Roti Canai available all over UK

Feast your eyes on this picture. Looks like the real thing, doesn't it? It could have easily been taken from a cafe anywhere in Malaysia. I have never met any Malaysian born person who claim to dislike the Roti Canai. In fact, I would go as far as saying that this should be known as Malaysia's national dish, instead of the more popularly acclaimed nasi lemak. After all, it is uniquely Malaysian, despite it being seen as "Indian". You will not be able to get this dish in India, I am sure .. not this version anyway which, although is a variation of the "paratha" it has evolved quite significantly from its Indian roots.

However, the twist here is that I did not cook this dish! Not properly anyway. It was bought frozen from a large supermarket - and not a specialist Asian one - and simply lightly fried in a skillet, like a pancake. It will slowly rise and fluff up, just like the real thing.

It is available all over the UK and has been for a number of years. I have yet to see anything that resembles nasi lemak in our supermarkets here. As this is the most popular uniquely Malaysian dish widely available in the UK, I must conclude that to most non-Malaysians, this is the national dish.

The brand below is one of about 3 or 4 available. Only cost around £1 for a pack of 5.

Just to add.. a fresh handmade dish like this would be almost impossible to sell in the UK .. each piece is rather laborious to produce. I would estimate that it would cost about £3 per piece to make it cost effective. At this price, I doubt it would sell. Hence I cannot ever see it taking off in restaurants over here.

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!

Manchester Caribbean Carnival 2010

Last weekend we had the annual Caribbean Carnival in Manchester. The event was held at a local park (Aleandra Park) and there were a lot of cultural events as well as contemporary shows featuring local hip hop and r&b artistes.

However, as this is a food blog, I will just report on this event from a culinary point of view.

There were a lot of stalls there with traders selling their wares with a caribbean theme. However, every third stall is one selling food and they were almost all selling the same dishes. By far, the most popular is Jerk Chicken - barbequed chicken marinated with jerk (jamaican herbs and spices) seasoning.

Here are a couple of pics from a stall.
Also watch the video link above to see what the event looked like.




We did not stay long but managed to bring home a couple of delicious treats.

Jerk Chicken with rice and salad. Not heavily flavoured but very nice!



Jamaican Curried Goat. Also very nice ... the closest comparison I can think of is Yeo's canned curry beef ... similar but nicer!

A Chinese Christmas in the UK

I think it is customary all over the western world that Chinese restaurants lay on special Christmas banquet menus adapted for the local taste. It is a bit late, but this was what we had when I went out with my office last Christmas (2009). I would say that this is a rather typical menu in most Chinese restaurants in the UK catering for the local people.

We had a regular and a vegetarian banquet at this (lol, honest!) restaurant in Manchester.

Starting with this Chicken and Sweetcorn soup




We also had this vegetarian sweetcorn soup, which tasted almost identical to the previous one, but with veg bits instead of chicken.


Then onto this mixed vegetarian starter - apart from the salad, spring rolls and gluten I do not know what the rest were, but they were quite nice.


This was the meat starter, consisting of some popular dim sum bites like har gau, siu mai, fried wonton, spring rolls and curry samosa (is this Chinese??).


Then onto the crisy shredded duck wraped in pancake rolls. Very nice but very typical of most western Chinese banquets








The vegetarians had this nut and veg stir fry to be wrapped in lettuce leaf instead. It was very tasty but I much prefer the duck.


This first main course was beef stir fried in a very sweet tangy sauce .. I think its OK sauce. My favourite dish of the evening.


SOme mixed veg dish for the veggies


And another! Both were ok but tasted very similar.



Chicken satay (not Malaysian satay sauce, but Jimmy's Sate sauce like this). Very nice tasted like it had citrus juice in it, which I have since started using it myself too.


And a rather generic chicken and mixed veg stir fry which was ok only.


Side dish was young chow fried rice. Nice but not exceptional. The veggies had just egg fried rice.


Overall a satisfying banquet and we got exactly what we expected.

Hainan Chicken Rice with Roast Chicken

Its been 4 months since my last blog. Hope I have not lost too many readers as I have sort of neglected this blog due to other interests I have discovered. However, I am still as interested in cooking and eating as ever. Just that I seem to have a bit less time to blog about them now. But anyway, here is an update on one of my favourite dishes.

Back in 2008, I wrote a comprehensive guide to how I cook Hainan Chicken Rice with lots of images. Sadly, the host have now taken all the pics down. One day, I will upload them again. But in the meantime, here is the link anyway. You will get the idea even if you just read the text.

Click here.

This blog basically is the same except that the chicken is actually roasted instead of poached.

Normally a chicken lasts 2 days for us. On the second day, I reheat the chicken in the microwave, let it cool a bit and then chop it. On this occassion, I decided to roast the chicken for the second day. This adds extra taste to it to compensate the loss of smooth texture as a result of reheating.

All I do is rub a mixture of dark soy, honey, 5 spice, salt and pepper to the dry cold chicken. Then let it dry at room temp for an hour. After that, put in a VERY hot oven, so that it cooks the surface quickly and not cook the inside for too long. After all , the chicken is already cooked.

These are the results.

Btw, I glazed the skin with its own fat dripping, but not too much to retain some form of crispiness. Commercially, the vendors would bathe the skin with hot oil to get an even golden brown colouring.

Sambal Sotong ( Chilli Squid )

Everytime I make some sambal paste, I freeze some and use it for various dishes at another time. Here is one, which is essentially the same sauce I used for this Nasi Lemak dish here.

Such simplicity! Fry the sambal, then add the cleaned squid and cook for 10-15 minutes and that's it. One of my favourite Malaysian dishes which you cannot buy anywhere, but in Malaysian restaurants, and even then, the quality is unpredictable.

Lee Chong Wei - 2010 All England Mens Singles Champion!!

Great achievement! Second singles Malaysian player to win this prestigious tournament in 44 years. However it was not without controversy as we clearly saw in tv replays that his winning shot was indeed out, but called in. I would lodge a protest if I was in the Japanese camp. But anyway, that aside, it was a great moment for Malaysian sport, and I hope it goes some way towards uniting the nation in these politically turbulent times.

Wel done, Chong Wei!