Chicken Potstickers

Okay, before I start, let me share a teeny-tiny confession. I've never ever eaten chicken potstickers before. In fact, I've never eaten ANY potstickers period. The essential of potstickers is wonton wrapping with any sort of filling, THAT, I've eaten. I've eaten fried wonton, wonton soup and lots of variants of cooking of dumplings. It is dumpling, in simpler English for the rest of us fellow wonton-virgin.

Dumplings have many name and different fillings. Depending on which part of the world you are from, it can be called 'gyoza' (Japan) or 'mandu' (Korea) or 'jiaozi' (China). The filling can be pure meat to vegetarian. Since I'm partial to chicken (period), I'm making chicken potstickers.

Since this is the first time I'm making it, please excuse the way I wrap the wonton. It's terrible-looking, I know. And, another confession here, I didn't make the wonton itself. It is purely store-bought and servicable. In fact, the chicken potstickers turned up DIVINE!

Chicken Potstickers

Serving: 2-3 persons

Potstickers Ingredients

• 14 wonton wrappers (I read wonton-professionals recommending thicker wonton skin, but hey, I used what I found at the store)
• Half chicken breast (minced, or you can buy pre-made chicken mince. I minced it myself)
• 5g of ginger (or half teaspoon of ginger paste as I'll make a paste out of the ginger)
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 3 stalks of cilantro/coriander
• 1 large Napa cabbage leaf
• 1/4 tablespoon of sesame oil
• Salt to taste
• White pepper to taste
• Oil for pan frying
• 1 cup of water for steaming

Dipping Sauce Ingredients 

• 1 tablespoon of sweet soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon of sesame oil
• 3 birds eye chillies

Cooking Method

1. Put wonton wrapper outside in room temperature.
2. Mince the chicken breast.
3. Chop the cilantro/coriander and Napa cabbage leaf finely. Add salt to chopped Napa cabbage leaf  and set it aside for at least 10 minutes. Then, squeeze out the excess water out of the chopped Napa cabbage.
4. Make a paste out of the ginger and garlic.
5. Mix the minced chicken, chopped vegetables, ginger-garlic paste, salt, white pepper and sesame oil.
6. Fill in the wonton wrapper by putting a good amount of mixture in the middle of the wonton and seal the wonton. Again, I'm sorry, I can't tell you the best method of sealing the wonton since this is also my first time LOL. I just followed my instinct (and the multiple wonton-sealing method videos on Youtube).
7. Coat a non-stick frying pan with a little oil. Arrange the filled wontons on the frying pan.
8. Fry the wontons on medium heat until the bottom turns brown.
9. Add 1 cup of water into the pan and cover the pan (you are basically steaming the potstickers so that the filling will be cooked to perfection). The wontons will be cooked in around 10 to 15 minutes, until the water evaporated. 
10. In the meantime, make the dipping sauce by adding all the ingredients together! Remember to chop the chillies first! 

See, it is very easy! I'm making this again for dinner and eating them with steamed rice. So divine! Eat them while they are hot.

Enjoy!

Baked Fish

Another day, another fish dish! I'm so in love with fish, I made another fish, this time, pan-baked. I marinade the fish pieces first so that the taste of the marinade will permeate the fish. This is best eaten with steamed rice but I ate this fish with fried vermicelli instead. Anyhow, this is my late grandmother's recipe.

Now the next question is, what is pan-baked? Pan-baked is basically baking the fish in a pan. Kind of like pan-grilling but covering the pan so it becomes baking instead. Why is it pan-baking? Just because. I just want to try new methods of cooking as I've never tried before.

Baked Fish

Serving: 3-4 persons

Marinade

• 1/4 medium sized galangal 
• 1/4 medium sized ginger
• 1/4 medium sized tumeric
• 1/2 lemon grass
• 6 dried chillies (I added more for heat!)
• 1 teaspoon of tamarind paste (I actually also added more as I LOVE sour food)
• 6 small sized red onion
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 5 candle nuts
• 1/2 cup of water
• Salt to tastte

Blend all marinade ingredients together until it forms a paste. Marinade the fishes and keep the marinated fishes in the fridge for at least 1 to 2 hours.

Ingredients

• 5 pieces of fish (I used cut pieces of Spanish mackerel aka ikan tenggiri)
• 6 tumeric leaves
• 1 tablespoon of butter

Cooking Method

1. Marinade the fish for at least 1 to 2 hours. The longer you marinade, the tastier the fish meat will be. However, don't marinade for more than 12 hours as I assumed the fish will taste too sour due to the tamarind paste.
2. Cover the fish pieces with tumeric leaves and pan-baked for 20 minutes or until the fish is cooked. By the time the fishes are cooked, the liquid produced by the marinade and fishes will evaporate, producing a moist baked fish dish. I waited until the bottom of the fishes and tumeric leaves to be slightly charred as I love the charred taste.
3. Once the fishes are cooked, put a dab of butter on top of each fish. 

Enjoy!

Ginger Steamed Fish

Let me be frank here, this is the very first time I've ever steamed fish. In fact, this is the first time I've ever steamed anything, period. I cannot believe how delicious it turned out! It is slightly sweet and gingery-spicy. How does one describes ginger taste? It's just lovely! It is best eaten fresh out of the steamer.

Ginger Steamed Fish

Serving: 2-3 persons

Ingredients

• 3 fish fillets (I used the frozen dory fillet and it still turned super soft and nice!)
• Ginger (to be honest, used as many as you like, I used more than 30g to mask the fishy odour, just in case)
• 1 tablespoon of sweet soy sauce (if you dislike the sweet part, you can just use dark soy sauce or normal soy sauce. I happened to only have this variety in hand so I just make do)
• 2 teaspoons of fish sauce (I love this! This is also optional since we are cooking fish in the first place but the fish sauce enhances the whole dish's flavour)
• Napa cabbage (I used 5 to 6 big leaves to wrap my beautiful fillet)
• 4 birds eye chillies (this is entirely optional, but I want the chilly spicy taste)
• 4 coriander/cilantro
• Salt to taste

Cooking Method

1. Prepare the steamer.
2. Layer the Napa cabbage leaves (2-3 leaves) at the bottom of your steaming dish.
3. Put chopped chillies, half of the chopped ginger and half of the chopped coriander/cilantro on top of the Napa cabbage leaves
4. Layer the fish fillets on top of the chopped items and Napa cabbage leaves. 
5. Slather (see, my vocabulary is SO good that I used the word slather *cries*) the mixture of fish sauce and sweet soy sauce on top of the fish fillet. 
6. Salt to taste. If you use the soy sauce and fish sauce liberally, just sprinkle a small pinch of salt, or else your dish will be salty!
7. Then layer the rest of chopped coriander/cilantro and ginger on top of the fish filler and finally cover the whole steaming dish with the rest of Napa cabbage leaves.
8. Steam the ginger fish dish until the fish fillet turned white (in other words, cooked).

Your whole kitchen will be permeated with the lovely ginger-sweet soy sauce fragrance! Eat the steamed fish while it is hot. I guarantee you, you don't even want to get the steamed fish dish when you eat out because yours is SUPER DUPER DELICIOUS. Okay, that is an exaggeration.

There will be plenty of light sauce produced and my Baba poured at least half of it into his rice (I am assuming that he LOVED the sauce).

Enjoy!

Pegedil

....Or begedil. Honestly, I have no idea what its real original name is but I've heard of people calling it 'pegedil' or 'begedil'. It is one of the most SCRUMPTIOUS and unhealthiest food ever. It's fill with OIL but it is D.E.L.I.C.I.O.U.S.

Moving on, my paternal grandmother used to make this a lot and it remains as one of my favourite food. It can be a snack or a dish accompanying a meal. It is basically a potato cake. This delicacy can be made in various ways but this is how I make it when I am terribly lazy. The other option is to fry the potatoes first, which I must admit, is labour intesive and I HATE frying.

Without further ado, here is my special pegedil (not that special, really).

Pegedil

Serving: 20-30 Kinder-egg sized pegedil (for 3-5 persons maximum as this deliciousness cannot be savoured just by eating 1 or even 2 pieces!)

Ingredients

• 5 medium sized potatoes
• 1 chicken breast (the skin removed) - Chicken can be substituted with any protein of your choice. I've used beef and fish before.
• 10 stalks of fresh coriander/cilantro
• 2 tablespoons of fried onion 
• 2 grade A eggs
• White pepper
• Salt to taste
• Corn flour
• Oil (for deep frying AND to add a few tablespoons into our patty)
• Water (for boiling the potatoes)

Cooking Method

1. Peel potatoes and boil them until they are softened.
2. White waiting for the potatoes to boil, remove the skin and bones from the chicken breast and mince it. 
3. Cook the minced chicken with salt and white pepper.
4. Once boiled and softened, drain the boiling water and mash the potatoes, adding salt and white pepper to taste, 2 tablespoons of oil (any oil will do, I love to use my leftover fried chicken oil as it is DELICIOUS! And unhealthy *sigh*), white pepper, chopped cilantro, fried onions, cooked chicken and corn flour. 
5. Add corn flour to ensure patty is sticking together and to prevent the patty from falling apart as we fry it. Usually I add corn flour until my patty is still mildly sticky with denser consistency than mash potatoes. It's trial and error as I add corn flour if I find my patty falls apart when I fry it or if the patty is absorbing too much oil.
6. Make a round shape patty of the size of a Kinder egg (my preference as it is faster to fry with less oil being absorbed) and flattened it on your palm. Make sure your hands are clean (trim your nails people!) and lather a small portion of oil on your palm to prevent the patty from sticking.
7. Beat the eggs and dip the patty into the egg mixture before frying in the deep fryer.
8. Eat them while they are hot! Not really, as the potato cake will burn your tongue but yeah!

Enjoy!

Pasta Aglio Olio

I love to cook and these days, it seemed that Mama is letting me loose in her beloved kitchen. So, I decide on our daily menu. YES, full authority in the kitchen, baby! Today, by request, I made aglio olio. My younger sister, Gegel is CRAVING for it and this is probably the third time I made this in less than a few weeks.

And yes, I used my precious DSLR to take these photos. I'm a total camera-ignoramus, but they turned up well enough.

That said, I'm sharing my aglio olio recipe. Bear in mind, aglio olio belongs to the Italians and this may not be the original recipe as I've NEVER even set my foot in Italy. I've searched the definition of aglio olio and found out that it is basically garlic and oil. So, with these 2 ingredients in mind, you can go free with anything else that suits your palate (or in my case, whatever I have in my pantry).

Pasta Aglio Olio

Serving: 4-5 persons

Ingredients

• Pasta 250g (any sort, my favourite is always spaghetti but I've used linguine and other sorts before)
• Olive oil (olive oil is super duper delicious and healthy, but just in case you don't have it, just substitute with butter, margarine or any vegetable oil. That said, the taste will change as some oils have their own distinctive taste and some are quite neutral)
• Garlic (LOTS of it, I've been known to use more than 20 cloves for 250g pasta, adjust to your liking)
• Vegetables (my favourites are bell peppers, carrot, broccoli, cauliflower and shiitake mushroom. Okay mushroom is not a vegetable but who cares)
• Protein of your choice (my most favourites are prawn and calamari, but I've used chicken, beef and beef pepperoni before)
• Herbs (I use mixed herbs)
• Chilli flakes/dried chillies
• Cheese (parmesan is my poison of choice)
• Salt 
• Water

Cooking Method

1. Boil your pasta. I put the pasta in after the water in boiling. Stir the pasta every now and then to prevent it from sticking to the pan. Add a tablespoon of salt into the boiling water.
2. Once pasta is al dante (it is slightly firm but not mushy soft, or the colour of your pasta become a bit lighter), drain the water and immediately run tap water along the pasta to stop the cooking process. Add a pinch of salt to your pasta. Your pasta should be a bit firm and taste nice.
3. Cut all your vegetable and protein into bite sized pieces.
4. In low heat, add oil, chili flakes/diced-up dried chillies and garlic.
5. Once the oil turn red and the garlic turns translucent (and a heavenly aroma is produced), add the meat (or you can cook your meat separately as I've done sometimes) and vegetables.
6. Add mixed herbs and salt. At this point the vegetables and meat will smell beautiful (and taste beautiful too!).
7. Finally add your pasta! Toss it around for a few minutes and we are done!
8. Serve with cheese shavings.

Growing Up

Watching my baby nieces, Yaya and Nafisa, growing up is just a miracle. My beautiful babies grow up in a blink of an eye and I'm astounded. I always wonder, when do they grow up? From a little bundle of happiness into babyhood and toddlerhood, time just passes so rapidly. 

Yaya is 2-and-a-half years older than Nafisa. However, last time, whenever I see Yaya, I kept thinking, 'Yaya is so small and precious.' It seems like Yaya has never grow, even though she can speak full sentences and is very very very precocious. Just yesterday, she seems not to like me as her 'friend'. In fact, she just told her mother previously, just after she 'fought' with me, exactly how she 'fought' with me. She told her mother (my younger sister), 'Yaya cakap dengan Nana, sana Nana, sana'. Translated: 'Yaya told Nana (aka me), move Nana, move.' In other words, she told me not to be in her orbit *cries* She is smart and beautiful. And she is my precious girl. I always wonder where has all the time go.

Now here is Nafisa, my other younger sister's daughter. She is a small (not so small now as she grows up SO FAST) and super duper cute. This cutie pie is even called 'tapioca' by all of us as she is just so round and fluffy! I know, I know, tapioca does not sound cute at all, but in our language, 'keledek sebuku' is just so cute. I'm repeating the word cute for the upteenth times but that is the only word that best describes Nafisa.

Both of them are equally precious to me and I am still amazed at how rapid they are growing. I wish I can tell them to grow slowly and savour this innocence. However, time waits for no man. And we will all be here to help them through life, if time permits.

Honey Garlic Chicken

I made honey garlic chicken today. It is my new favourite dish and I made it once for my friends in Sibu (shoutout to Ida and Mastura!). It's super simple, you just need to fry the chicken and make the sauce and mix both together!

The sauce is made up of water, vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar before and both tasted delicious!), honey (good quality one), garlic (LOTS) and salt.

Ingredients made simple (for 3-4 persons):

Sauce (for 3 pieces of chicken breasts)

• Water - 3-4 cups 
• Vinegar (apple cider vinegar is delicious too!) - 2-4 tablespoons
• Garlic (the more the better, I even used 8-12 cloves at a time) - 8-12 cloves
• Honey (good quality one) - 2-4 tablespoons
• Salt - a pinch

Mix all the sauce's ingredients in a sauce pan and cook on low heat until the sour/sweet taste is blended well together. Usually, the garlic will turn golden-brownish and tastes deliciously sweet and sour at this point. The sauce will be reduced to a small fraction from the original mix (around 2-4 tablespoons in total).

 Fried chicken (3 pieces of chicken breasts)

• Chicken breasts - 3 large pieces
• Flour - 2-3 cups
• Baking powder - 2-3 teaspoons
• Salt
• Cold water - 2 cups
• Oil to deep fry

Cut chicken pieces pieces into bite sized pieces. Mix flour, baking powder, salt and cold water. Add bite-sized chicken pieces into the mixture. Heat up oil in deep fryer/pan under medium high heat. Double fry chicken pieces (I love double frying as the chicken will stay crunchy).

Then, mix both fried chicken and sauce. Voila! It is done!

P/S: Pardon my shitty photography skill.

The Boys Foodtruck, Wangsa Maju

I was pretty excited to try out this new joint after a recommendation by my sister. My sister, in fact, has never tried this place. She saw it from a foodie show. That said, I researched online and found out that the name of the foodtruck is 'The Boys Food Truck'. Thus, I set out (with my parents) to Dataran Wangsa near KWSP and RHB to try out the food.

There were 2 trucks, one selling all the grilled stuff (burger, steak sandwich and hot dog) and the other one was selling spaghetti and drinks. The system was meticulous, you write down your order with your name and they will call you up once your order is ready.

The problem is mainly with the grilled truck. I came early, before 9.30pm (the opening time) and I was behind less than 10 people. My order SHOULD be less than number 10. Weirdly, after waiting more than 1 hour and seeing the previous people AND a few people who ordered AFTER me left, I was feeling iffy about this. I went and asked about my order, and voila, to my surprise, my order was behind about 5-6 people whom I saw came and order AFTER me. I was really really surprised. I mean, I honestly remember seeing the guy taking my order BEFORE a few of them and those patrons have long gotten their order and went off. So, I left. 

One good thing was the line for spaghetti truck was short. In my case, again, coz I arrived earlier, even before they opened up, so I managed to get my order fast. The thing is, my complain is not the waiting time. I get it. The line was long, all I can do is just wait. My complain is that they messed up the order of my order. How can my order was way behind a few people who came LATER than me? 

Next, and my last rant, the meatball has hair. Yes, human hair. Black and long. It's disgusting. It put me off the meatball.

Sadly, I'd love to give the food truck a great review but alas, it's really bad. Messing up my order and hair are a no-no, especially for patrons who come before opening time. Imagine those who come later already getting their order while you have to wait for your freaking turn. It is ridiculous.

Dear Friend

Dear Friend,

I know I am a selfish person. A cold person. A person no one will think of when you need a helping hand.

However, know this. You are my friend. Anytime you are in need, no matter what, you can come to me. I may not be able to help, but I can at least listen. In the smallest way, I hope I can be a friend to you. 

You are my friend. I may not be the best friend in the world, but I will always be your friend. Just reach out. I am blind and deaf to your suffering. The only way I can be aware is for you to come to me and share. 

Love,

Harley

A Primary School Teacher Of SK Taman Setiawangsa

I went to a primary school called Taman Setiawangsa from Standard 2 to Standard 6 (I think). What I remember well is not a rosy childhood school memory but one particular teacher. She never really taught me directly, but we have interactions as she was in-charge of all the prefects at the time. 

I remember, when I was in Standard 6, the 'best' classes were divided into 2 for some particular reasons. Best classes as in students who scored the highest marks in examination the year before. Somehow, this teacher was the class teacher of one of the best classes. 

I was in the other best class. The funniest shit is, the teacher looked very religious with her wide headscarf (you know, the one that reaches below your chest level). She wore a pair of spectacles and she was quite short and dark. She always speak as if she's very gentle and reasonable. This is not a story of how I like her.

This is a story how a teacher can be a bitch even though she is a teacher. You see, my impressions of a teacher is that a teacher SHOULD be a role model to youngsters. However, she left a sour taste in my mouth. She has a daughter my age, who has 'Ning' in her name and the daughter went into her class. 

What I particularly remember is how she always favoured students from her class, thinking that they were all superior than students from my class. Hello? If your students are so brilliant, why was my marks and standing is always way higher than them? I didn't even need to study or take extra class *smirks* She even gave all the high posts in the prefectdom to all her favoured students from her class. 

Guess what, you bitch, even though I was a prefect, that post is not all the shit. It's not real life and in a long run, it is not something that I can even be proud of. It's just part of my childhood memory, nothing more, nothing less. It's not brain science. It's not going to change the world, feed starving people or cure cancer.

My siblings who later all went to the same school complained the same thing. That she was such a bitch. I guess, not all teachers are good teachers. A bitch is always a bitch. If most students hate you, you should realize already that you are a bitch.

Actually there are more things, but those are going to take 1000000 more words to type out. Safe to say that her bitchdom is a done deal.