Food Testing Is Fun!

Over at the Friends of the Botanic Gardens Society Outreach office premises, we dearly love our tea and lunch breaks because sometimes our members kindly bring some of their latest culinary discoveries for taste-testing. Of course, it isn't always a formal "I'm bringing some goodies for you all to try out," kind of situation. Very often, a member will discover some new food stall or recipe and just bring some delicious titbits to share.

And it was during one of these tea breaks that the subject of salads and dips came up. With the different herbs we have growing in our garden, the main subject of conversation was using these aromatic plants in the easiest (and tastiest) of ways. Salad dressings and dips!

A bit of research tells us that apart from cooking it in soups or curries our neighbours up north, the Thais, use lemongrass as a salad dressing, too. A common combination is ginger, coriander (Americans call it cilantro), garlic, lime juice and chili. The Italians, on the other hand, favour oregano, basil and parsley with freshly ground black pepper and balsamico (balsamic vinegar)or white wine vinegar mostly whereas French dressing is much richer with yoghurt, and Dijon mustard added to the herbs. 

So naturally, everyone wanted to try making their own salad dressings and dips with the herbs from our garden. Some of our more conscientious members even went on-line to look for classic recipes to use as reference for their own experiments while the free-spirited ones simply winged it, but a lot of very delicious herb dips and salad dressings were discovered (and tasted!) We'll be collecting the easiest and quickest ones to share with everybody at one of our upcoming Saturday activity demonstrations, naturally.

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Favourite Herbs

Today’s blog post is going to be about some common herbs and easy but not common ways to use them because it rained this morning so there was no outdoor demonstration. It’s easy enough to toss a bunch of herbs together to add fragrance to any soup or salad dressing, but one of the most important things seldom discussed in cookery is the proper combination of herbs.

Mint (Mentha asiatica)

In Penang, we use mint for nyonya laksa (white rice noodles in a spicy fish broth) and in all kinds of Malay-style kerabu salads. Mint also goes well with seafood and red meat, cutting down on the fishy odour as well as the strong ‘meaty’ smell from beef, mutton or lamb. That’s why it’s used in lamb or mutton korma. But because of its strong fragrance, you have to be careful when combining it with other herbs which are more delicate.

Lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus)

A great favourite in local cookery, lemongrass is used in Malay, Chinese and Indian dishes, as well as Thai and Burmese cooking. It’s citrusy perfume is strong but has a delicate body so larger quantities are needed when combining it with garlic, onions, mint or the local form of basil. You can make tea, puddings, jelly and even cake with it. It goes well with mint and laksa leaves, too! Incidentally, do you know how to differentiate between lemongrass and citronella (which isn’t good eating)? Scroll to the bottom for the trick!

Laksa leaves (Persicaria odorata)

Laksa leaves are also called Vietnamese coriander. They're strongly perfumed, and go well with lemongrass and mint in soups and curries. But laksa leaves can also be eaten in a salad (partner it with other strong-smelling vegetables!) or stir-fried with minced meat or chicken and a bit of soy sauce, oyster sauce or Thai fish sauce (nam pla) as a substitute for krapow or Thai basil (Ocimum basilicum) and you will get a lovely dish to go with white rice. Add a bit of bird’s eye chilli (chilli padi) too if you want, for the extra fragrance.

Dill (Anethum graveolens)

Though not native, it grows very well in Penang. Its light, almost liquorice fragrance combines beautifully with seafood and lemon juice. Just wrap some fish in butcher’s paper or baking foil, throw in a sprig of dill, a dab of butter, a squeeze of lemon (put a slice of lemon in, too), a sprinkle of white wine (if you want), and chuck the whole thing in an oven or steamer for about 10 minutes and you’ll get a nice poisson en papillote without having to go to a highty-tighty restaurant and pay premium prices. It works with prawns, too!

Some members also happened to drop by after the rain stopped and wanted a quick lesson on printing over black and coloured t-shirts so that’s what we did instead. Here’s a look at the students’ work from this morning.

Here’s a bit of extra good news. We’ll be adding simple cooking with local herbs to our monthly activities. Different ways to use herbs is usually popular, so don’t forget to check back here regularly for news about our monthly activities!

Pssst! How do you tell the difference between lemongrass and citronella? Citronella stalks are pinkish while lemongrass stalks are green! 

Ibiden EHS Dept Rainforest Walk

What a busy Saturday today has been! And luckily for everyone, the weather held up in spite of black clouds and a very fine spray of rain just as activities were about to commence. 

First up at 8.30 am were the ladies and gentlemen from the EHS Dept. who'd come for the Rainforest Walk. The walk was conducted by our Vice-President, Dr. Liew Kon Wui, with Dr. Conchita Nolan, and Lili Cheah acting as his backup.

The group of 20 ladies and gentlemen tackled the mile-long botanical trail from the Gazebo, along the Lower Circuit Road and ending at the Lily Pond, in good time,

 It was an informative and interesting excursion as Dr. Liew briefed them on things as diverse as the different strata in the tropical rainforest canopy, the many kinds of trees around the Garden's slopes, the ferns and the flowers at ground level.

Participants were given drinks, a handout with diagrams of the various types of plants that make each specific level their home, and a brochure with highlights of the intriguing things to be found along the walk. Although the track was a bit slippery because of the previous few days' rainy weather, everything went off well.

There was a bit of a disappointment, however. The famous Black Lily (known as the keladi murai locally) was not in bloom when the group went on their track this morning. The exotically coloured purplish black flowers with gracefully bowed petals would have made for a lovely highlight around the Lily Pond area but unfortunately, it was not blooming season for this special bloom.

Meanwhile back at our Outreach premises, the usual Saturday morning demonstration went on as usual. The plant painted this week was a simple Helliconia with three leaves. It will be part of the T-shirt painting series of lessons since only two basic types of brushstrokes are required to do it.

Watch out for a third plant next week! We'll be doing fruiting lime tree branches!

Just to let everyone know, we're preparing a simple easily learned syllabus and teaching aids for T-shirt painting so that we can eventually start classes for those interested to learn basic one-stroke painting with dyes to make their own hand-painted T-shirts.

Wearable Art!

We've been having regular t-shirt printing sessions for members at our Outreach office most Wednesdays. Our art and craft group members use the leaves and flower from our garden mostly, but some have brought really unusual and beautiful specimens from their own homes to use. 

Indeed, our dedicated members have produced such truly lovely pieces that we were delighted to put them up on sale at our Garden Shop.

That's right. 

All those beautiful t-shirts you see at our Shop are one-of-a-kind hand-printed pieces of art that you can wear! But did you also know that we've been having little outdoor demonstrations of art and craft activities right in front of our office for the last four weeks? 

We kicked off our latest programme and activity developments quite smoothly with a couple of weeks of black and coloured t-shirt printing with leaves and flowers. From 8.00am to 10.00am, joggers and walkers passing by have been drawn to watch our mini demonstrations.

It's all part of our latest activity and programme development plan. For now, while we've been in the research and planning stage, the activities have been for 'Members Only' but we're glad to inform everyone that we'll soon be offering our latest activities to the public! 

We started off our Saturday demonstrations by printing only on adults' black t-shirts but now we also have equally prints on children's wear. Even those t-shirts coloured deeper shades than light pink or pale blue. So now, you can buy colourful printed t-shirts for kids at our Outreach office premises, too.

This morning's outdoor demonstration was rather different, however. Have a look at this t-shirt. Can you guess what we were demonstrating?

That's right. We're starting t-shirt painting classes for our members. And not just draw with a pencil and then fill-in-the-lines painting but Chinese watercolour-style painting! To make it easier and more enjoyable for everyone to learn, we've simplified the techniques to just 4 basic strokes and divided the programme into 4 parts - one flower or plant for each session.

Today's demonstration was on how to paint the butterfly pea flower more commonly known as bunga telang in Malaysia.

Next week's demonstration will be the heliconia flower, so don't forget to drop by and have a look. There'll be plants on sale, too!