HHDD#6 - Malaysian Prawn fritters / a kiddie favourite

It's Hay Hay It's Donna Day (HHDD) time again and this time it's hosted by jenjen of Milk and Cookies. Jenjen was the winner of the previous HHDD event Savoury Tarts organised by Tami of running with tweezers and in tradition of the blog event, the winner of the round gets the honour of hosting the next round of HHDD.

When jenjen unveiled the theme for round 6 as F for Fritter, the first thing that came to my mind was CUCUR UDANG!! Cucur Udang or Prawn fritter is one of my favourite all time fritter. It's a Malaysian delicacy and it ranks right up the top of my fritter favourites list along with Cucur Bawang (Onion fritter), Pisang Goreng (Fried Banana a.k.a Banana Fritter), Corn fritters and Cempedak Goreng (Jackfruit fritter - for simplicity we'll call it jackfruit)

Growing up in Malaysia, I have fond memories of prawn and onion fritters as it was the best serving of food they had in the school canteen of the schools that I was educated in. In Malaysia, we have two schooling sessions in a day. Starting at 7:35am til 1:10pm for the morning sessions and from 1:10pm til 6:30pm for the afternoon sessions. We were only allowed one recess for the day because the kids in the morning would go home for lunch whilst the kids in the arvo would come to school after lunch. Recess would be at 10:30am and 3:15pm every day.

I remembered as a kid that my friends and I would be at the edge of our seat at at 5mins to recess and take turns to peek at the clock in the class room and the teacher, counting the last 5 minutes as they went buy, fingers crossed, hoping that she/he would finish their session in time. As soon as the recess bell rings, two of us would bolt out in time to be the first few at the canteen to buy the first onion fritter of the day.

The school canteen at the primary school where I was educated used to sell them for 10cents a piece and they were huge fritters, the size of a tennis ball and when you're 10 years old, 3 or 4 of them will fill you up until the end of the day at 1:10pm.

So.. they were ONLY huge balls of fried batter filled sparsely with bean sprouts and spring onions and served with watered down Maggi Chilli sauce. But they were still the best!

Then, in my high school years, the school canteen there had both the onion fritters and the upmarket prawn fritters. The onion fritters were 20cents (the price inflated! because technically it meant that if you're in high school your allowance would increase from 50cents a day to $2 a day) and half the size; and they had the prawn fritters for 50cents a piece, because the prawn fritters were different in shape and came with a piece of prawn on the top. But they were both still served with the same watered down Maggi Chilli sauce.

When I whinged to my mum that the prices were up and they quality of the food was poor compared to the ones at my old primary school, she whipped up a batch of fritters with both the onions and prawns in them, and they were peeled banana prawns! not the stingy unpeeled shrimp they had at the canteen. They were the best fritters I had ever had! and I never looked back since. (they were served with Real Maggi Chilli sauce.. not the watered down version!)

I still miss mum's version. Occasionally when I go home for dinner mum would ask what I wanted for dinner.. sometimes.. when I crave it, I would ask for her prawn fritters or whatever else she makes that I missed eating..and if I was lucky.. I would get it the next fortnight when I go home for dinner :D

Unfortunately, I couldn't get hold of my mum's recipe (because like all mums, her recipes are stored in her memory bank and she needed time to sit and think it out) but I found an Amy Beh recipe from Kuali.com that I adapted to try and emulate my mum's feat. (Amy Beh is a famous Malaysian cook)

Prawn fritters

Ingredients:
20 raw prawns, peeled and chopped into small pieces
275g self-raising flour
60g rice flour
1 small egg, lightly beaten
A handful of bean sprouts, tailed
2 stalk spring onion, chopped
1 onion, finely sliced
350ml water
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
½ tsp sugar
½ tsp chicken stock granules
½ tsp sesame oil

Oil for deep frying
Your favourite chilli sauce.

Sift plain and rice flour together into a large mixing bowl and season with salt, pepper, sugar, chicken stock and sesame oil.
Add the beaten egg and water and mix into a batter.
Mix in the prawns, bean sprouts, spring onion, and onion then leave batter to stand for 30–40 minutes.
Heat oil in a saucepan
For each fritter, drop 1 chinese spoon of batter into the oil and fry until golden brown.
Drain the excess oil on paper towels.

Serve with your favourite chilli sauce/ sweet chilli sauce.

*I had mine with Lingham's chilli sauce.

The verdict: Umm, can I just say that they're not as good as my mums! LOL.

Hay Hay It's Donna Day is the brainchild of Barbara of Winos and foodies.

Dinner at Musashi

Beneath these mysterious lanterns
Sat 3 hungry buggers sharing a table with 8 strangers celebrating a birthday party
Thus began another gastronomic adventure...

After The Rocks, we headed back for another pitt stop at the apartment. Exhausted from a long day of travelling and eating, we parked ourselves on the couch, in front of the idiot box and flicked some channels. Before we knew it, it was 8pm and it was dinner time! Samps suggested Musashi for dinner. In the two weeks that he was in Sydney he had manage to discover a few decent restaurants around the Pitt St/Elizabeth St vicinity. (I think I got this right). After the disappointing lunch and afternoon tea we were looking forward to a good solid meal and we weren't too disappointed. :)

There was a queue at Musashi when we got there. Samps did say it was popular, even though it was 8:30pm, got a number and waited for about 20minutes or so before we were ushered in. The restaurant had an interesting number system, I suppose interesting because I've never seen it in Melbourne before. (maybe I just don't go out often enough) When you arrive, you write your name and number of guests down on a book (that sits on a stand similar to an orchestra conductor's stand), rip off a tiny number next to your entry and then you wait to be called. If you decide that you don't want to sit on the teppanyaki counter, you simply go back into the queue, not at the back of the queue.. but just where you were previously. What a cool idea!

In Melbourne, depends on where you go, you get the regular "Please wait, while we find you a table. Or you get your name down in the waiter's book and then you wait. No number.." I think a number would solve all those problems with idiots complaining loudly that they came first and supposedly registered but the waiter didn't/forgot to take their registration. "No number, no registration.. you lie" LOL

Anyway, on to the food. We ordered the following dishes from the menu:

Wagyu Yakiniku Beef Teppanyaki: Served on a bed of bean sprouts, side of mashed potato, grilled onigiri and special sauce. Decent, the wagyu was melt in your mouth texture and the sauce tasted like worchestershire, but like I said "Special Sauce" I could be very wrong there. I've had better but still good. Interesting how it was served with a grilled onigiri. I love onigiri! They're so cute.

Takoyaki: This takoyaki was interestingly enough served on an omelette. I think it was premade earlier because the takoyaki was kind of warm. The best takoyaki I've had is at Uzu or Cafe Uzu, located in Caulfield East right next to Caulfield Station and Monash University, Caulfield campus. It is made fresh on the premises in front of your eyes. It's cheap, fresh and delicious at $5 for 8. You have a choice of 3 types of mayo, the regular egg mayonnaise, wasabi mayonnaise or a third which I can't remember.

Beef Tataki Salad: Just a regular salad with rare beef steak. The silly and hungry people that we are didn't toss the salad and only realised at the end that the salad dressing was all at the bottom of the bowl.

Okonomiyaki: I love okonomiyaki and have not had a decent one in a while. This was decent. (I just realised that I have used this word a lot, but I can't think of any other word to describe it..) Best okonomiyaki I ever had used to be served at the Japanese cafe next to the old Daimaru food court in Melbourne. Daimaru is now history and so is the restaurant that served it. :( I've never found good okonomiyaki since..

Spicy Tori Karaage: So says the menu, but it wasn't that spicy. It was yummy, but I make better ones than this. Still, can't complain, fried food are all yummy to me!

Green Tea Creme Brulee: This was my highlight of the evening. Two things I am a sucker for: Anything Green Tea and Anything to do with Creme Brulee. Anytime I see creme brulee on the menu, I order it straight away and care not about the rest of the menu. Anytime I see green tea desserts/sweets at BreadTop or Suzuran (the Japanese Grocery shop/Sushi Den), I grab one and stick it in my shopping basket. This was not disappointing I tell you that. I have since heard that Musashi boasts the best Green Tea Creme Brulee in Melbourne, having had one, I must agree.

Do not be fooled by the subtle taste of green tea in the first layer of the brulee. Dig in deeper and behold.. a layer of azuki beans and another layer of thick green tea creme awaits!

Dining at Musashi was probably the highlight of our trip. We even visited Musashi's sister restaurant, Makoto the next day for a taste of sushi on the sushi train. I've always associated sushi train restaurants with Sydney and that for me was a great way to finish off our gastronomic experience in Sydney.

Dining Bar Musashi
447 Pitt Street
(Cnr. Pitt & Campbell Street)
Sydney

Sushi Bar Makoto
119 Liverpool Street
(Cnr, Pitt & Liverpool St.)
Sydney