Kueh Pie Tee – Wong Eats

Malaysian Meals 3

I recently came back from a month-long trip to Turkey and Southeast Asia, and I managed to spend a week in my birth land, Malaysia, with my parents and relatives. This trip back was a great opportunity to catch up with my folks as well as to gorge myself with dishes that I missed most from my growing up years in this part of the world. After running around from one eating place to another and savoring the home dishes my Auntie Shirley cooked over the course of the week, here is the run down of the Malaysian gastronomic delights that not only sated my stomach but also warmed my soul. This posting is a continuation of the series on Malaysian Meals posted a couple of years ago (see blog links in above menu).

Malaysians really love their breakfast, judging by the crowds in eating places including roadside stalls at the early hours. One item that they are very fond of is Soft-boiled Egg which you will find to be a common order. A whole egg has been poached to the perfect state of opaque egg white and a barely cooked viscous yolk. A touch of white pepper (not black) and some salt or soy sauce complete this simple yet satisfying starter. Usually, it comes with a side of Toasted Bread, cut from whole loaves and not presliced, toasted but still quite pale, slathered with some margarine (not butter – only time an exception for me here) and some Kaya, a sweet coconut jam. This sweet sandwich is perfect with some hot Teh Tarik (pulled tea) or the strong Kopi-O (Malaysian coffee) to wake the eater up with its rich sweetness. I didn’t mind ordering two eggs with toast morning after morning since they get it right in this part of the world, and concern for my cholesterol level went out of the window with each delicious bite.

Another fairly mild breakfast item is Chee Cheong Fun. It is steamed sheets of rice dough rolled up to look like its moniker that translates as pig’s intestines noodle. No meat is involved here. It can be eaten with a combination of sweet and sour spicy sauces, and a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds. But most eaters would add a myriad of toppings called Yong Tau Foo. Stuffed tofu skin, fish ball, and stuffed puffed tofu cake are favored at this time of the morning. This was a favorite of mine when I used to visit my parents, and my Mum would stop by the stall during her rounds in the open wet markets, a place where great breakfast can be found.

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This Chinese breakfast item is also a noodle – Wanton Noodles in Sauce. Most of us know this dish as a noodle soup with floating pieces of wanton dumpling. Here, we have a version in which the cooked noodle is mixed in a sauce of soy, oyster sauce, and dark caramel soy sauce, a version that I rarely find outside of Malaysia. I prefer this type since it is not too hot for consumption in this sweltering part of the world, as well as its slight sweetness from the dark sauce and sour from some pickled green chilies. Customarily, a bowl of wanton soup is served with the noodles. But my parents usually add some other protein like Barbecue Pork (Char Siu) or my favorite, Braised Chicken Feet. Yumm.

Another fairly mild Chinese breakfast item is Rice Porridge or Congee. Grains of rice have been cooked with lots of liquid until they have lost their structural integrity, resulting in a thick gruel much like loose oatmeal. Without anything else, this porridge tastes of nothing. Hence, the bowl I had in a hot steamy coffee shop was topped with fried dough crullers, slices of pork, and crispy fried pig intestine. The dough crullers and pork added the savory and textural elements to this bowl, as well the intestine bits that also imparted a touch of funkiness. Probably my mother’s instruction for the cook to add an extra serving of intestine was a bit overkill. But nevertheless, I enjoyed this porridge especially having not savored it in so many years.

People in this part of world have been conditioned to seek spice in their food. Hence, there are some breakfast items that fit that bill. Roti Chanai and Murtabak are savory pancakes of South Indian origin, and their presence is indicative of the sizable Indian community here. The former is a simple grilled flaky pancake whereas the latter is the same pancake but with a stuffing of meat, egg or onion. For one breakfast, I chose the egg and onion version. The spicy element can be found in the different sauces that accompany this rather mild dough: fish curry, dahl lentil curry, and Sambar (a sour spicy sauce). It is not uncommon to find a Malaysian tearing off pieces of the roti or murtabak with their fingers and dipping it into the various sauces. No matter the cultural background, all Malaysians love this breakfast, as far as I know, with no exceptions coming to mind.
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Another spicy breakfast standard is from the Malay culture – Nasi Lemak. Its name refers to the rice that has been cooked with coconut cream to elevate the starch with some richness and fragrance. The usual toppings are crispy Whitebait fish, roasted peanuts, a hard-boiled egg, and sweet spicy Sambal sauce. The banana leaf wrapping is traditional and commonly seen, lending some vegetal fragrance to the whole mix. I have eaten versions with curry chicken and beef rendang. But I prefer mine pared down to its bare simplicity and devoid of meat, like the above, especially at the early hours of the day.

For lunch, Malaysians tend to gear towards noodle dishes. The following dishes are from the Baba Nyonya /Peranakan culture which I belong to. Penang Shrimp Noodle Soup is a dish with noodles in a spicy stock bursting with shrimp flavor as a result of frying the shells before making the stock. Pieces of chicken, shrimp, egg, and fried shallots complement the rich broth as well as adding some protein. As if it were not spicy enough, a side of cooked chili paste is usually added to each chopstickful of noodles. An appetizer ordered that day was Lor Bak. Tofu sheets have been stuffed with a mixture of minced meat and shrimp along with the secret ingredient, five-spice powder. The side of sour chili sauce is de rigueur with its chili heat as well as acid to balance these rich meaty bites..

Again, the following lunch dishes are from the same culture as above. Asam Mee is also from the Penang region, pointing to the Siamese influence with the use of sour elements. A spicy tamarind broth has been cooked with various root aromatics and Mackerel fish to produce a flavorful broth that is key to this dish. Toppings of cucumber, lettuce, pineapple, raw onions, mint, and fresh chili result in a melange of textures, temperatures, and flavors, making this dish a must-have in my books. A side order of Kueh Pai Tee brought back memories of eating them with my grandmothers. Fried dough shells looking like top hats, hence its other moniker, have been stuffed with a savory mix of jicama and meat, and topped with egg, fried shallots, sometimes crab meat, cilantro, fried shallots, and a dollop of sour chili sauce. Rarely is one stuffed shell fulfilling, but I had to make room for the above noodle dish.
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Another Penang Nyonya dish I ate was Mee Siam that was cooked by my Aunt Shirley. This recipe was handed down by my maternal grandmother, and I requested my aunt to cook it because I missed it very much and I wanted to fine-tune the recipe I copied down years ago. Rice stick noodles have been stir-fried in a chili-shallot-garlic-dried shrimp mix before tossed with shrimp, bean sprouts and Chinese chives. The usual toppings are slivers of egg pancake, fried shallots, fried garlic, sweet chili paste, and fresh lime juice. A sweet fermented bean paste sauce is added according to the diner’s whim. As you can see the preparation list is quite long, hence, no other dish is cooked or served along this monumental dish. The result is a delight of sour, sweet, spice, and salty, as well as the different fragrant elements from the dried shrimp, chives, fried shallots and fried garlic. With such a wonderful dish, there is never a request for anything else but more of this heavenly treat.

This Nyonya noodle dish, Curry Laksa, is from the Malacca region, which my father’s side hails from. Noodles are covered with a rich broth make with chili, root aromatics, and enriched with coconut milk. The usual bowl partners are chicken, fish cake, tofu cakes, fish ball, bean sprouts and some long beans. A squirt of lime juice is the necessary citrus hit to cut through the creamy broth. Not only is this bowl filling with all the different elements, but truly satisfying with the strong flavors and the rich coconut based soup. Not an everyday lunch order, but worthwhile once in a while.

A road stall lunch order one day was Minced Fish Noodle. This is a take on the traditional fish ball noodle soup dish. But here we have a version that is made with a sweet fish bone broth that is made even sweeter with tomatoes and cloudy with evaporated milk, which was completely novel for me. The fish cake was not the usual bouncy fish ball consistency that I was used to, but one that was rather airy and light with the slightly rough texture from fish meat that had not been overly minced. The soft rice stick noodles was the right starch to go with this delicate dish, which was a nice break from all the spice. A mild noodle dish but not tame after all.

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The last noodle dish is usually served in coffee shops or roadside stalls – Char Kueh Teow. Flat rice noodles are wok-fried with a dark sauce, shrimp, sometimes Chinese sausage, bean sprouts, egg, and usually cockles. This dish is difficult to replicate at home due to the high temperature needed to char the noodles slightly to give that je ne sais quoi. However, as of late, I have been rather disappointed by stalls that take short cuts with the ingredients, like cockles and crispy pork lard, and the lack of wok char from cooking it at a lower temperature. To make matters worse, I have not found any cook in the city using pork lard as the starting element, which imparts lots of flavor to each bite. Another favorite of mine, but I’m easily disappointed by what is served. Oh well, the quest continues.

For dinner one night, my parents and I had Hainanese Chicken Rice. A whole chicken is gently cooked in which the collagen in the flesh is still intact, producing a silky smooth and moist flesh. The rice is cooked with the broth and some chicken fat, tasting savory from the liquid and rich from the fat, good enough to be eaten by itself. The chicken in this order was from the “kampung”, a free-range bird that was nearly devoid of fat and tasting far superior than the supermarket kind. The side of ginger chili sauce is the obligatory sauce with the poultry. An order of Ipoh Bean sprouts was the perfect accompaniment to the mild-tasting Chicken Rice. Bean sprouts have been stir-fried with slivers of salted fish that have been made crispy by frying in very hot oil, imparting its fishy saltiness to the rather tasteless sprouts. What makes these bean sprouts unique is its short length and its distinctive flavor from the lime water in the Ipoh region. Our order was quite late in arrival, but it was worth ingesting every morsel indeed.

A meet-up with a former schoolmate from my English days warranted feasting on what Malaysian cuisine is also known for – seafood. The first order was Frog Legs (water animal, right?) which was cooked with ginger and green onions. The sweet flesh was paired well with the pungent ginger and green onion and brought together by a light sauce. Another dish was Crispy Shrimp. Large pieces of the shellfish were fried in very hot oil until the shell was brittle and edible while the flesh remained moist. A light coating of fried fresh chilies and green onions provided additional flavors to these tasty pieces. The final dish was Chili Crab, a perennial favorite of most Malaysians. Large pieces of fresh crab were coated with a thick sweet chili sauce that was enriched by some egg. The idea is to lick the sauce off the shells, crack them open to dip the flesh in the sauce, and to dunk pieces of toast into that heavenly sauce. Yes, that sauce is good enough to lick off the plate, making it a hot item on the menu.

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A lunch meet-up with some relatives was regaled with a couple of Chinese classics. The first was Braised Pork Knuckle. Pieces of pig hand or feet have been stewed in a dark savory sauce for hours before being paired with some fresh vegetables and Chinese mushrooms. What I enjoyed was the tender pieces of pork that has been stewed long enough for it to become fork-tender and full of flavor, as well as the chewy pieces of fish maw that I found quite interesting texture and taste-wise. The other classic was Sweet and Sour Pork. Eating it was refreshing for this diner, a far departure from the usual renditions found in inferior establishments. Here was a dish made with small pieces of pork that were not too heavily battered, paired with pieces of fresh cucumber, green onions, onions, pineapple, and red chilies, and brought together by a thin sweet and sour sauce that was not nuclear-glowing by red coloring. When done right, this dish is worth ordering and revelatory to anyone. Staying with my auntie, I requested a couple of vegetable-based dishes that I had not eaten for quite some time. Chow Moo Choy is made with pickled vegetables cooked with pieces of pork. The leafy vegetable has been dried with salt and sugar, and these same flavor elements permeate the whole dish, making it quite irresistible. The other is Chah Choy. Fresh cabbage-like leaves are cooked with leftover chicken or pork, whole dried chilies and tamarind slices until the leaves are very tender, tasting savory, spicy and sour at the same time. I had missed these two dishes, and I am grateful that my auntie went out of her way to bring back these dishes to my taste buds.

A couple of dishes that I ate on this trip reminded me of my grandmother and her cooking. Kow Yoke is a braised dish with alternate layers of taro root and pork belly covered by a thick sauce. The melting quality of the dish evokes a sense of comfort while elevated by the five-spice in the sauce. This was definitely a dish that I missed dearly. The final dish that the same auntie cooked for my parents and me was Ayam Kacang Putih. This Indian recipe was handed down from my grandmother’s sister after having learned it from her father-in-law’s Indian chauffeur. Here, pieces of chicken have been marinated in red chili powder before being fried and paired with fragrant curry leaves, perfumy anise powder, red chili, shallots, and crunchy roasted baby garbanzo/chick peas. This dish is a definite explosion of flavors that brings back memories of Grandma cooking this signature dish. Again, this was a trip down Memory Lane that was worth every chicken morsel and every drop of the sauce.

Whew, that was only part of what I consumed in the course of one week, frantically trying my best to cover as much ground within a short period of time. Malaysians, I included, are some serious foodies who not only enjoy the local offerings but also obsess about them and plan their daily lives around the meals. With such gastronomic delights that abound in this part of the world, no wonder food is in the forefront of their mind. By what you have just seen and read in this blog, I think you can understand why.

Lunar New Year Celebration

Cooking

Over the past weekend, I held a dinner to mark the end of the fortnight-celebration that brought in the Lunar New Year. Being the Year of the Dragon, it is considered a very auspicious year, and it is my oldest brother “anniversary”. This year, the Lunar New Year commenced so close to the Gregorian New Year that I could not get myself ready in time to have a dinner gathering at the end of January – all I could muster then was a quick meal of 3 dishes with a couple of friends on the eve of the New Year.

The New Year celebration is a time for family members to travel back to the family home in order to spend time together. The Reunion Dinner, as it is known, is held on the eve, and it is considered imperative that all members are present at the dinning table for such meal. With half of my family members living in Australia and the other half on the West coast, Midwest, and I on the East coast, such gathering is close to impossible with our busy lives, let alone the long distance in between my siblings and parents. The last time our whole family came together for the celebration was just before I left home for high school in England when I was just 13 years old.

For the meal, I decided to prepare a few of my grandmothers’ Nyonya dishes. Nyonya is the term given to the women of the Peranakan culture, a hybrid culture that formed as a result of Chinese men migrating to tropical Southeast Asia, beginning in the 15th century, and marrying the local women folk. It can be considered the first mixed culture whose beginnings predates the arrival of the Spanish to the Americas and the formation of the Spanish mestizo culture. My grandmothers were truly amazing cooks, and I was blessed to have spent a lot of time with them in the kitchen as a child suffering from migraine headaches as a result of sun exposure – the kitchen became my refuge and daycare center. I grew up watching all food-related activities, smelling the cooking, handling all the ingredients when I was put to work, and tasting all the dishes before they ended up on the dinner table. Each nightly meal consisted of at least 8 dishes that were made from scratch, beginning from the early morning visit to the open market. Preparing dinner for a Peranakan family was always a tall-order that had no room for error – all partakers would sit down with great anticipation, high expectations, and a well-honed critical palate.

As the starter for my dinner celebration, I decided to offer a Malaysian-Chinese tradition that is both unique and delectable. Yee Sung or Lo Hei is a vibrant raw fish salad that consists of pomelo (like a sweet grapefruit), apple, raw fish (which I substituted for smoked salmon), jellyfish (which I omitted as to not weird my friends out), candied fruits, different spices like cinnamon and five-spice powder, a wide variety of Chinese pickles, aromatics like Kaffir lime leaves and cilantro/coriander leaves, shaved daikon radish, shaved carrots, sliced fresh chili, peanuts and sesame seeds, fried wanton-skin strips, and topped with sauces like plum sauce and fresh lime juice – a total of 25 ingredients in all! According to Wikipedia, this dish was created in 1952 in Malaysia, and it is an adaptation of a Southern Chinese tradition in which fishermen would celebrate their catch on the 7th day of the New Year.

Following customary practices, all my guests gathered around the well-assembled plate of ingredients, and with their chopsticks, they tossed and mixed the different elements together while shouting out “Lo Hei” which means “Tossing Prosperity”. The idea of such an act is to attract and invigorate the energy of prosperity and good fortune to one’s life for the year. Although foreign to my American friends, they enjoy this activity with great enthusiasm and the salad with savoring mouths, and they look forward to this interactive and playful dish at every New Year’s celebration.

Preparing the main 4 courses was quite a daunting task. If were not my local Korean grocery store, I would be running around the city trying to find the fresh ingredients that were necessary and prominent in the dishes’ flavor profile. I had spotted the pomelo for the appetizer dish a couple of weeks before hand, and I grabbed it when I saw that it was at the right level of ripeness – storing it in the fridge was necessary to preventing it from spoiling. I bought a fresh pineapple for two of the main dishes a week before, and I chose the ripest looking one and further ripened it on my kitchen counter until its scent of sweetness was oozing out of its tough skin – these were necessary steps taken by my grandmothers for assuring success in their cooking, and I was just following their finickiness for such details. I managed to find shallots, fresh lemongrass, fresh turmeric, wood fungus, beanthread noodle, coconut milk, chili paste, shrimp paste, peanut brittle, lily buds, and the various different sauces all under one roof. I love my Korean grocery store!

Just preparing the spice paste for Shrimp and Pineapple in Coconut Sauce (Udang Lemak Nenas) took around an hour. It is the main flavor base of this rather intriguing and complex dish – the list is rather long consisting of 8 roots and aromatics. In addition to this base, the sauce is made up of coconut milk, dried fish, and tamarind juice, to which large sweet shrimp and chunks of fruity pineapple are added. As disparate shrimp and pineapple are and an unlikely pair, it is this rich and full-flavored sauce that becomes their liaison like a good matchmaker. For me, this was the most challenging dish to make due to its complexity and list of fresh spice ingredients, and due to this fact, I recreate this dish probably only once every three years. However, it was worth the effort judging by the complements that I received from my guests who savored it with gusto and satisfaction.

Chicken, Chinese Mushrooms, and Potato Stew (Pongteh) is one of the most recognized Nyonya dishes by those familiar with the culture. The ingredients are stewed in a sauce that consists of copious amounts of crushed shallots and garlic, which is then flavored by a brown bean paste. I had cooked the dish the night before until the chicken was about to fall of the bone, and I allowed it to soak up the savory sauce overnight. This dish is standard fare in all Peranakan home dinner tables especially during festive days. It was served with the obligatory hot sauce of chili paste, fish paste, and lime juice (Sambal Belacan); this chili mixture adds a contrasting spiking spicy citrus element to the mild-flavored chicken. The stew was well-received by many guests for its subtle yet soulful flavors.

To complement the above dishes, I made a couple of side Nyonya dishes. The first was a simple Cucumber and Pineapple Salad (Sambal Nenas Timun). In addition to the fore mentioned ingredients, the sauce consists of chili paste, dried shrimp, salt, shrimp paste, and an odd ingredient – crushed peanut brittle. The fresh ingredients are spiced up by the chili concoction, slightly brined by the dried shrimp and shrimp paste, and the peanut brittle brings notes of rich nuttiness and caramel sweetness to the dish. I have prepared this dish often since it is quite easy to put together, and it is a favorite at many of my dinners. As usual, it did not disappoint my guests this time as there was not much leftovers at the end of the meal.

The other side dish was a melange of Cabbage, Beancurd skin, Beanthread Noodles, Lily buds, and Wood Fungus in a garlic and fermented beancurd sauce (Chap Chai). This recipe is the closest that identifies the Peranakans as Chinese immigrants, even though they are centuries removed from the motherland. The various ingredients are purely Chinese and one has to seek out these imported ingredients to make the dish successfully. Many of my guests exclaimed how much they enjoyed the dish especially the slippery and slightly crunchy wood fungus, which I found it to be odd and amusing!

After such a rich and wide offering of dishes, I decided to make dessert simple – Fruit Cocktail. However, it was not just your plain old fruit cocktail but one with a Chinese and Southeast Asian twist. I opened cans of Lychee, Rambutans stuffed with Pineapple, Jackfruit, and Almond Jelly. Just as in most Asian desserts, the accompanying syrup was not cloying sweet, and there were only a few ladleful scoops left by the end of the meal. It was just the perfect ending.

The end of the Lunar New Year, called Chap Goh Meh in the Peranakan culture, was an ocassion in which one used to parade an unmarried daughter to potential eligible suitors in hope of securing a well-matched marriage. The end of the fortnight was also a time to have one last festive bang before resuming daily life, hoping for a fortuitous year. I was glad that I could share my treasured grandmothers’ dishes with my close friends and continue the tradition of Lo Hei. I only wished that I had more hands in the kitchen just like how my older relatives would come together for a couple of weeks in preparation for the New Year. Perhaps I should have also thrown in a session of speed-dating for both my hopelessly single straight and gay friends, much like the Chap Goh Meh, in hope of finding them a suitor for the New Year. But, there is so much I can do for them, especially when one is cooking a monumental Peranakan dinner like this one! Maybe they should have matched me with someone special for all the effort that I put into and the dishes that my guests stuffed themselves with that night. The Peranakan saying that a young lady’s marriage worthiness is reflected by the skillfulnes of her cooking should still hold true to this day and to anyone, either female or male, as it is in my case!

Addendum 2013:

For this year’s celebration, I was out of the ingredients for the Lo Hei/Yee Sang salad featured above since I did not have the various pickles and ingredients that my mother would usually send to me during to her trips here. In lieu of that, I decided to make a dish that hails itself as the only appetizer found in the Peranakan/Nyonya cuisine – Kueh Pie Tee or fondly known as Top Hats. To make the shells, I needed a brass mold that I had not picked up in over 10 years. After heating it up in some hot oil, I dipped it in a pool of thin rice and flour batter, and return it into the oil to fry as the top of the shells spreaded out, hence its moniker Top Hats. I must admit that it was rather time-consuming since it took me around 2 hours to make around 45 shells, knowing that my guests would scoff down an average of three even before the main meal.

As the stuffing, I had to hunt down some Jicama root, as known as Bangkuang in the Peranakan dialect. For many years, I would find them in the local Mexican stores, and this piqued my curiosity about its origin. After doing some research on Wikipedia, I discovered that the root vegetable is indigenous to Mexico, and it was brought over by the Spanish conquistadores to the Philippines, one of her colonies, before it spreaded in Southeast Asia. The Pie Tee stuffing consists of the shredded and dry-squeezed Jicama, diced chicken breast, and diced shrimp. What elevates these ingredients and ties them together is a sauce made from garlic, fermented bean sauce, 5-spice powder, soy sauce, and white pepper. Along with this mixture, the crispy shells are stuffed with fresh lettuce, and topped with egg strips, fried shallots, and a dap of tangy chili sauce. A single mouthful of this dish is a study of contrasting textures and flavors, all coming together to make it a truly satisfying bite. Watching my guests enjoy these stuffed shells made it worth while standing at the stove for those couple of hours.

Another dish that I made for the occasion which I had not made in some time was my maternal grandmother’s pickles – Achar Ahwak. Since it was a pickle dish, I had to make it in advance, and the process was quite laborious. I had to salt pieces of sliced cucumber, squeeze the water out, then dry them in the oven for around 1 1/2 hours until the pieces were dry and shriveled. Traditionally, these pieces were placed in the hot sun until the right dried state. Along with the cucumber are pieces of carrot, longbean, red chilies, and large ribbons of cabbage, all parboiled and squeezed dry. The pickling sauce consisted of tons of shallots, a bit of fresh turmeric, dried chili paste, white vinegar, salt, sugar, and a touch of sesame oil. What makes this pickle unique is the addition of a copious amount of crushed Peanut/Sesame Brittle that added the rich nuttiness as well as the necessary sweet element to compensate for the acidity. My grandmother would make a vat full of this and we would scoop a bowl full every night for our dinners until we ran out of it. Similarly, I made a large bowlful, and I’m still enjoying the remnants to this day, weeks after the celebration dinner. It truly was worthwhile and an honor to recreate my grandmother’s dish and to maintain this tradition alive.

Watch: Click on the following link to view a brief video on Peranakan Culture – Click here