Dessert By Candy

Nasi Lemak: Malaysian Breakfast

I am far from an expert on Malaysian cuisine but I enjoy it since I was a child in Hong Kong. A cosmopolitan city at heart, Malaysian restaurants are common and a popular choice for dining out in my family. After I moved to Toronto, I was disappointed that authentic Malaysian restaurants were few and far between. I missed my favourite dish nasi lemak dearly.

Lucky for me, it is not all that difficult to make nasi lemak at home. The comforting coconut steamed rice dish is often accompanied by an assortment of sides that complement and contrast. The spicy sambal with fiery chillies and crunchy anchovies is my favourite. The heat is tamed by cooling slices of cucumbers and rich coconut steamed rice fragrant with pandan. Wedges of hardboiled egg nudge the dish firmly in the breakfast territory. Crunchy salted peanuts keep up the textural interest. And don’t forget the meaty pieces of beef rendang!

Bumpy Road To Korvapuusti

Many of us experienced Pinterest Disappointment before. You come across an enticing pin. You carefully follow the recipe. What you end up making looks nothing like the exquisite original that caught your attention in the first place. You question your own ability and you doubt the integrity of the recipe. In the end, you feel like you wasted precious time, effort, and ingredients. Do you let out a deep sigh and move on or do you try to figure out what went wrong?

I experienced all of the above when I tried to make Finnish cinnamon roll korvapuusti last week. Full disclosure: I did not follow the recipes exactly. Combining the recipe from The Kinfolk Table , My Blue And White Kitchen, and my own bread baking experience, I thought it would be a straight-forward treat for Sunday brunch. I was wrong.

Learn, Candy, Learn

One of the most important lessons for me in 2014 is the quest to keep pushing myself out of my culinary comfort zone. Cooking and baking with unfamiliar techniques, ingredients, and equipment forced me to learn many new and wonderful things. ‘Tis the season for resolution so I resolve to continue trying something new in the kitchen at least once every week in 2015.

I did not waste any time and quickly found not one, but two fun things to learn. In Chinese cooking, smoking food with tea is a classic cooking technique. Unfortunately for me, the prospect of setting up a smoker indoor sounds more than daunting. Turns out, it is rather simple and clean up is a breeze. Why did I wait so long  to learn? Thank you Angela Ching and her well-written recipes to demystify this cooking technique.