Kailan (chinese broccoli) in oyster sauce

Hello breadwinners and househusbands!

This week's entry is not a really big cost saving dish, but it is a great dish to have up you sleeve if you want a delicious restaurant style vegetable dish to eat at home.

I've tried many versions of this dish and i normally eat it as a side to a plate of hainanese chicken rice. A fair bit of warning though, this dish is slightly on the salty side, so you need to be a bit careful with the measurements and not go over the top with seasonings.

Kai-lan or chinese broccoli is a great vegetable for its nutritional value and flavor. It is slightly on the bitter side, so you'd normally see it paired with salty components like salted fish or oyster sauce. The malays (or thai) often cooks it with salted preserved mackerel (tenggiri masin) but i prefer this version better.

Begin by preparing your ingredients as follows:-

A bunch of kailan

Oyster sauce ( i use adabi)

1 large clove of garlic sliced thinly

1 teaspoon of roasted garlic flakes (optional but makes a big difference in flavour)

1. Cut off the stems of the kailan and peel away the tough outer layer (about 1-2 mm). Cut them into bite size pieces. I usually leave the leaves whole unless they're too big. If you are cooking the hong kong kailan variety (pricey) then the stems are tender enough to be left whole.

2. In a wok, heat up some water and add a pinch of sugar and a few drops of oil. Begin by cooking the stems in hot water until they are tender. Then drop in the leaves and cook them for about 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and arrange on a plate.

3. Heat some vegetable oil on low heat and fry the garlic slices. Keep an eye on them because they burn quick.

4. Add the oyster sauce. Depending on how much kailan you have, i would say 4-5 tbs should do it. You're not making a sauce, more like a dressing. Add some water (about quarter cup) and allow the mixture to thicken

5. Add about 2 tbsp of sesame oil and the garlic flakes to the mixture and turn off the heat

6. Pour the mixture onto the begetables and serve immediately for awesomeness

That's it! Easy right? Now this dish can go between RM10-15 for this amount of veg. I reckon i spent less than RM4 on the whole thing, even accounting for the pantry stuff. So if you're looking for a great and fresh veg dish, you can't go wrong with this one!

On Vacation! and time for some coffee

Dear manly men!

I haven't updated for quite a while; mainly because I'm on a Christmas break and haven't done much experimenting. I've been spending a lot of time in Sibu, Sarawak with the in-laws and chilling. But I would like to make a quick entry to let you guys know of a little gem I found at IKEA.

I've always wanted cafe quality coffee that I can enjoy at home on a regular basis, but there are a lot of expenses to consider: namely an espresso machine and those can go into the thousands. They take up space, they are difficult to use and need regular cleaning and maintenance. In any case you'd probably use it once or twice and then forget about it as it collects dust in the corner of your kitchen. Another alternative is the drip coffee machine. A brilliant concept, and you probably have it somewhere in your house. Trust me, someone would have given it to you for Christmas, or at your wedding. I believe the same coffee machine has made its way through countless matrimonies without ever being taken out of its box. The idea of the drip coffee machine (henceforth shall be known as coffee machine) is that it boils the water and the resulting pressure from the steam pushes the hot water up into the filter and it slowly drips into a jug below. But this machine suffers from the same problems like the espresso machine. It takes time to set up, designed to make coffee for more than one person, needs you to grind / buy ground coffee, and the washing up. If you don't have a big household and you just want a single cuppa to yourself, this is way too much.

So, what's your other alternatives? You can look to the different varieties available out there in the form of 3 in 1 coffees, white coffee, 2 in 1, 1 in 1 and what have you. But both you and I know that these reconstituted flavoured milk powder sachets do not satisfy the soul.

So I was at IKEA the other day and wife said she wanted to check out the Christmas cookies she said they were selling. So I got a chance to browse the little section they have next to the curry puff dispensary. IKEA sells reasonably priced foods to add value to furniture shopping. You're not really buying oddly named chairs, you're buying an experience. I used to enjoy going there and abuse the refillable coffee; until they stopped doing that. Because obviously it was silly. However, I found out that IKEA sells these instant ground coffee sachets similar to tea bags. Here's a picture of the product:

You can see the coffee 'pod' in the mug. Just pour hot water and add sugar to taste, and you have a very nice long black. I have not experimented in creating a latte, but I do believe that hot milk with the pouch steeping in it would do the trick. The only thing missing is the foamy texture of freshly pressed coffee that you would get from an espresso machine. But here's the catch, the price of this thing is ridiculous. It is about RM18.99 for 36 sachets - which makes it approximately RM0.50 per pod. 50 cent per pod!!! Just let that sink in. The quality of the coffee you are getting is similar to a long black at your favourite watering hole and those would cost up to RM4-5 per cup. So I really urge everyone to give it a try because if all else is not to your satisfaction, it is freakin 50 cents a cup. You can't even get a coffee this good and this cheap at your local mamak. I plan to get another pack for the office, so that I can do a Ron Swanson walk around the place with a mug in hand. Eat good and eat smart folks!

Nando's peri peri chicken with two sides

Hello home makers!

This entry's addition is another great example of how inflated the cost of dining out has become. Nando's is a personal favourite of mine ever since it first started serving fiery hot grilled chicken to Malaysian poultry lovers over ten years ago. I think Nando's struck a chord with most Malaysians because of its unapologetic use of heat and spice in mainstream fast food cuisines. Back then we were getting more and more used to a host of bland and traditional grilled chicken fast food establishments like Kenny Rogers and Dave's Deli. The chicken was good, but it was getting a bit tired and boring. Along came the Portuguese champ and totally changed the way we felt about grilled chicken.

Unfortunately, I have been very disappointed with the chain for the last couple of years. The quality of food from one chain to the next is surprisingly inconsistent. Often do I have complaints about the little things, like being served stale grilled vegetables that tasted off; ice lemon tea that tasted strongly of chlorine, and dry small pieces of quarter chicken. Recently the restaurant had also revised its menu and raised prices substantially, putting the quarter chicken with 2 sides at around RM17 before taxes. So realistically you are looking at close to RM25 per person after taxes. Some may say that this price is reasonable; but I would need to see a substantial improvement in food quality if I were going to pay that much for grilled chicken.

Nando's chicken recipes rely a lot on the use of the peri peri chilli pepper, which proves a slight problem. I do not have access to this pepper, and I can't even substitute it accurately because technically I've never even tasted it pre-sauced. But looking at the pictures on the internet, I've noticed a lot of similarities between this pepper and those of our own; the notorious cili padi, or bird's eye chillies.

Peri-peri hot

Browsing the internet, I found a couple of recipes of making the sauce and because I was going to have guests, I was looking for something less spicy than the original one. So the main characteristics of the sauce are tangy and heat. So my acid component will come from white vinegar and the juice of two lemons, while the heat will come from a combination of 6 bird's eye chillies and 1 capsicum. Colour is added through sweet smoked paprika and onions. Here's how I made it:-

1 whole onion
5 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon paprika
juice of 2 lemons
1 red bell pepper / capsicum
6 bird's eye chili
white vinegar (1/2 cup)
olive oil

i) blend all the ingredients until smooth and slowly add the oil to reach the consistency of sauce.
ii) I do believe that the original sauce would probably require some sort of fermentation to occur, like the process of making most hot sauce - but I neither have the time not the patience. Either way, I'm only using it as a basting sauce, not dipping.

We were having people over so I got 2 reasonably sized chicken at exactly RM10.99 a bird. Even before I started, I am already saving a ton of money. The groceries bill came to about RM50++ but I have to take into account that I was shopping at a posh supermarket (it was convenient to go there) and I bought more than I needed. So I would estimate that with the chicken, it cost me roughly RM35 to prepare everything. The most costly ingredient after the chicken would be the olive oil, which you need a lot of.

The method I will be using to prepare the chicken is through basting, as I feel it would be the best way to keep the chicken moist and not burn anything in the process. A lot of the recipes ask for a marination process with the sauce itself overnight; but I know from experience that marination changes the texture of chicken and makes it less juicy (depending on what you put in the marinade). Furthermore, I only had about 3 hours to get everything ready, so not an option. I went for a quick brine method instead with a cup of salt and a cup of brown sugar. In hindsight, my chicken would taste far better if I had left it in the brine longer than 2 hours. Well, at least it wasn't salty.

Submergeficiationing.

So the basting method requires that I hot sear the chicken (butteflied) on the hot side of the grill and then moving it to indirect heat to cook under the hood for a long low and slow. You can achieve a similar result by browning the chicken in a hot pan and moving it into an oven. My grill temperature was about 350f.

Start searing with the skin up so that you won't have flare ups too early. Flare ups are caused by the fat from the skin dripping onto the hot coals.

Using a brush, brush on a generous layer of the sauce on top of the seared chicken. Cover the grill to create an oven-like environment. Cooking the chicken at a low heat stop it from drying out. It will take longer though, so start early before your guests arrive.

Aim for an internal temperature of about 165 Fahrenheit. That should ensure your chicken is safe to be consumed.

Another brush of the sauce and you're ready to eat! Taste wise, it is pretty close, maybe lacking a bit of tang due to the fermentation process, and I think capsicum is not the way to go. It is still very good chicken though. With two sides of potatoes and salad total cost = RM35-40. Serves 8. Savings of almost 75%!

Chinese Steamed Fish (Senangin / Four-Fingered Threadfin)

Hello husbands!

For my first attempt at replicating restaurant cuisines, I am going to go with a very popular family dinner dish offered at the various Seafood Restaurants in Malaysia and hotels during Chinese weddings. I love Chinese Steamed Fish as it is a great way to highlight the freshness and the natural sweetness of the fish without affecting it's delicate texture. It also looks great on the table. Ticks all the boxes for a main course.

A couple of weeks ago I went to a nearby well known seafood restaurant for dinner. The bill for both my wife and I came to about RM180.00 which was more than I was prepared to fork out for a regular dinner. I went through the bill and everything seemed to be in order except to my surprise, the steamed fish we ordered cost us RM90.00!

The problem with going to seafood restaurants is that at some point you know you are going to have to break the bank when you order something without a price on the menu. The fish was senangin (Four fingered Threadfin) and it was sold at RM12 per 100g. So I suppose my piece of fish was about 750g. (yeah, sure thing uncle! I bet it lost some weight during the cooking process!) It was delicious but I think I could easily make my own at a fraction of the price; a very small fraction.

So we begin with some shopping! The wife, the daughter and I went to the nearby market (#occupypasar) to source for senangin. Senangin is a pretty popular fish in Malaysia and is regularly available.

Bad ass fish. Often misunderstood

 I was actually hoping to get my favourite fish, the sea siakap Australian Seabass (not farmed) but my regular fishmonger did not bring it in. With the monsoon hitting the East coast, we can expect fish prices to go up and some species not being available. So the senangins were going at RM22-26 per kilo and I grabbed one which was about 600g for RM12. A bit far from my target of 750g, but there will only be the two of us eating. Then I got some of the staple steamed fish ingredients; coriander leaves, spring onions, light soy sauce and sesame oil. My recipe requires peanut oil but I don't have further use of peanut oil which meant we're sticking with good old palm oil (Malaysia boleh!)

Dhea and mummy at the market!

Got home and spent some time leveling my Paladin (Level 44 woot!) and now to cooking (please ignore the inconsistencies in tenses). 

1. Clean the fish, pat dry and rubbed it with some salt and white pepper.

2. Slice some ginger extremely thin and some garlic (cuz we lerv a bit o garlic) - enough to cover one side of the fish

3. Stuff some sliced ginger into the cavity of the fish

4. Slice some spring onions and insert some into the cavity as well

That is one badass looking healthily cooked fish

5. I used a metal steamer to steam the fish and placed it in a pan that will collect its juices (dem gingery fishy goodness!)

6. Steam that fish!! I can't remember for how long, but it was probably about 20 minutes. Don't worry, you're steaming, nothing can go wrong! over steam pwns under steam

7. Take the fish out onto a nice oval plate (Yes, you finally have a use for it). Sprinkle the rest of the spring onions. Mix some light soy, sweet soy (kicap manis) and a squeeze of quarter of a lime. I wanted the freshness of the lime to cut through the saltiness and fishiness. Pour the soy onto the fish and check the taste - it shouldn't be too salty (hopefully the steam juices would water down the soy and add some sweetness). In hindsight I would add some sugar to the juices at this stage because the one I had at the seafood restaurant had a sweetness to it.

8. Here comes the money shot; heat 3-4 table spoon of oil on a small skillet over high heat. Add about 1 tablespoon of sesame oil and wait until it starts smoking. Pour the hot oil over the fish and hear dat sizzle! okay I'll do it for you, zsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhh.....

9. Garnish with... Wait, what am I talking about, coriander is bad ass! it is no garnish! carpet bomb dat ting!!

Yes, I did go overboard with the coriander.. but it's coriander leaves man! That thing is awesome

So the wife gives it a 10/10, but I am going to go with 9/10. It's damn good for the amount of effort you need to put in, and not mentioning the cost. All in all I'd say I spent about less than RM15.00 for the whole thing. Most of the ingredients are pantry stuff like soy sauce and sesame oil. The herbs are dirt cheap as well. 

So to all the husbands looking to save some hard earned cash to buy that next gen console, This is how you have a fish dinner at less than 20% of restaurant prices. And we're not talking air conditioned, fish swimming in the aquarium restaurants either. Only eat there if the boss is buying. 

I SAY GOOD DAY