This morning at Cookalong, Jackie was busy and fast-moving making curry puffs for another catering gig. She was so quick with the curry puffs, I reckon she could make ‘em blindfolded! I was having a go at making Pulut Panggang, inspired by Jackie who was making them as one of the dishes for her catering gig last week. So I started by steaming the glutinous rice, whilst gently frying the desiccated coconut. Then I mixed it with the Sambal Udang Kerring I made last week at Cookalong, chucked in some shop bought fried shallots too - think they added a nice sweetness. Since I’d never made Pulut Panggang before I was glued to Jackie’s instructions 😊. Guess what, I hope Jackie’s not going to shoot me….when the rice was done I realised I’d forgotten the pandan leaves! No worries, I rolled up a small amount of rice with a tablespoon of the Sambal Coconut filling, wrapped it in prepared banana leaves with both ends secured with cocktail sticks. Kept going till all the rice were used up - ended up with 17 sticks of Pulut Panggang! Popped the Pulut Panggang in the fridge and brought them out to room temperature for the evening Cookalong. Had a fab chatty night. Jenny was whizzing up beef stock with Chinese vibes, and Jackie was at it again, but making Yong Tau blitzing up the fish paste with her new toy, the thermocook. There was Yong Tau Fu galore in her kitchen! I shallow fried the 17 sticks of Pulut Panggang gently in a scan pan - smelt lush! At Jackie’s instruction, I tasted one - was good, just think the pandan leaves would’ve taken it up a notch. 😋

In our most recent Zoom sessions, I was mostly focused on prepping for a 40-person catering gig which included the following menu items - Pulut Panggang (grilled sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves, with spicy dried shrimp filling) Beef Rendang Garlic & Butter Chicken Mixed Veg & Tofu Curry Mee Siam Kering Plain Rice Gula Melaka (Sago with palm sugar and coconut cream) ------- As an FYI I cooked the 7-odd kg of beef split among a TM6, a TM7, the new Thermocook, and a slow cooker. I also tweaked the Sambal Udang Kering recipe from Authentique Restaurant, Ipoh, by adding separately-toasted desiccated coconut to it, then adjusting the flavour, for use as the Pulut Panggang filling. This was despite the fact that I have my own restaurant recipe for the filling. In hindsight I should have stuck with my own recipe - not that there was anything wrong with the new one, but mine is what I've used for years and is a proven formula for the specific dish.

I shared a clip of our team having fun making popiah skin at a hawker stall in Perak; you would know if you're in my Malaysian Hawker Pro course, that I do them wearing gloves but of course while in Malaysia and put on the spot you do it the way they do ie. glove-free. This was a comment on my post - I'm sharing it here to highlight the fact that trolling is par for the course if ever you put yourself out there - don't let it put you off from doing so (and yes you can debate my lowbrow replies but that's how I deal with these kinds of comments).

The Cookalong carried on in the evening (Saturday morning in Sydney), with Jackie still elbow-deep in cooking for her caterIng gig. She was fully immersed in preparing Pulut Panggang, churning out batch after batch of sticky rice and whipping up a spicy coconut & dried shrimp filling. She then wrapped rolled up in banana leaves, ready for the grill. I was knocking up Sambal Udang Kerring (dried shrimp sambal), by Chef Azzam, from Authentique Restaurant that Jackie has posted last week. I blitzed the sambal in the thermomix from start to finish. It was a breeze as it did all the stirring, so I could just chat and watch Jackie work her magic. My Sambal had turned out a lovely dark brown colour. I showed it to Jackie & thought it was it was nice, but she wasn’t convinced I used enough oil. I had already doubled the amount, but fair play, I thought I better do as I am told. So I added another 50ml of oil and a bit more salt - half a teaspoon, to be precise, and gave it another 5 minutes in the thermomix. Result was bang on after that - I told Jackie I could see the oil had separated. Had a little taste, and it’s a little spicy, but nice. The Sambal is a winner, versatile as anything - perfect as a relish or as a sneaky ingredient to take a dish up a notch.