Oh my Gourd, it’s Bitter Gourd!

As a child I was prone to “heatiness”, which the Chinese believe results from an imbalance of yin and yang within the body. Indications of this would include a sore throat when I ate chilli and mouth ulcers when I ate durians, and falling sick when I ate mutton stew. 

However, I loved these heat-trap foods, and would indulge myself without the slightest concern for the consequences. My dad was naturally protective of me as I was his one and only child; and while he couldn’t stop me eating those foods (nobody could, or dared!) he would ensure there were plenty of remedies at hand for me.

Somehow, bitter gourd was found to be effective in “cooling” my system, so it frequently graced our dinner table. Incidentally, bitter gourd is known in Chinese as “cooling gourd”. We cooked our bitter gourd in a number of ways -- stewed, fried, boiled. It wasn’t called “bitter” for nothing, and so, I initially hated the vegetable, however it was prepared.

There was, perhaps, only one bitter gourd dish I actually looked forward to: bitter gourd stewed in black bean paste with chicken wings. The dish was extremely popular in the 70s and 80s, and was a staple of restaurants and roadside food stalls. When eating it, I’d skip the bitter gourd and poke around for the chicken, which was extremely tasty bathed in the bean sauce. This dish was one of those that tasted better if kept overnight.

The more often I ate the dish, curiosity and plain old greed got the better of me, and I began taking tiny nibbles of bitter gourd. Before I knew it, I was not just converted…I was hooked. It dawned on me that the bitter flavor was the whole point: it woke up jaded palates and was wonderfully stimulating to the digestion. These days, I like my gourds the bitterer the better!

Bitter gourd’s cooling effects make it a great vegetable for summer cooking. It supposedly improves the body’s immune system too, and is an anti-cancer agent. The Chinese have a nickname for it as well: “the gentleman vegetable”, because it is believed the vegetable gamely retains its bitter tang within itself and avoids tainting the other ingredients it is cooked with!

 Stewed Bitter Gourd in Black Bean Paste

Chicken wings                        3, cut into halves

Bitter gourd                           500 g, cut into wedges

Oil                                          1 tbsp

Water/chicken stock              1 cup

Sugar                                      ½ tbsp

Salt                                         ⅛ tsp

Dark soy sauce                       ½ tsp

Black bean paste

Preserved black bean            25 g, minced

Garlic                                     15 g, minced

Chilli                                       50 g, minced
Oil                                           ½ tbsp

Sugar                                      1 tsp
Water                                     ½ tsp

Method:

1. Heat wok in moderate heat, add ½ tbsp oil and fry black bean paste for 2 minutes. Add ½ tsp of water if the paste begins to get burnt. Add sugar and 2 tsp of water and simmer for 5 minutes. The water should evaporate and the paste should be thick by now.
2. Increase the heat to maximum; add 1 tbsp of oil, chicken and bitter gourd, and quick-fry until the chicken is slightly brown. Add water/chicken stock and simmer for 30 minutes.
3. Season with sugar, salt, and dark soy sauce.

Note:

There are several ways to prepare bitter gourd for cooking, which are believed to reduce its bitterness:

Method 1:  Marinate with salt for 20 minutes. Squeeze the water out from the gourd and rinse it with water.

Method 2:  Par-boil the gourd in boiling water for 1 minute. Remove and drain.

I usually cook the bitter gourd directly without going through the above 2 methods, as I like my vegetable bitter.

The Epic Quest for Ayam Ketumbar

Steve (who needs no introduction to those who know him) has “interesting” roots. Notice the inverted commas, because if anybody lives up to the label “mixed heritage” -- it was he.

His identity card says “Race: Chinese”; but everyone who sees him for the first time, speaks to him in Malay. He is yellow-skinned; but has uncles and cousins on his father’s side who are kopi-o-colored with tightly curled hair. He has a Chinese full name, while his dad owns a solitary Chinese surname. Steve’s maternal grandma is China-born yet his mom speaks English, Malay, Hokkien, and the Nonya patois, and dresses in sarong kebaya. 

Steve’s dad came to Singapore from Pulau Tikus, a tiny Dutch and Portuguese enclave in Penang. When Steve was a kid, his family lived in Pasir Panjang. In the 1950s to 70s, Pasir Panjang was an idyllic coastal neighborhood of Malays and Peranakans, dotted with picturesque seaside bungalows and terrace shophouses, and home to a thriving Malay kampong. Steve grew up on intimate terms with Malay, Peranakan, and Eurasian cooking. His maternal grandpa was of Dutch descent, and Steve’s father worked for the British Admiralty in Singapore, so European-style afternoon teas and soirees were a commonplace of his childhood, and the aromas from the family kitchen were rich and very diverse. 

Oh yeah, and Steve loves his mom’s cooking. There was a dish of his mom’s that Steve particularly liked, and my attempts to weasel that recipe from his mother brought me up against the full Byzantine brunt of a Peranakan matriarch – with hilarious results.

Peranakan Bibiks are insanely jealous of their recipes, and guard them like a dragon would its magic pearl. Everyone knew that, but I decided to try anyway. So I asked politely for the recipe; it was a kind of chicken sambal. The first few times, Steve’s mom pretended not to have heard me. But when I persisted, she told me the recipe was not written down; it was “in her head” and the measurements were “agak-agak” (Malay for “estimated”).

To further throw me off, she kept changing the dish’s name. It was “Portuguese Chicken” at first, later becoming “Arab Chicken”. So, when, on the umpteenth attempt, I asked for the Arab Chicken recipe, she snorted, “What Arab Chicken; I don’t have that. I think you mean the Indonesian Chicken…?”

I was ready to throw in the towel…she was good. I understood at that moment why Peranakan sons are so enamored of their mother’s cooking, and why they are so tied to their mom’s apron strings.

Years went by, we moved away, and the recipe was forgotten. Then one evening after dinner, during a visit to her home, she pulled out a yellowed exercise book, flipped the dog-eared pages and said simply, “Here it is.” After more than 20 years, the recipe was in our hands. She never explained why; and we never asked.

When we got home and looked at the book, Steve started laughing loudly: “It’s my hand writing!” The prim, childish writing on the pages brought back memories for him, of afternoons after school, spent copying recipe after recipe into that exercise book for mom. “I’ve forgotten all about it,” he said. “…All those years ago.”  

For me, the mystery’s finally over: it’s actually Ayam Ketumbar, a Peranakan dish, but with slightly altered ingredients.

YESSSSSS!

AYAM KETUMBAR

Ground coriander seed           1½ tbsp

Ground cumin                          1 tsp

Ground fennel                          1 tsp

Black pepper                             1½ tsp, coarsely ground

Ginger                                        30 g, grated

Garlic                                          4, minced

Oil                                               1½ tbsp

Onion                                         2, chopped

Sugar                                          ½ tbsp.

Chicken                                      1½ kg, chopped into large pieces

Assam                                        50g, dilute with 2 tbsp of water and drain

Water                                         1 cup

Salt                                             ½ tsp

Dark soy sauce                         ½ tsp

Method:

1. Fry ground coriander (without oil) in low heat until it is fragrant. Be careful as ground coriander gets burnt easily. Remove from heat.
2. Mix the spices, along with ginger and garlic, into a paste.
3. Fry onion with oil under low heat until the onion has caramelized without being burnt (about 20 minutes). Add spice mixture, sugar, and continue to fry for 5 minutes.
4. Turn heat to the maximum, add chicken and fry until the chicken is slightly brown.
5. Add assam and water, simmer for 20 minutes until the chicken is cooked.
6. Season with salt and dark soy sauce.

Note: Actual dish is darker; less dark soya sauce was used in the picture so that the chicken would show more clearly.

What’s a Chicken doing in the Basket?

Growing up in the late 60s and 70s, the neighborhood around Bras Basah Road, Stamford Road, and the National Library was my playground. Things looked very different then: the buildings that stood then are today gone or replaced; and land that was empty then, is today choc-a-bloc with tall buildings.

I spent a lot of the time in the National Library (now demolished), the now-defunct MPH Bookstore, and the row of second-hand bookshops that lined Bras Basah Road. Like nearly every kid of the time, I devoured my fair share of Enid Blytons, Mills & Boons, Barbara Cartlands, and -- perhaps peculiar to me -- Chinese pugilistic novels (at the Shanghai Book Store on Victoria Street).

The little bookshops along Bras Basah Road were especially memorable, in a run-down, cobwebby, “magical emporium” kind of way. They were owned and run mostly by Indians and famous for their huge collections of second-hand books and textbooks. There was no air-condition and the shop frontage was wide open to the five-foot-way. Yellow bulbs lit the dingy interiors; there were wooden tables and sagging wooden shelves along the walls; and all was dust, smell of old paper, and sticky humidity. But oh, was it fun; I spent endless afternoons lost in those bowels! There was a sprinkle of sports shops too, but they didn’t interest me at that young age.

But food was never far from my mind – whatever the age. Who could forget the famous row of Indian Rojak stalls on Waterloo Street with their noisy, infuriating touts? They kept me well and happily fed on many an afternoon. Another favorite pastime of mine was lunch or afternoon tea at the coffee houses along Orchard Road, Bras Basah Road, and Victoria Street.

I remember the set lunches they served of soup, bun, main, and dessert at the then-princely sum of $2.50. Choice of main course usually came down to pork chop, chicken chop, fish and chips, or sirloin steak. Dessert was a choice of jello, cake with cream, or cocktail fruits. That was pretty fancy dining back then.

One of the more “stylo” coffee houses of that era was Red House at the junction of Victoria Street and Bras Basah Road, so-named for its gaudy all-red façade. Others were Skillets at Supreme House (today Park Mall), which was in the mid 70s renamed Silver Spoon. Further along on Orchard Road were the Tivoli, The Ship, and Copper Kettle, popular with both locals and tourists. And, if I felt really rich, I would head for Fosters Steakhouse at Amber Mansion (present Dhoby Ghaut MRT station) for dinner….

Apart from set lunches, I would always look forward to Chicken in the Basket: a common snack in those days which was, basically, fried chicken chunks served with potato chips or sliced cucumber. Its closest equivalent these days is the chicken nugget, a much less spunky dish, but still a favorite especially with the kids.

Chicken in the Basket

Chicken                      200 g, cubed

Salt                            ½ tsp

Pepper                       ¼ tsp

Water                         ½ tsp

Corn flour                    3 tbsp

Oil                              2 cups

Garnishing:

Cucumber

Tomato ketchup

Method:

1. Season chicken with salt, pepper, water and corn flour for 30 mins.
2. Deep fry chicken until half cooked.
3. Remove from oil and drain.
4. Once cool, re-fry the chicken until it is golden brown and crispy.
5. Serve immediately with cucumber garnishing and tomato ketchup.

Pulasan – When Hairy met David

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.

The Source of Chilli Bean Sauce

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:

1. 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.
2. Add Sichuan bean paste and fry until fragrant.
3. 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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

Live Pink, Drink Pink

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.

3.    Store in a clean bottle.

Fried Hakka Dumplings…Extinct?

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.

9.              Remove and drain the oil.

10.          Dip in 5-spice salt to eat.

Claypot Pig Liver Recaptured!

I literally grew up in the shadow of People’s Park Complex. It was a big shadow, because it was a mammoth of a building. You won’t miss it if you were in Singapore’s Chinatown.

In its heyday (the late 1960s) People’s Park Complex was a statement-making piece of architecture. Today it sticks out like a monolithic green-and-orange sore thumb at the foot of Pearl’s Hill.

Before People’s Park Complex was built, a market stood on this one-hectare plot of land. It was called People’s Market. I remember the maze of zinc-roofed hutches, which sold mostly textiles and household ware. There were also hawker stalls and open-air restaurants, all ringed by wire fencing with a couple of openings. It was filthy and smelly, but full of character and life.

I was six, and this place gave me with some of my earliest adventures in food. I remember a couple of stalls that were famous for things such as “Scissors Rice” (ie. a combination of pork chops, curry chicken and rice), Chinese desserts, and roast meats. There was a particular restaurant my family often brought me to. Its name slips my mind, but not its location next to a huge drain that ran between present-day Eu Tong Sen Street and New Bridge Road.

There were certain dishes that were de rigueur with each visit: Salt-baked Prawns (盐焗虾), Fried Spring Chicken (炸子鸡), Bitter Gourd with Pork Ribs (苦瓜焖排骨), Sweet Sour Pork Ribs (排骨王), and Claypot Pig Liver (砂煲猪润). Not only my family loved them; everybody did, because they were “in”. They were the Prawn Paste Chicken and Crab Noodle of their day! I came to learn that food, like clothes, could come and go.

Sadly, the market burnt down in 1966; and shortly after, People’s Park Complex rose on the same location. The shopping center quickly became very popular, and was a favorite gathering place for old folks living nearby because of its air-conditioned atrium. Even today, the sight of this building always brings a tide of memories.

I’ve loved pig liver since young, and ate it frequently in all its forms and cooking styles (of which I’ll share more in the future). My favorite style is Claypot Pig Liver. It was instant love when I first tasted this dish at the restaurant in People’s Market all those years ago, and I’ve measured all later encounters against this first meeting.

Claypot Pig Liver remained popular in Singapore until the late 1990s -- when people became conscious of calories and cholesterol. Though it still appears on restaurant menus, what’s served today seldom recaptures the former glory of this dish as I remember.

Claypot Pig Liver

Pig liver                                  200 g, sliced into 3-cm thick

Sesame oil                             ½ tbsp

Ginger                                    60 g, sliced into 1-mm thick, preferably “young” ginger (子姜)

Spring onion                        60 g, separate the white portion from the greens

Chinese wine (花雕酒)     1½  tbsp

Marinate:

Oil                                           1 tsp

Oyster sauce                       ½ tbsp

Soy sauce                             ½ tsp

Salt                                         ¼ tsp

Dark soy sauce                   ¼ tsp, optional

Chinese wine (花雕酒)    ½ tsp

White pepper                      a pinch

Caltrop starch (生粉)        1 tsp, mixed with ½ tbsp of water

Method:

1.     Place the pig liver flat on the cutting board. With the knife slanted at 60°, cut the pig liver into 3 mm-thick slices.

2.     Add oil to the pig liver and mix thoroughly. This step is important, as it prevents the pig liver from getting rough. Next, add oyster sauce, soy sauce, salt, Chinese wine, pepper, and mix well. Finally, add caltrop starch and marinate for 30 minutes.

3.     Heat claypot over high heat and add sesame oil. When the oil is heated to around 180°C, stir-fry ginger and spring onion (white part only) until both turn slightly golden brown.

4.     Add pig liver and quickly stir-fry for about 30 seconds; add the remaining spring onion. Trickle some Chinese wine onto the claypot rim. This ensures that the alcohol in the wine evaporates before reaching the liver, thus lessening the” bitterness” of the wine. Cover the pot with its lid and remove it from the flame.

5.     Pour 1 tbsp of Chinese wine around the circumference of the lid and let it brew for 3 minutes. The remaining heat from the claypot will continue to cook the liver.

6.     Remove the lid and quickly stir the food, and scoop it onto the serving plate.

Note:   Measure of success – the liver should be just cooked, and remain tender and succulent.

            Don’t over-marinate; the flavor of the liver should come through.

            The final drip of Chinese wine around the lid is to provide a “fragrance” when the lid is lifted.

Steamed Tapioca Cake in War & Peace

I remember Grandma fondly. We spent a lot of time together.  I remember the stories she told me about World War II – of how it affected and changed my family’s destinies.

They were stories of tragedy and windfall; of opportunities thrown up by the vicissitudes of war; opportunities grasped or missed that led to fortune or disaster. Grandma was such a vivid raconteur that my ancestral family came to life in my mind as an album of living full-blooded persons, though I had never met any one of them.

The downside was, as a naive little kid, I became “indoctrinated” with the prejudices and stereotypes Grandma wove into her stories -- which I have struggled to dispel to this day. And though she would often ramble and repeat herself for the umpteenth time, each telling would bring a small, previously unknown, embellishment or fact to light. And a new layer of emotion or insight would be added. Through her simple words, Grandma made the war appear more real to me than all the books, movies, and documentaries, that I later had access to, ever did.

Maybe, it was from Grandma too, that I grew to love the romance of the War Years – from its furniture and interior designs to its music, cabaret life and clothing styles. And, for sure, too, Grandma’s stories made me “grow up”, by acquainting me with the seamier side of human nature – of life’s underbelly.

She often told of an uncle of mine who made his fortune peddling opium in Singapore during the war. It was said he made enough to fill large kerosene containers with jewelry, gold and cash. With war’s end, he left for China, taking along all his “earnings”, and became a landlord. When the Communists came to power, he had everything taken away, and became destitute. He took to writing letters home to Singapore pleading for help and money. But, recalling his departure for China without a cent or thought for those left behind, his family and relatives chose to ignore him, and left him to his fate. …And to think I belong to a family like that!

Grandma would also paint an interesting picture of the food that people ate during the war, of the types of ingredients available then, and of how they were obtained from the black market. I became all ears whenever Grandma got to the food part of her stories. And when I pestered her hard enough, she would even cook some of the dishes she talked about.

During the war, food was naturally scarce, so people made do with whatever they could lay their hands on. One of the staples was tapioca, as it was easy to grow and harvest. It was common for families to eat tapioca for 3 meals a day, on its own or accompanied by simple dishes such as salted fish, porridge, or mixed with potatoes. It was not surprising to learn that many people suffered from malnutrition during the war.

By itself, tapioca is tasteless; but when steamed and eaten with sugar, it makes a nice snack. I must confess that tapioca hardly figures on my table, and I do not have a liking for it except in the form of this cake featured. I learned the recipe because it didn’t require much technique or skill; and Grandma would insist that I make the cake just to get me out of her hair whenever I became too much of a handful!

Steamed Tapioca Cake

Tapioca (木薯）        320 g, grated            

Sugar                           85 g                          

Egg                               1, lightly beaten

Coconut milk              180 ml, or can be substituted with milk              

Pandan juice               2 tbsp, optional

Salt                               a pinch

Method:

1.    Combine sugar, egg, coconut milk, pandan juice and salt, and stir the mixture until the sugar has melted.

2.     Add grated tapioca and mix thoroughly.

3.     Pour into a greased pan and steam for 45 minutes.

4.     Cool the cake completely before slicing it for serving.

Note:   The sliced cake can be coated with steamed grated coconut before serving. 
             Two versions are featured. The green one has pandan juice and milk, while the white cake uses just coconut milk.
             There is a baked version of this cake. It's called Kueh Bingkar Ubi in Malay.

My Encounter with Original Sweet & Sour Pork

Clinging to ghosts…sad, regretful, and looking to bring back the past…

Oh dear, do I sound like I’m describing myself?

Fortunately, no; instead I was remembering an old chef I once knew, and from whom, for a short while, I learned some of the finest techniques of Cantonese cooking when I was eleven.

Being a new immigrant to England, this chef had a hard time adjusting to his adopted land. As he was not able to speak any English, he hardly ventured out of the restaurant, or his home. His world consisted of work, sleep, meals and occasional chitchat with fellow chefs, and little else.

Though trained as a Cantonese chef and working in a Cantonese restaurant, he was called upon to make tremendous adjustments and “adaptations” to dishes he knew so well. As anyone who’s traveled to the west knows (and remember, this was the 1960s), “Cantonese” is never really Cantonese over there. All Cantonese food had been localized to suit the western palate; outside of China, there was no such thing as “authentic” Cantonese – something my chef friend quickly came to learn. And it made his woes worse.

Stuck in an alien society and a hard, unrelenting work cycle, he spent a lot of time lamenting his decision to leave home. When it became especially bad, he would cook some ethnic Cantonese dishes for himself, to take the edge off his homesickness. As I spent a chunk of my childhood hanging around the restaurant kitchen, I inevitably became his listening ear – and beneficiary of his “comfort” cooking. I also learned some recipes from him, and one of these was Sweet and Sour Pork.

Unlike the ones we’re familiar with, this recipe uses no tomato sauce at all, but instead, preserved plum sauce. Apparently, tomato sauce was introduced as a substitute by chefs in America and Britain, to an audience more familiar with the flavors of the tomato than the Chinese plum.

Also from him, I learned a version of Sweet and Sour Pork, authentic enough, and mean enough to actually help me through my college days! I would teach cooking in private homes to earn extra pocket money, and a very popular mainstay of my repertoire was western-style Sweet and Sour Pork which I adapted from his teachings.

Sadly, I never knew what became of my friend the chef…I never saw him again after I left the restaurant kitchen.

Original Sweet & Sour Pork

Pork  loin with some fat       200 g, cut into 2.5cm squares

Soy sauce                                  1 tsp

Oyster sauce                            ½ tbsp

Egg yolk                                     ½

Corn flour                                 ½ cup + 1 tbsp

Red chilli                                    1, sliced thickly

Green chilli                                2, sliced thickly

Sauce:

Preserved plum sauce          ¼ cup

Hawthorn (山楂)                      20 g, mashed

Salt                                              ¼ tsp

Method:

1.    Season the pork with soy sauce, oyster sauce, egg and 1 tbsp. of corn flour for at least 30 minutes. Add 1 cup of corn flour gradually, until the pork is well coated and has a crumbly texture.

2.    Deep-fry pork until slightly golden. Remove and drain the oil completely.

3.    Once the pork has cooled sufficiently, deep-fry the pork again until it is golden brown. This step ensures the pork stays crispy. Remove pork and drain completely.

4.    Mix the ingredients for the sauce thoroughly.

5.    Heat the wok and quick-stir-fry chillies for 1 minute.

6.    Pour the mixture and stir thoroughly. Add pork and fry for another 30 seconds, or until the sauce coats the pork and chillies thoroughly. There shouldn’t be any sauce left at the bottom of the wok.

7.    Remove and serve immediately.

Note: Hawthorn gives a slightly sourish taste and a reddish tinge to the dish.

            A hallmark of a good sweet and sour dish is a strong contrast of sweetness from the plum sauce, and sourness from hawthorn.