: : More on Ramly Burger : :
Hmm… looks like the article is causing more furor than expected.
Read Suresh’s take on it. As well as TV’s latest caricuture.
So, where’s the best Ramly burger stall in Kuching? Every time I ask someone, they recommend the stall in Tabuan Jaya but they don’t do Ramly burgers.
: : Miserable : :
Pretty gloomy day today, or rather, since Sunday. Have been coughing non-stop since Sunday. Guess the spicy Thai food got to me. Urgh!
Well, on Monday, the cough didn’t stop me from eating some of my collegue’s kedondong pieces. Wah! It was so nice! This one had already been pickled and sweetened up at the same time. So, the taste is both sweet and sour and still very crunchy.
Since my throat has been burning up on Monday, I decided to go out and grab two packets of Lo Han Kuo Infusion to try and solve my throat. This one is mixed with Chrysanthemum so it actually tastes less bitter than usual. Considering that only 5% is sugar, it is still a very sweet drink.
Lo Han Kuo is used in Chinese Traditional Medicine to cool the body down. It definitely works for my sorethroat everytime, especially when one has dry cough like now. One huge packet contains 10 smaller packets and last nite, I think I walloped about 9 of them with HOT HOT water, trying to cool the throat down. It worked as today, my throat wasn’t so painful. Drank another 8 packets today and I hope be better tomorrow.
Then again, I got caught in the rain during lunchtime and am now suffering from fever. Took two panadols and am now sweating it out like mad.
Ah well. More food pics tomorrow. Oh yeah, before I forget, someone was asking how to make the sotong kangkung sauce. Here is what my Granny said : take some thick black soy sauce, mix with brown sugar and chilli. You’ll need to dilute the thick soy sauce but later can be thickened with some cornflour. Once that is down, mix with some grounded peanuts. That’s it.
I’m now suffering from food drooling symptom at Renee’s latest posting. Singapore definitely has more food variety during CNY than poor old Kuching. Oh yeah, Dr.Liew has also sneakily “stolen” a picture from Renee’s site and did an amusing writeup on Nian Gao. Always a funny blog to read, Dr. Liew also mentioned about Ang Pow and other CNY practices. The BWG also has a writeup on the Tray of Togetherness. When I asked Granny about this, she said she didn’t know about it. Wah! Imagine all the traditions lost through antiquity! Oh well.
Ciao!
: : Kartoffelpuffer for Dummies : :
An email from an old (figuratively AND literally) German friend who insisted that I be taught how to cook Kartoffelpuffer (Potatoe Pancake) the proper way. He graciously agreed to allow me to put it up today. Apologies for the picture quality : not his fault but mine as I had to do a screen capture of the pictures. Anyway, this was how the email attachment started :
This is the true story on how to grow fat on Kartoffelpuffer or elsewhere called Potato Pancakes.
Due to heartbreaking tales I have seen on some poor Malaysian female engineers homepage in the middle of a cold winter night (actually 3 o’ clock in the morning before I went to sleep on my 60th anniversary), I had to take some time the next day, write down the recipe and convince my wife to make some, to be able to make a life reportage of how this is done in an average German household.
Unfortunately after those kartoffelpuffer’s were ready and already eaten, I made a handling error with the smart card of my camera, and all pictures were gone, thous resulting in the sad fact, we had to do it all over again:
-Wife convincing
-Making of a second set of kartoffelpuffers 2 days later
-Eating them again
-Far too much as usual
-Growing fat
-Need some Schnaps (home made plum brandy)
-Getting drunk
Well, lets get busy now.
Get some potatoes, about .75 to 1 kg for 2 to 3 persons (if I am invited you will need more).
You should try to get a yellow cooking kind, not from early harvest, the older the better. They should have a fairly rough skin.
After washing and peeling dry them with a towel or kitchen paper.
Have the potatoes grated with an electric or manual device. We use the shown combination. It is a hand mixer with a grater as accessory. Don’t make them too coarse, about 2 mm thickness will do it.
(Wena : So jealous of this contraption! Need to get one one day.)
Don’t make them too coars, about 2 mm thickness will do it.
(Wena : Once an engineer, always an engineer. See the details he goes into? 2 MM!)
Cut 1 or 2 medium sized onions into not too fine pieces.
Get some parsley, one egg, smoked bacon pieces (if you like it, I do, but then reduce salt).
(Wena : For the Muslims, you can substitute the bacon for turkey/chicken ham)
Add 1 max. 2 table spoons of white flower. Do not attempt to bind the water that builds up in the potatoes with additional flower. Pour the water and starch off every now and then.
Add salt and pepper and mix thoroughly, use your hands as best tools. It is not harmful if you had cleaned them before, if not, they will be clean afterwards.
(Wena : Yes, I did use my hands! )
Water and starch will develop, get rid of it.
Pour it away.
(Granny : Aiyo! Wasting egg only!)
Have a good frying pan ready with any kind of grease or oil you prefer ( pork, cooking oil, we usually use sunflower and olive oil). Fill in about 5 mm high, make it really hot. Put in your mixture with a table spoon.
Distribute and press it flat rather fast between 6 and 10 mm of hight, as you like. Watch your hands, the hot oil might splash back.
Fry until edges turn from yellow into light brown.
Turn around carefully.
Fry as desired.
Drip off the excess oil. Replenish oil, if necessary.
Place on plate with paper towel to soak off the oil. Get ready to eat them.
Bon appetite, with compliments from Renate and Manfred!!!
: : What Snack Food are you? : :
What Snack Food are You? (With Cool Pics!!)
brought to you by Quizilla
Cheh! via Niki
: : Bangkok Thai : :
Last night, as mentioned earlier somewhere in this blog, I attended a friend’s farewell dinner at Kuching’s famous Bangkok Thai restaurant at Pending. This restaurant boasts it’s own chef from Thailand so you will definitely have the Thai touch to all the dishes that are served at the restaurant. Although, at times, the dishes might taste differently as it has been slightly altered to cater for the local tastebuds.
I didn’t managed to take a picture of the yam basket that was served as the 1st dish. It’s basically sweetened yam deep fried in crispy batter. The yam is shaped into a basket first before frying. Then, mixed vegetables are cooked separately and poured into the middle of this basket.
Not sure what was this dish and the organizer also forgot the name. We all contributed the money beforehand and didn’t get to see the menu. All I can say that it was a great Thai dish with this sweetened sauce cooked with chillis and onions poured over some crispy fried chicken. Yummy!
This is definitely a Chinese dish. The mushrooms are Oyster Mushroom which were cooked until they were tender and hot. Wah! Delicious!
What is a Thai meal without the famous Tom Yam Gung! Cooked with loads of seafood and spicy spices, it was a great body warmer when one is sitting directly underneath the aircon duct!
I love this dish a lot! It’s Vietnamese prawn with some deep fried pau @ fluffy white buns. Huge freshwater prawns was used and everyone had enough to a filling bite. Yum! Gravy was great too!
Well, the fish was baked and came out a bit burnt as well. Urgh! Could taste the burnt flesh in the white fish flesh. Until we took the portion underneath. It was so much better than the one at the top! Probably that’s the reason for the covering of deep fried chopped garlic on top : hide the evidence of bad cooking! Haha!
The restaurant screwed up our order by giving someone else our pineapple fried rice. So, we settled for some olive fried rice instead. Had to wait at least 15-20 minutes for it to come out but it was worth it. Instead of using olives from Italy, they used the local variety called dabai. Tasted really good.
Finally, we had our desserts of yam cake, layered cake, tapioca with thickened coconut cream and little squares of pandan leave with coconut jelly and waterchestnut.
Oh yes, we Malaysians are worst than piranhas when it comes to eating. Nothing from the fish bone lived to tell the tale.
: : Yo Ramly! : :
I had a good laugh reading this article from Roy’s posting. Who would have thought that Singaporeans would be so desperate for the taste of Ramly Burger that it is now brought into the island illegally? Here is a link to a step-by-step instructions.
Sad to say, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a Ramly Burger before. Eating roadside stall burgers is the diarrhoa version of Russian Roulette. However, one can buy frozen Ramly Burger packs in the local supermarket in Malaysia.
