Light tasters

Did some entertaining recently at home and here are 2 dishes which are easy to make and light...

Gnocchi with home made pesto.

Chocolate mousse.

The chocolate mousse is an easy tackle as it requires no baking, just some heating up and a good whisk:

Ingredients (makes 8 mousses):

1 tablet of a fine bitter black Swiss chocolate (100g)

1/2 cup cocoa powder

4 eggs, yolks and whites separated

Kahlua and Grand Marnier (both or either)

1 sachet gelatine powder (7g)

Sugar according to taste

1 1/2 cup full cream milk

Infuse and melt the gelatine powder with some cold water/milk and set aside. Melt the chocolate over heated milk and incorporate the cocoa powder to form a thick chocolate sauce. Add the gelatine mixture to this sauce. You may add some Kahlua at this point for some kicks...

Beat the sugar and egg yolks until a creamy consistency, adding in a dash of Grand Marnier. Fold in the hot chocolate sauce, set aside.

Add a pinch of salt to the egg whites and beat until stiff peaks forming (like a meringue). You may add a tablespoon of icing sugar during the last cycle to stabilise the meringue. Fold this with the chocolate mixture and carefully pour into individual ramekins. Set in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours.

KKB

Two weeks back, at the onset of the semester break, I went for a drive to KKB - Kuala Kubu Baru since I haven't seen it for awhile now...my father was actually from here (Kerling) and I remember travelling from Raub to KKB on occasions as we had cousins and aunts there. Not anymore, helas. The thing that really sticks in my head is the journey itself through the winding mountain road and Orang Asli with their rattan backpacks at the town square...actually near the fruit stall at the town's entrance (there used to be huge rain trees and the town was a lot less 'hot' than now...).

A cascade at the Gunung Semangkok Permanent Forest Reserve.

View of the dam built for water and electricity hunger of the Klang valley, submerging parts of Kg. Pertak, an Orang Asli encampment. We used to picnic here when I was a child...

Another view from the hillslope off the main trunk road.

A Terap fruit, same family with the jackfruit. The ripe fruit has a very strong aroma, velvety skin but tiny white fruit inside with tiny seed. The seeds are good roasted.

First impression of the now KKB...

old pre-war shops...

Found an old Hainanese Coffeeshop. Like everywhere else in Malaysia, Hainanese coffeeshops are synonymous with pre-war Straits Chinese settlements in most towns that dot the Peninsular West Coasts.

One of the most iconic Hainanese dish besides the famed Chicken Rice: Hainanese-styled Chicken Chop. This one has strange presentation but the taste was not bad.

People still live in old town houses like this one!

An old cinema converted into a psychedelic snooker center...

Hallmark of Strait Chinese architecture - aligned corridors of shops for the tropical heat...

Magnificent Koompassias of Betau Valley

As one drives along the not so new route from Pos Betau to Bertam Valley, one cannot but observe many magnificent examples of mature Tualang trees (Koompassia excelsa) along the route. They are unmistakable because of their towering crowns resembling a broccoli head above the forest canopy and their hallmark -  a smooth, huge trunk that only opens at the top, fanning out like a broccoli. They can reach 80M or so and often, honey bees make the Tualang their preferred home due to the fact that not many wild animals can get to the canopy of a Tualang. Another bonus for the Tualang is the fact that its timber is of not much value in the market, thus sparring it from the chainsaws (Chinese lumberjacks call this tree "Pow Pei Cheng", meaning green bark that cracks because the tree doesn't take sawing well and often ends with cracked trunk, rendering it 'useless'. Another thing is the actual density of the wood - the light yellow and light weight wood does not stand well against the elements...). That having said, the hunger for wood will not leave this massive giants standing around for too long as the once virgin jungle valley is now again facing the onslaught of chainsaws brought upon by human greed...

First among many, and definitely among the finest examples...it is interesting to note that this magnificent giant doesn't belong to the Dipterocarpus family, a family of tropical hardwood trees that is found mostly in the lower elevation forests in Malaysia. It actually belongs to a very extended family of plants called Leguminosae that gives you your beans!

 close-up

 Another huge one around the bend but covered by the forest...

This rather 'green' example smack on the side of the road...

A vertical panoramic view of the tree.

 Another extremely tall tree perched on the ridge of the mountain.

An incredibly old tree seen from a bridge over a wide gorge. Notice the tall palm tree behind the Tualang and try to figure out the size of this tree!

A vertical panoramic view...

 A closeup.

The valley that houses many magnificent trees...how long will Nature last against the greed and follies of man?

 Notice the "little" crowns of trees resembling a broccoli - there are huge Tualangs among theese...

 Then, sad views like these...the vegetable farming activities in Bertam Valley are fast encroaching into the lower Betau Valley and this is the result...man always wins at first (economic gains) but pay later with environmental disasters.

All too common signs along the route from Betau Valley to Ringlet at the Cameron Highlands: "Mind the entry/exiting of timber lorries"...

Fraser's Hills despite the monsoon apparent

For a long time now I have not had the kind of nostalgia that I used to feel about a place, and Fraser's Hills is certainly one of those special places...not that  it's about the nearest holiday spot to Raub, it's more like the colonial charm that the place exuded few decades ago when I was much younger and didn't understand any better the world but, when the mind was young and lack devices to record and map, the readily available sensory tools played a big part (mine was visual, and smell)...bref, bad management coupled with bad taste certainly killed the place from the 80s till just about present...gone were the smell of lilies, roses and dahlias from the very English gardens that flanked every road and bungalows, cold chilly air and English breakfast, not to mention the very colonial Hainanese restaurants in mock tudor buildings...somehow, at present, someone in the management partially snapped out of that vicious cycle of misguided modernity and made some effort to rehabilitate Fraser's Hills to her former glory, well almost an effort. The effect can be seen now with better managed public gardens and better choice of flowering shrubs! Left now are efforts of local tourists (STOP the littering!) and perhaps if the locals wise up, they might see their jewel shine again...

 Wild raspberry growing in the shades of a roadside  from Raub to Gap...

 Medinella spp in the shades...

 The Scott, used to be an English pub...now a restaurant with poor quality food despite efforts to relive its past...

 Finally, some real efforts to grow Dahlias, once iconic blooms of this mountain resort. They might want to extend their colour range beyond pink and yellow no?

 A patch of Busy Lizzie (Impatiens) managed to find its way atop an old juniper tree.

 A female spider hunter on a pergola with scrambling Thunbergia and passion flowers.

 A tiny fig.

Brinchang Bungalow has one of the most spectacular vista whole of Fraser's Hills.

View of the Main Range from Brinchang Bungalow. Because of frequent and heavy precipitation, the cloud line remains low and visible throughout the day. We even experience mist from the way up, just after Bukit Telaga.

Suddenly, the clouds came over and covered up everything...

 Jardin d'antan (old fashioned garden), just the way I like it...

The valley below is the state of Selangor, visible through some bright spots...

Fauna of Chenua during the Wet season

This year, all meteorological reports tend to point to a very wet affair, which is true compared to the past few years. Flashback to my childhood days, November-December-January had always been extremely wet and cold. I remembered wearing sweater to sleep when I was a child, and there weren't any air-conditioning in existence those days...anyhow, I went for a short trip to Chenua village accompanying my wife to her school and took advantage of the short burst of intense morning sun to go bird watching. The river has totally swollen up and everywhere was wet, so there goes the birds. However, small insects and a few birds did turn up...including the rare Hill Myna with its distinctive metallic whistle (there was a pair) and I could hear barbets and Woodpeckers eventhough I couldn't perceive them visually...

Skipper butterflies seem to be in abundance, sunning themselves in sunny spots...

Damselflies and Dragonflies too...

Lantana bushes like this one attract insects and butterflies

Looming sky...

A Hill Myna

and a Dollar Bird nearby (actually also a pair)...

some colourful insects...