Satay Chicken

It was the middle of summer and it was the barbecue season. I thought it would be a great time to try making satay, Malaysian style, for the first time. However, I was feeling a bit lazy and did not feel like cutting the chicken into little pieces. Hence, I decide to marinate the chicken in quarter portions. Nothing wrong with that ... after all, they often sell it this way in the streets of Bangkok.

So I concocted a mixture of ground coriander, fennel, cumin, ginger, garlic, coconut milk, and some salt and sugar to taste. It all looked and smelt fine and I marinated the chicken for about 4 hours.

Then the rain came down. We have had quite a wet second half to this summer and our hopes for a bbq in the garden was thwarted. So, I decided to pop the chicken into the oven.

After turning them over about 4 times, it is ready. I basted it with its own juice / oil throughout the cooking process.



I served it with shop - bought peanut sauce and rice. Tasted fine, but could have been a lot better with the charcoal bbq taste to it!

Mini food crawl with some floggers

Back in November last year, when I was in Malaysia, I met up with veteran bloggers Teckiee, WMW and Preciouspea. As my visit was brief, there was no time to gather more people together but we had a good time and they introduced me to a couple of places I have never been and ate food I have never eaten before.

First off was this place in SS2, PJ. Not far from the LRT station near Sea Port school. It was a hawker street not unlike the one at section 17, but seemed cleaner and had more stalls.

Preciouspea had this bowl of rice porridge (congee). The most loaded congee I have ever encountered! I wish I had more stomach, then I would have tried this dish too, as well as the one I was having!


Then we had a bowl of some vegetarian dumplings. Looked like dim sum or yong tau foo, but it was very different. I dont really know how to describe this, except that it was different from anything I have ever tasted before, not in a bad, nor good way.. if you understand what I mean. Anyway, its very cheap and if you know and can get to this place, you have got to try for yourself to make up your mind about it.


My dish was a humble plate of Economy noodles. It was neither mee nor meehoon. Something in between. It was cooked with shredded vegetables and had a dollop of green chilli sauce on the side. It had a very home-cooked taste to it, which was a refreshing change to the msg-laden food you tend to get from hawkers.


After that, we moved on to Taman Tun Dr Ismail. I remember this area well and used to frequent it when it was a new town back in the 1980s. It has not changed very much apart from some of the gloss of from the area seem to be missing and it is not as clean as it used to be.

We went to a "famous" satay outlet called Satay Kajang Haji Samuri. It's the first time I have seen satay being cooked from a kitchen at the back of a shop, rather than in front, outside a shop. Looks like a sanitised version of you traditional grotty satay stall.


When they served the peanut sauce, the chilli was in a separate bowl. I think more satay sellers should do this as it allows you to adjust the spiciness of your peanut sauce.


We then had a plate consisting of perut (stomach / beef tripe ) satay on the top row pictured and chicken satay. I am really no expert judge in satay, but these taste as nice as all the satay I had on my recent visits. No less, no better. However, it was the first time I ever had stomach satay. I would love to have this again the next time I visit as I am a big fan of offal.



And so that rounded off the night. Thanks teckiee, wmw, preciouspea for the company and the food.

Chinese New Year Celebrations in Manchester 2009

My first blog for the new year, so Happy New Year and also Happy Chinese New Year for those celebrating. The weather has been really cold lately and I have not spent as much time in the kitchen as I would have liked to, as it has no central heating in it. Hence, the break since my last blog. Come spring, and I should be more in the mood to experiment further in the kitchen. I also have a few more stories to tell from my last visit to Malaysia and I will try to drop them in occassionally.


On Sunday 1/2/09, Manchester Chinatown celebrated Chinese New Year in the most extravagant event of the year so far. The celebrations were held in two venues, outside the City Hall and in the centre of Chinatown. The weather was barely above freezing, but it did not deter the crowds, majority non- Chinese, from turning up. This is not to say that there were only a few Chinese, but we account for such a small proportion of the UK population, even if we all turned up, we'd still be outnumbered by the others. It was great to see people from all other walks of life making attempts to learn more about the Chinese culture, despite the fact that many stalls were obviously setup to exploit those who knew little... I will show a little more about this further down.


It was 12pm and Princess Road, which cuts through the city centre, were closed to traffic and there was a huge crowd gathered in anticipation....





.. for this! A huge 15 metre Dragon dance, which danced for 30 minutes in front of the City Hall before making its way into Chinatown.



There were also other shows on a specially erected stage. Lilke this impressive acrobat show from a troupe from Yunan. All paid for by the City Council.




Moving into the heart of Chinatown, and there was a sea of people with lots of roadside stalls selling goods and services related to the occassion.





This stall had tacky goods which were lapped up by mainly non-Chinese.



And this one too! Loads of parents bought these cheap paper dragons for their kids to wave about.



You had to pay £1.50 for someone to write your name in Chinese with a calligraphy pen.





I dont even know what this is suppose to mean!





This was a genuine religious stall, in that you were given free lighted incense / joss sticks to dedicate to the buddha statue. I dont know what the furtune cookie packets had anything to do with buddhism though.

As for food, well, that's what the Chinese are known for in the UK, and the amount of food stalls we saw today did little to disprove the stereotype. What surprised me this year is that there are more stalls selling "Thai" food than any other types of food. I said that in inverted commas because the majority of the food dished out here were not in the slightest bit authentic and way overpriced. It would not have cost much more to eat in the warmth and comfort of a restaurant.

The stall pictured here sold Thai food.

More Thai food. This was one of the better stalls which looked like they made some effort with the food they sold.



This one looked impressive. Also Thai ... but he was actually reheating the noodles in a wok rather than actually cooking then in front of the customer. The guy behind him was grilling Thai satay ..not sure if that was fresh or also just reheating.



These lovely ladies were actually cooking Thai satay from scratch. Smelt lovely too, but too expensive for me to want to buy them.... 4 sticks for £3!

This Thai bbq chicken also smelt gorgeous!



These ladies were doing vegetarian fried noodles and rice. Did not look too appetising to me, as, they overloaded the wok and the flames were too low. Definitely no "wok hei" there! But it would have looked impressive to the uninitiated!


Some examples of the exorbitant prices charged! The fried noodles and rice dishes either don't or contained little meat!





Wow! £1 for a cup of hot water with a couple of dried chinese tea leaves diluted in it!



Look at the state of the bins! The food cant have been that good, for people to throw away so much of it! Looks like its going to be a feast for Mickey and Minnie tonight!



After all that walking around, we sat down for a meal in a restaurant and managed to order a portion of roast suckling pig. This little portion cost us £13. In the UK, a pig cannot be slaughtered under 8 weeks old. Hence, it has become quite meaty by then and also the skin has grown thicker than those eaten in South East Asia. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the treat thoroughly!



However, it cannot be compared to this half pig we had at Greenview Restaurant, Section 19, PJ in Malaysia,a few months ago, during our hols!

Chicken Sate Hong Kong Style

This dish should not be confused with the Satay that we get in Malaysia. It is a completely different dish that is served in almost all the Chinese Restaurants and Takeaways in the UK. As I have never been to Hong Kong, I would go as far as to say that this is an Anglicised Chinese dish that you will probably not get outside the UK, but I have grown to love it nevertheless.

The base of the dish is Jimmy's Sate Sauce. This sauce has a very unique taste and is not at all a variation of the Malaysian peanut sauce. In fact, it is made mainly from fermented soya beans rather than peanuts. However, it is not exactly hot bean (tauchu?) sauce either!

I mix the sauce with peanut butter before using it in the dish.

I then simply gather the "usual" stir fry ingredients together, chicken, garlic, onions and pepper.

In addition to the sauce mix, I add stock and cornstarch.

And finally, the dish itself!

I would highly recommend you try this dish, wherever in the world you may be. It is extremely simple to make and had a really unique taste. Like a cross between hot bean sauce and mild curry. However, you must use Jimmy's Sate sauce to make it or it will not taste the same.