Our Love for Grilled Saba

When it comes to grilled fish, nothing beats the flavorful, juicy goodness of Saba (Japanese mackerel). Every time we dine at Japanese restaurants, grilled saba and salmon are a must-order for my family. However, instead of splurging on restaurant prices, I’ve recently started air-frying saba at home—and let me tell you, we are hooked!

Restaurant vs. Homemade Grilled Saba

For years, I used to buy grilled saba from our neighborhood Japanese takeout restaurant at least once a week. But after experimenting with frozen wild-caught saba from the supermarket, I realized that making it at home is not only cheaper but also tastier! Even Cass, my picky eater, says that the ones I air-fry at home are juicier and more flavorful compared to restaurant versions, which can sometimes be a little dry and tough.

Super Easy Saba Recipe – Just 3 Ingredients!

One of the best things about grilling or air-frying saba at home is how incredibly easy it is to prepare. Here’s my simple foolproof recipe:

Ingredients:

✔ 1 frozen wild-caught saba fish (thawed). The ones I usually buy are already halved.
✔ 2 to 3 tbsp Kikkoman teriyaki sauce
✔ Black pepper (to taste)

Instructions:

1️⃣ Marinate the saba fish with teriyaki sauce and black pepper for about 15 minutes.
2️⃣ Place it in the air fryer and cook at 180°C (350°F) for 15 minutes.

• Cook 10 minutes on one side.
• Flip and cook for 5 more minutes on the other side.
  3️⃣ Serve immediately with a bowl of steaming rice or salad.

That’s it—super easy, minimal effort, and absolutely delicious!

If you love saba, I highly recommend trying this recipe—you might just get hooked like us! 😍🐟🔥

Keto lunch - Mango salad and air-fried teriyaki saba.

Cooking for Cass

Cooking for my youngest daughter, Cass, has been an adventure—one filled with careful ingredient choices, constant reminders about oil, and a surprising battle over butter. Ever since she started figure skating, her diet has shifted towards high-protein and low-carb meals. While she occasionally eats rice and noodles, her main focus is on lean proteins, plenty of vegetables, and avoiding oily food.

Cass isn’t just selective about food; she’s meticulous. She prefers lean proteins like chicken breast and fish, and she piles her plate with lots of greens—broccoli and leafy vegetables are her absolute favorites. She loves salads and most vegetables, which makes meal prep easier in some ways. But when it comes to anything remotely oily, Cass turns into a detective, inspecting her food for any trace of grease. She’s even been known to rinse off oil from dishes I buy outside or food from her dad’s kitchen.

Her obsession with avoiding oil extends to her own cooking. She makes omelets without a drop of oil and repeatedly reminds me not to use any when air frying her food. And yet, the irony? Cass is a certified butter monster! While she detests oil, she devours butter like it’s a food group of its own. I’ve tried hiding my Lurpak Light butter, but no matter where I stash it, she finds it!

Since Cass got bored of eating dishes from ‘chap fan’ (mixed rice) stalls, I’ve taken on the daily task of cooking her meals. Thankfully, she’s easy to please when it comes to flavors—so long as they fit her criteria of high protein, low carb, and oil-free.  So for chicken and fish, I can play around with teriyaki sauce, gochujang paste, miso paste, soy sauce, oyster sauce, turmeric powder, paprika, coriander powder, black pepper, and so many more.

Despite all the variety, one thing Cass never seems to get tired of is roast chicken breast from chicken rice stalls. She only eats the white meat, completely avoiding the skin, even though it’s not that greasy. Sometimes, I wonder if she’ll ever get bored of it, but so far, it remains her ultimate comfort food.

While Cass avoids oil like it’s poison, she has no issues devouring butter. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve caught her sneaking spoonfuls of Lurpak Light onto her bread, biscuits, sweet potato, and even cakes. I’ve tried hiding it, but somehow, she always finds it! So, instead of fighting it, I now just keep an extra stash for her.

Cooking for Cass has been a journey of trial and error, but at the end of the day, I’m happy to support her dietary preferences. Her dedication to maintaining a clean diet aligns with her passion for figure skating, and if that means making air-fried or steamed, oil-free meals daily, then so be it, unless I’m busy, then I will get takeaway food for her.

Lunner for Cass - air-fried chicken chop (antibiotic and hormones-free) marinated with teriyaki sauce, Lea & Perrin sauce, black pepper, and chopped garlic; air-fried yellowfin sole fillet,  Nutrislaw salad, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, and chic pea and lentil chips from Signature Market.  This is our latest favorite healthy snack - the chips are oil-free, not salty, have no sugar and flour, and so addictive!

There was also a huge bowl of blanched Por Choy spinach.

A Nostalgic Encounter with an Old Schoolmate

Life has a funny way of bringing people back into our lives when we least expect it. Last week, I had a pleasant surprise when I bumped into a very old schoolmate. Let’s just call her Pretty Flower since her Cantonese name ends with the word "flower." Pretty Flower is the younger sister of my former classmate and is two years younger than me. Back in the day, my parents used to give both sisters a ride to school every day. Their mother lived in Johor, and they stayed with their aunt in Ipoh, conveniently close to my house.

The first time we bumped into each other after more than 30 years was last year, and to my amazement, she still recognized me! And then, last week, we crossed paths again. This time, she called out to me with excitement and insisted on taking a wefie together. It was truly heartwarming to reconnect with someone from my childhood.

Pretty Flower still looks young and pretty, and I can tell that she is happily married. As for her older sister—my classmate—she married at a young age and has been a grandmother for a few years already! It’s amazing how time flies and how life unfolds so differently for each of us.

These little unexpected reunions remind me of how small the world can be and how certain bonds, no matter how distant, still hold a sense of familiarity and warmth.

On another note, here’s a peek at one of Cass’s lunner (late lunch + early dinner) meals from last week. I made chicken chop using antibiotic and hormone-free chicken, marinated with miso paste and garlic, then air-fried to perfection. It was served with blanched baby French beans for a healthy touch. My MIL also prepared a delicious dish of steamed minced pork with ‘mui choy’ (preserved vegetable), which added a nostalgic, home-cooked flavor to the meal.

Me with my very old schoolmate, 'Pretty Flower'.

Lunner for Cass - air-fried miso chicken, blanched baby French beans, and steamed pork with preserved veggies.

Steamed minced pork with preserved veggie

A Taste of Tradition: Hakka Stuffed Oysters for Chinese New Year

Coming from a Hakka family with a large extended family on my father’s side, Chinese New Year always meant a trip to Cameron Highlands. My papa would drive us there to celebrate with my paternal grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. It was a happy occasion with lots of delicious food, snacks, and playing firecrackers with my cousins.  My paternal grandmother, an excellent cook, would prepare an array of traditional Hakka dishes and snacks. One of the highlights of our CNY feast was her famous Hakka Yong Hou Si—stuffed dried oysters. She would also fry prawn crackers and salted dried tofu crackers and store them in those traditional big biscuit tins for her super large family to enjoy when they all returned to Cameron Highlands.

This Yong Hou Si dish, synonymous with CNY, is both delicious and labor-intensive. My grandmother would prepare it days, sometimes even a week, in advance. With 10 children and their families to feed, she had her hands full. The process involved stuffing fish and pork paste into large dried oysters, and then pan-frying them to golden perfection. The dish was served with a rich 'fatt choy' (black moss) sauce, symbolizing prosperity and good fortune. This auspicious dish, known as “Fatt Choy Yong Hou Si,” is a cherished tradition among Hakka families during the festive season.

After my grandmother passed away in the early 2000s (both my paternal grandparents lived into their 90s), my papa took up the mantle. A self-taught and passionate cook, he has faithfully prepared this dish every year since—for more than two decades. He always made extra so I could bring some back to KL and savor it long after the reunion dinner.

This year was no different. Though I couldn’t be in Ipoh for the CNY reunion dinner, my papa made sure I had six pieces of his stuffed oysters with the signature fatt choy sauce to take home. Today, I finally had the chance to indulge in this special dish. My MIL braised pork belly with sea cucumber and fish maw, then added the fried stuffed oysters and sauce. The result was absolutely delicious. Each bite brought back nostalgic memories of those CNY reunion dinners in Cameron Highlands and Ipoh, surrounded by family and laughter.

I hope my papa, who turns 82 this year, continues to cook this beloved dish for many more years. Perhaps one day, I will learn the recipe from him and pass this cherished tradition down to my daughters and future generations, ensuring that the legacy of Hakka Yong Hou Si lives on.

Saturday, 15 June 2024

It will be a long, late night for Cass and hubby today.  Cass has a figure skating rehearsal at the skating rink from 10pm to 12 midnight. Fortunately hubby is free tonight to do the chauffeuring, otherwise, I'll be waiting at the freezing skating rink until midnight. 

Cass has been eating clean and healthy lately. These is what her meals look like these days:

Salad with kimchi, Korean marinated pork, half an avocado, broccoli, cauliflower, and scrambled eggs with cheese. After her main meal, she ate a slice of air-fried sprouted wheat bread, low-fat yogurt with granola, an apple, an orange, and a few slices of papaya. 
 I also air-fried a slice of quiche, which was given to us by Alycia's bosses at the cafe that she works part-time at. When Alycia's bosses heard that she injured her hand, they passed some goodies from the cafe to her.

Steamed marinated spicy chicken chop, an ear of whole corn (I sliced out the kernels from the cob), sauteed assorted vegetables (from her dad's kitchen), steamed sweet potato, and sweet cherry tomatoes. I love the colors on her bowl, and so does Cass. I'm glad my years of training her to eat vegetables have paid off well.

After Alycia's terrible mishap in the kitchen last week, resulting in shards of broken glass cutting her finger badly, we now have a phobia of using glassware. I've since switched to using stainless steel bowls and containers.  Moreover, our microwave oven died on us yesterday, so we have no choice but to reheat our food using stainless steel dinnerware in the wok 😁

Colorful & Healthy Meals

The girls and I love colors in our food, natural colors of course. I like buying colorful fruits and veggies and the girls were trained from their baby days to eat healthy, with lots of fruits and veggies. I never had difficulty coercing the girls to eat fruits and veggies. 

Eating colorful meals is beneficial for good health due to the variety of nutrients provided by different colored fruits and vegetables. Each color typically represents various type of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that contribute to overall well-being. 

Lunner for Cass ~ air-fried salmon with air-fried shimeji mushrooms, blanched broccoli and cauliflower, Mediterranean chicken stew, raw greens and fruits of avocado, jumbo golden kiwi and purple grapes.  Cass and I eat half an avocado every day.

Delicious air-fried salmon and shimeji mushrooms, seasoned with herbs and spices.

Chilled lemon juice.

Cass is a fruit and veggie lover and can chomp down a lot every single day.

My healthy bowl - salad with Mexican chicken stew.

This is how I like to eat capsicum - with cream cheese.

Homemade Mexican tortilla made with whatever ingredients there were in the fridge - frozen capati, guacamole, air-fried chicken chop, and sauteed capsicum with shimeji mushrooms and big onions. The two serving plates on the right are from Le Creuset. They're cute, eh?

My chia seed pudding with coconut cream and Gula Melaka syrup. It tastes exactly like Sago Pudding but it's healthier as chia seeds are packed with minerals, omega-3 fat, and antioxidants, including tocopherols, phytosterols, carotenoids, and polyphenolic compounds. And it's so much easier to prep - just soak the chia seeds in water in a glass bottle overnight in the fridge, add coconut milk/cream (I used packet ones) and Gula Melaka (I use bottled ones).

Sherilyn cooked this very yummy pumpkin + minced pork porridge using the Philips pressure cooker. She first sauteed the minced pork with lots of garlic and onions before adding the rice and pumpkin to cook the porridge. I love this porridge. My comfort food, always.

Camera Crumbs - Round Up Of The Week

My Tennis Elbow right arm has little progress in healing, making it challenging to perform household chores, cook, and lift heavy items.  Consequently, my cooking routines have been simplified. I’ve primarily relied on the air fryer and toaster oven for meal preparations. Thankfully, we’ve had a steady supply of food from hubby’s central kitchen, which has been a lifesaver, reducing the need for extensive cooking.

I suspect that the pain could be a side effect of Atorvastatin. Last month, my cardiologist prescribed me this statin at 20mg per day to bring down my cholesterol levels. I have familial hypercholesterolemia (FH). My two younger daughters have FH too, which was discovered during blood tests when they were hospitalized for other conditions.

FH is an inherited disorder that makes it harder for your body to remove low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol from your blood.

No matter how hard I control my diet, exercise, and stay away from foods with high cholesterol, my blood cholesterol reading is still very high.

Familial hypercholesterolemia can affect anyone whose family carries the genetic mutation. The biggest problem with FH is that more than 90% of people who have it haven’t been diagnosed, which means you should pay careful attention to your family history.

About a month into taking Atorvastatin, I started to have pain in my right elbow bone. I later found out that I have a condition called Tennis Elbow.  Later, I started to have aches in my right hip and buttock. My doctor has advised me to take a 4-week layoff from Atorvastatin to see if the pains and aches in my right hand and hip will go away. 

My lunch usually consists of salad, with food from hubby's kitchen:

Chicken and beef satay with satay sauce, Mackerel fish cooked Indonesian style, Sayur Lodeh (Indonesian vegetable stew in coconut milk) in a bed of salad.
Dessert - yummy kuih.

Sambal Sotong, Sayur Lodeh with tempeh and cabbage, and Ayam Masak Merah in a bed of Mizuna salad.

Meehoon Siam, Sambal Sotong and Ayam Masak Merah.

One-tray-grill - green curry chicken thigh with green and yellow bell pepper, Shimeji mushrooms, sweet potato, chopped garlic, and onions, drizzled with olive oil, and seasoned with black pepper, cajun spice, smoked paprika, and garlic powder.
To reduce washing and hurting my tennis elbow arm, I bought disposable aluminum trays for my grills.

Slice of Life ~ Throwback Food Photos

Photo dump of some food pics that I forgot to post:

This is what Cass and I usually have for our meals lately:

A protein (usually fish or chicken breast) on a bed of yummy refreshing salad and raw turnip with no rice or low carb.

Sherilyn's salad with air-fried salmon, mozzarella cheese, cherry toms, avocado, and homemade salad dressing. She still eats rice at times.

Air-fried salmon with sauteed cabbage.

Sherilyn cooked these during her semester break - Japanese curry with fresh udon and chicken Karaage. 

A big pot of Japanese curry, enough for everyone for several meals.

Curry noodles shared with hubby at a curry noodle stall at Kuchai Business Park, after he sent his car for repair.

Hubby ordered siew yoke and cha siu from another stall to add to this bowl of curry noodles. This is what a true foodie will do!  The chicken breast was for me.

Kali meen kar liu (curry noodles with added ingredients)

Tuesday, 21 November 2023

Hubby hadn't eaten his lunch yet and Whatsapped me to join him for grocery shopping and then for lunch. He needed to stock up for some upcoming events. I was having brunch at home when he called and later drove to the supermarket to meet him. 

After we were done shopping, we went to LDG for lunch.  He has been craving steak for a long time but each time he suggested steak, I declined his suggestion as I preferred something light and easy for  my digestion. Moreover, I am now cutting down on red meat due to Familial Hypercholesterolaemia (genetic high cholesterol).  FH is an inherited condition characterized by higher-than-normal levels of blood cholesterol. I only eat red meat once or twice a week.  For the rest of the days, I usually eat eggs, chicken breast, and fish, prioritizing plant-based foods but avoiding soy products.

Hubby's steak was cooked to a tee. Superb taste and texture. I love the side of mashed potato with cheese and mayo.

After lunch, I rushed home to prep lunner for Cass, who would be coming back from school soon.

I cooked steamed herbal chicken drumsticks.  Cass loved it and ate three drumsticks.
This recipe is simple and mess-free.
The drumsticks are seasoned with soy sauce, Chinese cooking wine, chopped garlic, some Chinese herbs, red dates, and wolfberries. Place everything in two pieces of baking paper and wrap well. Then steam in medium heat for 40 minutes. The result is chicken meat that's really juicy and succulent.

* Herbs used - Yu zhu (Soloman’s seal), dang gui (Chinese angelica), hong zao (dried red dates), gei qi (Chinese wolfberry) and dang shen (Codonopsis root).

My Simple And Healthy Breakfast

If only my girls could eat such simple food for breakfast or even lunch, life would be so much easier for me and for them, and healthier too!

Chicken porridge before going to the hospital with Sherilyn.  The chicken meat used to cook the porridge was leftover Ipoh salt-baked chicken for dinner.  Luckily I ate this bowl of porridge that was enough to fill my tummy up the whole day as there weren't many good choices of restaurants and cafes at SJMC. We were stuck at the hospital for 6 hours.

Mashed purple sweet potato with Lurpak Light butter.  I love this butter as it's healthier and less salty and made with only a few ingredients - butter, water, rapeseed oil, lactic acid culture, and salt.

Egg and purple sweet potato boiled in the same pot.  This was what I ate for brunch before I started cooking lunch for the girls.

Simple And No-Brainer Dishes

On weekdays, we have pretty simple food and on weekends, hubby will bring us out to have more decent meals and occasionally splurge on elaborate meals.

On most weekdays, there'll be excess food from hubby's shop, so I only need to cook a veggie dish.  I'm very happy as long as I don't have to cook and dirty the kitchen. 

This is what I had for brunch several days ago:

Air-fried shishamo, scrambled eggs, and half an avocado.

After brunch, I had less than an hour to whip up lunch for Cass.  Her UEC trials are ongoing for two weeks and she comes home very early on exam days. So I cooked fried noodles.

Fried noodles for everyone. 

One-pot veggie + mushroom + foo pei, miso paste, and chicken soup.  The chicken stock is from Japan, which MIL bought when she went to Japan for a holiday recently. It's really convenient to just throw in a packet or a cube of dehydrated chicken stock and a few tablespoons of miso paste to make delicious soups.

Purple + yellow sweet potato and purple + yellow sweet corn kernel 'tong sui' with pandan leaves, gula Melaka, and evaporated milk for myself.

Very Simple, No-Brainer Dishes

As most of you already know, I do not like cooking because of having to deal with the aftermath of cooking.  Actually, I used to love cooking and making healthy breads when I had live-in maids for 10 years. My maids would do almost all the prep work and washing up and I just had to cook. So easy and fun. But with no one helping me now and a part-time maid who cannot come reliably on the days that she's supposed to come, I have resorted to cooking really easy-peasy meals that are a total no-brainer; like dumping an assortment of veggies into the rice cooker together with the rice, steaming, baking and air-frying meats.  

The thought of pan-frying, searing, and deep-frying just turns me off because of oil flying everywhere! 😬

Marinating chicken drummets and wings and leaving them in the fridge for 1-2 days.

Oven-grilled marinated Beacon chicken drummets and wings with red rice + parboiled rice + sweet potato. The girls and I love grilled marinated chicken drummets and wings. 

I love cooking rice with sweet potatoes as the juice-infused rice grains will turn sweet and fragrant naturally. Sometimes I add organic yellow and purple sweet corn kernels and pumpkin.

Air-fried salmon.  I found a simple recipe that gives me really delish air-fried or oven-grilled salmon.  I marinate the salmon with a salmon rub composed of paprika powder, black pepper, brown sugar, soy sauce, olive oil, minced garlic, and mixed herbs.  And it only takes 10-12 minutes to air-fry the salmon (depending on the size).  When this is served, there's always a wrestle at the dining table.

I like to bake some nuts after baking chicken in the oven.  These sweet organic cashews are great for snacking and for adding to our sugar-free low-fat yogurt.

Wednesday, 5 April 2023

Alycia and Sherilyn took the morning ETS train to Ipoh to visit their grandparents today. 

The ETS departure time was at 8.47 a.m. but someone dilly-dallied as usual and only left the house at 8.15 a.m.  All of us had totally forgotten about the girls having to do a Covid self-test until about 7.45 a.m. when I remembered and quickly rushed them to do a nasal swab test, which is faster than a saliva test.

Their dad Grab-ed them to the KL Sentral station like an F1 driver.

As today is a weekday and school day, there was surely bound to be traffic congestion on the roads, especially on the KL-Seremban highway at that peak hour.  After they left the house, I prayed that they wouldn't miss the train, and thank God they managed to hop onto the train in the nick of time 🙏

I was very surprised that papa brought the girls to Texas Fried Chicken for lunch as my parents don't really fancy fast food and deep-fried foods. 
But seriously girls, eating fast food when you're in Ipoh, a food haven?
I told the girls that they have to eat famous Ipoh food when they're in Ipoh and not fast food.

Cooking for only Cass is such a breeze vs cooking for the whole jing-bang, coz Cass is satisfied pretty easily, unlike someone.

Cass' lunner - air-fried marinated chicken chop, blanched romaine lettuce, curry veggies (stall-bought) hard-boiled chicken egg, and quail egg with black rice + parboiled rice + 10-grain rice.  Chickens from Beacon Mart are free from antibiotics and hormones and are specially catered for cancer patients.  I love their marinated chicken chops that come in a variety of delicious flavors.

I was on a meat-free diet today and this is what I ate today:

Breakfast - fruits, decaf coffee, walnuts, brazil nuts, peanuts, hazelnuts, organic dark chocolate almond milk with ground flaxseeds, air-fried sourdough bread with cheese, hard-boiled chicken egg, and quail egg.

Lunch - spinach, curry veggies, and Chinese cabbage from the economy rice stall, a few sticks of Biscotti (homemade by the mil), and a piece of 90% Lindt dark chocolate. I also ate half a piece of Rawa Tosei with dhal and half a piece of vadai which Hubs bought from Brickfields after he sent the girls to KL Sentral.

Dinner - skinny sugar-free yogurt with sunflower seeds, blanched romaine lettuce, and a handful of vegetable chips 

My breakfast - crispy air-fried sourdough cheese + jalapeno bread with a slice of cheese on top.