[Daily Life in Korea] My First Time Cooking Malaysian Food !!

Hi, everyone! 

Do you usually enjoy Local food when you go on a trip abroad? 

I usually do love trying new food in the new place when I am on a trip, but as all of you know, 

we are all now under the Covid-19 situation, therefore we can't travel abroad freely.

But like all you do, I am craving for the trip to Abroad as well, thus, I decided to take a Malaysian cooking class!

Here we go! 

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The place I've been to for this cooking class is the ' ASEAN Culture House' in Busan, Korea.

Logo of ASEAN Culture House ( Source: ASEAN- KOREA Centre) / ASEAN Culture House ( Source: Crezone) 

It is a lively platform to enhance Koreans’ understanding of the cultures and societies of ASEAN countries and promote mutual awareness and friendship between the peoples of ASEAN and Korea ASEAN consists of 10 member countries. For the international Cultural exchange, it holds numerous events such as a multi-cultural festival, language classes and the ASEAN countries cooking class, etc. 

In all those various of events in ASEAN Culture House, I chose to take a Malaysian Cooking Class today.

By taking a subway for 1.5 hours, I finally arrived at the ASEAN Culture House, located in Haeundae, Busan, Korea.

I have been to Busan so many times but It was my first time to be here.

 There were flying flags of Korea and the ASEAN Countries in front of the building.

In addition, we could see each of the tourist attractions of the ASEAN countries as well. 

This exhibits of Petronas Twin Tower reminds me of the last trip to Malaysia so badly!

I could find some ASEAN Cuisine recipes on the reception desk. 

I took the Laksa and the Nasi Goreng recipe only among them. 

 

For today cooking class, I made two different Malaysian food, Butter Prawn and Appam Balik. 

Maybe you can guess what is Butter Prawn but maybe not for the Appam Balik. 

Mentioned by the Malaysian Cooking Teacher, Appam Balik is Malaysian Style of Pancake which is folded. 

(In the name of Appam Balik, Balik means 'folded' in Malaysian/Indonesian.)

You can put whatever you want to your taste like mozzarella, jam, and chocolate..etc, but in this class, I made the appam balik with crushed peanut.

They prepared the kitchen utensils and the ingredients for each of the students in the class.

In fact, I was pretty surprised to be served individual cooking spot since the tuition for this class was only 10,000\ in Korean won .

(it's only 8.44$ in US Dollar) 

What a reasonable and cost-effective chance to learn cooking?!

In the beginning of the class, the Malaysian teacher demonstrated  how to make 'Butter Prawn' at first. 

I am the one who enjoys cooking and baking in usual, so it doesn't seem that tricky to cook it, but certainly, it was a little bit confusing given that it was my first time cooking Malaysian food. 

In this picture, I seem to be okay with cooking, but , in fact, I was a little bit lost what to do and read the recipe paper for making sure. 

In the following step, I began to make ' Appam Balik with crushed peanut' !

Most of the ingredients of it are quite normal and easily available in the Korean grocery stores but except the 'Corn Cream'.

The cooking process of Appam Balik was way easier compared to the butter prawn, even I thought that I could make one at my own place next time by myself.

Actually, the Malaysian teacher said that we should make it with more butter and sugar on it if we want to make it as a REAL Malaysian style but it must be too much for Koreans,in order, she suggested us to put a suitable amount of them for Korean style.

(But I tried to put a lot to feel the Local Taste though it is not enough for the REAL Local Malaysians )

 

Butter Prawn that I made / Butter Chicken Rice in Malaysia ( Eat Full Full ) 

After all, I had my first Butter Prawn and Appam Balik with my friend who I came with. 

Both were nice but especially, the butter prawn reminds me of the 'Butter Chicken Rice' I had in Malaysia.

I learned that the curry leaf in the butter prawn is a good match with the butter.

Still, I don't know the recipe of the butter chicken sauce but I felt like I can make it somehow. 

 

For the Appam Balik, it is said to the Corn Cream can easily go bad , so I made one with a normal recipe and the other without corn cream to bring home.

Due to enough amount of butter, sugar, and the crushed peanut, it was still rich, sugary, and crunchy nevertheless there was no corn cream in it.

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 picture of instant teh tarik stick by OldTown Milk Tea / One of my favorites, Teh Tarik

 

Since I came back from Malaysia, I 've missed there, but, unfortunately, there were no chances to feel Malaysia near my hometown, so I used to make 'Teh Tarik' with ' instant teh tarik stick '.

Thanks for this fantastic cooking class of ASEAN Culture House, I didn't take a flight to Malaysia but I was in Malaysia for 2 hours of cooking class. 

No one knows when we can travel around this world without the fear of Covid-19, 

I truly hope it's over soon and I could have the real local Malaysian food in Malaysia again:)