My days of growing up in Kuching, Sarawak I only ever known cangkuk manis or mani chai cooked 3 ways. In Pan Mee soup, fry with eggs and masak lemak like this. I have seen people adding to BiHoon goreng (fry vermicelli) etc but that’s individual prerogative I believe, not traditional but I can stand to be corrected of course.

I was lucky that a friend shared half her pumpkin with me but boy was it tough to slice. I was so worried that I would cut my fingers. Very stressful. Next time I will ask her to please slice for me too. – kekekekeke I sliced and freeze them waiting and waiting for fresh mani chai. Luckily I found them yesterday at my local Asian shop! I was so happy. Finally I can cook Mani Chai masak lemak.

My mother often refers to this vegetable as Lakian Chai. We eat it quite often including Midin. When we eat outside, if mother believes we are heaty then she would order mani chai and if not we would have Midin goreng belacan. Ah…..those were the days. This is a super easy dish to cook.

Firstly, fry the shallots, remove and keep aside. Do the same with the dried anchovies (ikan bilis). Then using the flavoured oil add in mince onions, lemon grass, garlic and fry.

Secondly, add in the turmeric, pumpkin, chicken stock cube, coconut milk, sliced red chillies or bird eyes chilies and simmer.

Lastly, bring to boil and simmer till your pumpkin has soften. Taste, season, heat off and add in your mani chai. After a good stir topped with the crispy shallots and anchovies. Serve hot.

Yong Chow or Yang Chow fried rice originated in the city of Yangzhou in the Jiangsu province of China. It does not matter what you call it; yong chow fried rice, yang chow fried rice, yeung chow fried rice, or Yangzhou fried rice – there’s no denying that this Chinese egg fried rice is delicious. It is a special fried rice and not your typical fridge cleaning fried rice dish.

There is actually a basic rule in this Yang Chow fried rice. The ingredients must consist of at least 3 types of proteins and one of them must be prawns followed closely by char sui or roast pork. I have eaten in restaurant that uses lap cheong (Chinese sausage) too. Also you must have a liberal drizzle of rice wine. It is the original surf and turf. Surf and turf is definitely not a new Western invention.

One of my favourite of all fried rice is this Yang Chow fried rice. I was first introduced to this in Singapore many many moons ago when I was still an impressionable teenager but my opinion has not changed in these decades gone.

Then of course there is the must have eggs. Remember though Yang Chow fried rice is not proper without rice wine!

Note – It is most important to take the time to properly fry the rice till dry.

My family loves yellow bean sauce and recently I am able to get the brand that my mother has been using since I was a child. I only remember her using this brand and Yeo’s brand and not any other. She also always used the whole beans and she insisted that it is not actually hard work to roughly chopped the beans and they taste much better.

Now that I am all grown up I have decided there is logic in what she said and so I followed suit since. Today I cooked cod cheeks with yellow beans sauce as both the hubby and daughter are a big fans of fish without bones.

As usual I always said my recipe is a guide so make the dish your own with my TIPs. Enjoy.

TIP – When cooking fish and seafood always incorporate ginger, in slices if you don’t like to eat ginger, so you can easily remove them; julienned and fried crispy if you like to eat them like we do.

TIP – Bring the cleaned cod cheeks out from fridge to room temperature before cooking. Do not overcooked.

TIP – Please add a pinch of sugar to balance the taste.

TIP – Add the red chillies at the last minute, the spring onions and served topped with the earlier fried ginger, shallots, garlic slices and coriander.

TIP – After you added in your cod cheeks, at high heat your cook should be just about 5 minutes to dishing up.

I do love a good bowl of prawn noodles. Especially when the weather is 7˚C outside. Inside my house though the heating has not even come on as I live in a new build eco-friendly house. After a bowl of my extra spicy Hae Mee noodles, I do not feel any cold at all.

Peeling 5 minutes eggs is not a joke. I have to be gentle and do it slowly. Should have boiled it yesterday and put them in the fridge. TIP – doing this makes them easier to peel.

Having a bowl of spicy prawn noodles that you made from scratch and not from a packet of shop bought paste feels like singing …..I’m walking in the air….. I have been planning this cook for a week. Last week I fried my collection of prawn heads and made into a small pot of sambal ready in the fridge and prawn oil for my chicken rice noodles (Hor Fun) https://www.julieolive.co.uk/2019/03/05/kai-see-hor-fun-%e9%b8%a1%e4%b8%9d%e6%b2%b3%e7%b2%89/

This makes life a lot easier. I have also made some prawn stock and freeze. I defrosted the stock last night as I decided to cook today because I saw some amazingly fresh Kangkong at the Asian supermarket during the weekend. To me a good bowl of prawn noodles must come with its partner, the Kangkong, morning glory vegetables.

Today I am making it with pork ribs. Lately it is very difficult to buy raw pork ribs in the normal supermarket. Most of them have been boiled and marinated, prepared for the masses to oven bake. As I am not a fan of BBQ sauce or sticky sweet sauce myself, I hardly buy, cook or eat those. Nowadays if I want nice raw pork ribs, I find I have to go and get them from Costco. Luckily Costco is nearby and not too far away. The accompanying pics below are the stages and TIPs of my way of cooking this dish in the UK. Enjoy.

p/s Of course, you can make more of the prawn head paste aka otak udang sambal and keep it in the fridge for adding to other dishes like I did with my Asam curry fish dish. The possibilities are endless, and it is not wasted – https://www.julieolive.co.uk/2022/11/24/asam-curry-fish-asam-hue-%e4%ba%9a%e5%8f%81%e5%92%96%e5%93%a9%e9%b1%bc/

Today is Thursday, the day hubby has to pop into his office. I like to cook him a surprise lunch every Thursday. I sent him to work this morning after giving him eggy bread and started to make my asam curry paste. I planned to finished cooking and showered by the time he comes back for lunch.

There are many ways of cooking this dish but this is the way I preferred mine to be cooked as this is the way I have eaten for as long as I could remember. I suppose like most dishes traditionally we are used to how our parents and grandparents cooked them.

As for me myself I still much preferred my fish to be seasoned and fried before adding to my asam curry sauce. Hence, I find it hard to eat fish curry outside and I always asked the vendor if they fried their fish first before placing my order.

As usual this is more as a guide than a fixed recipe as such. I have a pot of otak udang chilli that I have made the other day which I can add to my paste. If you do not have you can add a small handful of dried shrimps and blend with your paste. I also have daun kesom, laksa leaves, bravely surviving in the cold so I used some to boil my nasi kunyit.

As I am using oil to fry and aubergines and fish, I decided to also fry some keropok ikan and prawns from Kuching and some chicken and prawn wantons. This is because after frying my aubergines and fish I will throw away the oil. The oil will then have no more ‘strength’ for frying anything else. To try and reuse it some more will cause your cook to be very greasy!

p/s Otak udang – fried prawns heads with oil till crispy with garlic, salt, chilli and blitz in the blender to make a paste. Store in fridge and use at will.

Sometimes, actually most times I like to do a one dish. Often, we skipped breakfast, have early lunch and late dinner. Lucky for me hubby is one who do not mind eating the same dish for both meals and if it is Malaysian curry he can eat it for few days – kekekekeke

Today I decided to do a trio of braised soyabean products dish. It is said that soya products are very good for menopausal symptoms, and I am lucky that hubby is a huge fan of anything made from soyabeans. Heck there are soyabean products that he will eat, and I won’t! Funny man will eat like fermented beancurd especially the spicy ones with plain rice!

Soyabean has some of the most important nutrient required in the human body. Besides offering high-quality protein it is super rich in saturated fats, antioxidants, Omega-3 fatty acids, fibre, and phytoestrogens.

It has a long list of benefits, but I am only interested in the diabetes aspects, the potential of sleep regulating and the improving of blood circulation for the menopausal women.

We do eat a lot of soya produce, at least once or twice a week in one form or another. I do make my own soya milk often and it is pretty easy to just add a few egg yolks and steam for a smooth soft eggy dish.

When I make my own soya milk, I would also boil it in the morning and crack a couple of eggs in for breakfast.

Anyway, hope you enjoy this simple made-up dish. Please adjust and add anything you wish. I would have added other types of mushrooms if I had.

Note: To velvet your chicken just marinate with light soy sauce, cornstarch, salt and pepper. Before hitting the oil add in a sesame oil and loosen. Your chicken slices will be velvety smooth and won’t clump together.

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.