My first try at cooking sambal udang petai

I had bought the Maggi sambal pedas paste during one of my groceries shopping trip. And got some petai and limau purut leaves from the pasar borong last week. N had volunteered to "kopek" the petai so I had no excuse to not cook the sambal udang petai dish.

This was my first try at cooking this dish, so both of us were abit excited. You must be thinking that both of us must be crazy to be excited over one dish. But you see, we both love this dish, and petai, alot :P

The cooking turned out to be quite simple in fact. I had followed the cooking instructions on the sambal paste packaging and added my own ingredients, and voila!...you have the sambal dish.

Ingredients I used: de-shelled prawns, petai, ladies fingers, red onions, cut chillies, limau purut leaves, a bowl of asam jawa juice, tomatoes, some sugar and salt to taste, and of course the sambal paste.

First I lightly fry the onions and chillies, then put in the petai and ladies fingers, pour in the asam jawa juice, the sambal paste, tomatoes and the limau purut leaves to boil for like 5-7 minutes. When the fragrant smell of sambal permeates your kitchen, put in the prawns and boil for few minutes more. Then switch of the fire, and serve. Itu macam aje, kan senang? ;-)

Excuse me for the poor photo qualities, taking photos while cooking is not a simple task when you have oily fingers :P

some of the ingredients for "sambal udang petai"	"tumis" the onions and chillies
boiling the gravy	my first sambal udang petai (we had roti canai to dip in the leftover the next morning :P)
some fried taufu with thai chilli sauce	the 3-course dinner (abit too much for 2 persons hor?)

Maldives Honeymoon trip - Day 1

Our honeymoon trip started the day after our wedding banquet. It was a late evening flight to Maldives, lucky it was a direct flight with MAS. I must admit it was a shock to find that there were so many Indians on board with us. Do not get me wrong here, I've nothing against Indians. I'm just not used to boarding flights with so many Indians onboard, and almost all of them are males! I'm guessing they are foreign labours who are just flying back to their hometown, as our flight was a connecting flight to Colombo, after stopping at Male (capital of Maldives).

The flight started off nicely, until there was this white guy sitting beside who took off his shoes, and all of a sudden, a whiff of "ikan masin kering" smell permeated our section of the cabin. We're lucky to get another 2 adjoining seats in other section of the cabin. We guessed the air stewardess knew why we requested to change seats.

The in flight food was a new experience too, as it served either vegetarian or curry chicken meal only. This was probably because a large number of the passengers are Indians and vegetarians. We guess the most surprising part of the meal was having fragrant spices as aftermints! The small packet consists of various spices that looks like cumin seeds or what-ever-spices-that-I-don't-recognise. You chew on them and they emit and leave behind a nice smell (if you ask me, nothing in it that smelled like mint to me).

It was about four hours flight, and we reached there 9:15pm local time. Male is 3 hours behind Malaysian time. We were greeted by a tour agent who escorted us to board the ferry to Male island. Male airport is on another island, which is only 10 minutes ferry ride away from Male island. We checked in to Hotel Relax Inn (RM497++/night for one double bed standard room inclusive of ferry transfer from/to airport) which was less than 5 minutes' walk from the jetty. This was an overnight hotel before the transfer to the resort on the next day.

The hotel staff served us a concoction of pineapple and orange juice as welcome drink. The room was appallingly small! I've booked a double bed, but frankly it looked like a super single bed to me. Lucky both of us could still squeeze in the bed without either of us falling off the bed.

Accomodation booking:

https://www.mal-dives.com/

Flight with MAS:

http://www.malaysiaairlines.com.my/

** Read about Day 2 adventures **

** Read about Day 3 adventures **

ROM on 16.03.08 Putrajaya

Legally married on the 16th of March 2008! We registered at JPN Putrajaya. Arrived there around 9:30am. There were already some couples waiting in line.

The staff were most courteous, we even took a photo with the staff. Eventhough the waiting time was a little long, we did not notice it as we were busy snapping photos. Our turn came around 10:30am.

Bedsetting Ceremony 安床仪式

Bedsetting day was set on March 13th. Bedsetting is a simple ceremony which basically means putting the new bed in the wedding couple's room and laying on new bedsheets.

N's mom was the one who set the bed for us. She put some coins in the angpows (red packets) and put them underneath the two legs of the bedframe (near the headboard). This is supposedly to offer and pray to the "Mother of Bed" (literal translation) 床母, who will guard over the wedding couple and bless them with children. Then both of us helped to put on the new red bedsheets with dragon and phoenix designs (resembling the wedding couple). The double happiness lamps were also put on the bedside table and litted up till the wedding day.

N's two cousin brothers were invited to "jump on the bed" 跳床 after the bedsheets were laid. Only boys are allowed. This is to bless the wedding couple to have sons soon after getting married (早生贵子). After that no one is allowed to enter the bedroom or to touch anything in the room.

red bedsheets, double happiness sticker and lamps litted up	N using angpow to trick little cousin to jump on the bed
N's two cousins	my dressing table

Betrothal Ceremony 过大礼

Betrothal Ceremony （过大礼） was set on March 8th. N's two sisters accompanied him with a car loadful of betrothal gifts visited my house in the morning.

We set up the gifts as offering to the gods, then prayed to the gods as sign of thankfulness and ask for gods' blessing towards our coming wedding. Here are glimpses of the gifts.

2 pairs of old coconuts - signify grandparents & granchildren.	fruits in even number, tea leaves, dried fruits & nuts
offerings to the god	last minute touches to the gift baskets to be returned to the groom's side
praying to the god