Otak-Otak

I made my first otak-otak 2 weekends ago. My colleagues were organising a potluck gathering, so I decided to make otak-otak. Why otak-otak? Because it's quite easy and I have my MIL to ask for advice - she made great otak-otak.


Since it's hard to do the marketing during the weekends with the children around, we went to get the ingredients ready during one of the weekdays lunch time. I decided to try my luck at one of the markets that I knew which opened during the afternoon. But it's still too early, the spices' stall was not opened yet. Still, we managed to get the other ingredients, everything except for the spices and also santan (thick coconut milk).


Somehow on the day itself, MIL was not around to help me. She was not feeling too well so she went back to her house to rest. I got the verbal instructions from her, and made a mental note on the steps. Luckily I have bought the spices and santan myself the day before so I was not that panicky. Since I got it one day earlier, I was advised by the seller to freeze the santan or it'll go bad.


Come Sunday, I was counting on my baby to sleep so that I could start work soon. I was not too worried about Sze Yi as she was big enough to join me. However, Sze Juin just wouldn't want to sleep, especially with her sister around. It was already 3.30pm, and the gathering would be starting at 6pm. Luckily hubby took the kids out for a drive, so I quickly get to work. Halfway thru, they came back. And Sze Juin wanted me to carry her. I had no choice but to carry her in one hand, and instructed Sze Yi to help me mix those ingredients, helping her with the other hand at the same time. She enjoyed it, but initially, she was reluctant to mix them with her hands. She said, "Ei.. it's so dirty, I don't want, I don't want". I needed to reassure her that it's ok, we can wash our hands later, and then she started to work. She didn't get to see the final result yet because we needed to steam for awhile. I sent her for her afternoon nap then.


If you're interested to know the recipe, here it is. But please bear in mind that this is purely my version (or how I interpretted from my MIL's verbal instructions - no recipe and no measurements on the actual amount. It was really a good trial for me. Luckily it turned out quite ok.


Steps:
i. Clean the pointed pepper leaves (daun Kaduk) and Kaffir lime leaves (daun limau purut). Sliced the Kaffir lime leaves into very small pieces (I was told to roll the leaves and cut it with scissors into very thin strips). In case you haven't seen them, here's how it looks like (the daun Kaduk is the bigger one on the left, while the daun limau purut is the smaller leaves on the right):

ii. Layer the base of the tray with the daun Kaduk.
iii. Add the spices with eggs, santan, pepper and the daun limau purut, and mix them until even. (I get RM1.50 otak-otak spices from the market, mixed it with 2/3 eggs and 50cent santan per tray).
iv. Add the fish in (I used baby shark here, cut them into small slices).
v. Steam for 20 minutes.


And viola! Here's what I got.

How did it taste? Hubby said it's quite a success, considering it was my first time (ahem!). I didn't really get to taste it in advance since I wouldn't want to spoil the appearance by cutting a small slice so I just served on the spot. My colleagues were rather surprised when I told them I haven't really tasted it, but they reassured me it was ok. Well, it was not as tasty as I had hoped, but it's really ok. Or so I thought. Either that, or my colleagues were being nice to me.

When I let MIL tried it the day after, her first remarks was, "Why you didn't add salt and sugar ah?" Bingo! It didn't occur to me that the otak-otak spices didn't have enough salt or sugar, and I didn't taste it raw before I sent them in to steam. But, to hubby it's still very nice because he prefers his food plain, and I've been cooking my daughters porridge without salt and sugar too. Hmmm.... lesson learnt! I should have added this step then:


vi. Add salt and sugar to taste.


But still, it was an experience which I was rather happy with, especially for being able to let my daughter had some hands-on experience in the kitchen.

The Long Awaited Moment

This morning, a miracle happened. Sze Yi had followed MIL back to her house last night. I went out to do some marketing. Hubby & Sze Juin were still sleeping when I left. When I came back, Hubby was carrying Sze Juin and waited at the door. They both were delighted when they saw me. Hubby - relieved. Sze Juin - leapt in joy and wanted me to carry her.

Hubby had his breakfast which I just bought back, while I proceeded to change Sze Juin's diaper and nursed her. After that, I had my breakfast and I gave Sze Juin a banana to eat. I put it inside the Munchkin baby food holder for her. While she was still happily eating the banana, I quickly cleaned the marketing stuffs. Not long later, she started to make a fuss. She threw the banana away. And she got herself into a big mess. I knew that she've reached the limit - I would have to attend to her soon. I started to feel helpless. There were still so many things to do , and I had to do them all at once. So, I tried my luck:

Me: Daddy, you got 3 options to choose from (Hubby was reading the papers/book in the hall). One, clean up Sze Juin and bathe her. Two, cook porridge for Sze Juin, or Three, clean the fish & chicken.

Hubby: Can I clean myself?

Me: That is not an option.

Silence. Nothing happened. I was thinking to myself that I'll need to do all 3 on my own after all, as usual. Then suddenly, Hubby carried Sze Juin to the bathroom. So you know which option he chose.

But, much to my surprise, Hubby actually bathed her! I thot he would just clean her and then played with her until I was ready to bathe her. Ah, she sure enjoyed her first bath with Daddy - after 10 months! And it's sure a long awaited bath (at least for Mommy).

Not long later, Hubby presented me with a little fresh, clean and happy baby girl - except that the dress was worn wrongside :) But I can't blame him though, coz this dress has the buttons in front instead of the normal back. He went to correct it later (after I've had a good laugh at him - yeah, I'm so bad). My good fortune lasted longer than I expected becaues he continued to play with her until I was done with the cleaning and cooking. Yes, I even managed to cook up some simple dish & soup for lunch because I suddenly have 1 less task to attend to.

Thanks Hubby! So proud of you :)

Homework Blues

It's the first time I'm dealing with my kid's homework. Sze Yi finally brought homework back last Friday. I didn't know it could be this difficult. Yes, that's how I spent my 3 days long weekend recently - making sure she finished them all in time, and correctly too.

And I never dreamt that I would be teaching her how to write those Chinese strokes. At home, only hubby is Chinese educated. Both my MIL and myself are English educated. Luckily there's this thing called han yu pin yin that could help me thru when Sze Yi asked me what word was that. Yesterday, I was teaching her how to write 手 (shou) halfway when I heard Sze Juin cried. So I went into the room to nurse her. Then, I heard MIL said, "Write the center stroke first." But Sze Yi didn't listen and after MIL repeated a few times, she said, "Oh...teacher taught you to write this first meh?" I could sense that MIL started to lose her confidence too. So, after I was done with Sze Juin, I came out to see what Sze Yi was trying to write. Oh, it's 水. She started with the right strokes first. Luckily I still remembered how to write this (my parents taught me some Chinese at home when I was young). So I corrected her - center first. And Sze Yi listened! Phew, if it were a more difficult word, or if I was not that confident myself, I'm sure she would insist that she's right. Well, I'm lucky this time, but it doesn't necessary mean that I would do it right the next time too. Does this mean that it's time for me to learn Chinese too?

There were some words that I have to wait until hubby's back before I could be sure that what I told her was right, because the teacher didn't write the han yu pin yin for all the words. Sometimes she was just teaching them strokes like heng zhe wan gou, etc... And the words that came out of that, I have no idea! Maybe it's time for me to start learning up the Chinese dictionary too...sigh! Something which I've been very lazy to pick up since small. Would I change for my girl?

For now, she is just bringing back homework on Fridays. I couldn't imagine some of my friends' kids who brought homework back every day! How did they manage it? After such a long day at work, they still need to make sure that the kids finished up their homework somemore. If the kids co-operate, then it's ok. But what if they don't? I honestly felt that it's not healthy to bring homework back at such young age. They were made to go to school during the day time because the parents need to work and no one could take care of them. Then at night, instead of getting to spend some time doing other activities with the parents, they were asked to do homework instead. We parents would somehow be dictated by this too. By the time the child finished her homework, both parents & child would be so exhausted that there's no more room for other fun play before we called it the day. Would you agree if I said that the education system nowadays is getting more kiasu? Well, it's different if they are older - but hey, they are just 3 year plus! I don't think I even know how to write 123 or abc when I was 3! Well, perhaps I should be proud of my girl, but I'm afraid that over time, she would lose her childhood. I have a friend who confides in me that when she was young, she was made to learn so many extra curricular activities until she missed out all the games that normal kids get to play. She's an all rounder now (I'm actually very impressed by her knowledge and skills in nearly every fields), but she told me she missed her childhood and she would not let this happen to her kids in the future.

I guessed after all, how we want to shape our kids depend on us. But then again, in the current education system where everyone is after the rat race, could we excel if we do things differently?