Kaya Jam

Kaya is a coconut jam make from coconut milk, duck or chicken eggs which are flavored by pandan leaf and sweetened with sugar. The spread originated in Southeast Asia, most likely Indonesia or Malaysia. This is reflected by its tropical ingredients santan (coconut milk) and pandan leaf. Kaya is sweet and creamy. The original color reflects the color of the yolks used in the making. It is sometimes available as a golden brown or green colored spread depending on the amount of pandan and extent of caramelization of the sugar. As a popular local jam, kaya is typically spread on toast to make kaya toast and eaten in the morning but is mostly enjoyed throughout the day.

Kaya is used as a topping for several desserts including pulut taitai or pulut tekan, a dessert of sweet glutinous rice coloured blue with butterfly pea flowers (bunga telang), and pulut seri muka, a similar dessert but coloured green with pandan leaves. It is also used with glutinous rice to make kuih seri kaya.

Qu Yuan 屈原

Qu Yuan 屈原 was a member of the royal family of the kingdom of Chu in the time of Warring State. He was also the designated priest for the royal family. He wrote many beautiful poems that still existed till this day. His poems kept many valuable historical information: the mythologies, religious belief, part of funeral ritual of calling back the spirit of the dead, the type of food they eat, etc. He could have kept his position in court, but he could not stand to see the king of Chu being cheated by Qin's sweet words. He kept trying to advise the king not to believe Qin, but the king of Chu did not listen to him. His first Chu king was eventually kidnapped by Qin and died in Qin, and his second king did not listen still. He was exiled. When he was in exile, he met a fisherman. The fisherman asked him, "Aren't you the Dafu of San Lu (administrator of 3 royal clans)? Why are you here (in exile)?" He said, "The world are dirty and I am clean. The world are drunk and I am awake. Therefore, here I am." The fisherman said, "The men with De would not be limited by their environment. If the world is dirty, why don't you float with the dirt? If the world is drunk, why don't you drink with them? Why do you want to think too much and get exiled?" Qu Yuan said, "I have heard that a man who has just washed his hair would clean the dirt from his hat before wearing it, and a man who has just bathed would clean the dirt of his clothes before putting it on. How can I corrupt my clean self with dirt? I would rather jump into the river. How can I cover my pure reputation with the dirt of the world?" The fisherman smiled, turned around and sang, "Canglang river's water is pure, and it could wash the belt on my hat. Canglang river's water is dirty, and it could wash my dirty feet." Afterward, the fisherman left without saying one more word. Eventually, Qu Yuan killed himself by jumping into MiLuo river.

How to get in to Sibu?

By Plane
Most visitors arrive Sibu by plane, if you travel directly from oveseas. If you are coming from other city in Sarawak, then you will have the choice of buses.

There is direct flight from KL or JB to Sibu. Malaysian Airlines and Air Asia are the one that you look for. MASWings serves flights between cities and rural areas in East Malaysia, including Sarawak and Sabah.

Travel to Sibu Town
Bus 3A runs to and from town every 1½ hours from 6.30am to 6pm (RM2.50, about 30 minutes). You could also try flagging down any rural bus that passes by. The coupon taxi fare into town is RM28.
The local bus station is on the waterfront. To get to the long-distance bus station, take Lanang Road bus 21 (90 sen) from the local bus station. It leaves roughly hourly between 6.30am and 5.30pm. A taxi costs RM10.

**Resource from LonelyPlanet

By Land

Sarawak has land borders with Brunei, Indonesia and the Malaysian state of Sabah. If you have own transport, you may drive all the way to Sibu

By Bus
This is the most common transport if you are travelling between cities in Sarawak. The travelling times can be long because of the distance.

By Boat
Express boats run from the coast inland along Borneo's larger rivers. They are generally faster than buses and cheaper than planes. Popular routes include Kuching-Sibu (4 hours) and Sibu-Kapit (3 hours). You may read more on Sarawak Transport on Lonely Planet website. http://www.lonelyplanet.com/malaysia/malaysian-borneo-sarawak/sibu/transport/getting-there-away

Sarawak Visa Requirement

Alone among Malaysia's states, Sarawak maintains an autonomy on immigration control, mostly so mainlanders cannot freely immigrate and swamp the thinly populated state. Even if coming in from elsewhere in Malaysia, Malaysians need to bring along their ID and are restricted to a stay of 90 days at a time. Other foreigners need to fill out a second immigration form.

Still, for most travellers this is just a formality and an interesting extra stamp in their passport, as anybody who does not need a visa for Malaysia can get a free 90-day visit permit on arrival. If you do need an advance visa for Malaysia, you'll need one specifically for Sarawak, so be sure to state this when applying at the Malaysian embassy.

http://sarawakcb.com/sarawak-destination/visa-requirement/

Foochow Redwine Chicken Noodles(红酒鸡长寿面线)

You must be very curious, why the title write Red Wine but the picture above show no red at all. This is because there is one ingredient missing, the Hong Zhao.
It is red wine sediment/residue of wine. That is the ingredient that make the dish become red.
I used to cook without Hong Zhao, however would like to try the version of Hong Zhao next time.
This unique blend of red wine is a tradition among Foochow people. In the olden days, family of a pregnant woman will start brew red wine months prior to give birth to a new child.
The ingredients consist of rice, yeast and varieties of herbs. The red wine thus brewed is dense, and is kept in bottles stored in a dry and warm place.
RED WINE is a vital ingredient to longevity noodles/rice vermicelli (chang shou mian)and pre-cooked chicken which is served to friends and relatives who pay congratultory visit to the family with new born baby. Longevity noodles widely used as it symbolize long live.
RED WINE is also consumed by the woman who give birth to the baby in the believe that it will help her to recover health in shorter period of time.
Nowadays RED WINE is commonly used as ingredients for some cooking in many traditional Foochow restaurants.
Besides RED WINE CHICKEN, Sibu is well known for Hong Zhao CHICKEN. 'Zhao' is the residue of wine.

Here are some simple steps to prepare my favourite dish.

Ingredients:-
Half chicken (kampung chicken is the best)
1 cup of foochow red wine
1 tbsp of foochow Hong Zhao (red wine sediment)
Few pieces of ginger-julienned
3 tbsp of sesame oil
salt to taste
1/2 tbsp of sugar (to replace Ajinamoto)
1 litre of water
3 bunches of longevity noodle
Few pieces of dried mushrooms

Steps:-
1. Cut the chicken into bite size. Marinate it with the ang zhao, leave it for 30 minutes or so.
2. Soak the dried mushrooms in water and leave for 30 minutes.
3. In a wok, heat up the sesame oil, once the wok heated up, add in the ginger and stir fry till fragance.
4. Then add in the chicken and stir fry continuosly till yellowish. Add in the foochow red wine and stir fry again. Add in the salt and sugar and continue to stir fry for a minute or so.
5. Pour in the water & soaked mushrooms and close with a lid. Let it simmer for 10-15 minutes till cook.
6. While the dish is simmering, prepare a pot and boil some water to cook the longevity noodle. When it is boiling, add in the noodle and let it cook on high heat. Remember to constantly stir the noodle so that it doesn't stick together.
7. Once the noodle is cook(it will float), then drain it. In a bowl, place the noodle and laddle some red wine chicken and soup onto it.
8. Serve while it's still piping hot. (Please don't let the noodles soaked in the soup for too long as it will affect the tasture)

Sago Worm

Sago worm is an authentic local dish for the native people in Sibu. Normally we use deep fried style for this special worm. It is very crispy, just like the fried crackers(I never try but my family said delicious!!). It contains lot of nutrition.

You can get it at Central Market easily with RM10 per basket.(Price as at Year 2008)

Pucuk Manis马尼菜

Pucuk Manis (we used to called it as 马尼菜/九指菜), a very common vegetables you can find in Sibu and almost all the restaurant will serve this vegetable. You normally will find the dry version in most of the restaurant. It is the famous and common dish in Sibu. Must try! Picture above taken from my mum's farm so it is actually quite easy to plant.



Pucuk Manis fried with egg said to be good for eyes. There have a few method of cooking, my house we make it either dry dish or cook with soup but both also fried with eggs. I like both!!

Hot Plate Char Kway Teow Tomato(Wet)

Char Kway Teow, literally "stir-fried ricecake strips", is a popular noodle dish in Malaysia. Normally if you order Wet Char Kway Teow, you get the non-tomato version.

Why I put it as "(Wet)"? In Malaysia, the stir-fried noodles normally cooked in 3 ways - Wet, Dry or Soup version.

• Wet - As seen in the picture above, it has thick gravy(not the soup version). Normally at other place, it is non-tomato version, but Sibu has it unique one. It sometime served in hot plate.
• Dry - No gravy for this kind of cooking, noodles will be fried with egg, bean sprouts sliced meat or fish cakes.
• Soup - This is cooked with lot of water and normally looks brown for the soup.

I personally dun like any chinese stir-fried noodles with tomato in it, however, I found this wet version Char Kway Teow Tomato is quite good. If you never try it, do go for it!

Rice Dumpling(Ba Zhang or Zongzi)

History:
Zongzi, a pyramid-shaped mass of glutinous rice wrapped in leaves, is eaten by people at Duanwu Festival(Dragon Boat Festival), May 5th in Chinese lunar calendar each year. The origins of rice dumplings are traced to the legend of Qu Yuan, a well-loved poet who drowned himself in a river. To stop the fish from eating his body, people made rice dumplings and threw them into the river. Another version of the legend states that the dumplings were made to placate a dragon that lived in the river.

Zongzi originally is called Bamboo Tube Zong the fillings wrapped into a bamboo tube. Later, it gradually develops with various shapes, like triangle-shape, pagoda-shape, and cudgel-shape, ect. And more and more materials can be made of fillings, providing all kinds of flavor. At present, Zongzi is not only a kind of traditional food at Duanwu Festival, but also become a common food in daily for its delicate taste.


Dumpling Type:
Generally, Zongzi can be divided into 4 types: Beiping Zongzi, tasted sweet; Guangdong Zongzi, used all kinds of materials and cost the longest time in making among the four; Taiwan Zongzi, mainly made by meat; and Huzhou Zongzi, having two flavors of sweet and salty

The dumplings need to be steamed or boiled for several hours and one superstition says that dumplings will never cook if a pregnant woman enters the kitchen whilst they are being steamed. Dumplings may also be frozen for later consumption, but must be boiled instead of steamed when stored in this fashion.

The Zongzi that you find in Sibu is mixture of everything. The common one will be the meat dumpling which show in the 2nd picture above. It usually make with pork, sausages, Chinese mushrooms, salted egg, and chestnuts. Other filling like peanut is quite common. This is the salty version.

Sweet version you can get the filling with red beans paste or mashed yellow beans.

Some types of zongzi contain no filling at all, in which case they are usually eaten with sugar or kaya(coconut egg jam).

Sarawak laksa

Sarawak laksa (Malay: Laksa Sarawak) comes from the Malaysian state Sarawak, on the island of Borneo. It is actually very different from the curry laksa find at other place as the soup contains no curry at all. It has a base of Sambal belacan, sour tamarind, garlic, galangal, lemon grass and coconut milk, topped with omelette strips, chicken strips, prawns, fresh coriander and optionally lime. Ingredients such as bean sprouts, (sliced) fried tofu or other seafood are not traditional but are sometimes added.

Personally I like Sarawak Laksa quite a lot because of the unique taste and they have less coconut milk. You can find it in most of the coffeeshop in Sibu.

You can find the list of restaurant in Sibu HERE.