Archive for the ‘Seafood’ Category
Monday, April 28th, 2008 |
Cleaning and preparing for prawns are one of the jobs that I don’t exactly fancy, but it is a job that must be done. This is how my mother prepare prawns for cooking, assuming that the dish required the prawns with the shells intact. Otherwise it is way easier just to peel of the shell and everything, right? 
There is no wrong way of doing things. Most of us did the way our mothers taught us, while some learn from cooking shows and the likes. This is how I did:
What you need:
Plastic gloves (so as not to stink your hand)
A pair of scissors
A knife
Chopping board
We are using the scissors first. Hold the scissors in the un-gloved hand, and use toe gloved hand to handle the prawns. Trim off the sharp head, or as I call it, the punk hair of the prawn.
Cut off the whiskers and the sharp hornlike thingy.
Trim off the sharp part of the tail as well. Don’t cut off too much though, it violates the aesthetic principle. Heh!
I know its cruel, but cut off the legs too. Repeat the trimmings for all your prawns in whichever sequence that you prefer. When that is done, put down the scissors.
Grab the knife and skit the back of the prawn. Remove the veins and the dirt. After that, the prawn is ready for cooking.
Popularity: 80% [?]
Posted in Seafood, Tips and How-to | No Comments »
Friday, March 21st, 2008 |
What is the best thing about going back hometown? Well, the food of course! Nothing beats having familiar, comfort food with the family.
Steamed fish with light soy sauce and oil! About the only way I eat fish aside from those Japanese-y cooking. I really, really like fish served this way. I only had this when I am back in hometown in
this restaurant, as they serve the best steamed fish in town.
Stirfried beans and brinjals in sambal udang. Delish!
Unshelled mantis prawns, which is not much of a looker but tasted terrific.
Juicy, succulent mantis prawns! Beats those peeled and deep fried mantis prawn dishes any day.
Popularity: 42% [?]
Posted in Chinese, Eating, Fish, Seafood | No Comments »
Saturday, March 15th, 2008 |
Umbai, the quaint fishing village serving Malay style fresh seafood next to the sea. Around 25 minutes drive from Malacca town, this place is known for their “medan ikan bakar”, a group of different stalls serving grilled fish.
This place opens after 5.30pm, so don’t come too early or you will have to wait for them to set up their stalls.
We chose this stall, partly because of the view, and mostly because of the food, which by far seems to attract the most customers.
The modus operandi is quite simple- You pick your seafood and the way you want them to be cooked in.
They cook and serve you. Seafood aside, stir fried vegetables are also available.
J and I went there for one purpose. Sotong goreng tepung! Between the both of us, we digested 1000g of sotongs. So, that means 500g all for myself. OMG, artery clogging, cholesterol hijacking goodness.
They serve their dishes along with nasi lemak. You are gonna love them despite the artery clogging goodness.
Their dipping sauce was simply good for the seafood, especially then cincaluk and chilli sauce.
We saw a rainbow on the way back! Nice, isn’t it?
Popularity: 43% [?]
Posted in Eating, Malay, Seafood | No Comments »
Saturday, March 8th, 2008 |
It was days before Chinese New Year. Sis and I just arrive in our hometown, and we are on ourselves to find dinner. Fearing the price jack up and all that, we decided to play safe by visiting the neighbourhood hawker center, and once there, sis started pimping this stall selling baked fish and stir fried vegetables, praising the food sky high.
I couldn’t agree more. They were the best four angled beans stir fried with sambal that I’ve ever tasted! The tangy sambal flavour, the crunchy to the bite bean, and the serving on banana leaves gives the perfect texture, taste and aroma to the dish. To top that off, the beans were not tough to chew, unlike some places where the beans were tough to chew due to the incorporation of some old, tough beans along with the tender shoots.
Equally sinful were their baked stingray. Slathered in tangy, sourish and slightly spicy sauce very much like the Portuguese grilled fish sauce, this grilled fish is still juicy to the bite, and the sauce is just perfect to go with hot, fluffy white rice.
We polished off the dishes in a jiffy, which is a surprise given that we are not fish persons at all! In times like these I just felt that, 9 out of 10 times, hawker food rawks simply because they are good, cheap and no frills!
Viva la hawker food!
Er, but its harder to take photos in hawker center due to their awful lighting, and the photos didn’t do the food justice. LOL!
Popularity: 37% [?]
Posted in Eating, Hawker Food, Seafood | No Comments »
Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 |
This is another dish I prepared for reunion dinner. Having not much experience with prawns before, I was worried that it wouldn’t turn out too good for an occasion as big as reunion dinner.
Pressures aside, this dish is easy to prepare in leisure, especially when you are lazy. All you need are prawns, cleaned and deveined, butter, chopped garlic, light soy sauce, sugar and salt to taste.
What I did was, I arrange the prawns on a baking tray and put them into preheated convection oven for a minute to let the liquid dry off. Then, I took the prawns out and spread butter on them generously. If you are lazy enough, just sprinkle some coarse sea salt onto the prawn along with the butter and return it to the oven to bake, and voila! Buttered prawn!
Since I wanted prawns with gravy, I skipped the salt sprinkle and let the prawns slathered in butter bake until they are cooked. Then I remove the prawns from the oven and arrange nicely on plates.
For the sauce, I heated some oil in a frying pan and fry the chopped garlic until fragrant. The soy sauce (add some water to the soy sauce) goes next, and when it is bubbling, sugar is added. Taste the sauce and adjust according to your taste. If the sauce is too thick, thicken with some flour and pour then over the prawns.
Serve hot.
Popularity: 36% [?]
Posted in Cooking, Seafood | No Comments »
