I have seen this fruit occasionally on sale at our fruit stalls in Singapore, and I always thought it was just a different kind of rambutan. I love rambutans but I’m put off by the seed-coat that often sticks to the flesh. Hence I seldom eat the fruit except in the canned version. When I asked the fruit seller if they were rambutans, he corrected me. This fruit is called Pulasan and it has absolutely no connection with rambutan.
According to Wikipedia, Pulasan means “twist” in Malay, because the way to remove the skin of the fruit is to twist it off. This fruit tree thrives in very humid regions, and the fruit looks very much like rambutans, except the spines are not hair-like but short and blunt.
Even the flesh looks like that of the rambutan. However, it is much sweeter and juicier and the flesh separates from the seed-coat easily. The ovoid seed can be eaten raw and it tastes like raw almond.
Pulasan can found in Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. In Chinese it is called 葡萄桑.
A soy sauce is a soy sauce; an oyster sauce is an oyster sauce; a chilli sauce is a chilli sauce; right? Wrong.
No two sauces are the same; yet few cookbooks or recipes ever mention that. And, to top it off: often the one factor that makes a good dish great is…the sauce!
Sauces come in many grades and brands -- and thus quality. But this fact is often neglected, even by otherwise good cooks. I recall an incident in my teens: I once attempted a recipe of my grandma’s umpteen times over, because I couldn’t get the quality right. Frustrated, I called Grandma and painstakingly went over each step and ingredient with her, to the point she almost lost her cool with me. Then I suddenly realized.
It was the soy sauce; the one I had used tasted different from the one I remembered when Grandma cooked. When I re-cooked the soy sauce and tweaked it as close as possible to the taste I remembered, everything fell into place. But that episode left me with a phobia.
I was terrified that I could never again duplicate the flavors I grew up with, and have come to love. I began in my teens to collect recipes of sauces.
I have since learned to make my own oyster sauce, chilli sauce, XO sauce, and others. Vinegar and soy sauces were beyond my means to make, so I have relied on a few cottage manufacturers for my supply all these years. If I’m overseas, I would get whatever brand was available, then re-cook the sauce to my needs.
On my recent trip to Shanghai, I attended a cooking lesson conducted by The Langham Xintiandi, Shanghai. As the recipes taught were for beginners, I found them, initially, simple and familiar. Until the chilli sauce that accompanied one of the dishes caught my eye.
Tony Su (pictured), the Executive Chef for Chinese Cuisine, later disclosed to me that the sauce was an in-house recipe, which he, nonetheless, shared with me. Tony is Shanghainese and trained in both Cantonese and Shanghainese cuisines. And now, thanks to this young and generous chef, this recipe has become my favorite sauce to make as a gift. I’m featuring a recipe of stingray cooked with this chilli sauce, but I’ve discovered that it also makes a great base sauce for meat dishes. Yum!
Sichuan Chilli Bean Sauce
Oil 3 tbsp
Shallots 100 g, minced
Sugar 150 g
Garlic 100 g, minced
Chilli powder 10 g
Dried shrimps 50 g, minced
Chicken powder 10 g, optional
Sichuan bean paste 3000 g
Method:
Fry shallots over low heat and add sugar just before the shallots caramelize. Add garlic, chilli and dried shrimps and fry for another 5 minutes.
Add Sichuan bean paste and fry until fragrant.
Cool and store in a bottle.
Fried Stingray with Sichuan Chilli Bean Sauce
Oil ½ tbsp
Onion 50 g, diced
Green pepper 80 g, diced
Red chilli 20 g, diced
Stingray 200 g, cut into chunks
Sugar 1 tsp
Sichuan bean paste 2 tbsp
Method:
Saute onion, green pepper, and red chilli until slightly brown. Remove them from the wok and drain. Saute stingray until slightly cooked, remove from the wok and drain.
Fry Sichuan paste for 2 minutes over high heat. This is to “wake up” the sauce. Add a tbsp of water to the paste if it begins to burn.
Add stingray and sugar, quick-fry until the fish is totally cooked.
Note:Sichuan bean paste or四川郫县豆瓣酱 is available at Yue Hwa Department Store, Chinatown, Singapore or some Chinese grocery shops.
Being gay in Singapore in the 1980s was lonely. In the days before the Internet, there was little to tell us what we were, or why we were; so many of us grew up thinking we were simply misfits, or worse, evil or sick; and that to conceal and deceive was the way to live our lives. Without community or a sense of support, gays felt a strong sense of being apart and different from others, and life took on a clandestine nature.
Most of us developed an innate “gay-dar” (radar, gaydar – get it?) to detect “kindred spirits”, or, as we like to say, PLU – People Like Us. There were clues apart from dressing and behavior. For instance, bring up the subject of favorite singers, and the mere mention of Tracy Huang, Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, Linda Ronstadt, or Madonna, would be a dead giveaway. Friendships would quickly form, and the siege mentality of gays at that time ensured that friendships usually lasted a long time -- although friends came and went as there were always some who were “unsure” of their sexuality.
Unlike “straight” circles, a gay circle had the tenor of a support group. Doubts, fears, hopes, and heartbreaks were shared; jealousies, infatuations, and pettiness confessed; bitching, gossip and attempts to “out” other closeted gays, enjoyed. There was always a shoulder, or shoulders, to cry on. Some groups even spoke in “code” in public to guard against eavesdroppers!
Still, there were dark moments aplenty in the 80s: people were more mean and vicious with their remarks; prejudices were more entrenched. Effeminate gays were victimized and ridiculed; and “straight” people hesitated to be seen with their gay friends in public.
Gay culture, especially movies and books, was almost non-existent in Singapore then. There were several gay movies produced in the 80s, but they were never screened here. Remember films like Making Love, Torch Song Trilogy, My Beautiful Laundrette, and Maurice? An underground “market” emerged for these treasures, and they made the rounds as VHS tapes, often becoming the highlight of some pink home movie party. I remember that only a very small number of gay shows made it to our local cinema screens. One of these was Cruising, starring Al Pacino, because it contained a “bad” ending for the gay character.
Gay books were also hard to find in local bookshops. A few made it: Maurice, The Glass Menagerie, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the autobiographical sex-change account, Conundrum, by Jan Morris. No one would dare linger around the shelf to browse. One would grab the book and rush to the cashier immediately, hoping no one had seen you. I bought my “indecent” books in London or New York.
Gay nightspots were few and far in between. Many of us hung out at Hangers, a disco located in a hotel on East Coast Road. Cha Cha was the rhythm of the day; and the dance floor was pretty wild, with local personalities and socialites letting their hair down and having fun. The other gay-centric discotheques were Niche at Far East Plaza on Scotts Road, and Marmota at Leisure Drome in Kallang. My favorite haunt was Pebbles Bar at Orchard Road, where one of the my favorite local bands, Tania, played.
The first case of AIDS was diagnosed in Singapore in the 80s, and the gay scene changed forever. Gays were thrust into the social spotlight; their lifestyles exposed and examined, then vilified. The result was that while gay promiscuity declined, an ardent gay activism rose. One sign was the increasing number of my friends who joined groups such as Action for AIDS to raise social awareness about the disease and lend support to its victims.
Thirty years on, the stigma of gayness has become less damning. People are more open and accepting of gays, and with the Internet and social networking media, the sense of isolation is fast diminishing. More organizations exist to guide, counsel, support, and improve the lives of gays. But there’s still a long way to go in terms of gay civil rights – the repeal of Section 377A of the Penal Code; the failed registration of PLU (People Like Us) as a social organization; the recognition of same-sex unions….
But there is a clear feeling we have turned a corner. The PINK DOT is the clearest indication of that. For the third year running, the support from local LGBT members, and their families and friends, has been bold, encouraging, and heartfelt. So much so, that the concept has been adopted by several countries who would be organizing similar gatherings of their own. We have indeed come a long way; and I can gladly say that my memories of the 1980s, while forever a part of me, can be safely consigned to the dust heap of history.
While on the subject of Pink, there is a drink which is commonly found in Malay and Indian drink stalls. It’s called Ayer Bandung. It’s a simple-to-make drink. Just mix rose syrup (which is easily available in supermarkets in Singapore or Indian grocery shops in Hong Kong) with ice water and evaporated milk. I personally like it with ice water only.
For those who can’t find rose syrup, here’s a recipe for you. : )
Rose Syrup
Rock sugar 3 cups
Water 2½ cups
Egg white ½ + shell
Cochineal 2 tbsp
Rose essence 2 tbsp
Method:
1.Boil sugar and water until sugar is dissolved. Add egg white and egg shell, crushing the shell a little. Simmer for about 30 minutes until the syrup has thickened.
2.Pour the syrup through a sieve. Add cochineal and rose essence into the syrup.
In the 1960s, the whole of Chinatown, Singapore, was one giant open-air wet market. The market sprawled along Sago Lane, Sago Street, Temple Street, Banda Street and Trengganu Street -- and being there was an experience.
Chinatown then was an enclave of narrow streets and rows of 4- to 5-storey pre-war shophouses and SIT (public housing) Art Deco buildings.
Conditions were slum-like. The street level storey was usually given over to retail or commercial use, while the upper stories were used as residential units. Individual tenants and multiple families occupied tiny, dark cubicles and shared common kitchens, toilets, and corridors. Times were hard but there were simple joys and plenty of community spirit.
The market itself was a motley conglomeration of mostly mobile makeshift stalls occupying the streets and five-foot-ways. Apart from the grocers and dried goods merchants, there were sellers of rattan furniture and other household knick-knacks. Fresh produce such as pork, fish, fruit and vegetables were displayed on pushcarts and mobile stalls. Chickens would be kept alive in cages and slaughtered before one’s eyes when a purchase was made. It was common to see live chickens transported, tied by their feet in twos or threes, dangling upside down from bicycles.
Several stalls among Smith Street offered more exotic meat such as civet cat, frog, snake, monitor lizard, pangolin and pigeon. By mid-afternoon, the hurly-burly business day would wind down, the carts and cages pushed away, and the area cleared for the other “shift” – the hawkers and stalls of the night market. It was a daily cycle.
The people -- more even than the stalls and produce -- gave the market its ambience and allure. The place was thronged with the neighborhood’s denizens – mainly amahs (unmarried Chinese female domestics), laborers, and odd-job workers.
The smell was indescribable: sweat, dirt, livestock and food, and the distinctive penetrating odor of old stone and wood from the buildings themselves. Fortune-tellers squatted by the wayside, and professional “letter writers” offered scribal services to the largely illiterate crowds. Hawkers touted, haggled, and quarreled; children screamed, and were screamed at; mothers gossiped loudly; and somewhere a dog barked…you get the picture.
Here's a video of Chinatown the way it used to be:
The food of the street market was mainly Cantonese, as the different Chinese dialect groups congregated in their own “areas” within Chinatown. Clan and ethnic associations, understandably, were very strong among the early-arriving immigrants. The Teochews lived around Carpenter Street and South Canal Road; Hokkiens in Telok Ayer Street and Hokkien Street; and the Cantonese around Temple Street, Mosque Street, and Kreta Ayer Road.
I remember, in particular, a stall at the end of Sago Street, next to Keong Siak Street. The actual street no longer exists, having being replaced by Chinatown Complex. The stall consisted of a wooden tray, roughly the size of a school-desk top, perched on a crate. Next to the tray was a charcoal stove with a wok of boiling oil. It sold Fried Dumpling; in fact, she was the only person selling this food that I’ve ever met!
During research, I discovered that Fried Dumpling was an old Hakka creation that has disappeared even from China. It used to be called “za”dumpling(砸粽); since “za” sounded like “fried” (炸) in the Hakka dialect, it gradually came to be called “zha” dumpling (炸粽), as “zha” was the actual word for “fried” in Hakka.
The version in mainland China was a dumpling fried until crispy and then eaten dipped in sugar, salt, or ginger/garlic dip. However, the Sago Street dumplings were dipped in batter and fried, and then eaten with five-spice salt. I’ve tried to replicate the taste as I remember it – and I think I’ve succeeded.
*Note*
The area across which the market stretched, as described above, was affectionately known as “Da Po” (大坡) in Mandarin. The names the streets were known by in the 1960s: Sago Lane was Si Ren Jie (死人街); Smith Street was Xi Yuan Jie (戏院街); and Trengganu Street was Si Yuan Heng Jie (戏院横街).
Fried Hakka Dumpling
Glutinous rice 1 kg, soaked in water overnight and drained
Water
Alkaline water 2 tbsp
Oil 4 cups plus 2 tbsp
5-spice Salt 1 tbsp
Batter:
Self-raising flour 4 tbsp
Rice flour 4 tbsp
Corn flour 1 tbsp
Salt a pinch
Water ½ cup
Method:
1.Add alkaline water and 2 tbsp of oil to the rice and marinate for 30 minutes.
2.Grease a baking pan and pour the rice into it.
3.Steam for 2 hours.
4.While it’s hot, place a heavy weight on the rice and let it be compressed for 2 hours.
5.Cut the dumpling into pieces.
6.Prepare the frying batter by mixing all the ingredients and letting it rest for 10 minutes.
7.Heat oil in a wok.
8.Dip the dumpling into the batter, then fry it until it turns golden brown.
