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Kerabu Cekur and Salted Fish

Sunday, May 1st, 2011

I WAS stressed out over work last weekend; mostly from not being sure of what I had to do. Instead of turning on my notebook and actually doing work, I procrastinated…. by reading cookbooks. I read Nigel Slater’s The 30-Minute Cook: The Best of the World’s Quick Cooking, and came across his recipe for plum on white bread. I didn’t have white bread but I had a few ripe plums that had been sitting on the kitchen counter for days.

So, I started Saturday morning lining a dish with slices of buttered sourdough bread (courtesy of Marty Thymes), and topping it with plum halves sprinkled with sugar. I baked that in the oven over medium heat, and I have something to bring to my friend’s house. We had that in the afternoon, after we have coloured each other’s hair, trying to keep the grey at bay.

I was still listless on Sunday, but there was kebab to make for StarTwo’s Don’t Call Me Chef column. The kebab was real quick to put together – it was just a matter of mincing the lamb and chopping up some onions and herbs. With a food processor, that was done in minutes.

And since I was already in the kitchen, it makes sense to cook curry chicken for lunch. My colleague Kalai gave me her curry recipe – something she has cooked for years and years, and she can do with one eye close – and it actually works for me. As usual, I over-cooked and there was enough for me to have for dinner three nights in a row this week. I worked late and microwaving the curry was the easiest, not that it was so good I had to have it everyday.

What I could have everyday is kerabu – and last Saturday and Sunday, I made kerabu with cekur leaves and salted fish. Cekur is my favourite ulam; it is aromatic and almost always used in nasi kerabu, and it has a bitter tinge. I find that it’s always sold out at the Pasar Tani, and I usually have to go early to buy it.

My sister Pamela solved the problem for me by planting cekur for me, and giving me a pot. I am glad to say I have managed to keep it alive and well. So, now I just have to walk put and snip off some leaves whenever I want this kerabu.

This is my grandmother’s recipe, and calls for freshly fried salted fish that is then pounded. I don’t use kerisik (fried grated coconut) but you can add some if you want. If you add more herbs and mix it with rice, you’ll have a nasi kerabu. But I like this kerabu with only daun cekur.

This kerabu is real moreish because it also has sambal belacan in it. It’s sour, sweet, salty… with an aromatic bitter edge. It’s not something I’d recommend you make if you are on a diet, because it’s best only with rice and I polished off two plates. Not good for the thickening waistline, but great for the soul.

RECIPE

KERABU CEKUR WITH SALTED FISH

3-4 shallots, thinly sliced
Juice from 2 kalamansi limes, or according to taste
1 tablespoon sugar, or according to taste
10-15 cekur leaves, rolled tightly and sliced thinly
2 tablespoons pounded fried salted fish
2 tablespoons sambal belacan, or 6-8 sliced cili padi

Marinate the shallots in the kalamansi lime juice and sugar for 5-10 minutes.
Then add the rest of the ingredients, and mix evenly.

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Posted in Peranakan Food, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

Tiffin Memory – Ikan Sumbat Sambal

Sunday, December 5th, 2010

It’s been two years since Marty Thyme, Veggie Chick and I started the Don’t Call Me Chef in StarTwo, more for fun than anything else. Food writing is hardly in our present job scopes, but we decided that it’d be a good diversion. For the most of it, we have enjoyed planning the column, and sometimes it seems like it’s all we like to talk about. Starting our individual food blogs have only made us a tad more obsessive – Marty Thyme and Veggie Chick bake bread these days, and have started a weekly sandwich business.

As much as we enjoyed working on the column, the objective was always to get readers involved….we have started to engage with food bloggers, and we hope to open up a forum for readers to share their recipes. That opportunity came when Tupperware approached us to run a contest to promote their new eco-friendly products, namely their BYO Tapau containers.

We asked you all to send in stories of your favourite tiffin moments, as well as share your tiffin recipes and photographs of the dishes.

So, this week, we are turning the StarTwo pages over to the best three entries for the Tiffin Memory contest; they each win RM1000 of Tupperware products. The three winners are Liew Pei Lin, Richard Koh and Robin Brian Vander Slott…check out their stories and recipes here.

So, we are posting our stories on our blogs this week.

I’d not have entered this contest, even if I was eligible to do so because I hardly ever packed food from home. I am hopelessly disorganised, and have never been able to work packing a lunch pack into my morning rush routine …be it for school or work.

Yesterday evening, I put together a lunch box from my dinner leftovers. And this morning, I took it out of the refrigerator and stuck it in the microwave… promptly forgot all about it and left for work…sigh.

When we were in school, my grandmother would deduct our pocket money if we packed food from home. I think we used to get 50 cents or so, enough for a bowl of noodles, a drink and a packet of junk food. When I was growing up, we rarely ate out, so buying food from the canteen was preferable to the same old home-cooked food, never mind that the noodles were terrible and the drinks thin watery syrup.

I’d only bring food from home, and have my pocket money deducted when my grandmother cooked ikan sumbat sambal, fish stuffed with sambal. It was my absolute favourite lauk then, and I didn’t mind parting with half of my pocket money just so I could have it again during recess time.

I still like ikan sumbat sambal, and I make it quite often. I have only ever used ikan cencaru (hard-tail mackerel) or bawal hitam (black pomfret) for this dish. I also always make more than enough sambal for stuffing the fish, as I like lots of the sambal with my rice. This is one of those home dishes that we make often.

My grandmother passed away when I was waiting for my SPM results.  She was my paternal grandmother, and she practically brought us up. We used to chafe at her strict rules – no turning on lights unnecessarily, and that means we all did our homework downstairs and no sneaking upstairs to the bedroom to read a story book. She tuned leftovers into fried rice for lunch, and never wasted anything.

We all also had to help with household chores, and no one was too young or too busy studying to help out. She also took in odd jobs to do at home – like sorting out rubber bands (I kid you not), turning cement packaging into grocery bags for provision shops (throw out the dusty outer layers and use the clean inner layers), some wiring and casing work, and whatnot. And of course, all the children had to lend a hand.

But this grandma was also a lot of fun. She told us stories from Chinese folk lores, over and over and as many times as we asked for them, as we lay down for our afternoon naps. She took me to the cinema with the fat aunty neighbour who drives a Volkswagen, and I practically grew up watching Taiwanese romances starring Chin Han and Lin Ching Hsia. She also brought me along for all our relatives’ weddings, and allowed me to wear lipstick and eye shadow for the dinners (it thrilled me then, but I must have looked like a horror).

And she always made sure there was enough sambal stuffed fish for me to bring to school.

Even after all these years, my siblings and I still talk about our paternal grandmother and wished that she had just lived a little longer and saw us all graduate, get married and have children. When she passed away, my parents were still struggling to put us through school, and times were lean. She’d have loved that we all have our own cars, and she’d have loved going out as a big family for meals and shopping. I’d have bought her a jade bangle, to replace the one I broke and wasn’t scolded for.

And she’d have been so happy to cuddle my brother’s son, my first nephew, who was born two weeks ago. He has big eyes and a full head of hair, and is ever so cute.


RECIPE

Ikan Sumbat Sambal

12-15 shallots, peeled

2 stalks lemongrass, sliced

1 inch fresh turmeric

20-25 dried chillies, soak in hot water for 10 minutes, then drain

1/4 cup oil

a tablespoon tamarind, extract juice with 1/4 cup hot water

salt and sugar, according to taste

3 ikan cencaru, or 1 medium bawal hitam

1 cup oil

Blend the shallots, lemongrass, turmeric and dried chillies finely.

Heat the oil in a wok over medium heat. Then, fry the pounded ingredients over a slow fire, turning often, until the oil rises to the surface.

Add tamarind juice and seasoning. Continue stirring for a few minutes more. The sambal should not be watery.

Clean the fish, and make a slit sideways along one side of the fish.

Spoon the sambal into the slit, but do not put too much as it’ll spill out when the fish is fried.

Heat the oil, and fry the fish on both sides till cooked.

There should be more than enough sambal for stuffing the fish. Serve the rest with rice for those who want more of the sambal.


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Posted in Home Fares, Peranakan Food | 6 Comments »

Merdeka Open House: Kunyit Fried Chicken

Monday, August 30th, 2010

I wanted to take part in the Merdeka Open House party organised by babe in the city_kl, but I just couldn’t decide on what dish to post to fit the theme Food From Our Hearts.

It’s kind of a strange predicament because cooking and feeding people well are how my family express our love for one another. We don’t do gifts under the Christmas trees, but we sure know how to load a table with food and eat heartily.

Maybe that was why my grandmother was so insistent on us helping in the kitchen, and learning how to prepare meals. She grumbled about how she wouldn’t be able to bear the shame should my disapproving future mother-in-law were to complain about how coarsely we cut the vegetables or not fluff the rice.

So, we were trained from young to do all the mundane tasks, and do them properly – tailing bean sprouts, deskinning groundnuts, scaling fish, removing the pith of ginkgo nuts, peeling prawns…. One of my chores is pounding sambal and rempah mix in a mortar and pestle.

When I started out, I’d constantly be hounding my grandmother to ask if my mixture was fine enough. I’d even resort to dramatics and wrap my hands in plastic bags because the chillies burn my fingers. But my grandmother was merciless, and she made it my duty to pound the sambal belacan (red chillies and freshly toasted belacan, shrimp paste).

My grandmother taught me how to pound from side to side, and not directly into the middle of the mortar. The old folks could tell from the rhythm of the pounding if we were doing it correctly or not. She even made me stop to listen to our neighbour’s pounding, and focus on the rhythm.

Now that I am mistress of my own kitchen, I sometimes cheat and make my sambal belacan with an electric blender. But when it comes to fresh turmeric, I do the pounding on my pestle and mortar because it’s just too much work scrubbing the vivid yellow off the blades and blender. I also hear that fresh turmeric blunts the blades, so I use my mortar and pestle when it comes to turmeric.

It’s easy work pounding turmeric, compared to chillies or shallots. One of our favourite dishes at home is turmeric fried chicken. It’s a real easy dish because it is just chicken marinated with pounded turmeric and garlic, and seasoned with salt, soya sauce and sugar. You need to marinate it overnight, or for a few hours for the flavours to permeate.

You need to pound the turmeric to extract its flavours. If you use a food processor, it just cuts up the turmeric but it does not crush out the flavours. When I was in secondary school, I started teaching tuittion to earn extra pocket money. I’d cycle to the kid’s house in the evening, and by the time class ended it’d be dark. In those days, we were not so fearful of crimes but my mom would wait for me at a particular spot.

I was only truly frightened when I cycled past my neighbour Intan’s house – see, when their families wouldn’t sanction their realtionship she committed suicide with her boyfriend by lying down on the railway tracks and the train ran over them – they were only 15 or 16. I used to hang out at Intan’s house to read Malay entertainment magazines like URTV, so I cycled really fast every time I passed by her house.

Anyway, there was one year when my cousins started coming to my house for tuittion. That was great because I didn’t have to cycle out. First, there were only the twins and their elder sister. But soon all six siblings came for class. I am pretty sure I earned very little, like RM20/student per month. Soon, those tuittion sessions went from an hour and a half in the evening to a whole day affair on weekends.

The class would only be for an hour or so, and then the entire brood (my siblings and cousins) would troop down to the nearby public swimming pool, and later return to my parents’ home for dinner.

I remember all eleven kids sitting around the dining table, and the top request every week would be for kunyit chicken. My mom made it with pork belly too. But with pork, she stir-fries it rather than deep fries it. We like both versions, and the best part is the fried turmeric bits. When we have turmeric chicken, sometimes I think of how my parents were so welcoming of my cousins, and how the house would be crowded with 11 noisy kids. I think the food bill was much higher than whatever I earned from the tuittion, but my parents didn’t mind.

My mom used to buy an extra loaf of bread because we’d all have a supper of toasted bread with butter and kaya after class on weekdays…. I think we had them with cups of hot milo, and there were bread crumbs all over the table. We don’t see much of those cousins anymore, but I bet they still remember my mom’s kunyit chicken.

RECIPE

Kunyit Chicken (Turmeric Chicken)

200g fresh turmeric

4 cloves garlic

500g chicken, cut into medium pieces

3-4 tablespoons sugar, or according to taste

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground white pepper

2 cups cooking oil

Pound the turmeric and garlic. Marinate the chicken with the turmeric, garlic and the rest of the seasoning overnight, or for at least four hours. Heat the cooking oil in a wok. When the oil is hot, fry the chicken till it’s golden brown. Scoop up the turmeric bits before they burn because these are delicious.

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Posted in Malay Food, Peranakan Food | 11 Comments »

Timun Char Sui (Stir-fried Cucumber In Vinegar)

Saturday, August 21st, 2010

I didn’t start out planning to write a nostalgic blog, but so much of my food experiences and knowledge are rooted in what I ate growing up. I didn’t even know I had all those memories stored up, but maybe that’s one of the signs of growing old (and growing sideways). That’s ample warning of a long-winded grandmother story coming up… so here goes….

A long, long ago, like maybe 30 years ago, Chinese weddings were a little different… at least in Penang where I grew up. These days, most people just go for a wedding dinner in a Chinese restaurant or hotel. But there was a time when we would wake up early and put on a nice dress, and go to the bride or groom’s house.

And the wedding guests would start the day with bak moi, or pork porridge. There will be a big pot in the kitchen, and someone would ladle a bowl for the relatives, neighbours and friends who would slowly trickle in. There is usually minced pork, tong chai, spring onion and whatnot in that bowl of watery rice porridge.

But the feast to look forward to is the t’ng tok (which literally translates to long table) because lunch is served on long rows of tables covered with pink mahjung paper. In those days, the family would have engaged an itinerant cook who goes from wedding to wedding.

One of our relatives was a wedding cook, and he and his family would lug with them huge pots, crockery and cutlery, and stay overnight at the wedding party’s house and cook up a feast.

I must have been to countless of these weddings. Children were welcome at these weddings, and someone was always getting married one weekend or another. Then again, people had 12 children, or at least 5 children to marry off in those days, and even the most distant relatives were invited and expected to come for the weddings.

I know the menu by heart. There is curry chicken, lor bak and acar awak. There is jiu hu char (stir-fried yambean with cuttlefish), and the richer families would serve sharksfin stir-fried with yambean and carrots to commemorate the special occasion. Then, there’s two types of soup – kiam chai ark (duck with salted vegetables) and tu tor th’g (pork stomach soup) invigorated by white peppercorns. There is also chor char – yam bean, cabbage and carrots cut into squares and stirfried with pork and prawns. My favourite is timun char swee – sliced cucumber marinated in vinegar so they remain crunchy, and then stir-fried with liver and gizzard. I love the crunchy cucumbers in the barest sweet and sour gravy, and of course I love liver with anything. But I have no appreciation of gizzard, so I leave them out when I cook this dish.

Not many people serve this t’ng tok wedding lunch anymore. The preparation is tedious, and I don’t know if there are any more itinerant wedding cooks. There is also probably no space in flats and terrace houses for those long tables anymore.

My mother served t’ng tok lunch for all her children’s wedding. But she was only able to do it because she has two sisters to help her, and even then it was exhausting work. The reward of course was that the guests were happy, and some even requested for takeaways of their favourite dishes. At my brother’s wedding, his friends had a second round of lunch after they returned from the bride’s house and cleaned out all the food.

I miss those t’ng tok wedding lunches. We knew most of the guests at those weddings, and even if we don’t we had to find out. I was the eldest, and it was my job to make sure I greeted all the guests and that my sisters and brother followed suit. In Chinese, there is a specific title for relatives on both our mother and father’s side, and we have to address them correctly.

Everyone takes turn to eat, and we’d even help to serve and replenish the dishes. It’s a lot more communal and interactive than sitting put at a ten-course dinner, and sometimes even with strangers in a sea of 50 tables, or 100 tables, in an air-conditioned restaurant.

RECIPE

CHAR SWEE TIMUN (CUCUMBER STIR-FRIED WITH VINEGAR)

INGREDIENTS

1 medium cucumber, about 300g

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 tablespoon cooking oil

1 onion, quartered

1 red chilli, sliced

2-3 liver, sliced coarsely

1 tablespoon sugar

1/4 cup water

1/2 tablespoon starch flour

Halve the cucumber lengthwise, and remove the seeds. Then, cut the cucumber coarsely. Rub the cucumber with salt, and leave for 5 minutes. Remove the water, and add the vinegar. Leave for about 15 minutes. Heat the cooking oil, and saute the onions and chilli. Then, add the liver and stir-fry quickly for about 3 minutes. Add the cucumber. Stir to mix evenly, and add sugar. Add water. Taste to check the seasoning, and add more vinegar and sugar until you get the sweet sour balance you like. Dilute the starch flour in about 3 tablespoons of water, and add to the mixture to thicken the sauce. Serve with rice

Note: Some people like gizzard in this dish, and some use prawns instead of liver and innards

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Posted in Peranakan Food | 5 Comments »

Dip for Fried Fish

Sunday, May 9th, 2010

friedfish4

I like plain fried fish – marinated with salt and turmeric, or with salt and white pepper. It has to be fried right, and that means it must be crispy on the outside and moist inside, not bone dry.

I could happily have a plate of hot rice with just fried fish, with condiments like kicap manis and sambal belacan. But I like it most with this dipping sauce – a sweet-sour-salty-spicy dip made with sliced shallots, kalamansi lime juice, sugar, thick soya sauce and bird’s eye chilli.

friedfish2

This is the combination I like, but there are many other versions.
Some people use tamarind juice for the sourness, and some add carambola or belimbing buluh. Some people add toasted belacan (prawn paste) too, and some don’t use soya sauce.

I also like this dip with sambal belacan (red chillies pounded with toasted belacan). The best place to sample these dips is at the stalls selling grilled fish. My favourite dip the one served at Pak Din’s stall at the Jalan Tanglin food court at the Lake Gardens.

fish1

RECIPE

Dipping Sauce

5 shallots, sliced thinly
Juice from 6-8 calamansi lime
4-5 bird’s eye chilli, sliced thinly
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon thick soya sauce

Mix the shallots with the calamansi lime juice for at least ten minutes. Then, add the bird’s eye chilli, sugar and thick soya sauce. Mix well, and taste. Adjust the seasoning accordingly.

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Posted in Home Fares, Malay Food, Peranakan Food | No Comments »

Kelantan Peranakan Food – Chicken Kerabu

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

I have a long list of must-eats whenever I am in Kelantan. There are mornings when I have two breakfast – the first one when I get to the market as soon as I wake up at the crack of dawn, and the other one with my friends who wake up at more reasonable hours. I love laksam, nasi berlauk, nasi dagang, nasi ulam, deep-fried kangkung, belud and even the various sweet kuih. In the evenings, there is ayam percik at Buluh Kasap which I visit religiously even if we have dubbed in diarrhea square, and sometimes not in jest.

But there is so much more to Kelantanese food than its Malay and Thai offerings, as I discovered when I did my first feature on the state’s food for the Sunday Plus. My guides were two Kelantanese Chinese boys whom we had known well through Thea Star’s Young Journalist Programme, BRATs.

Shawn and Beng Chuan introduced me to the term Cina Kampung on that trip. In Kelantan, the Chinese are distinguished as Cina Kampung or Cina Bandar. The former is so called because they live in villages among the Malays, or surrounded by Malays. The latter are the Chinese that settled in Kelantan much later, and live in towns.

Shawn’s family has been in Kelantan for nine generations, and they have lived among the Malays for a long time. Academicians define his community as Peranakan because there have assimilated Malay cultural practices in their daily lives. There are also Thai influences due to the state’s proximity to Thailand.

They speak Malay like it’s their mother tongue, and their Chinese dialect bears strong Malay and Thai influences. The women wear Malay dresses, and the men kain pelikat.

However, like their Malaccan and Penang counterparts, they retain their Chinese identity in their religious beliefs and observance of Chinese traditions. They also participate in Kelantanese Malay pastimes like top spinning and kite flying, as well as in traditional Malay performing arts such as dikir barat and wayang kulit.

Not many people know of the Kelantan or Terengganu Peranakan because their community is so small and their numbers are dwindling as more marry outside the group, and are assimilated with the general Chinese population.

kerabu chicken 4

On that trip some 15 years ago, Shawn introduced me to Kelantan Peranakan food. His aunt lives in a house with a big compound in a Malay kampung, and she showed me how they make khau jan (which is Thai for nasi ulam) and laksam. Khau jan is what Shawn’s family serve on Chinese New Year, complete with fish flakes, budu and keropok ikan. The herbs are plucked from the garden, and Shawn’s aunt knew some of them by their Malay names and some only by their Thai names.

Sharon Tan did an excellent  feature on Kelantan Peranakan Food a few years ago for Flavours magazine, and Shawn’s aunt graciously shared several of her recipes. Their food is delicious, and different from the other Peranakan offerings as they bear Kelantanese Malay and Thai influences. For starters, they use a lot more coconut, and they flavour their food with budu ( a local fish sauce that is not used in the rest of Malaysia) and palm sugar. There is also more use of herbs and ulam to flavour their food.

Khau jan is a signature dish, and the best nasi dagang I had in Kelantan was from a Chinese stall. Customers ask for nasi dagang mixed with nasi berlauk, with accompaniments such as beef rendang, fish curry and chicken, with of course budu and keropok.

There are also easier dishes to make, like egg kesum, kerabu chicken and beef kaduk.  There is budu for sale in the markets, but Kelantanese usually buy their budu from people they know so they can be sure it’s hygienically prepared. I haven’t gone to Kelantan in years, and my stock of budu has run out. So, I substituted budu (which I love) with fish sauce.

IMG_0542

CHICKEN KERABU
(From Flavours Magazine – Sept/Oct 2006)
RECIPE

Ingredients
1/4 chicken
50ml water

6 shallots, slice thinly
2 stalks young lemongrass, sliced thinly
1 medium-sized torch ginger bud, sliced thinly
1 sprig polygonum (daun kesum), sliced thinly
1 cabbage leaf, sliced thinly
5 bird’s eye chillies, sliced

10 limes, halved and squeezed for juice
1cm gula melaka
1 tablespoon budu
1/2cm belacan (optional)
Salt to taste

Method
Boil the chicken in a small pot until it is cooked. Set aside to cool, then shred the meat.

Mix all the sliced items in a deep bowl. Add in the lime juice, gula melaka, budu and salt. Add the shredded chicken and mix thoroughly. Serve immediately.

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Posted in Peranakan Food | 10 Comments »

Asam Prawns

Saturday, April 24th, 2010

There is always a jar of tamarind, or asam jawa, in my kitchen. It is an essential ingredient in our food, as it’s the base for many of the curries in Peranakan cuisine. Tamarind is a souring agent, but there is also a hint of sweetness in it. So, it’s not as sharp as vinegar, or as tart as citrus fruits.

In Malaysia, we use the tamarind pulp around the seeds. Some manufacturers would remove the seeds, but according to my mother those are not so good. I don’t know the basis for that observation since we throw away the seeds anyway, but I concede to her authoritative knowledge.

<ttamarind

Tamarind is sold in the market, and usually keeps for a long time. The rule is to choose tamarind that is brown. The longer you keep it, the darker it gets. To use the tamarind, just add hot water to it, and use the juice.

It took me awhile to learn to gauge how much tamarind to use for a dish… and it’s still not second nature to me yet. I am still tasting my curry as I cook it to check if there is enough tamarind. My asam pedas (spicy sourish fish curry) is still not up to notch – “Why doesn’t it taste like your mom’s?” – because I can’t get the tamarind right yet.

Buy fresh prawns with firm shells, and check that the eyes are glosssy.

Tamarind prawns, or asam prawns, is however easy to make. It’s usually on the menu of most Peranakan restaurants. There is nothing much to do except to marinate the prawns in tamarind and season with salt and sugar, and then fry it quickly.

I like my asam prawns a little moist, so I don’t fry it till it’s dry.But some people like it that way, so it’s a matter of preference. Use medium-sized prawns with thin shells for this dish. I love the tamarind that coats the prawns, so I usually lick the shells clean. The best part is the prawn heads as the sourness of the tamarind really brings out their sweetness.

RECIPE

ASAM PRAWNS

600g medium prawns, remove one segment of the shell
1 tablespoon tamarind, add 3 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon salt, or according to taste
a dash white pepper
1 teaspoon sugar, or according to taste
5 tablespoon cooking oil

Marinate the prawns in the tamarind juice, with the pulp and all. Add the rest of the seasoning. Mix well to make sure the prawns are all coated. It’s easier to do this with your hands.
Leave aside for about 20 minutes.
Heat the cooking oil. Fry the prawns until it turns pink over medium heat. Just before removing the prawns, turn the heat up and turn the prawns quickly. This will make the prawns a little crispy on the outside while its flesh remains moist.
You’ll know it’s ready because the dish is so aromatic.
Serve with hot rice and sambal belacan

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Posted in Peranakan Food | 11 Comments »

My Wonky Kuih Keria

Monday, March 1st, 2010

donut5

The theme for this month’s StarTwo column is kuih, and we all found it so challenging. All the recipes we found in cookbooks do not work, and in the end the best source was cooks who are familiar with making kuih.

It’s a real shame because it means that most of us will probably know how to bake cakes and pies and cookies, but not kuih. The word kuih is often translated as local cakes, and that is in essence what it is. We don’t use butter and cream, but kuih making is all about turning local ingredients into the most delicious desserts.

The ingredients for kuih are from plants that grow abundantly in the backyard like sweet potatoes, tapioca, bananas and taro; flavoured with coconut and palm sugar, and fragranced with pandan leaves.

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In the hands of an expert, these ingredients come together perfectly balanced in delightful morsels that are soothingly sweet and lemak. The texture of the kuih should be fine, and its sweetness and richness never cloying (tak jelak).

Most traditional kuih – whether Malay or Peranakan – use rice flour as its main ingredient. I remember the big stone grinder in the kitchen of the prewar ancestral home in Penang that my aunt lives in. Her late mother-in-law made Nyonya kuih to sell in the market, and my aunt was the only daughter-in-law who learnt the art from her.

One of the most back-breaking task must have been the grinding of the rice to be made into flour. Later, they upgraded to an electric grinder, and now they buy the rice flour in sacks.

Even with the help of machines (and more recently hired help with the intake of Indonesian maids), making nyonya kuih is a laborious task.

When we were kids, I remembered that my cousins didn’t get much free time to play. All hands were needed in the kitchen because there were so many chores – cleaning, cutting and laying the banana leaves, washing the teacups for the huat kuih and kuih kosui, moulding the ang koo, washing trays, arranging the kuihs… etc etc etc.

Then, my aunt seemed formiddable…I suppose she had to be stern because I was always trying to distract my cousins, and when I tried to help I probably just created more errors to be undone (like flattened ang ku because I didn’t know how to unmould it). In hindsight, I guess my aunt was just plain tired, all the time.

But at least she enjoyed the fruits of her labour, going for holidays overseas every year. Her favourite destination: USA.

While my grandmother was around, we had kuih often at home. They were not pretty dainty Nyonya kuih, but more like home-made kuih she rustled out quickly and efficiently. She made steamed ubi kayu with grated coconut, or deep-fried potato balls. There were also pulut inti, and yam cake, and kuih bengka, and sago with grated coconut. And coating everything from banana to ubi keledek to cempedak to nien gao with batter, and deep-frying them was another quick way to make kuih.

Making kuih kosui reminded me of those afternoon teas. It’s somehow not the same making kuih for 2 persons to eat, and it doesn’t seem worth the effort when there is so many left on the plate.

Still, I wanted to try and make kuih, if nothing else because I remembered it as being effortless. So, without referring to a cookbook, I made kuih keria – sweet potato doughnut – from memory.

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I boiled the sweet potatoes, mashed them up, and added sugar and flour. Then, I shaped them into doughnuts – but because I am so rusty from lack of practice (and I was rushing because I wanted to watch American Idol), my kuih keria is knobbly and wonky.

Then, I deep-fried them, and rolled them around in sugar.

They are ugly, but they taste like how kuih keria is supposed to taste like … and I love them so much more than Krispy Kreme. And American Idol is so boring, I should have taken the time to do my kuih keria properly!

And when I was cutting up the sweet potatoes, I also thought of sweet potato balls, and boiled sweet potatoes in palm sugar syrup and old ginger (I swear I could smell it in my head).

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Bubur Cha Cha for Chap Goh Meh

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

Today is Chap Goh Meh, the fifteenth and last day of Chinese New Year. In the old days, this is celebrated on a much larger scale. It’s after all the Chinese Valentine’s Day, the only day that young maidens in Penang were allowed to leave their home and stroll down Gurney Drive for all and sundry to gawk at and admire. If hearts went a-twittering, then marriage proposals were sent out.

And let’s not forget the tradition of throwing oranges into the sea, wishing for the dream partner.

It’s a nice quaint story, and I have actually interviewed old people in Penang who partook in these traditions when they were young and single. They remember those days fondly – maybe it’s nostalgia or maybe all old days are good (I am already at that stage).

A tradition that is less well-known because it’s not so romantic and certainly doesn’t make for such compelling recollection is the serving of bubur cha cha on Chap Goh Meh.

Bubur cha cha is a sweet dessert made of coconut milk, with steamed dainty diamond-shaped steamed yam, sweet potatoes (in yellow, orange and purple), tapioca flour chunks, sago and black-eyed peas. Some people coat banana (Pisang Raja) with syrup before adding them into their bubur cha cha, but traditionalists would call this pengat rather than bubur cha cha.

A bowl of bubur cha cha is a pretty sight with its myriad of colours. It’s also one of the best-loved Peranakan dessert because it’s sweet and lemak, and the various root vegetables so more-ish in that concoction. The contrast in textures – the soft potatoes, the chewy tapioca pieces, the crunchy black-eyes peas and the slithery sago – also make downing bowls of bubur cha cha a pleasure.

In Penang Hokkien patois, bubur cha cha is pronounced bubur che che – and che che means lots or abundance. So, it’s considered auspicious to distribute bubur cha cha to family and friends. Not many people still practise this tradition, although some do still cook bubur cha cha for offerings on the ancestral table on this day.

My aunt cooked a simplified version of bubur cha cha (minus black-eyed beans and fun colourful tapioca flour chunks, but she added bananas) today to celebrate Chap Goh Meh, and distributed them to her neighbours. Her Cantonese neighbours do not know of such a tradition but they are happy for the treat because it’s hard to find good bubur cha cha in Kuala Lumpur.

The version here is mostly made of thin watery coconut milk, and the potato and yam pieces are all mushy because the hawkers take the easy way out and boil everything in a pot.

Even in Penang, there isn’t that many places that still sell good bubur cha cha. I always have my fill of bubur cha cha, bubur gandum, and bubur pulut hitam at the stall behind the Swee Kong coffee shop opposite the Pulau Tikus police station.

The best bubur cha cha is still the ones cooked in homes by old Nyonya ladies who is generous with the coconut milk (so that the bubur is “kilat” (has a shiny sheen)), and who would painstakingly cut up the yam and sweet potatoes in bite-sized pieces.

RECIPE

BUBUR CHA CHA
(Serves 8, and enough to distribute to neighbours)

1kg of yellow and orange sweet potatoes
1 medium yam
2 1/2 litres of water
2-3 daun pandan leaves, knotted
2 cups of sugar, adjust according to taste
1/2 cup of sago
Thick milk, from 2 coconuts

Peel the root vegetables. Cut them into bite-sized chunks, and steam for 10-15 minutes until soft (but not mushy).

Bring the water to a boil, and add the pandan leaves and sugar.

Then, add the sago (do not soak beforehand).

Lower the heat to medium, and bring the water to a boil. By then, the sago pearls should have turned translucent.

Add the yam and sweet potatoes, and bring to the boil again.

Then, turn the heat down low, and add the coconut milk.

Stir to mix, and turn off the heat as soon as the mixture starts bubbling gently.

You might also like other Peranakan recipes:

Kiam Cai Boi

Lor Bak

Kerabu Timun

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Prawn Gulai

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

Buy the biggest sea tiger prawns from the market.

Prawns are a must on the Chinese New Year table because its name in Cantonese, ha, is the sound of laughter. It’s probably just an excuse to indulge in the biggest prawns we can afford, and the fishmongers are probably the ones laughing the loudest and longest.

In Penang, I hardly cook. I am all too happy to be pampered, and I have a long list of favourite dishes for my mom to churn out. In my in-laws’ home, I go in anticipation of braised pigs’ trotters in soy sauce and chestnut, or with old ginger and black vinegar.

But somehow, I am now entrusted with cooking the prawn curry for Chinese New Year and Christmas. My mother-in-law e-mailed me the recipe and I tried it out, and next thing I knew it’d become a family favourite. And since this prawn curry has graced our festive table for almost ten years now, I am declaring it a family tradition.

(Clockwise, from left) Kaffir lime leaves, galangal, lemomgrass and tumeric

My prawn curry is typically Peranakan – the main ingredients are shallots, turmeric, galangal, chilli, lemongrass and candlenuts. It’s fragranced with kaffir lime leaves, and the gravy’s base is tamarind.

But the star ingredient is of course the prawns. This curry works best with big gigantic prawns; they must be crowned with heads choke full of roe (and cholesterol). They impart their distinct deep briny sweetness to the curry that no stock cube or MSG can come close to replicating.

Don’t buy commercially-bred prawns. Get tiger prawns caught at sea. You don’t usually find the huge ones in the market because they are usually distributed to restaurants. But in the month leading to Chinese New Year, they will be available – and of course, they cost a bomb.

The tiger prawns we had this year were huge – they were about nine-inches long, and we only got eight for a kg. But they were also exceptionally good, with firm and sweet flesh and the best prawn heads ever (sucking on the prawn heads is the best part, so don’t bother being dainty and health-conscious).

Prawn Gulai makes for a happy meal, and hopefully a happy tiger year

Below is the recipe that my mother-in-law gave me, and which I followed faithfully the first time. But because this curry is all about the sour-sweet-salty balance, you have to experiment and improvise as you go along.

Sometimes the dried chillies are hot, sometimes milder. Sometimes a small knob of tamarind goes a long way, sometimes not. Sometimes, the sweetness of the prawns does its magic, sometimes not…you get the idea.

I am a lot more relaxed when I cook this dish now, but I used to be so anxious because the prawns were so costly. But I have also realised that I cannot taste the flavours if I keep testing and testing it… so I just wait till almost the end to check the flavours, and add whatever I think it needs (yeah, I pretend like I know what I am doing).
A hint: salt and sugar are important seasonings.

But I must also say this is a dish worth getting right because it’s absolutely delicious – the heady sweetness of prawns combined with all that aromatic ingredients make for a gutsy full-on feast.

Kaffir lime leaves lend their distinct fragrance to this curry

RECIPE

PRAWN GULAI
(Female Cookbook 1980)
the notes in italic are mine

Ingredients

8-10 prawns, about 1kg
1/2 cup vegetable oil, you need lots of oil to fry the pounded ingredients until it’s aromatic, absolutely no shortcuts

Pound finely (or blend) :

12 dried chillies, adjust according to yr taste
12 shallots
6 slices galangal
3cm piece fresh turmeric
1 tsp belacan
4-6 candlenuts, or macadamia nuts, or leave out

2-3 stalks lemongrass, bruised
4 kaffir lime leaves
1 1/2 cup of tamarind juice (mix 1 1/2 cup of water with 1 tablespoon of tamarind)
salt and sugar, to taste. Sometimes, you need 2-3 tablespoon of sugar, but it depends on your taste

Cut off the prawns’ whiskers, but do not shell.

Heat oil, and fry pounded ingredients until fragrant and oil shows in bubbles through ingredients. (tumis until naik minyak – which means you must keep the flame low, and patiently stir the rempah until the oil separates and rises to the top. It’ll also be very fragrant, and if the chilli is hot someone will start coughing)

Add tamarind juice, bruised lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, and season with salt and sugar.

Add prawns, and continue simmering for about 20 minutes uncovered.

I swear I don’t mean to confuse you, but I fry the prawns over high heat with the spice mixture until fragrant. Then, I add the tamarind juice. I also add three tomatoes.

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