Tuen Ng Family Dinner 端午節晚餐

Just sharing what we had for Tuen Ng festival family dinner. SC's mama made almost everything, yummy yummy yummy. I made the bakuteh (pork ribs stewed in Chinese herbs and spices) and the curry fish, using packets of spices I bought from my recent trip to Kuala Lumpur.
是日端午節, 晚餐去左SC企食, SC媽媽整左好多正野食! 而我就整左肉骨茶同咖哩魚, 今次個調味包係馬拉買的!

Bakuteh - Dinner plus Sauna 2-in1

Bakuteh.
Satiny smooth, fatty, meat-falling-off-the-bone tender ribs.
Silky, delicate beancurd sheets.
Piping hot, flavorful broth.
Thick, rich, hot and spicy dipping sauce.

Perfect for colder days.

Was yesterday cold? Nope, it was a warm and balmy day.
Thus, we ate this for dinner with sweat dripping down our backs and faces, just the way it's supposed to be consumed in Malaysia :D

Great. Dinner + sauna 2-in-1 indeed.

Anyway, hot days or cold days, this is one of my favorite dishes.
Easy to prepare (thanks to instant spice mix packets) and a sure pleaser.

You don't really need a recipe from me, simply follow what's on the spice packet...but this is how I did mine:

Recipe
- Bakuteh spice mix
- 1 lb pork ribs, rinsed, patted dry
- 2 beancurd sheets (fu juk), cut into 4-5 cm pieces
- 4 cloves of garlic, crushed (or as indicated in the packet)
- 1 cm ginger, peeled, crushed (it was not required, but I wanted some gingery flavor)
- 6 cups water
- 1 tbsp dark soy sauce, 1 tbsp light soy sauce, a dash of fish sauce, 2 tsp sugar, white pepper, olive oil

Saute garlic and ginger in a bit of hot olive oil, add pork ribs, add water, spice bags and seasonings, bring to boil. I pressure cooked it for 25 minutes. If you are not using a pressure cooker, simmer on low heat until the meat is tender (one hour or more), add the delicate beancurd sheets and bring to boil before serving.

Dippity dip
- Dark soy
- Fish sauce
- Sweet soy sauce (kecap manis)
- freshly chopped chillies (I used two)
- freshly chopped corriander
Mix everything together. Done!

Serve with steamed white rice, or chicken rice, crispy shallot rice, or garlic rice.

Alternatives
If you don't eat pork, you can use other meat. I think chicken on bone should work well too. You can also change the "accessories", use tofu puffs or silken tofu instead of beancurd sheets, or add some vegetables such as lettuce or chinese cabbage. Go easy on the extras though, they may reduce the richness of the flavors dramatically.

You can use a variety of garnish for this dish. Freshly chopped corriander, scallion, crispy shallot, slices of Chinese fried dough (yau jar gwai), etc.

Hmm, I think it would be fantastic with kerupuk (Indonesian crackers) too :D

A Party Gone Awry

In life, things don't always go according to our plans. This includes a party at my place yesterday.
What happened, or more importantly, what did not happen?

Let's get back to that later. At least the food did happen. Thank God.

I've done just three simple dishes, which were planned, mainly based on which appliances will be used to cook them, so that they could be executed simultaneously. Since one of my guests doesn't eat beef and sous chef is not into chicken, I mainly used pork. You can replace the piggy with something else.

In My Oven
Grilled Pork Neck with Satay Sauce

Marinate
- 7 pieces of pork neck fillet (they shrink a lot, so it's better to buy more)
- 4 shallot, sliced thinly
- dark soy sauce
- fish sauce
- kecap manis (the dominant flavor)
- lemon zest
- 1 tsp ground corriander seed
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- ground nutmeg (quite a lot of it)
- olive oil

Poke pork neck fillet all over with fork, marinate pork neck fillet for a few hours, or overnight.
To grill, preheat oven to 200C/400F, lightly grease baking sheet lined with aluminium foil (I wasn't planning to scrub anything after the party), lay marinated pork neck fillet in 1 layer, grill until golden brown, baste with marinate when necessary.

Satay Sauce
- Store bought satay sauce
- Freshly chopped corriander leaves
- Fish sauce
- Freshly chopped chilli
- lemon juice, lemon zest

Mix everything together and serve.
This dish can be prepared ahead of time as it reheats well. Simply nuke it before serving.

In My Pressure Cooker
Bakuteh (Pork Stewed in Chinese Spices)

- 1 kg pork shin mixed with pork bone, cut into large chunks
- 4 cloves of garlic
- dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, salt, sugar, white pepper, olive oil, hot water
- bakuteh spice pack (I used Klang Bakuteh spice pack)
- 1 cup fried tofu puffs
- 3 heads of wawa veggie

In the pressure cooker, saute garlic with olive oil, add pork, add dark soy, light soy, add hot water according to spice pack instruction, add salt, sugar, pepper, cook in pressure cooker for 25 minutes. Release pressure, add tofu puffs and vegetable, taste and adjust seasonings when necessary. If you don't have a pressure cooker, bring to boil and simmer for at least 1 hour or until the meat turned falling-off-the-bone tender.

On My Saute Pan
Pineapple and Minced Pork White Curry

- 1 lb of minced meat
- 1 fresh pineapple, cut into chunks
- 200 ml coconut milk
- 4 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 4 cloves of shallot, thinly sliced
- 1 stalk of lemongrass, bruised and chopped into 5 cm pieces
- 1 tsp ground corriander seed
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- salt, sugar, white pepper
- chicken stock (optional)
- freshly chopped corriander and crispy fried shallot for garnish (optional)

Saute garlic, shallot and corriander, add minced meat, cook until the color changed, add pineapple, add spices and seasonings, add coconut milk, bring to boil, garnish, serve.

In My Rice Cooker
Shallot and Garlic Chicken Mixed Rice
- 3 cups of white and brown rice (50-50 mix)
- 200 ml chicken stock
- water, olive oil
- white pepper
- crispy shallot and fried garlic
Throw everything into rice cooker, mix well, add water up to the level indicated on the rice cooker, cook until done.

The dinner didn't look so much like a failure, eh? So, what happened?

The Plan
1. Touring my flat
2. Make Up & Hair Party (Athena to practice her excellent make up skills on us girls, ehm and maybe boys, Carrie to demonstrate her hair styling technique)
3. A gossiping session brief discussion on our current favorite show and stars
4. XBox 360 Party (for the boys)
5. Food and portrait photo taking session
6. Dinner
Sounds like a productive yet fun party, right?

Obviously, the whole plan didn't get executed (or I wouldn't have mentioned it). So what went down in the end?
The Reality
1. The flat tour happened
2. Sous chef showed everyone a gossip magazine stating that a certain pretty celebrity who allegedly had plastic surgeries (as if it is something so surprising), triggering a debate between him and Athena
3. Soon after the girls' arrival in the afternoon, I showed them a couple of video clips and a show of a Korean Idol, Kim Hyun Joong (Dunno who the heck he is? Check his hotness out on Athena's blog), which led to....

...hours after hours of gawking at the said idol, while gossiping making meaningful comments on the celebrity gossip magazine articles. Mind you, we are all very well trained at multitasking.
4. Due to unforeseen circumstances (the large TV being occupied by idol's show), the video games could not possibly happen
5. Food and portrait photo taking...

...luckily, we really did a bit of those. Check out the portrait I did for Joe & Athena in her blog. They're so cute and chic, good enough to eat!
6. Dinner went as planned, although I felt so sorry for not making any dessert for my guests...so...

What's for dessert? Thank goodness Athena brought these very delicious...
Macarons from Sift

Chocolate, caramel, rose, vanilla, coffee, raspberry, lemon, pistachio....take your pick! We munched on these babies while sipping cups of earl grey and peppermint tea...and believe it or not...it was close to midnight, we had to work the next day and we were still gawking at the idol's show like a bunch of teenage girls.

Screw the plan. We (girls) enjoyed the party very much, although...
Sorry about the video games, guys...better luck next time!

Malaysian Bakuteh at Restoran Kee Heong - The Dumbass who Brought Cup Noodles to A Food Paradise

Who's the dumbass who brought 8 days worth of cup noodles and soy joy supplies into a food paradise?
Ehm, me, myself and I.

I knew that Malaysia is heaven for food lovers, but learning that a colleague even brought a rice cooker for this work trip, I was worried that we were gonna have our exhibition in a venue that's in the middle of nowhere, with no nearby restaurants, no minimarkets, the only protein we could get might be the mosquitoes who happened to be unfortunate enough to fly by us, and getting our daily intake of fibre might involve gnawing some old tree trunks by the venue. Plus, we were worried that our ass might be super glued to our exhibition site (which normally runs from early morning to the next morning) and we wouldn't have time to even look at the mosquitoes and the trees.

As always, I couldn't be more wrong.

There are plenty of good food near the stadium where we held our exhibition, and after the event, our graceful local host, Mr. A brought us to fantastic places to indulge, and one of them is...

Bakuteh at Restoran Kee Heong - Klang

The first thing which caught my eyes were these cute tea sets and hot metal tea pots on gas burners.


...then the friendly regulars who didn't get pissed seeing me pointing my camera to them, they even made V signs for my benefit.


Wasn't it just too hot for hot tea? Yes. But we really needed the hot tea to neutralise what we were about to eat.


The metal pots contains hot water, it is for you to refill your tea pots. Handle with care.


We were given a basketful of tea leafs packets, we selected Pu-Erh, an all time favorite.


...and the condiments...green chilli padi. These are not for the faint of heart. They're super HOT!


I haven't tried a Dry Bakuteh before, and I heard this place makes an exceptionally delicious one. I saw this pot, and I had no doubt that I'd love it. Even when the meat pieces were long gone, we were still scraping the pot and clean the sauce.


We also ordered a large pot of Bakuteh (braised pork in spices), pictured at the beginning of this post, all the goodnesses were hidden under the humble pieces of lettuce. Super tender, juicy and flavorful pork meat, tofu puffs, and beancurd sheets. They were perfect with plates of fragrant onion rice.

By the time we almost finished, I was drenched down to my undies, gave up and ordered iced tea. Lame, eh?

The owner told us that if only we were there earlier, we could've enjoyed the imperial cut of meat, and the special soup, which is strictly for regulars. Wow. Maybe next time.

What happened to my cup noodles? They didn't go to waste, they were adopted and will be enjoyed by our colleagues from the Philippines.

Restoran Kee Heong
Tel: +60123243838
Klang, Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia