Another lala recipe? Forgive me but I am quite a fan of lala clams and since the lala clams were looking really fresh in the wet market, I couldn’t resist getting my hands on 1 kg of these sweet tasting clams. Initially, I had wanted to whip up a kamheong lala dish but later realised that I’d forgotten to get two of the essential kamheong lala ingredients : curry powder and curry leaves. Without those two ingredients, kamheong lala just won’t be kamheong lala. I’ll kamheong another day then.

Thankfully, as I rummaged through my kitchen, I found some lemongrass and ginger as well as freshly grown bird’s eye chillis. Mum recently moved to my old apartment and I am now babysitting two of her prized bird’s eye chilli plants. In case you are still wondering what is bird’s eye chilli, it is also known as cili padi – probably the hottest local chilli available in this region.

This recipe uses simple but aromatic ingredients which help to lend the dish a sweet and fragrant taste whilst masking any potential “fishy” smell – which is unlikely unless your lala clams are not fresh. Read this post to find out how to prepare lala clams before cooking. Now, though this recipe looks like a stirfry dish, with a little bit of imagination, you can turn this into a sweat inducing and appetising soup. Just add more of the ingredients and water

This is my recipe for Stir Fried Lala with LemonGrass and Bird’s Eye Chilli

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This is a delicious and easy vegetable side dish, easy to cook and tastes really good. I used kailan (aka jie lan, Chinese broccoli, Chinese kale) – which is a popular vegetable in Chinese cooking. It is highly nutritious and has an inherently slight bitter taste (hence sugar is added during boiling to neutralize the slight bitterness).

As a result of brief boiling to cook the kailan, the vegetable is nicely cooked and retains its crunchiness while the dried scallops (kan bei) jazzes up the dish by making it sweeter and more interesting. I learnt this recipe from watching the local (Singapore) variety show三菜一汤and this was one of the dishes whipped up by Mediacorp artiste Michelle Chong. I was impressed with both her culinary skills and her recipe. I tried the recipe soon after watching the show and I really love it, so yummy. I made this from memory after watching the show so I am probably not following her recipe 100% but the end result is still good. Hope you like the recipe too.

This is the recipe for Kailan with Shredded Scallops

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Back in the fishermen village of Pontian (well, it’s quite a bustling town now) and Kukup, seafood especially prawns and crabs are cooked in tomato sauce. Sometimes, a little bit of chilli is added to make it spicier. Lala clams are treated no different. Some might say that cooking seafood in tomato sauce masks the natural taste and sweetness of the fresh seafood, but some say that it’s an unforgettable experience sucking up the delicious tomato sauce from the seafood. Well, we can’t please everyone, can we?

I decided to cook my final batch of lala clams last Saturday in tomato sauce because, well, that’s about the most suitable ingredient I could lay my hands on in my kitchen. I didn’t have curry powder or leaves and that means cooking lala kam-heong style is out of the question. Besides, it has been a long time since I had seafood home-cooked style and this was one golden opportunity to whip up something quick and simple.

Before cooking lala clams, you will need to give it a good rinse. Rub or scrub the outer shells and place them in a deep bowl. Submerge them in tap water for 2 minutes before draining them. Do this a couple of times until you are fully satisfied that there are no more mud or grime in the lala clams. One trick is to drain the water completely and leave the lala clams in the bowl for 10 minutes. The lala clams will open up slightly until you can see the flesh. When you rinse it with water, they will spew or cough up the mud within them and clamp up. Repeat the process. That’s how I rinse and clean the fresh lala clams which I bought.

This is my recipe for Stir Fried Lala Clams Home-Cooked Style

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Tis’ the season to be jolly, fa la la la la, la la la la. I’ve been extremely busy of late and will be as busy for the next 3 months or so. Something is coming up and by the middle of next year, there will be a wide variety of dishes coming right up on Delicious Asian Food.

In the meantime, I haven’t been cooking much but last weekend, I chanced upon some fresh lala clams at the wet market and could not resist getting myself a pound (600 grammes) of them. I am not sure what they are called in other parts of the world, let alone whether they can be found but these lala clams are a local delicacy especially amongst the chinese community in Malaysia.

Lala clams are relatively cheap and is sold in most chinese restaurants which specialises in seafood. If you get them from the wet market or supermarket, they are definitely cheaper than eating out. There are many ways to cook lala clams and some of the popular style of cooking includes stir-fried lala with ginger and scallions, stir-fried lala kam-heong style, chilli lala, ginger lala soup or adding lala into other seafood dishes.

My 600 grammes of lala clams allowed me to cook 2 different dishes with them and you shall see them in the next two posts. Watch this space!