Ramadhan Special 4 : Pan-Asian Arse Blaster

Half a lifetime ago, I decided to room with a few friends (2 other Malaysians and a Sri Lankan classmate) in a flat in Islington (yes, Lily - it's near the Angel, just like on the Monopoly board).

After spending a year in youth hostel (Methodist - no liquor, mixed tenants as opposed to Catholic hostels - single sex only (male or female), all the liquor you want), I wanted a more home-like environment.

My new flatmates were decent blokes from decent conservative families. To this day, they'll swear that like them, I too was a decent bloke.

Decent blokes make great flatmates, so rather than disillusion them I did all my bonking at a friend's place instead.

At the flat we called home, we (I included!) studied and occasionally got wasted. Festivals were always celebrated enthusiastically with loads of good food (home-cooked) and lots of booze (Stoli, White Horse, Jameson, Bacardi, Heinekens).

My flatmates were pretty decent cooks (their friends too) and we were regularly, so unmacho lah for those days, exchanging recipes.

Later on, this ability to cook enabled us to woo, win and wuck ... sorry, er bonk(?), ...some of the more stuck-up bints that we knew (yes, Lily - it was more than 4 - these don't really count, do they?).

We ate pretty well during that time, I must say. In more ways than one, in my case anyway ...

All of us being students, we normally take our breakfast and lunch at our colleges. After classes, we would hurry home as soon as we could.

The cold weather never failed to make us very hungry by the time we got home (we were too poor to drop by the pub or eat out on any regular basis).

Preparing dinner and all took some time, so very early on we decided to have some sort of high tea to tide us over before dinner was ready.

"High tea" at Almeida Street eventually became the highlight of the day - even the Baiii who lived in the single room one floor below decided to share in our culinary experience.

The menu varied only for a bit - it would range from bread (and/or fries) with fish fingers, fish cake to eggs in its various form, before working its way back to the beginning of the list.

However one dish became the mainstay of this daily event.

Basically it was baked beans from a can; however this dish was experimented upon by four bright (and often very hungry) minds and eventually eveolved into something totally different from the original recipe of "dump and heat".

It soon took on different personalities, in accordance to the taste preferences of the cook on duty, though each of us were familiar with each variant as they were developed.

In its hottest variant, this dish is capable of melting the cap off your bottom within a mere half hour after consumption. In this form, we called it the Pan-Malaysian Arse Blaster.

Should you feel the socially suicidal need to test your bowels against it, make sure you have adequate toilet facilities for everyone.

Here goes ...

Almeida Street Baked Beans

Ingredients
(serves 4 very hungry students)

2 cans baked beans in tomato sauce (the cheaper the better)
8-10 beef sausages, sliced very thinly
3 cloves of garlic
5 small red onions, sliced into rings.

X amount of Chilli
(this is the payload, so decide yourself how hot you want it to be and whether fresh or powdered chilli. The most lethal variant has 6 cili padi, ground not chopped)

1 small cup of full-cream milk
McCann's Salt & Spices
Pepper

Optional
Fresh tomatoes, as much as you want


To do

1. Heat up cooking oil in kuali/wok.

2. Fry garlic till fragrant.
3. Fry the sausage slices until almost done.
4. Put in the onion rings.
5. Fry until sausage slices curl up.

6. Pour in the baked beans.
7. Stir till properly mixed.
8. Let mixture come to the boil.

9. Stir the milk into the mixture.
10. Bring to the boil.
11. Spice up mixture with McCann's Salt & Spices and pepper. (Agak-agak lah)
12. Stir constantly till the sauce thickens nicely.
13. Stop stirring for a bit and let the sauce caramelise slightly.

14. Take off stove. Serve with hot bread and butter.
15. If you opted for the Lethal Variant, cancel all appointments and stay close to the WC.

Definitely better than an enema.

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The following is a recommended side-dish to go with the Arse Blaster. This either absorbs the lethal bits and mitigate the effects or, when it fails in the first function, to provide the bulk or fibre that would make the WC visit a pleasant one.


Mixed Potatoes Fry-up

This is a very convenient fast meal. Vary the chilli powder accordingly.

Ingredients
300-400g taters (get different types, if possible with different colours),
washed, sliced, halved or quartered (sort them out - slices, halves, quarters)

Garlic, chop them up thoroughly
1/2 tablespoon curry powder (to be used dry)
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder (to be used dry)
Some curry leaves

Salt

Optional
Cheddar cheese
Mayonnaise

What to do

1. Mix together the taters, garlic, curry and chilli powder.

2. Heat up some oil in a kuali.
3. Fry them up - try to fry pieces of the same size at the same time. Otherwise you'll burn some pieces and undercook others.
4. When done, lift pieces, shake off excess oil and place on paper napkins to absorb the rest.
5. When fairly dry, salt according to taste.

Optional
6. Place potatoes at bottom of medium sized microwave bowl
7. Layer with cheese (shredded cheddar would be good but, really, anything goes)
8. Layer with rest of tater pieces.
9. Top with cheese.
10. Microwave for 2 minutes

11. Dress with mayonnaise and spring onions (if desired)
12. Tomato ketchup may be used as part of the dresing or used as a dip.