Spice Project

My sister's fried Mackerel

I have been sampling something yummy on a daily basis now that I am visiting my family in Malaysia. I have to say that my younger sister is a better cook than I am mainly because she cooks exactly like my mom! My mom is an excellent cook and I always could eat spicy food without any problems. Unfortunately, moving to Europe has made me a sissy when it comes to spicy food now.

I learnt how to make Fried Mackerel indian style from both of them last week. Here is how you do it.

Ingredients:

4-6 chunks of large Mackerel

3 cloves of garlic

an inch of ginger

3-4 black peppercorn

1/2 teaspoon fennel

1/2 teaspoon cumin seed

1 teaspoon chilli powder

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

salt to taste

a sprig of curry leaves (not to blend, for garnish)

Blend all the above ingredients and season with salt to taste. Rub it onto the fish and leave it for about 15 minutes.

You can now either deep fry the fish in oil or use a non stick grill pan and with minimum oil (I used 2 tablespoon of olive oil) and grill fry it until nicely browned on both sides.

Serve with some rice, fish curry and veggies.

Marlborough Vineyards

 
Picture perfect (with no photoshopping!) ! In New Zealand, while we were driving around the South Island, we crossed the Marlborough plains and passed all these beautiful and picturesque vineyards twice in fact thanks to bad weather in Nelson. It at least made up for us not being able to explore the Abel Tasman and the Farewell Spit.

New Zealand was really a feast for the eyes and the soul. It has definitely spiced up our lives! I would truly recommend a visit to NZ but make sure you have time. A week or two is actually never really enough to get to know a country. Of course to get that much time off from work/routine schedule is never easy. But as I read somewhere, no one ever says 'I wish I had spent more time working!' when they are at their deathbed. So live a little and TRAVEL! 

 

Sardine Curry Puffs

In Malaysia we have a savoury food that is very popular among kids and adults alike called the Curry Puffs. It can be had for breakfast, tea, as a snack ,etc. For me it is one of those foods that instantly bring childhood memories to life! I used to always get some Chicken curry puffs from the canteen during my schooling in Malaysia. And back then it used to cost like 20 or 30 sens.

This is the first time I was trying to make Sardine puffs simply because it is easier to make and I had a hungry husband to feed!

Ingredients

1 roll of ready made puff pastry

1 can of sardines  (120g)

1/2  of red pepper chopped small

1/2 of an onion chopped small

2 garlic cloves crushed

1 tablespoon curry powder

2 teaspoon olive oil

1 egg, beaten

 

Heat the oil in a frying pan. Add the onions and the garlic  and stir for 2 minutes. Then add the curry powder and fry for a minute. Add the red pepper and the sardines. Stir fry until most liquid has evaporated and the set aside to let cool for 15 minutes

Pre-heat the oven to 220°C.

Unroll the puff pastry and cut to your desired size. Spoon the sardine mix onto your pastry.

How I did mine was, I cut a rectangular piece of the pastry, spooned the sardine on to the middle and then folded both ends and the sides on top of the pastry. Repeat this as many times as you want (I managed to get 6 large Sardine Puffs)

Finally, brush some egg on to the top of the pastry for glazing.

Bake at 220°C for 15-20 minutes until the top is brown and crispy.

Serve hot with some sweet chilly sauce (the kind you use for spring rolls)

 

 

 

 

The story of the lanterns

In Penang there is a traditional lantern maker. Problem is he is probably the only traditional lantern maker left in Malaysia! These days made in China products seems to be the norm.

The Lantern Maker makes wonderful lanterns out of bamboo and paper. These lanterns were originally made only for the temples and clan houses. These days though a lot of refurbished shophouses in Penang have managed to get a pair to adorn their footpath. One lantern takes about 3 months to make according to him and his wife helps out with the painting. Both must be now in their late 70s. 

When we met him for the first time, he was still living in an old pre-war shophouse lot in Penang on Magazine Road. With the help of our trishaw rider, we communicated with him and managed to get across that we wanted a pair of lanterns that we would pick up a couple of months later when he is finished. Unfortunately, he ended up getting us mixed up with someone else and the ones we had asked him to make ended up in someone else's hands. My friend Elene poor thing had to endure many phone calls with him to make sure he eventually gets our lanterns done. Half the frustration was every time she would call him, she'd have to go through the story again. And in the midst of all this, the poor guy and his wife were made to vacate their dilapidated shophouse and move into another neighbourhood. The hunt for their new place when we eventually got word that our lanterns were done was another story all together!

In the end, on the day when he finally decided to meet us at a meeting point to hand over the lanterns, it was raining cats and dogs and we had to get the lanterns wrapped up in plastic to make sure they stayed dry. We of course, got thoroughly drenched. Now the lanterns are in my sister's possessions. To transport the fragile lanterns from Malaysia to Switzerland is a headache. We are at the moment trying to get the lanterns packed in wooden crates to withstand the journey from Asia to Europe. 

Is is all worth it? Depends on how you value things. There never is going to be another traditional lantern maker when he is gone. For us that is a good reason enough to go through all this effort.

The lanterns are BEAUTIFUL!

Smoothie boosters!

Ever crave for something sweet before lunch or in the late afternoons before tea or even in the evenings after dinner? We think we have found a recipe to bust it! It's not something new, am sure most of you know about it and go, 'oh I know that!'. But how many of you actually then make the effort to make it? I can fully recommend it.....it has definitely done wonders for our complexion and hunger pangs at the same time.

Ingredients

200g berries (any and every berry you can lay your hands on eg. raspberries, strawberries etc)

1 banana

half a cup of yogurt/low fat milk (or a scoop of ice cream if you really want some dessert)

a cup of water

a tablespoon of honey (optional)

Blend it all together. Et voila! Snack time! 

Burst of Colour!

Right around the corner from where we live!

Boy, did it spice up my day! Though I have to confess I took these pictures last week.

Hope you had a burst of colour too in your life today!

Silk shawls at Shui Tang

To those of you who made it to Shui Tang's today to see the silk shawls from Laos, we thank you heartily and hope you enjoyed the evening with tea and our company.

We would also like to thank Meng Lin who kindly let us use her wonderful tea-house for the occasion.

Please let us know what you think of the shawls, we would love some honest opinions. Hopefully, we can do more gatherings at the wonderful tea-house in future.

 

 

Fine handwoven silk scarves

Liebe Freunde

Auf unserer letzten Reise durch Asien besuchte in ich in Vientiane, der verschlafenen Hauptstadt von Laos, eine kleine Seidenweberei. 40 laotische Arbeiterinnen verarbeiten auf alten hölzernen Webstühlen lokal hergestellte und gefärbte Seide von Hand zu glänzenden Kostbarkeiten. Wir haben nun eine erste kleine Auswahl dieser Unikate erhalten und würden diese euch gerne zeigen. Alle Schals sind aus 100% Seide und vollumfänglich von Hand hergestellt. Sie messen 35 mal 200 cm und sind luftig leicht, perfekt für einen frischen Frühlingsabend!

Gerne zeigen wir euch unsere Schals diesen Samstag Nachmittag den 14. Mai zwischen 15:00 und 17:00 Uhr im Teeladen Shui Tang an der Spiegelgasse 26 am Neumarkt im Zürcher Niederdorf (http://www.shuitang.ch/ ). Es gibt auch etwas zu knabbern und zu trinken. Wir freuen uns auf euch! 

Liebe Grüsse und bis bald

Faiza & Alexander

SpiceProject

What I did today....

I hadn't had time for myself to paint for a while. Space is a big constraint for me and just the thought of hauling up all the paint stuff and canvases from the basement to paint and then put them all back in the basement is enough to banish the thought away.

But I did myself a favour and went to Männedorf to my friend Barbara's art studio  today and I had a great time! Of course I managed to go to a few other places as well because of an acute attack of clumsiness (hopped TWICE on the wrong commuter trains!)....but ah well, it was all well worth the effort. 

For those of you who may live around the 'golden coast' (Kusnacht, Meilan, Männedorf, Stäfa etc), Barbara's art studio is a fantastic place to just get dirty with colour. She has a fantastic art supply and for a fee you can use the space and her various art supplies. 

http://www.creativefires-studio.com/

 

Bookbinder

I love paper! All the different types, colours, textures, etc! And I am shamelessly admitting that here even though more and more people are aware of the benefits of preserving our forests for our future generation. I am one of those who loves to hog books and no amount of convincing (even with the advent of ipad) can convert me into a tree hugger.

Something that has fascinated me always was how they actually used to bind books in the olden days. Ever wondered how even without the advent of all these modern super glues and binding machines they actually managed to bind those beautiful books in leather etc.; that they are to this day preserved? In comparison to all the horrible photo albums that I got just barely 10 years ago to house all my college and university pictures that is already coming apart despite costing me bundles!!

Anyways, we came across Frau Beatrice Wetli in Niederdorf in Zürich on one of our Saturday meanders through the old town. She is a traditional bookbinder meaning she uses the old techniques to bind books. And she does them beautifully! She also makes all these wonderful things out of cardboards like jewellery boxes, albums, photo frames etc. All hand made by herself. Each is certainly a work of art! We have already bought a few jewelry boxes from her as gifts for friends but am just itching to get something bound and all my precious photos aren't a bad idea!