Steam Sea Perch (Siakap) in Sweet and Sour Soya Sauce

This is a new recipe I made myself because I didn't buy the plum sauce I normally use to cook the steamed fish.

Ingredients:

1 Ikan Siakap or Sea Perch.You can use any other fish like Spanish mackerel, Sole, Grouper or Red Snapper.

The fish is descaled, gutted and washed.Both sides are slitted with 3 slits.Season with salt, pepper and a bit of thin soya sauce.Leave to marinate for 1 hour in the fridge.

Prepare the steamer.If you don't have a steamer, you can steam in a wok by placing the fish in a plate placed on a cup immersed in water in the wok.A pot cover is used to cover the fish while steaming.

You can also use the oven.Place the fish in a metal container on a rack.The rack below it is filled with water.You steam the fish between 15 to 30 minutes or until cooked.

While the fish is cooking, prepare the sauce as follows:

Cut and slice finely 1 onion, 5 cloves garlic and 3 cm ginger.Heat a little oil in a wok and fry the onions, garlic and ginger till fragrant.Add thin soya sauce, sweet soya sauce,10 pieces of dried Chinese plums(asam boi) and 2 tablespoon tapioca starch mixed in water.Stir.Add more water if sauce is too thick.Add 1 teaspoon oyster sauce.You don't need to add sugar or salt.

For garnishing, you may add any or a mix of the following to the sauce:sliced spring onions,carrot strips,cut cilantro, parsley,celery, fresh green and red chillies or sliced capsicums.

Remove the fish from the oven once it is cooked and place in an oval slightly deep dish.Pour the sauce over the fish and serve with white rice.

To prepare from bottled Chinese plum sauce,the sauce is made as follows:

The fish is prepared as above.To prepare the sauce,the onions,garlic and ginger are similarly fried in a little oil.Add ground black pepper,and add half bottle of the plum sauce.If you like a hotter sauce, you can add a little chili paste instead of black pepper.Garnish as above.

Brainfood-Nutrition and Your Brain

I bought the book 'Brain Food' written by Dr. Brian Morgan and Roberta Morgan many years ago.Most people would view food consumption as an activity to prevent hunger.They would eat anything as long as it pleases their palate until they are inflicted with chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes or heart disease.These are people who eat to their hearts' content and does not bother about the side effects of their diet on their health.

The book reminds me that the right diet is vital for our well being right from the time of pre-birth(in our mothers' womb) and to the time of our demise.How we end our lives is often determined by how we live our lives!

In school we were never taught the effects of nutrition on our brain.We only learnt what happens when food enters our mouth,passes to the gastrointestinal tract and ends up in our bloodstream or in our rectum.

The book teaches how food can alleviate mood swings,memory problems,sleeping problems,lethargy and depression.

From what I understand,we have to eat right during our pregnancy because during pregnancy,malnutrition can retard the child's physical and mental growth.Malnutrition at this time can result in permanent reduction in the number of brain cells.This in turn can interfere with all the subsequent stages of growth and can disturb the whole chain of growth and development.Poor nutrition during pregnancy will result in smaller newborn head size in proportion to the body size.An undersized brain often means lowered intellect and diminished brain functions.

To sustain our well being and maintain overall physical and mental health throughout our life, we need to consume well balanced meals and pay attention to restore the brain's chemical balance with proper nutrients.Among the nutrients needed by the adult brain are the B vitamins(B1,B2,B3,B6 and B12),folic acid, biotin,pantothenic acid,Vitamins A,C,D,K,Minerals Iron, Zinc,Manganese, Copper, Magnesium, Calcium, Sodium, Potassium, Iodine and Phosphorus. Glucose provides energy and helps build new tissues, while protein builds new cells and repair brain cells.

Elderly people also need a balanced, healthy daily diet, just like at any stage of life-and even more so, to help them recover from injuries or illnesses.As a person gets older, the amount of muscle tissue present decreases and the rate at which the body conducts its overall processes slows down.So, just as less sleep is needed, fewer calories are required from the diet.The diet may be adjusted to compensate for the metabolic changes occurring in the body.However, a failure to reduce the amount you eat can lead to obesity, which increases arteriosclerosis,which is detrimental to brain health.

Elderly people need to tailor their diet according to their health condition to prevent or delay diseases of the brain like senility, Parkinson's Disease or Alzheimer's Disease.Keeping the brain active and keeping an active and healthy lifestyle will lead to a graceful aging process for the elderly.

So the lesson learnt from the book 'Brain Food' is that we must always practice a complete and well balanced diet at whatever stage of our lives.A healthy brain will lead to a healthy and happy body.

So, the best practice is to cook using natural ingredients that are free from preservatives, colorings, pesticides and unnecessary additives.Wholesome foods are whole grains, nuts,green vegetables, lean meat, chicken and fish, dairy products and lentils.

I now try to eat brown unpolished rice more often and reduce on fats,oils, meat,salt and sugar.When making omelettes, I would throw away some of the yolks so that less cholesterol is consumed.Since the book mentioned that organ meats are good for the brain I will try to cook them occasionally as they are also high in cholesterol.

As a general rule, whatever meal we cook must have the carbohydrate component, protein component, and vegetables to provide the minerals and vitamins components to make a complete meal.The fat component will come automatically from the way we prepare our meals.We must eat a variety of foods and not stick to any particular type so as to get the maximum benefits from various nutrients available.

Fried Yellow Noodles ( Mee Goreng)

Another family favorite is fried vermicelli and fried yellow noodles or fried flat white noodles( Koay Teow).If vermicelli and fresh noodles are not available,boiled and cooked spaghetti can be used as a substitute.

I normally do not add salt to yellow noodles as I find them already salty.

Ingredients:
500g noodles,washed and tossed.If using dried vermicelli,you have to dip in boiling water before tossing.
2 onions or 6 shallots sliced
5 cloves garlic, sliced
2 tablespoons chilli paste
2 tbsp chilli sauce
3 tbsp sweet soya sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce
a little beef or chicken meat cut into small pieces
Alternatively, you can use shrimps and squids instead of beef or chicken.
Mustard leaves ( Daun Sawi)
Beansprouts (Taugeh)
5 pieces fish balls
2 pieces fried taufu
For garnishing:
3 eggs made into an omelette
fried shallots (bawang goreng)
some fresh red chillies sliced
a sprig of spring onion and local celery-cut finely

Special Soya Sauce:
Mix together:
3 tablespoon sweet soya sauce
6 pieces of bird chillies cut into small pieces
1 teaspoon vinegar or lime juice

Heat some oil in a wok or large frying pan.When the oil is hot,lightly fry the onions,garlic and chillies till fragrant.Add meat or seafood and fish balls.If adding meat cook longer to ensure the meat becomes tender.Add chilli sauce and soya sauce. Add noodles,taugeh and sawi.For yellow noodles or koay teow,add a ladle of clean water if you like wet fried noodles.Last of all, add oyster sauce.Add salt to chilli sauce if frying vermicelli or koay teow.

Serve fried noodles in a plate.Garnish with fried shallots,sliced chillies,cut spring onions and celery and strips of omellette.The fried noodles is eaten with a bit of the special soya sauce using a pair of chopsticks.

Pecal

My family loves pecal.This is a kind of salad in peanut sauce which we eat with scalded and tossed rice vermicelli or with nasi empet. Actually I learnt to make pecal from my in-laws after I got married.We never had them when I was young as it is a Javanese dish and my husband's family, although not Javanese, live in a majority Javanese community.We have a similar kind of salad which is called gado-gado but the sauce is prepared differently.Nowadays the pecal sauce is hardly being prepared at home as it is readily available at the markets. I still prefer making them myself as I would make them less sweet but hotter.My daughter Zaty is now quite an expert assistant in preparing the pecal.

You can prepare the vegetables simultaneously with the sauce.
First boil some clean preferably filtered water in a large pot.When the water has boiled, dip in the rice vermicelli in a metal sieve or colander for a few minutes.Toss when cooked and place in a large tray.You can line the tray with banana leave if you want your pecal to be attractively served.You cook the rice vermiceli first so that it will remain white after cooking.If you dip it in the hot water after the vegetables, then you may get green vermicelli.

Vegetables:
5 Long beans, 1 bundle pucuk paku (a kind of fern shoots),1 bundle tapioca shoots,a handful of bean sprouts(taugeh), 1 bundle kangkong(water spinach),1 cucumber, 1 turnip (sengkuang).The beansprouts are scalded first. This is followed by boiling the other vegetables (except cucumber and sengkuang) separately before cutting to bite sizes.The tougher portions of the tapioca shoots, kangkong and pucuk paku are discarded.The cucumber and sengkuang are cut into small 2 to 3 cm strips.

Optional:Tempeh(soya bean cake),taufu(soya bean curd)-are fried and cut into bite sizes.

Place all the vegetables, tempeh and taufu in the tray.

This ia how I make the pecal peanut sauce:

600g peanuts
(A)Rest of Ingredients:
30 dried chillies,cut and deseeded
5 shallots or 2 onions,sliced
prawn paste or belacan, the size of the 3 cm diameter ball
3 tablespoon dried shrimps
tamarind, about double the size of belacan
All the ingredients are fried separately in a little hot oil starting with the peanuts.

Once the peanuts are crunchy, you pound them in a pestle amd mortar or grind in an electric grinder.The nuts do not have to be finely grounded.Maybe about 40% are coarsely grounded.If you feel like it, you can also pound the rest of the ingredients together except tamarind, after you have pounded and removed the peanuts into a bowl.

To mix the pecal sauce:

Place the ingredients A in a bowl and add half of the pounded peanuts.Add some sugar (3 to 4 tablespoons)and tamarind mixed with hot water.Add more hot water or peanuts as necessary for a well mixed sauce that is neither too concentrated nor too thin.Taste before adding more sugar, tamarind juice or salt.

You may eat the pecal by putting all the vegetables, vermicelli or nasi empet and tempeh and taufu in a plate and adding the sauce on top.


If you cannot find some of the vegetables, you can still prepare pecal if you have the basic ingredients, i.e. chillies,onions,belacan and tamarind.However, non-Malaysians may object to the smell of fried belacan so you have to prepare pecal or sambal for that matter, when they are not around, that is if you stay in a students' hostel.For vegetables,try similar vegetables if you cannot find Malaysian vegetables.Who knows pecal may taste better with brussel or pea sprouts,carrots,asparagus, parsnip or lettuce.

Rendang (Meat or Chicken cooked in Spices and Coconut Milk and Coconut Paste)

I normally cook rendang on the eve of Eidul Fitri or Eidul Adha.On other days rendang is eaten at wedding feasts.As rendang is a rich dish, it shouldn't be eaten regularly if you wish to maintain your cholesterol levels.Ikmal loves his rendang to be cooked with boiled and then shelled cockles instead of beef or mutton.He would volunteer to shell the cockles as he could put some of them into his mouth at the same time.

Nowadays cooking rendang is easy because you can buy the coconut cream and coconut paste(kerisik,i.e pounded lightly fried grated or dessicated coconut).You needn't put the lemon grass,galangal, turmeric leaves and kaffir lime leaves if you cannot find them.However, the taste would not be the same.

There are many versions of local rendang.Some make the basic rendang with only chillies as the main spice.I prefer the Rendang Tok version originating from the State of Perak.

Here's my recipe:

Ingredients

1kg beef, cut into fairly large cubes.You can use tough cuts as cooking for a long time will soften them and they taste better.

1/2 cup grated coconut for kerisik, fried lightly till crisply and pounded till oily

2 coconuts, grated and squeezed for thick coconut milk then add 2½ cups water to the residue to mix and squeeze out for general santan, or 1 bar of frozen coconut cream or 1 litre of UHT coconut milk.

(A) Finely pounded and mixed (or grounded with water in a blender):

10 fresh chillies, seeded

15 dried red chillies, seeded

20 shallots

6cm galangal

6 cm ginger

3 tsp fennel powder (jintan manis)

3 tsp cumin powder (jintan putih)

6 tsp coriander seeds

6 candle nuts

4 stalks lemon grass (serai)

(B) Spices:

4cm cinnamon stick

7 cardamoms (buah pelaga)

6 cloves

2 star anise (bunga lawang)

(C):

4 stalks lemon grass, smashed

5 pieces dried tamarind skin (asam keping)

3 turmeric leaves, cut in small strips

Seasoning:

1 tsp salt or to taste

2 tsp brown sugar or palm sugar (gula Melaka)or to taste

4 kaffir lime leaves (daun limau purut), cut in strips too

Heat coconut milk with the pounded ingredients (A) and spices (B) in a deep pot or wok until mixture comes to a boil.

Add the beef and simmer over low heat for 1½ to two hours.Add ingredients C.

Stir occasionally to prevent the meat from sticking to the pot. Add the kaffir lime and turmeric leaves.

When the gravy becomes thick, add the kerisik and lower the heat. Stir briskly until mixture is thick and gravy coats the meat evenly.

Add seasoning to taste, then dish out and serve with rice or ketupat. It is also eaten with yellow glutinous rice.

If you are preparing rendang the night before Eid or a feast, refrain from adding the kerisik and coconut milk until the next day so that your rendang will not turn bad.

If you are making chicken or cockle rendang, all the ingredients are fried in oil over low heat before adding the coconut milk and the rest of the ingredients as they don't need to be cooked for a long time.When using chicken broilers for rendang, you can cook them as in cooking beef rendang.