Smoky Wok

Cooking is therapeutic for me although I do have my lazy bouts, just like anyone else.  I had it in my head to pound some sambal belacan (chili paste) the traditional way today with a mortar and pestle and pound I did :O.  Funnily enough, my fridge is actually quite empty but somehow I always have a ready supply of eggs so I decided to make the humble yet much loved egg sambal or telur sambal.  You can choose to simply cook the hard-boiled eggs in your homemade sambal or fry the boiled eggs to get that slight crispy texture prior to cooking the eggs in the sambal.



For the sambal, all you need are some dried chili peppers, shallots and toasted belacan or shrimp paste.  Most people use the blender or food processor nowadays but I still insist that the sambal tastes better done the old fashioned way.  Another thing is that I hate cleaning blenders/ food processors, having to go through all the nooks and crannies!  This dish goes great with steamed rice and is delicious and extremely appetising.  Sambal belacan is always a great thing to have in your fridge - the culinary possibilities are endless!  Take a look at some of my belacan 'escapades' here.



I still remember while living in San Diego how much I craved for this Malaysian culinary specialty.  I still remember lugging back an extremely heavy mortar and pestle from Crate and Barrel in my efforts to recreate this Malaysian favourite in my apartment.  Beware though that belacan is a condiment that requires an acquired taste so do be warned of its' pungent and strong taste.  For us Malaysians though, sambal belacan is always welcome and very much loved!

This was my first time cooking mutton.  It was not as difficult as I thought and I didn't even use a pressure cooker for tenderising of the meat.  Apparently, this was because the boyfriend said he picked a good cut of mutton :O.  We used the leg portion and if you like you can keep the fats but we discarded the fats to be more in sync with our 'dieting' plan.  Anyway, this is rather a hybrid style of mutton curry - a mix between Indian and Malay style, hence I think it's quite fair to probably label it Malaysian style.



The result was a delicious and spicy dish of quite tender and succulent mutton curry.  It's really quite easy but if you don't like the rather gamey scent of mutton, you can use lamb or even beef in this recipe.  This dish will be even more delicious overnight provided you keep it well in a tighly sealed container in the fridge.  This recipe also calls for natural yoghurt instead of the fattier coconut milk.  We eschewed ghee in favour of a little butter but it's entirely up to you, ghee feels a tad heavy for our palates in general.  For a tang in the dish, we added tomatoes but if you like, you can use asam jawa in your dish instead.  I hope you will give this a try and have a great weekend!

This is just a simple mixed vegetables dish, with some fresh shiitake mushrooms added in for extra texture.  Instead of just garlic and soy sauce, I added in some dashi powder for a little more umami flavour.  The natural sweetness of the nappa cabbage goes great with dashi and if you like, you can make your own dashi broth with some bonito flakes and kombu (kelp).  Sometimes, I crave for something easy and comforting and this is one of my favourite vegetables dishes.



Oh, finally the weather is nice and sunny today - my clothes can finally dry! While living in the US, everyone used dryers for their clothes but once back in Asia, I have to start hanging out my clothes to dry again! Alright, that was very random, I am turning into a real 'auntie', when there's good weather I immediately think great for hanging clothes :D



I hope you have a great weekend! This recipe is part of my Yuen Chun Recipes, an ongoing project on this blog.