Chicken Soup for the Soul

Chicken soup, Malaysian style, is a very simple dish. It's one of the first dishes I learned or rather, was taught to cook. I also taught my 11 year old daughter to make it. My mother, introduced to me a way of making the soup really clear, that is by bringing the water to a boil before dumping in the chicken pieces, so the blood won't mar the transparency of the soup.

I have tweaked the basic chicken soup recipe and come up with variations of it, but the basic Malaysian chicken soup is clear, best served piping hot with white rice, and for those who like to kick it up a notch, with an accompaniment of chilli-spicy sambal.

Sup Ayam (Chicken Soup)

1 whole chicken, cut up into 8-10 pieces
1 medium sized onion, minced/pounded
5-6 garlic cloves, minced/pounded
1-2 inches fresh ginger, minced/pounded
2-3 star anise
2-3 whole cloves
2-3 cardamom pods
1 cinnamon stick
1-2 carrots, peeled and sliced thickly (1/4-1/2 inch thick)
2-3 potatoes, cut into chunks
1 small packet vermicelli thread (optional)
1/4 cup oil
sliced spring onion/green onion for garnish
5 cups water

1. Heat oil and saute minced/pounded ingredients (onions, garlic, ginger) and whole spices (star anise, cloves, cardamoms, cinnamon sticks) till fragrant
2. Add water and bring to a vigorous boil
3. Add in the chicken pieces and cover until chicken is 3/4 cooked (or won't leak out anymore blood)
4. Add carrots and potatoes, continute to boil for another 3-4 minutes
5. Uncover and let simmer till chickens are done, and potatoes and carrots are soft
6. If wish to add vermicelli threads, add at this point and leave to simmer until they become soft
7. Garnish and serve with hot white Jasmine rice

Cook's Notes:

• I had added some taro balls in place of fish balls in the soup, but you can do without it.
• You can also vary this by adding one lightly beaten eggs while the soup is boiling towards the end to produce a Chinese-type soup that has stringy cooked egg bits floating around.

I have to warn those who think of soup as thick soup, that Malaysian/Indonesian (or maybe plain East Asian) soups are usually clear and thin, more akin to the Chinese soups than the Middle Eastern thick and rich soups.

Resurrecting Qabeelat Hayl - Fall '06

Hayl al Awwal, Hayl At-Thaani. No, I'm not talking about the Islamic months. I'm talking about the student body of AlMaghrib institute in the 'cow-tipping' town of Columbus.

Hayl was born in 2004. Hayls' first Almaghrib class was in the spring of 2005, The Code Evolved, taught by Sheikh Yaser Birjas. However, by the beginning of 2006, we were shut down. We didn't meet the required number of students.

The qabeelah on wheels was born. Ann Arbor, Maryland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Chicago. If we had walked, we'd probably be following in Baqiyy's footsteps.

After being bashed mercilessly by Ustadh Muhammad Alshareef in Chicago, we, the sensitive and 'emotional' sisters, took it personally and decided to do something about it. Of course when our emotions left us, we realized the wisdom behind the bashing.

The action plan was born. The promos began. There was buzzing all around, and we were gettin' down to business! I was by then in my first going into the second trimester (did I tell you that my baking frenzy always strike during my pregnancies?). The Haylsters (that's Hayl sisters) were busy preparing for the Promo down at Columbus State. Since I was partially incapacitated by pregnancy, they didn't let me do much, but they didn't know how stubborn I can be.

I told them I had a surprise, inshaallah. It was to be my first ever mass cuppies, all 200 of them. AlMaghrib junood I call 'em: standing proudly with their Almaghrib purple armor, bearing their liwaa flags with the word 'AlMaghrib'.

Those flags by the way, were hastily handwritten, with much love, I might add, by a pregnant woman whose common sense had belied her. She could have asked her husband to print out the AlMaghrib logo, all 200 of them, for the cuppies, but instead, she ordered her children to help her do it the hard way.

She measured the sizes of those little flags. She scrutinized the AlMaghrib logo to figure out the font, and she tried writing it out on paper. It was not easy. She tried again. That sun was one heaven of a thingamajig to draw! But she tried again. After many tries, she got it.

She took a deep breath, sat down, gathered all the colored papers on which she had precisely measured and gridded, and set to work. She wrote, drew, and wrote and drew, until her husband turned to look at her, tsk, tsked, and remarked,

"You're out of your mind."

200 of them. She was going to make 200 of those little flags, by hand, and time was running out. But he knew enough to leave her alone. She can be crazy when it comes to one of her creative strikes. Before long, she has mastered the font and logo, that she could probably do it in her sleep. Yet, she fell short of 200, but she made do. Each flag, she traced with highlighters, pink and blue, mostly, to cover the flaws in her handwritten logos.

On D day, the cuppies were ready, all gussied up, bearing their homemade flags. Worried they might slide and bump into each other in their expansive cuppy boxes, she had her children pipe dots of royal icing on the bottom of each cuppy and stick them in their place in the boxes. Of course, the boxes were lined with aluminum foil, so it'd look nice (also rendering the boxes reusable).

Logictics problem: her fridge wasn't big enough to hold two huge boxes of AlMaghrib junood cuppies.

Solution: the van. The temperature outside was in the forties, perfect fridge temperature. Her husband helped her put those cuppies in the van, and in the van they remained until the time of the promo.

The ride to Columbus State (the site of the promo) was excruciating. Every bump, turn, and stop was unbearable, and no, she was not in labor. Her little cuppies, her little babies, all 200 of them had to stay intact. They just had to! Alhamdulillah, they did. Those little AlMaghrib junood behaved very well, remained in their respective places, and lowered her heartbeat and blood pressure upon frantic checking on arrival.


These cuppies were baked, decorated, and flagged by a pregnant woman who was crazy enough to attempt making 200 (and more) decorated cupcakes, thinking at the back of her mind,

Let's see if I can pull this off. If I can, it would help when I make a decision to open a cupcake business in Malaysia.

And the flags were actually a last minute idea (the reason why she couldn't have them printed, which turned out for the best anyway), since she couldn't find anything at the Cake Craft store to represent AlMaghrib. So they had to be customized.

That, my friends, is the story of the Almaghrib cuppies, lovingly baked, decorated, and agonized over by an AlMaghriber, an auntie Haylster who is about to leave her beloved Haylsters for she doesn't know where soon.

And no, I haven't attempted making anymore cuppies since then. I'm waiting for some Obama ones.

Got Hayl?

Qurma, Kurma or what?

When I was writing up an essay on mothering across cultures for an anthology, I had to google the origin of a Malaysian meat/poultry dish we call Kurma. In Malaysia, Kurma can mean two things; dates (the halal one, not the haram one!) or this particular dish. It can also be spelled Korma.

I am currently reading A Thousand Splendid Suns, a story about Afghanis during the wars, and found the word Qorma, amidst other words that interestingly have the same meaning in Malay too, such as Pahlawan. When I was googling for the origin of this dish, I found that it originated from the Northern India, from the times of the Mughal Empire, which was surprising, because we had always associated the dish (or at least, I have) with the Arabs who came to the Malayan peninsula as traders. I thought that the dish was catered for them who couldn't tolerate the spiciness of some Malay dishes. You truly learn something new everyday, don't you? It almost made me consider taking up learning the history of ethnic foods (which is one subject of interest to me, but then again, I have many subjects of interest).

The Malaysian Kurma can be cooked with chicken or meat, but the spice combo is basically the same for the both. We even have a specific Kurma spice combo sold like curry powder, and was what I used for this recipe. However, you can also make your Kurma spice from scratch if you don't have the Kurma Spice.

Kurma Ayam (Chicken Kurma)

1 whole chicken, cut up into 8 pieces

Kurma Wet Paste:

1/2 cup Kurma spice * }
1 onion, minced } combine in a bowl, and add water to make a wet paste
3 cloves of garlic, minced }

Whole spices:

1 cinnamon stick, broken
3 whole cloves
3 cardamom pods
2 star anise

1 13.5 fl. oz. coconut milk (I use Chaokoh brand)
1 stalk of lemon grass, bruised
1 Tbs lemon juice

2/3 medium sized tomatoes chunks (optional)
2/3 medium potato chunks (optional)
1/2 fresh green chilli pepper slit lengthwise, for garnish (optional)

1/4 - 1/3 cup oil

1. Heat oil and toss in the Wet Kurma Paste and the whole spices.
2. Stir and cook on medium heat until oil breaks the surface (about 5-7 minutes)
3. Toss in the bruised lemon grass stalk and continue stirring occasionally
4. Add in the chicken and stir to coat
5. Add in coconut milk, and simmer till chicken pieces are done (if you wish to add potatoes, add them at this point)
6. Dump in the tomatoes and cook for a few more minutes until the tomatoes are soft, but not too soft
7. Add lemon juice.
8. Plate, and garnish with fresh chilli pepper.
9. Serve with hot white Jasmine rice or Basmati rice (cooked greasy style)


Cook's notes:

• I cooked this in the oven, for simplicity's sake. If you want to do the same, after step 5, cover and pop in the oven until chicken is done. Add the tomatoes towards the end so they'll be soft but not too soft.
• I also baked it uncovered towards the end to make the sauce thick. Traditionally, this dish does not have that thick a sauce, but rather watery yet rich, like curry, due to the coconut milk.
• *If you do not have the Kurma spice (usually available in Malaysia anyway), you can make your own. Simply follow the ratio below, roughly. Double or triple if you need to. Dry roast and then pulverize 3 Tbs ground coriander, 2 tsp ground cumin, 2 tsp fennel seeds, 1/2 tsp ground black pepper, and use in place of Kurma spice.
  

By the way, this is one of the non spicy (chilli spicy) Malaysian dishes, so those who steer away from the fiery spicy, you can try this.

Tiramisu II

Since making tiramisu for the first time, I knew there were tons of changes I was going to make. First and foremost, I don't like cheese that much :D that's no secret, so I was going to use MUCH less cheese, and I was going to skip the eggs- something about raw eggs didn't sit well with me :) I also used Jell-O instant vanilla mix after a sister advised me that it tastes much better this way. I served my cake to guests over the weekend and it was a hit!

So follow this recipe and make the following changes IF you're not much of a cheese fan or looking for more of a vanilla flavour in your cake

* Add one and a half packs of vanilla flavoured Jello-O instant pudding mix
* Skip the eggs
* add only 6 tablespoons of mascarpone cheese
* Add 2 cups of cream
* Keep everything else the same

Notes
- I served each slice with a scoop of french vanilla ice cream :)

Halal Jello

Ever since my toddler's allergies were diagnosed, I started an allergy free diet because I am still nursing him. Wheat free, egg free, dairy free, soy free, and peanut free it was. It was not easy. I craved ice cream, I mourned over baked goods, I missed bread, I eyed the bottle of soy sauce with ardent longing.

Now, I'm much better at doing without food that has all the above allergens, and like all mothers to allergic children, I have come to terms with eating allergy free food. In my quest for munchable snacks, I turned to a kind of dessert that I used to eat with gusto when I was a child.

Agar-agar is derived from seaweed. It can also be a substitute for eggs in some cases, and when cooked and cooled, is akin to the western Jello, though I would say that the jello has a different texture. Nevertheless, I call agar-agar Halal Jello. Now let's not open that can of worm, shall we? ;)

When I first came to the United States, I didn't know how to cook, much less make a simple agar-agar dessert (which is very simple by the way). I remember my roommate pouring about a teaspoon of the boiled liquidy agar-agar into a bowl and chucking it into the freezer. I simply looked on, curious. She then took it out and lo and behold, the agar-agar had cooled to a firm jelly-like miniscule slab. We tested it...in our mouth. It was too hard (if I remember it correctly), so we added more water to the boiling agar-agar mixture on the stove and kept stirring.

I seldom make this dessert, but after the allergies, I started making it. But I remember the hassle of this checking process, so I took the trouble to take measurements when I made them. So, I needed only to use the freezer for this in the very beginning, and from thereon after, I kept my measurements for easier future reference.

This is really a nice dish to play around with, in terms of flavoring and design. I guess, it can be categorized as one of those 'cool edible kitchen experiments'. You can also add eggs to the boiling mixture, and produce a rich, interesting textured agar-agar, but since I couldn't take eggs, I experimented only with coconut milk and flavoring. In this case, I decided to make it caramel, after enjoying Shida's delish caramel agar-agar once, a long time ago.

I had the kids brainstorm a name for this particular agar-agar I whipped up, and because of the color, they came up with Cougar (due to the color and the 'gar' in it, for agar-agar). So, Cougar it was.

Cougar

8 cups water
2 cups (1 13.5 fl oz can) coconut milk (I use Chaokoh brand)
1 45g packet of agar-agar
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup palm sugar/dark brown sugar
1 Pandan leaf (screwpine leaf) tied into a knot

1. Bring 8 cups of water to a vigorous boil.
2. Add the palm/dark brown sugar, and stir till dissolved
   


3. Stir it occasionally. Agar-agar should begin to dissolve.
   


4. Meanwhile, make dry caramel (a very informative article on it by David Lebovitz) by cooking the granulated sugar in a saucepan on medium heat. Keep an eye on it because the sugar will melt and turn brown. Stir till sugar turns into a dark amber colored liquid. Quickly take the saucepan off the burner to stop it from burning.
   


5. Stir the mixture when the hissing stops. (You can come closer to the pot now), Add in the knotted pandan leaf.
   


6. Pour in the coconut milk. Stir till combined, for about 5-7 minutes.
   


7. Pour into your desired dish/pan/mould through a fine sieve.


8. Let cool so it can harden.
   


9. Cut into desired shapes.

Cook's Notes:

• You can use any dish/mould. Malaysians like to use interesting moulds to create interesting shaped agar-agar. I simply used my pyrex dish. You can also use fancy knives or cookie cutters to cut them into interesting shapes if you want.




• If you do use a mould, gently slide a spread knife to slide it out of the mould onto a plate. Make sure you have the plate ready, or you might be chasing a runaway wobbly agar-agar on your table or worse yet, your kitchen floor! (thanks to my imagination)




• Wonderingn how to clean that dirty sieve? Well, you may want to put the sieve under running cold water so the remaining agar-agar would cool and harden, and you can just peel it off before washing your sieve.




• The Pandan leaf adds fragrance to the agar-agar. Omitting it would be akin to omitting vanilla essence, so do without it if you don't have any.




• If you cook the mixture too long after pouring in the coconut milk, you might not get the two layered look in the picture above, but the taste will still be the same though.

Feast your eyes on these amazing agar-agar creations:

Lily Wai Sek Hong's Rainbow Agar-Agar
This agar-agar was sliced with what my kids would call a 'fancy' knife, hence the scalloped sides.

Lily's Wai Sek Hong's Agar-Agar Batik
This agar-agar depicts a batik pattern, a an artform mastered by the Indonesians and I would also say some Malaysians of the East Coastern regions.

Rose's Pandan Custard Agar-Agar from Rose's Kitchen

jthorge's Agar-Agar Talam from Jthorge's Kitchen

Boo_licious's entry: A plethora of fancy creations! from Masak-Masak
This Ramadan Bazaar takes place in hubby's old neighborhood too!

e's joie's Milo Agar-Agar from e's joie

Gifst From the Kitchen's Watermelon Shaped Pudding

Delicious Thai Agar-Agar from My Baking and Cooking Passion

Green Agar-Agar Made by a 13 year-old boy! from Food Haven


So what are you waiting for? Head on to the nearest Asian grocery store and purchase a packet of agar-agar, and let the cool kitchen creation begin!