Asparagus is green, unless you are French or German

TO most of us asparagus is green, unless you are French or German. Serve green asparagus to a French or German and chances are he/she might not be amused. To these nationalities, the white asparagus is considered ‘Queen of vegetables’.

I am puzzled as all the asparagus I see here (both imported and local) are green in colour. However, I recently saw a strange looking imported white vegetable in a decidedly upmarket supermarket which I was told is the white asparagus.

It was explained to me by none other than a German native and chef at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Kuala Lumpur, Dirk Haltendorf.

A genus of the lily family, asparagus has been cultivated around the Mediterranean and enjoyed as a delicacy for 2,000 years.

It is widely regarded for its medicinal value and diuretic properties.

Asparagus is rich in vitamins A and C and minerals such as potassium and phosphorous.

Epicureans, from Aristotle to Louis XIV of France, adored it.

In Europe, asparagus is normally harvested between April and June.

According to Dirk, the Germans developed the white asparagus more than 200 years ago.

How was this done?

The young shoots were denied sunlight as they grew, by being covered with mounds of soil. They only saw daylight when the soil was removed on the day they were harvested.

Denying them sunlight (UV light in particular) means that they cannot produce chlorophyll and so do not become green.

This also gives the white asparagus a different flavour to the green version (it is less bitter and has a more intense taste, with a hint of artichoke).

Production is labour intensive and asparagus exhausts the soil quickly, so growers in Germany only produce the plant in the same field for a couple of years, then let the land rest (which explains why the price of white asparagus is high).

In the kitchen too, white asparagus requires special treatment. Before cooking, its bitter, fibrous outer skin needs to be peeled.

Asparagus peeling is an art, peel it too little and some fibre and bitterness remain, peel too much and you are wasting tasty and expensive flesh.

Dirk showed me his trusty asparagus peeling tool from Germany, and even gave me a high speed peeling demonstration.

Asparagus peeling is an art to which chefs aspire! Very few chefs are trusted by the chef de cuisine to peel the vegetable. It has to be done correctly and fast.

The peeled asparagus spears are then bundled together in bunches using a special twine tied in a special way.

The basic cooking comes as something of an anti-climax, the asparagus spears are simply steamed or boiled in lightly salted water.

Many asparagus lovers eat it with a little melted butter or Hollandaise sauce.

It can be consumed hot or cold, made into a cream soup, or wrapped in ham, bacon or crepes, and even served as a regular vegetable accompaniment to a main course, though to an asparagus lover it could never be a mere side dish.

If you enjoy green asparagus, I am sure you will appreciate the luxury of white asparagus at least as much.

Look for it in any specialist supermarket, and try it at home but remember to peel it before cooking if it is not already peeled.

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Fishy no more to avoid...............

Avoiding fish because of its smell and taste?

A FRIEND of mine can never eat fish when it is served whole (that is, with its head and tail).

Nothing odd about this since I can never eat meat served whole either.

Also, what turns her off fish dishes are their, uh, fishy taste.

Fish is tricky to prepare. Even when cooked in rich, spicy curries, one can never quite get rid of the fishy taste and smell. Or hanyir, as the Malays would say.

There are two ways to eliminate this fishy problem. First, simply ensure that your fish is fresh. This means its flesh is firm, its smell is not unpleasant and its scales are intact.

Second, washing them properly before cooking is important. You can either rinse it with salt and water, or with tamarind juice.

Next, comes cooking the fish. There are many ingredients you can use to make this nutritious seafood delicious: ginger, garlic, lemon grass, spices, turmeric, limes and the like.

Below is a recipe for baked fish by Izzi Restaurant on Jalan Sultan Ismail in Kuala Lumpur.


BAKED FISH WITH TOMATO COULIS

This recipe is for one person and it makes the most of fish’s juicy and tender textures. The sour and spicy tomato coulis gives it added flavours.

Pronounced as “coo-lee”, coulis is a thick sauce made from pureed and strained vegetables. It is commonly used in meat and vegetable dishes as well as a base for soups and other sauces. (the fruit version is used for desserts).

For this recipe, all you need is:

• 150gm butter fish steak, or boneless white fish such as kurau
• salt and pepper to taste

Season the fish with salt and pepper and bake in the over at 375ºC for around 7 minutes.

Baking fish at high heat will keep it moist. Do not worry about burnt fish as it cooks quickly.

As the fish is being baked, you can start making the coulis. For this you need:

• 40gm fresh tomatoes, peeled, cored and blended
• 10gm tomato paste
• 2gm Italian basil
• 2gm cili padi
• 2gm lemon juice
• salt and pepper to taste

Mix all the ingredients and simmer until the sauce is reduced. Meanwhile, gather together:

• 1 tbsp oilve oil
• 50gm fennel, sliced
• 50gm gobo root, sliced
• some sweet beans
• salt and black pepper to taste

In a pan, heat up the olive oil and saute the vegetables for around 3 minutes. Do not overcook the vegetables so that they remain crispy and sweet.

Then simmer the sauteed vegetables with the coulis until the sauce is further reduced. Serve the coulis on a plate, place the baked fish on top of it and garnish, if you like, with some Thai basil and grated parmesan.

Now tuck in and enjoy this fishy deal!

My recommendation: This is a dish to get non fish-lovers to enjoy fish dishes. You can omit the cili padi and the lemon juice from the coulis and add baked young potatoes to go with the fish. The tomato sauce will disguise the fishy flavours that children often find unappealing.

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Ipoh old-fashioned kopitiams

TALK about food in Ipoh and the older generation will mention Old Town across the Kinta River, with its fan-ventilated kopitiams serving sar hor fun, char kway teow, satay, nasi kandar and egg tarts. But for the younger folks, these eateries are passé! The food scene has changed in the former tin-mining city and the happening place is now Greentown, Ipoh’s latest commercial district.

In particular, Greentown Business Centre has developed to become the Ipoh version of Bangsar in Kuala Lumpur, while the adjacent Greentown Square is fast becoming packed with boutiques offering Malay clothes. Both complement each other, creating the city’s hottest eat-drink-and-shop spot.

One of the most popular halal restaurants here is Restoran Laksamana Cheng Ho, which also happens to be the first Chinese Muslim eatery in Ipoh, with its strong element of Chinese décor and tables covered with red cloth.

The menu is divided into western favourites, rice favourites, hawker favourites, breakfast special, laksa, pasta, snacks, salads, snacks, soups, pasta, teppanyaki, burgers and sandwiches and dessert. The best part is, the restaurant caters to all budgets.

Fried Rice & Laksa

After a seafood salad, I had an excellent Laksamana Cheng Ho Fried Rice. The rice, fried with squids, prawns and green peas, was garnished with two sticks of satay and crackers. Excellent!

I also had the laksa — the ingredients were unique. Apart from shredded pineapple and cucumber, there were pieces of fu chok (dried beancurd), hard-boiled egg and fish paste. The gravy was watery and tasted like diluted mee rebus gravy with a light fishy aroma.

If you come in a group, it’s best to pick one of the set meals. Set B, meant for five-six persons, really excited me. For RM78.80 nett, you get rice with crispy chicken in plum sauce, deepfried siakap fish with Thai sauce, beef ginger with spicy onion, nonya style prawn sambal, sizzling Japanese tofu and Chinese tea. That means you get Chinese, Japanese, Thai and nonya fare in one sitting.

Variety, Variety

Another prominent pork-free restaurant is Restoran The Mouth with a menu of 114 items. Dishes are priced from RM4 to RM12 and include Thai Style Chicken Chop, Mongol Chicken Chop, Mongol Venison Rice and Black Pepper Hor Fun.

Maria’s Café should appeal to cake lovers. It’s like Starbucks and Coffeebean, and serves cakes, coffee, floats and more floats!

Kimberley Café offers Chinese food. Its specialities are Emperor Chicken (chicken cooked with herbs) and Boneless Chicken with Dried Chili.

There are two Japanese restaurants — Ten-Good and Jyu Restaurant. For curry dishes, go to Jyu which serves Tori Curry Rice, Katsu Curry Rice and Ebi Curry Rice.

For a taste of traditional Western food, go to Ye Old English.

Old Town White Coffee has a strong presence in Greentown, occupying the top and ground floors of a corner lot.

For basic kopitiam fare, pop over to Restoran F&B Station which is famous for its honey roasted chicken wings and popiah. Want tosai, capati and teh tarik? You will find them in Salam Corner and Restoran Nasi Kandar Pesanjung.
Steamboat & Booze

Another highly recommend eatery is Chatter Place. The variety of food is impressive and reminds me of Kuala Lumpur’s Kim Gary. I ate Oriental pork chop and a mildly spicy tom yam bihun.

For a little action, go to Persiaran Greenhill’s Mamamia Steamboat Restaurant where, displayed buffet-style, are items like squid, fish, chicken, mantis prawns, noodles, cabbage and lots more. Outside, a teppanyaki cooking station adds to the dining pleasure. Pick your food and the cook will fry it for you.

Boozers are spoiled for choice in Greentown. Stairway Pub & Bistro opens early for its Happy Hours. Its state-of-the-art karaoke facilities upstairs are extremely tempting. Mike’s Place blasts the night away with live band performances and its electrifying music is bound to set your feet on fire! 11 Pub and Bistro lures a funky crowd with its cool draughts and soothing décor.

Greentown also caters to pre-dinner and post-dinner activities. The more action-oriented can indulge at J-Box Karaoke or Greentown Snooker Centre.
From Zegna To Jubah

Women can pamper themselves in Angel Spa for some slimming and beauty treatments, Pusat Reflexology Everhealth for Tibetan Huo Long Treatment and even Y&K Nail Studio.

While the husband is chilling out with a beer, the fashion-conscious missus can pick up the latest designs in Liv Fashion Design, Glamour Boutique, Zegna Collection Boutique and Ru Ru Boutique. Swanky and classy are the keywords here.

In Greentown Square, you’ll find the latest in baju kurung, sarung and jubah at Kedai Kain Syakirah, Fesyen Wor Idaman and Angur Collection.
How To Get There

Greentown is located at Jalan Sultan Abdul Jalil, near Ipoh Parade and Majlis Perbandaran Ipoh. It is best to park your car and explore the area on foot. But remember that parking space is limited, so come early.

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Potatoes are nourishing, filling and tasty.

THE humble potato, a staple food originally from the Americas and now popular worldwide, is available in so many forms: boiled, mashed, French-fried and so on.

In Malaysia, perhaps rather less well-known is the baked potato a.k.a. jacket potato. You may see it on the menu in the odd restaurant or two. This is a pity, as baking is a healthy way to eat potato. It can either be a side dish or a complete meal in itself.

So what does one need? The larger variety of potato must be used for a start; the bigger the better, for example, Russet potatoes.

The small, thin-skinned and “new” potatoes are not suitable.

Baking requires “old” thick-skinned potatoes. Having purchased the right type of potato, the only other essential is an oven to cook it in. The procedure really could not be more simple.

Wash and, if necessary, gently scrub your potatoes to remove all the earth from them, leaving the skin intact.

Next, prick the potatoes deeply a few times with a toothpick or fork. Place them in a preheated oven at around 180-200°C for about 45 minutes.

You can test them to check whether they are cooked by prodding them with a fork. The skin should remain firm but the inside should be soft.

Two important points to note here are that the potatoes are cooked without any oil or fat. By cooking and eating them with the skin on, you are getting far more vitamins, minerals and roughage than you would with peeled potatoes.

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Nail that rice?

NASI Paku? Rice with nails? Yes, there is such a dish, it seems, though many people haven’t heard of it.

Nasi Paku is actually rice with several side dishes placed on a banana leaf and wrapped with a piece of newspaper. A two-inch nail is poked through the top of the wrapping to hold everything in place.

Nasi paku was very common in Kelantan some 30 years ago but now, it is rare.

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Cooking through generations - Malaysia's Culinary Heritage

FOOD has always been a common topic of conversation for generations. It is a normal thing for Malaysians to associate food with friends and family and there is no better reason to get together than over a meal.

Being a multi-cultural society, there are a variety of recipes, and fusion dishes adapted from various cultures.

If you are as passionate about food, then you will appreciate the effort of three women who have compiled recipes and produced a cookbook to preserve traditional recipes before they are lost forever.

This cookbook, Food From the Heart: Malaysia's Culinary Heritage contains recipes contributed by renowned local men and women with snippets about the history of a specific recipe and the story or the person behind it.

These stories make the book a lively and entertaining read. This 200-page glossy cookbook offers 86 recipes, divided into starters right up to desserts.

The idea for a heritage cookery book was thought up during a birthday lunch in 2003, when Tunku Soraya Dakhlah, Joan Foo Mahony and Jacqui Chan were munching on some delicious popiahs.

"It got us thinking about all those traditional dishes handed down from generation to generation that have been taken for granted. We then decided to preserve it in a heritage cookbook," says Chan.

They eventually became editorial directors for the book. Except for Mahony, who is a retired lawyer, established author and publisher, the others did not have any publishing experience. However, this didn't curb their enthusiasm for this project.

Tunku Soraya has worked as a producer and director for various international companies and now owns an investment company, Melewar Apex Sdn Bhd. Her company and Mahony's JF Publishing Sdn Bhd have jointly formed Cross Time Matrix Sdn Bhd, which is publishing this cookbook.

Chan, a retired proprietary trader, is actively involved with fundraising projects for various charity organisations.

The amazing thing is that all three women are not trained chefs but rather food lovers who are trying to compile their favourite recipes remembered from childhood.

This cookbook explores the interconnections of Malaysian food, its people and a multicultural country that plays a major part in culinary influences, each voicing its signature dish or unique preparation methods and style.

The primary purpose is to rediscover and rewrite heritage recipes back into history.

Mahony explains, "This book is comparatively different than other cookbooks, due to the fact that it has additional interesting quotations from the people who contributed the recipes."

Among the recipes and their contributors include the Raja Permaisuri Agong Tuanku Fauziah Binti Al Marhum Tengku Abdul Rashid (Ikan Singgang), Geeta Jayabalan (Spicy Fish Briyani) and Brinjal & Prawn Salad by Datuk Tunku Mizan (in memory of his grandmother, the first Queen of Malaysia), and Chef Wan's Kerabu Meehoon, just to name a few.

The proceeds of this cookbook will be channelled to noted charities, which are The Budiman Charitable Foundation, The Salvation Army, Sri Agathiar Sanmarka Sanggam, Spastic Children's Association of Penang, Rumah Charis, House of Peace and Women's Aid Organisation.

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Malaysian Foods-software for recipes

Malay Food typically uses a lot of coconut milk, chillies and belacan. With coconut milk and cream, you would need to be careful because they contain a lot of calories and is high in cholesterol. To avoid this problem, use coconut milk instead of cream. Nothing is complete without the addition of chillies to the Malay cuisine and I love all types of chillies. Be sure to de-seed and remove the membranes from the chillies (wear gloves!) if you do not wish your food to be extra spicy. Note that dried chillies are actually more potent than fresh ones (except bird-eye chillies). Shrimp belachan is wonderful (see description below in glossary) but the smell can penetrate the house so be sure to open all your windows when you do dry-roast them. Grind them up aftewards then store in an air-tight container and keep in the refrigerator. Examples of Malayan dishes include; nasi lemak, chicken satay, ketupat, beef rendang, Spicy Belchan Prawns and many more.

In the northern states of Kedah, Perlis, Penang and Kelantan, you would find the flavors Thailand in the cuisine. There is a hint of fragrant sourness that is often associated with the use of tarmarind, sour carambola and limes as well as hotness of chillies (Thai) that is so popular in northern Malaysian cuisine. Another popular dish is the Nasi Ulam or Kerambu which is a rice dish that is cooked with pandan, galangal, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves and a mixture of other herbs and spices.

Nyonya Food is peculiar to only the Chinese of Penang, Malacca and Singapore. Now I love Nyonya food, having grown up with this cooking. My mother learnt from her mother and I am proud to say that I've learnt quite a lot from these remarkable women. I must say, it does take a lot of getting used to the cooking methods. My mother would be famous is saying 'you just have to guess and get a feel for it'. Luckily, I watched her and measured whatever she put into her cooking so I am now proud to include the measurements in this website. Be aware, though, I may not be exact so you may have to adjust your measurement. Examples of Nynonya style food include; Cendol, Penang Laksa, pie tie, kuih ketayap and kuih lapis.

Chinese Food in Malaysia differs slightly than what you would normally find in a typical Chinese restaurant. In Malaysia, the Chinese cuisine shares many similar cooking method with that of Singapore so it is not unusual to find many dishes that are a blend of both. However, the Chinese dishes of Malaysia is different from that of China or Hong Kong because they are influenced from Malaysia's neighbor to the north, Thailand as well as Malaysian and Indian cuisine. Examples include; ham choy soup, char koay teow, steam fish, black pepper crabs and many more.

The Chinese also place a great importance on the contrast of lively colors, flavors and texture in their cuisine. There are Cantonese, Sichuan, Hokkien, Teochew, Hockchew, Foochow, Hakka, Hainanese and Hunghua influences in Chinese cooking. When travelling to Malaysia, it is often noted that the Chinese people always seem to bea eating. That is because food plays an important role in the Chinese family where meal time is seen as a gathering of family and the renewal of family ties.

Indian Food in Malaysia has a unique and wonderful flavor altogether. It is a blend of southern and northern Indian cuisine with influences from Malay and Chinese cooking alike. I love the Indian curry with its thick coconut flavor and the spiciness of chillies that come with it. Our housekeeper was a wonderful Indian cook who would always make us curry every week and even snuck in a couple of desserts every so often. Examples of Indian food include; lamb curry, mutton kurma, dhal or lentil dish, roti canai and so much more.

If you were to go into an Indian restaurant, you might find yourself at a table where the plate is a banana leaf. Indian cuisine, especially from the south where most of Malaysian Indians originate, share some similarities with Malay cooking. Because they share a lot in common, you would not find pork in most Indian restaurant. Apart from Roti Canai, you can also find great Indian dishes like Indian Mee Goreng, Mee Siam and Mutarbak which is a type of pancake that is filled with onion and minced chicken or mutton.

I hope you will enjoy making Malaysian cooking as much as I do. The recipes below are mere guidelines so feel free to experiment and adjust to your own palate and taste.

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