Nasi Kandar

Some pics I took from my visit to M'sia last year.
In the middle of a hectic shoppping trip in one of the huge malls in KL, it's great to be able to take a breather in a food court which serves up to hundreds of different dishes, to replenish your energy. However, the problem is that there is such a big variety to choose from, and when your time there is limited, what do you do?

For me, I always resort to the Nasi Kandar stall. A plate of plain or coconut rice, and I select the meat and veg from dozens of mainly spicy dishes on display.




This one above was from the food court in 1-Utama and consisted of a fried kembung fish (like mackerel) marinated with spices, four angled beans in sambal, and brown reconstituted squid in sambal.

This one was from Mid Valley mall in Bangsar. Seemed a bit pricey, so I dunno if I have been ripped off or not. It cost me RM10. Consisted of long beans with white squid strips in sambal, cockles in sambal, and a type of four angled bean (direct translation from its Chinese name!), also with sambal!

A you can probably tell, I am quite fond of sambal (chilli paste with other spices like belacan) over the curry dishes, mainly because I can easily get curries in Manchester, but not good sambal.

These were not the best nasi kandar I have ever had, but when you have been living away for so long, anything will do!

Prawn Biryani

I hope it was obvious that my last post was an April Fool! I'd have to be really desperate to resort to eating that!

For this post, I am debuting my new Panasonic TZ5 online! It is the most automatic camera you will find, but I am still trying to get to grips with what available settings it has. Unbelievably, it does not have manual focus mode. However, it does have a preset for food pics! The last pic here was using that mode, without a flash. However, I find it less sharp than my old Pentax Optio 30. Any suggestions?

And onto today's meal....
A quick and easy dish for a busy lifestyle!

How this dish turns out depend on what spices you use and also the type of rice. Foe the prefect Biryani, you must use Basmati rice as it has that fluffy texture and ability to absorb the taste of the spices used. Be careful not to use too much water when cooking the rice or it will get crushed under its own weight and become soggy and stick together.


First, I use my favourite curry powder, mix into a paste, the fry with onions, capsicum, ann prawns. After that, set aside.



Then, separately, boil rice. Add one tbsp oil so they dont stick together. Salt to taste. When rice is nearly done, pour in the prawns on top. The flavour of the prawns and spices will slowly seep into the rice for the remaining 15 minutes of cooking and standing time. This is quite different from the traditional method, which require you to bury the meat with the semi-cooked rice, but it is quicker.



And there you have it!

Tikus Stew

Tikus is the Malaysian word for mouse. In these hard economic times, we have to be resourceful and use all the resources available to us to save money. As a meat eater, I have no hang ups about what meat I eat as long as its edible. After all, what diffrence is there between a horse and a cow, apart from the sentiments some people have for the former? Likewise, having had rabbit, I dont see how different mice would be, apart from the size.

As the opportunity presented itself to me via a few unexpected visits, I managed to trap a few of these little creatures for my own consumption.






Cleaning, skinning and gutting them required the delicate skills of a surgeon as they were so small, but eventually, I managed it.







And here is the stew! Ratatouille, if you want to know the name. No, I did not concoct this from scratch as I did not know the recipe, so it was done with a packet mix. I did boil the mice in salt water for 30 mins first to get rid of any infection it may have prior to stewing them.

Cantonese Roast Meats

A quick and convenient dinner is simply going to a local vendor and buying a portion of mixed Cantonese Roast Meat, containg Char Siu, Siew Yoke and Siew Aap. Translated, Sweet BBQ Pork, Crispy Roast Belly Pork and Roast Duck. This lot cost only £8. I have put a 6in ruler next to it to demonstrate the portion size here.. big enough to feed 3 - 4 adults!




For those living locally in Manchester, I actually bought this from Chi Yip, which is located in Chadderton. Their Char Siu is usually only average, but the Roast Duck is about the best I have tasted in Greater Manchester and the Crispy Pork is quite good too. The skin is usually quite crispy if you eat it straight away.

Mee Goreng Udang ( Prawn Fried Noodles )

A quick, and simple dish, where the ingredients play a huge part in how good (or bad) it taste.

I had not bought anything to make dinner that night and decided to look around to see what was in the cupboard and freezer. What I found were the essential ingredients for this slight variation of a popular Malaysian mamak (indian-muslim) dish.

The noodles and prawns were fried separately, as the latter were quite big and I wanted to make sure they were cooked properly rather than frying them together with the noodles, and risk over or undercooking them.



Noodles:
I had some instant "straight to wok" noodles for emergencies, but its best to use fresh egg noodles. Not the thin variety.
I also had some sambal belachan frozen in individual portions. These were made by grinding belachan (pungent prawn paste), chillies, garlic and dried shrimps together.

Method:
Fry the paste in oil with sliced onions till fragrant - when the fumes start to make you cough and splutter, then that it the right time to add the noodles!
Sprinkle water so that noodles becomes soft and succulent. Then add tomato sauce, chilli sauce and sweet soy sauce. Add salt to taste.
When nearly done, crack an egg over it. Continue frying till egg becomes brown.
Then its done!




Prawns:
I used peeled and deveined raw tiger prawns (frozen). Fresh is better if you can get them.
Heat 50% butter, 50% oil, then add diced capsicum, curry leaves and garlic. Fry till brown (only takes seconds), then add 1 tsp curry powder paste.
Again, fry till fumes make you cough and splutter, then add the prawns and fry quickly. Add salt to taste. Remove when you start seeing moisture seep out of the prawns. You dont want to lose too much water from the prawns or they will not be succulent and juicy when you bite into them.

Serve noodles, topped with the prawns.

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!

Take That - The Circus

Update Nov 2010:

The review of the latest album, Progress, is here.

A temporary departure from the usual theme because of a big event that happened this week.. the release of Take That's new album, The Circus! My favourite group at the moment. I have been listening to their songs for almost 2 decades, and even when they temporarily disbanded, I was still listening to their albums and Gary's solo efforts. Here is my review of the tracks.

The tracks:

1. The Garden

Starts with Mark whispering the vocals, and later, the others join in and the song eventually builds up to a crescendo, and has the same feel and sentiment of "Never Forget". I can see this being a later single.

2. Greatest Day

IMO, it was not the greatest preview for this album. There are far greater songs in this album, but maybe I need to listen to it a few more times for it to grow on me. I can see here that they have attempted to write an "anthem" like Queen's "We are the champions". If this song becomes really successful, it will be played at the end of sports events in years to come.

3. Hello

This also stars Mark. Reminds me of an uptempo catchy Herman Hermits song with an updated instrumental backing.

4. Said it All

Has Gary's trademark falsetto in the infectious chorus line. A midtempo track with a lot of jangly guitars and has a mid 90s Britpop feel to it.

5. Julie

Mark's solo. Simple and repetitive lyrics, which includes "sha la la la la I want you", underlaid by a slightly depressing tune. Probably not going to be a released as a single.

6. The Circus

Typical Gary Barlow easy listening composition in which he sings over a shallow piano with strings in the background coming in halfway. Simple yet pleasantly effective and easy to the ears.

7. How did it all come to this

Sounds like Howard and Jason took the lead on this. It is simply Reach Out (the opening track from Beautiful World which I absolutely loved) Mk2!

8. Up All Night

Started like Cecilia (Simon and Garfunkel), then launches into a lively chorus not dissimilar to Shine. This WILL be a massive single! Its Mark on lead vocals again!

9. What is love

Jason takes the reins here. Sang over a predominantly acoustic guitar backed track. The tune is simple but the chorus has an emotionally haunting feel to it, musically and lyrically. In the bridge, you actually believe that the singer is really pleading with all his heart for his love.

10. You

This is the closest to Patience you will get, in this album. However, it just does not have the same
catchiness nor adventure, despite having nearly the same song structure and tempo. The producers probably recognise this too, hence the reason why this has been relegated to near the end of the album.

11. Hold Up A Light

Mark on lead again! This has a driving chorus that will have you humming for hours afterwards. It is
irritatingly catchy and repetitive!

12. Bonus track

A 90 second epilogue. Has a caribbean party feel to it. Great way to end the album.. on a high note.

Overall impression:

The songs are definitely stronger than in the last album, in terms of their accessibility and instant likeability. However, it is not a big departure from the last album in terms of musical style, which, to me, is a good thing, as I liked Beautiful world a lot. This is nothing like the old 1990s Take That but fans of the old TT will still be able to enjoy The Circus because the strong melodies are all still there, although the musical style has moved on somewhat. Mark appears to be the leading singer in this album, which is fine for a studio recording, but I would have preferred to hear more of Gary, as he is by far the best and most experienced singer in the group. Mark's limitations will be really evident when they perform these songs live.

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