Chap chye recipe podcast

A year or so ago, I told my colleague that I would learn from my mum how to make chap chye and pass some over to her. Busy as we all are, I procrastinated until I felt it could not pass into 2010 (how to make someone wait for 2 years for chap chye? So, I decided to make a trip to the Mayflower wet market with my mum so I could learn which ingredients needed to be bought and from where… Its difficult to get this all from any supermarket so a visit to the wet market is a must.

My mum, sis and I chillaxing out at the wet market over laksa, chai tao kueh and fish ball noodles.

Learning the recipe involved more than just the cooking. It meant having breakfast at the market with my mum and sis (who loves to tag along) and spending a lovely morning chatting away. Its something to savour… and somehow if you are mindful, it helps in the cooking process as well. No rushing.

The finished product, a culinary treasure from the Peranakan heritage. It tastes good too.

All the ingredients should be in and none left out but I think the essential ingredients are the prawn head stock and the black fungus. The fungus imparts a nice woody and slightly pungent aroma to the dish.

Here’s a podcast of the recipe as narrated by my mum, I have taken the liberty of adding some music from the starfishstories.wordpress.com. I chose the song Ivan and I wrote for our friends Siva and Airani entitled “The mangrove tree”. I think the song goes well with the dish.

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Singapore. Download at ARCHIVE.ORG.

Recipe (text)
Heat up oil, fry garlic 2 table spoons
Dou chio (ground) – 10 tablespoons
Fry dou chio until wangi
Belly pork cut into small, fry until cooked
Pour in water (half) or stock (prawn head that is fried and boiled in water for 20 mins to make stock)
Put in white cabbage (kobis) cut big pieces

Giam tou kee (dried and long pressed bean curd) rendam for 15 mins or until softer
Sweet tou kee (cut into squares) rinse
Dried Lily buds tie 2 (cut off stalk) rendam (soak in water) for half hour and remove dirt.
Soft black fungus – bok zhee (50 cts worth; its soft). Soak until kembang (pluck out the stem)
Until comes to a boil.
Let it simmer for another hour or so until all is soft and mushy.

This is a picture of the fermented bean paste that I used.

Athletes in mind and body

Congrats Team Singapore! Didn’t realise that they were coming back. I also missed the tv coverage of the Paralympic Events. There’s been some debate about the prize money . Kudos to Ms Eunice Olsen – you’ve been a real voice. But in the end, is it about the prize money? How these paralympians must have been so proud of themselves. They must have surpassed so many barriers mentally and physically to have come so far. This post is dedicated to celebrating their victory and thanking them for being such heroes and such beacons of hope and inspiration!

“Lets give our sporting heroes a rousing welcome home!
Our Team Singapore athletes have done us proud!

Lets give them a rousing welcome at the airport when they return home on the 18th September!

Date: 18 September 2008 (Thursday)
Time: 10pm (Subject to changes depending on their flight schedule)
Flight: SQ 805
Venue: Changi Airport Terminal 3, Arrival Hall

We will be holding an event at Orchard Cineleisure as well in celebration of our athletes’ achievements.
Come up close and celebrate with our athletes on 20 Sept 08!

Date: 20 Sep 2008 (Saturday)
Time: 3-5pm
Venue: Orchard Cineleisure, Outdoor Atrium

Come dressed in red for both events!”

Taken from http://www.ssc.gov.sg/publish/teamsingapore/en/games/Paralympics/paralympics.html

A Quiet Afternoon

A Quiet Afternoon

Listen/ download at ARCHIVE.ORG

Did this song quiet a while ago. It was a raw version with just 2 guitar tracks and I passed it to Ivan to add to it. Since he bought a bass, I thought it would be nice to fill the background with some lower notes. He also added some nice acoustic guitar fills to it.

A song dedicated to my bandmate Ivan for his patience and philosophy.

Firefly

Firefly

Listen/ download at ARCHIVE.ORG

This song is about flying free and igniting your imagination (or the other way around). I felt the song in my mind so it was easy to write it. Its raw though and needs the fine engineering touches of Ivan

Read more at the band’s page.