My favorite mamak stall in Petaling Jaya is the Original Kayu Nasi Kandar, hands-down. The two branches I frequent are at ss2 (cheow yang) and Aman Suria.
Kayu @ ss2
Here is a brief introduction of Nasi Kandar written on Kayu's website:
Nasi Kandar had its humble origins in Penang Island, one of Malaysia’s key tourist islands up North. What does ‘Nasi Kandar’ mean? ‘Nasi’ means rice in Malay while ‘Kandar’ refers to a formidable stick that is slung across one’s shoulder to carry heavy objects securely hung on both ends of the stick. Nasi kandar was therefore coined to lend meaning to the way in which this local range of delightful Malaysian curry options was sold in the villages since time immemorial.
Over the years, Nasi Kandar has evolved into a far more exciting variety of dishes and has gained so much popularity that Nasi Kandar restaurants may today be found all over Malaysia, albeit, not all such restaurants have had their origins in penang….but as the saying goes ‘Copying is the best form of flattery’!
Drool-worthy Maggi Goreng (Goreng means "fried")
Other than the nasi kandar and rotis (which deserves an entry on its own some other time), the perfect supper (or breakfast even) for me is the Maggi Goreng. Essentially, Maggi Goreng is just fried Maggi (a brand) instant noodles with eggs and veggies, garnished with lime.
When ordering Maggi Goreng in Malaysia, it is also good to remind them to go easy on the salt -- "kurang masin" (kurang - less, masin - salty) if you'd like to prevent your tongue from becoming dysfunctional before the age of 30.
*Maggi Goreng is available in all Malaysian mamak stalls.
The Slow Chopper is currently back in Malaysia and has forgotten the meaning of "hunger" due to a continuous supply of food in the Kuala Lumpur office. For two days in a row, the Slow Chopper has feasted on the perfect Malaysian breakfast food (otherwise known by the Slow Chopper's father as the perfect recipe for a cardiac arrest) that comes wrapped in newspaper, banana leaf or brown wax paper.
Ahh, joy in a packet
Nasi Lemak (literal translation: rice in cream) is considered a national heritage. When most Malaysians abroad are asked the inevitable question of, "Can you tell me the name of Malaysia's signature dish?", Nasi Lemak would be the default answer.
You can easily find packet Nasi Lemaks on the streets or at Mamak stalls. They used to cost about RM1 but "fancy" Malaysian cafes planted in every obscure corner in Malaysian malls nowadays sell them for more than RM2.
Ta-dah. Yum.
The nasi lemak pictured above is not a complete version, much to my chagrin. A traditional nasi lemak has:
Rice cooked in coconut milk + cucumbers + roasted peanuts + deep fried anchovies + hard-boiled egg (some people replace this with a tiny square piece of fried egg to reduce cost. cheapo) + sambal (traditional Malaysian chilli paste that is oh-so-tasty).
When in restaurants, nasi lemak comes on a plate and you would usually get chicken curry or beef rendang (beef stewed in coconut milk and spices) with it.
Cooking for a small 4-person family, this was The Slow Chopper's mother's basic outline for every meal: 1. Veggie/Greens 2. Meat 3. Soup (occasionally) 4. "The In-between dish"
"The In-between dish", as I call it, is neither meat nor greens. To my mother (and thus, by inheritance, me as well), the following foods would qualify in this category: eggs, tofu, potatoes and.......... that's actually about it.
As kids, my brother and I were easily appeased with just fried eggs seasoned with a splash of soy sauce and a dash of pepper. Come to think of it, when I was living with him in NJ, the traditional Ooi family-styled eggs was still the crowd favourite without fail.
Recently, I've been suffering from a lack of creativity when it comes to preparing "The In-between Dish", not to mention that since eggs have disappeared from our dinner menu (because we love eating eggs for breakfast), we (or just me, actually. Since The Camel doesn't hold the same principle in preparing his meals) have been left with only potatoes and tofu. A further disappointment came when my two attempts at making Hunan-styled potato strips 土豆丝 (previously successful in NJ) failed miserably.
Hence, all efforts were channeled to making tofu dishes.
One afternoon during lunch, as my colleagues chirpily devoured their food and yakked away, discussing the woes of our industry, I focused all my attention on this one dish on the table -- stir-fried dried tofu in a wok. I picked through the various ingredients, contemplated the flavours, and plotted a recipe in my head.
Two days later, The Camel gave me the thumbs-up. When we had our vegetarian friends over for dinner, I prepared this dish as well and removed the pork. They liked it too.
Yay! Ingredients: 1. Garlic 2. Red Onion (cut into strips) 3. Ginger (cut into strips) 4. Dried red chillis (remove seeds) 5. Fresh red chillis (remove seeds and chopped) 6. Leek （both white and green parts, chopped) 7. Fermented black beans 豆豉 8. Soy sauce 9. Drief tofu 豆干 (ideally those that are browned/smoked on the outside) 10. Optional - pork belly 五花肉
*p.s. I apologize for not providing the proper measurements for the ingredients. My mother was a strong advocate of the "cooking by gut feeling" school of thought. 1. Heat the wok thoroughly. Add a reasonable amount of vegetable oil (depends on how much oil you like your food to be soaked in). 2. Add garlic, red onion, ginger, dried chilli and the white parts of the leek. Keep the flame low to avoid burning the garlic. Stir to ensure that the flavours are completely soaked in the oil. 3. Add pork belly. 4. Add dried tofu. Stir well. 5. Add fermented black beans. If the beans are clumped together, make sure you crush them well and mix them evenly with all the other ingredients. 6. Add only a small amount of soy sauce since the fermented black beans are already rather salty. 7. At the end, add in the fresh red chillis and green parts of the leek. Stir for about 10 seconds before turning the flame off. Serve hot. Enjoy.
As most of you, dear readers, know, the Camel and the Slow Chopper were united by food since near the beginning.Inspired by Joel Salatin-- the farmer who made “pastured-poultry” famous-- the Camel raised a flock of chickens back in summer of ‘07.At the same time, the Slow Chopper was raising tomatoes on her porch by the Hudson River. Even after moving to China, we’ve maintained an herb garden on the sun-porch and attempted growing a few vegetables.
Wosun stalks (center) for sale at the Tuanjiehu Vegetable Market (Beijing, China)
Despite the pleasure of basil topped salads and unlimited source material for bouquet garni, gardening on the 15th floor does not supplant the excitement and surprises of a trip to the farmer’s market.Each weekend, we fetch our bikes from the basement garage, and pedal down tree-shaded bike lanes to the closest neighborhood center, Tuanjiehu.As we bike in, we pass under the metal gate stating, “Welcome to Tuanjiehu” and “Model Community Culture Award - 1992”. Along the way, we pass numerous small shops, for clothes, snacks, real-estate, lawyers, and even a Xinjiang specialty products store.The sidewalks are clean and the gardens are well kept.At the first four-way intersection, there is a full-service commercial center— a supermarket, the wet market, a post office, some banks, and a bookstore. It’s all kept up rather nicely.As we pull off the main street and up to the market, we lock-up the bikes near the bakery and make our way in.
The quantity of produce and number of stalls are quite overwhelming.About 150 feet long, the market has two entrances, one on either end.Both doors are marked by the scent of fried snack foods and the wafts of freshly pressed soy milk.On the left are 20 stalls of vegetable sellers—mounds of green with patches of color.On the right are 6 or so fruit stalls, twice the length of the vegetable ones, bathed floor too ceiling in the warm citrus hues of yellow, orange, and red. Each stall has a decent selection, no stall having everything.We have our favorite stops along the route, sometimes because they are friendlier, giving us discounts for loyalty, or because they recognize us and our adventuresome streak, pointing out the arrival of new exotics.In addition, there are grain sellers, butchers, prepared foods, a tailor, and a complaints booth—to keep ‘em honest.
Each veggie seller has a wide selection of produce.We’ve seen all types of beans.Long and short.Wide and thin.Plump and taught.Leafy greens are of particular abundance, no less than 5-7 varieties for sale amongst each purveyor’s spread. Over the summer, tomatoes and cucumbers have formed small mountains, bookending the produce and delineating boundaries between each stall. To the disappointment of the likes of Barbara Kingsolver, there are Japanese asparagus available year-round, only 3RMB per bundle.Just like the Peruvian in America, the Japanese asparagus comes bound in a purple rubber band, indicating country of origin.
The fruit choices, even more flashy than the veg, are always changing with the seasons.Right now, peaches are plentiful.The domestic peaches, all 5 varieties, are currently only 10rmb per 3 jin which is roughly 1.25 USD per 3.1 pounds (a jin 斤 is commonly known in the English as a catty; one catty is just over one pound and equivalent to 500g).Mangosteens just hit the market at 15RMB per catty and dates are going for 12RMB at the same quantity.The first tangerines, although green, hit shelves this past week going for just over 1RMB per catty as a promotional item in nearby supermarkets. Out of season and import fruits are available.Pining for a Washington apple refrigerated for 10 months?Want a Sunkist label on your orange?Bananas from the Philippines?There are always imported fruits available at 5 times the cost of domestic, seasonal varieties.
Despite our familiarity with “Chinese” vegetables such as water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, and bean sprouts, the farmer’s market vendors continue to surprise us.Back in the spring, we came across a “wild vegetable” called Horse Tooth 马齿菜, that went nicely in a variety of salads.A more recent discovery was the jiaobai, the root and stem of wild rice, endemic to Northern China.It makes for a nice addition to stir fries.Needless to say, these Saturday morning market runs have become somewhat of a ritual.The new fruits and vegetables are the addictive element that keep us coming back.
The most recent highlight was not so much a discovery, but rather our first attempt with an unfamiliar vegetable: wosun.Wosun (Chinese: 莴笋; pinyin: wōsŭn) goes by celtuce in English speaking countries, but is often called stem lettuce, celery lettuce or asparagus lettuce.Lettuce, conjures up images of salad and moist, wavy leaves; yet, wosun is prized for its thick, crunchy stem.About the length of one’s forearm and thicker than a carrot, wosun is easily distinguished from any of its cousins.Once stripped of its tough outer layer and its leaves, the stem can be processed into discs or strips, making a tasty salad or used as a base in stir-fries.Below are instructions on how to make a simple side dish, best served cold.
Simple Mustard-Sesame Wosun Salad
Wosun
Dried goji (gouqi)berries (8-16, for garnish)
Dijon mustard
Sesame oil
Remove the wosun’s tough skin, cut into thin 1-inch strips.Take some salt and cover the strips, letting them sit for 30 minutes (to remove excess water). Thoroughly rinse the salt and brine off the wosun and set aside.
Boil water, blanch the goji berries to rehydrate, 30 seconds to 1 minute.Remove and rinse in cold water to prevent over-cooking the berries.
Mix sesame oil and mustard together (3:1, adjust proportion and sauce amount to taste, like one would with a salad dressing).Mix with the rinsed wosun in a bowl and top with the goji berries.
Please? Pretty please? With a goji berry on top?
Meditations on experimentation:
Experiment with various mustard types, even wasabi.Also, consider topping with more flavorful garnishes such as cilantro or fry some black peppers or prickly ash in oil (huajia, majiao) to replace the sesame oil. Another option would be to add a small amount of white vinegar or a fruit based vinegar to the mustard and oil mixture (apple, wine, etc), thus making a vinaigrette.
Night markets, or as fondly referred to by Malaysians -- pasar malam (literally: market night), are one of my favourite things in the world.
As noted on the entry title, I will post two photo entries on the markets: 1. The Thursday night Cheow Yang pasar malam 2. The Kaifeng （开封) night market in Henan Province during our spring trip there earlier this year
This is the first entry of the two-part series. Enjoy. =)
Cheow Yang Pasar Malam
Growing up in Petaling Jaya, I lived close to three main pasar malams (my niece adorably calls them "pasar LaMams"). In Malaysia, "Truly Asia", different night markets are usually catered to different ethnic groups -- Malay, Chinese or Indian. This usually meant that the stall owners and the types of food vary, and so do the groups of people who flock there.
With my family, the three night markets we frequented were catered to the Chinese audience though many of my friends of different ethnicities love to visit the more Malay-targeted markets in Taman Tun and Bangsar. I'd love to eventually make it out to a Ramadhan-special market. During the Muslims' fasting month, more night markets would spring up around the city to cater for their feasts after a day of fasting. I've heard that the selection of food is amazing.
The pictures below were taken at the Cheow Yang pasar malam, which is my favourite of the three closest to where my family lives.
A fruit seller. In the picture, you can see mangosteens, mangoes and longans.
Streets are usually closed off the entire night for these markets.
Muachi - Mini flour balls rolled up in crushed peanuts, sesame seeds and sugar.
Cai Kueh - Vegetables and dried mini shrimp in a translucent, chewy skin with chilli sauce
One of my favourite pasar malam foods -- peanut pancake, otherwise known as "Bang Chang Kueh" to Penang Hokkiens. They usually sprinkle a generous amount of peauts and sugar, with a little bit of Planta Margarine. This is the thicker version.
The thinner version -- in addition to the regular sugar and peanut, the vendors sometimes add corn or dried coconut flakes too
Crackers and tidbits
Underwear too
Air Tebu - Fresh sugar cane juice
Pasar malam buddies -- Jason and Sue-ann, my high school friends.
Lok-lok, also known as 麻辣烫 (ma la tang) in China. Mobile hotpot/steamboat. I've never tried it because of hygiene reasons.
Chopping up some nangka, a tropical fruit
Colorful cakes that are sometimes less than tasty
And of course, tau foo fah and tau cheong -- soft tofu in brown sugar/white sugar syrup or fresh soybean milk. You can find these in dim sum restaurants overseas as well.
I have spent 18 months in Beijing without the most essential piece of Chinese cookware— not to mention all the years prior to China--, but on June 10, The Slow Chopper rectified my wokless condition. On my birthday, I received, among other things, a flat bottom, steel wok.
Over the past couple months, the Wokless Nomads have been experimenting with our new toy, but before we share our experiences with “wokful” cooking, I’d like to post a couple of things I learned about woks along the way.
Purchasing a Wok: “Do”s and “Don’t”s
The Slow Chopper picked out a flat bottom, steel wok. Traditionally, woks have a round bottom as to sit snuggly on the round mouth of an open-pit stove. Using this style stove and wok, the bottom of the wok maintains a high heat while the sides heat slower, allowing for a different style of cooking. Using a flat bottom wok is ideal for the typical gas range (also appropriate for use on an electric range, although stir-frying on an electric element is an exercise in folly). If your gas range has a circular wok-ring that can replace the existing grates, then a round-bottom wok can be considered. Nevertheless, we have had good results with the flat bottom wok—it heats quickly and the heat is evenly distributed.
If you are cooking on an electric range, be forewarned, electric elements do not produce heat quickly enough to maintain a high stir-frying heat. You can still braise, boil, deep fry, steam and stew—but you will not be able to achieve the characteristic stir-fry flavor produced over flame.
Another warning, some woks are sold with Teflon non-stick coatings. These woks should be avoided for health reasons. Given the high temperatures required by stir-frying and Teflon’s tendency to degrade at temperatures around 450F, a cast iron, steel, or carbon steel wok should be selected.
Seasoning your Wok
With our steel wok, we used the stove top seasoning method. Some others have used an oven to heat their wok. Caution: this will make your kitchen (and home if you don’t close the doors and open some windows) smell like a fast-food restaurant.
Materials:
Wok Gas range Clean scrap cloths Pig fat, lard, or high-temperature cooking oil
1st – Clean the wok using hot water, a sponge, and soap. This will be the last time your wok will come into contact with soap, so for those of you who find the idea of never again using soap to clean your wok, make it special. Also, feel free to use a piece of steel wool to scrub off any residue left from the manufacturers. Wipe the wok dry and then heat over low heat to boil away any remaining moisture.
After cooling to room temperature, the wok has a copper colored sheen. A slight sweat of oil comes from the pores as they close.
2nd – Turn your stove burner to high and heat the wok. This high heat will open the pores within the steel. You might hear some faint tinkling or clanking coming from within the steel (we did). The goal is to heat the wok metal to around 450F, so as to open the pores and remain open after coming into contact with room temperature pork fat or cooking oil.
3rd - At this point, turn off the gas and grab a piece of pig fat (or cooking oil). Take the fat and, wrapping your hand in a rag or cloth, rub the fat across all up-facing surfaces. (Note: some methods call for cooking oil, but our Beijing friends recommend using pig fat). Because you heated the wok high enough to open the pores in its surface, the fat will lodge itself in giving your wok a homemade non-stick coating.
4th – Take another clean rag and rub the oil evenly across all the up-facing surfaces to ensure an even coating of oil.
5th – Let the wok cool to room temperature. This process will allow the pores to close and the oil to settle in. Once it has cooled, repeat the procedure 5-10 times, until your wok has a golden-brown shimmer.
Note: Seasoning can be done over multiple days, although if you have 5 hours to set aside at home one day, you could potentially start in the morning and be stir-frying by dinner.
Caring for your Wok
Seeing as you’ve been brainwashed by the public health workers to associate soap with cleanliness, I cannot emphasize enough: DO NOT use soap to clean your wok. Unlike the non-stick coating of Teflon pans, which are vulnerable to high heats, the Achilles-heel of your homemade non-stick coating is soap. Think of your wok as a pockmarked, oily teenage face, thousand of pores clogged with oil. Now imagine how useful Clearasil would be for helping that poor child.
Got it? Exactly. If you use soap, you will remove all that oil, effectively unclogging your wok’s pores and thus remove its non-stick coat.
To clean your wok properly, you will need a brush or scrubber of some kind (bamboo whisks are common in Beijing) and steel wool. After using your wok to stir-fry, take the bamboo whisk and scrub it to remove any larger items that would get stuck in steel wool. Then, take the steel wool and scrub the remaining, if any, harder to remove residues left from cooking. For those of you as fastidious as Howard Hughes in your bent for cleanliness and sanitation, feel free to fill your wok with water and bring it to a boil. The 212F of boiling water will not open the pores enough to remove significant amounts of oil.
Post Script
With every meal you prepare, new flavors will infuse your wok's oil coat. You can reseason your wok if it ever begins to lose its non-stick properties, but, that said, in two months of use, we have yet to season our wok a second time. Every time you stir-fry is a minor seasoning, especially if you first heat your wok before adding oil. The key is to heat the metal higher than the smoke point of your oil. If you first heat your wok in this way, the oil will naturally enter the pores and you will successfully maintain the non-stick coat on your wok.
I made “Linguine with Lemon, Garlic and Thyme Mushrooms” for dinner last night, which is a simple and quick recipe I got from Nigella Lawson’s website.
Ingredients:
Olive oil
Mushrooms
Linguine
Garlic
Thyme
Parlsey
Lemon
Salt
Pepper
Parmesan
This was the method recommended by Nigella:
1. Slice the mushrooms finely, and put in a large bowl with the oil, salt, crushed garlic, lemon juice and zest, and marvelously scented thyme leaves.
2. Cook the pasta according to packet instructions and drain loosely, retaining some water. Quickly put the drained pasta into the bowl with the mushroom mixture.
3. Toss everything together well, then add the chopped parsley, grated cheese and pepper to taste, before tossing again, and eat with joy in your heart.
Well, I’m not a big fan of raw mushrooms, so I improvised on the recipe:
1.Sautéed garlic in olive oil over low heat (important! So as to not brown the garlic too quickly).
2.After about 5 seconds, add mushrooms to the pan (because the garlic was finely minced, it would’ve browned quickly on its own).
3.Add more olive oil accordingly (this was based on my observation that the mushrooms I used soaked up the oil almost immediately and the pan was left dry)
4.Sprinkle thyme onto the mushrooms. Continue to sautéed.
5.Add noodles to the pan (assuming that noodles have been cooked separately before) and toss everything together.
6.Add finely chopped parsley to the noodles.
7.When done, add salt and pepper to taste.
8.Squirt some lemon juice for a tangy effect.
9.Serve the noodles and grate parmesan at the dinner table just coz I think it’s more fun that way.
Well, we forgot to take a picture since it was a late dinner and I was already too hungry from my jog. So here is a picture from Nigella’s site.
Kayu @ ss2
Drool-worthy Maggi Goreng (Goreng means "fried")
