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On Mid Autumn’s morning, I went to the market and bought this small little black horn looking thing we called “ling jiao” or known in English as water caltrop. Ling jiao is an annual plant, meaning this plant will seed, grow and died off in one year, so as far as I know it is usually only available during mid-autumn.

Ling jiao is an aquatic plant and what we are eating are actually the seeds. To cook ling jiao, simply wash them throughly till they are clean. There put them in a pot with hot boiling water and let them boil for at least 25-30 minutes, they are quite tough. I added some salt in the boiling water to give it a hint of saltiness too.

When its done, simply crack it into half and eat the inner white yam like content. According to Ah Tan whom was having a couple of ling jiao yesterday during our mid autumn gathering that those harder to crack taste better… haha… don’t know to believe him or not

Anyway, happy mid-autumn to all

This is really a very simple but delicious and beneficial soup to cook. This soup is known to have very good cooling effect for the body, especially good since we like to take spicy and fried food all the time.

To prepare this, I used the below:

1. Pork ribs

2. Old cucumbers

3. Red dates

4. Dried cuttlefish

5. Optionally roast pork bone

6. A little pepper and salt for taste

First in a mid size pot, fill it 3/4 with water and bring it to a boil. Then put in the roast pork bone (optional, this give the soup a different kind of taste) and pork ribs (do clean up the fats first). When the soup comes to a boil again, put it on the lowest fire and put in cutted up old cucumbers, sliced dried cuttlefish and seedless red dates.

Let the soup boil for the next 1-1.5 hours until all the taste is out from the pork, then season with pepper and salt to you taste before serving

Its been 2 weeks but I still kept thinking our little BBQ at Pangkor… since bringing the seafood all the way in to Teluk Segadas is a lot of work already, we try to minimize the other stuff needed…so here are some simple beach bbq recipes to share:

Simple Squid BBQ
- Clean and wash the squid
- Place squid on bbq and sprinkles with salt
- When the squid is dry and ready, squeeze lime on it before serving
- Fantastic!

Curry Squid
- Clean and wash the squid
- Using aluminum foil or banana leaves and place squid on it
- Since we don’t have oil, we just place some butter over squid
- Cover squid with curry powder and salt
- Top squid with tomatoes and lady fingers
- When the squid is dry and ready, squeeze lime on it before serving

Beer Lala (Clams)
- Wash up some clams making sure sands are removed
- Using aluminum foil, place lala on it
- Sprinkle salt on lala and add a few tablespoon of beer (we don’t have cooking wine!)
- Add a few chili padi to spice up the whole dish
- Tomatoes and lady fingers are optional
- It will be ready when the lala is widely open

Sambal Chili Stingray
- Place butter all over aluminum foil
- Place cuts of stingray on it cover with sambal chili paste (chili boh)
- Squeeze lime on top with minced garlic
- Again, tomatoes and lady fingers are optional but they are nice!

These are my favourites on top of that we have other stuff like prawns, bacons, sausages and etc. It was a great bbq and guys outing, looking forward to another bbq soon!