A Homemaker’s Diary

What to get for an almost 30 year old guy for his birthday party? A pull and push caterpillar won’t do…hahaha..

We bought this caterpillar for our friends’ son when they migrated to Singapore almost a year ago. We have never seen the boy real life because they always say that it’s not a good time for the boy to meet people. Well, they are Ukraine-Russian couple so maybe they have different perception with babies and care.

However in this coming May, the caterpillar boy will be coming over to my small party. I’m going to do a double celebration for hubby and his friend (who happened to be in the same clique and celebrate his birthday 2 days after hubby’s). I’m sure by now the boy will be big enough and lost interest in the pull push caterpillar toy..hehe..

First of all, taucu is needed in this cooking. Taucu is a fermented soy beans in salt. I tried to find pictures of taucu in the Internet but could not find get one that accurate to show how taucu looks like.

Check the tiny black, brown color beans in the picture above, well, that’s taucu. In my place, it is sold in bottles. NVM, next time when I buy a new bottle I will snap the picture. I used Tamin brand for this dish. Tamin is a quite well-known Malay family manufacturer in soy sauce related products.

So to cook this, you can choose any kind of fish you like. I use kembong and cencaru for this. Fry the fish as usual with salt and turmeric. Cut the shallot, garlic and ginger. When the oil is hot in the pan, fry those shallot, garlic and ginger till they turn fragranced. Then you put the taucu. Use about 3 tablespoons but make sure you rinse them first, or otherwise your dish will be too salty.

After a while, put 1 1/2 bowl of plain water inside, throw in everything else – the fried fish, red chili, cucumber, onion and don’t forget, the magnificent asam gelugur. Add your seasoning to it and let it simmer. Actually this dish will taste better if you cook it the day before, or if you’re serving it for lunch, cook the night before. All the herbs, the salty taucu and the sour asam gelugur will mix well and when you pour the gravy into your plate of rice, emmm..yummy! If you need more zest, eat with sambal belacan.

My mom used to say that this taucu dish is usually cooked during Malay wedding preparation days in Perak. Maybe it’s true since Tamin soy sauce products started in Perak. I’m not sure whether they still serve this to people who come and help for weddings since most of the weddings today hire caterers for the reception. No more gotong royong to slice the onion like in the olden days.

I’m running out of ideas to cook for dinner, on weekend it’s even worse because I have to think what to cook for lunch and dinner. In my attempt to have a frugal living, I intend to cook at home as much as possible and I hate it (not that I hate cooking, hate the idea of living frugally). It’s not fun to discipline yourself when you used to spend without thinking.

Well, that would be a different topic, but now I’m going to share what’s cooking on the stove last few days. Since I’m on healthy cooking regime, I thought eating fish would be nice for a change. So the usual menu would be Ikan Masak Taucu. It’s like a one complete meal where you have everything in it. Plus the fish would be fried before they were dumped into the kuah (gravy) so I can guarantee that there will be no waste…hehehe..

So for those not sure what is taucu and feel like cooking this, kindly leave a comment or email me for the recipe. Good Wednesday everybody, it’s CSI night tonite..muahaha!

I went to Pameran Kraf Negara last Friday and there were so many things crafty to see. Of course I’m going to go again because there is one shop in the Kompleks Kraf area which conducts batik painting class for RM15 for cotton cloth. Not sure whether the price is promotional or that’s their normal rate.

I think those shops (they have ceramics, bronze welding, iron etc) will be around at the complex area even after the 2 weeks duration of the exhibition is over because it seems that they are not outside exhibitors. And I found few suppliers for my business too. There were live show and demonstration of handicrafts works like tenunan pua kumbu, pottery making, tekat, henna and there were people playing congkak and other heritage games. And if you’re looking for batik and songket pieces, they have lots and lots of batik and songket sellers at the expo.

Oh, for those who don’t know what’s in the picture, it’s the weaving machine for Songket Tenun Pahang. Not sure whether the techniques of weaving differs from Songket Terengganu.

This one was made with chicken sausage, mushroom and tomato fillings. I had this for late night supper and I tried to emulate how the egg chef at the 5-star resort do it..it tastes great but of course if you have someone else make the omelette for you, it will taste much better…hahaha..