Where cool cats linger
I’m just a cat-loving Malaysian who loves to eat, cook, and bake. I also modify recipes from various cuisines into Halal, Muslim-friendly versions, and share them here so you don’t have to figure it out all by yourself.
My Recipes
My experiments with cuisines from all over the world, using Halal ingredients.
Treats from my home state of Terengganu, Malaysia, as well as a few family recipes.
My best recipes, guaranteed to be crowd pleasers and a hit at potlucks and dinner parties.
My endless pursuit of the yummiest bread and dough recipes, either baked, fried, steamed and more.
Copycat recipes you can make at home, to satisfy your curiosity or cravings.
My collection of recipes by gadget, from air fryers to pressure cookers and other handy kitchen appliances. Anything to help speed up our prep work!
MY MOTTO
#nakmakanbuatsendiri
(Wanna eat? Make it yourself)
Latest Posts
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Chicken Curry Pau
CONTINUE READING: Chicken Curry PauAs we all know, bao or baozi are steamed buns originating from China. Perhaps through cultural transfer and assimilation over centuries via trade and migration, in Malaysia we have a local variant of steamed buns, called pau. Malaysian pau are quite distinctly local, with either sweet or savory fillings such as coconut jam, red bean,…
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Kampung Fried Rice (Village-style Fried Rice)
CONTINUE READING: Kampung Fried Rice (Village-style Fried Rice)I used to work in an office building which had a cafeteria on the 3rd floor. Before my days of intermittent fasting, my colleagues and I would quickly stop by the 3rd floor to get our daily breakfast to go and eat together in the office pantry. One of my favorite breakfast items is kampung…
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Soto Ayam (Indonesian Chicken Soup)
CONTINUE READING: Soto Ayam (Indonesian Chicken Soup)It’s been quite a while since I had a good bowl of soto ayam. It’s the end of the year and the weather has been quite wet and gloomy. Having a steaming hot bowl of herbal chicken soup and all the fixings would surely hit the spot. The few I ordered recently from different restaurants…
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MENU IDEAS
Having a Party?
I used to organize dinner parties with my friends, dubbed The Dinner Club. I’d propose a menu along with the estimated cost, and we’d set a date. I’d do all the cooking, and my friends chip in for groceries. Here are the menus for my past Dinner Club sessions, in case you need some inspo.
MAKE YOUR OWN INGREDIENTS
To Make, or To Buy?
Sometimes I’m just lazy to run to the store to get something. Sometimes certain ingredients cost a bomb, or simply aren’t available to buy. Take a look at spice mixes and other ingredients I’ve made myself, for use in recipes in this site.
As we all know, bao or baozi are steamed buns originating from China. Perhaps through cultural transfer and assimilation over centuries via trade and migration, in Malaysia we have a local variant of steamed buns, called pau. Malaysian pau are quite distinctly local, with either sweet or savory fillings such as coconut jam, red bean, sweet shredded coconut, anchovy sambal, and chicken curry. Here I’ll be sharing my recipe for chicken curry pau.
For chicken curry pau, I prefer the filling to be flavorful, generous with the meat, with some heat but not too spicy. I tried making Che Nom’s chicken curry puffs before, and found the filling to be exactly what I want in my pau. Having made this filling a few times now I’ve modified it to suit my tastes, as shared here. For the pau dough I’m using my tried and tested pau dough recipe.
Check out my chicken curry pau, great for a quick breakfast or as an afternoon snack.
Link to my blog in bio!
https://purrfectbliss.com/2024/12/15/chicken-curry-pau/
I used to work in an office building which had a cafeteria on the 3rd floor. Before my days of intermittent fasting, my colleagues and I would quickly stop by the 3rd floor to get our daily breakfast to go and eat together in the office pantry. One of my favorite breakfast items is kampung fried rice, with a super-greasy-but-yummy fried egg on the side. It was a pretty plain dish, yet it was so flavorful. It was also super spicy – I would definitely need to have a lot of water on standby – but it was delicious.
After Kak`mbang retired, I had to ramp up my repertoire of dishes to prepare for our daily meals. There were days when I felt a little more adventurous and I`d try more complex dishes to have with rice, but there were also days when I just wanted a one-pot meal. Chinese fried rice is always a good option, but one day I felt a bit nostalgic for that awesome kampung fried rice I used to have at my old work place.
I just discovered Che Nom`s Youtube channel at this point, and I saw her video for kampung fried rice. Her version is a lot more complete, unlike the simple version I`m used to seeing. The rice is flavored with savory anchovies and belacan, there`s chicken, shrimp and eggs for protein, and water spinach for our veg. The water spinach really makes this recipe very traditional and authentic.
Once I`ve made my own kampung fried rice, I was forever ruined. Any other kampung fried rice I ordered from different stalls simply can`t measure up to this recipe. Here I`m sharing my version of Che Nom`s amazing recipe, with more precise measurements for the ingredients, adjusted to my preference. My mom can`t really take spicy food, so I`ve substantially reduced the amount of chili in my recipe. Feel free to increase the quantity to taste.
It`s been quite a while since I had a good bowl of soto ayam. It`s the end of the year and the weather has been quite wet and gloomy. Having a steaming hot bowl of herbal chicken soup and all the fixings would surely hit the spot. The few I ordered recently from different restaurants on Grab weren`t too inspiring, so I decided to make it myself.
Soto ayam can be as simple or as fancy as you want it to be. While soto ayam is featured on the menu during Eid celebrations, it is also a pretty popular breakfast item in Malaysia. The most basic components are the chicken, carb (rice or noodles), and the broth. Everything else pretty much depends on the time and effort you are willing to spend on it. After some searching, I chose a pretty simple recipe by Che Nom as my starting point, with a few modifications to suit my preferences.
For my version here, I used store-bought compressed rice cakes as my carb of choice, and I boiled them in my pressure cooker to save time. For the toppings, I air-fried the ground nuts, and fried my homemade bergedil and the glass noodles. Thankfully I found a jar of good-quality fried shallots at the store, so I saved myself a lot of time and effort there.
Link to my blog in bio!
https://purrfectbliss.com/2024/12/11/soto-ayam/
When I was a lot younger and was visiting my big brother in KL, he used to take us to the hawker food center in Uptown. There were plenty of stalls to choose from, but I still wasn’t so adventurous with food at the time. So, I usually ended up ordering Chinese fried rice from a stall called Johnny’s (I think).
Uusually the drinks stall guy would help us order food to encourage us to sit in front of their shop and order from them, instead of from other competitors. Sometimes the guy screws up and orders the same dish from a different stall, but that version wouldn’t be as good as the one from Johnny’s. I like this version because of its simplicity, yummy proteins and minimal veg. A simple, complete, and tasty meal. Fast forward to today, having built a decent amount of experience in cooking, I now also know Chinese fried rice is also one of the easiest to make. It is therefore a regular solution for times I was too lazy but still needed to cook something.
In Malaysia, when we order ‘Chinese fried rice’ we’re actually referring to Yong Chow fried rice. Yong Chow fried rice usually comprises of a couple of proteins, e.g. chicken and shrimp, mix veggies and eggs. I’m not a fan of using frozen veggies, so I hand-cut fresh carrots and use long beans in place of frozen peas. My go-to proteins are chicken and shrimp, but for this post, I was out of shrimp so I substituted with diced fish cakes. Of course, many home cooks know fried rice is a wonderful playground to experiment with whatever leftovers we have in the fridge. So don’t be afraid to toss in other stuff like luncheon meat, char siu, etc. So many possibilities!
This recipe here is inspired by @che_nom, with my own twist.
Link to my blog in my bio!
https://purrfectbliss.com/2024/12/09/chinese-fried-rice/
My mom really likes Madam Kwan’s Cantonese kway teow. She tends to order Cantonese kway teow anyway whenever we eat out and if it’s on the menu, but highly likely she’ll say other places can’t compare to the one at Madam Kwan’s. I agree with her opinion.
Unfortunately, ordering food deliveries from Madam Kwan’s too often isn’t healthy for my pocket, so I started thinking of ways to make it myself. Besides, all that seafood isn’t good for my mom’s gout, so having better control over the ingredients is always a huge plus. I know I won’t be able to fully emulate the amazing wok hei in restaurant cooking, but I’d like to get as close to it as possible.
I sought inspiration from Sherson Lian’s beef ginger kway teow recipe, Che Nom’s Cantonese kway teow recipe, and of course Madam Kwan’s version. I’m quite proud of the end result, and I think it is a worthy copycat of the version my mom loves. Yum!
Blog linked in my bio!
https://purrfectbliss.com/2024/12/07/cantonese-kway-teow/
Sometimes you just need something quick and simple to go with your rice. Perhaps it’s the end of the week, and the only thing left in the fridge are a few eggs. A la Thai Malay dishes also tend to be excellent when paired with an egg dish. For these times, we can make a simple omelet.
After making this over and over again, I’ve found my tried and tested recipe. The ingredients are super simple, but the method also matters in making a good simple omelet. I’ve definitely screwed up a few in the beginning. Practice makes perfect. Some of my omelets turn out super ugly and not Instagram-worthy, but the flavor remains consistent. I highly recommend having this omelet with chicken paprik or three-flavored barramundi. Do give it a try!
Link to my blog in bio:
https://purrfectbliss.com/2024/12/05/simple-omelet/
When I was studying in the States, I often remained on campus during Thanksgiving break. My residential college, Ezra Stiles, always had a budget for treating those who stayed back with Thanksgiving dinner. I really appreciated the thought, and it gave me an opportunity to experience Thanksgiving and a typical Thanksgiving dinner menu.
For me, Thanksgiving dinners always remind me of turkey, pumpkin and apple cider. Of course over the years I encountered other dishes, but those three items I mentioned were very synonymous with the event. I enjoyed every moment of it during my student days.
Fast forward to about a decade after I left college, I began hosting turkey dinners with my usual eating gang. It doesn’t matter that Malaysians don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. For me and my friends, we just needed an excuse to eat turkey. November (Thanksgiving) or December (Christmas) were the months we usually organize a turkey dinner, because this was the time we can even find halal turkey anywhere. Only one time Tesco (now Lotus’s) stocked halal turkeys at a very good price, and I ended up having a turkey dinner in March.
At first, I just made various Thanksgiving-themed sides and ordered the roast turkey from somewhere. However, after many times being disappointed by dry or underseasoned meat, I began roasting my own and never looked back. While I did try new recipes for sides, eventually I stuck with a few favorites when organizing my turkey dinners.
Here are the menu items I’ve made over the years. Have a look!
Link to my blog in my bio:
https://purrfectbliss.com/2024/12/01/thanksgiving-dinner-menu-ideas/
Here in KL, I personally find it difficult to find decent Terengganu food close enough to my house. Food from Kelantan, our neighboring state, is aplenty, but not those from my own home state. Until one day, my mom told me about Mok Teh Nasi Dagang, a shop my brother frequently orders from, . This shop’s best-seller is of course their Nasi Dagang, but they also sell all sorts of Terengganu snacks and desserts, one of them being tepung kapur.
As far as I know, tepung kapur is a Malay kuih only found in Terengganu or Kelantan. I thought it to be an East Coast thing, but apparently Pahang doesn’t have it. Many often mistake them for kuih kaswi, but while both are brown in color and are coated in grated coconut, that’s where the similarity ends. Unlike kaswi which is soft and jelly-like, tepung kapur is firm to the bite, and can be cut into distinct slices. The word ‘kapur’ refers to the slaked lime water used in the batter, and if anyone asks if this ingredient can be skipped, well, it ain’t tepung kapur with no kapur in it, friend.
There aren’t too many recipes online for tepung kapur, but I found a very helpful guide by Malina Lina Pg. She gave various options for wrapping the tepung kapur, and my method of choice is wrapping with banana leaves in cylindrical, candy-shaped casings. I made this recipe before using sous vide bags lined with banana leaves, because I didn’t have enough leaves for making full casings. I’ve modified the wrapping method here and there, because I had some health-related concerns with her method, e.g. boiling rubber bands or takeout plastic packaging.
Because this kuih uses very few ingredients, I made some effort to acquire very good ingredients. I used Madam Yap filtered palm sugar from the state of Melaka, said to be the best in Malaysia. I also used fresh pandan leaves from my garden. The results really did not disappoint. If you want to try this rare Malay kuih, do check out this recipe!
Link to my blog in bio!
https://purrfectbliss.com/2024/11/29/tepung-kapur/
