Tamarind and Thyme

After reading promising reviews of a new Malaysian restaurant from umami and bellaphon, all I had was Malaysian food on my mind – for weeks I was dreaming about laksa and nasi lemak and rendang and char kway teow! It all came to a head two weekends ago when after an opera matinee one Sunday, we took Blai’s friend out for a belated birthday dinner to Rasa Sayang in Chinatown. Between the very hungry three of us, we managed to consume quite a bit!

First up was this beef rendang and rice. For a one dish meal, this was a very generous portion (and this can be said for almost all of their dishes!) of very tender and nicely spiced beef rendang, a very dry and thick curry. I ought to cook it at home one day.

Next up was a nasi lemak, a dish of rice cooked with coconut milk served with sambal (like a chili relish) and fried peanuts and fried ikan bilis (little fishes) and usually a boiled egg too. That’s just the basic version – Rasa Sayang’s came with a creamy chicken curry and some acar (pickled vegetables) on the side. Their rice was very good with the coconut flavour coming through – most cheap ones have barely any coconut milk at all. The only really disappointing thing on the plate was the ikan bilis – they should be perfectly crisp but these were a bit chewy.

For our third main dish, I chose the Malaysian Hokkien mee, thick noodles fried with lots of dark soy sauce and seafood. (To confuse things, Hokkien mee is also a prawn noodle soup and in Singapore, it’s a white and saucy fried seafood noodle dish.) I thought it was the best rendition I’d found in London, with authentic crispy bits (more like chunks!) of fried pork lard/skin scattered throughout.

As we were hungry, I ordered some fried chicken wings marinated with preserved beancurd. The wings were crispy on the outside and savoury throughout. I have a weak spot for fried chicken though and so perhaps my thoughts aren’t entirely reliable!

Oh, and I also wanted a vegetable and I chose the kangkong with chili and belacan. You may also know kangkong by its other names: water convolvulus, ong choi, water spinach, morning glory. This was cooked perfectly, with the stems still having a bit of a crunch. I always seem to overcook it. Anyway, what was really surprising were the little dried shrimps in the dish – they were so crispy and everything the ikan bilis in the nasi lemak should have been!

We cleaned every plate and though we were starting to ache in the bellies, we couldn’t part without trying their desserts! First up, ondeh ondeh, a Malaysian kueh (cake) that I’ve never seen in London before. These boiled glutinous rice (or sweet potato) balls are filled with a gooey melting gula melaka (a brown palm sugar) and rolled in fresh grated coconut. No innards photo for you as I just found it to be easier to pop the entire thing in my mouth! And yes, the gula melaka did burst through. Quite authentic, yes.

Soon after, a plate of kueh dadar, a sweet and luridly green, pandan flavoured pancake stuffed with a mixture of freshly shredded coconut and gula melaka, appeared on the table too. Again, quite nice and chock full of filling.

Along with a few drinks, the total bill was a very surprising and very reasonable £40. And boy, were we stuffed – I might have overdone it with the ordering there. This dinner really caused me to miss my mother’s cooking – I haven’t been cooking much Malaysian food at home lately and that will have to increase (especially after the purchase of a new hand blender with mini chopper attachement!). Ah well, even if I don’t cook it, I know where to go for some delicious food!

Rasa Sayang
5 Macclesfield Street
London W1D 6AY

I don’t think I’ve found a proper Taiwanese fried pork chop in London – the closest thing I’ve come across was named a Shanghai style pork chop and was served at Leong’s Legends in Chinatown. Imagine a tender, fried, savoury, seasoned pork chop with a thin layer of batter (more like a crust). Now imagine it paired with a bowl of piping hot noodle soup or on white rice with pickled vegetables on the side. Mmmmm…that’s a Taiwanese fried pork chop! The seasoning is mostly from Chinese five spice and the crust is usually of cornstarch or sweet potato starch.

The other week, though, I stopped to wonder why I kept looking for it all over London and why I didn’t just try to cook it myself. I mean, I can buy pork, I can try frying (I must thank Blai’s mother for giving me a little more confidence in that area) and I’m sure a recipe can now be found on the Internet. Sure enough, I did find one with pretty good reviews on Allrecipes. That poor recipe went through a little tinkering: I didn’t feel like frying a whole pork chop and so substituted slices of pork tenderloin; there’d be more surface area for more marinade and crust and by using thinner slices, I could use less oil during the frying. Actually, the frying step was fine – the oil hardly sputtered and I never needed to top it up.

What resulted from the recipe below were extremely tender thin slices of wonderfully marinated pork that I served on rice with some garlicky spinach. It was all delicious and we made very short work of the pork! The pork chop with rice is also a typical Taiwanese style box lunch, which is also something I wish to replicate one day – I just need the soy sauce boiled egg, the pickles, and the thin layer of minced pork sauce between the rice and fried pork chop. A plain noodle soup can also be served alongside but the pork should be served separately to remain crisp. And while not traditional, I can imagine the fried meat would be amazing in a sandwich, similar to the pork chop bun from Macau.

Anyway, though the flavour was spot on and I think it was pretty good for a first attempt, I didn’t exactly get the crust exactly as I like it. Does anyone have any tips to get the crust more like that of my favourite fried pork chop in Vancouver? It should be extremely light and very crisp…perhaps through the use of sweet potato flour?

Taiwanese Style Fried Pork Tenderloin
serves 2
adapted from an Allrecipes recipe

1 pork tenderloin, about 350-400g in weight
2 tbsps soy sauce
1 tbsp minced garlic, from about 2 cloves
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine
1/2 tbsp Chinese five-spice powder
cornstarch
vegetable oil for frying

Slice the pork tenderloin into 1 cm slices, making sure to cut against the grain. With a meat mallet, give each slice a couple of smacks on each side to rough up the meat to soak up the marinade and to make it a little flatter. In a medium-large ziploc bag, mix the soy sauce, garlic, sugar, rice wine and five spice powder and add all the pork pieces. Remove as much air from the bag as possible, zip it up, and then massage the marinade into the pork pieces. Refrigerate for at least an hour, massaging and turning the bag over once in a while.

When you’re ready to fry, heat a frying pan over medium heat and add enough oil until you have a 1/2 to 1 cm layer. Fill a small shallow bowl with cornstarch. Without wiping off the marinade, dredge both sides of each piece of pork with cornstarch and shake off the excess. Fry the pieces of pork for about 2-3 minutes each side, until the coating is golden brown and the pork cooked through. Fry a few pieces at a time, taking care not to overcrowd the pan – about 4-5 batches ought to cover all the pork you’ll have. Drain the cooked pork on a plate lined with kitchen paper. Serve immediately.

I love Indian food – more specifically, I love South Indian food as this was what was mostly available in Malaysia and Singapore and hence what I grew up with. Yes, I ate my fair share of Indian food, Malay food, Nyonya food, Chinese food and Western food too. It was quite a multicultural upbringing I had.

Anyway, two Saturdays ago, I met Blai in Hammersmith and I dragged him down King Street to Sagar as I was craving some Indian food. I wanted crispy things and snacky things and savoury things, all of which Sagar do in abundance. We’d been before for dinner when we ordered their thalis but I’d always wanted to go back for the rest of their menu. From that menu, we had:

An aloo papadi chaat, a snack of chopped boiled potatoes, crunchy pieces of gram flour cracker, chutneys and yogurt – I was shovelling this down as it was mighty delicious and all the flavours just melded well together. Oh, and I’m a sucker for anything crunchy and savoury.

A Mysore masala dosa, a dosa spread with a spicy chili chutney on the inside and filled with spiced potatoes – so good! It was served with a fresh coconut chutney and a sambar, a tamarind and dal and vegetable soupy stew that’s usually served with dosas and rice. Sagar’s sambar was one of the best I’ve had; it was extremely flavourful and not too sour nor too thin.

A coconut uthappam, a thick dosa like a pancake, again served with chutney and sambar. Again, this went very well with the sambar – I want to try their other uthappams next time.

And for dessert, an order of rasmalai shared between us. It was creamy and fresh cheesy and so good – I don’t normally like milky sweets but this I love.

Alongside a couple of drinks, the total was about £20 for the two of us. With the quality of the food and the prices, I can see why this place is almost always packed! I’ll be back when another craving hits.

Sagar
157 King Street
Hammersmith
London W6 9JT

When we were in Liverpool last November, we had lunch at an Italian chain restaurant whereupon we both chose their pasta with salmon and spinach and peas in a cream sauce. While the execution of the dish was mostly good, I felt it could be improved upon as it was a bit cloying halfway through and there could have been more of the ingredients in the dish.

I got the chance to remake it when I found myself with a packet of smoked mackerel in my fridge and no real idea of what to do with it. My thoughts went back to that pasta meal and after a bit more scrounging about, came up with this. It was a nice way for us to increase our intake of fish!

Fusilli with Smoked Mackerel and Peas
serves 2.

250g dried fusilli
1-2 tbsps olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
150g smoked mackerel, flaked
1/2 cup of frozen peas
splash of white wine (optional)
about 75mL double cream, adjust to suit your taste
salt and freshly ground black pepper
a squeeze of lemon juice

This pasta sauce is very quick to make so get your water boiling and boil your pasta in the meantime (don’t forget to salt the water).

Heat the olive oil in a saute pan over medium heat and soften the chopped onion. When it’s translucent and soft, add the smoked mackerel and frozen peas and stir through. Add the splash of white wine and let it bubble and the alcohol cook off. Stir through the double cream and season to taste – you might find that you don’t need much salt as the fish can be quite salty. I like lots of black pepper.

When the pasta is cooked, drain it and mix it through with the sauce, adding some pasta water if it’s a bit too dry. Squeeze a bit of lemon juice over and stir through. Serve immediately.

I like to have a lemon wedge on the side as the lemon juice cuts through some of the richness.

BTW, I hope everyone had a nice Valentine’s Day yesterday!

Update: I’m submitting this recipe to Presto Pasta Nights, this week hosted by Noob Cook.

Have you seen the beautiful homemade Pocky over at Not Quite Nigella? She has a gorgeous forest of them!

Though they do sound terribly unhealthy, I want to try Gibbles Potato Chips (crisps here) as they’re fried in LARD.

Want more about Barcelona? Check out the Culinary City Snapshot provided by Trig over at The Passionate Cook. I see that Cerveseria Catalana is on that list!

A few weeks ago, I took part in a food quiz at Food Inc at Whiteleys alongside Helen of Food Stories, Helen of World Foodie Guide, Chris of Cheese and Biscuits, and our leader Alex of The Princess and the Recipe. Helen (WFG) has written an excellent writeup of the event. Thanks for a fun night, everyone!

Finally, I want a Sidewalk too!