Sally's Kitchen Homecooked Food Delivery (for September)

The week of September saw Sally's Kitchen Homecooked Food Delivery churn out mostly repeated dishes but there were a few new ones too.

Week 1 started with a cracker dish of Chicken Kaarage & Wakame (Kelp) Fried Rice @ RM13.50 with sides of sliced omelette and edamame.  This was a well presented dish with all its sides nicely placed and its fried rice looking very inviting with all those dark green, almost black, bits in it.

The chicken kaarage was well seasoned and nicely fried (not overly fried like some can be).  The 4 large chunks of chicken, finished with a light drizzle of Japanese mayo on top, were tender to the bite.  The inclusion of a squeeze of lime gave the fried chicken a welcomed lift.

The fried rice also came with some small cubes of fried tofu, fresh shiitake mushrooms and egg bits in it. Perhaps the rice could be seasoned a little bit more (as some would have preferred a bolder flavour) though I was fine with it.  Overall it was another tasty dish! ;)

The other option for the week was the Tao Yew Bak with sides of Joo Hoo Char, Braised Egg & Sambal Belacan @ RM12.  Well, I've already had a taste of the joo hoo char and braised egg in their previous Nyonya Lobak Set and Taiwanese Braised Pork Rice before.

The tao yew bak (braised pork belly in soy sauce) was tasty with a generous helping of 4 - 5 good-sized chunks of wobbly meat (even my husband felt it was a sizeable amount though he would have liked it cooked a bit more tender).

Even though I made a request for my portion of tao yew bak pieces to be leaner, it still contained some fatty parts which I (of course) discarded into my husband's box.  I did enjoy my leaner parts and the sauce had good flavours.

This week's Friday Special was yet another noodle dish of Pad Woon Sen (Stir-Fried Glass Noodles) with Pandan Chicken, Fried Egg & Dipping Sauce @ RM12.

I think they need a little bit more practice with the wrapping of the pandan chicken as the pandan leaves came loose.  Some of the nuggets of chicken were pale while some achieved the well-fried look.  Taste wise, it also needed a bit more work.

I did enjoy the stir-fried glass noodles that were nicely done with some crunchy, julienned cabbage and carrot.  The standout for me was the inclusion of the dipping sauce with red bird's eye chillies to give it that spicy kick but balanced out with the salty and sweet flavours of the soy dipping sauce (there might even be some lime juice in there).  It was refreshing eaten with the glass noodles (I finished the entire tub).

The following week offered Fried Pork Nasi Lemak @ RM12 with sides of Potato Curry and condiments of hard-boiled egg, fried anchovies, peanuts, cucumber & sambal.

The decent tasting fried pork slices were simply seasoned with probably salt and pepper though I did notice some red specks (either ground chilli pepper or paprika).  There was also this light dusting of batter on the pork slices which gave it that slight crispy coating.

Of course they always nail their curries and this potato curry was no different.  I'm all for any curries that have potatoes in them...and welcomes its inclusion to give the nasi lemak more sauce (the curry turned out to be more spicy than the sambal).  The cooked sambal (on the sweetish side) has certainly improved from previous times with more depth of flavour.

Their other two new menu items included Ayam Pongteh with Bok Choy (RM11) and Smoked Duck Aglio Olio (RM13.50) which I thought I'll give it a miss since 1) I'm not really a fan of ayam pongteh and 2) I'm always afraid of duck that's not rendered properly (I've had quite a few experiences with that + more often than not, the skin is usually not crispy).

If Week 2 saw the feature of all 3 new dishes, Week 3 showcased the repeat of all 3 dishes I've had before starting with the Hainanese Pork Chop Rice @ RM12.  It was called Chinese Pork Chop Rice previously...and it could still do with a bit more tenderising.

The Chicken Teriyaki Rice Set @ RM13 this time was slightly different from the previous Chicken Teriyaki Set in that it was served with a mixed salad of fresh lettuce, carrot shreds, sweet corn & cherry tomatoes accompanied by a roasted sesame dressing (instead of blanched bok choy & carrot strips previously).  It was served with the same panko-crusted fish balls and thick-rolled omelette (this time looking even more like tamagoyaki...hehe!).

I could see that the chicken teriyaki this time achieved a much deeper caramelisation and the teriyaki sauce also tasted better.  Good that there was some improvement but it still needs work.

The final repeated dish for the week was the  Fried Meehoon with Curry Vegetables @ RM12 served with a side of delicious vegetable curry (with softened vegetables of potatoes, cabbage, long beans, carrots, brinjal, ladies fingers & beancurd puffs) and crispy fried wontons (which arrived fully crispy).

The Dried Shrimps Fried Meehoon wasn't as good as I remembered (I found it fried with some dried mushrooms this time + I could hardly taste the dried shrimps).  The portion size is so generous you can easily make this into a two-meal affair...you just need to boil some rice to eat with the vegetable curry.

The final week of September saw the return of their Braised Mui Choy Pork @ RM11 with sides of braised tofu & fried egg (with a request for leaner pork).  Still as delicious.

The other option for the week was Butter Milk Chicken @ RM12 with sides of mushroom omelette & stir-fried french beans.  This was a repeated dish, just that I didn't order it the first time round.

The boneless chicken pieces had a nice crisp and they were fried with fragrant curry leaves and some red cili api in a butter milk sauce.  I had a little taste and it tasted exactly like what its name implied...milky and buttery (my son said it tasted like carbonara...maybe there might even be some cheese in there).  And that's why I don't order this for me! >_<

Friday's Special was Spaghetti Bolognese which I obviously wouldn't be attracted to order since I make that at home all the time.

Sally's Kitchen continues to be a saviour when my home kitchen is closed.....and I've no doubt that their kitchen will continue to thrive going forward.

KW Restaurant @ Pandan Indah

When we were having a bak kut teh dinner in one of our neighbourhood shops one evening, I noticed (and heard) some serious wok-ing action and sounds coming from across the street at this KW Restaurant @ Pandan Indah.

I don't remember seeing the shop active in the evenings before.  So, I decided to check them out during one of my weekday dinners and true enough, I was told that the coffee shop used to open in the day only with only Thai food available at night.  That Thai stall has since moved to a shoplot of their own and new stalls took over at night.

And boy, was I glad to have stumbled upon this place as it is home to one of the very few siu chow (literally translated as small fry) places that's good in our taman.  We have many tai chow places in our housing area where families order a few dishes to eat with rice...but siu chow (or, at least, good siu chow) is much harder to find.  Siu chow is what we call those one-dish rice meals (much like a donburi in Japanese cuisine) where a meat (or vegetable) dish is served over white rice.

So, I tried out a couple of single-type dishes for some of my weekday dinners just to test out their cooking to see how they fare.  These dine-ins were before our last (and hopefully final) lockdown.

Kong Fu Chow Yin Yong (Cantonese Fried Kway Teow + Meehoon) - the sauce/flavours were good and there was a bit of that necessary wok hei though I wish they'd use a thicker type of meehoon for this dish as the thin meehoon disintegrated too easily into the sauce.  The kong fu yee mee is nice too.

Fried Hokkien Mee - I did try this with a combo of fat noodles with meehoon but prefer it with just the thick noodles (well, you know the meehoon's outcome).  This fried hokkien mee is a bit wetter which I don't mind at all especially when only thick noodles are involved.  The fried pork lard is always fresh and crispy (though there's only very few).

Sweet & Sour Pork Rice (with add-on egg) - this certainly has a place among some of the better sweet & sour pork I've eaten where the pork nuggets are crispy (when eaten on site) and the sauce has that nice balance of sweet and sour.

Braised Tofu with Vegetables - the dish (and the sauce) is similar to kong fu chow except this had the addition of tofu.  Besides pork slices, I liked that it came with two fair-sized, fresh and sweet tasting prawns too.  Most of the single pax noodle dishes cost around RM7 while the rice dishes are priced around RM9 (RM10 with add-on egg).

With the dishes turning out to be a success in terms of taste, I was confident enough to introduce them to my family (since my husband typically prefers a meal of dishes with rice for dinner) as it can be easily turned into a tai chow meal (just pay a little bit more to get them served in separate dishes).

So, I ordered Butter Milk Chicken (fragrant, crisp, creamy...and boneless!).  You can opt for this same style of cooking with pork as well that's just as nice.

The Sweet & Sour Pork (again!) is a must-have!  As much as I love sweet & sour fish and would order that in a heartbeat, I can't do that here since they use dory as their fish of choice as it's cheap, I guess.  The tastiest fish to use for this dish would be snakehead (as in haruan or sang yue) of course and not snakehead (as in toman) though more often than not toman is usually used (which is the next best thing after haruan, at least still better than dory!).

The Braised Tofu with Vegetables is ideal if you're looking for a sauce-laden dish to banjir/flood your rice with an all-in-one dish that's well balanced with meat, prawns, tofu, egg and vegetables.

We usually have that together with two fried eggs, perfectly fried I might add, frizzy and crisp at the edges with a runny yolk in the middle.  So, this meal of ours cost just RM30 with two rice...very cheap indeed.

Another time we had the Pork Belly with Salted Fish, Sweet & Sour Pork (of course) and Stir-Fried Choy Sum, again with two fried eggs and two rice.  Total damage was RM32.   Oops, can't find the photos...must have been too hungry and dived right in.  Since discovering this place, I've been eating here quite regularly (before the pandemic).  But if seafood (fish/prawns/squid) is what you're after, I'm afraid you won't find it here.  Siu chow places are all about cheap, economical meals that's convenient, easy to eat and (hopefully) balanced (meat + veggie).

But on our last visit, when the dishes arrived, I wasn't too happy when the portions shrunk.  We had Sweet & Sour Pork (yet again) and Roasted Pork stir-fried with Choy Sum (ok-lah, this one looked a bit miserable with its small portion...roast pork is expensive, I suppose, but they should have at least thrown in a bit more choy sum!). >.<

Our third dish was the Brinjal with Minced Pork & Salted Fish (flavourful dish that requires more rice) together with two fried eggs and two rice as usual.  This meal cost us RM36 (but the portions were a bit small...hope this was just a one-off)! >_<

This shop is also home to possibly one of the more decent Shredded Chicken Hor Fun (or kai see hor fun) @ RM7 you can find in my housing area.  Of course, it doesn't quite compare to the better one I've eaten in Taman Shamelin or my best/favourite one in Pudu area.

This is the Poached Chicken with Taugeh @ RM11 which you can have with rice just like any chicken rice shops.

Or have it with a kosong (or plain) kai see hor fun.  If I don't wish to travel beyond my own housing area, this shredded chicken noodle is satisfying enough being so near.

My other recommendation here would be the Chinese-style nasi lemak.  Though their sambal isn't anywhere near good, their curry chicken is rather decent with plenty of other side dishes to choose from.  And the best thing is the prices are really cheap for a sizeable portion.  We usually opt for takeaway at this stall (so, soree, no pics to show).

My Personal Opinion

Siu chow is typically a one-dish meal that's ideal for one person, so it's a very convenient for working people or those who don't have time to cook.  I much prefer this to chap fan (even though you can have a variety of at least 3 types of dishes with rice) as it's served hot since it's cooked a la minute when ordered unlike the already cooked, barely warm (sometimes stone cold) dishes in the chap fan line.

It's a good place for a variety of siu chow dishes, a pleasant enough kai see hor fun and a fair tasting Chinese-style nasi lemak at decent prices.  The benefit of eating in this shop is that if a family member feels like eating something else other than a one-dish rice meal, he or she has got other options (there are quite a few other stalls here including a Thai stall).

We've been patronising this coffee shop regularly for the past 8 months (tapau saja-lah when no dine-in allowed) as it's a great option for weekday dinners....and I quite like their drinks too...always frothy! ^_~

KW Restaurant

1G Jalan Pandan Indah 4/6A

Pandan Indah

55100 Kuala Lumpur

#ewew cooks Salted Egg Yolk Prawns

A dish we like to order when we dine out at Chinese restaurants that has the approval of every member of my family is a dish cooked with salted egg yolk.  It can be salted egg yolk prawns, squid or even chicken though the first two are more popular among diners (and my family is no exception).

So, when I was given some fairly large, wild caught, (frozen) sea prawns, I decided to attempt to cook Salted Egg Yolk Prawns even though I've never cooked it before.  I was confident enough to take it on after I googled for the recipe and also watched a few videos on how it was done...and realised it was pretty easy to execute.

Ingredients:

20 (fairly) large prawns, peeled & deveined, slit at the back

2 salted egg yolks

3 garlic cloves (or more), finely chopped

4 sprigs of curry leaves, remove leaves from the stem

4 green bird's eye chillies, sliced

1 fresh red chilli, sliced

1 egg, white & yolk separated

2 tbsp cornflour

A knob (about an inch) of butter

Oil (for deep or shallow frying of the prawns)

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp sugar

Preparation:

First thing is to prep the prawns (if you're using fresh sea prawns).  Mine came already deshelled and deveined (and that's how my family likes to eat them)...with no shells to contend with.  Some recipes will call for the prawns to be unpeeled while some would leave just the tails intact.  But all will probably agree to make a slit at the back of the prawn coz this will allow the prawn to absorb more salted egg flavour into its little crannies.

Coat the prawns in egg white (keep the yolk aside for later) and cornflour (most of the recipes/videos I saw did it this way).  Update (2 Oct 2021): When I cooked this again, I coated the prawns in egg white only and then dipped them in cornflour (shake off any excess) before frying them.  This resulted in a much crispier texture on the outside.  I also seasoned the prawns with a pinch of salt and a dash of white pepper.  Steam the salted egg yolks for about 5- 10 minutes and then mash them up with a fork (or chop them up finely).

Method:

Deep-fry the coated prawns in hot oil (or shallow fry them like I did) and take them out as soon as they turn colour.  It's ok if the prawns are not cooked all the way through at this point.

Add a combination of butter and oil (2 - 3 tbsp) to saute your aromatics of chopped garlic (the more, the better), curry leaves (3 sprigs), red chillies and green bird's eye chillies.  The butter is for the fragrance and the oil is so that the butter won't burn (you can stick to just oil if you don't like the smell/taste of butter).

Saute the aromatics until fragrant.  Some will say as long as the curry leaves were fried in oil, their flavour and aroma will be released while others (like the elders) will tell you to tear the curry leaves to release its fragrance.  Not sure which is correct (perhaps someone can enlighten me...though I have to admit I can really smell the fragrance when I tear the curry leaves), so I tore some and left some whole coz whole leaves obviously look a lot more presentable in a dish.  At this point, your pan will be smelling really good from all the fragrant aromatics.

You can now add in your mashed salted egg yolks.  As you stir-fry the salted egg yolks bits, try to press them down with your spatula to break them up into an even finer paste.  Season to taste (I added a further 1/2 tsp sugar + 1/4 tsp salt).

You will need to saute the salted egg yolks slowly (in medium-low heat) until you see bubbles forming (that's the consistency you're looking for and it'll probably take a good 5 minutes).  At this point, you can drizzle in the egg yolk if you don't want the balance yolk to go to waste (but I forgot...oops!).

Once the salted egg yolk sauce is bubbling, you can then add in your (almost) cooked prawns.  Toss the prawns around to ensure they're well coated in the sauce (any prawns that weren't cooked through in the earlier frying process will now be thoroughly cooked).

My dish of Salted Egg Yolk Prawns is done.  Sprinkle over the top (totally optional) some crispy curry leaves (from the one sprig that I deep-fried earlier on and kept as garnish). ^o^

I have to say the dish turned out pretty successful (seeing it was my first time) as it got the seal of approval from my husband.  Perhaps it could do with a bit more salted egg yolk (maybe an additional yolk) as some would prefer more salted egg yolk taste (I've seen it done with 4 yolks for the same amount of prawns!) but I need to consider the health aspect.

The lightly crunchy prawns (even though they were of the frozen kind had a fairly good prawn taste in them unlike some) in savoury salted egg yolk sauce was a delicious pairing with the curry leaves giving it that added fragrance.  The curry leaves came courtesy of a neighbour who grows them abundantly in her garden and hers are really fragrant.

For a higher heat level, you could use red bird's eye chillies which are known to be a lot more fiery but I was afraid it'd be too spicy for me, so I used the green ones.  The red cili api would also help make the dish more colourful (I had to throw in some fresh red chillies instead) as it'll be able to stand out vibrantly against the green curry leaves and orange-coloured egg yolks.

Next, I might even try to make it with chicken (boneless, of course)...or even pork (that'll be a first, don't think I've ever had salted egg yolk pork before)....but probably won't attempt it with squid as getting squid crispy (and not chewy) is not easy to do.

Sometimes, we think a restaurant-quality dish is difficult to replicate at home but, at times, it turns out easier than we expected (even if it's not better).  The prawns done by restaurants have a much crispier effect (coz they're deep-fried in a lot of oil while mine was only shallow fried) but it's a good enough home version for me.  I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to make actually...so, there'll be more salted egg yolk sauce dishes in the foreseeable future for sure since my family is a fan of anything salted egg yolk.

Practice makes perfect...and perfect means tweaking, I always say....and this was the result of my Salted Egg Yolk Prawns 2.0 when I cooked it again.  This time I used fresh (and larger) white sea prawns from the wet market (RM20 for about 8, being expensive makes for controlled eating)...and dipped them in egg white and then cornflour (before frying).  As you can see, the cornflour hung onto the prawns better (as opposed to a wet batter) to yield a much crispier texture (and I did this without using the balance egg yolk in the sauce either).

I also switched to using red bird's eye chillies.  I cut them in half (lengthwise) and deseeded them...this way I can have the heat level I want (as well as the presentation) without the need to pick them out one by one (when they're chopped finely) if we don't want to eat them.  This recipe is a keeper.....and this is the tastier version  I would stick with (coz fresh is always better than frozen)! ^_~