codonopsis root). While I could name some of them by their Chinese names, I had no idea what I was eating. Many years back, …
Hyacinth bean, or better known as ‘Pang Pei Dau/ 彭皮豆’ in Cantonese, or Avarakkai in Tamil. There are a few varieties of this bean – some have purple edges and others are completely purple in colour. Young beans are used in curries and stir-fry. However, my family prefer to use it to boil soup. Other names …
In Malaysia, curry leaves are available in the gardens of many households. I live in the surburb where you can easily find this plant growing by the roadside. As my neighbour has a huge and healthy curry leaves tree (which she generously offer us to pluck anytime), we didn’t have to plant any in our …
Mixed Fenugreek is a mix of fenugreek, fennel, mustard seed, cumin and urad dal. I first learned of this spice mix when I learned to make dhal curry from Aunty Clara, an Indian mother who cooks for her family. If you’re a fan of dhal, you will notice the specks of black dots that’s in …
Kelp, or known as kombu/ konbu in Japanese, is a type of seaweed. Its widely used in Japan to make a soup base called dashi (Recipe: Japanese Dashi Stock). Taste & smell Seaweed has the basic salty-savoury taste thanks to concentrated minerals and amino acid, especially glumatic acid (major component of MSG). It also contains …
Flower crab are not as fleshy as mud crab. However, I find that the flesh in larger flower crab is tolerable; I can still find substantial meat. I buy this crab a lot more than mud crab because it’s not alive when sold, making it much easier to handle. Other names English name: Flower crab …
Mushroom is considered a medicinal food in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Dried mushrooms are hard and they need to be soaked in water to softened. When I first started cooking and had very little time, I rarely use dried mushroom in my cooking as it takes too long to prepare and cook. However, things changed when …