House of Annie

Friday, January 15, 2010

Leek and Potato Soup Recipe

An easy, healthy, hearty soup with extra oomph.

It’s only been in the past year or so that I’ve discovered leeks. Before that, I would use it if it was called for in a recipe, like the cioppino hot pot recipe, but otherwise, I did not know how to cook with it. But this past year, I visited the farmer’s market a lot more and tried to experiment a little bit more with unfamiliar ingredients.

Whenever I would see leeks on sale at the market, I would normally buy some and treat them like onions in several of my dishes, putting them in my quiches, soups or even in my stir-fries. But really, this humble soup is one of the most wonderful ways to showcase leeks.

Leeks at the Market

Leek and potato soup first came into my consciousness when I read the book “The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden”. I don’t remember much about what he wrote but somehow he made this soup sound really heartwarming and it stuck in my head as something I should try to make someday.

Well, I’ve made leek and potato soup several times now and recently while shopping at the market here in Kuching, I came across a vendor selling leeks. They weren’t as large as the ones I find in San Jose but they were definitely leeks - when I picked them up to give them a sniff, they smelled very pungent and aromatic. That decided it for me and I took home three to make this very soup.

Good to Go

Most recipes you come across will tell you to cut the leek at the point where the green parts meet the white base and use only the white base. Well, I find that in soups, you can get away with using more of the green leafy part and so for this batch, I trimmed only the top third of the leek and used the rest. I think it’s quite possible to use the whole leek if they’re not too fibrous. What do you think?

Another thing about leeks—you have to wash them good. And the only way to get to all the dirt trapped between the layers is to cut them in half length-wise and get in there with water to rinse out every layer. Once they’ve been washed of dirt, they are good to go.

Extra Oomph

Now back to this leek and potato soup recipe. This is a seriously EASY recipe and the flavor is really good. When I made this last week, the whole family devoured the soup including my picky kids. I’m going to have to try to make this soup much more often now seeing as to how easy it is and how much everyone likes it.

You basically need some leeks and potatoes (um, d’uh!), a little bit of garlic, some butter/olive oil, some chicken broth, milk, seasonings and you’re done. If you want the soup to be smooth, you can blend it with an immersion blender or in a regular blender. But if you don’t have a blender, just mash the potatoes up a little in the soup and you’ll still have a yummy soup, just chunkier.

This time around, I chose to add a little extra seasoning to my soup. Normally, just salt and pepper will do it but I have plenty of herbs and spices lying around and sometimes I like to try them in recipes to see what will happen. So I decided to toss some dill in and after tasting the soup, I thought it still needed a little kick so I thought, why not some Old Bay Seasoning? So I did. Put some in, I mean. And it was wonderful—the celery seed and spices in Old Bay gave the soup an extra oomph this round. I think I will be adding it in on a regular basis from now on.

So, if you’re busy and need a quick weekday dish, try this soup. It’s hearty so that on its own, it’s quite filling. Add a salad or some bread and you have a meal. Or you could roast or panfry some meats and have this soup as a side (this is what we did the last time, we pan fried some lamb chops which is also a quick weekday dish).

Leek and Potato Soup Recipe

This recipe will serve 4 for a main course or 6 as a side.

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp butter or combination of butter and olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 large or 3 medium leeks, cut in half length-wise, washed and trimmed of the top third green parts, and sliced thin
2 large or 3 medium potatoes, diced small
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth or if you don’t have it, use 4 cups water with 1 1/2 cubes chicken bouillon (of course, home made chicken broth is best but that makes it less easy)
1 cup milk (whole milk is tastier but if you would prefer less fat, it’s fine to use low fat)
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp each freshly ground black pepper and white pepper
1 tsp Old Bay Seasoning
1 tsp dill (I used dried but feel free to use fresh, just add more to taste)

Slicing Leeks

chopping leeks

Method:
1. In your dutch oven or heavy bottomed pot, put in the butter/olive oil and heat till melted on medium heat.
2. Add garlic and stir for less than a minute being careful to not let it burn.
3. Add leeks and salt and stir around and cook till leeks have softened but not browned, about 5-6 minutes.

4. Add potatoes and chicken broth and give it a stir. Let that simmer for about 10-15 minutes or until potatoes are soft.

5. Add in your milk and then the rest of your seasonings—the peppers (don’t miss out on the pepper, they really add a lot to this dish), Old Bay and dill. Stir and let the flavors come together for another minute or two. Leave the soup at a gentle simmer at this stage.
6. Taste and adjust your seasonings accordingly.

Plate up and enjoy! We garnished with a little chopped parsley and some crumbled bacon.

Leek and Potato Soup

Cheers, Annie

This post was entered in the Weekend Herb Blogging roundup #216, administered by Haalo and hosted this week by Maninas

Hungry for more soups? Click below:

Chinese Winter Melon Soup Recipe

How to Make Miso Soup From Scratch

Barley and Lentil Soup with Swiss Chard

Cream of Corn Soup Recipe

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup with Bacon

Continue Reading: "Leek and Potato Soup Recipe"...

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Chinese Winter Melon Soup Recipe

Dong gua tang (Chinese Winter Melon Soup) is a light yet satisfying soup for cold Winter nights.

Did you know that we can grow winter melon squash here in Malaysia?
I saw it growing at a friend’s house here in Kuching. She told me that actually, winter melon grows quite wild here. Her vine had started at one end of her fence, given her about 6 fruit and then looked like it was about to die. But then new green shoots continued to come out and now half her fence has dying brown leaves while the other half has new leaves with another 5-6 fruit hanging from vine. Astounding!

What the Heck is That?

One day we were in our backyard inspecting the pandan plant on one side of the yard and the curry tree arching over from our neighbor’s yard on the other side. Imagine my surprise when I spotted a vine creeping among the branches of the tree, and saw this melon hanging on it! It was about the size of a medium watermelon. (I didn’t yet know that it was a winter melon.)
Winter Melon on vine

I struck up a conversation with my neighbour one day and asked her about the vine and she confirmed that, yes indeed, it was a winter melon. Two days later, while I was coming out of my house, she ran up to me and handed me half a melon that she had recently harvested from that vine. Sweet! That half melon was perfect for making pot of winter melon soup.

No Soup for Me!

Now, believe it or not, I had never cooked winter melon soup before. See, I’m not really a soup person. Strange I know.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I sweat a lot when drinking hot soups in a hot country. When I left Malaysia and went to live in the US, I enjoyed drinking soups in Fall and Winter when the heat from that bowl of soup really helped to warm me up.
Well, now I’m back in Malaysia where it is HOT! Especially here in Kuching. But maybe age is catching up with me because I am beginning to enjoy soups a bit more. When my neighbour handed this winter melon to me, I was happy to make this soup. What’s more, after I made it, I actually drank two bowls, sweat dripping from my forehead and all! Maybe it’s knowing that this fruit was home-grown or maybe it was the taste of the winter melon soup itself. Whatever it was, it was truly satisfying and comforting.

Making Stock

Making the soup itself is pretty easy. You can make the broth for the soup using chicken bones but I chose pork bones as I had them handy at the time. If you use pork bones, do this one additional step to help you to get a nice, clear soup—bring bones to a vigorous boil, then dump out the water and rinse the bones a few times before refilling with clean water and bringing the bones to a boil again. This technique of first boiling the bones and dumping out the water helps to give you a stock that is not murky from all the scum rising from the pork bones.
Once I’d done that, I added the dried scallops, dates and ginger to the stock and let them simmer with the pork bones for about an hour. While that was happening, I sliced off the skin of the winter melon, then cut it into chunks.

I already had some boiled peanuts handy so I decided to add that in. I also added some reconstituted shiitake mushrooms to enrich the stock (not too many otherwise it would overwhelm the delicate flavor of the winter melon).

Chinese Winter Melon Soup Recipe

Ingredients:
1/3 lb (250g) pork spare ribs or neck bones, cut into chunks
10 cups water
1/2 a medium winter melon, cut into large chunks (about 4-5 cups worth)
1/4 cup dried scallops
10-12 dried red dates
1 inch ginger, sliced thickly
2-4 dried shiitake, reconstituted
1/2 cup boiled peanuts (optional)
salt and some chicken bouillon to taste
dash of white pepper
Method:
1. Put pork bones in a large pot and fill with water, enough to cover pork. Bring to a boil and let boil vigorously for 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and dump water. Rinse out pork bones until not much remaining scum can be seen (a little bit will always remain, it’s ok, no need to be too perfectionist about it—after all we’re not Tampopo!).
2. Return pork bones to pot with 10 cups of water. Bring to boil and as soon as it come to a boil, lower heat to a simmer.
3. Add ginger slices, red dates, scallops, and shiitake mushrooms and simmer for an hour. Season with a little bit of salt.

Adding Scallops to the Soup Stock

4. Add winter melon chunks. Simmer for another hour or until winter melon is tender and all the components have melded together.

5. Season with chicken bouillon (about 1/2 tsp) and salt to taste. I always like to season my soups at the end because that gives time for all the flavors to develop and that is when I know what is still lacking. If you season too early, you might find yourself tempted to add more seasoning than it needs as the ingredients might not have released all its wonderful flavors yet.
Finish the soup with a dash of white pepper. If you want, you can also add a little bit of sesame oil. Serve in individual soup bowls and enjoy with rice and other dishes.
Winter Melon Soup

I just winged the recipe using my own instincts. If this is not the way you make your winter melon soup, please feel free to share yours with me. But I liked how mine turned out—the soup was very tasty, yet delicate. I can’t quite describe it in English—clear and light seems to be the best way to describe it, I guess. The addition of scallops and dates combined with the winter melon gave the soup sweetness while the pork bones and mushrooms added savoriness. The sliced ginger added some depth and heat and gave this soup that warmth to contrast with the coolness of the winter melon.
Quite a simple soup but thoroughly satisfying. Find yourself some winter melon and make this Chinese soup for yourself. It’s a wonderful soup for those days when you just want something comforting without being too heavy. And for those of you facing very cold temps, this soup will deliver warmth and satisfaction to take away that chill from your bones.
Cheers, Annie

Continue Reading: "Chinese Winter Melon Soup Recipe"...

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Japanese Sesame Salad with Chicken, Carrots and Cucumber

Concluding our series of homestyle Japanese dishes with a delicious, savory salad.

I love trying out new recipes and new dishes. I’m not one who likes to eat the same thing over and over (though for breakfast, I almost always have toast with peanut butter—go figure, I’m a study in contradictions!). I’m the same with leftovers, unless it’s something I really, really like, I don’t care too much for leftovers. Thankfully Nate will eat up all the leftovers for me. My human “garbage disposal” so to speak ^_^.
So I like to experiment with new recipes and I’m willing to serve them to friends even if it’s the first time I’m making it. This doesn’t always work out as some dishes don’t turn out great the first time (case in point is a braised duck recipe I made recently for a party—I’m NOT blogging about that until I perfect that recipe). But I’m grateful I tried this recipe because the salad turned out perfectly the first time and is simple enough to make with few ingredients. Nate and I agreed that we could have just eaten this dish on its own as a meal.

Make Extra for Leftovers

I did adapt the recipe a little. Instead of just using half a carrot and half a cucumber to one chicken, I used one carrot and cucumber each. I think this ratio is better anyway plus you then won’t have half of both to figure out what to do with. And the extra means you get a little bit more salad to eat—which Nate and I both did later that night happily!
The hardest part of this recipe is the julienning of the cucumber and carrots. Other than that, it’s basically just boiling and shredding a chicken breast, and making the dressing. Toss is some toasted sesame seeds and you’re good to go.
The one recommendation I have is that you don’t toss the dressing with the salad till you’re ready to serve it. This will ensure the cucumbers don’t give out too much water and make the salad soggy. Also, if your cucumbers are very seedy, make sure to remove the seedy part first before julienning.

Japanese Sesame Salad with Chicken, Carrots and Cucumber

adapted from Kumiko's Kitchen
Ingredients
1 Cucumber
1 Carrot
1 half chicken breast
1 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp sesame oil
2 Tbsp rice vinegar
1 Tbsp toasted sesame seed
Method
1. Boil the chicken breast until cooked. Cool in cold water, and then shred by hand.
2. Julienne the cucumber and carrot into long, thin ‘match-stick’ pieces.

3. Mix the soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, sesame oil and sesame seeds together with the chicken and salad.

Japanese Salad with Cucumbers Carrots Chicken Sesame Seeds

Enjoy!
Cheers, Annie

Hungry for more savory salads? Click below:

Lomi Lomi Salmon
Quinoa Salad with Shrimp and Asparagus Recipe
Thai-Inspired Caesar Salad Recipe
Chopped Shrimp Waldorf Salad
$15 Heirloom Tomato Caprese Salad for $5

Continue Reading: "Japanese Sesame Salad with Chicken, Carrots and Cucumber"...

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Basic Dashi and Second Dashi

Dashi is a simple broth that is a very important component to a lot of Japanese foods. The Japanese use dashi as a base for miso soups, noodle soups and as a liquid in many simmering braises.

Making Dashi

We’ve been living in Kuching for a little over 3 months now. We’re settling in all right, getting to know the place and people. But we haven’t had a big party of guests over to our house yet, like we used to do almost weekly back in San Jose. We really wanted to invite our friend Paul (who welcomed us on our first day to Kuching) and his family over for a meal.
Annie mulled over the different menu options and eventually decided on a Japanese menu. Of course, there would have to be miso soup. She also wanted to do niku-jaga (meat and potatoes) dish. Both dishes call for dashi as part or most of the ingredients list.
The base of making dashi is the use of kombu/konbu (a dried piece of kelp seaweed) which is placed in cold water then heated to almost a boil. The other ingredient is katsuobushi (bonito flakes) which is added after taking the kombu out. These days, you can get handy instant dashis that you just add to water. But there is nothing like making your own dashi from scratch. And they are not very hard to make at all.

Smells Like the Sea

On its own, dashi is not very strongly flavored but it has a very nice "sea" aroma. And when used to make miso soup (miso is really salty already), it adds that briny sea flavor to the soup. My Japanese friend tells me that the flavors are different based on the kind of kombu you use. I had some miso soup at her home where she had used some very good quality kombu and the miso soup was excellent.
I got this dashi recipe from The Japanese Kitchen by Hiroko Shimbo. I love this cookbook quite a bit. Shimbo has done a great job in presenting Japanese food to a novice and her book shows her evident love for the details of cooking Japanese. Sometimes, she does get a little bit too complicated for me and I do simplify when I think it’s necessary but her detailed instructions and steps are what makes this book a lovely instructional on traditions of Japanese food and cooking.
Try out this dashi recipe if you’ve never made your own from scratch. The ingredients can easily be found in Asian grocery stores (Japanese and Korean stores will have more choices of kombu and bonito flakes but in a pinch, the other Asian groceries will also carry at least one of each of the above items).

First dashi

adapted from The Japanese Kitchen by Hiroko Shimbo
Ingredients:
3-4 pieces of dried kombu, about 6 inches in length each (seaweed)
a large handful of bonito flakes (around 1 cup pressed down)
2 quarts water (about 8 cups)
Method:
1. Wipe kombu with damp cloth (do not rinse kombu). Place kombu into pot with cold water.

Wiping Kombu

2.Heat pot over medium heat and wait till it's almost boiling. Do not let it come to a boil. Once you start seeing some bubbles, remove kombu.
3. Reserve kombu for second dashi. Add bonito flakes now to the broth. Heat for roughly two minutes. Turn off the heat and wait for bonito flakes to sink to the bottom.

Adding Bonito Flakes to Dashi

4. Pour broth through a sieve and reserve bonito flakes for second dashi.

Second dashi

1. Take another 2 quarts of water and put kombu and bonito from first dashi into pot of water. Heat until almost boiling and then simmer for 15 minutes or a bit more. Remove kombu and bonito and reserve stock.
Note: Use first dashi when you want clear dashi flavors like miso soup, or dishes that are lighter and where the dashi carries the dish.
Use second dashi for stronger flavored dishes like those that contain meat where the dashi is not the main player in the dish.
You can also make it vegetarian by not adding the katsuobushi. Instead, add dried shiitakes (rehydrated first) to the stock and you will have a mushroomy flavored dashi. We’ve also tried adding ginger to our dashi for a little extra heat. Play around with your dashi—if you want a more fishy flavor, try adding some dried anchovies. The added ingredients do change the character of the dashi so be mindful of that when you are thinking of adding different flavors.
Once you have your dashi, there are plenty of ways to use them. Look out for our coming posts on Miso soup and Niku-jaga (braised beef and potatoes) that utilize dashi.
Cheers, Annie
I am entering this recipe in the Weekend Herb Blogging roundup for this week, administered by Cook Almost Anything and hosted by Just Making Noise.

Hungry for More Japanese recipes? Click below:

Japanese Oden Recipe
Broiled Salmon Collar Recipe
Pan-fried gyoza
Broiled Miso Seabass
Korokke

Continue Reading: "Basic Dashi and Second Dashi"...

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Microwaved Cabbage and Carrot, a Bachelor’s Tale

The House of Annie has been pretty quiet lately, as Annie took the kids with her to Kuala Lumpur to visit with friends and family. I’ve been staying here at home in Kuching, living the bachelor life for the past five days. Fortunately, there’s a public holiday coming up on Friday so I’ll be joining Annie and the kids in KL for a few short days over the coming weekend. (Yay!)

So, what have I been eating? On Saturday, I ate pretty well, thanks to our friend Mike who took me to have FooChow beef noodle soup in the morning, Hainam chicken rice for lunch, and thosai and garlic naan for dinner. But the rest of the time, I’ve been eating leftovers for dinner.

Annie left me with a big dish of kau yuk – fried and steamed pork belly and taro . It took me three nights to eat it all, but I finally finished it. So here I am on Wednesday night with no more leftovers to eat. Besides finishing the prepared leftovers, Annie told me that I should cook the head cabbage that was left in the fridge.

What the Heck?

I rooted out the cabbage in the veggie bin and also saw some tomatoes left over from the braised pork belly dish she made last week, plus a bell pepper and a carrot. What the heck can I make with that? We don’t have any potatoes, so I can’t make colcannon (besides, there’s no corned beef to enjoy it with!).

On top of that, I wanted to make something fast, and I wanted to make something that didn’t require a lot of cooking implements. Life as a bachelor means a lot of eating in front of the tv or computer, and a lot of unwashed dishes in the sink. If I could minimize the amount of dishes to wash and maximize my time out of the kitchen, all the better. So I got the brilliant idea to cook everything together in the microwave.

Unfortunately, Google is no help in finding recipes for cooking cabbage in a microwave. But there is an Indian recipe site, run by my friend Srivalli of Cooking 4 All Seasons, that talks about easy microwave cooking. And surfing her site brought me to Veggie Platter, which sparked an idea that I could actually toast spices like cumin, coriander, and mustard seed in the microwave, and use that to cook my veggies with.

I thought I’d give it a shot. I’m no gourmet chef. I am barely passable with a knife. But I’m only cooking for myself, so who’s it gonna hurt?

I started off by shredding the cabbage. Then I julienned the bell pepper, then thinly sliced the carrot. Finally I cut the tomatoes into chunks.

Hey, that didn’t take long at all!

In a large glass bowl, I heated a couple of tablespoons of oil on high for 2 minutes in the microwave. Meanwhile, I ground up some coriander seeds, cumin seeds, and white peppercorns in our mortar and pestle. When the oil was done heating, I tossed the spices in. Back in the microwave for 2 minutes on high, give it a quick stir, and two more minutes.

Then, I dumped all the chopped veggies into the bowl, sprinkled on a little curry powder, added a cup of water, and put it back in the microwave for 2 and a half minutes. I took it back out, tossed and turned the veggies, then cooked it for another 2 and a half minutes. When it was done, I tossed the veggies once more and gave it a taste.

Needs salt.

I could have gone for the kosher salt, but since this was an “Indian-ish” dish, I thought I try sprinkling on some Indian Kala Namak salt that we got from our friend Tammy the Spice Hound. This salt is a finishing salt with a high sulfur content, so it tastes strongly of eggs. A little dash’ll do ya!

Here’s the final product.

How’d it taste?

I’m not going to say it was the best thing I ever put in my mouth. I thought it was lacking something, maybe garlic or onions or soy sauce. But it was edible. And I was hungry. So I ate it. In front of the computer. As I’m writing this post. And you know what?

It’s all gone. AND I only have one dish to wash!

Aloha, Nate

Annie will be back to the House soon, cooking legitimately good dishes. So subscribe to our site and receive all our latest posts to your RSS reader or to your Inbox.

I'm entering this post in the October edition of the "Microwave Easy Cooking" roundup, created by Srivalli of Cooking 4 All Seasons and hosted by Suma of Veggie Platter.

Wanna read about more of my cooking experiments? Click below:

Leftover Turkey Omurice

Mushroom and Gruyere Omelette, Banana-Nut-illa

Evolution of Dinner: Grilled Pork Tenderloin

Evolution of Dinner: Grilled Halibut

Evolution of Dessert: Sake-Poached Asian Pears with Ume and Li Hing Sauce

Continue Reading: "Microwaved Cabbage and Carrot, a Bachelor’s Tale"...

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Roasted, Salted Pumpkin Seeds

Roasted pumpkins seeds are a favorite snack food here in Asia. And, they’re quite easy to make at home. All you need is a pumpkin.

Last year, I made a pumpkin swirl cheesecake using a Halloween pumpkin that the kids had decorated. It wasn’t carved, so the pumpkin was still intact and unspoiled. I cut the pumpkin up, roasted it, and pureed the flesh to use in my cheesecake.

After first sectioning the pumpkin, I scraped out the pulp and the seeds.

Then I put the seeds and pulp in a colander and rinsed them off while the kids picked out any stray bits of pulp.

After the seeds were cleaned off, I spread them out onto a sheet pan to dry. The kids were kinda impatient, so I broke out the hair dryer. Daniel did the “heavy lifting” as he diligently dried those seeds.

After they were dried, I drizzled a couple tablespoons of olive oil onto the seeds and tossed them to coat. Daniel and Esther then stepped in to grind some sea salt onto the seeds.

They went into a 300*F oven for 30-35 minutes until they started turning brown.

After cooling, we started snacking. And we didn’t stop. Those seeds were gone by the end of the night!

Aloha, Nate.

This post was entered in the October edition of the Heart of the Matter recipe roundup.

Hungry for more pumpkin and squash recipes? Click below:

Pumpkin Mee with Prawns Recipe

Kabocha Squash with Spinach in Coconut Milk

Pumpkin with Egg and Green Onion

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup with Bacon

Continue Reading: "Roasted, Salted Pumpkin Seeds"...

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Simple, Sweet and Spicy Cucumber Salad

I bet that for those of you that grow your own veggies, you’re probably inundated by cucumbers right now if you’re growing them. That and zucchinis—well, if you’re growing zuchs, you should expect to be inundated!

Cucumbers are lovely to eat when they’re fresh. Crisp, juicy, and so cool when the summer is so hot. Living here in Malaysia, cucumbers are used raw in so many dishes (mostly as garnishes but also as a nice contrast to spicy and heaty foods).

While visiting a friend’s aunt recently, we were invited to stay for dinner (have I already mentioned how hospitable everyone is here?). She served us this cucumber salad and Nate just loved it. It was really delicious, a nice combination of sweet, tart and spicy. I, of course, asked for a recipe. It was such a simple recipe and I couldn’t wait to try it out myself.

Picking Pickle

The next day, I went off to the market and bought myself two cucumbers, some Thai chili peppers, and a lemon among other vegetables. You know, I didn’t really know how to choose the cucumbers so I let the vendor pick it out for me. He showed me how the two he picked up still had the brown flower hanging off the end to indicate how fresh and young it was. I trusted him and they were very nice.

The reason I say I don’t know how to pick a cucumber is because the variety they have here in Malaysia is very different from that in the US. Over here, the cucumbers are not dark green the way they are in the US (I still remember the first time I picked one at the store in the US and looked for the least green, most fat and smooth one only to cut in open and find that it was very seedy and bitter!). They are light green/yellowish green with speckles of dark green. If anyone has any tips on picking cucumbers, whatever variety they are, please leave a comment!

Anyway, I took these two cucumbers home and halved them lengthwise and then sliced these half moons thinly.

Then I sprinkled sugar and salt on the sliced cucumbers.

Tossed it all together with my hands and then added the sliced Thai bird chilies.

Lastly I squeezed the juice of one lemon on the salad.

At that point, I tossed it with a spoon (never a good idea to use your hands when you’re working with hot peppers—might come back to bite you when you accidently rub your eyes!) and let it sit for an hour in the fridge. At that point, the salad released quite a bit of water. You can choose to drain the water, or just scoop out the cucumber leaving the juices behind. Et voila! A nice, cool salad to enjoy with almost anything Asian with a little spicy zing at the end.

So simple it seems silly to write the recipe down but here it is:

Sweet and Spicy Cucumber Salad

Ingredients:
2 medium cucumbers, halved lengthwise then sliced thinly
2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tsp salt
Juice from 1 lemon
2-4 Thai bird chilies, sliced and deseeded.

Method:
1. Sprinkle sugar, salt and lemon juice over sliced cucumber.
2. Add chilies.
3. Toss with a spoon till sugar and lemon juice has coated cucumber slices.
4. Set aside for one hour or more in the refrigerator.
5. Serve and enjoy!

Simple, Sweet and Spicy Cucumber Salad

Cheers, Annie

This post was entered into the September 2009 edition of the Think Spice blog event, created by Sunita of Sunita’s World and hosted by Kitchen Chronicles.

Hungry for more simple recipes? Click below:

Corned Beef, Carrots and Colcannon Recipe

Quick and Easy Pasta With Light Cream Sauce Recipe

Sweet and Sour Fried Fish Recipe

Steamed Egg Tofu with Ground Pork and Shrimp

Continue Reading: "Simple, Sweet and Spicy Cucumber Salad"...

Sunday, September 06, 2009

Cooking with Leafy Midin (Fiddlehead Fern)

Stir-fried Midin with Garlic and Shallots

Midin, not to be confused with Paku, is a local fern that, according to my Sarawakian friends, is only found in Sarawak (but that I have not yet verified for sure). When we first got to Kuching, we were invited to a friend’s house for dinner and we had our first taste of Paku. It was delicious! But my friend said, “If you like this, you really have to try Midin, it is much tastier.” She then proceeded to buy us a bunch the next time we saw them.

I took home that bunch and put it in the fridge to cook the next day (ferns are best cooked the day it is bought but if you cannot, it will keep an extra day but it won’t taste as good). Never having cooked with any type of fern, I had asked some questions before leaving my friends the day before. Armed with some idea of how to cook them, I set to work on them the next day.

Spreading Out

Putting them into a bowl, I noticed that this bunch had unfurled their tight heads into more leafy fronds. I wasn’t sure if this happened overnight or if they were bought like this. Later, when I bought my second bunch from the market, I found that they sold them both (already leafy and tightly coiled without extraneous leaves).

If you think of them like asparagus, they have a breaking point on the stalk; anything past that breaking point is too fibrous to eat. I pinched every stalk somewhere 2-3 inches down from the top (found out later that I was too conservative and could have pinched them a little further down) and I didn’t pinch off all the leaves (which I also found out later that I could have…oh well, live and learn). What I had left was a very small bowl of Midin.

Leafy Midin (Fiddlehead Fern)

Simplicity Works Well

Since we are not quite settled in yet, my kitchen pantry is not completely stocked. I had very basic ingredients to work with. I didn’t even have chillies or belacan so any of those types of stir-fries were out for the moment. But I did have garlic and shallots (two very essential ingredients to Malaysian cooking) and I decided to just do a simple stir-fry using just that.

And guess what? Sometimes an ingredient is so delicious that simplicity works well. The midin was wonderful—crunchy, vegetal, sweet, fresh! My daughter who is normally reluctant to eat much of anything much less vegetables, pronounced it “yummy” and proceeded to eat half the plate herself.

I’ve since cooked the tight heads with belacan and it’s good that way too. And, I’ve eaten it as a salad at a restaurant which cooked it “Thai” style which I will soon try to replicate. I guess you will be seeing more posts of Midin. I know many of you readers won’t get a chance to cook with it especially if it’s really true that it only grows here but I can’t help but sing its praises. If you get tired of reading about it without being able to taste it, you know we would welcome you to visit us here in Kuching!

Stir-fried Midin with garlic and shallots

Ingredients

1 Tbsp vegetable oil
4-5 small shallots, rough chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, rough chopped
1 bunch of leafy Midin, washed and peeled at breaking point—about 3-4 inches from top
salt to taste (about 1 tsp)

Method
1. Heat oil in wok on medium heat.
2. Toss in shallots and garlic. Stir-fry on med-high heat until shallots and garlic start to smell really fragrant and are beginning to lightly brown (don’t let them get burnt!).

3. Toss in Midin and stir around for 30 seconds.

4. Add salt to taste. Stir-fry for another minute or so.

Plate up and eat with rice.

Stir-Fried Midin with Garlic and Shallots

Enjoy!

Cheers, Annie

This post was entered into the Weekend Herb Blogging #199 roundup, administered by Haalo and hosted this week by Chris from Mele Cotte

PS: have I also mentioned that I’m enjoying cooking with a wok over a real gas fire (no more electric stovetops for me for a while)! Yay!

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Hungry for more Malaysian veggie recipes? Click below:

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Saturday, August 29, 2009

Honeydew Sago Dessert Recipe: A Refreshing Summer Treat!

Updated 29 August 2009

Originally posted 1 August 2008

Honeydew Sago Dessert

In Malaysia, we have many soupy desserts. Some of them are served hot, like the Chinese “tong sui” (sweet drinks) and others cold (like cendol, ice kacang and es teler). The honeydew sago dessert falls into the cold category and it really is refreshing.

During Summer, melons are abundant in the grocery stores and the farmer’s market. One Saturday, we bought three melons at the Palo Alto Farmer’s Market—a bambino watermelon, an orange-fleshed watermelon and a honeydew melon (read about our encounter with a gross "Asian-girl fetish" man). The watermelons we planned to just enjoy on its own but I had plans for the honeydew melon.

Sago = Tapioca pearls

Sago or tapioca pearls can be found in all your Asian grocery stores and probably in some of the regular stores as well. They look like little tiny white beads. I love these things and will put them into any “soupy” Asian desserts abundantly (be careful though as they are also a thickener and too much can turn your “soup” into “pudding”). There’s another dessert that is made entirely of them and I will blog about that later.

Working it out

So anyway, we had brought back lots of stuff from the farmer’s market, right? And Nate had told you that he was working on the grilled pork tenderloin dinner with all the other ingredients. (By the way, I did not agree with his post—we had a little argument about it after it was published, yeah, our first blog fight *lol*. What I think he meant to say was that I also do look at what I have before deciding on what to cook BUT once I decide, I settle on a recipe (or adapt it) and go from there. He, on the other hand, starts chopping the stuff on hand and then continues searching for how to make use of it and what else to make with it…not very efficient…tsk…tsk…).

I love him anyway and sometimes it works out remarkably well. I just have to stay away so as not to get impatient. So while he was putting together this wonderful meal, I took a nap. I woke up feeling refreshed and came into the kitchen to work on my dessert dish. The whole meal came out really great and because pork tenderloin and grilled halibut are pretty light foods, there was room for my honeydew sago dessert which was a delightful way to end dinner and the weekend.

Honeydew Sago Recipe

Ingredients:
½ honeydew melon (save the other half for enjoying plain)
1 cup sago (tapioca pearls)
½-1 cup sugar (depending on how sweet your honeydew is)
½ cup water
1 cup coconut milk shake the can before measuring out the one cup otherwise you will have really thick coconut milk only)
½ tsp salt

Method:

Make a simple syrup: Put water and sugar into a small pot and boil till sugar dissolves to make a syrup. Cool.

Boil the sago: Put a big pot of water to boil (to hold about 7 cups or more of water). When water comes to a boil, add sago to water and cook on med-high heat. Stir occasionally. Sago is done cooking when it looks translucent, about 8-10 mins. Caution: Don’t overcook the sago as it can become a sticky mess. Better to have a few pearls that have not turned translucent than to have a glop of melting sago.

Cut and blend the melon: While sago is cooking, cut half of the half melon into chunks

and buzz in your blender till smooth.

Dice the remaining quarter of the melon into small ½ inch cubes (or if you want to be really pretty, you could use a melon baller).

Rinse the sago: As soon as sago is done, pour it out into a fine-mesh colander and rinse with cold water.

Assemble the dish: Put the melon cubes and the melon juice together in a large bowl.

Add the coconut milk.

Followed by the cooled sago.

Pour in the sugar syrup little by little, to adjust the sweetness.

Salt trick

The trick to getting your dessert to taste better is to add a little salt. Salt enhances the sweetness of any dessert!. Stir it all together and chill.

Enjoy!

Cheers, Annie

This post was entered in the “Merdeka Open House 2009: My Sweet Malaysia” roundup, hosted by Babe in the City – KL

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Friday, January 15, 2010

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What the Heck is That?

No Soup for Me!

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Tuesday, December 01, 2009

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Smells Like the Sea

First dashi

Wiping Kombu

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Second dashi

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Tuesday, September 22, 2009

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Sunday, September 06, 2009

Stir-fried Midin with Garlic and Shallots

Spreading Out

Leafy Midin (Fiddlehead Fern)

Simplicity Works Well

Stir-fried Midin with garlic and shallots

Stir-Fried Midin with Garlic and Shallots

Hungry for more Malaysian veggie recipes? Click below:

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Honeydew Sago Dessert

Sago = Tapioca pearls

Working it out

Honeydew Sago Recipe

Salt trick

Hungry for more Asian desserts? Click below!

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to the new and improved House of Annie website at
www.houseofannie.com !