From the monthly archives: February 2010
Today is Chap Goh Meh, the fifteenth and last day of Chinese New Year. In the old days, this is celebrated on a much larger scale. It’s after all the Chinese Valentine’s Day, the only day that young maidens in Penang were allowed to leave their home and stroll down Gurney Drive for all and [...]
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Prawns are a must on the Chinese New Year table because its name in Cantonese, ha, is the sound of laughter. It’s probably just an excuse to indulge in the biggest prawns we can afford, and the fishmongers are probably the ones laughing the loudest and longest. In Penang, I hardly cook. I am all [...]
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Sure, the Chinese New Year meals are good – curry with gigantic prawns, roast pork, steamed chicken, soup with pig’s intestines, fish maw and abolone, mixed vegetables, lor bak (meat rolls), jiu hu char (stir-fried yam bean with cuttlefish). But what I look forward to most is kiam cai boi – which literally translates to [...]
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I never thought that I’d actually like aubergine one day…just like I didn’t think I’d ever like capsicum or bittergourd or celery. Yup, I was the typical vegetable-hating child. But here I am, all grown-up and actually enjoying the taste of vegetables… and before I lose my teeth too. Anyway, none of my housemates (aka [...]
Continue Reading → →For the longest time, I had a jar of yellow bean paste at the back of my refrigerator. I forgot all about it because I hardly use it in my cooking. If I am not cooking curries, I am probably cooking Western dishes. I threw out the jar, without even opening it, because it’s gone [...]
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