Every year during hubby’s birthday I will cook a special meal for his departmental colleagues which is usually around 15 to 20 people. That is all I can manage as the entire building will have a couple of hundreds personnel! (pre pandemic) Everyone does the same on their birthdays but mostly the food is shop bought so they all looked forward to my hubby’s birthday each year.

I enjoy doing it as I am weird. I actually enjoy the planning and executing more than eating the food itself. I was talking to a friend the other day and she roll her eyes at me. kekekekekeke I enjoy introducing the majority British colleagues with what I like to think a true Malaysian hospitality and cuisines. I also have to plan what I can cook that can travel, easy for hubby to carry in the boot of his car. Luckily his office is just 10 minutes drive away.

When the colleagues come back and tell my husband they went to this and that restaurants and order the same food I have made for them but they tasted totally different, not enough ooooomph….it makes the hubby proud and make my heart sings lah (honestly) That is why I like to plan, execute and give them different food each year; introducing them to our Asian, Malaysian cuisines.

It had been 2 years now that they missed their treats – This was in 2017

Tri-coloured nasi pulut with chicken tikka masala, tomato chachumbar, mango raita, cumin potatoes and spicy vegetarian aubergines with mock chicken for the vegetarian.

Yesterday was not a birthday or anything but the colleagues have missed hubby’s birthday twice due to the pandemic so the boss asked hubby if he could ‘persuade’ me to cook them something for their first “meet & greet”. The only annoying thing is I have 2 days notice!!! Darn it! Hubby forgot to tell me and it cuts down my pleasure of the ‘planning & executing’ process joy!

However I have to plan something the colleagues have not tried from my kitchen before and must be Covid19 friendly. I decided on individual boxes and must be dry not wet food. So I came up with Mee Siam for main. I have not been able to find a vendor to cater to my taste so far outside so I have to cook. I did not plan to write this recipe out as it all agak-agak and I cooked 3 packets of vermicelli noodles yesterday and the last wok I added some egg noodles. However to my surprise a few persons asked for my recipe so I am scaling down this recipe for 1 wok full or 1 packet of rice vermicelli. I also served crispy wantons for starters and cupcakes for desserts.

So please bear in mind to taste and TASTE your sauce before you add in your noodles to suit your taste. Mine is extremely sour and spicy or one of my friend who ate it said ‘zingy’ kekekekekekeke I am very liberal with my lime and tamarind juice. Over the past decade the hubby’s colleagues know that I do not compromise on taste for them. They can have red faces from the spiciness and still they will eat. Very funny.

TIP 1 – Do not boil your vermicelli noodles or over soak them. Just soak in cold tap water. When soft, remove and drain before use. (Ignore what is written in the packet)

TIP 2 – I do not use any soy sauces, dark or otherwise because I do not like the colour too dark and to me it is not necessary.

TIP 3 – Whole grain fermented yellow beans smashed, taste a lot better than the ready mashed ones. Half and half is perfect.

TIP 4 – Place half the eggy strip before the gravy runs dry so they can soak up the taste a bit.

TIP 5 – If serve immediately please gives the vegetables a toss with the hot noodles before serving BUT if you are packing for people aka tapau do not do so. Residue heat will cook the vegetables to crunchy perfection. Overcooked limps beansprouts and vegetables just look so unappetising to me.

COMMON SENSE –

1 – More sauce – wetter Mee Siam so less sauce drier Mee Siam. It is entirely up to your taste!

2 – Making more of the sambal paste and serving some separately is also nice for those who can eat extra spicy. If you are serving sambal please add a pinch of sugar.

The pipa ( Chinese: 琵琶) pronounced as ‘pee-pah’ is a four-stringed Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Sometimes called the Chinese lute, the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12 to 26. Pipa toufo should resemble the shape of a pipa.

Every time I go outside to have food, admittedly not that often, I always order pipa toufo if it’s in the menu list. I love this dish a lot but I have always shy away from making it as I don’t like the frying bit. However as my old recipe was in the old blog which is lost, it is time to update into this new blog but with hopefully a new look. I wanted to make for some weeks now as I have not been in any eatery places barred once this entire year! (Covid19)

For the past few weeks I was really looking forward to cooking and eating this. Needless to say as you can see from these pics, today I am wearing a huge smile on my face. Recently I have been challenging myself to try and plate Asian food nicely, I am quite happy today with my amateurish attempt. One needs to try in order to learn right?

Actually with age come wisdom? Experiences of cooking thus far enable me to fry these babies with NO SPITTING at all. I tried my ideas today and it worked! So I will share my TIPs

TIP 1 – Steaming the pipa toufo the night before and allowing them to ‘dry’ overnight is helpful in the no spitting department.

TIP – Coating the pipa toufo and letting them rest for 30 minutes before a quick frying is double happiness to NO SPITTING

TIP – I always thought pipa toufo can look better. More like a pipa (琵琶) so I have decided to use a mushroom stalk and some chives. I am wearing a happy smile because it works. Well I think in my eyes my pipa toufo looks more like a pipa

TIP – You may and can change the protein but remember not to liquefied them or your pipa toufo will taste tough. Likewise you can add water chestnuts, spring onions and others. using celery is good too as it gives that extra crunch.

TIP – I used a shimeji mushroom for the pipa look and chives for the pipa strings.

Again use my recipe as a guide, mind my TIPS and own this recipe yourself. Good luck and enjoy cooking.

Disclaimer – Written quickly, if you find any mistakes please poke me as I am lazy to check now.

Some friends have been poking/nagging me to update my blog as it is still missing a lot of recipes from the old blog. I have also not updated this blog for a while. However, though I have been cooking, I just don’t think my daily cooks deserved or needed to be blogged.

Update : TIP – Not only must you not mince your protein and toufo too much you must also DRAIN your toufo well before mixing so your paste is easier to handle and not liquidly.

It is without a doubt that if you want to eat something to your taste or if you are fussy with your food then you have to learn to make it yourself. I have to admit I am quite fussy though my close friends will say I am extremely fussy.

I, on the other hand blame my parents for teaching me to eat well and my father-in-law, fish monger extraordinaire from Devon was a good cook too. So I have been influenced by the best from both sides of the world.

I am not sure how many times I have made this throughout the years but normally this is made with pork belly minced. I wanted to encourage a friend to add this to her menu repertoire so I created this chicken breast meat and prawns combo. I think this time this simple combo is actually not too bad judging by my food critic hubby. This is the 3rd time I made them in so many weeks and he still loves them! The first time was way too ‘tough’ and I realised I must not mince the chicken too much. I practise and learn as I have willing guinea pigs The family actually prefers beancurd skin to springrolls skin wraps.

Barred the rice wine this is actually halal. I am not sure what can be used to get that ‘alcohol’ taste but my friend would have to experiment that by herself kekekekekek

Featured in this post is my signature beancurd wrap with a piece of Nori wrap in the middle. My husband really loves this because he says it taste better! The umami ……

I actually prefers Fu Pei Guen – 腐皮卷 to Ngoh Hiang (五香 / Lor Bak) I think this is basically because I am not a big Chinese five spice fan. I do not mind a light hint of it but I hate it when I burrrrpppped an hour later and still ‘taste’ it.

Anyway my advise is use my recipe as a guide, add or minus as much or as little as your like to suits your taste and make it your recipe. The only warning I can give is that you don’t make your recipe too wet.

Enjoy.

p/s if you have read till here then I think you deserves a big HINT

HINT – if you do not want to use so much prawns and loves the prawns taste, you can soaked a handful of dried shrimps and blend them to dust and add to your fillings. You will NOT regret it.

Second HINT – Fry a tiny bit of the fillings and taste. See if you need to adjust the seasonings etc before wrapping.

Third HINT – After wrappings leave your wraps to dry a bit before frying. Wet = oil spitting.

Update – 8th October 2020 – I made another batch today with equal amount of chicken, minced pork belly and prawns. Everything else remains the same but I added fresh coriander and if you like coriander then it’s good.

Hubby requested I wrap smaller but with nori – my signature fu pei guen. He prefers the nori for the extra umami taste.

Shepherd Pie brings back a lot of memories. This is because I have to make a potato mash for it.

Two and twenty years ago my ex boyfriend went to Malaysia to meet me. The very first Western dish I made for him is mash potatoes. He was telling me how to make it nice as he finds the ones in Malaysia, funny tasting. I still remembered he said taste like chicken?

He was mashing the boiled potatoes but for some reason I can’t remember why, he had to pop to the sundry shop and left me to continue. So like a true Malaysian I sat on the floor and mash the boiled potatoes adding in butter slowly, alternating with a milk, a pinch of salt, some freshly ground pepper like I was told.

When he came back from the shop I had finished and he was shocked to discovered I added in the entire 250g of butter Well I was not told how much to add in! I was tasting as I was adding and it tasted better and better with more butter and so I added more and more butter until the whole block was gone!

The silly things we do that now seems so funny. Nowadays I am only using half a block but I have moved from using milk to cream for that really rich taste.

Just for some extra information –

If you use lamb mince it’s Shepherd Pie

If you make with mince beef and red wine it is Cottage Pie.

Champagne poached lemon sole fillets – decided to cook this for hubby’s lunch. I used champagne because I did not have any white wine at home. For some reason white wine and I do not get on. It gives me a headache! So I never buy them. I do get the odd bottle as gifts.

This is a very easy dish and I have been asked to do a ‘proper’ post and not just on Facebook, so here it is.

My sole fillets are served with asparagus bunch. Just wrapped the fillets around the asparagus and then into the oven 190 C for literally 15 minutes of so.