Ushering the New Year with new trends (Part 1)

Blooms of chrysanthemums, stalks of plum blossoms, pots of lucky bamboos and money plants. All these decorations mark the arrival of the lunar new year. As the year of the Earth Ox 'moo-ves' in on the 26th January 2009 of the Gregorian calendar, various ornaments and plants deemed lucky and auspicious are being used as decorations to welcome a bountiful and prosperous year ahead. Besides the traditional adornment of red lanterns, Spring couplets (chinese calligraphy written on red papers) and potted lime trees, new practices are being introduced to jazz up good tidings for the new year.

The arrow head plant (Sagittaria sagittifolia L.) is a water plant that gives edible round tubers or bulbs. It is a temperate, flowering plant that can be found in wetlands of Europe and Asia. It is called arrow head because of the shape of its leaves. The bulbs, particularly eaten during Chinese New Year, are cream-coloured, crunchier than potatoes, have a starchy texture and a unique pungent taste. They are peeled, sliced and deep-fried to make irresistible arrow head chips or stir-fried wih pork or waxed meat to make a savoury Chinese New Year dish. Sprinkle with salt, the chips taste even better than potato chips! It is said that these bulbs contain alginic acid that helps rid the body of excess salt. The bulbs, when placed into water, can germinate into a delicate arrow head plant that serves as a beautiful indoor Chinese New Year decoration. A kilogramme of the bulbs ranges from RM2 to RM4 and they are available at wet markets and supermarkets.

An arrow head bulb: Ready to be cooked or planted

Arrow head slices stir-fried with waxed meat.

Golden, delicious crunch: My mom's arrow head chips.
The unsalted variety for the health conscious.

At the altar: A nicely germinated plant

Close-up view: Roots among pebbles

Monkey cup or tropical pitcher plant (Nepenthes) is a carnivourous plant that attracts insects with the water stores in the 'cups' or 'pitchers' with lids at the end of the leaves. Monkeys were seen drinking from the cups and hence the name. Recently, the monkey cup has become a popular plant for the Chinese New Year, symbolising the abundance of wealth with the 'water-filled jugs'. The price of a plant depends on the plant size as well as the number of cups a plant has. The more cups it has, the more costly it is. The price can range from RM23 to RM35 per plant and they are available at nurseries.

To care for the plant is easy; simply hang the vine-climbing plant under a shade or a partly lit area and fill all cups with a quarter of fresh water once a month. These will suffice as too much or direct sun will dry the leaves and the water will last for that period if the plant is not watered enough.

My monkey cups

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittaria_sagittifolia
http://www.kikkoman.com/foodforum/thejapanesetablebackissues/01.shtml

*The writer wishes all blog-readers an abundance of health, wealth and happiness in the coming new year. Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Seremban's Gastronomic Appeals

When one travels south to Seremban, the city centre of Negeri Sembilan, siew pow (oven-baked buns) and beef noodles come to mind. Both of these gastronomic fares are where Seremban is famous for.

The whiff of freshly baked siew pow makes one salivates instantly. The wonderful aroma is the combination of savoury fillings of pork or chicken in a brown, crispy pastry topped with sesame seeds.

Mouth-watering siew pows, in original pork or chicken filling.

The shop that makes and sells these wonderful buns also makes tambun biscuits or dragon ball biscuits (which they are familiarly known of), egg tarts, kaya (coconut egg jam) puffs, wedding biscuits, an assortment of pies and puffs. Other tasty snacks sold includes the chicken biscuits, soya bean crispies, butter cookies, omochi (Japanese rice taffy) and Chinese desserts.

Pastries galore

Other tasty snacks.

How to get there: The Tasti East shop is located at Jalan Rasah. You can see the signboard when you reach the Seremban toll.

For beef noodles lovers, head down to Yee Kee Seremban Beef Noodles. An eatery established in the 1930s by Mr.Poon Yee, Yee Kee serves beef noodles based on the original secret recipe from the village of Dai Dong Po, a county in Ding'an, Hainan, China. Mr. Poon Yee, a native from the village brought the family recipe with him to Seremban making it now a Seremban gastronomic attraction.

Yee Kee, 70 years ago.

They can choose either the noodles in gravy or in soup. For noodles in gravy, the beef brisket, honeycomb tripe and spiced beef jerky are served together with pickled cabbage, fried peanuts and roasted sesame seeds while noodles in soup are served with a beef mix of beef brisket, honeycomb tripe, soft tendon coupled with pickled cabbage, spring onions, parsley and beef essence. Beef balls are also available; they are served with pickled cabbage in long-simmered, flavourful soup.

Noodles in gravy comes with soup.

Fair-coloured beefballs

For those who do not take beef, they may want to try the nasi lemak (coconut milk rice) with chicken rendang (dry curry) or sambal sotong (cuttlefish in dried chilli paste), Penang laksa, half-boiled eggs with kaya or peanut butter toast and egg or tuna sandwich.

Nasi lemak with sambal sotong and side condiments such as half of a
hard-boiled egg, fried anchovies and peanuts, cucumber slices and anchovies sambal.

Plus points of restaurant:

• It has set meals, which are more economic-friendly;

• The beef noodles is available in XL-serving for big appetites;

• The kopitiam-styled (coffee shop-styled) restaurant is air-conditioned for extra comfort with soothing music playing in the background;

• And WiFi access is available :D

How to get there: The restaurant is located along Jalan Dato Lee Fong Yee.

What can we do for tuntung (river terrapin)

Tuntung or Batagur baska is fished and traded to prepare a popular delicacy for its medicinal properties. It is believed that consuming the flesh and soup helps to detoxify the body from harmful impurities. This is one of the reasons of human activities apart from dam construction and sand quarrying that destroys nesting grounds and endangers the terrapin besides illegal trading of its eggs. However, water pollution remains the main threat to the tuntung in addition to soil erosion.

As a measure to conserve the reptile, a captive-breeding programme was initiated in 1968 by the Perak Game Department and today at the River Terrapin Conservation Centre in Bota Kanan, Perak. Captived tuntung breed from the month of August to October compared to the mid-October to early March duration for tuntung breed in the wild. The average nest size is around 26 eggs but figures recorded at the centre have reached a high of 39 eggs as well as a low of 4 eggs.

Adult pond

Eggs are collected from nests along the riverbanks of the Perak River as well as from the landing grounds for females in captivity throughout the nesting season and transferred to the more organised hatching ground or incubated in polystyrenes. The latter provides a more constant temperature that achieves a higher success rate of hatchings at the rate of 65 to 70 days while the former requires 70 to 100 days as the eggs are submerged in water during rainy days. Tuntung produces soft-shell eggs, which are elongated in shape and white in colour buried in nests as deep as one foot in the sands, ranging from 45 to 65 grams each in weight. Newly hatched terrapins are placed in nursing ponds for 6 months before they are released into the wild to increase their chances of survival.

The landing ground beside the adult pond.


The hatching ground, where the eggs are
arranged in clusters.


The baby pond.

Telling apart female and male terrapins can be quite interesting. Females usually have a larger carapace, a shorter tail and brown retinas while males have white retinas. And both have 4 claws on all feet. Naturally, their daily diets consist of fish, snails, fruits, aquatic plants and organisms while they are fed kangkong (water crest), banana, fresh fish and fish pellets at the centre.

Female adult terrapin

Male adult: close-up view

Currently, the centre has less than 500 terrapins as one release estimates around 300 to 1, 000 terrapins. Theoretically by research, the reptile can reach a ripe old age of 100 and so far the centre has tuntung as old as 40 years of age. It is indeed good luck to receive turtle figurines or symbols as gifts on special occasions. This signifies the receiver is wished well of longevity. And hopefully, this does not involve any cooking pot.

How to get there: The centre is located at Bota Kanan Village in the Perak Tengah district approximately 44km southwest of Ipoh city. The one-hectare establishment sits on the right of Perak River bank.

Plus points of visit:

• Entrance is free!

• The centre also displays a mini showcase at the lobby and equipped with a lecture theatre and a laboratory;

• You are required to take off your shoes for the (squeaky clean) indoor tour;

• There is a guest book for you to mark your visit ;)

• The centre also has sea terrapins (Callagur borneonsis);

• And the friendly staff will be able to guide you for the outdoor tour to the ponds and breeding grounds and furnish you with the interesting facts and figures that you would like to know, complete with live exhibits, just like your stimulating ‘show and tell’ session at school.

Interesting fact: Do you know that river terrapins are a picky lot that they choose specific grain size (of sands) for their nests?

More abstracts from Wiki:

• River terrapins are found in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Peninsular Malaysia (Kedah, Perak and Terengganu), Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Sumatra, Indonesia, Cambodia and China.
  

• The River Terrapin is categorised as a critically endangered species internationally under the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species (also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data List). Established in 1963, it is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of plant and animal species based upon precise criteria to evaluate the extinction risk of thousands of species and subspecies relevant to all species and all regions of the world. Being the world's main authority on the conservation status of species, the IUCN highlights the urgency of conservation issues to the public and policy makers, as well as help the international community to try to reduce species extinction.
  

References:
River Terrapin Conservation Centre, Bota Kanan, Perak
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangrove_terrapin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUCN_Red _List