Foodarrific

For the past few mornings last week, I’ve been having breakfast at this new place I found. Well, I’d read about their $5 breakfasts but not being someone who eats breakfast out very often, I didn’t pay much attention.

But I have a gym partner now who faithfully hangs out with me when I go shopping for groceries and holiday gifts, and one morning, we decided to check out the Otak-Otak Place. It’s a themed restaurant reminiscent of your no-frills school canteen back in the good old 1960′s, complete with old-time songs played on wobbly records.

They have a few breakfast sets to choose from which come with tea or coffee, and my girl friend ordered the one that comes with Chicken Curry and Toast in a basket…

… and English tea with a Jacob cracker on top. So cute!

And I chose to have coffee with Nasi Lemak, or coconut rice with spicy condiments.

I’ve seen Otak-Otak Place franchises located in a few of the major shopping malls around town. Their breakfast is pretty okay for the price and I like that the place is nice and quiet in the mornings.

Filed under: AsianBeveragesBreads & PastriesCurryReviews by chili queen - 1 Comment →

Our school day lunches have been rather run-of-the-mill of late due to our hectic schedule. So I try to spice things up during the weekends and school breaks. This time I decided to surprise my daughters with Thai green curry for lunch.

This is a dish I can only prepare when I have ample time because it requires quite a lot of ingredients and preparation. Glad I got to use fresh basil from my own garden and lemongrass from my neighbor’s garden .

For the curry paste, I blended these ingredients into a paste:

• 5 large green chillies, or jalapeno, seeded and chopped
• 1 knob ginger
• 6 cloves garlic
• 4-5 medium sticks of lemongrass, chopped
• zest from 1 lime, grated
• 2 medium onions, diced
• 1 bunch cilantro, chopped
• ½ cup fish sauce
• 1 Tsp sugar

The other ingredients are:

• 2 boneless chicken thighs, cut in 1” pieces
• 2 cups thickened coconut milk
• 1 zucchini, diced
• 1 egg plant, diced
• 6-8 long beans, diced
• 1 bunch basil
• 1 cup chicken stock, or water
• a few drizzles of soy sauce
• 1 Tsp lime juice
• 3 Tsp cooking oil

First I heat up the pot with cooking oil to fry half the green curry paste on medium heat for about 5 minutes till fragrant. Then I add the coconut milk and chicken stock followed by the long beans since they take the longest to soften.

I let it simmer for about 5 minutes before adding the remaining green curry paste and coconut milk, followed by zucchini, eggplant, chicken, soy sauce, lime juice and basil, then for another 5-7 minutes on medium to low heat till the veggies are softened.

As usual, I add just enough salt to taste. Remember the fish sauce and chicken stock are salty in themselves, and you don’t want to end up with a sodium overdose.

Thai green curry is the best thing ever eaten over rice. I’m am not a big rice fan though so I prefer mine over noodles. You can see from the first photo that my curry is not too thick so there’s more than enough sauce to make a noodle soup.

If you’re craving a wonderfully exotic curry, there’s no need to wait till the next time you visit a Thai restaurant or go on vacation at a hotel, try cooking this at home instead. It’s not hard but it needs quite a bit of prep time .

Filed under: AsianCurryOne-dish MealsPoultryRecipesRice & NoodlesSpicyVegetables by chili queen - No Comments →

Well, I wished for rain and I got rain. So I have to cook some rainy weather food to warm up our tummies and to chase away the sniffles caused by the alternating cool and hot weather.

Chicken curry is the best thing ever and my kids love it. They’ve been trained to eat spicy food from young. It’s a gradual process. Just expose them to spicy food and pretty soon, their tastebuds will be conditioned.

It’s not too difficult to cook chicken curry at home. The end-result is really worth the effort. You need:

• 1 large chicken about 1.5kg, chopped
• 6 ladies’ fingers, cut into half lengths
• 4 large potatoes, quartered

• 3 teaspoons mixed spices, usually consisting of fennel and mustard seeds, coriander
• 4 tablespoons curry powder mix (use the prepacked mix for meat)
• santan, or coconut milk from 1 coconut
• 4 stalks lemon grass, crushed
• 4 stalks curry leaves

• 6-8 cups water
• cooking oil
• salt to taste

First thing I do is to heat up some oil in the wok, or pan. Throw in the mixed spices and leave to pop for a few minutes to flavor the oil.

Add the curry powder mix, then the stalks of lemon grass and curry leaves. Fry all together till the spicy fragrance fills your kitchen and gets your neighbors drooling with envy .

Add chicken pieces, then the potatoes. Fry for a few minutes before adding water to the mixture. Season with salt to taste. Cover the wok and allow to simmer till the chicken and potatoes are softened.

Add the ladies’ fingers followed by the coconut milk. Simmer till ladies’ fingers are softened. Use medium heat throughout the cooking process.

Chicken curry can be a one-dish meal if you’re in a rush, We typically eat it with rice and papadam. Papadams are round crackers made from chickpea flour and Indian spices. Very tasty, I tell ya!

They’re sold in packaged sheets at the Indian store and I fry them myself at home. They make a delicious accompaniment to any meal of curry. My kids sometimes eat it on its own as a snack or with a topping, sort of like a nacho.

Some of my Australian friends have developed a routine of eating Indian curry rice on Fridays. They would run to the nearby Indian restaurant to buy back a mountain of Indian curry and rice.

When they come to KL, they will insist I take them out for spicy Indian food. Who says Caucasians can’t take the heat? Some of them are even better than me and I’m supposed to be the resident Chili Queen!

Filed under: AsianCurryOne-dish MealsPoultryRecipesRice & NoodlesSpicy by chili queen - No Comments →