Of Biryani Udang and St Nicks Girls!

Been wanting to put up this post for a long time, but as my usual excuse would be...no time!Teringat Surah Al Asr'which is about time... so here goes...the recipe of Biryani Udang first:

Biryani Udang

Ingredients

Item A
1 kg udang kertas (depends on how you like prawns, actually, I'd go for the medium size ones 1 kg about RM20.00)- clean, drain and marinade with garam kunyit
4 medium size potatoes - clean and cut into wedges
3 medium onions- thinly sliced, to make bawang goreng

Item B
1 kg basmathi rice - this will be about 5 pots (tin susu condense milk which I use as sukat beras at home)and will make rice enough for 15 pax. Wash rice, soak for 15 minutes, drain and set aside
2 tablespoon rempah kari ikan/udang Baba's
5 tablespoon tomato paste
2 tablespoon natural plain yoghurt
10 almonds- soaked, peel off the skin and tumbuk halus
(the rempah kari, tomato paste, plain yoghurt and almonds are to be mixed and made into a paste for tumis)
1/3 can of evaporated milk - I like Ideal, rich and sedap!

Item C
2 medium onions - thinly sliced, for tumis
2 helai daun pandan - siat siat and simpul, for tumis
rempah tumis ie cinnamon bark, ani seed, corrainder seed, cloves, for tumis
2 medium onions, 5 cloves garlic, 2 inch ginger - all bended, for tumis
2 tablespoon ghee- for tumis

Method

Item A
Firstly, goreng the onions until golden in colour, to make bawang goreng, set aside. Then goreng the potato wedges, set aside. With the oil that you fried the bawang goreng and potatoes, fry the prawns until about three quarter cooked, drain and set aside.

Item C
Heat the ghee, add the leftover of the oil used earlier for frying prawns. Tumis the medium onions and daun pandan first, until fragrant. Then masukkan the blended onion, garlic, ginger and rempah tumis, fry until fragrant and golden. Add the paste in Item B on slow fire, until pecah minyak. Pour in 7 pots of water (using the tin sukat beras) and 1/3 can of evaporated milk into this mix, let boil, add salt to taste.

Once boiling (about 5 minutes), add the basmathi rice, sprigs of mint leaves and corrander leaves. I usually tumis in the rice cooker pot using the stove, once I added the rice, I will transfer the pot back to it's cooker and let the rice cook.

My first attempts, I found that the rice didn't cook as easily as you cook plain rice, so it is a matter of practise to get the rice to be fluffy! Another tip is to cover the rice with a plate (I use corning) once, the air dah kering, with the stem trapped under the plate, the rice cooks easily and nicely into fluffy ggrains...try this!

Once the rice is cooked, garnish by topping the rice with the bawang goreng, potato wedged and udang goreng(Item A). Serve with Ayam Goreng Rempah, Cucumber Raita and Vegetable Dhals...yums!

And now about St Nicks girls...what can I say, other than I wasted my time being solo, on my own when I was in St Nicholas Convent. I am not a self centred person, however, at that time I was too engrossed with school activities that I missed the fun and the gila gila time with them...I was know as The School Prefect...booo...boringnya.

Years passed, and I always thought of waht had become of my girl friends there. And because I left for boarding school in Form , I somewhat lost contact with all of them. Funny, I didnt even cross any of their path when I did A Levels in KPP/ITM.

One fine day last year and thank god for the invention of FB, Breakaway found me...I felt like anak jumpa mak, or mak jumpa anak...no words can describe how I felt.. am so glad that they remember me...moi yang dah go through temporary amnesia tak ingat some of them...err so sorry Sharon, Naz, most of them still look the same, some dont age at all...Sham, Naz, Beng Koon, Jini, Serena, Elina, Ita, Pueh Fong and Ting Ting alias Hidayah....even Winy who spent a mere Std Six in St Nicks also came...we were our usual girl self again that day!

Puasa came puasa went, after Syawal Sham who is very diligent when it comes to arranging for meetings, decided to hold a gathering, a pot luck at her house...to me what I brought didnt really matter, what matters was to get to meet some of them again after more than 20 years!! Naz, we'll have another one once you return for summer break this year! Never mind if I will be in confinement, we'll have our ways...St Nicks girls always have their ways..like dot dot dot bawah tangga...

Hence, the biryani udang above that I brought to jamu my friends...even the biryani udang doens't matter, think the happy pretty faces of the girls are much nicer to be put up here...as for the biryani udang, go ahead give it a shot and see if you like it! xxx