Life and Dots of Daniel

Warm potato salad and pounded tea for lunch

Inspired by Bongkersz and Suituapui, Daniel now tries to impress his friends with his kitchen skills.

I am not into making Chinese food although my mum cook nice Chinese food. I love Chinese food but I never fancy cooking them. Salads is the only type of food I know how to make, that is to say able to be served as a meal.

Was invited to Jonathan's house for a meal, his mum prepared Lei Cha (擂茶) for a few Catechist teachers. Not wanting to always eat for free, I informed his mum that I will be bringing over my home-made salad. This warm potato salad was a modification to the original version cooked by Aunt Jessie who's now living in Australia.

Warm Potato Salad, that's what I call it.

This simple potato salad is packed full of goodness and it tastes great too! Preparation time and cooking time is about 1 hour. The amount I made was able to serve 12 persons.

10 USA potatoes, a packet of mini tomatoes, 2 lemons, 4 sticks celery, 1 can of peas, 1/2 bottle of 500ml olive oil, and a few sprinkle of coriander leaves will do as the ingredient.

Cook the potatoess in boiling water for 10-12 minutes, adding peas and sliced celery in the last 5 minutes of cooking or until vegetables are tender. Remember to drain. Place the potatoes, peas and celery in a serving bowl.

For the 'dressing', whisk together olive oil and lemon juice together. Season with salt and pepper to suit your taste. I prefer it to be slightly sour and not so salty. Pour dressing over potatoes, peas and celery and gently combine. Now, to spice up your life add a few sprinkles of Coriander leaves. Serve it warm mate!

I mentioned about Lei Cha somewhere a few paragraphs above. Lei Cha has made it to one of the healthy food list among Malaysians as more and more people are loving vegetarian-style food. Jonathan's mum served taufu, salted radish (Cai-Po), dried shrimps (Hei-Bi), long beans and vegetable (Cai Xin) as the main dish.

The essence of a satisfying Lei Cha (pounded tea) meal is the Lei Cha paste itself. I do not know what are the ingredients inside but certainly the one made by Jon's mum was great!

Justin helping out with his mum. He was stiring the paste so that it blends well. Remember the student who I had a conversation with? That's him.

It was a boring and tiring thing to do when it comes to stiring the paste. We took turns to stir the paste. Hot water was then added to the paste so that we have some soup to go along with the vegetables.

If you were wondering where Jonathan was while we were preparing the meal, he was all the while sleeping. The rapscallion me took a few shots of him sleeping. Won't post it here anyway.

With nice food and nice company, I really enjoyed my day! If you are waiting for the next food post, I am sorry but you have to wait. I only cook when I feel like cooking, and that is once in a blue blue moon. Come to think of it, the last time I cooked was six months ago. LOL.