Ah Ma, my father’s mother, made the most delicious acar.  She learned from her nyonya mother-in-law, Ah Chor, the lady we thought looked like the little old lady in the 1960′s sitcom, Beverly Hillbillies, in a kebaya!  Ah Ma’s acar is so well pickled, it could have lasted for months if we didn’t devour it all in a week!  Her trick was to wring the blanched vegetables real dry.  I never really appreciated the nyonya heritage in my dad’s family until much later when I got interested in cooking and realized that my grandmother was probably one of the best nyonya cooks around.  Since then, it’s been an endless effort to recreate many of her recipes from the memory of taste.  This is one of them.

Chef’s tip: Use a salad spinner to remove as much water as possible from the blanched vegetables.  Pack acar tightly in a glass jar and keep refrigerated.  Like kimchi, it will keep for several weeks.

Spice Paste:
10 dried long Asian chilies, rehydrated in water or fresh Fresno chilies, seeded
2 stalks lemongrass, sliced thinly
2 slices galangal
1 piece fresh turmeric, about 1 Tablespoon, sliced
8 shallots
3 cloves garlic
1 Tablespoon roasted belachan
4 candlenuts

Vegetables:
2 carrots peeled
¼ head cauliflower
1 Japanese Eggplant
½ small savoy cabbage
12 Chinese long yard beans
1 English Cucumber, seeded

½ cup canola oil
1 cup white vinegar
½ cup of sugar
1 Tablespoon kosher salt

1 cup roasted peanuts, crushed
1/4 cup sesame seeds, toasted

1. In a food processor or blender, grind chilies, lemongrass and galangal till fine. Add remaining spice paste ingredients and process till smooth. Add a little water if needed. Set aside.
2. Cut all vegetables into 1 inch juliennes. Cut cauliflower into small florets.
3. Blanch vegetables. Blanched carrots, cauliflower and eggplant till tender, about 3 minutes, and cabbage and long beans two minutes. Spin and squeeze vegetables very dry. Add in cucumber.
4. Heat oil on medium high. Fry spice paste till fragrant, red and oil has separated, about 7-10 minutes. Add vinegar, sugar and salt. Fry till fragrant about 10 minutes. Taste for seasoning. Remove from heat.
5. Mix in vegetables and toss to mix. Add peanuts and sesame seeds and mix to combine.  Let it sit for at last 30 mins for flavors to come together.  Can be prepared in advance.  Serve room temperature or chilled.

Serves: 6

Tags: Malaysian, Nyonya.

Ma Po Do Fu is probably the most popular (or at least the gentrified version is a permanent item in the Chinese take out menu) of Sichuanese cuisine. As many of you know, the “ma” refers to the hot and numbing spice, not some old lady with pock marked face, which the dish is sometimes referred to.  It’s truly a Chinese comfort food.

Chef’s tip: The steps below may look laborious but frankly, I am just trying to line out in great detail the steps in wok cooking.  It literally takes about 5 minutes or less to cook the dish.  This dish employs the classic steps in working with a wok.  The wok is designed so that the hottest part of the pan is the bottom part, that’s where you brown the meat, etc.  The sides of the pan serves as the in between placeholder, where you park parts of the dish while you cook the other parts, before tossing them all back together.  That way, ingredients that need different cooking times get their own special treatment and you come out with the perfect crunch and tenderness.

8 oz ground beef
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon shaoxing wine
1 lb silken tofu
4 tablespoon scallions, white part, chopped

Sauce
1 tablespoon Sichuan peppercorn
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons ginger, finely minced
3 tablespoons peanut oil
1 tablespoon shaoxing wine
1 tablespoon chili bean paste
1 tablespoon fermented black beans (optional)

1 cup chicken broth
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon sugar

½ tablespoon cornflour, plus 2 tablespoon water
3 tablespoons scallion, green part

Preparing the meat
1. Mix ground beef with 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce and shaoxing wine.  Set aside

Preparing the vegetable
2. Dry fry the Sichuan peppercorn. Lightly grind peppercorns
3. Chop scallion (white part), ginger and garlic finely, set aside separately
4. Cut bean curd into 1 inch cubes.

Cooking the dish
5. Heat the wok over high heat.  Add the peanut oil followed by the marinated meat.  Drizzle remaining shaoxing wine around the side of the wok.  Fry for 1 minute until meat starts to brown.  Push the meat to the side of the wok.
6. Add chili bean paste, fermented black beans, and fry till the oil is separated, about half a minute.
7. Add chopped garlic, ginger and scallions (white part).  Fry till fragrant – about 30 seconds.  Toss with the meat.
8. Add broth, soy sauce, and sugar
9. Add tofu, stir lightly and bring to boil.  Then lower the heat and simmer 5 minutes.
10. Combine cornstarch with water to make a slurry, add to the sauce, toss to cook until sauce thickens.
11. Add chopped green scallions and crushed Sichuan peppercorns, toss to coat.
Serve immediately.

Serves: 6

Tags: Chinese, Sichuanese, tofu.

This is a classic chicken curry, Chinese Malaysian-style.  It goes really well with tumeric sticky rice.

Chef’s tip: Curry powder is commonly used in Malaysia, the concoction is similar to Sri Lankan curry powder.  Here’s a recipe to make your own curry powder.

Ingredients
6 pieces chicken legs with thighs, bones and skin on
2 tablespoons curry powder

3 small Russet potatoes, peeled, cut into 2-inch wedges
2 cups canola oil

Spice paste:
5 red jalapeno chilies, seeded
8 shallots
3 stalks lemon grass
1 inch galangal
1 inch fresh turmeric / 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 tablespoon roasted belacan
5 candlenuts

Sauce:
¼ cup canola oil
5 sprigs curry leaves
1 cup water
3 cups coconut milk, reserve 1 cup of the cream
2 tablespoons kosher salt, to taste

Marinating the chicken:
1.    Rub the curry powder over the chicken
Preparing the potatoes
2.    Peel the potatoes and cut each into 4 pieces. Pat dry.
3.    Heat a skillet with about 2-inch of oil.  Fry the potatoes till it is golden on the outside.  Remove and set aside.  The potatoes need not be cooked through.
Preparing the spice paste
4.    Roughly chop up all the spice paste ingredients (except lemongrass and galangal that needs to be finely chopped).
5.    Place all spice paste ingredients in a food processor and grind into a fine paste.
Cooking the curry
6.    Heat about ¼ cup of oil in a pot on medium high.  Add the spice paste and curry leaves fry till fragrant and red, about 5 minutes.
7.    Add the marinated chicken and fry for about 3 minutes.
8.    Add 1 cup water and 2 cups of coconut milk and salt.  Simmer for about 10 minutes
9.    Add the fried potatoes and reserved 1 cup coconut milk, and simmer uncovered until chicken is tender and gravy has thicken, about 30 minutes-45 minutes.  Let sit for 15 minutes before serving.

Serves: 6

Tags: curry, Malaysian.