I’m Back & My Recipes in Flavours Magazine!

Well, apart from being really excited to see my family in Malaysia, I was happy to savour the food back home too! Mom asked the same question everyday, ‘What do you want to eat?’ Oh boy! She made so much food that we thought it was too much! One of the best things living so close to Kuala Perlis is the convenience to get the freshest seafood ever! One of the things that I told myself that I shouldn’t miss was to eat seafood! My brother suggested to us that to get the freshest seafood, we had to wake up early to go to the small fishing port in Kuala Perlis town.

For me, it couldn’t have been better than buying seafood straight from the fishing port just as soon as the catches of day were unloaded! Although pretty small, a lot of activity goes on in this slightly fish-smelly port. The ferry from Langkawi sees a lot of daily passengers pass through, together with ships and fishing boats constantly docking and embarking near customs. My brother knew exactly what he was doing. But, first, he had to convince us to wake up at 7am so that we were in good time to get the best of the best!

Apart from fish, prawns and crabs are my next favourites. So, I made sure that my favourite blue swimmer crab was on the shopping list! When you look at how fresh you can get these crabs in Malaysia, I just wish that I could get the same in London. Well, I probably could get them at the wholesale fish market. But, that would mean to wake up at 5am! My mom made my all time favourite with these blue swimmers, which I really hope I could share with you all if I could get hold of these crabs in London!

I was told that all the catches are mostly to be sold in bulk to retailers in Kuala Lumpur. End consumers like us are able to buy them at wholesales price. Looking at those big buckets of fish makes me think how many tones of seafood we, human beings, consume on a yearly basis and how long more will our mother ocean be able to keep on supplying this amount of seafood for our consumption?

Not all catches are from the sea at least. Some groupers that I saw were farmed. I think grouper has almost come to extinction. Very few were caught from the sea, unless they are line-caught. Grouper is a fish with really firm white flesh. It is great to eat steamed and deep-fried whole. I also like to do a stir-fry with its firm fillets. My brother couldn’t resist but decided to buy one huge line-caught grouper!

One thing that I really have to talk about is the price for prawns. 1kg of the following is only RM 25-30!! And they are not farmed and super fresh! The price for frozen prawns here? £12 a kg, which is RM60! Argghh!! I am feeling homesick already!