I invited a few friends over for CNY Reunion Dinner. This year, I decided to make Yong Tau Foo. As I was stuffing the vegetables, I realized that this dish is very labor intensive.

I had to stuff the okra, eggplant, bittermelon, mushroom, taupok (fried soft tofu), and silken tofu.

Then, lightly pan-fry the items to brown the fish/pork paste stuffing.

Make the sauce and place everything back in the wok to braise till everything is cooked.

Place the cooked items in the oven to keep warm. Wash the wok and then steam the delicate stuffed silken tofu.

Thankfully, it turned out good. I also tried to make a stuffing out of texturized vegetable protein (TVP) but that didn’t turn out great, so my vegetarian friend had to eat Yong Tau Foo without any stuffing.

I tried to make kuih bangkit few days ago following this recipe, and it was an utter failure. The cookies were rock hard, not light and melt in your mouth. What a disappointment. But I’ll try again this weekend.


Two trays of failed kuih bangkit.


Rock-hard kuih bangkit.

Today, I made Char Siew following this recipe, and I’m astounded that it really tasted like Char Siew. Amazing! I think it’s even better than some store-bought char siew.


A strip of char siew right off the broiler.


Sliced char siew.

My first attempt at baking sugee cookies, and the cookies ended up looking like Tau-Sah-Pneah! But they tasted great, my friends loved it.

Another unsatiable craving: CNY cookies.

I especially miss Kuih Bangkit. I don’t even get to eat that while I’m back in Malaysia because I’m never back during CNY season, and this cookie disappears into nothingness after CNY. So this CNY season, I’ve decided I’m going to make this cookie and share with my friends. I’ve bought all the ingredients (e.g., tapioca flour, canned coconut milk, icing sugar). I will try and make a batch this weekend.

This picture shows the cornflakes cookies that I baked just now. It’s ok: crispy on the outside and a little chewy on the inside. I don’t think they are supposed to be chewy on the inside though. Now that I have this big box of cornflakes, I’ll make it again another day.

One of my unsatiable cravings in the US is roast pork belly (siew yuk). I’m too far away from Chinatown civilization. The nearest asian grocery store does sell it in the refrigerated section but it doesn’t look very fresh. I have no idea how long that piece of meat has been sitting there and it cost $7 for a small tray. So for the past few years, I haven’t had roast pork while in the US. However after reading several malaysian food blogs, I decided to try and make it following this recipe.

Here are pictures of my very first homemade roast pork belly. It turned out pretty good but it has too much fat. So I won’t be making this again for a long time.





My next cooking endeavor will be barbeque pork (char siew).

While I was at the cashier counter in the small asian grocery store, the cashier was rather amused by the shopping bags that I brought along with me. She asked me where I’m from and proceeded to tell me that her Taiwanese customers also bring their own bags.

For some unknown reasons, I’ve dropped out of everyone’s must-invite-over-for-thanksgiving radar, so I planned a cook-something-nice-and-eat-alone thanksgiving meal. But that was not to be. Geraldine, my Cameroonian pal, gave me a call the day before Thanksgiving and I invited her over to share my Thanksgiving meal with me.

My original menu was Jabchae (Korean stirfried noodle with loads of vegetables) and baked belacan chicken. But cooking for people from different cultures can be rather tricky. I learned my lesson the first time I invited some African friends over for a meal. For that special meal, I made clear chicken soup with carrots, potatoes and onions, stirfried broccoli and carrots, and curry chicken. They spurned my chicken soup but liked my curry chicken and found the broccoli “interesting”. After some thought, I decided to stick with the Jabchae and belacan chicken (if she was white, I would steer clear of the belacan). I added the stir-fried collard greens, crossing my fingers that Geraldine would be ok with it. The meal turned out great, we had a good time chatting over ridiculous roommate issues, haunting past issues, and American cultural issues.

Turkey inflation:
1. For the past many years, the residential office had held a Thanksgiving turkey lottery and gave out 5 frozen turkeys each year. No turkey lottery this year.
2. For the past many years, a local church had held a big thanksgiving dinner for the international students. No big thanksgiving dinner this year.
3. For the past few years, my church had held a donate-a-frozen-turkey-to-a-local-family event. No free frozen turkeys to local families this year.

Are these signs of what’s to come?
I guess I won’t be out doing any Black Friday shopping this year then.

My ridiculous video on the battle between homemade and store-bought food. The battle is fought to the music of Rebirthing by Skillet. Get it? Food and Skillet? I have to stop doing these early morning imovie projects. This project would have taken less time if I had remembered to always save my work. Lost a whole big chunk (actually lost all of it) when iMovie crashed!

In the midst of my comprehensive exam, I took a break and co-hosted an Indian food dinner party for my fellow special ed coursemates. I made tandoori chicken, tikka tempeh (my own invention), and tikka paneer. Just one week ago, I had no idea what paneer was. I needed to make a vegetarian tandoori dish, so my Indian coursemate suggested making paneer, and I was like, “Paneer? What is that?” It’s actually a block of fresh cheese Indian-style. Here’s the menu (top right going clockwise):
1. Jeera rice (wonderful spiced basmati rice)
2. Kasoori methi mushroom (mushroom, fenugreek, cream sauce)
3. Tikka tempeh (strips) and tikka paneer (the mess; tandoori marinated cheese)
4. Aalu gobi matar (cauliflower, potato, peas dish; I love this)
5. Rajma (red bean curry soup)
6. Samosa and Dhania chutney
7. Tandoori chicken
8. Raita (cucumber and yogurt)
9. (Not in picture) Mango ice-cream made from coolwhip and mango pulp (absolutely delicious ice-cream made by my Romanian coursemate).

I watch a lot of Food Network and the chefs are always talking about setting the dinner table, coordinated table-cloth and dinnerware, and a floral centerpiece. I look at this picture and I see the messy uncoordinated containers and no table-cloth! But I like it, it’s a big welcome sign that says “just dig in and enjoy!”

In two weeks time, our group will be having a Slavic dinner party. That should be interesting, let’s see if the Slavic chefs do a better job presenting their cuisine

I was thinking of getting myself a nice not-my-birthday cake at Vegan Treats, but at $6.50 per piece they are quite pricey, so I got some nonvegan treats at the local grocery store instead. Whoopi pies = whipped cream sandwiched between two vanilla cakes. They are pretty good.

This morning was bad. I was awaken at 8am by apartment-mate’s loud animated phone conversation…uhhhh!!! And then the building’s fire alarm went off at around 8:20am and I really had to get out of bed and leave the building…. AHHHH!! We were finally allowed back into the building sometime after 9am. There wasn’t any fire or smoke, no idea what happened to trigger that alarm.

Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka!

And make sure you shout “merdeka” eight times only, not seven times, not nine times, but 8 times, or else you might be fined RM1000 for doing it wrongly or worse - you might be deemed unpatriotic!

Tada! Here is my Merdeka celebration cake. Since I’m such a law abiding person, I couldn’t decorate my merdeka cake with the Jalur Gemilang, so I decorated the cake with the Bintang dan Jalur (Stars and Stripes) instead. Actually I like the name Jalur Kebintangan better.

I guess the PM’s department foresaw the onslaught of similarly badly decorated flag cakes that they tried to prevent the mayhem from ever happening. I have to say the law saved me and other novice cake decorators from attempting to produce a 14-point star with the yellow icing. I think that feat is impossible.