Home Cooking

I havent actually been cooking much lately, being busy with work at the office, moving boats around, StickY.BusinesS  and not doing too well health wise. Finally a weekend, after knocking off many important things to do during the day, found some time to indulge myself a little..

My kitchen. Like the mossiac stove top? "DIM" "Did It Myself"

Over the last 3 months, I had quite afew incidents of ”Transient Ischemic Attack” or TIA for short. .. I am not even 40 and going thru this “mild stroke” sorta thing is depressing.. .. well.. anywell, the 1 thing that is established is that I have low haemo, caused by low iron… what causes low iron in my blood is still a mystery, 1 for the Gastro Intestinal clinic to sort out. .. but I will eat what I can and try to improve my condition.

I did a research on foods that are high iron and iron absorbtion aid and inhibitors. Ok, some modifications to my diet. Totally cut out tea drinking, because the tannine inhibits iron absorbtion by 70%! Less coffee drinking and never during mealtimes. Marmite is a good source of vit B6 and B12, essential for the body to form haemos. I like white bread and the nutritional info says it gives my 3mg iron for 2 slices, YES! I am having bread for breakfast as often as I can… or cereal is great too.

Cockle cevichi. Vit C is great for iron absorbtion

Seafood is a great source of iron… and cholesterol… but my chols levels are really good, and my iron levels are really bad! So I better wake up and realize that seafood is GOOD for me! So are EGGs!

Oven baked crab sticks and fish fingers

Currently, my blood iron is extremely low, indicating that my iron store (the liver) is depleted. RDA recommends 18mg iron per day for adult women, and I am setting my personal target at 30mg till my levels return to normal. … BTW, I am now counting my iron like how some people are counting calories… I have a tracking sheet…

Tada! My sorta seafood dinner.

Bread – 3mg, 1 large eg – 1mg, 100g beef – 3mg, 50g liver – 4.5mg, veggies – 1mg …. 100g boiled cockles – 28mg. Thats the comparison, seafood vs my regular foods..

Alrighty, so here it is… my dinner, oven baked crabsticks and fish fingers, 1 egg darkened with soy sauce, soupy rice and cockle cevichi on the side… + ice-cream beer float!

Consolation for a terrible day at Kips’

I dont think I will go back to Kips’ again. The incident with Trio being scratched destroyed all good feelings that I had with that place. So here is my final seafood meal will stuff bought from them.

Showing how large this cockle is

Relative of the big cockle? RM2 is a great price.

Fresh and good at cheap price.

Chuk Chuk, muddy swamp snails...

Some of the great stuff at Kips. Great buys, but its not worth it. It will cost me much more to fix my paintwork! And the heartache!

Alright, so what do you do about muddy swamp snails, aka chuk chuks? Put them in a bucket and give it a good shower with a powerful spray. Rinse, spray, rinse spray until you get all the mud off. Scoop them into another pot, rinse the bucket to remove debris thats stuck at the bottom.

Chuk chuks escaping from “bathtub”

Then transfer them back… Tip: they crawl slower in a plastic bucket. Ok, I am really finicky about cleaning them up. Dont think you want to eat mud either, so do as I say.

Washed and ready to boil

The large cockles are easy to prep, power spray wash. See how much more white is showing now? Let it soak for abit, 15 mins, hopefully it will spit out some mud/sand. I think these are sand cockles… .. how did they get so big?

Half shelled

 

….This is my 1st time get them big ones. I cant find any recipe online for cooking large cockles, so this is what I come up with. Boil for 5 mins, turn off fire but let it sit till cool. Pry open shell, cut off muscle attached to shell. half shelled after cooking. Half shelled cockles are just for picture taking. .. Remove cockles from shell, slice into strips, put in a bowl of cut chili and lime juice. Hmm…! I like it. Cant describe the taste, you gotta try it yourself.

Cooked Chili chukchucks

………..As for the Chuk chuks, its quite a lot of work with the washing, then cutting of the “tails” for opening them up. Its alot of work for not enuf meat. This is how I cook it, again its my recipe, from how I think the hawkers do it.

Cut up 2 garlice, slice thinly 1 chunk of ginger. Fry ginger and garlic until brown. Add CC, and water, cover lid. Stir after 2 mins, add large chunk of chili paste (to suit your chili tolerance.. but I like it really spicy hot) . Stir, cover again. Turn off heat after 3 mins.

Eh… do I have to describe how to get them out of the shell..?

Seafood heaven..

Manila clams steamed in garlic ginger chili and rice wine broth

The heaven that most Singaporeans want to go to… for me, gourmet heavens are here on earth. .. < I hope I dont have to choose between the heavens, or I will be really split up >

Still crazy after my futile clam hunt from last weekend, I went all out to get them… Manila clams (frozen, not fresh) from Tesco JB, GongGong, Fish roe, century eggs from Kips’ in Kota Tinggi.

Well, I want garanteed seafood for dinner alright! Will do the clam hunt another time.

The story for today. Out of bed at 0400, watched Dow close in on 7000.. (.. yeah..!..) Left home 0445, did some local errands, cleared JB customs 0600, had a excellent Dim Sum breakfast at the shop near Pelangi JB. Highly recommend, but cant remember the shop name.. Its really near Pelangi, walk down just abit and viola! They only open for breakfast.

local chili padis, small and dangerous

Arrive at Tesco, nap in T’rio for abit.. till Tesco open at 0800… Clams are not fresh, but I just bought them anyway… Left Tesco 1030. Arrived Kips’ 1100. More shopping, great stuff! I like Kips’. This is my 2nd visit to this clean, privately run supermarket. Was very happy in my 1st visit, to buy a whole 1kg snapper for just RM$14, 1/2kg large squid for RM$4, 1/2kg medium tiger prawns for RM$8. All that ingredients went into making a excellent Cevichi! The veg section was supergood and cheap too. I hand pick my chili padis from a big pile of locally grown chili’s. The prepacked thai chilis are available and they look fresh, but the local chili padi’s are just the best in flavour, tho they look not so uniformly bright red and not perfectly shaped.

Fish roe in garlic, ginger and chili

The shellfish man wasn’t openned during my 1st visit to Kips’ in Jan. So happy to finally discover what hes got! Very fresh and pretty good supply of rather exotic shellfish. Nope, he dont have the really expensive abalone, nor oysters, nor fat juicy geoducks. But huge size cockles, gong gongs, chuchuks, lahlahs, mussels were just what I wanted. I had wanted them all… seriously! Barely managed to keep myself to choosing only 2 items, gong gongs and some fish roe. Should have my camera with me.. at least I could have a picture of his stall! A shrine for all seafood worshippers.

Gong Gongs. A type of edible sea snail.

The highlight of my dinner … <…drum rolls…> … GongGongs. Why are these named GG? I wonder that myself.. .. ..

My previous attempts at cooking these shells were not so successful. 1 batch had alot of sand, 1 batch was kinda plain, 1 batch had most of the meat stuck inside the shell. This time, I rinsed, soaked for 15 mins, rinsed 3 more times, before cooking. Added more ginger, chili and garlic, a touch of dark soy sause, and viola! This batch was just perfect. Better than Jade Garden in Sg Rengit! Here’s a picture of a snail pried out and ready for the mouth.

Gong gong out of shell..

Now who’s ready to try one!? Well, nobody took up my offer to come visit me within 1hr of my picture posting on facebook. I guess most of my friends are not so adventurers in trying out new food huh..

Quail century eggs

Oh, btw, these were my appetizers, Quail century eggs and beer. It was an amazing discovery for me, that beer bought out better flavor to the rich taste of these eggs.

Hmm.. oh yes, we left Kips around 1200, had a good pork rib soup “aka bak kut teh” lunch in our favorite KT shop! Left KT1300 and arrive Sebana 1530. Did some errands and start cooking 1630. Only 1hr to cook up all those stuff shown above. Doug cooked his own “spoon Taco beef” dinner. He’s not having any part of this… <..all the better for me…>