“Don’t murder your veggies!” is a cry often sounded by many natural health experts, nutritionists and raw food advocates. Apparently, heat and the cooking process destroys many of the enzymes and vitamins in vegetables, reducing their nutritional value.
Therefore, the experts often recommend eating a diet high in raw foods. However, a raw food diet may not be for everyone, so the next best option is to lightly steam our vegetables. Steaming ensures that vegetables aren’t overcooked and allows the vegetables to retain most of their nutrients.
However, I used to find steaming a cumbersome process. For one, waiting for the pot of water to boil would take ages. I also had trouble getting vegetables to cook evenly inside a steaming insert. Often the vegetables at the base closest to the steam would turn out overcooked, while those at the top remained raw.
Then one day, Mum phoned me rather excitedly, telling me about this amazing steaming method she’d learnt from a Chinese language cooking show on TV. “It’s so efficient!” she told me. “And it takes less than five minutes!”
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Making Rempah (Spice Paste)
Rempah is a Malay word used to describe the spice pastes used in many dishes throughout the Southeast Asian region. Depending on the recipe, various ingredients are pounded together in a mortar and pestle, then fried slowly in oil until intensely fragrant. The resulting paste is then used as a recipe base for various curries and stir-fries.
Aromatic and piquant, the flavour of homemade rempah is far superior to the ready-made curry pastes and stir-fry sauces found in supermarkets. The secret to a rempah’s magical flavour lies in the freshness of its ingredients, such as chillies, shallots, dried shrimp, lemongrass and various herbs and spices.
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