I know I’ve already missed posting this during the pre-Christmas baking frenzy but I just got too busy to actually sit down and write posts. In Malaysia however, we not only bake for Christmas, we actually do MORE of our baking for Chinese New Year. That being the case, I am really NOT TOO LATE to post more cookie recipes at this time of the year. (more…)

Jiu Hu Char is a Penang Nyonya dish that we always had when we were home for the holidays. Any special occasion would be a good time to find this dish at our family home. The flavors remind me a little of my mom’s popiah (they share similar ingredients) but this dish is eaten mainly with rice instead of being wrapped in a flour skin.
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Growing up in Malaysia, crab was considered a special treat.  We hardly ever cooked it at home, preferring to visit a seafood restaurant specializing in cooking crabs and other seafoody things.  And the crabs we normally got there were mud crabs.  Mud crabs have very big, meaty claws, smaller bodies, and extremely hard shells.  They were very sweet but require so much work for very little gain.

Over here, we don’t get mud crabs, but Dungeness crabs are even better.  I love that we get so much more meat from the Dungeness, plus the shell is not as hard so it’s easier to get to the meat.  I actually love Dungeness so much that I don’t crave or ask for crab as much when I go home to Malaysia.

The Malaysian sweet-sour style of cooking crab, though, that I do miss.

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It’s football* season! Have you had your chicken wings yet?

Malaysian Barbecued Chicken Wings and Fragrant Chicken Wings

Chicken wings are a favorite football season food. The National Chicken Council estimates that over 3 billion pounds of chicken wings will be consumed in 2012, with more than 100 million pounds eaten during Super Bowl weekend alone!

But if you’re like me, you’ve had many a chicken wing that was seriously over-fried, dried out and chewy. Then those hot wings were covered in hot sauce to make up for the lack of any other flavor. Instead of suffering through another batch of fatally flawed wings, try making these two recipes for chicken wings.

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