What We Did In Ayer Baloi, Pontian...

The kids have been nagging us to go back to Pontian..... Ayer Baloi, is the name of the kampung, to be exact. Since it was the weekend before school reopens from March school break, I decided to take the Fiday afternoon off and balik Ayer Baloi. The house is my hubby's arwah atok ayah's rumah pusaka, which had been restored recently by hubby and bil...well, need you you ask what were our main agendas there? ....coming from me Kitchen Guardian, it had to revolve around food!

Yes, am preggers, but my hubby has been having all this kempunan and dreams of having this and that food...and one of them was to have this delicious Sweet Sour Crab, and he wants it not from my kitchen, but from this Ah Li shop (yes, they are halal!), one of the first shops to sell such dish in Kukup.

Kukup is a small town with a jetty that you can ride a boat on to get to Pulau Kerimun (which is part of Kepulauan Indonesia). Abah, my fil still have relatives in Pulau Kerimun, and he visits them whenever there is khenduri khendara...I takut nak pi, wonder if they have proper sanitation...toilets and such are my priorities when I travel, ha ha!! She has forgotten her roots of poo poo @ jamban outside Tok Yam'shouse back in Kupang, when she was small, pakai torch light malam malam buta....imagine what studying abroad and modernisationa has done to Kitchen Guardian...nah! I still remember my roots!!

So, on Sunday last weekend, we went to Kukup searching for Ah Li's shop, ada but with face-lift. We had the Sweet Souir Crab (recipe below) (dua ekor ketam),
Beehon Goreng Basah, ala cantonese mee (for one person),
Char Kueh Teow (for two person),
Mantao (it's like pau without the inti and deep fried, ordered 10 of them and 8 finished by Umar, had to order 5 more!),
Udang Goreng Nestum (medium and sedap sangat sangat!!),
and Crispy Fried Baby Sotong....mmmhhh sedap tak terkata! All plus drinks and keropok udang, the bill came to RM119.00...murahnya!! Here's how I make Sweet Sour Crab at home....

Sweet Sour Ketam, Yani's Style!

4 ekor ketam, medium size, cleaned
5 cloves garlic, crushed
1 in ginger, chopped finely
1 large onion
corriander leaves, fresh tomatoes (also pineapple cubes..if you wish!)
1 senduk tomato sauce
1 senduk chilly sauce
2 large eggs, beat lightly

Tumis garlic and ginger until fragrant and light brown, add in the tomato and chilly sauce..if you like it more spicy you can add some chilly boh, fry until pecah minyak. Add in the ketam, simmer until ketam is cooked, I usually add some water to thin the gravy. Once cooked, remove the ketam from the gravy, place it in serving dish.

Add in the eggs into the gravy, simmer over low fire, do not stir...you want the eggs to set and cook...last add the corriander leaves and fresh tomatoes and pineapple, garam secukup rasa. Pour the gravy over the ketam and serve with white rice or ratah with roti. Acording to hubby those days it was served with roti benggali, now depa dah upgrade with mantao!

That petang, we had visitors...Uncle Sabri and Auntie Yam, mil's and fil's best friends...Uncle Sabri came with his lintah-lintah for treatment! We managed to persuade Khadijah who has been sniffing and sok sek from her sinus problem and Ibraheem who's been in and out of hospital due to her athma to have a few lintah on them. I told Uncle Sabri, when I was young I always attract lintah and pacat whenever I played around in my "seluarq katok" (I used to be a tomboy, you see...) going in and out of the bendang in my kampung...he said...sebab tulah orang kedah semua sihat, all the toxic have been sucked out by those slimmy creatures...

After the "treatment" session, which took more than 2 hours for both Khadijah and Ibraheem, they definitely looked and felt better! While the treatment was going, I was busy preparing dinner and barbeque for other guests...somehow we are like sugar...we always attract the ants, no matter where we were, ha ha! And we loved it!

Khadijah and her lintahs...
Ibraheem and his lintahs...
Uncle Sabri's tobbaco!
Hajar....lepaking at the main door, whilst her brothers main basikal and menghabiskan duit mak bapak beli jajan (tit bits) at kedai Ah Ping that was about 50 metres away...

Moi...struggling with her editing work to meet dateline...since no baking were done last weekend....what a bliss...can we live in Ayer Baloi? Asked hubby!!