Most of the time my oven only lay idling in my kitchen, so during the last Gawai holiday i decided to prepare a simple roast pork leg for my family. With the broadband facility nowadays, recipes for roast pork leg are just a few clicks away. Anywhere, after browsing through those tedious recipes, i decided to use merely white pepper and light soya sauce as the only ingredient instead of those spices and herbs since these are the only ingredient that available in my little kitchen. The preparation is so simple that i just let the pork leg and some ribs marinated over night then roasted for an hour and i had my yummy roast pork leg.

Frankly speaking i am not a chocolate lover but i love to try different type of chocolate. Recently my aunt brought us a box of chocolate from England during her holiday back in Kuching. The chocolates look so delicious that i just can’t make up my mind which one to choose so I randomly picked a star-shape chocolate truffle out of the box and put into my mouth. To my surprise, it was a gingerbread chocolate troffle. I never thought that the strong gingerbread taste can merge with those sweet chocolate.

Life is just like a box of chocolate, you never know what you will get. :-)

My last visit to KL last year saw lot of OldTown White Coffee outlets in town but unfortunately my trip was so short that i can’t drop by any of them just to have a cup of the famous OldTown white coffee. It was lately when OldTown White Coffee opened their first outlet in Sarawak then only i managed to have the chance to have a sip of the famous cafe.

Last Saturday, my wife and i decided to have our lunch at OldTown White Coffee in KIA while we were waiting for my parent’s flight from Brunei. Surprisingly there were not much customers there during the afternoon. Well, the white coffee really taste good till the last drop but frankly speaking the foods are below my expectation. The foods look much different from the photographic pictures shown in the menu and the taste also can’t match the authentic famous Ipoh Hor Fun and curry mee.

I miss the delicious Ipoh Hor Fun that i tried few years back when i dropped by Ipoh town with Yen Pei. May be i should plan a trip back to Ipoh town just to revisit those delicacies.

OldTown White Coffee outlet in KIA's arrival hall

The OldTown Ipoh Chicken Hor Fun for my wife

The OldTown Curry Mee, just can't match the taste of those curry mee that i used to have every week while i studied in KL.

The famous OldTown White Coffee that taste good till the last drop.

I hardly have the chance to cook for my parent simply because my mum’s cooking is my dad’s only choice  for all these years. For the last few years, i believe the only chance for me to cook for my dad was during the last Chinese New Year Eve dinner as mum was in Brunei. That was an unforgettable experience for me as it took me about 2 days just to prepare dad’s favorite dishes. Frankly speaking, i believe dad still prefer to have mum to prepare for the dinner if it is possible.

Few weeks ago when my sister was back in Kuching, she suggested to have a simple dinner at my home as we hardly have the chance to dine together. Well, i don’t have 2 days to prepare for it just like the previous dinner. Every thing has to be very simply so i just dropped by the supermarket to get some vegetables for the salad, a spring chicken and some lamb shoulder for oven roast. It seen like very simple and easy that all dishes can be prepared earlier but i still end up  spent the whole afternoon in my kitchen just to get the food ready by the evening.

Once again, i have to admit that my cooking was not my dad’s taste. May be it is a bit disappointing that i can’t prepare an appetising dinner for my dad but i treasure the chance to cook for my parent. Even though it was really a tiring and mind exhausiting process but it is worth for me.

Garlic rice cooked with the fat from the spring chicken

Vegetable salad with my favorite capsicum

Lamb shoulder marinated in thick soya sauce

Roasted spring chicken with herbs

My favorite recipe - Curry chicken with the chicken marinated in "Kari Basah"

The essential ingredient for delicious curry chicken - "Kari Basah"

I spent most of my childhood time in the kitchen watching my mum prepared the meals for my family instead of hanging-out in the playground with other children. Even though my mum is just an ordinary housewife who never attends any cooking class yet she does great cooking with her own secret recipes that accumulated from years of experience. May be that is the only explanation to my big tummy since I was small.

After years, I only managed to memorise a few of my mum’s great recipes. With that few recipes I cooked for my friends who desperately missed the Malaysian cuisine while we studied in UK. It was a precious enjoyment to have the spicy curry or hot bak-kut-teh with my friends in the chilling weather far away from our home country.

After back to Malaysia, I did not have much chance to cook simply because kitchen is strictly my mum’s territory all the times. It was until I moved into my own house about a year ago that I managed to pick up my wok and recall those secret recipes again.

Beside photography, cooking has become another leisure activity for me over the weekend. Simply spice up my life….

Many people thought that making rice dumpling is a difficult proccess. For me it is not that complicated just that we need to understand the proper procedure and technique. It is the technique to repetatively press all ingredients firmly in sequential order that produce the solid and nicely shaped dumpling .

I documented the step by step procedure in simple photos just to share with you all here. Try it with your family members and i am sure you will enjoy the good time just like me.

Happy Dumpling Festival@DuanWuJie

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Time flies. I only reliased that Dumpling Festival or DuanWuJie is coming soon when my mum and mother-in-law were busy buying the ingredients for rice dumpling like the glutinous rice, dried shrimp, chestnut and bamboo leave recently.

Eventhough nowadays rice dumpling or Bak Chang is commonly on sale at the Kopitiam throughout the year, our families still make own dumpling that simply incomparably delicious. The ingredients such as pork, dried shrimp, chestnut, mushroom and yam paste (Oni) are prepared a day before and well marinated with mum’s secret recipe. Then followed by a lengthy and tiring process to steam the glutinous rice, fry the ingredients, wrap into the bamboo leave and finally boil for few hours until it is cooked.

Cant wait for this coming weekend to help my mum to make the dumpling. Eventhough i don’t know how to prepare the ingredients but for sure i can wrap very nice dumpling.

I discovered BreadStory when i shopped around in Mid Valley Megamall. It was the fresh cream fruit cake in the fridge that drew my attention to this bakery. The first thing came into my mind was that is it possible for me to bring this fruit cake all the way from K.L back to Kuching for my wife. Well, it sound weird to do so since we have plenty of bakeries in Kuching but frankly speaking i just cant find any delicate baker other than Secret Recipe. Finally these cakes join me for a journey of more than 6 hours or 970km across the South China Sea and landed in KIA safely. It might be a bit tedious to bring along these cakes but it is worth for it since my wife told me that this is the fruit cake that she been looking for and it really taste great.

I always wonder why there is no Burger King in Kuching even we got plenty of McDonald’s and KFC outlets that always packed and crowded especially over the weekends. Frankly speaking, Burger King really makes great tasty burgers that i miss all the time.

During recent trip to K.L, i noticed that as usual McDonald’s was crowded while Burger King was rather empty with only a few patronages including me. I was wondering is it the massive advertisement influence that creates the mindset in majority of us whenever think of fried chicken then KFC come into mind, whenever think of burger then the only choice is McDonald’s. Hopefully i can see “Whopper” on sell in Kuching’s shopping mall soon.

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