Eating Well – Page 8 – Suria Helang Lui

22 Jan 2013

0 Comments By admin Armchair journal, Eating Well, Vegetables

Tasty Green Beans (French Beans)

I find this vegetable plant makes for a lovely plant to grow on a trellis, with its delicate looking small lilac flowers and I can just hear some of friends say that this is the reason I planted it :). Its botanical name is Phaseolus Vulgaris. They are rich in Vitamin A and C as well as Calcium and Iron.

Actually, it is one of my favourite bean vegetable. The green beans, known as kacang buncis in Malay, takes approximately 45 days before it will start producing flowers resulting in tasty green beans in about 1 week. However in my latest experiment, it was ready to harvest in 40 days with the modifications I made from the previous experience. The difference is:

Higher organic content in the soil – 30% of soil mixture is organic matter
Fertilizer used is vermicompost
Pest control and additional fertilisation with the use of E.M.++ spray.

I planted the plants from store-bought seeds which I sowed in organic-rich soil. After about 3 days, it began to sprout. In my previous plantings, I transplanted them in big polybags and placed them outdoors by a trellis when it began to produce its trailers. This time around, I sowed it directly into the trellis bed. For my experiment, I planted them in my greenhouse, mainly to prevent my chickens from scratching around the plant and so that I can work with it rain or shine. The greenhouse roof is clear plastic sheets so it allows the sun in as long as the sun is out. I find it best to water twice a day and it does well in lots of sunlight, which we a graced with here in Malaysia. During its inital growth stage, I fertilize it once a week and once it starts to flower, I fertilize it fortnightly. Once a week, I spray it with an organic pest repellent to keep the insects away, which in this case is my E.M. spray with citronella (serai wangi). To encourage growth of new shoots and flowering, I remove the old leaves periodically as well as ensure no leaves rot on the vine which may encourage fungus thus infecting the plants.

The soil mixture that is used is a mix of sand, lots of organic matter and soil. This allows for good drainage and yet able to have a moist and not soggy soil for the plant to thrive in. At the farm, the trellis is 2m high. For your home landscape, you can plant it in a planter box or large pot and place it at a balcony or along a fence and you can have a nice plant to look at whilst at the same time able to harvest a good vegetable for lunch or dinner. You can get that great satisfaction of harvesting and cooking a self-grown, tasty, healthy vegetable. For future plantings, I am allowing some beans to mature and dry out on the plant so I can harvest the seeds which is almost black in colour with the skin of the bean being light brown in colour. Now that I have a better methodology, I have sowed more seeds in our trellis beds in the outdoor vegetable section of the farm.

Some of the ways of preparing this is lightly sauteed in olive oil and garlic, often you can find it fried as a tempura, and added into various vegetable dishes. It’s subtle tastes makes it great to be cooked into savoury dishes so go ahead and use your imagination when preparing it and getting all the nutritious benefits from it.

Updated: March 18, 2015

17 Jan 2013

0 Comments By admin Armchair journal, Eating Well, Healthy Options, Vegetables

Long green beans

Like many vegetables, the long green beans ( Malay name: kacang panjang, Botanical name: Vigna unguiculata subsp. sesquipedalis ) can be eaten raw and are deliciously crisp when fresh. Personally, I like them when they are a darker shade of green with slight visibility of the pods for eating them raw. They are a good source of protein, vitamin A, thiamin, riboflavin, iron, phosphorus, and potassium, and a very good source for vitamin C, folate, magnesium, and manganeseAs the fruit matures, it turns to a yellowish green to yellow to brown.

I seed them in small polybags (about 10cm diameter) using store-bought seeds. It takes approximately 3 days for the seeds to sprout and once it has sprouted, with the right soil mixture, it grows rather rapidly. As with most of my vegetables, the soil mixture contains organic matter as well as some sand within the mixture to allow for good drainage as well as moisture control. After about 7-10 ten days, they are ready to be transplanted.

At the farm, it is transplanted in polybags before placing them along a trellis to allow better utilization of area, effective fertilization, protection from the farm animals and ease of relocating as well as weeding.
The long beans is a climber and is easily trained. If you plan to plant it at your house, you can plant it along the fence or by an arbor. It takes approximately 30 days before beginning to flower which then transforms into the long beans. During this period, the water content in the soil is very important – do not let it dry out as I find that this will reduce the quality and quantity of the beans produced thereafter. Conversely, do not let it be in a soggy, wet soil as this will encourage rot which can kill the plant. I let some of the beans to mature to create a new batch of planting seeds. I fertilize them fortnightly with organic fertilizer. The mature leaves are also removed periodically to encourage new growth and flowering as well to prevent leaves from rotting on the vine which can encourage fungus which in turn will affect the plant.

The beans are susceptible to black “aphids”, which will eat the beans and my best friend in this is the kerangga, the natural predator to these pests resulting in me not having to worry about getting rid of these pest.

The young leaf shoots can also be eaten like many other leafy vegetables – cooking it within a stir-fry dish.As with many vegetables, they are so many ways to prepare it and for me, it is a must in pecal and lontong. Sometime, I chopped it up along with other ulam and mix it with rice for my version of nasi kerabu. So, have fun experimenting.

20 Dec 2012

0 Comments By admin Eating Well, Edible Landscape, Healthy Options, Vegetables

The Challenge of Growing Tomatoes

When I was living in U.S,, during the summer months I was often able to buy fresh, vine-ripened tomatoes and there were infinitely much better tasting than the regular store-bought ones. I have always found growing tomatoes to be a real challenge, not only from the weather aspects but also insects and bugs seem to love them. I have tried planting them a few times and from each time, there were lessons learnt. Due to the weather, I bought some tomato seeds that were labelled to be “tropical-friendly”. I used a high organic soil mixture with some sand content to seed the tomatoes. Since I wanted to be able to move around my seedlings, I seeded them in polybags. This also enabled me to keep it weed-free much easier.

After about 3 days, they began sprouting. I find that to ensure good root growth and healthy seedlings, it was important to ensure moist and not soggy soil condition. A key item to remember, good root growth is essential as it is the point of entry for the nutrients that the plant needs. So, if your plant has poor root growth, this will limit its ability to absorb the nutrients from you fertilizers. When it was about 6″tall or approximately 10 cm, I transplanted into large polybags. As the plant grew, more roots grew from the bottom level of the stem so I periodically added additional soil mixture to cover it which is 50% soil and 50% organic compost. In order to accomodate this, when I transplanted them into larger polybags, I did not plant the seedling high but at about mid-level, allowing me the room to add additional soil in the future.

The tomato plants require support or else the plant will fall over as it does have a “soft” plant stem. My plan is to retain these plants in a polybag throughout its cycle so whatever mechanism that I use had to continue to enable me to weed easily as well as move it when necessary. I settled for creating “tube” fences from 2″x2″ metal fence material. These tube fences can be re-used when this set of plants die so I felt it was a good investment – both of time and money.

As my cats love to keep me company as I work in my greenhouse, this also help to keep the plants from being sat-on or knocked-over. As the plants grow, I would help the plant along by assisting the branches to ease their way through the slots, keeping it balanced. After about 2 months, I had to add a stake to provide additional support as well as weave string along the stems as the weight of the tomatoes weighed the stem causing it to “fold” down, reducing the nutrients necessary to the growth on the stem.

To keep the pests away, I use a serai wangi mixture to act as a pest repellent, spraying one a week on the whole plant. The plants are watered daily, in the morning mainly to prevent the formation of moss on the soil and also to ensure that it has sufficient water to prevent the plant from wilting. After approximately 8 weeks, the plants began to flower at the upper part of the plant, producing several yellow flowers per stem.

Within 1 week, the flower had fully bloomed and dried out followed by the formation of the “baby” fruits. The average height where the fruits began to form was 1m so I was glad that my tubes were high enough to be able to provide the necessary support for the fruits. You can see the changes on the growth of the fruits daily and every morning that I am at the farm, this is the first plant that I check. I fertilize the plants about every week, using organic fertilizer, which will further decompose within the soil providing the necessary nutrients to the plant. I find the timing of the application of organic fertilizer is different from chemical fertilizers which dissolves in water immediately. I check the root exposure level of the plant regularly and top up the soil as necessary. It is important to keep the soil moist but not soggy or the stem of the plant will rot at the base, killing the plant.

I decided to experiment – I have some plants in the greenhouse and some outside. I find that they grow as well outside as inside and that as long as I kept the pests aways, it was fine. I placed the outside plants with a east facing so that it received lots of sunshine in the morning but shaded from the late afternoon side. As I had planted it in polybags, it was essential to watch the moisture content of the soil – if it dries out, the quality of the fruit will drop. I continue to spray it with an organic pest repellent weekly and it is now on a fortnightly fertilization schedule. The pest will attack the plant stem, leaves as well as the fruit so it is important to watch out for them. At the farm, the main pests are aphids, ants and caterpillars.

It took about 2 weeks for the tomato to ripen to a nice red-vermillion color from when it formed. The average time from seeding to actually being able to taste the first fruit was 10 weeks.
Nutritionally, it is a great source of vitamin A, C and K as well as Manganese and Potassium. It is also very low on Sodium. It is a good source for Vitamin E and Bs. Being chemical pesticide free, I just needed to rinse of any dust and dive into it. One thing I can say, it definitely tastes infinitely better being fresh off the vine :). Personally, I prefer to have this raw: in a tossed salad, chopped up and mix with cilantro, olive oil and salt or blended as a cold “soup” – either of these ways preserves the nutritional value of the tomatoes best.
Now that this batch is producing fruits, it is time to start seeding the next batch. The work continues……

04 Dec 2012

0 Comments By admin Armchair journal, Eating Well, Healthy Options, Vegetables

Being A Small Farmer Part 5 – Growing Vegetables

In line with having an integrated farm, one of the key items is vegetables. I selected the vegetables based on what I like. Inherently, if you select what you like, then you would tend to pay more attention and I do believe this is true. I have taken the route of planting most of my vegetables in polybags for two main reasons: (1) ease of weeds control and (2) to ensure that the vegetables get the fertilizer and not washed away or consumed by weeds. The starting place is my greenhouse, where all the seeds get sown which is then transplanted and placed either within the greenhouse or outside. What did I select?

To start with, I selected long green beans. This is a versatile vegetable – you can eat it raw or cooked. So naturally, going natural removes the worry of those pesky chemicals. I started with sowing the seeds, in the greenhouse, which sprouted in about 3 days. After allowing it to grow to about 10cm, I transplanted them into a polybag and placed them outside under its trellis. The lesson I learnt from the first time that I planted this was that the chickens love to scratch around the plant, often uprooting it hence I didn’t get much yield from it. This time around, there are in polybags with the “tube” fence to prevent them from getting to the plant on sitting on it. This plant is a climber so having a trellis structure is key to its growth. The soil mixture that I use has a high organic content to it. I sprinkle organic fertilizer fortnightly in circle with a radius of about 6cm from the base of the plant. I am fortunate that the farm is located in an area where there is good rainfall and since it was placed outside, I haven’t had to water it, leaving the rain to provide the water.

It took about 40 days before it started to flower. The flower and shoots are susceptible to a pesky black insect similar to aphids which will cause it to be destroyed. My ally in this is the kerengga, those biting red insects. Normally, I would try to get rid of them as they tend to bite you but in this instance, I allow them to roam freely thereby keeping the pests at bay. The only problem is they like to make their “houses” with the larger leaves and to discourage them, I remove the leaves that they use to make their houses. This serves a dual purpose – it enables me to control the population of the kerengga as well as well as encouraging new shoots. I often snack on the green beans as I am doing maintenance the plants – picking them and munching on it without worrying about washing it. The yield this time is also much better than my first attempt and we did manage to have some for sale at the Sunday morning market and it was gone very fast.

Another favorite vegetable of mine is the cabbage and it too can be eaten raw or cooked. With the cabbage, one must be patient as it does take a lot longer compared to other vegetables before harvest. However, I think it is well worth the wait. It took about 5 days before it started to sprout and took about 3 weeks to grow to about 6 cm. At this size, with at least four leaves, I transplanted them into polybags. As with all my vegetables, the soil mixture has a high organic content to it.

I monitor the soil moisture and water it once or twice a day depending on the weather with pure uncontaminated river water. I am still waiting for my cabbage to mature and be ready for harvest. According to the seed label, it takes 75-80 days from transplanting, which means it will take about 96 – 101 days before harvest. As the plant grows wide, It seems to be growing well and it is now about 40 days from transplant. I do enjoy looking at the plant as it looks like a beatuiful big green flower. This vegetable will remain in the greenhouse until it is ready to enable me to manage its pest control. Those insects and caterpillars love munching on them and I find that with weekly serai wangi and water mixture spray, it keeps those pests away. I am looking forward to eating it and I am not sure if any will make it to the Sunday morning market. I guess I will have to plant lots more :).

15 Nov 2012

0 Comments By admin Eating Well, Healthy Options

Catfish – And you thought it is plain……

Guess what? This fish is one of the most versatile local fish that I have found. The options of what to do with it is limited by your imagination! First things first, select a good quality fish and this means that you should know the origins of your fish – the water quality, the feed, the time to market. The water quality should be good, preferably a pond with continuous flow of fresh water coming in. The feed should not consist of any elements of waste such as waste products from chicken and carcasses of dead animals. Don’t be shy about asking the seller.

For the general consumer, this may be difficult unless you know your fish seller so here are some tips:

If it has a strong smell, run!!!!!
If possible, buy them live. However live doesn’t mean that it is good. Check out if there is a lot of “slime” around it. Less is better.
Check the underbelly. It should be white in color – not slightly yellow.
The flesh of the fish must be firm. If it is mushy, then it is not fresh.
If the color of the flesh has a yellow tint to it, it has either been stored incorrectly or not fresh.
The fat should also be white or the color of milk.

Cleaning this fish can be quite a challenge as it is often cleaned when it is live. Some suggestions to assist you in handling the fish are:

Hold the fish as in the picture above. Be careful of the side stingers.
Place it in the freezer.
Put it in some salt.

The above two will put the fish in a comatose state for ease of handling. If cleaned properly, the fish should not be slippery or slimy to handle. Once cleaned, if you are not going to cook it right away but want to store it for later, it should be frozen immediately. Do not store it in its raw state in a chiller for more than a day. This is one fish that retaining freshness is supreme.

The catfish can :

be cooked from its cleaned, raw state
be smoked, either salted or marinated previously
be dried, either salted or unsalted. or marinated

The combinations that I have found to work out well for marinades are (1) salt and lemon grass (serai), (2) kaffir lime leaves (daun limau perut), salt and calamansi and (3) lemon basil (kemangi) and salt. Locally, the popular ways of preparing smoked catfish is by cooking it with coconut milk and chillies or by frying it. It is then eaten with rice. The same applies for dried catfish.

The most often ways of preparing raw, whole catfish are masak lemak cili padi, asam pedas, cooked over charcoal and deep fried. All these options tend to limit the accompaniment – rice. However, if you get good quality fresh catfish which is more than 600g, you can fillet it and produce a nice piece of fillet which you can then cook in many other ways. I have got feedback from people who have tried my filleted catfish that when they had cooked it and served it to other people, they couldn’t guess what fish it was. Catfish (keli) was definitely one of their guesses! You can:

marinate it with a various ways using many combinations of herbs and grill it,
you can cut it into bite pieces and create fish nuggets, you can dip them in batter and deep fry,
or you can even just bake it in the oven.

This opens up options of its accompaniments:

you can eat it with salads for a light, fresh healthy meal,
with potatoes – french fries, mash potatoes, baked potatoes
or even on its own.

So, try it out and use your imagination :).

23 Oct 2012

2 Comments By admin Eating Well, Farm Recipes, Healthy Options

Catfish (Keli) – A very versatile fish

Due to going the cheaper route, there is a lot of catfish (keli) out there that tastes just horrible. Unfortunately, this has led to people having a poor impression of the taste of catfish. This much maligned fish is really at the mercy of catfish producers who are bent on going the easy route by not taking care of the water and feeding the fish garbage.
When produced properly, this fish is very tasty, definitely not smelly or having the “muddy” taste. As with any fish, if you do not take care of its freshness once harvested, this further affects the taste and smell of the fish. Do not blame the fish but blame it on these types of producers and the consumers who are not interested on taking care of themselves by eating quality food. So to the nay-sayers of the catfish, do not fault the fish if you have had a bad or not so good experience dining on the catfish. I used to be a non-catfish eater but now I enjoy the catfish but of course, only from my farm :).
At the farm, I have spent about 2 years in studying and testing how to produce quality catfish. The key components are the water quality and feed. Flowing water is essential in ensuring that the water quality is good and fish wastes are removed regularly, and that there is sufficient oxygen as in keeping the bacteria in the water down due to wastes. Even if aerators are used to ensure sufficient oxygen but if the water is not regularly refreshed, that the fish will be living in its wastes. Think of it this way, if you are not willing to put your foot into the pond, why are you willing to put what is produced from that pond into your body?
The second component is the feed, Catfish that is fed with bacteria-laden food such as carcasses such as from goat, chicken, and pig, chicken innards, animal and human waste as well as all sorts of garbage will result in lower cost of fish feed which translates to cheaper prices but does not produce tasty fish. After all, the age old axiom that “you are what you eat” can be applied to these catfish. At the farm, the fish is feed with quality fish meal as well as “vegetables” such as tapioca leaves, keladi leaves, young shoots of tebrau and the inner pseudostem of the banana plants. So, it is a matter of choice for the consumers.
When buying catfish, the first thing that you need to check is the underside of the fish. Select catfish that has a white skin on the belly, avoid any fish that has slightly yellow color skin on its belly. The flesh of the catfish should be firm and not “mushy” and the color on the skin of the catfish shouldn’t have a greyish pallor – these are indicators of the freshness of the fish. When the flesh is mushy, it is a good indicator that the fish is already well on its decomposition process, faster for fish that have been fed with bacteria-laden feed.
It is always best to buy live catfish or for those that prefer cleaned catfish, catfish that was cleaned after just killing it and frozen within the hour. Of course you would need to know how to handle the catfish when live – watch out for its stingers.
Now that you have the cleaned fish, what can you do with it? In Malay culture, most of the time it is fried to a crisp or made into curries or masak lemak bercili. Sometimes, it is grilled but not often as this requires for the fish to be fresh or you end up with this mushy fish.
From my experience and testing in my farm kitchen, this is a very versatile fish and you can do more than this.

Whole smoked catfish – the fish is marinated with herbs – either kaffir lime leaves or lemongrass and salt overnight before it is slowly smoked. Once ready, it is stored frozen to retain its “freshness”. The smoked catfish can be eaten in many ways – cooked in savoury/spicy dishes or fried or heated and eaten with rice, sticky rice or even in sushi.
Dried whole salted catfish – the fish is salted and sun-dried. This fish can then be fried or cooked in savoury/spicy dishes.
Catfish fillet – the fish is fillet resulting in nice pieces of boneless, skinless fillets which can then be cooked in many ways. It can be breaded and baked, dipped in flour and pan-fried, dipped in batter and fried, seasoned with a variety of herbs, lemon, salt and pepper and grilled or pan-fried. The ways of preparing the fillet is limited by your imagination. To produce the fillets, you should select a fish that is at least 800gm so you can get good-sized fillets.

I hope more people will opt to eat quality fish in their diets and discover the versatility of the catfish.

12 Oct 2012

7 Comments By admin Banana, Eating Well

Bananas – Pisang Rastali

This is another “old-timer” banana which is now no longer easily found at the markets. It is most often eaten raw and has a lighter albeit sweet taste. It is a medium sized banana and when ripe has brown/black patterns over it;s yellow skin making it appear like a batik design on the skin hence the its other name – pisang batik.

This is one of the few varieties of banana that should fully ripen on the tree. It takes a longer time to mature and ripen as opposed to other varieties as it takes over 4 months from the inflorescence to ready-to-eat fruit but is well worth the wait. When the fruit is unripe it is green in color. The brown/black patterns only appear when it is mature and almost ripe. By the time the fruit is ready for harvest, all the leaves would have already dried out. A healthy plant should produce about 10-12 sisir (bunch of bananas) weighing about 10-15kg in total.

I do not recommend eating the inflorescence (jantung) as it has a bitter taste. When the fruit is ripe, it can be used as the main ingredient in making a banana cake. It has just the right moisture content resulting in a deliciously moist banana cake. Due to its higher sugar content and texture, it doesn’t work well when turned into banana fritters as it will soak up a lot of oil. It teams up well with ice creams making it a good choice for banana splits.

25 Sep 2012

0 Comments By admin Eating Well, SHL Products

Dried Marinated Salted Lampam

I am always interested in experimenting with new ways of processing food. Recently, we were doing a minor fish harvest, more to see the reception to our fish and to reduce the population in the fish ponds. With the natural setting of the pond, the fish have been reproducing and for the overall betterment of the fishes in the pond, it was necessary to reduce the population. During this exercise, we managed to harvest about 100 lampan with many more left in the pond. This fish has been flourishing in the pond and to reduce competition for space, this fish was harvested along with the red tilapia.

Lampan is a fish that is very susceptible to the oxygen content in the water as well as to the quality of the water. This fish is my gauge for the oxygen content. Should the oxygen content be low, they are the first to react and will be at the water surface. They can die within one day if the oxygen content is low. If the water quality is low, they will also be the first to die. By comparison, the keli or the haruan is very hardy and can survive in low quality water and mud. Apart from the fish pellet, they love eating the water grass and plants so when I was cleaning the fish, I noticed a lot of “green” in their “stomach”. With the natural setting of the fish pond, this has helped them to flourish and breed.

We sold some of the Lampam at the Sunday market and the remaining I decided to process into dried salted fish. This fish has many small bones and as with many fish that has a lot of bones, it taste great but eating them could be challenge. Previously, I had turned them into dried salted fish and when fried till crispy, is very tasty. This time around, I decided to do a variation of it – you could almost say a gourmet version. The fish has a lot of fat, like many of the trout family (salmon is one fish that is from the trout family along with rainbow trout and many others) hence when it is fried, it doesn’t become hard but is more malleable. You will also see the fat turn into oil, staying on the surface of the fish. It also has a lot of scales, which I prefer to remove as I like to eat them without the scales and it also speeds up the drying time.

With the abundance of herbs to create a marinade, I decided to use lemon grass (serai) and kaffir lime leaves (daun limau perut) along with coarse salt to create the marinade. The lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves were pounded in a mortar pestle to release the juices and aroma. Alternatively, you can also blend but this would mean adding water to the ingredients before you can blend it and this can cause the salt to dissolve faster and seep into the fish faster than the lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves, making it more salty and less aromatic. I like my fish to taste of salt but not overly salty which would necessitate the dried fish to be soaked to remove some of the salt before cooking but which would also cause for the herbal taste to leak out.

The fish is marinated overnight, best to keep it in the refrigerator, and all excess salt and the herbal mix is removed before it is set to dry in the sun. Depending on weather conditions, it can take 2-3 days to dry. This is one way to preserve fish without the need for chemical additives or preservatives. For long storage, it is best to store it in your fridge or chiller.

I enjoy having this fish fried to a crisp and eating it with ulam and sambal belacan (chillies and shrimp paste mix) along with rice. Sometimes, I even eat it on its own or with a salad accompaniment. The taste of the lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves gives it a great taste twist. Because it is crispy, you can just munch on it without worrying about the bones sticking to your throat. You just chew them down.

So, next time you want to have dried salted fish, make some and use the abundance of herbs and natural seasoning that we have in Malaysia and create your own gourmet version of salted dried fish.

18 Sep 2012

6 Comments By admin Banana, Eating Well

Bananas – Pisang Rotan (Lidi)

Another interesting banana that is not often found is the pisang lidi or rotan. It has a distinctive shape compared with other bananas and you can easily identify it. It is more elongated and slim almost like fingers. The skin is a milky-yellow color and relatively thin. This banana is normally eaten uncooked and has a sweet and light taste to it. This particular banana is rarely found now so I am happy that we have it at the farm as part of my collection of banana plants. At our Sunday morning market, when we have it available, it is sold very quickly – apparently a favorite with the afficionados.

At the farm, the plant grow to about 7m (approximately 20ft) and in comparison to other banana plants has a rather skinny pseudostem and is green beneath the dried brown upper layer. The leaves tend to grow upright and only angles when it is about to die-off hence making it look tall and slim. The upper side of the leaf is a dark green with a groove in the leave stem. The underside of the leaf is a lighter green with a light green leaf stem.
This plant produces multiple baby plants and it is best to keep it to 3-4 per group to ensure a higher and better quality yield.
The inflorescence is rather bitter hence is not consumed. It takes approximately 2 months from when the inflorescence appears to the fruit maturing and ripening.

13 Sep 2012

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Taking freshness and health to special events

Recently, I had the opportunity to provide two items to the menu at a friend’s event: fresh ulam (Malaysian version of salad) and misai kucing tea. For this special event, I wanted to be sure that the ulam tray we provided was different and offered as many varieties as possible – both to provide for choices as well as introducing different ulam that people are not familar and at times, not easy to find.
In order to serve approximately 800 guests, preparation for this started over 1 month before the event in ensuring that we would have enough produce so care and maintenance to the plants was essential. This would be the first time that we would be doing something like this and I wanted it to be the best that we can do and especially so since it was for a good friend.
For the event itself, we started doing the harvesting 2 days for ulam that would be blanched and one day before for items that would be served fresh, all in the spirit of fresh from the farm to your dining table.
We prepared 10 trays for this event. Since the food theme was traditional kampung food, I decided that the way we presented the ulam should be different instead of just regular steel tray or ceramic plates, hence we constructed a bamboo and wood tray. Each tray consisted of fresh ulam raja, silom, lumai, pucuk jambu, bunga betik, bunga kantan, bunga misai kucing, bebuas, pucuk kadok, ruku, selasih putih, pucuk salam and blanched jantung pisang, pucuk paku, terung bulat, terung telunjuk and 2 kinds of pucuk ubi kayu.

I spent my time at the event mostly ensuring that the trays we replaced as needed and also to chat with the guests over what was in the tray. It was gratifying to hear the comments from the guests: “I have never seen such a variety of ulam served at a kenduri, this is great”, “I love this ulam but haven’t been able to have it since it is difficult to find” and “Look at how fresh the ulam is”.

The other item that we provided was the Misai Kucing Tea concentrate which was mixed with hot water on site in a drink dispenser container so that the guests can just fill their cups and drink. As to properly prepare enough tea to serve many guests takes time, it was necessary to produce the concentrate for ease, This was also well received and the comments that I obtained was very positive. One comment that made me feel good is: “This tea taste great, is not bitter and doesn’t taste like misai kucing tea. It tastes like chrysanthemum tea.”. Comments like this validate my efforts in producing my tea, ensuring that it is pure misai kucing and using only the leaves and flowers with the soft flower stem. As a note, once you have prepared the concentrate, you can store it in your refrigerator and add hot or cold water before serving your tea. You can also add ice, a great alternative to regular iced tea.
So, if you would like to have similar items served at your events, please contact us 🙂

+60172821219

enquiries@suriahelanglui.com

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Category: Eating Well