Awake from Hibernation full of FOOD dreams

Hi..are you still there? Oh, you should ask me that question right?
Yes, still here, keeping my mind and soul rest of some unplanned agendas.
Went here and there for food hunting, less cook, more lazy :op!

See my catch,weee!! only bought big size promfret, worth for 2 persons, and i ate most coz the other person doesnt eat fish much. first benefit for me. @Philippines market Sabah

 Went for buffet dinner. Eat lots lots lots. 2nd benefit

Coffee to keep awake so that tomorrow can wake up at 12. haha. the heaven for holidays. no need to wake up at 8 and turn on pc. 3rd benefit

Lastly, went for beachy things to burn the excess after eating like dugong. Last benefit, got sun burnt.

Hope soon i will go kitchen and make some heat!

Night Ramble

Awaken from sleep of something. Couldnt close eyes thinking of something. Why i cook Persian dishes? Why I learn Farsi? Why i study Persian culture? Its because of you BFF. Because of love. Nobody had forced neither myself. Its fun you know! The more i go, the more i addicted to it because im doing it with love. Any work if you do it with love, you will find that its very beautiful. 

BFF really appreciates my likes - cooking, Persian studies. Thank you so much dear. Your support is awesome. 

Maybe someone will say why im exposing other culture not mine. tuuut...wrong! This blog created to share 2 cultures -Malay and Persian- i just started this blog for 2 months. Still have long journey.Maybe later i will blog about Belachan - Malay best ingredient than Persians hate so much. hahaha or about why Malay food is spicy but Persian not?

Ooo i can hear the roosters . Better I go force myself to sleep or tomorrow will be dull.

"Ash-e-Reshteh - Persian Noodle Soup

Some friends came for dinner last night not in my house but again bff's. Before this, there is request from bff to cook ash-e-reshteh for his friends as they couldnt find this dish sell at any place in Singapore. Therefore, i offer him to cook the soup.Coincidence, its raining monsoon here now. Everyday wet and cold. So its the right time to serve this soup on cold day (just imagine raining monsoon = winter) :)).

This dish takes about 2 and half hours to prepare. Yeah, so leceh! But yeay i did it and got complement again 1st from bff. He said "Boro befrush in ash" go sell this soup.

Ingredients:
1 cup kidney beans*
1 cup chickpeas(*soak at least for 2 hours)
2 large onions - minced
7 garlic cloves - minced
2 tspn turmeric
8 cups water
3 cups dried vegetables (special type for Persian soup) can buy from Persian grocery shop
100 g noodle (special type for this soup) can buy from Persian grocery shop
1 tbsp flour

For Garnish:
2 large onions - sliced
2 tbspn of dried mint

Methods:
1. Saute onion and garlic til translucent, put in beans and turmeric, stir for 1 minute.
2. Pour water, wait until boil, simmer for 1 hour.
3. In the mean time soak the dried vegetables in luke warm water for 15 minutes, drain off.
4. Put in the vegetables, cook for 1/2 hour with low temperature.
5. Put reshteh.
5. Mix flour with some water and pour to the soup, add salt to taste, simmer another1/2hour. Now the beans should be cooked. You can simmer more to deepen the flavors.
6. For the garnish, saute the onions until golden crisp and stir in dried mints.
7. When serving, spoon in some kashk to the soup.

Ready..the soup is thick. It wont taste like any Malay food. Not like our noodle soup (mee sup or bihun sup) Its totally different.First timer (Malay) will never want it again but when you taste it twice, for sure you want it more. :))

 Ok lah got to go to enjoy afternoon rain..Have a wonderful weekend with your beloved..

Marble Cake

My first attempt to bake marble cake. Recipe from CMG a very popular food blogger in Malaysia. TQ CMG for this superdelicious recipe. It turn out very soft and  fragrant. I gave half of it to bff and he said "you should bake this more often as i like it very much! khoshmazas (delicious!!) - smile till sky haha :))

You can get the recipe from here

Till then. Have a sweet Friday!!

Persian Patties "Kotlet"

Today bff invited his Persian friend for lunch and asked me to make kotlet. Easy peasy!

It tastes nice as it same like malay dish called "bergedil", the difference is only the absence of malay spices in it. 

I also cooked "chelo berenj" which mean rice in Persian ways. Persians have different way to cook its rice and i can say their rice is the best in world. Later i will blog about how to cook Persian Rice ok!! For now, let me share how to cook "Persian Bergedil" :DD

Ingredients:

500 g ground meat

2 onions - grated

5 large potatoes - cooked and mash

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

1 cup of breadcrumbs

salt & pepper to taste

Method:

1. Mix meat, onion, potatoes, eggs, turmeric, salt & pepper in a bowl.

2. Take a handful of the mixture and flatten it into round shape or whatever shape you like buteasy to fry

 :))

3. Heat some oil and fry the patties until golden brown.

4. Serve with warm bread or rice.

I was very happy because all of the patties finished. Yeay!! I passed again. Looking forward for the next order sir..

Sholeh Zard - Saffron Rice Pudding

Today is an "expensive day" because i used 1/3 of my saffron stock. Sholeh zard is very delicious rice pudding and easy to make. During hot whether, its very cooling to eat chill sholeh zard straight away from your own refrigerator. One time during ramezoon (ramadhan) i ate this dessert in Iranian restaurant and it was too sweet. Cooking it myself give satisfaction to me.

Method:

1. Soak half cup of rice for 2 hours.]
2. Boil rice with lots of water, cover and cook for 1 hour until it become very soft.
3. Add 5 tbs of white sugar, saffron liquid, 5 drops of rose water and a pinch of salt. Cook for 10 minutes more until the mixture thickened.
4. Scoop in bowl, garnish and decorate with cinnamon powder, almond and walnut. Chill in refrigerator. Done!

Try it and you wont regret

Tah Chin - Layered Saffron & Chicken Rice

Today i will share one special "expensive" Persian cuisine which is called tah chin. Why i say its expensive is because it used quite much saffron which is expensive :)). "Tah" is a Farsi word for bottom and "chin" is the root word for "chidan" which means putting things in order, arranging and in this case, layering. The bottom part need to be hard crust (tah dig) which for me the signature of this dish. This is my first attempt cooking this recipe. So for me..not bad. Only the tah dig didnt turn out nice. 


Ingredients:


2 cups rice - soaked in water and salt for at least 1 hr
2 chicken breasts
2 cups of yogurt
2 egg yolks
2 tspn saffron - dissolved in warm water
2 medium onions - diced
salt
pepper


Method:
1. Boil chicken breasts with onion, salt and pepper until tender (1 hr). When cook, cut into small pieces.
2. Boil rice until half cook, drain and wash with cold water.
3. Mix yogurt, saffron, salt and egg yolks. Put some rice to the mixture.
4. Heat non-stick pan with butter and some saffron liquid and then pour the mixture to it.
5. Place chicken on top.
6. Put the remaining rice.
7. When steam come out, slow down fire and cook for 1 hour.
8. To serve, let it cool a little so that it easier to take off the tah dig. Hold the pan and flip over the rice on a bigger plate. 

Befarmaid!!

Kaske Badenjoon V2

Last week again i cooked kashk-e-bademjoon but this time i used different type of eggplant which turned out with different taste. More bitter and not so my taste.

Normally i used the long one like this,

But this time i used this

The result.......

I bought 2 of this type eggplant. 1 still in fridge maybe i will cook chili eggplant. Taste better ha.

From Iran with Happiness

Finally tonight i can spare some time to update. Quite busy with life - work.

As promised, I will show the souvenir from Iran that really made me happy :D cause this time I got many things.

TQ bff for the souvenirs. Luckily u didnt have to pay extra luggage for this (^.^)

Enjoy the photos!

 Seeeeee.......WeeeeeeWoooo

 Persian Language Learning Cds

 Saffron

 Different types of macaronis

 Dried fruits

 Ketchup & 1000 Jazireh (1000 island)

 Konserve (canned tuna and beans)

 Rani (most delicious canned drink i ever taste) & laveshak (taste like asam for layer cake)

 Biscuit (taste so-so)

And this......the most wanted sovenir dress coat which called mantou. In iran most of ladies wear this outside home. The design really suit my taste. In Msia very hard to find this kind of dress but cheap. All branded and of coz expensive. 

END

Advantage of Understanding Other Languages

Do you ever came out from elevator smiling and laughing to yrself? Its very funny when we approach some funny incidents inside the elevator and keep it in yr tummy coz u have to stop yrself from laughing in order to respect other passengers and to cover the related persons from shame. And what if u have to cover your anger when u heard somebody's talking stink about u in different language inside the elevator?

Yes, I did face these 2 situations. The funny and the anger. The last time, in my university. This one Ir***** cum my ex-classmate girl said bad about me with one Ir**** boy in persian language. It was only 4 level to go down, I have to control my mouth and ting! level 1...i fight the words back. haha :DD very satisfied u know. You see, 1st advantage, U can fight back and give shame back to and laugh back to her!!

The second situation i faced it frequently. When I enter elevator with other persons that speak other language than me who i can understand the language (what language else i can understand, Persian). They will speak to themselves not about me and sometimes about me but funny like this:

A: Last night i went to B house and suddenly she fart silently.

B: Ok..I will say later.

A: Why? She can understand? (pointing mouth to me)

B: Urm..urm..

(Conversation has been changed from real)

Dont you think this is funny?? Haha. Well, u see, the advantage that i think are cool to share. Many others. So, lets learn other languages especially when u have to involve yrself with people from other races speaking different languages.

Ok..thats all..i need to change and off to changi to fetch somebody from Iran. Will tell u what souvenir they will give! (^o,^). TA!

Kashk Bademjan

I will share my first persian dish. Kashk -e- Badamjan. Kashk is persian sour cream i can say, while bademjan is eggplant. This dish can be served as an appetizer with naan (bread) and fresh sabzi (vegetables). But for me it is heavy enough to eat as a main course. 

My experience with this dish -

I first ate this at Iranian restaurant in Langkawi. First taste, oh! what is this? I couldn't swallow, You know, my malay tongue always eat spicy, when it comes to sour + eggplant, euwww. Later my bff gave me a bottle of kashk from Iran and i just leave it on shelve until one day i asked him, "what u want me to do with the kashk? Kashk-e-bademjan doros kon (cook kashk-e-bademjan)". Ok i take the challenge. After several videos on youtube and recipe books, i cooked it and miracle! he said khoshmazas (delicious). Since then i cooked it at least 1 time in 2 weeks, depends on the kashk stock because it is hard to find it in my area. I managed to accept the taste. You want to know how? shhh...i put more onions in it. So that it wont taste too sour or too bademjan. haha.

Ok, now i share you the recipe:

Ingredients:

Bademjan (Eggplant)

Kashk (Can be found at persian mart)

Piaz (Onion)

Zardchubeh (Turmeric powder)

Felfel siyah (Black pepper)

Namak (Salt)

Roghan (Oil)

Nane (Dried Mint)

Aab (Water)

Methods:

1. Peel and fry the eggplants until golden brown. Put aside. I found out this way tastier rather than baked the eggplant in oven. But your dish will turn out oily. Normally when the dish is ready, i will spoon out the excess oil.

2. Saute onion until golden brown. Take out half of it for garnish. Put the eggplant on top of the onion, sprinkle with turmeric, black pepper and salt.

3. Pour in water until cover the eggplant, stir once, close lid, leave for 20 minutes until all the ingredients mix well. Then put in some kashk.

4. In other pan, put some oil and fry the dried mint until the aroma arise. Just for seconds.

5. Put in the eggplant mixture in a bowl or plate, decorate with kashk, dried mint and fried onion. Ready to be served with fresh vegetables and flat bread.

Khoda hafez!!

Malay meet Persian

Why Malay? Because I am Malay live in Malaysia my colorful country.

Why Persian? Because for the past 3 years I encounter with so many Persian 'things' in my life. I am currently working with one Iranian company in Malaysia and my bff is an Iranian. The more i learn about Persian culture and history, the more i want to know. 

I believe for Malaysians, all of us learn about Persian civilization in our History subject in secondary school. Only that we didnt being exposed much to 'the Persians' like we being exposed by 'the Arabs'. I want to warn you, never say Iranian = Arab. If not, they will get angry with u.(i've experienced that!)

In Malaysia, there are so many Iranians. Most of them are students and the rest having businesses here. You go to Bukit Bintang during their Nowruz (Persian New Year), Ampang, Cyberjaya, these are some hot spots for Iranian in Malaysia. Small communities are at Skudai JB and Penang. But as far as i know, Iranian are everywhere in this world. If you go to the smallest city in world also, i bet you, you will find at least 1 Iranian there! Really! There are some reasons for this. Maybe I will blog later about it.

Ok guys, there are so many more i want to share. But for now i will stop here. Here my first photo in chilliandsaffron, me standing in front of Azadi Square in Tehran. Yes, I went to Iran. I will share my beautiful experiences later. BYE!

Salam,Hai, Hello

Ok..after months of stranger blogwalking, i decided to create this blog. This will be the place for me to share my experience especially in culture and foods. Sorry, no personal story will be published. I hope you guys will enjoy reading!!
"Emruz avval rooz in blog baz kardam, omidvaram shoma khoshhal bash ke blog man mikhuni". (please forgive my broken farsi through the journey as i never attend any formal persian language class. you are open to correct me)