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.

Dinner and Breakfast Tempeh

I was very surprised not many people know about tempeh. I first heard of it when I was in college. A couple of Indian friends were eagerly anticipating this thing that Hanisha was going to bring back from Indonesia. "What is it?" I asked. My college mates were astonished. "You don't know tempeh?" As if I had committed the greatest sin. Then they went on to describe at length what a delicious delicacy tempeh was. I learned that day tempeh was an Indonesian thing. Period.

Two and a half years ago, when I got married to Adrian and subsequently moved to Bangkok, I started cooking. Back then with little to zilch experience in the kitchen, I visited 101 Cookbooks religiously. Everything I cooked was from Heidi Swanson. I'm proud to say I have outgrown that phase. Nevertheless 101 Cookbooks still serves as my inspiration from time to time.

One of the recipe I took from 101 that I liked very much was this TLT Sandwich recipe. I have always wanted to make it again since then. Unfortunately for reason unknown to me, tempeh was only available during the Thai vegetarian month. I waited. A year later, no sign nor sight of tempeh anywhere. Have they stopped selling? I was very disappointed and frustrated. Local people whom I asked have no clue what I was talking about. Some good-hearted ones directed me to the Vegetarian Society in JJ Market but to no avail. Sigh.

From left: Adrian tucking in to his famous Malaysian foods, mamak-styled. Me savoring local nyonya foods at an antique house in Jonker Street.

(L) Old man preparing teh tarik ("pulled tea"). (R) Haven't seen this boiler for ages!

When Adrian and I went back to KL to visit my family, we took a detour to Melaka - the historical state of Malaysia that was adorned World Heritage site status by the UNESCO in 2007. The trip started in order to satisfy Adrian's curiosity about this place - many people have mentioned it to him. It somehow ended as a history refreshment course for me. There were a few things that upset me, such as the building of shopping malls on the once recreational field near Porta De Santiago (which was wrongly called A'Farmosa by Lonely Planet, said our tour guide at the Red House museum). Its short fall was compensated by the boutique hotel - Courtyard@Heerem - that we stayed a night at, and the guided tour at the museum.

The Geographer Cafe and the curried tempeh.

There was also the sampling of nyonya foods and not to forget a tempeh dish from Geographer Cafe. It was a kind of finger foods, fried with curry powder. It was so good it reignited my desire for tempeh, and I vouched to buy some to bring back to Bangkok.

Unlike traditional tempeh, which is made from fermentation of cooked soya beans, this is of black beans.

Upon our return to KL, our first stop was to Just Life organic store. There, right in front of me, was 5 packets of freshly made, newly arrived organic black bean tempeh! I was ecstatic. I took all of them. Naturally I had been excited to cook with tempeh since then.

I took a quick search in 101 and found a couple other tempeh recipes that I wanted to try. I decided to make the Orange-pan Glazed Tempeh. This recipe features a simple ginger and garlic-spiked orange glaze that smells like a gingered duck dish that my grandmother used to make. Adrian thinks it's just like teriyakki chicken. The beans also make the tempeh looks awfully a lot like meat.

I was so excited about the TLT Sandwich that I couldn't stop smiling the whole night. I even asked Adrian if he could guess what's for tomorrow's breakfast, just to tell him "I'm not gonna tell you. It's gonna be real good."

As Adrian watched me assembling the sandwich, he said "I don't think it's going to make a sandwich." I crudely replied "It's an open-faced sandwich!" No one is dampening my enthusiasm for the breakfast that I'd been waiting for two years!

As it happened, we both loved this two tempeh dishes a lot. Off I go and scavenge for more special tempeh recipes. 3 more tempehs awaiting in the fridge!