Penang Asam Laksa

This Penang Asam Laksa is very famous in Malaysia, even won number 7th place of World's 50 most delicious food which published by CNN Go in July 2011.

You can enjoy to take this Penang Asam Laksa in hawker center, coffee shop, road side stall or food court in Penang state.

It is not only the loves from women and men but also young and old. When tracing back the history, it looks like the "Peranakan culture food". The hawkers who sell this Asam Laksa mostly from ethnics Malays and Chinese.

The soup is sort of a bit spicy and sour taste and rich with fish flakes and fish flavour. The Mackeral or 'ikan Kembung' in Malay language is widely used for making this Asam Laksa soup. Some local poeple used Sardine or 'ikan Sardin' to cook too, but not so fragant as the previous one. The Mackeral is being clean, cut and shredded and poached to make the fish broth as soup.

Meanwhile local people also used these ingredients; lemongrass, galangal or 'lengkuas' in Malay language, Chillies and tamarind put into the soup and poach. The dried sliced tamarind local people called as 'asam keping' or local called as 'asam gelugor' also being put in the soup to poach, it bring out the sourness to the soup. No coconut milk use.

The hawker will start to serve you with taking a plate or bowl with the white rice thick noodles or a bit thin noodles which looks like vermicelli.

Then they will garnish with Raw vegetables on top of the noodles, such as mint, thin sliced cucumber, thin sliced pineapple, thin sliced of red big onion, some red sliced chilly, some thin sliced lettuce. Some Chinese hawker will add in the shredded pink colour ginger buds or "bunga Kantan", for it's frangant.

After garnishing, the hawker will put the fish stalk on the noodles and meanwhile the hawker also put a few pieces of the dried tamarind as garnishing the Asam Laksa in the plate or bowl..

One plate or one bowl of this Penang Asam laksa is vary from place to place, from town to village. It's cost about RM1.20 to RM3.50.

Fried noodles

Today I went to one of the coffee shop in 3rd road of Machang Bubok, Bukit Mertajam for a fried noodles (炸面).

It was a very special one. The taste was good. It cost only RM3.50 per plate.

The chef deep fried the noodles then put aside. Took the prepared stock and added some seasonings and cooked with the pork, shrimp, fish meat and mustard. The gravy put on the fried noodles and then ingredients put on top of noodles.

What can I tell you is ......Yummy !

Roti Nan and Tandoori chicken

Yesterday I felt a bit thirsty on the way to town, I stopped by an Indian muslim restaurant in Alma, Bukit Mertajam. I thought I just wanted to order a glass of Teh tarik ais (famous pulled tea in Malaysia) but when I saw there was a cooking tool, a clay oven which called as tandoor. I guessed, they must have the Roti Nan (flat bread, believed to be originated from Persia). Basically it is made by wheat flour, water, yeast, butter or ghee. I asked the waiter for it.....Oh ya....they have the Roti Nan...... then I just waited for 10 minutes to get ready to be served.

I saw the chef started to take the small dough (already risen) from the container and flatten it and did some "flying action" to make the flat bread dough getting wider. Then he put the Roti Nan dough on a tool which covered with cloth. Followed by with some strength and hit the dough towards the clay pot wall. It sticked to the inside clay pot wall. Slowly the dough got bubble...and bake...They use the long metal bar and picked up the Roti Nan from the clay pot wall.

They served Roti Nan with hot and with the gravy and sour cream paste for tandoori chicken in a plate.

About the Tandoori chicken, it was marinated with yogurt and tandoori masala (believed to be originated from Delhi, India). The chilli powder and tumeric made the chicken coloured with red and yellow. Anyway, some local people did said some of the restaurants try to put in a bit colour to the chicken, the purpose is to make it with nice look colour. It was cooked in the high temperature in the tandoor clay pot.

I took some tandoori chicken in other restaurants too...anyway most of the restaurant had the hard tandoori chicken...hardly to bite. However this one, not bad...but for me..a bit hot...chilli powder on tandoori chicken is too much for me. It must have been modified the recipe according to local taste.

Combination of the taste of Tandoori chicken and Roti Nan after all was not bad. The price for this whole set was RM6.00

Keropok ikan parang (Crackers ikan parang)

Recently, I found the "keropok ikan parang" which came from Terengganu state has the best taste. "keropok" means crackers. "Ikan" means fish. "Parang" means a Malay large long knife. Anyway, it is wolf-herring. In hokkien it's called "sai toa yee". Chinese like the fish ball which make by this wolf-herring. It is very famous and delicous.

How to make the ikan parang crackers ? This wolf-herring was cut, clean and blend it, became the fish paste. This paste add with salt, sugar, MSG.

Then it's mix together with the tapioca flour or called as "tepung kanji"or sago flour which called as "tepung sagu". The dough is long and cylinder in shape. This dough is either cook with braising or steaming.

The next process is make it dry and cool down and cut into thin pieces. All these pieces of crackers will be dry under the sunlight.

Prepare the coking oil and fried it. You can see it's expanding from the original size. Cool them and when you eat, it's crispy. Very delicious !