Makkah and its Significance

Today is the day of Arafah. Millions have either arrived in the Arafah plains or still on their foot hoping to reach there before Zuhr today. In Makkah itself, the crowd of hujjaj has thinned and today is also the day for the annual Kiswah changeover. I managed to catched a glimpse on the process of changing the cloth covering Ka'abah telecast live from Saudi Channel 1. Its pleasing to the eyes to see the ka'abah bricks and mortar under the all too familiar black Kiswah. Maybe one day I hope to witness that in person. InsyaAllah.

While in Makkah last year, our group Syeikh Ustaz shared some history and significance about Makkah. Here, I recalled back my memory on the blessed city and what I gathered from the Syeikh.
Makkah is the holiest city on earth to Muslims. It is variously known as Makkah Al-Mukarramah, Umm Al-Qura (the origin of the Cities; Asyu-a-ra' QS26:7), Al Balad (the City; Al-Balad QS90:1-2) , Al Balad Al-Ameen (the Secure City ), and Al-Balad Al-Haram (the Sacred City), Al-Qaryah (The village An-Nahl QS116:112, Muammad QS47:13). It is also known as 'Bakkah' referred to in the Surah Ali-Imran which means congested with people.

Makkah is and has been the center of the earth from the beginning of time and during the period of the Prophet Muhammad it was turn into the Qiblat (direction) for mankind to worship Allah. Evidence are plenty around the city of Makkah which proven it to be the oldest city ever built on earth. People from the Arab jazeera as well as around the world ply the trade route there and made Makkah the center of trading as well as worshipers.

The peace and harmony in the city not only felt by human who live there but also by animals and trees. Hujjaj are prohibited to kill animal while they are assuming the intention to perform Hajj as prescribed in the Quran Al-Maidah QS5:95-96. Those who 'Ilhad' or assume evil intention but have not even commit the offense while in Makkah and the surrounding land of Haram will be recorded as doing a crime and punishment is severe by Allah as also evidence in Surah Hajj QS22:25. Thus is how Allah protect his house the Baitullah Al Haram.

It was said that the Ka'abah was first built by Prophet Adam and has gone through 12 times of rebuilding. The most famous of the builders were Prophet Ibrahim and his son Prophet Ismail who built and raised the Ka'abah as we have seen today. This fact was clearly marked in history as recorded by the Al-Quran in Al-Baqarah QS2:127. Prophet Ibrahim supplicated to Allah to bless Makkah as a safe haven where worshipers of Allah will come to visit and hence it was said that the Makkah land of Haram was declared by him.

Later, Makkah was hit by a major flood that destroyed the Ka'abah and hence it was rebuilt by the Quraisy and Prophet Muhammad was chosen to be the righteous one among his people to reinstall the Hajr Aswad in its rightful place. This took place at a time before he assume the prophet hood.

Now, there are 934 markers built around Makkah to signify the boundary between Land of Haram and Halal. The main entrance to Makkah are Tanaim, Adhat Libn, Asy-Syara'i, Al-Hudaibiyah and Jabal Namirah in Arafah.

Almost all of the major places in Makkah are related to a very big part of the world history. For example, the very foundation of the Ka'abah itself was said to be the first ground that Allah created when he created the earth. While Jabal Qubais where the current King's palace is located is said to be the first mountain that Allah created.
Jabal Qubais and the palace.

The hill of Safa where one begins his Sai'e ritual was the hill that Prophet Muhammad climbed to the top and begin his first sermon to the public when Allah instructed him to perform Da'awah openly. Here on the hill, the Prophet and his sahabah(companion) Abdullah Abbas met a Syaithan (devil) who has lived from the time of Habil & Qabil (Kane & Abel) which proofs that devils are granted with long life. The Safa hill is also said to be the place where a weird animal name Dabbah will rise from it which would signify the end of time.

Jabal Nur is the location where Hira' cave is located and here is the place where the first verse of the Quran was read to the prophet by the angel Jibrail (Gabriel). Maybe next time if I go to Makkah, i will make sure that i climbed this steep hill and experience myself the harship face by the prophet.
Over the time, Makkah has changed a lot and none of the historical buildings were preserved as the Saudi government hold a strict policy concerning idolization. Many buildings like the house of the Prophet was demolished to avoid from ill-intent worshipers from idolizing the place. Although buildings were destroyed or renovated, the location still remain and over the years people will still pass on the story of places where they were thought to be original location.

For example, the library on the east of the Masjidil Haram was said to be the location of the house where Prophet Muhammad was born. The significant of this building is it is directly facing the Babussalam and hence the Ka'abah door. Coincidence? Not!
The library said to be the ouse where Prophet was born.

The location of the current Hilton Hotel now was said to be the original house of Abu Bakr sahabah and father in law of the Prophet. There is a Musolla by his name inside the Hilton building.

The location of the Sofitel Hotel now was said to be the house of Uthman Ibni Affan, the wealthiest of the Prophet's sahabah.

The Souk-ul-Lail was the night market where the Prophet carried out his business during nighttime when he was boycotted by the people of Makkah for conveying Islam.

The Abi Arqam entrance to the Masjid was said to be the house of Abi Arqam where the prophet teaches the religion in private to Muslim during the first few years.

Masjid Rayyah or more fondly known as Masjid 'Kucing' (cat) to Malaysian hujjaj is associated with the history of the Fathu Makkah (the reopening of Makkah)

Masjid Jinn is the location where the Prophet made a barrier for his Sahabah, Abdullah Ibn Mas'ud for protection against the disturbing Jinn when the Prophet is visiting the Jinn's village.

So, the above are some of the stories I collected from the Syeikh during my month long stay in Makkah. It was an eye opener and made me appreciate more of Makkah as I walk in its street and visualizing how it was back than.

Actually it helps much if we understand Makkah and its history while we perform the Hajj rituals. Once we can visualize the history than it become clear the philosophy behind each rituals. In fact a lot of the manasik is actually reenactment of the past. For e.g. Sai'e relates the story of Hajar, Prophet Ibrahim A.S wife who were searching for water for her son Ismail which made her to run up and down the hill of Safa and Marwah.

It is not so hard to imagine the spirit and feeling of Hajar who was left there alone in the middle of a dessert unfamiliar to her with a new born son, with no food or water. Imagine what she feels like then, her fortitude, her resolution and at the same time exhaustion, terrified, afraid. But she did not give up but fix her faith fully in Allah. Allah will never abandon those who are righteous.

As you perform the Sai'e and watch your wife doing the same you would pray that she would have the same courage and spirit of Hajar.. Amin!

Contentious issues about the real 9 Zulhijjah

First and foremost, I praise Allah over the blessing that He has given me over the past year and has extended another year of my life. InsyaAllah in 2 days we will meet yet again another 9th Zulhijjah, or the Day of Arafah. It is the single most important day for all Muslim especially the Hujjaj whom were blessed to be presence at the sacred land of Arafah.

In a meaning of a Hadith, the Prophet pbuh has said that there is no other day that Allah frees many of His servants from Hellfire but on the day of Arafah. That is why we are urge to fast on the day of Arafah and ask his forgiveness. Another meaning of Hadith on the advantages of fasting on the day of Arafah, the Prophet says that Allah will forgive all the sins of His servant for the past year and the next.

I hope I am able to do the same. And so, many has also realized the great things that is on offer by Allah on the special day. As more and more people begin to understand, than there will be more question. And, being weak human, we are predisposed to school of thoughts and hence we start to argue about the real day of the Arafah.

Especially with Satellite TV, we learned that for this year the day of Arafah is observed on the 18th December in Saudi while in other parts of the world like Malaysia, the day fall on the 19th. So some would argue that we should follow Saudi while other steadfastly maintains that we have to follow the rule of the country.

As usual, in Malaysia we are normally adopts the Rukyah system for reason lost to me. In other countries, like Saudi, they will see the hilal to determine the first day of the moon. Even country like Sudan benefit from Saudi by just adopting whatever decision their neighbor made. Maybe the sky is always clear in Saudi and the mountains are higher that they are more apt than we Malaysian in finding the moon. If this issue is further discuss, it will get more complicated with countries like India and Pakistan who are often 2 days behind than the rest of the world. Weird not?

Well, for us, the normal servants and on the street Muslim, we just follow what is being announced by the leader of our country. If Malaysia announced Arafah to fall on the 19th, so be it. InshaAllah our fasting and doa would not go unrecognized by Allah AlMighty and Most Forgiving.

Here are some articles concerning the issue. Read here and here.

Than come a question, if a hujjaj is coming from a country that declared first of Zulhijjah different from Saudi, the caretaker of Mecca and Arafah, should he observed his day of Arafah like his country or Saudi? I think even a kindergarten pupil can answer that. Long answer is, if he stick to his country date, the hujjaj simply can't be called a Hajj when he return because: Al Hajj is Arafah. And Arafah is the 9th day of Zulhijjah in Arafah lah. ;-)
Sunset on Arafah. Last minute to make Doa before the sunsets. You will find so many people there, but the air is so quiet with no voices to be heard. All of them are having private conversation with Allah. Tears melting in their eyes! What a feeling!

In a way, it is good if we have different opinion and argue over it, which goes to show that we are more matured and have more knowledge about our religion. On the other hand, it is bad especially if it divides the Ummah. We pray and hope that one day, all the Muslim Ummah will unite and observe the same day for the first of Ramadhan, Eid as well as the Zulhijjah. Afterall, there is only one moon!

Towards the Ka’abah, and the One

Article about haji, a good read here.

Last night my friend and I were chit chatting about the experience congregating here in Sudan as well as Dubai. Mostly we were reminiscing the culture shock we had when we first got here where we had to control ourselves from breathing the 'aroma' of fellow 'jemaat' during prayer at mosques around here. Well, since water is scarce locals rarely take shower thus explains the sweaty whiff of smells carried by the wind to our untrained nostrils. Overtime, it simply faded as we blended in :-)

We also funnily reflect on the timorous Malaysian Muslim who normally pull their feet away in annoyance or sometime disgust when they strangely felt that the next guy is somehow fidgeting with their toes with his. His first thought would be "What is he doing?" or "Is he trying to be funny?". Actually, it is a misunderstood on our part being Jahil (unlearned) for certain about the practice here in the middle east and Sudan to close the gaps between saf(ranks) in prayer. So the joke is on us, Malaysian so call 'devoted' Muslim.

Normally, Jemaat prayer in Malaysia we would avoid touching or have any form of body contacts with the fellow jemaat next to us. Little that we know that what we are doing is contradicting to the teachings of Prophet Muhammad himself who mandate closing the ranks to avoid devils from disturbing prayer.

Another habit of we Malaysian is that we tend to fill up the ranks at the hindmost of the saf or nearest to the door. Thus explains the huge crowd we normally find at the doors and entrance if we were to arrive late say for Jumaah or Terawih prayer, then chances of praying inside the comfort of the mosque is zero. Malaysian are happy to bring their 'sajadah' and pray under the tree blindly following the faint voice of the Imam who is praying across the road from them. (you can see this at KLCC mosque each Friday).

If you are one of them, you might find yourself awkward in the land of Haram.

Thus the title towards Kaabah from the article in the Star quickly recalls the times when I felt at odd praying at the Masjidil Haram myself.
Pilgrims just crossed your head if they want to get to the front sometime shoving you aside. Even the ladies from certain countries has no mercy on you, instead they blame you for blocking the way. "Hey I arrive here first", you think aloud. Of which you receive a narrow look on the face of the Makcik or Pakcik.

In the Land of Haram, 'Malaysian style saf' is a no-no. Which is a good thing to teach a thing or two about the real way of performing prayer. However, the downside you may find there is the odd mix of man and woman in a saf. Another problem is the orientation of your Qiblat. I'll explain a little bit next.

Concerning mix in the Saf
The best way to overcome this is through knowledge. This is seldom preach by the Hajj crash course, and people tend to miss asking about making the right saf for a perfect prayer. So, since I am not an Ustaz, I suggest you put this 'cepu emas' question to your Ustaz about how to handle a situation should you find yourself praying beside or even behind a woman.

The plane of the Ka'abah, you see is for the tawaf (circumambulation) so the only time that nobody is doing the tawaf is during the 5 prayers. So, minutes before the prayer or just after the muezzin make the call for prayer, you would find hujjaj (pilgrims) praying and the situation is too crowded that the women folks sometime are sandwiched between the men. Sometime, you are the cheese in between the sandwich! So be careful, depending on your intentions you might risk invalidating your jemaat prayer thus losing the reward.

You might find that some hujjaj from certain countries are very tolerant about this. My advice: Don't copy them. Make sure you understood the requirements of your own scholars.

Concerning the orientation of the Qiblat
Although you are in the Masjidil Haram and being in such close proximity with the landmark of all Muslim, does not necessarily mean that everywhere you face there is the ka'abah. If you are praying behind a column or a wall, do double check your orientation as the next person could be as clueless as you are. Lightly taking for granted the qiblat you are facing might risk invalidating your prayer, so be careful. The best way is to plan your ibadah so that you are not caught being late and have to pray outside or on the streets as here the risk of wrong orientation is greater!

A tip
Here I would like to offer the best way to get the first saf for prayer in front of the Ka'abah. However, there is no one way to do it because basically here in Mekah, you have to believe that everything is by Allah’s will.

Getting to the first saf is a daunting task considering the crowd of hujjaj always infront of the Ka'abah. The most difficult corner, I would say is the east side of the Ka'abah where the Multazam and the Hajr Aswad (Black Stone) is. That is where the best place to supplicate so you can imagine the multitude of pilgrims who also have the same wish as you to get to that corner, thus getting a first saf here is quite a feat.

Sometime, depending on the time of day you would see a lot of shoving and shouting and people sometime loss their temper here. Please avoid getting yourself mix up with the crowd, I am sure you would regret it. If yo really want to try, the best time is late at night but maybe around 11pm-1am where the crowd of Isha’ has thinned and the crowd for the night prayer has not arrived yet. Besides it is not too hot so you can concentrate. Again, be aware that you won’t be the only one who have the same idea.

But, I am digressing here. I wanted to offer the tip to get to the first saf right? Ok, lets get to the point. The surefire way to get the first saf each prayer, at least in my book is to positioned yourself near the Hijr Ismail just before the prayer time. So, you may try to do a Tawaf sunat around the Ka'abah but make sure you end it about half hour to prayer time. Then slowly make way to the innermost circle during circumambulation by getting as close as possible to the Hijr Ismail (preferably north west corner near the entrance into the Hijr).

Note: If you are still performing tawaf, you risk invalidating your tawaf if you step to close to Kaabah by stepping on the Hatem or touching the Hijr as it is a part of the Kaabah built that one is not suppose to trespass during tawaf.

Once you are close to the Hijr, try to get to the west side of the Ka'abah and positioned yourself there like you are stopping to make supplication. Trust me, 30 minutes is not a long wait for trying to ensure yourself on the first saf. Before long, when the muezzin make call for prayer and hujjaj nearest to the ka'abah tend to sit down, also the mosque officials would normally direct them to sit down and arrange the fist saf. Should you were ushered away by the them, follow the instruction but don’t get too far to observe how to get the first saf the next time. Once you get it, trust me, it’s the most beautiful feeling you would ever feel while in prayer. All your life performing prayer to an unseen qiblat, now right in front of your eyes. Your sujud sometime would touch the hatim and.. hmm..I can’t share you my feeling.

I tried doing it around the other corners of Ka'abah but is less successful due to the fact that many hujjaj tend to stick themselves face and body to the wall of Ka'abah as well as the long queue to kiss the Hajr Aswad spoils my intentions. However, normally the west side of the ka'abah is less congested. You would experience the same when you are doing the circumambulation.

InsyaAllah, depend on your intention, Allah will grant you your wishes as long as you don't hurt others in the process. Do remember that Allah never abandon his righteous worshipers. Amin

Duyyuf-ur-Rahman

This is an obligatory post on Hajj. The final and last pillar of Islam, once one completed the rituals he would surely feels that he has completed his duty as a Muslim and as a servant of Allah Al-Mighty. It is not a simple task to complete, and the journey is full of hardships that each individual will face and experience. One experience would be totally different from the other depending on the eye that views it and the soul that experiences it. One would feel humility and is humble by walking on his two legs to the mosque each time while another would feel that it’s the worst thing that he has to go through in his entire life, what with the heat and the multitude of pilgrims and beggars that he bumps into on the road. All of them however, have the same objective and target and all on the same path, the path that the Most Gracious, Most Merciful has shown.

It is a privilege for the one who is chosen to be present on the day of Arafah amidst millions of people, but in numbers the percentage is significantly small maybe 0.004%, a fraction that one can't help but feel grateful to be able to commit to the journey.

Hajj is a specific rituals perform at a specific time and place and the only way that one could ever hope to accomplished it is through knowledge and education of how and why to go about it. There is no short cut to learning the rituals as relying on chance or copying others is not the way, but would only leave you with empty hands and maybe sin. One may have all the money in the world and still cannot even make the journey simply because he or she does not understand the ‘Manasik’ of Hajj (Manasik=jurisprudence?) and its significance. Bottom line, if he is not the one on the VIP list of Ar-Rahman, he could never make it nor even think about it.

The Preparation
Before he leaves his home, he has to remove from him all his clothes and wealth and wear only 2 piece of unsewn white cloth: one covering the waist to the ankle and another piece is thrown over the shoulder. Thus, he enters the state of Ihram! He can’t help but feel that he is but a corpse and that his love one had wrapped him with 2 pieces of white cloth before sending him to his grave. Such is the emotion!

At that time, all his family has only well wishes to complement him that reinforced his spirit to leave his comfortable home and begin his long awaited journey. His children may cry and made a ruckus of a scene at the bus terminal but no tears were shed, at least not until his completely alone waiting for the bus that will take him to the plane.

All the pilgrims wear the same white cloth, the women in white veil, a symbol of unity and together they chant the Talbiyah:

"Here I am, O God, at Your service! Here I am at Your service! O Lord, no partner do You have. Here I am at Your service! Truly, all the praise and the favor is Yours, and the dominion. No partner do You have”

Hearts melts, voice hoarse, tears running each cheek, the feeling deep inside that pulls you, shredding your emotion, grips your belly, sadness, fear, longing and a 1001 emotions rush through you are the allegory of feelings you get as you repeat the Talbiyah in the state of Ihram!
Than calmness takes over and you feel peaceful once again and you give yourself up completely to The All Mighty, thus is ‘Redha’ and ‘Tawakkal’.

Allahu Akbar, how I wish I am bestow yet again with the same feeling I had then and let it remain with me through thick and thin. Human forget. I forget. Have mercy on me.

Last night, I saw the live Isha’ prayer from Masjidil Haram on Huda.TV and the imam recites the verses from Al-Hasyr (59:21) consequently inspired me to post this blog.

59:21. Had we sent down This Qur'an on a mountain, Verily, Thou wouldst have seen it humble itself and cleave asunder for fear of Allah. such are the similitudes which we propound to men, that They may reflect.

I remembered the disquieting feeling when the Imam recite the same verses when I was there, praying in the sight of Kaabah… Subhanallah… lembik lutut beb!!

My Baby

Yesterday my baby Amirah Aiesyah turn 2 month old. She visit her Doc yesterday for her shots and recorded yet another above average growth. In fact all my baby did that. I felt happy learning the news that she's doing fine, but at the same time I cant help feeling slightly depressed for missing entirely her growing up. By the time I get back end of this month, she's probably all grown up and ready to take on the world .. well maybe not quite yet lah.

Come to think of it, I am seldom around for all my children at some critical point of their life. I left home the day I learned that my wife having a Baby Bintulu (Nuaim) in her belly. Again, I left Baby Acheh (Nu'man) behind to go to Sudan when his barely 2 months old. And now, Baby Mekah (Aiesyah) my beautiful daughter barely knew her bapak when I left home.. she was only 2 weeks old. Poor kids for getting a bad bapak.
Oh well, I hope I can make it up to them soon. If only they forget...and wife forgive..

Today, I got a nephew. My Sis gave birth at around 5 pm today.. Congratulation, and welcome to the world baby boy! Quick give him a name so I can include him in my prayers...InsyaAllah

Roti Canai ..Again

I promised this will be the last post on roti canai. Obsessed lah I ni! Hah. Well, my motto is practice makes perfect. But no matter how many time i practice, (3 times jer baru..) I'm never able to quite make a decent roti canai. This time my mistake is in making the dough balls to big!. Yes, too big! Thats a complaint or polite critic depend on how you would take the feedback from others.
Well, honestly I found Mizang's critics were valid since he was the "Master Menebar" and I could see that my dough just doesn't smoothly expands during the tossing motion like it should. Furthermore, a big ball of dough makes a thick roti canai and its not as nice lah. So I accept that I still have room for improvements but don't count me out yet from serving morning roti canai... for now..

Here's how the pro do it..tossing or menebar.. If u fail here, don't expect a good roti canai lah..

Another aspect of making roti canai I learned yesterday is u could do without margarine or oil in the ingredient of making the dough like I did previously here. At least, I think it would make a healthier roti canai. Unless u can do without the ghee to coat the balls overnight and oil to fry the it, roti canai wont be such a healthy dish after all as u would expect. Infact, it may not be roti canai at all.
Still, there is no harm to try substitute cow's ghee with vegetable ghee or cooking oil with olive oil and try bring down the 'fatty' level attributed to roti canai. But then, if u wish to sell his roti canai, don't take my word lah. This recipe is strictly for love ones only. But if your loved ones are sweat junkies or jog 5km everyday, why bother.
Anyway, the ingredient for the dough i tried yesterday with guidance from Mad Bee is as follows:

1kg multipurpose flour
1 tblspn of sugar
2 eggs
1 cup of milk
1 level tblspn of salt, dissolved in one cup of water
1/2 cup of water

Mixed 'em all up. Add water (the 1/2 cup) sparingly while kneading. Knead until clean. Leave it to rest for an hour. Make into balls 20-24. Coat in ghee, leave it over night. Start tossing the next day and fry with oil on pan.

I made 14-1/2 balls yesterday..so u can imagine the size of my balls... err roti canai I mean.

Roti Canai and Nasi Lemak

My friend forwarded an email concerning Roti Canai and Nasil Lemak here.

The article mention that eating a single piece of roti canai is equivalent to jogging 5 km. Thats like 35minutes of runnings, pheww! I am a fan of roti canai and that means I never take one piece in a sitting, normally two. 3 pun selalu jugak. No wonder I never lost that spare tire I have around my waste although I was bleeding 'teh cap orang kampung' and did jungle trekking every single day at Tanjung Kidurong, Bintulu last time. Not to mention the man 'tits' i have, euw ugly!

The article further mention that Prof. Ungku Aziz don't eat nasi lemak like Malaysian do, thats why he is so clever. Patut lah I never aced my maths. I always take at least 2 packs of 20 cents nasi lemak eversince I am a kid. ( You cant find them nowadays...). And till now, the habit continue. Today, most restaurant is self service and I tend to overdo the rice and the spicy anchovies for RM3 so one can imagine how sleepy I would be at my workstation.

Having read the article, I suddenly find myself in a fix considering the current situation of playing cook and enjoying my own cooking. Guess, I have to find healthier alternative as ingredient. I did tried to make 'mad bee' style roti canai the other day by not using any oil in the dough preparation and on top of that I went jogging 4.5km before I start menebar (chewahh! healthy lifestyle konon). But alas, the %$*#@ rats also thought that my dough was healthier food source and got to it first. In the end, I had to throw them all away and until now i haven't fully recovered from feeling disappointed about it. Penat oo jogging. hehehe!

If only I can eat as much as i like with my sneakers on and can be considered as exercise.

Rats!!

Pagi ni tak dak rezeki la nak makan roti canai dengan gulai dalca Mad Bee. Naya ja penat aku menguli roti canai semalam sampai berpeluh satu badan hahaha. Lepaih uli semalam, aku pon simpan la doh tu siap tutup lagi tapi cilakui punya SiTi pandai juga kerabat meja menusuk masuk bawah tudung. Habis dia guling2 dalam tu 'bekwoh' sakan ngan kawan-kawan dia.
Pagi tadi, aku dan la tangkap sekoq tak puas makan lagi... punya la bengang. Nak tutup mata macam kedai mamak tak la aku sanggup pasai dah nampak bekaih gerit SiTi ngan taik kawan-kawan dia yang bertaburan. Terpaksa la buang!
Mujuq la Cik Mad tak putuih idea, dan jugak dia buat nasi tomato back-up plan habuan makan dengan dalca. Aku pon tambah la buat ayam goreng berempah buat lauk. Kira Ok la.. habuan nasi tomato pagi-pagi.
Besok-besok aku tulih la pasai resepi ayam goreng berempah ngan nasi Tomato Cik Mad. Hari ni dok geli lagi teringat kat cik SiTi.

karipap

I have defaulted on my promise to post the recipe for karipap. Thank you to Sifu Z and Azhar for the crash course. Well here goes:

Curry Puff, make >50pcs (Karipap)

Ingredient for dough
2 kilo flour
2 tea spoon salt
2 table spoon sugar
1-1/2 cups ghee
6 cups water

Ingredient for fillings
½ kilo Meat –minced or diced
4 sweet potato (Keledek) - diced
Curry powder
Cinnamon
Anise seed (Bunga Lawang)
Clove
Cardamom
Garlic
Onion, diced

Method to prepare dough

1) Heat up the 1-1/2 cup ghee till it melts
2) Mix the flour+sugar+salt
3) Pour the melted ghee into the flour and wait till it cools down
4) Mix water a little bit at a time
5) Knead until dough does not stick (clean)
6) Leave it to rest for an hour or so

In the mean time we can start preparing the fillings – Beef curry

Method preparing filling
1) Stir fry onion and garlic
2) Add cinnamon, anise seed, cloves and cardamom, fry till fragrant
3) Add Curry powder,
4) Add meat
5) Add Sweet potato
6) Cook till gravy dries up
7) Once cooked, Leave it to cool down

'klim' process..Lan tunjuk skill...!

Filling method
1) Roll dough into palm size
2) Arrange the filling in the middle of the dough, preferably half side of the dough (easier to fold
3) Fold the dough to cover the filling. Arrange it into half moon shape
4) Flatten the corner with finger and ‘klim’ the edges (English for klim?)
Once ready, fry the karipap. If 50 is too many, start with smaller batches by halving the quantity proportionately.

Lesson learnt
1) Prepare filling earlier so that at least you can rest after tired from preparing the dough, hahaha
2) Use less clove, cardamom that stings your tongue. Easier to remove during filling process. You don’t want to eat karipap and bite on the nasty stuff right?
3) Same goes for cinnamon, shorter sticks might get lost in the fillings and end up in your bite.. destroy your appetite hahaha
4) Avoid too much water when cooking the filling. Takes longer time to dry
5) When peeling the sweet potato, don’t leave it exposed to air. Soak it in water to avoid oxidation.
6) Need to prepare two type of dough to get the twirling effect u get in ‘karipap pusing’
7) Make sure oil is very hot before start frying.

Arous

e, originally uploaded by kopi_kocok.

Yesterday we went to Arous again, this time we have a guest with us who is a professional scuba diver. He also brought along his underwater camera and got this pic.

and this

and this

and this

and this

beautiful ain't it?

If you wish to come here and go snorkeling or scuba dive, check out this site for info.

Manjaria lagi

Manjaria=makan=eat
Probably Sudanese slang for eat. In Arabic actual word for eat is 'ukul' أكل
Tak sama langsung!
Well those are few arabic I learned so far I am here. What a waste kan? Believe me, I am also disappointed with myself at the rate I am learning. Anyhow, at least if i get lost here I think I could at least beg for some food.
Well thats enough word for the day.

Anyway, what so big deal about eating here? The short answer is thats all I look forward to here. The work here are just bonus haha.

Malaysians in general ( I believe I am right and not being stereotyping) are particular about what they eat. Hey, even the Prime Minister asked question relating to makan while the angkasawan was up there some where.

Being away from family and homeland, myself and the rest of Malaysian expats here would tend to find our own routine that could take away the forlorn feeling during this 60 days isolation. We do bog ourselves with work, but thats only between 8 to 5 so what do we do in between? Eat and sleep. Consider fishing and swimming bonus lah. The life basics left are eat and sleep. Well, question is how long can one sleep? Answer varies but result are same, sheer boredom!

So, eating is one way that we keep ourselves sane. It goes from just enjoying the food prepared by others or take charge in the kitchen preparing some special food to share with others. One can rest assure that all food made sedap or not will never go to waste.

I think learning how to cook is one way of not wasting my time here while enjoying the company of friends. At least, If I dont get a better job after this with an 'international experience' on my resume, I would be able to cook for my family when I'm back home. Kan? Maybe kot.

Anyhow, I remember my teacher said if you dont take notes of what you learn you probably forget about it the minute you stepped out the class room. Taking her advise, I am writing down here Pau Resepi I learned.

The Pau that we made can be rated OK lah. There are a few critics from the usual suspect but hey, u cant satisfy everyone. Most important is I learned to make them. Kudos to sifu pau, u know who you are.

Well here goes

PAU

Ingredients :
2 cups of flour (use high protein flour)
3 tblspn sugar
3 tblspn milk powder
1 tblspn Planta
1 tblspn oil
1 egg
1 teaspn salt
1 teaspn dry yeast
¾ cup of water

Filling: Meat curry and sweet potato
Sweet potato diced
Meat small cut
Curry powder
Cinnamon
Clove
Onion
Garlic
Salt

Filling: Cook like curry until gravy dries. Like pic below
Method :

1. Sift flour
2. Add in yeast, sugar, milk powder, salt, egg, planta and mix well.
3. While kneading pour in water, a little at a time till well incorporated then add in the oil
4. Continue kneading till smooth and soft dough is formed. Make sure dough is clean i.e. not sticking to the mixing bowl Add more water or oil if needed.
5. Leave dough over night
Dont be alarm if it look like this. Its the effect from the yeast. So punch down and release all air till it look like this.
5. Make into small balls
6. Flatten and put the filling in the middle. Cover the filling with the dough and place the ball on a piece of small paper
Make sure the filling are not wet or too much making it hard to cover with dough
If tak jadi, maka jadi lah macam pizza di bawah... hehehe my first try7. Leave the dough to rest and rise for short while (10 minutes or so)
8. Get the steamer ready and steam the pau until cook.
Dah siap!!
That morning, we had pau daging and nasi goreng kampung...bliss!

Malaisi kullu manjaria tawwali

It means, Malaysian eat all non stop. (I am not sure the correctness of the grammar but it certainly sounds like that to my deaf ear)

I am not sure when the local kitchen helper says it, do they mean to chide us Malaysians or encouraging us to cook some more. I am quite sure that them kitchen helper would appreciate if we wrapped up and hand over the dirty kitchen for their nightly tidying up duty and not continue to make more mess like we normally do.

To recap of what happen over the last 2 weeks, our eating binge was probably at its peak then when 3 of our colleague from Khartoum, Z, Jaha and Lebah Jantan were here for site work. They were not only good chefs but also quite eager to show off their skills to our advantage. Since Pak yah is not around, a few of us (including yours truly) start warming up to recipe websites and simply roll up our sleeves to try out. Not to mention the existing loyal cook like Zul and Cik Mad who between them has feed us their spaghetti and asam pedas. Z and Jaha probably did not start a revolution but their company could be seen as a catalyst by sharing their knowledge and experience with us.

From them, we have learned how to make donut, roti canai, pau and karipap. Wow! The night before they went back, Z managed to trained our Sudanese chef, Ahmed how to cook tom yam, mee goreng and sweet and sour all in one night. Can u imagine the feast we had? Not to mention la the fresh ikan jenahak goreng bertepung special treat by our 'fishermen' when they return from the sea. (Talk about our fishermen; they not only bring back fresh catch but they can also read the moon and tide to tell when they can catch certain type of fish... i'm probably exaggerating but those guys are amazing with their 4m pole)

So, treating this post as a record for recipe I learned over the time, I will post here some ingredients and method learned by 'curi-curi' belajar during chef Ahmed one on one crash course.
Caveat: All the following recipe are not exact like the book due to insufficient ingredient available here in Sudan. Suffice to say that the outcome are simply marvelous thanks to the imagination and innovation by the chef. Kalau tak jadi, pandai la add chicken stock or what ever .

Tom yam
Ingredients:
Fresh prawn
Fresh chicken, cut small
lemon grass
tom yam paste
red onion
garlic
ginger
lemon
tomato

The qty not exact

Method:
1) A pot of water cook till boil
2) Throw in the onion+garlic+lemon grass+ginger
3) Add Chicken and Prawn
4) Add Tom yam paste
5) Add tomato
6) Add Lemon juice and salt for taste

Siap!

Mee Goreng Mamak Sentul

Ingredient
Spaghetti
Chicken
Dried prawn pounce till become dust (tumbuk sampai halus)
Tokyu (Soy Sauce)
Onion and garlic
Chili powder add water to become paste
Cabbage
turmeric
Salt
Sugar
Cooking oil

Method:
A
1) Boil spaghetti
2) Add turmeric for coloring
2) Stir fry onion and garlic till
3) once cook, dry spaghetti and mix a bit of cooking oil so that spaghetti do not stick together

B
1) Heat oil in pan
2) stir fry onion and garlic till brown
3) Add Chili paste fry till cook
4) Add chicken and dried prawn powder
5) Add cabbage, stir fry till 3/4 cook
6) Add cooked spaghetti and stir fry
7) Add soy sauce, sugar and salt for taste

Siap!

Sweet Sour Fish
Ingredient:
Fish
Tomato
Chili Sauce
Ginger
Tomato Sauce
Onion and garlic
lemon
Cabbage
Sugar and salt

Method:
1) fry fish till cook, leave it aside
2) For Sauce, Heat oil again and stir fry onion and garlic till brown, add ginger
3) Add chili sauce and tomato sauce
4) Add cabbage and Tomato
5) Lemon juice, Sugar and Salt for taste

I think optional can also add chili paste for spicy taste or add flour to make the sauce thicker.

Siap!

Still I need practice to work out and get the taste right and not be too shy to add other ingredient deem suitable. In other word: belasah je!

More Clams!!

The other day we had clam some more. Delicious. Kena pulak member bawa 'wasabe'. Perghh! Bliss! Its like going to Sushi King but dont have to pay. Yeah right.. I paid with blood. I got bruised all over my body not to mention cuts all over my palm and each finger. Thats what u get for prying innocent clam from their beautiful coral hidings. Still, clam are marvelous.
P/s: Yesterday buat karipap, but pic not yet downloaded, will brag later..

Random thoughts of my boy

Every time I saw a particular type of vehicles like lorry or van or bus, my thoughts would flash with images and excited voices of my eldest son Muhammad Nuaim. Well not all the time, but most of it. If u meet my son, and ask him about car models, I am sure you would be surprise that he can differentiate models like mercedes, vios, waja or many more. Than he was only 2. Hmm, I miss him.

Today as I was lazing about the site, I was surprised to find that there was a massive traffic jams of bus convoy in the mostly laid back marine terminal. There were almost 20 numbers of buses of different color packed with students from the Red Sea University on their site visit. Lucky, my colleague did not waste his time by start taking pictures of the convoy. So I leached from him and dedicated the picture to Nuaim.
What so big deal about bus pictures? Nothing, its my blog so its my choice what junk I can post in my blog right? Anyway, this bus model is consider a common here in Sudan. There are also some weird looking bus, I haven't had a chance to snap a good one each time its pass by..may be next time.
The unusual parade of buses today

Here are also some pictures of vehicles taken during my pilgrimage trip 1427H, always with Nuaim in my mind.
A road sweeper taken in Mina. Its working 24-7 keeping Mina clean for the 3 million odd pilgrims the year of Haji Akbar 1427.
The garbage truck to collect tons of refuse.
I've been in one of this during my university days. But thats another story to tell...

My son also have this infatuation with cranes tower type or the mobile type. The following pictures are also collecting dust in my hard disk.
Tower crane building the new Jamrat bridge in Mina. InsyaAllah in the near future, pilgrims would find it more comfortable performing the stoning rituals. As of January 2007, only one level was completed. I am not sure the current status now...
View at night..

Every time i see food I would think of Nu'man. Miss him too. Well tonight, project Pizza. Someday dad would cook 'em for you, OK

Kuah Dalca

Today I made another attempt to perfect my kuah dalca (dal gravy) I learned from Sifu Zul. Twice I would say it didn't quite meet my own expectation. I would give 40% mark for the first try and maybe today 47-1/2% for my second attempt today. Teruk! Although my friends are polite enough to either give a thumbs up of approval or going for second round 'roti canai banjir'.
The recipe I followed were quite easy, but inexperience and lack of creativity probably results in 'kira ok lah' kuah dalca.

The ingredients are as follows:
Prepare for 14 hungry stomachs

Main ingredient
2 cups kacang dal (dal?)
1/2 kilo meat

spices
3 bijik (bijik omputih kata apa?) cardamom (buah pelaga)
5 kuntum (buds) bunga lawang (??)
5 kuntum (buds) bunga cengkih (cloves)
10 cm kulit kayu manis (cinnamon)
3 big onions (bawang besar hehe)
2 garlic
1 tblspoon tumeric
3 tblspoon curry spice for meat
1 tblspoon chili powder

extras
3 Green paper diced
5 chilis, sliced
2 tomatoes diced
1/4 keledek diced (sweet potato)
2 sticks of carrot diced

Salt
oil

Method:
1) First and fore most wash the kacang dal and soak in water for whole night.
2) Prepare the ingredients above
3) When starting to cook, boil the kacang dal until it become soft.
4) Add meat or chicken to the boiling kacang dal
5a) On the side, heat up a pan of oil. Tumis (english?) the spices until fragrant.
5b) Add Onion and garlic into pan and continue until brownish and fragrant
5c) Add curry spice, chili powder and tumeric and a little bit of water and continue to heat (tumis) until oil appear (pecah minyak?)
6) Add Item 5 into the boiling dal and meat
7) Add the rest of the extra ingredients and vegetables. Make sure carrot and potato goes in first.
8) Cook until meat, dal and potato are soft and cooked
9) Add salt for taste

Easy right? Yes and no. If I strictly follow the ingredients from Myresipi or Mesra.net the method are slightly different, plus I am short on items like ginger or Air Asam (english??). Anyway for today, I did not use the sliced meat as suggested but instead I used minced meat the only thing available in the fridge at that time. So that probably result in not so fine taste. The following are some lesson learnt:-
1) Use sliced meat. Boiled the meat and used the water from the boiled to add to the gravy for the meaty sweetness taste
2) The dal have to be soak in water for longer duration, presumably up to 24 hours in advance. So my friends who 'gian nak menguli' (feel an urge to knead soft dough while thinking of certain something...) have to plan in advance so as to get softer dal in gravy. In fact I boiled almost 2 hours today but still not cooked enough (crunchy dal). Happened on both occasion!
3) Remove the first boil water for dal to reduce the effect of uric acid inherent in the bean species.
4) Don't be too shy on the curry powder. I was saving it for future cooking.. Baba's are impossible to find in Sudan..
5) Use chicken stock to mask tasteless gravy result from ones unskilled hands.

Anyway, I will try to continue refinishing the recipe i followed above until I get the perfect dal gravy to go with roti canai. Thank you for all the supporting hands and patient stomach awaiting for the late dal as usual. (takes too long too cook..must be my fault). Thank you also to the critics, appreciate that for my 'continuous improvement effort' .

Picture below of my dal.. tak lawa la tak pandai hias...
Next time I'll post some more stories about my Pau making course (Steam buns) and Donut. In fact today while cooking dal I was also busy making donuts. Lesson learnt: concentrate one task at a time... tamak!

My english also very bad shape to write a decent recipe worth for a cook book. I remembered I got 4/10 for the same english grammar exercise in school years ago. The topic: write a recipe to make your favorite dish, i.e making curry being my choice of writing.

Crescent moon

I love em moon..
Waxing crescent moon 25%full 4th Zulkaedah 1428 or 14/11/08. Location Bashayer, Port Sudan.
Crescent moon 2nd Muharram 1428 or 21/1/07. The clock is off by one month. Al-Basha Mosque, Jeddah. Overlooking the Red Sea.

Seashells 101

My earlier post was about our picnic trip to the Arous beach where we 'lonely' man managed to get our rough hands on 'oysters'. All those 30 odd seashells creature eventually ended up in our stomach. Amidst the oyster we also managed to grab 2 'snails' which was delicious.

When we returned to our camp, the Sudanese cooks and cleaners who missed us their 'saiyidi' for a whole day greeted us with a disgusted look for bringing home such weird smelly shell thingy and start cleaning it in their 'tidy' kitchen. One guy got interested but cringed when we tried to hand it to him to help us clean it. Another nicked name 'prawn' in his language almost scream when i scared him with one.

Last night, my friends and i were discussing about it and one of us suggested that what we have eaten was abalone and that made me feel like a loser for not catching some more. Even my wife thought it could be a clam, and when I suggested to the group, none could agree that its either oyster or clam or abalone. Last night I was already imagining the fortune I could make by harvesting some more of those abalone.

This morning as usual with no useful thing to do and a fine internet connection Sudan style, I started to search for the keywords and hey! Look what i found.. so this post today is just an introduction to myself and the rest who are interested about sea shells or those yummy aphrodisiac thing you would lose an inch on your right ass after leaving the fancy restaurant serving it.

First, the abalone. Abalone if u might find one only has one shell.. err ye ke? Well, thats what it says on this internet page here about abalone.
Certainly the picture above did not fit the description of what we brought home the other day here.
Next I lookup for oyster and again the picture above turned out on the internet here disappointed me as well as it does not look so much of what we got. Then I learned that there must be a slimy texture one sip with the oyster body which is part of the oyster profile. Our catch certainly did not have those slimy thing going on. So Oyster officially strike off out.

While I was browsing thru, I found a neat website here showing all the different seashells familiar on the beaches back home in Malaysia. I went thru the archive and still none match the creature that we caught but for education purpose I am posting some pictures here courtesy of the website for the different seashells likened to the one that I have brought home to the amusement of Nuaim my beloved eldest son(previous post).
The above is call tiger cowrie. One can spot a few of this along the coral where I normally go stingray spear fishing.
I have a few of this in my collection too.
These are angle wings. I remembered I found a lot of these during my honeymoon in Pulau Rebak Langkawi. I think I picked up a couple of those but I forgot where I throw them away.
The above is a Ramosus shells. I picked this up during my escapades to Tokar. They say its tasty but I never tried one yet.
This one is a spider conch. I had one of this or 'snail' mentioned earlier. It taste like squid and very the yummy one lah.
This volutano balls also taste like squid. the one i got the other day do not have those fancy patterns, but i guess they are the same family.
The above is a mussel shell. Very common. The smaller version would be called etok. Read it here to.
Makcik jual etok.
I found this quite a few in the waters also near where i go stingray hunting
Do u know what is this? Shell! Yes, but not the household name for fuel supply but its actually is a sunset scallop. Scallops are nice..Ive eaten 'em.

Finally back to the question that still linger in our brain what in gods name have we eaten? I finally found this perfect description. Its actually a clam, but from the giant clam species. Because, clam kecik looks like below..
Notice, how come the shell not same? My untrained eye also can tell that its not what we eaten. Giant clams actually can grow up to 1.2m.
The profile by NatGeo fits the description of the ones i find i.e. its stuck to the coral bed and its very the colorful that I notice that each one has different color. The one i found are either red, green, blue and orange. What a bliss to my goggly eyes that day. One fact not so music to my ears is that, it's even on the endangered list in some places. Hmmm now I have second thought of going hunting for it again. But, if we leave the baby one is not so bad kot? Hey wait a minute, the one we got are the baby one kan? Please do not report this post to the greenpeace ok.