It is always great to have a nice hot steamboat meal when travelling to the cool highlands whether it is Cameron Highlands, Genting Highlands, Fraser's Hill or any other highlands. Something about warm food in a cold environment somehow makes the food seem tastier in your palate. Of course it is also times like this we sometimes accidentally scalded our tongue for being too eager to take in a mouthful of hot grub straight from the steaming hot pot.
No matter. Just be careful when handling hot food, especially if you have hungry hyperactive children around doing something which you think they shouldn't be doing. Having a happy and fun family dinner is a good way to foster closer family ties, is it not?
So to help on with building a better family relation, here is a steamboat recipe stock which I happen to chance upon in the newspaper. It goes like this:
Steamboat Stock Recipe
- 2kg chicken bones and carcasses, cleaned and chopped.
- 30g dried sole of fish (peen yi)
- 500g yam bean (seng kuang), chopped
- 2 thin slices of ginger
- 1 teaspoon chicken stock granules
- 1 teaspoon white peppercorns
- 3 litres of water
- pinch of salt to taste
Bring water to a boil; add chicken, dried sole of fish, yam bean, ginger and peppercorns. Simmer over low heat for 2-3 hours. Strain the stock and add salt to taste, and chicken stock granules.
For grub, just about anything will do. That's what makes steamboat so easy to do. If you are in Cameron Highlands, you could buy fresh vegetables during the day to add to your steamboat concoction. While meat such as chicken, fish, prawns, and the various processed food like fishballs, meatballs, crabstick, and not to forget, noodles and beehoon etc, you will need to prepare in advance from the lowlands, store them in an icebox to keep it fresh and bring along for the trip. Most likely you will have to do an early morning visit to the wet market, perhaps visiting the Pasar Borong to get cheaper priced food especially if you are buying in bulk to cook for the whole family clan. This is where booking an apartment comes in handy as you could do your own cooking.
Of course, not to forget, you need to bring your own steamboat equipment. You could also use your rice cooker to stand in as a steamboat cooking utensil. The rice cooker has to be the older style simple rice cooker type. The new ones with anti-stick surface and latch that locks are not suitable to use as a steamboat cooking pot.
You could also bring a portable stove and use a pot for cooking and keeping the steamboat pot hot. Though some of the utensils may not look like the traditional steamboat with funnel in the middle, it sure does cook like one and taste great if not better.
One thing about bringing along half the kitchen for your holiday travel, it is quite a lot to pack in to your car. An MPV helps, like recently my wife got herself a Toyota Wish, we could literally pack the stuff high up like a mountain! If she still said the car was not big enough, I think we will need to get a lorry instead!
Making your own steamboat may be cheaper than going out to eat, but it sure is a lot of work. Of course you get to eat a lot more.
Bon appetite!
Jan
13/5/2008
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