Prawn Sambal/Sambal Udang 参巴虾

When it comes to those big juicy prawns, I have a hard time resisting. Pair this with some good sambal tumis, I am sold! These prawns are basically cooked in chilli paste that has a vast variety of aromatics and spices inside. Nothing beats the exotic taste of this dish in all its aromatic spicy goodness. But guess what? It is never too much to have more spicy food as research has found that spicy food actually prevents cancer!(source: Natural News: Jan3, 2009) Here's that perfect excuse to a no holds barred binging.  Pair this prawn sambal with a plate of steamy hot rice or nasi lemak (coconut fragrant rice) for that ultimate perfection.

This recipe here is the extension of my sambal tumis recipe (chilli paste) that I have posted recently. You can prepare this sambal tumis in advance and keep it frozen to be used later in smaller batches. This way your work would be greatly reduced. Once you have handled your sambal, cooking the Prawn Sambal is as easy as 123.

Prawn Sambal/Sambal Udang 参巴虾

Makes portion for 4-5 persons

Ingredients

500 g prawns shelled (I left heads intact)
1/2 portion (approx 260g) sambal tumis (recipe here)
1 tomato, cut into small wedges
1-2 big onion cut into rings
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
pepper

Cooking Instructions

1. Prepare prawns and season with salt, sugar and pepper. Cut onions and tomato.

2. Prepare sambal tumis. When sambal tumis is about ready, add in tomato and onion and stir until it starts to soften. Stir in prawns and cook until prawns are cooked (when it change colour and feel springy). Remove from fire and serve hot with rice.


Variation
1. Replace prawns with squid for a dish of Squid Sambal.
2. Replace onions with stinky beans for that unique taste of stinky beans. 

Asian Chilli Paste/Sambal Tumis 参巴辣椒酱

When it comes to SouthEast Asia, eating chilli pastes or sambal is akin to eating to ketchup in the West. This is how popular chillies are here. There are many varieties and versions to making an Asian chilli paste; the Thais have their namprik pao, the Indonesians their sambal oelek and the Malaysian the humble sambal tumis. These Asian chilli pastes have quite similar ingredients but shine with their own distinctive tastes.

Today, I am introducing a basic sambal tumis recipe that is used in a variety Malaysian cooking. It has a fiery sweet and spicy taste with just a tinge of sourness as a balance. This sambal tumis is strongly fragrant with garlic, shallot and the most pungent of all, shrimp paste or belacan. This sambal tumis is meant to be spicy and I wouldn't (and refuse to) recommend it any other way.

Pineapple and Cucumber Pickle/Jelatah Nenas Dan Timun 啊杂

Yes, this is a very easy recipe to prepare but I can assure you it packs a punch. It is sweet and and sour in taste but at the same time hot and spicy to the palate. Whenever I buy rice from a Malay stall, I will automatically look for this dish. This pineapple and cucumber pickle dish goes really well as a side to heavy and rich mains such as curry or nasi briyani. It complements these dishes and give it that perfect balance. Some also call this pineapple and cucumber pickle acar or pencuk. They are all the same.

No Prove Homemade Bread 不用发酵的面包

I don't have a breadmaker. Neither do I have a dough kneading machine. So when I saw this recipe on Masterchef, I got excited. I have heard of 5-minutes no-knead artisan bread long ago. But this is even easier.

The looks might turn you off, nothing fantastic. The taste nothing mind-blowing. But what vowed me is the method of making this no prove homemade bread. I dare claim it is the easiest you could get to making that crusty piece of homemade chewy goodness. I am a lover of crusty breads but the traditional artisan method really puts me off. Too technical and a lot of kneading. This method has allowed me to make my homemade bread and eat it fresh, anytime that I want.

Chilli Prawn 辣椒虾

Following my post on the sweet and sour sauce, I am now providing another use for this wonderful sauce - the ever famous sauce for chilli crab. Chilli crab is famous in Malaysia and Singapore and it has since gained popularity beyond just these two shores. It has become so significant a dish that Singapore named it its National dish. The sweet and spicy sauce, which I am highlighting today, combines sweet, sour and spicy flavour to give you that perfect umami taste. The sauce itself is so good that most of the time this dish is served with mantou or buns to soak up that sauce for a perfect juicy burst of flavour in your mouth. Awesome!

Yam Paste Snowskin Mooncake 芋头冰皮月饼

Have done a little yam paste with the intention of making mooncake with it for this coming Friday. I know it is still quite early but I thought of surprising my friends with an early mooncake when they come over for dinner on Friday. As for the filling that I did, I used the yam paste with pumpkin in the middle (in replacement of salted egg yolk) to make what I call an orh nee (Teochew yam paste) mooncake. Making the yam paste and pumpkin filling itself was pretty easy. I got it done in 15 mins because of the small quantity.

Best Bread Recipe: Japanese Milk Bread 牛奶麵包

Most of us in Asia are already familiar with soft fluffy milk breads. They are are wildly popular as a staple here. I started baking bread as I prefered to feed my son fresh chemical-free breads. I have been doing it for sometime now. All these while, I experimented with different recipes for soft bread but the Japanese milk bread reigns. It is soft, moist and fluffy, just the exact fit for my son. Best of all the softness lasts for days. Therefore, this has become my best bread recipe, my go to recipe. I use this even when I wanted to whip up a dinner or sausage bun.  Once you have mastered the basics the first few times, the sky is the limit to the many variations that you could develop. Nothing tastes and smells better than freshly-baked soft fluffy homemade bread from the oven.