Epok-Epok & Nasi Lemak

My phone went ding in the night. It was Y. "Come collect your epok-epok and nasi lemak in the morning!" OH YES PLEASE. Took the dog out bright and early for her walk, and got to Y's at 9.15am. Couldn't wait to collect his awesome food at 9am. I was very enthusiastic about it. 

I arrived to see a truckload of trays, pots and pans laid out in the kitchen. Y was prepping plenty of ingredients and many of boxes stood at the side waiting to be packed. This isn't your fancy retail store's offerings. It's good old homemade epok-epok in the style I love, and simple nasi lemak done so well. It's ridiculously hard to find these flavors nowadays. 

Last round Y gave us epok-epok of chicken and egg, and plain egg. All with potatoes, of course. This round, the epok-epok are sardines, and chicken and egg. Y uses quail eggs. Mmmmm. BEST. I usually prefer my epok-epok with just plain egg, potatoes and curry (dohhh). I also no like sardines. YUCKS. But okay, I will a few. The sardine puffs are spicy and are really quite delicious. I can settle for the chicken and egg. Hahaha. 

These epok-epok come fried and frozen, done specially for me. Y had suggested that he would do the cooked filling and dough frozen, and I fry them myself at home. In fact, he insisted on this manner and method because it would preserve the original flavors and textures in the most ideal way. I was like, NO. CANNOT. DUNWAN.

I get why, but my kitchen has no capability to deep fry things. So I requested for him to simply fry them up to freeze. I'd keep them in the freezer and thaw them out whenever I want one. It's not difficult — 40 seconds on the microwave, then turn it to 4 minutes on the grill. And no, to me, the taste isn't compromised. 

The nasi lemak came with chicken thighs and sambal quail eggs. Unfortunately, the rice itself couldn't keep till dinner. I ate it. I had loads of paperwork and household chores to do, so I was hungry enough to eat more than a salad or a bowl of granola. Ate the rice for lunch with stir-fried nai bai, sambal tumis and a big hard-boiled egg. 

The big pieces of fried chicken thighs were kept for dinner, along with the sambal quail eggs, and more sambal tumis with ikan bilis. Had these with brown rice instead. The chicken was beautifully marinated. Y's mom's sambal tumis is so delicious and he gave us a generous amount of that. I didn't think I could do with less sambal. Hurhurhur. 

Rustled up a small side of greens to go with the meal. Made dressing with anchovies. That should complement all the savory layers. Added avocado too. Just because. Heh. The man had a loooong day at the office and didn't mind coming home for this dinner which he really looked forward to, and was super satisfied with. 

Thanks for feeding us so well, Y!