: : Kartoffelpuffer ~ Potatoe Pancakes : :

It all started back in November 03 when Alberto cooked Kartoffelpuffer for dinner and graciously providing me with the recipe. Then, I promptly forgot all about it and when Josh did another posting, then I remembered and wanted to do it in US. Since Jas was in the midst of moving apartments and packing up her cutleries, I didn’t do it until today with Granny. It was a quiet Sunday afternoon so I thought, why not?

Wena : Eh! Want to make potatoe pancake ah? Very nice wor! But you got tepung biasa (wheat flour) or not?

Granny : Errr…don’t think so lah! Have to check one!

After checking the fridge.

Granny : Don’t have flour lah but got this one! Can make very very crunchy! Better than KFC wor!

Wena : See see!

The powder was a batter mix by Hup Loong which is famous in Kuching for making crispy dishes. My Granny searched everywhere for it and finally found it at Top Point Supermarket in Tabuan Jaya. Click on the last picture above to read the ingredients and instructions on using the powder. We didn’t follow those instructions but used the one from Josh’s posting although we did add more flour in. More information here on the various batter premixes that they manufacture and sell. The reason why we decided to use this was because it was raining very hard and we didn’t want to tackle the traffic jams in Tabuan Jaya.

So we prepared the ingredients to fry the Kartoffelpuffer. I didn’t dry the grated potato as much as I should have but oh well. The batter more than made up for it. I added in another bowl of batter in upon Granny’s instructions since she said that needed a lot more of this flour to make it crispy. So it was another quick mix and in it went with the others. I did notice that a lot of water was seeping out of the potatoe, making the entire mixture very soggy. Hmm… must bear that in mind the next time.

We used a Chinese wok for this as to pull out a pan out of the kitchen mess (undergoing massive renovation works since July). Looks okay from the picture no? The ends were extremely crispy and tasted just like potato chips.

Pipeman : (Crunch munch) Sweet potatoe ah?

Granny : No lah! Normal one lah! Eat with chilli sauce chun (good)!

The chilli sauce is an Asian touch to it all. I didn’t want to be stuck with 1.5 quarts of applesauce and with it raining and all, didn’t go down to Choice Daily to get a small bottle of it. Oh well. I ate it plain as it was good enough to do so. I luv the crunchy ends a lot.

Granny : Can start good business wor! We sell during Chinese New Year want?

Wena : Ahem…

Having said that, we decided to prepare a batch for visitors on CNY. Figured that the crispiness would last for probably one day or rather, fry it when people are around. We don’t get a lot of visitors so phew! Am also thinking of making some Rice Krispies treats as Jas showed me how to do it in the US. She got it off the cereal box but I found a recipe online via Stef’s blog. Only problem is that people will definitely compare it to the crunchiness of Bee Pang (local rice version). The Rice Krispie Treat will not be as crunchy as that but just as oily.

CNY entails too much preparation, methinks.

: : Chinese New Year Celebrations : :

The Year of the Horse Goat (thx to moniqus for the pointer. somehow, the horse made a better impression on me than the goat!) is coming to an end and the Year of the Monkey is about to start. Already, the madness of traffic jams at departmental shops and supermarkets have started to drive everyone nuts. At a snail’s pace, owning a car during this trying period is enough to drive one insane, being made to go round and round a parking lot where cars are double-park.

However, after successfully finding a parking slot, it is now time to play Push-&-Shove at the supermarkets. Everyone has the same idea to get their shopping down early. Squeezing through any available space with their shopping trolleys and baskets, they aggressively plow through the shopping lanes, grabbing nearly everything in sight.

Then, it’s off to the pay for the shopping goods. The queue is worst than the airport flight schedule with 2 counters out of 4 being open and at least 10-20 people standing in line with a mountain full of Chinese New Year (CNY) goodies. The supermarket drones workers rush to pack the plastic bags and fill the shelves. The worst times are on CNY eve where shops are opened until midnite!

As for drinks, people are rushing to place orders at the cheapest place selling them. Carbonated drinks are usually bought at either MJC or Top Point for the cheapest deals whereas the crates and crates of beer and other alcoholic beverages are ordered at MJC or other means and ways. For me to tell would get me into trouble. Suffice to say that it’s ironic that it is in front of a police station but it isn’t in Kuching.

Flight tickets are booked at least a year and a half in advance. Buses going back home will be filled with Chinese families going home to meet up with relatives. Cities and towns all over will come to a standstill with most hawker stalls and business being closed for at least a week. Jackie Chan movies will be the rage on the 1st day of celebration with many a youngster going out to watch the movies.

On the telly, CNY advertisements will be shown at every available interval. Dunhill will have it’s traditionally lion dance theme advertisement with unbelievable kung fu moves. Petronas will be having their family theme advertisement on showing multi-racial relationships between children. Perodua will always have an amusing parody them advertisement. The one aimed at the younger generation would be Coca-Cola with their Cuba Try and tongue-in-a-cheek jingles. Not to be outdone, F&N and Miranda carbonated drinks will be giving Coca-Cola a run for their money with their old advertisements.

The post office will be flooded with pink envelopes with CNY greeting cards in them, travelling the world over. Everyone is sending everyone else a red greeting card with pictures of good luck pictures : Japanese carp, Chinese characters fortelling good fortune for the New Year, Mandarin Oranges, Firecrackers, AngPow (red packets), Chinese gold ingots.

On the eve of the 1st day, Chinese families will be sitting down and having their compulsory dinner together. Yee Sang has now become a firm tradition amongst all and orders will be placed at various restaurants all over the nation for early bird orders. Note that Yee Sang does not come cheaply so be forewarn for 1st timers wanting to try it out. That is, the fresh Yee Sang is not cheap. The supermarket version would be much cheaper.

The gambling starts on the eve of CNY where all the Chinese males will start playing 21 (blackjack) or chow tay tee (throw the big two) or it’s a family do for a long session of mahjong. This will go on into the wee hours of the morning where the gamblers sleep at dawn and wake up at noon all panda-eyed and hangovers from the heavy amounts of beer drinking and XO toasting.

Firecrackers is now banned in Malaysia but during CNY eve, everyone is playing it all at once that it’s impossible for the police to hunt down the offenders. However, the ban has managed to curb the all-night playing of firecrackers which is suppose to scare away the ghosts. Fireworks are allowed though. The nightline will be filled with beautiful colors and sparkles falling down to the amusement of children all over.

Little children will be jumping up and down with glee knowing that they will be receiving a lot of angpows (red packets) filled with money. However, their parents will usually grab it all and put it into their children’s savings account for the future. The children will find (to their dismay) that as they grow older, the quantity of the packets will be less and less as they grow older. My memories of angpows were my father giving us empty boxes that used to contain JD or JW bottles, to put all our packets together. It is a tradition that the married couple must give out angpows and the unmarried singles receiving them.

It is now quite fashionable to have one’s food catered from outside. Not only does it save a lot of planning for the family in terms of food preparation but it also ensures that the food is halal for the muslims. It is expected of daughters to be serving the drinks and monitoring the caterers to ensure the food is constantly replenish. This is a chore from sunrise to moonrise whereby guests would be pouring in during the lunch hour to have a nice meal and chit chat with the family, or rather, the family member that is free to chit chat with them.

It’s a crazy time during Chinese New Year. And the Chinese do it every year. I haven’t even covered most of what is practice during CNY but perhaps within the next few days, will be able to post something up. Dr. Liew, how about some help here?

: : Chinese New Year Celebrations : :

The Year of the Horse Goat (thx to moniqus for the pointer. somehow, the horse made a better impression on me than the goat!) is coming to an end and the Year of the Monkey is about to start. Already, the madness of traffic jams at departmental shops and supermarkets have started to drive everyone nuts. At a snail’s pace, owning a car during this trying period is enough to drive one insane, being made to go round and round a parking lot where cars are double-park.

However, after successfully finding a parking slot, it is now time to play Push-&-Shove at the supermarkets. Everyone has the same idea to get their shopping down early. Squeezing through any available space with their shopping trolleys and baskets, they aggressively plow through the shopping lanes, grabbing nearly everything in sight.

Then, it’s off to the pay for the shopping goods. The queue is worst than the airport flight schedule with 2 counters out of 4 being open and at least 10-20 people standing in line with a mountain full of Chinese New Year (CNY) goodies. The supermarket drones workers rush to pack the plastic bags and fill the shelves. The worst times are on CNY eve where shops are opened until midnite!

As for drinks, people are rushing to place orders at the cheapest place selling them. Carbonated drinks are usually bought at either MJC or Top Point for the cheapest deals whereas the crates and crates of beer and other alcoholic beverages are ordered at MJC or other means and ways. For me to tell would get me into trouble. Suffice to say that it’s ironic that it is in front of a police station but it isn’t in Kuching.

Flight tickets are booked at least a year and a half in advance. Buses going back home will be filled with Chinese families going home to meet up with relatives. Cities and towns all over will come to a standstill with most hawker stalls and business being closed for at least a week. Jackie Chan movies will be the rage on the 1st day of celebration with many a youngster going out to watch the movies.

On the telly, CNY advertisements will be shown at every available interval. Dunhill will have it’s traditionally lion dance theme advertisement with unbelievable kung fu moves. Petronas will be having their family theme advertisement on showing multi-racial relationships between children. Perodua will always have an amusing parody them advertisement. The one aimed at the younger generation would be Coca-Cola with their Cuba Try and tongue-in-a-cheek jingles. Not to be outdone, F&N and Miranda carbonated drinks will be giving Coca-Cola a run for their money with their old advertisements.

The post office will be flooded with pink envelopes with CNY greeting cards in them, travelling the world over. Everyone is sending everyone else a red greeting card with pictures of good luck pictures : Japanese carp, Chinese characters fortelling good fortune for the New Year, Mandarin Oranges, Firecrackers, AngPow (red packets), Chinese gold ingots.

On the eve of the 1st day, Chinese families will be sitting down and having their compulsory dinner together. Yee Sang has now become a firm tradition amongst all and orders will be placed at various restaurants all over the nation for early bird orders. Note that Yee Sang does not come cheaply so be forewarn for 1st timers wanting to try it out. That is, the fresh Yee Sang is not cheap. The supermarket version would be much cheaper.

The gambling starts on the eve of CNY where all the Chinese males will start playing 21 (blackjack) or chow tay tee (throw the big two) or it’s a family do for a long session of mahjong. This will go on into the wee hours of the morning where the gamblers sleep at dawn and wake up at noon all panda-eyed and hangovers from the heavy amounts of beer drinking and XO toasting.

Firecrackers is now banned in Malaysia but during CNY eve, everyone is playing it all at once that it’s impossible for the police to hunt down the offenders. However, the ban has managed to curb the all-night playing of firecrackers which is suppose to scare away the ghosts. Fireworks are allowed though. The nightline will be filled with beautiful colors and sparkles falling down to the amusement of children all over.

Little children will be jumping up and down with glee knowing that they will be receiving a lot of angpows (red packets) filled with money. However, their parents will usually grab it all and put it into their children’s savings account for the future. The children will find (to their dismay) that as they grow older, the quantity of the packets will be less and less as they grow older. My memories of angpows were my father giving us empty boxes that used to contain JD or JW bottles, to put all our packets together. It is a tradition that the married couple must give out angpows and the unmarried singles receiving them.

It is now quite fashionable to have one’s food catered from outside. Not only does it save a lot of planning for the family in terms of food preparation but it also ensures that the food is halal for the muslims. It is expected of daughters to be serving the drinks and monitoring the caterers to ensure the food is constantly replenish. This is a chore from sunrise to moonrise whereby guests would be pouring in during the lunch hour to have a nice meal and chit chat with the family, or rather, the family member that is free to chit chat with them.

It’s a crazy time during Chinese New Year. And the Chinese do it every year. I haven’t even covered most of what is practice during CNY but perhaps within the next few days, will be able to post something up. Dr. Liew, how about some help here?

: : Enrich Points : :

Looks like I have enough Enrich points to go on a holiday trip within Malaysia. Was thinking of going to Penang but KL is a great temptation. Then again, a trip to the northern part of West Malaysia wouldn’t be a bad idea. Perhaps a stay at Langkawi? After all, it’s a free ticket within Malaysia so need to make the best of it. Points are valid until 2006 so plenty of time to get some recommendations.

Any suggestions anyone?

: : 3rd Day of 2004 : :

Can’t say much for today except that I now have a very painful pimple growing underneath my right eye!!! What a bad way to start the new year. On another note, since my trip to the USA, I haven’t found a single bottle of St. Ives Clear Pore Cleanser in KL or in the USA! I hope they haven’t taken it off the production line. Favourite facial care but then again, why am I blogging about it? My pimple was bad enough. Urgh.

Had some stir-fried tong yau for brunch with Granny. I missed this while in the US. Crunchy and sweet at the same time. Great with oyster sauce and a firm favourite for me and Granny. After that, I got hungry again about 3 hrs later after viewing Renee’s posting on Chilli Lobsters. Wah! It look so delicious that I got peckish after that. Made a quick call to Min Yen and 30 minutes later, it was off to Song Keng Hai for some belachan bee hoon.

This gal, ah… so shy one! Don’t want to take picture. So, Min Yen, here is a picture of you averting your face and using your wallet and handphone as cover. :p

I had the ais jagung @ iced corn drink from this stall whereas Min Yen ordered the sugar cane with coconut from the stall behind this one.

We then both had a regular plate of belachan bee hoon from this famous stall.

Seeing a notice for chai kueh @ turnip cake, we had a small plate as well as ordering small one to go for Granny.

This was my iced corn drink @ ais jagung and the belachan bee hoon we both had. The sauce was great and the additional ingredients were cuttlefish, sliced cucumbers and bean sprouts as well as the chilli sauce and belachan @ shrimp paste to go with it. Definintely tasty and refreshing. According to Min Yen, this stall serves the best belachan bee hoon amongst all the stalls in Song Keng Hai. The stall is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

The drink on the left is freshly squeezed sugarcane juice with coconut milk and coconut flesh. Tasty and delicious looking alright. On the right, is the chai kueh @ turnip dish which is stir-fried with egg and some pickled veggies. Honestly speaking, my Granny makes a better chai kueh dish. It’s easy to find the turnip cake uncook here and just fry it again at home.

Song Keng Hai is facing the only rugby field in the whole of Kuching town. Not well maintained because not many rugby teams around. The grass was a bit long but it looked like someone was in the process of cutting it down.

And this is the famous flowerhorn fish that is adored by the Chinese community due to the Chinese-looking-characters on it’s body. It was floating around in an aquarium at one of the stalls in Song Keng Hai. An expensive fish, it retails for a few thousand ringgit (a few hundred US dollars), an expensive fish to showcase in a hawker centre.

After that, it was off home for me and Min Yen went to W.G.Cycle for her training session. Came home to clean up my hamsters’ cages and give them a bath. They were stinking quite badly so it was time to do it. Well, that was my 3rd day of 2004. How was yours?

: : Blog Meets & Spicy Chicken : :

Well, it’s going to be a jumble of postings from all over the world now. The variety is going to be interesting but the truth of the matter is that I’m too lazy to organize my pictures in a chronological manner. Still, the mix and match approach should bring along different types of dishes to everyone’s curiosity and probably whet some appetites along the way.

As Grace is organizing another Book Swap Meet, I thought I’d better hurry up and post up the pictures taken from the last one in December 2003. Again, it’s at the same place : KL Sentral’s Starbucks Coffee … err… place? When in the US, I saw a Starbucks at every Barnes and Nobles bookstore. A great place to sit down and sip a cup of tea to relax and enjoy something to eat as well.

Took a snapshot of the painting facing the tables we were sitting at. Thought it look pretty good and then wondered how much it really costs. I find Starbucks very pricey after drinking coffee at Coffee Master in Kuching but after going to the US, realised that it was slightly cheaper after the currency conversion.

We weren’t the only ones having a coffee meeting that day. On the left hand side of the table, you can see a more serious session going on.

Cakes cakes cakes! I remember buying a packet of Kettle Chips instead. IreneQ had a chicken sandwich, I think, and someone ordered a slice of Chocolate Cheesecake. Can’t remember who. Chooki, April and Ryuu bought food from Kenny Roasters and ate them in Starbucks. Haha! BTW, Nicholas, your book is still with me but cannot return it to you during the next meet. Some time this year, you’ll be getting it but not in January 2004! So, have to wait. :p

After that, Chooki suggested we go over to Old Klang Road to a cafe (whose name eludes me at the moment) for dinner but because of the massive traffic jam, IreneQ, Albert and myself decided to go to Sunway Pyramid instead. We went to look for my corduroy jeans that I needed to bring over to the US. Corduroy jeans will keep one very warm during the winter months.

After buying my jeans, we went off to eat at Nandos Chicken which Albert swears that it is so good. Something new for me so I thought why not? Thanks to IreneQ for being such a good sport that day for fetching us around and having dinner with us there.

While waiting for the food to come, I took awhile to read up on the stories on the wall. Click on the pictures for a bigger size picture for easier reading.

The plastic chicken reminded me (figuratively) of the skinny, scrawny kampung chicken until Dr.Liew posted up this picture! Urgh! Will never EVER touch the plastic holder again!

There were 4 different table sauces available. Can’t remember the names of the sauces. Think there were 3 spicy ones and 1 garlic sauce.

Grrr…they ran out of the Peri-peri version so we had to settle for the Lemon and Herb version of the chicken. Albert was pouring the hot peri-peri sauce like mad onto his plate. He adores sour chilli sauce. One day, you should try Jalapeno chillis. Think you’ll like that.

After that, we parted ways. Albert to catch the KTM back to the train station and catch the bus back and IreneQ send me back to Kelana Jaya. It was a nice ending to a busy day and I had a great time with you all.

Till we meet next in KL!