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I am not a fan of Zhu Keok Chou, but when it comes to dishes cook by only certain people, I tell you, I can eat non stop man! 2 person who cook the best Zhu Keok Chou are Ku Mah (QQ’s Nanny’s SIL) and Jacss’s Confinement Lady.

This morning, I grab the opportunity of getting Ku Mah to teach me how to cook, since she is next door for a 3 days stay.

Ingredients we used:

• Pork knuckle (we bought one hand ~1kg) Rm19
• Zhu Cheong Yuk (~1kg lean meat from upper thigh) Rm 14
• I big bottle sweet Vinegar
• 1/2 big bottle water
• 1 small bottle black Vinegar
• 300g young ginger thick slices
• 1tsp soy bean sauce
• 1tsp mince garlic
• 1Tbsp cooking oil (use more dosage of sesame oil for confinement)
• 3 Tbsp sugar (adjust to taste)
• 1 Tbsp salt (adjust to taste)

Seems so much things to use right? But cooking this dish is really easy. It is just the way of doing it right, adjusting the taste the right way.

How to cook:

1. Combine both types vinegar plus water into a pot
2. 
3. 
4. Dry fry the pork cubes on wok (without oil). Once the meat is dry and cooked, add them into vinegar mixture
5. 
6. Fry fry ginger slices without oil. Add 1 Tbsp oil into middle of the wok, and saute garlic with soybean paste. Then saute everything till fragant. Transfer everything into vinegar mixure
7. Bring pot to boil.
8. Add in sugar and salt.
9. Continue to let it simmer for about 15 minutes or until the meat is tender.

Tadaa……when you test with a chopstick and if it can poke through the meat, that means its ready!

Instead of losing weight like I planned to, I have gained more weights. Not sure if I am eating more due to pressure, or its the wrong way of taking the diet supplement that I have just got. I just hope that some supplement I just got 2 days back will work fine on me, like any of those diet pills that work for all my friends.

Ever since we came back from my Grandpa’s funeral, I notice that Didi has been crying most of the night, in the middle of sleep. It got so bad and so tiring for both hubby and me, until I have to apply eye cream for dark circles below my eyes. Although hubby does not believe in asking the Chinese medium at temples, he still voiced out this suggestion and asked mum to go seek for medium to ask for advice. True enough, the medium said that the boy had been frightened. Hope the prayer helps to soothe him down after this. Poor Didi

I love those cute little thermos mugs and I have a great collection of these. Not only they are useful to keep our drinks warm, I find these insulated custom travel mugs very useful to store my boy’s porridge. It is more easier to bring a mug than to bring the whole big multilayer food container on our short trip out.

Fresh nutmegs (broken half, with its red flowery seads)

I have always wanted to get raw nutmegs to make my own nutmeg drinks. During my previous trip to Penang, Healy offer to get them for me from the wet market and she bought me 3kg in total, thanks, Healy!

How to make nutmeg concentrate

Ingredients (to get 1liter concentrate)

• 3kg nutmeg
• 1.5kg rock sugar (more or less according to individual taste)

Steps to do:

1. Clean the nutmegs, cut into halves, remove seeds, then smashed lightly the flesh.
2. Arrange all nutmeg face down (layered with rock sugar) in the slow cooker
3. Cover and start cooking on high for 3 hours and then set to auto for 6 hours

Remember, no water should be added if you want to extra the concentrate juice out of the nutmegs. After it cool down, I filter the concentrate and put them into clean container and keep in fridge.

front: a glass of chilled nutmeg diluted drink (made from 2nd round)
back: a bottle of very dark concentrate nutmeg juice (made from first round)

I actually made another batch of nutmeg juice by adding water into the “almost dried” nutmegs and let it cook in the slow cooker for another 6 hours or so. Tell you, it is still so thick that you can also bottle it and dilute with water when you need to a cup of drink.

Isn’t that easy?

Use of other parts:

• Flowery skin on the seeds: Can be dried and great for making chinese medicine
• Seeds: Great for making Salted Vege Duck Soup (Kiam Chai Ark)

My dad missed my grandma’s cooking and I remember he said that my grandma used to make very nice Lemak Nenas with Ikan Sepat Masin. Although I have no chance to taste my grandma’s cooking (she no longer cooks this dish since she can’t take coconut milk anymore), I manage to stumble upon Miche’s blog Simple dish online on this dish.

Here is my simplified version.

• Fresh Prawn
• Sambal Ikan bilis (I use leftover from our favourite Nasi lemak stall)
• tumeric
• belacan
• thick coconut milk ( I used instant coconut milk)
• Salted ikan sepat goreng

Verdict -with salted fish added (only once everything is boiled so that the bones would not come off easily) the gravy is so tasty. I can just drink spoonful of gravy even without rice. However I think it would be more spicy if I add more sambal to this dish (as you can see the gravy is not that red in order to accomodate hubby’s sensitive stomach).

I was wondering if I would want to upgrade myself again and further study into something I have passion for. I have no regret leaving the workforce as I have found something I love to do while keeping an eye on my growing up children. I know there will be no turning back for me to the employment world. I know there are a lot of things I can do right now and I see bright future ahead of me. I am now eyeing on one of the online degree programs where I can work with young children from babies till age 8. You really have to agree with me that there are still interesting courses when you take up courses from online university.

I have great love for spicy food and luckily my skin can takes all the spicy food at this age. I used to have very oily and acne skin but now, my skin has improved tremendously as compare to my younger days. If you have acne problem and wish to try out some new products in the market, you might want to consider the iQ derma which claim to have high success of curing 87% of people within just 3 days and it won’t dry out or irritate your skin.

I hardly have time to visit blogs, and most of my time is spend on replying emails and new inquiries. Although the school days has just started, we have actually planned out another short vacation at the cooling mountain. We will just put a night a place similar to the new york budget hotel. But I guess going there is fun enough and we will not be going to stay in our room all time anyway.

I used to hate this dessert when I was very young. Each time we attended a wedding dinner at Teochew restaurant (ok, I am a very pure Teochew, because both my maternal and paternal grandparents are Teochew), the end dish must be this hot Orh Nee. Being a kid, I prefer ice, cold longan over this traditional dish.

When I grow up, I seldom get to eat this dish anymore. Firstly more clans are mixed into our family/relatives, so not all family/relatives wedding are held in Teochew Restaurant anymore (to be exact, Lim Tian Puan (LTP) Restaurant, one of the oldest Restaurant in Melaka where my grandpa, now almost 90 years, had been working as an account officer until he retired, see *don’t play-play*). Also now Melaka has more modern restaurants that serves modern dish, unlike the olden days.

So that is when the craves comes in….I miss all my childhood food!

I am lucky as one of close relative is also a Teochew Cook  and he is really good at making this dish. He even supplied Orh Nee to LTP Restaurant and the super famous TSLC Restaurant (which is also an old family friend, aiya..long story, not going into that) in Jonker Street before he retired, so I get a good sifu to teach me, hehe…Lucky me right?

OK, cut story short.

Ingredients:

• Yam (buy the old and big round type which is more powdery)
• Lards (well, many makers has omitted this in order to be healthy, but I can tell you, without lard, it surely does not taste as authentic as the traditional Orh Nee, sounds sinful ler….)
• Oil from shallot (some use lard to make this)
• Lots of sugar
• Sugar marinated Gingko Nuts (optional)
• Sugar marinated Pumpkin (optional)

Method:

1. Steam cut yam until soft
2. Mashed or blend (no water please) for finer paste
3. Stir over slow fire, slowly adding oil and sugar until the right consistency. Set aside.
4. Boil gingko nuts until soft in sugar water
5. Steam pumpkin

How does the original method sounds to you? Horrible right? No water should be added while cooking and only oil/lard can be added. Eeeww….no wonder so tasty!

As I was adding so much lard and shallot oil already, I still cannot achieve the “silky smooth” texture it suppose to be. Can you imagine how unhealthy an original delicious Orh Nee is? Gosh…No way I am not gonna add more lard/oil. So I cheated and melted sugar with some hot water and then add them into the stiring mashed yam in hot pot.

Even if you dine out now, you will hardly get to eat those original sticky Orh Nee as they have been modified with added water/soya bean for a softer texture. Halo…surely they tell you healthy is good mah..coz yam (taro) is damn expensive you know…