Mutton Varuval anyone?!

Oh, I know it sounds so sinful, but I finally got the recipe to make this from a cabbie, last Friday on the way home from work. As we were in Malacca by friday midnight, we went to the market near Melaka Sentral first thing Saturday morning to get some fresh ingredients for an aromatic platterful of high cholesterol dinner to be served that night! MiL was so impressed she asked me to write down the recipe for her! So here are all that you need to know;

Ingredients

• 1 kg of mutton, cut into small pieces (as it will cook faster)
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 2 tablespoon cumin
• fresh ginger about 4 inches (more if you like)
• 5-6 cloves garlic
• 15-20 dried chilies (15-moderate hot, 20-HOT!)
• about 10 shallots sliced
• 1 star anise
• a few cardamom pods
• 1 cup yogurt (I used the Indian version called Thairu)
• 2 tablespoon thick soya sauce
• curry leaves
• salt

Method:

To make the marinade, first boil the dried chilies in water to soften. Remove as much seeds as you can by draining the chilies in a colander a few times, under running water. Pound 1 cinnamon stick and 1 tablespoon cumin in a mortar & pestle (lesung) until powdery. Don't try to use a food processor unless you have a dry mill small enough!

Meanwhile, peel garlic & ginger, chop coarsely and put in a food processor/blender. Add the drained dried chilies and cinnamon & cumin powder and process for a few minutes into a thick paste, add a little water if necessary. Or, better thing to do is to add some yogurt to get the processor going.

Put the washed and drained mutton pieces in a large bowl, add the spice paste, a bit of salt, and the rest of the yogurt and mix well. Cover with a cling film and leave it to marinate in the fridge for at least 4-5 hours. (I put mine in the fridge at 10.30am and took it out at 5pm).

Meat in marinade

Heat 2 tablespoon of oil in a wok, add shallots, cinnamon, star anise and cardamom seeds (you need to pop the cardamom open to take out the little seeds from them), I also added few pieces of dried chilies just for aesthetic purposes. When the shallots are translucent, add the marinated mutton pieces and cook, uncovered, on moderate fire. Stir at random intervals.

When the meat is almost done (there will be some oil bubbling around the meat and no liquid left), reduce fire to low, sprinkle salt to taste, the rest of cumin and the thick soya sauce. Give it a good stir to mix them all up and finally throw in some curry leaves to finish. It smells just so heavenly.

Honestly, I'm not so much of a mutton person, but this was just fantastic! No, I'm not gloating, all credits to the real nice 'uncle' from Supercab!

I actually took this shot AFTER everyone had dinner as I forgot to do it earlier. Hehe. But don't they look so very good, nevertheless? I just thought they weren't black enough as they are in Indian restaurants, perhaps the next time I should add more soya sauce.

We also got some really nice Gula Melaka from the same market and I intend to use them for Sago Gula Melaka. Need to make it in the next few days for hubz preggie colleague, Kim. Will post immediately after!

Eating issues and Pediasure

The past week or so, Nia has completely slowed down on her eating, taking less & less milk during the day and even lesser solids compared to before. I was alarmed when I noticed she looked and felt like she's lost weight so last Thursday night we hauled her up to a local paed in Taman Tun, a Dr. Altaf who was highly recommended by our friends.

I initially intended to take a cab over from our side of Taman Tun but it started to rain so I waited for hubz to get home first. By the time we got to the clinic it was already past 8pm. He closes at 9.

There were 4 names before Nia's and quite a few kids runnign around the clinic. The staff were so friendly and polite, I was really impressed. It was almost 9 by the time we got to see him. Hubz commented that this doctor was spending a long time with each of his little patients. Then came our turn to find out. Before he even went to our issue of the day, he asked historical data on the child like what was her birth weight, has she had any fever, hospitalisation etc. He carefully wrote down everything before moving to the reason for our visit that day.

After listening to us intently, he checked Nia all over, ears, throat, tummy, lungs, the whole works and declared she seems abolutely fine save for slightly low weight for her age. She was 8.4kg at 13 mths, which, according to him was about 600g short of the ideal weight. She was born at 2.77kg which is also about 600g short of normal weight. It goes to show, he said, that she has not really caught up with the 600g as yet. He suggested we changed her milk to Pediasure complete and start her on MultiVits as supplement.

So last weekend we bought Pediasure and tried feeding her with it. As usual, because I'm there she barely had any, but I managed to coax her by feeding it in her sippy cup instead of bottle and she drank only half of the serving. But she has been taking her multivits every morning.

My aunt says these past two days she only drank 1 serving of the formula the whole day, that is about 220ml (around 7oz) which is too little. My aunt can't seem to get her to drink anymore than that as she prefers drinking water. I tried some of it in my quest to figure out why she does not like it, has anyone tried it before? It is so bloody sweet! It taste just like the vanilla cream drink from Coffee Bean, I'm not kidding. I wonder if I could dilute the formula with water to make it less sweet and try feeding it? Yes, I do know you aren't supposed to do that, but what else?

I notice the past few days since she's been on Pediasure, she wakes up more often in the middle of the night wanting feed, perhaps she's trying to replace the milk she refuses during the day with breast milk? Plausible, no?

Contemplating to try out another brand of formula now.

Nia's Fried Rice

Ingredients:

• 1/2 a cup slightly overcooked rice
• 1 small fillet of chicken, sliced thin into bite size pieces (baby's bite size, not yours!)
• few pieces of ikan bilis soaked in water and chopped up
• 1 tbsp frozen peas, soaked
• 1 small cauliflower, diced
• 1 tablespoon tomato puree
• dash of sweet soya sauce (kicap manis)
• dash of ground white pepper
• 1 shallot sliced
• 1 clove garlic sliced
• sesame oil

Method:

Heat wok, add sesame oil, shallot & garlic and stir for a minute, add pieces of chicken, ikan bilis, peas and cauliflower, reduce fire and cook chicken through. The chicken will turn whitish when its cooked. Add the rice, tomato puree, pepper and soya sauce, mix them well on high heat. There you have it! Fried rice that looks fantastic, smells heavenly, and is ready in no time! For the first time in many weeks, Nia actually cleaned up her plate! I should be making more of this.

You can get creative and replace the veges with your baby's favourites and substitute the chicken with freshly made fishballs cut into small pieces, it will taste just as great.

Photos from Nia's Birthday Party

I don't know why I cant link my shutterfly album to this site, well actually I can, it's just that you can't view the pix, so I deleted the link! Will try to find another way of linking the album here, meanwhile here's some of my fav pix of Nia from the party:

Rice Risotto with Celery and Egg

Ok, this one is on request from a friend who saw Nia eating this for lunch last Saturday. I love making risottos, they are so easy to make and so yummy. Even hubz devoured this! (sorry no pic)

Ingredients:
1/4 cup long grain rice, soaked in water for 10-15 minutes and drain
1 clove garlic, smashed
half a stalk of celery sliced thin
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 egg beaten lightly
1 cup of unsalted chicken stock
bit of butter

Method:
Bring rice, celery, garlic, butter & chicken stock to a boil, reduce fire and let the rice cook. Do add boiled water or stock if the liquid dry up too fast. When rice is almost done to the consistency your child prefers, add tomato puree and stir in the egg. Ensure the egg's cooked through before removing from fire. Cool it a little and it's ready to go!

Note: Feeding babies uncooked egg exposes them to salmonella infection, so do remember that everytime you intend to feed your baby egg.

My baby's walking!

Albeit very cautiously and not often enough! Another milestone caught on video to share with you folks. I'm still a very proud mummy nevertheless!