The Giant Flower

Auntie Ghim Ai dropped by the house today to pass us this thing.

Nee was ecstatic about it. That's about how she looks when I give her flowers on special ocassions. Maybe I should consider giving her something like this the next time.

Well, this one's a giant brocolli plant with leaves as tough as sandpaper. I don't know where my aunt got it. It looks like it came from outer space.

My aunt mentioned something about a special way to cook those almost inedible leaves. I'l leave that for Nee to explain cos I catch no ball.

This one's ripe already for cooking. I wasn't so sure about that, but that's what my aunt said.

My aunt also gave us the little Brocolli shoots. It looked like it was drying up already so we had to do something fast.

Comparatively, it seems hard to believe this little bugger can grow up to be the giant plastic looking plant with those huge thick rubber leaves.

When I grow up, I wanna be just like you!

And so we quickly went to work.

I think it really needed some real chicken shit. So we gave it some.

Done. We'll do a report one day when it becomes a giant plant. Then we'll do some brocolli recipes for 2 months.

Grandma Food: Kuching Porridge

We've been overeating for quiet some time now and usually when we do that, our internal biological alarm will go off.

"ALERT! The cache is now full. We will not accept any more deposits. Please make your withdrawals quickly. Emergency - Need detox."

And when this happens, we have to eat grandma food - Porridge! When I was young, I always equate eating porridge with drinking water. Porridge is about 80-90% water if I'm not wrong. So basically, it's drinking water until we're full. But it's a different kinda full. It doesn't last.

But as we grow older & closer to the grandma category, we tend to appreciate porridge more. It has a very soft & clean feel about it. It cleanses the system.

In Kuching, most of the porridge stalls open only in the morning, for old people to eat I guess. Some operate at nite. So usually around noon, they are non-existent.

But there is one particular place in Padungan where you can enjoy this water-meal with all the traditional condiments & dishes to go with it. I think it's teochew if I'm not mistaken.

Can you read mandarin? We were so hungry that we forgot the name of the shop.

This shop is not bad. You can tell by the number of people there. And this shop has been around for quite a long while already. The last time Nee & I were here in 2004, we were still dating. We ate porridge while holding hands.

This is how it works. You'd have to go all the way to the back & point what you want.

There's quite a lot of choices and they're all quite authentic, simple, traditional dishes.

Then the auntie will scoop them for you & then bring them to your table.

We took a few of the egg-based dishes.

And also a few of the pork-based ones.

The vege type dishes.

Ka-cha Ka-cha anchovies are such just a nice contrast to the soft porridge.

I ordered Teh-C assuming that it was the small hot one. It came as a big Teh-C-Peng. Imagine I had to swallow all this water after two bowls of porridge.

Let me tell you. It was so good and that was last Friday. Tonite, we had porridge at home again.

Homemade Kaya

Kaya is a very Malaysian and Singaporean jam, made out of coconut milk. Almost everyone in this country grew up with this jam, at the time when strawberry, raspberry jam are not even heard of in this country. Kaya spread on toasts is a common delectable breakfast item.

Today people actually franchise this item. Kaya and Toast are opening everywhere. There are kaya puffs, kaya toasts and kaya buns. People get kaya (translation from Malay ~Rich) from kaya. My dear hubby has been bugging me (yes he is quite good at bugging) for this whenever he has toasts for breakfast. So I decided to indulge him. I refuse to buy kaya from stores because they have what Auntie Terri calls "addictives that are allowed".

Homemade kaya is not as hard to make as kaya makers would tell you. It is as simple as throw-it-in-a-pot and voila you get kaya. Maybe not so simple but definitely close to that simple.

185 gm of thick coconut milk, i.e. the first squeeze

400 gm of castor sugar

2 tbsp of brown sugar, use the reddish brown type, will give kaya the colour

5 no of large eggs

5-6 pandan leaves, washed, cut and tied in bundles

1) Stir coconut milk with sugar and brown sugar til sugar almost dissolved.

2) Add in beaten up eggs. Continue stirring til all mixture is evenly mixed.

3) Add pandan leaves. And start cooking over medium fire for about 3-5 minutes stirring all the time til mixture is warm. Turn to low medium fire and continue stirring. Be careful of the pot bottom sides. Stir til mixture starts to thicken, about another edited: 12-18 minutes (not too long because kaya maybe too dry).

4) Edited: Strain throught as sieve into container/s that you will be keeping kaya in permanently. Cool before you close lid.

Things to watch out for:

Use a heavy pot so that mixture will not be easily burnt.

Please do not cut down on sugar as the caramelisation will help to smoothen the mixture. Spread and use sparingly if you must.

Cooking fire must NOT be big and mixture must not be boiling bubbling. Slight bubbles on side is ok. Keep on stirring. If too hot the fire will cause the eggs to be overly cooked and thus separated causing the mixture to be lumpy and eggy.

Dont change containers. Kaya turns bad easily if you change containers.