A Rare Malaysian Cuisine: Remungai Curry

I'm back. For a while :-) It feels so so good to be coming back to my food blog! I really missed it. My wedding is in 2 weeks and I am very tied up in a bunch of last minute errands to run and to ensure I got everything on track. Anyways. Let's talk food!

Before I start, I do apologise for not being able to tell you in detail about this fruit used in this dish. We local Penangnites call this fruit "remungai" whilst I've heard some call it "mungai". It's dark green in colour, looks very much like a very thin long zucchini, and at first sight, may not look anything close to "food". Fruits of a big, shady tree grown in tropical climates.

It may originate from South Indian cuisine. My Malay neighbour makes very, very delicious curry with it, while my mum mix it with dhal and santan (coconut milk) making it a very special Malaysian dish - a blend of Indian and Malay cooking. At least in my personal opinion :-)

My Indian neighbour gave us the remungais and quite often, it is sold in the local markets.
:: Recipe ::
3 long remungais, cut to 3 inch lengths (soak in water for 5mins & drain)
2 large prawns
1 cup dhal (soaked in warm water for 1 hour to soften)
2cm galangal, cut to strips
3 shallots & 2 clove garlic (chopped & fried until dark brown in light oil)
1/2 can coconut cream
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/2 tablespoon spice mixture (aniseed, black mustard seed, fenugreek seed)
salt to taste

Similar to cooking curry, but takes slightly longer time to wait for dhal and remungai to soften.

1. Heat up a little oil and stir fry the spice misture until aromatic. Add water & boil the dhal with turmeric powder and water until soften, then add in galangal.
2. Throw in remungais and let it cook until soften, about 10mins. Then add in the juicy prawns.
3. Add in coconut cream and salt to taste.
4. Just before turning off the heat, pour the fried shallots and garlic and stir.

Best served with warm rice. How do you eat it? :-) The remungais, once pressed, will break into 2-3 long strips. You will see it's tender whitish flesh, which is the part you eat. Just suck on the strips and enjoy the soft flesh of remungai, which tastes sweet. The hard part (outer layer) is thrown away. Don't eat that :-)

Please do share with me if you have recipes on remungai, I would love to learn various ways to cook this!

All about delicious, mouth watering Asian cuisine...

I came across Asian Food Gallery (AFG) about a couple of weeks ago. It collects a series of wonderful food photography (plus their original links so you can read up) from across Asia and more.

A similar concept to Foodgawker & Tastespotting, AFG focuses to not only put pretty food pictures but also to promote capable food bloggers out there with talents to make people drool with their food.
Drooling already? I know for sure I am! How can I NOT drool and get hungry when looking at pretty food pictures? I'm a food lover! So this is what I did after drooling at food pictures:

Burp! Whoops, excuse me!!! :-P
Devoured Japanese food at Sushi King today.. yeah, this is what I've been doing. Ignoring my blogs and eating out.. hmm. No worries, I will be back for more delicious food pictures of my own! :-) Plus, I'll all oh-so-busy with me wedding preps... headache!!!

Anyhow, be sure to check out AFG and bookmark it! I think it's a cool site... You might also find some of my pictures submitted... :-P

Maccheroni with Snow Peas & Carrots

You know what it's like when you have food cravings sometimes? Do you notice any particular food you crave for... No I'm NOT pregnant.

There's only very favourite food that I crave for (depending on my mood I guess): pasta, laksa, or tom yum. Guess what these 3 have in common? Sourness. I like red sauced pasta... bolognase, arrabiata, pomodoro... marinara... I don't really prefer creamy ones but I do enjoy them once in a while. I know my fiance loves carbonara.. :-)

Yesterday, I was craving for assam laksa. So F dropped by Gurney (eventhough there was no parking) and I bought a BIG pack of assam laksa - with fish balls.... YUM! It's been a while since I had laksa... so it was soo delicious, and now I'm hungry for it again...

Let's talk about my pasta.

Pasta has got to be my best friend. I can cook it in so many ways, with various ingredients. They're available in so many shapes and sizes (and colour!) and, I just love the flexibility of ingredients used in cooking pasta.

I was a bit busy and... too bad I did not got a chance to take a photo of my pasta today :-( But anyway...

I used whatever I had at home to prepare a quick lunch for my mum, F and my little niece. Since time was short and there was only 3 of us adults, I made pasta. I used ready made pasta sauce as well. They're not too bad and I love to add fresh ingredients in always.

1/2 box Barilla maccheroni (or as you wish) - cook for 7 minutes per instruction
1 jar of Prego's traditional pasta sauce
200gm minced beef meat (or as you wish)
1 large green onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
1/3 large carrot, cut to small squares
1/2 a pack of fresh snow peas, cut to an inch long
olive oil for cooking
1/2 teaspoon parsley flakes
sprinkle of McCormick's Italian herbs
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
grated parmesan cheese, to taste
shredded mozzarella for garnish and extra cheezy flavour (yumm!)

This is so easy and yet so tasty. I can et a lot of pasta and not get bored! Ever!