Cooking Singapore hawker centre food

Singapore's traditional hawker centres bustle with activity all day long, serving hundreds of thousands from that nation of foodies everyday. For a few dollars, one can get a filling meal of one's choice from a vast buffet of options.

During my short stay there (and each time I went back), my staple was always the combination of 皮蛋瘦肉粥 (century egg and lean pork rice porridge) and 菜头粿 (steamed Chinese radish cake omelette, which Singaporeans call "carrot cake"), with a hot, fresh mug of smooth Singaporean coffee (ideally served in a glass mug). Good for any meal or heavy snack; I practically lived on this stuff. Breakfast time, Singapore style.

Making the rice porridge is really easy. I put 1.5 cups of soaked long-grain rice and 5 times the volume of water into a pot, along with 6 sliced garlic cloves and about an inch of peeled ginger thinly julienned, boiling and simmering for a few hours until the rice easily broke up on stirring. I then stirred in about 500g of lean minced pork, 3 tablespoons of oyster sauce, and a little salt and ground white pepper for further cooking until the pork was done and the rice had almost completely disintegrated. It needed frequent stirring to prevent settling. Right before serving, I was cutting up some century eggs and chopping scallion.

There was enough to go around for 10 heavy portions. I served it up hot and fresh in bowls, each with a few cubes of century egg, a sprinkling of some chopped scallion and ground white pepper, and drizzle of sesame oil and soy sauce. A great breakfast and a great comfort food.

The fried carrot cake is not nearly as easy as it looks. Those cubes in the omelette? Those are not cubes of radish. They're cubes of a radish cake, which I had to painstakingly prepare by finely shredding and straining dry 600g of daikon/mooly radish, stir-frying with half teaspoons of salt and white pepper until soft, mixing with 2 cups of Asian rice flour whisked into 2 cups of water, and steaming until it set into firm cake. Which THEN had to be cooled and chilled. Oy, vey.

I wish my cake were firmer, because the cubes did not fry as well as I hoped, turning into lumps in the wok. Anyway, after browning the lumps a little with 2 tablespoons of chopped garlic, I added 8 eggs beaten with half teaspoons of salt and white pepper, and cooked until the eggs set. Just prior to serving, I stirred in a quarter cup of sweet soy sauce, a quarter cup of chopped scallion, and 2 teaspoons of sambal oelek.

I served it with some more sambal oelek on the side, garnished with chopped scallion. I guess I need to refine the cake-making process to get the perfect cubes of radish cake you see in the pictures, but it turned out more or less okay.

And of course, no Singaporean meal at my place would be complete without a mug of hot, rich, freshly-brewed Singaporean coffee from my little stash.

Singaporean Lunch again

I threw together another Singaporean lunch for friends on Friday. Twice-honed experience with this set made it much easier this time. Thanks to a friend, I had a pack of A1 Bak Kut Teh herbs - otherwise my main obstacle. So, I could get back to cooking this old favorite of mine, which is representative of the many culinary influences that constitute the Singaporean gastronomic experience.

Chinese Yau Fan (garlic rice)

Indonesian Sayur Lodeh (vegetable coconut curry)

Malaysian Bak Kut Teh (meat stew with earthy herbs and mushrooms)

Portuguese Egg Tarts (tart shells with sweetened egg/milk filling)

Singaporean Brekkie

Steaming cups of Singaporean kopi, warm toast spread with kaya and butter, and soft-boiled eggs with pepper and soy sauce. A good old homemade Singaporean-style breakfast is a rare treat, so it's a treat to be shared. When I have converted enough people to the kaya toast breakfast culture, my dream of convincing a Singaporean kaya toast house to come here will become reality. Group playtime with the kittens followed; it was sort of a welcome party for them too.

(photo credit: Annko)

Singaporean Cooking Redux

Another Singaporean dinner party. As with the last time, centered on Bak Kut Teh (this time, though, with pork), Sayur Lodeh and Yau Fan, but minus the Laksa. Instead, I baked egg tarts. These originally Portuguese treats are pretty easy to make, as all that's required is a sweetened tart crust dough, and a filling of egg and evaporated milk with sugar and water. The egg in the filling cooks firm, and seals the top when baked, which prevent the crust from getting soggy, and the tart from drying out, respectively. They were quite the hit that night.

Cook Singaporean? CAAAAAAAN!

Having studied in Singapore, and having visited it thrice in the last four years, I have been one of its biggest fans for years - not in the least because of the food. I have made Laksa a couple of times before, but I never got down to cooking a Singaporean meal. Of course, that is a little tricky, because Singaporean food is a mix of various regional and immigrant influences, and ingredients are not all that easy to find here. But I was determined, and invited my sister and brother-in-law, and a friend couple (both of whom recently became parents) to taste of my first shot at making a full Singaporean meal.

To start with, I prepared the requisite Laksa. I did not post the process here, because I used a premix packet for the Laksa curry paste and flavor, pouring this over blanched noodles and bean sprouts, and topping with shrimp, surimi, fried tofu, fishball, and sambal chili. Still, its looks (and taste) warrant a picture.

But here's where the actual cooking begins.

For the vegetable dish, I chose to make Sayur Lodeh, a Malay/Indonesian vegetable curry popular in the region. We start by quartering shallots and chopping garlic.

Then we crush candlenuts (I used brazil nuts) in a mortar.

We add them to the mix, along with turmeric, sauteed shrimp paste and roughly chopped dried red chile peppers.

We mash this together and fry it in a pot until the garlic and shallots soften.

Then we slice and add galangal (substituted with fresh ginger)

We add coconut milk and bring to a simmer.

Now we can add the vegetables: carrots cut into thick sticks, pieces of cabbage, and cut beans, with some sugar and salt.

Finally, we add fried tofu, and allow to cook until the vegetables start to soften.

Served hot, Sayur Lodeh can be eaten as a delicious hearty soup, or with rice.

For the meat dish, I went for a Malay/Singaporean Chinese classic called Bak Kut Teh. It literally translates to "meat bone tea" from the Hokkien language, but it does not contain tea (tell you why later). It's normally made with pork, but one can use any meat, and I went with mutton. I secured a combination of stewing mutton and backbone mutton, and selected a large mutton leg that I had a butcher chop up into hefty chunks.

We start by chopping garlic.

We fry those a bit at the bottom of a pot (I used a pressure cooker), and add water, followed by the real distinguishing components: the Bak Kut Teh herbs and spices.

When this is simmering, we can add the meat and some shiitake mushrooms.

Finally, we add some broadly cut napa cabbage, oyster sauce and bean sauce, after which we put the lid on and allow the dish to slow-cook.

A few hours is sufficient, but I went for 18, and in a pressure cooker to boot. Almost all the bones in the Bak Kut Teh were completely softened out, and meat was tender and flavored through and through with the Bak Kut Teh herbs, sauces and spices. It was the hit of the night (and the next couple of days >_^)

And here's where the tea comes in: despite my repeated skimming, it's quite a fatty dish, and it's traditional to down a few cups of green tea right after (in this case, some of my stash of original Longjing from Hangzhou).

To complement the Bak Kut Teh, I made a Chinese rice dish called Yau Fan, or Garlic Rice.

We start by frying ginger-garlic paste until slightly browned, and adding soaked rice to mix.

To this, chicken stock, sugar and salt is added, and the rice is cooked in a cooker.

The finished Yau Fan is served with brown-fried shallots stirred in. Honestly, this is tasty enough to eat on its own.

And to cap a great meal, Singaporean-style coffee, made with brewed and filtered special coffee imported from Singapore on a recent trip, and a little sweetened condensed milk.

Singapore 2010

View from 26 floors up in Ang Moh Kio

The lush natural beauty of the tropical evergreens combined with the glowing constructed monuments of global cities. My now-annual Mid-Autumn pilgrimage to the Lion City had me see some of the old, and some of the new - people, food and places. It just keeps getting better.



And I got to see the cutest baby on earth.

Woman freaking out on MRT train

Scary.

Singapore 2009

Towers pop out of a bed of green

While I had no plans to take a second trip abroad this year, let alone within barely two months of my 17-day European conference/vacation, the opportunity to visit Singapore during the Diwali/ZhongQiu season was too inviting to pass up. The opportunity to once again meet old friends, thunder along old walking routes, haunt old haunts and eat old favorites. These are my four nostalgia-soaked days in the Lion City.

Sanxingdui Photos

Cast bronze relics from the Sanxingdui bronze age culture of Sichuan province. Photos taken by me at the Asian Civilizations Museum of Singapore.