Always A Delight

By FARIDAH BEGUM


Soaked brown squid with water convolvulus in a sweet spicy sauce is a great appetiser.

Soaked brown squid is a delicacy that often innocently makes it way on to the dining table and steals the thunder from other dishes.

Often cooked in a spicy sambal and devoured with Nasi Lemak or plain rice, it is also a wonderful appetiser in the form of the Malaysian favourite, Sotong Kangkung. No food court or hawker joint is complete without this on the menu.

What must be right is the sauce, which is not unlike the sweet bean sauce that comes with your chee cheong fun and this version has either ground peanuts or lots of roasted sesame seeds.

The squid must also be done well. Sometimes, the squid can be a pure let-down, especially if it becomes soft and without bite.

Crunchy and thick, you are on your way to more than just a good plate of appetiser with the dish.

Apparently from reading about Malaysian food, we found that sotong kangkung is very popular in Sabah and Sarawak and they have a good number of stalls that sell this fare, although some have commented that it is a tad too sweet as compared to the ones in the Peninsular. Whatever, it is the tastebuds of individuals and different people will taste different degrees of sweetness and saltiness in the same plate of food.

While many have responded to our sms call last week, here are just a few good places to look for your sotong kangkung.


Sotong kangkung rebus: A delicious snack food.

At the Grace Point and Bukit Padang in Kota Kinabalu, the sotong kangkung comes highly recommended as the portions are generous and the sotong done just right to provide bulk and crunch. The kangkung or water convolvulus is also very fresh and blanched just enough to maintain a good crunch for vegetable lovers.

In Kuching Sarawak, the Kuching Open Air market also has a stall selling sotong kangkung and is said to be quite good too. The Hui Sin food court here also has a sotong kangkung stall that serves an authentic version of this simple fare and is said to come with a generous sprinkling of roughly ground peanuts.

In the Peninsular, sotong kangkung is a very popular evening and dinner dish among friends, hence it being more commonly sold at night than during the day.

In the north, specifically in Gurun, Kedah, Kedai Kopi New Light, which is opposite the Gurun Magistrate’s Court at 294, Main Street, the sotong kangkung is a must as it is said not only the sauce is good, it is the kangkung that makes all the difference!

At Madras Lane, well-known previously for the exotic meats that were sold here, there is a stall that serves a good sotong kangkung and assam laksa here.

The portions are big and is good to share, besides the gravy here, one of the most important components to hold the dish together, is very tasty, so say those who have gotten a taste of it as it is a non-halal stall.

The eat street on Jalan Sayur in Pudu, which was featured in last week’s Sunday Metro, also has a stall selling sotong kangkung and again, we are told that the dish has been constant in taste as the years evolved.

For those in Petaling Jaya, drop by Tony’s char kway teow at Store 1073, Uptown Hawker Stall in the Uptown Centre of Damansara Jaya, Petaling jaya, and here, you will find the sotong kangkung, although many say it tastes better when had with the char kway teow than on its own.

The Pantai Remis Kopitiam with origins from Perak at the IOI Mall in Puchong also has sotong kangkung on its menu and is said to be as good as those sold in the open air stalls.

Further south at the Neighbourhood Coffeeshop in Taman Equine, Seri Kembangan, one of the many stalls here sell sotong kangkung all day long and is said to be popular with the residents around.

Crossing the Selangor border and moving down south, a stop at the back alley on Jalan Bunga Raya will bring you to a stall that serves an authentic sotong kangkung, Malacca style.

Spicy and sweet with loads of brown squid, it is delicious and you may not want to share. Again, the sauce makes it good.

In Johor, at the Tepian Tebrau, most Johoreans get their sotong kangkung fix here, again with the sauce being the source of this enjoyment.

Beekeeping Course In Sabah

By EMIN MADI

KOTA KINABALU: Siran Lasong remained cool and did not panic when he was suddenly surrounded by wild honeybees, known as pomosuon to the locals, that swarmed out from the man-made gelodog beehive.

Instead, he gently brushed off those still clinging to the honeycombs with his bare hands hoping to find the queen bee.

A few minutes later, Siran managed to find what he was looking for. He immediately trapped the queen bee before placing the insect inside a new beehive.

This method is known as translocating the bee colony from a gelodog into a new and permanent bee house, after which thousands of worker bees would be tempted to follow their queen.

Having done that, Siran not only completed his final day of practical training on beekeeping but also made himself a qualified beekeeper.

Some of his friends in other groups were unlucky because they apparently must have overdosed the bees with smoke, resulting in the queen bee abandoning its hideout before they could trap the insect.

Siran was among 33 participants at a two-day beekeeping course organised by the Sabah Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry’s Rural Cooperative Development (KPD) at a bee farm in Simpang Mengayau, Kudat, recently.

Siran, a Sarawakian who resides in Lawas, traveled more than 400km to attend the first beekeeping course opened to the public.

The rest of the participants were from Keningau, Tambunan, Ranau, Sipitang, Papar, Kota Belud and Penampang.

“It’s very interesting and I am really glad to have attended the course. Maybe after this, I will start my own beekeeping business, but most important of all is that I am now able to recognise the natural honey, and in this case, the tropical type,” he said.

Participants were also taught how to identify the male and worker bees as well as on the insects’ life span and behaviour.

Earlier, the participants spent a day at KPD’s honey beekeeping centre at Sikuati, Kudat, where they were given extensive briefings on the basics of honey beekeeping, including how to find wild bee nests and trapping them with the gelodog or wooden box.

The two-day practical beekeeping course, conducted by two of KPD’s experienced beekeepers, Benjamin Subinon and Madillius Maradan, also provided an insight into various bee species found in Sabah and the types of bees suitable for commercial honey beekeeping.

The common bee species reared by KPD and its participating farmers is the apis cerana which produces a high amount of honey.

Other species found in Sabah are the apis dorsata or the Asian giant honeybee, apis korsevnikovi, a multicomb cavity nesting bee, apis andreniformis, a very small bee species and apis nuluensis.

KPD’s encouraging success in the honey beekeeping business has helped raise the living standards of hundreds of rural farmers in the state, particularly in northern Sabah.

Several farmers in Kudat, who keep hundreds of bee hives, are now earning around RM1,000 a month.

Beekeeping has been one of KPD’s many socio economic activities since its inception in 1976, especially in supporting the Government’s efforts to alleviate poverty in the state, particularly among the rural poor.

At present, the agency’s beekeeping business is concentrated in Sikuati, where KPD has its own bee farm with more than 700 hives and 200 gelodogs.

But vast land clearing in the district has depleted the forest of flowering trees, especially the fast-growing acacia mangium tree whose flower nectar is the bees’ favourite source of food, and is now threatening the beekeeping business in that area.

KPD has decided that it is time to move to other areas.

KPD general manager Datuk Basrun Datuk Mansor said the agency was looking for business partners in honey beekeeping among rural people in the Pantai Barat and Pedalaman districts.

They could become KPD’s contract farmers once they acquire the technical know-how in beekeeping, he said. – Bernama.