Sunday, November 26, 2006

How to Make 'Petis Udang'.



KNOW THIS FIRST OKAY.Prawn Paste = Petis Udang (made from good quality big sized prawn headshells)
Shrimp Paste = Belachan (made from small sized prawns).

It's the black paste that they put in Chinese Fruit Rojak and makes the delicacy so tasty, it's the watered down black sauce they put in Penang Assam Laksa to bring out the aroma, they also serve it in Fried Tofu stuffed with finelly sliced cucumber and bean sprouts.

In Malay they call it Petis Udang, sometimes they call it Otak Udang and the common explanation for it is that they use a lot of Otak Udang (the orange - green part of the prawn head which commonly assumed as the brain) to make it.

My skin started crawling.....

so when we eat one plate of Fruit Rojak,or Sotong Kangkung do we have the brains of 100 prawns in our system?

I often googled for information on how to make it. Unfortunately, it is never documented in the cyberworld in Bahasa Malaysia.

To my surprise, it is available only in Bahasa Indonesia. It even explains the nutritional content of Petis Udang (Sambal Rojak) and this I have to share with you in Bahasa Malaysia!

It is directly translated from the link below:

CARA PEMBUATAN PETIS UDANG/SAMBAL ROJAK.

Pembuatan petis merupakan serangkaian kegiatan yang meliputi penyiapan seperti berikut:
a. bahan baku (bawang putih, cabai, merica, gula pasir, tepung beras/tepung tapioka/kanji/tepung arang kayu, garam dapur, dan air.)

b. perebusan

c. pengentalan

1. Mula-mula kepala udang harus dicuci bersih kerana merupakan sumber bakteria dan terdapatnya sistem pencernaan di kepala.

So you see, it's not true at all that the otak is used!!!! Buat penat aku tak makan rojak for a month! Now see where they get the prawn taste from....

2. Setelah kepala udang dicuci, air dituang dengan perbandingan tertentu. Kemudian dimasak atau direbus, biasanya selama 3 sampai 6 jam. Selanjutnya dilakukan pemerasan dan ampasnya dibuang. Perebusan ini dilakukan untuk mengambil sari dari kepala udang tersebut. Pembuatan petis juga dapat dilakukan dari ekstrak ikan atau udang kering.

3. Sari udang atau ikan tersebut dimasukkan ke dalam belanga kemudian dimasak, sambil diaduk-aduk sampai agak kental. Setelah itu dilakukan penambahan gula, sedikit garam, bawang putih dan cabai. Dari sekitar 10 kg kepala dan kulit udang, diperlukan 0,2 kg gula dan 10 liter air. Setelah direbus selama kira-kira 3 jam akan diperoleh 0,5 kg petis.

4. Selain gula, di beberapa daerah juga ada yang menambahkan tepung tapioka dan tepung arang kayu atau arang jerami dalam pembuatan petis. Arang ini berguna untuk mencegah timbulnya bau tengik pada petis.

5. Perebusan dilakukan sampai adonan mengental (turn pasty).


And guess what, alat yang terpenting untuk pembuatan sambal rojak adalah belanga, iaitu periuk bermulut lebar yang terbuat dari tanah liat (claypot). Ini kerana ia memiliki sifat pengantar panas yang rendah dan porous (berliang). Dalam pembuatan petis diperlukan pemanasan rendah dalam waktu cukup lama, sehingga secara perlahan akan dihasilkan adunan petis yang kental dan elastik.

Dengan menggunakan belanga, pemanasan rendah dapat terjadi secara menyeluruh. Adanya pori-pori pada seluruh dinding belanga menyebabkan penguapan tidak hanya terjadi pada permukaan adunan, namun menyeluruh pada semua bahagian adunan yang melekat pada dinding belanga. Apabila digunakann periuk alumunium, akan terdapat banyak bahagian yang hangus dan petis yang dihasilkan menjadi kasar dan berair. Hal ini disebabkan alumunium memiliki sifat pengantar panas yang baik, tetapi tidak porous.

Marmite/Bovril is similar to this but using bovine (meat). Ianya dipanggil petis daging. Oohhhhhh, try baking flower crab smothered with Marmite... tasty saltiness!!!

Reference: Prof. DR. Made Astawan, Dosen di Departemen Teknologi Pangan dan Gizi IPB

Friday, November 17, 2006

Malaysia Bodoh? Ooohh Noowhhh...

My current boss shared her heart content recently. She's the restless kind that wakes up at 4am every morning for her morning brisk walk, she's a pious Christian who's always busy with missionary work, a mother of two and looks 10 years younger than her age. It's just been a year being with us and she's in revelation that what she really wants to do is to be some sort of a psychiatrist for the young, the problem is she tought... she doesn't have a degree in Psychology. I saw that talent in her, she came into this company while we're so troubled and had lent her hands to make it a very much lighter place to be in.

I told her, if you want to be it, do it NOW. I went home, thought of hopefully a catchy company name, wrote out a simple PR plan to build its presence and passed it to her. I told her, the society is suffering of new generations that's trying too hard to embrace fashion, music, good looks, expensive machines, dangerous activities and then get completely all lost. If you are willing to do it for free for a couple of years, you will go far as long as your intention is sincere and you want to keep your perseverance till the day you can start charging your services.

Spent some hours with my sister's friend last Sunday, he's a dynamic young Malay guy who speaks fluent French, an avid rugby player and a great achiever at work. He's one of the good examples of how only a small fraction of young men start themselves out. He invested his money on the right things, a car, a small place to stay and slowly building his own business through his expertise in IT and telecommunications knowledge. His way of making his deeds is by eehhmmm.... talking 'night workers' out of their sleazy jobs. A few lucky ones even get 'start-up sponsor' while they build a new life.

"But my biggest dream is what tau? I nak mintak jadi tutor dengan MMU while I do my PhD or IR. You know why? The government still don't know what they are buying and spending money on. Tu lah selalu duit spend sia-sia. I know working with them gaji tak banyak, while I teach kat MMU hopefully I can teach future generations 'how to buy' and what's the meaning of integrity. And when I get to work with the government, I'll kick all the corrupted asses who's trying to be funny with the govt when they're trying to sell things that we don't need."

How many of us are thinking of helping out the society in this situation of us slowly being branded Malaysia Bodoh?

Michael Backman
The Age

MALAYSIA'S been at it again, arguing about what proportion of the economy each of its two main races — the Malays and the Chinese — owns. It's an argument that's been running for 40 years. That wealth and race are not synonymous is important for national cohesion, but really it's time Malaysia grew up.

It's a tough world out there and there can be little sympathy for a country that prefers to argue about how to divide wealth rather than get on with the job of creating it.

The long-held aim is for 30 per cent of corporate equity to be in Malay hands, but the figure that the Government uses to justify handing over huge swathes of public companies to Malays but not to other races is absurd. It bases its figure on equity valued, not at market value, but at par value.

Many shares have a par value of say $1 but a market value of $12. And so the Government figure (18.9 per cent is the most recent figure) is a gross underestimate. Last month a paper by a researcher at a local think-tank came up with a figure of 45 per cent based on actual stock prices. All hell broke loose. The paper was withdrawn and the researcher resigned in protest. Part of the problem is that he is Chinese.

" Malaysia boleh!" is Malaysia 's national catch cry. It translates to " Malaysia can!" and Malaysia certainly can. Few countries are as good at wasting money. It is richly endowed with natural resources and the national obsession seems to be to extract these, sell them off and then collectively spray the proceeds up against the wall.
This all happens in the context of Malaysia 's grossly inflated sense of its place in the world.

Most Malaysians are convinced that the eyes of the world are on their country and that their leaders are ! world figures. This is thanks to Malaysia 's tame media and the bravado of former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. The truth is, few people on the streets of London or New York could point to Malaysia on a map much less name its prime minister or capital city.

As if to make this point, a recent episode of The Simpsons features a newsreader trying to announce that a tidal wave had hit some place called Kuala Lumpur . He couldn't pronounce the city's name and so made up one, as if no-one cared anyway. But the joke was on the script w! riters — Kuala Lumpur is inland.

Petronas, the national oil company is well run, particularly when compared to the disaster that passes for a national oil company in neighbouring Indonesia . But in some respects, this is Malaysia 's problem. The very success of Petronas means that it is used to underwrite all manner of excess.

The KLCC development in central Kuala Lumpur is an example. It includes the Twin Towers , the tallest buildings in the world when they were built, which was their point.

It certainly wasn't that there was an office shortage in Kuala Lumpur — there wasn't.

Malaysians are very proud of these towers. Goodness knows why. They had little to do with them. The money for them came out of the ground and the engineering was contracted out to South Korean companies.

They don't even run the shopping centre that's beneath them. That's handled by Australia 's Westfield .

Next year, a Malaysian astronaut will go into space aboard! a Russian rocket — the first Malay in space. And the cost? $RM95 million ($A34.3 million), to be footed by Malaysian taxpayers. The Science and Technology Minister has said that a moon landing in 2020 is the next target, aboard a US flight. There's no indication of what the Americans will charge for this, assuming there's even a chance that they will consider it. But what is Malaysia getting by using the space programs of others as a taxi service? There are no obvious technical benefits, but no doubt Malaysians will be told once again, that they are "boleh". The trouble is, they're not. It's not their space program.

Back in July, the Government announced that it would spend $RM490 million on a sports complex near the London Olympics site so that Malaysian athletes can train there and "get used to cold weather".

But the summer Olympics are held in the summer.

So what is the complex's real purpose? The dozens of goodwill missions by ministers and bureaucrats to London to check on the centre's construction and then on the athletes while they train might provide a clue.

Bank bale outs, a formula one racing track, an entire new capital city — Petronas has paid for them all. It's been an orgy of nonsense that Malaysia can ill afford.

Why? Because Malaysia 's oil will run out in about 19 years. As it is, Malaysia will become a net oil importer in 2011 — that's just five years away.

So it's in this context that the latest debate about race and wealth is so sad.

It is time to move on, time to prepare the economy for life after oil. But, like Nero fiddling while Rome burned, the Malaysian Government is more interested in stunts like sending a Malaysian into space when Malaysia's inadequate schools could have done with the cash, and arguing about wealth distribution using transparently ridiculous statistics.

That's not Malaysia "boleh", that's Malaysia "bodoh" (stupid).

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Prelude to a new dimension.

I have been going through quite an interesting journey the past one year.

In fact, ever since this blog started, life in reality seemed one dimensional and this embossed it into three.

Ended a decade long relationship. At the same time witnessing two other good friends ending theirs'. One has found his other half, another found herself!

Decided to go back to playgirl mode, tak sampai one month the movement of every living things around me suddenly placed me infront of someone whom if you know my lifestyle would be completely impossible to cross each other's path.

The workplace lost the boss everyone could ever dream of and received the lady boss from hell of the highest level. If the word 'Delusional of Grandeur' exists in the dicky, her face should be right by its side. She's insecure, has zero people's skills, made enemies along her vocations in the IT line, and get this, at the age of 52 she doesn't know how to operate the PC, whatnot the notebook, how did she survive before???? Well that surely reflects the real level of this con artist. So 9 staff made their way out, lost almost a million dollar project coz ppl hate her, I received a warning note for should I say 'being too verbally honest'. It's nice to hit on her very dark weaknesses, but before I make my exit from the IT world, this is such an interesting phase to observe. Loved to see how a few of them left and get to give her a nice swingin backhand. NOBODY, I repeat, NOBODY, shall mistreat me around here.

Went Malaysia trotting. Sabah, Taiping, Lumut, Kelantan, Melaka, Penang - Singapore, Phuket all in a span of 10 months with Poncho by my side.

Sold my rock climbing harness away.... HuuuhUuuuuu!!! Doesn't mean I'm gonna quit for good, just that, my face won't be seen at the gym every other week now.

Finally put together a spanking impressive(not really) resume... after 9 years, I'm praying so hard to be able to get off IT. Gosh, this place can just kill all my restless cells. There is just one job out there that'd make me feel spiritually spent, berkat is a better way to say it, but it will not be an easy feat. Dunno.... let's see how it goes.

Finally, I finally have all the courage for the family institution. It took me a few relationships, true hardships while growing up, the books I read during my childhood, a great view about human characteristics while working in predominantly Chinese and 80% male environment, a sister to a sister who had never experienced what it is like to grow up with a father, a daughter who saw her mother raised two children by working butt out from 7am to 9pm all her life til she's 56 - to know there is no need to for self redemption, just go ahead and embrace my moment.

Leaving a decade long relationship had me missing his mother so very much, there are times I really broke down missing the hours of conversations and laughter we used to have in the kitchen, I don't remember being able to sit down and have a intellectual sessions with a 50 year old lady often in my life. I know what it's like now to go through a divorce, you don't just lose someone you're so used to but also the friendships that you made in his family. I learnt that in-laws are still in-laws after the divorce (for the Muslims) as this will protect the silaturrahim, but it doesn't work for breakups that's for sure.

The preparation of my wedding went really speedy fast. It seem to jive with mom's timing, it gave her a huge project right after her retirement. I swear she could put together the most comprehensive wedding directory in the whole KL by now.

Friday, November 03, 2006

Bukan Salah Ibu Mengandung?

I remember this story about the comparison between a 100m sprinter and a cross country runner who’re from the same country. In order to win more medals someone pondered the idea of making either one of the runners to also participate in the other. Is this workable? We all knew the answer to that.

The bickering against Tun and Pak Lah continues. I’m the blindest when it comes to local political issues although coming from a 100% Kelantan family, I should really have my butt against Tun by now although we don’t condone PAS either.

By repeating what me, style typical pompuan, a poor in vocab for politics and an idiot in local financial landscape heard from others:

PAK LAH’S BAD
1. The total investments by foreign countries (FDI: Foreign Direct Investors) in Malaysia has dropped by 4 billion since Pak Lah’s reign. A lot of plants here to moved to either China and surprisingly to Indonesia as they have started to design better policies. The news regarding this was apparently sebesar duit lima puluh sen in the papers.

2. After soooo many years being a black haired bimbo, barulah I tahu Khairi don’t even hold any position in the cabinet. My jaw dropped. So I learnt what Tun meant by 4th floor in Jabatan Perdana Menteri -- Khairi and his pose who’s hired as PM’s think-tankers which results to selling of Agusta at RM1 and him becoming a millionaire. Pak Lah gave Khairy one too many ways.

Yes, I heard about how his mother find her ways through making sure her son marries ‘someone’s’ daughter. Damn, the family’s such a schemer.

3. Pak Lah’s obliging characteristics and his infamous ‘I got work to do’, ‘I am angry’, ‘I am sad’, ‘I am not losing my focus’ phrase.
4. Pak Lah’s style is slow, too agricultural, too Malay centric.

Someone said, for a successfully run country, the new breed of PMs should have a Doctorate in Economics or Finance. He cannot la say, ‘Saya sedih’ kinda talk.

TUN’S BAD
1. Everything in the past which is all balanced by the tangible twin towers, Putrajaya, investors in droves.
2. Tendencies to remove people whom he himself hand picked.
3. Tendencies to get overemotional like crying, cynical tantrums etc.
4. He did provide so many projects to his cronies.
5. Entah hapa hapa lagi la banyak sangat yang kita tak nampak.

So my point about the 100m sprinter and the cross country runner is hopefully relevant. Yet this has nothing to do with natural or acquired talent, characteristics are fixed, what more if you are above 40.
Tun can't get any more polite (all he needs to say is "Get rid of Khairy" but he went on membebel), Pak Lah can't suddenly change into an eloquent economist. That's just the way they are. If we can't adapt to change, we don't just vote someone out, we still need to look after ourselves rather than bickering about how the government must jaga us. Setiap ketua mesti memerintah mengikut citarasa dan budi bicaranya, kan?

I have this question to Tun, why did he choose Pak Lah and not his bestfriend Najib. A person of his stature with assumingly great judgments for politics, for foreign politicians and economists behaviour eih… but lambasting his successor the second time after Anwar.

I have this question to readers, if it is not Pak Lah, who in the entire politics scene is best to take up the job? And why?

I have this question to Pak Lah, he has lost his wife and mother. He is no doubt a pious Muslim and very down to earth. His daughter is the only feminine figure left. Am I right to conclude that displeasing Khairy means displeasing her? Because if we are so not happy, then we should be busy making sure our (Malay) candidate is popular.

To get down to the root, Khairy is the main cause of pain. We can see it in Tun’s trembling voice and hiding eyes when he mentions ‘4th floor’ as that’s where he works. So…. I impose this bold question, do you think… if Khairy were to be completely eliminated from the scene everyone’s happier, there'll be no problem, that is all Tun wants??? But can he see Pak Lah’s predicament with only a few figures left in his life?

The only way for a super thick skin figure like Khairy to go down is by waiting for Pak Lah to go down. Really? If Tun was capable for Anwar-gate, I’m sure this is much easier to handle.

My question to Nouri… throughout the whole squandrel, you were never seen or heard protecting your dad neither are you seen lovingly holding your husband’s arms.
Can’t you see your father’s predicament in protecting his ties with you? Am I naïve or are you just happy nestling yourself between the two as if nothing happens and your mom is not crying in her after life?

My question to Khairy’s mother….”Makcik didik anak makcik untuk sampai ke mana?”

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