Fried Chicken Wings

Cakes and desserts don’t tempt me all that much; my weakness is fried chicken. I love fried chicken in its many forms; battered, spicy, with tumeric, garlicky….

But I have also had my share of terrible fried chicken, when’s it’s fried till it’s all dried out or in oil that has been used over and over again, or if the chicken is coated in a thick layer of tasteless batter. I also dislike the hot and spicy KFC, and soggy fried chicken.

My favourite fried chicken is my mom’s… yeah, surprise, surprise.
It’s a simple fried chicken, with no fancy batter or long list of ingredients. She marinates them simply in salt, sugar, white pepper and five spice powder.

After experimenting a few times, I realise that the secret is in marinating the chicken overnight. The chicken should also be cut in small pieces. My mom gets the chicken seller in the market to debone the chicken wings, which makes wolfing them out very easy. But I buy my chicken from the supermarket, and I can’t even get the workers to de-skin the chicken.

I made these for Sunday brunch; completely indulgent to have half a dozen of fried chicken wings but who cares…

Recipe

Fried Chicken Wings

8 chicken wings, halved at the joint
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of white pepper
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of five spice powder
2 cups of cooking oil

Marinate chicken in the seasoning overnight.
Heat the cooking oil over medium heat.
When it’s hot (not smoking hot, but hot enough that there will be bubbles when you drop in the chicken), put in the chicken.
Fry till golden brown and aromatic.

Oven Dried Tomatoes

I love sundried tomatoes, but they always seemed like such luxury, at prices ranging between RM15-25/100g. And it’s no fun eating something carefully because they are precious.

It was only when I read an old issue of Flavours that I found out that it’s actually not impossible to make sundried tomatoes at home. The traditional method involves sunning the tomatoes for days, which is out of the question. I can just see birds and insects all over the tomatoes, and I am certainly not standing around to watch tomatoes dry in the front yard.

Anyway, it turns out that you can make oven-dried tomatoes instead. Just have the patience to leave the tomatoes to dry slowly for several hours in a slow oven. It’s ready when the house is filled with the aroma of roasted tomatoes. I think I love the smell even more than the taste of oven-dried tomatoes.

Buy a whole load of tomatoes. Quarter and deseed them. Lay them on a baking tray and sprinkle some salt, black pepper and herbs on them. Drizzle with some olive oil.

Then, leave them in the oven at 100C for 6-8 hours, checking on them from time to time.

They don’t look so pretty after all that roasting, but they sure taste great. They taste even better than fresh tomatoes because the flavours become intense and concentrated. These slow roasted tomatoes perks up salads, sandwiches, pasta and whatever else. I use them in quiche and ratatouille. But I actually also like to pop them in my mouth like they are prunes.

If you make these with cherry tomatoes, you don’t have to roast them for so long. They taste even better, like tomato raisins but much much more interesting.
Keep them in a jar covered with oil in the refrigerator and they will keep for weeks.

Solo Mango

Everyone else’s tree branches are weighed down with clusters of mangoes in my neighbourhood, but I could only count three fruits on my tree. One was stolen; the other is too high up for me to reach and so there was only one left. Being kiasu, I plucked it last Sunday before someone else got to it.
It was not fully ripe yet, so I left it on the kitchen counter. I think I am supposed to leave it in the rice bin to ripen, but I never got around to doing that.
While cleaning out the fridge, I found calamansi limes and cili padi that were fast turning yellow and black.
So, I decided to make mango kerabu, with my precious mango and wilting limes, chillies and coriander leaves. My mum makes hers with some bunga kantan and dried shrimps too.
The mango turned out to be perfect for the kerabu – it was not too sweet with a nice sourish edge.
I finished the mango kerabu, all on my own!

MANGO KERABU

RECIPE

2 shallots. sliced thinly
2 bird’s eyes chilli, sliced
2 stalks coriander leaf, chopped coarsely
I mango, peeled and sliced in matchsticks

Dressing

Juice from 5 calamansi lime
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 tablespoon of fish sauce

Leave the shallots and birds eye chilli in the dressing for about 10 minutes.
Then, add the mango and coriander leaf.
Toss to mix evenly.

Belimbi

The first time I had belimbi was in a Malay coffee shop in Jasin, Melaka. It was a sambal dish with bits of belimbi, and I must have had two or three helpings of rice just so I can have more of the sambal.

The next time I had it was also in Malacca, in a Chitty household. We were doing a feature on Chitty cuisine, and we got to try a shrimp and fish roe pindang with whole belimbi. Again, it was the belimbi that I couldn’t have enough of. There was tamarind in the pindang gravy, but it was the belimbi that gives the dish a nice lift. Cooked in the gravy, the fruits have absorbed all the flavours of the dish (the sweetness of the shrimps and the richness of the coconut milk and spices). By then, its sourness has been somewhat tempered, but the belimbi whets the appetite.

The Chitty lady gave me a bag of belimbi, plucked from her garden, but they all turned bad before I got around to experimenting with them.

I was delighted to find a belimbi tree in my neighbour’s backyard. I am never home, and they never opened their back door. So, I have not gotten around to asking for their belimbi. I did pick up some fruits that fell on the back lane, but they go bad real quickly.

Last week, on a trip to the Raub market, I found belimbi jeruk (which won’t go bad). The cook at a makan shop taught what to do with the belimbi jeruk, and I tried it on Friday. It doesn’t look pretty, but it tastes good – salty-sourish.

The instruction was to fry ikan bilis and set aside. Then, cut up some shallots and chili padi, and blend. Then, tumis the shallots and cili padi until fragrant, and add belimbi and some gula melaka. Then, add the fried ikan bilis. The belimbi jeruk gives a nice tang to the dish, and I found myself adding more of it after two bites.

Does anyone know where to find belimbi jeruk in Kuala Lumpur?

The recipe is below.

Ikan Bilis With Belimbi Jeruk

5-6 shallots
12 cili padi
2 tablespoons of cooking oil
3 tablespoons of belimbi jeruk
2 tablespoons of gula melaka, or to taste
100g ikan bilis, deep fried

Blend the shallots and cili padi.
Heat the cooking oil, and fry the blended ingredients until fragrant.
Then, add the belimbi jeruk and gula melaka
Fry over medium heat, and then add the ikan bilis.
Mix everything evenly.
Serve with rice

Raining Durians In Raub, Pahang

There were durians everywhere in Raub, Pahang last weekend. In Sg Klau – a one-street town on the outskirts of Raub – it was practically raining durians. We saw durians dangling from trees by the roadside, and heaps of them at makeshift wholesale markets.

The biggest wholesale durian markets was at the town centre, but there were also those set up by the roadside and under trees.

Farmers from the orchards in the surrounding areas come to these markets with trucks and lorries full of their harvest. At the market, workers quickly and deftly separate them into different grades as they unload the durian, fruit by fruit. According to the worker, he judges the quality of the durian by its appearance and more importantly, by holding it and ‘feeling’ it …. it’s intuitive, he said. But it’s intuitions honed for over 15 years as he has been working with durians since his teens.

Fruit Supermarket in Sg Klau, Raub, Pahang

Pahang has never seemed the most obvious food destination, but my trip to Raub turned out to be an eating trip. We went to Sg Klau (a one-street town) and it was teeming with durians; there were wholesale durian markets by the roadside as it’s now durian season.

Trees heavy with rambutans line the streets; it’s hard to miss the clusters of red and yellow fruits.

There is nothing like eating rambutan straight from the tree

A local orchard owner took us to his farm. He calls it a “supermarket” because he has all kinds of fruit trees there. It was almost like a hobby orchard for he experiments with different plants – there were passionfruits, the biggest limes, and Japanese mangosteen (firmer flesh).

Beautiful mangosteen flowers

Mangosteens on the ground for the picking

The flesh was firm and sweet

There were durians dangling from the trees

The limes in this orchard is the biggest I have seen. The farmer said that he’ll graft the tree for us, so that we can plant a tree in our backyard. But he warned that not all of us will be successful

It was a hot afternoon, and the best way to cool down at a fruit orchard is by hecking down some kelapa pandan for coconut water.

When we come back next in December, there won’t be durian and rambutan in the orchard. But there’ll be duku langsat, my favourite fruits. And the owner said he’ll make lime juice with his gigantic limes for us.