Straits Chinese cuisine

Straits Chinese cuisine is one of my fave foods. It is Malay in expression but Chinese in essence. Well that's just my lazy way of saying. Straits Chinese are Chinese who were living in the Straits Settlements (a colonial construct that comprises Penang, Malacca and Singapore) and who have adopted Malay cooking, Malay dress and speak Malay. Signature dishes are bakwan kepiteng (a soupy dish of pork balls shaped with bamboo shoots and minced garlic, see that soup bowl in picture), ayam buah keluak (chicken curry with black nuts), chap chye (mixed vegetables and includes black fungus, can see in picture), babi pongteh (a pork dish), you can see on the plate. Ate this at a restaurant, shall not name it, because I find the standard less than authentic, but alright for a meal. Then there're the desserts that are made up of kueh or cakes that again take a leaf out of Malay desserts.

I guess my comments are as thin as the food I ate today.

ode to street food

 

I'm turning foodie, as in doing a street food series. Ode to street food. See previous post for first in series.

Our bodies need carbo right? In the West it's often bread and potatoes. In the East, we can't live without our rice. We start getting cold turkey without rice. Am I exaggerating? Not really. 

Rice dishes can take varied forms. The top picture shows the roast duck rice. Roast meats stalls sell this dish. The roasted duck skin is crispy and fragrant and the meat is also fragrant and taste gamey like duck. You eat it with cucumber slices and side condiment of chilli (if desired). It makes a satisfying meal.

The French loaf in the second picture is called roti john. The story goes that some English guy wanted it with egg and minced meat (beef or mutton) fried in the loaf and kept ordering it so the original vendor decided to call it roti john. You can drizzle with mayo or chilli sauce. Whatever. It also makes a simple tasty meal. You get this dish from Malay stalls.

The third picture shows prawn soup noodles. The prawns are deshelled and the shells are boiled to make a very rich stock so you get a tasty broth. Then just boil meat, prawns, vermillici, beansprouts and kangkong (water spinach), add fish cake slices, and voila, a noodle meal that's tasty. Some vendors add pork bones meat and charge more.

Mum's not cooking? No worries. Go eat street food.

That's my World

Street food I love

The best thing about living in Asia is the food culture, especially its street food. In other parts of Asia you may get a more bazaar like feel in terms of street food like dining in the alleys. There's still that in Singapore, but since we value hygiene above all else, we've gone for a more sanitised setting in terms of hawker or food centres (used interchangeably but referring to the same thing) which I still like even though these are not air conditioned because there's open air ventilation. I just don't like the smell of food in air conditioned food courts, the clash of different food smells in a closed up space. Anyway that's just me.

So today's post is all about hawker foods I love. F for food, what else.

Here they are, top to bottom, char kway teow (noodles in a sweetish black sauce with cockles, fishcake, beansprouts), won ton mee (noodles in a tomato-based sauce with pork dumplings and sweet sauce pork called char siew and strands of leafy vegetables), kway chap (big and small intestines, bean curd puffs (tau pok), stewed pork slices, egg, amongst other choices, but I usually just choose big intestines and tau pok)) with a flour based kway teow, same texture as noodles), and finally, sambal fried garoupa and kang kong (water spinach) and eaten with steamed rice. The last you could choose off a menu of dishes in what is known as a zichar stall. Zichar means you fry the dish in a Chinese wok under high fire so the cooking completes in a fairly quick stir fry fashion.

This list is not exhaustive and I will post more hawker food in future post. Bon appetit just looking.

abc wednesday

Reunion eat

Over the last weekend, on Saturday (also Valentine's Day), the Chinese would have had their big reunion eat, the equivalent of Thanksgiving get-together, on the eve of the new lunar new year. The Chinese feast would have dishes like a hearty soup, curry, meat sauce dishes, roast meats, fish, prawn, vegetables - the Chinese go by the phonetic sounds of dishes to symbolise good fortune. For example, there's this moss like thing that's cooked with pork, because it sounds like 'you will prosper' (it's called 'fa cai'). It's just a crunchy algae taste and goes with the black sauce pork so well. My mum used to cook it. Then this black moss fell out of favour, apparently studies say it contained an amino acid that could be linked to neurological diseases, and also due to over harvesting (it grows in the acrid Mongolian Gobi Desert and Qinghai plateau) and it is listed as endangered (so China banned it). No moss, so sad.

Another interesting vegetable for the feast is the leek. You can see the picture of it at the supermarket above. Again, its phonetic sound, in Cantonese, is 'suan', which sounds like 'counting money'. You know Chinese are suckers for such things. The leek looks tattered but you sort of peel off those tatters and then slice them thinly and use it for a stir fry with prawn, beancurd and diced meat (optional). You can see the end result above as well.

Then there's yusheng, which translates to 'raw fish salad'. It's an appetizer comprising finely sliced raw fish (the version above uses smoked salmon), on a bed of julienned carrot, cucumber, radish, pickles and crispy crackers drizzled with sweet plum juice. Then everybody stands and do a big toss up and say some auspicious words, 'lo hei', and this act is supposed to bring good luck. There're now variations of yusheng, like Japanese, Thai versions. Everything is polygot nowadays including food.

E is for the big reunion eat, folks.

abc wednesday

Wagyu steak

My son had his first taste of Wagyu steak at Swensons, Terminal 3, Changi Airport yesterday.

It was juicy and bursting with taste.

It cost something like $49 and if you top up $4.90 or something like that you get a free flow of the salads at the salad bar. There was a good assortment as you can see. So mummy took the salad.

Tonight he tells me he's thinking about it and dreaming of having another order of it. 

Food trip Friday

Prata Place

This is like a off-the-road diner and it's popular for serving up prata for breakfast. Prata is dough fried on a girdle.

The Indian kitchen. I note a big pot on right (can't see in picture) with a sign which says soup kambing which is a mutton broth. That must be for lunch or dinner. There're Indian curries at the counter for you to order if you wish to order chicken or mutton pieces in your curry. If not you get a meatless curry as a dip for your prata.

We order the side of mutton curry. This is the prata kosong (or plain prata). You can order prata with fillings of cheese, chocolate, banana, etc if you so wish.

Here's another view of the exterior. It's nestled in the Springleaf Garden estate (1 Thong Soon Ave) which is along Upper Thomson Road.

That's my World

Sugar cane in frontyard

Don't you just love the taste of sugar cane juice? The cane stick goes through the juicer and out comes delicious juice.

In the past, my dad used to bring home sticks of sugar cane for us to chomp on. Nobody does that anymore. I think the dentist will approve as it kind of cleans the teeth. Hehe...

I was delighted to see sugar cane growing outside somebody's frontyard.

abc wednesday round 5