C r a v i n g s !
5:30 AM
Anybody who believes that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach flunked geography. ~Robert Byrne
I'm sorry Mr Byrne. I just had to disagree with you on this.
The belly rules the mind.
Anyway, with the arrival of Ramadhan, it'll only be natural when suddenly all the weird cravings surfaced. Sebelum ni takde rasa nak makan pun, bile masuk bulan puasa, macam macam lak tekak ni terasa rasa nak makan. So, below are a few meals I prepared to entertain our "cravings", me and hubby combined. It may doesn't taste as origin as the one you may get at pasar ramadhan but I think I'm getting closer.
1) KETUPAT SOTONG aka TUPAT SUTUN
This is by far, the one and solely pantai Timur meal that I dun get, no actually I refused to understand the concept. Being half Johorian/half melaka-ian and half Singaporean, I was raised to believed squid tastes it's best in Sambal or any spicy type of meals due to it's strong smells and squidy taste. When I married Mr Muddy and was introduced to this meal, I rebelled and sooo against it. Ha Ha Ha dramatic sungguh. I mean seriously, sotong is already hanyir, then you stuffed it with glutinous rice and cooked with santan and gula merah. The combination was soooooo wrong in my cooking textbook. However, when my husband came back with a kilo of huge sotong and hinted that sotong THIS size will make a perfect ketupat sotong, I decided to give in and give it a try.
I just didn't know where to place this meal though. It's neither desserts nor it's a main dish. Sotong was normally cooked as main dish but with glutinous rice and the pengat-like gravy, it's more to desserts. Aishhh dunno lah.. Below are my 1st attempt and my oh my it was indeed a sweet stuff. To makes it sweeter, my husband rated my ketupat sotong as perfect ! Suddenly I felt like a kitchen goddess heh heh heh...
:: The recipe I used doesn't mentioned halia and halba, but based on my "researches" done, it would be nicer to put them both, u know to kill the squid strong smell . Just 1/2 inch of young ginger root and 1 teaspoons of halba would do the job ::
2 ) KETUPAT SARDIN aka EPOK EPOK SARDIN
I had to admit that this was mine. To me, karipap sardin significant to my Ramadhan at Subang Perdana when I first started working, around 7 years ago. After I graduated, I stayed at my sister's place in Subang Perdana. Even when I got a job at Bandar Sri Damansara, I chose to remained at Subang and commute daily from Subang to Bdr Sri Damansara. One tough job I must say as I need to changed a few buses, then walked almost 1 km up the Damansara hill daily but I survived for almost 1/2 year. Things got tougher during Ramadhan. Most of the time I had to breakfast with only air kotak and bread under the fly over while waiting for my bus. However, all the painful experience somehow compensated when I got home and found 2 ringgit of Karipap Sardin waiting for me. My sister will buy for me Karipap Sardin from Subang Perdana bazar ramadhan for me without failed everyday. It's the best karipap sardin ever I would sulked and gone sour the whole night if the makcik didn't sell it on any particular day.
Malaysian used to called Karipap but in Singapore people called it Epok Epok. It's basically the same thing. Among benefits of having kampung over the sea huhhh...You get to know a thing or two about other cultures.
Iyo lahhhhhhh over the sea sangat la kannn hahah..
Well, obviously this year I won't be having chance to buy my favourite Karipap Sardin like I used to so I tried to imitate it.
:: Just used anything round to get the bulat shape. In my case, I used my tea mug. It is recommended to use pasta machine to flatten your dough so the thickness will be the same and even. However, I'm too lazy to take my pasta machine out. I just used the roller this time ::
:: I promised my girls that I will make for them "Baby Karipap Sardin" if they behave and didn't bother me while I'm doing my thing and surprisingly, they did! Therefore, presenting baby karipap for good girls in the house. Since it's too small, the filling can't help but escaping it's way out heheh ::
:: This is what happened when you facebooking while frying your karipap. Apa yang akan berlaku ialah kerna terlalu asyik membalas comments di facebook, anda akan distracted maka minyak anda akan menjadik way too hot and menghasilkan karipap bersama bintat bintat nyamuk seperti di atas. Lesson learned : Sometimes f@cebook can either work for us or against us. This time, definitely against me... err against my karipap actually :)
:: Baby Karipap among it's bigger sisters ::
I called keria but my husband called Cok Keria. Same goes with onde onde or Buah melaka. My hubby called it Kueh kekoh Chaaaaa... Kekoh is gigit in Tganu speaks. What happened is when you bite the onde-onde, the melted gula melaka will burst in your mouth and somehow Tganu peoples think the burst sounded like chaaaaaa, hence the name. Their simplicity in naming their foods or things in life sometimes amaze me.
:: Keria before "pakai baju". I used Egytian sweet potato so my keria turned out to be orangey. There's USA sweet potato here but it's way too expensive ::
:: Keria after pakai baju ::
Popiah cakap orang melayu, spring rolls cakap omputeh. My husband favoured this over keria so I made this batch of popiah the same day with keria. At least he would still have some kuih for berbuka. It turned out that my neighbours all feeling all productive that day and I had sooo many foods on my table alongsidewith my own 2 types of kuih and lauk pauk. I had Ayam Percik kelantanese version and cucur from Na'a, Ayam percik Tganu version from Ita and Kueh cara manis from Ayu. Owh for those who didn't know, Ayam Percik kelantanese version comes with white gravy, while Tganu one with red-brownish gravy.
This particular bread was requested by Alis and Erin. I think they got bored with rice already. So did myself. For examples, yesterday I cooked Ikan Kembung Bakar with air asam and sup daging Unta for Iftar, but I breakfast with Maggee Tomyam can arrr? Only my husband and the kids ate rice. I just dun feel like eating rice lately.
:: Dun ask me what was the name of weird looking bun beside my sausages bun. I dun know either for my own good. It's not croissant definitely kah kah kah. I just twisted it clueless and it came out that way. Gasak lerrr, bukan nak buat meniaga pun ::
:: Cheddar Cheese Bread Terlampau ::
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