Beef Stroganoff is originally a Russian dish of sautéed pieces of beef served in a sauce made with sour cream. From its origins in mid-19th-century Russia, it has become a very popular dish around the world, with considerable variation from the original recipe.

It is a very easy dish to cook and pleasantly nice to eat especially if you add a more liberal dash of brandy. I have not made it for a long time but recently I am so lazy I just want to cook dishes that takes less than an hour from start to finishing cleaning my kitchen.

Hubby loved it and had 2 bowls for his lunch! That mean I passed. He can have 2 bowls but no more bread.

Remember you can add more mushrooms, onions etc. When I could I love to add whole small onions. it is entirely up to you. As there is so many variation of this dish make it your own by cooking it to suit yourself.

Beef rendang is one of the most well known of Malaysian dishes. It is as synonymous to Malaysian cuisine as nasi lemak.

We, the Malaysian have adopted and embraced this dish from our neighbour Indonesia and made it our own.

Living in the UK we will never make as nice a beef rendang or nasi lemak as we could in Malaysia. This is because we cannot get nice fresh coconut milk. Some may say that the tin coconut milk is just as good but in my opinion, I beg to differ. However as a Malaysian living in the UK I do not really have a lot of choice. I have a coconut shredder chair (yes the old school one) please refer to pic) but I still cannot buy nice enough coconut to give me any worthwhile coconut milk.

To cook beef rendang it not difficult. The hardest job is frying the kerisik kelapa (shredded coconut strands) Please do not buy the ready fried ones. They taste of stale coconut oil – yikes. Buy the frozen coconut strands and fry it yourself on a dry non stick clean pan/wok.

I would have used more galangal but I did not have more. I really love the taste of galangal. You can find it normally at any Chinese supermarket. Galangal is not hard to find.

TIP – In all my curries and cooking I prefer to make my own paste and I always prefers to blitz some of the lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves etc with my paste. This not only gives any dishes more uuumph but thicken the sauce without the need of buah keras (candlenuts)

As for my DIY lemang there is a long story of trial and errors. When I first tried to make it in UK I made tons of mistakes and this is the closest I can get to the real thing now.

Basically it is just mix the drained soaked glutinous rice to a tin of coconut milk, mix in the salt, the pandan leaves, stir and steam for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and remove the pandan leaves.

Then scope some onto your ready banana leaves and more pandan leaves, wrapped and steam again for another 15 minutes. This will cause the banana leaf taste to seep in.

Remove and use a blow torch to torch the banana leaves (you can use gas stove or BBQ) for this to achieve the smoky taste. This give me the closest taste I can get to the real lemang minus the bamboo. When you served your lemang you will see light green on the sides. That’s the taste and look you want.

Again as I have stressed before use my recipe as a guide and create your own to your own taste.

I still recall most embarrassingly the first time I tried to make lemang I actually boiled the glutinous rice then roll them into tube using cling film and of course it tasted nothing like lemang!

TIP – Do not add your gula Malacca till the last hour to limit the chance of sticking.

TIP – Taste and season with salt if not salty enough or add more sugar if too spicy during the last 30 minutes.

TIP – Add some fresh cili padi (birdeye chilli) if not spicy enough

TIP – Cook rendang the day before and let it steep overnight. Then the next day you only need to steam and make the lemang.

Today we are still in lockdown in the UK due to Covid-19. This morning I woke up in a cooking mood. At first I wanted to cook 3 meals for today, breakfast, lunch and dinner.

However I ended up only cooking 2 meals. Brunch of roast chicken with noodles and dinner is traditional old British stew.

So early in the morning I phoned my mother in law and went over with her the steps for cooking this dish. I have watched her enough time cooking it but it’s nice to hear her instructions kekekekekeke She did give me a very crucial information that I did not know before!!! Then I realised why I don’t like cooking stews. It sticks to the bottom of my pan and I need to soak overnight to wash!

However due to my mother in law’s tip I cooked the best stew ever and nothing stuck to the bottom of my pan. My son woofed down 5 dumplings when he came back from. I will definitely cook this for him again! His ‘so good mum’ makes me so happy.

It is seldom that I cook stew because I am also not a big fan of stew but today I cook for my son as I know he loves a good stew with dumplings, lots of my special dumplings. Also when he last went out to do shopping with his Dad a fortnight ago he bought a stew pack – a packet from the supermarket containing the root vegetables for stew. I think that is a big HINT!

I have a few potatoes left so I decided to add them in too to bulk it up a bit. Both the hubby and the son were really happy!

Note – Traditionally you can serve this with mashed potatoes but I prefer to stew the potatoes as well. One step of work less.

The weather is abysmal today. Rain rain and more raindrops, not heavy rain just constant wetness.

Hubby needed lunch earlier as he has a meeting and I decided to go for tender slices of beef in bagels with onions, cheese and mushrooms. An easy half hour cook.

I bought a piece of beef skirt for £5. it weight about a kg. Beef skirt is not too expensive and when cook this way it is not bad to eat and hubby loves it as not too fatty. otherwise he is not a fan of red meat. I often use beef skirt to cook stir fry, leeks, Chinese leave cabbage etc.

My tip on making the beef really soft and tender – Hubby loves his beef this way. It’s the secret Chinese way. Often I have been asked by the Brits what is the Chinese secret to making really tender beef with our stir fries, just like the ones they get from the restaurants and this is the way.

The secret is bicarbonate of soda. The most important secret is not too much and do not marinate too long. You want to tenderizes the beef not turn them into mush. if you do it this way I guarantee you no more tough beef.

However this is unnecessary with expensive cuts of beef like chateaubriand, filet mignon etc

TIP – Do not season your beef before o when frying. Salting the beef now draws out the juice and won’t leave them tender and juicy. Season AFTER frying.

TIP – If you want to use as stir fry Asian style lose the worcestershire sauce and instead use soy sauce, touch of rice wine and a tsp of cornstarch. Loosen the marinated beef with sesame oil before hitting the pan to flash fry with garlic, ginger etc. Then use your tender beef to fry your vegetables of choice.