Pan Mee (Hakka Flat Noodle Soup)

Is started with a picture on Facebook from Rasa Malaysia.  It got me reminiscing my childhood 'pulling' the noodles and dropping it into the broth. Then came the thought...  I then posted that I might just attempt to make it. Then the craving came... followed by a day-long of rain and I decided this would be ideal on a cold day.

As soon as I got home, I checked to see if I had the ingredients. The basic stuff were there but I still had to go out to get some other stuff.  I started with the stock... MacGyver style, if you know what I mean... Pot of water to boil... some Maggi Ikan Bilis Stock Cubes... 3 cloves garlic... lots of pepper and some salt. Not too much slat hough as the flavour will come from the minced chicken and crispy ikan bilis too.

Then I quickly made the dough based on the recipe and allowed it to rest. By this time the stock had come to a boil. Switched the fire off and went off to buy the rest of the stuff that I needed. I needed a pasta machine, chicken (to replace the pork in the recipe), some vege (I had spinach in mind but they were not available), ikan bilis and of course, very important... CILI PADI.

When I got home I started with the minced chicken. Diced two chicken breasts, followed by a quick chop to mince it. Added some corn flour to it, pepper, soy sauce and sesame oil. Mixed it up and allowed it to rest a bit.  Chopped some garlic and tossed it into a pan with oil... add the chicken... I didn't have dark soy so I used sweet soy (kicap manis)... some oyster sauce, some fish sauce, lots of pepper... toss a bit... add water and allow it to reduce to my desired consistency. Voila! Done... I didn't add the shiitake mushrooms as my wife doesn't like it.

Then I fried the ikan bilis till crispy and set it aside and proceeded to prepare the noodles using my new pasta machine...

This is the dough. It should be sufficient for three to four portions... but it would only be sufficient for two if was my kind of portion. Hahaha...

This is the pasta maker... RM68.50...

This shot is an after thought... took it after I finished gobbling my noodles down. That's why you can see that it's contracted slightly.

The end product.. there was something missing... something crucial to making a good pan mee... the sambal belacan... next time... next time...

Durian Crêpe...

I'm back... it was a hectic month. Went an entire month without an off day and I just got back from a week's off. 

My wife felt like having Durian Crêpe and here in Dungun, that would mean making your own as there's no Durian Crêpe around here. So, I 'Google-ed' a few recipes and off we went to get the necessary items. We drove for an hour looking for durian... here there's only local durian. No D24s or Musang Kings. The local durians are pretty small so we drove around looking for some decent sized ones.

In my opinion, Durian Crêpes are over-rated... the amount of effort vs the end result which is the taste, does not justify it. I'd rather eat the durian straight or even have just durian with pulut.

Anyway, back to the recipe. I studied a few recipes. There are many kinds available and it depends on what you want to achieve. There are the egg-heavy versions, 4 kinds of flour versions, 2 kinds of flour versions, etc. You need to know what each ingredient does to your crêpe to make your decision.

I opted for the 2 kinds of flour variation for ease. Plain flour with potato flour. The potato flour is what gives the crêpe its elasticity. I made two batches. A batch of yellow and a batch of green. I tweaked the green after experimenting on the yellow. Here's the recipe:-

80 gms plain flour

1 tbsp potato flour

2 tbsp sugar

1 egg

250 ml milk

3 tsp melted butter

pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla essence

colouring of choice

Whisk everything together... I just put everything in the blender and blended away and then strained it. On a non-stick pan, line the pan with some butter using a paper towel. I did this once only as the butter in the batter will help the process. Heat the pan up. Make sure it is not too hot or the batter will brown too fast before it is cooked. Temperature control is important and I had to switch the pan on and off the heat constantly. Pour some batter onto the pan and spread it out using the back of the ladle. Once cooked, let it cool slightly and then peel it off the pan and let it cool. I used styrofoam plates for this. if you find the crêpe too thick, add more milk.

Once cooled, put some whipped cream onto the center followed by durian and then top-up with cream again. Then fold. Voila!

In the end, I just used plain durian without the cream as I preferred it that way. :)

You can buy the whipped cream or whisk your own. Non-dairy whipped cream is recommended.

 This is the first batch I made... the crêpe was thinner.

I over-whipped the cream... :(

 50:50 cream and durian mix.

The second batch with thicker crêpe... with 100% durian filling. Yummy...

Have fun... I probably won't make it again as I feel it is not worth the extra effort. I'd rather eat the durian as it is. :)