Join us for our Summer Supper Clubs In Marylebone

Malaysian By May

About Malaysian Food. Travel and Lifestyle

Home - Malaysian Food - Recipes - Page 3

By Leave a Comment

Curry Kapitan Nonya Chicken Curry

Nonya cuisine is a unique example of a very succesful fusion cuisine created when Chinese people moved to Malaysia and adapted their cooking to add local spices. Nonya recipes are closely guarded family secrets and it is not easy pry them out of elderly relatives. Recently, there have been a proliferation of new nonya cook books and we can now experiment and recreate them and tweak them to achieve the flavours that we remember.

Curry Kapitan is named for Kapitan China, the title that the Portugese gave to the head of the Chinese clans in Melaka in the 15th century. This recipe is an adaptation from my friend’s mum.

Ingredients

800g chicken thighs or any other cut.

2 sticks of lemongrass, bruised

5 kaffir lime leaves

1 can coconut milk

juice of 1 lime

salt to tast

Spice paste – to blend

10 red chillies – more if you like it hot

1 thumb size piece fresh turmeric

1 thumb size piece of galangal

3 candlenuts (buah keras), sliced – You can substitute brazil nuts if you can’t find thi

½ tsp belacan granules

10 shallots

3 cloves garlic

Method

Blend the spice mix.

Fry the spice mix, kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass in a little oil over a medium heat until fragrant. If it gets dry, add a couple of spoons of coconut milk.

Add the chicken and cover the chicken with the spice mix. Asian prefer chicken thighs and dark meat as these cuts are more flavourful and the bones give the curry another level of flavour. Chicken breast gets very dry in curry like this. Keep stirring until the chicken is browned.

Add the coconut milk and bring to boil and until the chicken is tender. Add the lime juice. Season to taste.

Serve with white or coconut rice.


 

 

By Leave a Comment

Sup Kambing Lamb or Mutton Soup

This is one the my favourite soups found at the Mamak stalls as it is spicily warming and the ultimate comfort food.

*A mamak stall is an Indian Muslim stall which serves a unique cuisine which combines Southern Indian dishes with a Malaysianised twist.

I recently saw a few new variation to this soup with the addition of some exotic ingredients like in the sup torpedo. My sis in law noticed this sign and when I asked the waiter what the ingredients were in that dish, he just said ” we don’t have any” repeatedly and refused to answer. Another passing waiter then gamely offered, it’s made with buffalo penis. Hmmmmm… will give that one a miss.

You can substitute chicken, ox tail or any other meats with the lamb or mutton in this recipe.

Ingredients

750g or about 1 – 1 1/2 lbs of mutton or lamb bones, with a bit of meat on it. Cut into large 2 inch chunks
2 large onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 green chilies, sliced
1 tbsp grated galangal
2 tsp black peppercorns
3 tsp coriander seeds
10 cups of water
1 tbsp of oil
4 Black cardamoms, lightly crushed
5cm stick of cinnamon
2-3 cloves
2.5cm fresh ginger, grated
3 tablespoon mild curry powder or paste
half cup coconut milk
salt
pepper
dry fried onions
spring onions
fresh coriander

Method

Prepare the lamb bones and put into large pot with onion, garlic, chili, galangal, peppercorns and coriander seeds.

Cover with water and bring to a boil. Turn heat down and  simmer for up to 3 hours. Keep skimming the froth as it rises.

Strain the soup, reserving liquid and meat.You can then flake the meat off the bones for a bit of finesse or leave the pieces whole.

Heat oil in pan and fry cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and ginger for one minute, then add curry paste or powder and fry for 4-5 minutes. Add in coconut milk and the sieved soup. Season well.

Add meat back into the pot and bring it back to boil. To serve, garnish with fried onions, spring onion and coriander leaves.

By Leave a Comment

Cucur Udang Prawn Fritters

Cucur udang is one of those snacks that you can buy from pasar malam (night market)  stalls. These are delicious crispy snacks that are really easy to make. I have added some carrots and spring onions to the basic recipe as I had it made like that at the golf club and it worked really well. Feel free to improvise with other ingredients too.

This recipe makes about 15- 18 pieces.

Ingredients

20 medium size prawns, deshell the body and leave the head and tails for decoration.
2 cups plain flour
1 tsp of baking powder
1 egg
200 ml of water
1 tsp of turmeric powder
Salt
1 cup carrots, julienned
1/2  cup sliced spring onions
oil for deep frying

Method

Make up the batter by combining all the dry ingredients and mix well. Make a well and add all the wet ingredients except the prawns. Mix well and set aside for at least 30 minutes. The batter should be of the consistency that is much thicker than a pancake batter. If it is not runny enough, add more water to adjust but don’t make it too runny.

Heat up the oil.

Ideally you need a metal ladle to help create a uniform shape to each piece. Dip the ladle into the hot oil to heat up. If you don’t have a ladle, just do it free hand and pour about 2 tbsp of mixture into the pan with the prawn on top.

Put a couple tablespoons of the batter into the ladle and place a prawn in the middle and dip into the hot oil. Once the batter is a cooked  a little, remove it from the ladle into the oil and fry until golden brown, usually about 3-4 minutes. Don’t fry too many at once as this will cool down the oil and take longer to cook.

Remove and place on kitchen paper to drain.

Serve immediately with sweet chilli sauce.

By Leave a Comment

Grilled Aubergine Sambal or Sambal Terung

I love aubergines (also known as brinjals or eggplant) in any guise but I especially like it done this way, fried or grilled and smothered with an aromatic Malaysian sambal sauce.

Traditionally, this dish tends to use lots of oil in the frying process for the aubergines but a couple of alternative methods are to grill the aubergine or to steam it until soft. These might be healthier and easier options, especially if you have an aversion to frying, like me.

Ingredients

2 Aubergines, cut into 2 inch long batons or whatever creative shapes you like

assam jawa water to taste – 2 tbsp of assam java paste in hot water, sieve and just use the juice. You can now get a ready prepared version which is just the assam paste. You will need less of this than if you used the original assam jawa fruit. Adjust to taste.

sugar to taste (about 1 tsp)

3 tbsp of cooking oil

Sambal ingredients

8 asian shallots (the purple ones)

4 cloves garlic

2 tbsp dried shrimp (small orange things) soak in some warm water

10 red chillies (the big long ones, not birds eye chilli)

Method

Grill or roast the aubergines until chargrilled or soft. You don’t need to drench the aubergines in oil like making roast vegetables as we will be adding the oil with the sambal sauce.

Set aside.

Blend all the sambal ingredients. The resulting paste should look red with the chillies being the main ingredient.

To make the sambal, we start off by frying the sambal ingredients in a little bit of oil on a medium heat until fragrant.

Stir to prevent sticking and burning. This will take about 5 – 8 minutes until the pungent smell of the spice mix emerges and the oil should be red in colour at this point. This is tipping point and the first time you discover it is an epiphany, especially for South East Asian cookery. Impatience at this stage is the cause of many failed dishes.

The resulting sambal should be slightly sour from the assam and slightly sweet. You can add a dash of fish sauce to increase the fishiness of the dish, although this is not very Malaysian, but we have to improvise sometimes.

When the sambal is ready, add the aubergines to the pan and coat it in the sambal sauce and serve.

 

 

 

 

 

Visiting Malaysia

Malaysian Recipes

More Recipes