Another lala recipe? Forgive me but I am quite a fan of lala clams and since the lala clams were looking really fresh in the wet market, I couldn’t resist getting my hands on 1 kg of these sweet tasting clams. Initially, I had wanted to whip up a kamheong lala dish but later realised that I’d forgotten to get two of the essential kamheong lala ingredients : curry powder and curry leaves. Without those two ingredients, kamheong lala just won’t be kamheong lala. I’ll kamheong another day then.

Thankfully, as I rummaged through my kitchen, I found some lemongrass and ginger as well as freshly grown bird’s eye chillis. Mum recently moved to my old apartment and I am now babysitting two of her prized bird’s eye chilli plants. In case you are still wondering what is bird’s eye chilli, it is also known as cili padi – probably the hottest local chilli available in this region.

This recipe uses simple but aromatic ingredients which help to lend the dish a sweet and fragrant taste whilst masking any potential “fishy” smell – which is unlikely unless your lala clams are not fresh. Read this post to find out how to prepare lala clams before cooking. Now, though this recipe looks like a stirfry dish, with a little bit of imagination, you can turn this into a sweat inducing and appetising soup. Just add more of the ingredients and water

This is my recipe for Stir Fried Lala with LemonGrass and Bird’s Eye Chilli

Ingredients

• 1 kg lala clams (rinsed and washed thoroughly to remove mud, sand and grime)
• 2 stalks lemongrass (hammered with the flat side of a knife to bruise it)
• 5 cm of ginger (slivered)
• 3 shallots (chopped finely)
• 4 to 10 bird’s eye chilli / cili padi (cut lengthwise, remove seeds to reduce hotness)
• 1/2 to 1 cup hot water
• 2 tablespoons cooking oil

Seasoning

• Salt to taste

Method

Heat oil in wok. Add shallots, ginger, lemongrass and bird’s eye chilli. Stir briskly until shallots just starts to brown.

Add lala clams and stir well. Add 1/2 to 1 cup water and close the lid of the wok allowing water to reboil. Stir occasionally until lala clams open up.

Add salt to taste and dish up. Do not overcook the lala clams or they will turn rubbery.

Serve hot with steamed rice.

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Stir Fried Lala with LemonGrass and Bird’s Eye Chilli

This is a delicious and easy vegetable side dish, easy to cook and tastes really good. I used kailan (aka jie lan, Chinese broccoli, Chinese kale) – which is a popular vegetable in Chinese cooking. It is highly nutritious and has an inherently slight bitter taste (hence sugar is added during boiling to neutralize the slight bitterness).

As a result of brief boiling to cook the kailan, the vegetable is nicely cooked and retains its crunchiness while the dried scallops (kan bei) jazzes up the dish by making it sweeter and more interesting. I learnt this recipe from watching the local (Singapore) variety show三菜一汤and this was one of the dishes whipped up by Mediacorp artiste Michelle Chong. I was impressed with both her culinary skills and her recipe. I tried the recipe soon after watching the show and I really love it, so yummy. I made this from memory after watching the show so I am probably not following her recipe 100% but the end result is still good. Hope you like the recipe too.

This is the recipe for Kailan with Shredded Scallops

Ingredients (Serves 2-3)

• 300g kailan leaves
• ½ tablespoon chopped garlic
• 4 dried scallops
• Cornstarch solution (about ½ tbsp cornstarch mixed with 2 tbsp plain water)
• 50ml stock/plain water
• Olive oil/vegetable oil
• Sugar

Directions

Give scallops a clean rinse, then soak them in a dish of water (just enough to cover) for at least half an hour to soften them.

In a wok or saucepan, add water (just about enough to cover the kalian), a bit of vegetable/olive oil and a bit of sugar. When water boils, add in kailan to cook for about 3-5 minutes until cooked (do not overcook). Take out the cooked kalian and arrange on a plate.

In a clean wok, heat a bit of oil and sauté garlic till fragrant. Use your fingers to separate the scallops strands and add in wok. Reserve the water from soaking the scallops.

Add water previously used for soaking the scallops, as well as some stock/plain water. Bring to a boil for about 2 minutes and thicken with cornstarch solution till the desired consistency. Drizzle the mixture over the cooked kailan.

Wiffy, a cheerful Singaporean lady who describes herself as a NoobCook dished out this recipe as my Guest Chef this time around. Yet, the food that she whips up certainly shows that she is not a noobcook as her recipes (which comes with great looking photographs) have been featured in a number of websites. Do check out the droolicious recipes on her site.

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Kailan with Shredded Scallops

When I was an undergraduate studying in the UK, you will always find me buying chicken wings almost on a weekly basis because it’s one of the cheapest chicken parts available. Apparently, for non-Asians, chicken wings are mainly for the grill rather than stir-fries. So, it has lesser demand compared to the chicken breast or drumstick.

Here in Kuala Lumpur, and probably other parts of Malaysia, grilled chicken wings are commonly found in Chinese coffeeshop eateries. Amongst the most famous is Wong Ah Wah Grilled Chicken Wings located at Jalan Alor Peel. But today’s post is not about Wong Ah Wah’s Grilled Chicken Wings. Today’s post is about how I finally started to use my brand new oven to cook something for myself whilst looking forward to sharing the same with all of you.

As always, I prefer something  simple and doable. So, this oven-grilled chicken wings recipe only requires ingredients which you can easily find and are likely to be sitting in your kitchen and fridge right now.  Feel free to experiment with the marinade as each person’s taste buds vary. Cooking time needs to be adjusted depending on the size of the chicken wings used and the portions to be cooked. A peek into the oven every 10 minutes to check for doneness would be recommended.

This is my recipe for Oven-Grilled Chicken Wings

Ingredients

• 5 chicken wings (medium size, cleaned and pat dry)
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil

Marinate

• 1 – 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon white pepper powder
• 1 teaspoon worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon tomato ketchup
• 3 tablespoons of ginger juice
• 1 teaspoon light soya sauce
• 1 teaspoon cornflour

Method

Place chicken wings in a bowl and mix well with marinating ingredients. Cover and allow to marinade in the fridge for at least 5 hours or overnight.

Heat oven to 150 degrees celcius.

Drizzle baking pan with olive oil before placing chicken wings on the pan. Sprinkle some black pepper powder over the chicken wings (optional).

Bake the chicken wings for 30 minutes or till cooked. To check whether the chicken wings are thoroughly cooked, take a sharp knife / chopstick and pierce through the most fleshy part of the wings till it reaches the bone. If clear juice runs out, it is cooked. If not, cook further.

Once chicken wings are cooked, remove juice from pan. Change oven setting to top grille at 200 degrees celcius and grille chicken wings till desired brownness.

Serve hot.

If desired, the juice which has been removed from the pan can be reduced in a cooking pan with a little cornflour.

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Oven-Grilled Chicken Wings

It has been a hectic past 3 months and I have not been able to update this blog with more delicious asian food. I will be moving to a new house soon (with a new kitchen fitted with an oven!) and you can expect more recipes to come your way once I settle down.

Anyway, I was back in Kuching early March and my mother-in-law cooked this dish which I found most interesting indeed. Here, we have the bitter gourd (some find it bitter, some insists that it is bitter sweet) given a stir fry and coated with salted egg to give it a unique light salted taste. The other interesting thing I found about this dish is that the bitter gourd is not sliced diagonally or sliced across but rather, the bitter gourd is sliced length-wise, not unlike the satayman who deftly slices cucumber to pair with satay. Basically, you hold the bitter gourd and slice away from you and slowly turning the bitter gourd clockwise or anti clockwise as you continue slicing through. The seed is discarded.

This recipe is easy to cook though I must confess that I did not taste it at all. In case you forgot, I am not partial to bitter gourd. Nevertheless, my wife loved it and there were no leftovers. If you are a fan of bitter gourd and you are bored with the usual bitter gourd chicken recipe, why don’t you give this recipe a try?

This is my mother-in-law’s recipe for Fried Bitter Gourd with Salted Egg

Ingredients

• 1 medium sized bitter gourd (sliced, seed discarded)
• 1 salted egg (break into a bowl and using a butter knife, gently cut the yolk into smaller pieces in the bowl)
• 3 cloves garlic (chopped finely)
• 1 cup warm water
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil

Seasoning

• Salt and pepper to taste (if necessary)

Method

Heat oil in wok till smoking hot. Reduce heat to low and add garlic. Stir briskly and add bitter gourd. Increase heat to high and stir well.

Sprinkle warm water once in a while to keep bitter gourd moist and cook until bitter gourd is limp or to desired softness.

Once bitter gourd is cooked to desired softness, pour salted egg over the bitter gourd and stir until salted egg is cooked. Add seasoning if desired.

Dish up and serve with steamed white rice.

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Fried Bitter Gourd with Salted Egg

Yee Mee or Yee Mein (in cantonese) is a type of dried noodles which looks like lengthy rubber-bands. They are brown in colour and usually come shaped like a small cake. It is usually cooked with some sort of rich gravy and in some food courts, you will find it being served on a sizzling hot plate. Though it is quite common, nevertheless, it is still not as popular as the yellow noodles, bee hoon or kuey teow. I think this may have to do with the taste.

In its sold form, the Yee Mee can have a distinctive muski-smell which some might find it a tad artificial. To reduce this “artificial” smell, it is recommended that the Yee Mee be blanched in hot water for a couple of minutes before plunging it into cold water prior to cooking it proper with sauces. You will find that the water used to blanch the Yee Mee will turn brownish and thoroughly unappetising.

In some parts of Malaysia, you can find what is known as Sang Har Meen (fresh prawn noodles) wherein Yee Mee is predominantly used. With that in mind, I decided to cook my very own Braised Seafood Yee Mein using fresh sea prawns and fresh lala clams. I could have boosted the taste further with fresh slices of fish meat and cuttlefish but I couldn’t get my hands on them. Anyway, home cooking is usually not so extravagant. Prawns and lala clams are good enough for this session.

This is my recipe for Braised Seafood Yee Mein

Ingredients

• 4 pieces Yee Mein (1 piece per person)
• 200 grammes lala clams (rinsed thoroughly to remove mud and grime)
• 400 grammes medium prawns (remove shell leaving head and tail intact. Devein. You can also shell it completely. No worries)
• 300 grammes of choy sum (rinse and cut into smaller sizes)
• 3 slices of ginger
• 4 teaspoons chopped garlic
• 500 ml hot water (for cooking)
• 4 tablespoons cooking oil

Seasoning

• 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
• 1 tablespoon light soya sauce
• 1 teaspoon fish sauce
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon chinese cooking wine

Method

Bring a pot of water to boil and blanch Yee Mee for 2 minutes until semi-soft. Drain and plunge into cold / iced water. Drain.

Heat wok until smoking hot. Add 2 tablespoons oil and 2 teaspoons chopped garlic. As the garlic sizzles, add Yee Mee and stir briskly for 1 minute. Remove and set aside.

In the same wok, add 2 teaspoons chopped garlic and prawns. Stir until prawns have curled up by half. Remove and set aside.

Then add ginger and stir until aromatic. Follow by water and seasoning (except salt, pepper and chinese cooking wine). Bring to boil before adding Yee Mee. Stir well and cover with lid for 1 minute.

Add prawns, choy sum and lala clams. Stir well and cover lid again for an0ther minute. Add salt and pepper to taste followed by chinese cooking wine.

Dish up when prawns have fully curled up and lala clams have opened up. If gravy is too thin for your liking, add a little cornstarch to thicken.

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Braised Seafood Yee Mein

Back in the fishermen village of Pontian (well, it’s quite a bustling town now) and Kukup, seafood especially prawns and crabs are cooked in tomato sauce. Sometimes, a little bit of chilli is added to make it spicier. Lala clams are treated no different. Some might say that cooking seafood in tomato sauce masks the natural taste and sweetness of the fresh seafood, but some say that it’s an unforgettable experience sucking up the delicious tomato sauce from the seafood. Well, we can’t please everyone, can we?

I decided to cook my final batch of lala clams last Saturday in tomato sauce because, well, that’s about the most suitable ingredient I could lay my hands on in my kitchen. I didn’t have curry powder or leaves and that means cooking lala kam-heong style is out of the question. Besides, it has been a long time since I had seafood home-cooked style and this was one golden opportunity to whip up something quick and simple.

Before cooking lala clams, you will need to give it a good rinse. Rub or scrub the outer shells and place them in a deep bowl. Submerge them in tap water for 2 minutes before draining them. Do this a couple of times until you are fully satisfied that there are no more mud or grime in the lala clams. One trick is to drain the water completely and leave the lala clams in the bowl for 10 minutes. The lala clams will open up slightly until you can see the flesh. When you rinse it with water, they will spew or cough up the mud within them and clamp up. Repeat the process. That’s how I rinse and clean the fresh lala clams which I bought.

This is my recipe for Stir Fried Lala Clams Home-Cooked Style

Ingredients

• 400 grammes lala clams (rinse and drained)
• Generous amount of scallions / spring onions (cut into 2 inches length)
• 3 to 4 slices of ginger
• 2 teaspoons of chopped garlic
• 200 ml hot water
• 2 tablespoons cooking oil

Seasoning

• 3 to 5 tablespoons tomato ketchup
• Sugar to taste
• a pinch of salt

Method

Heat oil in wok until smoky. Add ginger and garlic and saute very quickly. As the ginger and garlic starts to give its aroma, add lala clams, water and seasoning.

Stir well before covering the wok. Allow to cook for 30 seconds. Open lid and stir again. Repeat process until the lala clams have opened up indicating that they are cooked.

Finally, add scallions and stir well before dishing up.

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Stir-Fried Lala Clams Home-cooked Style

Tis’ the season to be jolly, fa la la la la, la la la la. I’ve been extremely busy of late and will be as busy for the next 3 months or so. Something is coming up and by the middle of next year, there will be a wide variety of dishes coming right up on Delicious Asian Food.

In the meantime, I haven’t been cooking much but last weekend, I chanced upon some fresh lala clams at the wet market and could not resist getting myself a pound (600 grammes) of them. I am not sure what they are called in other parts of the world, let alone whether they can be found but these lala clams are a local delicacy especially amongst the chinese community in Malaysia.

Lala clams are relatively cheap and is sold in most chinese restaurants which specialises in seafood. If you get them from the wet market or supermarket, they are definitely cheaper than eating out. There are many ways to cook lala clams and some of the popular style of cooking includes stir-fried lala with ginger and scallions, stir-fried lala kam-heong style, chilli lala, ginger lala soup or adding lala into other seafood dishes.

My 600 grammes of lala clams allowed me to cook 2 different dishes with them and you shall see them in the next two posts. Watch this space!

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Lala Clams