Favourite Malaysian and Asian recipes with time-saving hacks
Does this braised fish head with dried beancurd (fuchuk) look appetising or gruesome to you? 🙂 It definitely makes my mouth water. This dish is my father’s invention – well sort of. Years ago, while he was buying groceries at the local market, he saw a particularly fresh looking piece of fish head. Being a…
Who loves salted egg dishes? Salted egg chicken, salted egg prawns, salted egg crabs … drool! Savoury, sweet and creamy, it lends an instant moreish luxe to anything it’s added to. But I’ve not thought about cooking it with pumpkin until I watched Cooking Ah Pa’s Youtube video. It all started when I had a…
Shallot prawns. This wonderfully simple, yet astonishingly delicious recipe comes courtesy of Auntie Choong, matriarch of the family that lived across the road. The Choong family played a big part in my formative years. Dear Auntie Choong had ten children, out of whom I was close to a few, particularly her youngest son Mark. My…
Every Chinese family has their version of the classic soya sauce chicken, but when I saw a photo of Alfred Lam’s rendition, I immediately wanted his recipe. Look at that glistening honey-brown skin! I bet that got you drooling. Now, scroll down and check out this cross-section of the meat. . . . . ….
I’ve known Danny Boh, the contributor of this otak-otak recipe, for a long time. Nearly 20 years in fact. We go way back to the days when I joined Dell Penang as a fresh graduate and Danny was a sales manager in another department. Sure we said hello once in a while. But life…
Before I dive into the mechanics of making braised turmeric chicken, allow me to digress a little. When I started sharing recipes on social media, I didn’t expect it to become such a rich learning resource, thanks to friends who comment. The recipe for this braised turmeric chicken is inspired by a FB post about…
Turmeric fried chicken (ayam goreng kunyit) is one of those dishes that looks deceptively simple but tastes like heaven when done right. I rarely make fried chicken — the fumes, the oil splatters, the calories, the floor mopping … aiyo! So when I do make it, I make sure it counts. As in you’d better…
Every Chinese family has its own style of preparing steamed fish. This recipe is simple but has a special technique that my dad came up with himself. His “secret” is so simple that when I tell you, you’ll probably go, “What? That’s it?” Pre-fry the aromatics (sliced ginger and chopped garlic) before adding them to…
Who doesn’t love pak cham kai? You know, the poached chicken used in Hainanese chicken rice. Gently cooked in water that’s been flavoured with aromatics, the meat turns out mouth meltingly tender while retaining its moist juiciness. Even fried chicken cannot compare. But I’ve never thought about making it. Looking at videos of making Hainanese…
Stewed potato, chicken and carrots in a gravy made from oyster sauce, soya sauce and one unexpected ingredient. So wholesome. A far cry from the early days of my cooking adventures, when I was all about “sexy” dishes like fried chicken, brownies and carbonara. Some say my age is showing. As I get older, I…
This isn’t the first time I’m making restaurant-style stir fried bittergourd with salted egg yolk, but this is the first time I am 100% satisfied with the results. In the past: Not enough sauce. Sauce too thick and crumbly (not saucy enough). Sauce too liquidy (too saucy). Bittergourd too gloopy. This time, I employed a…
