A little chinese urban legend goes that if you have conjuntivitis, that means you’re a peeping tom…either spying at your neighbour showering or your brother in the loo. Did you guys get that when you were young? I hated getting conjuntivitis - my whole family would tease me mercilessly and I can’t even cry with my poor eyelids stuck together. Hamsup (seedy/kinky/dirty old man) would be the least insult that’ll be used on me.At 4 years old.

Yesterday I nearly could not open my eyes. It hurts to even blink. My left eye is nearly swollen shut now. Probably due to the fact that I had peeped at bacon bathing OD-ed on chocs & mandarin oranges for my CNY self-celebration. It’s like as if I cannot stop peeling them oranges - best part is any other time of the year I DO NOT LIKE TO EAT CITRUS. Only in this 15 days of Chinese New Year that I go bonkers over it. Sigh.Anyway. I believe that due to the OD I am now ‘yit hei’ (too much yang, too much heaty food ect ect) and I wish i could just pop into any coffeeshop and ask for a pack of ice cold barley water with lime.All I have now is a measly bottle of Optrex, hopefully to keep my eyes free from infection before I get to the doctor’s tomorrow.Which, due to UK’s absolutely failure of a state-supported medical care, I cannot see until 2.40pm tomorrow.You think got 24hrs clinic ar?? Even hospital also they ask you NOT to go - unless you really are dying.

Best part? I have an extremely important interview tomorrow. Which I shall now be going in a Captain Hook eyepatch.

Hello God.It’s me. If you are listening, might as well you just shoot an arrow through my heart and kill me, kill me now!

Nearly all my masak-masak series have been made with love - out of love of gluttony for certain foods.This dish however, is made out of my mothers’ mindless persuasion. I rang home for a recipie of my favourite shallot-based curry, but she persuaded me in the way that only a mother can do to cook ayam masak merah (trans: red cooked chicken) instead.I don’t freaking know why, seeing that I am the one who is cooking and eating it.

Ayam masak merah is one of the regular dishes served up by the malay nasi stalls all around the country. Together with ulam (malay salad) , kangkung belacan (water spinach with shrimp paste) and chicken or beef curry, ayam masak merah has been a mainstand on the dining tables of many Malays.It also makes a regular appearance on the various warungs (streetside malay hawker stalls)

I honestly have no lost love for ayam masak merah. Bacon does not either. So why are we making this? Blame my mother.

Ingredients:
to pound-
6 shallots
2 clove garlic
2 chilli

6 chicken thighs quickly marinaded in cumin
3 good sized tomatos
tomato ketchup
juice of 1 lemon
1 stalk lemongrass
thickly sliced onions (2 onions)

First, pound the shallots, garlic and chilli. Use a blender if needed…as this process takes quite alot of time and energy!

Squeeze the lemons and chop up the tomatoes to small cubes

Stir in the pounded paste and fry until fragrant. Brown the marinated chicken together with the bruised lemongrass stalk.

When it is sufficiently browned (about 5 minutes), add in the tomatoes

Then stir in the onions…mmm..I like big fat cruncy onions

Add lemon juice and a squirt or two of tomato ketchup,and leave for 5-10 minutes.By this time the tomatoes would have disintigrated and form a pulpy texture.Please make sure the chicken is cooked throughly before removing from heat!

Serve up with handful of cilantro sprinkled on top and a steaming bowl of basmati rice.

Conclusion?

Not bad - but did not reach the heights that I would prefer it to. Traditionally, the chicken is deep-fried to a dry crunch before being added to the sauce, you can try that if you like. I think some food coloring usually goes into it as well to make it red or dead, but obviously have been omitted by me.

Enjoy!

phobia ; noun
an intense fear or hatred of something

I have one.You have one. Most people have one. Nearly all of us fear something innately silly - like spiders or cockroaches. Or flying or cramped spaces. Sure, no one loves spiders, but those with a spider phobia shriek at the sight of one and it sends them running like a marathon runner on steroids. I used to have this semi-tomboyish flatmate that is not afraid of anything. One day I heard her screaming like the girl she actually is..thought she accidentaly stabbed herself.Turns out its just a big spindly spider in her room which I swatted out with a rolled-up magazine.

Mine is giving/withdrawing blood. When I was 10, I was admitted to the hospital after developing a high tempreture continuously for 3 days. Afraid that it might be malaria or dengue, I was immediately wheeled to the nurses’ ward to withdraw blood so that they do some testing for it to see what was wrong with me. After 8 tries of poking my arms senseless and leaving me screaming like a hyena, the idiotic nurse got it right at last, with me still screaming and a 1/2 pint of blood in her hands. I imagine her evil smile, chuckling hyak hyak hyak,but she was probably more stressed out with my screaming.

I am probably not afraid of needles…as demonstrated by my tattoo.But somehow, smelling the sterile bed at the doctors always makes me panic at the sight of a huge needle…then I remember I have a tattoo and the world is happy again. It’s like comparing a dip in 100c water to 30c water..I can take a needle up me any time after going through that pain! As long as it is not on my veins on my elbow.

Fast forward 17 years later, I am still afraid of withdrawing blood. Since that incident 17 years ago, I had never had to be admitted to the hospital ever again, and I’ve avoided the instances where I had to withdraw blood, preferring not to do it at all.I love the idea of donating blood, just that I might faint from it before the needle even come close.

Bacon and I decided to take out a life insurance policy on each other, just in case the other choke on their food. The requirements of the health check (to make sure you are not already dead) is a full body check up. Inclusive of urine. And blood.

AND BLOOD?!

When I first heard that I went hysterical.Completely bonkers. After I had cooled down, I decided that in my year of zen, I need to face my fear. I had become such a scardey cat lately that I am ashamed of myself. I kept telling myself that I was only 10 the last time, so it was more like childhood trauma than anything else.

Today at my checkup:

me: Urm, nurse, I have a HUGE phobia of needles - specifically withdrawing blood.Can I have my husband with me?
nurse: no.
me: Urm, but when I was 10, some nurse took 8-10 tries on both my arms to withdraw blood
nurse: don’t you worry luv, I won’t do that, it will be quick and painless

10 minutes later

nurse: Hmm…let’s try the other arm (after poking me TWICE on my right arm. I quietly sat still and stared at the sink…did not even wince ok!)
me: okay. here you go. this might be better.

10 minutes later

nurse:*pokes again* you have no blood. Hmm…sign here anyway.Let me get the doctor

10 minutes later

doctor: (on the phone with the insurance people) she has poor veins, cant’ seem to extract more than a drop, so I am going to give her a salivia test instead.Ok? Thanks!

OMG. Should have given me the salivia test from the very beginning right!? OMG OMG OMG after all that trauma of being poked on both arms!! AND THAT NURSE DID NOT EVEN GIVE ME PLASTERS FOR MY POOR WOUND! She gave bacon a plaster though…marxist sexist flirt.

But at least I now have a very valid reason to be afraid of blood donating. I am allergic bloodless.Yippie! So you see, there is a reason for every phobia!

I like happy colorful places. I like pretending that I am crafty. SO one saturday afternoon, me and the cat headed towards hotch-potch, which specializes in pottery painting. Not pottery itself, just painting. I used to go to one in Fresno nearly every week and I’ve still kept my plates, soap dishes and the first ever mug I’ve painted.

Painting pottery isn’t cheap. Heck, it’s expensive like hell. My latte mug cost me £15 - I have an exact same shape/size mug at work taht cost me £1.50.

The cat contemplating her design choices.

whilst i started off with a swirly inside

The cat’s fancypants lotus design. I’m just jealous la ok?

because mine is so lame…..see my bee???

yeah, that’s how lame my painting is. I like bright colors. I like big pictures. I like simple lines. I am 2 years old.

….and I should probably taken a picture of our completed product.I still have the cat’s herb pot and bacon’s already putting his sexy latte to use.

Hotch Potch runs parties as well from £10 per person - a tile for you to paint,cookies,drinks and invites are included. This will probably be more of kids, but I LIKE.Great place to while away the afternoon just painting. For more information, please visit their website

me: Hmm…i want to eat something cute
bacon: okay, what do you wanna eat?
me: I want cupcake with choc orange frosting! please.
bacon: Do you know how to make then?
me: I dunno…but,but..i wanna eat…but…*snoozes*

2 hours later, I was woken up by a lovely aroma of butter and vanilla…

can you tell the difference which one is burnt and which ones are just choc flavoured?

Recipie : to be updated tomorrow..I forgot to ask bacon.heh.

Of course, the fun part about baking is the decorating - other than the eating! We bought premixed icing, but you can also make your own icing with icing sugar & water mixture;which will form a paste. We bought the tub just because it was dirt cheap.

So pretty innit?mixed some cocoa powder into the icing towards the end and came out with delcious choc frosting!

My favourite - easter-egg nest

Bacon’s favourite - scary spaceship themed choc buttons.

Will do more cupcakes in the near future - this time we will have other decorations that are not choc flavoured/colored! If you can’t wait, visit the crew at chockylit -its absolutely cutelicious!*drools…

Hi!

My name is Boris, and I am approximately 1 month old. I am a cheeky regular hamster and I live with this fat couple and a black cat called Tetley.

My day consist of sleeping in my cozy little cage curled up with my bedding, food and shit.In the night, I like to keep the fat couple awake by running round and round on my wheel and gnawing my cage wires. Hur hur. I also like teasing the cat..as long as I’m in my cage he can’t get me even though he’s tried. Guess his gnawing skills are not as good as mine!His pawing skills are quite good though,but not fast enough for me!

I also love chasing tetley around the house when the fat couple puts me in a contained ball. He’s such a big scarey cat, he runs away from me. Who’s the boss now huh? Y’want a piece of me hah?!He sometimes gets so afraid at this big huge ball heading towards him that he goes to a different room.Hah! I WIN!

I like to eat popcorn and hammy chocolate. I wee on my wheel, which subsequently drips on the floor. The fat couple gets really mad at me but they can’t do anything. hur hur. They tried to stop me from going to my wheel by taking off my ladder, but I am too clever for them - I don’t need my ladder, I can get to it with my strong arms! Comming down proves to be a slight problem though,i usually just brace myself and do a free fall without a parachute.

If you ever come around to visit, please don’t forget that I like popcorn, all sort of crunchy fresh veggies and lentil/beany stuff.It sometimes gives me wind eating all that beans but it keeps the cat away from me!

bye for now!

Unlike my cheena-wannabe self, I adore desserts. I have an extremely sweet tooth, and will only stop when my teeth cries out in pain from the attack of sugars. However, chinese meals are seldom ended on a sweet note, unless you are off for a full sit-down 8 course meal - which happens on Chinese New Years and wedding dinners.

Chinese dessert usually have strange and wonderful names. It is usually some auspicious-sounding name - like four seasons ect. So I have decided to name my self-conccoted desset as well - presenting Growing Treasures.

Ingredients:

Dried white fungus. Be VERY prudent
6 red chinese dates
2-3 pandan leaves (pandanus leaves/ screwpine leaves) tied in a knot
100g of pak kor/ peh kueh (gingko nuts)
a couple of quail’s egg
wonton skin (optional)
rock sugar - according to taste

Soak the white fungus in warm water for a couple of hours. The reason this dish is called growing treasures is because the fungus grows and expands and nearly pop! It is HUGE. A fistfull will grow into a huge potful if you are not careful, and you won’t be able to fit anything else in it.

After the fungus is semi-soft, pop it into the pot and start boiling. You can now put those in:

rock sugar and tied pandan leaves.

Let it boil away merrily for an hour, and then add the dates. In the meantime, crack open the gingko nuts. Make sure YOU REMOVE THE HEART OF THE NUT with a toothpick…if you do not do that you will be very,very sorry when you bite into the extremely bitter centre. Me, in emulating the year of the golden pig, got some pre-cracked, de-hearted gingko nuts. Cheating, my mother laughed at me.

Depending on how long you’ve soaked your white fungus, you might only need to cook it for 2 hours, or like me, you might need more than that. Gingko nuts need at least an hour in the pot, so time it carefully.

When you are satisfied that the fungus is completely cooked, add the wonton skins and the quails’ egg for a quick boil to heat through,should not take more than 5 minutes.

mmmmmmmm…the sweet taste of home cooked thong sui.

I sometimes feel I’ve been bitten by the chinky bug..my past couple of posts have all been ‘in the spirit of chinese new year’. Maybe I’m trying to prove to myself I can do happy canto techno…

Chinese New Year in my family starts with a buffet at some 5 starred hotel. Chinese New Year in my small family now starts with a mad dash to my local chinese supermarket) for some steamboat foodstuff. So last Friday, I rushed down to Wing Lee Hong after work to stock up on fishballs, prawns, noodles, wonton skin, bok choy,fish tofu, tofu and some quails’ eggs. I also bought a pot of hotpot bean sauce, just to see how it tasted like. Being in the rush of the hoardes of chinese people preparing for their new year as well made me feel, if only for a moment, part of a community preparing for the same celebration - just like christmas.

Saturday afternoon started with making the stock for the steam boat to go happily boiling in. It was a simple stock made out of 3 good-sized pork ribs and a couple of cracked peppercorns. It is then left merrily boiling for a good 3-4 hours to get the full flavour out of the marrow and the flesh.

For wonton filling:

1 pound minced pork
2 finely minced water chestunts
A dash or two of Lea & Perrins sauce
A dash of good-quality soy sauce (I import mine from Penang,so sue me)
some dried shitaake mushrooms, finely minced
pepper
some cornflour

In the meantime, defrost all the frozen foodstuff. Make sure that wonton skins, if frozen, are left out for a good 12 hours before you need it - it is NOT usable unfrozen.

Wontons are very easy to make, and much fun as well. Mix the inggredients for the filling well,coating all of the meat with the seasonings. With your fingers, wet two corners of the wonton skin. Scoop a spoonful of stuffing and place it right in the middle, close the corners up so it forms a triangle. Apologies for lack of pictures - it was then that my camera decided to tell me that I am running out of pictures, so I had to be selective.

Its so easy even Bacon can make it :).

Oh, don’t forget to hard boil your quail’s eggs as well. I once saw some kwai lous drop the whole egg in shell and all in the steamboat’s stock - DO NOT DO THAT! Imagine all the chicken shit that you would be slurping in addition to your delicious stock.Gross.

Boil the eggs separately, and peel the shell off - that way all the bird crap on the shells are boiled and removed separate from your stock.Quail’s eggs are pretty small, I tend to just boil it for 3 mins and turn the gas off whilst it continues cooking.

ta-da!

Start dropping whatever you want to eat into the boiling stock. Trick is, anything that is floating is cooked and ready to eat, so tuck in! Most people like rice or noodles to go with it as well, but seeing that me and bacon weren’t that hungry we gave that a miss.

Hmm…what’s for dessert?

in the spirit of chinese new year…i present to you the ubiquitious straits chinese must-have on all happy occasions of wedding, new years and birthdays:

kiam chye ark(Hok.) /ham choy ngap(Can.) /salted vegetable with duck soup(Eng.)

Everytime I refused to follow my parents back to my maternal grandmother’s apartment, she(grandma) would try to seduce me by offering to make my favourite soup of kiam chye ark. It is basically a simple concotion of duck, pig’s trotters and salted mustard leaves but it produces the most wonderfully complex flavours known to men, infusing the kitchen with the signature aroma that had seduced me for so many years. Not many non-straits chinese would know about this dish, I have never seen it sold anywhere other than in Penang. It is one of the traditional dishes to originate from the gourmet central of Malaysia and the island of my birth - other specialties include hokkien(prawn) mee,lam mee (birthday mee), lorh mee (noodle with thick eggy sauce, diff from KL’s) and of course many,many more. To be born in Penang is akin to being born an automatic glutton and I tend to think I make quite a good glutton.

My mom has tried making it but sort of failed miserably because she is healthy - no fatty meats and minimal saltiness. I would wolf down 3 bowls easy of this soup everytime I am at my grandma’s - it would sorta be like MY soup because I love it so much.I had always thought of it as a really hard dish to adjust flavours to because it is a complex mix of sweetness,sourness and saltiness.

As I lurked over a newly discovered blog, I realized its not so hard after all. Initially, I was going to follow her recipie note-for-note; but in the end I rang home and got grandma’s recipie,which has slight variations.

Inggredients:
1 duck (mine was 1.95kg)
1 pig trotter (my butcher did not have any,so mine was without)
2 nutmeg seeds
dried chinese/shitaake mushrooms (soaked and sliced)
3 packs salted mustard leaves (kiam chye/ham choy) - make sure its washed and soaked;i found a dried worm in mine.
3 good sized tomatoes
2 big onions

chop your duck up into 8 pieces; trying to remove as much of the skin and fat as you can. If you can’t seem to de-skin your duck, it’s ok, let it be, but you would need to skim the fat off your soup later

Using a huge pot, boil around 3 liters of water and throw in your duck when it starts to boil. If you are very hard working, let the duck boil for around 5 mins to remove the scum from it, throw the scummy water away, and reboil it again in fresh water. Otherwise, spend time skimming the scum off later when your soup is cooked

soak your salted vegetable for around 5-10 minutes, taking care to clean it properly
chop the vegetable into pieces of around 5cm in length, and boil it together with the duck.

Include the rest of the inggredients and let it boil away merrily for at least 2 hours.

ta-da!Ok, not much to look at, but IT DOES LOOK LIKE THAT! Honest.I did not come up with some fugly looking dish and pass it off as nice.

I am like so proud of myself. if you are new to this masak masak series or you do not know me in real, you should know that I am a relatively inexperienced novice cook - when I choose to cook I do really simple pastas, curries and stirfrys.So to produce a soup on the same level as my grandma is - an achievement even my mommy is proud of.

*sniff*sniff*