Bubur Pedas

Bubur Pedas Sarawak which is a signature dish from Sarawak. Apparently there is no equivalent of this soup elsewhere in South East Asia. However throughout Sarawak there seems to be as many recipes as there are Malay Grandmothers!! So do not be surprised if the competition is keen on whose is the best in Sarawak!!


1 pkt bumbu bubur pedas available in most supermarkets now. Follow the instructions on the packet.

100 gm chicken (chopped finely) More if you like more meat

2 - 3 long beans (cut into 2 inch pieces)

6 young corn

2 pieces of foocuk (break into small pieces)

4 - 6 pieces of Chinese mushrooms

6 leaves of Singkel - sliced very fine.(If you cannot get this you can omit it)

6 tumeric leaves (sliced finely)

6 dried chillies (pound finely)

3 small onions. (Pound finely)

3 garlic pips (Pound finely)

a small bundle of rice vermicelli (soaked in water)

2 tablespoons cooking oil for frying the aromatics.

2 cups of thick coconut milk

2 cups of thin coconut milk

(You can use skimmed milk if you like)

Salt to taste

Some extra water if the porridge becomes too thick.

(This is enough for four -six people)

The Bubur pedas Sarawak should be thick and not watery. Some people add yam or sweet potatoes to make the bubur thick. If you like you can do so.
However this is an acquired taste so you need to try a little bit first before you start cooking on your own.










This is a speciality from Sarawak commonly served in Ramadhan. The main ingredient is the Bubur Pedas bumbu (spices) which are sold by locals specially in Ramadhan month. The must have vegetables are Midin (red fern), young corns, long beans and black fungus. Other vegetables are added according to individual's preference. Beef, chicken or prawns are added to complement the vegetables.

Kek Lapis Sarawak

Kek Lapis is a local favourite – an elaborately baked cake with multiple and colourful layers that is not only a feast to the eyes but to the palate. The Sarawak Layer cake is often baked during the cultural or religious occasions, birthdays and weddings. This cake has a firm texture with perfectly-spaced layers and a lightly sweet taste.

"Kek Lapis Sarawak (Sarawak Layer Cake) is cone of the handcraft introduced by the old generation of Sarawak. With the patients and concentration, Kek Lapis Sarawak nowadays is offered with unique patterns and various flavors."
















Kek Lapis Sarawak has been around much longer than that, as it is traditionally the main staple for the Malays as they celebrate Hari Raya Aidil Fitri (the end of Ramadan, the fasting month). The cakes are interesting as it was almost always colourful, use lots of eggs (sometime about 30 eggs for one loaf of cake), and kept stored in the refrigerator for six months! And it tastes good too!

Kolok Mee

Here is another noodle-based dish which has been everyone’s favourite besides Sarawak Laksa. It is a Yee Mee noodle (which is used for sizzling dish) and serves with beef stock with additional condiments like sliced beef, or fried tofu. “Sambal Kicap” is also the additional condiment which will give the extra zing into the noodle-soup-like-dish.



3-4 rolls bun noodles / non-fried noodles
1 tbsp soup mixes
100 g of beef
adequate water
pinch of salt
5 cloves garlic (minced)
8 bean chilli
1 tsp black pepper
4 tablespoons of cooking oil
5 tbsp sweet soy sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
2 pcs calamansi (take juice)
spring onions and coriander leaves (chopped)
1 tsp fish sauce / soy sauce
1 tsp vinegar

Ways :

FOR SOUP: Boil soup meat with seasoning, salt and water. Boil until tender. Once cooked, drain the meat and hiriskan nipis2. Set aside the broth / soup (can reheat it and add a little water if dropped).

FOR MEE: Boiled noodles together a little salt until tender (about 40 seconds). Remove and drain.
Heat 2 tbsp cooking oil viewed in the pan. Fry the garlic until golden. Remove. Add the drained noodles to what has been viewed in a pan and fry the onion for a while used oil containers last with vinegar, fish sauce / soy sauce and a little salt. Remove and set aside.
About in the same token pan, heat 2 tbsp of cooking oil and fry the meat was sliced ​​last. Enter the dark soy sauce, 1/2 tbsp sweet soy sauce, black pepper and a pinch of salt. Remove.

FOR sauce: Mash / blend with cayenne 1 clove garlic until fine. Then mix together the sweet soy sauce and calamansi juice extraction. (if  doesn't have sweet soy sauce, soy sauce could use a bit of salt and sugar added)

Serving way: Prepare a serving plate. Enter the noodles, pour a little soy sauce and stir. Then sprinkle the meat, garlic, garnish with crispy fried onion. Prepare a bowl of soup sprinkled with parsley broth bargain if you like.
if you wanna **** noodles atmosphere this wonderful life again, if love can also be mixed with mustard / fishball / fishcake / crabstick / Prawns / etc chicken (boiled first but yer)

Ayam Pansuh ( Manok Pansuh)

Chicken Cooked in Bamboo




This is tradition food of the Ibans
people from Borneo, now this place is called
Sarawak, east Malaysia

INGREDIENTS:


A: 1kg whole chicken, cut into small pieces

B:

8 cloves garlic, finely chopped
5 red onion, finely chopped
6 stalks lemongrass, thinly sliced
100g galangal, finely chopped
100g ginger, finely chopped
20g torch ginger flower / bay leaves
10 red chilies, sliced
1 tbsp salt


C:

1 bamboo log or aluminum foil
5 stalks tapioca leaves






METHOD:

Wash and clean the chicken pieces.

Mix ingredients B in a large bowl & combine with chicken pieces. Set it aside for at least 20 minutes.

Stuff the mixture into the bamboo log or aluminum foil & seal it with a gob of tapioca leaves.

Cook it slowly over burning wood/charcoal for 45 minutes or bake at 120 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes.

To serve, remove the tapioca leaves & drain the tasty juice into a bowl.

Extract the chicken and arrange on a serving dish with the juice.



Chicken cooked in bamboo:

Umai

Umai is "Melanau's sashimi"! It is thinly sliced fish either eaten raw by dipped into a specially prepared sauce or marinated with calamondin lime, onions, chillies and some gingers.Few types of fish can be used to prepare Umai, but the most common one is this Empirang fish with gold body color. It is not too hard to recognize this fish in the market.

Empirang Fish

The umai is made of raw fish. The fish is cut and sliced into pieces and are then mixed with lime, vinegar, chilies and onion to taste. As far as I know, the acidic vinegar and lime somehow caused the fish to turn from raw to cook. The gist in preparing a good umai is of course the fish. As fresh fish is easily available in Mukah, it is no doubt that the bountiful catch is used to make umai.

Ingredients (A)

8 large scallops (approx. 150g)
6 limes, juiced (limau kasturi)
A pinch of sugar
1/4 tsp salt
A pinch of white pepper


Ingredients (B)
4-5 red chillies (I used cili padi)
3cm lemongrass
1/2 clove garlic
1 shallot
1.5cm ginger


A few coriander leaves

Method:

1. Fillet the fish and cut into smaller slices.

2. Add in sliced onion, red chilli, shallot, ginger, bunga kantan.

3. Add in lime juice.

4. Season to taste with salt and sugar. Mix evenly.

5. Refrigerate for minimum 1-hour.

6. Groundnut can be mixed together before refrigerate, or just before serving.

7. Serve.

Steamed Red Bario Rice

Bario Rice is regarded by the natives as the best and finest rice from the highlands of Sarawak. According to the natives, the rice is only eaten by the longhouse chief on special occasion. One thing to note is that during the planting of Bario rice, no pesticides or chemical fertilizers are used, hence it’s perfect for the health-conscious. Although the steamed Bario rice seemed easy to prepare, it had a different flavour compared to the normal white rice that we’re used to having. It’s more fragrant, soft, less starchy and definitely healthier. Bario rice was perfect with the Rendang 

Laksa Sarawak

I have been refraining myself from putting up this dishes, as I felt that it does not really can be categorized into traditional food. But what is a Sarawak Food website without it's Laksa Sarawak?
Laksa Sarawak I should say, is the most famous dish which is easily identifiable with Sarawak, thanks to internet and blogging world. I love laksa and curries a lot, and while I cannot say which one is the best, to me Laksa Sarawak is... home. Those who compares Laksa Sarawak with the other laksa in Malaysia, does not understand what Laksa Sarawak is about.
The local Sarawak laksa is a creamy, spicy, local variation of Malaysia's ubiquitous soup-noodle bowl. Jumbo prawns, fresh lime, and coriander lend a unique flavor to the broth which is thicker than that found in most noodle bowls - heavy but delicious. The noodles are usually made from thin vermicelli.

To make Laksa Sarawak is actually quite easy and does not require precise cooking skill, provided you can obtain the laksa paste which is available only in Sarawak. You can buy it online, you can also obtained the Halal-produced laksa paste. Not that the non-Halal-produced contained any non-halal ingredient anyway. The only reason why Laksa Sarawak making is such a fuss is that the preparation of the laksa base and its garnishing can be pretty time consuming. I will add few tips on how to 'repair' the laksa if it is not up to your expectation at the end, which I have learned myself and you might not normally encounter in other Laksa Sarawak recipe.



Ingredient:
For laksa gravy~
1 packet of Laksa Sarawak paste
2 litres of water (or chicken stock)
500gm of chicken parts (skinless)
1 cup of thick coconut milk
Salt to taste


For garnishing~
Rice vercimelli (blanced in slightly warm water and drained)
Bean Sprout (blanced in hot water for abt 10 second and dump in cold water)
Coriander
Lime
Omellete (slice thinly)
Chicken shreds (used back from the laksa stock making)
Prawn (skin peeled-off and deveined. Put the shell and the head back into the gravy base)

For side dip~
Shrimp paste (belacan)-grill lightly
Dry chillies
1 tbsp water
Cooking
(Pound dry chillies, saute then add in belacan. Add in a bit of water for desired consistency).



Method:

1. Boil chicken parts in water. Once cooked, take it out and cooled it down. Once cool, shred the chicken meat off the bones. Put back the bones to the gravy base.

2. The prawn's shell and it's head, put it to be boil together with the gravy base.

3. To prepare prawn, boil some water in separate pan. Cook for a minute, then take out and dump the prawn in icy water to stop it from further cooking. Drain and keep it in the fridge until ready to use.

4. Add laksa paste into the gravy base. Stir it often.

5. Add in the coconut milk. Set the fire to medium low and let it simmer until the oil separate.

6. Add salt to taste.

7. Garnish with the following order:

-Rice vercimelli

-Gravy

-Bean Sprout and Chicken shreds

-Omellette

-Coriander

-Prawn

8. During serving, squeeze lime over the Laksa Sarawak for extra zing















Tips:

1. Add some of the shrimp paste side dip if you need more umph when you are cooking your gravy

2. Try torch ginger to elevate your laksa gravy further. It's not the traditional ingredient, but it's lovely nevertheless

3. I understand that lots of other non-Sarawakian likes to put additional garnishing into their Laksa Sarawak, but we Sarawakian knows that this is a sin! :D

Midin masak belacan

Stir Fried Midin with Shrimp Paste   

Midin (Stenochlaena palustris-source here ) is one type of jungle ferns that can be found in a tropical South East Asia countries. In Sarawak, these can be found in abundance, and it has become a very familiar vegetable dish especially in restaurants. Locally it is also being called milin or bilin.

 Photo sourced from Local Vegetables of Thailand site

Before the commercialization of midin, the Dayak has been consuming midin for a very long time. However, they normally consumed the more leafy portion of midin which is also known as Paku Merah. It is identified by its red color, and it'll turn to green when it is fully mature and become inedible. Since only the leaves are used and it produced less bulk when it wilted, they normally will add-in a bit more water to this stir-fried dish, or added into simple 'one-dish' soup which consist of few types of protein and vegetables.
The recipe provided below is a simple daily home-cooked stir fried midin. The photos provided have the same recipe, with the leafy type is added with more water.


Ingredient:

2 bunch of Midin (cut to about 15cm from the curled head and washed)

2 cloves of Garlic

1 Shallot

Anchovies

2-3 Bird eye's chillies

2cm cube Shrimp paste (belacan)

Salt to taste

50ml Water


Method:

1. Pound anchovies, shallots, chillies and shrimp paste (medium coarse)

2. Smashed garlic. Saute with skin intact until golden brown.

3. Stir in the shrimp paste mixture until fragrant.

4. Stir in the midin for about a minute. Careful not to overcook.

5. Add in small amount of water. Add in salt to taste. Serve immediately.