My style of cooking......

I had an interesting short chat with a blogger at gmail chat yesterday. After the normal salam and hi....the topic went to food...he said maggi mee is not good to eat. I agreed with him because i am not a fan of instant mee or any instant food. Even if i was craving of cokodok ikan bilis, i wont be making from Adabi instant mix....of course to all working mothers, these instant mix/spices are a God send after a tiring day in the office. I am not saying they are bad or anything of the sort....its just not authentic to my anak tekak....

anyway....the next topic was the use of Pak Ajinomoto in cooking. I never bought a packet of Ajinomoto before and i surely will never buy one in future. To me if all the spices and ingredients are enough in one recipe, it doesn't need the Pak Aji to make it taste better. Both my parents never approved of Pak Aji in the cooking at home and i continued that way when i have a family of my own. But really we have no choice if we ate out kan?? He suggested to replace Pak Aji with sugar...i am ok with that but i use sugar in certain dishes only, even that i use brown sugar. As for salt, i use fine salt only to fry fishes, tempeh and vegetables, but coarse salt in everything else. My fishes would only be fried crispy except for meaty fishes like tenggiri or bawal.

Here i am sharing recipes for my masak lemak coz someone in the Facebook asked me for the recipe and also my sambal belacan.

Crispy fried mackerel/kembung


Lemak cili api daging with potato.
The recipe;

500gm beef ( best use batang pinang) - cut bite size crossing the grains
200gm coconut milk
1 piece asam keping
one lemon grass - lightly bash the bulb
10-15 small bird eye chillies* ( more if you want it hotter)
an inch of tumeric*
*pounded or blend together
2 - 3 potatoes -quartered

Wash the beef, put it the deep pot, throw in the pounded chili and tumeric and the lemon grass. Let the water dry a bit, if the beef still not soft add a bit more water ...then put in the coconut milk, let it boil, put the potatoes and asam keping in and let it boil till the potatoes softened. Put some coarse salt to taste and do stir frequently to avoid the coconut milk become 'curdled' (separated?? any better word for this?).

Lemak chili api tenggiri with bittergout.

500 gm tenggiri
200gm coconut milk
1 piece asam keping
Half of big bittergout - sliced thickly(abt half cm ) and soak in salted water
10-15 small bird eye chillies* ( more if you want it hotter)
an inch of tumeric*
*pounded or blended together

Wash the fish, put it in a deep pot, throw in the pounded chili and tumeric. Let the water dry a bit, then put in the coconut milk, let it boil, put the sliced bittergout and asam keping in and let it boil again. Put some coarse salt to taste and do stir frequently.

My kangkung belacan

My mix vege
My lala in hot oyster sauce.

My fried bihun with secret ingredient..the minced touchu
Simple tumis french beans
Sambal belacan
2-3 red chillies
5 - 10 bird eyes chillies
1 inch roasted shrimp paste
salt to taste
juice from one lime
Pounded all coarsely except the juice. Add in the juice and serve.

All of the dishes were cooked without the Ajinomoto.