Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Grilled Prawn with Lychee


Ingredients

16 fresh prawns, shell removed and deveined
12 lychee, drained
2 tsp freshly crushed Hot Chick Spicy Salt
4 skewers, metal or bamboo

Directions

  • Marinate the prawns with crushed Hot Chick Spicy Salt, use more if you wish to. Set aside for 15-30 minutes.
  • Skewer the prawns and the lychee alternately, starting and ending with the prawn. 4 prawns and 3 lychee on each skewer.
  • Grill on a very hot griddle or pan, 3 minutes on each side.
  • Serve with mango and lychee salsa.

Serves 4 as appetizer or 2 as mains.


Okay, here’s the deal, of course the recipe works best with Hot Chick Spicy Salt, but in case you run out of stock, and the spicy salt is back ordered, you can use any spice mix you find suitable. Taste will vary depending on the spices used.

As I am all for whole and healthy way of cooking, I have not used any oil in preparing this dish, and it taste really wonderful, the clean fresh flavor of the prawn being teased by the burst of flavor of the spices and the unique sweetness of the lychee. However, if you are one of those who can’t think of cooking sans oil (or you don’t have a non-stick griddle) you may use a bit of oil to oil the pan.

Not a big fan of prawn? No worries, try using squids or fish cubes instead, work just as well. Lychee can be replaced with (fresh or canned)pineapple or canned rambutan too, any fruit that’s sweet and tangy.

And lastly, why not have this at your next BBQ? It’ll sure be a big hit, and no one has to know how crazy-eazy the recipe is. Hint hint, the secret is in the Hot Chick Spicy Salt;)

Creamy Salted Egg Shrimps


Ingredients

500gm fresh shrimps, shell removed and deveined
2 salted eggs, boiled
4 tbsp of garlic and ginger paste
1 tsp black pepper
150ml evaporated milk (or 250ml full cream milk)
8 bird’s eye chilli (or more), crushed coarsely
3 garlics, sliced thinly
2 stalks of curry leaves
4 tbsp cooking oil
1 tsp sugar  
Salt to taste

Directions

1.       Marinate prawn with garlic and ginger paste, black pepper and salt. Set aside for about 10 minutes.

2.       Heat oil in wok on high heat, add prawn. Stir fry until shrimps are cooked. Remove shrimps from wok. Set aside

3.       Drain oil, leaving just about 1 tbsp. Add sliced garlic, chili and curry leaves, fry until golden and smells heavenly.

4.       Drizzle the milk, stir until the sauce thickens, if using full cream milk it will take slightly longer.

5.       Return the fried shrimps to the wok, add mashed salted egg yolks and sugar. Stir well until well coated.

6.       Serve hot with white rice.

Monday, July 29, 2013

Don't be a prawn...

I used to have really bad allergy reaction to most shellfish, dust, heat and cold too for that matter. My sinus will swell up, causing runny nose, watery eyes, constant sneezing which will eventually lead to a full asthma attack. I sometimes get swollen lips or fingers, what ever body parts that touch the shellfish.

Then about 20 years ago, when I first started my attempt to lose weight (not a lifestyle change back then because I was practically starving myself!) I stopped taking red meat and shrimp/prawn. I can't remember why I chose to stop consuming prawn, most prolly I thought as I am giving up all the good stuffs I may as well stay off that too.


And I started having less and less allergy attack. No more constant runny nose (that makes me look like a drug addict Mom used to say), less dependency on anti-histamine which is among the caused of my teenage weight gain.

The crash diet regime went to belly up after I got myself hitched. Fatty red meat's back to being my favorite,the fattier the better. Oh, for the glory of good food and my love of cooking, the weight was piling up too. But I stayed off prawn. Funny thing is, I just stop eating the flesh, but continued taking the shell and head, again don't ask me why. After all, the shells are supposed to be good for you, aren't those anti-cholesterol supplements made of these? And I used to really enjoy shelling them crustaceans using fork and spoons for other. And I still take crabs, lobsters though.

Fast forward to mid 2011, I started my change of lifestyle, by December I've lost quite a bit, and that's when I attended a wedding where special jumbo shrimps were air-flown by the host. He insisted that I try it, saying that these prawns are special, will not cause allergy reaction, not high in cholesterol and it will be a sin for me not to have at least one. Try I did, and another and surprise surprise, no allergy reaction. I didn't think much of it, don't really care to really start eating prawn again. Though I do wonder sometimes if there's any truth to the claims made by that friend of mine to get me to eat them prawn.

As I make more seafood and shellfish as part of my daily diet, I started thinking, why not eat prawns again, they are a good source of protein, full of nutrients, requires minimal cooking and most importantly looks like I am not allergic to them any more.

So yesterday I bought 750g of shrimps. Which leads to the next 3 recipes I am going to post. 

I think I am going to like making prawn a big part of my diet. And yes, I still have ready stock of Xyzal & Papase, just in case *wink*

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Is your child's safety not your responsibility?

 

How the child must have suffered. Imagine her cries, her vomit, her soiling herself, her loneliness as she falls into seizure. Her agony as her organs shut down one by one as the temperature rises higher and higher. And then, her only and final escape, into the loving arms of angels taking her to heaven, when everyone has forgotten about her.

Negligence is negligence, there no two way around it, no excuse, no justifying it. Passing the blame to others is very easy (and as some claim very humane too), this so called looking at the other side of the coin while fashionable these days cannot be applied to everything.

A child is dead, yes. No matter what we say or do now will bring her back. Neither will justifying what happened and blaming the mother's job stress, her employer etc.; but by championing her, making her look like the victim, it will create a ripple effect. New parents will begin to think that they are not accountable to what happen to their child(ren). Young generation may take this as an acceptable thing, to be applied as a parenting skill when the time comes for them to be a parent.

What if a child shoots her neighbor with a gun the father left  loaded on the table? Blame it on the police for not keeping the community safe, that he needs to keep a gun. A group of boys rape another child, imitating what they saw on one of their father's computer, blame the porn industry? 

Who remember the case where a little girl was beaten to death by her high on drug mom's boyfriend(who could possibly be the father to the child too)? Remember how the mother knew about it, saw how she was abused, yet did nothing. In fact she tried to cover up the murder. And what happened? All rushed to hug her and offered their condolences for her loss; is she not accountable at all for what she's done and not do? What about the child she's pregnant with then? Will she feels it's okay not to provide a good and more importantly safe environment for the child? What's next? A world where all children are to fend for themselves?

I know we are headed that way the day we start blaming other (or worse, fate) when a child dies after being left in a locked car with windows up under the hot blazing sun for over 6 hours by her own mother. When suddenly so many of us are outraged with those that are disturbed with the incident. They are made to feel ashamed for condemning what happened. Worse, they ask others not to judge her, to accept that it is fate, that she doesn't want her child dead, that she too must be feeling bad over the loss. So that washes her hands off any responsibility? So it's alright now for a mother to let her child drown in the bathroom because she's busy making milk for him? Or let the baby drink poisonous substance while she's busy loading the washing machine? After all, she's preoccupied, doing housework, not whiling her time away. And perhaps we can start transferring the blame to the father, for not being a better provider, he should provide domestic help to the mother. Or blame the child, why does he have to drown/get poisoned, doesn't he know the mother is busy? She is the mother after all, she loves the child, of course she doesn't want the child dead.

Some may do this to justify their own guilt, for they too may have once acted irresponsibly to their children. We are all humans, our lives are stressful, our jobs suck, our marriages miserable, and we make mistakes. And when we become aware of our mistakes, we thank God that nothing bad happened, yet the guilt is there, we feel remorse and we are more vigilant after that, because we don't want a tragedy to happen. We don't go out and tell everyone what almost happened and say that we accept that it's fate, so there's no care nor the need for us to feel responsible for it or take it as a lesson for the future. Saddest of all, some of these people are one to protest very harshly when they see pets mistreated by their owners, do we believe that our children deserve to be treated less humanely than animals? Can't we protest as hard for our children too?

I understand what happened is fate, something determined by the Almighty. As a Muslim, we believe in Qada' and Qadar. I accept that, no two ways about. Yet,what's the point of living if we don't try to right what's wrong, if we don't better our lives, if we don't attempt to be better human by setting an example for the future generation. while I hate people (Malaysian especially) overzealous  public attack and shaming her (and whatever the current target is), I still think making her the victim and advocating that we should stop judging her for what happened is truly not in good taste.

Call me a hypocrite, if I were to meet the mother face to face, I may comfort her and offer my condolences too. I may not say to her face that her negligence caused Iris's death, but that's as far humane I will be to her. By all mean, go ahead comfort her, but don't say she's done nothing wrong. By not inflicting direct pain or attack the mother, that doesn't mean that I don't believe that she's responsible for the death. Neither will that makes me go on the internet and make a big fuss to champion her, because I know so many of us these days are very into mob-mentality, we just love to follow the mass, to support a cause just because it's fashionable. I am so afraid of living in a world where parents are not responsible anymore for the well-being of their child (while under their care too). God knows how many very impressionable young (and not so young) adults are out there, that may make this their life mantra. 

Go ahead, say what you want. Label me what you may. That I don't have a child of my own, hence I have no right to have a say on this, that I don't understand the stress of motherhood, that I don't feel the burden of being a working mother. That I am not in the stressful profession so I can't fathom the workload (actually I was once part of the noble profession, for all of three wonderful years). That I don't understand it's pardonable to let your child die a painful death due to heatstroke because you got to rush to work. That I shouldn't see it as man-slaughter at least, and shouldn't even call it negligence.

There is this thing called common-sense. If you are lacking of it, or don't care to have one, then perhaps you don't deserve to be a parent, more so a mother.

Alright, I won't be too judgmental, but someone has got to be responsible for the children. Most logically, that should be the parents.

Just a ranting of a childless woman, who also happens to be a human.

Nawal Iris Samsudin 
2010 - 2013

Tuesday, July 02, 2013

Serunding Daging Asli Kelantan untuk Ramadan dan Aidilfitri

Serunding daging asli Kelantan dari Kampung Laut yang memang terkenal dengan keenakkannya diperbuat mengunakan teknik pembuatan tradisional turun temurun.

Dijamin keenakkannya, cukup rasa lemak dan tidak terlalu pedas atau manis. 

Semua bahan yang digunakan dalam pembuatan dijamin segar dan bersih, tanpa bahan pengawet serta proses pembuatan dilakukan di dalam persekitaran yang halal serta bersih untuk memastikan hanya yang terbaik sampai ke meja juadah untuk dinikmati anda sekeluarga.

Harga Promosi Sempena Ramadan & Aidilfitri 2013

1kg - RM72
500g - RM38
- Serunding dipek dalam 'foil-lined plastic packaging' untuk mengekalkan kesegaran

- Pek Cenderahati serunding juga boleh didapati didalam pelbagai saiz dan bungkusan.
Tarikh akhir penghantaran melalui Poslaju untuk Aidilfitri 1434 adalah pada 2 Ogos 2013. Pesanan selepas itu tidak dapat dijamin sampai sebelum Hari Raya.

Self pick-up untuk mereka yang berada di Penang adalah di KOMTAR atau kawasan Bayan Baru/ Bukit Jambul/ Sungai Ara. Untuk kawasan lain serta Seberang Perai, sila sms atau WhatsApp 012-405 5657/ 012-470 5657 untuk maklumat lanjut.

Juga boleh didapati melalui Hot Chick Spice Kitchen