Couple Debut to Asian Foods

Adrian has been helping me with breakfast. This, however, was our "official" cooking together, AND it's a venture into unfamiliar territory: Asian Foods. Whatever the outcome, I really enjoyed cooking with my husband. On our second attempt at Asian foods, I was overwhelmed by love and happiness when he sent a SMS to me, saying "wait for me. I want to cook with you. be back in 5." He's the sweetest :)

I forget how it started. I remember asking Adrian "shall we cook nyonya?", followed by "will you cook your favorite Penang Char Kway Teow?" He told me to send him a recipe link. Hence our first Asian attempt began to unfold into a dangerously ambitious project. I am not posting the recipes here as, although there were a few recipes that turned out good, they were not good enough that I would share.

I found enough recipes for two meals. For first meal we had Char Kway Teow, Sze Chuan Vegetarian Balls, and Corn and Zucchini Coconut Milk Stew - the latter was the easiest and simplest to make. With coconut milk and hot spices, how could it go wrong?

The Vegetarian Balls was quite a challenge. Maybe I didn't get the proportion of ingredients right - I kept yelling to Adrian "HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO SHAPE THIS MUSH INTO BALLS?" I kept adding flour until the consistency was more or less desirable. They looked pretty good at first. Once baked, they began to lose their shape.

I was quite happy with the taste of the Sze Chuan sauce that I made anyway.

Next came the noodles. These was a tough one . This was the dish that prompted Adrian to ask "how many more days do we have to be in Asia?"

We started with soaking the rice noodles in water, longer than what the sales person told us to do. We even covered the noodles, hoping they would go softer under steam. Still, it's a al dente Char Kway Teow. It's not terrible, it just wasn't Char Kway Teow. I didn't think Adrian was proud of it but the more I ate it, the more I liked it although it was no where close to Char Kway Teow.

Despite the noodle-misadventure, my spirit was still high. I wasn't going to surrender the Pad Thai plan despite the weariness on Adrian's face. Although Adrian was positive that the sales person said to soak the water in water, not hot water, I decided to follow my heart. I soaked the noodles the night before, checked them in the morning. Nope - softer but not good enough. So I put them in boiling water. After 10 minutes, DONE! Good to go!

Once again, Adrian was in charged of the noodles. He mentioned he has not seen Pad Thai cooked with coconut milk (but that's what the recipe uses!), and what makes Pad Thai Pad Thai and not just another fried noodles, is tamarind (but the recipe uses none!). The noodles turned out white, and nothing like the Pad Thai I've come across with. They were, however, good noodles. Quote from Adrian "it's like a GOOD Pad Thai you get in America.". That's a pass?

Last year when we went to see my family for Chinese New Year, I told my father to buy me some Sambal Belacan because I had plan to cook Malaysian foods. It took a good one year to materialize the plan. Better late than never. I have always liked Kangkung (morning glory) Belacan. I thought it would be nice to add my favorite tempeh.

I wonder if it's fortunate or not: 5 minutes before we started cooking I found out I was supposed to make a chili paste to blend the belacan in before I could use it for cooking. Luckily I have a leftover red chili paste from a panang tofu dish that I made long ago. This last minute adaptation must have shaken me quite a bit - I began to get disorganized: I was supposed to fry the tempeh but I didn't. As a result, they sort of fell apart looking like a kind of spicy bean sauce. Sigh. Can't believe I wasted the tempeh.

White Pad Thai and a failed Tempeh? I vouched to make the last dish GREAT! It's a Pineapple Sweet and Sour Vegetarian, like Gu Lou Yok (sweet and sour pork). I will always remember once someone told me when meats (about to) go bad, restaurants will use them in Sweet and Sour recipe. Nevertheless, they were so good especially those with deep fried chicken/ pork. Ahhhh, the good old meat-eating days. I digress. It's incredible how easy it was to make. I used walnut in place of pork. This turned out really good. Not only did we approve of it but our visitor, Jessie, too, liked it a lot.

To me, the challenge of cooking Asians was tasting. I can now taste and adjust western foods as I see fit. Not with Asians; I knew something was missing, but what? how? I thought our debut to Asian foods may be our one and only tribute. However as I'm typing this, I began to feel more drawn to the intricacy of Asians. Yesterday while coming home in a taxi, I announced to Adrian "I think we should get more into Asian foods." I thought I saw a dark cloud hovering over his face.