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| Son son and daughter-in-law San Kyi enjoying home-cooked food |
Since my mum has been taken ill and bed-bound, I rarely had the time to cook for friends. Several Sundays ago, I had the opportunity to prepare for our Godson and daughter-in-law a meal 'cooked with love'. It was nothing lavish - just a simple 4-dish home-cooked meal comprising
babi pongteh, udang kichap manis, nyonya chap-chye, and
ikan sambal tumis.
Like all other cuisines of the world, there are more than one way to cook a dish. Take for example, pongteh. While most peranakan families cook
babi pongteh, there are some who prefer to substitute chicken for the pork. I stick with tradition and use pork belly for this dish. I first fry the pork, dried Japanese mushrooms and bamboo shoot in the
rempah, using a wok, until the meat is fully cooked before transferring it to the pot for simmering over low fire. Most cookery books recommend simmering for at least 45 minutes. I simmer for 2 hours minimum to achieve the desired texture - when the fats can be separated from the lean meat with the mere touch of a fork. To thicken the gravy, I add a generous amount of ground shallots when I
tumis the rempah.
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| Babi pongteh - juicy pork belly stewed in tau chio |
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| Babi pongteh - pork with Chinese mushrooms and bamboo shoot |
As most members of the family enjoy seafood, I prepared 2 seafood dishes - the
ikan sambal tumis and
udang kichap manis. What I do for the prawn dish, is to replace the
kichap manis with normal black sauce so that the dish would not be overly sweet. I also use an ample amount of thinly sliced
bawang (onions) to give the dish the taste of natural sweetness. And to give it a dash of spiciness, the finished product is garnished with white pepper and chopped coriander.
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| Udang kicap manis |
The only dish that evening that was really hot and spicy was the
ikan sambal tumis. To make the sambal really hot, I use bird's eye chili (
chili padi). The fish is first rubbed with salt and rinsed before it is deep-fried until crispy. Then it is topped with the
sambal tumis. This dish can be prepared without much fuss.
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| Ikan Sambal Tumis |
The vegetable of the day was stewed
nyonya chap chye. I prefer my chap chye to be stewed (like mum used to do) rather than fried. My mum would stew the vegetables until they are really soft. When served as an overnight dish, the cabbage would sometimes become disintegrated. This way, all the sweetness of the vegetables would be absorbed into the gravy which we would slurp up with our rice. The following photographs show the stewed version which is quite different from the fried chap chye which has become more popular in recent years and are often served in peranakan restaurants.
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| Nyonya chap chye |
The only dish that evening that was really hot and spicy was the ikan sambal tumis. To make the sambal really hot, I use bird's eye chili (chili padi). The fish is first rubbed with salt and rinsed before it is deep-fried until crispy. Then it is topped with the sambal tumis. This dish can be prepared without much fuss.
The vegetable of the day was stewed nyonya chap chye. I prefer my chap chye to be stewed (like mum used to do) rather than fried. My mum would stew the vegetables until they are really soft. When served as an overnight dish, the cabbage would sometimes become disintegrated. This way, all the sweetness of the vegetables would be absorbed into the gravy which we would slurp up with our rice. The following photographs show the stewed version which is quite different from the fried chap chye which has become more popular in recent years and are often served in peranakan restaurants.
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