Most of the Malaysian/Singaporean restaurants here in the Bay Area are not quite authentic because their chefs use local ingredients and adjust their recipes to suit local tastes. Here in San Jose, we’re lucky to have a branch of the Singapore-based restaurant chain Prima Taste. Prima Taste ships all their sauces pre-made from Singapore, and so preserve the flavors.
We’re also lucky that an Asian grocery near our place carries the Prima Taste brand of sauce and seasoning packets, for a pretty good price. This is their Singapore Curry Laksa.
You have to buy all the fresh ingredients – the noodles, bean sprouts, fish cake, shrimp, and egg. But to make the soup you just add the contents of the spice packet to water and bring to a boil, then assemble all the ingredients. In no time, you’ll have a delicious bowl of fragrant laksa.
When Annie makes won tons, it’s no small matter. She makes enough to feed an army — and have leftovers to feed them another night!
Ground pork mixed with minced shrimp, garlic, ginger, onion, green onion, water chestnut. Seasoned with salt, pepper, soy sauce, chicken bouillon, and sesame oil. The package of won ton wraps contains about 90 skins.
When we go out to dim sum, we always look for the cart carrying the “char siu sou”, or char siu pillow puffs. They are so enticing, with a delightfully flaky crust and savory filling. Annie got a hold of a recipe to make these at home.
Finely diced char siew fried with shallots and seasoned with oyster sauce, dark soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil and thickened with flour and water.
Make a pastry dough. Flatten them into squares and spoon a little filling in the center. Fold the dough over and press closed with the back of a fork. Brush with egg wash and bake.
Not quite restaurant dim sum quality, but tasty nonetheless. We’ll have to do this again and perfect the recipe.
We had some fresh bamboo shoot in the fridge that was yearning to be used. We also had some green beans going as well as more char siu. So we cut them all up and stir-fried them together. Garnished with fried shallots.
Just a bit of “Musgovian” (or “simply hantam,” as Annie would say) cooking. She’s very good at this kind of cuisine.
