Lala – kuaci of the sea

Kuaci is unshelled, flavoured and roasted pumpkin, sunflower or melon seeds. Long ago, before we have all these unhealthy snacks of potato chips and etc, kuaci was a favourite at the movies. People from my generation will fondly recall cracking the Kuaci Cap Helang with their teeth, spit out the shells onto the floor and enjoy the tiny morsel.

Nowadays, pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds come peeled with ‘low fat, high fibre, healthy for the heart’ labels which is not authentic anymore. You don’t get to do the monotonous motion of cracking the shells.

That’s what got me to buy one kilogram of lala from the wet market the other day. My hubby exclaimed, “What! 1 kilogram? You mad or what?”

I grinned and replied, “But the poor woman at the market scooped that up and I have no heart to tell her I only want half. Poor woman had to slave at the smelly, hot, stuff wet market, so the faster she finished selling, the faster she can get out of there mah….”

lala

Lala is this tiny shellfish caught from the sea. It costs RM5. These shellfishes are tiny, the size of your nails. They are alive and when I poured them into the hot wok, I can almost hear them screaming. “Help!!!!!! Is this how hell feels like? Arrgghhh…”

Lala is good when stir fried with ginger, garlic, cili and fermented beans. Add some sugar to taste.

garlic, cili and ginger

These lalas are very fast to cook. The moment they open their shells, gaping and looking dead, it is cooked.

stir fry lala

You need to have a lot of free time to sit there and pick each shells and eat the tiny piece of flesh. Just like eating kuaci.

Posted by lilian on November 3rd, 2008 under Recipe

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2 Responses to “Lala – kuaci of the sea”

  1. BT Says:
    November 18th, 2008 at 5:17 pm

    What type of fermented bean that you used for the lala dish? Where can I get it? Giant? Jusco? Tops? I want to get one when I go to Penang next time, I love lala!

  2. loh Says:
    September 26th, 2009 at 10:46 pm

    Ha ha lol..eating lala is like eating kuaci…well said!!!

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