What to do when it is cold in London and in Kuala Lumpur.
This is the Shock! Horror! headline in the Star newspaper this morning:
I love tropical weather. I love seeing lush, green trees on the way from the airport to my parents’ house.
So it was a real surprise to find myself feeling cold last night. The explanation was made clear in the news this morning: heavy and prolonged rains have really cooled the weather down.
The difference in reporting is that in London, we would be celebrating 22 C. Here in KL, 22 C is nothing short of a disaster.
My comfort food in any weather, hot or cold, is Chicken Rice. This is simply a whole poached chicken, chopped into pieces when cooked, with the poaching liquid used to flavour and cook the accompanying rice.
We always serve this with sliced cucumber and a trio of sauces in which to dip the chicken: fresh chilli sauce, ginger-spring onion sauce and the ubiquitous soya sauce.
Here is the recipe for the chilli sauce, which I have been making in the agak-agak (guessing) style for as long as I have made this dish. I have, however, made it a point now to weigh out the ingredients.
The sauce is usually made in a blender of food processor but now I use a Thermomix.
For the Chilli Sauce:
515 g fresh red chillis, some seeds and membrane left in
75 g fresh ginger
50 g garlic
75 g lime juice
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt
How to Make:
It’s all very simple. Simply slice all the ingredients into smaller pieces and place altogether in the Thermomix bowl.
Chop using Turbo/ 2 seconds for two to three times.
Remove the lid, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and chop again Turbo/ 2 seconds for another two to three times. This is all you will need to make a fine chilli sauce.
Taste and add more lime juice, sugar or salt as you wish.
You can use the chilli sauce immediately or it keeps in the fridge for up to a week, and in the freezer for a very long time.
