It is mind boggling the variety of fried rice dishes out there. With rice as the main actor, it is left to the imagination of the chef to add the supporting acts to create a fried rice dish. One of my favourite fried rice dish is the Prawn Fried Rice. The prawns give the fried rice a nice seafood flavour and comes with a natural sweetness which cannot be substituted with the use of any form of seasoning.

For this fried rice dish, it is important to use the freshest prawns you can get for otherwise, you will get a “fishy” smell and will probably attract flies instead. Get prawns the size of about 2 inches in length (before shelling). Shell the prawns and cut them into smaller cubes. That is my preference anyway. You can leave it whole if you want… especially if you want to impress your guests with bigger looking prawns

This is my recipe for Prawn Fried Rice Read the rest of this entry »

Chinese New Year is approaching. It has become more or less a custom for every Chinese New Year that we will have the white cabbage (some call chinese cabbage) soup for new year’s eve. Sometimes, we will use this soup as the soup for our steamboat feast. The use of white cabbage lends the soup a natural sweet taste, which can be quite tasty especially for the little kids.

You can use fish balls or meat balls. In this recipe, I actually use both fish balls and minced pork (rolled into balls). The basic stock for this soup is ikan bilis stock . You can use any bony meat (including chicken parts) to make the stock. Just prepare and boil the stock for 30 minutes to an hour. If you don’t have time to boil stock (I dislike the use of instant stock granules and prefer boiling the stock fresh), you can do without it but the soup might not be as flavourful. In that case, you might need to adjust the taste of the soup with an appropriate amount of seasoning.

This is the recipe for White Cabbage Fish Balls Soup Read the rest of this entry »

Fresh Lily buds have only in recent years entered the Malaysian market as an edible flower. All this while, dried lily buds are used. Not many people knew what to do with fresh lily buds or how to cook these green coloured lily buds. So far, I have only seen fresh lily buds being served on chinese styled dishes, though I have also seen it being served as a form of tempura. Lily buds are actually aromatic, though not as fragrant as the flower itself. Hence, when you stir fry them, you get a pleasant smelling dish.

I bought a packet of this during my recent trip up Cameron Highlands. They are sold quite cheaply compared to those sold down here in Kuala Lumpur. Just rinse them to rid them of any dust or dirt and soak them in water for about 15 minutes or so - just in case they come with some pesticide. You just never know. Anyway, this dish only takes less than 5 minutes to stir fry and it is enough to be shared by 2 or 3 persons depending on how much each person wish to eat. What you get is fragrant and slightly sweetish lily buds paired with fresh prawns and crunchy carrots. Hochiak!

This is my recipe for Stir Fried Lily Buds with Prawns. Read the rest of this entry »

The year 2007 has been a record of sorts as far as this site is concerned. I bought this domain and moved servers from Blogger to my own hosting sometime in early January. At that point of time, traffic was still relatively low and I was getting about 40 readers subscribing to this site. Today, thanks to your support and continued reading, traffic has leapt to no less than 10 fold and I currently have 191 loyal readers who subscribe to this site and continue to receive the latest posts I put here. This site would not be here today without your visits and I must thank you for that. Special mention goes out to Tigerfish, Rasa Malaysia, Lilian, Simcooks, Melting Wok, Reese and Babe_KL for being supporting this site and leaving lots of comments around to keep this cyber kitchen of mine lively.

This site has undergone a couple of facelifts and I am quite happy with the current look. For 2008, I hope I would be able to afford a customised web site design and to double my subscribers (if you have not subscribed, why don’t you subscribe to this site through RSS or email? It’s free and you will be notified of all the latest posts here). I am also looking forward to putting up some traditional recipes including bak chang and popiah over here. It should be an exciting year ahead. If there are anything you would like to see featured here or any suggestions for this site, do leave me your thoughts at the end of this post.

There are about 80 or so recipes posted in the year 2007 and some of you have been tried some of the recipes and informed me that the recipe works and that you it will feature in your family recipes from then onwards. Some of the recipes are my favourites too and today, I will feature the Best of Delicious Asian Food 2007. Definitely Hochiak!

January

Sambal Ikan Bilis with Tang Hoon

A simple no-frills sambal which is cooked by mum at home quite regularly. Good to serve with plain white rice or as a condiment to nasi lemak.

February

Pork Ribs in Plum Sauce

My very first using of the slow cooker to cook pork ribs without the adding of water. The cooking made the meat so tender that it literally slips off the rib once you place it in your month. An absolutely simple to cook dish and very appetising indeed.

March

Kolok Mee

A famous dish from Sarawak. It has made itself up into the 2nd most popular recipe on this site. Amazingly easy to get the taste right.

April

Pork Leg Hoi Sin Stew

Can be sinfully delicious especially when you consider the melting bits of pork leg. This is one of my mother-in-law’s specialty and it is now enjoyed by a couple of readers across the globe. Read the rest of this entry »