Shopping in Sarawakian Supermarkets

One of the things I was looking forward to on our move to Miri was the wide range of food that would be available compared to Astana, particularly fresh vegetables. 

One of the big challenges of Expat life is learning what is available to buy in your new home and how you will have to adapt your culinary skills to deal with it.  Food shopping in Astana was, initially, a challenge because of the language/alphabet barrier.  We soon learned what we could and could not buy and by the time we left had found just about everything we needed.  Malaysia, of course has no such language barrier and has a good reputation for food.  Unlike Astana import is easy so there is a wider range of produce available.

While we were still in the hotel we started to look around the different supermarkets that were available, the best seem to be the out of town Hypermarket – ‘Giant’ conveniently on the way to/from the school and our very local ‘GK’ and 'Pottery' (which sells everything except Pottery). 

Premium British Supermarket products can be bought here.
Quite a surprise.

They stock a complete range of Western and Chinese product as well as local favourites and some Indian stuff.  The Western food seems to come from UK or Australia/New Zealand.  Most of the UK products are Waitrose branded.  Waitrose is a premium, upmarket supermarket in the UK and it was a real surprise to find them freely available and at a similar price.  British expats can rejoice in the easy availability of home favourites Baked Beans, Tomato Ketchup, HP Sauce, Marmite etc, there is less to excite the European palate.  I am overjoyed to be able to get a full selection of baking products including food colouring, flavouring and speciality sugar (I no longer need to grind my own or mix in molasses).  In fact the supermarkets excel at providing a wide, complete range of just about any dried or canned good you can think of.

Soya milk for those with allergies.  

I had heard that Pork was difficult to find in Malaysia but most supermarkets have a good non Halal section where we can buy Ham, Bacon, Frankfurters etc.  Wine and Beer is also for sale but we are not big consumers of alcohol in the home.  

Indian and Chinese food is popular and there are lots of  ingredient
options - this range of 'easy cook'  curry spices comes from Pakistan

The supermarkets do not perform so well when it comes to fresh food (which is plentiful in the markets - no one stop shopping here).  The meat selection in general is not great -  fresh chicken is available in many permutations (whole, fillets, feet, thighs etc etc) but it is a little watery and lacking in taste.   Frozen lamb and frozen beef can be found but it does not look particularly appetising. 

Food colourings and flavourings for baking - an unexpected bonus

Dairy is another item that surprised me with the restrictions.  Cheese is limited – most cheese sold seems to be in packets of processed slices.  We can get a better range at GK and Pottery (including, to my Husband's delight, cheddar) but it is expensive.  Fresh milk is in the chiller cabinet but, like Astana, most seems to be UHT longlife.  It is fairly tasty and better quality than the Kazakh milk.  I have become used to the way things are done in Kazakhstan though because I was genuinely upset to be restricted to a single type of sour cream!

There is a very poor juice selection - with a limited range
of flavour.  Most is from concentrate and over sweet.

My daughter is somewhat distraught at the lack of cherry juice and indeed the range of juices available is more akin to that in a British supermarket – we were spoiled with the fantastic offerings in Kazakhstan. Funnily enough we also expected a great range of teas, another thing we were spoiled with in Astana and the UK but sadly average blended tea seems to be the norm here with only one or two speciality offerings. 

Blended tea seems to be popular - very few
speciality teas are easily available.

I understand from friends that Brunei is the place to go to buy meat, cheese etc and, for those who like to have a glass of wine or beer, a duty free shop is available between the borders.  Our visas are being processed at the moment so we have not been to visit.  I also have the number of a lady who makes Cumberland sausages – I will be giving her a call shortly to try out her meat. 

The fruit and vegetable selection is also surprisingly limited in the supermarkets.  I have been advised to shop in separate green-grocers or a local market for these and it is no real hardship to pop over and enjoy the wide selection available there.  All have been heavily treated with pesticides, however, so have to be disinfected and cleaned  or peeled thoroughly before use. 

We have settled into a rhythm now - Supermarket for dried and staple goods, markets for fresh.  There is a good complex (E Mart), on the way from the School which has a supermarket set next to a market and our home bank branch - a useful combination.

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How to make passata

Passata is a staple ingredient in many recipes my family like to eat.  I use it in most tomato based recipes such as Bolognese, Lasagne and to add flavour to many stews.

Passata is very easy to find in most European and British supermarkets but it can be difficult to source elsewhere.  Luckily it is a simple, quick recipe and, for those who grow their own, a particularly effective way to preserve tomatoes over the winter, much like my favourite sun dried tomatoes, this passata gives a taste of summer even in the middle of winter.  In Kazakhstan we can buy tomatoes year round but they do get more expensive over the winter.  I have seen jars of 'tomato juice' in the supermarkets that look like passata but it is so easy that I often make my own by preference.

Because supplies are easy to come by here I make it in small batches but if I find a batch of particularly high quality tomatoes or if I am living somewhere they become unavailable I will process every tomato I can lay my hands on to see me through to the next crop.

To make the passata heat some olive oil in a pan with a bruised clove of garlic.  Quarter the tomatoes and leave them in the pan on a medium heat for 12-15 minutes shaking intermittently.  The tomatoes will start to break down during the cooking process and release their juice.  I understand that most Italian kitchens will have a special mouli or tomato mill to process the passata, this saves time but is not necessary.  I put the mix in the blender and then pass it through a sieve - it is possible to skip the blender and just sieve the mix but it is much quicker to use the blender.

Transfer the passata into sterilised jars then seal - I find these keep for about a month.  If I want to keep the mix for any longer I freeze it - some in large freezer bags for tomato based recipes and some in smaller baby food size pots to add to stews for extra flavouring.

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How to Pasteurise Eggs At Home

Eggs are generally safe to eat but there is always a chance that they may be infected with salmonella.  This is a nasty disease to contract at any time but it is particularly dangerous for expectant mothers as it can cross the placenta and infect the baby.  The advice in the UK (where I was living when I had my children) was to avoid all raw egg products while expecting.  That means no eggs sunny side up, no home made mayonnaise and no chocolate mousse.  I like to make mayonnaise and mousse at home, however, and when you are living abroad sometimes you cannot get the ‘safe’ shop bought versions.

It is a pretty annoying restriction as so many tasty products use raw egg, of course it is for everybody to weigh the risk in their own minds.  When I was quite young I remember a friend’s mother loosing a baby due to salmonella so I always played things safe.  These days, if I know an expectant mother is coming over for food I tend not to adjust my meal plans but I do make any raw egg recipes with pasteurised egg as a courtesy.

Pasteurised eggs can be difficult to find and, if you are living somewhere more exotic, downright impossible.  I always thought that you could not pasteurise your own eggs but browsing the web some time ago I cam across a nifty little trick from the culinary arts website which claims to sterilise eggs in the microwave. The procedure is quite simple, I would not rely on this to be 100% safe but if I am making raw egg products and I know an expectant mother will be coming over I always put the eggs through this system first, I then let them know the eggs are home sterilised and they can make their own call.

Sterilise a jar and three whisks or forks.  Separate out two egg yolks and place in the jar, whisk them together with 1 tablespoon of lemon juice and two of water.  Discard the whisk and put the jar in the microwave.  Set it away on high until the egg starts to move up the jar + 8 seconds.  Take it out of the microwave and whisk again with a second, clean whisk.  Repeat the procedure and then whisk again with the third, clean whisk.  Your eggs are now ready to use.

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How make sure fruit and vegetables are safe

One of the real challenges of expat life is finding food to cook your own home recipes.  What is on sale in the shops is often not quite like what you are used to having at home.  One thing that rarely changes, however, is fruit and vegetables.  Fresh produce is normally available in one form or another in most postings.  Sadly, however, such produce is not always safe to eat and can be infected nasties such as E.Coli and other things.  Almost every expat will, therefore, as a matter of course, have their own preferred cleaning and sterilising method.

 My years in the tropics have left me with a sterilising tic.  Whenever we were outside of Northern Europe my mother would soak all fruit and vegetables in Milton baby bottle solution before we could think about eating it.  It has since become something of a habit with me that everything is cleaned, sterilised and then peeled before use. 

Following an e-coli scare for European and American grown produce I even sterilise our vegetables in more mainstream postings, this has the combined benefit (for people who are concerned about such things) of removing any remaining pesticide residue from the produce.   I have been very lucky that the available selection of fruit and vegetables in all four of my recent postings has been very diverse but nevertheless I sterilise everything (especially organic produce) very very carefully.

Milton is probably the best baby cold water steriliser to use on fruit and vegetables as it does not need to be rinsed off.  If you cannot get Milton most solutions can be used but many require the vegetables to be rinsed in clean water after sterilising (check the instructions on your chosen tablets).  An alternative is a mix of vinegar in water (approximately 20% Vinegar solution but you may wish to make it stronger in the event you are in an area with a high contamination risk).  In some countries it is possible to buy a proprietary vegetable wash solution that can either be diluted for soaking large quantities or applied directly to single items.

Whether or not sterilising is necessary depends, to a great extent on the water used to irrigate the crops.  If the water is safe to drink and the vegetables irrigated with potable water a good wash a scrub to remove all soil is probably enough.   I have a friend who uses soap to clean her vegetables but if I am ever in any doubt at all, I get out my Milton tablets.

I have a sliding scale of vegetables.  Salad, cucumber, tomatoes, watermelons and the like take up a lot of water and I am very careful of them.  Even if I sterilise them to deal with the risk of external infection I will only eat them where I know that they have been irrigated with potable water and I always peel cucumbers.  If in doubt I would eschew the ones from the shops and grow my own.  I am slightly less concerned with cooked vegetables where local water is potable.  As long as they will be boiled or roasted for at least 15 minutes, all the soil is washed from the surface and they are peeled I am mostly happy for them to be left untreated.   Where they are grown in non potable water or I am only going to blanche them I always insist on sterilising.

In Nigeria the water was very dangerous.  It had to be boiled for 15 minutes and then filtered before it was safe to drink and all fruit and veg was sterilised for at least 60 minutes before rinsing in clean water.  In Venezuela the water was not as bad in the cities but we took a lot of care with the fruit and vegetables, sterilising them for 20 minutes.  In Turkey too, because we were a long way from the main cities we took a lot of care with the greens and, after a particularly nasty experience that I had after eating some untreated cucumber at a picnic, only ever ate the salads that we grew ourselves, our location was famous for its watermelons but the water used to grow them was so dirty that we did not ever eat one.  

In Astana the water from the tap was potable with just a filter and no need to boil so my guess is that washing in filtered water would render most vegetables safe, certainly that is about all that most of my friends did.  I did not bother sterilising anything that was to be cooked, letting a good wash and peel do the job.  Fruit was always sterilised and rinsed but I did let the children then eat their apples unpeeled.  I treated salad and anything else eaten raw  just ahead of eating by soaking in Milton in my salad spinner, draining and then rinsing in clean, filtered water.

In Malaysia  I sterilised everything that was to be eaten fresh and all cooked vegetables that were not to be peeled.  Although the tap water was meant to be safe and potable I never used it, preferring to use the water from the dispenser instead.  In KSA most (well pretty much all) of the fresh produce is imported and I treat it pretty much as I would in Astana with the exception of the water, I don't trust the tap water at all and don't use it for any preparation.

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The delicacies we leave behind

Everybody on the expat circuit has some delicacies from home that they pine for.  After writing about shopping in Kazakh supermarkets I started thinking about what I cannot live without.  I think, because I have moved around all my life I am both lucky and unlucky in this regard.  Most countries I have lived in have left me with some absolute 'must have' item that I miss when I leave.  This gives me more to miss but also means that I am used to doing without a lot of the things I love.

Some things are more difficult to get than others.  My favorite food is a gammon roast - not easy to find in some places.   Pork Products can be difficult to source in the Middle East and expensive when you do find them, I did find gammon here in Astana but when I cooked it it turned out to be ordinary pork - quite pleasant but not what I was looking for.    But then you always miss what you cannot have: in Nigeria we could get a most amazing array of local fruits but we could not get apples.  Every time I came home for the holidays I would bring a bag of them with me.  My mother would slice and freeze these.  I don’t recall that we ever used these in baking or fruit salads but single slices would be taken from the freezer as a special treat on difficult days.

When I was very young my favourite treat, on visiting my relatives in Ireland, was to eat a Creme Egg.  This is a deliciously disgusting Easter confection popular in the UK and Ireland consisting of low cocoa chocolate and creamy fondant.  Even today I have to limit myself to just one as they are incredibly addictive.  I have found a recipe for homemade eggs but they are even more lethal than the processed version.  100% sugar!

Ontbijtkoek from the Netherlands, a real favourite with me but
I have to make my own if I want to eat it.

My current 'must haves' are the things I go and buy straight away as soon as I return to a certain country.  In the UK it is a gammon roast and Aussie Mega shampoo, in the Netherlands a Krokett and Ontbijtkoek with a trip to the pharmacy for some Henna Plus hair balm.  When I am in Turkey I stock up on Lokum, Apple Tea and Mavi jeans (to my mind the most comfortable jeans in the world).  I have not been back to Nigeria or Venezuela since we moved away but were I to return I would make a beeline for a can of Limca (a sour lemon fizzy drink which comes, originally, from India) and churros respectively.  My husband really misses red Leicester cheese (a typical English cheese that is excellent on sandwiches) and pickles/chutneys.  I sometimes make a batch at home to use on sandwiches although perhaps not as often as I should.  We were thinking about what we will miss when we leave Astana - my husband will miss the very tasty shashlik (grilled kabab style meat) and I will miss pelmeni, a ground meat dumpling wrapped in thin dough.

Many of my British friends love Marmite (I cannot stand the stuff and was almost ill the one and only time I ate it), this is difficult to buy outside of the UK, other items my British friends seem to miss are Cadbury's chocolate and biscuits such as Bourbons and Custard Creams.  Rather inexplicably plain black tea seems to be on the list, although it is easily found just about everywhere in the world.  My English relatives joke that I just cannot understand how important the right tea is, an English tea company even exploited this habit by using it as the joke in an advertising campaign they were running - quite funny but oh so true. My Dutch friends have similar difficulties finding delicacies from home. 

Good old fashioned English scones are another yummy delicacy we
have to make at home.

As the world becomes smaller and supply chains easier to manage it becomes easier for supermarkets to devote sections to expatriates.  Many British supermarkets have a Polish Section for Polish expatriates living and working in the UK who want a taste of home.  Most large British towns have an oriental supermarket and online retailers will ship anywhere in the world.  I have a catalogue that lists all sorts of delicacies that can be delivered anywhere in the world but this ends up being very expensive so we tend to live on what we can get in the local supermarkets without hankering too much for what we can't.  I do, however, stockpile a little, when I first arrived in Astana I could not find muscovado sugar, it is easy enough to make a substitute but when I found it in stock one day I bought four kilogrammes.  I have not seen it since so it was a good call.    

Every now and then, however, it is great to have a treat or to lift the spirits so I stuff the empty corners of my suitcases with treats and keep one or two packets of biscuits stashed away at the back of a cupboard.  We all need to feel a connection with home from time to time whether it is apples in Nigeria, custard creams in Astana or Ontbijtkoek (Breakfast Cake), Kroketten or  Hagelslag (Chocolate sprinkles for sandwiches) just about anywhere outside of the Netherlands.

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