Nasi Ulam

This is a very healthy and complete meal; it is a nona favourite. It is often eaten with soup as it is rather dry.

Nasi Ulam

Before we begin to make the nasi ulam, we must prepare the kerisik (dry grated coconut stir dry in a hot wok until brown).

Method of preparing kerisik

Stir dry grated coconut in a slow hot wok until brown, adding some sugar, pepper and salt for taste.

Prepare fry salted fish

Fry salted fish in a little oil and when cooled, break it into shreds or tiny pieces.

Cook half a pot of basmathi rice, making sure that they are fluffy and let them cool a few hours before preparing the nasi ulam.

Ingredients to be mixed with the rice

1. tumeric

2. shallot

3. lemon grass

4. basil leaves\

5. daun kaloh

6. tumeric leaves

7. cukor leaves

8. bunga kantan

9. chien hong (laksa leaves)

10. mint leaves

11. chilly padi

12. salted fish

13. kerisik

Chop the ingredients very fine and mix them with the cool, firm rice; add in kerisik and salted fish.

Making Ice Cream from Oreo Biscuits

Recently I learned how to make a delicious ice cream from Oreo biscuits.

Ingredients

1. Two sunkists with the rind removed;

2. 1 packet of Oreo biscuits;

3. 3 tablespoons of milk powder;

4. 3 tablespoons of coffee mate;

5. 1/2 cup of brown sugar;

6. A bowl of ice cubes.


Blend all the above ingredients together in the super blender Soylove II and lo! you have a fresh and delicious ice-cream that melts in your mouth. Happy trying!

Young coconuts

Coconuts taste FANTASTIC!

Besides the incredibly amazing experience one can have when eating coconuts, there are many other reasons to eat this wonderful delicacy! In fact, the young coconut is one of the most important fruits within the tropics because of its potassium and mineral rich water.

Preferably, the water and meat from young coconuts is used as opposed to the meat of older coconuts which tends to be very hard (as well, older coconuts typically have less water...if any.)

Medicinal Value

Besides being highly nutritious, young coconuts have also been exceedingly revered as having medicinal qualities for heart, liver and kidney disorders. In fact, the coconut has recently been reported to reduce the viral load of HIV.

Where to find Young Coconuts?

Malaysia being a tropical country is blessed with thousands of coconut trees and so we can have coconuts everyday. It is my habit to drink the water and eat a little of the meat of one coconut each morning after my exercise. I buy it from the shop near my house and the vendor will make a hole in the coconut to enable me to drink the water with a straw and after drinking it, he will split open the coconut to enable me to consume a little bit of the meat.

Step 1 - Making a Simple Coconut Smoothie

One of the easiest recipes for eating a young coconut is to make a tasty smoothie. The smoothie is simply the water from the young coconut blended with the soft jelly like white inner meat. The picture on the right is of a young coconut after it has been removed from its hard outer green shell. The coconuts we sell look like this picture - they've already been removed from the hard outer shell for your convenience.

Step 2 - The Tools

Often, people become frustrated with coconuts and give up on eating them because of the challenge often presened in trying to open them. What we've found useful to use is either a machete or butcher knife. You might want to make sure you have a cutting board, or some other hard surface to lay the coconut on that's safe to cut on. You'll also need a blender if you want to make a coconut cream (not pictured yet). Else, you can simply drink the coconut water with a straw, and scoop the white coconut meat out and eat by itself as well.

Step 3 - The Angle to Cut

One can drill wholes into the coconut, hit it with a hammer, or toss it out the window. We've found it easier to lay the coconut on its side so that we can safely cut the top off without losing much, if any, water.

Step 4 - Leverage and Safety

For safety sake, we don't hold the coconut when we do the initial cut - we value keeping our fingers intact. Our advice to you is to do the same if you feel comfortable. The coconuts rest very well on their sides. So, upon letting go of the coconut, we hold the butcher knife up high so as to help us get the necessary leverage needed to cut into the shell.

Step 5 - The Cut

With a swift downward strike, the knife cuts into the top of the coconut. If done correctly, the knife will break through part of the inner hard shell! This is what you want. If you didn't succeed on the first try, don't fret. Just try it again, rotating the coconut if necessary.

Step 6 - Different View

We'll usually set the coconut up straight after the initial cut just to make sure we don't lose any water. This picture hopefully gives you a better idea of how far the knife can sometimes go with the initial cut - there's no real need to pull a Hercules-like-blow cutting entirely through the coconut in one shot. In this picture you'll notice that the coconut has unfortunately lost some water upon the cutting board. Yes - it does happen.

Step 7 - Drain the Water

Drain the sweet coconut water into a blender. If the top of the coconut isn't removed, as in this picture, then we'll use the knife to help leverage/pry the top of the coconut in order to allow the water to freely pour into the blender.

Step 8 - Remove the Top

Cut the top of the coconut off using the knife. If you want, you can pull it off by hand, but this can sometimes get messy. Pour any extra coconut water into the blender. Notice the soft white coconut meet on the inside - it's great stuff!

Not a Step...

If you don't want to make a smoothie, you can put a straw in the coconut (okay, you'll need to make sure the coconut water is in the coconut, and not in a blender) and drink it as is. You can then scoop out the soft white coconut meat and eat it by itself. We wanted to add this picture to show that there are many possibilities :-)

Step 10 - Remove the Meat on Top

Using a spoon, scoop out the white meat on the top part of the coconut that was cut off, if any. Put the coconut meat within the blender. The softness varies from one coconut to another.

Step 11 - Scoop out the Inside of the Coconut

Use the spoon to scoop the soft white coconut meat from inside. Place the meat into the blender. Notice the darker, hard inner shell that has to be broken through with the knife within this picture.

Step 12 - Add the Coconut Meat to the Coconut Water in Blender

For the sake of making a smoothie, add the coconut meat to the coconut water within the blender.

Step 13 - Ready to Blend

Once you've scooped out all of the white meat, you're ready to blend. One point we wanted to mention is that while scooping out the coconut meat, don't worry if some of the meat has some thin, non-hard, inner shell coating on it. In fact, the lining from the inner shell adds a sort of cinnamon taste to the smoothie!

Step 14 - Blend Away!

We'll let the blender spin it's magic for two minutes. We use a FiberMania Juicer at its medium setting (only choices are high, medium and off).

Step 15 - Pour and Enjoy

Once finished blending, pour and enjoy!! We would have put in additional pictures of us drinking the liquid nirvana for you to view - but it tasted too good to put down to take pictures :-)

What Next?

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chilly sauce for buah betai

Ingredients (amount you have to gauge according to your taste sense or common sense)

1. garlic
2. shallot
3. lengkuas
4. daun limau purut
5. dried chillies
6. serai (lemon grass)
7. dried prawns pounded
8. sugar
9. tumeric
10.salt

Blend all ingredients and fry until semi dry. Keep in a glass jar for a long time if ingredients properly apportioned and cooked.

Basic Mayonnaise

Ingredients


2-4 egg yolks (according to how extravagant you feel)

2 tablespoon lemon/orange juice or wine or cider vinegar, 300 ml good salad oil (olive or sunflower are best.) 1 rounded tablespoon French mustard (e.g. Dijon).

½ level tsp salt.

¼ freshly grounded black pepper.

Method

Put egg yolks in liquidizer and switch on for 2 minutes or until thick and creamy.

With machine running, add juice or vinegar. Then add oil gradually until 150 ml has been absorbed.

Now add all the seasonings, switch on again and gradually add the last of the oil.

Keeps in refrigerator for 3 – 4 weeks. Can be thinned down when required with milk, single cream or natural yoghurt or more lemon or orange juice or vinegar.

Salted vegetables

SALTED VEGETABLES


1 kilo kuah chai
A big glass Horlicks jar filled with distilled or filtered water.
Some red chillies preferably chilly padi
2 tablespoons of sea-salt.
3 tablespoons of brown sugar



Steps to do

Wash the kua chai and chillies thoroughly and let the water drain off.

Immerse the kua chai and the chillies completely in the Horlicks jar of salted water and close the lid tightly.
After about a week, open up the jar and drain off the water. Add in the brown sugar and mix it thoroughly with the kuah chai. The kuah chai will be sourish because of fermentation and it will taste sweet and spicy as well. Have a good try!

You have to put the salted vegetable in the fridge because there is no preservative.

Chilly sauce for acar (a Malaysian pickle)

Ingredients

1. Dried chilies, cut and dispose of seeds.
2. A small piece of lengkuas
3. A small piece of tumeric
4. Lemon Grass
5. Some shallot
6. Some garlic
7. 5 or 6 buah keras (candlenut)


Blend ingredients and fry them in oil until golden brown and fragrant. Can keep in the freezer for quite a long time.