Tonkotsu Ramen- AFF Japan Butaniku #1

Asian Food Fest starts today! And it's Japan month this time. Visit Alan's blog for the introduction post

I love tonkotsu ramen.
That thick sticky broth that makes my lips feel smackingly yummy.
I read up a few recipes and there are many many versions around. Some are very very basic and some with more ingredients.

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Remove Almost Bourdain-- IMPORTANT

Dear all friends,

Almost Bourdain by Ellie was a very popular blog few years back. She stopped blogging actively in May 2012 and the blog was closed down almost half a year ago due to her own reasons.
Recently in August, the blog has been revived.... And there were postings.

Don't be happy.
It's NOT Ellie there. 

Ellie's screen shot of the "new" Almost Bourdain in Sept 2013
It is Ellie's old posts..... resurrected

According to Ellie," Someone knew how popular this blog was, and waited for the blogspot name to be available again and snapped it. The new and old Almost Bourdain operate with the same URL and so, all the links from everywhere who have once linked to Almost Bourdain will still land on the homepage.

This person also posted old blog posts from Almost Bourdain into the 'new' Almost Bourdain. To be able to post it word for word, with the same format , the person must have downloaded them long ago, in anticipation for this moment."

Now I won't want to dwell into more details. But just to tell you Ellie's is not the person behind Almost Bourdain now. It's someone else.

Ellie has written to the blog owner and the posts were removed, and the blog's new owner deleted it. But Google allows the blog to be revived by the same owner within a short period of time. Few days later the stolen recipes were replaced with a pretty girl's face. The blog is republished so that all redirecting and landings will still go there. The new owner  has locked the blogspot and the traffic.

As seen on 27th September 2013

In order, not to let this person gain from Ellie's work, and traffic from the old Almost Bourdain's readers,
PLEASE DELETE ALL LINKS to Almost Bourdain. Ellie's recipes aren't there anyway.

All recipes that you once tried and linked to Almost Bourdain, DELETE THE LINKS
If you followed Almost Bourdain and linked up, REMOVE IT. Not nice to confuse people if they think it's Ellie there.

It's NOT a coincidence that this person became interested in the same blogspot, as this person once tried to republish Ellie's work there, word for word, without her permisson. Suspiciously like a planned, awaited scheme.


If you loved the Almost Bourdain by Ellie,
If you were thankful for her sharings,
Please do this for her.

DELETE and REMOVE

Ellie's  posts, but it's not Ellie

No need to go to the blog and give the new owner a piece of your mind. The new owner will be happy that you visited. 

Many Splendored Quick Bread - Zucchini Courgettes #3

I was curious about having so much veggie in the quickbread, or some of you might find it as cake. My tongue is confused just as well, haha. Quick breads are bakes that are basically prepared using the quick method, just stir the wet and dry ingredients together, like making muffins.

I was hoping my kids will eat it, but nope!

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Zuchinni Salted Egg Quick Soup - Zucchini Courgette #2

I cooked this dish based on another common quick soup in Cantonese cuisine, that is the Hairy Marrow Soup (毛瓜汤).

I thought, why not cook zuchinni or courgettes this way too! As they are squashes and taste soooo sweet.
I liked the result, and so did my kids.

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Summer Squash Pancakes - Zucchini Courgettes #1

Zucchinis and yellow squashes are expensive here. They used to be even more expensive, but now gone to RM6/kg. But when I saw them this time, they were on offer for RM2/kg. Yeah! I got myself about 1.2kg of yellow squashes and used 1kg to make these.

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Lydia's 6th Birthday Party

Around 3 weeks back, I organized a small party for Lydia who turned 6. Never before have I done a kid's party that is for kids. Well, I've done her other parties, but it was adult's majority, big majority. So the food had the adults in mind, more. This time, it was for 13 kids (5 didn't come), and a few adults.

I raced for days to clean up the house properly. I am quite a hoarder and it takes time for me to discard things, so this was a good push for me. And tried to bake some stuff that can be done in advance. So many things came to me that week, and each hour was sooo precious.

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MFF's over, and here comes..... AFF!

Hi Everybody,

Malaysian Food Fest was over and the last round up was done 2 weeks back.
I would like to take this opportunity to say something.

First of all, I would like to thank all my hosts.
Thank you for taking up the hosting request,
Thank you for their hard work each month and throughout preparing for the month,
Thank you for doing the intro and round up each month,
and most of all, Thank you for enduring it all.
The slashes from some people and the criticism thrown at them.
Thank you, thank you.

Secondly,
I would like to thank all who participated.
To Malaysians who are passionate about local food and to oversea participants who are curious about the food we have here.
Thank you for the effort to cook, and to share with us your culinary experience.
Some of you had been very supportive and very daring to try.

Thirdly,
Thank you to all who are silent supporters.
You read our posts, enjoyed the sharing and was glad to learn more about the food we Malaysians eat in each state.

2 years back, I never thought I would want to create an event like this. Personally, I had a plan to cover the state food by myself, as I was hoping to recreate the food I ate during my travels in the country. But it came to me, why not extend the fun to my fellow friends. I didn't expect the amount of entries the event would receive each month and it was truly truly encouraging.

The aim of the event, I believe has been met and I'm very very happy about it.
Thank you again everybody.

Now... some of you actually knew.. it's not going to end here.
Those of you who are on Facebook with me, knew.. I have something else coming up, but what?


It's Asian Food Fest!!!!

Please visit our AFF info page for more information about this event.

And you can LIKE us on Facebook.

And as the organizer, again.. I'm out in full force to support. I've started cooking my Asian dishes already, LOL.
I always plan in advance.
The dishes shown below are from 6 different countries, can you identify them?

See you on 1st October with Japanese dishes! 

Come and join in the fun!

Honey Peach Ice Cream - Stone Fruits #3

I made this a long time ago, before I got my ice cream maker.

The ice cream isn't as peachy as I hope it'll be as my peaches are not really that fragrant. You can use canned peaches if you want. I misread the recipe and pureed all my peaches, and so with the high moisture content in the ice cream, it wasn't very smooth.

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Quick Apricot Coconut Pie - Stone Fruits #2

A pie... how is it a pie? hmmm.
A coconut crust, apricot filling and covered with almonds? LOL. Don't ask me.

This is another recipe from my "good to see only" cookbook. I took the idea, and ditched all the liquids in the recipe, added in lime zest to boost the coconut and apricot, and changed whatever I think is the better way. The result was perfect for me. I wonder what will happen with that extra 1 cup of milk in this. It'll look like baked oatmeal I guess. It's already so moist now.... it will crumble if the golden base is not formed properly

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Blackforest Ice Cream Mooncake - Stone Fruits #1

Like I told you, I don't like eating tradtional mooncakes, but I never said, I don't like all sort of mooncakes. This is ice cream, made in the form of mooncakes. Give me any amount, I'll gladly take them! LOL

I had this idea, that instead of making carrot juice yolks, why not I just use beautiful cherries as the moon ?
I have a few other crazy ideas in my head, but I think let's leave them for next year and I hope I get them realized instead of letting them stored up in my brain. This idea was actually thought of last year in 2012 but until now, whatever I planned last year, haven't been done.

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Fish with Iban Eggplant - Merdeka Open House

During Sarawak MFF, I got to know Julina, the lady behind Hunter's Food., a blog that focuses on Sarawak Ethnic Cuisine. Thanks to her, I learnt a lot regarding Sarawak Ethnic Food and from there tried cooking two ethnic dishes like Manuk Pansuh and Pig Stomach with Pineapples.

She sent me some Sarawakian food stuff and one of them is this. Thank you Julina.
I have seen another participant to our virtual event cooking seafood with this eggplant and so, I tried cooking it her way, but with only fish.

Actually I cooked this dish last September, which is almost a year ago.

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Traditional Mooncake

My first attempt at making mooncakes. So bear with me, the mooncakes don't look perfect.
I don't bake everything perfectly each time and I'm not shy to admit it.

It's ok, it's a been there, done that. And for those of you who have been asking me whether I have mooncake recipes, here you go.
I don't know if I'll make more mooncakes, as in baked mooncakes, real mooncakes as I seriously don't enjoy eating a lump of filling. It's just a personal thing.

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Homemade Caramel Lotus Paste

Personally, I don't like eating mooncakes. I eat, but I won't look for it, but if someone puts it infront of me, asking me to eat, I'll take a small wedge.

I made this because my dear daughter no2, smuggled a pack of lotus seed into my shopping cart when I went to the chinese herbal shop. I paid and brought it home without me knowing until I split my goods with my mother in law. Neither me nor her took it. And so... I suspected my daredevil did it. She admitted it with a chuckle! Gosh, gosh gosh!

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The Last Round Up for Malaysian Food Fest............ Perak

As the last state to be featured for MFF, Perak will close the curtains.

It's been a busy month for me as quite a lot of things happened and is still happening. I even skipped blogging for a week without notice, that is if you noticed, and it's because I really couldn't cope.

This month has been a real challenge for me as I had to do so many experiments... because non of the hawker recipes I made, came with recipes and had to be recreated from memory of taste and texture.

Perak has quite a handful of bloggers, or at least, were born and raised here, but now am residing elsewhere.
We are all passionate about the food we grew up with and a big thank you to all who are not Perakians but have tried out the food from our state. I recieved a total of 58(+9) entries this month, with the 9 not emailed in to me, but submitted to our FB event page. I think everybody has been pretty busy with the school holidays, Raya and Merdeka ... of which is why I must truly apologise for being sooo late.

I know that this month.. some of you may feel.. that some dishes are not special enough as they are also available elsewhere.  But let's not forget that this event is not about ORIGIN, but popular food that is somehow iconic, popular and has a taste of its own from that area. 100 years ago, 3 towns in Perak holds the top 4 spots in terms of size of town for Malaya, not counting the strait states. So, it's not surprising that the food from Perak that has been around for ages, been cooked elsewhere, given a face lift and food evolves. Embrace the differences, acknowledge each state's food culture and let's see what is POPULAR in Perak.

I'm going to do the round up a little different this time.. I'm going to go with districts... so that you may see.. the distribution of good food around the state :)

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