Thank you!

I know this is a couple of days overdue, but it's been truly a mad couple of days. So many calls to make, to thank the people who helped and supported me through out the whole thing. Text, WhatsApp and messages to be replied. And congratulations to be sent out to the other winners. Plus the VP and MT candidates are still making their rounds, I am barely getting any sleep at all. I am making far more call now than during my campaigning period!

Running the campaign all on my own, no team, no running mate, and against 3 other quite popular candidates, I wasn't exactly expecting to win. So you can say that it came as a huge surprise to me eventhough many believe in me, and that I could do this.

And as always, I want to do this properly, thanking my FB friends that been supportive of me all this while, for believing in me and giving me a push in moments of doubt.

For all the well wishes and good vibes that you have sent my way, I am ever so grateful.

To my political and life advisors, thank you for the tips, ideas and reality checks you guys hammered into me. You know who you are ;)

To my soundboard, I couldn't have gotten through the past 3 weeks without you putting up with my rants and moodswings. Sorry if I bit your head a bit too hard. The 'Moleskine' handwritten message is brilliantly touching. How do I thank you?

To Tisa, thank you for the good lucks charms you sew ever so beautifully. I am glad your works were with me both on the 'Penamaan Calon' and 'Persidangan & Pemilihan' day. I know you were with me in spirit all the way too.

To my godmothers on FB, I am glad you guys do take me seriously at times, in the midst of all the silliness and all.

To Banafsheh, how do I express my gratitudes? The fact that you agreed to be my official representative was already mind blowing, but when you proclaim yourself my campaign manager for the day, it made me cry. You did beautifully representing me, and I bet quite a few of 'perwakilan' were charmed by your great PR.

To my cheerleaders and wonderful friends who are with me all the way through on FB, there's too many to name each and everyone, so as not to risk missing anyone, I am not going to be specific. You are all my pillars of strength. I am glad most of you see the potential underneath all this kookines, who would have guess I take politic so seriously. I am so glad I do.

To family members, I hope I made you proud. I wish my late uncle Pak Chaq is still here to see that atleast one of his nieces/nephew is continuing his legacy. I wish I could be half as good as he was, and to be remembered as dearly when I am gone.

To Janaki, I'm glad I won on your birthday. Wish William is still here to see this, he foretold this journey a while back, but I was too silly to give it any serious thought.

To the one closest to my heart, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

As Zahid said, there's no time for celebrations, the real work has begun, and it's going to be an uphill battle. Keep your well wishes coming this way, I need them. 

Seriously, I do.

I love you all.

Tick Tock

Less than 24 hours to go. 

Not only I have butterflies the stomach, I think the whole insect kingdom is having a ball in there. Thank you for this, oldsoul, it's going to be my good luck charm. 

#faten4nkwtanjong

It's getting very real now as we count down to the final 60 hours.

Never shall I take this for granted anymore.

Having an attack in the middle of the night, after years of being asthma-free and to realize all the puffs are empty can be really scary. Thank god for the caffeine trick, I survived the night. The panic was actually making the attack far worse.

Mandy Rice

Here's the recipe to the Mandy Rice that everyone has been asking for. This is the recipe that I have used for over 4 years, right from the time I braved to finally learn to cook a rice dish. 

You see, I grow up among good if not great cooks. Mom's Malay cooking is so good that I've been told not to even bother to have a(nother) go at Fish Head's curry. Dad's Bukhary Rice is legendary, he used to cook for hundreds of people, for weddings even, and people still ask him for it all the times. His dream of having a restaurant still lives on.

So I have big shoes to fill, and since I love cooking so much and I know I have to crave my own niche', cook things that I know that I don't have to compete with.

Cooking rice has always been an issue for me, I still can't figure out using your fingers to measure the water level. Yes, I use cup to measure rice and water level, even for plain white rice using the 1:1.5 rice to water ratio. So when I finally figure how to cook my very own Mandy Rice and after no less than seven times of experimenting, I finally had the guts to cook it for my dad's birthday. Even then, we told him that it's bought from a newly open restaurant. Only after getting his seal of approval that I admitted to cooking it. And guess what's his respond? "I hope people will still remember my Bukhary Rice".

In line with my mission to cook delicious wholesome food with minimum or no oil at all, this dish is cooked with absolutely no additional oil at all. What ever fat you see in the stock comes from the chicken that you use. So trim the fat from your chicken very well, otherwise you'd have an inch or so of oil on top of your stock, but you can always skim this off before adding the rice to the stock.

I know the biggest challenge for most when making Mandy Rice is in the dried spice preparation, so I've decided to do all the hard work of buying, sorting, cleaning, measuring and grinding the many many spices for you and offer them all in a spice mix from Athene Spice Lab.

To place your order for the Mandy Spice Mix, please go to Athene Spice Lab order page.

Have fun cooking with love.

Mandy Rice ala Athene

Ingredients

• 2 chicken, quartered
• 2 tsp Athene Spice Lab Mandy Spice Mix
• 8 green chillies
• 4 large onion / 150g shallots
• 10-12 garlic pips
• 60g coriander leaves, roots and stalk cleaned properly
• 150ml plain yogurt
• 1800ml water
• 1kg basmati rice, soaked for 45 minutes and drained
• 1 tsp rose water
• 1 tsp orange blossom (it’s a wonderful addition if you can find it) 
• 5 drops of yellow food coloring
• 1 aluminum pies foil
• 1 small chuck of charcoal
• 1tbsp of oil

Directions 

1. Pound or grind the onion, garlic, chili and coriander leaves, stalk and roots.
2. Add the AtheneSpice Lab Mandy Spice Mix to the ground onion mix and add to the yogurt.
3. Rub all over the chicken. Marinate for at least two hours, preferably overnight in the fridge.
4. Boil the chicken with the marinate in water, until the chicken are cooked.
5. Remove the chicken from the stock, set aside and keeping it warm. 
6. Measure the stock, it usually requires approximately about 1800ml for every kg of soaked basmati rice.
7. Taste the stock, correct the flavor now, adding salt if required. Rule of thumb is that the stock need to be as salty as the sea water, but it’s all up to your taste.
8. Reheat the stock until it’s boiling. Add the rice and stir the pot gently as not to break the rice grain, make sure no rice is stuck at the bottom of the pot.
9. When the water is level with the rice, usually in about 8 minutes, stir the rice once more, drizzle with the rose water & orange blossom water (if using). This is also when you randomly drop the yellow food coloring to give the rice some color.
10. Lower the heat to minimum, I usually place an old flat aluminum pot cover on the fire to really ensure an even and low heat distribution.
11. Line the edges of the pot with moist cloth or towel before covering the pot to create a good seal. Set something heavy on top if you wish to create a vacuum-like environment.
12. Leave to cook for about 25 minutes or until you can see some steam coming out from the edge of the pot.
13. While waiting for the rice to cook, you can set the charcoal to ember. Place it in the aluminum pie foil. If you don’t have the pie foil, you can fashion one using regular aluminum foil, just make sure it’s double layered.
14. When the rice is cooked, gently loosen up the rice.
15. Place the foil on the rice in the pot, spoon over the oil. This will produce a lot of smoke that will give the rice a wonderful ‘cook-in-the-earth’ flavor. Cover the lid immediately and set aside until you are ready to serve, but no less than 15 minutes.
16. Dish out the rice, placing the chicken on top of it. Serve with Salata Harra.

Note : 

• I sometimes fry the chicken just before serving to add more flavor to it. The chicken will brown well real fast, so you can use high heat while frying, after all the chicken is already cooked. You can also drain the onion and chili mix after making the stock, squeezing out all the liquid and later you can fry it along with the chicken for an added crunch. 
• Or just oven roast the chicken after boiling for a healthier crispy alternative.
• You can also use the oil from frying the chicken when making the smoke pack for the rice. The smoke will be far more fragrant this way.  
• Wash basmati rice with at least 3 change of water to properly clean it.
• I can't remind people enough to handle the rice as gentle as possible while washing and soaking, the long grained basmati rice can be very fragile especially after washing and soaking. If you break them, you won't get the much coveted long grained mandy rice.
• If you must have ghee in your Mandy rice, melt some ghee and drizzle over the rice before smoking the rice.