Mee Jawa

Mee Jawa or Jawa Mee??. whichever way you call it, it's a tomato based noodle dish. The recipe normally calls for a soup base made with sweet potatoes, crush peanuts. My mum learnt to make this dish from a Eurasian lady in the neighbourhood and her soup does not use peanutt and this is my favourite. I have to say that my mum does not cook very much, she's very much a baked beans, spam and fried egg kind of cook. So this is my attempt to replicate the dish, I have asked my mum before for the recipe but because it's been years since she made it and when she did it was not often, the ingredients change each time she answers me!

Anyway, I think I might have cracked it. After making stock from chicken bones, I will try ribs next time, in goes the tomato purée and some spices. I omitted the chilli paste this round as the little one and other kids were having lunch with us. This dish made up of the soup with boiled egg noodles with various accompaniments. One of the must have accompaniment is fritters, the one I like is just plain fritters with no prawns. I remembered seeing a recipe for it in one of my cookbooks so I got to try make another thing new.

Lastly, one other thing I tried new was instead frying the tau kua (firm tofu or bean curd) I baked it in the oven with great success. So bye bye to frying tau kua, no tau kua is going to get the chance to spit hot oil at me ever again!

The must have garnishes

 

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Kiam chye th'ng (salted vegetable soup)

This is our family's traditional CNY soup which we have throughout the first few days of CNY ! ! Adding whatever left over dishes along the way. When a friend gave me some roasted pork it was an opportunity to make this soup, with the roast pork added to salted mustard green, duck legs, Chinese mushrooms.

And since the same friend didn't manage to get home for CNY this year, I thought it appropriate to make this soup and invite her round for a CNY dinner! Gong xi fa cai take 2!!

 

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Koay teow th'ng

There is no easy way to spell this dish and the only way is what makes sense to me phonetically. This is basically flat rice noodles in tasty broth. I can't remember what it was now but something put this noodle soup dish in my mind and won't let me enjoy other food until I have satisfied the craving for this. It's a shame that it was an impromptu dish this time as I would have loved to have some fish balls and fish cakes in it. Instead what I made was rather authentic i.e. the soup base was made from duck stock instead or the 'cheat' chicken stock. It turned out to be quite tasty and more importantly close to the taste in my mind so craving satisfied!

 

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Curry mee (curry laksa)

This is curry mee made from scratch. I invited some friends over for lunch and offered to make curry laksa for them, thinking I had some ready made curry mee paste (I always do). I woke up in the morning to find the cupboard bare! No curry paste! Panic! I had 3 options, make something else, wait till the Chinese shop is open and get more paste ( risky option by the time I get there it will be close to noon and no guarantee there will be paste available), last option make the paste from scratch. First option sounded like the easiest but I had my heart set on eating curry mee. So after a quick flip through my hawker food recipe book, I convinced myself that I could do it and so I did! The homemade paste was great, it took a lot of effort so paste is still much easier. The lunch went well, I gave myself a pat on the back and made a note to go buy more paste!

 

Bee hoon soup

Bee Hoon soup is one of my go to comfort food when I'm feeling a little under the weather. My version is super simple with just 3 main ingredients, bee hoon, choi sum and pork mince... ala the ones you get at the hawker stall referred to in my family as "cook bowl by bowl" or rather we say it in Hokkien "jit uah jit uah chu" ..hahaha, still it's a little taste of home to perk me up when I'm feeling down.

 

Pork ribs in Vietnamese pho

Hmmm, this is sort of a hybrid dish of the Bak Kut Teh and the Vietnamese Beef Pho. I had some leftover pork ribs but no Bak Kut Teh seasoning, I had some Vietnamese pho paste but no beef, so it was a no brainier, mix the two together and fingers crossed that it will taste right. Next, ransacked the larder, found some mushrooms, ransacked the fridge and found some lamb lettuce, in they go into the pot. Turns put, it's not too bad really, I had it with koay teow for lunch and then rice for dinner, works best with rice and some chilli padi, of course!

 

Sup Ekor

Oh what joy when I saw ox tail for sale at Makro!! It was to be my very first purchase with my new membership at Makro, so excited I was that I didnt even realised that I dropped my new membership card at the car park! Back to the ox tail, I have been wanting to make this aromatic soup for a long long time, it comes to mind particularly during Winter. And now I know where I can get ox tail and have a tried & tested recipe, I will definitely be making this again.



 



Pork ribs soup

This is an adaptation of the nourishing chicken soup that my friend taught me to make during my confinement so it does not have a proper name and therefore I shall call it pork ribs soup akin to calling a spade a spade. I used pork ribs in place of chicken and the result is tender meat falling off the bone. Dunked in soya sauce with cili padi (because it is not for confinement) and eaten with plain boiled rice, leaves a warm feeling in the tummy, perfect for a cold winter's day!

Nourishing Chicken Soup (Confinement)

During my confinement, my friend, Christine made this delicious and nourishing soup for me. With a slow cooker, I was able to replicate the soup which is made with red dates, black dates, longan, goji berry (kei chi) and ginger. Place everything into the slow cooker and let it simmer happily away for 4 hours or till the chicken meat is tender.



The key ingredients: red dates, black dates, longan, goji berry and ginger.

Bee Hoon Soup

Bee hoon th'ng or rice noodle soup makes a quick and light meal. This is a simple version with a light chicken stock for the soup base. Add some sliced fish cake and 'chai sim' (flowering chinese cabbage), garnish with finely sliced spring onions and fried chopped garlic and the dish is done! Of course, serve with sliced cili padi with light soya sauce!

Bak Kut Teh

A friend said to me it's the smell that counts and I agree 100% so you really need a smell-o-blog for this one. I used a ready-made soup mix to make this dish as buying the required herbs is too much of a challenge for me! The soup mix (imported from Malaysia, where else?) came in a large tea-bag like bag which only needed to be boiled in water, add the desired ingredients, in my case, pork ribs and tau pok (deep fried tofu). After 1 1/2 hours of simmering, serve with steamed rice with cut bird's eyes chillies (cili padi laa) in light soya sauce....Blisssssssssss.........

p/s if in Penang, check out the stall in Padang Brown!

Kiam Chai Th'ng (Salted Veg Soup)

This is the pièce de résistance of the chinese new year meal! This sour although the name suggests salty soup is the dish that all waits for, a certain level of patience is required or else the soup will not turn out well. The waiting is with the other dishes cooked for new year, they have to be at least a day old before the soup can be made. It is also known as the pot of gold, where we carefully ration ourselves over the first two days of chinese new year to ensure that we have enough leftovers for the soup.