0004 - Ayam Masak Kicap

This dish is one easy piece to make. I think you will only spent your longest time on frying the chicken. But anyway.. here we go!

Ayam Masak Kicap aka Black Sauced Chicken


Mum had chopped up all the onions & fresh green chilli. Maybe 2 Red Onions and 2 White ones will suffice. Green chilli, 1 or 2.


We threw into the very hot oil that's already mixed with Chicken that was fried before-hand. Just like Asam Pedas, you can add here the Lemongrass just to invigorate senses.


At this point as well is the time for you to add in some black pepper. This is totally optional of course but we like to mix most of our versatile dishes with pepper. We're addicted. Period.


So you've got to mix everything in the wok well & good. The fried chicken has to absorb the chilli & onions. After this, that's when you start adding Kicap Manis cap Kipas, mabye about 1/4 of that big bottle. Depending how dark you want this dish to be there's always the option to add Dark Soya Sauce, maybe 1 to 3 tablespoons? Either ways it's not neccessary to have both Kicap Manis & Dark Soya Sauce together. It can be either or. Do add a little bit of Light Soya Sauce if you've not planning on adding salt. Defining ingredient lest i fear i'm dining on a bland dish.


You should add in half a cup of water, and let them all simmer to perfection. Close the wok and let it all gargle before indulging it with, rice. Yet again.

And there we have it my friends :)

0003 - Asam Pedas

So today, is my mum's (yet again) famous Asam Pedas with Ikan Merah. Forgive me for i can't find the English translation for it. Of course, like any other versatile dish, i can pick & choose to have a different kind of Fish. In fact, i can even opt to leave the Fish out & sub it with Chicken instead - which by the way is my favorite in Asam Pedas. Once, again, totally up to you.


4 Bawang Besar (Is it Red Onions?), 2 Bawang Putih (White Onions?), Ginger & Soaked Lada Kering (Dried Chilli) all blended together. Heat up the unforgiving amount of oil, and of course, throw all the blended ingredients in. Before throwing them in though, mum said that the Melayu style of cooking, will normally have Serai (Lemongrass) & Lengkuas (? - photo to your right), heated together with the oil. It's just to invigorate the senses.
Afterwhich, stir in the blended ingredients. You can leave the 2 out if you don't feel like it. Totally up to you. Mum's of the Boyanese descent but she's really a Rojak at heart when it comes to cooking. If you know what i mean... :) Anyway, at this point, if you decide to have Chicken instead of Fish, you should stir them in as well. Coz you need more time for the Chicken to cook as compared to our dear Fish friends.


So we closed the wok to allow everything in it gargle to its heartiest content with the occasional stirring. The occasional stirring is a must, coz we don't want the dish to burnt. With that occasional stirring also comes the neccessity of stirring in half-cups of water. It's just to jel the ingredients well. The scent of this mix, was filling up the whole house by then. Again, run the fun if you don't want the smell to stay in the house for long.


See the smoke that fills up the photo? Well, after the occasional stirring... and occasional add-ons of water to keep the gravy watery instead of pekat, we added Air Asam. Apparently, according to mum, it's to give the dish a hint of sourness? And if i don't have asam, i can always squeeze some Lemon in. I guess, it's also the defining factor to hide the fishy smell coz i know some people do not like eating fish coz of the smell. So after all of that, it was time to place the Ikan Merah in. Closed it off, Heat it, Stir... Let is simmer, and a little while later? Done :)


Ready for lunch or even dinner, there we have it :) You can have this dish for about up to 2 or 3 days but you must heat it occasionally so that it doesn't go bad. Actually, you should refrigerate it before going to sleep, so that you can heat in the morning. Heat it up and you can even have it with your warm French loaves for breakfast. Just like dipping your chips in its salsa.

It may look really hot & spicy but that taste is normally determined by the Dried Chilli. This time round, the dish is not as hot & spicy as it looks. I think, but i may be wrong, the more dried up the Chilli is, the spicier a dish will be. Guess in this case, the Chilli ain't all dried up lah.

Best eaten hot (or maybe warm), i had this with Rice. What else right!

0002 - Mushroom Omelette

Not that this is my first time making an Omelette... but this is definitely my first Mushroom. I'd normally make one full of just cheese. Haha. There were Chicken days, Vegetable days, Belacan days... and the list goes on. But we already know there's a Million & One ways to the Omelette yeah? A quick google online, i found 149 Omelette Recipes at MrBreakfast.

Well, here's my half-baked attempt.


So i heat up the pan and slap on as much butter as i can (or want). Nope, i don't like frying eggs with oil. Not even olive oil. Hah. Mum will normally whisk the eggs & ingredients together in a clear bowl but i'd normally just do it all in the pan. So i threw in 2 eggs and on my greedier days, i'd throw more. Again, totally up to you.


I had to slow down the fire while throwing in the ingredients; black pepper first, mushrooms (soaked overnight preferably) and of course, since i've no mozarella cheese, i just used the sliced ones. Again, i'd normally break the sliced cheese into pieces before throwing it in but i decided to just throw the whole square piece and with my spoon, blend it in. HaHaHa. Talk about laziness right? So do you notice the melted butter gargling in the pan...? Damn. It looks so unhealthy, it scares the hell out of me.

Honestly, it takes time & practice to flip the egg to get the effect you see chefs at the restaurant does it. So mine is obviously not perfect.


Not a perfect one like you get in hotels or restaurants... but there you have it, my Mushroom Omelette :)


To see the cheese oozing out of the omelette, i just used a spoon to break bits of it. You'll see it.

Ok actually, i picked up a different way of making Omelette from my aunt before, which involved milk. It should be fresh milk, which i think should be easy when i get to Brisbane. You should try it, if you haven't :)

0001 - Mee Goreng

I have no idea where & how the dish Mee Goreng came from but it is pretty famous in Singapore, Malaysia & Indonesia. Of course there are 101 variations to this dish coz you can literally mix up the ingredients to suit your tastebusds. It's a pretty simple one to make i suppose :)


Dark Soya Sauce is a must in my mum's recipe. She doesn't gauge the amount by tablespoons, but rather by the taste of the dish overall. So basically, it's how much & how little you want to have this in your dish.
Light Soya Sauce is the defining ingredient. Once you throw this in, you can definitely forget about ading salt. Too much of this will result in a very salty Mee Goreng, and of course too little will be too bland. The best bet is to actually just add a little if you're using Yellow Noodles, coz the noodles itself is quite salty on its own.


First of all, if you wanna have eggs in this dish, here's what we did.
Heat up the wok with a little bit of oil, enough to fry 2 or 3 pieces of Chicken eggs - entirely up to you how much eggs you want. Break them eggs when it's well heated and mash them all up together immediately. It's not supposed to be fried fully coz it's actually just right to have it done in fresh whites & yellows. Quickly switch the fire off and scoop them eggs into a bowl, push it aside on the kitchen counter.
After all of that, that's when you heat up your wok again with an unforgiving amount of oil. Here's when the real deal begins. Haha!
Mix bawang merah (4x), bawang putih (2x) and lada kering (maybe 1 handful) in a blender.
The wok of oil should be pretty hot by now, and it's the best time to mix them all in. The house would be scented with the mixture of chilli when you do this. Seriously, it can whet your appetite. Haha. But you might want to have the fan running to avoid the smell sticking on to the sofas, clothes, etc.
You should also have an array of other ingredients ready before-hand. This one here, we've got peeled & totally cleansed prawn, sotong (squid), vegetables & even crabsticks.
Mix the prawn & sotong first in the heated mixture of chilli & oil and let them all simmer for maybe 3-5 minutes.


Last ingredient to throw in will be the vegetables. Mix them all up really good and let it simmer for a minute. You're good to go by then.


And there we go! Served best when it's hot with a sprinkle of dried onion flakes (bawang goreng).

:)