Saturday, August 22, 2009

First Ramadan - Creamy Crab, Fried Porgies, Cassava Cake and Sweet Basil Seed Syrup

Today is the first day of Ramadan for 2009. Honey and I are fasting but I did not get up for an early morning breakfast (before sunrise). Honey sahur with his cereal. I had a vivid dream that my mother told me to teach young kids to read Al-Quran. I was thinking how to get a license to teach Al-Quran in the US? In my dream I was waiting for all my brother and sisters to see me. I cannot wait to tell them that mom is going away and will not be back so I need to take over her job as Ustazah. In my dream, we were all living in the army base and are single. In my dream, I didn’t ask mom where she is going. I kind of knowing that she is gone forever and I accepted it.

Around noon, I went out to the Asian store. I need to stock my kitchen with some dry food like rice stick noodle, ketupat Nona, all I can think of flour and ready to serve spices such as rendang, spicy fried rice sambal, and opor. I was also looking for some fresh fish. I found porgies. I bought 4 porgies and it cost me around $15. The price for porgies went up a little. I will deep fry the porgies for our breakfasting meal tonight. I also bought blue crab. That will go into my hot and spicy coconut milk blue crab together with long string beans (kacang panjang).

Oh la la …I forgot to mention that I bought rambutan! Yes, finally, a nice looking rambutan is here in Harrisburg. The price is $6.99 per pound. Very expensive but it looks good.

The recipe for the blue crab in coconut milk is follow this link:

Above is my sweet rose syrup with sweet basil seed (biji selasih).
Next recipe is the fried Porgies:
I asked the fish monger to clean the fish with the head off. He told me that usually he will ask the customer to pay first if the head of the fish need to be removed. He said after the head had cut off, the fish id no longer needed by others if the customer decide not to take it home. I told him that he should say so before he clean the fish. Oh!Well...

At home, I wash the fish again and use a knife to cut half way through the fish to butterfly it.
I am using egg wash to give heavy coat to the fish.
Using 2 separate bowls, I have one bowl with a mixture of 1 egg and ¼ cup of milk.
The second bowl, I have the breaded crumbs and flour. I am using zatarin’s fish fry flour. You can view the picture here:
The first thing I did is to start baking the cassava cake. I am following Gertrude’s recipe for this cake.
Ingredients :

16oz. 454 gm of grated cassava – thawed and use the cheese cloth to wring the juice out.
2 tbsp of melted butter
2 eggs
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup Splenda
2 pandan (screwpine) leaves
3/4 cup of water
1/2 cup coconut milk
2 tbsp of custard powder

1. Boil water with brown sugar, splenda and screwpine (pandan leaf). Strain and let it cool.
2. Melt butter in microwave for 20 second.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degree F. Line an 8" round pan with foil, grease the foil.
4. In a mixing bowl, combine cassava (ubi kayu), sugar syrup, eggs, custard powder, and melted butter. Mix everything well.
5. Pour mixture into greased pan. Bake for 50 minutes. Then use broiler to brown the top for 15 minutes.
6. Cool completely before cutting.

5 comments:

  1. salam ramadhan utk k.zu sekeluarga. Rajinnya k.zu masak for berbuka.. sirap selasih tu nampak sgt refrehing.. especially selepas seharian berpuasa!

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  2. Zue, sedapnya your berbuka puasa spread. Dah lama I tak makan crab. I am going down to Philly on Tues maybe I should buy some :)

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  3. ARGH I love those tadpoles eggs!! Always drink it at Puasa month but too bad I can't have it now.

    BTW I'd also like to thank you for adding me in your blog roll list. It's an honor! Selamat Berpuasa!

    Jessie Chiang

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  4. Lovely photos. I love the sweet rose syrup with sweet basil seed. Do you make your own rose syrup? I've marked your photo for refference so I can come back to try some of your recipes on my pintrest account here: http://pinterest.com/boundnoftwal/drinks/ Is that ok? If you wish I can remove the photo. A link to your webpage is on the top right of the photo, so I can find my way back here.

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  5. Jenny, I like your site. I have no objection as long as you have my link. Thank you for accepting my picture.

    ReplyDelete