Daun Pegaga Masak Lemak (Centella In Turmeric Coconut Gravy)

Daun Pegaga aka Centella, Gotu Kola or the Asiatic Pennywort is mostly eaten raw in Ulam, a Malaysian rice salad or cooked 'masak lemak' style, that is, in coconut milk gravy.

Centella In Turmeric Coconut Gravy

It's also delicious in Urap, an Indonesian salad consisting of steamed vegetables mixed with seasoned grated coconut. I will try it this way one day. For now, I'm having my Daun Pegaga in a yummy coconut gravy with pounded fresh turmeric, strips of dried squid and anchovies. The aroma was tantalising and I felt an urge to eat it fresh out of the pan even before it touched the dinner table. Tsk, tsk!

Below is a picture of Daun Pegaga. It is a little tougher than most greens I know and is mildly bitter-tasting but not unpleasant. I munched away quite happy with the flavour.

Daun Pegaga / Centella Asiatica / Gotu Kola

Daun Pegaga Masak Lemak (Centella In Turmeric Coconut Gravy)
Ingredients:
- 40g daun pegaga (snip roots away, cut in half)
- 1 lemongrass (smashed)
- 1 red chilli (pounded)
- ½ thumb fresh turmeric (pounded)
- 15 dried anchovies (rinsed)
- 1 tbsp dried squid strips (optional) (soaked for 10 mins and rinsed)
- ½ cup coconut milk
- 1 cup water
- ⅛ tsp salt (to taste)
- Half ⅛ tsp sugar (to taste)

Method:
1) Heat milk and water in pan. Bring to a simmer, just below boiling point.
2) Then, add lemongrass, turmeric, chilli, dried anchovies and dried squid strips. Cook for a couple of minutes for the flavour to come together. Stir constantly and keep it from boiling.
3) Season with salt and sugar.
4) Finally, add in daun pegaga. Cook until done like you would any green leafy vegetable.

From top-left : Ingredients, Simmer All The Ingredients, Serve!

Best eaten with rice.

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Chicken Satay Pizza - The Shortcut!

This is easy to make and especially so if you're living in Malaysia where good chicken satay is sold everywhere. Oh, the convenience!

Lightly charred skewered chicken pieces, grilled over hot charcoal, is the stuff of heaven for locals. The meat is marinated in a blend of herbs and spices usually consisting of lemongrass, ginger, galangal, cumin seeds, fennel and turmeric making it delightfully flavourful.

If you're looking for a shortcut to a delicious meal, then this recipe is for you. It's something you make when you're not up to doing a whole lot of work for good-tasting pizza. 

My husband enthused after trying this once, "We should think about stocking up on pizza dough ...just in case." I don't think I need to elaborate on what he means by 'just in case'. It looks like pizza dough is going to be a regular grocery purchase, and we'll be ordering satay takeaways more often!

Chicken Satay Pizza

Chicken satay is typically sold (in Malaysia at least) with spicy peanut gravy, fresh cucumber and onions included. This is all you need to make the pizza topping. For best results, use thick peanut sauce.

Chicken Satay Pizza
Ingredients:
- 1pc 9" ready-made pizza dough/base (I went with Tricious)
- 8 sticks grilled chicken satay (remove meat from skewers) + thick spicy peanut sauce, fresh onions and cucumber
- ½ packet Family Favourites 150g pizza topping with mozzarella
Optional
- 1 red chilli (sliced)
- 1 green chilli (sliced)

How-to:
1) Place pizza dough onto a piece of baking paper. Spread the spicy peanut sauce on top (scoop on more peanut than the liquid.).
2) Top with with chicken satay pieces, the onions, red chilli and green chilli.
3) Finally, sprinkle grated mozzarella pizza topping around.
4) Bake in a pre-heated oven according to instructions on the pizza base box. 
5) Eat with chilled cucumbers on the side!

Don't thank me for being a genius. The credit goes to my close friend Sharmini Segari, who shared the idea with members in our cooking group some three years ago.

1) The Ingredients 2) Spread satay sauce on
3) Top with chicken, onion, chilli 4) Sprinkle grated mozzarella around
5) Bake in the oven!

Best enjoyed with friends and family!

Chicken Satay Pizza

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Squid In Coconut Milk (Spicy)

For as long as I can remember, we have always called this 'Sotong Masak Lemak'. Lemak, meaning 'fats' in the Malay language, refers to the coconut milk that is the key ingredient in a masak lemak recipe. Masak means cook and Sotong, is squid.

Although we (largely) speak English at home, no one would catch what it was exactly that I would be dishing out for dinner if I said I was cooking 'Squid In Coconut Milk' . Cue cricket sound, followed by a chorus of "Eww!". No whoops of yahoo or hooray until I say it in the name they are familiar with. It's similar to calling Kuih Kapit aka Love Letters a 'Clamped Snack'. The former sounds much better, of course. Some food names are best left untranslated in my opinion, but for blogging purposes, I try my best!

Squid In Creamy Coconut Milk - a little spicy!

Getting back to this yummy take on a local favourite - This dish is pretty common in our region because of our obsession with food laced with coconut milk and grated coconut. Pop into any Malay food stall and you'll see a variety of masak lemak dishes. I've made a creamier version, as you can see from the thickness of the gravy. This can be diluted with a bit more water, if that's your preference.

As I've added bird's eye chilli into the mix, this is a wee bit spicy. No heavy seasoning required as the gravy is already sweetish on it's own.

Squid In Coconut Milk (Spicy)
Ingredients:
- 250g squid (sliced)
- 2 red chilli (sliced in the middle as shown below)
- 1 lemongrass (smashed)
- A small turmeric leaf or ½ a large leaf (thinly sliced, primary vein removed)
- 200ml coconut milk
- Some water
- Salt to taste

For the turmeric paste (ingredients to blend):
- 1 thumb fresh turmeric (roughly chopped)
- 7 green bird's eye chilli (deseeded)
- 3 medium red onions (roughly chopped)
- 2 cloves garlic (roughly chopped)
- 1 lemongrass (thinly sliced)

How-to:
1) Make turmeric paste. Blend ingredients listed above with ¼ cup coconut milk and ¼ cup water, until fine.

2) Heat pan on low. Pour in turmeric paste and add in the red chilli and smashed lemongrass. Simmer or cook on a low boil for several minutes to combine the flavour, and until the red chilli is slightly tender. Stir slowly, and continuously.

3) Add a little water into the blender (about 2 tbsp). Rinse out the remaining paste and pour this into the pan along with the remainder of the coconut milk. Add the turmeric leaf. Keep stirring and allow it to come to a low boil.

4) Add the squid. Season with salt. Stir until squid is done.

1) Ingredients required. 2) Blend the ingredients into a paste.
3) The paste turns into a nice orange-yellow thanks to the turmeric. 4) Cook the paste for several minutes.

1) Add coconut milk and turmeric leaf. 2) Add the squid.
3) Season with salt and it's done.

Squid In Coconut Milk (Spicy)

Squid In Creamy Coconut Milk- Great with rice!

Best eaten with rice. Could go yum with bread, but it isn't my favourite way.

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Coconut Prawn Curry

Home cooking as it is - I can pick up a cookery book intending to follow a recipe to the dot, but very much end up with something completely different when I'm done.

For me, it's a tug of war between buying too many little ingredients and using what I already have on hand. Most times, I go with the latter and get a feel of what the taste buds are telling me for the day. Sensible me!

This dish is a modified version of Chef Wan's Otak-Otak Makanan Laut (Seafood Otak-Otak) which I picked out from the recipe book 400 Resipi Terbaik Chef Wan. Chef Wan is the Food Ambassador of Malaysia. He is an amazing source of inspiration to me when it comes to cooking local food. A ton of spices, ingredients .... he doesn't cut corners! There are no shortcuts in his recipes.There are, however, in mine.

In short, I had set out to emulate a great Chef but ended up being 'just plain old me' - the home cook who's cautious about having too many food ingredients lying around. I say haha to that!

So, this is my version of a spicy coconut delight. ❤

Coconut Prawn Curry

It's strongly flavoured. I say this because the tom yum paste that I have used for this recipe is packed with taste. Best eaten with plain rice!

Coconut Prawn Curry
Ingredients:
- 1 young coconut (clean, save the coconut water and spoon out flesh, keep aside)
- 320g medium prawns (cleaned)
- 15 to 20 sweet basil leaves (chopped)
- 3 dried kaffir lime leaves (leaf stems removed, crushed)
- 1 limau nipis/key lime
- 1 red chilli (sliced)
- 1 tbsp blended dried red chilli
- 1 tbsp tom yum paste or to taste (bottled variety)
- 1 tbsp curry powder (mix a bit of water in, into a thick paste)
- 1 tsp kerisik (toasted coconut paste)
- ¼ tsp brown sugar
- 1 to 2 tbsp cooking oil
- Water, if necessary

How-to:
1) Heat oil in pan. Saute tom yum paste. Once browned, add curry powder and blended chilli. Stir quickly.

2) Add toasted coconut paste, sweet basil and kaffir lime leaves. Squeeze lime juice in and add brown sugar. Stir well, allow it to cook for a bit. Then, add coconut water. (Add water only if you want more gravy or find the flavour too strong.)

3) When the water begins to simmer, stir the prawns and red chilli into the mix.

4) Once the prawns are cooked, switch the heat off and gently stir the coconut flesh in.

1) Gathering the ingredients. 2) Spooning out the coconut flesh.
3) Yummy coconut flesh that's begging to be eaten.
4) Deveined prawns, with head and tail left on.

1) Saute tom yum paste. 2) Added the flavouring, now for the prawns.
3) Adding the chilli. 4) After everything is cooked, stir the coconut flesh in.

I served this in the coconut shell but could not fit it all in. The remainder went directly onto my plate of rice!

Coconut Prawn Curry And Rice!

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Ayam Percik - My Version Is Flavourful Oven-Roasted Chicken

Ayam Percik is a popular barbecue chicken dish in Malaysia. The chicken is typically basted with a spicy coconut based gravy. Ayam means chicken in Malay and percik means to splash or sprinkle. Generally, it is taken to mean 'baste'. That's what this recipe calls for - frequent basting.

Roll your sleeves up for this one. It's going to take some work and patience but I assure you it's worth the trouble.

I didn't just decide to make this out of the blue. It came about out of a small fun activity on our Facebook cooking group ~ a decision to cook a local dish to commemorate Malaysia's Independence Day. I chose this recipe because I felt it reflected our love for flavourful food. Check out our cooking group to see some of the dishes that our members whipped up for the special occasion.

For now, feast your eyes on this oven-roasted masterpiece ..ahem...and yes, o-v-e-n because it was more convenient. But if you're a stickler for doing it right, then this should go on a charcoal grill.

Ayam Percik

It's not as spicy as it looks. I did not use a lot of chili for this recipe. Taste-wise, very rich because of the many layers of flavour. This is chicken with a generous amount of gravy roasted on. It was a real treat tucking into this one. I wish I made more! Here's the recipe.

Ingredients:
- 2 pcs chicken whole leg
- 1 stalk lemongrass (Discard dry outer layer and trim off top and bottom. Smash)
- 1 tsp tamarind paste
- ¼ cup coconut milk
- ½ tsp brown sugar
- Salt to taste
- Water
- Cooking oil

Ingredients A: To marinate
- 1 tsp turmeric powder
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1 tsp brown sugar
- ½ tsp salt

Ingredients B: To blend
- 4 red chili (Roughly chopped)
- 1 medium onion (Roughly chopped)
- 2 cloves garlic (Chopped)
- 1 thumb ginger (Chopped)
- ½ thumb turmeric (Chopped)
- 2 pcs candlenut (Smashed)
- 2 stalks lemongrass (Discard dry outer layer and trim off top and bottom. Then, slice.)

Top : Marinate. Middle: Ingredients. Bottom: Blend.

How-to:
1) Marinate chicken with ingredients A for two hours.

2) After two hours, blend ingredients B (I added a bit of water to get things going).

3) Preheat oven. Keep a roasting tray with grill on hand.

4) Heat oil in pan. Add lemongrass, blended ingredients and tamarind paste. Stir-fry for a couple of minutes until it thickens slightly.

5) Add coconut milk and season with brown sugar and salt, to taste. Simmer for a few minutes until the gravy thickens a little.

6) Lower the heat. Add marinated chicken legs, coat quickly with gravy and remove. Place the chicken on the roasting tray.

7) Cook the remaining gravy for awhile longer. Switch the stove fire off. Set aside half of the gravy for basting and half for serving.

8) Roast chicken at 190C in the pre-heated oven for an hour or more (until cooked), basting frequently with the gravy. I basted four times and turned the chicken over twice.

9) Once done, serve the chicken with rice and the remainder of the gravy.

Blend ingredients B.

Cook blended ingredients.

Coat the chicken quickly.

Roasting halfway. Time to baste!

Turn over again and baste.

Ayam percik ready to be eaten with rice.

Ayam Percik ~ A Malaysian favourite.

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Updated: 17/09/13

 

Because this dish is a first for me (..I did it my wayYy), I've submitted this post to Our Growing Edge, a monthly blogging event by Bunny.Eats.Design aimed at connecting food bloggers and inspiring us to try new things.

This month's event is hosted by Marnelli from Sweets & Brains. Check out her amazing blog.

I'd also like to thank Abbe from Abbe's Cooking Antics! for sharing this wonderful event with me (ages ago) and for encouraging my cooking journey. A ton of hugs is headed her way.

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