Seaweed is rich in calcium and magnesium. This time, I am cooking dried seaweed soup - it is healthy food.
Ingredients – Makes 3 servings
3 cups water
½ piece dried seaweed, cut into little pieces
3 mushrooms, sliced
1 carrot, sliced
6 pieces fish/meat balls (optional)
1 stalk spring/green onion, chopped finely
3 Tbsp soy sauce
A pinch of salt or to taste
A little white pepper
A little fried garlic
Method
Add water in a pot and bring to a boil. Add fish/meat balls, mushroom, dried seaweed, carrot, spring onion, soy sauce and salt into the boiling water, stir well. Let it come to a boil again, then turn off the heat.
Pour the soup into a bowl, garnish with pepper and fried garlic. Serve while the soup is still warm.
Rice porridge with fish (Teochew/Hokkien: hoo moy) is easy to cook and the taste is delicious. It’s a meal for anytime.
Ingredients – Makes 2 servings
1 cup rice
3 cups water
1 piece fish fillet, sliced thinly
3 pieces mushroom, sliced
¾ oz (20gm) ginger (helps to eliminate fishy smell), sliced thinly
1 stalk spring onion/green onion, chopped finely
1-2 fresh chilies, chopped finely
3-4 Tbsp soy sauce
A pinch of salt or to taste
A little white pepper
A little sesame oil
A little fried garlic
Method
Wash rice and drain and put in a pot, add water then bring to a boil. Reduce to medium heat after it boils, and simmer for about 20-25 mins. Add more water if the porridge is turning too thick.
Add fish, mushroom, ginger, soy sauce and salt into the porridge, stir well. Turn to medium-high heat to a boil, then off the heat.
Pour the porridge into a bowl, garnish with spring onion, chili, pepper, sesame oil and fried garlic. Serve while the porridge still warm.
Coconut jam (Malay: kaya, lit. ‘rich’) can be spread on bread, crescent rolls and biscuits. We suggest serving with butter also – they taste very good together.
The traditional way to cook this jam takes a couple of hours to steam it, stirring constantly…
Our recipe uses the microwave, and it only takes a few minutes to cook.
Ingredients – Makes about 27 oz (760 gm) jam
5 large eggs
¾ cup (200 ml) coconut milk
1¼ cup (280 gm) sugar
A pinch of salt
3 pandan (screwpine) leaves, wash and tie them in a knot
Method
Beat eggs in a bowl. Add sugar, coconut milk and salt and mix well. Strain the mixture into a microwave safe bowl.
Microwave it uncovered for 5 mins on power level 3 (1100W microwave; max power = level 10) and then stir.
Put the pandan leaves in and microwave again for 5 mins on level 3. Stir it again. Microwave again for 4 mins on level 3.
Remove the pandan leaves and microwave again 3 mins on level 3. Stir again – it should be starting to thicken by now.
Cover the bowl, but leave a small opening for steam to escape. Microwave again for 2 mins on level 3. Stir and microwave for 2 mins on level 2.
The jam should be smooth and easy to spread on bread. If it becomes curdled, keep stirring until it becomes smooth. Let it cool and serve. Always keep the jam in fridge and avoid getting water in the jam.
Notes:
Preparing kaya is similar to preparing a custard or lemon curd – the mixture should never come to a simmer or boil. During the cooking process, do not let the mixture get too hot or the eggs will curdle.Using low power levels takes more time to cook the kaya, but gives a better result.
Pandan leaves are product of Vietnam or Thailand. In the US, pandan leaves usually found in the freezer case in Asian grocery stores.
When I was a kid, sometimes I would hear someone say another person was ‘huan zhu’ in Hokkien. It means sweet potato, but here means silly or stupid. I didn’t understand why sweet potatoes have been linked with being stupid? I only knew that sweet potatoes are one of the foods for poor people. However, nowadays sweet potatoes are recognized as a healthy food!
Let’s cook sweetened sweet potato soup. It’s easy to cook and it’s yummy.
Ingredients – Makes 3-4 servings
1.1 lbs (500 gm or about 3 medium size potatoes) sweet potato
1 oz (30 gm) ginger
4 pandan (screwpine) leaves
3-4 Tbsp brown sugar
Water – enough to cover the sweet potatoes in the pot
Method
Wash ginger, peel it, and slice thin.
Wash the pandan leaves and tie them in a knot.
Peel the sweet potatoes and cut into bite-size cubes. Put the cubes into a pot of water immediately; the potatoes will turn brown if left out in the air. Add the ginger and pandan leaves, and bring to a boil. Add the brown sugar (taste and adjust sweetness to your preference). Turn heat down and cook another 5-10 minutes, or until the sweet potatoes are tender.
Meat floss (Hokkien: bak-hu, Mandarin: rou-song) can be eaten with rice porridge/congee, used as a bread filling, or you can have it by itself as a snack.
Ingredients – Makes about 11 oz (300 gm) meat floss
1.5 lbs (650 gm) pork shoulder
4-5 cloves of garlic, peeled (optional)
Water – enough to cover the meat in the pot; a few cups extra if also making a soup.
Seasoning
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp oyster sauce (optional)
½ tsp seasoned salt
5 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp white pepper
2 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
¼ cup of the stock the meat was cooked in
Method
Trim all visible fat from the pork, and slice the meat into strips about 1” thick. Bring the water to a boil, then add the meat and garlic and cook for 15 minutes.This timing gives the best tasting meat stock for making a soup. The meat stock will be a little sour if the meat is cooked too long.
If planning to use some of the stock to make a soup, scoop some out, leaving enough to cover ¾ of the remaining meat.
Continue to cook the meat on low heat for about 1 hour or until the meat is soft enough to shred easily.
Take the meat out and allow it to cool, reserving ¼ cup of the stock to make the seasoning.Shred the meat.
Mix the seasonings and heat to dissolve the sugar and set it aside.
Heat a wok and fry the shredded meat on medium heat until very little steam is coming out (about 20-30 minutes).
Reduce heat to medium-low.Pour the seasoning mixture, a little at a time, over the meat in the wok. Fry, stirring continuously, until the meat floss is dry and crispy (about 20 minutes).
I like Chinese-Malaysian style dried meat (Hokkien: bak-kwa, Mandarin: rou-gan). We have made it several times, because Steve is also hooked on it, especially since we added a lot of cayenne pepper.
Ingredients – Makes 1.76 lbs (0.8 kg)
2.2 lbs (1 kg) ground pork
Seasoning
1 1/2 Tbsp fish sauce
2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp brandy or rose wine
3/4 cup (180 gm) sugar
1/2 tsp licorice powder*
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/8 tsp five spice powder
1 tsp seasoned salt
2-3 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
Method
In a large bowl, mix the seasonings into the ground pork. Cover the meat mixture and keep in the fridge at least 4 hours.
Spread the meat mixture evenly onto a baking mat as thin as possible (1/16 to 1/8 inch thick). Put on a baking pan, bake in oven at 175F (about 80C) until firm, about 10-12 minutes.
Remove from oven and allow to cool. Repeat steps (2) & (3) until done.
Cut the meat into large pieces (about 4x6 inches works well) for grilling. At this point, the meat can be wrapped and stored for several days in the fridge before grilling.
If smoking (hickory is good), build a two level fire. Grill the meat until it is reddish-brown. Move pieces to the cool side when they are close to done so they can smoke.
Serve immediately, or wrap and store in the fridge. Heat the dried meat in the oven before serving.
* Licorice (Chinese: gan cao) powder can be found in most Asian grocery stores. Ground anise seed can be substituted if licorice powder is not available.我很喜欢马来西亚华人的肉干（福建话是bak kwa）味道。我们做了很多次肉干因为 Steve也喜欢上它了，尤其是我们做的是肉干是加了很多的辣椒粉。
材料 - 可做 1.76磅（0.8公斤）
Do you know what ‘bee koh (kuih pulut)’ is? It is glutinous/sticky rice with coconut milk; a Nyonya dessert. My family used to make bee koh as one of the food offerings for the Festival of the Jade Emperor, a Taoist god. They wanted the food offerings to have something ‘red’, or a good meaning like 福 (fu in Chinese means good fortune), on top of it, so they had me use red food coloring to write a word, because I was good at calligraphy. I remember I was always glad to write for them.
I like bee koh but have not had it for a long time and almost forgot it. Last time I was in Penang was during the festival, and I saw a plate of bee koh, which was a food offering from my sister-in-law. We finished it immediately.
I remembered it recently, so I made it and the recipe:
Ingredients – Makes 8-10 servings
2 cups glutinous/sweet rice
3 pandan (screwpine) leaves (optional)
200 ml coconut milk
1/4 tsp salt
6-8 Tbsp sugar
--> --> Water – enough to cover the glutinous/sweet rice if using a rice cooker Method
--> -->Soak the glutinous/sweet rice for at least 4 hours, then drain it and put it into a steam tray or rice cooker with the pandan leaves. Mix the coconut milk, salt and sugar. After the rice is cooked, add in the coconut milk mixture and stir well.
Remove the pandan leaves, and press the cooked rice onto a plate or into a mould. Let cool, then cut into pieces.
Chinese-Malaysian, I got married to an American, resigned my job and moved to a strange western country (Missouri, USA). The impact of the marriage, becoming a housewife and moving to a new environment swashes me with new thought and stirs up my old dormant memories. The process of life has its meaning due to the value of expression of words. If you can understand my writing and go through to your inner thoughts for a while, it might be like we have a second meeting in the boundless space of thought.
马来西亚华人，嫁给美国洋人、辞去工作和搬到陌生的西方国（美国密苏里州）。婚姻、家庭主妇和新环境生活的冲击，激起我的新思路也唤起沉淀久违的旧记忆。人生的过程有其意义也是因为有文字表达的价值，若你懂得通过我的写作，进一步往你自己内在思考一回，也可算是我们在这无疆界的思维空间有刹那的交会。
紫菜含高蛋白质和碘，这次是煮紫菜汤，吃喝营养。
