Won Ton Mee - Ask first © 2010 R Khooks. Rachel Khoo. All rights reserved

I had 24 hours in Kuala Lumpur before flying on to Sydney for the Edible immigration tales (more to come soon). And there was only thing on my mind in terms of eating when my cousins asked me what I fancied for makan (Malay to eat – over there you don’t ask people how they are, you ask have you eaten yet). It had to be some Won Ton Mee (Won ton with noodles). Just looking at the photos makes my mouth water. The first couple of pics are taken with my old school Pentax K-1000 manual camera, excuse the not so great digital pics.

The food isn’t served anywhere fancy. Like most of the best places in Malaysia, good food comes cheap on plastic plates with punters seated on gardenesque plastic furniture. This place only served Won ton mee (dumplings, noodles with barbecue pork, duck, chicken) and why serve anything else when you do it so well?

Pickled sweet & sour spicy chillies - Ask first © 2010 R Khooks. Rachel Khoo. All rights reserved

Unlike most of the won ton dumplings I taste in Paris or London the pastry was super fine, similar to the texture of silk. It slid way too easily down your neck. Accompanied by a simple plate of chai siu (barbecue pork) noodles. I don’t know what they put in their sauce but it’s seriously addictive. Top that off with the homemade sweet/sour/spicy pickled chillis it was literally as good as I remembered when I had been there five years ago. I later started to eat the chillis on it’s own. I had to stop myself from just literally eating the whole jar.

Malay buildings - Ask first © 2010 R Khooks. Rachel Khoo. All rights reserved

For lunch I managed to squeeze in another favourite Penang Assam laksa. I love anything which uses tamarind. The sour tangyness works in great combination with the spiciness of the dish. The whole dish was quickly slurped and splattered everywhere (eating laksa is a messy business, you know with the noodles and all).

Assam Laksa - Ask first © 2010 R Khooks. Rachel Khoo. All rights reserved

Unfortunately I didn’t have time for Roti Canai for breakfast even though I did happen to stumble across a great offer at the airport. A world away from croissants and pain au chocolats.

Roti Canai Breakfast - Ask first © 2010 R Khooks. Rachel Khoo. All rights reserved

To be continued…

Tags: delicious, Hawker food, Kuala lumpur, Malay chinese, won ton mee

General feeling at the moment is “all talk no action” with the amount of meetings I seem to be going to. So it was with relief I got back in the kitchen on Thursday to bake a few cakes for a photoshoot the following day with Bread & shutter (London based photographer). London is just a hop away on the Eurostar so it’s quite easy to set up a shoot in London from Paris. Although it was a bit of a struggle travelling with all my food styling kit (minus knives, no matter how much I explained that I’m a food stylist and not some mass murderer they wouldn’t let me take them on board).

Tasty cakes were on the menu for this Friday. I’ld been browsing my regular blogs when I came across this. I found the combination very interesting so I thought I’ld give it a go by infusing a crème anglaise or custard with rosemary. Definetly a great combo and I’ll be no doubt be making these again.

Plum & rosemary tartelettes

500g ready made (yes! shock horror I do use the stuff puff pastry
300ml single cream
1 tbsp vanilla essence
100g sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch
2 egg yolks
Several sprigs of rosemary
6 plums
soft butter for cupcake tin

Bring cream to a boil. In another bowl mix together egg yolks, sugar, cornstarch and vanilla essence. When the cream has boiled pour slowly on to the egg yolk mixture while whisking hard. Pour the mixture back into the pot, add a sprig of rosemary and bring to the boil. Make sure to stir constantly as the mixture at the bottom has the tendency of burning. Once the custard has come to a boil, pour into a large shallow dish and leave to cool.
Preheat the oven 170°c. Butter the cupcake tin (12 holes). Roll out the puff pastry to 1/2 cm thickness and cut out 10cm rounds. Place one round into each cupcake hole. Spoon in a generous helping of the rosemary custard (maximum 2/3 full) and bake for 20 minutes. Cut plums into fine semi circle slices and decorate tartelettes. Garnish with a rosemary sprig (don’t each it though). Serve warm or cold.

Tags: bread & shutter, delicious, food shoot, food styling, herbs, london, rosemary, tartelette