Foodelicious!

When I was young, I wasnt much of a Curry Laksa fan..I still am not because very simply, my stomach has never been good and such rich and spicy dish dont sit well . This was always the case until years ago when I was in Penang. I had a spoonful of Penang Curry Mee from my uncle's bowl and I was bowled over!!

Penang Curry Mee is very light.. not thick with coconut. Infact, it's the opposite! It's light but fragrant and the taste is very pleasing. The broth is lightly flavored with a few simple spices balance off with enough coconut to please the tastebud. Where else, the condiments that went along with Penang Curry Mee is simple ingredients... a bit of bean sprout and long beans, a generous helping of freshly steamed prawns, slices of tender cuttlefish, a good heap of freshly peeled cockles garnished with mint and lots of taufoo puffs. For those who enjoy a more spicer kick, a spoonful of home made chili sambal will transform this Penang Curry Mee to another level of excitement!

Recently, I was craving for a good bowl of Penang Curry mee but couldnt find any in KL, so, I decided to make! Hehehe... read thru a few so called authentic Penang nyonya recipes but didnt quite find a good enough recipe to entice me.. so, decided to pick my aunt's brain on this. hehehe.. my aunt grew up in Penang and is a great cook.. So, with her information.. I set out to create this new excitement!

And yes! it was indeed great excitement to see my guests tucking into their bowls of Penang Curry Mee. Yes, it was bowls. They had a few rounds of it and was happily enjoying every single mouthfuls of it. Even the kids had a go at it! Hehehehe.. With that, I consider this a complete success! My Penang Curry Mee party at my secret garden was served with refreshingly chilled konikyaku jellies and a Roselle sangria drink. And yes, Roselle syrup are made from my secret garden too.... Life cannot be any better... great friends, good food and perfect weather are hard to come by these days...

Nothing beats a great bowl of asam laksa. It is not easy to find a satisfying asam laksa nowadays..I guess people dont make them like they used to.. with lots of fish.. with lots of herbs.. and one must be very generous with these ingredients.... so, since I am such a fussy pot, I decided to make this... and share it with some close friends.. hehehehe..

The pounded ingredients are naturally, pounded... and herbs are plenty..you gotta be very generous with the herbs.. if not, the broth will not be fragrant and I learnt the trick from my aunt.. you gotta put in "secret" hehehehe... so, after an hour or so of a lot of blup blup blup sound from a big pot, the broth is ready.. and off I go to get the garnishing ready and there are a lot of things to cut!! I hate cutting!!! The onions, the cucumbers, the bunga kantan, the mint, the pineapples... wahhh....

But once everything is nicely cut, I am very pleased with my bowl of asam laksa.. I learnt that you must balance the taste between sour, spiciness (pedas), sweet and savory.. it is not just sour or pedas.. it has to balance the scale and when you mix everything up, it is a very yummy bowl of noodle that spells effort and precision in taste. Of course, the prawn paste is a must and it helps.. without it, the balancing act cannot be achieved. As my friend's husband put it... this prawn paste makes a whole difference!! Oh yessss.....

So, my Sunday was spent with great friends and great bowl of asam laksa... nothing can be better than that.. Not even a 5 carat bling! Thanks May Lyn for graciously offering your house for us to crash and have this asam laksa party...

Oh! if you are wondering, yes, I do make this for my catering.. and if you want to have this party, you can call me...... hehehe..

People call this "hey" mee, har mien, hokkien mee or simply prawn mee.... The story of why I made prawn mee was because I recently bought a big bag of really fresh and decent size prawns for a steal and thought it was a big waste to throw away those shells as I was shelling them. So, I got some chicken, ikan bilis, dried sotong, dried prawns and lots of shallots and made a pot of prawn mee stock! Waste not!

Anyway, the story goes, since I dont consume pork, the challenge was to create the prawn mee stock to be as good and authentic as it possibly can without the roast pork bones. And I must say, I did it! Yipppppppeeeee....

So, my guests and me had super delicious prawn mee garnished with lots of bean sprout, kangkung, hard boiled egg, shredded chicken and of course! prawns with a generous dressing of fried crispy shallots.

Oh.. we also had mango pudding.. pictures will be posted soon..