Ongrizinal Roast Potato 王子の烘马铃薯

Ingredient :
3 piece of potatoes, 1 piece of carrot, 2 pieces of big onion, , some frozen corn, peas, Cheesedale cheese, a frankfurter, some basil, a little bit of thyme, and of course salt & pepper to taste !


Method :
Slice the potatoes, carrot and onions to about 5mm thick，sprinkle a little bit of basil and thyme, roast with a little bit of olive oil all the ingredient in a heater-oven at 140°C for 20 minutes. Alternatively, it can be pan-heated or over a bbq fire.

As the vegetables are almost done, add in frozen corn, peas, and chopped cheese, and let it heated for little while. Serve hot with a little bit of mustard or chili sauce

Dabai

Dabai, Canarium odontophyllum, is a member of family Burseraceae is a seasonal fruit found in Sarawak markets, especially toward the end of the year. The outer skin is dark purplish, with yellowish mesocarp. It has hard triangular big seed with edible cotyledon. Dabai also know as 橄榄 ( ca' na , literally olive) among the Chinese community, due to its similarity in shape of olive fruits.

The fruit is pre-soaked for 5 - 10 minutes in warm water prior to consumption. It’s soft, creamy with slight eccentric taste of its own. Locals often have it slightly marinated with sugar and soy sauce. Alternatively, some prefer to sun-cook it. Sun-cook is an interesting process . . . . The dabai fruits are first mixed with soy sauce and sugar, then it’s left under hot sun until the flesh turn soft.

It is interesting to know that the de-skinned dabai flesh is made into dabai cake ! It tastes just as eccentric as the fresh fruit.

The cotyledon too is edible. But getting to it through its hard seed is not an easy task at all. One must use a huge chopping knife, or a nut cracker to get to it.

Black and White 黑白

黑 Black : Grass jelly凉粉, also know as 仙草, cincau, is a jelly-like dessert made from leaves of Mesona chinensis, of family Lamiaceae. The aged and slightly oxidized stalks and leaves of Mesona chinensis is boiled with potassium carbonate for several hours with a little starch, filtered and then cooling the liquid to a jelly-like consistency. It has slight bitter taste, with a light iodine lavender flavor, with a translucent black appearance. It is mixed in ice kacang and cendol, or consumed with sweetened water as a drink during hot weather.

白 White : Soy Milk 豆浆 is a beverage made from soybeans, Glycine max. It is produced by grinding soybeans with water, the purée is filter to extract the milky solution, then bring it to boil, add sugar for sweetening. It is very much apealing served chilled or hot.

Black and White 黑白 : when black and white mixed, it is one of the most delightful beverage !

Ongrizinal Heinz Beef 王子の棕醬牛肉

Marinate some 500g of diced Beef with generous portion of Heinz Traditional Steak Sauce, Lea Perrins Worcestershire Sauce, and some black pepper powder. Marinate it for as long as possible. I prefer to keep it in my freezer overnight. More than enough time for the meat to absorb the sauces’ flavour. Only need some time and effort to defrost it before cooking, which is extremely easy with microwave oven !

Dice 5 – 9 cloves of garlic, heat it over hot non-stick pan. Add in the beef. Stir a bit. Throw in diced carrots ( 2 pieces ). Add a cup of water.

Simmer it for 20 minutes. Or until the meat tender.

Finally add in diced onions. Sprinkle some frozen corn and green peas for garnish. Heat for a while and its done !

Serve with a nice hot rice !

Capsicum ( chili )

Chili ( also known as pepper, although peppers are more appropriately refer to Piper nigrum, a spice from the family Piperaceae ), or sometime spelled chilli, chile, is fruit of the Capsicum genus of nightshade family, Solanaceae.

Botanically speaking, fruits of chilis are berries. They are used widely in cooking, rather than consumed as a fruit. It is eaten raw or cooked, dried or powdered, as garnish or main ingredient, pickled or marinated, as a spice and at times as a medicine.

Chili originated from Central and South America. Archaeological evidence suggested it was domesticated some 6000 years ago. It was Christopher Columbus, the first European to encounter them in Caribbean, who called them ‘peppers’ because of their similarity in taste with the Old World black peppers. From South America, the Spaniard brought back the ‘peppers’ back to Europe, and subsequently find its way to Asia.

There are some 20 – 27 species of Capsicums. 5 of which are domesticated : Capsicum annum, Capsicum baccatum, Capsicum chinense, Capsicum frutescens, and Capsidum pubescens.

The burning sensation of chilies caused by capsaicin ( methyl vanillyl noenamide). Capsaicin is especially present in large quantities in the placental tissue ( seeds ), although substantial amount also present at the fleshy part of the fruit, depending on the species and variety of the fruit.

The Scoville scale measures the hotness of a chili pepper, as defined by the amount of capsaicin it contains. However Scoville Organoleptic Test is less precise compared to method used by ASTA's ( American Spice Trade Association ) High Performance Liquid Chromatography ( HPLC ).

Scoville Rating of Peppers

Scoville rating	Type of pepper
15,000,000–16,000,000	Pure capsaicin
8,600,000–9,100,000	Various capsaicinoids (e.g. homocapsaicin, homodihydrocapsaicin, nordihydrocapsaicin)
5,000,000–5,300,000	Law Enforcement Grade pepper spray, FN 303 irritant ammunition
855,000–1,050,000	Naga Jolokia (a.k.a. Ghost pepper )
350,000–580,000	Red Savina Habanero
100,000–350,000	Habanero chili , Scotch Bonnet Peppe , Datil pepper , Rocoto, African Birdseye/Peri-peri, Madame Jeanette, Jamaican Hot Pepper
50,000–100,000	Thai Pepper Malagueta Pepper, Chiltepin Pepper, Pequin Pepper
30,000–50,000	Cayenne Pepper, Ají pepper ,Tabasco pepper, some Chipotle peppers ( smoked Jalapeño ), Cumari pepper
10,000–23,000	Serrano Pepper, some Chipotle peppers
2,500–8,000	Jalapeño Pepper , Guajillo , New Mexican varieties of Anaheim pepper, Paprika (Hungarian wax pepper)
500–2,500	Anaheim pepper, Poblano, Rocotillo Pepper
100–500	Pimento , Peperoncini
0	No heat, Bell pepper

Ongzi 煮义 - cakes

[10:58] g: i like bake cake , but I don’t eat much cake
[11:05] G: then bake small cakes lah ! ( so ma fan ! ) [11:06] g: small cake difficult to bake la
[11:06] g: more expensive ! more consumption of energy! Not Earth-friendly ( so rational for wat! )[11:06] G : then buy from bakeries !
[11:06] G : simple, save time! ( haiz ! guys likes to complicates things )[11:06] g: buy outside one, high calorie[11:06] G : no la!
[11:06] G : buy high quality cake lo!
[11:07] G : I like OngrizinalRecipe ( a local establishment )
[11:07] G : taste so good !..........yum yum[11:07] g: still,I don’t like cakes ( not becoz of the taste, it’s the nutritional values )[11:08] G : haiz
[11:08] G : then dont eat! ( ka na sai ! )
[11:08] G : save money and wont gain weight[11:08] g: but sometime tangan gatal wanna bake
[11:09] G : …… ( die la u ! )



Cakes, supposed to be a happy food. Yet any sane person will not deny the fact of the amount of the calories, fats, sugars in it.

I like cakes too. Its no doubt a happy food !

When it comes to the joy of having a cake over a nice cup of coffee, no calories can stand in between. Think of the cake melts in the mouth, no mountain is too high anymore.

Instead of buying cakes from bakeries. I like to bake my own cakes. I like the idea of home-baked cakes, breads, muffins . . . . all sorts of pastries.

Home-bakes are most probably less presentable. Less palatable, maybe. Troublesome too . . . But surely more delicious ! How can it not be ? With all the efforts, the time, and the love as the main ingredients, how can it not be more delicious ?
I like baking, still.
So, when you are enjoying your home-baked cake, think of the love you eat.

How to choose A Good DURIAN

Durian is an expensive fruit, if not the most expensive.
Thus buying durian is a very risky transaction.
Unless you are enhanced with x-ray vision, then, some basic knowledge and skill are needed while selecting and buying durians.

Here are few simple tips I picked up over the years :

Follow your nose
The overpowering, repugnant odor is most essential in durian as the King of tropical fruits .
Durian without the pungent smell, or anything less should be out of consideration .

Some varieties are good, but with less smell . But there are not many of that out there.
A good durian can be smell miles away, or should I say, as long as the durian has nice smell, it’s a good durian !
Safest way is of cause don’t try your luck ! Anyway, luck has nothing to do with it.
It is always better safe than sorry !

The pungent odoriferous flavour of the durian can be categorized into 4 main flavour profiles :
1.Pungency due to sulphur compounds, eg n-propyl mercaptan, dimethyl disulphide ,
2.Fruitiness due to aromatic esters, eg n-butyl acetate, ethyl butyrate ,
3.Creaminess, eg diacetyl, gamma- & delta-lactones ,
4.Green notes due to aldehydes and alcohols, eg cis-3-hexenol, trans-2-hexenol
( Lim TK, 1993, DURIAN Diseases and Disorders, Tropical Press Sdn Bhd, KL )



Look hard

# Avoid de-formed fruit – deformed means less edible pulp, more husk.

# Look for fruit with nice sharp tip – blunt or damaged tip may indicate the fruit had been handled numerous time, why can’t sell? Don’t pay for the answer.  

# Don’t buy fruit with cracked skin – cracked skin means over-ripe !  besides, the cracks may may cause bacteria contamination, which in turn cause food poisoning.

# Don’t share with insect borer – some say the insect knows a good durian, I think insect mana tahu pilih ?

# Reject diseased fruit – fungi and bacteria infested fruit, buat apa beli ?



Shake it !
Hold the fruit close to you ear, shake it, listen for a shaky sound . ( don't be too gentle with it.  shake harder )

( don't be a sissy ! off the gloves ! )

The sound indicate that the fruit is nicely ripen.
Both under-ripe and over-ripe fruit will not have the shaky sound.  Unripe fruit will have its pulp firmly attached to the inner husk, while the over-ripe pulp will be too soft to have the shaky effect .

Durian fruit exhibits a characteristic climacteric pattern in respiration and ethylene production. The ripening of durian indicated by they pulp becoming soft, creamy and sweet, with the presence of the strong odour and flavour typical of the fruit ( Tongdee, et al, 1988, Effects of harvest maturity on respiration, ethylene, production and the composition of internal atmospheres of durian, In Proceeding of Seminar on Durian, Thailand Institute of Scientific and Technological Research, Bangkok )

Tongsui 糖水2 之‘饮’

糖水，顾名其义，甜之水。但在粤语却是以‘食’糖水而非 ‘饮’之。糖水多数煮得较浓，如花生湖、红豆沙、绿豆沙、芝麻糊、杏仁糊等都以少水煮成糊状。番薯汤、腐竹薏米水则煮得较稀，故可理所当然 ‘饮’之。

吾爱饮糖水，所以煲的糖水都用多水，煮得稀稀的，又甜又香，热天冷饮，人生一大享受！

Tongsui 糖水

Tongsui 糖水, is a collective term for any sweet, warm or chilled soup or custard served as a dessert at the end of a meal in Cantonese cuisine. ( so it was said ).

There is a wide variety of tongsui, ( of some I never heard of ) namely black sesame paste 芝麻糊 , douhua豆腐花 , egg tongsui 鸡蛋糖水, got fan 葛粉, gui ling gao 龟苓膏, hasma 雪蛤, red bean soup 红豆汤, sai mai lo 西米露, mung bean soup 绿豆汤, six-flavors六味, peanut paste soup花生糊, steamed egg custard 炖蛋, sweet potato soup 番薯糖水, sweet almond soup杏仁糊, sweet walnut soup. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongsui )

Are tongsui belong solely to Cantonese cuisine ? I doubt it. I am a Hokkien, but my family had as far as I can recall, served tongsui as such as red bean soup, mung bean soup, sweet potato etc.






糖水之谈 ？! 免谈！

不然！糖水之可在粤菜占一席， 并非无过人之处。以简单的材料煮出不简单的糖水， 何曾简单！

又、糖水之所以甜， 不止在于糖的分量，而是在于心 ( Ongzi’s 煮义论 )。 固汤水之谈， 非泛泛之谈也！

叁、糖水之谈，旨在抛转引玉。吾厨艺不精，煲糖水非我所长，还请各位多多指教。

再说，煲糖水非人人精、非人人懂，无人写，岂何以学？多一人写，则多一人传。何乐不为？

Spices

Pandan flavor extract

Something a kitchen should have #1 : pandan flavor extract

Pandan leaves are used widely in Southeast Asian cooking. They have a nutty, botanical fragrance which enhances the flavor of foods. Pandan leaves are from the Pandanus amaryllifolius of the screwpine family. The aromatic scent is of 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which also give jasmine rice and bread flower ( Vallaris glabra ) their smell.

Pandan is so important in SE Asian cuisine, that it can be found in every village and sub-urban. Propagation is very easy, a cutting properly watered and fertilized will grow into a huge bush.

However, pandan leaves are sometime not as easily available as it should be. And sometime even though I put a generous bunch of pandan leaves into my tong sui 糖水, there are hardly any fragrant out of it ! Lagipun, getting fresh pandan leaves is especially difficult when work long hours and hardly finds time to go to market.

This is when I find a little bottle of pandan extract is most useful and convenience. It comes in small bottle e.g. 25ml, in various brands. A little drop of it is suffice to flavor a big pot of tong sui. Magic potion it is !

Kaya

Kaya, also known as seri kaya, is a coconut jam made from a base of coconut milk and eggs. It is sweet and creamy, often in golden brown or green depending of the amount of pandan and caramel.





Ingredient :

1. Sugar 70g
2. Egg x 2
3. coconut milk powder 25mg
4. pandan flavour


Instruction :

1. beat egg with sugar until the sugar is dissolved.
2. add in coconut milk powder and pandan flavour, blend well
3. steam over water, stir till cooked
to make the kaya golden brown in colour, melt 2 tsp of sugar separately, and stir in the caramel

as a child , I'd watch over and over again as my mother prepared the jam .

she, of c0urse, used the traditional original coconut milk and pandan leaves.

it was a lot more tedious back then, as we cooked from gasoline-stoves. its a long process stiring the jam over the flame.

however, the kaya my mom made was the best i had ever tasted.

there are still room for improvement for my kaya. it is far from perfect. yet, its delicious despite the look, I assure you.

Cassava Cake木薯糕 Kuih Ubi Kayu

Ingredients :

A1 fresh cassava 1kg ( ≈ 3pc ), grated

A2 fresh coconut 200g ( 1/4 pc ), grated
A3 sugar 白糖5 tbsp

A4 corn flour 薯粉4 tsp

A5 pandan flavoring

A6 margarine 植物油 for frying

Instructions

1. grate the cassava with a grater.

This is a very tedious job. Dangerous at times. It will spoil the mood if one carelessly grated own hand

I prefer the modern way using a food processor instead. Only need to cut the cassava into small pieces before putting into the food processor. A push of the button will do. May need to add a little bit of water to smoothen the grinding though.

2. Add in the grated coconut, corn flour, sugar and a pandan flavouring

Fresh grated coconut is not easily available in big cities, therefore can replace with coconut milk. packed coconut milk can be readily available in almost all supermarkets and hypermarkets, whether in liquid or powder form.

Sugar is optional as freshly harvested cassava is sweet by itself.
Corn flour too is just another ingredient can be omitted. However adding some will help make the cake more sticky and voluminous.

3. Steam the dough in steamer for around 15 – 20 minutes

The cake can be kept in refrigerator for days. Can be heated over frying pan.

To heat over frying pan, put some margerine in the pan over small flame. Wait till the margerine melted and spread it over the pan. After frying , its a bit yellowish, crispy outside, with a nice fragrant. The taste is as good, if not better.

I like to have it with a nice spread of kaya. Yum yum !

Ubi Kayu Rebus

Cassava, or Ubi Karyu (Malay), or 木薯（华语）, was a poor-man’s staple food during the yester years, especially during WW II.

Steamed Cassava is best with a cup of coffee or Milo. It’s served for morning breakfast or afternoon tea, often with grated coconut, Nipah syrup, sugar, sweetened milk, kaya or can even eat it on its own.




Fresh Cassava is cream-white in colour. After steamed for 10-15 minutes, the colour turns to a transparent-white, with a delicate flavour. Its sticky a bit, yet easily breaks, and melts in the mouth.

Cassava roots and leaves cannot be consumed raw because they contain two cyanogenic glucosides :- linamarin and lotaustralin. These are decomposed by linamarase, a naturally occurring enzyme in cassava, liberating hydrogen cyanide (HCN).

It had to be properly de-skinned and cooked prior to consumption

Banana Cake

Ingredients :
A1 ripe banana 230g ( ≈ 4pc ), mashed
A2 sweetened evaporated milk 练乳60g
A3 margarine 植物油250g
A4 sugar 白糖230g
A5 eggs 鸡蛋sizeA 5nos
A6 flour 面粉230g
A7 sodium bicarbonate 发粉1tsp


Instructions

1. Cream the butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
to speed up the process, may use fine sugar instead.
normally, I will reduce the quantity of both the margarine and sugar up to 30%, less sweet, less oily
if the butter is not fluffy enough, the cake will come out more compact, which I prefer more
2. add the eggs one at a time…

3. add the mashed bananas.
for extra flavor of banana, can always add in additional 2 or 3 piece, but need to be compensated with a little bit extra of flour
if the banana is not aromatic enough, artificial banana flavor can be added
4 add sweetened evaporated milk
as the milk is sweet, I always remove it totally… however, a little bit of it will enhance the cake with a sweet milk flavor.
alternatively, reduce the quantity of sugar ! easy
( no rules are unbreakable in cooking / baking )
5 add in sodium bicarbonate
that’s to help to ‘rise’ the dough
6 bake the dough in heater over @ 100°C at around 1 hours
time of baking will be much depending on the size and shape of the cake.
Its not a shame to find the cake not properly baked, but no harm for extra time !
alternatively, if a heater-oven is not available, a steamer is an excellent replacement. Remember to cover the dough with a layer of aluminium foil, to avoid the driping of water, which will spoil the cake