Stir Fry Long Bean and Chicken

Yesterday, Hub bought a bunch of long beans. I am so so so terrified of snake even if it is an image of a snake in books or on TV. So I don’t really like to cook long beans. But whenever I have to cook them, I would get my son to cut it for me.

Buy the one that have no black spots, flexible but not limp and do not look dry. I am thinking of growing them when we move to our new house in Tuaran in June. Yes, we're moving again! After spending 5 years in Kota Kinabalu, we've decided it's time for us to pull up our roots and to take the next step. A decision that was not easy to make.

When we moved to Kota Kinabalu five years ago, our plan was to stay here for just one or two years then move back to Kuala Lumpur. But one year became more than five as we got comfortable in Kota Kinabalu. My daughter is not excited about moving there though.  

I will be sure to document our whole moving experience. I’ll miss living in Kota Kinabalu dearly since it has been home to us for so many years but this is not a goodbye as I’ll still be working here and my daughter will still be attending the same school. 1 hour commute to work and school! My current commute is about 10 minutes by car as my workplace is about 10 miles away from where I live. At my old job we had a girl who commuted three hours both ways. 

If it's all highway then I guess an hour is no big deal but inching through heavy traffic for an hour, I don’t know……

Stir Fry Long Bean and Chicken

Ingredients

½ skinless and boneless chicken breast - cut into strips
5 slices of ginger - cut into thin strips
1 teaspoon oyster sauce
1½ teaspoon dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon palm sugar / sugar

1 tbsp fermented soy beans

10 pieces of long beans – cut into 1½ -inch length
4 tablespoons cooking oil
1 clove garlic – peeled and chopped

5 tbsp water
½ tsp light soy sauce

Directions

Heat up 2 tbsp of cooking oil in a wok and sauté the ginger strips until aromatic. Add in the long bean and light soy sauce. Stir fry for about 30 second. Add 3 tbsp of water, do a few quick stirs then cover the wok. Cook for 1 minute or until the long beans is half cooked. Dish out.

Heat up another 2 tbsp of cooking oil in the same wok and sauté the garlic until aromatic. Add the chicken strips and the fermented soy bean. Stir-fry until the meat is fully cooked.

Season with oyster sauce, sweet soy sauce and palm sugar. Stir and toss all ingredients together then add in about 2 tbsp of water. Stir and cook until the sauce is thickened then dish out and serve hot with steamed rice.

Simple Pandan Chicken (Chicken Wrapped in Screwpine Leaves)

I just love everything with pandan. This is my favourite way of cooking chicken. Moist and tender. I prefer to enjoy this thai inspired dish without any dip. Quite an easy dish to prepare and the only arduous work is wrapping the chicken one by one. It doesn’t matter how you wrap the chicken actually, just cover most of it.

Simple Pandan Chicken (Chicken Wrapped in Screwpine Leaves)

Ingredients

600 gm boneless chicken 

2 tsp turmeric powder

2 tsp fennel powder

2 tsp chili powder

2 tbsp oyster sauce

½ tsp salt / fish sauce

2 tbsp sugar

4 - 5 shallots – peeled and blended

4 lemongrasses (white part only) – blended

Pandan leaves – use the broad and long pandan leaves for easy wrapping

Directions

Cut the chicken into bite pieces. Set aside.

Blend the shallots and lemongrass. Do not add too much water in the blender so that the paste will not be too runny.

Marinate the chicken with all the ingredients for 1 hour.

Wrap each piece of the chicken with pandan leaves by folding the leaf to form a pocket to hold the chicken. Then insert the tip of the leaf through the gap between the leaf and the meat to fasten the pocket. This is how I normally do it. My sister finds this method tricky and she would just roll up each chicken pieces with the leaf then fasten with a toothpick.

Deep-fry until golden brown. Drain on paper towel.

Serve.

Krill Fritters

I made Krill fritters for dinner last night. I served it with Thai chili sauce and mayonnaise. Nice and crisp on the outside, soft and warm on the inside. Huge hit with the family. I've made these several times now, and they've always turned out perfectly.

These are fantastic as afternoon snacks with tea or coffee though I grew up eating them doused liberally with tomato sauce.

Krill are tiny shrimps. Fresh krill is not always available in the market. It's the same kind that made into fermented shrimp paste, belacan. Dried krill is sold in packs in supermarkets or wet markets. Very cheap stuff but very high in protein.

Before you start, you have to pick over the krill and remove any impurities then wash and drain thoroughly in a colander.

Krill Fritters

Ingredients

2 cup all-purpose flour

½ cup fresh krill

½ cup corn

3 shallots – peeled and sliced

1 red chili – deseeded & chopped finely

1 sprig of fresh Chinese parsley leaves – chopped

1 tsp soda bicarbonate

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp white sugar

Plain water

Directions

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, soda bicarbonate, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center and gradually add the water into the flour mixture until you achieve the consistency of thick paint or cream, not too thin and not too thick. Stir gently to combine.

Use a spatula to fold in the rest of the ingredients so that it's evenly combined.

Heat oil in a heavy pot or deep fryer to 185⁰C. Drop fritter batter by spoonfuls into the hot oil, allowing room for the fritters to puff up, without sticking to each other. Turn the fritters over to ensure even browning. Fry until golden and crisp. Drain on paper towels. 

Serve hot with chili sauce or mayonnaise. 

Durian Bingka

We bought about 10kg of durian the other day during our recent trip to Tenom. Yes, we have to hurry because the durian does not wait for anyone. Durians are going to drop whenever they’re ready and it’s we who have to make the effort to get ourselves to the right place at the right time. They’re sold as cheap as RM5 per kg. Isn’t that crazy? They’re many different types of durian so you’ll need to work a little harder to judge the durians yourself in order to find a good one. After you have made your pick then don’t be scared to haggle because the vendors actually expect you to make an offer countering the price they just made up for you. Many people find haggling intimidating but not Hub.

One thing that's good about staying at the Perkasa Hotel is that I did not find those big signs on the walls with the red X through a durian. It means that they actually don’t care if you bring durians into your room or not.

After we’ve done stuffing our faces with durian, they’re still about 6kg left. So, I guess it’s time to make something with them.

Durian Bingka

Adapted from Yatiememories

Ingredients

3 whole eggs

1 cup thick coconut milk

2¼ cup water

2 cup all-purpose flour

¾ cup sugar

½ tsp salt

2 tbsp butter / margarine

1 – 1½ cup durian flesh

Egg yellow food colouring

Sesame seeds

Directions

Lightly grease a muffin tray with veg oil. Preheat oven to 200⁰C. Preheat the prepared tray in the oven while it heats up.

Blend together the eggs, coconut milk, water, flour, sugar, salt and butter / margarine until smooth.

Add in the durian flesh and a few drops of egg yellow food colouring. Continue to blend until well incorporated.

Carefully take out the prepared tray from the oven and put it on the counter. Pour the batter into the tray. Sprinkle sesame seeds over it.

Bake for 40 minutes until the top develops a lovely golden-brown hue.

Transfer onto rack to cool.

Egg Tarts

I get asked by friends why I only cook my family’s favourite foods. Well..why waste my time preparing something that nobody wants to eat. I was motivated to cook by love for my family. In this way, I also get to improve my cooking skills and nowadays I can cook almost everything for them. I am also a fussy eater. I just like to eat something with a very good taste. If the food doesn’t have a good taste then I won’t eat it. My daughter loves these egg tarts. Please excuse the quick kitchen counter photo. 

Egg Tarts

Pastry

250gm all-purpose flour

125gm salted butter – room temperature

50gm icing sugar

1 whole egg (Gr A / B)

½ tsp Vanilla essence

Fillings

4 whole eggs (Gr A / B)

¾ castor sugar

1 can evaporated milk

½ cup water

1 tbsp custard flour

½ tsp vanilla essence (clear)

A few drops of egg yellow food colouring (optional)

Directions – Pastry

Preheat the oven to 180⁰C.

Cream the butter and icing sugar together until light and pale. Beat in the eggs on low speed.

Beat in the vanilla essence. Then add the flour, a little at a time. Occasionally scraping the bowl down until the mixture comes together.  Once it is well mixed, knead the mixture to form a dough.

Take a small amount of dough then press it into the tart moulds so that it covers the bottom then continue to flatten the dough to about ½ cm thick, with your thumb, to cover the sides. Repeat with remaining dough.

Pop the empty shells in the oven for 8 minutes. Take them out and let them cool first before using.

Directions – Filling

Combine all ingredients and whisk until well combined. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve. Pour the filling into each pastry shells.

Bake for 15 minutes until the custards are set. Let cool in the pans on wire racks for 5 minutes. Then, remove the moulds, transfer the tarts to the wire racks. Serve warm.

  

Belunu or Bundu

It is the fruit heaven again in Sabah currently. Fruiting season is usually between July to September and December to January. This is when the village folk get to earn extra for selling durian, rambutan, langsat, mangosteen and jackfruit.

In this corner of the world, we call this fruit, belunu or bundu. I bought this in Tenom that day. Bought three and gave one to my sister. OMG...this is my favourite fruit!

This very hard to find and the most sought-after fruit looks like mango but tastes like soursop. It is very sweet, juicy and fleshy. This indigenous fruit is in season from December until January.

It is native to Sabah just like bambangan. We also have a few belunu trees behind my mother’s house. In fact, my village was named after this fruit.  But sadly, after an absurd family dispute a few years ago, the trees just stop to bear fruit anymore. The belunu tree can grow really tall.  Do be careful though because if you eat it too much, you might get a slight ‘kick’ out of it. We prefer to eat it when the flesh is still hard. Belunu tree is a very heavy bearer and a single tree can produce hundreds of fruits. For those who never try it, do give it a shot.

Tenom

Last weekend, I went to Farmers Market in Tenom with Hub, my children and my nephew. The small town is about 185km or about 3 hours drive from Kota Kinabalu.

It is located in the Interior Division of Sabah. Formerly known as Fort Birch during the colonial era and one of the most scenic interior locations in Sabah with the Crocker Range towering magnificently as the town’s backdrop. We bought rambutan, mangosteen and durian.

We stayed at Perkasa Hotel.  Located just 2 km away from the town and perched highly at a hill slope that overlooks the entire valley.  We’re not familiar with this town so the only way was to rely on online hotel bookings. Perkasa appeared to be the best available and the pictures displayed looked decent but when we walked into the bedroom, we didn't expect it to be so rundown.

The quilt was missing thus exposing an old wrinkled grey sheet over a blanket. The lamp shade on the night stand was old and slanting to one side. The toiletries offered in our bathroom was just a thin soap and two small sachets of shampoo. So sad to see the condition of the hotel.

The next day, we visited the Sabah Agricultural Park which is formerly known as Lagud Sebrang Agriculture Research Station, some 14 km from the town. 

The park is not so difficult to locate as there’re lots of signboards along the road. It’s extremely huge with many parks scattered around the land. 

To go from parks to parks, there will be a tram ride to bring you around. But if you plan to walk instead of taking the tram ride, do pack along umbrellas, drinking water and mosquito repellent. The landscape is fantastic. 

We spent some good 2 hours enjoying the flower gardens, vegetable and herb garden. The whole walkabout will take you about 6 hours if you want to see all. The park is very well kept. Overall, it’s definitely a great environment to get away from the city.

Pumpkin Bingka

I am not a fan of pumpkin but my daughter loves it so much especially sayur manis and pumpkin in coconut milk stew, as she called it. Sayur manis is native to Sabah and it is regularly labelled as 'Sabah Veg'. 

Baking with pumpkin can be as easy as going to the grocery store and buying a can of pumpkin purée. In this part of the world, pumpkin is very cheap. 

There are lots of yummy ways to use this veg. Try this quick and easy pumpkin recipe for your next family get-together. All these ingredients are things you already have in your kitchen like coconut milk, eggs, flour, sugar, ghee etc. This traditional cake is soft, chewy and fragrant.

I cannot believe how great this cake turned out! 

Pumpkin Bingka

Ingredients

300gm pumpkin – cubed, boiled until soft and pureed

200ml thick coconut milk (diluted with ½ cup water)

2½ cups all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

300ml water

3 pcs of pandan leaves - washed

3 tbsp ghee

2 whole eggs  

½ tsp salt

Directions

Lightly grease a 10-inch pan with veg oil. Preheat oven to 200⁰C. Preheat the prepared pan in the oven while it heats up.

In a small sauce pan, heat the coconut milk and ghee over medium heat just until bubbles form around the edge and steam begins to rise from the coconut milk. Leave to cool.

Use a pair of scissors and cut the pandan leaves around 2cm length into the blender. Blend the pandan leaves with 300ml water. Pour the pandan pulp through a fine strainer. Use the back of a spoon to press on the pulp to get the juice out. Set aside.

Blend together the eggs, the pandan juice, sugar and half of the flour.

Add in the coconut milk mixture, salt and the remaining flour. Beat until well blended.

Carefully (because you could burn yourself, wear oven mittens as the oven would be really hot by this time) take out the prepared pan from the oven and put it on your counter. Pour the batter into the pan. At this point, you can also sprinkle sesame seeds over it.

Bake for 1 and a half hour until the top develops a lovely golden-brown hue.

Transfer onto rack to cool.