Malay Classical Dance

For those who missed the fantastic dance at Drapers Hall by Shein and Azainin there will be a viedo of the whole performance posted on uTube very soon and we'llpost a llink here as well as on Facebook

The Classical Dance performance was followed by a Gala Malaysian dinner. Azanin will be returning to Malaysia soon to her fabulous dance garden that is the centre of Malay Classical Dance in Malaysia

to have a peek click here  http://azanin.net/lamantari/about.html

Simple Asian flavour coleslaw

Warning! You’ll never buy the ready made again and you'll save yourself a lot of money!

The trick is keep it simple. Forget the carrots and red cabbage. Just use white cabbage and red onions.

You'll need a sharp knife, chopping board, bowl of iced water, white cabbage, red onion, mayonnaise, curry paste (preferably Malaysian but Indian will be fine), salt & pepper.

Finely slice the onion and drop into iced water for 5 to 10 minutes (bit longer if you have time). This takes the sting out of the onion and makes it incredibly crunchy. Pat dry with kitchen paper.

finely slice the white cabbage


Next step is to add the spice paste to the mayonnaise, stir thoroughly and mix with cabbage and red onion and there you have it. Wholesome delicious coleslaw with a difference.

QUANTITIES - sometimes you'll make for this just a couple of people and another time you'll make it for a a party so think 'ratio' rather than measurements.
Ratio red onion to white cabbage is just under a quarter so 100gr cabbage to 20gr red onion
Ratio spice paste to mayonnaise - about 1 dessert spoon paste to about 5 dessertspoons of mayonnaise. Some spice pastes are hotter than others and it depends on how spicy you want it.

TIP add small amounts of paste to mayonnaise because like salt, you can add more but you can't take it out.

TIP if you want to make the dressing lighter replace some mayonnaise with yogurt or low fat cheese

TIP any type of onion left in iced water for 10 mintues or so will have less sting and become very crunchy

Think courgette is boring? Think again!

Last week, on a wet and windy day, a group of us went bowling in Brick Lane. I met up with my old colleague Marco Schnepf and as chefs always do we got to talking about food. The subject of courgette came up and Marco gave me tip to turn them into something unusual, simple to prepare and guaranteed that everyone would like them and probably most wouldn’t guess what they were.

I tried it and it’s true. Simple, quick and surpisingly good. Thanks Marco!

You need 2/3 courgette, soy sauce, oyster sauce, oil and frying pan or wok

Rinse and pat dry 2/3 medium courgette.Top and tail them.

Or slice finely in long strips or ribbons – potato peeler is great for this

Get frying pan very hot. Have ready soy sauce, oyster sauce and splash of oil.

Splash some oil into pan. As soon as oil is smoking drop in the courgette, stir for a second or two then add splash of soy and a dollop of oyster sauce (about desert spoon)

Stir another few seconds then tip into warm bowl and serve.

You could cut the courgette into chunks if you prefer and cook for a bit longer.

Cut into julienne or matchsticks – either by knife or by julienne slicer

Nina's cumin oil for salad dressing

I was at my friend Nina’s the other day for dinner and she made the most delicious salad dressing and is the easiest thing to make. Put olive oil into a pan (about 1 cup) and when hot drop in a dessert spoon or so of cumin seed. As soon as the seeds start popping take the pan off the heat to cool. Once cold trickle over salad. You can pass through a seive to remove the seeds if you prefer.

Malaysian Weaves

Your last chance today to see the beautiful collection of Royal Malay fabrics woven painstakingly by hand