Happy Birthday Malaysia!

Happy Birthday Malaysia 2012! This year is extra special cause I'm hoping I can call a part of Malaysia my very own soon!   :)

Raya Special : Chicken Curry

I'm on a roll here! Cooked my second curry dish in a week! Just two days apart from my Curry Fish.

Anyway, still feeling the raya festive mood, so ingredient list as per below! Difference is probably the meat, the indian meat spice, and potatoes! Everything else is more of less the same :) easy peasy! 

 Cooking Instruction:
1. Add oil to pan, add curry leaves and indian spice and cook for 5 minutes until fragrance.
2. Add minces shallots and onions and cook another 5 - 10 minutes until fragrance.
3. Add chicken and cook for 10 minutes.
4. Add tomatoes and potatoes and cook another 10 minutes.
5. Add curry powder, some water and santan and let it simmer until ready to eat (around 15 - 20 minutes)

To make it easy, I've arrange the items in the order they are suppose to go into the pan, from left to right! Easy-peasy!
 

Relaxing day at home. Can't wait till I retire! I'm never bored at home!!! Suddenly I feel like I could tackle Penang Laksa! Look out for it soon!!!!

Raya Special : Indian Curry Fish

If you don't know yet, I'm totally in love with curry. It's something that I've always wanted to learn how to cook with it coming out smelling authentically Indian, instead of those ready made spice you just add and the dish came out rather blend. I was in luck as while I visited an old Penang friend the other day, she cooked me curry fish and taught me the simple recipe. So while I was back in Penang just a week ago, I bought all the spices required, and on the eve of Hari Raya, to curb the wonderful smell of curries coming from my Malay neighbor, I venture to try the fish curry my friend taught me.

Photo below shows the ingredient you need. The recipe is also available when you purchase the Alagappa's curry fish powder from any supermarket (I got mine from Tesco in a new packaging that cost only RM1.00, SGD 0.45). The recipe at the back says you need 80g, but the package only comes in 25g, but no need to panic, I cooked it with just 25g, and it turned out wonderful. Of course I did spice it up crazy with shallots and spices!!

Anyway, you need Santan a.k.a. coconut milk. Photo shows one small packet, but I actually used only half, saving the other half for my curry chicken coming up in the next post! 2 big Tomatoes,5  ladies fingers a.k.a. okra, curry powder 1 pack, hand full of shallot (mince it up), one bowl of tamarine juice or more depending on taste, black pomfret works wonderful in this dish, curry leaves, 1 big onion slice (not shown here, oops!), and a handful of indian curry spice. Note there's a different buying fish spice and meat spice, please get the correct one!.

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Cooking Instruction:

1. Add oil to pan, add curry leaves and indian spice and cook for 5 minutes until fragrance.
2. Add minces shallots and onions and cook another 5 - 10 minutes until fragrance.
3. Add curry fish powder and tamarine juice and let it boil a few minutes.
4. Add tomatoes, ladies finger and santan and let it boil another few minutes until the tomatoes are slightly mush. Bless it with some salt and sugar to taste.
5. Add fish last, and let it cook 10 minutes top! After that, kill the fire and let it rest. Don't overcook the fish!

Here's what it looks like while still boiling happily away.

 As always, a home cooked meal is better and cheaper than the food outside. This is super easy to cook, and fills your home with the wonderful fragrance of spices that is just priceless! I had mine with onion and eggs and white rice. Normally we eat brown rice at my home, but somehow I can't make myself cook brown rice with curry, it's just isn't done that way! Ever!

Wishing you a wonderful Hari Raya wherever you are! Curries make me feel happy and less home sick and brings back wonderful memories of my days in Penang! Stay tune for chicken curry up next!

Ref:

Alagappa's

Black Pomfret

Ladies Finger

Tesco

Hari Raya

Happy Birthday Singapore!

Photo taken from the Singapore Flyer during National Day Rehearsal 2012. Singapore Flyer is like my lucky charm. First time I went there, was via a company event ticket for only SGD10! I went up during sunset, and took a photo that won't be a canon isus camera that I sold for SGD200! And with that I bought my DSLR.

I was invited there again this year for Blood Donation Day celebration, and during the lucky draw, we won ourselves 4 free tickets to the flyer! So I used it for another ride, this time during the NDP rehearsals, and these are some of the wonderful photos I took :)

Happy Birthday to my adopted country! I've been living here for the past 14 years!!! Time to retire back to Malaysia, eh?

Handmade Handphone Cover

Finally got my new phone the other day, and I wanted a change from my boring usual black color handphone and handphone cover. So I decided to pick a white handphone, have only a bright blue cover, and a pink color handmade phone cover!

 

To start, the above is the drawing board on the left, followed by pairing of the cloth, which took like over night before I decided on the final pairing..... I decided to jazz it up a bit with accessories, some handmade patch, and as usual, always have inner pattern to make it look high classy! 

 Here are some better photos of the near finish product. Love the inner lining although I thought I should have gone with a darker colored pattern. But the good news is, the top floral cloth was really really soft, and now it feels like I have my pillow case with me wherever I go! Love the color, love the texture! Interestingly, the floral pattern cloth only cost me like SGD2 to SGD4??? Got it from a cloth merchant behind OG Chinatown. Got to go shopping there soon!

  

Lastly, my phone and it's new cover resting in our guest room. Behind it is my sewing machine cover. I'm surprise I've never posted that before cause its pretty cool looking too! Unfortunately, it's still not finished, and  neither will it be any time soon cause it's already functional.....

Anyway, hope you're inspired to make something after seeing this. I know I love sharing them with you :)
Btw, my new phone is a HTC One XL. It's 4G connected, and totally geeky.