Paper-wrapped Chicken---A Tribute to a Friendship

“A friendship that lasts for a quarter century is something to rejoice about!” someone once said to me. I guess I’m a lucky man then, for I have several friends who’ve shared my ups and downs for well over 25 years. One of these friends, I met during my army days. Her name is Annie.

Annie and I worked in the same army camp, in different buildings; but we were as good as only desks apart. We chatted often through the army’s intranet system, and met daily for lunch. Annie was unfailingly friendly, chatty, and helpful, and always lent a hand to anyone who needed it at the camp.

She was, basically, a generous soul; and a hit with the guys---straight or otherwise.

To straight guys, she was the girl you’d want to bring home to meet Mom; to gays, she was the fag hag we all adored. In fact, one of Annie’s most sought-after ‘services’ was to pretend to be the ‘girlfriend’ of her many closeted gay friends whenever the need arose---which was pretty often!

So, Annie, I, and a few other army mates, grew to be close friends. We would spend weekends at her flat, playing mahjong, watching videos and---as we would say in the 70s---‘talking cock’. Annie lived with her folks, and we all got along very well, especially at the mahjong table.

Annie was a wiz in the kitchen; and she made sure everyone in the house---family and friend---was well fed. Annie and her family weren’t well off; she would take on ‘sidelines’, like privately promoting household appliances and beauty products, to bolster her salary so that she could help out with her family’s expenses. Yet, the way she cooked and fed us every week, you’d think her mattresses were stuffed with dollar bills.

And so, we went through life together, as any group of old friends do. Romance, heartbreak, career, marriage, children, mid-life crises…

Of life’s rollercoaster of joys and sorrows, Annie and I shared more than 30 years’ worth, even though at times our communications were reduced to little more than an exchanged sms on a birthday or festival, especially when we lived in different countries.

Annie is today happily married and lives in a lavish, beautiful home. She is the proud mother of two delightful teenagers to whom---I’m surprised, but happy, to say---I’m more good buddy than aloof ‘uncle’, despite the formidable age gap!

Today is Annie’s birthday, and I’m dedicating this dish to her, and our friendship. It was a dish she always cooked for us during those far-off weekends at her home. Sadly, she refuses to cook it for us anymore, not for anything else, but because she has forgotten this humble recipe even as she has added many newer ones to her cooking repertoire!

Happy birthday, Annie!

This 100-year-old dish originated in Guangdong, China.
The original wrapper was rice paper, like that used for Chinese calligraphy.

Paper-wrapped Chicken

Chicken                                    600 g, chopped into 8 pieces

Dried mushroom                  8 pieces

Oyster sauce                           ½ tbsp.

Chinese wine                          ½ tsp

Ginger juice                            ½ tsp

Light soy sauce                      ¼ tsp

Honey                                      ½ tsp

Salt                                            a pinch

Sesame oil                              ¼ tsp

Pepper                                    a dash

Spring onion                         8 x 4 cm long

Baking paper                         8 x 22 sq cm

Oil                                            4 cups

Method:

1.              Marinate the chicken with all ingredients for at least 30 minutes, preferably overnight.

2.             Oil the baking paper. Place the paper diagonally in front of you, and the chicken, mushroom and spring        

             onion horizontally, and wrap.

3.              Heat oil to 375 degrees Celsius, fry chicken for about 15 minutes or until well cooked.

4.              Drain well and serve.

For those who are health conscious, you could bake the paper-wrapped chicken at 220 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes.

Dried Sole & Peanut Porridge---A Portrait in Black & White

When I was a kid growing up, people would sometimes say they had two ‘mothers’. And everyone knew what they meant.

One mother was, of course, the birth mother; the other was the amah. The ‘amah’, literally ‘mother’ in Chinese, usually came from a tiny village in Canton, a southern province of China, and was easily recognized by her black and white outfit and, often, a long pigtail.

At the turn of the 20^th century, many of these women left China for Southeast Asia in the hope of finding work. Uneducated, unskilled, but fiercely loyal, they often ended up as domestic helpers with rich families or in expatriate homes. They cleaned, cooked, washed, and even baby-sat; and it was very common for their employment with a family to start in their late teens or early 20s.

The amah was legendary for her work ethic. Job-hopping or demanding a raise were unheard of; and most amahs stayed with the same family their entire working lives—becoming, in effect, a valued member of their adopted family. They worked extremely hard and sent the bulk of their hard-earned money back home to China. Out of the small stipend they kept for themselves, their famous frugality still enabled them to accumulate savings, and I have heard of amahs offering loans to their employers in times of need!

It was common for the hardy amah to outlive her employers. She would continue to serve the next generation in the family and its children, all the while cementing her status within the family, to the extent that some amahs became de facto family matriarchs, whose opinions were sought, and respected.

There was another side to the amah story. Some of these women from China took a different ‘career path’—as chambermaids in brothels. I knew some of them who worked in the brothels that dotted Keong Siak Street, a well-known red light district in Chinatown until it was cleared for development.

These chambermaids, also dressed in black and white, made good money from the tips given by the ladies of the night and their patrons. True to form, the bulk of these earnings would be sent home; and from what remained these maids would scrape and save for a very special occasion. Every year, during the Seventh Lunar Month, or Hungry Ghost Festival, well-known Cantonese opera troupes from Hong Kong would be invited to perform as part of the festivities. The temporary wooden opera stages would pop up all over Chinatown---and that’s what these chambermaids had been saving up for.

They would splurge on banners festooned with floral designs made up of folded dollar bills. These banners would be given to their favorite performers. I was told that they would sometimes lavish their favorites with jewelry and homemade herbal soups!

Most of these amahs and chambermaids took vows of celibacy; strong bonds of sisterhood developed among them, and they would spend off days together. As they grew old and retired from the brothels or their adopted families, some would return home to China. Most, however, ended up in a room rented with another ‘sister’ or two. There they lived until they were no longer able to take care of themselves, whereupon they would end their days in an old folks’ home.

Dried sole or "柴鱼" in Chinese

I knew a couple of these retirees when I was young, and they would spin their tales to me during their leisure hours. Much of their day, however, was spent searching for income to meet daily expenses. The “sisters” I knew would prepare porridge and fried noodles to sell in the neighborhood in the morning; and in the afternoon, they would go around scavenging for cardboard to sell as scrap.

The porridge they prepared was a recipe typical of their hometown in China. In fact, I ate it so often that the particular aroma of the dried sole has become strongly tied to my childhood reminiscences. The dried sole is also often used in Cantonese cooking as a base ingredient for stock. It’s hard to find this porridge in Singapore, but luckily for me, it is quite common in Hong Kong, especially in dim sum restaurants.

Fried tang hoon is a must as it
adds texture to the porridge.

Dried sole and peanut porridge

Rice                      1 cup

Salt                       ½ tsp

Oil                        1 tbsp

Water                  7 cups

Pork ribs            300 g, scalded in boiling water and drained

Dried sole          150 g, toasted and bashed
Dried oyster      80 g, soaked and drained

Peanut                 150 g

Ginger                 20 g, julienned

Salt                       1 tbsp

Soy sauce           2 tsp

Spring onion

Fried tang hoon

Pepper

Method:

1. Wash rice thoroughly. Soak rice with ½ tsp salt and oil with a little bit of water for at least 30 minutes.
2. Boil water. Add rice to boiling water.
3. Add pork ribs, dried sole and peanuts, and boil under high heat for 10 minutes.
4. Boil for 1 hour. As the grain disintegrates, keep stirring or the porridge will stick to the base of the pot and become burnt. Try not to add water during simmering, but if it is necessary, ensure that you add boiling water.
5. Season with salt and soy sauce.
6. Sprinkle spring onion, fried tang hoon and pepper before serving.

Sze Thye Cake Shop - Son Set Industry

The First Day of Chinese New Year probably means more to Mr Koh Sun Liang than to any of us -- because it is the one rest day of his entire year.

Call on him the remaining 364 days, and he is hard at work at the Chinese pastry shop began by his father more than sixty years ago. The workday for the 66-year-old begins at six every morning when he starts preparing dough and the sweet fillings. By 8 am, Mr Koh is ready for his first customer; his has been a lifetime devoted to his craft.

At 12 he learned the methods of making traditional pastries and snacks from scratch. It was, and is, tedious work. The chief ingredients for the sweet fillings are green beans from Thailand and red beans from China.  The beans are soaked and then cooked and blended in a process that takes at least two days.

The shop with its multi-layers of trays holding the fruit of the old cake-maker’s labor, harks back to the 1950s and 60s; to a time when western cakes were not easily available, or were expensive, and when Chinese cakes and snacks such as these were common as afternoon tea or made gifts for friends.

Many of the pastries are handmade; moulds were used or the cakes were simply shaped with fingers. Mr Koh owns more than 100 of these wooden cake moulds, some intricately carved. He tells us they were made in China and were at least 60 years old. Business has not been good for a while, he says.

His customers were mostly folks in their 50s or older; what he sells does not appeal much to the younger generation. His handmade sculptures of sugar and candy find their main purpose as festive or votive offerings at birthdays, weddings, and temple events and ceremonies. They bring the bulk of business for him these days.

Future prospects seem no brighter; Mr Koh’s search for someone to replace him has been fruitless so far. The long hours, hard tedious work and slow business, have all seen to that.  Bent over the moulds, fingers white with flour, he runs the shop, today, all by himself.

The Sze Thye Cake Shop has been located at Lian Seah Street since 1950; it moved to its present address in 2005.

Sze Thye Cake Shop

Blk 2 Beach Road

#01-4795

Singapore 190002

Tel: 6337 7010

Chef in Black Plays with his Food

What’s my idea of the ultimate eating experience at a restaurant? A chef given a free hand to cook the freshest ingredients available, in the best possible way, matched with the ideal glass of wine, in front of an appreciative table. It actually materialized a few nights ago.

There we were, six of us seated at the bar counter, as Chef Emmanuel Stroobant and his assistant whipped up a 15-course dinner in his so-called “playground”. But this was a culinary playground with a difference – there was no open-fire stove in this kitchen, instead a Miele steam oven stood off to the side. What others may see as a limitation or insurmountable challenge, Chef Emmanuel seemed to relish as he introduced one creative dish after another -- Japanese Tomato “fruit” with Parmesan gelation topped with Fleur de Sel, Japanese melon with Habujo, Salmon with Cep and Bacon…

The Oscietra Caviar, Egg Confit and Sour Dough were a match-made-in-heaven even for the jaded tongues at the table. This deceptively simple dish comes through in its complexity of flavors: the saltiness of world-class caviar, mixed with the slight sour taste of bread coated with a sous-vide cooked egg yolk.

Truffles were in season; and Chef Emmanuel teased our taste buds with white and black truffles in two separate creations -- Tartare of King Scallop with White Truffle, and Steamed Grenaille Potato with Black Truffle. With these two delicate creations, scallop and potato were like the supporting cast in a great movie, complementing the truffles with their quiet presence.

Traditionalists of French cooking would be surprised with the Sea Bass Bouillabaisse with Sea Urchin Crouton; the soup was delightfully light, and for a brief moment reminded me of miso soup. I could have done with a more generous dose of sea urchin on the crouton though. The Otoro, a couple of courses later, equally delighted me (how could Otoro ever fail to delight?). Skillfully sliced, torched, and baptized with wasabi oil, the fish was perfect!

There seems to be two opposing camps to the question of sous-vide cooking; I happen to belong to the skeptics. But Chef Emmanuel, who firmly affirms that this slow-cooking method is here to stay, very nearly converted me! He had dry aged Angus beef tenderloin and confit prepared at 54°C for three hours, yielding a blood red slice of meat, which he assured us, was well-cooked. My verdict? The full flavour of beef came across bloody strong (pardon the term) through the butter, shallot, and herbs. Whopping shiok!

The evening was buoyant and freewheeling, and quips flew between chef and guests. Everyone was cajoled into declaring likes and preferences, and even what we would like to see for the next course. But unanimously – and wisely, I might add -- we insisted on putting ourselves in Chef Emmanuel’s good hands.

Perhaps I was really full by the time dessert arrived, by they didn’t deliver the punch I was expecting. The flash-frozen Vietnamese Mint “After Eight” was a good break from the savoury dishes that went before it, but I felt the Gelatin-coated Fig was slightly overpowered by the saffron.

Admittedly, there were triumphs and near misses, but in all, it was a performance that lived up to its promise of playful creativity. We witnessed a chef at the height of his powers, trusting his instincts to make bold choices, and inventing in an almost improvisational manner. Exhilarating and memorable.

Limited to a party of 6 persons; priced at nine-course dinner at $250++ per person, 12-course at $350++ and 15-course at $450++ per person. Reservation is required.

Saint Pierre

#01-01 Central Mall

3 Magazine Road

Singapore 059570

Gastronaut has landed!

An old man's obsession with food makes it to the national papers!

Fried Glutinous Rice – Worth the Tears

In Singapore of the 60s, hawker licensing laws weren’t that stringently enforced. As a result many households were able to set up makeshift ‘pirate’ food stalls to earn extra cash. Without any sort of culinary training to speak of, these hawkers would simply cook and sell what they knew best: food they ate at home, or well-known dishes and snacks from their dialect groups. I remember them well, these 1^st- or 2^nd-generation immigrants to Singapore, the blood of their motherland still coursing thick in their veins.

I remember too, the type of food they cooked: robust, unadulterated, and redolent of their origins -- you ate, so to speak, the real McCoy.

I knew one such hawker family. At 4 in the morning the mother would wake up and start whipping up a storm in the kitchen for the morning’s business. Her husband, or sometimes children, would then set up stall – a couple of charcoal stoves, a table and stools -- at the foot of their flat. They sold fried noodles, peanut porridge, and a favorite of mine: fried glutinous rice.

To make fried glutinous rice, in the truly traditional way, is bicep-building work. You stand at the wok, slow frying the rice. The grains get stickier -- and increasingly harder to stir -- as the rice slowly cooks. It’s torture on the arms, but worth it. Properly done, each grain of rice acquires a light crust and is filled with flavor from the preserved sausages and other ingredients.

Understandably, the woman would produce only a small tub’s worth each day, whereupon a queue would form just for it, and the glutinous rice would sell out before the clock hits 7 every morning. It was cheap too. You get two mouthfuls for 20 cents – a fair deal by the living costs of those days, considering the effort to make it.

For a kid, it was a total treat! I’d savor each bite, and make sure the breakfast lasted.

The rest of the food would usually sell out by 9. The hardworking mother would clean the hawking space, and return to her domestic duties.

I’ve listed two cooking methods. The first is an easier method that anyone could prepare; it would be similar in taste to the other, and much less work. However, for the purists and traditionalists among you, the second method is yours! It would give you a true sense of how strenuous the preparation is…but the end result is worth every drop of sweat; trust me!

Fried Glutinous Rice

Glutinous rice             300 g

Water                          3 cups

Dried shrimps             20 g, soaked in warm water

Dried mushroom        15 g, soaked in warm water

Salt                              1½ tsp

Chinese sausage         30 g

Chinese liver sausage 30 g

Chicken broth             3 tbsp

Light soy sauce           1 tbsp

Dark soy sauce           ½ tbsp

Fried shallots

Fried garlic

Spring onion

White pepper

Method:

1. Soak dried shrimp and mushroom in warm water for 30 minutes. Drain them well but keep the water.
2. Soak glutinous rice with 3 cups of water plus the water from soaking the dried shrimps and mushrooms. Drain the rice thoroughly after 3 hours. Add salt in the rice and mix well.
3. Steam rice, dried shrimp and diced mushroom for 30 minutes. Sprinkle 2 tbsp of chicken broth and place the sausages on top of the rice and continue to steam for another 10 minutes.
4. Remove the sausages and dice them.
5. Pour 3 tbsp of oil in a hot wok. Fry the sausages till slightly golden brown. Add minced garlic and rice and continue to fry until there is a light crust on the rice.  In between, sprinkle light and dark soy sauce into the rice. These sauces add flavor and also make the frying of the rice easier. There should be a light crust in every grain.
6. Sprinkle fried shallots, garlic, spring onion and pepper before serving.

Note: Make sure the rice is hot before frying or it will stick together.

Traditional Method:

1. Heat 1 tsp of oil in a wok. Fry mushroom until the water in the mushroom has evaporated. Add minced garlic, shrimp, diced sausages, and fry until it is fragrant. Remove and set aside.
2. Heat 2 tbsp of oil on medium flame. Add rice and fry for 15 minutes. In between, sprinkle chicken broth and salt.
3. Return the fried sausage mixture into the rice and continue to fry for another 10 minutes. Sprinkle soy sauces in between.
4. Once the rice is cooked, sprinkle fried shallots, garlic, spring onion and pepper before serving.

Wow! Wo Pau

To those who know me well, I’ve always been something of a scatterbrain. Especially when it comes to remembering names and faces.

Food is a different matter. I almost never forget a smell or flavor, a sauce, a seasoning, herb or spice.

A case in point is the ‘wo pau’. I ate this pau (meat bun) when I was 5. It was a first, and only, encounter, yet I remember it like it was yesterday. And I’m in my early 50s.

It was the 1960s; and the place was the Nam Tin (Southern Sky) Restaurant, located at Nam Tin Hotel and Nightclub in Chinatown, Singapore; more familiar today as the Yue Hwa Department Store at the junction of Eu Yen Sang Road and Upper Cross Street. You’d never guess looking at this building today, that it was one of the tallest – and most glamorous -- of its time.

Built around the turn of the 20^th century and designed by Swan and Maclaren, this 6-storey building was the first Chinese hotel in Singapore to have a lift! It catered largely to Chinese travelers, and its nightclub on the rooftop attracted the wealthy and the socialites of the Chinese community in Singapore. I remember, as a kid, watching the grownups frown and shake their heads at the dancing girls and hostesses of the nightclub.

Reunited with an old friend after 40 years.
A Hong Kong version found at Lin Heung Kui, Sheung Wan

I remember too the building’s classical façade, which appeared looming and gigantic to me as a kid. It was ash gray with strong horizontal lines, angular arches, and simple cornices. It had balconies with steel-frame windows and European-style grills and railings. Looking at those windows and balconies sometimes made me sad, for they seemed to tell the story of the hotel’s ups and downs. In good times, the windows would blaze with light and sounds from the grand dinners and balls that went on behind them. In the last declining years of the hotel, the same windows and balconies would be hung with the washings of occupants who were no longer the elite of the land, but shoestring travelers.

Ran into another version in Meldrum Walk,
 Johor Bahru, recently.

During the 60s, the Nam Tin Restaurant filled the left portion of the hotel on its two bottom storeys. A delightful old lift with collapsible iron grilles linked the two floors. I loved the restaurant’s lower floor because I could watch the waiters carry dim sum out of the kitchen. In those days, dim sum wasn’t pushed around on trolleys or steamed-upon-order; instead the waiters would make their rounds carrying the steaming little baskets on a huge bamboo tray.

Although I ate regularly at the restaurant, I only saw the wo pau once -- shaped like a puffy white bowl with the meat stuffing exposed. A raw egg was placed on top of the meat to act as a lid and keep it moist. It took lots of skill, for sure, to shape the dough-bowl without collapsing it – something I tried but couldn’t do when I made my own wo pau. So I decided that the end justifies the means, and cheated by placing a bowl underneath to shape the dough.

When the hotel and restaurant finally closed, I went on a quest for the wo pau. Most dim sum chefs I described it to would wave their hands at me and accuse me of making up stories! More than 40 years passed before I finally saw something resembling it at Lin Heung Lo, a restaurant in Hong Kong.

Since then, I’ve come across a couple of versions of the still-very-rare wo pau. I saw one in Johor Baru made from glutinous rice, and another at Alexandra Village in Singapore made from two types of dough.

Wo Pau 窝包

Basic Yeast Dough  (makes 6)

Ingredients ‘A’ :

Pau flour                      250g, sifted

Salt                              ¼  tsp

Instant yeast               ¼  tbsp

Sugar                          40 g

Water                          120 ml

Shortening                  1½ tbsp

Ingredient ‘B’ :

Baking powder            ½ tbsp

Meat Filling:

Pork                             150 g

Chicken                       150 g

Chinese sausage        1, cut into 6 pieces

Dried mushroom         20 g, soaked in warm water and drained

Oyster sauce              1 tbsp

Chinese wine              ½ tbsp.

Corn flour                    2 tsp

Sesame oil                  1 tsp

Hard-boiled egg          1, cut into 6 slices

Method :

1. Mix all of ingredients ‘A’ together and knead into a smooth and elastic dough.
2. Cover with a piece of wet cloth and leave to prove until it has doubled its bulk.
3. Sift baking powder on top of the dough and knead well to distribute the baking powder until the dough is smooth again.
4. Cover and rest for 15 minutes before shaping.
5. Shape the dough into a log and divide the log into 6 pieces equally.
6. Take one portion, using a rolling pin, shape into a circular shape. Place it onto a bowl and press it against the side of the bowl.
7. Fill the bowl with the meat filling.
8. Steam the pau for 20 minutes.

Meat filling:

1. Mix all ingredients well, except the egg, and marinate it for at least 30 minutes.

The Islamic, a Singapore Original

Nasi Bryani comes with an option of meat: chicken, mutton or fish.

Growing up in 60s and 70s Singapore, the Islamic Restaurant was, to me, an Aladdin’s Cave redolent with the mystery and exoticism of Old Arabia; filled not with loot and precious gems, but with a sumptuous treasure no less…of the culinary kind!

Not many restaurants in Singapore (I reckon a dozen or so?) can lay claim to being a culinary institution. In my book, Islamic Restaurant is in this elite.

“The Islamic ” -- as it’s more usually referred to – was founded in 1914, making it nearly 100 years old. The man who founded it was M. Abdul Rahman, an Indian masterchef who cut his teeth working for a wealthy Arab family, the Alsagoffs. The Alsagoffs were early owners of the Raffles Hotel and famous in Singapore history for their philanthropy.

According to the story, the masterchef’s deft fusions of the Indian and Arab cuisines so tantalized his employers that he decided to strike out on his own. Thus was born the Islamic. Although it has relocated a couple of times over its history, the restaurant has always been famously housed in one of the 2-storey prewar shophouses that line North Bridge Road, across from the Sultan Mosque.

In its heyday in the 50s to 70s, the Islamic was a place to be seen. British colonials and wealthy locals dined there, and its guest list was graced with Presidents of Singapore, top judges and government officials, and regional royal families. I remember attending the lavish wedding dinners of some friends at the restaurant in the 1960s. To me, its décor and ambience counted almost as much as the food.

Tomato in Sweet Syrup

I loved the sconce lights, pewter ware, damask drapery, and framed Quranic inscriptions on the walls. It was cozy and dim; the rich fabrics and jewel-like colors became weatherworn over the years, I remember; but it only seemed to add to the atmosphere. While eating, you would sometimes hear the muezzin’s musical call at prayer times from the nearby mosque. This made dining at the Islamic magical.

But let’s talk about the food. Of this, Nasi Beryani remains the Islamic’s most famed. From the Persian word for “roasted/fried before cooking”, Beryani is a rice-based dish made with spices, rice, and meat and vegetables. And of the many types of Beryani in existence, the Islamic’s is unique, combining both Indian and Arab methods of cooking in a well-guarded secret recipe, created by the founder, M. Abdul Rahman, himself.

Mutton Samma

My personal favorites, however, include the hard-to-find Tomato in Sweet Syrup, a wonderful starter as well as a great dip for the Roti Mariam. Another must for me, since the 1960s, has been the Mutton Samma, mutton slow-cooked in thick gravy and spicy-peppery in flavor. Also superb are the Chicken Mysore (a favorite with the Sultan of Brunei, I’m told) and the Mutton Mysore. In fact, the best way to sample the Islamic’s 200-item menu is to have plain rice with two or three accompanying dishes of meat, fish or vegetables – as I often do.

Roti Mariam

Now to the Roti Mariam. A woman at Kampong Glam created this unique ‘roti’ (bread) and sold it on a pushcart. The Islamic later employed her, and included her roti on the menu. Roti Mariam is named after her, and is available at the Islamic and nowhere else. It tastes like a cross between naan and prata, and is eaten with plain sugar, milk, or curry.

Today the Islamic is into its third-generation of owners, and no longer the habitué of just the mighty and well heeled, but everybody. And, may I add, long may it live and prosper!

Islamic Restaurant


745 North Bridge Road


Singapore 198713


Tel: 65-6298 7563