Mum’s Greetings from Malaysia – Foodie Excerpts No.2
Mum’s foodie excerpts from Malaysia No.2, Friday, 2nd December. As you can see, the food consumption has truly accelerated! I’m so jealous!
Already we have had our typical Malay nasi lemak with beef rendang and sambal sotong, popiah, pork ball soup, goreng pisang, peanut-sugar pancake, fresh coconut water out of the whole fruit, and last nite Aunt T cooked us a beautiful home cooked meal – kampong chicken made into chicken rice chicken (steamed chicken) eaten with her special sauce of chilli, garlic, ginger, lemon juice and sesame oil, plus ladies fingers fried with chilli and belacan, bak kut teh and “milk” fish (fresh fish soaked in vinegar, black pepper, sliced chilli and garlic overnight, thereafter drained and semi deep fried.
Today it was lunch with Uncle W who took us to an industrial area where a no-name food place has emerged out of factory premises where we had the most delicious fresh water fish. We had two fishes, one cooked in assam curry with bunga kantan (a kind of fragrant flower from the ginger family) and the other steamed with a total blanket of pureed ginger. Both were equally tasty especially as the fish were absolutely fresh – apparently they were swimming not too long ago! In addition we had kangkong in chilli and belacan and curry wild boar!! All absolutely delicious.
The putu mayam man passed by on his motorcycle at tea-time and I couldnt resist stopping the man to buy some. It was simply delicious not having had it for almost 20 years. Apparently putu piring is no longer available with the Ramadan fasting month come and gone, so the nearest to this is putu mayam! Remember what this is, guys?
Aunt T is cooking up a storm again tonite – even though we told her to be simple. Because it’s Friday she’s not cooking meat so we are having vegetarian stuff – and it all smells so good even minus the presence of meat! For me, I think, the best thing is the fact that I now do not have to worry about what I am going to cook, and of course not having to cook the meal!! A real holiday!
I am taking my time to ring people so we dont get too many invites to lunches/dinners too soon, but already Auntie A has invited us for crabs on Sat nite, Auntie WM will take us to dinner on Sun nite (we hope it is for some vegetarian food), Auntie D will pick us up to her home in Klang where she will cook us a home meal. One of my old classmates has made contact (rang me on our first day here)… for an old girls’ reunion on 19 Dec – that’s going to be fun and – definitely over a meal, no doubt!
I think I should not spend too much time at the PC as I can hear the other 3 chatting away, so will stop here.
love
Mom
Notes:
- “Kampong” literally means “village”. I think kampong chicken is locally farmed, free range chicken (as opposed to commercially reared non-free range chicken).
- Ladies finger is the vegetable also known as okra.
- Kangkong is a vegetable which you can read more about here.
- Read about bak kut teh here.
- Read about belacan (pronounced as ber-lah-chan) here. The letter ‘c’ is pronounced as a ‘ch’ (as in ‘cheese’) not ‘c’ (as in ‘cat’).
- Man, that Wikipedia is great! Read about putu mayam and putu piring here.
- Read about assam here.
- Goreng pisang are battered deepfried bananas, which I love very much. See pictures here.
- Popiah is something Jac really likes. Read about popiah here.
If I’ve missed anything out, feel free to ask. Or just google it, you lazy bugger! Ha ha ha.
Oh yeah, and Mum always signs off as “Mom”, even though we all call her Mum. Sometimes I call her Mumsie, but never Mom. But she likes writing “Mom” so that’s just what she does!